D&D: What Races Could WotC Put In ‘Monsters Of The Multiverse’
Mordenkainen’s Monsters of the Multiverse promises to update more than 30 player races from throughout 5E. Here’s what we might expect.
One of the exciting new things about the upcoming rules gift set is the chance to dig into a new book that updates monsters and playable races. Announced at D&D Celebration, as part of the ‘Future of D&D’ panel, the new book, Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse will be a good level setting guide for the upcoming rules changes in 2024.
We’ve already been seeing the evolution of D&D. With Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, player races got an update in general which the unearthed arcana for Ravenloft made clearer. We got a look at how WotC plans to tackle races going forward:
But, as many folk have noted, some of the older player races don’t wrote hold up. Especially options like goblins or kobolds, whose ability score packages were often outliers. And in the upcoming Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons, we get a look at what an updated race might feel like. Here’s an example of one of the new, updated, dragonborn:
Compared to the old dragonborn, this one feels a lot more fun to play. These dragonborn are a little more flexible, and they plug into any class a little more seamlessly. Doubtless, the new core rules, coming in 2024 will tackle the classics like elves and dwarves and tieflings, as the design team clarified that we wouldn’t see PHB races in the new book. But Mordenkainen’s Monsters promises more than 30 “updated player character races.” Which is quite a bit. But what might we see? Here’s a comprehensive look at races officially published by Wizards of the Coast.
First up, there are the races out of the Elemental Evil Player’s Companion:
First up, we have the races from Volo’s Guide to Monsters:
- Aasimar
- Bugbear
- Firbolg
- Goblin
- Hobgoblin
- Kenku
- Kobold
- Lizardfolk
- Orc
- Tabaxi
- Triton
- Yuan-ti Pureblood
Now, they did promise to have “setting agnostic versions” of these races, which some are taking to mean won’t include things like Eberron’s Kalashtar or Warforged, or the specific races in the Magic: the Gathering settings–but there are a fair few that feel like they’d slot right into D&D anyway.
For instance, it’s hard to imagine not playing a Warforged after the success of Eberron: Rising from the Last War, which brought us four new races altogether:
- Changeling
- Kalashtar
- Shifter
- Warforged
And if we look at Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica, we find two more that are already in the monster manual with the Centaur and Minotaur. Seeing the Simic Hybrid or Vedalken might be a little more of a stretch, but here’s what they have:
- Centaur
- Loxodon
- Minotaur
- Simic Hybrid
- Vedalken
And in Mythic Odysseys of Theros, similarly, it feels like the Satyr would make the jump pretty easily. Even mighty Leonin might fit in, but again that’s fairly iconic to Magic: the Gathering:
- Leonin
- Satyr
But assuming all of those make it in, there’s still room for at least five more “updated races.” And to find those, we turn to the smaller supplements released on the DM’s Guild (by WotC), often as part of a charity drive. This includes titles like The Tortle Package or Locathah Rising.
From the DM’s Guild titles, we get:
- Grung
- Locathah
- Tortle
Which still leaves room for more. To find these last few candidates we look at some of the other books like, perhaps the Verdan out of Acquisitions Incorporated–or perhaps one of the races of Wildemount. But we can also look to the original Mordenkainen’s book, the Tome of Foes, where we got Gith. But beyond them, we have questions: does they include the variant gnomes/elves/dwarves from the book, like the Shadar-Kai or Eladrin? Or the many tiefling variants? Perhaps. But these could just as easily fit in.
Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse releases Januray, 2022
