Critical Role The New D&D Book Is 'The Explorer's Guide to [Critical Role's] Wildemount!' By Matt Mercer

It looks like Amazon has leaked the title and description of the new D&D book a day early (unless it's all a fake-out by WotC) -- and it's a new D&D setting book called The Explorer's Guide to Wildemount; it's the Critical Role campaign setting, penned by Matt Mercer!

image from Critical Role wiki​

There's no cover image yet, so we're stuck with the "Coming Soon" image.

This book appeared without a title on Amazon last week, and a 'reveal' date of January 9th, which was then later delayed until January 13th. Amazon appears to have jumped the gun a day early.

Here's some information about Wildemount, which is a continent in the same world as Critical Role's other setting, Tal'Dorei. It is described by the official wiki has having "real-world Eastern European influence.... The Dwendalian Empire takes inspiration from 15th century Russia as well as Germanic nations in Central Europe (e.g., Prussia). Xhorhas has a more 13th-century Romanian flair. Outside of Wynandir, on the edges of the Dwendalian Empire, the cultures and peoples of those regions display a distinctly 14th-century Spanish flavor."

HOW DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS?

A war brews on a continent that has withstood more than its fair share of conflict. The Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty are carving up the lands around them, and only the greatest heroes would dare stand between them. Somewhere in the far corners of this war-torn landscape are secrets that could end this conflict and usher in a new age of peace—or burn the world to a cinder.

Create a band of heroes and embark on a journey across the continent of Wildemount, the setting for Campaign 2 of the hit Dungeons & Dragons series Critical Role. Within this book, you’ll find new character options, a heroic chronicle to help you craft your character’s backstory, four different starting adventures, and everything a Dungeon Master needs to breathe life into a Wildemount-based D&D campaign…

• Delve through the first Dungeons & Dragons book to let players experience the game as played within the world of Critical Role, the world’s most popular livestreaming D&D show.
• Uncover a trove of options usable in any D&D game, featuring subclasses, spells, magic items, monsters, and more, rooted in the adventures of Exandria—such as Vestiges of Divergence and the possibility manipulating magic of Dunamancy.
• Start a Dungeons & Dragons campaign in any of Wildemount’s regions using a variety of introductory adventures, dozens of regional plot seeds, and the heroic chronicle system—a way to create character backstories rooted in Wildemount.

Explore every corner of Wildemount and discover mysteries revealed for the first time by Critical Role Dungeon Master, Matthew Mercer.

Critical Role's other setting, Tal'Dorei, was published a couple of years ago by Green Ronin. This brings the list of settings in official D&D books to five: Forgotten Realms, Ravnica, Ravenloft, Eberron, and Wildemount.

UPDATE! Barnes & Noble has the cover (but not the title or description).

 

[darjr]

I bought a ton of 4e, and ran a TON of games. I think I have the PHB and DMG?

 

[teitan]

I'll admit, core is as much as I ever got into 4E.

It is an interesting setting but Essentials is where a lot of the development happened. Plus most of the sourcebooks were default Nerath, the cosmology, the story of the Raven Queen etc. All Nerath material. It was a really cool setting. Like Exandria, developed enough to be interesting but not so developed to that a DM feels strangled by detail like FR or even Eberron. It had a few cool novels and poof, dead. I'd love to see a good sourcebook for it or the one that WOTC abandoned get a release.

 

[Parmandur]

It is an interesting setting but Essentials is where a lot of the development happened. Plus most of the sourcebooks were default Nerath, the cosmology, the story of the Raven Queen etc. All Nerath material. It was a really cool setting. Like Exandria, developed enough to be interesting but not so developed to that a DM feels strangled by detail like FR or even Eberron. It had a few cool novels and poof, dead. I'd love to see a good sourcebook for it or the one that WOTC abandoned get a release.

Really, didn't know there were novels. Interesting.

 

[Parmandur]

Nope. I ran a POL campaign, and there is a helluva lot more to it than the gods and the general vibe of the wilderness and roads being dangerous. There is plenty of history. Every race, class, theme, PP, writeup has history and current cultural notes. Hell, some feats establish setting lore.

Exandria doesn’t have the same “Dawn war”, the gods aren’t exactly the same, the planes aren’t exactly the same, and the history of the world is completely, completely, different, as is the current state of the world. There are whole continents that are mostly safe to travel in as long as you stay on the road. The Teiflings currently rule a kingdom, as did the Dragonborn until just recently or 20 years ago, depending on the timeline. There is a major city everyone knows about full of temples where all civilization comes from. Many races have wildly different origins.

