D&D 5E WotC: 5 D&D Settings In Development?

WotC's Ray Winninger spoke a little about some upcoming D&D settings -- two classic settings are coming in 2022 in formats we haven't seen before, and two brand new (not Magic: the Gathering) settings are also in development, as well as return to a setting they've already covered in 5E. He does note, however, that of the last three, there's a chance of one or more not making it to release, as they develop more than they use.

Two classic settings? What could they be?​

So that's:

• 2 classic settings in 2022 (in a brand new format)
• 2 brand new settings
• 1 returning setting

So the big questions -- what are the two classic settings, and what do they mean by a format we haven't seen before? Winninger has clarified on Twitter that "Each of these products is pursuing a different format you've never seen before. And neither is "digital only;" these are new print formats."

As I've mentioned on a couple of occasions, there are two more products that revive "classic" settings in production right now.

The manuscript for the first, overseen by [Chris Perkins], is nearly complete. Work on the second, led by [F. Wesley Schneider] with an assist from [Ari Levitch], is just ramping up in earnest. Both are targeting 2022 and formats you've never seen before.

In addition to these two titles, we have two brand new [D&D] settings in early development, as well as a return to a setting we've already covered. (No, these are not M:tG worlds.)

As I mentioned in the dev blog, we develop more material than we publish, so it's possible one or more of these last three won't reach production. But as of right now, they're all looking great.

Of course the phrase "two more products that revive 'classic' settings" could be interpreted in different ways. It might not be two individual setting books.

 

[Yora]

Isn't that Exandria?

I'm a bit surprised how difficult it is to find any information on that world. What does it have going for it? What's it's selling point?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Isn't that Exandria?

Yes.

I'm a bit surprised how difficult it is to find any information on that world. What does it have going for it? What's it's selling point?

It's selling point is Critical Role. Apart from that it's just another GenericFantasyland(TM).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Probably easier to screenshot the results.

I mean the key phrase is the bit he pulled out, it's saying there's a book called Tal'dorei Campaign Setting which isn't released.

The only thing making it somewhat odd is the ID is 32, which would suggest it's an older book. So it could be this is a red herring - possibly this was a book previously planned for DNDBeyond in association with Critical Role, that may not have been a WotC book at all (they've published an extremely small amount of 3PP material on DNDBeyond, virtually all of it Critical Role-related), and that the Exandria book we did get was the CR people changing their mind as a result of an offer from WotC.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

As to the revisit, in the D&D Beyomd datamine that found Fizban's Treasury of Dragona, there was also info for a Tal'Dorei Campaign Guide...so it looks like we may return to Exandria after all.

Exandria gets the revisit instead of FR, I'm going to lose it.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Exandria gets the revisit instead of FR, I'm going to lose it.

why?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I mean the key phrase is the bit he pulled out, it's saying there's a book called Tal'dorei Campaign Setting which isn't released.

The only thing making it somewhat odd is the ID is 32, which would suggest it's an older book. So it could be this is a red herring - possibly this was a book previously planned for DNDBeyond in association with Critical Role, that may not have been a WotC book at all (they've published an extremely small amount of 3PP material on DNDBeyond, virtually all of it Critical Role-related), and that the Exandria book we did get was the CR people changing their mind as a result of an offer from WotC.

I was concerned when I thought it was Tal'dorei Campaign Guide as that would anew book, but Tal'dorei Campaign Setting is the old already published setting by I think Green Ronin, but if it has the older ID I suspect it was a kiboshed deal with CR and Green Ronin that likely got preempted by the WotC deal like you said. I am relieved.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

why?

Because FR fans have been waiting for two long for a proper Campaign Setting Guide to have it bumped for a rehashed Tal'dorei. Thankfully this appears to not be the case, the datamined is for an already published book and its ID suggests it was older, so its not the campaign revisit book from WotC.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Isn't that Exandria?

I'm a bit surprised how difficult it is to find any information on that world. What does it have going for it? What's it's selling point?

The Critical Role wiki has a good bit of information but focuses primarily on things featured in episodes of the show.

As for selling points:

• For fans of Critical Role itself, it's a campaign world being detailed via podcast in much the same way the Forgotten Realms was detailed via novels where player characters can visit the same places the characters from the show did.
• The timeline advances, with each Campaign of the show taking place years after the previous one. For example, the Green Ronin Tal'Dorei book takes place one year after Campaign One ended, the Wildemount book takes place 20 years later during Campaign 2, while the current Exandria Unlimited campaign takes place 30 years after the end of Campaign One.
• The home campaign started as a D&D 4E one shot heavily influenced by the default 4E setting before moving to Pathfinder and finally D&D 5E. The origin story for the world and the gods are taken from 4E, making it sort of a spiritual successor of the default 4E setting.
• The take on the drow is practically a subversion of the Forgotten Realms take. Lolth exists, but unlike in the Forgotten Realms where Lolthite drow society inexplicably persists, the drow followers of Lolth in Exandria have nearly gone extinct due to internal betrayal and various Underdark threats. Most drow on the Tal'Dorei continent have either fled to enclaves on the surface, had themselves transformed into driders by drinking from increasingly rare pools of Lolth's blood to become strong enough to survive alone in the Underdark, or have turned to worship of Tharizdun. The largest drow population in the world lives on the surface of the continent of Wildemount (under shroud of magical, perpetual night) and is busy trying to establish a country made up of formerly monstrous races who have rejected their ancestors' evil gods (plus they also have access to a form of reincarnation that has resulted in the originally all-drow ruling family now having some of their members in the bodies of other races, with one member now being a minotaur and another a goblin). Lolth is pretty pissed about her declining relevancy, but her remaining drow followers are so few in number that they are forced to make heavy use of goblin underlings.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I was concerned when I thought it was Tal'dorei Campaign Guide as that would anew book, but Tal'dorei Campaign Setting is the old already published setting by I think Green Ronin, but if it has the older ID I suspect it was a kiboshed deal with CR and Green Ronin that likely got preempted by the WotC deal like you said. I am relieved.

Yes, that would make sense given the IDs.

If we look at the lower IDs than 32, where I know the date, they seem to be in a rough sort of date order, and the next ID after Tal'dorei Campaign Setting is 33, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes.

So if CR published TCS with Green Ronin in late 2017, they might have made a deal with DNDBeyond to bring it to Beyond, and say, that was due to happen in early 2018 (it can take months to get stuff into Beyond, according to the Beyond people, though they are much faster at it now I understand). Then perhaps WotC got to talking to CR, and so instead of doing this, CR decided to work with WotC on Wildemount.

If someone else wants to click on the JSON and compare the IDs of various products to their publishing dates, they could probably confirm/deny this (i.e. if all are in roughly chronological order I would say this is confirmed), but I strongly suspect this was an older book that got cancelled, rather than is a future book due out.

 

[overgeeked]

Isn't that Exandria?

I'm a bit surprised how difficult it is to find any information on that world. What does it have going for it? What's it's selling point?

Exandria

Exandria is the name of the world on which most events of Critical Role take place. Exandria exists in a Material Plane, although it features connections to other planes of existence, such as the portals to the elemental planes guarded by the Ashari. Since the gods first came to Exandria, there...

criticalrole.fandom.com