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.

 

[amethal]

Ah Ghostwalk, a setting so unsupported I can't even find a Let's Read thread anywhere on it.

There is a Ghostwalk "Let's Read" on the Gaming Den. (They call it an "OSSR" over there.) Since it's the Gaming Den, it isn't "family friendly".

 

[Coroc]

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.

It is so, that not even neutral alignment does keep you safe in that setting, the only non "classic" NPCs within Greyhawk D.C. which come to mind instantly, is some ogre or hillgiant or so who runs a tavern and a drow who works at the archive of the mages guild (tucked away hidden from the mobs eyes). There might be some more but they are curio individuals at best. Halforcs seem to be tolerated. But with Tieflings, (personally I do allow them in my homebrew take on Greyhawk but limit them to devil offspring because Iuz = archnemesis : demontieflings = linked to Iuz) or Drow? They never could run around safely in Greyhawk or Furyondy or Veluna.

Within the "free" city of Greyhawk, which officially states to be neutral, also in a political sense (putting the economical interests as a trading crosstown above morality), according to official canon, temples to evil deities are forbidden. Also in secret, they totally value good over the evil of Iuz.

 

[see]

But, someone mentioned it was named after a little girl? What is the real story because I'd be interested in hearing it, especially if it was a good story.

A post by Gary Gygax on EnWorld on Friday, 2nd May, 2003, said:

All of those spells I made up, usually to hono a PC in my campaign, or for the person who suggested the basis (Tasha was a little girl who sent
me letters in crayon, Nystul an actual stage magician I mey through Len Lakofka.)

 

[dave2008]

As an aside.:
Ed Greenwood said he was given a non-paid Creative Editor title just so Dragon could feature his work. Ed is so nice....basically TSR gave him a title with no money or benefits so it could continue to exploit his creativity without paying him. I hope this was before TSR bought the Forgotten Realms from him.

That is not quite what he said. Essentially the gave him the title so the could feature so much of his work and not make other contributors feel like he was getting special treatment. They still paid him for the work he submitted and the title didn't carry any responsibilities. So it is not like he was doing unpaid work.

 

[dave2008]

Speaking of classic D&D typos, was it OD&D or a BD&D book that gave monsters a percent chance of "liar" rather than "lair?" Still a hilarious thing to think people took seriously.

"Looks like there's a really high chance this dragon is completely full of crap. Let me roll and see."

It wasn't all monsters, it was just one I believe. It might have even been in the MM, but I don't remember for sure.

 

[dave2008]

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.

Yes it did, and it implied it was the first time it was canon. I already posted the excerpt in post #85.

 

[Hussar]

It is so, that not even neutral alignment does keep you safe in that setting, the only non "classic" NPCs within Greyhawk D.C. which come to mind instantly, is some ogre or hillgiant or so who runs a tavern and a drow who works at the archive of the mages guild (tucked away hidden from the mobs eyes). There might be some more but they are curio individuals at best. Halforcs seem to be tolerated. But with Tieflings, (personally I do allow them in my homebrew take on Greyhawk but limit them to devil offspring because Iuz = archnemesis : demontieflings = linked to Iuz) or Drow? They never could run around safely in Greyhawk or Furyondy or Veluna.

Within the "free" city of Greyhawk, which officially states to be neutral, also in a political sense (putting the economical interests as a trading crosstown above morality), according to official canon, temples to evil deities are forbidden. Also in secret, they totally value good over the evil of Iuz.

Yes, but, that's just the city of Greyhawk. That's such a tiny, and frankly unimportant, part of the setting.

Why would drow be a problem? Most people wouldn't even know what they were on sight. It's not like there were any serious drow wars or anything like that. A drow would be a curiosity at most. According to the wiki article, Furyondy is 2% other population - hardly unknown then. That's about 20-30000 non-demihumans. Not a lot, sure, but, hardly "kill on sight".

