D&D (2024) Monster manual Fey video up

[Azzy]

Apparently many modern gamers view species options as just packets of abilities, rather than actual alien, nonhuman cultures- "humans with forehead ridges," if you will.

Same as it ever was.

 

[the Jester]

Same as it ever was.

I guess? I don't know, I remember awesome articles in Dragon Magazine about how different the nonhuman races/species were, with lots of pointers on how to play it up, and my players always leaned into that kind of thing. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man, but this really seems like a more modern thing to me.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Anyone else wondering how they got to new 85 creatures?

Okay I'll try to remember all the new creatures so far.

Fey.

1. Arch-Hag
2. Centuar Warden
3. Pixie Wonderbringer
3. New Bullywog
4. Goblin Hexer
5. Goblin Minion
6. Satyr Revelmaster

Celestials

1. Sphinx of Wonders
2. Empyrean Iota

Fiend

1. Incubus
2. Empyrean Iota

Aberration

1. Spectator
2. Githyanki Dracomancer
3. Githzarai Psion

Plant
1. Necrohulk

Ooze

1. Blob of Annihilation

Monstrosities

1. Bullette Pup
2. Giant Cockrice
3. Another one which is just a bigger version of another creature

Undead

1. Ghast Gravecaller
2. Flaming Skeleton
3. Night bringer
4. Umbral Lord
5. Reverent Cluster (forget the proper name)
6. Reverent Haunt
7. Lesser version of Death Knight
8. Hand swarm

Dragon

1. Juvenile Shadow Dragon

Humanoid

1. Vampire Familiar

So far 26 creatures. We still have reveal videos to come for plants, celestials, fiends, beasts, humaniods, Giants

Am I missing any?

How is this going to get to 85 at this rate?

They may simply not be revealing all the new creatures in the videos.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I guess? I don't know, I remember awesome articles in Dragon Magazine about how different the nonhuman races/species were, with lots of pointers on how to play it up, and my players always leaned into that kind of thing. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man, but this really seems like a more modern thing to me.

Those sorts of things have been with us since Roger Moore's "____ Point of View" articles in Dragon, but they never really stopped. Even Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes had that in 5E.

Some players vibed with it, others just wanted the stat bonuses and little else.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Norrath is a very thinly disguised home D&D campaign for large parts of it. (Other stuff, like Qeynos, was created wholesale for the MMO -- spell the city's name backwards to see.)

I've heard people say that Azeroth (Warcraft) was just Chris Metzen's homebrew D&D campaign. WoW definitely leans heavily into D&D tropes a lot of the time.

 

[Parmandur]

Am I missing any?

Zleaking of Elementals, we know ow there is a new Azer spellcaster from some art that came out.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've heard people say that Azeroth (Warcraft) was just Chris Metzen's homebrew D&D campaign. WoW definitely leans heavily into D&D tropes a lot of the time.

I've heard that from people who used to work at Blizzard. It certainly isn't hard to draw a lot of similarities (color coded dragons!), although it's now gone on to differ in many ways.

 

[Azzy]

I guess? I don't know, I remember awesome articles in Dragon Magazine about how different the nonhuman races/species were, with lots of pointers on how to play it up, and my players always leaned into that kind of thing. Maybe I'm just a grumpy old man, but this really seems like a more modern thing to me.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, just that I've never seen them played as anything "humans with forehead ridges" in any of the groups I've played with when it comes to actual play (backstories are a different matter). I think it would be cool and interesting for more story-oriented games where there's typically more role-playing than your typical dungeoncrawl and old-school play. I saw this with Vampire the Masquerade a lot—no matter what the designers intended about "personal horror", in usually didn't last very long when the rubber hit the asphalt with most players (in my personal experience).

 

[Kobold Stew]

Yep, this very much alleviates the frustration I was feeling with previous videos stating over and over that gnolls are fiends now.

I believe we know that the 5e take on gnolls was very strongly driven by one designer (Mearls) who is no longer involved.
What we saw in Volo's reflected that view. It is possible that the extreme view will be relaxed in the post-2024 era.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Actually the Tarrasque is not a unique creature in D&D. It hasn't been that way for a long time.

In some D&D lore there is a legendary planet of the Tarrasques, a whole planet full of them. And really I figure most worlds have at least 1 Tarrasque.

I was referring to how the original 5e Monster Manual discusses the Tarrasque, which it definitely describes as singular. It's called "the legendary tarrasque" and it's said that it's widely believed to be the only one in existence. I am aware of the Tarrasque Planet from Spelljammer and that there's a female Tarrasque in the Forgotten Realms for instance. But the only monster in the original 5e Monster Manual that is described as an individual instead of a set of monsters is the Tarrasque.