D&D 5E UA Kobold & Hobgoblin: Possibly for a Forgotten Realms Setting Book

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I think the speculative First World setting is more likely to connect fey goblinoids* with miniature dragons. Then the versions presented in Volo are their degenerate decedents.


*The lack of goblin and bugbear lineages in the UA should have tipped us off that something was fishy about the inclusion of the hobgoblin.

That would be awesome! If they did a First World campaign setting book that had the "Hobgoblin of the Feywild" (please be named "Boggart", please be named "Boggart"!) as the progenitor race to 5e's 3 goblinoid races (well, 4 if you count Verdan), I would buy the heck out of that book. I would also love to see if the did similar things for other races, like having Eladrin be the only Elf Subrace in the setting.

 

[Ancalagon]

No. I'm still under the belief that WotC is not going to release an entire Faerun setting book. Because the world is just too large to put enough useful setting info for all the other nations of Faerun into it. Most nations would only get like three paragraphs worth of space for description, barely worthwhile to bother, and at that point any player who really wanted to set their game in Turmish could just use the nation's description from the 3E or 4E setting books for all the worth they have. Is it "updated" for the current timeline? No. But if the nation's only going to get a dozen sentences worth of description, how much "updating" are you going to get? It's not worth the time to make it up.

Any further setting material for areas of Faerun I believe will occur via adventures like The North in Storm King's Thunder, or Chult in Tomb of Annihilation. Of if people get really lucky, maybe WotC'll publish something like Dalelands or Cormyr setting book (a la the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide), going into greater detail about one of those areas specifically. That way they can actually put substantial page count towards a true update of the area and actually describe locations, adventure sites, NPCs, and plothooks that players and DMs can actually use. Maybe in that kind of book we could see the new kobold or hobgoblin. Although personally I don't think even a setting book like that is likely. I think they'll save any updates for future adventure books.

You may be right that we will not get a setting book... but it won't be for the reason of that it can't be done. The 3e version was quite good. In fact, if* I were to run a homebrewed 5e FR campaign, that's what I would use.

*the odds of this are very low. There are settings that are so much better.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

View attachment 140886

Was this the 1st edition version? I think Tenniel would have liked this.

The bandersnatch was in Dungeonland/Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (which I consider Gygax's best adventures) as well, but I don't think they ever found the snark.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Oh, it's in this Adventure, they even have a Mini for it:

View attachment 140885

I quite like the bulbous eyes.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You may be right that we will not get a setting book... but it won't be for the reason of that it can't be done. The 3e version was quite good. In fact, if* I were to run a homebrewed 5e FR campaign, that's what I would use.

*the odds of this are very low. There are settings that are so much better.

Heh heh... we're actually agreeing. When I said it couldn't be done, I was meaning that under the current 5E publishing paradigm it can't be done.

WotC could publish whatever they wanted... they could make an updated current-to-the-time 1000 page Grand History of the Realms book if they wanted to... but we all know they have no intention or desire to do that. By the same token they could publish a 3E-style Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book, with the same page count, same really tiny print, everything in the book updated for 5E (both in mechanics and in new nation history)... but what exactly would people be gaining? A whole heap of nations whose background and history paragraphs get re-written with "what has happened in the last 100+ years"... all of which will be summarily ignored by 99% of the playerbase who buys the book because almost no one is going to run campaigns in Estagund, Thesk, or Lapaliiya. So what exactly is the point in paying writers to invent "new history" for those paragraphs in the book? If you never used the 2E, 3E, or 4E histories of 95% of the Realms... the only reason you'd need it updated was for a historical textbook and something to read.

Now yes, we know that a very small percentage of the playerbase are exactly the audience for that type of book. But the 5E designers have said from the beginning they are no longer writing books specifically to cater to just that part of the playerbase-- books that aren't actually going to be used for the game itself. They want every book to be useful and used by somebody (DM or player) in actual gameplay and not just historical text. And thus the 3E FRCS style of book is not under that paradigm and ain't gonna be made. Despite some people here on the boards who still insist it should be done.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

We know the Hobgoblin was really for another book for next year, and given Kobold isn't in Fizban's it is possible it was also meant for the book Hobgoblin will be in, I'm wondering could it be part of a broader goal for an FR Campaign Setting Book to redefine the "monstrous" races like Drow, Gobliniods, Kobolds, Orcs, possibly others, to a none "monstrous" state. So do you think those UA races could be intended for a FR setting book all along?

It's weird as hell that the Kobold isn't in Fizban's, but with the Hobgoblin and the Rabbit-person it seems likely they were intended for a Feywild deal, possibly they will even be in the Feywild adventure (though that would break precedent, and was basically used as the reason not to include Grippli in that other recent adventure compilation).

I think what you're suggesting would be smart, though, and it does seem likely that, if the "revisited" setting book is the FR, those races will be revisited. Drow and Orcs have had notable non-evil representations in the FR since what, the late '80s? The early '90s at the latest.

 

[Parmandur]

Was this the 1st edition version? I think Tenniel would have liked this.

The bandersnatch was in Dungeonland/Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (which I consider Gygax's best adventures) as well, but I don't think they ever found the snark.

2E, apparently.