Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
333 | New Eberron D&D Book, Dragon Delves, Purple Dragon Knights, Legacy of Kain TTRPG
Fri, 31 Jan 2025
PJ is away this week but we delve into all the latest D&D news...and some news that isn't D&D! Plus Russ has a new watch. And don't forget we are now streaming live every Friday at 2pm UK time (9am ET)--join us live on YouTube! Why Dungeons & Dragons Isn't Putting Out a Campaign Book in 2025 Dungeons & Dragons Teases New Campaign Settings D&D Adds Two New Books to 2025 Slate, Including New Eberron Book Circle Casting Coming in Forgotten Realms Player's Guide New Unearthed Arcana Released, With 8 New Forgotten Realms-Themed Subclasses Hold Back the Dead - Free Digital D&D Adventure Coming 4th Feb Fey Video Giants Video Celestials Video Critical Role To Wrap Up Third Campaign, New Exandria Unlimited Miniseries Announced Universal Fan Fest Nights Officially Announces Dungeons & Dragons: Secrets of Waterdeep Dungeons & Dragons Comments On Possibility of Future Movie Projects The Fallbacks Are Getting Another D&D Novel Legacy of Kain Is Getting a TTRPG ENnies To Ban Generative AI From 2025 December 20 Proposed as National d20 Day: A Celebration of Creativity, Community, and the Iconic Twenty-Sided Dice Cats! The Conspurracy TTRPG Crafting Heritages, Cultures and More: Worldbuilding
All the table top are outplaying us. We aim to amuse and we aim to enthuse. And Morris is unofficial. Table top RPG.
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to Morris's unofficial tabletop RPG talk. I am Russ, aka Morris, or Morris, aka Russ, and with me this week is... It's me, Jessica from EN Publishing.
So I don't have my usual hype person. PJ is away this week. They are at a gaming convention.
Playing apparently 50 hours of tabletop RPGs.
Do you know what does not surprise me?
The kind of thing they do.
Knock on to PJ. Instead of talking about RPGs, they're actually playing them this weekend. I hope they're a nice time and they can tell us all about it next week.
Yes, indeed. Did you have a good week, Jess?
I did. I did. I had to be a normal human being because my partner had a lot of, like, work social things. So I had to go and hang out with people that aren't fascinated by games and tabletop RPGs.
You had to come out with, like, Howl's Gate Goblin mode.
Yeah, I know, which is rubbish. Yeah, and they're all like adults with serious jobs. And so, you know, like we had a meeting about flumps on Tuesday, for example. That's our work week.
We did have a meeting about flumps.
Yeah, we did.
I mean, I didn't know it was a meeting about flumps. You ambushed me with the flumps.
It's the best way to get them in on an attack. But yeah, like so, you know, other normal people with regular sensible grown-up jobs don't really relate to that. So I had to, you know, put on my grown-up face.
How about you? I had a quiet week, but I did get a brand new James Bond watch this morning. I mean, I arrived this morning. I've been waiting for this for ages. I am so, so excited. You can't really see it properly there, but it is gorgeous.
Well, I'm glad. Does James Bond, you know, you've taken his watch? Is he going to come find you?
Because I am now James Bond, because I've got the watch.
You shouldn't tell people that on a live stream.
That's how it works.
You're meant to be a bit more undercover. But actually, I suppose James Bond of all the spies just openly says, hello, I'm James Bond. So he's not very undercover.
No, the world's most famous James Bond. Just in case you didn't know, I'm going to turn up in a flashy Aston Martin DB5 and order a vodka martini, shaken, not stirred, just in case you're in any doubt as to who I am.
Well, I mean, it works for him. What can we complain? What do we know? We don't work for MI5.
Anyway, we've got some RPG news to talk about this week.
We do. So there's loads of stuff about D&D, and I think our plan is to put that in the second half, just because there's a whole load of stuff about that.
We're going to do a D&D sandwich.
Are you going to do a D&D sandwich? Okay.
We're going to do a D&D adjacent sandwich where we talk about a typical role and a novel and some movies and stuff like that. And then we'll do some non-D&D stuff. Cool. And then we'll come back and we'll do a whole load of big D&D news that came out this week.
About them. Okay. That sounds fair. So where do you want to start with the D&D adjacent news?
Oh, well, which of those four things catches your eye?
Tell me about Critical Role.
OK, so Critical Role is wrapping up their third campaign. And this looks like it might be the final one in Exandria, but maybe not. So on February the 6th, there's going to be an 8.5 hour episode. Oh, wow. That's really long. 8.5 hours.
It's a work day.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're calling this the conclusion to this chapter in Exandrian history and the dawn of a new age.
Okay.
And Exandria, of course, is the world that the Critical Role Lifestream is set in.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So... This third campaign coming to an end, there was a whole big plot where some, like in one of the moons, one of Alexandria's moons, there was a god-eating entity.
Oh, gosh.
And they had to get rid of it. And there were a whole bunch of sort of cameos and characters from the previous series came in.
Oh, nice.
And then the players sort of got to play the characters that they were playing in previous seasons as cameos in this one.
That makes it feel like it might be the final one because that wraps up really nicely and also has those flashbacks to people that have been watching it since the beginning. So that would feel quite satisfying, I think.
Yeah. They're doing a four-part one, a small four-part miniseries, I suppose. It's called Exandria Unlimited. Oh, no, Exandria Unlimited Divergence. Sorry, colon Divergence.
Spin-off series.
Spin-off series, if you like.
Yeah, yeah, I got it.
And this is about the Divergence. And the Divergence, apparently, is when all the gods of Exandria ran off, disappeared, because there was a big old war between the Pantheons, so they all decided to, you know, get involved. And then this is going to be like four weeks, starting on February the 13th. And it's a one-off miniseries. And there's no plans yet for a fourth Critical Role campaign.
Okay.
So, you know, we don't know whether this is the end or if there's another one coming or if they're going to go and switch to Daggerheart and do something else. We don't know that.
That one makes sense because Daggerheart's their new thing. So it makes sense they do a series on that because that is, they've described, designed for campaign play, isn't it?
Yeah. It's hard to tell because, I don't know, Daggerheart obviously is their baby and they're going to want to promote it and stuff. Yeah, obviously. But also, you know. people watch it for the D&D as well. I don't know. Do they watch it for the D&D? I don't know.
As we talked about before, any TTRPG media, if you have the phrase Dungeons & Dragons in, does better. So even videos that talk about non-D&D videos, like on TikTok or social media, will have the hashtag D&D in it just to give it that boost because that's just...
But then in Critical Role's favour, though, anything that has to face Critical Role in it does better as well. It's whether or not that is good enough to compensate for the lack of... I don't know. I hope so.
I'd like to see a Daggerheart series. I haven't played the game and I don't know a huge amount about it. And I do like watching people play to learn a game. I mean, playing it myself is the best way, but, you know.
Well, my guess is they're going to do another D&D one and they're going to do a Daggerheart one as well. That's what I think they would do.
that make sense i wouldn't be i don't know but i've noticed that the spin-off series you're talking about i've just was just reading about it and brennan lee mulligan is leading that one and matt is a cast member so i'm intrigued to watch that because i i like seeing matt as a player because everyone knows him as a gm and stuff but it's interesting seeing him as a player as well yeah yeah well that's pretty soon so uh i don't know will you be staying there to watch the 8.5 hour finale
Do you know, no, because I've not watched the whole previous series. So I don't think I should jump in at this point. Loads of my friends really love Critical Role Show and they have it on like while they're working and studying, like kind of your part watching whilst you're doing something.
