D&D: The Art And Artifacts Of Wildemount
Take a look inside the upcoming Critical Role book Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, get a taste for the gorgeous art and powerful artifacts.
It is March and that means Critical Role’s new book, Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount is around the corner. This book is stands out from the norm for a number of reasons–first of all it’s another big official third party property getting folded into the official canon. Matt Mercer’s world, Exandria, is given a whole new level of attention to detail and official rules support, so Critters can play in the world they visit every Thursday.
Now, a new book still won’t magically make all of your players and DM a bunch of talented voice actors, so your results may vary. It’s a lot like going out and playing paintball and finding out you’re there at the same time as the local league. Sure you might have fun, but you and your three friends showed up in jackets and jeans and the other team has custom emblazoned jerseys and masks that look like they should be on the set of The Avengers Six: We Can’t Believe You Rubes Thought Iron Man Was Dead For Real.
You’ll still have a good time, but there’s a whole spectrum there is what I’m saying. At any rate, the new book also features a different team of writers and artists, as Mercer has made it a point to work with artists in the community. And it makes sense, after all the Critter community has helped propel the show from a livestreamed feature on Geek & Sundry into a multimedia franchise popular enough to have its own Funko Pop! figures, Amazon Prime animated series, and multimillion dollar kickstarter while simultaneously insisting that Critical Role is just a bunch of friends who happened to put their D&D game online and yelling loudly if you suggest otherwise.
The art we’ve seen so far is gorgeous–and it’s not in D&D’s usual style either. You can tell that this artwork is made by people who really care about the subjects they’re drawing. And for many this is a big opportunity, the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount is one of the fastest-selling D&D books and it’s not even out yet. Getting your work in the book means putting your work before thousands of people. The departure from the standard style evokes the world of Wildemount.
And speaking of evocation, Mercer spoke with Dragon+ a little about the mysterious artifacts known as Vestiges of Divergence. These have featured in the main story but left many wondering exactly what they are. Mechanically speaking, these are magic items that grow along with the character and reflect the increase of power without sacrificing the narrative of losing a cool part of the character you built.
We’ve seen a few systems like this over the editions. 3rd Edition had Legacy Weapons and the Book of Nine Swords–and the idea makes sense, it’s there to prop up the fact that if you started off using your master’s old sword to avenge their death, it doesn’t make sense to chuck it in a ditch the first time you get a sword that can set itself on fire and does so much more damage.
Vestiges of Divergence have a different sort of take on this though. As Mercer puts it:
“There is no mechanical method for the advancement of the Vestiges, it is always based in story. The point at which they level up might be tied to specific character goals or happen during moments of great crisis or victory. Perhaps a player runs into a longtime rival and during a showdown with them is about to fall. In that final moment, their weapon may suddenly awaken and advance to give them a boost of additional strength in a truly cinematic moment. We offer lots of suggestions on how the Dungeon Master chooses the moments they allow that to happen.
A handful of the Vestiges are neutral, but a whole cluster of them are tied to the history of the betrayer gods and would be considered weapons or objects of dubious morality. You could give them to your villains or even give them to your players and have them wrestle with what is essentially an evil artifact. Do they use it to do good things, or embrace it and do bad things? That’s up to them.
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Players have that to look forward to–and you’ll have plenty of chances to try out your new Vestige item against 23 new monsters, all native to Exandria. And that’s not to mention the three new subclasses and entire new school of magic. There’s a lot to look forward to next week.
Happy Adventuring!
