With Multiple Creature Types, Should We Re-Examine Existing Races?

 In Magic: the Gathering, creature types mostly started as a kind of flavor thing - the Old Man of the Sea from Arabian Nights (the game's first expansion, based on the real-world folktales from the Middle East) had the type-line "Summon Marid," which told you that this was actually some non-human monster, not just a spindly old man. Over the course of the game's evolution, creature types have become a much more regulated thing, eventually seeing a massive errata to older cards to introduce, for example, the "human" creature type, and also to create a convention of humanoid races having a "race" and a "class" creature type - something that might have previously been "summon knight" now said "creature - human knight." These creature types don't have any inherent rules (once they introduced the keyword "defender" that took the "can't attack" element out of the "wall" creature type and when they shifted "legendary" to be a supertype that replaced the old "legend" creature type) but they allow particular cards to care about those types - your Goblin King gets to buff any creatures with the Goblin creature type.

In D&D, there are types that serve a similar function: fiends are creatures that come from the lower planes, undead are any creatures that used to be alive but are now in some sort of living-death (whether they're ghosts or zombies, etc.) and beasts represent animals that are not inherently magical, but are just part of the natural world but don't have the sophisticated intelligence to have a culture or society as we'd recognize it.

Humanoid, then, is the default creature type for playable races. There are a handful of exceptions - Centaurs and Satyrs, who were introduced in D&D's forays into MTG settings, are Fey rather than Humanoid.

But there are some places where this distinction seems a bit odd. For example, probably the most iconic race from Eberron is the Warforged, which are artificial people who are made of metal, wood, and leather, but granted full intelligence, sentience and a soul. In a lot of ways, the story of the Warforged in Eberron is their need to convince the other peoples of the world of their own humanity, and the justified-if-taking-things-too-far machinations of Warforged separatist leader, the Lord of Blades is an example of one person who is fighting back against the other races that have denied them for so long.

Humanoid, thus, makes sense as a kind of declaration by the game that yes, these people are really people, even if they were created in a forge rather than born. But they are very Construct-like humanoids. However, prior to the latest Unearthed Arcana, no creature could have more than one type. (We can get to non-player creatures too - Dracoliches, for example.)

Mechanically, though, it also makes sense to have them as humanoids, given that many healing spells like Cure Wounds don't work on Constructs or Undead. It would be a major penalty for a player character to be unable to receive that sort of healing.

So while the way that it's actually worded would suggest, to me, that having either of those types would disqualify you, the wording of the rules for multiple creature types in the UA article explicitly declare that a creature of both creature types can benefit as if it were either of them - in other words, yes, Cure Wound can't work on a Construct, but if a being is both a Construct and a Humanoid, Cure Wounds can work on them because it works on humanoids (another way to think of it is that it's not that it doesn't work on undead and constructs, but that it works on all creatures other than undead and constructs. If you're humanoid and construct, it means you are a creature type other than constructs or undead.)

Given this, I think we could play around with various races and their creature types.

How far to go with this, is, I think a question of balance and lore, but going through all the official 5e races, let's consider what we have to work with (note, I'm going to cover "bestial races" after the rest.)

PHB:

Tieflings could be both Fiend and Humanoid, which would also create the possibility for good-aligned fiends (if we have evil-aligned celestials, surely the opposite could exist.)

Dragonborn could be both Humanoids and Dragon.

Elemental Evil Player's Companion:

Genasi could be Elemental and Humanoid.

Goliaths could be Giant and Humanoid (consider that in Norse myth, the Jotuns were not always explicitly that large.)

Volo's:

Aasimar could be both Humanoid and Celestial

Mordenkainen:

Some elf subraces (or maybe all elves?) could be Fey and Humanoid

Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica:

Perhaps Centaurs could be both Fey and Humanoid (though it's odd to me that they're Fey when in the Monster Manual, Centaurs are considered Monstrosities.)

Minotaurs could be Humanoids and Monstrosities.

Mythic Odysseys of Theros:

Like Centaurs, perhaps Satyrs could get the Humanoid tag along with the Fey one.

Eberron: Rising from the Last War:

Warforged, naturally, could be Constructs and Humanoids.

Kalashtar might even be both Aberrations and Humanoids (while they're not merged with the evil, nightmare quori, they are merged with dream-beings, and we know that there are some good-aligned aberrations, like Flumphs).

Changelings could be Humanoid and Monstrosity, to link up with the MM's Doppelgangers.

Now, the big category is Beast-like humanoids. This would include Tortles, Aarakocra, Kenku, Tabaxi, Lizardfolk, Leonin, Loxodons, and possibly Shifters (though they're a bit different). Arguably, Minotaurs could fit here as well, though their status as a classical Greek monster sort of put them more in the Monstrosity side of things, as I see it.

I think this last one (again, maybe not counting Shifters) is a bit tricky. For instance, while you and I would see an Aarakocra or a Kenku as a "bird-person," just seeing avian features on a humanoid body, I could imagine that they would look at humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings and think of us as "ape-people," as that's technically what we are.

Indeed, the distinction between Beast and Humanoid is a particularly tricky one, as on a biological level, the humans upon which "humanoid" is based are, after all, just particularly smart apes. So, I'd be tempted to actually step back from this one and say that even if they have animal-like features, the various "beast-men" races are still, fundamentally, humanoids. Indeed, it might be that the very fact that they exhibit humanoid traits that makes them not beasts. (Let's also consider that some of these changes are intended to remedy ingrained racism within D&D's use of race as a game mechanic, and historically, classifying a group of people as "beasts" or "animals" has been, you know, a tactic to dehumanize them.)

I'd also allow that the use of hybrid creature types in these Gothic Lineages is meant to evoke the horror of being trapped between two realities - that the identity crisis of a Dhampir or Reborn, for instance, is central to their character, while the Warforged are fighting to be recognized as full humanoids in their setting.

But it does raise some interesting possibilities for the future of the game that I'd like to explore.

Lineages and a Separation of Nature from Culture

 The new Gothic Lineages UA is the sort of ambitious rules shake-up I get super excited for. Additionally, it has the hallmark of any good D&D supplement - it gets my mind racing with possibilities.

To jump over to the other most commonly written-about game on this blog, in World of Warcraft, two of my favorite playable races are the Undead and the Worgen. For those who are unfamiliar, Worgen are basically Warcraft's werewolves (though unlike werewolves, their wolf-hybrid form is their default, and which they cannot stay out of when in dangerous situations - i.e. combat.)

Both of these races are, in a way, human (there are actually now two "human" races, as they recently added "Kul Tirans" as a playable race, which is just another nation, though there's some hints that the big, burly Kul Tirans might have mixed ancestry with the ancient human ancestors known as the vrykul - I'm getting off topic here). Indeed, the two races' struggles with their humanity and to what extent they wish to retain it (generally the Worgen, being part of the Alliance, are more pro-human, while the Undead, being in the Horde, are more about leaving it behind).

Of course, in WoW's mechanics, all four of the "human" races are just mechanically separate options you pick at character creation.

Up until now, I've sort of wondered how I could, say, re-create my Undead Rogue in D&D. The class is pretty simple (I think Mastermind would be the most appropriate subclass for his personality) but the race is tricky outside of homebrew.

But then, how would you do a playable undead race?

Well, they just did: Reborn.

Therefore, Darsino Aligheri, could easily inherit the human cultural (and in one case physiological) traits associated with humans (which, to be fair, are not many). He'd be medium in size and then get the various things that Reborn get, and indeed, the "used to be the undead minion of a necromancer" fits pretty well with the concept of the Undead in World of Warcraft - that they are former members of the Undead Scourge who regained their free will after an attack on the Lich King.

WotC has been talking about how they're changing the approach to race in their games. I think in part this is a response to some of the problematic implications of things like Orcs having a penalty to intelligence (even though there are no real Orcs to be offended, there are plenty of peoples who have been historically disparaged as being less intelligent, which is often used as an excuse to treat said peoples inhumanely.)

There is also an argument to be made from a gameplay perspective, though: with the older rules in the PHB, you'd be suboptimal playing an Elf Barbarian, Paladin, or Strength-based Fighter, given that they don't get any bonuses to Strength. While I think that people who are willing to play a character based purely on the concept and just roll (literally) with whatever implications that has for the mechanics are great, I've certainly found myself torn a bit between a race I want to play for the flavor and one that would fit the mechanics best.

With the new changes to how ability score bonuses work, I'm eager to see more Half Orc Wizards and Gnome Barbarians.

But I think what I really enjoy about the new changes is the recognition that race has always carried two connected by separate ideas: physiology and cultural identity. One of the differences between our world and a fantasy world like those found in D&D is that in our world, there's only one humanoid race: humans. While we have many different cultures, and some of us look different from one another, humans are, at a physiological level, basically all the same. But in a D&D world, there are creatures like tieflings, who have horns, and lizardfolk, who have reptillian scales and teeth. There is a level at which this would fundamentally change your capabilities and experience of the world.

And so, these are the things that are preserved in "race" moving forward.

But there are other things that tend to come under that umbrella that are now gaining some nuance. For example, Elves know the Elvish language, which makes sense if we assume they were born into an elvish society surrounded by elves whose connections to their culture go back many generations.

If your elf was orphaned on the road and taken in by a family of dwarves, though, why the hell would you just happen to know Elvish? Surely it would make more sense for you to have learned to speak Dwarvish. There's nothing inherent to being an elf that lets you speak the language, for the same reason that the fact that my dad was born in Hungary doesn't mean I was born able to speak Hungarian (I've tried to learn some, but dear lord it's hard to learn a language with basically no cognates in English.)

Likewise, there are traits like "Elvish Weapon Training" that, just in the name, suggest that this is a cultural practice in which young elves are trained in, well, those sorts of weapons. If you didn't grow up in that culture, you probably didn't learn those. Indeed, maybe your elf-raised-by-dwarves is a lot more comfortable with a war hammer than a longbow, because that's the sort of weapon that you were expected to learn how to use as a teenager.

What's so appealing about tabletop RPGs is the freedom they allow the players and GMs to make the game the one they want to play. Rules create important boundaries for those games, but this sort of expansion doesn't break those in any serious way.

What's interesting, then, about the Gothic Lineages is that they represent something that is neither really culture nor... race, in the classic way. This is something that happens to a person during (or after) their life. And in this case, the change is purely physiological, rather than cultural.

I do wonder if, perhaps in a 6th Edition, we might see beings like Aasimar represented as a kind of "alternate lineage," which means they could be of any racial origin, but touched by this angelic guide to become Aasimar.

The other thing I think is huge is that this introduces the idea of having multiple creature types. Looking to something like Eberron, it's clear that the Warforged ought to be Constructs. There are two problems, though, that come with this notion, and those are the reasons I assume they are, instead, humanoid. The first is that Constructs tend to represent something that is unthinking, with no inner consciousness, whereas Warforged are clearly meant to be sentient and have souls. Mechanically, most healing spells do not function on Constructs or Undead. And because you definitely want to be able to cast Cure Wounds on your Warforged paladin, that would be a real dealbreaker.

By making the rule that a player character can have two creature types - and also by ruling that they can be affected by things that affect either type - opens up a world of possibilities. Warforged could be both Construct and Humanoid - allowing things like Cure Wounds to affect the Humanoid part. But Aasimar could also be both Celestial and Humanoid. Genasi could be Elemental and Humanoid.

And this, I think, opens the door to some really unexpected results (that can be both in the player's favor and against them.) Consider, for example, that a Reborn character can be turned by a Cleric. But they're also going to be immune to some effects that harm non-undead (like Negative Energy Flood - which will actually heal them instead!)

Even setting aside the fact that this entry suggests pretty strongly to me that, along with the Gothic Subclasses, we're going to be getting a Ravenloft Campaign Setting book, I'm already thinking of new characters I'd love to roll up (I've already told the DM of my Curse of Strahd game that if my paladin dies - though I really hope she doesn't because I love playing her - my next character might claw his way out of a grave somewhere in Barovia, his memory missing.

New Unearthed Arcana Brings "Gothic Lineages." Ravenloft Book Incoming?

 A very unusual UA dropped today: Gothic Lineages. These are sort of playable races, but also sort of a new thing. As we've seen with Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, one of the big changes to the way that playable races work in 5E is that a lot of things have been de-coupled from them. You get to choose your ability score improvements and can customize languages and other cultural traits that might not apply to you if you, say, were raised in a different culture.

The lineages here are Dhampir, Hexblood, and Reborn.

Dhampir is a sort of half-vampire, and here I'll note one of the interesting aspects of this new system: character can have multiple creature types. For instance, Dhampir are both Humanoid and Undead. This means that Cure Wounds and such spells still work on them because of the humanoid part, but they'll also be affected by Turn Undead. Anyway, Dhampirs get darkvision, the ability to walk on walls and ceilings, and a bite attack that can heal them or give them advantage on a future roll (limited to PB.) (For a prominent Dhampir character, see Marvel's Blade).

Hexbloods are basically Changelings, except not the Eberron kind. Instead, these are people created or altered by Hags. As such, they count as both humanoid and fey, and get advantage on saves against charm effects, as well as darkvision. They get Disguise Self and Hex, as well as the ability to pull a hair or tooth or nail from their body, which they can give to another person to communicate with them or to spy on an area if they leave it behind somewhere. Hexbloods have a weird appearance, including a crown that rests upon their head that cannot be removed.

Reborn are people who have come back from the dead. Like Dhampir, they are both undead and humanoid, or they can be construct and humanoid, though this is a broader sort of "woke up in a grave" kind of situation, or they might have been an undead minion of some necromancer who regained their consciousness (for the WoW fans, this would be a great way to make a Forsaken character in D&D,) or you might be a sort of flesh golem, stitched together from multiple people. Reborn get darkvision, as well as advantage on death saves and against poison (and resistance to poison damage) as well as no need to eat, drink, or breathe. You also don't need to sleep, but have to spend 4 hours as part of your long rest in a motionless state, though you remain conscious. You can also add a d6 to ability checks that use a skill a number of times equal to your PB per long rest, representing lost knowledge from your former life coming back to you.

So.

First off, I think these are awesome, and create a new facet of character creation that isn't totally covered by simply making a playable race (even if these sort of take the same place, as I understand it.) I think a good sign for a player option is when my mind lights up with character concepts that I immediately want to play.

But let's also consider the following:

One of the other recent UAs was a pair of gothic subclasses - the Undead Patron for Warlocks and the College of Spirits for Bards.

They did say 2021 would see some classic D&D settings getting campaign setting books.

So, there's a Ravenloft book coming, right? There has to be.

New Computer, Who Dis?

 I just got a new computer - an M1 Macbook Air. Figuring I'd take this new hotness out for a spin, I booted up World of Warcraft and set all the graphics to the maximum, ultra mode. Expecting that this would be too much, I was shocked to discover that... actually the game runs great, with a higher framerate than what I was getting with everything set to "3" on the old machine.

That machine was a 2014 Mac Mini, which, when I got it about a month or two into Warlords of Draenor, I was blown away - being able to go through The Everbloom, seeing the dynamic water effects in every puddle, was pretty glorious.

Now, I don't know much about how computers actually work, but even those effects seemed to slow my old computer down to a crawl in Shadowlands - just entering Ardenweald put the framerate at about 4 until I turned off those effects.

I have yet to see how this does in a crowded raid environment (I might try a World Boss before I do something requiring coordination like an LFR wing.) I know that Macs aren't generally built to be gaming machines, even if Blizzard started as a Mac game company. But just the fact that I can go do world quests and other outdoor content with the graphics all set to their maximum is really exciting.

(Not to mention other reasons to feel... well, more relieved than excited, but it's a good feeling here today, er, yesterday - the 20th.)

Armorer Artificer Builds

 Even though I'm playing in several D&D campaigns, I feel like it's not enough - there are so many characters I want to play!

The armorer is the newest subclass for D&D's newest class. The very short, easy pitch is that if you want to play Iron Man, this is your subclass.

The core to the class is Arcane Armor. As an action, you can turn a suit of armor you're wearing into Arcane Armor (note that this can include heavy armor, as the subclass gives you that proficiency). The benefits to this are multifold: first off, you get to ignore any strength requirement (unlike plate-wearing clerics, no need to invest in strength to use your full movement.) You can also don and doff it as an action (which is pretty awesome, as heavy armor takes forever to get on or take off, which can be a real problem if there's an attack on your campsite and you had to sleep out of your armor to recover hit dice.) The armor also covers your entire body and even acts as a prosthetic for any missing limbs (which could be an interesting RP choice) and cannot be removed from you against your will. Also, you get to use it as a spellcasting focus.

That's only the first bit.

Obviously, flavor-wise, the idea here is that your armor is basically a magical weapons-platform. While Iron Man is the most obvious example, another recent work to look at is The Mandalorian. His "whistling birds," which are tiny target-seeking anti-personnel missiles that fire in big clusters, could easily be the way you flavor Magic Missile (which is one of your specialist spells.)

What I think is particularly cool, and also raises some very interesting questions about how you want to build your character, is that Arcane Armor has two modes - Guardian and Infiltrator.

Guardian is the mode that I think works most obviously with heavy armor, as it's the "tanking" mode. Both modes get a built-in weapon. In the Guardian mode, your gauntlets act as simple melee weapons that deal 1d8 thunder damage. Also, you get to use Intelligence rather than Strength for your attack and damage rolls, which is something I really like to see in any "caster that uses weapons" type of class (part of why I think the Hexblade Warlock is maybe too good compared to any other Warlock subclass for those who want to go Pact of the Blade.)

When you hit with the weapon, the target will have disadvantage on attacks against targets that aren't you until the end of their next turn, which gives you a sort of Ancestral Guardian-style taunt ability.

You can also use a bonus action (PB times per day) to give yourself some temporary hit points.

Naturally, I think that those who want to focus on Guardian mode should use a shield (the gauntlets aren't considered light, so I assume you can't "dual-wield" them. I'd also recommend taking Green Flame Blade as one of your cantrips (and possibly Booming Blade or another melee-cantrip as another) given how well that will complement a melee fighting style. (In fact, Green Flame Blade ought to pull ahead even in single-target damage by the time you get to tier 4).

The only real downside to this "tank" build is that you're going to have lower health on average than the fighters, paladins, and certainly barbarians that often take that role, given your d8 hit die. Granted, you'll also get infusions to your armor and shield that will likely make you a lot harder to hit. If you really want to commit to this tanking style, the Tough feat is something you might consider, as it'll effectively give you a d12 hit die instead.

In terms of infusions, until you hit level 9 (when you get to put different infusions on different parts of the armor) you'll have to decide between a few important ones. Typically, I think the obvious ones to choose between are Enhanced Defense and Enhanced Weapon. Each of these are a +1 bonus to a weapon or piece of armor that upgrades to +2 when you have 10 levels of Artificer. One thing to consider here is that, due to the fact that your Thunder Gauntlets do thunder instead of bludgeoning damage, you can actually get away without making it a magic weapon, as it'll still do full damage to most enemies thanks to its damage type. And if you're tanking, having a bonus to your armor is going to be quite nice. In fact, with Enhanced Defense and a Repulsion Shield, by level 10 if you have full plate, you're going to be at 23 AC (get a Cloak and a Ring of Protection at higher levels to get all the way to 25 - you can get all of this with only mundane items and infusions.)

However, there's a whole other style of armorer, and that's the infiltrator.

In infiltrator mode, you get the following benefits: your movement speed goes up by 5 feet, you have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks, and you have a simple ranged weapon: the Lightning Launcher.

First off, we should address the stealth bonus. On one hand, you could go with heavy armor and have this simply cancel out the usual stealth disadvantage. This is actually not terrible - not only does it mean you'll have a straight roll in heavy armor, but any other factors that might make it hard to sneak around - maybe a foe has Faerie Fire on you or you're wearing a "down with Asmodeus" t-shirt among a bunch of infernal cultists - will also be mitigated by your armor.

Also, while you are proficient in heavy armor, that doesn't mean you have to wear it. You could wear a Breastplate and just have actual advantage (or even Half Plate if you invest in the Medium Armor Master feat.)

I should also take this moment to point out that it might depend on how your DM handles this, but if you get your hands on a set of Mithril armor, if your DM considers that sufficiently "non-magic" to infuse, it might make this whole thing moot.

The ranged weapon has a slightly longer range than a Shortbow, which is already pretty good (the short range is 90 feet) and the damage is comparable, but a little better. The damage is 1d6 lightning damage (again, it's a weapon, so you can add your modifier, which in this case can be Dexterity or Intelligence) and once per turn when you hit, you can add 1d6 to that (the wording is a bit fiddly - I'm not sure the damage counts as "part of the attack," so you might not be able to double it up on crits, but as a DM I'd probably allow that.)

If you want to focus on this mode, first off I think you might dispense with the melee cantrips, as you're probably going more for long-range. Given that, though, the need for high AC is kind of lessened. Indeed, if you want to take advantage of the stealth... advantage, you'll want to go with some lighter form of armor. This does mean you'll want to invest at least a +2 in Dexterity to max out any Medium Armor you wear. The good news, though, is that if you're not worried so much about being in melee, you can also put less of an emphasis on Constitution, which frees you up a bit for Dex.

In fact, you might even consider getting considerably high dexterity for two reasons - one to aid with stealth (not to mention what is probably the most common saving throw in 5e) but also so that you can use other ranged weapons. If your campaign is in a setting with firearms, Artificers can use them, but generally only Battle-Smiths are likely to use them. However, with a strong focus on Dex in addition to your Int, you'd be able to use these as well.

The lightning launcher is probably going to be better than most ranged weapons in most situations - if we assume you have a +4 Int by level 5, (and you're hitting all the time,) you're doing an average of 19.5 damage, compared to even a heavy crossbow with comparable Dex (which you probably won't have), which would be 19.

But once firearms enter the picture, the damage can get a lot higher - with renaissance weapons, a musket will do 21 with the aforementioned stats, and if you get into modern weapons, a Hunting Rifle will do 28. (And dear lord, if you have futuristic weapons, it's crazy.)

Now, Infiltrator-focused infusions: naturally, an Enhanced Weapon on your Lightning Launcher is going to be a solid choice. If you go for the high-dex, firearms-wielding build, you could put Repeating Shot on it to never run out of ammo (if firearms are rare in your setting, this is invaluable.) A Homunculus Servant is also, actually, not a terrible option, as their fairly high perception bonus (by level 17 it'll be +12) can make for a pretty good spotter. Personally, for both modes, but especially Infiltrator, I love Winged Boots. You can easily fly out of range of any melee-only foes, nailing them with lightning shots from above. If you're worried about the recharge time on the Winged Boots (which shouldn't be too much of a problem if you aren't always using them) Slippers of Spider Climbing can be an alternative, letting you fire from the walls or ceiling in any indoor space. Bracers of Archery as a replicated magic item could work, but it depends on how liberal your DM is in interpreting its bonus - whether it's just a +2 to all ranged weapon damage or if it only applies to bows.

Now, of course, if you want to take advantage of both modes, you'll need to make some compromises. The way I see it, I think the easiest compromise is to just go with heavy armor but keep a high dex (though still focusing on Intelligence and Constitution - Dex should be your third stat.) If you can get proficiency with stealth and some decent Dex, it'll still mean that you'll be rolling mostly pretty well - though perhaps not quite Rogue levels. And given your long range, along with magic to help evade detection with things like invisibility, you can be pretty sneaky without compromising your capabilities as a tank. If you have the room for a Medium Armor Master feat and +3 Dexterity, you can really commit to having it both ways - half plate granting equivalent AC to plate, but with no stealth penalty. Also, having +3 or more to your Dex will also make you sneakier anyway. However, in order to pull that off, you'll have to roll pretty high stats (or dump Strength, Wisdom, and Charisma if you're point-buying it.)

What's great about all of this is that on top of it, you've got access to all the Artificer Spells. That includes some nice ones for your specialization (including lightning bolt, which might not be as good as fireball thanks to its shape, but does the same amount of damage) as well as the whole toolkit.

I think the Armorer is a really exciting and interesting new subclass, and the one I think I'm most interested in playing.

LFR Castle Nathria Wing 3 - Impressions

 The third wing of Castle Nathria on LFR is the "stone" themed one - we fight Shriekwing, the blind stoneborn... bat-gargoyle thing? She's followed by Sludgefist, a "biggun," and then the Stoneborn Generals, giving us a thematic throughline of creatures all made of earthen materials.

The odd thing is that in the regular raid (as I understand it,) Shriekwing is actually the first boss - we've run through her room several times while running the other wings of the raid. So here, after many weeks, we finally get to see how the raid actually starts.

You'll notice that there's very little trash in this wing. Before Shriekwing, there's some RP between Denathrius and Renethal, and the four gargoyles on the tops of the (very important) pillars will animate and then fight us (you actually don't have to fight all of them at once.) This room will be the setting for the first two fights.

I've run this on a Protection Paladin, Blood Death Knight, and Havoc Demon Hunter.

Shriekwing:

This and Sludgefist are both relatively simple, but with some deadly mechanics. Shriekwing will put a debuff on the tank that requires an immediate taunt from the off-tank (it's a frontloaded debuff that starts to diminish over time). The big thing in her main phase is that you need to use the pillars to break line of sight with her when she does her big shriek ability - you have 6 seconds to do so, so as long as you position yourself carefully, it's not going to be too bad.

Ranged characters will get a debuff that drops a patch of blood on the ground - you want to get out of the raid and drop that to the side to make things easier. Meanwhile, melee will want to dodge a cleave she does periodically.

When she hits 100 "blood" (her power bar fills,) she'll begin to stalk around the room. Anyone who is caught near her when she does this will be insta-killed, so you want to open up some distance and keep that distance. During this time, she'll keep doing that shriek attack, so you want to use the pillars to hide. She'll also send out bouncing "echolocation" circles, which will horrify you for a couple seconds if they hit you. Dodging these will be tricky (especially if the raid's dropped a lot of blood on the ground in the middle of the room) but it'll be important to allow you to get out of line of sight and to run from her.

After a while of stalking around the room she'll reset to phase 1. Rinse and repeat.

Sludgefist:

Sludgefist, given where he is in the dungeon journal, probably doesn't normally show up until you clear the other wings of the raid. But in this wing, he shows up after Shriekwing dies (there's some more Denathrius/Renethal RP) and you fight him in the same room.

This one's largely on the tanks. First off, there's no taunt-swap, but Sludgefist will smack both his current target and the closest target within 5 yards of it for a lot of damage with each hit, so you want the tanks to stack up. Sludgefist will periodically stomp the ground, giving you time to get out of the way before it goes off. I'm not sure if it does this on LFR, but it seems this stomp can destroy those pillars, which is very bad as you'll need them.

Ranged will sometimes get debuffs that drop a patch of nastiness on the ground - you want to move those to the walls (anyone else remember when we always called them "void zones?")

The really key mechanic here is that he'll periodically (when he reaches 100 energy) target one of the tanks with Hateful Gaze. That tank needs to book it to one of the pillars and ensure that when Sludgefist charges, he'll hit the pillar, and not the walls. Also, players need to get out of his way or they'll be trampled (I think the damage is something like 100k). Regardless of whether he hits the wall or the pillar, he'll be stunned for a couple seconds. However, if he hits the wall, the raid will take massive raid-wide damage that will almost certainly one-shot you. If he hits a pillar, the pillar gets destroyed and he takes double damage for the duration of his stun (it's not super long, but it'll help getting him down.)

Anyway, given that there are only four pillars, this gives him a kind of soft enrage. He also has a literal enrage once he gets down to low health.

Stone Legion Generals:

After using a soul mirror to get to the ramparts of the castle, you find Draven and Renethal holding off a bombardment of anima-bombs. Then, there's some stoneborn trash to deal with, and then the penultimate fight of the raid, against Generals Grashal and Kaal.

There are three phases to this fight. And it's a lot more complicated.

You'll fight Kaal directly first. You want to group up so that those who are targeted with the thrown blade attack can get out of the raid and not bounce it around. Players hit with this will get a permanent bleed. Likewise, the tanks will also get a permanent, stacking bleed from some of Kaal's attacks. The key to surviving this is that Grashal will cast Crystallize on a random player. They'll have a ring around them, and when the debuff goes off, the target and anyone near them will be stunned for two seconds. However, this also clears any bleeds they have on them, so tanks and anyone with the bleed will want to stack up on this person to clear their debuffs.

After Kaal gets to 50% (I believe) she'll get a big damage reduction shield, and adds will start to show up. Draven will also be taking out other stoneborn above, while Renethal is trying to gather the mana to cast a spell that will break the shield. DPS should focus on gathering anima spheres and bringing them to Renethal. Once he has enough, Renethal will break the shield and do some light raid damage.

When Kaal is low enough (I want to say 30%) you'll instead get Grashal. He has a more conventional tank-swap debuff (with a knockback) while Kaal will keep throwing her glaive at raid members, causing that bleed. The big new thing is that Grashal will leap to a marked players' location after a bit and leave a big rumbling circle of bad stuff. Each time he does this, if there isn't a player standing in each one of the circles he's created, the raid will take big damage, so you want to have players running into soak them (actually, to be honest, I'm not sure if this mechanic is in LFR.)

Grashal will have his own shield phase where you need to bring anima to Renethal, and then Kaal will land and you'll fight them together. This is basically where all the mechanics just stack on top of one another, and you want to kill both of them around the same time, as killing one enrages the other.

And with that, you have finished the penultimate wing of Castle Nathria LFR. The Stone Legion Generals drop 197 loot instead of 187, which is pretty cool.

I have to say, I'm a pretty big fan of this raid so far. There are a lot of interesting mechanics, and while I don't know if it quite nails the "Dracula's Castle" vibe that they pitched it with (which is really just that it's far too populated - haunted places like Karazhan and Black Rook Hold feel like they hit that a bit better) it's a cool instance with a lot of really fun fights.

I can't wait to find out what comes next.

Closing Out the Covenant Campaigns (For Now)

 This week marks the 9th and final chapter of the covenant campaigns. In practical game terms, the rewards include anima spheres for weapons (my Shaman got both a big and a large one, which is presumably so that I could get a main hand and shield for Elemental/Resto, but mine's Enhancement, so I got got a fist weapon and... a shield) from the sanctum hall LFR vendors (item level 187) and you can, for a big chunk of anima, upgrade your covenant armor sets to 197 (the final upgrade is 300 anima per piece, so unless you've been hoarding, it might take a while to get it all upgraded.)

I've now done the Kyrian (Paladin), Venthyr (Death Knight,) and Night Fae (Shaman) ones. Every campaign ends on a relatively climactic note, but certainly not one of finality, given that I think we'll be getting more of these over the course of the expansion.

I'll be doing the Necrolords one (on my Warlock) probably tomorrow, so I might edit this post later to add the rundown. But let's go over the basic story for each campaign, and how they conclude (again, for now.)

Spoilers to follow:

Candlekeep Mysteries - New Adventure Anthology for 5E

 WotC has announced the next book for D&D 5th Edition - a new adventure anthology (like Tales of the Yawning Portal and Ghosts of Saltmarsh) called Candlekeep Mysteries!

There are 17 such mysteries - which take the form of short adventures - that will span from level 1-16. I suspect that there will also be some information about Candlekeep (my longest-running PC's hometown!) to potentially link these adventures, which all start with the discovery of a book at Candlekeep.

We don't have a ton of info yet about the individual adventures or if there are any particularly new elements at play. Both Tales of the Yawning Portal and Ghosts of Saltmarsh were collections of previously-published adventures from earlier editions, updated to work in 5th Edition. EDIT: The adventures are advertised as new, which suggests that unlike the previous anthologies, these will be brand-new adventures.

Naturally, after Tasha's release, it was to be expected that the next book would be a published adventure. One wonder what will come next, perhaps a new campaign setting book (we got Wildemount and Theros last year, not long after Eberron the previous year. My fingers are crossed for Ravenloft, Planescape, or Spelljammer.)

Reviewing the Level 20 Class Features

 Very few people make it to level 20 in D&D. It's not a question of difficulty - more or less anyone with friends that have high-level spells can come back from just about any ill fate - as much as it is time. Also, as a DM, I can tell you, you need to throw some really nasty stuff at your party to provide a challenge once they get into the higher levels (the Xanathar's encounter building system is fairly good, but I recommend erring on the side of harder, and definitely making sure that any solo monster has maxed-out health and legendary actions.)

By the time you hit level 20 in D&D, you're going to be incredibly powerful. While those who are not full spellcasters might look with an envious eye to the miracle-level 9th-level spells that Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards gain access to (and Warlocks only a little) a level 20 Barbarian is still an absolute brute. Consider that your average person has 4 hit points, and a level 20 Barbarian with maxed-out constitution taking average health has 285 hit points (if my math is right,) this is someone who can tank an asteroid (and takes half damage!) They have the fortitude of 71 people combined.

Hitting level 20 is a huge achievement, but what does it come with? By this point, casters have already gotten their highest-level spells, so what features do you wind up with?

Let's go class by class and see how we feel.

Artificer:

Yes, it's the newest class, and so it feels a little weird to start with it, but alphabetical order is a really convenient way to list these.

At 20, Artificers get Soul of Artifice:

You gain a +1 bonus to all saving throws per magic item you are attuned to. Also, if you're reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, you can use your reaction to end one of your artificer infusions, causing you to drop to 1 hit point instead of 0.

So, first off, that first bit is actually great, given that a high-enough level artificer can be attuned to 6 different items. Adding 6 to every saving throw is amazing. The infusion-ending reaction is also pretty great, giving you potentially 6 chances to not go unconscious, though you lose power with each use.

I think this is a really cool, interesting, and useful capstone feature (though I think there are some funky RAW issues about using your reaction when you're at 0 hit points, but this is clearly a place where exception-based game design means it should obviously allow you to do this, though perhaps it could be worded as "if you would otherwise be reduced to 0 hit points, etc."

Barbarians:

At level 20, you get Primal Champion:

Your Strength and Constitution scores both increase by 4, and your maximum for those scores is now 24.

Also, level 20 Barbarians have an unlimited number of Rages per day.

This is perhaps not so flashy, but it's certainly not bad. Getting 2 more AC from your Con (assuming you're unarmored,) 40 additional health, and bonuses to both your chance to hit and the damage you're doing are all great. I think this is the only baseline class feature that allows scores to go over 20 (naturally, I'd assume that if someone has a Manual of Bodily Health or Gainful Exercise that they had read, I'd rule that this is "your maximum for those scores also raises by 4" instead of setting the hard amount at 24. So while the cool factor is really only there if you just like big numbers (which is probably appealing to those who like Barbarians) this does feel unique and very obviously helpful, so I think it's a good one.

The unlimited rage thing is, again, not super flashy, but it does feel pretty great that you never have to worry about wasting a rage on some out-of-combat ability check. Having resources to spend and conserve is a good strategic aspect to the game, but it's also fun when you hit a point where you never have to worry about that again.

Bard:

At 20, Bards get Superior Inspiration

If you roll initiative and don't have any uses of Bardic Inspiration left, you regain one use.

This one is, I think, a pretty standard model for what I think are the "useful, yes, but also quite boring" capstones. Basically, it means that between fights, a Bard can't ever run out of uses of their most iconic class ability. Still, getting one more d12 to throw to an ally is a little underwhelming (and also dependent on whether the DM has people re-roll initiative between waves of enemies in a big battle.) Basically, this is underwhelming and in no way has any real cool factor.

Cleric:

At level 20, Clerics get Divine Intervention improvement.

Your calls for intervention succeed automatically, no roll required.

The winner here really is the Divine Intervention feature, which you get at level 10. However, taking that from a 19% chance to a 100% is a massive step up, and in the hands of creative players and DMs, this can be an awesomely dramatic ability. (A couple sessions ago, our Cleric rolled his first successful DI, which allowed them to bypass an entire garrison of undead soldiers, which was awesome.) Divine Intervention before you get this is a cool sort of Hail Mary (kind of literally) but I think that if level 20 is meant to mean you've become the epitome of what your class represents, being able to call down your god's power without fail feels both flavorful and powerful, and thus this is very much on the good column.

Druid:

At level 20, Druids get Archdruid

You can use Wild Shape an unlimited number of times per day, and you get to ignore somatic and verbal spell components as well as material spell components that are not consumed and don't have a monetary cost, including while in your Wild Shape forms.

Like Barbarians getting unlimited rages, being able to Wild Shape as many times as you want is a very cool feature (and also means that it's nearly impossible to kill a level 20 Circle of the Moon druid, as they can just poof into elemental form over and over, still attack you, and just shift again if they ever get knocked out of it.)

The other element, though, is where this really gets into the awesome category - being able to do component-less casting (which, by the way, means nothing can be counterspelled) and also doing it while potentially in some shapeshifted form really embodies the notion of a Druid as a force of nature -as if they are just a conduit through which nature exerts its power.

Fighter:

At level 20, Fighters get their third Extra Attack:

When you take the attack action on your turn, you can attack four times.

Fighters' ability to attack more than twice does create some interesting math in groups - for instance, if you have a weapon that does extra dice of damage, you're probably best off giving it to the fighter after level 11, because they'll be multiplying that damage by more. That said, level 20 seems a long time to wait for a fourth attack (you get your second at 5, like most martial classes, and your third at 11). Given that an Eldritch-Blast-spamming warlock gets four attacks at level 17, it feels like that should be when Fighters get this.

Is it useful? Absolutely. Is the fact that an action surge can mean eight attacks in a single turn kind of insane? Yes (see Percy in the Search for Grog Vox Machina epilogue one-shot, where I think he did something like 200 damage in a single round.) But it's also, ultimately, more of the same (and the fact that Monks can do, admittedly only a limited number of times, but 4 attacks in a round by level 5 makes this a little underwhelming.)

Monks:

At level 20, Monks get Perfect Self:

When you roll initiative and have no ki points remaining, you gain four.

This is very much in the vein of the Bard one. Again, it's not a bad thing to have, but it's extremely underwhelming.

Paladin:

At level 20, they get... a Subclass Feature!

Given that each subclass has a different thing, it's hard to review all the mechanics, but most tend to be really flashy. I see these (most of them, at least) as sort of major "cooldowns" (to use a WoW term.) Generally, you become some sort of avatar of the oath you've sworn and this has a lot of different benefits. It's a big burst of power, but tends to last only 1 minute, which means just one fight (though I think it'll be rare for it to run out before the fight's over, unless you're in a real slog.) Actually, at least one subclass (Oath of Redemption) has one that works differently.

Still, these tend to be the very definition of big and flashy, so I give this big thumbs up, even if players might agonize about when to actually pop this once-a-day (except Redemption) ability. Top marks.

