D&D 5E D&D Lore Changes: Multiversal Focus & Fey Goblins of Prehistory

WotC's Jeremy Crawford revealed a couple of the lore changes in Monsters of the Multiverse.

• The big shift is toward the multiverse as the game's main perspective rather than a specific setting. The game is shifting towards a multiversal focus, with a variety of worlds and settings.
• Universe-spanning mythical story beats, such as deep lore on goblinoids going back to 1st Edition, and the gods they had before Maglubiyet. Prior to Magulbiyet unifying them, goblinoids were folk of the feywild in keeping with 'real-world' folklore.
• Changelings aren't just Eberron, but they've been everywhere -- you just don't necessarily know it. Their origin is also in the realm of the fey.

D&D 5E - A Compilation of all the Race Changes in Monsters of the Multiverse

Over on Reddit, user KingJackel went through the video leak which came out a few days ago and manually compiled a list of all the changes to races in the book. The changes are quite extensive, with only the fairy and harengon remaining unchanged. The book contains 33 races in total, compiled and...

www.enworld.org

 

[Hussar]

"Planescape compatibility" really only was in settings that continued to be actively supported after 1994, ie Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk (the Moore era). Dragonlance and Spelljammer had already been discontinued (note Dragonlance SAGA made no references to Planescape), and Birthright, Ravenloft and Dark Sun were defined by being outside the core cosmology. (There were more Birthright-Ravenloft crossovers than either settings with Planescape).

However, there was more to D&D than just setting specifics. Every monster manual, for example, had to be Planescape Compatible (devils could only come from the Hells, demons could only come from the Abyss, all dieties existed on the aligned planes, regardless of setting, etc), modules would also follow along with Planescape themes and concepts as well, long into 3e. The fact is, the Great Wheel became totally incorporated by Planescape and if you published anything in D&D that had anything to do with the planes, it had to follow Planescape canon.

The point I was replying to was the thought that setting were distinct in the past but became mixed together in later editions. The fact is, the settings were 100% mashed together pretty much from the get go - The Wizard's Three being a good example - and the notion of setting distinctness of cosmologies never really existed.

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The funny thing is, I see this from the other way around. I was an inveterate home brewer. Never bought into any setting, and barely bought any setting specific material, until 3e. If a module was specifically set in a setting, I usually skipped it - with a few exceptions.

So, the idea that D&D is something I follow for the settings is largely alien to my experience. I followed D&D for the system, then mined the settings for ideas, but, largely ignored them. So, the whole "cosmology" and shared experience thing, for me, is largely something that has never been part of my "D&D experience". Which is I rail against things like Planescape because the lore of Planescape has become the default of the game. Which means I have to yank 99% of it out whenever I want to do anything planar.

My Elemental Plane of Air is not related and probably doesn't look like, anything WotC or TSR published.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

However, there was more to D&D than just setting specifics. Every monster manual, for example, had to be Planescape Compatible (devils could only come from the Hells, demons could only come from the Abyss, all dieties existed on the aligned planes, regardless of setting, etc), modules would also follow along with Planescape themes and concepts as well, long into 3e. The fact is, the Great Wheel became totally incorporated by Planescape and if you published anything in D&D that had anything to do with the planes, it had to follow Planescape canon.

The point I was replying to was the thought that setting were distinct in the past but became mixed together in later editions. The fact is, the settings were 100% mashed together pretty much from the get go - The Wizard's Three being a good example - and the notion of setting distinctness of cosmologies never really existed.

-----

The funny thing is, I see this from the other way around. I was an inveterate home brewer. Never bought into any setting, and barely bought any setting specific material, until 3e. If a module was specifically set in a setting, I usually skipped it - with a few exceptions.

So, the idea that D&D is something I follow for the settings is largely alien to my experience. I followed D&D for the system, then mined the settings for ideas, but, largely ignored them. So, the whole "cosmology" and shared experience thing, for me, is largely something that has never been part of my "D&D experience". Which is I rail against things like Planescape because the lore of Planescape has become the default of the game. Which means I have to yank 99% of it out whenever I want to do anything planar.