And I was tempted to do some of that and watch it whilst I'm doing like admin because I've got some fun finance stuff to do in the next few weeks for us. And while I was doing that, I thought it might be nice to have something on to kind of,
yeah so I might start doing that because there's like hours and hours but it's a bit intimidating because there's so much yeah I mean my difficulty with it is you have to put aside so many hours just to watch an episode yeah just don't have that much time in my life Yeah, that's why I think it's got to be done whilst you're doing something.
Yeah, possibly. Anyway.
All right, well, that's Critical Role. That is Critical Role. February 6th, that is, the 8.5-hour episode. Yeah. On all their various platforms. What do you want to talk about next?
Universal FanFest.
Universal Fan Fest. Discuss.
Because we've talked about this before. So this is the Universal Studios Hollywood. And they're making an attraction and they're called Universal Fan Fest. And there's loads of them. There's like a Star Trek one. And there's, you know, all different sort of franchises. But, you know, we're talking about the D&D one here.
yeah um and it has like an adventure and there's a great big xanathar puppet you can interact with yeah we did mention this weren't they hiring somebody to operate it Yes, yeah, there was a job advert for someone to get inside the puppet, I guess.
And you had to, like, carry a certain amount of weight constantly all day for your gift. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember this. Yeah, OK.
And it's being made, like, along with Jim Henson's Creature Shop as well.
Wow, so that'll be good.
Yeah, yeah. But what they haven't actually done yet is officially...
announce it like we know all about it we've seen the description of it we know that about the the big beholder we know what it is but they haven't actually announced it until now they just like finally kind of officially announced it and the tickets have gone on sale oh okay well that makes sense yeah yeah so basically you have to um join the harpers
And then you've got to foil a plot by Xanathar, the Beholder, which will have an actor inside, recently hired, who is capable of carrying X amount of weight consistently all day. And save the city of Waterdeep. Does that sound fine?
That does sound fun. I like experience events and things like that. There's a company in the UK, Secret Cinema, that does stuff like that as well. And I always think they're quite fun.
Yeah, my brother goes to. He went to the Blade Runner one.
Oh, yeah, that one looked cool. I did the Star Wars one. That was very cool.
Yeah, yeah. I think I'd like to do that.
It is good. When and where are these things happening then? Um...
Sorry, I've asked you a question you don't know. I don't know, Jess.
Let me have a look.
I'll tell you what. There's got to be a date.
I think it's like the US.
Universal Fan Fest nights. Okay, here we go. It's a ticket page. Universal Fan Fest nights.
And I was going to wonder how much the tickets are as well.
Yeah, well, I'm looking at it right now. So there's a Star Trek one. There's Back to the Future one, the D&D one. Here we go. Get details.
Yeah, let's see if we can go.
Soundstage 15 at Universal Studios Hollywood.
I mean, that makes sense, being a Universal Fan Fest night. So, yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah. I suspect we won't be going to that.
At Universal Studios. No, probably not. You know, maybe that was a silly question, really, being the Universal Fan Fest night. Of course, it would be at Universal Studios. Silly question. How much are the tickets, if you're there? Just out of curiosity.
They range from 74 pounds, dollars, sorry. Okay. 24 of those American dollars. All the way up to, if you want, like, the really, really sort of VIP tickets.
$373. Wow. Okay.
They vary.
All right. So that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a big night out. Maybe like a birthday party or something like that. So that's what you can do every week. Yeah.
No.
Or maybe the rich people listening to this podcast are like, what do you mean?
We live in Hollywood rich, aren't they? Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Everyone that lives in Hollywood is definitely rich.
That's how it works.
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Well, that sounds cool. I think it's nice that stuff like that's happening. I don't really have much to say beyond that. I'm a bit too far away to go myself. But if anyone does go, write about it on the EM World forums and let us know how it is.
Let us know, yeah.
Because it sounds cool.
I'm intrigued. There's a Star Trek one I want to go to as well. They do a Star Trek one where you can walk around the Enterprise, and I'd like to do that.
Yes, that would be very cool. I like that. Because I like my Star Trek. I do like a bit of Star Trek as well.
Okay. Do you want to do one now?
me do one um all right so dnd adjacent but not actually about the monsters that's the brief right now isn't it um oh right okay i'm gonna talk about that dnd movie so we went to see the dnd movie it was just like two years ago
Feels like so long ago in a different lifetime.
A different world, yeah. You, me and PJ went to cinema and watched it. I really enjoyed the film. It was like honour amongst thieves.
Yeah, I enjoyed it too.
It felt like a D&D campaign. It had some nice callbacks to like D&D mechanics and things parties do. You know, like the getting the questions for the Speak With Dead and stuff like that. It was quite funny and... Jonathan as well because we've all accidentally named an NPC something stupid and just had to run with it.
So clearly that bird is meant to be called Jonathan and they mispronounced it Jonathan. Yeah, things like that. But I think financially in the terms of movies, it didn't do as well as they wanted. So... Yes, but Wizard of the Coast apparently has made a statement saying they're exploring the possibility of new D&D movie and TV projects. So it'd be like a D&D cinematic universe plan.
Yeah, well, yeah. They sort of said they're exploring the possibility.
That doesn't mean there's any... Oh, no, there's nothing... Nothing's planned, but they're exploring the possibility, which is, you know... So there was going to be a TV show, wasn't there?
And that got cancelled. Yeah.
That's true, yes.
That got cancelled when they sold, Hasbro sold E1, which was their TV studio.
Yes. So I thought that was going to be the end of that, really.
Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what they do. I think, looking at what they were saying, it looks like they're exploring the opportunity of various different studios, like talking to different studios and opening it up a bit and seeing if anyone's going to buy it and, you know.
Yeah. Well, maybe that's following because the Secret Levels series, they had a D&D episode. And I thought that was really good. I really enjoyed that.
Yeah, I enjoyed that too.
So I'm wondering if they're thinking instead of having our own entertainment studio, if we just partner with others and, you know, give them a license. And then I guess it's less risk for them, isn't it, financially, if it's just a licensing thing?
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I would like to see it more. I like seeing RPGs be more mainstream because it just makes it more accessible and makes it more likely that other cool people are going to join our hobby.
It wouldn't surprise me if we saw another cartoon.
An animated series, something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Maybe not a movie, but a cartoon.
Maybe an animated movie.
Maybe an animated movie.
Yeah. Maybe.
Yeah.
Well, that we do not know.
I would be unable to watch it.
Because it's animated and you have an issue with that.
Yeah, I can't watch that nation.
Okay. I'm allergic. I'm sorry to hear that. Anyway. All right, Tag, you're at your turn. Do you have any news, which is technically about D&D, but is not related to the D&D Monster Mansion?
I do. I've got one last bit of D&D and Chaser news.
Okay.
That is the fullbacks... this was a novel last year penguin random house published it um 2024 and it was about a group of kind of misfit adventurers just wandering around they're not like the best adventurers but they were the adventurers that that like waterdeep got and um i remember us yeah i remember the initial press release so what yeah okay yeah
Yeah, so the first novel was called Bound for Ruin. And the second one, this one, is called Dealing with Dragons. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, so the description of it is, the fallbacks might not be Faerun's first choice for saving the day, but if the money's right, they'll get the job done. In this ragtag band of adventurers, each member plays a vital role.
Tess, the disciplined elven thief, Anson, the courageous fighter, Lark, the cunning bard, Baldrick, the wily cleric, Kazrin, the inquisitive wizard, and Uggy, their pet monster who eats garbage.
Brilliant. I love a pet.
