D&D 5E Planescape, Bigby, Phandelver and the Deck of Many Things: Covers & Details Revealed!

The covers of the upcoming D&D books — including Planescape, Glory of the Giants, and the Deck of Many Things have been revealed.

• August 15th -- Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants ($59.95)
• August 15th -- The Practically Complete Guide to Dragons ($39.95)
• September 19th -- Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk ($59.95)
• October 16th -- Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse ($TBA)
• November 14th -- Book of Many Things ($TBA)

Coming August 15th with two variants. Lore about giants, 76 stat blocks, feats, and a giant subclass.

3 hardcovers in a boxed set-- 96 page guide to Sigil, 64-page bestiary, and 96-page adventure, along with a poster map and DM screen. Coming October 16th.

224-page adventure for levels 1-12, poster map, 16 new monsters. Coming September 19th.

66 illustrated cards, 192-page book with lore, character options, magic items, and monsters, 80-page card reference guide, all in a slipcase. Coming November 14th.​

These Are Dungeons & Dragons' New Products For 2023

New books for the fantasy role-playing game include Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, and a look at the legendary Deck of Many Things.

themessenger.com

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A English writter could give a romantic image about the pirates, but a Spaniard would tell these did horrible things, for example to attack coast villages to catch slaves.

I’d no more take that complaint seriously than I would a complaint from a Brit about the evils of the French in the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It wasn't conceived as part of the Forgotten Realms, and it was a retcon after both Oriental Adventures and the FR came out to decide to merge them. And this was given the usual care and consideration of TSR managerial marketing decisions. So, yeah, different cosmological which I believe get a big ol' dose of Handwavium radiation poisoning.

It's like Star Wars stuff just started showing up in the MCU, because Disney thought it would make money. Not coherent worldvuilding.

Yikes.

Yeah…hire a group of experts on East Asian culture and folklore and such, with different focuses, and write a place that feels right and doesn’t make East Asians cringe quite so hard when they read it.

 

[Mecheon]

What doesn’t work with the rest of FR, as someone who has never read anything Kara-Tur? Are the gods incompatible or something?

Kara-Tur is a low magic human-centric place where its non-human races are supposed to be incredibly rare and hard to come by, anti-levitation magic is supposed to be both incredibly rare and also powerful enough to serve as the main defence of at least one city, and basically just a general low fantasy vibe around the entire thing

It does not make logical sense as being on the same continent as Faerun, the place with the high powered wizards shooting magic everywhere and crashed flying cities. Faerun's assumptions of setting are contrary to Kara-Tur's

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Kara-Tur is a low magic human-centric place where its non-human races are supposed to be incredibly rare and hard to come by, anti-levitation magic is supposed to be both incredibly rare and also powerful enough to serve as the main defence of at least one city, and basically just a general low fantasy vibe around the entire thing

It does not make logical sense as being on the same continent as Faerun, the place with the high powered wizards shooting magic everywhere and crashed flying cities. Faerun's assumptions of setting are contrary to Kara-Tur's

Eh, that I can work with. The cosmology being contradictory is a bigger deal to me as far as incompatibility goes.

 

[Parmandur]

Eh, that I can work with. The cosmology being contradictory is a bigger deal to me as far as incompatibility goes.

I'm sure that someone can come in here and talk about some sort of grand unified field theory of Realmslore...but Kara Tur stuff is, like, reeeeeaaaally base before even considering how to smooth it onto Faerûn somehow, so I Donnelly think it's worth the headspace.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Kara-Tur is a low magic human-centric place where its non-human races are supposed to be incredibly rare and hard to come by, anti-levitation magic is supposed to be both incredibly rare and also powerful enough to serve as the main defence of at least one city, and basically just a general low fantasy vibe around the entire thing

It does not make logical sense as being on the same continent as Faerun, the place with the high powered wizards shooting magic everywhere and crashed flying cities. Faerun's assumptions of setting are contrary to Kara-Tur's

I think you’re both underestimating Kara Tur’s magic level and overestimating how consistently that was depicted over the various publications.

