D&D 5E List of All 33 Races in Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse contains 33 races compiled from previous Dungeons & Dragons books.

• Aarackocra
• Assimar
• Bugbear
• Centaur
• Changeling
• Deep Gnome
• Duergar
• Eladrin
• Fairy
• Firbolg
• Genasi, Air
• Genasi, Earth
• Genasi, Fire
• Gennasi, Water
• Githyanki
• Githzerai
• Goblin
• Goliath
• Harengon
• Hobgoblin
• Kenku
• Kobold
• Lizardfolk
• Minotaur
• Orc
• Satyr
• Sea Elf
• Shadar Kai
• Shifter
• Tabaxi
• Turtle
• Triton
• Yuan-ti

D&D 5E - Full List of Monsters in Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse contains revamped stat blocks for 260 monsters previously published in previous Dungeons & Dragons 5E books. The list was compiled by YouTuber Bob Worldbuilder based on some blurry screenshots originally shared by Nerd Immersion (see the video...

www.enworld.org

While reprinted, these races have all been updated to the current standard used by WotC for D&D races used in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, including a free choice of ability score increases (increase one by 2 points and another by 1 point; or increase three by 1 point), and small races not suffering a movement speed penalty.

The video below from Nerd Immersion delves into the races in more detail.

 

[Azzy]

I don't like most of official D&D lore and I don't necessarily need extensive lore in the rule books. However, ultimately this is a game of imagination, and rules should come with some evocative fiction, and the rules should actually at least somewhat coherently represent that fiction. The rule books should actually try to get my imagination is going. Sell me the haregon, tell me what they're like and have that be represented in their rules. I feel the direction we're going is 4e-style disassociated mush, which I didn't like. Now I get some people really liked how 4e did things, so this is matter of preference.

As someone whose DM life involved more homebrewed settings than published settings, I haven't been a fan of much of the expansive generic lore that's been pushed in 5e (especially via Volo's, Mordenkainen's, & Fizban's). Keep generic lore short and sweet—and, most importantly, easily overwritten. The settings books are where the expansive lore needs to be.

Non-setting-specific books having either minimal generic lore that's specifically given as an example of what a DM might do, or call outs to different settings to give examplaes show how races/monsters/whatever lore looks through different lenses. I prefer the latter because to can contrast, say the orks used as mercenaries by Greyhawk's Great Kingdom against the Many-Arrow orks of the Forgotten Realms, and the Shadow Marches orks of Eberron.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't think that any world needs that, including Earth. Especially not a D&D world, where the DM is supposed to be guiding the story and at least understand the basic fundamentals of it (who the gods are, who worships them, who had power in the region the campaign is taking place in, the politics of the world, etc). Sure, the Forgotten Realms might be more realistic having tons of gods, pantheons, and religions, but that makes it worse for storytelling and harder for players to get engaged in the setting. If a player wants to play a cleric in a setting, and they choose the Life or Light Domain, the choice of deity for that PC to worship should be pretty simple, in my opinion. In the Forgotten Realms, instead they have to choose from a list of around a dozen gods with overlapping portfolios and minute differences, which quickly overwhelms and confuses them.

Nentir Vale, Eberron, Exandria, Theros, and even Dragonlance are more manageable and easier to tell a story in.

I don’t agree at all. It makes the world better, and Eberron especially could use more religions, especially small regional and ethnographic faiths. And “cults” that aren’t “of the dragon below”. And heretical sects.

Messy and asymmetrical is better, not worse.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I don’t agree at all. It makes the world better, and Eberron especially could use more religions, especially small regional and ethnographic faiths. And “cults” that aren’t “of the dragon below”. And heretical sects.

Messy and asymmetrical is better, not worse.

This is supported by kanon, as well. The 15 Sovereigns are split into Host and Sinister Six by the dominant version of the Host faith, but it's known as the pyrine creed because it's a regional divide that got traction with the conquest of Khorvaire by humans, not by all mean the only one, either by doing other splits, or having local/cultural cults (the three faces of War, Love, Coin, Wild... are example of those). Plus, nothing prevents worshipping both the Flame and Dol Dorn... And the gods being non-existant at best or silent at worst, they can't explicitely say how they intend to be worshipped, allowing for two groups worshipping the Restful Watch to be at each other's throat because they don't agree on the order in which to sing the various prayers.

 

[Parmandur]

I like how Kobold Press handles multiple religions and pantheon in their Midgard Setting: nobody is sure how many gods there actually are, because they are engaged in a divine cold war a s use different "masks" in different times and places. Tooth may he Odin, might be someone else. There may only be a handful of actual gods...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is supported by kanon, as well.

FOr sure. Keith is all about the world being complicated and messy.

The 15 Sovereigns are split into Host and Sinister Six by the dominant version of the Host faith, but it's known as the pyrine creed because it's a regional divide that got traction with the conquest of Khorvaire by humans, not by all mean the only one, either by doing other splits, or having local/cultural cults (the three faces of War, Love, Coin, Wild... are example of those).

Exactly. The Three Faces of XYZ are really interesting interpretations of the cosmic archetypes represented by the Sovereign Host.

Plus, nothing prevents worshipping both the Flame and Dol Dorn... And the gods being non-existant at best or silent at worst, they can't explicitely say how they intend to be worshipped, allowing for two groups worshipping the Restful Watch to be at each other's throat because they don't agree on the order in which to sing the various prayers.

I think a lot of people would flip the two bolded phrases, but yeah, absolutely.

I've a mind to make a character at some point who views the Silver Flame as tangible proof that the thesis of the Blood of Vol is correct, and is basically synchronizing the two. I also have an idea for a Kenku faith that uses the basic ideas of the sovereigns and says that their archetypal nature is part of their power, and so the way to be closer to them and to serve the world and your community best is to find the sovereign in yourself and work toward emulating that archetype as well as you can, and so all clerics and paladins and such of that faith seek to behave like the sovereign they have chosen or feel chosen by, rather than thinking of themselves as serving that deity.

