D&D 5E The October D&D Book is Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons

As revealed by Nerd Immersion by deciphering computer code from D&D Beyond!

Spoiler

Fizban the Fabulous is, of course, the accident-prone, befuddled alter-ego of Dragonlance’s god of good dragons, Paladine, the platinum dragon (Dragonlance’s version of Bahamut).

Which makes my guess earlier this year spot on!

UPDATE -- the book now has a description!

D&D 5E - Fizban's Treasury: The Dragon Book Now Has A Description... And A Feat

Courtesy of Amazon, we now have a description for Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, the October D&D hardcover. The book introduces gem dragons, dragon-themed player options, and plenty of draconic lore! This joins September's The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and November's Strixhaven: Curriculum of...

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - My guess for the other D&D book this year... Draconomicon!

We know the fifth major product this year will be James Wyatt‘s as-yet unannounced project, and we know it will be coming out this year between Witchlight and Strixhaven. Wyatt co-wrote the Draconomicon for 3E. There have been two recent dragon-themed Unearthed Arcanas — dragon-themed...

www.enworld.org

Fizban the Fabulous by Vera Gentinetta

 

[Parmandur]

Huh, I guess I have never had need of the Half Dragon or Shadow Dragon. I wasn't really considering the chart on humanoids in the DMG templates, but I guess they qualify. I admit that I really liked templates in 3.x and with modern digital tools it would be super easy to be able to apply them now.

I think they didn't make a great many because designers went a little crazy with them in 3.x (how many Halves can an NPC have, anyways?), but the rules can handle them fine.

 

[Faolyn]

I think they didn't make a great many because designers went a little crazy with them in 3.x (how many Halves can an NPC have, anyways?), but the rules can handle them fine.

Plus the 5e templates are all things that don't change CR or use math, and there are a lot of monsters you can't make with a template without doing that.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I think they will need unique star blocks: for the traditional Metallic and Chromatic Dragons, I reckon the Great Wyrms will be all the stat blocks we get ("see the Dragon entry in the Monster Manual"). Still leaves plenty of.room in the Bestiary.

The thing is, if they have mythic actions, the stat blocks are going to be over a page. That's 22 pages (metallic, chromatic, and turtle) or 32 pages (with gem dragons) at least for great wyrms. With 4 pages necessary for any other dragon with 4 age categories (so 24 at least for gem dragons and dragon turtles), there's a lot of room being taken up. Just depends really how much room there is for the bestiary, and how many creatures will be included...

Also, dracolich is a template in 5e, along with the others mentioned.

 

[Parmandur]

The thing is, if they have mythic actions, the stat blocks are going to be over a page. That's 22 pages (metallic, chromatic, and turtle) or 32 pages (with gem dragons) at least for great wyrms. With 4 pages necessary for any other dragon with 4 age categories (so 24 at least for gem dragons and dragon turtles), there's a lot of room being taken up. Just depends really how much room there is for the bestiary, and how many creatures will be included...

Also, dracolich is a template in 5e, along with the others mentioned.

Yeah, that's fair: so this might have fewer monsters per page than the other books.

 

[hopeless]

Half Dragonborn?

 

[Parmandur]

@Maxperson they just dropped an updated Issue 38 of Dragon+: Alignment is still in, but in the chapter with Traits/Bonds/Ideals tables.for.each Drsgon type, they went out of their way to include one option in the table that bucks the trend: a Good Black Dragon or a Chaotic Silver Dragon, for example. To show that each Dragon is an individual.

 

[Demetrios1453]

@MaxPthey just dropped an updated Issue 38 of Dragon+: Alignment is still in, but in the chapter with Traits/Bonds/Ideals tables.for.each Drsgon type, they went out of their way to include one option in the table that bucks the trend: a Good Black Dragon or a Chaotic Silver Dragon, for example. To show that each Dragon is an individual.

Welp, that answered our bestiary conversation, seems that it's pretty large and will have great wyrm stats for the 15 main types of dragon!

 

[Parmandur]

Welp, that answered our bestiary conversation, seems that it's pretty large and will have great wyrm stats for the 15 main types of dragon!

Yup, but still a bit smaller, and obviously more focused, than Volo's Bestiary. I am so happy they are bringing forward the Ideals/Bonds/Traits and providing some solid lairs.

 

[Maxperson]

@Maxperson they just dropped an updated Issue 38 of Dragon+: Alignment is still in, but in the chapter with Traits/Bonds/Ideals tables.for.each Drsgon type, they went out of their way to include one option in the table that bucks the trend: a Good Black Dragon or a Chaotic Silver Dragon, for example. To show that each Dragon is an individual.

That's great to hear. Thanks!!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

To start with some number crunching:

Total Page Count:

• Volo's Guide to Monsters: 224
• Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes: 256
• Fizban's Treasury of Dragons: 224

Lore Section Page Count and Subjects covered:

• VGtM: ~100 pages for 9 Monster kinds getting deep dives, ~11 pages per topic
• MToF: ~114 pages covering 6 topics namely Devils & Hell, Demons & the Abyss, Elves & Drow, Dwarves & Duarger, Gith, and Gnomes/Halflings, ~19 pages per topic.

-FToD: about 100-120 pages for the 20 Dragons AND Dragonborn Lore seems somewhat tight, this could be larger than the other books.

Player Options Coverage:

• VGtM: 18 pages covering 7 full race wtiteups and a handful of "Monster races."
• MToF: hard.to judge, as this is interspersed among the Lore chapters, but probably only a few pages sepwrfrom Lore.
• FToD: about 20 pages, based on the UA material and and tables described by Wyatt seems generous (I take his "one third DM material, one third Plauer material, and one third monster material" as less than literal).

Bestiary Page Count and Stat Block Numbers:

• VGtM: ~106 pages, nearly 100 monster stats blocks.
• MToF: ~142 pages, nearly 140 Monster stat blocks
• FToD: this could vary considerably, but it does seem plausible that this may have a somewhat smaller Bestiary than Volo's did, depending on how large the Lore Section and Character material ends up going. If we suppose 84 pages or so, we might be looking at 80 Monsters approximately. Could go higher, could go lower.

I'm guessing that they'll put the Dragonborn lore in the Player Options chapter. They could also put the First World Lore in there, but I'm guessing that they'll do that towards the beginning of the first chapter, or under the header of the different sections for lairs of Chromatic/Metallic/Gem Dragons.

With at least 16 Great Wyrm stat blocks that are all going to take up a single page, that's really taking up a lot of room from the Bestiary. I really don't want it to be much smaller than the ones in the other Monster books. IMO, Mordenkainen's bestiary was the perfect size; not too big, not too small. I'd want Fizban's to have a similar size.