Mordenkainen, the Lord Mage of Greyhawk, renowned for his seminal piece, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, returns with his second official work, Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. This book summons in one place over 250 monsters and 30 playable races, the greatest number of monsters since the Monster Manual and the most player race options since the Player’s Handbook! Pulling together options previously found in Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, this book will provide a one-stop reference for a vast number of options for your D&D game.
This article was last updated on May 12, 2022.
What's in Monsters of the Multiverse?
The first thing you’ll notice is an array of updated races, some with modified or improved abilities, and some with new ones! Those little kobolds have just become a lot mightier! You'll also find monsters have been improved to make the lives of Dungeon Masters easier when running combat. For example, some monsters have seen changes to streamline spellcasting. Others have received buffs to their damage and resilience to help you better challenge your adventurers. New and updated lore also shifts focus away from any one particular world and instead toward the wider Dungeons & Dragons multiverse. All of this combines to present a variety of options that empower DMs and players to tell the stories they want to tell!
Here, we answer some frequently asked questions about Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse:
- What is going to happen if I own all of the existing content from Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and don't buy Monsters of the Multiverse?
- Will two versions of every monster be maintained on D&D Beyond?
- Will the character races in Monsters of the Multiverse be available in addition to the old versions?
- Will I be able to share older content or access older content in a campaign?
- Will I still have access to a character created using Volo's Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes?
- If I want one of my characters to use the new content in Monsters of the Multiverse, but not another, will that be possible?
- I built an encounter with monsters from my Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Volo's Guide to Monsters purchases. Will that still be usable after May 17 if I don't buy Monsters of the Multiverse?
- Will I have to purchase Monsters of Multiverse on D&D Beyond even if I already own Volo’s Guide to Monsters and/or Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes?
- Can I still buy Volo’s Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes on D&D Beyond?
What is going to happen if I own all of the existing content from Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and don't buy Monsters of the Multiverse?
You won’t need to take any action on older content, as it will not be removed from your account, be hidden from you, or have its statistics changed! You will notice, however, older content being designated as legacy content. For example, a legacy badge (LegacyThis doesn't reflect the latest rules and lore.Learn More) can be seen when navigating to a monster’s statistics page or when hovering over a monster tooltip.
You will also see race naming conventions updated to denote “(Legacy)” on the Races page and a legacy badge appearing next to old subraces on race pages. In the character builder, old races can be identified by the book source shown below their name.
Will two versions of every monster be maintained on D&D Beyond?
If you own the old content and purchase the new content, yes, you will have two different versions of official content. Older content has been designated as legacy content.
Will the character races in Monsters of the Multiverse be available in addition to the old versions?
Character races presented in this new book are new versions of existing character races. Purchasing Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse will not replace older character races, but rather, will provide new ones with updates compared to the originals. If you want to use the new version of the tabaxi, for example, you will need to purchase the new book, or purchase the tabaxi character race from the book’s additional purchase options in our Marketplace.
If you already own a character race that has been updated in the new title, you will continue to have access to them in their current state; that character race will not be changed or updated except to designate it as legacy content.
Will I be able to share older content or access older content in a campaign?
Yes! If you are a Master-tier subscriber and own the older content, you can still share it in new and existing campaigns. Similarly, if you are accessing shared content in a campaign from a Master-tier subscriber, that content will still be accessible.
Will I still have access to a character created using Volo's Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes?
Yes! If you own that book you will still have access to that race and character. Any existing characters will not be changed with the release of Monsters of the Multiverse. Players who purchase Monsters of the Multiverse will be able to update their characters themselves by selecting the new version of a race in the character builder.
If I want one of my characters to use the new content in Monsters of the Multiverse, but not another, will that be possible?
If your Dungeon Master allows it, then yes. If the game hasn’t started yet, this would be perfect to bring up during your session zero.
I built an encounter with monsters from my Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and Volo's Guide to Monsters purchases. Will that still be usable after May 17 if I don't buy Monsters of the Multiverse?
Absolutely! Your previously owned content is not being removed from your account. Your encounter, and the monsters in it, will remain intact. In the Encounters tool, you may notice a legacy badge (LegacyThis doesn't reflect the latest rules and lore.Learn More) appearing next to monsters’ names to identify them as content from older books.
Will I have to purchase Monsters of Multiverse on D&D Beyond even if I already own Volo’s Guide to Monsters and/or Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes?
Whatever book content you already own on each digital platform will still be accessible for your use, and to gain access to both the new and updated content in Monsters of Multiverse, you will need to purchase Monsters of Multiverse.
Can I still buy Volo’s Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes on D&D Beyond?
Starting on May 16, you can acquire the streamlined and up-to-date creatures and character race options, as well as a plethora of exciting new content, by purchasing Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. On May 17, Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes will be discontinued from our digital marketplace.
Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse releases on D&D Beyond on May 16. You can preorder it from the D&D Beyond marketplace.
Davyd is a moderator for D&D Beyond. A Dungeon Master of over fifteen years, he enjoys Marvel movies, writing, and of course running D&D for his friends and family, including partner Steph and his daughter Willow (well, one day). They live with their two cats Asker and Khatleesi in the south of England.
I was hoping one of these volumes would bring back Araneas and Formians. Any idea why 5e doesn't feature those monsters?
Formians are in 5e. Candlekeep mysterious brought them in. Witchlight, if I remember correctly, does too.
Really a terrible move- so much less content. Going to move to a new ttrpg at the rate Wizards is ******* things up and will likely get rid of my subscription.
I hear you, but the issue is also that TTRPGs are not solo games. If the other people at the table want 5e, that's the format we play in.
Will the information in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes that are not stat blocks be included in a future sourcebook release? I know the Monsters of the Multiverse includes all the stat stuff, but what about the lore pieces that appeared before the bestiary? Those gave further insight into the races and overall culture, but the new book doesn't really touch up on that much.
You know as much as anyone about whether it'll happen.
I think almost all of that material was very Forgotten Realms focused. If they ever get around to making an updated FR source book for (what they're currently calling) One D&D, I could see them including at least some of it, but there's so much material to try to cram into a book like that, so maybe not.
But also, I don't think there would be a huge market for such a book, especially with the fan wiki existing. Who would buy it? Enough people to justify making it, over making something else?
So, acknowledging that I don't know any more than you or anyone, I would say... No. It's not coming back in anything new, ever again.
I'm not a fan of the ability score changes, I think they should have left them alone, no need to fix what wasn't broken.
So we just cant use the Tiefling Mephistopheles Bloodline anymore ? I legit only bought the new book for that race/subrace
Also to note. I dont have the legacy content for this book since i had a physical copy.
If you still want to use that Tiefling variant you'll need to create a homebrew copy of the Tiefling race, and then edit the ability scores and spells it grants.
I've created a Custom Tiefling race with most of the old options available, but I'm not sure if I'd be allowed to share it publicly; it doesn't contain any text that should be considered copyright, and these old options have been discontinued. Unfortunately though some spells can't be added to it for public release because they're not part of the SRD/Basic Rules, so armor of agathys for a Levistus tiefling wouldn't be possible.
You cannot share it publicly, but if the two of you are in a campaign together you could send them the URL and if they have a subscription they could add it to their collection even if it isn’t published. And they could do it even if it had those non-SRD spells attached.
I'm a bit unclear on the sharing publicly, or do you just mean with armor of agathys attached? Tieflings are in the SRD/Basic Rules, so a variant should be okay and that's essentially what this would be (though you could use it to build exactly a vanilla Tiefling if you want to for some reason). None of the text is identical to the original except for features with standard text. I have SRD replacements for the non-SRD spells some of the old variants had (e.g- false life instead of armor of agathys).
Definitely feels murky though.
If you had made duplicates of the variants from Volo’s then you couldn’t share it publicly because it’s not your original work. However, if you made up your own variants that’s different.
The idea is for an all-in-one "Custom Tiefling" you can use to build whatever you want; you can see a preliminary version I posted to the forums here with the SRD limitations. Basically it would let you recreate any of the variants (most of the same cantrips/spells are available) but you can also do any other combination of powers, ability scores etc. in line with newer races.
I've done the same with a "Custom Dragonborn" for my groups but I expect that'd be disallowed for public release since it contains options only available in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, but tiefling is harder to judge since the old variants are discontinued, and really they were just spell swaps anyway.
Why I cannot access actual older sourcebook? It does not allow me to go into a chapter. All it does is redirects me to a page where I can buy MoM. Why cant I read the book I purchased?
Because Wizards apparently though it was a good idea to take out the older sourcebook in digital version. Now you can only buy the physical version of the old books. Or buy MoM.
Yep. WOTC incompetent as always in the client services.
If you purchased the books and had access to them previously, you should still have access to them. It's important to double check you didn't have access via content sharing that has since stopped (either because it was disabled, or the person sharing the books has left the campaign they were being shared through). This is a common cause for losing access to books.
If that's not the case, you purchased the books, and you can see the licenses in the marketplace section of My Account, you will need to contact customer support.
It's not gone, it's just no longer available for sale. I just checked, and I can still access both Volo and Mordenkainen on the site just fine. Because I bought them ages ago.
Why replace so many magical bludgening, slashing and piercing damage with force damage ?
Do you hate barbarians ?!
I believe this was done for streamlining purposes, so they no longer had to include the "this creature's weapon attacks are considered magical" feature in the stat block, but yeah, that nerf on the barbarian rage feels a little bit like an oversight. I feel that, if they had intended those creatures to be able to avoid Barb's rage resistance, then they would have made the rage feature specify it only worked against non-magical weapon damage.