Wizards of the Coast has now revealed more information on the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons World of Warcraft supplement. The product will be a new campaign setting book for both players and DMs, that will include new species, subclasses, spells, monsters, magic items and lore.

It will also be the anchor of the upcoming Season of Champions, with the product officially coming out in November 2026, but available for pre-order now from local game stores, D&D Beyond and Amazon.

Below, we roll up all the details on everything included when the world of Azeroth arrives in the D&D multiverse.

What will the new D&D World of Warcraft book be about?

The book was produced in tandem with Blizzard Entertainment and marks Warcraft’s return to the tabletop for the first time in two decades. It will also be the first new product in the upcoming D&D Universes Beyond line, which will see the game adapted to other pop culture and entertainment franchises. It will contain:

New Species

WotC has said that every WoW race will be included. In total, there are 11 new species, including Dracthyr, Pandaren, Earthen, Kul Tiran and Vulpera, as well as the Haranir, which were only recently introduced in WoW’s Midnight expansion.

There will also be classic options like orcs and elves, with the latter specifically getting new elemental lineages to reflect the five distinct elf types found across Azeroth.

New Classes & Subclasses

Wizards confirmed the book provides guidelines for playing every World of Warcraft class, built using material from the D&D Player’s Handbook. This includes 9 new subclasses, six of them brand new, three updated from previous D&D sourcebooks. That includes options like Death Knight, Shadow Priest and Demon Hunter.

Options that appeared as classes in the WoW video game will use base D&D 5.5E classes as a starting point. For example, the Death Knight class will be build around the Paladin class, with unique subclasses available.

New dungeons

There will be 8 dungeons in the book based on iconic WoW raid location, and each designed for a specific tier of play:

• Deadmines and Shadowfang Keep (Levels 1-4)
• Blackfathom Deep and Scarlet Monastery (Levels 5-10)
• Scarlet Monastery and Dire Maul (Levels 11-16)
• Azjol Nerub and Anoxia’s Lair (Levels 17-20)

Each dungeon will also include custom adventure hooks, NPCs and monsters

New locations

In a recent blog post on D&D Beyond, Wizards of the Coast confirmed that the book will details four key geographies:

• Kalimdor: Covering the settlments of Ashenvale, Durotar, Desolate, Silithus and Teldrassil
• Eastern Kingdoms: Detailing Duskwood, the Alterac Mountains, Elwynn Forest, the Hinterlands and the Swamp of Sorrows
• Northrend: Inlcudes the Borean Tundra, Crystalsong Forest, Dragonblight, the Sholazar Basin and Zul’Drak
• Islands: Provides an overview of The Broken Isles, Khaz Algar, the Jade Forest, Zandalar and Nazjatar

Each location has detailed maps, history, NPCs, faction and plot hooks.

New magic items and spells

There are 26 new magic items (including powerful artifacts), with a range of utility, including weapons, armor, potions and other pieces of equipment.

The book will also include 60+ new spells that will be available across multiple classes. All are inspired by existing spells found in past and present World of Warcraft MMORPG expansions.

New monsters

The book will include over 50 monster stat blocks for D&D 5.5E and are based on some of the most iconic creatures and villains from the world of Azeroth.

In addition, the book will include 30 dungeon boss stat blocks that are designed to recreate the more powerful creatures that WoW players typically encounter during a raid.

New factions and lore

The new D&D WoW sourcebook will also include 23 factions based on some of the most well-known powers and organizations found in Azeroth.

In addition, the book will include renown rewards that characters can earn by completing specific adventures or tasks for factions.

New rules and mechanics

Within the D&D 5E framework, the book will also include a variety of new rules, including options for professions, mounts and companion creatures – all of which are based on WoW lore.

There will also be integration with major existing rules, including Bastions, which are associated with specific locations and factions.

How much is the new D&D World of Warcraft supplement?

The physical hardcover will retail for $59.99 USD (not including shipping and handling), with the D&D Beyond version going for $39.99 USD. You can also purchase a digital + physical bundle for $79.99 USD (a savings of about $20, if you were to purchase the two products separately).

Notably, this pricing is comparable to the recent Ravenloft: The Horrors Within supplement.

When will the new D&D WoW sourcebook be released?

The book will be available on November 17th, 2026, at which point it will be available to the general public online and in physical retailers. If you pre-order the book now from D&D Beyond or local game stores who are part of the early release program, then you will be able to get the book on November 3rd, 2026.

Notably, the book will be the key product in the Season of Champions

Will there be alternate covers for the D&D WoW sourcebook?

Yes. There will actually be two alternate versions: The first is a standard alternate cover (known as a “hobby” version), which retails for the same price as the standard cover.

There will, however, also be a Collector’s Edition version available, which includes the symbol for the Alliance on one side and the Horde on the other. A price point for this collector’s edition, however, has not yet been confirmed.

What other tie-in products will be released?

• Map pack: This will include both a physical or digital version for use on D&D Beyond Maps VTT. When you purchase the map pack you’ll also receive a digital code for an adventure for levels 16 to 20 characters that takes place in Icecrown Citadel includes a dozen high-level bosses.
• DM screen: This will include new art on the front and tables and reference materials on the back to help run an ongoing WoW campaign using D&D 5.5E.
• Miniatures: Two sets of new miniatures will also be released. Notably, these were developed with Hasbro and not WizKids (which is usually the preferred vendor for tie-in minis).

It’s not yet clear if there will be other tie-in products available from brands like Beadle & Grimm’s.

Who does the new WoW supplement tie in to D&D Universes Beyond?

The new World of Warcraft sourcebook is the first entry in the new D&D Universe Beyond line. This is a brand new program that will feature official D&D products based on popular entertainment and pop culture franchises (similar to the Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond line).

Wizards of the Coast has not confirmed what additional brands will appear in future D&D Universes, but likely candidates include Harry Potter and K-Pop Demon Hunters (both of which have been mentioned by Hasbro as potential RPG projects).

Have there been World of Warcraft tabletop RPGs?

This new D&D World of Warcraft product isn’t the first time the two brands have met. In fact, Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game was published in 2003 using the D&D 3rd edition rules under the Open Game License. It was essentially a setting book, offering new core classes and prestige classes (including the scout and warlock) and included a few optional roles.

That product was replaced in 2005 by World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game under White Wolf’s Sword & Sorcery imprint that used the D&D 3.5 rules under an Open Gaming License.

Both editions of the game received only a minimal amount of attention and were largely discontinued, with no major expansions.

What is the relationship between D&D and World of Warcraft?

The two brands are actually closely linked together, with the aesthetics and mechanics of early Dungeons & Dragons from the 1980s and early 90s heavily influencing the Warcraft’s lore and mechanics.

Conversely, in the D&D 4th edition days, it’s been largely reported that Wizards of the Coast based many of the mechanics on the World of Warcraft MMORPG. This includes changing class abilities, combat and spells to function more like the video game (with the hope that D&D could lure players from online to the tabletop).

Final thoughts

Although World of Warcraft has faded in popularity somewhat in recent years (dropping from over 12 million players to roughly 2 million, according to recent estimates), it’s still a major pop culture brand and seems like a natural fit for D&D. Whether or not this new 5.5E supplement resonates with fans of both franchises, however, remains to be seen.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this product in the days ahead. In the meantime, you can pre-order your copy now from local game stores, D&D Beyond and Amazon.

Below is also an official teaser video from the Dungeons & Dragons YouTube video.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post New Details Revealed for D&D World of Warcraft Supplement appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

This past summer at Gen Con, Wizards of the Coast officially revealed D&D Icons, a new publishing line that would be overseen by actor and producer Joe Manganiello and feature new game books from classic designers and authors. During that time it was revealed that one of the projects in development was a new Dragonlance supplement that would be written by original creators Tracy Hickman and Margaret Wise.

We now have new information on what exactly that book will be, with Manganiello recently posting an Instagram in front of a white board with details on what appears to be a Dragonlance World Book. Tracy Hickman also later shared a several several images and a video on Facebook which also included members of the official Dungeons & Dragons design team.

Below, we break out everything we know so far about the new project.

What will the new Dragonlance World Book be about?

In his Facebook post, Tracy Hickman writes: “Since Monday, Margaret Weis, Joe Manganiello and I have been meeting with Dan Ayoub and the incredible D&D team outlining the world book for Dragonlance as well as future product beginning in 2029. The future is going to be filled with epic adventure!”

The whiteboard notes include the following:

• 1 x map pack
• 1 x book
• Everything you need to be drawn in without making an encyclopedia
• This is the game the dm plays @ the start of campaign and again @ the start of each season
• World book: Krynn
• War of lance FDNs (all campaigns start here, Ariakas has sent dragonlords). Narrative examples follow story (because PC’s exist MC’s do not – at least not the same, and but there are multiple starting locations).
• Sandbox of Ansalon – who’s who who’s where what’s what
• Dragons: riding, combat, corruption, hierarchy, temperaments, individuality (includes sub-notes: history, ecology, complex
• Epic-scale war / scope (seeing Sauron’s forces in front of Minas Tirith) – army-view (objective-based), soldier-view (be part of it; need to feel it – Gettysburg / Band of Brothers), desperate, hold out (not beat them all), personal
• Beastiary: unique to Krynn (Ansalon)
• Class/race: unique to krynn (Ansalon), titles
• Wizards / alignment / tests of high sorcery / renegades
• Knights / other roles
• Clerics: Cosmology: fdn of universe / gods & followers
• Magic items
• Adventure / canon moments / lego bricks
• Appendix: history of the world
• Map / branching paths
• River of time needs to be simple, repeatable, engaging, and easy to execute and track
• Character off-ramp & player on-ramp
• Kender Highlords?!

This suggests the new World Book: Krynn will follow a similar approach to other recent D&D products in that it will have both a supplement and a map pack, and contain a mix of both character options and DM materials.

When will the new Dragonlance World Book be released?

An exact launch date has not yet been confirmed by Manganiello, Hickman, Weis or Wizards of the Coast, and it is not currently on the current D&D roadmap which lists all of the books available for the remainder of 2026 and first half of 2027.

It is possible that we may see it in the latter half of 2027 or early 2028, after the release of the new D&D Star Wars crossover, although this is purely speculation.

Final thoughts

Dragonlance has seen a definite resurgence in the past few years, following the 2022 Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign for D&D 5E, a new Dragonlance trilogy from Hickman and Weis published from 2023 to 2025, and more recently the War Wizards prequel novel which was published in August 2026. If these social media posts are any indication, however, it looks like we’ll be seeing a whole lot more Krynn in the next few years.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the new Dragonlance World Book in the days ahead and will update this page with new information as it’s made available.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post New Dragonlance World Book Announced for D&D Icons Line appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

The spooky season is fast approaching and if you’re a Dungeons & Dragons fan looking for a Halloween costume, we may just have stumbled upon the perfect option. Feast your eyestalks on…. the inflatable D&D Beholder Costume!

Featuring the official D&D license, the outfit is adult sized and available online and at most of major costume shops, including HalloweenCostumes.com and Amazon.

So is this new outfit worthy of Xanathar? Below, we blow up all the details.

What is the inflatable beholder D&D Halloween costume?

The costume is made from purple and pink windbreaker-style material and includes a mouth full of printed fangs and slobber and a mesh viewport in the central eye that you can see out of. It’s designed for easy slip on and off and features a battery-powered internal fan that inflates the body and eyestalks.

It retails for $99.99 USD (not including shipping and handling).

Final Thoughts

If you’re a D&D fan looking for a Halloween costume (or something you can rock at a con) this inflatable beholder is a solid option (although it is a little on the pricy side).

You can grab one now from most online and physical costume shops, including HalloweenCostumes.com and Amazon.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post Behold! The Greatest D&D Halloween Costume of All Time appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Another All Hallows Eve has arrived and for Dungeons & Dragons fans it’s the perfect time to celebrate. It helps that 2026 was a particularly frightening year for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we were treated to the new Ravenloft: The Horrors Within supplement and tie-in materials during the Season of Horror.

That being said, you don’t need to run an entire campaign set in the Domains of Dread to experience horror in D&D. In fact, there are a ton of spooktacular one-shot adventures that are perfect for Halloween and can be wrapped up in a single night of terror.

Below, we’ve put together a few of our favorites for both D&D 5E and 5.5E. For ease of reference, we’ve also scared up the price, the time it takes to play and the recommended character levels. So grab your PCs and pumpkin spice as we carve up… the 20 best D&D Halloween one shots for 2026.

20. Shadows of Sithicus

Price: Free
Time: 3-4 hours
Levels: 1-3

Why We Picked It: Released as an exclusive adventure for the in-store D&D Encounters program, this is actually a collection of four standalone adventures, each of which can be wrapped up in about 3 hours each and are designed for Level 1 character. Notably, it was also given out as a bonus for pre-orders of The Horrors Within, so it might be tricky to track this one down. That being said, if you can find it, these are some near perfect Halloween one shots.

Get it on D&D Beyond

19. Hold Back the Dead

Price: Free
Time: 5-6 hours
Levels: 1

Why We Picked It: Released back in February 2025, Hold Back the Dead is a great Halloween one shot if you’re looking to add a little guts and gore to your horror. The adventure involves players defending a keep from waves of flesh hungry zombies, while also dealing with hostile NPCs and managing dwindling resources. It’s a blood spattered blast for fans of the undead.

Get it on D&D Beyond

18. House of Lament

Price: N/A
Time: 5-6 hours
Levels: 1-3

Why We Picked It: Included as the bonus adventure in 2021’s Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft “The House of Lament” is a perfect offering for Halloween (although you might not be able to get it wrapped in a single night). It takes place in a haunted house that is literally both a Domain of Dread and a Darklord. It’s a fantastic option if you’re looking for something that blends the best of dungeon crawls and jump scares.

