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.
With the race variants for MotM being distinct from the pre-existing versions, why was this not done to the Warforged? There were distinct variations in the Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron and Rising From the Last War, but the version from Wayfinder's has been changed to reflect a singular race.
Utterly destroyed by the spoiler on the first paragraph
"Mordenkainen, the Lord Mage of Greyhawk, the Mad Mage of Mount Baratok"
We faced him recently and he fled, now it was spoiled to be Mordenkainen?!
I had another strahd secret spoiled for me via an article too.
The feathered ones. Our dm changed Mordekainen to another mage.
So when I had it spoiled he was like “it’s not him”
can you guys add to this a clear up about these rumors that VGM and MToF won't be sold anymore? Is it true, why DDB can't sell the digital versions, how I can personally complain to WotC about their garbage decisions, etc.
I am so very sorry for this, I can't apologise enough. DM long enough and things just stick in your head without remembering where they come from, or that they can be spoilers. I can only apologise profusely for any detriment I may have caused to your game experiences, and now that the moment I saw these comments I pushed through an edit to the article.
Thank you very much. It’s easy to forget that older campaigns are still being started by new groups. I greatly appreciate you hearing us and making a change to the article.
I only see this as a plus, versatility and options for different monsters. A bit of flavor to the overall world!
Very helpful! Thank you.
As far as I can tell Monsters of the Multiverse has debuffed player races and buffed monsters, so I conclude that no self-respecting player or DM would ever buy it.
Did you even read the races? Most are buffed. Especially the shadar-kai.
To be fair, most of the player races have been buffed.
The problems for me are that they've also made major changes to certain races but are not presenting those significant changes as variants of the race; while the new Kobold may be slightly better overall than the Volo's Guide version, I don't think it's going to be nearly as characterful or fun to play (the Volo's Guide Kobold can be a challenge to play, but a fun challenge, and one of my favourite Rogues). They've stripped back parts of the Kenku, along with other "monster" races who had more fun and characterful features in their previous versions.
The other problem is the borderline racist "anti-racism" bent they're currently on; they've been excising the established culture and characteristics of various races in a drive to make them "better" versions of themselves, which strikes me as all kinds of wrong. By all means rename features that imply any kind of natural tendency towards evil, make clearer that suggested alignments are exactly that, add new cultural backgrounds to choose from and so-on, but getting rid of alignment, age, height and weight entirely, and then going over every feature with a magical glitter filter so that complex races become happy jolly cartoon parodies of themselves strikes me as all kinds of tone deaf.
But yeah, the worst part is the loss of fun mechanics that they've just tossed away and are now telling us "you were wrong to enjoy playing this race before, here's the version you must now play". And for the record I have never played a "monster" race as properly evil; mine have almost always been good, or no more "evil" than my human characters can be (my most "evil" is my Kobold but really he's just a little pain in the arse who reacts poorly when caught). Approaching the game as "I am an orc, therefore I'm evil" has never appealed to me, and I've never needed to be cajoled into that viewpoint, and I feel like by trying to force that view they're stripping away a lot of characterful flavour and features in the process.
Used to be if you wanted to quickly build a character you could just go with the alignment, average height, weight and age on the race and you were done unless you wanted to tweak something; now either every character is basically identical or you've got to do some outside research to figure out what your character's physical characteristics are, or it's an extra burden on the DM who has to decide your physical characteristics for you if height, weight or age come up (which they weirdly do a lot, in my experience).
On a mostly related note, but can anyone confirm whether the Minotaur horn attack has been increased to d8 or not? Rumours said it was going to be, but then I couldn't find anything about that change actually being implemented in any of the leaks, only that they're now maybe classed as fey (which seems weird)? Even if I don't like the trends, I'll still balance my own races against them (while stubbornly keeping alignment, height etc.).
The minotaur still has 1d6 + strength for their horns. I would post a picture of it, but I'm not sure if that is against the rules of the site since the book hasn't been released to everyone yet.
That's fine, don't risk getting in trouble, I'm happy to believe you. Thanks!
Its because the new book is basically just both old books combined. Seeing how upset some people are they certainly don't want someone to buy both old books then learn they only needed the new one. There would be a lot of refund, outrage, and complaints.
The problem with that is that there are now going to be unique versions of some races in those old books that now won't be available at all; I much prefer the Volo's Guide Kobolds to what I've seen of the new version. It should have been a variant alongside a slight update of the old rules, as the old ones are a fun challenge to play and so much more characterful than the new "build-your-own-small-dragonborn".
They (Wizards of the Coast) are not avoiding complaints, they're just creating different ones; the updates could have been handled so much better.
I for one am looking forward to having multiple versions of the same races. Tribes from various locations can be of the same race and yet be vastly different. What I do hope, is that WotC doesn't drop the ball by totally removing the cultural factor. I can see separating it from race. A half-orc raised by dwarves should have some dwarven influences, while one raised by elves would have different cultural influences. These go beyond well personal backgrounds.
To put it in modern day terms, someone who has the entertainer background and was raised by a wealthy family in Boston is going to have vastly different skills than someone who grew up on a dairy farm in Ohio. An entertainer coming from New Orleans is likewise going to have vastly different skills than someone raised by hunting guides in Montana. Four very different cultures, same background. The first is likely proficient with history as Boston is saturated with it. The second would certainly have animal handling. The third could have most any skills, but is far more likely to know arcana than any of the others. The last would certainly know survival. Personal backgrounds are separate from race and cultural backgrounds. Removing culture makes no sense, but separating it from race could.
I think they could use the word "updated" if they included ALL the races, not hand pick the ones they did. That's the biggest reason I will not be purchasing this book, because the races from this MotM are way OP compared to the races they left out. Not sure what WotC was thinking on that choice, but it looks pretty dumb.
Same
I'm interested how they implement this from a Homebrew perspective. I tried building out the MoM Kobold and had to, or felt I had to as I couldn't find any other way, use the Origin Manager to work around the "Kobold Legacy" Trait. Will we see these new races builds as duplicatable in the homebrew Creator?
You can quite literally use the homebrew option to use them on dnd beyond