D&D: Peer into the Yawning Portal!
Wizards has given us a look inside their upcoming book, Tales from the Yawning Portal…
Take a trip down to Waterdeep and visit the legendary Yawning Portal. There, as the night draws on and the drinks flow, you’ll find seasoned adventurers from across the world (and some from other planes of existence entirely) gathered near the dwindling hearth and telling tales of harrowing adventures and truths that will quickly fade into legend.
Under the watchful eye of Durnan, the tavern’s keeper and a former adventurer in his own right–he bought the Yawning Portal with funds from his adventuring days. Whatever magic he found there has given him a long, healthy life, despite being thought dead a time or two before. He is as much a legend as the dungeon that lies beneath it. The Yawning Portal, after all, is an entrance to Undermountain, full of magic and monsters, no doubt.
Tales from the Yawning Portal is due out in April, and as we gear up for the launch, Wizards is previewing the first three pages as a .pdf you can go download. I have to say, they seem to have taken the lessons they learned in putting together Volo’s Guide to Monsters and run with them. The book is full of flavor–but it’s flavor that looks like it’ll be backed up by rules and presented in a helpful, “here’s how to use all this information” kind of manner.
This is a list of curios on display–some are trophies from returning adventurers. Perhaps your party will have their own thing to contribute.
That’s one of the things I felt made Volo’s Guide stand out from the other books released last year–it was all about giving you what you need to take the reins of your game. And while we haven’t seen any of the dungeons yet, if their writeup of the Yawning Portal is anything to go by, I’m looking forward to seeing how they update the adventures.
The Dungeons, though, are the main attraction here by far. Each of the 7 dungeons presented in the book gets its own little summary, both about its content and its place in D&D history.
Here are the first three. There are 7 all in all, The Sunless Citadel, the Forge of Fury, the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, White Plume Mountains, Dead in Thay, Against the Giants, and The Tomb of Horrors. There’s something for any party level here, the dungeons progress up from 1st all the way to “high level” parties, as mentioned in the legendary Tomb of Horrors, which promises to be every bit as lethal as the one you know and love.
How many ways do you think you’ll be dying in the Tomb of Horrors before you give up and get a pizza?