My Elemental Plane of Air is not related and probably doesn't look like, anything WotC or TSR published.

Mystara wasn't following Planescape cosmology, Birthright didn't either (though it resembles the 4E model in some ways). Dragonlance didn't either apart from a brief period around the Tales of the Lance box set era.

The GR/FR shadow hangs so heavily over D&D I don't think people realise that the 2E settings were never as unified as people thought. Travel between them (whether via Spelljammer or Planescape model) was not an issue, but they didn't all have the same cosmological or theological underpinnings. There was no common origin for elves from Toril, Oerth and Krynn until 5E decided to make one, which then puts a big steaming crater in all of Dragonlance's tightly coupled history.

 

[JEB]

I think a lean core with fluff in one extra setting book is a good approach.
I mean: if you want to play tal'dorai (or how it is called), you could say: "why is so much space wasted on fluff for forgotten realms in the phb when races are totally different in the setting we want to play in?"
And D&D is a very cheap hobby. So spending 50 bucks for 6 people having fun for years is cheaper than watching a single movie.

The current buy-in for the core game is $150, which gets you enough lore material to run many campaigns. If the core rules now cut that lore down to a minimum, you're getting vastly less material for the same cost. Then you have to add a minimum of one setting book for $50 more to get the same amount of material you originally got for $150. And if you don't like that lore, you have to go buy more $50 setting books... or you're left to your own devices.

As for the "cheap" argument: $50 books add up in a hurry for someone on a limited budget. Let's not just think about the wealthy when we consider these decisions.

Whining about it accomplishes literally nothing.

Monster alignment disappeared from D&D books in the first half of 2021 and made a return by the latter half. I suppose that could have been a completely random decision on Wizards' part, but negative responses - "whining" - are a more likely cause.

 

[Malmuria]

The current buy-in for the core game is $150, which gets you enough lore material to run many campaigns. If the core rules now cut that lore down to a minimum, you're getting vastly less material for the same cost. Then you have to add a minimum of one setting book for $50 more to get the same amount of material you originally got for $150. And if you don't like that lore, you have to go buy more $50 setting books... or you're left to your own devices.

As for the "cheap" argument: $50 books add up in a hurry for someone on a limited budget. Let's not just think about the wealthy when we consider these decisions.


Monster alignment disappeared from D&D books in the first half of 2020 and made a return by the latter half. I suppose that could have been a completely random decision on Wizards' part, but negative responses - "whining" - are a more likely cause.

There's so much that's available free that you don't need to buy any books, especially in terms of lore. Like, let's say you like the image of the beholder, but you need some lore. A google search turns up the following free sites for lore info on the first page:

Beholder

A beholder, sometimes called a sphere of many eyes or an eye tyrant, was a large aberration normally found in the Underdark. These large, orb-shaped beings had ten eyestalks and one central eye, each containing powerful magic. Powerful and intelligent, beholders were among the greatest threats...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

Beholders

D&D Beyond - Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition Tools, Rules, Races, Classes, Items, Spells, Monsters, and More

www.dndbeyond.com

The thing you don't get are mechanics--that's what's behind the figurative paywall.

 

[Yaarel]

Thr latest UA, which was billed as "Multiversal," was all Spelljammer options.

Not "confirmed," but they are working on something with playable Giff and space oozes, soooo...soft confirmed.

I suspect, there will be something like Spelljammer, but there will be no "phlogiston", and rather, the planar travels occur via the Astral Plane.

 

[Yaarel]

Very much agree with the idea that this is counter productive. I suppose it makes some level of sense from a branding perspective, but it's a terrible choice in terms of storytelling.

A "multiverse" cosmology can provide an expansion of storytelling possibilities when starting from a single setting baseline. Combining existing settings into such a framework, though, does the opposite, reducing independent and unique settings to mere subparts of a single setting. This is especially important in D&D where differences in cosmology (and degree of certainty about such cosmology) can be some of the key features distinguishing settings from one another.

The problem is, every "setting" has the same gods, the same Wheel.

For different settings to actually exist, the gods must lack existence.

