D&D 5E If WotC is outsourcing official 5E material to 3PP, What is WotC working on?

[Parmandur]

Thing is Desert of Desolation shaped the south eastern realms massively. When Old Empires came out it had to deal with the Bakar Empire and this huge desert that wasn't originally in Ed Greenwoods Forgotten Realms. This in turn lead to a radical shift in Mulhorand and Unther and possibly Chessenta from Ed's original vision for Mulhorand which was basically FR's Stygia (Conan reference) who ruled by bald Priests of Set, which got shifted to being ruled an incarnated Ra and the other Mulhorand Gods, with Set in Exile. The whole founding myth of Mulhorand and Unther and later Chessenta, and the creation of the ancient Imaskari Empire was a by product of the Desert of Desolation. It even I believe effected the History of the Durpari.

This had a massive ripple effect, from Sharess and Zandilar being merged and added to Bastet and Felidae, to changing the course of history in almost the entire Eastern Side of the Forgotten Realms. Implications even are felt as far as Shou Lung and Tu Lung, because Imaskar and Imaskari survivor state was one of the first major powers of Kara Tur, before Shou Lung.

I'd argue its one of the most important modules in FR, but weirdly indirectly, but people don't really realize the consquences of the Module on FR. The Empires it lead to were some of the biggest in FR human History, with possibly a dozen or more nations descending from them, implication across two continents.

I think the closest Module in that sort of effect on FR would be the Bloodstone Pass H series modules because they forced Ed to skrink the great glacier and add Vaasa and Damara to FR (another of my favourite FR regions), which had major implications for other regions like Impiltur and Narfell.

In FR terms, definitely: I wonder how they would work it for a new, more generic product, though.

 

[gyor]

In FR terms, definitely: I wonder how they would work it for a new, more generic product, though.

The same way they did for Saltmarsh, but FR instead GH. FR is DoD's default assumption, but a side bar for locating it in other settings.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

The same way they did for Saltmarsh, but FR instead GH. FR is DoD's default assumption, but a side bar for locating it in other settings.

I am starting to get the feeling they are saving the whole desert/wasteland thing until they do Dark Sun. We may not see a Realms-set desert adventure at all.

 

[Parmandur]

I am starting to get the feeling they are saving the whole desert/wasteland thing until they do Dark Sun. We may not see a Realms-set desert adventure at all.

WotC doesn't seem to think that way: they released the Tomb of Horrors mere months before Tomb of Annihilation, for instance, or Against the Giants shortly after Sky King's Thunder for that matter.. In Ghosts of Saltmarsh, we see them using rules that play into the next big AP (vehicle rules), and maybe even the setting book. See also the urban adventure Dragon Heist coming out shortly just before the unrelated urban setting Ravnica got released. A Desert of Desolation re-do along the lines of GoS would not compete with Dark Sun, strictly speaking.

 

[Parmandur]

The same way they did for Saltmarsh, but FR instead GH. FR is DoD's default assumption, but a side bar for locating it in other settings.

I'm not sure if they would go with the Realms re-do, or revert to Hickman's original vision: they did the latter for Curse of Strahd.

 

[gyor]

I'm not sure if they would go with the Realms re-do, or revert to Hickman's original vision: they did the latter for Curse of Strahd.

I think they will go with FR DoD, not just the generic 3 modules.

 

[vecna00]

Re-reading some of the old comments in this thread four years later has been interesting!

In regards to desert adventures, have there been any that dealt with the return of Shade and its effect on the Anauroch? I remember the novel series, but not any adventures.

 

[Urriak]

WotC doesn't seem to think that way: they released the Tomb of Horrors mere months before Tomb of Annihilation, for instance, or Against the Giants shortly after Sky King's Thunder for that matter.. In Ghosts of Saltmarsh, we see them using rules that play into the next big AP (vehicle rules), and maybe even the setting book. See also the urban adventure Dragon Heist coming out shortly just before the unrelated urban setting Ravnica got released. A Desert of Desolation re-do along the lines of GoS would not compete with Dark Sun, strictly speaking.

I'm not sure that's a great comparison. I'm pretty sure Tales of the Yawning Portal function mostly as a "greatest hits" on D&D modules, and that both Storm King's Thunder and Tomb of Annihilation are Perkins and others thinking, "What if we did these classic modules again... but long and with all this extra stuff???"

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that in WotC was exploring releasing non-Sword Coast FR content. That could easily be Kara-Tur, or Al-Qadim, or even something else.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm not sure that's a great comparison. I'm pretty sure Tales of the Yawning Portal function mostly as a "greatest hits" on D&D modules, and that both Storm King's Thunder and Tomb of Annihilation are Perkins and others thinking, "What if we did these classic modules again... but long and with all this extra stuff???"

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that in WotC was exploring releasing non-Sword Coast FR content. That could easily be Kara-Tur, or Al-Qadim, or even something else.

Right, but my point is that WotC isn't thinking "well, this is too similar to that other thing coming, so we shouldn't do that," or TftYP wouldn't have included those particular adventures.

What Stewart said was that "While the 2019 adventure wouldn't explore one of those areas, plans were underway to explore "lots" of different areas that were influenced by different cultures in multiple 2020 books. Stewart added that Wizards of the Coast were hiring consultants to vet the products and storylines." He didn't really specify in the Forgotten Realms: but if the big AP is set in, say, Calishman and involves Genie shenanigans, that would be part of what he means: and if the Spring book is something like Desert of Desolation, that would be a second such exploratory product.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Don't forget you also have Goodman Games who could license doing a re-up of one or all 3 DoD modules at some point too. They chose to do Isle of Dread leading up to stand side-by-side with Ghosts of Saltmarsh, so if at some point WotC does a desert and/or Dark Sun thing but doesn't want to re-do those three themselves... Goodman could perhaps do it instead.