It simply isn’t the same.

What was the state of the world in Nerath?

 

[teitan]

Really, didn't know there were novels. Interesting.

Yeah they are pretty decent. Not ground breaking but cool. They were part of the Abyssal Plague storyline that crossed over with FR.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

What was the state of the world in Nerath?

Dark ages Europe ish, in that the fall of a great empire has left the world with essentially no infrastructure and stagnated progress, and a lot of pockets of small kingdoms and city states. Beyond that, I’m not gonna write a gazetteer to make a point. Pick a race, read it’s 4e lore, including the magazine articles, and you’ll know the state of the world.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Nerath could be a different continent on the world. The greater world was never super detailed. Like it's events can be largely unrelated to the events elsewhere on the world.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

History of Nentir Vale (it is less detailed than Wildemount honestly).

The Creation of Everything: The Primordials arise from the Elemental Chaos and create the material plane, Feywild and Shadowfell by mixing together various elemental forces and fragments of the Astral Sea. The material plane at this point is basically the Chaos in miniature; elemental stuff constantly shifting and flexing, so a mountain of ice one moment might suddenly turn into a sea of fire the next, or a forest of living metal trees might get up and walk off into the sky on a river of lightning.
The World is Born: The gods arise from the Astral Sea and, upon finding the proto-World, become enamored. They start messing around with it, stabilizing it so that it no longer changes terrain/elemental makeup at random and creating the first plants, animals, intelligent races, seasons... y'know, all the stuff that makes a mortal world.
The Dawn War: The Primordials get pissed off at the gods messing around with their toys and start trying to wreck naughty word. Apparently, there was at least a time of neutrality before this, in which the Primordials created their own races in imitation of the gods -- their most favored being the Titans and their lesser kin, the Giants. The Dawn War ends with all of the major Primordials killed off, sealed away or otherwise made docile, though not without some deific casualties -- Asmodeus the Archangel murders the Forgotten God and usurps his place, creating the Baatezu in the process, Torog is bound to the Underdark and mutilated into the King That Crawls, Io Dragon-Father is split in half by Erek-Hus and transformed into Bahamut and Tiamat, etc.
The Dwarven War of Independence: Dwarves were originally slaves to the Titans during the early days of the Dawn War. Moradin, their creator, initially didn't notice, but eventually helped break them free - but not soon enough for some dwarves. Those dwarves too contaminated by elemental energy before they escaped became the ancestors of the Forgeborn Dwarves, whilst those dwarves who succumbed to elemental energy became elementals themselves, such as the stony Galeb Duhr, fiery Azer and icy Eisk Jaat.
The War In Heaven: After the Dawn War, there was a brief but violent conflict amongst the gods for various reasons. This screwed up the afterlife so badly that it still screws people over to this day, resulting in each god's dominion in Astral Sea having shanty-towns of faithful worshippers wrongfully rendered physically incapable of entering their patron's dominion spring up on their outskirts.
The Elven Sundering: Lolth turns on Corellon and Sehanine, resulting in their elven followers likewise going to war. Those elves who stay loyal to Corellon and remain in the Feywild retain their nature, but inherit a broken empire, becoming the Eladrin. Those elves who follow Sehanine and end up stranded in the mortal world loose most of their elfin magic, becoming the first Elves. Those elves who flee to the Underdark with Lloth become the first Drow. And a tiny fragment of elves who tried to stay out of it all became the Dusk Elves, hated by all the other elven races as traitorous cowards and surviving only because Sehanine took pity and gave them magical adeptness at hiding.
The Two Empires: In an unprecedented event, dragons both chromatic and metallic unite with dragonborn to form an empire that spans much of the known world, known as Arkhosia. At around the time of Arkhosia's rise, a human empire known as Bael Turath arrests its decline through a series of infernal pacts with Asmodeus and his Archdevils, becoming a nation of Tieflings.
The War of Arkhosia and Bael Turath: Needless to say, the two don't get along and start fighting with each other. The war ends in the mutual annihilation of both empires.
The Founding & Fall of Nerath: Humans eventually build an empire called Nerath, which is the most recent world-dominating super-power in the "default" setting. It gets destroyed 100 years before the present by hordes of gnolls, led by demonic-blooded champions of Yeenoghu.

 

[CleverNickName]

What's not to love?
10/10

 

[dwayne]

great yet another slightly different fantasy setting, why not just release the ones they have as many still play them and an up date for 5th would be nice.