With Eberron’s new book delayed until December, WotC rolls out previews of the November books, set in the Forgotten Realms.
The upcoming book has been delayed, long live the upcoming book. Or something like that. Now that Eberron: Forge of the Artificer has been delayed, WotC turns its fully armed and operational hype machine to the next upcoming book on the list, a pair of books set in the Forgotten Realms, expected to be out in November.
Although tobe fair, the targeting lasers were already aimed there—as a new feature in the latest Game Informer reveals artwork, digital DLC, and more about the upcoming Forgotten Realms Player’s Guide: Heroes of Faerun and Adventures of Faerun.
Forgotten Realms Books Preview Reveals New Toys For Players
In the latest preview, WotC goes deep on the Forgotten Realms, revealing what each book likely holds. Some stuff, we already know—for instance, there’s going to be 8 new and/or updated subclasses: the College of the Moon Bard, the Knowledge Domain Cleric, Purple Dragon Knight, Oath of the Noble Genies Paladin, Winter Walker Ranger, Scion of the Three Rogue, Spellfire Sorcerer, and of course, the Bladesinger Wizard. All of these were previewed in a January Unearthed Arcana.
But we learn a little more. There are no new species in the book, though many get extra details and flavor. There are new feats, and new backgrounds—the latter will be interesting because, Backgrounds are largely irrelevant if your DM lets you create your own, and even if they don’t, it’s still hard to get excited for new backgrounds. They used to have interesting features, but now they’re just a collection of numbers that you make go up with little grounding in the world. I hope to see this improve, but I doubt it will.
We got a glimpse of new spells, including Simbul’s Synostodweomer, a sort of meta-spell that you can cast on someone to give them a powerful magical boon whenever they in turn cast spells. In this case, it heals them any time they cast spells of their own. This book also introduces Circle Magic, which is how you cast big spells with multiple casters all working to do one thing. These are how you get Mythals and Living Spells. I’m very interested to see how these rules play out.
A Little Something For the DMs
Meanwhile, in the DM’s book, we also get a much deeper dive. Titled Adventures of Faerun, this book is full of information for DMs on running games set in the Forgotten Realms. Which, in the past just meant “here’s a map of the Sword Coast, now go.”
Now, however, the cover’s been not only revealed, but opened up. Speaking of which:
And, surprisingly, the book includes the world beyond the Sword Coast. A huge step for the Forgotten Realms in recent years. The book will have more than 50 adventures, ranging from short one shots to lengthier mini-campaigns. Speaking of “mini” things, Adventures of Faerun will feature five different “minisettings” which are write-ups on different regions of the Forgotten Realms with their own separate narrators and points of interest—enough stuff you could set a campaign there.
They are: The Dalelands, Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate, the Moonshae Islands, and Calimshan. Calimshan, in particular, gets highlighted as being reworked with the help of a Professor of Arabic and Islamic Culture from Ohio State University, Shahreena Shahrani to give more depth and texture to the region.
What’s more, each of the regions serves as its own guide to a specific style of genre/gameplay. Baldur’s Gate 3 is all about “urban fantasy” while Icewind Dale takes a stab at “survival horror.” Genre and gameplay seems to be a lever that WotC looks to use more with its DM advice. Because in addition to the mini-regions (and the genre advice promised in the upcoming Forge of the Artificer), genre is at the heart of at least some of the accompanying “digital DLC”.
Digital DLC Featuring Everyone’s Favorite Vampire Spawn
Someone at WotC loves Karlach and Astarion. I say this because Karlach and Astarion have been the sort of break out favorites in all of the D&D promotional material lately. Back when WotC was still pretending that Project Sigil was going to be the next phase of D&D’s evolution, it was Karlach and Astarion digital miniatures that were front and center. Karlach narrates the Baldur’s Gate chapter. And Astarion, it turns out, will be heading up a series of “digital DLC” to accompany the Forgotten Realms books.
Now, Digital DLC isn’t exactly the phrase I’d pick if I were writing this up. I mean, you’ve got “Compendium” right there in D&D history—even recent D&D history, if we look at the Monstrous Compendium releases that came out on D&D Beyond. Supplements or Web Supplements are also well-established phrases. But WotC went with Digital DLC for some reason. And so digital DLC is exactly what we call the supplemental compendiums set to accompany the Forgotten Realms books, including Astarion’s Book of Hungers, which will be all about urban vampire adventures.
How will it all play out? Will it be a meaningful guide to toying with genre? What other “DLC” awaits? That all remains to be seen. But as we roll into the remainder of the first year of the new edition, the road ahead starts to become a little clearer.
Look for more Forgotten Realms Previews as November creeps ever closer!
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