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.

 

[Salthorae]

Maybe Lantan's disappearance had something to do with the planes, and the island will be used as a stepping stone to the multiverse?

Lantan also brings up the possibility of Spelljammer as well.

Yeah, Lantan sounds like it's going to have an "expedition to the barrier peaks" kind of vibe to it, if/when we get there.

Also, yes, historically it's linked to Spelljammer, which would make the seeding of Neogi, and Giff in earlier books make more sense to me.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Left corner. Just saying..

 

[gyor]

I will just say that the "melting pot" analogy deserves some criticism, probably best expressed by Trevor Noah from the Daily Show (search Trevor Noah France and it should come up). Essentially, it's the idea that "if you come to X country, be prepared to ditch the customs of the country you left, because you are a citizen of X now."

It's a POV that treats citizenship as some higher reward that non-citizens need to "earn" by becoming "more like people of X."

It's really not a complete unreasonable expectation and it's well within a country's right to set it. Nations have the right to set the terms for immigration.

That being said I prefer dynamic multiculturalism to the "melting pot", which ironically tends to lead to more ghottoization in practice then multiculturalism in my experience.

 

[generic]

Could the gear relate to Mechanus?

Or, is this an Eberron book?

 

[Prakriti]

View attachment 117354

Left corner. Just saying..

Well that's interesting. Same number of teeth on the cog too. I tried doing a reverse-image search on Morrus's image and couldn't find anything, which suggests that it's brand new. Why would WotC commission an artwork like that (with connections to Eberron) unless we were getting a new Eberron-focused adventure?

Then again, it could be a cross-over...maybe the Lantans visited Eberron, and that's why the island's technology is so advanced all of a sudden?

Questions, questions...

 

[generic]

My theory is that Eberron will have a crossover with Lantan and the My Little Pony universe of Equestria, with villains who combine the technology of stormtroopers and Modrons with d20 Gamma World versions of Transformers and giant anime Waifus as a class option.

 

[gyor]

So there's actually three broad opinions on this. Didn't name 2 or 3 as they don't really have names.

Pure Nativists: These are the worst of the worst, and I don't think anyone here actually agrees with this POV. They're the ones who think all immigration is bad as it dilutes the national stock, yadda yadda racist stuff. They don't like any of this analogies, melting pot, cook out, whatever.

Group 2: This group believes that the state X has certain national traits that all citizens should adhere to. I'll use the French as the example, because their probably the biggest adherents of this; if you become a citizen of France, you are French, nothing more nothing less. There are no African-French, Hispanic-French, Chinese-French, you are French. Although from one POV this seems fine, there is a degree of assimilation here, especially when you consider how France (and Quebec) have certain laws that try to make the citizens "more French" like not being allowed to wear certain clothes or symbols. And citizenship is treated as an "award" that one can earn by good/moral deeds, as if doing immoral deeds means you are not French. For example, an African man who rescued a child from falling off a balcony was given French citizenship, while most African migrants are not.
The melting pot is largely this analogy, as when a new person is added to the pot, the "melt" into the national soup; yes this changes the pot as a whole, but everyone in the end becomes the same.

Group 3: This group recognizes that people can both be a citizen of state X, and take seriously certain national traits, while at the same time maintain elements of the citizen's culture of origin. This is largely Canada's modus operandi (excluding Quebec, which goes by Group 2 rules), and certain U.S. states like California. The idea here is it is absolutely fine to be African-Canadian, Chinese-Canadian, Indian-Canadian, etc, and it is also ok to keep elements of your original culture. So wearing a turban as a Sikh while also being a member of parliament and leader of a political party is considered perfectly fine, and there is no expectation that everyone must speak the same language, have the same religion, etc. The idea is that although we all buy into certain national beliefs (equality, justice, democracy, etc), we are also supposed to respect each others differences.
This is the "cultural mosaic" POV, that everyone has elements of culture that are different, but everyone is still Canadian. It's one that Canada has been forced to adopt because for such a small country has a pretty big divide between the French-Anglo split, and the Indigenous population. And there is still plenty of racism in Canada despite this model (today largely toward Indigenous peoples). But I still find this Group 3 model a much better model to adopt in the modern world with much more free-flowing movement of people and culture.

I will correct you on language, your still expected ideally to speak English or French in Canada, it's a bilingual nation and multicultural, not multilingual. Practical reality is that a common language is needed to properly function in society. That doesn't mean that you can't know other languages, just that it's expected you learn English or French depending on your region.

Immigrants get cut some slack, but their children will be educated in English or French or both. Its needed for proper functioning in Canadian society, if you can't communicate with those around you, its a mess.

Its like how all playable races in D&D read and write common, for obvious reasons.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I will correct you on language, your still expected ideally to speak English or French in Canada, it's a bilingual nation and multicultural, not multilingual. Practical reality is that a common language is needed to properly function in society. That doesn't mean that you can't know other languages, just that it's expected you learn English or French depending on your region.

Immigrants get cut some slack, but their children will be educated in English or French or both. Its needed for proper functioning in Canadian society, if you can't communicate with those around you, its a mess.

Its like how all playable races in D&D read and write common, for obvious reasons.

I didn't say anything disagreeing with that. As @Morrus says, political discussion is past here.

 

[gyor]

I didn't say anything disagreeing with that. As @Morrus says, political discussion is past here.

It wasn't political, it was more sociological.

 

[The Green Hermit]

I will correct you on language, your still expected ideally to speak English or French in Canada, it's a bilingual nation and multicultural, not multilingual. Practical reality is that a common language is needed to properly function in society. That doesn't mean that you can't know other languages, just that it's expected you learn English or French depending on your region.

Immigrants get cut some slack, but their children will be educated in English or French or both. Its needed for proper functioning in Canadian society, if you can't communicate with those around you, its a mess.

Its like how all playable races in D&D read and write common, for obvious reasons.

Great job transitioning back to the topic!