New D&D book includes more than 30 playable races

The next Dungeons & Dragons book will bring together 33 previously published races for players to build new characters with. Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiverse This supplement will be available in the 5th Edition Player’s HandbookThis will greatly expand the possibilities for new players, beyond those of the nine original races. Jeremy Crawford, principal rules designer, said that it would also bring out the rich history of other previously unexplored groups.

Crawford mentioned that a lot of thought has gone into how the PC races were presented during a briefing last week. Designers have made adjustments to eliminate the notion of racial essenceism from PC race, and they also have focused on improving the lore. Lowly goblins are a good example.

Goblins have been included several times as a PC race in 5th edition D&D, including in The Gathering: Magic and the Gathering crossovers Plane Shift: Ixalan Plane Shift: Zendikar,And in Muk is your Adventure PartnerExtra Life offers a Pay-What-You-Want Supplement called. Monsters of the MultiverseThese versions will be combined with the monstrous goblin versions and other goblinoid creatures. Crawford claimed that it would do this in an agnostic manner, which means that it is easily transferable to other locations than the Forgotten Realms. But it will also tease apart bits of lore that go all the way back to the earliest days of D&D.

“Those of you who know sort of the deep goblin lore know that they’ve often been associated with a god named Maglubiyet,” Crawford said. “But going all the way back to first edition D&D, it’s always been clear that Maglubiyet actually conquered the goblinoids and was not their original godly ancestor. […] There’s always been this sort of implication that goblinoids had a prehistory, that they were from somewhere else, that they had different gods.”

Monsters of the MultiverseCrawford stated that Wizards of the Coast used the occasion to explain the complete and detailed history of the goblinoids. They’ll explain how Fae were created, Maglubiyet conquered them and how they became a force for evil all over the universe.

“This also allows us to talk about the fact that there are still many goblinoids in the multiverse who remember their roots and who were not a part of this gods’ story,” Crawford said. “They have their own story.”

If that addition to D&D’s 5th edition canon feels familiar, that’s because Wizards and author R.A. Salvatore took a similar tack with the drow just last year. This novel Starlight Enclave reimagines Drizzt Do’Urden’s ancestors as just one of several branches of the drow family tree. The creation of the Aevendrow and the Lorendrow effectively retcons D&D’s official lore to allow for dark elves with far more varied — and peaceable — backgrounds.

Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the MultiverseThe film will be released as part of the three-volume physical product, called Dungeons & Dragons Rules Expansion Gift Set. This book costs $169.99. It will be on sale Jan. 25, at 11:59 a.m. The stand-alone book is available for pre-order and will arrive on May 17, both physically and for digital platforms like Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, and D&D Beyond.

Here’s a full list of all the PC races included in the book: