D&D Direct Preview
A look at the upcoming products announced during the first D&D Direct.
Roll for Initiative
Yesterday Wizards of the Coast gave us all a look at some upcoming D&D products via their first Direct live stream. The event was just under a half an hour long and filled with tons of goodies, reveals, and surprises. You can still head to their YouTube channel and watch for yourself but if you don’t have time or are interested in my opinion I’ll lay out some of the most exciting reveals here and give my thoughts on those projects.
Spelljammer
The first major reveal and the focus for much of what followed was that the new setting would be Spelljammer. This was originally designed and released for 2nd edition and has been sadly absent for a very long time. In Spelljammer you’ll take control of massive ships and sail through the majesty of space traveling from world to world. Ships fall into several categories from the typical galleons and skiffs that are popular in fantasy settings. Through there are also several variants based on the different societies and races in D&D. From the more dragonfly and butterfly inspired ships of the elves to the terrifying nautiloid vesels of the mindflayers that are an unholy combination of a squid inside a giant snail shell.
The new set comes with three books, a 2 sided map, and a DM’s screen. The Astral Player’s Guide is a resource for players taking part in the world and helps with character creation. It includes six new playable races. Astral Elves who are a line of elves who left the feywyld behind to explore the stars. Auto Gnomes are automatons built in the relative shape and size of gnomes. Hadozee are flying monkey people who have found use for their skills while flying a ship through space. The Giff are a race of spacefaring hippo mercenaries. Plasmoids are the first playable ooze race. And the well-remembered Thrikreen deadly bug people from a harsh world.
Boo’s Astral Menagerie cover some of the monsters you’ll encounter on your journeys. It will include some beasties that might give even the hardest survivor of the 1980’s a shiver including the deadly Space Clows. In addition to the comical killers there are Vampirates, Murder Comets, and the regular sized Giant Space Hamsters that Boo was a descendant of. It also features two new dragon types with the solar and lunar versions.
The final book is the Light of Xaryxis. This is an episodic adventure series featuring 12 separate chapters with appropriate cliffhangers between each. Set in Wild Space and the Astral Sea. No word on how many levels you’ll cover over the course of the adventure.
A prequel adventure is going to be released on the Wizards site in July to get everyone ready for the sets full release in August; just in time for GenCon. It is implied that the prequel adventure will be free to anyone with a wizard account, but it wasn’t said outright so I don’t want to assume that piece of information.
There was also another piece that was hinted at by a separate yet connected announcement. Which brings us to…
Wizkids
Wizkids had two separate announcements that I’m going to combine for this section. The first was their model set coming out in conjunction with Spelljammer. The set features the usual bits, including player minis in the various races, generic and named NPC’s, and some monster figures. A few new wrinkles included the 2-in-1 models that brought a mount and rider to the table. The mounts had a removable saddle piece and the riders come apart at the waist to be attached to the saddle. This is interesting and I’m anxious to see the final production.
The set also includes colossal figures. These giant monsters will tend to have a base size of 5x5 on a battle map which I’m pretty sure has only been reserved for some of the dragons in the past. In the Direct they showed off the Astral Dreadnought.
The final piece of this was tactical ship minis. While they never said it in the Direct this implies that there will be rules for ship to ship combat. Which is great since that was one of the parts I really enjoyed about Spelljammer and am looking forward to getting to try again. Additionally, the image they showed for this featured both ships and gigantic creatures. Fingers crossed folks.
The second announcement that Wizkids made was around the upcoming game, Onslaught. There wasn’t a lot of information on this. It’s a two player tactical game set to be released in October. Revealed factions were Harpers and Zhentarim thought there will also be monsters. I have no idea if monsters are a third faction, an addition to your existing war band, or a random monster that will be seeded about the battlefield.
I used to play the old D&D minis game so am interested in this. Though that will fall off if this is a collectable product with blind boosters. I have two large bins of D&D minis and am not looking for lots of new ones. A minis game where I can just buy the figures I want will be more appealing to me. Though I admit to being in the minority on that issue.
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel
Is a new adventure supplement featuring 16 PoC writers who created adventures from their cultures and experiences. It includes thirteen adventures across fifteen new locations. The adventures in the book will take players from 1st to 15th level.
The authors worked together, sharing notes and ideas to help link all of the adventures together. Each adventure is connected to the Radiant Citadel but also includes twelve concord jewels that can be used to connect the adventures to your existing campaign. This allows for the adventures to be run as a single campaign or used as a series of one offs.
They spoke briefly about three of the adventures, I’m going to share some of that information here which I don’t think includes any deep story points or ideas but if you want to go in completely blind, I’d skip ahead to the next section.
Fiend of the Hollow Mind is for 4th level parties. It takes place in San Salang (I’m certain I misspelled that.) The events of the mission takes place during a large festival called the Night of the Remembered inspired by the Festival of the Dead. Wages of Vice is a 5th level Caribbean inspired adventure. The art in the section shows a bright and colorful society. Which should be a nice change for most D&D adventures that tend towards darker shades. Finally, Orchids of the invisible Mountain is for 14th level characters. In this adventure you’ll be doing some plane hopping. You start in Antigua but visit the Feywyld and the Far Realm and face a new monster called the whistler.