Get the map pack on DMsGuild

17. Gravehurts: A Halloween Adventure

Price: $3.95
Time: 4-5 hours
Levels: 3-5

Why We Picked It: A pitch perfect seasonal one shot, this adventure is also one of the rare examples that supports mid-level play. The story involves the character searching for a prize winning pumpkin only to find themselves facing dark necromancy and the powers of the dreaded Pumpkin King. It’s a unique blend of folk horror with some amazing locations and NPCs.

Get it on DMsGuild

16. Fear the Reaper

Price: $2.95
Time: 3-4 hours
Levels: 1-3

Why We Picked It: If you’re looking for a Halloween one shot that’s heavy on atmosphere, this is a fantastic option. The story starts with the players forced to take shelter in a remote inn, only to discover a terrible secret within its depths. It’s a twisty, roleplaying-heavy option with some disturbing NPCs and a genuinely clever and creepy narrative.

Get it on DMsGuild

15. The Hungering House

Price: $6.66
Time: 4-5 hours
Levels: 4-6

Why We Picked It: This survival horror one-shot is all about players trying to stay alive for as long as possible. The adventure also uses some of D&D’s lesser-used rules, including possession and madness. The action takes place in the depths of a haunted house filled with traps, puzzles and demonic forces, all of which can’t simply be hack and slashed away. Notably, the adventure also includes maps, character hand outs, new monster stat blocks and even its own atmospheric sound effect files.

Get it on DMsGuild

14. Nerzugal’s Tome of Horrifying Adventures

Price: $6.99
Time: 1-4 hours per adventure
Levels: 1-16

Why We Picked It: This particular collection features not just one, but 10 one shot adventures filled with tricks, traps and terror, almost all of which can be wrapped up in a single evening of play. While most of the adventurers are for lower levels, they also include a number of high level options, with the settings and plot ranging from icy wastelands to a hag-haunted bog. It’s a genuinely creepy collection of one shots that horror fans will love.

Get it on DMsGuild

13. A Night of Fright

Price: $4.95
Time: 4 hours
Levels: 1

Why We Picked It: In this loving D&D parody to Scooby Doo, players take on one of five pre-made characters (all based on the original Mystery Team, of course). Together they’ll explore a haunted mansion full of monsters, traps and puzzles. It’s hilarious, clever and surprisingly fun, making it a great option for players looking for something a little more light hearted on Halloween.

Get it on DMsGuild

12. The Witch of Underwillow

Price: $1.50
Time: 2-3 hours
Levels: 1-3

Why We Picked It: One of the creepiest adventures of all time, this DnD one shot is perfect for Halloween. The story kicks off in a villager surrounded by a haunted forest, with the players hired to track down a missing child who was seemingly taken by a pack of wolves. But as the characters venture deeper into the haunted woods they discover something more sinister lurks in the woods, with dark and bloody secrets threatening to consume them all.

Get it on DMsGuild

11. Halloween in Phandalin

Price: $3.99
Time: 4 hours
Levels: 3-5

Why We Picked it: A a tie-in to the popular Lost Mine of Phandelver campaign set in the Forgotten Realms, this spooktacular DnD Halloween one shot can be set in just about any campaign or fantasy location. The story takes place in the town of Phandalin, with players exploring a set of ancient underground tunnels located beneath the settlement. The party soon finds itself encountering a variety of undead creatures and dark powers drawn forth by an ancient curse. The adventure, however, is more than just a monster mash n’ slash, with plenty of roleplaying, exploration and problem solving – not to mention some surprisingly creepy moments. It also includes six original magic items and player handouts to add to the spine-tingling atmosphere.

Get it on DMsGuild

10. Curse of the Headless Horseman

Price: $2.99
Time: 3-4 hours
Levels: 1-3

Why We Picked It: This 20 page adventure – which can also be dropped into just about any campaign setting – follows the titular Headless Horseman, a legendary Dark Lord who also appeared in previous editions of Ravenloft. Based loosely on Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow story, the adventure finds the players in the village of Kinderhook, where a Halloween-style festival is taking place. Unfortunately, the townsfolk are also being threatened by the spirit of a dark rider searching for his missing head. It’s up to the players to help stop the threat and uncover the mystery behind the horrifying horseman.

Get it on DMsGuild

9. Rise of the Necromancer

Price: Free
Time: 4 hours
Levels: 1-5

Why We Picked It: An incredibly unique and atmospheric one shot, Rise of the Necromancer is great for any time of the year but seems especially suited for Halloween. The adventure begins outside a troubled village with a magical storm driving players deep into a nearby cavern system. What seems like a simple refuge quickly turns into a desperate struggle for survival as players face twisted undead and dark magic. With optional tie-ins for future adventures, its a pitch perfect adventures that delivers a creepy, self-contained story filled with plenty of twists, turns and things that go bump in the night.

Get it on DMsGuild

8. The Liching Hour

Price: $2.99
Time: 4-5 hours
Levels: 5-8

Why We Picked It: Created specifically for Halloween, this one shot also takes place in the town of Phandalin in the Forgotten Realms. The story kicks off on Liar’s Night – a time meant to celebrate all things supernatural. The players soon encounter a goblin necromancer named Fizzbang who is attempting to turn himself into a lich by summoning the dreaded undead wizard Vecna. The party will have until midnight (aka “the Liching Hour”) to either help or hinder Fizzbang in his nefarious efforts to achieve immortality. The adventure includes 8 unique new magical items, 7 new monsters and NPCs, plus several detailed VTT maps and tokens.

Get it on DMsGuild

7. A Night of Masks and Monsters

Price: Free
Time: 2-4 hours
Levels: 3

Why We Picked It: As the name suggests, this DnD one shot also a perfect for choice for Halloween, offering up a blend of costumes, creatures and critical hits. The story takes place in Ibrido, a sprawling city inspired by Renaissance Italy (although you can easily tailor the adventure for about any setting). The players are invited to a lavish masquerade ball and soon find themselves caught up in a strange and unsettling mystery involving sinister monsters and supernatural forces. The adventure includes a campaign guide, printable cards, maps and a lore supplement, making it a solid Halloween one shot for players looking for something a little more cerebral with their scares.

Get it on DMsGuild

6. Treat or Trick: A Halloween Adventure

Price: $2.00
Time: 3-4 hours
Levels: 2

Why We Picked it: Another perfect Halloween one shot, the story takes place in the small village of Willowton. When the players arrive, the village is celebrating an annual festival known as Reaping Days, a Halloween-like event that pays homage to death and rebirth. But when the festivities get out of hand, it’s up to the players to save the town from a dark curse. The challenges, however, are all based on the games played during the festival – each of which is incredibly fun and features a magical twist. The adventure also includes three new Halloween-themed monsters, along with maps, adventure hooks and fully fleshed out NPCs.

Get it on DMsGuild

5. Rise of the Pumpkin King

Price: Pay What You Want
Time: 3-6 hours
Levels: 3-4

Why We Picked It: What’s Halloween without pumpkins? Fortunately, players will definitely get their fill in this amazing one shot. The adventure takes place in Goldgrain, a sleepy village whose legendary pumpkin-farmers now find themselves living in fear when their crop is afflicted by a magical curse that turns them into gore-spattered gourds. It’s up to the players to determine the root cause and face down a mysterious force who commands the foul, orange-skinned monsters. It’s worth noting that the adventure was such a Halloween hit that it even spawned a sequel entitled Realm of the Pumpkin King, making this a must-have for fans looking for a pumpkin smashing blast on All Hallow’s Eve.

Get it on DMsGuild

4. The Chapel on the Cliffs

Price: $5.95
Time: 6-10 hours
Levels: 3

Why We Picked It: While this one shot might be a little longer to run than most, it’s absolutely worth it. It’s brilliantly written and blends action, exploration and roleplaying with some genuinely creepy vibes that are perfect for Halloween. The story takes place near the abandoned village of Kennmouth, with players tasked with lifting an ancient curse. The book features some impressive color illustrations, detailed maps, nnew monsters and magic items, and even new rules about running from a shambling horde of undead. In short: it’s an absolute masterpiece of adventure design.

Get it on DriveThruRPG

3. The Haunt

Price: $6.95 (PDF)
Time: 6-8 hours
Levels: 4-5

Why We Picked It: Combining old school DnD dungeon crawling with modern horror sensibilities, this one shot takes place in the depths of a long-abandoned town. There, the players encounter a decrepit old manor that contains both untold riches and a dark, bloodthirsty power. The end result is one of the most genuinely terrifying one shots of all time, in addition to offering up a pitch-perfect blend of combat, exploration and puzzle solving. If you’re looking to give your players a good scare on All Hallow’s Eve, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Get it on DMsGuild

2. The Madhouse of Tasha’s Kiss

Price: $6.95 (PDF)
Time: 3-5 hours
Levels: 3-10

Why We Picked It: One of the best DnD horror one shots ever made, this adventure is designed to scale to players of almost any level and can be completed in a single blood-soaked night. The story follows the exploits of Tasha’s Kiss, a once beautiful and skilled jester who is possessed by a demonic entity. Players soon find themselves transported to “The Madhouse,” a pocket dimension filled with deadly, sanity-warping tricks and traps designed to amuse the merciless demon. It’s an incredibly innovative and genuinely frightening one shot that’s perfect for players looking for something more sinister to celebrate the scariest night of the year.

Get it on DMs Guild

1. Happy Jack’s Funhouse

Price: $6.95 (PDF)
Time: 4-8 hours
Levels: 3-10 (Scalable)

Why We Picked It: Let’s face it: nothing is creepier than clowns. That’s what makes Happy Jack’s Funhouse the perfect DnD Halloween one shot. The story centers around the titular Happy Jack, a Pennywise-style demonic clown who sets up a traveling carnival in the midst of a remote town. It’s up the players to stop Happy Jack from claiming the souls of the townsfolk, while surviving a funhouse filled with traps, monsters and deadly surprises. The award-winning adventure is an amazing blend of exploration, roleplaying and combat, alternating between whacky to downright bone chilling. The end result is the ultimate tabletop trick r’ treat.

Get it on DMs Guild

OTHER ONE SHOTS: For more holiday goodness, check out our list of the best DnD Christmas one shots and the best DnD Thanksgiving one shots.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

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The post The 20 Best D&D Halloween One Shots (Updated for 2026) appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Back in January 2025, Stern Pinball released Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye, an officially licensed, high-end pinball machine that came in Pro, Premium and Limited Edition versions. The game, however, was definitely not for the casual D&D or pinball fan, with a cabinet running you anywhere from $6,000 to $13,000 USD before shipping and installation.

Now, Stern has unveiled a new line of custom accessories that are designed to enhance gameplay. Below, we get our flippers on all the details.

What are the new Stern D&D pinball accessories?

The new lineup of accessories for The Tyrant’s Eye pinball cabinet is as follows:

Treasure Chest Topper

The crown jewel of the release features a fully motorized treasure chest that alternates between displaying glittering loot and shifting into a vicious, tooth-baring Mimic. Installing the topper also unlocks “Mimic Mania” mode (where players collect letters that spell out “T-R-E-A-S-U-R-E C-H-E-S-T” and which carry over between games). The topper also adds Rowan Freewander, a new playable Fighter hero featuring an Add-A-Ball ability and custom voice lines from actor Brendon Small. It’s not cheap though, with this accessory setting you back $1,799.99 USD.

D20 Dice Shooter Knob

This custom plunger knob features a transparent liquid-core D20 die with a floating “dragon’s eye” embedded inside and illuminated from behind by internal LED lights. The accessory is going for $199.99 USD.

Speaker Expression Lighting System

Designed for the Pro and Premium editions, these LED lights dynamically flash in sync with gameplay. The set costs $199.99 USD.

Art Blades

These consist of two illustrated art panels that go inside the cabinet. One of the images depicts a peaceful D&D town in the light of day and the other is a monster-infested dungeon at night. The two blades retail for $99.99 USD.

Side Armor

These consists of heavy-duty cabinet side plating with an image of a dragonborn paladin riding a gold dragon into battle. It retails for $349.99 USD.

What is “Dungeons & Dragons: The Tyrant’s Eye”?

The Tyrant’s Eye is a D&D pinball game produced by US-based Stern Pinball Inc. under an official license from Wizards of the Coast. In the game, you take on the role of members of the Dragonshield Guild, a new group of adventurers from the Forgotten Realms setting. Your goal is to defeat the dragon queen Tiamat, while also battling against powerful forces that include the beholder crime lord Xanathar and an ancient red dragon known as Rath the Relentless (who in the game is voiced by Star Trek actor Michael Dorn). While playing the game, you’re able to explore unique dungeon levels, battle monsters (including a lich, owlbear, mimic and pinabll devouring gelatinous cube), collect treasure and explore multiple different endings and characters.

The game is a mix of both the standard pinball elements of flippers, bumpers and lighting, along with high-res LCD screens, LED lighting and other interactive components, including an animatronic dragon that reacts to your actions and features what Stern describes as “omnidirectional impact sensing technology.” In this sense, like other modern pinball machines, it’s essentially a combination of video game and physical play. Notably, you can also play cooperatively, sharing your progress and unlocking new features using Stern’s Insider Connected App (which is available for both iOS and Android).

The game also features original art by popular fantasy illustrator Vincent Proce, with music from noted video game composer Cris Velasco. It also includes dialogue from a number of Hollywood actors and D&D actual play stars, including Kevin Smith, Matt Mercer, Laura Bailey and Marisha Ray.

The game itself comes in three versions: a Pro Version (that retails for $6,999 USD) a Premium Version (that retails for $9,699 USD) and a Limited Edition (that retails for $12,999 USD). The latter is limited to just 740 models (in honor of D&D’s original release in 1974) and includes additional details and artwork along with an unpgraded audio system and anti-reflection glass.

The price point for all three models, however, likely means that only serious collectors are going to get their hands on them, although it’s possible you may seem them at places like Dave & Busters, sports bars, arcades or other locations where video games and pinball machines are found.

Who is Stern Pinball Inc.?