Eberron is very cool, in this regard.

 

[Faolyn]

You just perfectly highlighted why I despise the Forgotten Realms. There's good lore, yes, but way more just random junk that I could never use, and a ton of absolutely awful lore that gets in the way of the good stuff (does the setting really need hundreds of gods and around a dozen different pantheons?).

If you're talking about the racial pantheons, most of those were created before the Realms were (there's a whole series on them in Dragon magazines in the #50s and #60s, meaning they mostly came out in '80-'81). If you're talking about different pantheons for human cultures, I think they were going for verisimilitude, since in the real world, every culture had their own gods, so the same should be true for a fantasy world. I have no idea if they ever tried to figure out how all these pantheons worked together, however.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't like most of official D&D lore and I don't necessarily need extensive lore in the rule books

Keep generic lore short and sweet—and, most importantly, easily overwritten. The settings books are where the expansive lore needs to be.

The more I explore different fandoms, the more I cannot fathom why D&D players hate D&D lore.

Do other RPGs have this problem? Do people really rage at Pathfinder for "polluting" their rules with goblins who hate dogs and like fire? Are there people who want more generic versions of Traveller or Warhammer? Do people really say, "I really wish White Wolf would give me multiple choices for my vampire's origin rather than force the Child of Cain origin on me?" Do people actually homebrew Shadowrun?

As far as I can tell, this attitude that RPG Core Rules must be bland, generic, reskinnable, and modular is unique ONLY to D&D players (or games derived from D&D). Maybe I'm not in tune with other RPG communities enough, but I'm always amazed that there is a not-insignificant number of players who would be happy if the Core Trinity were nothing more than the SRD + Art.

 

[Aldarc]

I don’t agree at all. It makes the world better, and Eberron especially could use more religions, especially small regional and ethnographic faiths. And “cults” that aren’t “of the dragon below”. And heretical sects.

Messy and asymmetrical is better, not worse.

Eberron does have various cults, sects, and religions across the world that are mentioned in passing.

For example, there seem to be a number of variations of the Silver Flame faith across the world. There are also some different systemizations of the Sovereign Host depending on where you are. The elf religions all play on the core idea of "how do we preserve our ancestors and honored dead?" (i.e., Undying, Undead, Society for Creative Anachronism). And the Blood of Vol is a response to the question of "How could the Host let people fade in Dolurrh?" that mingles some misunderstood ideas from the Vol faction of elves.

If I were to make further sects or religions in Eberron, I would look at some of the fundamental questions, motifs, and cosmology of the setting. Maybe there is even a strange cult to the Baker's Dozen motif of the setting.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The more I explore different fandoms, the more I cannot fathom why D&D players hate D&D lore.

Because it is kinda rubbish? Most of D&D lore is incoherent mishmash of generic fantasy stuff without any unifying creative vision. There are exceptions such as Dark Sun and perhaps Eberron though.

Do other RPGs have this problem? Do people really rage at Pathfinder for "polluting" their rules with goblins who hate dogs and like fire? Are there people who want more generic versions of Traveller or Warhammer? Do people really say, "I really wish White Wolf would give me multiple choices for my vampire's origin rather than force the Child of Cain origin on me?" Do people actually homebrew Shadowrun?

As far as I can tell, this attitude that RPG Core Rules must be bland, generic, reskinnable, and modular is unique ONLY to D&D players (or games derived from D&D). Maybe I'm not in tune with other RPG communities enough, but I'm always amazed that there is a not-insignificant number of players who would be happy if the Core Trinity were nothing more than the SRD + Art.

The difference is that most of the other things you mention have a specific setting. D&D doesn't. So there is always a conflict between keeping things vague enough that they're suitable for several settings, whilst not becoming so vague that they say basically nothing. Recently they've been veering towards the latter.

But I actually want good lore. Which is not to say I necessarily want extensive and detailed lore. But I want species, classes and creatures to be strong evocative archetypes, and I want the lore, the rules and the art communicate that to me. I want the books to get my imagination going, and give me ideas of what to do with these things. Random assortment of mechanics with 'do whatever' as lore really doesn't do that.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

The more I explore different fandoms, the more I cannot fathom why D&D players hate D&D lore.

Do other RPGs have this problem? Do people really rage at Pathfinder for "polluting" their rules with goblins who hate dogs and like fire?

With Pathfinder, you're expected to play in Golarion. The game and the setting go hand to hand naturally, so it's not a problem. Same with Glorantha and Runequest, Empire Galactique and the namesake empire, Star Wars and the 6 films depicting that universe... On the other hand, Mythras is generic and the lore parts are advice to the GM "if your world is magic rich, then using rule X and Y is great, if you're playing in an historical campaign, disregard the Magic chapter altogether..." Those are examples of games that do it well.

D&D is sitting in the middle of the highway, with an "implied setting" derived from bits of lore that are baked into the rules, that you need to houserule away if they conflict your setting, or to accept and make your setting conforming to those -- which is a problem when rules change, including the fluff...

As far as I can tell, this attitude that RPG Core Rules must be bland, generic, reskinnable, and modular is unique ONLY to D&D players (or games derived from D&D). Maybe I'm not in tune with other RPG communities enough, but I'm always amazed that there is a not-insignificant number of players who would be happy if the Core Trinity were nothing more than the SRD + Art.

Actually, I question Art as well for a truly generic thing. Art can force a vision of the implied setting and make it "less generic". On the other hand, an assumed setting is fine for most people I guess. But it needs to be assumed.