What's Next for D&D?

 It's been a while since the last Unearthed Arcana article.

UA is typically a strong indicator of what to expect from WotC regarding D&D when it comes to book releases and the like. The Gothic Lineages and Gothic Subclasses came out before Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft was first announced, but as you might have seen on this very blog, we took it as a very strong indication of what we could expect, and we were right!

Now, WotC can be a bit sneaky here - in the Folk of the Feywild Unearthed Arcana, we got preliminary versions of "Rabbitfolk," "Owlfolk," Fairies, and "Hobgoblins of the Feywild." In practice, this wound up referring to character options that would be spread over three different books - Rabbitfolk became the Harrengon found in Wild Beyond the Witchlight along with the Fairies, while Owlfolk became the Owlin of Strixhaven, and the Feywild Hobgoblins were a preview of the revisions that Hobgoblins would get in Monsters of the Multiverse.

Likewise, when we got previews of the revised Dragonborn (including the new Gem dragonborn) we also got a new version of the Kobold, which we've now seen in Monsters of the Multiverse.

As things currently stand, the only announced D&D book that hasn't come out yet is Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep, an Exandria-set adventure book taking place on Marquet (the continent their current, 3rd campaign also takes place on - though 13 episodes in, they haven't left the city of Jrusar yet).

All signs point to a Spelljammer campaign setting sourcebook. Not only have players been asking for this for years (I think the last Spelljammer book came out like 30 years ago) but the most recent Unearthed Arcana, Travelers of the Multiverse, seems to point in that direction, with established Spelljammer races like Autognomes, Giff, and Hadozee showing up.

It's been four months since that UA came out, though, and so I think we're probably due for another one.

Every campaign setting book in 5th Edition has come with new subclasses (for a new class in the case of Eberron). I see no reason for that pattern not to continue, especially in a setting as evocative and genre-bending as Spelljammer.

I think that Spelljammer's science-fiction vibe would lend itself very well to a new Artificer subclass, though I also question whether they'd be willing to print one. Generally, the rule for 5th Edition has been to only ever print content that requires you to have the core rulebooks - any adventure that uses monsters from Volo's or Mordenkainen's, for instance, will include those stat blocks. We saw a very slight bend in this with the inclusion of one spell that Artificers can use in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, but it's not like only they can use it. Thus, I'm skeptical that they'd print a new Artificer subclass unless this hypothetical Spelljammer book also includes the entire class - which isn't unthinkable, but would require a significant number of pages. Whatever other subclasses they would print I have no real clue.

Another thing to consider is what might be hiding out in the Travelers of the Multiverse UA.

Consider this: Spelljammer, while otherworldly, still takes place in the Prime Material Plane - essentially the same universe that houses the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Exandria, etc. Even if you're jetting through the phlogiston, traveling to distant worlds, you're still not traveling the "multiverse" per se.

Next, let's look at Astral Elves. Elves, man, they get everywhere, and they seem to come in a different shape for every place they appear. Astral Elves are inhabitants of the Astral Plane (sometimes referred to as the Astral Sea). The Astral Plane is decidedly not the Prime Material Plane. Indeed, it functions mostly to link the various Outer Planes (e.g., Mount Celestia, the Abyss, Mechanus, etc.) While Spelljammer does involve your traveling between worlds, you do not travel between planes (at least by established lore). Thus, the Astral Elves are an odd inclusion amongst a bunch of clear Spelljammer races.

Which suggests to me that perhaps this UA is pulling double-duty - there may be interlopers amongst the Spelljammer-specific races. In a similar vein, the Thri-kreen are one of the notable playable races from Dark Sun, a setting that was very popular in the 1990s - a sort of dystopian desert world inspired in part by Dune along with Conan the Barbarian (to be fair, D&D in total was partially inspired by Conan the Barbarian). Now, the DM of my Spelljammer game says that Thri-kreen are also established as a Spelljammer race, so this might be irrelevant, but I think it's still worth thinking about.

Anyway, I think we're due for another UA article. Hope we see one soon.