Stern Pinball, Inc. is an American company based in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. The company has been producing pinball games since the 1970s and has worked with a number of major brands, including Star Wars, Marvel, Jurassic Park and Stranger Things. It’s produced recent titles for popular franchises including John Wick and The Mandalorian.

The company is also known for combining traditional pinball gameplay with new technology, including high-res screens, special effects and online connectivity for leaderboards and other video game-style mechanics. In addition to being one of the few remaining dedicated pinball manufactures, Stern has also be active in supporting and reviving interest global interest in pinball, including supporting recent tournaments, leagues and local events.

Final thoughts

There’s no doubt that The Tyrant’s Eye pinball machine is absolutely epic. But that experience comes with an epic price tag, with these accessories alone running you almost $2,700 USD if you were to pick them all up (and that’s on top of the cost of the machine). Sadly, that means for most us, this is probably just going to be something you can appreciate from afar.

You can learn more about the machine and the new accessories on the official Stern Pinball website. Below is also a short video from Stern’s YouTube channel which shows the new accessories in action.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

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If you really want to know what’s coming next for Dungeons & Dragons, there are few better place to look than Wizards of the Coast’s ongoing Unearthed Arcana playtests. We knew for example, that both Ravenloft and Dark Sun books were coming long before they were officially announced due to to several major UAs.

Now, all signs are pointing downward to a new D&D Underdark supplement. That’s because we’ve just seen back-to-back releases of two subterranean playtest packets: Underdark Options and Underdark Options 2 . This suggests that Wizards of the Coast is indeed laying the groundwork for a major return to the realms below.

So is the writing on the cavern wall or is something else brewing in the darkness? Below, we go deep and look at why a new D&D Underdark supplement is likely in the works.

What will the new D&D Underdark book be about?

To be clear, Wizards of the Coast has not officially confirmed that a new Underdark supplement is in development and no such product is listed for the 2026 and 2027 roadmap of upcoming D&D books. That being said, based on what we’ve seen in the two Underdark playtests released in August and September 2026, it’s likely we’ll be getting one (or more) books with the following player and GM-facing content:

• New Subclasses: So far we’ve seen six subclasses: Path of Unlight Barbarian, Freedom Domain Cleric, Circle of Spores Druid, House Agent Rogue, Faerzress Sorcery Sorcerer and Imaskarcanist Wizard. It’s possible some of these may be dropped and other subclasses added based on player feedback, but given how much effort goes into producing this content, they almost certainly will be published in a player-facing supplement. Notably five of these are brand new, while the Circle of Spores Druid is an update of a subclass that first appeared in 2018’s Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica and was later updated in 2020’s Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, 
• New Species: We’ve also got five new species: the Deep Imaskari, Drider, Illithidkin, Kuo-toa and Myconid. All of these are completely brand new and have not appeared as playable species in any previous D&D 5E materials.
• New Magic: In the playtests, we’ve seen two new types of magic: Unlight (a type of unnatural, contagious magical radiance) and Faerzress (magical radiation left behind by the spider goddess Lolth). Both of these systems tie-in to several of the subclasses and it’s likely we’ll see new spells, magic items and mechanics built around them.
• New Lore: The playtest spends a significant amount of time covering the Imaskar Empire, an ancient nation of humans that abandoned the surface world thousands of years ago and settled in the Underdark, using Unlight to grow crops and protect their city. While Imaskar has been briefly touched upon in some D&D supplements over the years, there’s never really been a deep dive.
• A return of the Drow: The new Unearthed Arcana playtest material also covers dark elves and the city of Menzoberranzan. Notably, in D&D 5.5E drow became a playable race, rather than being represented as stereotypically evil. They were, however, eventually included as the “Drow of Lolth” stat block in the Adventures in Faerûn supplement, paving the way for their return in a dedicated supplement.
• New Feats: The playtest introduces the new Path of Ceremorphosis (similar to the Path of the Lich and Path of the Death Knight), which features the Mindflayer, a classic Underdark monster.

It’s possible that we may also see two books: a general supplement with character options and a tie-in campaign, much like how we saw the Arcana Unleashed supplement and the accompanying Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall adventure.

When will the new D&D Underdark book be released?

Based on past publications, there’s usually over a year from the first Unearthed Arcana playtest to the final product being released. With Ravenloft: The Horrors Within for example, the first UA was launched in May 2025, the product was officially announced in March 2026 and it finally hit shelves on June 2026.

If this new D&D Underdark book follow a similar development cycle, that means we can likely expect an official announcement in the early summer of 2027 and an official launch several months after in the late summer or early fall of 2027.

Final thoughts

It’s been over a decade since Wizards of the Coast released Out of the Abyss, the last supplement focused exclusively on the Underdark. Yet the setting remains as popular as ever, appearing in the Honor Among Thieves and Baldur’s Gate 3. Given that, it’s not surprising that the Underdark has resurfaced for D&D 5.5E.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this possible new product in the days ahead and will update this page with new information as it’s made available.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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Dungeons & Dragons’ ongoing Season of Magic is officially upon us. As part of the event (which runs from September to November), Wizards of the Coast has launched the next phase of its recently revived D&D Encounters program, with an adventure pack known as Red Wizards’ Gambit.

The adventures – which can be run individually or together as a complete mini-campaign – take characters from Levels 3 to 5 and are designed primarily to be run at friendly local game stores on a weekly basis from now until October 11. That being said, if you aren’t able to make it to any of the in-store events, you can also buy the adventures and run them at home now via D&D Beyond.

In addition to giving local game stores an in-person play experience, the adventures also serve as a prologue to the new high-level campaign, Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall, as well as featuring new character options and monsters taken from the high-magic themed Arcana Unleashed supplement.

Below, we break down everything you need to know about these new organized play D&D adventures and how they connect to the dreaded Red Wizards of Thay.

What is Red Wizards’ Gambit?

Red Wizards’ Gambit is an episodic organized play mini-campaign for Level 3 to 5 characters built for the D&D Encounters program as part of the Season of Magic. The content is designed to be run as follows:

• The Celebration Event: A 3-hour kickoff adventure created for multi-table play (also known as an “epic”) with up to four simultaneous groups managed by an Event Coordinator volunteer at a friendly local game store.
• Weekly Play Sessions (Weeks 1–4): Four 90-minute standalone encounters designed to fit flexible weeknight schedules at participating stores or home tables.

All the material is designed for the D&D 5.5E 2024 core rules as well as including specific elements from the Arcana Unleashed supplement. Players can create their own characters from scratch or use pre-generated Level 3 characters that are provided in the pack.

What are the adventures about?

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

The central plot follows an ambitious Red Wizard named Delia D’caryn who plans to launch an invasion of the neighboring nation of Rashemen. To do that, she first captures four Rashemi craftsmen who are renowned for their ability to create powerful magical artifacts. Taking each of the craftsmen to a separate secure location, she has forced them to create four pieces of a powerful artifact that she plans to assemble and use to crush Rashemen once and for all.

The storyline unfolds across five connected adventures as follows:

• Celebration Event: Stolen Spirits (Level 3): Taking place in the Rashemi capital of Immilmar, players are hired by a Harper agent to investigate suspicious activities by the Red Wizards. They’ll then have to brave the sacred Ashenwood Forest while facing down monsters and powerful Thayan sorcerers.
• Week 1: The Height of Danger (Level 4): The party must take to the skies to raid a massive earthmote floating high above Rashemen. There, they must rescue the first of the four Rashemi craftsmen who has been forced to create a deadly artifact.
• Week 2: The Depth of Despair (Level 4): Venturing into a subterranean complex corrupted by tortured souls, the party must face mutated soldiers and bizarre monsters to rescue the second captured Rashemi craftsman.
• Week 3: The Weight of Responsibility (Level 5): Scaling a perilous mountain top guarded by heavily armored spellguard mercenaries, the heroes must free the third Rashemi crafter.
• Week 4: Delia’s Dagger (Level 5): The climax leads to a heavily fortified wizard’s tower protected by deadly monsters and traps. There they must face down Delia and stop a ritual that will combine the four artifacts into a powerful weapon.

*** END OF SPOILERS ***

When can you play the Red Wizards’ Gambit adventures?

The schedule for in-store D&D Encounters play is as follows:

• September 4–13: Stolen Spirits (Celebration Kickoff Event)
• September 9–October 11: Successive weekly play mini-adventures (Weeks 1 through 4)

To see when tables are running it near you, check with your local store or look for events through the Wizards Play Network and D&D Event Finder.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to wait or can’t make it to the events, you can always run the adventures at home by picking up the pack from D&D Beyond for $4.99 USD.

Final Thoughts

With 24 pages of adventure content in the package, Red Wizards’ Gambit is definitely more than just an afterthought and represents a major milestone for the recently revived D&D Encounters program. Whether or not fans will get on board, however, remains to be seen.

To play in the adventures for yourself, check in with your local friendly game store or use the new D&D Event Finder. Alternatively, you can purchase the pack now on D&D Beyond.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

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Another season of spookiness is almost upon us, which means it’s time for Dungeons & Dragons fans to celebrate what’s become a new annual tradition: the opening of the D&D Halloween Dice Advent Calendar.

This year, third-party accessory maker FanRoll has released a new Ravenloft dice calendar, which features the official D&D license from Wizards of the Coast and includes new dice and accessories, along with art from the recently released Ravenloft: The Horrors Within supplement. You can pick yours up now from your local game store and the FanRoll website.

So is this new Halloween dice collection a trick or a treat? Below, we roll up all the details.

What is the new Ravenloft D&D Halloween Dice Advent Calendar?

FanRoll has been producing annual Halloween dice calendars for years now, but this 2026 version is the first time they’ve used the official D&D license. The box set (which is shaped like a coffin) contains the following:

• 11 panels that you use to count down the final days before Halloween
• A new dice set inspired by the color theme of Ravenloft: The Horrors Within
• A new Ravenloft-themed D6 with blood spatter motif
• A Gothic horror-themed dice bag
• A dice tray with art featuring Castle Ravenloft

Notably, the front of the box includes art of the legendary vampire lord Strahd von Zarovich illustrated by James Fenner, which also appeared in The Horrors Within supplement.

How much is the new Ravenloft Halloween Dice Advent Calendar?

The 2026 calendar retails for $59.99 USD (not including shipping, handling and tax). Notably, this is a fair bit cheaper than the 2025 Halloween dice calendar (although that set had 31 dice included, but not the official D&D license).

This also puts it on par with other Halloween dice calendars that you can find online and at local game stores (although many of these are pretty low quality).

Where can you get FanRoll’s Ravenloft Halloween dice calendar?

The new 2026 calendar is available now at most online retailers and local game and hobby stores. It’s worth noting, however, that they do end up going fairly quickly, so if you want to get one before All Hallows’ Eve, you’ll probably want to pick one up ASAP. Your best chance of finding one, however, is on the FanRoll website.

Final Thoughts

It’s great to see FanRoll once again getting in the Halloween spirit with another annual dice advent calendar, this time with the official D&D license and showcasing the dark domain of Ravenloft.

You can pick up FanRoll’s new 2026 Halloween advent dice calendar now from your local game store or the FanRoll website.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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This past March, Wizards of the Coast officially presented their D&D Roadmap, listing all of the new books, accessories and organized play events for the remainder of the year.

One of the big initiatives on the roadmap was also the Season of Champions, which will be running from October to December 2026 and focused entirely on the D&D World of Warcraft crossover. Wizards of the Coast has since revealed more details on what products and events will be taking place during this three-month window.

Below, we break out what to expect when Azeroth arrives.

When does the D&D Season of Champions take place?

The Season of Champions technically runs from October through December 2026, but there are a few key dates that fall outside this. The general timeline is as follows:

• Jul. 30: Pre-orders for the new World of Warcraft book open at local game stores, D&D Beyond and Amazon.
• Sep. 8: Scheduling officially opens for the Season to Wizards Play Network (WPN) stores.
• Sep. 23: A new World of Warcraft focused campaign will launch from the Dungeon Masters actual play.
• Oct. 5: Physical play kit sign-Up deadline for local game stores who want to get limited edition game materials.
• Oct. 14: The digital play kit will be released online to select WPN stores.
• Nov. 3: The book will be available as an early release to individuals who pre-ordered from D&D Beyond or local game stores who are part of the Wizards Play Network early access program.
• Nov. 6-29: D&D Encounters Celebration Events will run, with weekly sessions at WPN stores using new game materials.
• Nov 11-Jan 3: D&D Weekly Play Events will take place at select WPN stores.
• Nov. 17: The D&D WoW book and accessories will be available to the general public.

What D&D products will be included in the Season of Champions?

The primary products are as follows:

• D&D World of Warcraft Gameplay Expansion: This is a core gameplay book for players and DMs.
• Map pack: This will include both a physical or digital version for use on D&D Beyond Maps VTT. When you purchase the map pack you’ll also receive a digital code for an adventure for level 16 to 20 characters that takes place in Icecrown Citadel and includes a dozen high-level bosses.
• DM screen: This will include new art on the front and tables and reference materials on the back to help run an ongoing WoW campaign using D&D 5.5E.
• Miniatures: Two sets of new miniatures will also be released. Notably, these were developed with Hasbro and not WizKids (which is usually the preferred vendor for tie-in minis).

What D&D events will be taking place during the Season of Champions?

So far, Wizards of the Coast has not yet released an events schedule for the Season of Champions. We do, however, know that the season will be a key part of the recently revived D&D Encounters program. This program offers exclusive game material, accessories and organized play events at local game stores.

It’s likely we’ll see encounters material released on D&D Beyond that tie into the Dungeon Master’s actual play series and which is available to individuals who pre-order the World of Warcraft sourcebook. We’ll update this page with all the details once we know more.

Final Thoughts

D&D Seasons have been a major part of Wizards of the Coast’s marketing strategy for the past year, and so far, we’ve seen two seasons: the Season of Horror (which ran from April to June with a focus on Ravenloft: The Horrors Within supplement) and the Season of Magic (which ran from July to September with a focus on the upcoming Arcana Unleashed supplement).

With World of Warcraft the focus of the upcoming Season of Champions, there’s a lot riding on its success for both Wizards of the Coast and Blizzard. Whether the season can reach fans from both franchises, however, remains to be seen.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on updates around the new D&D seasons in the days ahead and will update this page with new information as it’s made available. In the meantime, you can pre-order the new D&D World of Warcraft book from your local game store, D&D Beyond and Amazon.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

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Dungeons & Dragons is heading back down into the subterranean abyss with its latest Unearthed Arcana playtest. Entitled Underdark Options 2, this new packet serves as a direct follow-up to the earlier Underdark Options playtest released just a few weeks ago in late August.

While that initial playtest explored the hidden human enclave of Deep Imaskar and introduced the horrifying Path of Ceremorphosis feat progression (which allows you to turn into a Mind Flayer), this latest release introduces three complete subclasses: Freedom Domain Cleric, an updated Circle of Spores Druid and the Faerzress Sorcery Sorcerer, along with five playable Underdark species (Deep Imaskari, Drider, Illithidkin, Kuo-toa and Myconid).

While Wizards of the Coast has not officially confirmed what upcoming sourcebook these materials are designed for, the heavy emphasis on Underdark lore and species suggests we’ll likely see a new setting-specific sourcebook in the near future. Below, we dig deep into all the details.

What’s included in the Underdark Options 2 playtest?

The new UA contains the following new subclasses:

Freedom Domain (Cleric)

This is a brand new subclass that taps into divine magic centered on free will, liberation and battling the forces tyranny. In the Underdark, these clerics often serve deities like Eilistraee and Sehanine Moonbow, but might also call on surface liberators like Ilmater or Mielikki. Mechanically, the subclass is presented as a high-Dexterity cleric and includes features such as:

• Domain Spells & Jailbreaks: The domain spell list is built around movement and escape, granting options like Expeditious Retreat, Misty Step, Dimension Door, Freedom of Movement and Passwall.
• Invoke Liberty: Presenting your holy symbol as a Magic Action lets allies within a 30-foot emanation immediately end the Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed or Restrained conditions on themselves (expanding to Charmed and Petrified at Level 9). Those allies can then spend a Reaction to move up to their full speed without provoking opportunity attacks.
• Unencumbered Grace & Unstoppable: While unarmored, your base AC becomes 10 plus your Dexterity and Wisdom modifiers (shields still permitted), and you gain Acrobatics proficiency or expertise. Later, at Level 6, you ignore difficult terrain and gain Dexterity saving throw proficiency.
• Avatar of Freedom: At Level 17, you can project a 30-foot aura for 10 minutes that grants entering allies +30 feet of speed, immunity to difficult terrain penalties and advantage on Dexterity checks.

Circle of Spores (Druid)

Originally introduced in 2018’s Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica and later updated in 2020’s Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, the original Circle of Spores has been retooled for the D&D 5.5E core rules and now has strong ties to Underdark myconid colonies. New and updated features include:

• Halo of Spores: Now projects a 10-foot emanation that grants 10 feet of telepathy. As a Reaction against approaching foes, it inflicts necrotic damage on a failed Constitution save or imposes disadvantage on their next attack roll if they succeed.
• Symbiotic Entity: Awakening your spores is now streamlined as a Bonus Action, providing four Temporary Hit Points per Druid level while boosting your spore damage and adding extra necrotic damage to melee weapon strikes and unarmed strikes.
• Fungal Infestation & Explosive Burst: When beasts or humanoids die within 10 feet, you can use your Reaction to animate them as zombies. You can also now transfer a portion of your own Temporary Hit Points directly to these minions. Furthermore, the old Spreading Spores feature has been replaced with Explosive Burst at Level 10, causing your zombies to detonate in a cloud of necrotic spores when they drop to 0 hit points.
• Fungal Body: At Level 14, in addition to condition immunities and critical hit protection, the mycelial network in your flesh takes over your motor functions if you are knocked unconscious, steering your body safely toward allies on your turn rather than dropping your speed to zero.

Faerzress Sorcery (Sorcerer)

This is a brand new subclass that draws its power from faerzress, the strange, mutating magical radiation infused into the Underdark by Lolth. Key features include:

• Faerzress Effects & Zones: Normally, areas saturated by faerzress block teleportation over 1 mile, foil magical sensors like Clairvoyance, grant automatic saves against divination and make Darkvision see in vibrant color. At Level 3, you can spend 3 Sorcery Points to generate a 40-foot cube of lingering faerzress radiation for 24 hours.
• Immunity & Affinity: You completely ignore the detrimental effects of faerzress, allowing your divination sensors to bypass its static and your long-distance teleports to succeed. At Level 6, this immunity extends to allies within 30 feet, while you gain lightning resistance, expanded color-capable Darkvision and advantage on vision-based Perception checks in darkness.
• Faerzress Step & Form: At Level 14, you gain a free daily casting of Teleport and can choose any outcome on the Teleportation Outcome table for your familiarity level. At Level 18, activating Innate Sorcery allows you to transform into a floating avatar of pure radiant/lightning energy, gaining hover flight, condition immunities, resistance to all damage except Force and Psychic, and the ability to phase through walls and creatures.

Five New Underdark Species

Rather than just focusing on surface adventurers delving below, Underdark Options 2 also supplies rules for five playable Underdark-native species:

• Deep Imaskari: Descendants of the ancient fallen empire of Imaskar who survived in the Lowerdark beneath a synthetic sun. Warped by millennia of exposure to magical light, they feature pale skin, golden-white eyes, and crystalline growths protruding from their flesh. Mechanically, they inherit the human Resourceful trait (free Heroic Inspiration on a Long Rest), possess radiant resistance, can illuminate their body crystals at will and can project an Aura of Unlight that bolsters party AC, blinds approaching foes, or adds radiant damage to attacks.
• Drider: Bearing the Spider Queen’s curse, driders possess the upper torso of a drow joined to the body of a giant arachnid. Classified as Monstrosities, they feature 120-foot Darkvision, an Arachnid Build that boosts carrying capacity, innate climb speed that leave hands free (Spider Climb), web-walking detection and innate spellcasting (Dancing Lights, Faerie Fire and Web).
• Illithidkin: Humanoids modified by mind flayer experiments who retain parts of their original form alongside purple skin, face tentacles and minor psionic abilities. Unlike the deep-investment Ceremorphosis feat tree from the previous UA, Illithidkin are a distinct species offering 120-foot Darkvision, 30-foot telepathy, psychic damage resistance, advantage against charm effects and innate psionics (represented by Mage Hand, Command and Levitate).
• Kuo-toa: Fishlike subterranean humanoids whose scales shift colors with extreme emotions. In addition to being amphibious with a swim speed and having the Slippery trait (advantage against grapples and restraints), they feature Deific Manifestation. This lets them cast Find Familiar without components to conjure a celestial idol made of mismatched Underdark parts (including Homunculus or Myconid Sprout forms) that inherits traits and actions from two different creatures.
• Myconid: Sentient, bipedal fungal folk. Classified as Plants, myconids have 120-foot Darkvision, 30-foot telepathy and can emit Rapport Spores to create a temporary telepathic network for their adventuring party. They also bring the unique Skill Meld trait, allowing party members who participate in a post-rest melding ritual to borrow any single skill proficiency known by another participant until the next rest.

Final Thoughts

It has been over a decade since D&D last ventured into the Underdark, with 2015’s Out of the Abyss featuring a campaign that was set almost entirely in the depths below. In terms of Underdark player options, however, it’s been even longer, going to back the D&D 4e days. That looks like something Wizards of the Coast is planning to rectify, and at this point it seems likely we’ll be hearing about an official Underdark setting expansion in the not-too-distant future.

In the meantime, you can check out all the material for yourself via the official Unearthed Arcana page or download the PDF. Player feedback for the new material will officially open on September 17, 2026.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post D&D Digs Up More of the Underdark in New Unearthed Arcana Playtest appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

If you’re a D&D player looking to trade in your flimsy cardboard Dungeon Master screen for something a little more bad ass, WizKids definitely has you covered. Their new Dungeons & Dragons: Replicas of the Realms Castle Ravenloft DM Screen is both a faithful recreation of the stronghold of the dreaded vampire lord Strahd Von Zarovich and a table-usable accessory complete with dice towers, storage trays, initiative trackers and an area for your notes.

This marks the first time that WizKids has released this kind of DM screen/terrain piece, and while it won’t be coming out until sometime in the Fall of 2027, you can pre-order it now from your local game store, WizKids and Amazon.

Below, we take a closer look at what secrets lurk behind the screen of Castle Ravenloft.

What’s included in the new Castle Ravenloft DM screen?

The new screen is fully pre-painted and includes a hinged-opening, three-panel design with the following features:

• Outward-facing dice tower for players.
• Inner-facing dice tower for the DM.
• Six Initiative order flags that can be attached to the outside.
• Storage drawers for minis, dice and accessories.
• Additional storage compartments in the castle towers.
• Storage shelves for minis, dice and markers.
• Clips to hold notes, cards and player handouts.

How much is WizKids’ Castle Ravenloft DM Screen?

If you do want to pick this bad boy up, beware: it ain’t cheap. In fact, this sucker will set you back $449.99 USD. Also, bear in mind that because of its size and weight, shipping costs could be a little on the hefty side.

When is the Castle Ravenloft DM Screen coming out?

The set is expected to hit store shelves in the Fall of 2027, at which point it should be available from both online and physical retailers (although as a specialty item, it might be a bit harder to find in local shops).

Final thoughts

This unique combination of terrain and Dungeon Master’s screen looks worthy of Strahd himself, even though the price tag is a little on the terrifying side. It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the only instance of Castle Ravenloft getting some time in the spotlight, with the legendary fortress also getting an updated board game and appearing in a possible upcoming Netflix Ravenloft TV series.

If you’re interested in picking up the new DM screen for yourself, you can pre-order it now from your local game store, WizKids and Amazon.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post New Castle Ravenloft DM Screen Lets You Roll Like a Dark Lord appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

D&D Beyond has released its September 2026 Drop, shifting away from sewers and oozes to lean directly into a high-arcane theme. Designed as part of the ongoing Season of Magic, the release features a number of firsts: including the first playable species in a Drop, the debut of modular “Fantastic Locations” (which brings back the iconic town of Phandalin), the rollout of new narrative “Storied Encounters,” plus four brand-new spells and three magical guardian monsters.

Paying subscribers can pick up the September Drop now on D&D Beyond. Below, we break down everything included in this month’s release.

What are D&D Beyond Drops?

D&D Beyond Drops is a subscription perk program first introduced in May 2026, giving Hero and Master tier subscribers free evergreen content. Drops land on the first Thursday of each month with new content like spells, feats, and backgrounds for players, plus maps, monsters, magic items and adventures for DMs.

Unlike D&D Beyond’s typical limited-time bonus content, Drops are meant to be permanent: you keep everything released to date and everything that comes after, for as long as you remain subscribed. Wizards of the Coast has said the format was a direct response to subscriber requests and is meant to be community-driven, with regular surveys shaping future content. Drops can also be shared among D&D Beyond users in the same way that digital books can.

What’s New for Players in the September 2026 Drop?

Headlining player options is the Duskling, marking the first time a full playable species has appeared in a Drop. Originally appearing in the 2005 Magic of Incarnum sourcebook for D&D 3.5, Dusklings are planar fey wanderers who adapt magical traits on the fly. Rather than tying their heritage directly to spellcasting, their signature “Inner Magic” trait allows players to select and rotate between different inherent magical effects a number of times per day equal to their Proficiency Bonus.

Alongside the Duskling, the team introduced four new non-combat utility spells. This includes:

• Conjure Tools: Creates an instantaneous, temporary set of Artisan’s Tools that you are proficient with.
• Feign Interest: Tricks targets into believing you are utterly focused and paying rapt attention to whatever they are saying.
• Pinky Swear: Seals a solemn promise with an arcane consequence, lighting the pants on fire of anyone who knowingly breaks it.
• Quick Clothier: Instantly reshapes unworn clothing into an outfit of your styling.

What’s New for DMs in the September 2026 Drop?

Dungeon Masters get a hefty batch of arcane-themed tools that are designed to complement the recent Arcana Unleashed sourcebook. For monster encounters, the drop adds three companion-style creatures that bond with creatures or spellcasters. They are:

• Bondbeast: A beast that transforms into a magical guardian that protects its owner.
• Mageguard Sphere: A floating sentinel that shields its ward against spells and magical effects.
• Magiplasm: An eerie, intelligent ooze that can siphon and redirect arcane energy.

For virtual tabletop sessions, longtime official D&D cartographer Mike Schley has contributed three magic-themed battle maps for use with the Maps VTT. These include:

• Arcane Laboratory
• Decrepit Wizard’s Tower
• Failed Ritual Site

The September Drop also revamps how DMs can run quick game sessions on the platform. Following the recent rollout of the Scene Prep feature, D&D Beyond is converting its catalog of basic “Drop-in Encounters” into Storied Encounters. Instead of bare tokens on a grid, these provide DMs with handcrafted narrative hooks, scene guidance and built-in mini-adventure text. Five encounters have received the Storied Encounter upgrade immediately, spanning multiple tiers of play:

• Grotto Prison Break (Levels 1 & 20)
• Threshold Guardians (Levels 1 & 9)
• Bandit Ambush (Levels 3 & 9)
• Kobold Surprise (Levels 3 & 9)
• Elemental Incursion (Levels 5 & 12)

Finally, the September Drop introduces a new feature called Fantastic Locations, which designed to let DMs drop an entire ready-to-run settlement into their campaign on the fly without heavy prep work.

The first featured settlement is a reimagined take on Phandalin, the iconic starter village known from Lost Mine of Phandelver and Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk. The team noted this is a distinct, self-contained version of the mining hub meant for quick modular play. It strips out legacy adventure baggage like the Redbrand Ruffians, so DMs can easily tailor the town, its NPCs and its two competing taverns into any homebrew setting.

