D&D 5E Iggwilv/Tasha To Join Volo, Xanathar, and Mordenkainen? [UPDATED!]

Is WotC teasing a new announcement? There have been a few D&D books named after famous personalities from the game's extensive lore - Vole's Guide to Monsters, Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. It looks possible that the next such personality might be Tasha of Tasha's Hideous Laughter fame -- which was an adventuring alias of the Greyhawk villain Iggwilv.

UPDATE -- A page has appeared on Amazon entitled Dungeons & Dragons November Title (Announced August 24). It's a hardcover, $49.95, November 17th release date.

On their Discord channel, WotC posted a short audio clip; it features some female-sounding voices laughing, and it is titled "Feather and Tart". It also has a metadata info which says August 24th, 2020, which is Monday. But in addition to that, a WoTC staff member on Reddit's avatar was changed to an image of Iggwilv.

Iggwilv was an evil magic-user, a villain created by Gary Gygax. When adventuring with the Company of Seven, she used the alias Tasha. The lore has it that the witch Baba Yaga adopted her as a child and named her Natasha, and she soon became Natasha the Dark (Baba Yaga also adopted Elena the Fair).

Iggwilv has two forms, one old and one young. You can read more about the character on Wikipedia.


What does seem clear is that WotC is teasing an impending announcement! I assume that the announcement they are teasing will be the announcement of an upcoming announcement, or I'll be disappointed.

 

[Parmandur]

I find it extremely funny that a little girl likely wrote the "I'd like a spell that makes people laugh" to Gygax, likely with the idea of a spell that makes people happy.

And it became Tasha's Hideous Laughter, a spell more in common with the Joker's laughing gas than anything resembling joy.

Hopefully the kid, as an adult thinks that's pretty cool, because otherwise it's a little effed up...

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I dunno, I have three kids. She probably wanted a way to incapacitate her enemies. Small children are murder hobos by nature.

 

[Hussar]

Heh, it is ironic.

When 4e was announced, like I said, you couldn't swing a dead cat without someone quoting canon from Dragon magazine and how 4e was bad because it was changing canon. Now, because it's apparently convenient, Dragon isn't canon anymore.

Now, in 3e era, Dragon was 100% official. Says so right on the cover of the magazine. 100% official content, signed and delivered by WotC. So, the entire Paizo run of Dragon and Dungeon were 100% official and canon. Folks might not like that, but, there it is. Can't remember if the 4e Dragons had the same blessing.

 

[Dire Bare]

Given the nature of the hints we've received about the book, I think it's clear that WotC think Tasha is Iggwilv.
If WotC wants more diversity, they can always create more characters. On the other hand, I wonder if Drizzt would ever write a book?

He already has! In an earlier edition (2E? 3E? 4E?) there was a "Drizzt's Guide to the Underdark" (or something similar, can't quite remember . . .)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yes, but Tasha gives them something Vecna doesn't; a powerful FEMALE wizard with the pedigree of other "spell-naming" wizards in the PHB. Tasha is, if I recall correctly, the only female named wizard to have a named spell on the core books.

Being able to tie her back to Iggliv is further icing due to her past as the Demonomicon author.

So WotC probably chose her to get a somewhat iconic female character as the namesake character who is easily on par with their other namesake character authors. Diversity and all that.

I suspect this is the main point - representation. Volo, Mordenkainen, even Xanathar are all male.

 

[Dioltach]

If you're going to go with an evil iconic Greyhawk character, go with Vecna. He's a god of secrets and it would be awesome to see him with a book like this. Especially if they include some "author" narration.

You know how long it would take him to write it, with only one hand and one eye? He'd never meet the deadline.

 

[Delazar]

I suspect this is the main point - representation. Volo, Mordenkainen, even Xanathar are all male.

Didn't we have a "Laeral Silverhand's something" in the past?

Also... Xanathar is a dude???

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Didn't we have a "Laeral Silverhand's something" in the past?

It was a fairly trivial fluff item, not a major publication though.

Also... Xanathar is a dude???

Abominations have better representation than females?

 

[Coroc]

I've said it before, but Greyhawk fans who raise fits against tieflings are ignoring the logic of the situation in the setting. We know, canonically, that there have been fiend/humanoid pairings (and cambion offspring) in the Empire of Iuz and the Great Kingdom for decades, if not longer. Tieflings are the inevitable result of that.

Yep - and these offspring of Iuz demons are KOS in most civilized areas, so no way someone can play one in a realistic meaningful way. Greyhawk might be grey in its PC moral, but there are things which are totally clear in that setting: Orc, Drow, Tiefling, = evil monster 99,9% of the time. For the normal NPC population make that Orc, Drow, Tiefling, = evil monster 100% of the time, since they neither can differentiate nor compute fractal.

 

[humble minion]

I suspect this is the main point - representation. Volo, Mordenkainen, even Xanathar are all male.

Fair point. D&D has not exactly been heavy on balanced representation in major 'written in character' style sourcebooks ... ever, really.

The main exception that immediately comes to mind is the 3e Ravenloft line, that had almost exclusively female viewpoint characters (the Weathermay-Foxgrove twins, and 'S'). But that line was developed by Swords and Sorcery/Arthaus/White Wolf, rather than WotC.

 

[Hussar]

Yep - and these offspring of Iuz demons are KOS in most civilized areas, so no way someone can play one in a realistic meaningful way. Greyhawk might be grey in its PC moral, but there are things which are totally clear in that setting: Orc, Drow, Tiefling, = evil monster 99,9% of the time. For the normal NPC population make that Orc, Drow, Tiefling, = evil monster 100% of the time, since they neither can differentiate nor compute fractal.

I'm not even sure why you would say that. Most of Greyhawks lands are fairly mixed racially and even if a given state is fairly homogeneous, a neighbour will be pretty mixed.

Why would you think that orcs or drow or tieflings are kill on sight in Greyhawk? What have you read of the setting that would support this position? Because, I'll admit, I've read pretty much any and everything I can get my greedy hands on when it comes to Greyhawk, and I am still utterly baffled by people like you who claim that the setting is like this.

Where are you getting this? I really want to know because I've seen it dropped more than a few times, and it does not line up with anything that's actually written for Greyhawk.