Again, sure, Greyhawk tends to be humanocentric in some states, I agree. But, this xenophobic theme is just unsupported. There's many, many states where humanoids are dominant, and numerous states where humanoids (as in not elf/dwarf/halfling) are pretty common.

I'm still waiting for someone to point me to where this xenophobic theme comes from. It's not present in the adventures where humans and humanoids (at least evil ones) work together all the time. It's not present in the setting guides where all sorts of states tolerate humanoids - Keoland, Urnst, Sea Barons, Scarlet Brotherhood lands. I just admit to not seeing where it comes from. Then again, I'll admit, I have largely ignored the 2e Greyhawk material by and large. I have a rough understanding of what's there, but, I was never much interested in the northern parts of Greyhawk.

 

[Hussar]

Yes it did, and it implied it was the first time it was canon. I already posted the excerpt in post #85.

I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation of the implication since 3e/3.5e Dragon SPECIFIES that it's 100% official. Right there in the banner. So, at least from 3e onward, Dragon material has been canon. I believe the "like never before" is referring to the fact that with online Dragon, and the integration with the Compendium, you will have access to the canon like never before. Not that the stuff before wasn't canon.

 

[dave2008]

I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation of the implication since 3e/3.5e Dragon SPECIFIES that it's 100% official. Right there in the banner. So, at least from 3e onward, Dragon material has been canon. I believe the "like never before" is referring to the fact that with online Dragon, and the integration with the Compendium, you will have access to the canon like never before. Not that the stuff before wasn't canon.

That makes since.

FYI, I skipped 3e and didn't even realize it had that 100% official stamp in the corner. Doesn't change my point though that the only edition of the last 3 that we don't know if it is canon is 5e (I said it was canon in 3e & 4e). Now, I think it is safe to assume it is canon until we are told otherwise.

 

[Coroc]

Yes, but, that's just the city of Greyhawk. That's such a tiny, and frankly unimportant, part of the setting.

....

That is a big part of (still 1e, but in transition to 2e bluebox) and one of the most fascinating parts of the setting and as interesting and rich as 2e grey box waterdeep. It is the center of power, the rome, the metropolis and whatever, a perfect starting point and a city setting how it should be.

...
Why would drow be a problem? Most people wouldn't even know what they were on sight. It's not like there were any serious drow wars or anything like that. A drow would be a curiosity at most. According to the wiki article, Furyondy is 2% other population - hardly unknown then. That's about 20-30000 non-demihumans. Not a lot, sure, but, hardly "kill on sight".
...

Most people would know, and that they are not a problem is because when they appear in small numbers above ground then they are KOS.
The 2% other population are whatever you want them to be, fro msatyrs nixies, remote halforc villages. They are for sure not (from the perspective of the authors or most people playing that original setting) Drow, dragonborn or tiefling communities / enclaves in big cities.

... where this xenophobic theme comes from. It's not present in the adventures where humans and humanoids (at least evil ones) work together all the time. It's not present in the setting guides where all sorts of states tolerate humanoids - Keoland, Urnst, Sea Barons, Scarlet Brotherhood lands. I just admit to not seeing where it comes from. Then again, I'll admit, I have largely ignored the 2e Greyhawk material by and large. I have a rough understanding of what's there, but, I was never much interested in the northern parts of Greyhawk.

In castle greyhawk WGR1 there is a group of true neutral (!) dwarves which attack everybody and should be attacked by PCs intent on exploring this dungeon

Within one of the small one page adventures which are part of the blue box the PCs are put before the moral dilemma to side with ogres "converted" to pacifistic followers of Pholtus and the blinding light, accompanied by their "prophet" and or some Lawful good dwarves who want to kill of the ogres just out of principle.

The scarlet brotherhood is fascist to the boot, they are archetypes of fascists, versus all other races than themselves.

One of the CoG NPC characters is some Paladin (LG) who gets crazy now and then and then runs of to solo kill as many orcs as he can.

That is greyhawk how I know it, all official lore, I do not know which greyhawk you refer to.