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”.

 

[Parmandur]

did they not retcon that back after 4e?

It's in the 5E DMG, and Curse of Strahd.

 

[Mind of tempest]

It's in the 5E DMG, and Curse of Strahd.

I must have missed the lines, my apologies.

 

[cbwjm]

I didn't realise the shadowfell connection was new, could have sworn that they were in the plane of shadow since 2e.

 

[Charlaquin]

From the D&D site's description (thanks for the link, @JEB): Includes rules and advice for building custom domains and Darklords using established horror tropes or your own special blend.

Now that they took Ravenloft out of the Ethereal and plunked it down in the Shadowfell, I wonder if they're doing away with the whole Core/Clusters/Islands thing altogether--if they're just turning each domain into a site within the Shadowfell. An "Oasis of Horror," if you will.

That’d be cool!

 

[Mind of tempest]

sounds super depressing so it should work.

 

[see]

Witch was certainly not a reasonable translation at the time.

Er, yes, it was. "Witch" was entirely consistent with Jerome's translation into Latin as maleficos in the late 4th Century, Thomas Aquina's discussion in Summa Theologica in the 13th Century, the late 14th Century Wycliffe Bible, the 1599 Geneva Bible, the various Reformation/Early Modern translations for other languages (Luther's use of "Zauberer" in the German, for example), et cetera. It's perfectly possible the translation as "witch" was wrong, but even if wrong, it was entirely reasonable.

Haaretz says that you're severely overclaiming re: mekhashepha here:

That Haaretz article's facts are entirely in agreement with my statement about what the standard interpretation has been. It says that one recent British scholar disagrees with the standard interpretation of the word's root, has a hypothesis about what the translation should be if you accept his alternate root, and that the historical Koine Greek translation doesn't contradict his hypothesis. If we somehow discovered that he was in fact right about the original meaning, it still wouldn't change what the standard interpretation has been for the last 1,600 years.

 

[Faolyn]

did they not retcon that back after 4e?

No. The "demiplanes of dread," including Castle Ravenloft, are listed as being part of the Shadowfell in the 5e DMG.

It's actually a change I don't mind.

 

[Emirikol Prime]

I guess Matt Mercer's book should've have been "The Explorer's Guide to Critical Role"

Maybe it should have. Point stands Ravenloft carries cache. This is perfectly named.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Arthaus supplements were meant to be interesting to read, but missed the point of being really useful for running the game.

That was a huge problem with White Wolf in that era. On Usenet forums, there were often quite vehement arguments between "readers" and "gamers," with the readers being louder and possibly more in number, with predictable results for the quality of World of Darkness books for use at the table.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I didn't realise the shadowfell connection was new, could have sworn that they were in the plane of shadow since 2e.

The Plane of Shadow/Shadowfell only became canonical, rather than a "hey, here's a plane you can use or not, depending on who draws the chart of the planes" in 4E. Both it and Faerie (the future Feywild) were listed as optional planes in the 3E Manual of Planes, as I recall.

That said, a lot of stuff was quasi-official. The Plane of Mirrors, which I love, was never made an official part of the setting, but that didn't stop monsters from there from showing up in 3E monster books.