D&D 5E New D&D Hardcover To Be Announced On The 23rd (Tomorrow)?

According to this page on Amazon.com, a new Dungeon & Dragons hardcover title for May will be announced tomorrow. Users in the US see the product below (those in the UK are seeing a Wizkids miniatures set instead).

So far signs look like Ravenloft, but we’ll know for sure tomorrow.

[Update -- also mentioned by Todd Kendrick, recently of D&D Beyond].

WotC has posted the below animation, which says “The Mist Beckons”.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I'm guessing an undead-themed monster book, with a section on running horror-themed campaigns, and perhaps a chapter giving an overview of the Ravenloft setting. Sort of like a Volo's/Mordenkainen's type monster book with a bit extra.

 

[Charlaquin]

maybe a sequel to Curse of Strahd?

 

[Dire Bare]

The two terms aren't gender-swaps of another, though they are of similar origin. Witch is anyone (male or female) who practices witchcraft, while a warlock is a practitioner of black magic. So, a female black-magic practitioner of witchcraft could be both a witch AND a warlock, neither owing to her gender.

In game terms, I'd see the witch as more of a naturalist spellcaster vs the warlock's pact magic. But that's me and there is a long thread here that hashes out some of the issues with a witch class, subclass, and the controversy with using the term.

Any of our terms for various spellcasters . . . witch, warlock, wizard, sorcerer, mystic . . . are somewhat interchangeable in mythology, folklore, and everyday use. While you're not wrong with how SOME folks use the terms witch and warlock, they are ALSO commonly gendered words referring to the same thing. Besides, to many witchcraft IS black magic, there's no difference there.

Now of course, we have more modern traditions of witchcraft, which pull away from the folkloric idea of the diabolic servant into a more pagan nature worshipper . . . but that's pretty new stuff.

In D&D, should we just consider witches and warlocks the same thing, as represented by the warlock class? Or should we create a new witch class that covers different ground? Either is a potentially fine approach, but I rather like the idea of a separate witch class that has archetypes covering the modern nature-worshipping witch, and the black magic witch.

 

[Remathilis]

View attachment 133156

Hopefully, if it is a sequel, it's better than House on Gryphon Hill. I mostly consider it Strahd's fever dream.

 

[Dire Bare]

At Blizzcon 2021 they ran a critical role hosted version of Diablo with some kind of variant 5e rules.
I wondered about a Diablo setting, but would prefer a Horror book highlighting several settings going over the genre rather than a Ravenloft setting after all Curse of Strahd was released and after they did their Candlekeep Book of Mysteries what if this is the Horror version of that?

WotC has certainly done D&D&D (D&D Diablo) before! I think it was back in the 2E era, or it might have been 3E . . . they also had the license to do a D&D version of Warcraft, but eventually sub-licensed that out to White Wolf.

I didn't care for the previous take on D&D Diablo, but it's a rich setting that could be amazing if done right.

 

[Charlaquin]

Hopefully, if it is a sequel, it's better than House on Gryphon Hill. I mostly consider it Strahd's fever dream.

That would be kind of hilarious though if it was similarly out of left field.

 

[Remathilis]

Any of our terms for various spellcasters . . . witch, warlock, wizard, sorcerer, mystic . . . are somewhat interchangeable in mythology, folklore, and everyday use. While you're not wrong with how SOME folks use the terms witch and warlock, they are ALSO commonly gendered words referring to the same thing. Besides, to many witchcraft IS black magic, there's no difference there.

Now of course, we have more modern traditions of witchcraft, which pull away from the folkloric idea of the diabolic servant into a more pagan nature worshipper . . . but that's pretty new stuff.

In D&D, should we just consider witches and warlocks the same thing, as represented by the warlock class? Or should we create a new witch class that covers different ground? Either is a potentially fine approach, but I rather like the idea of a separate witch class that has archetypes covering the modern nature-worshipping witch, and the black magic witch.

I was referring to the term as its used in modern Wicca. Like most things in D&D, it doesn't pull from any single source or myth so I could see a druidic or wizardly witch subclass alongside of the warlock (much like how a divine soul and a cleric can coexist in the same space).

 

[TwoSix]

Hopefully, if it is a sequel, it's better than House on Gryphon Hill. I mostly consider it Strahd's fever dream.

Ravenloft 2: Electric Boogaloo

 

[Dire Bare]

5E hags are incredibly horrific, but they're also very gendered. I'm not sure I can see them walking things back dramatically on them at this point. They're also not actual old women, but fey and fiends (which feels like a weird holdover at this point) that look like them.

Probably the best way to push back on any problematic elements would be to have a heroic old woman -- not Van Richten, in other words -- as their nemesis.

Hags and (evil) witches are pretty much the same trope, and they are very much "old women". Certainly, in D&D, they technically aren't human, and are possibly even not gendered male or female . . . but the mythology that inspires the D&D creature is definitely an "old women are scary" sort of thing, and D&D hasn't done much to change that.

To make it explicit that hags aren't all scary old ladies in D&D . . . it would be tough to leave that imagery behind, but worth doing IMO. Although, in addition to the ageism (old people are scary) and misogyny (women are scary) . . . we have the unfortunate trope of physical ugliness = evil, which of course extends well beyond the hags in D&D . . . .

D&D has a lot of negative baggage that it inherited from mythology, folklore, and literature . . . it certainly won't all be expunged with the next edition of the game. But any progress is progess!

 

[Dire Bare]

maybe a sequel to Curse of Strahd?

I'd call it, "The House on Gryphon Hill". How's that for a title!

SECRET: This is already a thing, the module "Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill" was published in 1986 and is the debut of the lich Azalin, another classic D&D villain.