D&D: Get an Inside Look at Tasha's Cauldron of Everything

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, the new Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook releasing later this year, offers a litany of new options for how players customize their characters and how dungeon masters run their games. We wanted to get a better idea of what to expect within its pages, so the D&D team gave us an exclusive look at their intro to some of the new DM tools, several pieces of concept art, and an overview of everything contained within its 180+ pages thanks to an in-depth discussion of its many contents with Lead Rules Designer Jeremy Crawford. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=dd-tashas-cauldron-of-everything-preview-pages-covers-and-concept-art&captions=true"] Click through the gallery above for a look at the preview pages, or scroll down for the full deep-dive! "I am super excited about people getting this book, not only because it has been so fun to design this content and develop it, but also because so much of this content we developed in conversation with the community," Crawford says. "People are going to meet a lot of old friends in this book, because they will have met them before in our Unearthed Arcana process. They were able to give us feedback on those elements, and then we were able to analyze that feedback and incorporate it into the final version."

New DM Tools

[caption id="attachment_243230" align="aligncenter" width="720"] The introduction to Chapter 4: Dungeon Master's Tools[/caption] "I'm also excited because the book includes things they haven't seen before," he continues. "It includes a bunch of new magic items that I think are gonna knock people's socks off. It includes, you know, new tools for the DM including the puzzles, the magical environments... just all sorts of goodies. Now that people get all of this tied together, I think it's a really strong package of new options that I think will enrich D&D games of all sorts." The DM Tools chapter kicks off with a full-page portrait of the titular witch, Tasha, playing an intense round of Wizard's Chess with the famed wizard Mordenkainen. [caption id="attachment_243229" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Artist credit: Svetlin Velinov[/caption] "Putting in the wizard's chess in that painting was sort of a little spark of inspiration that occurred when we were writing the art order," says Crawford. "It was largely inspired by a series of old Dragon Magazine covers that features wizard chess, where the pieces on the board come alive and battle each other. So, that painting is actually a homage to a series of old Dragon Magazine covers."

Supernatural Regions

The DM Tools chapter also includes rules and suggestions for what are being called "Supernatural Regions." These otherworldly locations include (among others) haunted realms where restless spirits wander freely, the Lovecraftian nightmare of a world beyond the known sphere of existence, or a delightfully horrifying colony of mimics. [caption id="attachment_243230" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Concept art for the mysterious Far Realms by artist Titus Lunter.[/caption] "The Far Realm, as the name implies, is this far off dimension that is outside the great wheel of existence," Crawford explains. "It's this mind-bending reality that is not bound by the rules of the rest of the D&D multiverse, and it is that reality that creatures like mind flayers and beholders originally come from. It's one of the reasons why those creatures are so terrifying to pretty much everybody else in the D&D multiverse. And not just humanoids, you know – even dragons are probably like, 'Oh no.' And we have a massive table of different effects that player characters might have to face in a place where that alien dimension has erupted into the material plane." [caption id="attachment_243229" align="aligncenter" width="720"] Concept art for a haunted realm by artist Marcela Medeiros[/caption] "The Haunted Realm is, in some ways, the classic 'spooky horror area' that a group might wander into; and just as we did with the Far Realm incursion, here we give DMs a set of mechanical options for spooky things a group of heroes might face if they wander into this place that's haunted by the unquiet dead or some other disquieting presence. And for both the Haunted Realm, the Far Realm incursion, as well as the other supernatural regions in the book, each one has a set of triggers that we've provided where, if one of these triggers occurs, then one of these rules options can click into place. Giving the DM essentially a menu of things that can suddenly cause the haunted region or the Far Realm region to suddenly jump into action. And in each case, those triggers are tailored to the particular supernatural regions so that you really get the sense of being in this place, saturated with a particular type of magic or supernatural power. And those triggers are a mix of story events occurring and mechanical things occurring. [caption id="attachment_243229" align="aligncenter" width="720"] A mimic colony as portrayed by artist Sam Keiser.[/caption] "We love including in most of our books dashes of whimsy, and sometimes the whimsy gets mixed up with the horrifying," Crawford laughs. "And [the mimic colony] is a great example of the whimsical and the horrifying hanging out together. We just thought it would be delightful – slash terrifying –  to have this whole region you wander into and have this dawning horrific realization that everything we're looking at is a mimic. And so we provide rules for what happens when you discover you're in a mimic colony. And that even includes providing a set of what are essentially lair actions for the mimic colony itself. We also include in those rules some... subtle enhancements for mimics that are in that colony, like them suddenly gaining the ability to communicate. So you could suddenly discover you're getting telepathic messages from a chair, which could be played very whimsically in a particular campaign, or could be a source of great fear."

The Whole Cauldron

Here you have the entire contents of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, covering everything from the new character origin options to magic items, puzzles, and the DM tools detailed above. We talked with Mr. Crawford about a great many aspects of the book, so we've included a transcript of our discussion below. IGN: You and the design team have spoken at length about the new options for players wishing to change the abilities associated with a character's lineage, but it looks like players can also change their character's skills and subclasses? Jeremy Crawford: Changing a skill and changing your subclass are great examples of the fun nuggets we like to include in a book like this that weren't necessarily in Unearthed Arcana, because we always like there to be a few surprises. People saw a version changing skills back in Unearthed Arcana in our Class Feature Variant article where we explored this as an option, customized for each class, but we decided when finishing the book, it was better to just provide a general rule for everybody.

Changing your subclass, though, is truly something people haven't seen. We give you concrete guidance on when is a good time to change your subclass, how you might go about it, some comments for the DM on whether some in-world training should be involved in this transformation of your character. This is the kind of thing many DMs let their players already do with their characters, but what we often find is that some DMs are hesitant to allow this sort of liberty unless we, basically, give "official permission" to do it.

So this is really us telling DMs, "It's okay to let people do this." You know? If they find their subclass just isn't playing the way they'd hoped, or if there's been a major story transformation for their character, changing your subclass is a great way to address those different things... These all go under what I often refer to as the "follow your bliss" umbrella of giving people the permission – and the encouragement – to make tweaks that will enhance their enjoyment of their character and of D&D more broadly.