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

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I guess it depends on whether or not half a page of removed lore text has the same objective content value as one extra stat block or a larger illustration. That's likely going to a completely subjective judgment, admittedly.

I can certainly tell you, however, that some folks who liked the amount of lore in the 2014 core rulebooks are going to feel like they're losing something if the 2024 version cuts lore back radically. Getting a bonus statblock for each monster might feel like pretty cold comfort if you now have to buy one or more extra $50 books for inspiration on how to use them in adventures.

And if you're a brand-new D&D player who likes fantasy lore, a 2024 core book that's mostly statblocks and thin on roleplaying ideas is likely to be a less appealing product than its 2014 predecessor.

I agree. We just don't know how it turns out in 2024. So it is important to voice your opinion.
I just pointed out that other people can feel that a little less lore and more crunch might actually be more value.

I am totally in the middle of the road. I like fluff and I like crunch and I want both.
I personally don't care about the flavour text above each class entry and I don't care too much about the flavour text above races. But I don't mind if there is a little more but I'd be sad if there was nothing.
I do prefer my flavour text right in the crunch entry. Deep gnomes are inherently magical, so the get that nice ability which refects that.
Wood elves blend intontheir surrounding, so they have hide in natural phenomena.

Edit: I'd like to elaborate a bit...
Right now we are seeing two kind of takes on subraces:
FIRST TAKE
subraces are more or less justified by a different secomdary stats and a single ability:
The fluff text could just tell us that many elves live in harmony with nature and usually learn to blend into natural phenomena so that untrained eyes won't ever notice them, while other elves build cities and study magic (chose the appropriate ability).
So you have a lot of lore that actually has gameplay relevance.

SECOND TAKE
closely related but different races.
Deep gnomes are a lot more magical and thus they get an extra entry.
They naturally would get more fluff because they have their own entry and hopefully a bit of text describing what sets them apart and justifying their extra entry.

 

[TerraDave]

No, the Faewild and the Shadowfell (the latter of which the Land of the Mists AKA Ravenloft is a part) don’t have crystal spheres, they’re planes. Worlds, like Abier, Athas, and Eberron have crystal spheres. Many worlds also connect to other planes, though there are exceptions, like Athas.

Yep, kinda the point.

 

[JEB]

We just don't know how it turns out in 2024. So it is important to voice your opinion.

Definitely agreed there!

I am totally in the middle of the road. I like fluff and I like crunch and I want both.
I personally don't care about the flavour text above each class entry and I don't care too much about the flavour text above races. But I don't mind if there is a little more but I'd be sad if there was nothing.
I do prefer my flavour text right in the crunch entry. Deep gnomes are inherently magical, so the get that nice ability which refects that.
Wood elves blend intontheir surrounding, so they have hide in natural phenomena.

Edit: I'd like to elaborate a bit...
Right now we are seeing two kind of takes on subraces:
FIRST TAKE
subraces are more or less justified by a different secomdary stats and a single ability:
The fluff text could just tell us that many elves live in harmony with nature and usually learn to blend into natural phenomena so that untrained eyes won't ever notice them, while other elves build cities and study magic (chose the appropriate ability).
So you have a lot of lore that actually has gameplay relevance.

SECOND TAKE
closely related but different races.
Deep gnomes are a lot more magical and thus they get an extra entry.
They naturally would get more fluff because they have their own entry and hopefully a bit of text describing what sets them apart and justifying their extra entry.

First, if MOTM is anything to go by, subraces are going away as a thing in 2024. They'll probably have their traits removed entirely (PHB dwarves seem likely to get this treatment), or be merged into the parent race as alternative options (like the aasimar), or be broken off as their own thing (your "closely related but different races" like deep gnomes and certain elves).

With that out of the way, I personally like the outline of what you're suggesting, but it's the amount of detail that's key. How about a few introductory paragraphs on the universal (multiversal) stuff; and then multiple paragraphs detailing different takes on different worlds. These details can either be general as you suggest, or specific to certain settings - or both! In the 2014 PHB, in fact, we already have some setting-specific details for many races, associated with the generic subraces; just expand on this.

Having evocative details in the statblock is also nice, but that alone isn't as effective for sparking ideas for adventures, settings, or NPCs.

The ideal, to me, is to have as much time spent on lore in the core rulebooks as they have now, while presenting players with multiple options immediately to spark different approaches to the race, monster, etc. And if players want even more depth, then direct them to setting books and the like. That's how to do what they claim to want to do, and not have lore fans feel like they're losing a major appeal of the game.

 

[TerraDave]

It is worth noting thst Crawford talked about Ravnica and Eberron having Crystal Spheres in the past, for the purposes of the D&D Multiverse. Ravenloft is on another dimensional Plane, not a different part of the Prime Material. Spelljammer and Planescape are not exclusive of each other, and both have been baked into 5E for years.

A few spelljammer references, very few, does not amount to baked in.
In any case, you have made your call: straight spelljammer. We will see.

 

[Aldarc]

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.

Nentir Vale and Birthright were both designed in large part by Rich Baker, though I do suspect that James Wyatt also had a strong hand in the development of the World Axis mythos.