Yeah. So in the first one, they defeated this big old lich, apparently. I haven't read the book. Spoilers, but okay. Yeah. Yes. Sorry.
No, I've not read the book either. In fairness, I wasn't planning on. I've got a stack of books by my bedside table I need to get through before I burn it in you. But yeah.
But cool. So in this one, I guess they're going to be dealing with some dragons, I guess. What are the names of them?
well dungeons and dragons it leans into the theme while so that makes sense that's coming out july 29th and it's being written by jolly jolly johnson is that the same person that wrote the first one i think so i seem to remember not being able to pronounce the name then as well is it pronounced like rally i guess it is jolly johnson it's spelt like rally
I'll believe you. I'm very dyslexic, Russ. Reading and pronouncing things is not why I'm here.
Fair enough.
I can't read.
You can read. I've seen you do it. More than once.
Well, that is true. Not to brag, but yes, I have.
At least twice, maybe three times I've seen you read. It's amazing.
Gosh, gosh. All right. So that is all. I don't have any more D&D adjacent, but not technically D&D news. No. All right.
Shall we move on to the not at all D&D news?
Indeed.
But still RPG news. And then after that, we can go back to the big D&D news.
Yes. I have something that is not, that fits the brief.
Go on then.
So it's about the NE Awards. So that is, for those that know, so some TTRPG awards. It's a big thing in the industry. Caveat, Rust did start up many moons ago, but EMworld hasn't been involved with it since like 2019, 2018? 2018.
2018 yeah so so yeah so other people work very hard on it but anyway so last week we talked about it because there was some controversy online because any stated their ai um policy for you know submitting work that contained ai generated content and things like that so they had a statement saying that
you could submit stuff that had AI-generated content, but you had to declare it, and you would not be eligible for certain award categories. So, for example, if you had AI-generated art in your book, you wouldn't be eligible to be entered for the best artwork category.
So that's...
Kind of what they did. And a lot of people were unhappy about this. It is a brief way to discuss it. I mean, look online if you want to see. It's how the internet works. Yeah. But a lot of people were unhappy about it because AI generated things are a controversial topic in the industry. And a lot of people have a lot of strong opinions about it.
I've actually changed my opinion on this as well.
Oh, really? Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. So... I mean, say what the NEs are doing, and then I'll say what my thought on it is.
Okay, so I guess in response to this feedback, the NEs have said they're going to take a new policy into effect from 2025. So they've listened to everybody, and they've said that pretty much they're not having AI-generated things that won't be eligible to submit for any awards.
Is that a brief summary? If your product contains any AI...
generative ai content in at all the entire product is not eligible yeah and that's to be clear that's generative ai which is different from like a spell check device or something like that yeah so just to just to be which there's yeah there's other tools people have which to technically use ai but that doesn't mean that generative ai so so people have generally
kind of applauded that decision. And generally, as a principal, I agree, because I am very, as you know, anti-generative AI. I think it generates slop, it plagiarizes, it's just slightly off-topic. So, what's a chat GPT company, OpenAI, was complaining that the new Chinese AI app was plagiarizing their work. which I find highly, highly ironic.
There we go.
Yeah.
Haven't they given us out for free as well or something?
The app.
Someone's made... The Chinese one? Yeah.
I don't know.
Someone's made a generative AI thing and made it available for free and apparently it's better. So a lot of people are upset, I heard.
Yeah, no, there's a new Chinese one.
That must be the one, yeah.
Yeah, and they made it for a fraction of the price the open AI made ChatGPT.
Yeah.
And it seems to be as good as or as close to as good as. And then ChatGPT is complaining that this Chinese app has plagiarized their stuff.
Well...
Yeah, karma, I guess.
Anyway, I mean, I don't know what I want to say about that. Anyway, back to the ennies. So your opinion on this has changed, you've said.
Yeah, so the stance now is that if your book, your product contains any AI-generated content, it's not eligible at all for the awards. As an overall goal, I applaud because I don't want AI stuff You know, awards are for people, not for computers.
Yeah.
I don't need to give my Mac an award. Thank you very much. I don't need to give my iPhone an award.
If it hears you saying that, it might shut down mid-livestream. Be careful.
It probably will now. Yeah.
It'll break and be like, oh, I'm not important. Fine then for us.
Yeah, yeah. Well, they are all getting AI now, so I don't know. But as people pointed out in various places online, that can actually inadvertently... hurt artists in certain ways so I'm kind of a mixed opinion now so you're an artist you get contacted by a company to do the cover for their new book And you spend months doing this amazing cover. No AI at all. You paint it.
You do all the, you know.
No generative AI, yeah.
You know, you pour your heart and soul into it. You make the most amazing piece of work. And you cannot wait for this to be entered into the NEs. And you might get an award. And wow, how amazing would that be?
Yeah.
And then suddenly, because the company has put a piece of AI-generated content art inside the book, a bit of AI generated text inside the book, suddenly your art, you are no longer eligible for an award for something that you didn't do. You had no control over.
That's a good point. And that's the thing I'd heard of really.
Yeah. So that could happen. And also there's a lot of situations that we've seen even like Wizards of the Coast get caught out by this, where they find out after the event, that AI art was used and that an artist slipped in some AI. So what happens then? What happens then?
Does everyone get their awards taken away because suddenly someone discovered one of the pieces of art in the book was AI generated?
Well, that I think, that would be about lying.
Did the writers get their awards taken away?
But that, I mean, that same question could be, say if I published a game and I was like, this is mine and I'd actually just stolen someone else's game and copy and pasted it.
Mm-hmm.
So that's true. That could be true for many things, you know. I get what you mean. It's hard because a lot of TTRPG books are a collaboration. It's not always one person. So I guess it will come down to contracts then. So if you are an artist, maybe you put your contract, be like, hey,
Is this product that you're buying my artwork for going to have AI because I'd like it to be eligible for awards? And that could be in the terms like in our terms with our artists, we say we don't want generative AI in our products. So don't give us up with that. And that's in the term.
So and then if they do that and lie and break the terms of contract, well, that's, you know, a legal different matter. Yeah, we're very we're very up to date on our legal lawyer matters.
uh yeah well yeah i mean the um the pushback on that then is if an artist does that and then makes your inner you know your product is now ineligible for awards you've got even more to complain because it's not just a case of having to replace the art and all this sort of stuff or deal with the aftermath of that it's also but you've now made our product ineligible for awards by doing that yeah
So hopefully. I mean, I don't think artists tend to slip things in often.
I don't think so. I don't think that's a common thing. I mean, there is a bit of a thing. You do get an AI witch hunt online. And even we've had it with I was on a post where I was sharing an artist's piece and being like, hey, this is the artist's piece of work that's going in this. And so I was like, I don't want to get it because it's AI generated. And I'm like, well, it's not.
It's by this person. And they're like, no, if you look at it, you can tell it is.
I think there's a problem that there's two problems, actually. One is that people see an imperfection in an art piece and therefore decide it's AI. Like humans, human work never has imperfections.
Yes, of course.
So that's one thing. The second thing is they use these tools and it will go, oh, there's an 89 percent probability that this piece of work was generated by AI. But these tools aren't great.
No, the tools.
It's like loads of false positives.
Even back when I was at university, which was a while ago, we had like an online to turn in your things and they had a scanner on it to check for plagiarism. And it would often scan it. And it used to that because I'd have quotes in because when you're doing a paper, you quote other academic journals and it would be like, oh, this.
