More Wildeyed Speculation on the Tasha/Iggwilv Book

 Based on very thin hints, I've constructed a possible new D&D book. So just as a disclaimer/caveat: this is all profoundly speculative. While the hint about Tasha's hideous laughter does seem to strongly imply a book featuring her, we don't even know that it's specifically going to be another in the line of Volo/Xanathar/Mordenkainen.

And of those three, Volo's and Mordenkainen's are primarily monster and playable race books. Only XGTE was a true setting-agnostic sourcebook that focused on player options (though Xanathar's also has fantastic tools for DMs. The encounter-building system is one I've found vastly easier to use than the one provided in the DMG.)

So this could all be nothing. But if we do get another general sourcebook, what might we have in it beside subclasses?

Well, the monster books came with a fair amount of lore, largely building on the types of monsters found within their respective books. Xanathar's, on the other hand, had basically no lore and was all game mechanics.

I think 5E could probably use some more details about its planar settings - we've gotten a number of campaign setting books (though, you know, keep 'em coming. I want Ravenloft, Planescape, and Spelljammer!) But giving us more detail on the planes would be really cool.

In fact, I'd really like some books to flesh out the Inner planes. The Outer Planes are super cool, don't get me wrong, but the sort of gravitation force of the narrative potential of the Nine Hells and the Abyss seems to often leave the other outer planes left out of the fun. And the moral rigidity of the outer planes does inherently make them tougher settings to play in.

If we could get a Shadowfell/Feywild book, I'd be overjoyed. (Honestly, as a closet goth, I'd just freaking love a whole Shadowfell book. I know there was one for 4th Edition, which I've considered getting as a pdf on DM's Guild.)

But if we were to see a more mechanical-focused book, I suspect we might see something else instead:

One of the UAs that came out in the past year or so was a grand revision of existing classes. Various class features and PHB subclasses were revised or expanded. The thing that's tricky about this, of course, is that you're creating an alternate rules system - how does this affect existing characters, and what happens when two Fighters at the table are playing with different systems?

That being said, 5E in general is such a robust system that it'd be nice to see some tweaks to existing classes (Rangers, for example) without having to wait for a whole 6th Edition.

Naturally, a new collection of spells and maybe magic items would be really welcome. I'd actually like to see expanded random magic item tables as well, if possible.

Anyway, I don't know how long we'll have to wait for an official announcement, but if you can't tell from the three posts today, I'm excited.