Hello, welcome back to the Apprentice’s Guide. Today, I’ll talking about Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes and what we know about it. In case you don’t know, Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes is a D&D 5e book that will be released by Wizards of the Coast in May 29th (you can preorder it right here). This book is going to be similar to the Volo’s Guide to Monsters, with a few differences.
1. Conflict Lore
In the Volo’s Guide to Monsters, we saw more lore on some monsters in the D&D multiverse. However, in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, we are going to see some lore on the major conflicts in the D&D multiverse. This is going to include the Blood War (the war between demons and devils), the war between the Githyanki and Githzerai, the conflict between the elves and the drow, and more! This is useful for plots in campaigns that involve such conflicts or for campaigns about the conflicts in general.
2. More Racial Lore
According to D&D Beyond YouTube videos (link to the channel here), there will be more lore on the core races in the Players Handbook, such as the elves or the dwarves. If you want to know some this lore, just check out the D&D Beyond videos. There are some interesting stuff about the races, especially the elves.
3. More Subraces and Races
In the Volo’s Guide, more races were added. In Mordenkainen’s Tome, more subraces will be added as well as a few races. This includes the Eladrin (elf subrace, check out D&D Beyond’s channel for more info), the Shadar-Kai (elf subrace, check out the channel), possibily more Tiefling and Elf subraces, and possibily the duergar (dwarf subrace, I’ll get back to this in a minute).
Also, the Githyanki and the Githzerai have been confirmed to be added to Mordenkainen’s Tome as playable races. The two are both going to be subraces of the Gith race. I’m really glad that they are added the Gith race because I’ve wanted to get my hands on this really interesting race.
The Gith and the Eladrin appeared in Unearthed Arcana as well as the Shadar-Kai. You can find the links here and here.
4. More Big Monsters
In the Volo’s Guide, most of the monsters in the book were low level monsters. In Mordenkainen’s Tome, a lot of the monsters in there will be high challenge rating monsters.
This is great for DMs who are running high level campaigns and they are stuck on what kind of boss they want the players to fight.
Three monsters have already been confirmed to be in the book; Geryon, Marut, and the Astral Dreadnought. For more information on these monsters, click on the link here.
There will also be more types of Demons and Devils as well as more types elves and duergar stat blocks. Only time will tell what is to come in this book.
Bonus: Sneak Peak
Here’s a sneak peak from one of the pages of Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. It was released on March 12th on the D&D website. It features tables for ideas for duergar things like clan names and personality quirks. That’s not the most interesting part.
The most interesting part is the fact that one of the paragraphs of the page mentioned that the tables are supposed to add depth to a duergar character. Is this a hint of the duergar race coming to Mordenkainen’s Tome?
I know that the duergar was added in the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide, but it was more tuned to a specific campaign setting. Besides, the Xanathar’s Guide added a few subclass that were introduced in the Sword Coast Adventurers Guide.
So, will the duergar be added to Mordenkainen’s Tome? The answer is most likely, but we’ll have to find out as more is released about the book as well as the book’s release.
Thank you for reading this post. If you think I missed an important detail, please write in the comments below. If you have enjoyed, please hit the like button and follow if you haven’t already. Until next time, I wish you the happiest of gaming!
Mr Wizard, Lord of Dungeons
The Apprentice's Guide to D&D 