And luckily, our professors knew to look at it and go, oh, no, it's picking up that they've quoted. Yeah.
and i had one that was really high percentage because it was an academic journal review so the whole thing is i had 15 academic journals that i was reviewing and commenting on so it was full of quotes and i'll say if i'm quoting it i'm not saying this is my clever idea um but yeah so and i think yeah the ai scanners are exactly the same it's yeah yeah so i don't i don't so you know in the long i don't know what the right answer is to that i think it's a
It's an awkward situation to be in.
It is. It's tricky.
I'm glad I don't have to make that decision anymore.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think with awards, it is tricky. And obviously a lot of people that do that, it's a volunteer driven organization and it's people wanting to celebrate ETRPGs. And I think they're generally trying to do their best and just figure out what the best thing to do is.
Absolutely. I mean, the main reason I stepped away from the awards was after 18 years of it,
like every year there would be something that was out of your control or whatever or and it's just getting shouted at constantly about how corrupt and incompetent you are it just was just too much after 18 years yeah when you're trying to do something nice yeah yeah i'm just trying to do something nice i don't even get any money out of this i don't you know
Yeah. And I think that's what the people running it, I very much, you know, from what I know, the people doing it are very much in the same place as well. It's just, they're just trying to get a chance to celebrate, teach RPG stuff, give people awards and do stuff. And yeah, how nice. Yeah.
But, yeah, no, I'm glad they're not having AI-generated content included in there because I usually go to the NEs to find new games that I haven't heard of. So I use that as a tool definitely to find out people that I might not find otherwise.
It makes a nice short list, doesn't it?
Yeah, absolutely. So, but, yeah. And just a reminder that the NEs, people can vote for people and nominate people, including podcasts and things like that. So... Just so people are aware. Anyway.
Anyway. Right. Do you know what Legacy of Kain is?
I don't, but I've seen it on the news. Oh, I saw it on the news thing and I was like, oh.
It's a video game.
What about this? Oh, that's why you know nothing about it.
But there's going to be a TTRPG of it. Okay. As I understand it, it's about vampire hunters, I
Yes. I'm reading about it now, so I know as much about it as you. Yeah, so you're a vampire hunter, and you're trying to keep a population safe from vampires.
Yeah. Well, let's get in the TTRPG, and it is on back of it right now.
Oh, cool. Oh, it's using the Morkborg system. That's nice.
It's using Morkborg, yes. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
It's doing really well as well. It's, what is it, a quarter of a million pounds, so it's probably about $300,000, I imagine, with a whole month yet to go. So this could be a Approaching million dollar one as well.
Nice. Oh, yeah, that looks really cool. It's got some backer kit, yeah. Very nice, yeah.
Yeah. I don't know about Legacy of Kain to, you know, really talk about it any more than that on a video game. That's it.
Well, the description I've got here is it's a gothic tabletop role playing game set in a grim and murky world of Nosgoth, land of frozen lakes, bitter mountains and deep sunless forests. And you play a warrior priest of this brotherhood who hunt vampires. I mean, that sounds pretty cool. I mean, it's a universal. I kind of I get the vibe of what I'm doing. Nice.
Yeah. It looks gorgeous as well.
Yeah.
It's utterly gorgeous. Who's making it? It's being made by Lost in Cult.
Nice.
Yeah. I don't know them, but Lost in Cult, an award-winning book publisher, creative design studio, and creator of visible things. Yeah.
I mean, that looks very cool. I get why it's doing well.
Yeah.
And I think if you know the game as well, that's probably... Yeah.
So this is going to be like the official encyclopedia of Legacy of Kain as well.
Oh, so it'll be like a coffee table book.
So a two book set, I think.
A law book.
Yeah, I think it's two books, I think. Don't hold me to that.
I will. If you're wrong, I will throw cats at you.
Talking about being sued. Apparently we're not being sued. Put your mind at ease.
Is this referring to last week when we discussed the lawsuit email we got from Evil Genius Games?
Yeah, I had a chat with our lawyers and the outcome, what's the word I'm looking for? Outcome.
Oh, yes. What was wrong with my head there?
The outcome of that was we have nothing to worry about.
Which we kind of knew, yeah. And you've since received an email saying,
lol jk we're not actually gonna see you not those exact words but okay right i was i didn't read it i didn't have okay yeah okay well i've been very worried about it so thank you for confirming to me i keep it worried just haven't slept all week have you it's just been awful that's what you know actually i haven't said that much this week so i've had to go to women work social events for my other half and be a human being and being a human being is so tiring yeah i gave up on that years ago
I know, that's the same. That's why I work with EM Publishing. I just consider home being a TTFPG goblin at my desk by myself.
We're all just goblins.
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.
I am a goblin with a nice watch, at least.
You are a goblin with a nice watch, that is very true. But speaking of throwing cats at you, do you have something feline to share?
When are we throwing cats at you?
I said earlier, just a minute ago, I said, if you are wrong, I'll throw cats at you.
Right. Gotcha. All right. OK. Right. So I spotted this. And really, really, Peter should be here for this.
They would love it. Yeah.
However. It was just us talking about cats, the conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy. Did you get it?
Yes, I do. It's a pun because cat's purr and conspiracy.
Yeah, it's good.
A nice play on words.
It's very clever, yeah. So this is up on that there Kickstarter. It's done very, very well. It's £50,000 so far.
It looks very high production value. Like they've got a nice mat and dice and the book looks nice with like gold. So it looks like a really pretty high quality product as well. So you play a cat.
You're basically like James Bond or something, but you've also got psychic abilities.
Nice.
And you can't let the humans know that the cats really rule the world.
So it's like commentary on real life then?
I guess, possibly, yeah.
Yes. As we know, cats do generally rule the world.
It does really look fun. It does look fun.
I know some people that will really like this. There's a role-playing game. It's like a two-player or solo one called Be a Cat, which is kind of like this without the psychic powers side of it. So nice.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's on Kickstarter. You can book it for the next two weeks. It's from Black Book Editions.
Nice. It looks good. It looks very charming. What system is it?
Is it a system? They're a French company, Black Book Editions.
The answer.
Yeah. What system is it? That's a great question. I'm really glad you asked it.
Good, because it's clear that you know.
I think it's a custom system.
Oh, nice.
Cats have four abilities. four physical abilities, four mental abilities, and luck, and a whole load of skills.
Nice.
There you go. That's all I know. That's all I know. And you wrote D10.
Well, that seems great. How utterly charming. I love that.
Yeah. Yeah, it does look cool.
Some other crowd funders we should shout out, though. PJ's away, but their Backerkit campaign is live right now.
Yeah, it would be really good if we didn't mention it, I guess, wouldn't it?
Yeah. Well, it wouldn't be rude. I'd like to. So A5E, Crafting, Heritages, Cultures and More, Worldbuilding, which they briefly talked about last week and showed some maps and bits from it. So that is live on Backerkit right now.
Funded.
Yes, many times over.
Done 2,200 pounds as a month ago. So I thought it was kind of fun. So you just use a point-based system and you build everything. You build cultures, you build feats, you build things using a point-based system.
Yep. Which makes sense. And so if you want to customize, you know, your own custom heritage and culture for your world using A5E, this is the tool to do that, really.
It's apparently compatible with 2014 and 2024 5E as well.
Oh, nice. So if you like tweaking and having your 5E stuff for your world, this also works. Nice.
Yeah.
And we also would be remiss if we didn't mention our own as well. So the Gate Pass Gazette Annual 2024.
It's the next Thursday, it ends.
Yeah, 6th of February it ends. We've met our stretch goal, so it'll be an offset print run of books, which is great. And, yeah, so, yeah, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention that as well.
Okay. Go back it.
Go back it, yeah.