By the late 80s, Kara Tur was overrun with the same overlevelled npcs and magic items as the rest of FR. If it had actually got any releases in the 90s it would have been the same over saturated mess.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm sure that someone can come in here and talk about some sort of grand unified field theory of Realmslore...but Kara Tur stuff is, like, reeeeeaaaally base before even considering how to smooth it onto Faerûn somehow, so I Donnelly think it's worth the headspace.

Sometimes, the stuff your phone replaces your words with is just…a wild ride!

But yeah probably right. Might be easier to just go “okay how can you have a cosmology like FR, and still get a fairly recognizable Mongol-inspired culture, and Korean, and Japanese, and China, with room for East Asian traditions of alchemy and medicine and philosophy, and religions that are different but which don’t contradict the rest of the world?”

Sounds like a fun project, if only I had the expertise!

 

[Parmandur]

Sometimes, the stuff your phone replaces your words with is just…a wild ride!

But yeah probably right. Might be easier to just go “okay how can you have a cosmology like FR, and still get a fairly recognizable Mongol-inspired culture, and Korean, and Japanese, and China, with room for East Asian traditions of alchemy and medicine and philosophy, and religions that are different but which don’t contradict the rest of the world?”

Sounds like a fun project, if only I had the expertise!

I think there is a big opportunity to utterly reimagine Kara-Tur with creators with that expertise, similar to that upcoming Pathfinder book. I don't know if WotC is up to doing that at this point, as it risks reminding people of the existence of Oriental Adventures.

 

[Mecheon]

By the late 80s, Kara Tur was overrun with the same overlevelled npcs and magic items as the rest of FR. If it had actually got any releases in the 90s it would have been the same over saturated mess.

Oh, by the 80s, yeah, they had to change stuff to fit with the world. But KT still inherits that debt as it were from its origin

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

From the current point of view, Kara-Tur is a list of places, characters and creatures, without a true metaplot. We don't know how they could be affected by the spellplague.

Other point is if there is a return of the martial adept classes (Tome of Batle: Book of the nine Swords) then these should be very present in Kara-Tur, in the same level psionic in Dark Sun.

If WotC hired Asian artists from different countries to draw a manga, a manghua and a manghwa based in Kara-Tur, these would tell different stories, and they couldn't agree about who is the evil empire, but if this is a no-human faction.

A reboot of Kara-Tur is totally possible, and more after the spellplague and the Sundering.


When I try to imagine Kara-Tur my mind thinks wuxia animation, but this is too human-centric, and focused into one vs one, or one vs army. And for D&D standars, those cultivators are "broken", overpowered. D&D is more "sentai", in the sense about a team working together, but each role is very specialized.


And now there is a too common trope in the current isekai genre, the holographic interface to level up and unlock new skills of a talent tree. This shouldn't be right for the D&D style, but if you an artificer from Kamigawa: Neon Dinasty.

In my opinion it would be easier an Asian company publishing a setting to be acquired later by WotC. It wouldn't be the first time Hasbro doing something like this.

Other option could to start from zero with a new mini-setting style Radiant Citadel, and unlocking in the DMGuild.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Oh, by the 80s, yeah, they had to change stuff to fit with the world. But KT still inherits that debt as it were from its origin

In that case Faerun is still an incurable horny Ed Greenwood wet dream of brothels and teenaged brides. Yeah, don’t really buy it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

In that case Faerun is still an incurable horny Ed Greenwood wet dream of brothels and teenaged brides. Yeah, don’t really buy it.

The Low Lantern, a Baldur's Gate brothel/casino, is a location in the Murder in Baldur's Gate Cluedo game.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I don't like D&D to be too focused into only or mainly FR although this is the easiest option because they can work with the creator.

Of course always there are some differences between the point of view of the producer and the creators. It is an artistic creation, but also a product to be sold in the market.

Other option could be Hasbro/WotC as sponsor for game-live shows in no-English-speaker countries, and these DMs creating their own settins, like Matt Spencer's Exandria(Critical Role).

