Explorer's Guide to Wildemount

Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition

by Matthew Mercer, James J. Haeck, James Introcaso

HOW DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS?

A war brews on a continent that has withstood more than its fair share of conflict. The Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty are carving up the lands around them, and only the greatest heroes would dare stand between them. Somewhere in the far corners of this war-torn landscape are secrets that could end this conflict and usher in a new age of peace--or burn the world to a cinder.

Create a band of heroes and embark on a journey across the continent of Wildemount, the setting for Campaign 2 of the hit Dungeons & Dragons series Critical Role. Within this book, you'll find new character options, a heroic chronicle to help you craft your character's backstory, four different starting adventures, and everything a Dungeon Master needs to breathe life into a Wildemount-based D&D campaign...

- Delve through the first Dungeons & Dragons book to let players experience the game as played within the world of Critical Role, the world's most popular livestreaming D&D show.

- Uncover a trove of options usable in any D&D game, featuring subclasses, spells, magic items, monsters, and more, rooted in the adventures of Exandria--such as Vestiges of Divergence and the possibility manipulating magic of Dunamancy.

- Start a Dungeons & Dragons campaign in any of Wildemount's regions using a variety of introductory adventures, dozens of regional plot seeds, and the heroic chronicle system--a way to create character backstories rooted in Wildemount.

Explore every corner of Wildemount and discover mysteries revealed for the first time by Critical Role Dungeon Master, Matthew Mercer.

Genres: Dungeons and Dragons, Role Playing Games, Fantasy, Gaming, Fiction, Reference, Games

304 pages, Hardcover

First published March 17, 2020

About the author

Storyteller, Voice Over Guy, Dungeon Master, McCree, Cor, Yusuke, Jack Cooper, MacCready, Levi, Chrom, Leon Kennedy, & keeper of the #CriticalRole...

Reviews

[Essi · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 fucking stars simply for gender-neutral language and inclusion of canon non-cis characters, people of colour, and traditionally "evil" races being depicted as multifaceted as humans and other core races. Also, a good guidebook in its own right and a wonderful look into the world of Wildemount.

[Lyddie Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a fan of Critical Role, this has been a wonderful insight into Matt's head. Seeing the expansive worldscape on the page and being able to find the places that the Mighty Nein has been awesome. Perhaps a little lore heavy in places but that's no bad thing if you're planning to use the book as a DM.

[Mauri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mom, giving me this book: You still like Dungeons and Dragons, right?
Me: Yup!
Mom: It’s just that you never play it anymore…
Me, part of a D&D group composed entirely of epidemiologists: ::stares at her in pandemic::

[BJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've been wanting to do a homebrew D&D campaign, but find the world creation process daunting, Wildemount is a fantastic sandbox to play in for small or large scale adventures.

The guide gives fantastic detail on the mythology and history surrounding the continent, as well as insight into the varying cultures and factions dwelling there. It covers geography, city information, characters of interest, and includes many useful maps. There are even several short adventures provided to make it incredibly simple to get started in Wildemont.

[Coriander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully fleshed out setting, adding depth to some of what fans of Critical Role , like myself, have seen in both campaign 1 and campaign 2 of the show, including the mechanics of some spells/items and more details on various political factions and their leadership.

As a queer kid, I especially love the inclusion of canon queer relationships and trans and nonbinary figures. This isn't something I've seen in literally any other D&D source material, which if anything leans a little too hard into gender-based stereotypes for my taste. The included starting adventures are (from the one I'm running at least) fun to run and great prompts for beginning other stories--I really like the adventure/story prompts in general, they're great ways to prompt creativity. Few things have inspired me to write, in recent years, the way D&D has and this gave me the most significant push in that direction. I've written not only for a Wildemount campaign after reading this--which, as a newcomer to D&D far more familiar with Critical Role and Mercer's worldbuilding/lore than the Forgotten Realms setting I'm also DMing (a published module, not by Wizards) in, I'm a lot more confident doing so it's lovely that this gives me the tools/framework to do that well--but for other possible campaign ideas as well, including, I'll be totally honest, a CATS (2019) one-shot.

