Wildemount Worldbook (Part 2 of 2)

In my previous post, I examined an AD&D worldbook, Dragonlance Adventures by Weis and Hickman. Today, I'm going to examine a 5e worldbook, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount by Matthew Mercer. The book is based on the world Matt Mercer created for season 2 of Critical Role, of which I have only seen a part. Wildemount is one of the continents of Matt's homebrew world of Exandria. As with my Dragonlance review, I am not going to discuss other supplements like the Call of the Netherdeep campaign book (also 5e). 

Wildemount Setting 5e

The Book

This book was a joint effort between Critical Role and the D&D staff (Jeremy Crawford et al.). It's 304 pages long, most of which can be used or adapted at the table. Let's start off with a quick rundown on the contents of the book:

1. A brief overview of the setting and the book.
2. A history of the world to the present.
3. Factions and societies within the world.
4. A gazetteer.
5. Race and class options for PCs.
6. 4 Adventures and GM advice.
7. Magic items.
8. A bestiary.
9. Maps of the setting.

After a brief look at this, there is a big difference from the old Dragonlance book. There are only 42 pages for PC options, including racial options, but almost 100 pages are the gazetteer alone. Between the history, factions, and gazetteer, the majority of the book is dedicated to describing the world itself.

What's Good

The factions here are immensely useful at the table, even if you aren't familiar with this setting from the show. There are political factions, like the Dwendalian Empire and the Kryn Dynasty, or organizations like the Claret Orders and the Golden Grin. What I like about this is that the world is not static. Every organization has an interest in any event or location on the continent, which means that a GM can take any of these organizations from the book to manipulate events in the places where the PCs are located. In other words, the factions alone make this book worthwhile for me.

The gazetteer is the best tool in this book. Locations are organized by region. Some of the major cities are given overview maps, like Port Damali, which gets an entire page dedicated to the city map. Major cities include details like the population, form of government, defenses, commerce, and organizations present. In the bigger cities like Port Damali, important gameable information gets its own heading (e.g. geography). Major locations within the city are further detailed as subheadings. Every major city, and some towns, are given quest hooks to start adventures, like illegal activity in the auction houses. There are also small regional maps which show the major roads throughout the area.

Morteratsch Ice Cave

One of my favorite locations is the Tomb of the Worm, a northern settlement built in the ice caves around the frozen corpse of a giant worm. The worm (a deity named Quajath the Undermaw) controls the settlement by telepathy, but brainwashes anyone who eats from his infinite supply of meat. Quajath has a plan to brainwash more cultists and free himself from his icy prison. This is great! There are so many opportunities for fun roleplaying or adventure in the ice caves. All four regions has more than a dozen locations listed, from the frozen north of Eiselcross to the tropical Menagerie Coast.

Conclusion

Let's revisit the five main questions I want to ask of this book. 

1. Does this supplement give PCs a base of operations, or aid me to create one? Yes. There are major cities and towns all over the map, and the players can start almost anywhere.
2. Does this supplement provide any good dungeons to explore? Yes. The four starter adventures do include small (not very OSR) dungeons, but dungeons from other supplements can also be easily worked into the map.
3. Are there other interesting locations to visit? Yes. As I discussed above, there are lots of interesting things to explore. There are pirate coves and imperial strongholds all over the map.
4. Does the area provide interesting challenges for my players (encounters)? There are some monsters to encounter, and lots of other challenges to offer as well. There's clearly a large roleplaying element between the factions. Matt Mercer has done a great job creating narrative tension throughout this world. It's up to the GM how much of it to use.
5. Does the area provide questions (mysteries or hooks) for my players to investigate? Absolutely! I can see a group slowly unravelling the mysteries of the Tomb of the Worm, or other locations with built-in quest hooks.

What I love most is that this book stands alone. You don't need to read or watch anything else to know what the book is talking about. Even the Tomb of the Worm gave a page number for Quajath the Undermaw. I also like that I can pick out certain things from the book, change the name, and put them in my setting. You don't need to run all of Wildemount if you want to include the Tomb of the Worm or the Claret Orders. I have personally adapted some aspects of Wildemount to my homebrew world of Althestria, and I will probably include more.

I also like that everything is integrated. Some of the magic items are related to the Betrayer gods, and political machinations of the Kryn Dynasty will be relevant in cities of the Dwendalian Empire. Everything fits together into one coherent world, and does not simply rely on fantasy tropes (e.g. vanilla fantasy elves) to create an interesting setting.

What do you think? Leave me a comment if you have used Wildemount at your own table. What are your experiences with other world books?