5e Eberron is an example, where the agnostic setting concept was destroyed by connecting it more clearly to the multiverse. There is now a situation where the religions of Eberron itself are uncertain, but the gods of Forgotten Realms are objectively true facts.

The Astral Plane itself must be more like Schrodingers Cat. Fluid and uncertain.

 

[Parmandur]

I suspect, there will be something like Spelljammer, but there will be no "phlogiston", and rather, the planar travels occur via the Astral Plane.

I see no particular reason to suspect that.

 

[Alzrius]

"Planescape compatibility" really only was in settings that continued to be actively supported after 1994, ie Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk (the Moore era). Dragonlance and Spelljammer had already been discontinued (note Dragonlance SAGA made no references to Planescape), and Birthright, Ravenloft and Dark Sun were defined by being outside the core cosmology. (There were more Birthright-Ravenloft crossovers than either settings with Planescape).

I have to disagree with this. Although active support for Spelljammer ended with The Astromundi Cluster in mid-1993, the default presumptions that it presented remained set for the life of AD&D 2E. Products such as Undermountain: Stardock (1997) and Dawn of the Overmind (1998) continued to make use of Spelljammer-specific features, and things like the Phlogiston and crystal spheres were referenced in numerous Planescape products such as On Hallowed Ground and The Planewalker's Handbook.

The latter also referenced an unknown disaster happening on Krynn (page 33), i.e. the Summer of Chaos, as does A Guide to the Ethereal Plane (page 16). That second one also talks specifically about Ravenloft, Athas, and Cerilia (the continent upon which the Birthright campaign setting takes place). Far from being "outside" of the normal cosmology, those settings - while certainly unusual in certain regards - were very much part of the Great Wheel cosmology, and had numerous references throughout the life of AD&D 2nd Edition.

For instance, in Warlock of the Stonecrowns, the eponymous warlock is not only keeping a movanic deva prisoner, but is also said to have the true names of no less than seven Lords of the Abyss. Similarly, Tales from the Infinite Staircase includes a random encounter (on the Staircase itself) with several orogs who are in service to The Gorgon.

For Dark Sun, DSE2 Black Spine is an adventure about the githyanki trying to stage an invasion of Athas! That's leaving aside how the percentages for entering and leaving Athas via planar travel (either to the Inner or Outer Planes) were explicitly given in Defilers and Preservers: The Wizards of Athas. And of course, Kalidnay is an area from Dark Sun that turns up in Ravenloft in Forbidden Lore and Domains of Dread.

Ravenloft had its share of planar connections as well. Some were as small as Baba Yaga having not only gone to Ravenloft and back in S5 The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga (she brought a living wall back with her), to Ravenloft being part two of a three-campaign roller coaster in Die Vecna Die! Plus Lord Soth going there in the novel Knight of the Black Rose, being the centerpiece of the adventure When Black Roses Bloom (which potentially ends with the PCs escaping Ravenloft and ending up on Krynn), and leaving in the novel Spectre of the Black Rose.

Mystara wasn't following Planescape cosmology

While that was true for the majority of Mystara's presentation, when the setting was moved over to AD&D 2E in the mid-90s, they started soft-retconning this. For instance, many good- and neutral-aligned Mystaran "Immortals" (now deities) turn up as gods that celestial PCs can serve in Warriors of Heaven. Likewise, Meredoth - upgraded to being the the darklord of Ravenloft's Nocturnal Sea in Domains of Dread - was revealed in that book to be from Alphatia on Mystara.

That's really just scratching the surface. The interconnectedness of the various campaign settings in AD&D 2E was vast and intricate; you just had to know where to look.

Please note my use of affiliate links in this post.

 

[Yaarel]

I see no particular reason to suspect that.

Consider the comment in the Monsters book, by Tasha.

She accuses Mordenkeinen of losing his sense of humor between the City of Greyhawk and the Astral Plane.

I take this as hints:

• a regional Greyhawk city setting is coming
• the Astral Plane is the location for hopping between different settings

 

[Yaarel]

I see no partireason to suspect that Crystal spheres wouldn't be involved, since they are already a thing in 5E.

Where exactly? Is the source brief enough to quote here in a post?