Seriously though, this has pretty much convinced me to stick with either homebrew campaigns based of published settings like this book or Eberron/Ravenica/etc (which I haven't read yet) or Wizards of the Coast adventures, because the quality of the storytelling and even just the mechanics of writing in this are so much better than the other module I'm running. In the other one, I'm constantly running into typos and inconsistencies (ie, you tell me 30 dwarves live in the living quarters above this mine, but the map you've made has no space for that many dwarves nor indications of offshoots where 'off screen' that many dwarves could functionally live), some of the read-aloud text is just so poorly written as to be perplexing and difficult to fix on-the-fly, and I'm having to rewrite sections as well because, to be frank, they're sexist. Like, my group is all queer folks and/or women. Having a naked, imprisoned 'harem' of kobolds routinely brutalized by their clan leader is not going to be fun for us. Nor is having like 80% of the NPCs be men going to be fun for us. All this takes a good bit of work to rewrite/correct as I'm going through that adventure and is, to be honest, not super fun for me to read in the first place.

In fairness, the adventures in Explorer's Guide are a lot shorter and more open-ended than that module so there are in some ways less opportunities for me to find major faults, but I'm not running in to these kinds of issues here. The adventures and adventure hooks are better thought-out, more diverse, and leave room for a lot of moral ambiguity on a thematic level. The 'villains' are a) possibly not villains, depending on which direction you take your PCs in and b) possessing of actual motivations beyond 'evil creatures do evil, muahahahaha'. Not that a little black and white moralism can't be fun in D&D: It's nice to fight (and kill) enemies sometimes without having to think about any morally grey or realistic implications, but if you have players that are more into role-playing than battle or are wanting to play something with more depth and fewer 'right answers', this is a better source for building that kind of game than anything else I've seen.

[Rita P Smits · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I never watched full episodes of Critical Role nor do I enjoy it, even though I know the basics of Mercer's creation.

I gave this book a try because I wanted to understand how someone goes from enjoying the game to creating official content for it, and because I was curious to know if it was a nice place to get inspiration for ideas of my own. I don't regret it, but I wouldn't recommend reading it from front to cover as I did, or to purchase it (contrary to, for example, "Strongholds and followers", from the superior Matt as I like to call him eheh)

The best of this book: the Dunamancy and Luxon Beacons concepts. Both are interesting, unique and well-thought, in my opinion, and so they are the perfect type of ideas to be borrowed by DMs for their own campaigns.
Apart from this, I liked some small tips and suggestions for small adventure-types scattered across the book, together with one or two specific locations, monsters and items. I found the region of Eiselcross a particularly fertile ground and an original concept, and the Menagerie Cost has plenty to be used in sea-fearing adventures.

The worst: What I most liked about this book could be covered in 10 pages max, and that is never a good thing if we're talking about a 300-and-over page tome. There's a lot of unnecessary and repetitive content, and Mercer isn't a good writer (or that original). The whole really feels fan-made and, narratively speaking, isn't high quality.
I also disliked the setting maps, and the artwork in general - not to mention how it manages to always appear in the wrong place, sometimes pages ahead or in front of the respective content - maybe I'm nitpicking, but really it's a campaign setting book so what else is to be expected?

Additionally, the PC nods did nothing for me. On the contrary, they were irritatingly confusing, as the profusion of they pronouns made me reread most character descriptions wondering if we were talking about one individual or an entire organization, and I really don't care for the NPC examples to have one gender, several or none at all. These NPC were riddled with clichés anyway, and I don't mind my orcs and other races to follow the traditional LOTR basic (and outdated, if you will) duality of good vs evil.
Curiously, I found the "fan-service" references fun actually, making the world feel more alive and real in a way, which I'd say is the main purpose of anything D&D related - so I didn't mind those, even as someone that is not a fan of the show itself.

So overall: not the best D&D book I've read to date, nor one I advise to anyone that is not specifically a fan of the show. But it's probably a good fit for anyone who enjoys CR, and if it serves as an introduction to the hobby to even more new people, that's worthy out of itself!

[Dylan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Explorer's Guide to Wildemount by Matthew Mercer is a deceptively important addition to any DM's bookshelf if they desire to build a strong homebrew world for their campaign setting. Matthew Mercer, creator of Critical Role, uses his own world of Exandria to explore the ideas of factions, allegiances, and city structure in a way that most companion books in Dungeons and Dragons overlook. The detailed dive into how these various entities work together to create a living, breathing city is essential in helping to truly enthrall your players, and the addition of new patrons, a list of magic items, and new monsters certainly helps.

TL;DR: Essential for a better understanding of world building in D&D from a well known example.

