D&D 5E Ed Greenwood is Contributing to A Sourcebook About Thay

Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood, along with Alex Kammer and Alan Patrick, are writing a new sourcebook about the magrocracy of Thay, known for its Red Wizards. The book will be on the DMs Guild, although there's no release date yet.

They've shared some art -- a Thayan noble at the market with her two undead porters, by artist Hector Rodriguez Antunez.

"
Because I don't have enough to do, did you know that I am about to release a brand new sourcebook on Thay? Yep. I am writing it with my friends Ed Greenwood and Alan Patrick. It is shaping up to be a really great book. It will enable the reader to look past the veil and into what day to day life in Thay really looks like. It will have tons of lore and an adventure which I wrote. It will be a POD product on the DM's Guild. We are in layout now so I hope to announce a date in the next 30 days or so.

Oh, here is a sample of some of the awesome art. Check out this Thayan noble at the market with her two undead porters."

 

[humble minion]

I just wanna know, and at least still be alive, when WotC finally covers not only the places in Toril that needs remastered (Kara-Tur, Zakhara, Maztica, Hordelands), but also these "Unknown" places. Just give me news on that, for once!

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I'm pretty sure the landmass to the east of the Eastern Sea is Osse, basically Forgotten Realms not-Australia, from the days when TSR was filling up the Faerun map with places like Maztica, Zakhara, the Tuigan etc which are all pretty transparent analogs of real-world non-European cultures.

Indigenous Australia is a theme that has basically not been seriously covered by any D&D supplement anywhere to the best of my knowledge, even in the d20 glut shovelware days. I'd love to see some more coverage of the topic with own-voices input (@Marc Radle and Kobold Press, I'm looking at you...), but I'm kinda glad that early-90s TSR didn't ever see fit to go into more detail on Osse. Even with best of intentions, the evidence (like the Nightmare Lands and the Abber Nomads from Ravenloft, or the Wallara from Red Steel) suggests that the result would be looking very cringeworthy to modern eyes..

 

[Blue Orange]

Oh, it’s definitely not just you!

I just think that, while there are commonalities (it’s the same guy writing in both modes, after all), the experience of reading a Greenwood setting guide is radically different from the experience of reading a Greenwood novel; the latter has its charms but also a lot of annoyances that it seems to me are mostly absent from the former.

I find Greenwood’s fiction storytelling style to be so jump-aroundy and so filled with tangential longueurs as to be at its worst almost unreadable. You’re right that it’s a lot of work to read him, and personally if I’m going to read something with those characteristics it’s going to be, say, Proust or Woolf—something where putting in that work is actually necessary to the payoff I get out of reading the novel.

Greenwood’s setting books are much easier to read, and they allow his particular genius, which is all about injecting a certain kind of baroque and very idiosyncratic “realism” into high fantasy (interconnected trade routes, psychosocial effects of pervasive magic and interventionist deities, ever more bizarre spell interactions and magical effects, etc. etc.), to shine through without having to follow the threads of a sometimes almost pasted-on narrative that progresses so obliquely that I cannot follow it. (His best novels aren’t quite like that, by the way, but the worst totally are, IMHO.)

That would...make sense, actually. The guy is famous for his setting guides; he's probably one of the world leaders in this very small field. When he tries to write a novel, his virtues become vices. It's like Jordan playing baseball (remember that?).

He might have become a good travel writer, I imagine.

 

[EthanSental]

I’ll b checking this pdf out when it comes out for any new story arcs to build from. Glad this type things is happening more often on the DMs guild from known creators for their home setting (same with Keith and Eberron).

 

[CubicsRube]

I'm pretty sure the landmass to the east of the Eastern Sea is Osse, basically Forgotten Realms not-Australia, from the days when TSR was filling up the Faerun map with places like Maztica, Zakhara, the Tuigan etc which are all pretty transparent analogs of real-world non-European cultures.

Indigenous Australia is a theme that has basically not been seriously covered by any D&D supplement anywhere to the best of my knowledge, even in the d20 glut shovelware days. I'd love to see some more coverage of the topic with own-voices input (@Marc Radle and Kobold Press, I'm looking at you...), but I'm kinda glad that early-90s TSR didn't ever see fit to go into more detail on Osse. Even with best of intentions, the evidence (like the Nightmare Lands and the Abber Nomads from Ravenloft, or the Wallara from Red Steel) suggests that the result would be looking very cringeworthy to modern eyes..

This is something I really want. There's really cool mythology in aboriginal australian histories, but as a white Australian, I'm not the one to write it (let alone having no experience!).

I think it's a hard market these days to write anything based on a real culture, so for this reason I don't think we'll see it any time soon. But I would like an "inspired" not-australia very much.

 

[Blue Orange]

This is something I really want. There's really cool mythology in aboriginal australian histories, but as a white Australian, I'm not the one to write it (let alone having no experience!).

I think it's a hard market these days to write anything based on a real culture, so for this reason I don't think we'll see it any time soon. But I would like an "inspired" not-australia very much.

I suspect one of the things is we don't have written records of life before the European settlement, which was already well into the modern era, so for D&D purposes it's tricky unless some Aboriginal author wants to write a D&D supplement. (Which might happen someday!)

I do wonder if one of the long-term side effects of #ownvoices and the like is going to be (ironically) a drift back toward European-derived mythological settings, since nobody complains about those and they effectively become 'public domain'. That was my thought when flipping through Midgard.

 

[humble minion]

I do wonder if one of the long-term side effects of #ownvoices and the like is going to be (ironically) a drift back toward European-derived mythological settings, since nobody complains about those and they effectively become 'public domain'. That was my thought when flipping through Midgard.

I suspect the long-term result of #ownvoices will be ... more own voices material. Hell, Kobold Press, as well as publishing Midgard, have the 5e Southlands book shipping right now, and that's an African-inspired setting with heavy input from people whose ancestry lies in that area. Though I do suspect that the reason that their long-promised Asian-inspired setting book is still delayed is because it needs a do-over in that department. The cover art etc was released some time ago, but the controversy aboutb Oriental Adventures sprang up at the same time, and (I'm entirely speculating here, mind) it may have prompted Kobold to do a bit of re-evaluation and re-writing. But we'll get it in the end.

Similarly, I've seen own-voices Turkish and Caribbean-based settings on kickstarter recently, and both seem to have been very successful. Hopefully that trickle starts to turn into a more reliable stream as time progresses. Cos yeah, I do agree that the absolutely last thing I can get excited about now is ANOTHER norse-inspired 'dark fantasy' 5e book to go with the 3637 already floating around out there.

 

[R_J_K75]

Looks like this will be out soon, possibly next week.

Thay: Land of the Red Wizards

EDIT: Oops that tweet was 1/25 so maybe this week?

 

[darjr]

Winter Fantasy is this weekend (already?!?!) and they are doing a Thay set of adventures. Along with the ones from Gameholecon.

 

[Weiley31]

So now that's Border Kingdoms, Rashemen, Darkhold: Secrets of the Zhentrim, and now this (Thay) to add to the 5E Forgotten Realms listing that involved Ed Greenwood himself.

 

[R_J_K75]

So now that's Border Kingdoms

One criticism I had with the Border Kingdoms book was that it made references in the text to areas that weren't on the map or detailed in the book. These areas were rather obscure too, not as well known as Waterdeep, Cormyr or Baldurs Gate. With this in mind I'd imagine that there will probably be a bit of cross referencing between this book and the recent Rashemen book. If present trends continue I wouldn't be surprised if there is an Aglarond book released soon.