Dhampir and Other Species To Be Included in Astarion's Book of Hungers

The dhampir will be among several playable species included in the digital exclusive Astarion's Book of Hungers, which is currently only available as part of a $159.99 "Ultimate Bundle." Announced today during a panel on the upcoming Forgotten Realms content at Gen Con, the dhampir will make its return in the upcoming "digital DLC" for the Forgotten Realms books. An Ultimate Bundle was also put up for pre-order on D&D Beyond, which includes 8 species. Assumably, the dhampir and seven other species will appear in Astarion's Book of Hungers and perhaps split with one other unnamed DLC that's also included in the bundle. A third DLC, Netheril's Fall, is an adventure of unspecified length.

The fact that the dhampir and other species content will be included as "digital DLC" is interesting for several reasons. D&D previously made three species - the grung, locathah, and tortle - available exclusively as digital content. However, all three were released to benefit charity, with the tortle eventually making its way into Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. So, while this wouldn't be the first time that D&D made player-facing content exclusive digitally, the intent (charity versus "Digital DLC") is certainly different. Additionally, it's unclear whether these digital DLCs will be available to purchase separately or if they'll only be available via the Ultimate Bundle, which includes physical and digital copies of the Forgotten Realms books, plus the three DLC packets.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Better consumer protections is the ideal, but that requires legislatures to both care and actually act on it.

There is a lot more progress being made on that in Europe. But there is still a long way to go and needs more people to get behind it.

Releasing products as PDF (or whatever format is up to your standards of modernity) is trivially easy to produce and something that could be provided at a marginal-at-best cost to them (and they could just charge for it if even that's too much.)

Some people seem to massively overvalue PDFs. It's already obsolescent and in a few years most people people won't be able to read it. All formats suffer from an inbuilt expiry. It's shorter on digital formats but even carving on stone tablets, eventually people will forget how to read the language.

for digital tools, you're acting like it's an either-or situation.

The choice is between digital or nothing for certain types of product. And I would rather not have nothing. I've no doubt the larger print books will be with us for a while yet (with the proviso that climate change might hit the ability to regrow trees), as it's in WotC's interest to try and support FLGs.

 

[Horwath]

I am honestly curious how folks feel about these digital only books from WotC, available (I surmise) only on D&D Beyond. Is this a positive development?

personally, I hate it.
It's a cool tool but too expensive for what it gives. Especially if I have the book already.

Since they are licenced by WoC(at least I think they are), there should be a "book key" inside every book for a massive discount for DDB.

IE:
Book is 60$
DDB digital book(assets) is 40$
both are 70$

 

[Parmandur]

Someone expresses a concern about product ownership vs licensing for use, and your reply to them amounts to "nothing matters, we're all dust in the wind, enjoy it while it lasts."

I mean, that is the truthful reaction to all suffering, to be fair.

 

[TravDoc42]

Do I want to see more monsters, especially more phaerimm and vampires? Yes.

Do I wish these were in physical books? Also yes.

 

[Remathilis]

Here is the thing: nothing in VGR is required to run a game in Ravenloft. Curse of Strahd managed perfectly well without it for years. So can a follow-up. Adventures don’t go heavily into player options. One or two perhaps.

Oh, and dhampirs are not undead, that’s kind of the point.

Lot of assumptions there. We don't know what what (is any) form the future Ravenloft product will take, but the few hints have been the horror UA and Ed Greenwood's slip of the tongue. I feel more confident about a sourcebook with player facing options than CoS 2: Electric Boogaloo, but we won't know until WotC announces something.

As to dhampir, the original UA experimented with them being both humanoid and undead. Dual types were dropped, but with warforged confirmed as constructs and most of the rules that punish undead gone in 2024 (like limits on healing) I wager they may try again. We'll know next week.

 

[GarrettKP]

Lot of assumptions there. We don't know what what (is any) form the future Ravenloft product will take, but the few hints have been the horror UA and Ed Greenwood's slip of the tongue. I feel more confident about a sourcebook with player facing options than CoS 2: Electric Boogaloo, but we won't know until WotC announces something.

As to dhampir, the original UA experimented with them being both humanoid and undead. Dual types were dropped, but with warforged confirmed as constructs and most of the rules that punish undead gone in 2024 (like limits on healing) I wager they may try again. We'll know next week.

I’m convinced we will see a Ravenloft book in the vein of Forge of the Artificer and a pair of Dark Sun books in the form of the Forgotten Realms books.

Then, you’ll have:

Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerun
Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerun

Eberron: Forge of the Artificer
Eberron: Rising from the Last War

Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft
Ravenloft: Heroes of Horror (working title)

Dark Sun: Heroes of Athas (working title)
Dark Sun: Adventures in Athas (working title)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

As to dhampir, the original UA experimented with them being both humanoid and undead

But the whole point of dhampir is they aren't undead. If they have to chose, lore says humanoid.

The Reborn? They are undead.

 

[SkidAce]

Aggressively indifferent: I'm a cranky Luddote about RPGs, pen and paper only, but I recognize that people like their online tools. The option basically doesn't exist as far as I am concerned if itnis not in a book I can touch.

Nearly the same as you. I do have product at Beyond, that an online group of military buddies and I use to make things easier, but prefer pencil and paper. In fact, in many cases, I just print the info from the browser and bring it to table or pdf anyway.

 

[SkidAce]

Someone expresses a concern about product ownership vs licensing for use, and your reply to them amounts to "nothing matters, we're all dust in the wind, enjoy it while it lasts."

"same old song...just a drop of water in an endless sea..."

/scurries off to play ORIGINAL vinyl...

 

[SkidAce]

... in a few years most people people won't be able to read it. ...

clarification?