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.

 

[Thirteenspades]

Who is directing ad hominem attacks towards Erik Mona?

Glad to see you know your fallacies. Hopefully before college. Hopefully fifth grade.

 

[Hussar]

I was always under the impression that Dragon material was actually canon. It was certainly treated as such during the switch from 3e to 4e where you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting someone quoting some obscure Dragon article that 4e was stepping all over.

Since when is Dragon material not canon?

 

[Chaosmancer]

You have two strong female characters, in a setting which frankly doesn't have a lot of strong female characters, that you're combining into one single character for no reason other than it was vaguely mentioned in a couple of blurbs in very late essentially off-hand commentary. You give those off-hand blurbs the power to erase one of the few strong female characters from the setting for...reasons I guess?

I have yet to hear a single argument why you should combine the two characters other than "there's some precedent". I have yet to hear a single in-game reason why the game benefits from that combination other than one person said "Tasha is easier to pronounce."

Is that it? Is that the best reason we have for this, the pronunciation?

For me, if you want to keep both precedents, just say "Iggwilv has appeared as Tasha. Whether she is the real Tasha or just posed as Tasha is anyone's guess." That leaves open the possibility they will still have a separate Tasha for the setting in the future.

Okay, but since they keep saying it is true, doesn't that make it canon?

Like, it doesn't matter how "late" in the edition it was, and it sounds like it was an article, a plot point in an adventure, and in the entire 4th edition of the game. That doesn't sound like "off-hand comments" to me.


I totally get the point of erasing a female character, but, revealing the truth isn't erasing the character, unless it is changing what was originally stated, and it seems like the people who write the rules, see this as being what the truth of the situation was.

And frankly, Tasha is already erased. I have literally never heard of her except the spell. No one even seems to care enough about her to mention anything she had done, ever. If you seperate the two... she basically vanishes from DnD anyways, as far as I've ever been able to tell.

Not an excuse I know, but considering the canon seems to be established, whether you like it or not, it is still true.

Like, canon doesn't mean "good". I just learned recently that the Alien: Colonial Space Marine game (a game so bad, people sued for false advertising) is canon to the franchise. There is an alien whose AI is messed up, and it gets stuck doing the can-can in a room until a marine shoots it.

And that is officially canon. Stupid? Yes. Very Very stupid. But Canon.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

So have they actually announced a new book yet?

 

[Thirteenspades]

Okay, but since they keep saying it is true, doesn't that make it canon?

Like, it doesn't matter how "late" in the edition it was, and it sounds like it was an article, a plot point in an adventure, and in the entire 4th edition of the game. That doesn't sound like "off-hand comments" to me.


I totally get the point of erasing a female character, but, revealing the truth isn't erasing the character, unless it is changing what was originally stated, and it seems like the people who write the rules, see this as being what the truth of the situation was.

And frankly, Tasha is already erased. I have literally never heard of her except the spell. No one even seems to care enough about her to mention anything she had done, ever. If you seperate the two... she basically vanishes from DnD anyways, as far as I've ever been able to tell.

Not an excuse I know, but considering the canon seems to be established, whether you like it or not, it is still true.

Like, canon doesn't mean "good". I just learned recently that the Alien: Colonial Space Marine game (a game so bad, people sued for false advertising) is canon to the franchise. There is an alien whose AI is messed up, and it gets stuck doing the can-can in a room until a marine shoots it.

And that is officially canon. Stupid? Yes. Very Very stupid. But Canon.

Then they better change it.

 

[Sunsword]

Interesting. I assume this will be the splatbook where we get all of the UA material (except maybe Psionics) and some monsters.

 

[Todd Roybark]

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

(Note spelling long forgotten names is hard)

Fizban was really the god Paladine.
Raistlin was Fistandantililus
Orcus was Tenebrous
Bob was your Uncle.

2 characters being the same person is a trope of melodrama. It is a trope D&D might have used too much.

If the product is an aggregate of old modules including The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth then I bet One Thousand Quatloos that Wizards of the Coast is using the name Iggwiliv.

 

[Mistwell]

Okay, but since they keep saying it is true, doesn't that make it canon?

Like, it doesn't matter how "late" in the edition it was, and it sounds like it was an article, a plot point in an adventure, and in the entire 4th edition of the game. That doesn't sound like "off-hand comments" to me.

My understanding it was two places, with the adventuring being in the 4e era. And both were I think single sentences, and not important to the article content or the adventure content. They quote it all earlier in the thread. Or maybe it was a second article referencing the first one as a "they said this earlier" thing? Anyway none of it is worded like "This is canon". All of it is worded like speculation as a side point. But, if that is not the case, I am open to seeing something different?

What does the game gain by combining these two characters?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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

Unpopular opinion: Ghostwalk had some cool unique monsters, the gazetteer of the area around the city was interesting, and it deserves props for making Yuan-Ti central to a setting before any other settings did.

I'd expect a 5E revival of it to be about as likely as a 5E Jakandor (which makes Birthright look like a blockbuster hit), but it was cool and tried to do something interesting that D&D hadn't done before or since, by making death not the end, but just another avenue for adventure.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

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.

Although I've never stopped thinking all the nonsense they put him through in 2E and 3E and ever since was pretty silly, Vecna is a great choice for a book of forbidden lore.