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.

 

[Parmandur]

Parmandur will be the lucky one and it will be just a book of names.

Aaaaahhh yeah, baby!

 

[gyor]

If it quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. Or a dice set directly related to the next book.

According to Tito it isn't related to a campaign and is intended as an evergreen dice set. Hence why it's filled with nothing, but recycled warmed over materials.

 

[gyor]

That twitch comment only suggests no connection to the book if that book is in fact a campaign book, which I dont really think it is. It's also possible I'm overthinking things, but that's what were all here for until Monday anyway.

What else could it be? It's either a Campaign book or a Campaign Setting book, as Player/DM options books don't get dice sets with them.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm pretty sure that common usage has Campaign books and Setting books as two different beasts. I could be wrong though...

 

[gyor]

I

I'm pretty sure that common usage has Campaign books and Setting books as two different beasts. I could be wrong though...

Hope your right. Thank you for giving me a tiny sliver of hope that WotC might ACTUALLY do the right thing for once.

 

[Parmandur]

What else could it be? It's either a Campaign book or a Campaign Setting book, as Player/DM options books don't get dice sets with them.

It's not like these are ironclad rules: WotC changes things up. He did not say it was unrelated to the book, just that it has general applicability.

 

[vpuigdoller]

Well I just watched the D&D news segement on twitch, were Tito said the Dice box was evergreen because not attached to a Campaign, which suggests there is no connection to the book at all, a first for 5e. I don't think the dice should have been advertized because the book reveal, because it's only natural everyone would assume the products were tied together like past products.

Still the fact that it's not, perhaps at least suggests it's not the book of miniadventures either so I can at least take comfort in that.

Still unless it does by some miracle turn out to be a FRCG type book after all, I now am so far disappointed I don't really care what it is.

Let the new speculation begin. Or not. Who cares. Parmandur will be the lucky one and it will be just a book of names.

I'm getting real close to being done with WotC, I don't know how much more disappointment I can take from them.

We are probably on the same boat bummer. Still hoping they surprise me somehow still.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

For what it's worth, Larael appears in Storm King's Thunder as well...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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?). Almost certainly a bunch of linked adventures rather than a pure gazetteer.

Maybe a collection of starter adventures, combined with hooks and villains and factions and such, with advice on adventure building, and new monsters and player options.

 

[Demetrios1453]

So, given the D&D News info has scrambled our speculation, my take is that it's:

1. The Kate Welch adventure book that we've been told is upcoming, likely a group of at most lightly-connected adventures.

2. A normal Volo's/Xanathar's/Mordenkainen's type book. As the the class archetype UAs are pretty recent, with probably not enough turnaround time for a spring book, I would lean towards more of a Volo's/Mordenkainen's monster book over a Xanathar's player option book. Laeral is known for two things - her long-time adventuring career and her mastery of magic, especially magic items. So we could see "Laeral's Guide to Adventuring" (hinted at with the dice), filled with info for players and DMs spicing up exploration and adventuring, with a nice selection of creatures (and lairs) to meet in said adventures. Or, maybe "Laeral's Guide to Magic", which would go in-depth on how magic works, give us some new spells, new magic items (which, other than the common magic items in XGtE, we actually haven't had much expansion on), and then go over lore and give stats for particularly magical creatures (cough dragons cough).

3. Why not both? Since they've upped the number of releases, and we have had two spring release before, perhaps we'll get March and, say, May announcements on Monday?