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!

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!

Wildemount%2C_Version_20%2C1.png

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).

9780786966912_p0_v2_s600x595.jpg
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Urriak Uruk

Gaming is fun, and fun is for everyone
That is relevant to what I was asking. Thank you for sharing. I don't necessarily believe it based on what we've seen in the last 2 years, but at least that is his perspective.

We're almost 2 years from Mordenkanan's publication, which is the last "rulebook" published.

Since we've gotten:
  • Ghosts of Saltmarsh - re-hash of old adventures - May 2019
  • Stranger Things - Tie-in product - May 2019
  • Acquisitions Inc - Tie-in product - June 2019
  • Descent into Avernus - new adventure - Sept 2019
  • Tyranny of Dragons - reprint of first two adventures from 2014 - Oct 2019
  • Rick & Morty - Tie-in product - November 2019
  • Eberron Rising - Campaign Setting - November 2019
  • Now this CR product - Tie-in prdouct - March 2020
So: 1 new never before seen adventure, 1 new campaign setting, 2 reprint of previous adventures/sets, and 4 Tie-in products since the last collected set of monsters/races/rules were published.

These tie-in's HAVE to be diverting other publications because everything requires time to produce/review/set/edit/etc. So any time they spend on this kind of stuff is time not spent on new things that are not tie-in products.

Say what you want, but CR material feels like tie-in material to me and not "just a new kid at the campaign setting table."

Part of the issue here is you're splitting books into "Rulebooks" and "Adventure Books" when the line between them is blurring more and more.

  • GoS is old adventures, but includes rules for ships and encounters at sea.
  • Acq. Inc. has an adventure, but also plenty new rules of monsters and how to run a "fantasy corporation."
  • DiA has rules for war machines, and is a guide to Avernus and Baldur's Gate.
  • Eberron Rising is a guide to Khorvaire, but has a new class, new races, and new things like group patrons.
  • Wildemount is a setting guide, but also includes new subclasses and other goodies.

I don't think this is something that is going to change in the future either. I suspect based on multiple hints that the next Adventure is starting in Lantan and then leading to a Spelljammer-MindFlayer quest, which would be a guide to not just that island and the phogiston but include spelljamming rules.

The age of a true "new rulebook" may be dead forever.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Salthorae

Imperial Mountain Dew Taster
The age of a true "new rulebook" may be dead forever.

Fair to say. You raise good points about the rules released in those books.

I'm not trying to say I didn't like GoS, DiA, or Eberron and what they bring or brought to the table. My point is more about the fact that time spent on tie-in books detracts from other books.

Adventure is starting in Lantan and then leading to a Spelljammer-MindFlayer quest

Gods... I can only hope. That sounds awesome :)
 

Urriak Uruk

Gaming is fun, and fun is for everyone
Fair to say. You raise good points about the rules released in those books.

I'm not trying to say I didn't like GoS, DiA, or Eberron and what they bring or brought to the table. My point is more about the fact that time spent on tie-in books detracts from other books.



Gods... I can only hope. That sounds awesome :)

I wasn't thinking you didn't like them, just that after looking over the past few books, I haven't felt like the Wizard's team has put a hold on rules development.

As for the Spelljammer, here's all the hints I can remember...
  • There was a hint about visiting Lantan
  • A hint about seriously adding more Spelljammer elements
  • A hint about mindflayers returning in a big way (and a hint about a gnome mindflayer)
  • A hint that an adventure has a similar horror tone to Curse of Strahd.

Could end up being a lark, but I do like how it lines up towards a Lantan-launched mission in Spelljammer.
 


I honestly think there's a difference between the Stranger Things and Rick & Morty products compared to Wildemount and AI. The former two are straight-up crossovers that are only tangentially related to D&D.

However, the latter two, while "tie-ins" to other brands, are directly linked to D&D. Wildemount and AI are both based on streams that specifically are about people playing D&D. Writing them off a "just tie-ins" misses that both of those products add a lot of fluff and crunch to the D&D brand.
 

ArwensDaughter

Adventurer
There are 3 videos from D&D Beyond about the Wildemount released on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%23ExplorersGuideToWildemount

A few things that caught my attention:
-there will be three Dunamancy subclasses (dunamancy is a new type--but not school--of magic, that plays a part in Matt's world of Exandria)
-about half of the art is by artists who are part of the critter community. CR actively promotes fan art: the beginning of every stream is a "slideshow" of fan art related to the series. Matt lobbied for WOTC to use some of those artists for the book: to the point of giving Wizards a list of artists to pick from.
-the four adventures are starter adventures set in four different parts of Wildemount (which I think had been implied/assumed before, but Matt confirms it.
-Part of Matt's goal is to provide a setting that CR fans are familiar and comfortable with, to lower the "intimidation factor" (my phrase--not his) of starting to play, especially for the DM.
-Matt also hopes long time players will find things they can use in their own games
-Nothing Matt said in any of the 3 videos I watched said anything about porting over material from the Taldorei guide. When he talked about the Divergences, for example, he talked about "new" divergences tied specifically to Wildemount. Nor did he say anything about the Blood Hunter or the Cobalt Soul.
 


dave2008

Legend
I don't think they've released anything to personally interest me since late 2017, honestly.
What is your personal interest?

I kinda agree in that nothing they have released is my personal interest (epic and immortal rules, guidelines, settings/adventures, and, most of all, monsters); however, i have found interesting options and items in many of the books that have resulted in me buying them. Oddly, I have purchased more 5e content than any edition of D&D and it has the lest content that caters to my personal interest!
 

Matchstick

Adventurer
I don't think this is something that is going to change in the future either. I suspect based on multiple hints that the next Adventure is starting in Lantan and then leading to a Spelljammer-MindFlayer quest, which would be a guide to not just that island and the phogiston but include spelljamming rules.

This is almost exactly what I've been speculating as well. I honestly don't think Spelljamming is as far away as it seems.
 

TheSword

Legend
Gutted. Oh well, I have enough campaigns to keep me going 5 years so probably a good thing!

I’m sure it will sell well and might bring more people to try tabletop so fair game I guess. Just not my cup of tea.
 

Remove ads

Remove ads

Top