D&D 5E Speculation - Potential Future Releases

[Cadriel]

Listening to the Gamehole Con panel with Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins, one of the things I noticed was that they said all the current and future releases had been foreshadowed in the core books. So I started looking for hints in the Monster Manual that might have pointed to the existing releases - and I found some.

In the Gargoyle entry there is an explicit reference to the Princes of Elemental Evil featured in Princes of the Apocalypse in a green box. Then in Giants there is a reference to the giant deities that we would see mentioned in Storm King's Thunder in another green box. And in Vampires there is a description of Strahd von Zarovich in a third green box, which pointed at Curse of Strahd. All of which implied that, well, green boxes might be telling us something.

So I looked for more, and found them.

Death Knights has a green box on Lord Soth, which would be a fairly obvious approach for Dragonlance (although he was also in Ravenloft for a while). Demilich has a green box about Acererak and His Disciples, and Acererak of course was featured in Tomb of Horrors. Hags have two green boxes, one about covens and one specific to Night Hags; hags, of course, are linked to Baba Yaga and her Dancing Hut. Orcs has a green box about King Obould Many-Arrows, who would seem to figure in a Savage Frontier adventure. And Yuan-ti have a box about their gods which points at the 1e module Dwellers of the Forbidden City.

I'm not saying those are the next five adventures. But the groundwork would be there, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we saw any of them in the next few years. The other thing I caught a mention of in the panel was the Feywild; if that was a hint would also seem to play into the idea of Baba Yaga.

I'm sure there is more material in the core books that links back to both existing and future adventures, I just thought those green boxes were an interesting detail and offer up pretty straightforward clues to monsters and NPCs in the vein of "revisiting classic D&D" that 5e seems intent on.

 

[Morrus]

There's references to pretty much all the settings dotted around the core rulebooks.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Over on reddit someone had found tomorrow's Bard articles for Unearthed Arcana, and the two colleges listed was a spy college and a fey college. The latter of which would go a ways towards your Feywild / Baba Yaga supposition.

Here's the pdf link address.

http://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_Bard.pdf

 

[bmfrosty]

I am utterly convinced that the next adventure (or perhaps the one after that) will return to tomb of Horrors and or White Plume Mountain.

 

[Dkamanus]

If the speculation is right, I hope a Feywild adventure path/splatbook (which is what every adventure book is in 5e) comes in line. I want to use the feywild in my tiranny of dragons plot line

Would love that and Lord Soth.

 

[azathosk]

Lord Soth would be great, it could be linked with Strahd as well (if you follow the Ravenloft-box from AD&D 2nd Ed).

 

[Goober4473]

I'm still really hoping for a new Great Modron March. Modrons are back in the MM, with a description of the March, and it's referenced in Out of the Abyss. Plus with the description of the Great Wheel cosmology in the PHB, they wouldn't even have to do a full-on Planescape setting, rather doing more of what 3rd edition did with generic planes that are part of any campaign. Something closer to what they have for Ravenloft.

That and Pendleton Ward is working on the next story-line. Modrons feel very up his alley.

 

[delericho]

My best guess would be that next year will again have three releases: two storylines and the "major mechanical expansion".

As regards the two storylines, the biggest hint we have is the "Labyrinth" name, which suggests to me either "Tomb of Horrors" or (my guess) Undermountain. For the second one, Planescape would be my guess - it's the easiest to step to from FR, and it's also distinctly different enough to appeal.

I had hoped the MME would contain all the crunch needed to support all the various settings, thus solving a lot of issues very efficiently, but based on what we've seen in the last couple of UAs I'm now leaning towards thinking it's going to be more vanilla than that - lots of subclasses, more races, feats, backgrounds, etc, and psionics. None of which I have a problem with.

 

[amethal]

There's some nice stuff about the Wind Dukes and the Rod of Seven Parts in the MM, and also in the DMG. I wonder if we might get a Rod of 7 Parts adventure at some point.

 

[Jester David]

The problem with the "clues in the Core Rulebooks" is that there's a reference to every adventure or setting somewhere. There's bits of lore teased every other monster entry. There's too many clues to narrow things down.

My best guess would be that next year will again have three releases: two storylines and the "major mechanical expansion".

As regards the two storylines, the biggest hint we have is the "Labyrinth" name, which suggests to me either "Tomb of Horrors" or (my guess) Undermountain. For the second one, Planescape would be my guess - it's the easiest to step to from FR, and it's also distinctly different enough to appeal.

I had hoped the MME would contain all the crunch needed to support all the various settings, thus solving a lot of issues very efficiently, but based on what we've seen in the last couple of UAs I'm now leaning towards thinking it's going to be more vanilla than that - lots of subclasses, more races, feats, backgrounds, etc, and psionics. None of which I have a problem with.

But the codename for SKT was "Dagger". So they're not always that close.

As neither Pathfinder nor D&D has done a Feywild adventure, I'd love that so much. But won't happen as it‘s not possible to do as a revamp of a classic adventure.