D&D: After Manufacturing Delays ‘The Deck Of Many Things’ Hits Shelves Today
The Deck of Many Things is set to hit store shelves today. The infamous magic item can be yours in the real world, at last.
Last November (which is a devastating thing to say to a person who’s just woken up on January 5th, but here we go), WotC’s big year-end release, The Deck of Many Things was delayed. Owing to manufacturing defects that left some of the cards in the titular deck warped and off-center, WotC pushed back the physical release to today, January 5th, 2024.
While the accompanying splatbook, The Book of Many Things, was released digitally as planned, you couldn’t find a physical copy outside of the boxed set. In the boxed set, one can find the Book of Many Things alongside the many cards that comprise the Deck of Many Things. And accompanying all of that? A short book that explains how to use the Decks as an Oracle Deck for your adventures.
All in all, it’s a lot of focus on something that you may or may not use. Because there are other oracle decks out there, and for cheaper than the $109 price tag that WotC is seeking for the Deck set, including The Fablemaker’s Deck of Many Things: An Oracle for Risk and Reward, which comes with all new 5E mechanics and overworld and unverworld versions of the cards.
But if the Deck of Many Things is something you’re decidedly into. If you got real into the Tarokka or really love playing iterative/procedural adventures, then this is a great toolset to play with.
Inside the Deck of Many Things
There are 44 new cards included in the set, which have their own magical effects. In that 66 card deck, you’ll find weal and woe for friend and foe. Here’s a taste of some of the new stuff:
Let’s start with a look at some of the good cards and what they do:
- Bridge – Gain the ability to cast Time Stop 1d3 times
- Celestial – Permanently gain luminous feathery wings and a flying speed of 30 feet
- Dragon – A dragon egg appears in front of you and hatches into a dragon wyrmling that views you as its parent and is completely loyal to you and your friends
- Elemental – Gain immunity to your choice of: acid, cold, fire, lightning , or thunder
- Expert – Your Dexterity Score increases by 2 to a maximum of 22 (There’s an item like this for every stat)
- Lance – All your ability scores increase by 1 to a maximum of 20
- Temple – A deity or deity-level power becomes bound to you, and you can call them
And that’s a small taste. Of the 44 new cards, almost 30 are positive effects.
But the ones that get you… well, they really get you:
- Corpse – You drop to 0 hit points and immediately start making death saves. Magic cannot restore your hit points until you stabilize. If you die, die, only Wish can bring you back
- Statue – You become a petrified statue, no save, but hey, at least you’re a pretty, marble statue
- Beast – You get polymorphed into a Beast of CR 5 or lest for 2d12 days and nothing but a Wish can stop this transformation
- Undead – A revenant rises, somewhere in the world, and it blames you for its existence. So it’ll hunt you for one year, until it either kills you or you banish it with a Wish spell (or a year passes)
- Pit – You fall into a pit and take some damage, but it’s not too bad, really
The other big spotlight is the 80-page hardcover guidebook, which shows off how you can use the Deck to generate your own fortunes and adventures. There are different Tarot-like spreads that it will walk you through creating, as well as interpretations for each of the cards in their slots. You could put together an adventure in minutes—so long as you’re prepped to understand what each card means. Realistically it’s still a bit of time as you stat things out and flip back through the cards. But it’s a neat tool to add to your arsenal.
Check out the Deck of Many Things Digital + Physical Bundle
Or look for the Deck of Many Things at the Wizards Store, or a Friendly Local Gaming Store near you.