[Denny Connolly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really fantastic sourcebook whether you watch Critical Role or not. Very compelling setting with a massive war as the backdrop. Fun new character options and a great change of pace if your group wants a fantasy setting with a bit of a different flavor than the Forgotten Realms.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice matt

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of information. Good maps and artwork. Some great magic items. Full backgrounds on organizations and demographics on population centres. Good to fall back on if you need more from your Critical Role stream watching.

[Graham G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Far and away better than the Tal' Dorei Campaign Guide. While this is still more a lore book than a proper campaign setting, it's far more useful and has loads of interesting content and ideas for potential campaigns.

[Leia / Felix · Rating 5 out of 5]

I canr wait to play this

[Enrique Arroyo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read. As one who enjoys source books of all kinds, this one was well done.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've only ever seen a couple episodes of Critical Role and have never really been able to get into it, and thus wasn't immediately interested when this book was announced. Then covid hit and roleplaying in person became a lot harder, my regular D&D group transitioned to Roll20, and one of my players offered to run Frozen Sick, one of the starter adventures in this book which was being offered on Roll20 as a free sample. The sample did its job as I found the setting really interesting and then went and bought the full book. I like the Wildemount setting enough that if I get the chance to run Ghosts of Saltmarsh again I plan to use some suggestions I found online to reskin it from Greyhawk to the Menagerie Coast. My only complaint would be that I wish the sample adventures either included higher level content or were more able to be run together with the same group of characters.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matthew Mercer please marry me

[Dylan Zucati · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve never run an adventure somebody else wrote. I read a couple when I was still deeply in fourth edition and I never felt like I could pull off an entertaining version of the game. I haven’t given 5e a fair shot and maybe I could run/play something when my local game store opens back up. Home-brewing never actually worked for me either, the farthest a party ever got was level three before fizzling out. So when my friends wanted to play and I offered to DM, I knew I had to try something new or settle for a one shot. At the time, I was caught up on the Mighty Nein campaign of Critical Role and had purchased the Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount as fan service. Cracking into the supplement Matthew Mercer originally built for a group of nerdy ass voice actors gave me exactly what I was looking for.

I’m going to get this out of the way first: reading it cover to cover is a boring as hell slog. The order of chapters was not enjoyable in a vacuum and I started jumping around after chapter two. The Gazetteer was way too dense for me to read in a straight line, I actually hadn’t finished it by the time I started running a campaign in Exandria. I later found that to be a mistake, wanting to start over with a better understanding of Wildemount, but hindsight and all that. At the time I was in no mood for a textbook; maybe other supplements flow better, but in my experience a textbook is a good way to look at these books. If you were a masochist who wanted to read a tome for fun, I would have a different Book Report for you, but I’m talking to those among us who wish to use this text for their campaigns.

I’ve always been bothered by the frankly racist concept that certain races are good and certain races are evil. I don’t want a half-orc blacksmith, I want a full orc baker; the drow have such cool imagery that it sucks they can only ever worship a BDSM spider god or be lone wolfs bucking tradition; who doesn’t want to play as a goblinoid!? Mercer provides a world in which all humanoids are created equally with an actual explanation for how that fits within the constraints of Dungeons & Dragons. As a cis man who was heterosexual for the entirety of his youth, pronouns aren’t something that bother me instinctively. If a book uses she/her by default I am delightedly surprised by the subversion of norm, but it’s not often I see gender neutral pronouns used commonly. Not only that, but there are non-binary and trans characters that use they/them as preference and not just politeness. Normally I assume inserting queer relationships is my job, but Mercer wrote those for you too! It’s so satisfying to have someone say they care about their demographic and then prove it with more than just lip service. In both the campaigns he runs and this supplement he’s created, Matthew Mercer shows what roleplaying can look like for the underrepresented.

The world of Exandria and continent of Wildemount itself feels rich with possibility. There are a few adventures to start your campaign, but they all end at level three and exist open enough for a DM like me, who wants to do a bulk of their own storytelling their own way. While the Gazetteer is longer than I want for a casual read, it has enough information for each map marker that I can fill out settings with ease as my adventuring party travels through. I’m not restricted to keeping them in specific locations based on level cap and the different factions of countries feel rich with conflict even if I ignore the war setting that drives this continent. The only 5e books I owned before this were PHB, DMG, and MM, so the character options here gave me stat blocks for races I’ve wanted to offer my players since I first heard someone play a tabaxi or kenku on podcasts. The added spells are neat, though I do wish there was enough dunamancy to build an entire school of magic. That would probably require more game balancing than Wizards of the Coast wants to provide, but it sure would be cool. The items and monsters nothing special in terms of stat blocks., but the concept behind Vestiges of Divergence and Arms of the Betrayers was something I wanted to steal from Critical Role anyways. Imagine my delight when there’s a detailed explanation of how to do just that.