 

[Hussar]

I would agree with you, if you actually got less for 50 bucks. Which could be possible, because everything is more expensive today than 10 years ago. But what I expect is that you get more core material instead of the fluff left out. So no, you won't get less. Some people might say you actually get more. But that is all personal preference.
Still: 200 bucks will make 4 to 6 (average 5) people happy for 10 years. This is still only 4 dollar per person per year.
I still don't see how that is an expensive hobby by any standards.

This has been a constant refrain for years that the books are too expensive. It's utterly, utterly baffling to me that anyone could point to D&D as an expensive hobby. As you say, 4 dollars per person PER YEAR. It is so close to free that it's ridiculous. There are very, very few hobbies out there cheaper than RPG gaming even at double the price for books.

Good grief, five people go to Starbucks for about the price of one DMG. Heck, it's nearly impossible for five people to go out for dinner once for fifty dollars. McDonalds is more expensive than that.

But, price is going to drive gamers away? I really, really don't think so.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

"They already did it with other things" is not a reason to do it. They published Forest Oracle, so should I just expect nothing better, or along those lines.

In Krynn, goblins are humanoids transformed by the Greygem. They have no connection to the Feywild (which shows no signs of existing in the krynnish cosmology) nor with goblins of other worlds. How is the Dragonlance setting enriched by shoe-horning in this fey connection?

Whether or not Dalamar can scoot along to have lunch with Elminster and Mordenkainen has nothing to do with whether all the settings should have one forced origins for their species and cosmologies. Its a red herring.

Duuuuuude. You can't have it both ways. You're saying "OMG just because they already do it, that doesn't mean they should do it again!". Then literally next paragraph "Well they did it this way in the past so they should stick to how they did it in the past!!!".

As for "how is the Dragonlance setting enriched..." well, you could ask the same about countless changes. That's not an actual argument, or even a particularly relevant or interesting question. It is, in fact, a "red herring" as you would put it. Not every general change to a monster is going to enhance every setting.

I mean, making it so dragons no longer have fixed alignments doesn't "enhance Dragonlance", does it?

My point is pretty straightforward. Your complaint is, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong:

"The fey origin for Goblins doesn't make sense for how they're used in most settings and is universal, which is a problem".

Which begs two questions:

1) Does it actually not make sense, or is it merely irrelevant for most settings? Because those are two different things.

2) Is it being "universal" actually a problem? You haven't really conveyed why this is a problem, given the same complaint applies broadly.

The Dragonlance example is an extremely poor one, because it relies on a Dragonlance-specific creation-myth, which also applies to a great number of other races/beings and leads to their "default" origin not matching with the DL origin. The Feywild in general isn't a "thing" in Dragonlance, so I'm not sure why your ire is confined to goblins here either, rather than encompassing elves and others.

And talking of red herrings, the Forest Oracle comparison isn't a reasonable one. This isn't about quality. This is about approach. D&D has for a very long time, given beings (monsters, PC races, others) generic trans-setting origins. In all cases, there will be settings where those origins don't work. In those cases, the setting simply overwrites that origin with the specific-beats-general principle. Were Dragonlance to return, one suspects the same might apply here.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The Multiverse only matters to your game if you allow it to matter to your game.

If you didn't listen to that video and you didn't come here reading everyone talk about it, and all you did was just play your Eberron game based strictly upon the 3.5E setting book... you'd think Eberron was it's own thing and not connected to anything else (other than the fact it uses the exact same terminology and mechanics as every single other D&D world and game in existence, but we'll put that aside for now.) With no knowledge of any sort of "D&D Multiverse" idea roaming around, you could live in your happy little bubble. Anything else happening outside of it doesn't matter, because you don't know about it. A so-called "truth" that as far as you are concerned, doesn't actually exist.

But unfortunately for you, you couldn't do that. You kept reading other books. You kept talking with other players. You kept reading other Twitter accounts and watching other YouTube videos. You allowed yourself to be pulled outside of your bubble, and now can't go back in. You are refusing or are incapable of just closing your eyes and sticking your fingers in your ears going "blah blah blah blah blah! Not happening!" You read about the Multiverse and now your mind not letting you just ignore it. Or believe it doesn't exist. Your mind is forcing you to accept the Multiverse is the "real canon of D&D!!!" and it pisses you off.

Well... that sucks, but that's not WotC problem. They can't do anything about what you do or do not believe or choose to accept. They can't do anything about your own mind now buying into this Multiverse thing you don't like because you refuse to "deny" its truth. The same way they can't force you to ACCEPT the truth of the D&D Multiverse if you just have thumbed your nose at the whole premise and ignore it all and just do your own thing. And quite frankly... they don't care. Because they are merely writing the books they want to write... and whether or not you accept them as true is entirely ON YOU. So if you don't like the idea that they have now printed in one of their books that goblins are considered fey creatures... well... you have plenty of books printed BEFORE now that don't say that at all, so just read and believe those instead.

Cause here's a little secret: Jeremy Crawford and Christopher Perkins and all the rest of the them over there at WotC HQ are no more reliable narrators than anybody else. Their truth isn't real. How do I know this? Because whatever "lore" or "canon" they write in any upcoming book is going to be changed at some point in the future, especially when someone else takes over writing them, like in an eventual 6E. The same way Crawford and Perkins are changing the "lore" and "canon" and "truth" that was written by the people who wrote 4E-- who changed the "lore" and "canon" and "truth" of the people who wrote 3.5-- who changed the "lore" and "canon" and "truth" of the people who wrote 3E-- who changed the "lore" and "canon" and "truth" of the people who wrote 2E-- who changed the "lore" and "canon" and "truth" of the people who wrote AD&D-- who changed the "lore" and "canon" and "truth" of the people who wrote BECMI. NONE of it is "true", because all of it can be changed at any point based solely on whomever is being paid by the owner of the D&D brand to do so.

So to actually care about the so-called "truth"? What a waste of my time.

I wholly agree with this. While reading this, it reminded me a lot about a similar circumstance from some book series that all take place in a connected-universe that I've been reading lately.

To simplify things a bit, most of Brandon Sanderson's novels take place in the same shared-universe, called the "Cosmere". Now, all of his individual stories that he tells in this universe (Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, the Stormlight Archive, White Sand, etc) are separate stories that can stand on their own, and most of them don't even reference the larger universe (and most the references that they do have are minor cameos or shout-outs that most people easily miss), but every single story in the Cosmere also shares a universe with one another and are building up to over-arching stories that will take place in it later-on. You don't need to know anything about the Cosmere, Realmatic Theory, Hoid's background, or many of the other shared-elements of the Cosmere in order to enjoy the stories that take place in it, but for those that do want to learn about it, they can.

The same concept applies here. Does D&D have a shared Multiverse that most/all of its official settings take place in (Planescape, Spelljammer, or the M:tG Multiverse)? Sure. Does that in any way invalidate the stories that take place at your table? Of course not. That, to me, seems very similar to an "Appeal to Worse Problems" fallacy. Just like the fact that the world will be consumed by the Sun in 6 billion years does not invalidate any problems that you have with your life, the fact that the D&D worlds exist in a shared Multiverse do not invalidate your settings or stories that take place in them. It solely exists as a meta excuse for the shared connections between the many D&D worlds, as well as an interesting concept and story for those that want to learn more about it.

If you don't like it, ignore it. I like it, so I'll learn more about it. Please do not ask for what makes me have fun to stop existing because you're undergoing a Tabletop Gaming Existential Crisis about whether or not your game really matters when compared to the rest of the D&D Multiverse. No worlds, stories, cosmologies, or characters are invalidated by the fact that a larger D&D Multiverse exists.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You don't need to know anything about the Cosmere, Realmatic Theory, Hoid's background, or many of the other shared-elements of the Cosmere in order to enjoy the stories that take place in it, but for those that do want to learn about it, they can.

Except that's not quite true, at least in book 3 of the Stormlight Archive series.

In all Sanderson's previous work that I'd read (Mistborn series, previous Stormlights), I hadn't really been aware of the "Cosmere" elements. What you are saying here was true in those books. The Cosmere didn't get in the way, or take centre-stage. It was simply something that informed the lore. Maybe you recognised a character-name or something but it wasn't huge.

In Book 3, Oathbringer, that changed. One of the main plots of the book, a very lengthy one, involving absolutely core characters to the story, completely revolves around Cosmere elements, and frankly, makes very little sense if you don't know the Cosmere stuff. Two characters are introduced, and immediately given major roles, who turn out to be from other universes, and I dunno if this was intentional or Sanderson just stuffed up, but he didn't manage to justify why they were so major or weave them into the book like he did with previous Cosmere stuff. Instead you have this long weird plotline where you're wondering what the heck is going on, and it basically seems to be a "Cosmere showcase". Once I learned and read about the Cosmere stuff, it made a lot more sense, but until then, it just seemed confusing, boring and weird. Not great.

But why do I mention this?

Because I think it's a concern with multiverse stuff generally, including potentially in D&D. It's not an inevitable problem, as Sanderson himself showed. He managed to weave previous stuff in well enough that I didn't notice or noticed in a "Hah, cute!" way and it wasn't disruptive or distracting, and I could read the books without needing to know anything about it.

That's how it should be, and I hope D&D 5E/DND2024 can keep it that way.

But I think with Sanderson's own example, we certainly have a warning that it can, in fact, go wrong. What Sanderson did with the plot in Oathbringer would be equivalent to say, a future, say, Dragonlance setting book deciding to devote like an entire chapter to spelljammers/Krynnspace and/or portals/planescape-y stuff, or worse, WotC deciding all future setting books had to have such a chapter. So let's hope that they manage to keep it as something optional, like earlier Sanderson, not jam it in as a big deal, like Oathbringer.

 

[Mezuka]

I didn't intend to buy this book but learning about the content I might.

Are there changes to the PHB and DMG included in the box set? Are the races in the PHB treated the same way as those in the Monsters of the Multiverse? or will that come with the next edition?