Genie Patron, College of Creation, and Armorer Confirmed for Tasha's Cauldron of Everything

EDIT: We have a release date: November 17th

 Thanks to a few preview videos from folks in the D&D online community, we've now gotten some reveals of actual content to be found in TCoE.

In addition to sidekicks, new spells, group patrons, and some new items, we've also got some new subclasses.

The Genie Patron went through two iterations in Unearthed Arcana. The second version gives you a bit of elemental oomph with your attacks, and also has a potentially super-powerful ability, which allows you to enter your genie vessel (like going into the bottle from I Dream of Jeannie, basically) which, at a certain level, grants you a short rest if you only spend 10 minutes there, and you can take up to 5 friends!

Seriously, if you hide it somewhere in the dungeon you're exploring, your party could get a quick short rest in, likely without any wandering monsters even noticing!

The College of Creation is basically some old-school Dinsey magic - all about animating objects and having them fight alongside you. Seriously, this is the most whimsical, lovely subclass.

There are a lot of elements of this subclass that have literal, visible but intangible notes floating around people. It's delightful. Also, you could play music that turns into a carriage for your party once you get to a high enough level.

Finally, the Armorer is basically if you want to be Iron Man. If that hasn't sold you: what about a set of plate armor you can wear under your clothes and that doesn't make it hard to sneak? How about shooting lightning from your gloves?

Man, this is making me wonder if Battle-Smith is still my favorite Artificer subclass...

Anyway: big caveat: I'm basing my understanding of all these features on the UA's they came in. We can expect a bit of rebalancing and re-working. But I can't wait to hear what other options are included!

And I just ordered it from my Friendly Local Game Store to pick it up when it's available.

Zendikar Rising Teaser

 The next MTG set will have us making our third visit to Zendikar, the wild, adventure-world with buried ruins and eldritch secrets... though the biggest secret obviously got revealed in Rise of the Eldrazi...

However, we get a little video of a Zendikar landscape undergoing the Roil - new shards of stone, new ladnscapes, form before us as we hear what I presume to be Nahiri narrating about her destiny.

Nahiri is a pretty interesting character, and one who is due to appear in the new set. An ancient Oldwalker who, with Sorin and Ugin, first lured the Eldrazi titans to Zendikar and locked them away, she grew enraged when the titans broke out and devastated her world.

Feeling that Sorin and Ugin had failed her (Ugin had the excuse of being dead, at least in that version of the timeline... how do alternate timelines work on other planes?) she decided to take revenge on Sorin by luring Emrakul to Innistrad, making her the arguable big bad of the Shadows Over Innistrad block (though, you know, Emrakul probably fits that role better.)

Anyway, Sorin and Nahiri, once close friends and allies, are now bitter nemeses. Can Nahiri be redeemed after she unleashed such horrors upon... a world where things were already pretty fucked up? And how will Nissa, another Zendikar native but who's way less murdery, reckon with her Kor plane-mate?

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything: New Rulebook for D&D 5E

 Well, we got it right (I won't say "I" got it right, as I'm far from the only one to guess at this.)

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything will be the new Xanathar's-like supplementary rulebook for D&D 5th Edition.

Let's look at the highlights:

New Subclasses and the Artificer:

The Artificer is getting published in a setting-agnostic book (AL fans rejoice) along with new subclasses for every class. If you look at the posts I made yesterday, you can see my thoughts on which UA subclasses I'd like to see make it in there.

New Character Options:

There will be new ways to customize class features (maybe making Rangers less terrible!?) as well as options to change racial features (I imagine like untying ability scores to races) and some new tools for figuring out your character's origins.

Group Patrons:

Presumably building on the Group Patron feature from Eberron: Rising from the Last War, this is an organization or powerful NPC that you can structure adventures around over the course of a campaign.

Spells, Artifacts, and Magic Tattoos:

The good stuff. Magic Tattoos are like permanent buffs that your character can get, and we all know what spells and artifacts are. The more the merrier!

Miscellaneous New Rule Options:

Sidekicks, supernatural environments, parleying with monsters, etc. It's an "Everything" book, after all!