Not you. You can if you want, but, I mean, for people.
The people of the world, yes. And also the pledge manager for the Monstrous Menagerie 2 has gone out this week as well. So if people miss their opportunity to back Monstrous Menagerie 2 from us, you can do a late pledge option with that. Anyway, that's enough plug in our stuff. Is it time to talk about their D&D?
Oh, we've got National D20 Day.
Oh, I'm afraid you can't tell about that.
It's only in America, apparently. It's National D20 Day.
Well, that's probably because we don't have dice in the UK, Europe, Asia, Africa, Asia, any other part of the world. It's just an American thing.
Apparently it's for TTRPG enthusiasts across the nation. But I guess that means America only, so it's not us. Oh, well.
For those people that are in America, what is it then? Go on. If you're going to share a piece of news, share a piece of news.
Well, it's a holiday for Americans only. And it's to celebrate December the 20th as National D20. It's a proposal to do so, to be fair. It's not been announced by the American government or anything like that.
Oh, I thought it had.
No. It's a proposal to call for TTRPT enthusiasts across the nation, that nation, not our nation, that nation, to come together and recognise December 20th as National D20 Day, a celebration of the iconic 20-sided D20.
Fair enough.
There you go. I don't know whether it will happen or not, but... Why not?
Dice goblins everywhere can celebrate.
Yeah, well, it's a change.org petition. So you go along and sign it. There's 128 signatures on it so far.
Oh, is that a petition you'd need to be in the US to do that, I presume, because it's a national thing?
I don't know. I don't know.
You don't know? I don't know. no one can say this i don't know it's not well researched yeah um it's just a proposal i don't know his petition too is it to the government to make an official one or is it i don't know okay unclear but i suppose you could choose any day to celebrate if you so wished how would you choose to celebrate the day
What, National D20 Day? Yeah. Well, I'd have to go to America first because I'm not allowed to celebrate it here.
Of course, yeah.
It's not like an expensive endeavour. So I'd go to America with a D20 and then when I got to America I'd roll a D20 in America I'd find the biggest D20 I could find in the whole of America and I'd roll that and then The result is going to tell me how my next year until the next National D20 Day is going to be. So if I've got a 20, I'm going to have an amazing year.
If I've got a one, I'm going to have a rubbish year.
Wow.
It's like the Bill Murray thing.
The gopher. Groundhog.
Groundhog. Groundhog Day. Yeah, it's like that.
So it's not the groundhog that comes up and whether or not they appear is whether or not it's going to be a good year.
It's what the big D20 says.
right that's quite grand plans russ i mean for me i was thinking i could just get my collection of dice out and make a video showing everyone all my d20s well if i post it online and beam it to america does that count via the inter network i guess good okay well that's how i'll celebrate should the day officially be uh be named okay Yeah. Is that the end of the news of TTRPGs that is not D&D?
I think it might be. Yes.
Okay.
Yes. So we've got the proper D&D stuff now. Okay. It's quite a lot of it as well.
Well, someone in the comment has suggested for National D20 Day, though, that every December 20th, you roll a D20 and on a one, everyone goes to work that day. And then the other day result, you get a day off work. Yeah. Yeah.
everyone goes to it oh right everyone gets to the oh right i see yeah yeah everyone so the whole world so oh no it's a national event so just the nation that's just america yeah but so everyone in america rolls the g20 if anyone gets a one everyone gets goes to work no i don't know how that works
No, you go roll the massive D20 and decide the fate of the nation.
Or America.
Yeah. I like that suggestion.
All right.
Put it in the petition.
I'll do that.
We'll see if the people sign it.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure they'll go along with that.
Yeah, absolutely. All right. We've got a whole load of Dungeons and or Dragons news because the monster meal is coming out next month.
Yeah.
And so there's a lot of information we get given.
Where should we start, Russ? Let's start at the top. Let's go through it in order we got them here, just because that's easiest.
Okay.
Okay. Number one. Why Dungeons and Dragons isn't putting out a campaign book in 2025? They are kind of.
They want me.
Yeah. So by campaign book, it's like a big hard. Okay.
Oh, like a got it. Got it. Okay.
Yeah. So there isn't one coming out in 2025. And I think that's the first. Is that the first year that hasn't happened? I think it is. Yeah. So just for context, there was a big old press event. at the beginning of the week. And Christian Hoffer from EN World went to this. This was at Wizards headquarters in Seattle in America. And people from various outlets presumably went as well.
our Christian Hopper went and reported on and asked questions and had a sort of a few minutes with various designers and Jeremy Corbyn and people like that as well to ask them questions. So that's where all this comes from. So why D&D isn't putting out a campaign book in 25?
The answer to this was, because it is a question that people have been asking, there is loads of adventure content coming out in 2025. But in this year, it's lots of smaller adventures. So we've got the dragon book, which we're going to talk about in a second, has 10 adventures in it. There's the new starter set, which has an adventure in it.
The Eberron book, which we'll talk about in a minute, has adventure in it, or more than one adventure, I think. The Forgotten Realms book has adventures in it. So there's lots of adventure content coming out this year. Yes. but they're trying out smaller adventures that you can plug into your game rather than one great big massive one. And that doesn't mean to say they're not going to do it again.
Like next year, there might be a great big adventure again. Who knows? That's what they're doing this year.
I think that's good. I think that's how... A lot of people play their D&D campaigns as they have their own worlds and their own stuff and they want content to put in. I mean, most people I know don't. It's quite rare that I see somebody running a full-on campaign, like we're running this campaign module now. I more see people having ideas for their own worlds and their own stories.
So maybe they're just going with what the market wants.
Yeah, maybe. I mean, historically... D and D modules were small. There'd be like 32 page booklets with a sort of DM screen cover wrapped around them.
Oh, okay.
That was the thing. That's what they were.
Yeah.
They weren't great, big hardcover adventure.
Yeah.
In fact, until dragon dance came along, I think the idea of an adventure path is that was kind of the first big adventure path. And even that was like 13 small adventures released sequentially. It wasn't a big hardcover probably got compiled later. I'm sure it did.
Yeah.
Um, But yeah, it's kind of, you know, it's not unprecedented at all. And I used to use those and you grab them and you shove them in your world. You just play this adventure and shove it in there. You might have to change some names or something, but other than that, you just use them like that. Episodic kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Rather than great big long arcs.
Fair enough.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Yeah. But also, Wizards are going to be talking about campaign settings.
Okay.
So we know that this year there's two Forgotten Realms books coming out, a player's guide and an adventure guide. But they've also announced now an Eberron book.
Yes, I have an interest in this because I am in an Eberron campaign, not a 2024 one. We're still using 2014 rules. And I have a character for that. So this piqued my interest to see if there's anything I want to add to my campaign of this.
Well, it's called Eberron, Forge of the... I never know how you're supposed to say it. Artificer or Artificer. Artificer. I don't know. That one.
The mechanic, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It's one of those words that just... Artificer. You never use in life, do you? So you only ever see it written down.
The Artificifer, yes.
Yeah, the Artificifer.
Yeah, the Artificifer.
Yeah.
Them, yeah.
Yeah. So that's coming out in August. Mm-hmm. It's going to include the revised Artificifer class.
Mm-hmm.
It's going to have new backgrounds and feats.
Mm-hmm.
A revised Eberron species. So the ones that we've had before in Eberron Rising from the Last War. And also the new Koravar species. I don't know what a Koravar is. I think it's probably an Eberron thing that people probably do know. But I don't.
I don't.
I don't know what a Koravar is. K-H-O-R-A-V-A-R, it's spelled. So this was by James Wyatt. But also, Eberron designer Keith Baker was involved with this. So Keith is back waiting for Eberron, which is nice. Yeah. Yeah, they haven't said much else about it. We haven't got a cover-up for it either.
We've just got this image, which obviously people listening can't see, but people watching can see it, which has a whole bunch of everyone's characters, basically, including a... Oh, what's the word?
Like a cyber dog, and there's a cool gun, which has a plasma-y bit on, and all looks a bit steampunk.
What is the word for the robot guns? Warforged? Warforged, that's the word, yes. I knew that.
You did know that. It's just Friday. It's been a long week, you know.
Yeah, yeah. And one that looks like Doctor Who, second to the last there. That looks a lot like David Tennant dressed in a trench coat. I don't know. Do you not think?
No. Sorry. Sorry. I mean, in a word. I think I get what you're going for. There's a trench coat. There's also a bow tie, which is, you know, another iteration of the Doctor. But I think he just looks like a steampunk Victorian gent.
Fair enough.
I mean, yeah.
Yeah. Well, that's coming out in August.
Okay. Well, I'll look forward to getting more info on that because, like I say, I'm in a campaign of that that's been going on for a year or so. Yeah.
There's also a mystery book coming out in October.
A mystery book?
They haven't told anyone what it is.
Well, that's ruddy mysterious, isn't it?
We don't know what that is.
Yeah.
Can't guess what it might be. I just haven't even got a vague guess what it could be. Maybe it's going to be like a rule book, like a... Is that what goes with...
Is that one that goes with this art style?
No, that's the dragon book, which we're going to talk about in a sec.
Okay, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'm too excited. So, yeah, it's going to be a mystery book in October. I don't know what it is. There's no possible way to find out.
Well, they'll tell us when they're ready. I'm sure at the moment they're focused on the Monster Manual.
It's like Mission Impossible and, like, break into... Well, you have a James... ...do a thing through the skylight and drop down and hover just behind someone's computer upside down while they're typing on this new book and read the book upside down. And then when they hear you and turn around and wonder what noise it was, you go...
straight up again and they never see you and it'd be amazing well russ you mentioned at the top of the podcast you have a james bond watch now so if anyone at en world is able to do such a thing i believe it will be you so i'm sure the watch has all those features that you just mentioned a really close look it's a nice one it's very nice Can we talk about those dragons, though?
You want to talk about the dragons? Okay.
How about them dragons?
We knew there was going to be a dragon anthology book. Yes. We already knew this, but we didn't know what it was called. We now know what it's called. It's called Dragon Delve. And it's going to have ten short adventures, each of which features a different type of chromatic or metallic dragon. So there's five of each, so I guess one each of those.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, there's a massive amount. The adventures range from level one to 12. Nice. They're quite short. But what's interesting is each of the adventures has a different artist with a different style. And you're putting these up on the screen now. I am.
Yeah.
Because generally, like, Wizards books tend to have quite a similar cohesive style. Yeah.
Like that painterly style that you'll see in all D&D books, especially across 2025. Yeah.
But what they've done this time is they've got 12 different artists, each with an entirely different art style. And each adventure is illustrated differently. So the one that you're throwing up there, it's sort of black and white one. This is like angular green dragon.
This is a much more sort of... Graphical sort of style.
Comic book art kind of style. Is it, I guess? It could be.
But yeah, I mean, if you're listening to the podcast, all of these are on enworld.org, so you can go have a look. But yeah, I was really intrigued. They went this direction of doing a different art style, which I think is interesting and fun. And I really like the art pieces.
I think it's enabling to work with different artists and give them a lot more free reign because there's not that burden of having a cohesive single image, which you get in other books. Yeah, I think it was an interesting choice.
There's going to be an art section in it, because dragon art over the years, the 50-odd years D&D's been around, has changed a lot. Dragons look very, very different to how they used to. So there's going to be an art section showcasing dragon art across the 50 years, which is kind of cool.
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, and dragon is a bit of a catch-all word that means different things in different cultures because most cultures have some sort of dragon situation. Like if you look at the Welsh dragon to a classic Germanic dragon or like a Chinese dragon, they're all quite different. But we all use the term dragon. So it's one of those interesting mythology things. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to that. What else? They talked a bit more about the Forgotten Realms books.
Circle casting.
Yeah, they talked about circle casting. So this is when you got a whole bunch of... Circle casting has existed before.
Yeah, I don't know anything about it. So I was wondering if you could tell me more about what it was like before, because we don't have the full details of what circle casting will look like.
Previously, basically, if you had a whole bunch of spellcasters, they could... It would take them about an hour to cast a spell or whatever. And sort of cast it as a ritual. And basically, they could basically upcast a spell and make it better or make it permanent or, you know, do stuff with the spell.
I love this. I love this concept.
Yeah, yeah. So I don't know exactly what's going to happen with it here. It might be the same or they might have some other sort of way of looking at it. But basically, it used to be just
boosting spells or giving them permanent effects or giving it additional effects or you know so you i don't know like a giant fireball that's like massive i don't know that's a stupid idea that's a stupid example but you know i mean it's like yeah um yeah i mean they did mention in this press conference that um one example was making the spells effects permanent and so temporary which is kind of one of the sort of big ways you can use it
So I guess it's going to be similar to how it was back in 3D. I guess.
I hope so. I mean, I'm intrigued by it. I think it's really nice for world building, the fact that that exists. And I mean, how nice would it be to set up a fight where you're going in to break up the bad guys doing this ritual so you can have this fight going on, trying to interrupt it.
Or even that you're trying to do a ritual or some people, your allies are, and part of this fight scene is you protecting them so that people can't stop it. So I think there's some nice world building and role play moments beyond the mechanical benefits of doing this as well.
Yeah. What else did they talk about? They talked about Heroes of the Borderlands, which is their new starter set.
Yes.
Returns to the Keep in the Borderlands, which is a sort of iconic D&D location going back many, many decades. So it's set after the original Adventure module. Time has passed since that. And they've got this interesting idea, which we've talked about doing this before.
Oh, really? What's this?
They're using tiles. We suggested cards. But using tiles that you mix and match to create a character.
Right, yes.
So we've talked about this before. But it looks like Wizards are actually doing it. So I don't know how this is going to be implemented. But... I guess you sort of like pick a species tile and you pick a class tile and you pick it. Yeah. And that's how that works. Yeah. Sounds cool. I'll be interested to see how they do.
Yeah. It looks interesting. Definitely. Sure.
It was also going to be designed so that multiple DMS can run this game, this adventure, this campaign.
That's nice. Cause it's the starter one you're talking about there. Yeah. It's designed to be. Yeah. Yeah, so that sounds ideal because obviously sometimes you have a group of people and they're like, oh, we all want to try it. None of us have GM, none of us have played. So it really puts the burden on the person that volunteers to be the GM starting out in a group like that.
So I think that's a nice idea that it's like, well, we can take turns and share the load. That sounds good. I like that approach. It seems a smart approach, the way it will be used.
Right, what else do we have? Then we've got the Forgotten Realms books. Those Realms That Have Been Forgotten.
Yes. So we mentioned a bit about the circle casting, but what else do we know?
So there's new backgrounds. There's new feats. There's eight new subclasses, which they previewed in Unearthed Arcana just this week. And these will link to different parts of the Forgotten Realms. And the subclasses are the College of the Moon for the Bard.
Love that.
We've got the Knowledge Domain for the Cleric. You've got the Purple Dragon Knight for the fighter.
That sounds interesting.
So this has changed, actually. So the Purple Dragon Knight, originally the Purple Dragons, it didn't refer to Purple Dragons. It was basically an elite sort of knight in the army of, I think, Cormier or somewhere like that in the Forgotten Realms. Okay. Okay. And they were called the Purple Dragon Knights. And the army were made up of soldiers called the Purple Dragons.
Nice.
So it wasn't actually dragons. However, however, I did look at this subclass. I had a quick glance at it.
Oh, good. Because that's what I was most interested in.
Totally changed it. And it is now about having a companion dragon, an amethyst dragon.
Well, that does sound fun. What is it? Yeah. So as a fighter, you can have like a companion dragon.
Correct. Which wasn't what it was before, but that is what it is now.
That sounds very cool, though.
It's quite a confusing name, otherwise.
Yes, no, definitely. So how does this... Mechanically, what does that mean? You just suspend an action to get your dragon to do a thing? Yeah, probably.
I can't remember. Okay, all right.
Good. Okay, cool. Sorry, when you said you read up on it, I was ready to ask you a question.
I said I glanced at it. I glanced at it.
yeah because i always like because i know people get down on the fighter they're like oh it's the boring class to have but i really enjoy playing a fighter and i think it's nice because like there's loads of like different feats and things you can do and your turns are generally quite full because you get multi-attack and you can get different options to do other things and action search so you can end up doing loads of stuff on one turn and that can make it really fun and strategic so i'm always interested when there's new kind of uh sub subclasses and stuff for a fighter so i'm
I'll read up on that and maybe bring some opinions next week because I haven't read through it yet.
We've also got the Oath of the Noble Genies, which is for the Paladin. We have the Winter Walker for the Ranger, which is kind of like an Icewind Dale themed subclass. We've got the Scion of the Three for the Rogue.
The Skion, I think it's pronounced, isn't it?
It's like scone or scone.
The scone. Okay, the scone.
The scone of the three.
Yeah, the scone of the three. Got it.
Spellfire sorcery. So Spellfire is coming back for the sorcerer.
What's Spellfire? I'm not familiar.
Spellfire was kind of like, it's like the raw magic of the universe.
Oh, dangerous.
Nice. It's happening to like the raw magic. And what you can do is you can absorb spells coming at you and like thing effects back at people, as I recall.
Nice.
Yeah, you can manipulate the raw energy, the magical energy of the universe.
Sounds sassy. I like it.
Yeah. And then finally, we've got the Bladesinger for the wizard.
A Bladesinger. So they can construct a blade and magically stab people with it?
I remember this correctly. An elven fighter mage is what they used to be.
Oh, okay. So it's bringing in like a melee effect with a wizard.
I don't think they're saying that's what it is now. It's just saying it's a wizard that can use a blade and kind of uses the blade in the casting of spells, I guess.
Okay.
I don't know how it's changed from what it used to be.
Cool. We should read up on this. We should read up on this.
So much.
This week has been quite a lot of news on D&D, and we haven't even got to the Monster Manual videos yet, which I have washed.
It's like a fire hose and stuff, but they're washed.
I have washed them, yes. I cleaned the videos, scrubbed them all.
So this Forgotten Realms Adventure Guide, it sort of dives into five different parts of the realms.
Mm-hmm.
So those are the Moonshade Isles, Icewind Dale, the Dale Lands, Calimshan and Baldur's Gate. Got it. And each area will have short adventures associated with it. So the rest of all of that adventure content we were talking about are going to be.
Okay. Yeah.
So that's kind of cool.
Yeah.
Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So circle casting we mentioned, didn't we? Yeah. So, new campaign settings.
Yes.
They haven't announced any new campaign settings.
Okay. I won't get too excited then.
They were kind of talking about Eberron and revisiting Eberron. Jeremy Crawford was talking about revisiting Eberron. And then Jess Lanzillo, who is the VP of the D&D franchise over at Wizards, said that we can really now establish our worlds and settings like the Forgotten Realms, but we're also looking at creating new ones again.
Oh, okay. So it's not just going to be... Okay, that's interesting.
So it says that's something they are working on.
Nice.
So we need to do that Mission Impossible style mission and go and find out what that is.
When you're saying we, it's all you. You've got the watch.
Me?
Yeah, you've got the James Bond watch. I've not got a James Bond watch.
I haven't got a James Bond watch, damn it.
Yeah.
Damn it. I can't argue with that.
It's a burden with great power.
Yeah, the terms and conditions of the contract. I can't get out of them. Exactly. All right. Anyway, anyway, what was I saying?
They're teasing new campaign settings. They haven't told us about it, but they're going to do something new. So we're not just revisiting and reimagining existing places that we know about. They're thinking of innovating and financing.
That's interesting.
I'll be interested to see. What they come up with.
Yeah. I mean, what was the last new setting that they did? Was it... Oh, gosh, I don't know. I think, like, Nintir Vale in D&D 4th edition. I'm going to guess.
Yeah, because a lot of the campaigns from the 5B have been ways to link your planes. Like, there was the... What is that? That Place with Many Doors. I forgot what it's called, that book.
Radiant Citadel. Yeah, the Radiant Citadel.
So it's been places like that which link different realms and things like that. There's been a lot of that happening.
There's three of those, actually, yeah. So there's Radiant Citadel.
Yeah.
There's the Stairway to Heaven, or whatever that was called. What was that one? Stairway to Heaven.
No, I know what you mean. The NeverEnding Staircase.
Yeah. Or whatever it's called, yeah. The Infinite Staircase. Was it the Infinite Staircase?
Infinite Staircase. That's the one.
Close to NeverEnding. The library one as well.
Yes. The heist book is not a heist book. But yeah, a lot of them were linking the idea of linking the realms. And I think that was a way to give people tools and the freedom to explore all the different realms in the worlds within your world. And it'd be consistent and make sense.
Yeah.
But yeah, I'm intrigued to see that they'll have new stuff. I'm interested to see what they think about it. But again, I always come back to a lot of people I know enjoy making their own world and their own lore. So I wonder how needed it is because a lot of people... I mean, coming up with a creative idea in a world is...
you know, it's fun to, it's a fun bit of doing it and having the tools that you need as a GM that support you to, you know, to build that out and the stats and stuff like that is, is I think what people use.
What they need to do is to make it like everyone was like substantially different. an evolved life.
Yes. It's like steampunky and yeah.
Like new iconic kind of, you know, images and new mechanics and things like that. So I think it's going to have to be something like that in that, you know, it couldn't just be a region of forgotten realms. It's got to be something substantially different.
Like a sci-fi theme.
I mean, maybe, I don't know.
You know, that would be, That would be different.
I mean, this is Spelljammer, I suppose, but they haven't done like a Starfinder type thing, have they?
Exactly.
I don't know.
Yeah, we don't know. This is pure speculation on our part because they have not told us. But as soon as we do hear more, we will share it here, dear listener.
Okay. Right. We talked about the movies, didn't we? The potential movies. I think we're kind of done now. There's except for a free adventure that's coming.
Yes, there is, which looks quite cool.
Yeah.
Discuss.
Someone's just asked in the chat there, which is making exodus sci-fi. Yes. Yes, that is correct. But I don't think it's D and D. I don't think it's a D and D setting. Yeah. But yes, Wizards is making... It's a video game, isn't it?
Yeah. So there's an existing world and lore around that.
And they're making a TTRPG to go along with it.
Yeah.
But I don't know enough about it to really comment any further.
That's not in the Dungeons and Dragons universe, multiverse plan thing.
As far as I know. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it is.
We're on the internet. We'll be corrected if we're wrong.