Final thoughts

Between dusting off an obscure D&D 3.5e species, leaning into new social utility spells and giving DMs pre-packaged settlements and narrative encounters, September marks yet another major milestone for the Drops program. It remains to be seen, however, if Wizards of the Coast can maintain this pace and whether fans will find the content genuinely useful online and at the table.

Hero and Master Tier subscribers can claim the September Drop now on D&D Beyond.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post D&D Beyond’s September Drop Brings Back an Obscure Species and Iconic Locale appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

In a recent interview on The Playlist’s Discourse Podcast, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves co-writers/co-directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein said they they have finished a script for a sequel to the film. They also noted that while original studio Paramount Pictures is unlikely to greenlight the film, Hasbro is still invested in the project and is potentially shopping the script around to other studios.

The news has rekindled hope that a D&D sequel may in fact happen after all. It’s worth noting, however, that while hte original 2023 Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves was a genuine critical hit among both audiences and reviewers alike (currently sitting at a solid 91% with Critics and 92% among audiences on Rotten Tomatoes) it was generally considered a financial failure by studio standards, generating $208 million on a $150 million budget.

So is Hollywood ready to roll the dice on Honor Among Thieves 2? Below, we look at some recent news that may hold the answers.

What’s the latest on a Dungeons & Dragons Movie sequel?

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a few major news items discussing the project:

• Hasbro is shopping a sequel to other studios: In a September 2026 interview with The Playlist, Honor Among Thieves co-co-directors and co-writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein said they were cautiously optimistic about a sequel being made. “I think Hasbro is a big believer in it, and if they can figure out a studio partner to make it work, they’ll want to proceed,” Goldstein said.
• A sequel script is finished: In a July 2026 interview with ScreenRant, Goldstein confirmed that he and his co-writers were hired to write a screenplay for a Dungeons & Dragons 2, but that it was unlikely to be made due to “financial reasons.”
• Chris Pine is optimistic: In a November 2023 interview with GamesRadar+, actor Chris Pine indicated that: “I feel pretty confident that it [a sequel] may happen.”
• Studio boss says budget is the biggest obstacle: In an August 2023 interview with Variety, Paramount CEO Brian Robbins explained that there is interest in making Honor Among Thieves 2, but the biggest challenge is budget. He stated, “We’ve got to figure out a way to make it for less.” In August 2025, however, Robbins stepped down and was replaced by CEO David Ellison, so it’s possible this view may have changed.

Why a Dungeons & Dragons movie sequel has not yet been produced

Despite the positive reception, the film made just $208 million, according to revenue tracker Box Office Mojo. For a much smaller film, that would be a resounding success. Unfortunately, the D&D movie cost over $150 million to make. Throw in marketing costs and the cut of revenue given to theatres, and Honor Among Thieves would need to make $350 million just to break even. In other words, it’s considered a financial flop by Hollywood standards and, if Paramount did decide to produce a Dungeons & Dragons sequel, it would require a significantly reduced budget.

It’s also worth noting that Honor Among Thieves was never meant to be the start of a franchise. In fact, in a May 2023 interview with Polygon, the co-directors and co-screenwriters of the film, John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, stated that they always saw it as a standalone film. Daley notes that “The cardinal mistake many studios make is to put the cart before the horse, where they start crafting a cinematic universe before they even make a good single film. So first and foremost for us was getting this right.”

In the September 2026 interview with The Playlist, Goldstein and Daley also pointed out that the timing of the 2023 release may have also been a factor in its financial performance. “It was very much a product of not-so-great timing when the first movie came out. It came out four days before the Super Mario movie, which broke records,” Daley said. “It came out a month after Wizards of the Coast changed the official gaming license, prompting many D&D fans to boycott the game, and I don’t think the marketing did enough to tell people who weren’t already fans that this movie might be for them. Yeah, so it was a perfect storm of all of those elements.”

What is the potential release date for a D&D sequel?

Hollywood has been attempting to make a Dungeons & Dragons movie for decades, with their first attempt resulting in the disastrous 2000 film. Honor Among Thieves has also been in various stages of production since 2013 and was almost shut down numerous times due to legal and financial issues until Paramount officially gave the greenlight to begin production in 2021. In many ways, it’s a miracle that the film was made at all and that it turned out to be so good.

The development of the script, principal photography and the editing process all took several years to complete. What’s more there has been significant recent corporate restructuring at Paramount, who merged with Skydance in 2024 in an $8 billion USD deal, and is now in the process of a $111 billion USD merger with Warner Bros. in what could be one of the biggest studio restructurings in Hollywood history.

Combine these factors together and that means that even if Paramount or another studio were to greenlight a sequel it would likely be several years from that point before a Dungeons & Dragons sequel hit the big screen.

Will the Honor Among Thieves Cast Return in the Sequel?

Hollywood A-lister Chris Pine is no stranger to sequels as he’s appeared as Captain James Kirk in multiple Star Trek movies and Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman and its sequel. And Paramount was willing to pay handsomely for his appearance in Honor Among Thieves, with Pine raking in a reported $11.5 million for his role as Edgin the bard according to Variety. Given that we know budget is a concern for Paramount, that’s a hefty chunk of change that might be hard to justify spending in a D&D sequel film. When asked by GamesRadar+ if he’d be happy to return to the role, Pine responded: “Absolutely.” 

Similarly, actress Michelle Rodriguez is also someone who is more than familiar with Hollywood franchises, having appeared in numerous Fast and Furious films. She was reportedly paid $2 million for her role in the D&D film. Again, it might be hard for Paramount to justify that salary in a possible sequel.

That being said, all of the cast have said they would be interested in reprising their roles if the opportunity arose. Whether or not Paramount is willing to pay for their services, however, is a different matter entirely.

What Will Honor Among Thieves 2 Be About?

While Jonathan Goldstein has confirmed that a sequel script exists, he did not provide any details on what it would be about. In his July 2026 interview with ScreenRant at San Diego Comic-Con, he noted only: “We actually wrote a sequel to Dungeons and Dragons. We were hired to write it. I don’t know that it will see the light of day for a number of financial reasons. They’re expensive movies to make, but it’d be great fun to do it. We love that cast, and we think we wrote something that fans would like.”

We have, however, had a few tantalizing clues about what could be included in a possible follow-up movie. In an interview, co-writer and co-director John Francis Daley has said: “I think if we were lucky enough to do another one of these, we would want to see our characters level up,” adding that they’d probably stick with the established party, but would likely add some new characters, new locations and new monsters.

There’s also the possibility that the film might look at new D&D settings. “Yeah, you know, we did the Forgotten Realms for this one, partly because it’s kind of a recognizable medieval setting,” co-director Jonathan Goldstein says. “But there are so many worlds within D&D that we could explore.”

“Now that we’ve finished it, and we’re relying on the fates to decide if this thing is a success, we would absolutely love to continue to tell stories in this world,” Daley added. “We think it’s absolutely ripe with potential.”

The two directors have also hinted that the dark elf ranger Drizzt Do’Urden might make an appearance in a sequel.

“Drizzt did come up, actually, as we were figuring out what our first film was going to be,” Daley says. “But the general consensus was to not go there yet. That said, he’s definitely a popular character in the world, and one who could be exciting to explore. There are so many characters in this world. It would be really fun either to have them join the group we’ve established, or do some sort of an offshoot of our film, to get into their backstories.”

So while the story is still in the works, it seems that Daley and Goldstein have plenty of material and inspiration to draw on.

Final Thoughts

While fans are definitely hoping that a Dungeons & Dragons sequel appears sometime in the near future, Hollywood can be a difficult monster to slay, with strikes, budget issues and studio politics to battle. That being said, as of now an Honor Among Thieves 2 is still very much a real possibility.

In the meantime, fans will be able to get more D&D on the small screen, with both a Ravenloft TV series and an HBO Baldur’s Gate show both currently in development.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story and update this page with new information as it’s available.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post A Sequel to Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves May Actually Happen appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Back in February 2025, Deadline reported that Netflix was developing a new live action Dungeons & Dragons TV series entitled The Forgotten Realms, which was being created by Stranger Things and Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy. We’ve since learned that development on the show has officially ended.

The news is somewhat bittersweet as Deadline also reported that in the wake of the cancelation, a new Ravenloft TV show was now in the works at Netflix, with a new team consisting of screenwriter John August and Academy Award-winning director Alfonso Cuarón.

Below, we look at what the Forgotten Realms television series would have been about and why it was canceled.

What was the Forgotten Realms D&D TV series about?

According to the February 2025 Deadline article (and an associated IMDB page), the show would have taken place in Faerûn and was being overseen by Shawn Levy (who is a producer and director on Stranger Things and recently co-wrote and directed Deadpool & Wolverine). It also featured the involvement of producer Dan Levine and was going to be run through the production company 21 Laps Entertainment.

Writing and showrunning duties were being overseen by Drew Crevello (who is best known for the TV miniseries WeCrashed) and Crevello had reportedly already written the pilot prior to Forgotten Realms being canceled.

Why was the Forgotten Realms TV show canceled?

As of this writing, no specific reason has been given by Netflix for why the show was canceled, but the difficulty of adapting the material to the small screen seems to be a likely candidate. In fact, in a November 2026 interview with Collide, Shawn Levy noted: “I think that the reason it’s taken so long and the reason why it is a challenging process is you’re not adapting story IP. You’re adapting a world and a lexicon and a spirit, but story needs to be invented largely from scratch. And it needs to be invented in a way that feels organic to everything that’s great about D&D. So that one is in very active every day chipping-away-at-it development at Netflix.”

Levy has not commented on the cancelation since the Deadline article was published and his reps have not responded to our request for information.

It’s worth noting, however, that the Forgotten Realms isn’t the only TV series to fail its death saving throw versus Hollywood. In fact, in early 2023, Hasbro announced that a live action D&D series was in development for Paramount+. It was also to be set in the Forgotten Realms and was created by Rawson Marhsall Thurber (writer and director of the 2021 Netflix film Red Notice). It was later given the axe in June 2024. Notably, Drew Crevello was also brought on as executive producer and showrunner for that series, which means he has since been involved in two scrapped D&D shows set in the Forgotten Realms .

Similarly, in late 2024, actor and producer Joe Manganiello had shopped around a Dragonlance TV series that eventually fell apart due to a lack of studio interest (notably, Manganiello has since taken on a role as chief creative officer of the new D&D Icons publishing line).

Final Thoughts

Despite Dungeons & Dragons’ incredibly popularity, the last time the game actually made it to the small screen was in 1983 with the CBS cartoon series. Four decades later, the closest we’ve got has been been the D&D episode of the Amazon Secret Level TV series.

Still there’s reason to be optimistic, with the Ravenloft TV show in the works and a new Baldur’s Gate TV series at HBO being spearheaded by Last of Us co-creator Craig Mazin. It remains to be seen, however, if these projects can survive Hollywood development.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story in the days ahead and will update this page with more information as it becomes available.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post Netflix’s Forgotten Realms D&D TV Show is Officially Canceled appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

The Mists have parted over one of the most terrifying places in existence: Hollywood. That’s according to a recent Deadline article which has reported that Netflix is currently developing a live action D&D television series set in Ravenloft. The show will focus on the origins of the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich, the ruler of the gothic horror Domain of Dread known as Barovia.

The news, however, is also somewhat bittersweet as the Deadline article also reported that the Forgotten Realms TV show first announced by Netflix in February 2025 and being spearheaded by Shawn Levy is no longer in development.

Below, we take a closer look at everything we know so far as Ravenloft potentially makes its way through the Mists and onto the small screen.

What is the new Ravenloft D&D TV series about?

So far, few details have been revealed about what the show will be about. In the Deadline article, the Ravenloft show is described as “a prestige fantasy series where adventure collides with gothic horror and tragic romance.” It also notes that: “At its heart, the series follows the making of the vampire Darklord Strahd von Zarovich, whose story of power, love, obsession, and undead transformation charts his origins from tragic antihero to one of Dungeons & Dragons’ most notorious villains.”

This, of course, isn’t an entirely new story as Strahd’s origins have been well documented in multiple D&D supplements, including the original 1983 I6: Ravenloft module, the 2014 Curse of Strahd campaign and more recently the 2026 Ravenloft: The Horrors Within supplement. It’s also the subject of the 1993 novel I, Strahd by author P.N. Elrod, which fully details his transformation from tormented noble to bloodsucking monster.

It’s not clear, however, if the Netflix Ravenloft TV series will be drawing on any of this existing material or going in an entirely new direction.

Who is working on the new Ravenloft D&D TV series?

The show will be written and produced by John August, the American screenwriter, director and novelist best known as a frequent collaborator of Tim Burton and writer of movies including Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Dark Shadows and Frankenweenie.

The show will also be produced by Academy Award-winning Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, who is best known for directing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the dystopian sci-fi film Children of Men and the space thriller Gravity.

Hasbro Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast will also be directly involved in the production.

When will the series be coming out?

No official release date has been announced. In fact, it’s possible (and even likely) that the Ravenloft TV show may never see the light of day. If so, it joins a long line of recently scrapped D&D series that includes a proposed Dragonlance TV series from actor and producer Joe Manganiello, a live action D&D series from Paramount+ and the recently cancelled Forgotten Realms show.

In fact, it’s worth noting that while Hollywood has been attempting to bring D&D to the small screen for decades, the last time an official Dungeons & Dragons TV show actually aired was the 1983 CBS cartoon series. And while there’s reason to be hopeful, given recent projects like the Honor Among Thieves film and the D&D episode of the Amazon Secret Level TV series, the track record isn’t exactly stellar. 

Final Thoughts

While it’s disappointing to hear that Netflix’s Forgotten Realms TV series appears to have ended up in the Nine Hells of development, it is encouraging to learn that we may see a Ravenloft show in the not too distant future. There’s also reason to be hopeful given that a Baldur’s Gate TV show is reportedly in development on HBO from Last of Us showrunner Craig Mazin.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story in the days ahead and will update this page with more information as it becomes available.

