D&D General D&D Releases New Japanese Campaign 'Oni’s Right Hand'

There's a new Dungeons & Dragons adventure in town--covertly announced on LinkedIn by Hasbro/WotC Japan's brand manager--designed for the Japanese market. It's designed to draw in new players in Japan, and is not currently available internationally.

The adventure is called Oni's Right Hand, and features 5 pre-generated characters from the land of Kara-Tur, the East Asian themed continent in the Forgotten Realms setting, lying to the east of Faerûn. The setting originally appeared in 1985's Oriental Adventures, before getting its own boxed set in 1988. Other than a brief description in 2015's Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Kara-Tur has not featured in D&D 5E.

Oni's Right Hand is not actually set in Kara-Tur; it's set in Phandelin. A cursed glove from Kara-Tur, known as Oni's Claw, arrives in the town and sets the adventure in motion.

The character sheets are illustrated by Toshiaki Takayama, translated by Masaki Yanagida, and voice actors like Ayana Taketatsu and Tomori Kusunoki bring them to life in the video announcement which you can view on LinkedIn.

When D&D Meets Japan…!

We’re thrilled to introduce an original Japanese adventure campaign: “Oni’s Right Hand.”

Set in the bustling trading town of Phandalin, a cursed glove from the East arrives - and when the sealed “Oni’s Claw” is unleashed, eerie, monstrous shadows begin to creep into the town.

This campaign features five original Japanese-style characters from Kara-Tur, complete with pre-generated character sheets,designed by renowned illustrator Toshiaki Takayama and D&D translator Masaki Yanagida, and brought to life by popular voice talents including Ayana Taketatsu and Tomori Kusunoki.

The response from Japanese fans has been overwhelmingly positive.
D&D’s global appeal lies in its ability to embrace diverse cultural styles, and we’re proud to see Japan’s unique creative spirit seamlessly integrated into the world of D&D.
By weaving traditional Japanese themes into gameplay, we hope not only to delight existing fans, but also to grow the community and welcome new players in Japan.

To support this, Learn-to-Play (LTP) sessions for “Oni’s Right Hand” will begin in Japan this August.

WotC Japan Brand Manager Himmy T confirmed on LinkedIn that they were exploring options for global availability.

 

[Denito]

Waniguma (?熊)
The first kanji has me beaten. Second kanji is "bear". I'm fairly confident that the "wani" part is meant to evoke "crocodile". But crocodile is written with different kanji than those used in this name.

Haven’t checked the other names, only got curious about the hard to decipher kanji: the character‘s name is actually 鬼熊(おにぐま 、oniguma) so it simply translates to “demon bear”.
the kanji confused me too at first but then I realized that it was actually a stylized おinstead of a わ - afterwards it got a lot easier to recognize the 鬼

 

[Cergorach]

You would mind citing a page number for where in the 2024 PHB that's explicitly allowed?

Where did they mention PHB 2024 explicitly? As far as I can find in my versions of PHB/DMG/MM 2024 in FVTT, they don't mention half-elf or half-orc at all, WotC copped out on that front. But online it was mentioned how they intended that. Choose a species as represented in PHB 2024 (mechanics) and fill in your background however you want.

My character in D&D 5e 2024 has a human father and an elf mother, he takes after his mother, even though he was raised in human culture. So Elf species mechanically.

What the PHB 2024 does specifically say (sidebar) is that you can use the species from the previous edition with PHB 2024, thus the half-elf and half-orc from PHB 2014 are fair game IF you really want and the DM allows it.

As such, it seems WotC wants to avoid using the 'half' label as much as possible, you're either an Elf, and Orc or a Human with mixed ancestry. It seems the only 'half' anything left in the PHB/DMG/MM 2024 is the half dragon in the MM, even the half-Ogre was renamed to just Ogrillon.

 

[EternalDungeonMaster]

Where did they mention PHB 2024 explicitly? As far as I can find in my versions of PHB/DMG/MM 2024 in FVTT, they don't mention half-elf or half-orc at all, WotC copped out on that front. But online it was mentioned how they intended that. Choose a species as represented in PHB 2024 (mechanics) and fill in your background however you want.

My character in D&D 5e 2024 has a human father and an elf mother, he takes after his mother, even though he was raised in human culture. So Elf species mechanically.

What the PHB 2024 does specifically say (sidebar) is that you can use the species from the previous edition with PHB 2024, thus the half-elf and half-orc from PHB 2014 are fair game IF you really want and the DM allows it.

