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

 

[Faolyn]

So if your campaign had the Planescape faction war end with the overthrowing of the Lady of Pain, did that become official? If your campaign defeated the enemies and prevented the Grand Conjuction was that made official?

No. The outcomes that became official were the outcomes the writers planned to become official, just as they planned that Bane, Myrkul and Bhaal would become the Dead Three and take a different place in the Forgotten Realms. The affects of the PLanescape Faction War or the Ravenloft Grand Conjuction on future adventures would be identical to the writers simply time skipping and telling you about those events as backstory.

This is literally what I was talking about.

And, there is no value in telling the public who are playing these games "your version is a fake version, if you want the real version of events, this is what happened". WoTC has only ever provided a single possibility of events, but has always acknowledged (to my understanding) that EVERYONE'S game is an equally viable outcome. It is the only way when so many people are playing so many games that are so dissimilar.



And that can be canon... for ONE Forgotten Realms. But WoTC has never taken the stance that the Forgotten realms they present is the only possible Forgotten Realms. And moving onto a "multiverse" approach, there is no reason not to acknowledge that even more heavily that they are producing for only one possible Forgotten Realms, not ALL possible Forgotten Realms.

That's... not what anyone here is trying to claim. For a Multiverse, WotC will be producing one Forgotten Realms. All material they publish will be for that one version of the Realms. But! they aren't going to demand that everyone play in it exactly the way they write it, and they aren't going to claim that any group's version is "fake." They never have and never will, and nobody has claimed that they have or will. WotC is just going to do what they've always done: have one version that they decide is canon and not care if players change it as they want to. If they write an adventure where the goal is to stop X from happening, then they're going to produce later books assuming that X was stopped. At most, they'll have a sidebar that says "if X happened in your game, then this other thing may happen." And that's an if, depending greatly the nature of X.

But again: unless WotC decides to totally follow Keith Baker's lead, they're not going to produce a base Realms, have the starting year always be 1495, and have the PCs be the main characters with no NPC shenanigans going on in the background,.

 

[Faolyn]

FR wiki has nothing to do with WotC. You can try and compile published material into some kind of order, but that is not a canon.

No, but it's an attempt to compile the canon.

 

[Rogerd1]

Esper Genesis has nothing to do with D&D apart from being based on the same ruleset. It's lore is irrelevant.

There is no barrier between D&D and MtG now. They are part of the same multiverse. See the Forgotten Realms MtG set.

The term "universe" tends not to be used at all in D&D. There are planes, and they are part of the multiverse. Some of those planes may contain what we would understand by a "universe" some of them might be smaller than a grain of sand.

1. There is nothing to say it doesn't, unless you can show me otherwise?
2. link or something?
3. Well...no. A universe is not a grain of sand so that is totally wrong. But mostly very small planes are usually called demi-planes. Kind of like the upcoming KS Demiverse.

The only thing potentially very small is Clabi-Yau space, but that is totally different.

If we're going to pedantic about terminology, the definition of the word "universe" can be found here. It has no size requirements—if the entirety of a plane of existence is only the size of a solar system (or smaller), it is still a universe.

Which refers to universe or Milky Way size or bigger.
EDIT: Not the least of which the dictionary has not yet caught up various science fiction terms that are used fairly freely nowadays.

You are factually incorrect about what a universe is, as @Azzy pointed out upthread.

Ravnica is a universe. Innistrad is a universe. Each plane is objectively a universe, separated by a ineffable non-space.

Edit: If you’re going to pester me with pedantic needling about terminology that ignores the point of the post you’re replying to, at least do the minimum and come correct.

1. I am not wrong actually. At best you could term it a bottle universe or pocket universe. Trying to make it anything grander is quite utterly false.
2. Nope. they're not. They are enclosed worlds, or planes, or pocket universe. And trying to claim otherwise by citing pedantic terminology is utterly missing the entire point.
3. I am not being pedantic, it is just that you are wrong and throwing out a strawman.

This one is especially relevant to a discussion of multiversal cosmology. “a distinct field or province of thought or reality that forms a closed system or self-inclusive and independent organization.”

And there are all different types of multiverses.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Which refers to universe or Milky Way size or bigger.

No, it doesn’t, at least not exclusively. Even the one that does is very clearly “known space”.

.

1. I am not wrong actually. At best you could term it a bottle universe or pocket universe. Trying to make it anything grander is quite utterly false.

Universe isn’t necessarily a term denoting scale.

2. Nope. they're not. They are enclosed worlds, or planes, or pocket universe. And trying to claim otherwise by citing pedantic terminology is utterly missing the entire point.

The only pedantry here is yours, bud.

You can repeat your false claim all you want, it doesn’t make it true. They’re universes.

3. I am not being pedantic, it is just that you are wrong and throwing out a strawman.

No. You literally tried to correct my terminology (which you aren’t even right about), rather than ever bothering to address the point, which is that the MtG planes relate to eachother differently than the D&D planes do. Textbook pedantry.

And there are all different types of multiverses.

Okay. Welcome to the most basic component of my point, that you keep ignoring in order to harangue me over terminology you are wrong about.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well...no. A universe is not a grain of sand so that is totally wrong.

