The D&D 2024 Monster Manual reminds you that the Fey aren't all rainbows and unicorns—they're tricksy goblins, too

Celestials are associated with the Upper Planes. Fiends with the Lower Planes. Aberrations are known in the Far Realms. Fey are all about the plane of the Feywild. When you think of the Feywild, think:

• Unbridled emotion
• Bright technicolor
• Everything extreme
• If the Material Plane were Kansas, the Feywild would be Oz
• But the Feywild has a dark side, too

As with many creatures found in the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Monster Manual, there's been movement between creature types. Some creatures moved in or out of the Undead category. Some things are now a Monstrosity that were not before. Do you know what an Aberration is? Well, there was some deck shuffling there, too. This same reconfiguration of monster categories happened to the Fey.

A mainstay of the genre, goblins, are no longer Humanoid but Fey. Designers Jeremy Crawford and F. Wesley Schneider hint that this migration (at least for goblins) began in Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse, though we see that they're still hardcoded as Humanoid there. They are amping up the "fey-ness" of goblins, too, because they want to make sure these creatures don't just feel like humans in goblinoid suits.

Here are a few examples in the video:

Sometimes you will have a "narrative phenomenon" where the Monster Manual version of a creature is considered a different category than the playable version of that same creature. Elves, for example. Elves in the Monster Manual are categorized as Fey, but the playable Elf in the Player's Handbook is categorized as Humanoid. That's because the type of elf a player is playing has had some of its fey-ness go away—to the point where they have become Humanoid.

This is the same narrative phenomenon that happens with the Gith (Githyanki and Githzerai). In the Monster Manual, Gith are Aberrations. But thanks to Monsters of the Multiverse, Gith are a playable species—and the playable version of Gith are Humanoid.

All that to say: The changes made to species in the Monster Manual have no effect on the playable species in the Player's Handbook.

New types of goblinoids have been added:

• Goblin Hexer – A tricksy magic user making something of a return from D&D 4th Edition
• Goblin Minion – An even weaker version of goblin; made to be destroyed in mobs with fireballs

How do these creature category migrations affect players? Spells, for one. Hold Person is still a 2nd level spell. Hold Monster is still a 5th level spell. But Hold Person works on Humanoids, and the largest migration in the 2024 Monster Manual is creatures moving out of the Humanoid category. There are still far more Humanoids than Fey in the new Monster Manual. But Crawford considers it a feature, not a bug, when you need to vary your tactics. 

Despite this being a Core Rulebook, Crawford reminds us that there's room to play around with these monsters' stat blocks. The fact that there are, for example, several types of goblinoids, communicates the idea that you have an infinite degree of latitude to mess around with those stat blocks. This leaves wiggle room for Dungeon Masters who may be hesitant to stray from official stat blocks (I'm one of them), and also grants those same DMs permission to explore items that appear in the DM's Guild—books, etc., that were not created by Wizards of the Coast, per se, but were made to work inside of D&D.

The Fey are, on one side of a coin, all brightly lit whimsy and rainbows and unicorns. But never forget, on the other side of that coin, that there are dark and dangerous fairytales to be told as well.

The 2024 Monster Manual launches February 18. The other two Core Rulebooks are out now. You can read our reviews of the 2024 Player's Handbook and the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide to get you through the cold winter months.