Sunday, January 12, 2020

Wildemount Campaign Setting Coming Soon?

With an impending D&D announcement coming soon, it looks like Amazon might have spilled the beans. Surprisingly, given that the last big release was a campaign setting book (Eberron: Rising from the Last War) this appears to be one as well: an apparent Wildemount Campaign Setting book.

If that name doesn't sound familiar to you: Wildemount is the continent on which most of the action of Critical Role's campaign 2 has taken place. Matt Mercer, the series dungeon master, created the world of Exandria for his home game, which then became the setting for Critical Role (given that his home game simply turned into the first "season" of the show.)

The first campaign primarily took place on the continent of Tal'dorei, in the mostly benevolent Empire of Emon. A Tal'dorei Campaign Setting guide book was released in 2017 as a 3rd party release, describing many of the people and organizations that were touched upon in that first campaign.

Wildemount, the setting of the second campaign, is across the ocean from Tal'dorei. In Wildemount, the oppressive but livable Dwendalian Empire dominates much of the continent, while the blasted and cursed lands of Xhorhas to the east are under the control of the Kryn Dynasty - an alliance of "monstrous" races that have been threatening war with the Empire. To the west is a loose confederation of city-states along the Menagerie Coast.

While the Tal'dorei guide (written by James Haeck and Matthew Mercer) was not an official Wizards release, it looks as if the Wildemount one might. Exandria and the Critical Role campaign is already official D&D canon, as events that happen at the end of the campaign are mentioned in Descent into Avernus, but this would truly bring it in as a fully-fledged official D&D setting.

I'm sure Matt Mercer and his players are overjoyed at the notion that it's all official now, but, given how influential Critical Role has been in getting people into D&D, it's hardly surprising that they would be folded into the canon fully.

So with Acquisitions Incorporated and Critical Role now looking pretty official, does that just leave the Adventure Zone?

No comments:

Post a Comment