As such, it seems WotC wants to avoid using the 'half' label as much as possible, you're either an Elf, and Orc or a Human with mixed ancestry. It seems the only 'half' anything left in the PHB/DMG/MM 2024 is the half dragon in the MM, even the half-Ogre was renamed to just Ogrillon.

They may have been trying to steer clear of the pejorative term "half-breed," which in certain contexts has connotations of racism.

 

[Muh]

Haven’t checked the other names, only got curious about the hard to decipher kanji: the character‘s name is actually 鬼熊(おにぐま 、oniguma) so it simply translates to “demon bear”.
the kanji confused me too at first but then I realized that it was actually a stylized おinstead of a わ - afterwards it got a lot easier to recognize the 鬼

That makes a lot more sense! I was absolutely convinced it was read "wani", so "oni" didn't even figure into my interpretation.

 

[Mistwell]

Half-orcs don’t have abilities distinct from humans and orcs. But that doesn’t mean a character can’t have half human and half orc parentage. On the contrary, that’s explicitly allowed, and indeed characters can explicitly have any mixed heritage the player wants, not just half-human-half-orc or half-human-half-elf.

Rumors of the half-orc’s removal from the PHB have been greatly exaggerated.

What you just described never made it into the books. When you say it's explicitly allowed, I believe you're referencing something they had in a UA, which got scraped for the 2024 books. As far as I am aware, it's not explicit nor implied. They don't mention the topic at all.

 

[Morrus]

It often surprises me which miniscule part of a larger news item grabs everybody's attention. This time, however, it did not.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

What you just described never made it into the books. When you say it's explicitly allowed, I believe you're referencing something they had in a UA, which got scraped for the 2024 books. As far as I am aware, it's not explicit nor implied. They don't mention the topic at all.

Indeed, but then again when the level of rules support they are providing consists of "you can choose one parent's stats or the other's but make them look however you want" they are basically just giving a homebrewing tip so obvious it starts to be a waste of book real-estate.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Rumors of the half-orc’s removal from the PHB have been greatly exaggerated.

I mean, they haven't been exaggerated at all.

It was literally removed and not even replaced with a section on how mixed-species PCs would work if I understand correctly. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've been repeatedly told literally no official 5E 2024 source has any description whatsoever of how to handle mixed-species PCs. Which directly hard-contradicts what you're claiming. So either you're outright wrong or everyone who I've spoken to about this was.

On the contrary, that’s explicitly allowed, and indeed characters can explicitly have any mixed heritage the player wants, not just half-human-half-orc or half-human-half-elf.

But is that true? That's precisely opposed to what I've been told by multiple people.

Explicit has a meaning. It means:

"stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt."

Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that the opposite of what you say is the case. That absolutely nothing is explicit re: mixed heritage in official 5E 2024 books, and there is no suggestion that you even can have mixed heritage. I could see making a weak case for "implicit", not "explicit", because "explicit" is straightforwardly wrong.

To be clear, I don't have the 5E 2024 books, so I can't check, but I've asked people about this directly both when the PHB came out and when the DMG came out, and the answer I got was that no, there is no actual discussion of mixed-species characters at all, not even a paragraph or sidebar, nothing explicit. But if I haven't been lied to by several people (which is not impossible!), you must be, at best, confusing UA rules that never went in with the actual 2024 rules.

On the main topic of the thread - This looks really good, though it's very strange to me that they set in Phandelin. And it's interesting that Kara-Tur is sort of reconfirmed as FR Japan, it always was but it'd been a while. Also the illustrations are great!

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

On the main topic of the thread - This looks really good, though it's very strange to me that they set in Phandelin. And it's interesting that Kara-Tur is sort of reconfirmed as FR Japan, it always was but it'd been a while. Also the illustrations are great!

We don't know if the entire continent is fantasy Japan or if these characters come from one of the two fantasy Japan analogues.

In addition to the gnome druid being a yamabushi, I noticed that the wizard is using a vajra as a spellcasting implement. Part of this could just be that symbols of esoteric Buddhism are generically magical in Japanese pop culture in the same way pentagrams and faux-Latin scream magic to us westerners, but I wonder if we're going to get any information on the religious practices of Kara Tur as well, even if it's as simple as "we've never heard about this strange goddess Mystra you worship here in the far west, what is this weave you speak of?"

 

[jjcarver]

It often surprises me which miniscule part of a larger news item grabs everybody's attention. This time, however, it did not.

The part that caught my attention is how the schwa vowel in Phandalin is apparently now interchangeable. So far I've seen it spelled "Phandelin" and "Phandolin" in this comment thread alone. I personally prefer the hipster tragedeigh mom spelling: "Phandylin".