More D&D Film & Television Coverage

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post New Ravenloft D&D TV Show in Development at Netflix appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Renegade Game Studios is bringing back one of the most popular D&D board games of all time, with a new version of the iconic Castle Ravenloft.

First released back in 2010 by Wizards of the Coast, this upcoming reprint is being produced by third-party publisher Renegade Game Studios using the official D&D license, and will feature new art, miniatures and components, while still using the same rules as the original game.

The game will be coming out in February 2027 but is available for pre-order now from local game stores and Renegade Game Studios. Below, we take a closer look at what to expect when Strahd invites you and your crew over for game night.

What is the D&D Castle Ravenloft board game about?

Castle Ravenloft is a cooperative board game that can be played solo or with up to five players, and uses the D&D Adventure System, which has been featured in a variety of other co-op Dungeons & Dragons board games, including Wrath of Ashardalon, The Legend of Drizzt, Temple of Elemental Evil, Tomb of Annihilation and Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

The system (which was originally based on the D&D 4th edition rules) is designed to recreate the TTRPG experience as a board game, and features familiar mechanics like levelling up, battling monsters and dungeon crawling. Sessions can usually be completed in about 1-2 hours and require no previous knowledge of D&D to play.

As the name suggests, the game takes place in Castle Ravenloft, the ancestral home of the dreaded vampire lord Strahd von Zarovich. The game features 13 unique adventure scenarios, which have their own specific goals, such as retrieving a magic artifact or taking on Strahd himself.

Each player starts by choosing a character, drawing from familiar D&D classes like Cleric, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue and Wizard. On their turn, a player can enter further into the dungeon (turning over tiles that reveal new monsters, treasure and traps), move through an area that’s already been revealed or battle monsters. Defeated monsters provide both treasure and experience points, allowing players to level up their characters. Players must cooperate to stay alive, battle monsters and complete adventure objectives.

What’s included in the new Castle Ravenloft board game?

The standard version of the game includes the following:

• 40 Interlocking Dungeon Tiles (plus an additional Starting tile)
• 42 unpainted miniatures (5 heroes, 30 monsters and 7 villains)
• 209 cards (including heroes, villains, monsters and treasure)
• 192 tokens (covering hit points, items, traps and actions)
• 1 Adventure Book (with 13 quests to choose from)
• 1 Rulebook
• 1 20-sided Die

Notably, a Premium Version is also available, which contains all of the components as the standard version, with the exception that the 42 miniatures are pre-painted.

When is the new Castle Ravenloft board game coming out?

The game will be released in February 2027, at which point it will be available online and at local game stores. We’ll update this page with an exact date once it’s been confirmed.

How much is the new Castle Ravenloft board game?

The standard version retails for $100 USD (not including shipping and handling), while the premium edition retails for $200 USD (as noted above, the only difference between the two versions is that the premium contains pre-painted miniatures).

Final thoughts

The original Castle Ravenloft remains a beloved – and now sadly out of print – game that’s been well reviewed by both board game and D&D fans alike, so it’s great to see it getting a new lease on life from Renegade Game Studios.

It also follows up on the recently released Ravenloft: Horrified board game expansion and comes hot on the heels of D&D’s return to the Domains of Dread with Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, which was part of the larger Season of Horror initiative that ran from April to June 2026.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the new Castle Ravenloft board game in the days ahead and will be doing a complete review closer to launch. In the meantime, you can pre-order a copy now from your local game stores and Renegade Game Studios.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post Castle Ravenloft Returns With New D&D Board Game appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

In this interview, D&D Fanatics’ Jason Volk sits down with veteran tabletop RPG designer Shawn Merwin to discuss his incredible career working for publishers Ghostfire Gaming and Wizards of the Coast, and what he sees next for the future of Dungeons & Dragons.

Shawn also discusses the challenges of game design, the big shifts taking place in the industry, making kick ass adventures, and how fans are reshaping the tabletop RPG industry.

[Please note that the transcript below has been edited for clarity and length.]

Shawn’s Journey Into Game Design

Jason Volk: For those who don’t know you – though I think most people in the industry do – could you give a little introduction of yourself?

Shawn Merwin: For sure. My name is Shawn Merwin. I’ve been doing freelance work in the roleplaying game space since about 2000. I started by working on organized play campaigns for Wizards of the Coast – the first one was a third-edition campaign called Living Greyhawk, which was sort of the Adventurers League of third edition. I was working full-time in a different field, but volunteering my free time on that. In 2018, I went full-time as a freelancer, and spent two or three years doing that. In 2021, I joined Ghostfire Gaming full-time as lead executive designer – which means lead designer, plus I answer to the bosses. Then, at the beginning of this year, I joined Wizards of the Coast as a contract game designer. That means I’m not an actual full-time employee, but I do full-time work for them on a contract basis, doing whatever they need. That’s the short version of this twenty-five, twenty-six-year expedition.

Jason Volk: Amazing. And taking a step back – how did you end up getting into D&D or RPGs in the first place?

Shawn Merwin: I’ve been playing since before I was nine years old, back in the AD&D first-edition days. Growing up, I was one of those kids who thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to do this for a living?” But it wasn’t really an industry you could break into – there wasn’t an open gaming license, so you couldn’t even make material for it and sell it. So I was going to be a teacher, then ended up as a technical writer. But I always loved writing, always loved making this stuff, so I’d sort of given up on that dream. Then third edition came out and the Living Greyhawk campaign started. They needed volunteers because they were creating hundreds, if not thousands, of adventures across the world, and the region I lived in was handed the region for Greyhawk. My first job – a volunteer position – was editing adventures and making sure they got produced: reaching out to writers, editing their work, getting it out to players. Right away I was thrust into not just designing, but editing, producing, and running playtests. I was getting immersed in every corner of the industry without really knowing it, and that’s when I realized I had a skill set that matched. Luckily, the folks at Wizards overseeing the campaign saw I was doing a halfway decent job, so when little things came up – “we need someone to write this adventure for Dragon magazine,” or “we need someone to work on this,” sometimes without even getting credited – I was just always there, always saying yes. It’s what they say about the military: if you’re always the volunteer, always raising your hand, that’s how you get noticed for the next opportunity. It took about twenty years to really catch fire and get noticed deeply in the industry, but once people recognized that I knew what I was doing at least 99% of the time, the opportunities came more readily.

Jason Volk: Was there a tipping point where this went from a hobby to something you realized could be an actual career?

Shawn Merwin: There wasn’t one single tipping point, but the real crux of it was when fourth edition started. I was given the playtest rules because I was overseeing a different organized play campaign, so I had a preview copy of the rules as new versions were released. Wizards reached out and said they were restarting Dragon and Dungeon magazine digitally and needed content right away – could I write some stuff? I said sure. So I was overseeing this organized play campaign, which is a ton of work, writing articles for these two digital magazines, and then they reached out again: one of their writers on a published off-the-shelf adventure got switched to a different project – could I co-write it? That felt like the big time. Just having access to those rules made me valuable when all this content was suddenly needed, and that’s when I realized being in the right place at the right time is enormously important. That’s when the notion of “maybe I could actually do this” started to take root.

The “Three F’s” of Game Design

Jason Volk: I find it interesting that you did some work as a technical writer – I studied technical writing myself, and I often think about that when I look at your modules and adventures. Where do you see the line between writing, which is what people think you’re doing when you create an adventure, and designing? Where do those two meet?

Shawn Merwin: It starts with thinking. I teach a class every other semester at the local college – writing for roleplaying games, part of the creative writing curriculum. What I’ve realized watching students come through is that the ones who took the time to think clearly generally ended up writing clearly. Clear writing matters for everything – even poetry, where you’re using imagery, flowery language, similes and metaphors – because if you can think clearly, if you know what you actually want to say, it’s much easier to find the words for it. Once you have that base, you can start playing with different forms and modes of expression. Honestly, technical writing and game design aren’t that different. It’s the same question: what am I trying to say? Whether you’re writing an adventure and need to tell the DM how a scene should play out, or dealing with game rules and need to think through the ramifications of introducing a new rule – what does this weapon property do, and what does it mean for other feats or abilities that interact with it, how does it change the game – that clear thinking leads to clear writing.

Jason Volk: That makes sense – it’s less about creative writing for its own sake and more about expressing a concept and understanding how people will actually use the content at the table.

Shawn Merwin: Exactly. And that leads into something I’ve talked about on other interviews and on my podcasts – a framework I call the three F’s of design. I honestly don’t remember if I borrowed this from someone or came up with a version of it myself, but when you write for roleplaying games, you have to think about three things. It needs to be fun – you want players to love playing it and GMs to love running it. It needs to be flavorful – it has to interact with the setting and the world in a way that illuminates that world, whether it’s an adventure that draws in details about a town or an evil force, or a rule like a feat or subclass that does what rules do while also building up the setting around it. And the third F – I won’t swear, so let’s say it’s freaking balanced. Balance gets thrown around a lot in game design, and people think it means everything has to be mathematically identical. That’s not really what balance is. To me, balance means that if there are options available to a player or GM, they aren’t always taking one option over all the others, and they aren’t always avoiding one option in favor of everything else. You want something reasonable that people actually want to use, without it being overpowered or hurting them by being underpowered. So: fun, flavorful, and freaking balanced.

Staying Positive in a Sometimes-Negative Hobby

Jason Volk: Sometimes there’s a lot of negativity online about a hobby that’s supposed to be fun – it’s not supposed to raise your blood pressure. One thing I love about your podcast, Mastering Dungeons, which you co-host with Teos, is that you’re both extremely positive about the hobby, to the point that ragebait content would probably get you more engagement, but you’ve deliberately chosen a positive approach. Why?

Shawn Merwin: I think Teos and I share a love of the game that isn’t just something we like – it’s something we’ve lived. I’ve seen, in real time, the power roleplaying games have. I’ve seen parents bring in kids who are autistic or non-verbal, and the parent says, “He doesn’t talk, but he’ll roll the dice, and he’ll let you know” – and then the kid starts talking once they’re engaged with the game. I’ve seen the love of this game pull people out of very messy lives, or lift them up. I know that power is real, and the people who are negative about the hobby either haven’t seen that, or are ignoring it. I was at a convention called Gamehole Con in Madison, Wisconsin, on a panel, and someone in the audience asked, “How can you work for Wizards when they’re doing this and that?” I’ve talked about this before – compared to companies that are actively destroying the environment or harming people, Hasbro and Wizards get voted one of the most altruistic companies around. But I answered it this way: I asked the room, “How many of you have had your lives changed by Dungeons & Dragons and roleplaying games?” There were maybe a hundred people there, and at least ninety raised their hands. I said, “You just answered the question. This is why we do it – because we want this love we have for the game to raise people up.” As a kid I remember people saying TSR was just trying to get your money, but what does a ten-year-old know about the world? Now that we have the internet, where people can interact more but also seek validation for grievances, you’re always going to get that kind of noise. It’s always been there – it’s just louder now.

Jason Volk: That’s exactly what I love about you and Teos – you’re critical when there are real issues with design or with WotC, but the positive approach is a much better way to engage with the hobby than an oversized emphasis on negativity.

Shawn Merwin: It’s funny – I either get accused of being an AI, or I get accused of being a shill for Wizards. I take a similar approach to you: I’m only going to write about things that are either neutral or that I actually enjoy, because life’s too short to crap all over everything.

Grognards versus New Players

Jason Volk: I think there’s a divide in the hobby between the grognard and OSR crowd – which I love, I grew up on the red box – and a new generation of players who came in through fifth edition and the pandemic and don’t know what the OSR even is. Do you see that kind of schism, and does it feel like WotC is trying to thread the needle between the two?

Shawn Merwin: There are many audiences for everything – many audiences for Star Wars, many audiences for roleplaying games. You want to bring as many people into the tent as you can, but you also have to recognize that not everything is for everyone. As someone who’s worked for big companies – and I don’t speak for Wizards of the Coast here – you want your audience to grow, but if you try to serve your entire audience with everything you make, you end up serving no one. Sometimes you make a product that disappoints one set of fans in order to serve another, and there’s not much you can do about that. I don’t see the divide as starkly as it’s sometimes depicted online, because my experience is different from other people’s – I see folks who’ve been playing since 1970-whatever who love fifth edition and the new art and the changes, and I see people who’ve only played for four years who are upset that anything has changed since they started. It’s more a mindset of change versus sameness, nostalgia versus modernity, than it is about any particular group or age. Some of the most small-c conservative people, who don’t want any change whatsoever, are young folks upset that the anime they started watching in 2022 is different now. We all need to understand that not everything is for everyone, and that’s okay – with the game’s popularity, there’s always going to be something for you, even if it’s not from Wizards directly. There are third-party creators out there, some who’ve worked at Wizards before and some who will in the future, making great stuff you might like.

Jason Volk: And D&D is kind of whatever you want it to be – you don’t have to play it any particular way, you can drop whatever rules you want. It feels like Dark Sun has run into some of that recently.

Shawn Merwin: Teos, my co-host on Mastering Dungeons, is the biggest Dark Sun fan, and he definitely has opinions. There are so many voices and points of view that there’s always going to be some side of an issue that disagrees, even if they’d agree on 99.9% of everything else – “why did you add this, why didn’t you add that.” Designers can’t add every aspect of everything; they have to make choices, for a variety of reasons, and once a choice is made, it’s there. You can use it, you can change it, or you can not engage with it. Or, apparently, you can complain and accuse everyone of everything – but in the long run, that’s just noise. You also get a distorted view of things looking through an online lens. People are naturally more vocal when they’re upset; when people are in a good mood and having fun, no one’s shouting about it online.

Jason Volk: The anonymity of the internet is interesting too.

Shawn Merwin: Very. I’ve had people at conventions come up and say, “I love your work,” and when I ask their name, they’ll give me their online handle – and it turns out to be someone who’s told me online that I should be hit by a bus. In person: “Oh no, I love your work.” Online: a completely different story. It’s impossible to sort it all out. The joys of the internet.