Puzzles:

Dear lord will this be useful to me as a DM. I never put any puzzles in my dungeons because I am just not confident in my ability to make them. So this is a set of puzzles that you can just drop into a dungeon!

I'm very excited for this book. Xanathar's Guide to Everything is probably my favorite supplementary book they've come out with (well, give or take a Ravnica.)

I'm overjoyed to see the Artificer getting published in what is effectively (in part) PHB3 for 5th Edition. I'm just very curious to see which subclasses made the cut (and if there will be any others that we haven't seen yet - Paladins are a bit thin right now.)

Afterlives: The New Animated Shorts for Shadowlands

While we first saw this style of series with the Mists of Pandaria shorts detailing the journey of Emperor Shaohao, the format of focusing on a select number of characters really started with Warlords of Draenor. We then got Legion's Harbingers and BFA's Warbringers - all of which have been pretty spectacular. So here we go: Afterlives:

I assume we're seeing Uther as the main Bastion story and Draka as the Maldraxxus one. I'm really fascinated by Uther's lore here - the thought that this pillar of righteousness is struggling to come to grips with the reality of the afterlife (though I'm also a little curious to see how they explain his seemingly benevolent appearances as a ghost in our world.)

Anyway, these shorts tend to be big wins - BFA gave us the utterly jaw-dropping Daughter of the Sea dirge, and the amazing Azshara deal with N'zoth. So I have high expectations here.

Bastion Impressions

 On your first character through the Shadowlands, the first leveling zone you go to (after a roughly 1-level dip in the Maw as part of the introduction) is Bastion.

Bastion is the most classically heavenly realm of the Shadowlands. Its inhabitants are the Kyrian, angel-like winged blue humanoids whose job it is to ferry souls between the land of the living and the dead (the Val'kyr, it seems, are Kyrian rip-offs.)

Immediately when you arrive, there are a few red flags. The whole system there has new souls, known as Aspirants, shed their entire identity and memories of their past lives so that they can serve impartially in their duties.

While it's framed as a noble and moral path to take, I can certainly understand why some people have chosen to stray from this path.

The first few quests have you just go through the steps on the way to becoming a full Kyrian, but soon, the dark Forsworn (literally dark, like their wings are dark-blue) show up and attack the Temple of Purity, one of the important locations in the realm.

It becomes clear that the Forsworn are in league with the Jailer and the Maw, though it seems their leader is probably not forthright with that among anyone who's not in the inner circle - giving the familiar NPC we see there a little bit of plausible deniability.

The zone's primary story ends as you discover that the Temple of Courage is under attack - but not by the Forsworn, but rather the Maldraxxi, who were sent here to conquer Bastion and take what Anima they have there.

I actually like the way that the story plays out in this regard - we go to Bastion because of the Forsworn who we see working with the Jailer, and now it seems that the next step in the mystery will take us to Maldraxxus. I imagine subsequent quests will have us find some connection to Ardenweald in Maldraxxus, followed by a link to Revendreth in Ardenweald.

The zone is stunningly gorgeous - while I'd probably not want to lose my identity and memory to become a Kyrian, I wouldn't mind spending the afterlife in a place that pretty. There's a definite Elysian Fields vibe to the place, reinforced by all the Greek-sounding names.

Fairly early on, you get your class-specific Covenant ability to play around with here, and later, you get the Covenant-wide one, which is a bit more flavorful than a real combat ability. I think once you hit 60 and choose a covenant, you'll just use yours in any zone, but it's a nice way to let people try out the abilities before they commit. Likewise, you'll get a chance to hang out in the covenant's sanctum, which is a bit reminiscent of the Halls of Valor, (I really hope we get some answers about Odyn and to whom he gave his eye.)

Sadly, when I hearthed back to Oribos, the game crashed again - I've had crashing issues with the hearthstone in the past, so I'm hoping this is a one-off.

Shadowlands Beta First Real Impressions

 After moving my Death Knight to Stormwind and then re-copying him to the beta, I've manage to play through the introductory quests for Shadowlands, and have just arrived in the first zone (for your first character): Bastion.

The intro quests actually took me with zero rested experience all the way up to 51.

Spoilers ahead, so here's a cut:

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.