Preview: Dungeons & Dragons: Monsters Of The Multiverse 250+ New Creatures Make Life A Lot Easier For DMs

thegamer.com:

Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse feels like a turning point for Dungeons & Dragons. More than just a book that adds a ton of new playable races, monsters, and NPCs, it's setting how Wizards of the Coast wants the game to be for the next few years: open, accessible, and far less fiddly to run for dungeon masters.

While the 33 new and reimagined playable races are an exciting part of this new book, the majority of it is dedicated to hundreds of creatures and NPCs that DMs can slot into their campaigns. According to Wizards, this is the most creatures in a single book outside of the core fifth edition Monster Manual.

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The "Multiverse" part of the title comes from the book not being bound to any specific setting, and so the monsters found inside can come from The Forgotten Realms, Ravnica, Eberron, Theros, or anywhere in between. Like the player races, their appearances here strip them of their original lore – the Catoblepas makes no reference to Theros, for instance. This is meant to be so any DM can put any creature into any other setting and not have to figure out how to make it 'work' in their world.

While many are updated versions of monsters found in other books, there are also several new creatures, like Shadow Mastiff Alphas and a fae dolphin called the Dolphin Delighter. And it's in these where Wizards' goal of making life a lot easier for DMs starts to really take hold.

In older books, one monster may come with instructions on how to modify it to make another, similar one. With Monsters of the Multiverse, that extra mental load is cut out and the variant creatures are just included as creatures. For instance, Shadow Mastiffs appeared in Volo's