More than 30 playable D&D races will be included in Monsters of the Multiverse
The next Dungeons & Dragons book will bring together 33 previously published races for players to build new characters with. Mordenkainen Presents Monsters of the Multiversewill serve as a supplement to the 5th edition Player’s Handbook, greatly expanding the options available to new players beyond the original nine races. According to principal rules designer Jeremy Crawford, it will also highlight the rich history of some previously overlooked groups.
During a press briefing last week, Crawford noted that lots of attention has been paid to how player character (PC) races are being presented in the book. Not only have designers made accommodations to remove the concept of racial essentialism from PC races, but they have also focused their attention on beefing up the lore as well. One case in point is the lowly goblin.
Goblins have been included several times as a PC race in 5th edition D&D, including in Magic: The Gathering crossovers Plane Shift: Ixalan and Plane Shift: Zendikar, and in Adventure with Muk, a pay-what-you-want supplement sold online to benefit Extra Life. Monsters of the Multiverse will consolidate these versions of playable goblins alongside the monstrous versions of goblins and related goblinoid creatures. Crawford said that it will do so in a way that is setting agnostic (i.e., easily applicable to places other 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.
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“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
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