Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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With the new Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and Ravenloft books and the possible Dark Sun book coming later this year what other 5.5 setting books do you think are next and what species and subclasses should be in them?
I want something new. A world I never knew of. Lore so unlike what has come before that I can't help pour over all new details for years to find new hints and secrets..... But that takes, I am not gonna ask for that soon. Just going to wait and dream.
For more near future hopes,
If they are staying Classic, maybe a more fleshed out Nentir Veil.
if they pull from MTG Phyrexia.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
I would love something Japanese themed, but honestly anything that moves away from a European design would be nice.
Wizards has mentioned a few times they are working on collaborations with Luke Gygax on Greyhawk content. The exact nature of those projects is yet to be revealed, but I think it is very likely a Greyhawk sourcebook is in the pipeline.
I would also not be surprised to see a new campaign setting produced, or a setting like Godsbreath that has appeared in official content, but not in a fleshed out manner. One of the self-admitted problems of the old D&D team was their personal bias toward European fantasy and the risk that posed to the game stagnating. The new D&D team is full of people who are incredibly talented game designers, many of whom have a background creating worlds from a different lens than Eurocentric.
It seems obvious Wizards want to take full advantage of the impressive talent pool and diverse backgrounds they just hired. I sincerely hope that is the direction they will go and we will get a mix of classic planes like Greyhawk interspersed with new (or mostly new) planes with their own unique identity.,
If there is a new setting my bet would be for Witchlight.
I remember to have read something about a Japanese team designing a new setting according the preferences of Japanese market, althoutgh a Western culture look, not like Kara-Tur.
If there is a Dark Sun update the future PC species would be the "mulzhennedar" (half-dwarf offspring), the tari(ratfolk) or even a reskinned version of the viashino (reptilian humanoids from Magic: the Gathering). Athasian genasies (ember, magma, sand and sun) could be interesting.
While I want Dark Sun, I think they will be including it with the Arcane books release, and it wont be a setting book but a possible setting in the listing much like our new Ravenloft book lists other domains of dread.
As for other past settings... I have a few I would love to see, but WotC needs to be careful how they do them, ie other regions on Toril which are based on Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Central America. The issue was those origanal settings when made during TSR days were written by white people using sterotypes of those regions. While they did try and be respectful, they failed spectacularly. Those settings need to be reboot, but they need to be written by people who grew up in the cultures they are based on.
Much like Dark Sun, it's not easy to make them fit in today espically when D&D is being sold as an all ages hobby. Dark Sun was full 18+ as a setting, and for them to do it justice it would need to be 18+, and treated with the proper deference as to not be harmful or abusive. ie we will get a name drop and stuff from Dark Sun, but no story and no actual Dark Sun book.
Other than that, Gamma World should be brought back.
They have all but confirmed we are getting a Dark Sun book later this year. Psion Class and subclasses like “Sorcerer King Patron” Warlock are all in playtest content. The unannounced Q4 product is in the “Season of Champions”, which seems a very overt reference to the Champions of Rajaat, foundational characters to the setting. Not to mention the new design team is filled with people who are not shy about tackling more complex, dark, and mature settings.
I think, based on the current information, the chances the Q4 book is not Dark Sun are very, very small.
I will also note, all Domains of Dread are part of the setting Ravenloft. Ravenloft is the setting as a whole - the domains are the sublocations.
Wilds Beyond the Witchlight is not a setting, it's an adventure set in the Feywild and we've had nothing to suggest any fey themed expansion
How can they reskin an option we never had? Viashino were in the Ravnica UA but dropped in favor the approach of reskinning lizardfolk. So no, that's not happening lol
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The Birthright setting was my favorite and I would love to see a new take on it or at least something conceptually similar: less common but very powerful magic, bloodline abilities, abominations who dominate or rule entire regions, smaller realms contesting for a bigger crown to drive political campaigns, and optional rules for people who want to run domains of all kinds including landed baronies, temples, guilds, and magical holdings.
The Runeterra world that the Arcane Netflix series and the League of Legends video game are set in seems to have a lot of lore. If WotC partnered with an existing IP I think that would be very interesting.
The Greyhawk setting I have nostalgia for and will probably buy assuming a full world guide comes out, but it's not much different from the Forgotten Realms in feel (I'd probably use them together, placing the Greyhawk continent on the opposite side of the world from Faerun). GnollitAll's callout for something totally new could be amazing, but it also could be something like Eberron which obviously has a pretty big following but is not my vibe.
I like Birthright, but i think
would be more interesting to relaunch it as a board game or a wargame before releasing the setting itself.
I'm trying to manage my excitement for Dark Sun. I've been wanting it for so long that I don't want to get too excited before I click a "pre-order now" button. Aside from that and the upcoming Greyhawk stuff, I'd love to see an expansion on the locations and themes that were established in Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel.
Other than that, I would absolutely love to see a setting book for the Oxventure Guild folk horror setting Wyrdwood. I really like the world Johnny Chiodini put together and the frightening, stressful spin on wild magic they cooked up. They do great at bringing it to life when they DM for the folks at Outside Xbox and Outside Xtra, too. But when it airs sometime this year, season 3 is going to be the finale, but I really want to enjoy that world longer.
Witchlight now is only one module but let's remember Ravenloft started like this, being only one adventure.
Birthright could be perfect for romantasy novels and strategy videogames but the special rules about bloodlines could need a lot of playtesting and feedback. Maybe there will be an advanced optional system for players who were using VTT or a tablet, allowing more complicated rules but not slower
If there are "crossovers" or "collabs" I suspect the main candidates are "World of Warcraft", "Hyrule/Legend of Zelda" and "Runeterra/League of Legends". A D&D version of "Dragon Quest" shouldn't be impossible.
Honestly, I'd prefer they don't try to draw from IRL cultures themselves so much as some the narrative forms from those cultures/regions. Writing a setting based on something like Wuxia tropes and conventions would probably serve as a better starting point than trying to work from a more grounded historical frame of reference.
Honestly, I think publishers focusing on that sort of culture specific thing should be "Not North Americans" to give it a real honest delivery. Which is why if you want that sort of thing, there's 3rd party settings like Obijimas already on D&D Beyond.
On the topic:
Personally, I don't want WotC to make a new setting. They have Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk for the medieval fantasy, Eberron for the arcane pulp noir, Ravenloft for horror, Dark Sun (eventually) for the apocalypse world. They have the MTG settings, Ravnica and Strixhaven. They have the cultural appropriation settings they hesitate to touch like Kara-Tur, Al Qadim and Maztica (though technically FR). They even have the redheaded stepchild, Mystara.
What I really want is more deep dives into existing settings. A Dalelands book, a eastern Sea of Fallen Stars book (Thay, Mulhorand, Thesk Algarond), a Xend'rik book or a Mournlands book. We just got a Domains of Dread book for Ravenloft. Update the lore of these places deeper than a whole setting overview.
And the other thing is more setting-agnostic stuff. Like a Martial book that's focused on more martial subclasses, feats, equipment and magical items. I'm hoping we'll get something like that for the Arcane season and the Champions season.
And the final thing I really want to see is a "Homebrew Bible". A guide to how to build monsters, how to build magic, how to build subclasses or feats. Though I expect that if they're building that, it won't be out until after the Game Engine Rebuild has settled, and they've had time to build up the Homebrew tools on the site to support it.
Obijimas is ok if you want the Ghibli version of a D&D setting. I would like something a bit less whimsical as reprisentation of my heritage, but thanks for the suggestion.
It’s not on DnD Beyond (yet) but Ryoko’s Guide to the Yokai Realms seems like a good solution
Solution to what? This thread is speculating about potential future official setting books?
I think maybe there's a trend of giving existing setting books the 5.5 treatment—we've had Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and Ravenloft. That only leaves Dragonlance (I don't think we'll get 5.5 versions of Wildemount and the MtG settings). Outside that, I do think there's a good chance we'll get Dark Sun based on the UA we've had. However, it's also possible we get a planar-themed Tasha's style book where the options are taken from various planes and that's as much Dark Sun as we get.
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That's fair for what it is. But the main point was 3rd party publishers who are better at culture specific settings, should probably handle those.
For example:
Wil not happen, but i want a Nerath book, war a expansion of the various settings from Radiant Cidadel
I have to strongly disagree with this on a few points.
For the first point, there appears to be a bit of an unfair, unintentional implication that WotC staff, as North Americans, cannot produce an “honest delivery.” This discounts the fact that Wizards has fostered a more diverse team, and implies that folks like first and second generation immigrants cannot create an authentic delivery of the cultures that they grew up in.
Additionally, Wizards has shown a lot of willingness recently to subcontract in third party developers from other cultures to work on books of this nature. One of my favorite parts of Radiant Cotadel’s marketing push was getting to read blurbs from non-Wizards developers talking about how they adapted and modified their cultures for D&D and fantasy. And it turned out great - that book was fantastic, won a bunch of awards, and a number of the multicultural third party authors now work for Wizards.
Second, I think what a lot of people here want is non-European content. There is a lot of “North American” content that would fit that description. Newly hired Erin Roberts made Godsbreath, which was used in Radiant Citadel. That setting explored her Southern African American culture, drawing on cultural history in places like New Orleans or her ancestors’ enslavement on plantations. There are a whole bunch of Native American cultures that have their own fascinating lore and stories to explore - something Wizards has, unfortunately, been reluctant to touch on either in D&D or Magic. Mexico also has a rich, diverse, and ancient culture that we saw some hints of in Radiant Citadel, but which would be neat to flesh out further.
Finally, and most importantly, visibility in official content matters. When “official” is nearly synonymous with “European”, that gives a false impression that European D&D is the “right” way to play the game. It also feeds into the perceptions of a very certain type of player that D&D is for them, not for everyone.
I am all for third party content picking up gaps in what Wizards provides, and I am glad Wizards is willing to platform creators on Beyond (though I will note they have nearly exclusively platforms European content). But official content has more gravitas and sets what the core game looks like. As things presently stand, the core game says “if you are of a different culture and want to explore that culture, you can still play, you just can’t find anything within our content that speaks to you” and that is a failing on Wizards’ part.