A new story, a sorta kinda monster book, and Neverwinter on PS4
Once again, I’ve been slacking when it comes to writing about Dungeons & Dragons news. Even arranging time to be the Dungeon Master in a Curse of Strahd campaign has proved difficult lately, but that doesn’t mean I’m not excited about the onslaught of new stuff that Wizards of the Coast is bringing out this year.
At a livestream event in a Hollywood comic shop called Meltdown last Wednesday, I learned a bit about the next storyline, a new Monster Manual-ish book coming soon, Matt Mercer’s (of Critical Role and game voice acting fame) new show. There’s plenty to be excited about while also making you wish you had the free time of a fifteen-year-old.
The next storyline, Storm King’s Thunder, is about King Hekaton, the giant who was in charge of keeping all other giants in their place. His disappointment in giantkind has led to him abandoning his post. Now everything from hill giants to cloud giants are trying to move up in the world, no matter who or what is crushed underfoot. The adventure is for players levels 1-11, will introduce rune magic items, and will be releasing September 6.
Volo’s Guide to Monsters is more exciting to me in that it seems to be a combination of Monster Manual and a lore book. It provides expanded information on monsters we already know about while adding “dozens” of monsters to fifth edition. Also included are new race options, allowing players to be orcs, goblins, and firbolgs. It’ll be releasing November 15.
Matt Mercer’s new eight-episode show on Nerdist.com is called Force Grey: Giant Hunters and will tie into Storm King’s Thunder. The cast includes Ashley Johnson (Ellie from The Last of Us), Jonah Ray (the new host of the upcoming Mystery Science Theater 3000), Utkarsh Ambudkar (The Mindy Project), comedian Shelby Fero, Chris Hardwick (Talking Dead, founder of Nerdist), and Brian Posehn (Nerd Poker). They all had varying degrees of experience with Dungeons & Dragons and the preview adventure we got to watch was highly entertaining, so I’ll probably watch the rest as they release in the coming months.
Oh yeah, and Neverwinter is coming to the PlayStation 4 this summer. Someday I’ll start D&D&Dtoid, and I’ll try to convince Brett to roll some dice with me. Steven won’t do it though; he’s just going to call me a nerd while he talks about books no one cares about and rattle off baseball scores, just like the people who made fun of me in high school.