If you aren’t a fan of Critical Role and you are more interested in reading about Dungeons and Dragons than actually playing it, there are probably other books better suited for your enjoyment. If you are a critter you probably have this book anyways, but if you were looking for your next campaign setting and wanted to create stories within a diversely populated world, Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount might be the roadmap you were looking for. Even if you don’t pick this book up, I think the best aspects of Matt’s writing will ripple through other D&D texts down the line. I’m done talking about this, now it’s your turn (your turn[YOUR TURN]) to roll!

[Pádraic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't know why I didn't read this back when I was going through the other 5th edition setting books. "It's just Mercer's homebrew setting!" Well, the Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk were just people's homebrew settings, once upon a time. I should note that I haven't watched and won't watch Critical Role (it is simply Too Long), so I'm coming to this purely in terms of its helpfulness for running a game.

And you know, it's not half bad! The lore here wears its influences on its sleeves, but there's nothing wrong with that. There's an ancient city fallen from the sky like Netheril in the Forgotten Realms, a nation of the usually 'evil' races like Droaam in Eberron, and a bunch of the standard deities and devils ported over. But the divergences are really interesting. The new minor gods are fascinatingly terrible, the major political conflict is nicely morally grey, and there are plenty of great places to adventure, particularly towards the edges of the map.

I've complained before about setting books just being a long list of locations and histories, but here there's something actually useful: most of the locations have adventure hooks provided, often more than one, with level ranges included, each of which is more than enough to fill a session or three. They're simple outlines, but each would be easy to shuffle around to fit what's happening currently in your campaign. It ensures that there's something to actually, you know, do in these places, rather than just paragraphs of lore that you can't actually communicate to your players. I would have liked a few more random tables and such to roll on for the more major locations, but I always want more random tables.

The player options are cool but not astonishing, although I am a fan of the echo knight, and I always appreciate guidelines for how to adapt races and classes for a particular setting. Sure, you're a paladin, but what are paladins like here? There's also a great deal of tools for embedding a player's backstory into the setting, tables to roll on for allies, rivals, and even prophecies. This is all great, particularly for newer players who might not have the instincts yet to do this sort of thing themselves.

Beyond that, there's four full adventures included. To my surprise, these are all 1st level introductory adventures, one each for the major regions of Wildemount. They vary in tone, but they do all do a good job of showing you what the basic conflicts and issues are in those particular regions. The latter two were my favourites: 'Frozen Sick' includes a race against time to find a cure to an ancient disease released from a ruin, and 'Unwelcome Spirits' has a nice hexcrawl across a swamp and drastically different things waiting for the players at the end of it, depending on how long they take trekking there. 'Dangerous Designs' I thought was a little ho-hum, and 'Tide of Retribution', while it does have excellent pirate content, puts a 1st level party up against sahuagin, shark monsters perfectly capable of chewing through much more experienced adventurers.

In all, mostly pretty good! Not the 5th edition setting book that's the most helpful for DMs (can't top Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica there imo), but up in the second tier for sure, comfortably alongside Mythic Odysseys of Theros.

[James Frenkz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Where do you start when reviewing a campaign setting for something like Dungeons and Dragons? Hard to say for sure, I suppose, but I can tell you I wasn't really a fan.

I should preface by saying that I have, in fact, listened to a ton of Critical Role. In particular, Campaign 1 and at least over half of the blindingly frustrating Campaign 2, where Wildemount first appears. (Also it should be Wyldemount to make it extra fantasy, come on Matt, get your shit together.)

I'm not the world's most seasoned DM but there wasn't anything here I would say is worth forking over actual dollars for unless you're already into Critical Role and intend to run a campaign there, or just want to fork over your hard earned dollars to a company that openly hates white men, I.E. the group that literally built said company, but that's neither here nor there. The world of Wildemount is very stereotypical and there isn't anything there you couldn't get by simply setting your campaign in The Forgotten Realms or a generic kitchen soup homebrew of your own making (and that'd probably be more personal and fun anyhow, to be honest.)

I'm not really into magic systems, but Dunemancy is kind of interesting. However, I have a hard time imagining wrangling five retards together long enough to get them to use it unless you're already playing at a table that's big critical role fans (at which point, God help your soul, the amount of rainbow pronoun bullshit you're about to be subject to would probably make a bisexual parrot blush.)

The starter adventures were okay, but like a couple other reviews have pointed out they have a couple encounters that would chew through a beginner party like a knife through wet paper. The piracy one whose name I can't remember in particular felt like it was actually built for a more experienced party, but that's not something you can't fix by just changing the enemies around or fudging a few numbers.

The insistence on using entirely gender neutral language was infuriating and a great example of why progressive brainrot is actively bad for creative productions. 'They' being used in place of any other kind of pronoun never makes the reading any easier and only serves to appeal to the brand of people who actively tore Matt apart for having the gall to LE GASP... KILL one of his players! The amount of times I had to double check and make sure I wasn't misinterpreting something was small but noticeable and nothing would have been lost except the top review on this webpage sucking this thing's cock for using it.

I'd avoid it, get it for free if you really must, there's nothing here you'd need or want that you couldn't just find online without a price tag.

[Marina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Speaking as someone who isn't a fan of Critical Role, the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is an amazing D&D book.

It contains a world filled with so much depth, and so many different adventure hooks, that your players could be living off just the ideas in this book for years. There are many guilds, characters and worldbuilding ideas that you can pilfer yourself, a lot of new magical items, four introductory adventures (one of which I'll be running for the first time tomorrow), a decently sized bestiary, new class options, new spells, new playable species and species variants, and just a general love and honesty to the world that makes it feel genuine, and leap off of the page. I personally can't wait to start a campaign with some players on the Menagerie Coast.

It's not quite for everyone, but it comes highly recommended to newer DMs. While I've been DMing for years, the advice the DM's guide gives you for worldbuilding right off the bat is perhaps a little ambitious. It might be best to start with the framework already there, before you bounce off into your own world. Wildemount seems like a fantastic place to start, especially since there's variety aplenty here, and the Drow get some time in the light, literally, which is really cool.

Oh, and it's LGBTQIA+ friendly too, which is awesome!

[Ay Oh Be · Rating 5 out of 5]

The creativity of Matthew Mercer is an impressive thing. Many times while reading the Guide to Wildemount I stopped to write down ideas and thoughts inspired by Mercer's intricate creation.

I have only just finished listening to Vox Machina and am going to start Mighty Nien soon so the setting of Wildmount (with the exception of The Darrington Brigade) is quite new to me. I loved reading about it. The lore books are my favourite to read and I know I drove my husband nuts by constantly pointing out things from the book (though not the big monsters because he is my DM).

I found the Kryn Dynasty fascinating. Their society is so interesting and not what you would expect from such a motley crew. Their belief system was one of the most interesting things in the book. Then there is the moving community built on the back of enormous tortoises which captivated my imagination. What a treasure trove of ideas.

You don't have to be a fan of Critical Role to enjoy the ideas in this book. The new character options could be adapted to any setting. I really liked the Echo Knight and am hoping to have build one up sometime!

My only disappointment was that Quackthulu's stats were not included in the monster section.

[alaspoorghost · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is such a wealth of information packed within this tome! If you're a fan of Critical Role, and/or into D&D or worldbuilding, I'd definitely recommend checking it out. There are plenty of things to get ideas from- locations, maps, gorgeous art, monsters, weapons and magical items, subclasses, adventures...so much to choose from, and work with, and be inspired by.
It took me awhile to get through reading it cover to cover- D&D books aren't known for being easy reads!- but each day I had the time to sit down and skim a page or two, it added more inspiration to the collection of ideas I store in my brain. Matt Mercer puts a lot of thought and passion into his work, and that's especially shown in this book, and the work those involved had put in to make it possible.
What I also love is the overwhelming amount of possible LGBTQ+ NPCs included!! Let me tell you, it is so, so cool to see not just one, but multiple characters that you share commonalities with. It makes Wildemount feel even more real, and more lived-in, and I really appreciate that. I never would have imagined seeing nonbinary representation in an official D&D sourcebook, but it exists in here <3.

[Walker Jinks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book as a supplement to my knowledge of running the Critical Role Adventure, Call of the Netherdeep. And I was very impressed by its depth. Clearly a lot of love and thought went into building this world and the characters/story ideas it presents are fantastic building blocks. I think the best part are the first two chapters which explains the summarized history of the world as well as all of the major societal organizations within the continent of Wildemount. My mind is already brimming with ideas for how to further my players’ campaign. They’ve done a great job creating a living breathing world that feels so open to explore and create your own adventures, I would recommend this to anyone. My only gripe is that the original magic items and original monsters section was pretty light. I wanted more creativity in those areas but otherwise definitely worth a purchase.

