In January, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) announced the upcoming D&D book for March: Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount. This will be a setting book with both Dungeon Master and player options, headed up by Matt Mercer (DM of Critical Role) and a team of writers and artists.

Wildemount is Matt Mercer’s setting used for the second campaign of Critical Role. It’s described as “classic D&D adventuring with a political background,” where war is brewing between the setting’s various factions.

So what exactly is Wildemount? What sort of options are we looking at? Let’s talk about what we know about this upcoming setting book!

Full disclosure, I haven’t seen much of Critical Role, though I do intend on watching it at some point. Nevertheless, what I’ve heard makes me enthusiastic about what we’ll see in this book!

This information is pulled from interview videos released by D&D Beyond plus the information available on the book’s product page. Source links are at the bottom of this post!

Dungeon Master Options

This book contains information about the setting, as well as DM resources like monsters, magic items, and introductory adventures.

The Setting

Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount will, of course, include extensive information about the setting (a continent in Exandria, which is the name of the world). There will be a Wildemount gazetteer with plenty of information about present-day Wildemount and its various factions. It seems that the book will focus less on ancient history and more on the current state of affairs that the player characters are walking into.

This Wildemount is a snapshot at a very precise moment in time regarding Critical Role’s timeline—episode 50 of campaign 2. From there, the expectation is that what happens in your Wildemount campaign will diverge from campaign 2’s canon. This is helpful for groups familiar with Critical Role, since it doesn’t hold you to the established events of the show, and for groups unfamiliar with Critical Role, since you don’t have to worry about watching the show to know what you need to know about the world.

Wildemount diverges from classic D&D in a few interesting ways. For example, gods are prevented from interfering in the world. They once did, but now they have left—mortals are solely responsible for the preservation/destruction of their world.

Another example is the Kryn Dynasty, made of up drow and other “monstrous” peoples like kobolds and bugbears. These are surface-dwelling drow who do not worship Lolth, and these “monsters” aren’t inherently evil, which is a refreshing turn from classic D&D lore.

Introductory Adventures

Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount contains four introductory adventures for DMs to use—one for each area of Wildemount. Each of them takes place in a major port of the campaign world, of different genres and writers. These adventures are aimed to help new DMs (both new to Wildemount or new to D&D) and contain suggestions for customizing the text to suit your group.

Monsters

There will be new monsters! We haven’t heard too much about these—we know that some will be recognizable from campaign 2, and others will be completely new.

Magic Items

Some of the new magic items will be “vestiges of divergence,” artifacts left over from the age when deities walked the earth of Exandria. These vestiges are weapons that grow along with the character who wields them. They are artifacts once used by the deities’ champions.

These items start in dormancy, then they move to a state called “awakened,” and their final form is “exalted.” But not all of these are vestiges of good deities, so characters who want to progress their vestiges might have to make some difficult decisions to move forward.

This is one of the things I’m really excited to get my hands on! Even if I don’t use these vestiges as-written, I’ll definitely take a look at their structure to make my own.

Player Options

Players using Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount will gain access to the heroic chronicle system, new spells, and new subclasses for the fighter and the wizard.

As a note, these new mechanics have gone through D&D’s standard playtesting and editing process.

The Heroic Chronicle

The heroic chronicle system was written by James Haeck to help players create character backstories that are firmly integrated with Wildemount. It sounds like the system will allow the DM and player to work together alongside random tables to add an element of chance. I’m very interested to see how this works!

Dunamancy

New spells in Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount are dunamancy magic—not a new school, but a loose grouping of spells. Dunamancy (from the ancient Greek word δύναμις or dunamis, meaning potential) manipulates space, time, gravity, possibility, that sort of thing.

For example, fortune’s favor is a new spell that grants the caster something like a luck point. Reality break throws the target through different versions of reality. There’s a spell that creates a line of sheer gravitational force, allowing the caster to control the battlefield.

I am extremely pumped for these new spells. New options are always welcome, even more so when they sound as cool as dunamancy!

Subclasses

Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount introduces three new subclasses: the Echo Knight, the Graviturgist, and the Chronurgist.

The Echo Knight is a fighter subclass that can use alternate versions of the player character to help them fight. They can summon these versions or “echoes,” and they use them to defend their allies or otherwise give them an advantage in battle.

The Graviturgist is a wizard subclass that focuses on gravity control. This allows them to manipulate the battlefield or power up an attack by increasing its velocity. It seems like, at higher levels, this wizard could even create a singularity on the battlefield!

The Chronurgist is a wizard subclass that focuses on time manipulation. This can aid your party when rolling initiative. You can also freeze a spell in time and release it later, it seems?

These subclasses sound like fun spins on the fighter and the wizard, a fresh take on classic classes.

Sources and Additional Links

Much of this information is pulled from interviews done by Todd Kenreck (of D&D Beyond). If you haven’t already, I encourage you to watch them for yourself!

Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount Product Page

Youtube Playlist for D&D Beyond Interviews on Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount

Matt Mercer – Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount – Full Interview

Todd Talks: Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount with James Haeck and James Introcaso

What are you most excited about for Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount?