D&D 5E March's D&D Book To Be Announced On January 9th

A mysterious entry has appeared on Amazon! With a product title of "Dungeons & Dragons March Release Book (Title announced January 9th)" and a release date of March 17th, 2020, this $49.95 hardcover release will be revealed in under a week!

The description reads "Your first look at the next D&D title comes on January 9th! Keep an eye on wherever you get your D&D news for a preview of the book."

Could there be a clue in the dice being released on the same day? Laeral Silverhand's Explorer's Kit is described as "Dice and miscellany for the world's greatest roleplaying game" for $29.99. We'll find out on Thursday!

Who's Laeral Silverhand? She's a prolific creator of magic items from Waterdeep, and one of the most powerful wizards in the Forgotten Realms. She's one of the Seven Sisters, introduced in 1987's Forgotten Realms boxed set, although Laeral herself wasn't described in that product. Ed Greenwood'sThe Seven Sisters supplement fully detailed them in 1995. Laeral and Khlben 'Blackstaff' Arunsun led a group called the Moonstars. In 5th edition, she appears in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm guessing this is right, only I'll add that I'd expect 1/3 to 1/2 of the book to be dedicated to new monsters, ala VGtM or MToF. And if there is an overarching plot it will be very lite, similar to DotMM or TftYP.

Yeah that sounds right. Lots of Monsters to support the Adventures.

 

[Azzy]

I'll guess it's a grand tour of the Realms, where we get our first official visit in many years to Kara-Tur, Al-Quadim, Maztica, and maybe some new lands (Fantasy India? Fantasy Stone Age?).

I wish that were so--I'd buy it then. However, I'm not as optimistic.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'd put my money on a grand tour of places like Cormyr, Tether, and even far flung exotic Calimshan before I'd hope for anything farther flung. I don't really care much about Maztica or Al Qadim anyway, so perhaps I'm biased.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

All right, now that speculation has (mostly) settled on this book being an anthology of adventures, what else do you think might be in it?

I don't think this book will be horror themed, as Chris Perkins hinted. The Laeral Silverhand thing (if the dice set is connected) isn't horror related, so I think the horror book is the later adventure book (which I'm leaning towards Spelljammer/Mind Flayer themes).

I do think this book will have new monsters in it, like the Sapphire Dragon. I can also see it stealing things like group patrons, except applying those to Forgotten Realms. I think it's probably too early for the UA player options to go in this book.

 

[David Howery]

I hope it's about evil squirrels and the players' epic long (lvl 1-12) conflict to stop their nefarious plans.

Okay, not really. I'd like to see something along the lines of the Saltmarsh book... revamp a classic campaign, add in some stuff from Dungeon and new stuff, make a campaign out of it. WOTC has already done the jungle and the ocean... maybe somewhere in the far north?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

From the FR wiki: '' One of the most prolific magic items creators in recorded history, Laeral was particularly adept at determining the abilities of magic items and could potentially do so merely by holding one in her hand without activating it. ''

She's also an adept creator of new spells. And with her connection with the Harpers, Moonstars, Candlekeep , Force Grey while opposing the Kraken Society, Zhents, the Red Wizard etc, I think we will see a grand tour of the factions of the realms, with a bunch of small modules including them AND, on the player-facing side, we will get new spells and magic items.

 

[MiraMels]

I don't think this book will be horror themed, as Chris Perkins hinted. The Laeral Silverhand thing (if the dice set is connected) isn't horror related, so I think the horror book is the later adventure book (which I'm leaning towards Spelljammer/Mind Flayer themes).

Yeah, a horror release would be far, far better suited to a fall release. It'd be a shame if we got a book with a horror theme at the dawn of spring.

 

[Parmandur]

All right, now that speculation has (mostly) settled on this book being an anthology of adventures, what else do you think might be in it?

I don't think this book will be horror themed, as Chris Perkins hinted. The Laeral Silverhand thing (if the dice set is connected) isn't horror related, so I think the horror book is the later adventure book (which I'm leaning towards Spelljammer/Mind Flayer themes).

I do think this book will have new monsters in it, like the Sapphire Dragon. I can also see it stealing things like group patrons, except applying those to Forgotten Realms. I think it's probably too early for the UA player options to go in this book.

Yeah, Chris Perkins works on the big Summer storyline books, so I doubt he is deeply involved with this product.

I think we will see a series of small, location based modules with an overall campaign framework focused on being part of Force Grey, sort of a combination of Ghosts of Saltmarsh and Acquisitions Incorporated.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, a horror release would be far, far better suited to a fall release. It'd be a shame if we got a book with a horror theme at the dawn of spring.

Curse of Strahd came out in February. However, this appears to be Kate Welch's book, not Perkins.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Take into account that WOTC has admitted that they maybe dropped the ball recently with "Fantasy Africa," and vowed to do better in the future when dealing with non-Western cultures. I kinda like a "Wakanda" approach to these lands . . . just because the real-world equivalents got colonized / civilized / conquered doesn't mean that's how it plays out in Faerun.

Yeah, at this point, I don't think WotC will reintroduce the non-European parts of Toril as "exotic" locations visited by Magical Becky.