Anyway, so free adventure. Nice. February the 4th, which is what is it today?
Next week. Today is the 31st of January.
Monday or Tuesday?
Today is Friday. Tuesday.
Yeah, so Tuesday this will be. No, I know today's not Tuesday. I wasn't sure.
You've been quite tired today.
Well, yeah. I didn't lose track of days. No, maybe the 4th is Tuesday. Or if you're in the future, it was Tuesday.
Yeah.
Or if it's Tuesday, it's today.
Well, we're giving people the dates, so they'll be able to figure it out if they experience time in a linear fashion.
Okay. So this is going to be a digital-only adventure on D&D Beyond. It's going to be free. As long as you're a registered user of D&D Beyond, you can grab it on February the 4th. And it looks like it features an evil red wizard conspiring to overtake the Western heartlands.
It looks very undead-y zombie-themed as well.
Yeah, it's a single-session adventure, compatible with 2024, compatible with their D&D Beyond Maps stuff. You know, they've got their sort of integrated VTT now. And you can grab that on Tuesday for free.
Yeah.
There we go. That's it. We have now, I think, done the news pretty much apart from those videos, which you have watched and I have not. So you can talk about the videos.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
So what this is, so the Monster Manual, as we talked about, is coming out in February. Is February 18th the official date? I know it's available earlier from friendly local gaming stores. But yeah, we've been getting more and more videos about the new D&D Monster Manual coming out. And they have three videos about the Fae, the Giants, and the Celestials.
I have watched the first two about the Fae and the Giants. And honestly, I didn't... I mean, they didn't give me much more information that I already knew from the press releases and what we said here already on the podcast about it. I think it's basically like a promo.
If you prefer to digest your news via video format, then this is a good way to do that instead of reading because I'd already read a lot of stuff. So, yeah, so they talked about the Fae and obviously a lot of creatures have been reclassified from humanoid to Fae, like the goblins and things like that. And they did acknowledge that some people were unhappy about this because of Hull's person,
with humanoids who can you use that on and there's other spells that specifically target humanoids and then obviously that doesn't count for them anymore they did point out that there are far more humanoid creatures than fey in the in the manual still so it's you know it's not like the whole person spell is now hold no one doesn't work Well, that's not what they said.
But the hold no one spell sounds very sad as well. It sounds like you're cursing someone. Your life will be you will hold no one. It's like you'll be forever alone. They do talk about hags.
To be honest.
okay uh well they talked about hags a lot as well which i like because i do love i do like a hag i you know i relate to them some powerful women just trying to live their lives uh girl bosses if you will um and they talked about this um arch uh hag which sounded really cool so she has
an ability where even if you kill her get her down to zero health she has the ability to kind of get away she's only permanently dead if she has her well i've forgotten the term for it special item that each hag has um if that's near them then they'll be permanently dead but if it's not they won't so it means for the fight you do have to do some like research and it's individual to each hag so it could be you know
whatever their little special item is. So it gives the option to have reoccurring fights, and also they've really gone heavy on the ability of hags to curse people and do things.
Another thing is if your party kills a hag, an arch-hag even, sorry, but doesn't permanently kill her, she's got this vengeful ability where she can curse you, and for as long as she's alive, you have this permanent curse. So it means you'll have to go back and deal with her properly at some point.
That's quite a cool idea.
Yeah, so I like that.
What kind is the curse, did they say?
They didn't say exactly what it was. I think there's a range. There's options so that you can, you know, style your type of fae with that. And they talked about the fae wild and... Yeah. Oh, somebody says it's called an anathema in the comments. Yeah, that's the thing that the hags have. But yeah, so that was quite interesting talking about the fae.
The hag bit jumped out at me because that was what's interesting.
But yeah, and it was kind of, they talked about how the fae wild is quite different and scary and they wanted to bring different elements in, which is why they brought the goblins in and wargs, any kind of animal that was a beast before that has the ability to kind of talk in that way, they've made into a fae because they feel like there's something
fey touched about them and things yeah um but yes that was quite interesting um then they talked a lot about giants and how they've re-approached um them because they wanted to make them feel they're not giant anymore they're still pretty big so they feel big and they feel epic and they talked about the different artwork approaches because like they wanted to make because you know you have different classifications like stone giants and cloud giants they wanted to make their abilities feel more thematic based on where they're from
So it's not just a, you know, a title. And they did a nice thing with the stone giants where they've changed up the artwork because historically they're just like gray slabs that when you think of stone, but in real life stones are all sorts of different colors that you have sandstone and gradient. So the artwork they've made them more like that so that they can blend into the environment.
So you could be, Yeah, so you could have, like, White Cliffs of Dover-style stone giants and stuff.
Like stripy ones, because you get stripy ones, don't you?
Yes, exactly. That was it. So they have, like, gradients that you see on, like, big rock faces. So it means there's more variety within them, so you could make them more suited to your world and campaign. And they've changed up the stat blocks to try and make them feel a bit more epic in certain places and big. So it's like, whoa, this is really a big, colossal thing.
So, yeah, they talked through that. And I haven't had a chance to look at the Celestials video yet.
So that was kind of... Link to all three of them in the show notes though.
Yeah, link to all three in the show notes if you want to have a look. I watched it on 1.5 because for me they were talking a bit slow. But I think that's a me thing and my attention issues more than them. But yeah, there was nice artwork in there.
A lot of the artwork I'd already seen in the written press releases and on the EM World you did a big article with all the artwork we've seen for the Monster Mania so far. So I didn't see any new artwork in there myself.
but it was really interesting to have a look for if you are thinking of getting the monster manual might be worthwhile looking at and they're about like 20 15 minutes long um if you're interested but yeah so i watched those uh i wasn't most intrigued by the fey one which is why i've talked more about it because i find fey wild adventures fun and interesting i like a bit of fey i grew up welsh and you know with uh with welsh folklore around the fey so yeah
hmm you've checked you get a blood test to see if you are in fact fae i am not no they can do that on the nhs you know they'll check whether you're fae it just takes six months on the waiting list or something okay fair enough um yeah right okay i think i think we're done
I think we're done as well. I think that's all the news we have. So, yeah. So next week will be a busy week. We'll have more information, I'm sure, on the Monster Manual. Yeah.
Oh, there's also, awkward to mention, Beth. from ian world wrote her official monster manual review which is on the site it's very long one yes um but it's very in-depth and very good so um we'll stick a link in the show notes to that too yes and that's definitely definitely worth reading yes so that's a real in-depth review because she's got her early review copy of it yes there we go Okay.
Well, on that note, shall we end the show?
Shall we? Shall we go and do the weekend?
We'll go and do the weekend. We'll be back, of course, next week. You can listen to the podcast wherever you're listening to it, if you're listening to it now. And we live stream every Friday at 2pm UK time.
Thank you to those folks who came and watched us live and were in the chat and talked. Yeah.
Yes. But 9am Eastern time is the time we'll be recorded live as well.
I know it's not the best time for America, but...
But we live in the UK. So, yeah.
And if I try to do it, like, at midnight tonight, so it's a good time for the Americans, I'd probably end up getting divorced.
So I prefer not to. That makes sense. That makes sense. Anyway, so shall we head off now so we can go have a weekend? Thank you very much for watching and listening. We'll see you next week. And we will have PJ Coffey back with us then as well.
Yeah. All right. Goodbye, everybody.
Bye-bye.
Sayonara.
All the Tabletop are outplaying us, we aim to amuse and we aim to enthuse, and Morris is unofficial, Tabletop RPG, Chara! Woo, doggy! Ha!