Legends of the Multi-verse
They’ll be adding a new actual play series at the end of the month to their YouTube channel. It is a Spelljammer series. Beyond that not much is known except for the massive and impressive cast. The regular cast will be played by Deborah Ann Woll, B Dave Walters, Gina Darling, Meagan Kenreck and Todd Kenreck.
Guest players will show up and those will include Brennan Lee Mulligan, Aabria Iyengar, Ginny Di, Anna Prosser, Deejay Knight, Emme Montgomery, Travis McElroy, Sungwon Cho, and Jim Zub.
The show will also feature a guest DM for each new adventure. While they don’t talk about the types of adventures they’ll be running, the credit sequence shown during the Direct implies a pulp adventure feel.
Final Bits
Everything else had a small amount of information so I’m going to cover it very briefly here. First there’s Dragons of Stormwreck Isle; a new D&D Starter Set. It designed to be quicker and easier to get to the table with some new digital tools to help learn the rules. I have a soft spot for starter kits, so am interested in this.
A new Monstrous Compendium will be available through D&D online. Volume One is Spelljammer themed and comes with ten monsters including the Eldritch Lich, the Ten Legged Asteroid Spider, and the Star Lancer.
They’ll be releasing all of their books in four new languages at release. These include French, Italian, German, and Spanish. Some books that will be made available in these new languages include: Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Monsters of the multiverse, and Curse of Strahd.
They have two new sets of accessories for your tabletop. These include a plastic token set with case. They come in three sizes and multiple colors. There’s also a terrain set that features several interlocking puzzle pieces to set the map. Both sets include reusable clings designed to be stuck to the tile or terrain and then returned to their sheet for later use. No word on whether or not their magnetic. I hope so as that would be useful for me and anyone else who has magnetic token sets such as Alea Tools. I think the two products would go together very well.
On the Digital Gaming front they talked about Baulders Gate 3 which is still in early access but now has a tentative final release date of early 2023. Neverwinter has a Dragonslayer expansion coming in June and includes Tiamat as one of the villains.
The Dungeons & Dragons Movie has a title, Honor Among Thieves and a release date of 3–3–2023.
Finally, they dropped some Dragonlance teaser on us. This didn’t include a lot of information by nature of being a teaser. We do know that there will be an Adventure Book titled Shadow of the Dragon Queen and a Battle Game with the title Warriors of Krynn.
A Long Rest
Overall, great show. I really enjoyed the reveals and am excited for the future of D&D. I was away from Dungeons & Dragons for a long time have only recently gotten back into playing the game. The setting our DM has built includes a world that’s been cut off from the other planes and us getting around in a magic ship. Honestly, Spelljammer could be a natural progression from where we are to further adventures when our current quest is completed.
The two campaign settings I grew up on were Spelljammer and Planescape. I have fond memories of both of them and am very excited for this new direction. I always had fun in Spelljammer it lent itself to a more over the top style of swashbuckling adventure. It doesn’t have to be that, but its tons of fun. I’ll absolutely be delving into the preview adventure in July. I may even do a write up if folks seem interested in it.
The different miniature sets look really good. Though I’m more interested in the ship minis and hope those will be sold separately. I don’t need any more character and monster figures. Those ships though…I’m a big ship porn guy and those are some of my favorite Trek and Wars moments. Having the stuff to put that on the table. Oh yeah; I’m here for it.
I think that leads us to the accessory kits. These are just great. While I’ve been doing this long enough that I don’t need them, there are tons of new players out there who don’t have the money, time, space, or some combination of the three to get a bunch of new minis. This will be helpful for those folks. Any product that makes a new players life easy is aces with me.
Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel looks great. I’m always interested in a chance to look at new cultures and experiences different than my own. Anything that presents me with a setting or system that forces me to think differently is a big plus and I think this may just do that. The art shown during the Direct is evocative and amazing. I’m looking forward to diving into those worlds and stories.
For the digital stuff. I’ve not yet jumped into Baulder’s gate 3. I do have a friend who’s been playing along and has glowing things to say about the game and the improvements. I’m going to wait until it’s completed but I love he’s having fun. I tried Neverwinter some years ago and enjoyed it but fell off when none of my friends played. It’s not a comment on the game; I liked it but prefer to play with friends.
Dragonlance…That’s one of the grail settings. We’ve been asking for it for a while and while we haven’t gotten any major view of the line what they showed was nice. I’m excited to see what’s coming next but it’s tempered by time. Right now I’ve got Spelljammer coming and while I’m sure I’ll be excited for Dragonlance when its closer. Until then, Space Pirates…
Well, this was a long article. If you stuck with me this long, thanks. I’d love to hear what you think of the upcoming products and the Direct itself.
Until next time, stay safe and be well.