Ranger:

At level 20, they get Foe Slayer:

Once on each of your turns, you can add your Wisdom modifier to the attack or damage roll of an attack made against one of your favored enemies (or the target of your Favored Foe, if you've taken that alternate feature.) You can use this feature before or after the roll, but before any of the effects of the roll are applied (so basically before you hit or miss, and before you know if you've killed the target or not, I guess.)

Hoo boy. Ok, now, being able to add to the attack roll, sure. But for damage, getting at the very most 5 extra damage per round at a level when martial classes are putting out profoundly more is just kind of insulting. Rangers got some love in Tasha's, but sadly there was no cooler alternate feature for this one. The real killer here is that it requires the target either be your favored enemy or your favored foe. First off, I don't like Favored Foe because I think it's worse than just Hunter's Mark in most cases, so I wouldn't recommend taking it. So if you just have Favored Enemy you need to hope you're fighting that type of enemy to get any benefit out of this. I feel like there's some cooler, flashier ability that is waiting in the wings here - something like analyzing the foe to line up a guaranteed critical hit or something.

Rogue:

At 20, they get Stroke of Luck:

If you miss with an attack, you can turn that miss into a hit. Alternatively, if you fail an ability check, you can treat the d20 roll as a 20 instead. Once you use this, you cannot again until you finish a short or long rest.

Ok, I like this. Rogues are the one primarily physical damage class that don't get extra attacks, and so the focus is on lining up the perfect shot or strike to land for their insane sneak attack damage (which by this level is 10d6, on top of the weapon's ordinary damage. Likewise, the idea of rogues as broad experts that are just plain good at things comes through in the second clause (though, notably, it doesn't say "you succeed," so you don't get to just auto-win.

In a weird way, the lack of flashiness is its own sort of rogue-like flashiness - things just work out for you when you need them to most.

Sorcerer:

At level 20, they get Sorcerous Restoration:

You regain 4 spent sorcery points when you finish a short rest.

This is similar to, though not quite the same as the Bard and Monk ones. Indeed, depending on how many short rests a DM allows in a day, you could actually use this to get an infinite number of level 1-5 spells. Still, I'd put this in the same category as the aforementioned ones - undeniably useful, but a bit dull.

Warlock:

At level 20, they get Eldritch Master:

You can spend 1 minute entreating your patron to regain all your spell slots. Once you do this, you must finish a long rest before you can do so again.

Warlocks are always trying to fit a short rest, and this basically lets you take a 1-minute short rest once a day (Genie Warlocks can also do one in 10 minutes once a day as well.)

Again, depending on how many times you can usually get a short rest, this varies in usefulness. Still, it reinforces the idea of Warlocks as being able to recharge quickly, and four 5th-level slots are nothing to sneeze at. Still, it is low on flashiness, and I think there could have been something more exciting here.

Wizard:

At level 20, they get Signature Spells:

You pick two 3rd level spells from your spellbook. You always have these prepared and they don't count against the number of spells you have prepared. You can cast each without expending a spell slot, but then cannot do so until you finish a short or long rest, unless you do expend a spell slot to do so.

Overall I kind of like this, though it is sort of just an expansion of Spell Mastery (the 18th level feature.) Still, getting a free Fireball and Counterspell once per short rest, as well as always having them prepared, is not bad at all. What this lacks in flash it makes up for in strategic customizability and genuine power.

    So, overall, I think there are some clear winners here, with the Druid and Paladin ones probably my personal favorites. I did work our earlier how you could have a +19 bonus to Intelligence and Constitution saving throws as a level 20 artificer without any magical items given to them by the DM, so I do have a soft spot for Soul of Artifice.

Twisting Corridors - Set Aside a Lot of Time For It

 The Twisting Corridors opened today, which function as the sort of high-challenge, "Mage-Tower" version of Torghast.

Essentially, it's three Torghast wings stacked on top of one another. I ran it with my friend (I on my Protection Paladin, he on his Balance Druid) and we got an Upper Reaches, Coldheart Interstitia, and a Soulforges wing, all in a row. By the end of it, we each had around 90 anima powers, and things were insane.

At least on layer one, it's not too bad - I'd say it's not as easy as a layer one of the normal wings, but also not as tough as some of the higher layers currently available. By the time you get to floor 13 (the last of the "wings") you start seeing elite enemies and things start to require a bit more attention, but it's really not too bad.

The rewards for the Twisting Corridors (other than the weekly Bolvar quest) are cosmetic - there's a battle pet, a title, and a mount (that works in the Maw!) But this is meant to be optional content.

Anyway, given how long it took, I have not yet finished my 1000 anima quest and thus haven't yet seen the next chapter of the Kyrian campaign.

Castle Nathria LFR Wing Two Tank First Impressions

 The second wing of Castle Nathira is now open, and once again, we haven't actually faced Shriekwing, the first boss of the raid on other difficulties.

Instead, we have Sun King's Salvation, Artificer Xy'mox, and the Court of Blood.

There are all fights with about three million things going on, but we can boil them down to the essentials:

Sun King's Salvation:

This is a Valithria Dreamwalker-like fight in which the healers are the DPS - at least for most of it. DPS is mostly there to make sure that the adds go down quickly enough, and tanks will need to focus on some Stoneborn adds that require a tank swap. Periodically, a Shade of Kael'thas will show up, which does a frontal cone fire attack that needs to be dodged and has its own tank-swap debuff - the tanks will just trade him and the stoneborn. The Shade prevents Kael'thas from getting any healing, but DPS against it will heal him. This one's the easiest of the wing.

Artificer Xy'mox:

In the long run, probably the hardest, as it requires coordination and personal responsibility - both banes of LFR. The key mechanic is that two players will be singled out, given a few seconds before they take some damage and then drop a wormhole gateway where they are. Stepping into the gate will let anyone transport to the other one. You then use these wormholes to escape various deadly mechanics. Tanks will need to swap periodically as the active tank will get a debuff that explodes, damaging everyone around them.

There are some big line attacks similar to the boss in De Other Side to dodge. One phase two, the boss will start spawning exploding wild seeds, which can be picked up and moved (and should be moved to the opposite end of the room,) later exploding for massive damage in a huge radius.

The third phase is the real killer - there's a sword in the floor that will sometimes start to suck people toward it and then explode for massive damage. You want to have one portal entrance near the sword and one outside its radius so that you can allow yourself to be sucked in and then jump out before the detonation.

Court of Blood:

This fight is bonkers - there are three bosses, which you'll kill sequentially (we found doing Niklaus first was easiest.) Tanks will need to swap two of them (the two male Venthyr) as they have stacking debuffs they put on the tanks. DPS needs to kill adds asap.

