Summary

  • The Deck of Many Things is an immersive release for Dungeon & Dragons, featuring new cards and a physical prop for DMs.
  • The deck includes new art that thematically ties together cards and offers different interpretations for each card's effects.
  • The Deck of Many Things allows DMs to customize their game by choosing which cards to include and can also be used outside of the game as a storytelling tool.

For a game full of terrifying monsters and fantastical weapons, it’s surprising that one of the most iconic items in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons is a humble deck of cards. But these cards aren&💎rsquo;t just to play with, they contain some of the wildest, most powerful magic in the world: The Deck Of Many Things.

Draw a card, and a whole host of magical effects ranging from boons to curses can be unleashed. D&D’s next release, also called The Deck Of Many Things, expands this deck. ඣWith new cards, new backstory, and even a physical prop for your DM to menacingly shuffle, The Deck Of Many Things looks set to be an immersive release.

Related
Dungeon🔜s & Dragons: The Demogorgon, Explained

Tไhe two-headed Prince of Demons is a big part oꦉf Dungeons & Dragons lore.

The star of The Deck Of Many Things is the deck itself. Inspired by Tarot and Oracle cards, this deck includes not just the original 22 cards of ꧅the deck, but also 44 brand new cards, fittingly called The Deck Of Many More Things.

Deck of Many Things Products

Each one features new art that serves not only as a fancy prop, but also as a way to thematically tie together cards and draw connections between them DMs might not have noticed in the past. For instance, the Talons, Tower, Undead, and Ring cards all focus on the same Licꦛh, which works as a jumping-off point for using the deck to tell whatever stories you want.

Included with the deck is an 88-page hardback book that serves as a resource for DMs by explaining what every card can do. Designed to fill some of the gaps of the original deck, there’s less of an emphasis on changing stats and f🐎orcing encounters in these cards, with more focused on roleplaying a💎nd social experiences.

Making the deck serve all DMs, regardless of how combat-heavy their games are, is a core theme of The Deck Of Many Things. Instead of having each card have a predefined effect, each card has five different interpretations: it could represent a person (such as an NPC encounter), a monster, a hazard, ♋a location, or a treasure. This is a great way to preserve the random, fate-driven themes of the Deck of Many Things, while also allowing the DM to have some control and prevent it from totally upending their plans for the session.

Deck of Many Things Cards

Of course, DMs aren’t even required to run the entire deck. You can pick and choose which cards are in your game’s deck – such as removing all the social encounters and adding more combat-heavy ones for the dungeon raiders, or the opposite for a party who’d ratheꦉr adopt a little gremlin thing as its own rather than kill it. In fact, the Book Of Many Things encourages this with four pre-set decklists to cater to di💎fferent playstyles:

· The Starter deck, full of the less-punish📖ing c💧ards for new players.

· Roleplay, for social encounters.

· Lighthearted, with꧑ the funni൩er, whackier effects.

· The Deck Of Horrors, with the most punishing cards for the hard𝐆cor🌠e.

An inter📖esting new use for the Deck of Many Things lies outside of the game. By using🉐 the cards like Oracle cards and following the “Adventure Spread”, the deck can be used as a way to plot out the key beats of a story. Through the spread, the cards can represent where the party is before the start of the campaign, the inciting event to bring them together and start the story, the journey the party goes on, the entrance to a dungeon, three challenges to encounter in the dungeon, the final boss of the dungeon, and the treasure at the end of it.

While this does reduce a campaign into an easily repeatable formula, the deck can provide the basic structure found in most storytelling. By adding or removing sections of the spread, you can make your campaign longer or shorter, or you can j🀅ust use it as inspiration for your ongoing campaign. A cool example given by Wizards was using the spread to define your story before the first session, and then rigging the deck to have your players pull omens of things yet to come from it later on. Mayb🍷e your big bad is a Lich, and so early on you can have them pull the Undead card in the Tavern at the very start of the campaign as a cool bit of foreshadowing.

Seelie Market Map

Though the deck is setting-agnostic and can be run in any world, if you pref𝐆er your adventures a bit more guided, The Book Of M🍌any Things also includes more standard fare for a D&D release. There’s a new feat that can manipulate the deck known as the Cardomancer, as well as new spells, items, and character origins to tie into the cards. More importantly, it also includes encounters and story beats that help provide the backstory of the Deck.

While the Deck mostly depicts things like talons, towers, and rings, there is one named character depicted, the medusa Euryale. Her and her friend Astaria make a minor appearance in Planescape: ♐Adventures In The Multiverse, but will be the central focus for lots of The Book Of Many Things’ c💦ontent.

Deck of Many Things Euryal and Asteria by Katerina Ladon
Sister Adventurers by Katerina Ladon

Though we don’t know a lot about what their story will entail, designer Mackenzie De Armas did go in-depth on the characterisation of the two. Instead of being a foul Medusa inflicting curses on all who face her, Euryale has been reimagined to be a more sympathetic character. Outside of D&a🤪mp;D, Medusa has become representative of survivors of sexual violence, and so De Armas was keen to make Euryale a symbol not of monstrosity, “but of protection, defiance, sisterhood, and reclamation”.

Istus and Asteria by Hinchel Or
Istus and Asteria by Hinchel Or

Asteria, meanwhile, also has the honour of being D&D’s first canonically Autistic chara♕cter, designed by De Armas, who is themself Autistic. Much of Asteria’s story will be about changing fate and saving her frie🙈nd, although De Armas said that her autism would serve a role within the story beyond a footnote on her character biography.

While it remains to be seen whether Wizards has really done these characters justice, The Deck Of Many Thi൲ngs looks like one of the most essential D&D releases since 2022’s Rules Expansion. The deck is a multifaceted release that aims to help you and your party tell your own stories just as much as it wants to tell its own. Part roleplaying prop, part DM aid, part self-contained adventure, I really hope this release doesn’t get lost in the hype of Phandelver and Planescape’s more traditional adventures.

NEXT: Dungeons & Dragons: Complete Guid⛦e To Planescape – Adventures In The🔯 Multiverse