D&D: New Setting Info Coming, Mystery Announcement In July
Following in the wake of the Stream of Many Eyes, there’s more news on the horizon for Dungeons and Dragons, including a couple of surprises that will be appealing to hardcore fans of D&D. New settings, new surprises, all that and more inside.
The Stream of Many Eyes was a fantastic celebration of all things D&D. Full of fun games and exciting announcements about Waterdeep, it made everyone at the BoLS office excited to play more D&D. Buuuut perhaps even more exciting is the news that came out about books that will take us to new settings. According to the folks at comicbook.com, who were attending the Stream in person, there are another couple of setting books coming out, as well as a surprise announcement in July.
If you’ve picked up a D&D book in the last year and change or so, you’ve probably seen a few hints of some of the fan-favorite D&D settings. Whether the mention of Mind Flayer spelljammers in Volo’s Guide, the little nods to Planescape with the Modrons, the Dark Sun monsters creeping into Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes (or Mike Mearls’ stream on psionics), it’s nice to know that the creative team behind D&D is giving these settings some love.
And what’s not to love about them? You have Eberron, a magitek powered high-adventure realm that has magic trains, sentient robots, and blasted wastelands full of magical radiation. Add to that airships and pulp adventure, and you’ve got a great setting. Or there’s Dark Sun, which is a post-apocalyptic world full of psionics, evil magic, cannibal halflings, and thri-kreen. Mad Max and D&D together at last. If that doesn’t sound appealing, there’s Planescape, which connects all of the worlds and brings together angels and demons better than Dan Brown ever could. And at the heart of it all, Sigil, City of Doors. A wholly self-contained city that houses beings from all across every world.
Then of course there’s Spelljammer, and I shouldn’t need to tell you why that’s awesome.
But just in case I do…
All that to say that these settings are as beloved by their creators as they are their fans. And soon, we’ll be able to play in them more fully than we can already.
“Next month we’re going to talk about a couple of different settings that people can start playing as early as this year,” [Nathan] Stewart said.
These new publications won’t be full-blown storylines, but rather an introduction to different worlds set inside the D&D multiverse. “It’s going to be more like at the level of how Barovia [introduced in the Curse of Strahd adventure storyline] is in terms of stuff. Here’s a thing that’s going to give you a taste of the setting, but we’re not going to that setting yet, we’re just letting you get in there and start doing it.”
This tracks with the way they’ve been introducing setting and lore in their books. It looks like we might not see another Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide–but rather a book that introduces the setting and shows you how to do things within it. Maybe a module or an adventure, maybe a chapter that, like the Blood War chapter out of Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes introduces and expands on some lore, while introducing new monsters or featuring new options for players.
Much like Curse of Strahd provides a gazetteer for Barovia or how Dragon Heist will be a toolkit for running Urban Adventures, these new books will give a look into the setting as well as prompting you to start playing. Whether it’s a chase through Sigil, a quest for a magic artifact lost in the burning wastes of Dark Sun, or a race through the Phlogiston of Spelljammer, it’d be pretty easy to set an adventure, or some other seed of an idea in one of the settings.
Stewart declined to say which campaign settings D&D would be revisiting this year, but he did note that the books would please “hardcore fans” of the franchise. Stewart also noted that D&D was listening to its fans about what they wanted to see from the franchise, and that they were quietly working on these projects in the background in part because of fan feedback.
Dungeons & Dragons plans to start talking about the new product as early as next month. “We have two surprises that I think hardcore D&D fans are really going to love coming this summer,” Stewart said. “And then I think we got one surprise that’s going to release later this year that we’ve not told anyone about. We’re going to announce it in July.”
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So there you have it folks. Big news coming next month. And there’s still Watderdeep: Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage to look forward to. Get ready for more adventure, because it’s coming.
What settings do you want to see given some time in the spotlight? Sure there’s Eberron and Dark Sun, but what about obscure ones like Lankhmar or Pellinor?