---

* Off topic: It sounds imposible but there is a (future) collab among the main toy companies Mattel and Hasbro. This could allow in a future a D&D version of some Mattel franchise.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

I've flipped through the 2E Chult book, and honestly Tomb of Annhilation might just have more usable Setting info in it's pages, even more actual pages of Setring info.

WotC also sells the old AD&D books, actively and often in print now...and I've seen Chris Perkins at least recommended specific 2E titles to help run 5E games, which seems doable enough.

I remember back in the days of 2E, I was collecting books that had spells in them, and I bought the The Jungles of Chult paperback because the back blurb mentioned it introduced gemstone magic and spells. But there was no gem magic! It must have been cut. I was so upset. After that disappointment, the lore felt... meh. I do like the content introduced in Tomb of Annihilation, though.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I'm sure that someone can come in here and talk about some sort of grand unified field theory of Realmslore...but Kara Tur stuff is, like, reeeeeaaaally base before even considering how to smooth it onto Faerûn somehow, so I Donnelly think it's worth the headspace.

I mean, Planescape basically did that work for them. The Celestial Bureaucracy is slotted, square peg into round hole, into various places around the Great Wheel cosmology.

And as for regular history, The Grand History of the Realms also did the work of integrating Kara-Tur's history with the rest of the continent. Although, with endless steppes or impassable mountains between them, such contacts were uncommon and usually brief, outside of Shou Lung starting out as a branch of the fallen Imaskar Empire, just like Mulhorand and Unther...

 

[Parmandur]

I mean, Planescape basically did that work for them. The Celestial Bureaucracy is slotted, square peg into round hole, into various places around the Great Wheel cosmology.

And as for regular history, The Grand History of the Realms also did the work of integrating Kara-Tur's history with the rest of the continent. Although, with endless steppes or impassable mountains between them, such contacts were uncommon and usually brief, outside of Shou Lung starting out as a branch of the fallen Imaskar Empire, just like Mulhorand and Unther...

Yeah, I'm pretty confident that square peg poundeed into the round hole is precisely the sort of awkwardness that WotC wanted to disavow with their current canon policy.

 

[Quickleaf]

@Parmandur I think in a thread (that now is gone/moved) you speculated on the Reborn being a potential PC race in 5e Planescape?

Found a miniature release info that supports your speculation: New 'D&D Nolzer's Marvelous Miniatures' Character Packs Head to Retail "Reborn Paladin" coming in D&D Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures: Character Packs.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Not sure about Reborn being recast as a specifically "Planescape" race, but I could definitely see a strong case for them being treated as more setting neutral overall. Same with the other lineages from Ravenloft, frankly - sure, they're gothic horror themed, but the underlying ideas of "a little bit vampire", "a little bit hag", and "a little bit undead/Frankenstein's Monster" can be worked into a lot of different settings.

I've had a reborn Planescape concept percolating in my head for a while now - basically someone who willingly(-ish) sacrificed themselves as part of an Odin-style ritual to gain knowledge/power and then woke up after being dead for several days as a reborn warlock.

 

[Parmandur]

@Parmandur I think in a thread (that now is gone/moved) you speculated on the Reborn being a potential PC race in 5e Planescape?

Found a miniature release info that supports your speculation: New 'D&D Nolzer's Marvelous Miniatures' Character Packs Head to Retail "Reborn Paladin" coming in D&D Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures: Character Packs.

Oh, wow: mostly I threw it out there as a potential reprint because I doubt that anything from Monsters of theMultiverse will be reprinted and the Reborn seem like the only other reprint that would be thematic. Seems a real possibility with this.

 

[Quickleaf]

Oh, wow: mostly I threw it out there as a potential reprint because I doubt that anything from Monsters of theMultiverse will be reprinted and the Reborn seem like the only other reprint that would be thematic. Seems a real possibility with this.

Yeah, and also the Nameless One from PS: Torment (released a while back, not new)...