Do you know what a comparison is? How about a comparative analogy?

“A plane can be as small as a grain of sand” is not the same as “a grain of sand is a universe”. Very, very, obviously.

But mostly very small planes are usually called demi-planes. Kind of like the upcoming KS Demiverse.

And infinite planes are called planes, and the material plane is called that even when conceived in a way that looks a lot like our universe. None of that has any bearing on the fact that the D&D planes inter-relate in a way that makes them one cosmology, and mtg’s planes inter-relate in a way much more like multiple concurrent universes.

But a Demi-plane is actually just a plane that exists within another plane. Some Demi-planes are infinite, others simply massive, others the size of a walk in closet. What defines them is that they’re part of a greater plane.

 

[Rogerd1]

No, it doesn’t, at least not exclusively. Even the one that does is very clearly “known space”.

Universe isn’t necessarily a term denoting scale.

The only pedantry here is yours, bud.

You can repeat your false claim all you want, it doesn’t make it true. They’re universes.

No. You literally tried to correct my terminology (which you aren’t even right about), rather than ever bothering to address the point, which is that the MtG planes relate to eachother differently than the D&D planes do. Textbook pedantry.

Okay. Welcome to the most basic component of my point, that you keep ignoring in order to harangue me over terminology you are wrong about.

You don't even know what you're talking about here.
Fact: Universe is not something the size of a solar system unless it is a pocket universe. And using the dictionary will not help you, as it is as usual waaay behind terms being used in science and science fiction - as per normal.
Do try to keep up.
And still keeping it up with the strawman of me being pedantic. Terrible argument. Being pedantic would be arguing over something small, as opposed to incorrect terminology. Wrong terminology is still wrong, and not being pedantic. Like i said you're trying a really terrible argument here.

Do you know what a comparison is? How about a comparative analogy?

“A plane can be as small as a grain of sand” is not the same as “a grain of sand is a universe”. Very, very, obviously.

And infinite planes are called planes, and the material plane is called that even when conceived in a way that looks a lot like our universe. None of that has any bearing on the fact that the D&D planes inter-relate in a way that makes them one cosmology, and mtg’s planes inter-relate in a way much more like multiple concurrent universes.

But a Demi-plane is actually just a plane that exists within another plane. Some Demi-planes are infinite, others simply massive, others the size of a walk in closet. What defines them is that they’re part of a greater plane.

This is whole another load of you not knowing what you are talking about.
Demi-planes are not infinite, they are all finite and rather well small.
MtG planes are not multiple concurrent universes.
The best way to think about MtG is if some Cosmic entity whacked MtG universe with a huge hammer and shattered it into a load of different realms, or demi-planes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So if your campaign had the Planescape faction war end with the overthrowing of the Lady of Pain, did that become official? If your campaign defeated the enemies and prevented the Grand Conjuction was that made official?

No. The outcomes that became official were the outcomes the writers planned to become official, just as they planned that Bane, Myrkul and Bhaal would become the Dead Three and take a different place in the Forgotten Realms. The affects of the PLanescape Faction War or the Ravenloft Grand Conjuction on future adventures would be identical to the writers simply time skipping and telling you about those events as backstory.

And, there is no value in telling the public who are playing these games "your version is a fake version, if you want the real version of events, this is what happened". WoTC has only ever provided a single possibility of events, but has always acknowledged (to my understanding) that EVERYONE'S game is an equally viable outcome. It is the only way when so many people are playing so many games that are so dissimilar.



And that can be canon... for ONE Forgotten Realms. But WoTC has never taken the stance that the Forgotten realms they present is the only possible Forgotten Realms. And moving onto a "multiverse" approach, there is no reason not to acknowledge that even more heavily that they are producing for only one possible Forgotten Realms, not ALL possible Forgotten Realms.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////




I have heard that they are quite good. I've just got a very large back log of things to read.

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////





And my point is just because WoTC has written and presented a single world does not mean it is the only possible world. Therefore, a model that includes a near infinite number of versions of the Forgotten Realms, and thus prevents the gnashing of teeth over things like goblin origins seems to be a far better model for a multiverse than one that presents only a single possible Forgotten Realms and runs face first into these issues time and time again.

You seem to somehow be under the mistaken impression that my proposed model requires WoTC to make multiple versions of the Forgotten Realms, but it doesn't. All it requires is for them to acknowledge that all versions of the Forgotten Realms are equally viable. Which, they have been doing for years.

True, they have already said that, and have been for virtually the entire history of the game. What then exactly do you want them to do differently? I've gnashed my share of teeth over the core lore changes they've made recently, but I can't deny their right to do it, and they're not going to provide more than one option or even say that what they say happened might not have happened. They're going to leave that up to individual groups, like they always have done. To do otherwise is to dilute the brand, which is what they REALLY care about.

 

[Azzy]

Which refers to universe or Milky Way size or bigger.

No. You're making things up.

 

[Rogerd1]

No. You're making things up.

This is utterly wrong.

 

[Azzy]

This is utterly wrong.

Thern, by all means, back your basseless claim up with facts.