Periodically, the bosses will retreat and the raid needs to find their spot on the dance floor, then move to the glowing red tiles to do the proper moves of their dance. You get a stacking haste buff when you succeed, or lose that buff and take some damage if you fail.

Each time one boss dies, the others heal to full and get a new ability.

Overall, this wing feels like a whole lot, but we did have three weeks of practice on the last wing, so I imagine we'll get the hang of this one eventually.

Elsewhere in the Shadowlands and the Future of Cosmic Warcraft

 There's a certain personality-sorting to be done with the covenants in Shadowlands. We're give four options, with four very distinctive zones and vibes. But it's also been made explicit that there's plenty of the Shadowlands that we haven't seen - near-infinite (or perhaps infinite) realms of which we are glimpsing only four primary ones, along with the Maw and Oribos.

In fact, De Other Side seems to be its own Shadowlands realm, connected to but separate from Ardenweald (that'd be a cool covenant to join.)

Every expansion has added some new questing zone (even if Wrath's was just the tiny Hrothgar's Landing for a couple of Argent Tournament daily quests - that I would totally forgive people for forgetting it was a thing at all) and so it stands to reason that in the course of the Shadowlands, we'll likely find ourselves in some other part of the land of the dead.

Where might that be?

Well, the possibilities are literally infinite, so I'm going to try to speculate based on what we have so far.

The Land of the Brokers:

The Brokers are sort of un-remarked-upon by the other members of the Shadowlands, which implies that they've been around for a long time. Are the Brokers, like the members of the various covenants, largely former mortals who took on these Broker forms after they died? Perhaps those who lived for deals, commerce, and trade go on to some kind of crowded bazaar of an afterlife?

On the other hand, there are entities we've met in the Shadowlands that are native to it. The Sylvar, Vorkai, and Fairies of Ardenweald all seem to be original to Ardenweald. Likewise, there's a quest in which the Countess in Revendreth seems to be trying to portray herself as an original Venthyr, rather than a former moral, which implies that someone like Renethal (whom we know to be the first Venthyr Sire Denathrius created, at least until we find out that the Dread Lords were the first or some other big lore reveal) was never a mortal. So it's possible that the Brokers are natives to the Shadowlands.

Thros:

While I'm less convinced that Thros is part of the Shadowlands than I once was - at the very least, I don't think it's part of the system of covenants and such, I think it's possible we could venture there. The only reason I'm hesitant to suggest this is that the Drust story has been confined (much as it was last expansion) to a single zone - there's no larger threat they pose in the other zones, which I think cuts down on their likelihood of their playing a bigger role.

Helheim:

Helya's presence as one of the Jailer's allies has been brought up a couple times - she orchestrated the Maldraxxi attack on Bastion and also seems to be the one leading the Mawsworn Kyrian. But given that she seems to be in the Maw itself, is she trapped there? That being said, she has been sending Mawsworn out of the Maw to, for instance, abduct the four leaders as the expansion began. Indeed, can things just escape the Maw into Azeroth thanks to the rift? I doubt it's that easy, or we'd be seeing Zovaal marching around Azeroth (holy crap, I'm just imagining the Titans unleashing Sargeras to fight Zovaal and how awesome that would be and also there's no way any of us would survive.) Helya is a master of planar dynamics, though - could she find some way to return to Helheim?

Ok, so, those are the places I'm tossing out as potential future locations we travel to this expansion.

I think what's really interesting about this expansion is the new lore for the Warcraft cosmos we're getting. The Shadowlands, when they were first being named explicitly in Chronicle and Legion, seemed fairly simple - indeed, my interpretation was that they were simply the ghostly realm that we found ourselves in when we died in-game (which I think might be sort of still partially canonical). Given how much more complex the Shadowlands have been allowed to become, I'm now really curious if we'll see an expansion to the other realms of existence in the Warcraft cosmos.

The Twisting Nether, for example, is a place we've often touched. I think we were in it when we killed Kil'jaeden, given that his death seemed rather final. As the realm of demons, I think it's clearly a dangerous place, but I also sense that it's not 100% evil, either. After all, Shamans' Astral Recall (their 10-min hearthstone spell, which used to be a lot more exciting when hearthstones took an hour to cooldown) talks about how they are yanked through the Twisting Nether to get back to their home location. That's been the language on the spell since vanilla, and they've never changed it. And I find that odd, given that the way the Nether has been so firmly tied to demons and fel magic, rather than the spiritual magic of Shamans. Perhaps, much as there have been shockingly few undead creatures in the Shadowlands, we might discover that demons are just one of the many denizens of the Twisting Nether.

It also really opens up the possibility for a more complex Emerald Dream. As originally conceived, the Dream is just a version of Azeroth where humanoid civilization never came about, and thus nature is left preserved and pristine (and there was never a Sundering.) But this is the sort of thing I'd be happy for them to ret-con, as I think there's a lot more story potential in an Emerald Dream that's more of a realm of life. Are there Day Fae there?

I suspect the expansion that follows Shadowlands will be much more grounded and Azeroth-based, but I also think that Blizzard is in a position where they either have to come up with new lore or just have us face the Old Gods and the Burning Legion over and over. Clearly, this time, they've chosen to come up with new lore.

In D&D, there's a concept called tiers of play - from level 1-4, you're local heroes, the champions of a region or major town. From 5-10, you're heroes to an entire kingdom or nation, dealing with threats that threaten the stability of the realm. From 11-16, you're heroes of the world, facing down evils that threaten the entire planet. And then, from 17-20 (the D&D level cap,) you're heroes of the multiverse, facing down massive cosmic threats that rage between planes of existence.

In WoW, we've sort of been in tier four since Burning Crusade. Granted, to keep things from getting dull, we've cycled back down to some of those lower tiers, and it's not a perfect comparison. But I think WoW has the opportunity to let us do these massive, cosmic-scale stories and work - something we're clearly in the middle of right now. So I hope we'll get to travel the cosmos, even if we'll always call Azeroth our home.

The Shadowlands Rogues' Gallery (So Far)

 In a game like WoW, you need bad guys to fight. In recent expansions, we've had a fair number of established lore figures as end-raid bosses. (One could be forgiven for forgetting that such figures as Yogg-Saron were actually only introduced in the expansion where we killed them.)

Shadowlands has a unique opportunity for us to face individuals we've seen before. While there are some possibilities that there are other things going on - for example, I don't know exactly what the deal with the Drust is - almost all the villains in Shadowlands seem to be working for the Jailer. So let's go through the list of bad guys and talk about what role they might ultimately play in the expansion.

Spoilers ahead.