Wearing Two Hats: Community Voice and Professional Designer

Jason Volk: You have an interesting perspective because you’re both commenting on what’s happening in the hobby and actively involved in it – you’re a contractor with Wizards of the Coast, you’ve done a ton of work for them, including introductory adventures my own daughter’s school has played. There are other influencers too, like Mike Shea, who are on advisory panels while also being paid for their work. How do you balance that?

Shawn Merwin: I balance it by being as honest as I possibly can without breaking any contractual obligations. I think it’s important for people to understand this whole world – the process, the industry, the art of designing. The more you understand it, the clearer and easier it becomes to see why things are done certain ways. I wish I could talk even more about the design work I do, because I think it would make things clearer – why this ability instead of that one, why this choice. There’s rarely one single reason. Even behind the scenes at Ghostfire, I’d have arguments and discussions with other people – “we can’t do it this way because of that, but if we change this, then we could” – and there are business reasons, monetary reasons, technological reasons, all sorts of reasons things get made the way they do. I understand because I used to be one of the people on Yahoo Groups in the early 2000s saying, “this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen, why would they do it this way” – not realizing designers couldn’t explain themselves because they were under NDA. When I started to realize I was the one who didn’t understand – that something had to happen a certain way because it was part of a box set, and a box set has its own publication constraints – I felt pretty dumb for having complained. That’s part of why I do interviews like this, why I teach: I want reasonable people who are willing to listen to logic to understand that some things you think are the worst choice ever are actually the best of several bad choices.

Jason Volk: It’s easy to cast stones without any concept of what actually goes into the work. I appreciate that you’re honest about that, even when you have to say “no comment” on some things.

Shawn Merwin: You can be sure that people like Teos and Mike Shea and I, if we see something we think is genuinely problematic, even if we’re not saying it publicly, we’re saying it privately – directly to the people involved.

Jason Volk: I feel like you, Teos, and Mike Shea – Sly Flourish – have all been pretty open with criticism when it’s warranted, and upfront that you’re also sometimes paid as a consultant. That feels genuine rather than just taking the money and running.

Where D&D Is Headed Next

Jason Volk: Without stepping on your NDA – we’ve seen some pretty radical changes with the 2024 rules, a huge influx of new players, and D&D expanding into things like Star Wars and Warcraft through Universes Beyond. Where do you see the game heading, big picture?

Shawn Merwin: I love the new and growing audience, and I think what we’re going to see is a more diverse set of content – not necessarily diverse in the demographic sense, but new content delivered in new ways, targeting new audiences in how they play. We’re going to see more digital delivery – things like D&D Beyond Drops giving new content every month, speaking to the audience that’s leaning forward at their desk waiting for something new, which may not even register for people who just wait for the one big book each year. We’ll see it target players who are used to a physical table with or without miniatures, as well as players who want a virtual tabletop where everything’s connected. In general, expect diversity of content, diversity of technology, and diversity of delivery that will speak strongly to certain groups while simply not being for others – which is fine. It doesn’t have to be for everyone.

Making D&D Easier to Learn

Jason Volk: I once heard an interview with Mike Mearls, one of the lead designers across multiple editions, who said he was surprised there wasn’t a more simplified, rules-light version of D&D for younger or newer players. Given your background teaching people how to play and writing introductory adventures, do you feel that’s something missing from the game – that it’s become more complicated without that lighter on-ramp?

Shawn Merwin: That’s a hugely important lesson we learned, especially starting around 2019 with the pandemic – we’d reached a point where people were having trouble communicating with each other because of technology, phones, screens. That was really exemplified during the pandemic, when I had parents calling, texting, or emailing me saying, “I know you do stuff with D&D – I need to get my kid into this, how do I do that?” I couldn’t just say “it’s easy, just do this,” because the things that existed for younger kids were often coloring books or novels – there wasn’t really a resource I could point a parent to when neither the parent nor the kid knew how to play. That’s why I was so excited when Shelly Mazzanoble at Wizards asked me to work on Peril in Pinebrook, the adventure sent to schools as part of a curriculum kit. That was my answer to “what do we do if we need to teach new or younger players, or new and younger DMs, how to play” – though I only had a few weeks to put it together. Do I think there needs to be an easier entry point? Absolutely. I think the new starter set, Heroes of the Borderlands – not Keep on the Shadowfell, wrong edition – is a big step in the right direction, with its cards and components and simplified explanations in the rulebook. Hopefully we’ll see more in that direction: a rules-light track alongside the main rules.

Jason Volk: I’d love to see that too. Some people I play with love min-maxing, and others are like, “I forget what my character does – I’m here for a good time, some fart jokes, some chips, and killing some goblins.”

Shawn Merwin: You just described my own group, and they’re all forty and fifty years old. It’s cool to have that mix of players – it keeps you on your toes.

The State of Organized Play

Jason Volk: Switching gears – you got your start in organized play, and it seems like Wizards is trying different things there. We have Legends of Greyhawk now, which isn’t quite the old Adventurers League, and AL itself feels like it’s fallen a bit by the wayside. Do you feel organized play has been neglected, and how important is it for getting players involved?

Shawn Merwin: I wouldn’t say it’s been neglected – I think it’s an ever-evolving conundrum about how to best spend the money, because it’s not cheap to run and it doesn’t make much money. The adventures are free, they’re sent out for D&D Encounters, kits go out to stores – that’s all an expense aimed at growing the hobby. These organized play programs generally run on the backs of volunteers, and some of those volunteers are absolutely amazing evangelists for the hobby – but the burnout is real. I’ve seen it in myself and in other people: your love for something can burn so deeply it incinerates you from the inside, and you need to step back. Chris Tulach, who runs organized play at Wizards, came up through the ranks with me in Living Greyhawk – he’s been there since around 2006 or 2007, going on twenty years now, with a lot of experience on both the D&D and the Magic side. Magic’s organized play, like Friday Night Magic, hums along really well, but it’s a bit different because players are buying packs of cards to participate. Taking lessons from that side while making something work for D&D is a real challenge. Chris works incredibly hard both to build programs that work and to show his bosses, with data, that, say, twenty thousand people showed up at an event worldwide, and this is how the hobby grows. It’s important, but it’s a tough nut to crack.

Jason Volk: I think they’re taking steps in the right direction. It’ll be interesting to see how it keeps evolving.

What Fuels Shawn’s Creativity

Jason Volk: Beyond being influenced by RPGs themselves, what else drives you. What fuels your passion for design?

Shawn Merwin: As a kid, it was just reading and games. Hearing stories and telling stories – I loved sitting and listening to relatives or friends tell wild stories. And I loved games. As someone who sometimes had trouble communicating as a kid, I loved sitting down and figuring things out within a smaller sphere – I didn’t have to understand the entire world, just this board, these dice, how the pieces moved. If I could master that, I could master the next thing, and the next. There’s no greater collision of storytelling and games than roleplaying games. What keeps me going now is watching people play – friends, family. I love any game I can get into, from tic-tac-toe to Gloomhaven to the most intensely complicated board games my family hates playing with me. My brain just works that way – I like figuring out how things work.

What’s Next: Original Worlds and Fan-Driven Projects

Jason Volk: Have you thought about doing your own larger project outside your existing work? We’re seeing a lot of designers who’ve worked with Wizards launch their own Kickstarters or games.

Shawn Merwin: I sort of got to do that at Ghostfire Gaming with a world setting called Arora, a dragon-apocalypse setting – that was the thing I’d always thought, “if I could make my own world, this is what I’d make,” and I got to do it. I have tons of ideas, but they generally end up folded into whatever else I’m working on. Right now, through the Patreon for Mastering Dungeons, I’m working on an adventure we’re building one encounter at a time – giving it to our patrons and asking, “okay, what do we do next? Do you want to go this way or that way? Do you want to see new feats, or new equipment?” I’m building a world, a setting, and an adventure through that process, just to see how it goes, because I think it’ll be fun.

Jason Volk: I love the idea of real fan input shaping things as they’re designed.

Where to Find Shawn

Jason Volk: To wrap up, where can people find you online, and what are you working on next?

Shawn Merwin: You can find me on most social media as Shawn Merwin. Check out Mastering Dungeons – we’re on YouTube – and also the Eldritch Lorecast, which I do through Ghostfire Gaming; you can catch the streams on YouTube if you search for those. As for what I’m working on next – I can’t tell you, but it’s exciting.

Below is also the video version of the interview.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post The Future of D&D With Wizards of the Coast Designer Shawn Merwin appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

It’s been a busy few weeks for the world of Greyhawk, with Wizards of the Coast announcing a number of new Oerth-centric projects, including the upcoming Crown of the Witch Queen campaign and new game material courtesy of Luke Gygax and the D&D Icons line.

If that wasn’t enough, yet another product has arrived on D&D Beyond as part of the Legends of Greyhawk organized play program. Entitled Dreams of the Chained God, this digital collection includes three adventures for Level 5-10 characters set in and around the Free City of Greyhawk itself. First developed by Baldman Games with support from Wizards of the Coast, the adventures have been run at multiple conventions and organized play events over the past year. Now, however, you can run them for your own group via D&D Beyond.

The collection is also notable in that all previously released Legends of Greyhawk adventures have been for low level 1 to 3 characters, making Dreams of the Chained God the first to offer a higher tier of play. Below, we take a closer look at what’s included.

What’s included in Legends of Greyhawk: Dreams of the Chained God?

Dreams of the Chained God is a digital play bundle containing three loosely interconnected adventures first developed by Baldman Games and run at in-person Legends of Greyhawk organized play events throughout 2026.

Each adventure is designed for Level 5 to 10 characters and takes 3 to 4 hours to complete. The adventures (which can be run individually or as part of a mini-campaign) are as follows:

• Whispers Beneath the Cairns: A powerful artifact has fallen into the hands of the Cult of the Black Flame. Players are tasked with infiltrating the cult’s lair in the Cairn Hills and recovering the dangerous magic item before its full power can be unleashed.
• A Measure of Debt: Taking place in the Free City of Greyhawk, players are asked to repay an old favor and are soon caught up in a deadly web of conspiracy between the infamous Thieves’ Guild and the University of Magical Arts.
• Architect of Silence: Also taking place in the Free City of Greyhawk, players are tasked with uncovering a local cult, with the trail leading to the dreaded Undercity.

What is Legends of Greyhawk?

Legends of Greyhawk is an official Dungeons & Dragons organized play program run by third-party organizations including Baldman Games and GameConclave, with approval and support from Wizards of the Coast. The program officially launched in the summer of 2025 at Gen Con and uses the new D&D 5.5E rules. The adventures used in the program are primarily designed to be run at conventions, although materials are released to the general public several months afterward.

Adventures are also designed to be interconnected, helping to shape a larger narrative that influences the whole of the modern Greyhawk setting. Any convention attendee can play in a Legends of Greyhawk adventure, so long as they have created a character in D&D Beyond (using the rules from the 2024 D&D 5.5E Player’s Handbook). Players can also earn physical rewards in the form of tradable magic item cards and other certificates at the end of each play session.

Wizards of the Coast has also released a Legends of Greyhawk Guide which provides more information on character creation, including guidelines on which region of Greyhawk your character can come from, how many magic items you can have based on your level, and how trading magic items with other players works. This document is also regularly updated as new official D&D supplements are released.

Wizards of the Coast has also begun to package and release Legends of Greyhawk adventures as digital “play bundles” on D&D Beyond. To date, there have been five digital bundles:

• Elemental Evil Rising: Developed by Baldman Games and released on D&D Beyond in April 2026.
• Tales from Turtleback Cove: Developed by GameConclave and released on D&D Beyond in May 2026.
• Secret of the Free City: Developed by Baldman Games and released on D&D Beyond in June 2026.
• Saviors of Safeton: Developed by West Coast Adventurer’s Guild and released on D&D Beyond in July 2026.
• Dreams of the Chained God: Developed by Baldman Games and released on D&D Beyond in August 206.

Who is Baldman Games?

Baldman Games is one of the largest official Dungeons & Dragons organized play providers in the world. Operating as an official Partner Organization for Wizards of the Coast, it runs numerous multi-table D&D events at major conventions like Gen Con, Origins and PAX.

Beyond the physical convention floor, Baldman Games also hosts monthly “Virtual D&D Weekends” via Discord and VTT platforms, which are designed for online play.

In addition to managing and organizing D&D convention events, Baldman also designs and publishes official D&D organized play storylines. While it has historically contributed content to the Adventurers League (including the Dreams of the Red Wizards and Moonshae Isles campaigns), they are now one of the primary partner publishers for the new Legends of Greyhawk program.

Final Thoughts

It’s great to see Wizards of the Coast continue to support the Legends of Greyhawk organized play program and bringing the adventures onto D&D Beyond means exposure for a much wider audience.

That being said, it would be great to see WotC draw a little more attention to the program and the adventures, as this play bundle (like previous bundles before it) hasn’t exactly been heavily promoted, with the product quietly released on D&D Beyond with little fanfare.

If you’re interested in running the adventures for yourself, you can pick up the Legends of Greyhawk: Dreams of the Chained God now on D&D Beyond.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post New High-Level Legends of Greyhawk Adventures Land on D&D Beyond appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

A new third-party D&D 5E book has officially cross-pollinated onto a whole new ecosystem, with Hit Point Press’ The Field Guide to Floral Dragons now available on D&D Beyond.

First blossoming to life on Kickstarter back in the spring of 2024 as an unofficial third-party D&D product, the book raked in over $1.6 million USD from more than 13,000 backers, blending flower power with dragons to create a mix of new stat blocks, subclasses, species, spells and magic items.

Below, we rake out all the details on this unique D&D Beyond floral arrangement.

What’s in the original Field Guide to Floral Dragons?