[Geordie · Rating 2 out of 5]

A description of the D&D campaign world of Wildemount, as made famous by Critical Role.

I'm not following the Critical Role series, so I really don't think I'm the target audience for this book. It has long descriptions of the locations in the campaign world that didn't interest me; is this because they're not interesting, or because I'm not invested in them? Probably a little of both (the quality of writing is very up and down), but maybe more of the latter than the former.

As for the rest of the book, like I said, it has ups and downs. Where it really soured for me were in the adventures set out for introducing new level 1 characters to the world. There are four of them; the first was pretty clever, the next two outright mediocre, and the fourth was just awful. It had the feeling of being written on a deadline with no one going back for editing. There were random encounters that would be totally deadly for a level one party, and a rare magic item (DMG recommends not to be used until minimum level 5) just lying around! One ending possibility has the goblin warlock the party is trying to save become possessed, and kill all her captors. Despite the fact that she's barely stronger than she was before she was possessed. Which, besides making no sense, is going to ruin the excitement of a final confrontation with her, because she is not going to be a serious challenge at all (especially not compared to those random encounters unconnected with the actual plot!).

Other than being really irked by that, I don't have a lot of strong feelings. Probably worth checking out for Critical Role fans, wouldn't recommend it for anyone else into D&D.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book with some wonderful world building for D&D. Mercer has a great imagination, and his world herer, Wildemout, is interesting and detailed. I am not a fan of the Critical Role streaming show, but people just love it, so I'm going to assume this is an age thing (i.e. I am too old to appreciate watching 1,50o hours of people role playing). With that said, I thoroughly enjoyed The Legend of Vox Machina on Amazon, and I hope the Critical Role community and brand continues to spread. I enjoy books of lore for fantasy worlds, and this is a great one.

I think Matt Mercer and the whole Critters thing is the future of the game. It's changed so much since the olden days!

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to skim this book, unfortunately, which makes my review a little bit skewed. But from what I gleaned of it, this is a well-organized references of all the places, people, and perils of Wildemount! For any DMs looking to run a game in this setting, I recommend running Frozen Sick or any of the other starter adventures included, then just letting the party wander the world. They’ll have a lot to explore with all the different towns and locales, and some of the additional adventure hooks would make great starts to other one-shots or side adventures even in a different setting.

Looking forward to potentially referring to this when I run Call of the Netherdeep soon!

[S.M.M. Lindström · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're a fan of the actual play show Critical Role and you want to play in the same world as the Mighty Nein (and Vox Machina of course, though this is not about their home continent), this is the book for you! While I enjoyed the first release from this setting, this second installment in their world book is far more in depth and broader. You get plenty of fun adventure hooks, NPCs, magical items, creatures, lore and lovely art.

Highly enjoyed this book and will be using plenty of its info both in my Exandria set campaign and other games I DM!

[Amélie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Want to start a campaign in the amazing world of Critical Role? This is the book for you!

It contains a plethora of information about Wildemount (the setting for Campaign 2, which I haven't seen yet), many hooks for adventures, and a few fully-written ones. The dunamancy subclasses are very interesting now that I've had a closer look at them, and I love the idea of the Grinners.

There's a lot going on in there, and as a baby-DM, I'm having a lot of fun using it!

[Nigel Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a present from my daughter and her wife, who are both big CR fans. Needless to say, I've now been dragged into the cult 😊

The timing has proven to be beneficial as I'm working on a new campaign which will involve intrigue and industrial sabotage; so basically Dwendalian Empire vs Kryn Dynasty.
There's plenty in here to work with; lore, politics, npc's and plenty more. About the only negative is that there's some repetition, but it's mostly minor.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will use parts of this for sure. Like the subsystem for magic items that evolve with the characters. Also liked the northern islands that are pretty much adventure locales for weird science fantasy.

Finally the 3 big nations, multiple factions, and a central conflict - a war between the two great powers make this an excellent template for world building.

[Daryl]

This is a sourcebook/reference. I didn't read it straight through from cover-to-cover, though I did read a great deal of it straight through. It's not one I feel like I really ought to give a starred rating, as it's kind of an anomalous book. It's a neat book, full of imaginative stuff you can use to build a D&D campaign.