D&D 5E Humblewood: A New Third-Party Setting on D&D Beyond

Following November's inclusion of Dungeons of Drakkenheim and Lairs of Etharis, another third-party setting has been added to D&D Beyond. From Hit Point Press, Humblewood, a setting which features new birdfolk player races, made a million dollars on Kickstarter back in April 2019. You can buy it from DDB for $39.99

In the world of Everden, nestled between the mighty Crest mountain range and the vast marshes of the Mokk Fields, lies a mystical forest known as Humblewood that hums with the Great Rhythm of nature. Now the fires have come, and the Woods have been thrown into chaos. Even in these dark times, brave heroes can be found within the Wood. Will you answer the call?

Welcome to Humblewood, a campaign setting where you get to adventure as birds and other woodland critters. Come and discover the mystery behind all the forest fires, is it the Bandit Coalition or something even more nefarious? Explore the verdant forest within:

• Embody the Great Rhythm of nature by selecting between 10 new playable Races and 4 new subclasses from within the D&D Beyond character builder
• Empower your characters with 3 new backgrounds, 7 new feats, 10 new spells, and over 20 new magic items
• Expand your DM toolkit with more than 50 new monsters in the D&D Beyond Encounters tool and 11 new maps for use with D&D Beyond Maps

 

[darjr]

I don’t think they plan to stop. I dunno for sure. But I do think it’s ok to keep em on their toes about it.

 

[SteveC]

Adorable owl characters? My daughter saw this and said I HAVE to play one. So alrighty then.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Look at the sale page for the Book of Many Things. There's no way to buy any of the monsters, feats, spells or backgrounds. It's been almost two months now.

Compare with all of the pieces that one can buy piecemeal for Planescape.

Historically, stuff has been available to purchase piecemeal on the day of release. At worst, by the end of the first week.

I had not spotted that as I bought the whole thing.

 

[Ancalagon]

When it launched there were a lot of bugs. But these kept getting smashed by a DnD Beyond dev. It's like someone was tasked with solving the problems that could be solved.

Beyond hasn't been that active in bug smashing in a long time.

Last time I checked the fathomless warlock still had a bug (their tentacle "turret"'s damage is wrong)

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Now I am thinking there aren't any news about Koboa, the setting inspired in Hispanoamerica. I am afraid it could be my fault. Maybe I was not enough diplomatic about the risk of possible controversie caused by certain tropes.. and then they backed out. In my defense I will say it is better to launch the warning signal before the damage could be worse, and then there is more time to fix the possible troubles.

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What other titles could appear later? For example Scarrend Lands by Onyx Path. Or the Race Guide of Tales of Arcana. Lots of these are in the SRD. And Battlezoo by Roll for Combat?

 

[bedir than]

Now I am thinking there aren't any news about Koboa, the setting inspired in Hispanoamerica. I am afraid it could be my fault. Maybe I was not enough diplomatic about the risk of possible controversie caused by certain tropes.. and then they backed out. In my defense I will say it is better to launch the warning signal before the damage could be worse, and then there is more time to fix the possible troubles.

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What other titles could appear later? For example Scarrend Lands by Onyx Path. Or the Race Guide of Tales of Arcana. Lots of these are in the SRD. And Battlezoo by Roll for Combat?

Do you have any evidence that Koboa was approached to be part of DnD Beyond?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is interesting, if somewhat expected. It kind of looks like WotC is pursuing a two-pronged approach to the digital future of D&D, with Beyond sort of gradually turning more towards being a traditional VTT and opening up to 3PPs and so on, and the still-being-built 3D VTT seemingly taking a much more radical approach, focused more on microtransactions. I mean that is assuming the 3D VTT is still going, but they were hiring as of about a month and a half ago so probably.

 

[mcmillan]

Now I am thinking there aren't any news about Koboa, the setting inspired in Hispanoamerica. I am afraid it could be my fault. Maybe I was not enough diplomatic about the risk of possible controversie caused by certain tropes.. and then they backed out. In my defense I will say it is better to launch the warning signal before the damage could be worse, and then there is more time to fix the possible troubles.

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What other titles could appear later? For example Scarrend Lands by Onyx Path. Or the Race Guide of Tales of Arcana. Lots of these are in the SRD. And Battlezoo by Roll for Combat?

The lack of adding Koboa as a third-party option probably has more to due with the fact that it's not even available yet, the original kickstarter timeline predicted October of this year as the target release date. Plus @bedir than notes there's nothing to suggest the developers agreed to partner with D&D Beyond, just having a news article a few months ago is different than whatever cut WOTC would want to have Koboa made available

 

[UngainlyTitan]

This is interesting, if somewhat expected. It kind of looks like WotC is pursuing a two-pronged approach to the digital future of D&D, with Beyond sort of gradually turning more towards being a traditional VTT and opening up to 3PPs and so on, and the still-being-built 3D VTT seemingly taking a much more radical approach, focused more on microtransactions. I mean that is assuming the 3D VTT is still going, but they were hiring as of about a month and a half ago so probably.

I don't know you might have looked at more 3d VTT's than I have but in my experience creating 3d battlemaps is a pain. Particularly if one has a specific vision of what the terrain should look like.
My guess, is that D&DBeyond will be pretty curated as to what third party they accept. Moreso, since I think that it is limited as to what it can display. Given that the subscribers cannot create base classes.
The VTT might well be more stand alone with the microtransactions being, maps, terrain elements, skins and models.

 

[DavyGreenwind]

Humblewood, Drakkenheim, and Etharis all have one thing in common, in that they cover genres and tropes that current D&D products don't quite hit: cozy-core and dark fantasy. I think future DDB collaborations will focus on genre-heavy products, with unique settings, and professional-level art. I could totally see Planegea getting in there, or Broken Weave by Cubicle 7 (prehistoric and post-apocalyptic, respectively--two huge genres so far not covered by D&D 5e). With that news the other day of WotC's future plans to make some "Universes Beyond" stuff for DDB, I could even see them trying to get Lord of the Rings 5e in there.

What I don't see getting in are things too similar to existing D&D products. For example, Ghostfire is coming out with a Spelljammer-but-better product called the Aetherial Expanse (which looks awesome, btw), but it probably would not be invited in because it'd step on Spelljammer's toes.