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.
Wow, I was wondering this to see if the book was worth buying for new races.
Thank you for clarifying this.
Having 2 versions of everything sounds annoying, I'm happy to skip this book to not have to deal with tags. Would be better if there was a toggle in the options to just choose (always show new version/show both).
You're new here aren't you? You clearly weren't around when 3E turned into 3.5E...
Don't worry, they're not. Warforged is one of the setting specific races that isn't getting reprinted in this book, but it's not being dropped.
This is cheap and insulting even by WotC standards.
Yeah I was thinking about maybe selectively picking up a few pieces on here (if anything) instead of getting the whole book
yeh this seems odd. there is some good lore and descriptions in those books. If they stop selling those, then I hope all of the descriptions are coming in the new book as well.
yeh this seems odd. there is some good lore and descriptions in those books. If they stop selling those, then I hope all of the descriptions are coming in the new book as well.
what difference does it makes that its online? DnDbeyond is a online service that is not owned by Wotc and this content is based on a physical book that came out as part of a bundle a while ago.
You are not forced to purchase this new book.
So I’ve seen it said a couple times in the comments. Tome of foes and volo’s guide won’t be availible after this comes out? Can someone link me the source of this?
It was in the Dev Update yesterday. Currently, you have to watch the VOD on Twitch because it hasn't yet been uploaded to YouTube. WotC will not be reprinting those two books and, consequently, D&D Beyond will no longer be able to sell them.
The dragonborn changes came from Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, not this book.
I should have phrased that better I agree. I should have said, that at the moment it's unclear how Mark of, Leonid and Warforge will fit in the publishing scheme of WoTc.
Personally I disagree; I love Kobolds the way they were, especially for building a Rogue.
While some of the changes aren't bad, they feel more like they should be on a variant of the race, rather than a replacement, as most of the new options aren't even remotely similar to the old ones, and without sunlight sensitivity they're arguably not even kobolds anymore.
The fact that new players will be denied access to Volo's Guide entirely means they're IMO losing a vastly superior and more characterful version of the race. Dropping the older books feels like a huge mistake, as players won't even have the choice unless they've already purchased them.
I'm not happy with a lot of the other "monster" race changes; I can't help but feel it's a mistake to offer these as replacement, rather than as variants. For the races that have only received improvements (better natural weapon die, added features, spellcasting under a choice of stats etc.) those are fine, but races with significant changes to what they had should not have been put out as straight replacements, and I'm not happy that the originals are going to be unavailable for people who don't already have them, as I prefer many of them as they were.
Do you happen to know which dev update that was? I try to keep up on those and feel like I missed that.
This FAQ is just repeating the same question and answer.
Q: Will the old stuff stick around?
A: Yes.
So, so glad they made the decision to separate the MMM content from the original. So glad.
The only reason they coexist is so they can get you to pay for the content again. This has nothing to do with preserving the old stuff.
The customer friendly approach would be to give you access to both regardless of whar you purchased on DNDBeyond.
Feels like an evergreen comment.
Not quite, it's addressing the following:
People had a lot of specific questions about this book, so rather than one vague response of "Will the old stuff stick around? Yes", we instead addressed some of the specific questions asked