The Field Guide to Floral Dragons is the brainchild of illustrator Kin Wald, who first collaborated on the project with Hit Point Press by designing a series of flower-themed dragons on Patreon. The final supplement is 222 pages in length and designed for the D&D 5.5E rules, drawing inspiration from books like Dragonology and How to Train Your Dragon.

The original book includes 28 monster stat blocks, 12 new magic items, three new subclasses and a complete adventure. Notably, the book took home a Silver 2026 ENNIE Award for Best Interior Art.

What’s in the D&D Beyond version?

The D&D Beyond version is essentially a reprint of the Hit Point Press material, offering the following:

New Monster Stat Blocks

The book includes 28 floral dragon species and monsters. These range from friendly creatures like the Water Lily Dragon and Cherry Blossom Drake to more aggressive creatures like the Aconite Dragon and Vampire Lily Dragon. It also includes a range of related creatures who live in the floral dragon’s environment, such as the bee-like Vespons and deadly Florivores.

A New Species

The book introduces the Floral Dragonborn, blending the fierce pride of traditional draconic humanoids with the vibrant elegance of blooming flora.

New Subclasses

• Circle of Flowers Druid: Balances the delicate beauty and wild, untamed power of nature.
• Field Researcher Ranger: Dedicated to tracking, studying, and protecting the wild environment.
• Fungus Warlock: Strikes a supernatural pact with a decaying fungal entity for spore-fueled magic.

New Magic Items

The D&D Beyond version includes 12 new magic items, each of which is associated with a particular floral dragon species. These include combat-focused items like the Armor of the Vampire Lily Dragon and Clematis-tainted Weapon, to more restorative potions like Wisteria Dragon Perfume and Succulent Water of life.

How much is The Field Guide to Floral Dragons on D&D Beyond?

The digital sourcebook retails for $29.99 USD on the D&D Beyond Marketplace. Notably, on the Hit Point Press website the PDF retails for $19.99 USD, with the hardcover going for $39.99 USD (not including shipping and handling).

What you’re really paying for with the D&D Beyond version, however, is the ability to integrate it with the platform’s character creator and Maps VTT.

Final Thoughts

It’s great to see D&D Beyond continue to showcase third-party content, particularly when it’s as unique as The Field Guide to Floral Dragons. If you already picked this up from Hit Point Press, you can probably safely skip this new digital version.

That being said, if you haven’t already checked it out, you can pick the book up now on the HPP website or D&D Beyond.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post D&D Beyond Stops And Smells the Roses With New Floral Dragon Release appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Wizards of the Coast has officially rolled out the first major D&D campaign of 2026. Entitled Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall, the level 11-20 adventure is described as a high fantasy spy thriller and takes place in the land of Thay; home to the infamous Red Wizards and the dreaded Lich lord, Szass Tam.

As part of the release, long-time D&D accessory maker WizKids has recently unveiled a new set of Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall miniatures. The collection features a range of pre-painted monsters and NPCs pulled directly from the campaign and usable at the table. And while you won’t be able to get your hands on them until February 2027, you can pre-order now from your local game store, WizKids and Amazon.

Below, we take a closer look at what’s included when WizKids takes on Operation: Deadfall.

What are the new Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall Minis?

The set includes 47 pre-painted miniatures featuring a range of familiar D&D monsters, such as the Sarrukh and Szass Tam himself. It also includes new monsters that are exclusive to Deadfall, such as the preying-mantis like demon known the Abveku. In addition, there are also two ultra-rare Demon Lord-themed variants that appear in one in every four boxes (known as “bricks”).

How much are the Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall minis?

So far, WizKids has only confirmed pricing on a 10-pack of bricks, which will retail for $199.90 USD (not including shipping and handling). You will, however, be able to buy individual bricks online and at physical retailers.

When are the Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall minis coming out?

The set is expected to hit store shelves in February 2027, at which point it should be widely available from online and physical retailers.

It’s also worth noting that the complete line of miniatures is also included in the Beadle & Grimm’s Deadfall: Platinum Edition Box Set, which is coming out in November 2026.

Final Thoughts

WizKids has definitely stepped up its game over the past few years in terms of the quality of the pre-painted minis they’ve released for D&D. They’ve also clearly listened to fans in terms of creating a wider range of table-ready sets that directly tie into existing supplements.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the new series and will try and get our hands on the minis for a review closer to launch. In the meantime, you can pre-order them now from your local game store, WizKids and Amazon.

See Our Other WizKids D&D Coverage

Visit our WizKids page for more D&D-related reviews and news.

Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

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It’s a well-worn D&D trope to start an adventure off at a tavern. But if you’ve ever wondered what happens behind the scenes of those bustling taprooms, a brand-new video game is now on the menu. Wizards of the Coast has officially announced Dungeons & Dragons: Long Rest Tavern, a cozy management simulator that flips traditional D&D roles on their head by putting players in the shoes of a local innkeeper instead of an wandering adventurer.

Developed by French studio Homo Ludens and published by Dotemu, the game will be launching in early 2027 for PC, but you can add it to your wishlist now on Steam.

Below, we pour out all the details on what to expect when D&D opens the doors on this cozy tavern simulator.

What is Dungeons & Dragons: Long Rest Tavern?

Set in the Dalelands of the Forogtten Realms, Dungeons & Dragons: Long Rest Tavern tasks players with building, customizing and managing a bustling fantasy inn from the ground up. To keep your establishment running, you’ll need to manage a range of resources, including hiring waitstaff and bartenders, concocting recipes, constructing floor plans and brewing signature libations for weary wanderers passing through.

As your tavern grows, you’ll also encounter rival innkeepers eager to put you out of business. To keep ahead of them, however, you’ll also be able to fund upgrades and expansions, adding artifacts and magical momentos provided by adventurer patrons.

Who is the studio behind the game?

The game features the official Dungeons & Dragons license from Wizards of the Coast, but is being developed by Paris-based independent studio Homo Ludens (who until now is best known for its Blooming Business casino simulator series).

It’s being published, however, by Dotemu, who is also based in France and released a wide range of games, including most recently Warhammer: Age of Sigmar Deathmaster, in addition to working on IPs including Marvel and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

When is the game coming out?

If you’re ready to trade your sword and spellbook for an apron and beer stein, you won’t have to wait too long. Dungeons & Dragons: Long Rest Tavern is officially scheduled to make its debut in early 2027. We’ll update this page with an exact date once it’s been confirmed.

What platforms is the game available on?

While official platform rollouts are still being finalized, the game is confirmed for release on PC only, with potential console ports to be announced at a later date.

Final Thoughts

It’s great to see a Dungeons & Dragons video game that explore a genre outside of tactical combat and dungeon crawlers. Giving players a chance to experience the other side of the tavern counter sounds like it has the potential to be an absolute blast.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the tavern doors as we get closer to launch and will update this page with new information as it’s made available. In the meantime, below is the official reveal trailer on the Dotemu YouTube channel.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post New D&D Video Game Lets You Run Your Very Own Tavern appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Wizards of the Coast has finally released Arcana Unleashed, a new D&D 5.5E supplement with a focus on high magic. The book introduces new spells, magic items and monsters, along with eight new subclasses. Of these, the Vestige Patron Warlock is one that seems to have generated the most buzz, thanks to its unique narrative and mechanical potential.

That’s because unlike traditional Warlocks who make pacts with powerful entities like Fiends, Archfey or Great Old Ones, a Vestige Warlock draws their power from dying and forgotten gods that have been erased from history but still retain power for those willing to serve them.

So is this new Warlock subclass worth remembering? Below, we dig up all the details.

What are the new Vestige Patron Warlock features?

The subclass first debuted in the January 2026 Mystic Subclasses Unearthed Arcana playtest before being officially released in the Arcana Unleashed sourcebook in August 2026.

A Vestige Patron Warlock draws on the power of a dying god who was once worshipped by countless followers but is now long abandoned and forgotten. This dying god, known as a vestige, is willing to share its remaining power with a Warlock pact servant in exchange for ushering in its return to glory.

Like all subclasses in the 2024 D&D 5.5e rules, a Vestige Patron Warlock is selected at Level 3. Their features are as follows:

Level 3: Vestige Companion

The vestige takes on a physical form, drawing strength from your pact. It uses the Vestige Companion stat block and is a Celestial, Fiend, or Undead (choose when you gain this feature). You determine what the vestige looks like, but regardless of its form, the vestige bears features indicating its supernatural origin. For example, you might decide your vestige is an oversize floating skull etched with sigils, a circle of glowing runes, or a constantly shifting abstract shape. The vestige is Friendly to you and your allies and obeys your commands. It vanishes if you die.

• The Vestige in Combat: In combat, the vestige acts during your turn. It can move and use its Reaction on its own, but the only action it takes is the Dodge action unless you take a Bonus Action to command it to take an action in its stat block or some other action. You can also sacrifice one of your attacks when you take the Attack action to command the vestige to take the Vestige’s Strike action. If you have the Incapacitated condition, the vestige acts on its own and isn’t limited to the Dodge action.
• Disappearance of the Vestige: When the vestige drops to 0 Hit Points, it disappears. You can spend 1 minute performing a magic ceremony to manifest the vestige again; it reappears with its maximum Hit Points in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of you. As a Magic action, you can temporarily dismiss the vestige to a pocket dimension. As a Magic action while it is temporarily dismissed, you can cause the vestige to reappear in an unoccupied space within 30 feet of you. Whenever the vestige drops to 0 Hit Points or disappears into the pocket dimension, it leaves behind in its space anything it was wearing or carrying.

Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can summon the vestige in a new form, which appears in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of you. You choose its appearance and whether it is a Celestial, Fiend or Undead. If the vestige is already manifested from this feature, its form changes to the new one.

Vestige Companion Stat Block

Small Celestial, Fiend, or Undead; Neutral

• AC: 13 + your Charisma modifier
• HP: 4 + four times your Warlock level (the vestige has a number of Hit Dice [d6s] equal to your Warlock level)
• Speed: 5 ft., Fly 30 ft. (hover)

• Resistances: Fire (Fiend only), Necrotic (Undead only), Radiant (Celestial only)
• Immunities: Charmed, Frightened, Prone
• Senses: Darkvision 60 ft.; Passive Perception 11
• Languages: Speaks the languages you know
• CR:None (XP 0; PB equals your Proficiency Bonus)

Traits

• Pact Bond: Add your Proficiency Bonus to any ability check or saving throw the vestige makes.

Actions

• Vestige’s Strike: Melee or Ranged Attack Roll: Bonus equals your spell attack modifier, reach 5 ft. or range 60 ft. Hit: 1d6 + 3 plus your Charisma modifier Fire (Fiend), Necrotic (Undead), or Radiant (Celestial) damage.

Bonus Actions

• Divine Power (1/Day): Your vestige manifests a remnant of its divine power in one of the following ways, based on its form:
  • Cursed Invocation (Undead Only): The vestige places a curse on a creature you can see within 30 feet of the vestige for 1 minute. While cursed, the target has Disadvantage on attack rolls against you and the vestige.
  • Fiendish Swap (Fiend Only): If you and the vestige are within 60 feet of each other, you both teleport, swapping places.
  • Healing Touch (Celestial Only): The vestige touches another creature. The target regains Hit Points equal to 2d8 plus your Charisma modifier and ends one condition on it: Blinded, Deafened, or Poisoned.

Level 3: Vestige Spells

The magic of your Vestige Companion ensures you always have certain spells ready. Select one of the following Cleric domains: Life, Light, Trickery, or War. The Domain Spells of your chosen domain are Warlock spells for you. When you reach a Warlock level equal to a Cleric Level listed on the Domain Spells table for the domain you have chosen, you thereafter always have the listed spells prepared.

For example, if you chose the War Domain for this feature, when you reach Warlock level 3, you would have the Guiding Bolt, Magic Weapon, Shield of Faith, and Spiritual Weapon spells prepared.

Level 6: Vestige Power

Your Vestige Companion now regains its use of Divine Power whenever you finish a Short or Long Rest or when you use your Magical Cunning feature. In addition, while within 30 feet of your Vestige Companion, you have Resistance to the same damage types as the vestige.

Level 10: Vestige Recovery

When your Vestige Companion would drop to 0 Hit Points, you can take a Reaction and expend a Pact Magic spell slot to instead change its Hit Points to its Hit Point maximum. The vestige then teleports to an unoccupied space you can see within 30 feet of it. Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a Long Rest.

Level 14: Semblance of Life

Your Vestige Companion continues to grow in strength, and with your assistance, it can briefly adopt a more powerful form. Depending on the vestige’s type, you can take a Magic action while the vestige is within 90 feet of you to shape-shift it into one of the following forms: Celestial Spirit (celestial vestige; see the Summon Celestial spell in the Player’s Handbook); Fiendish Spirit (Fiend vestige; see the Summon Fiend spell in the Player’s Handbook); or Undead Spirit (Undead vestige; see the Summon Undead spell in the Player’s Handbook) for 1 hour. The vestige’s game statistics are replaced by the spirit’s stat block, and the spell’s level is equal to half your Warlock level (round down; maximum level 9), but the vestige retains its personality, Divine Power Bonus Action, Hit Points, and Hit Point Dice.

The vestige gains a number of Temporary Hit Points equal to the Hit Points of the spirit form. These Temporary Hit Points vanish if any remain after 1 hour, and the transformation ends early if it has no Temporary Hit Points left.

Once you use this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a Long Rest.

Is the new Vestige Patron Warlock worth playing?

Thematically, the Vestige Patron Warlock is extremely unique, offering a ton of roleplaying potential. Mechanically, however, it’s really a one-trick pony, leaning entirely into what’s essentially a familiar that grows with you in power. The ability to choose from different creature types and its divine powers, however, add a bit more utility, but also still feels a bit limited. It remains to be seen, however, whether the D&D 5.5E community will embrace this new take on old gods.

You can try the new subclass for yourself by picking up Arcana Unleashed now from your local game store, D&D Beyond and Amazon.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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At Gamescom 2026 in Cologne, Germany, Wizards of the Coast and video game developer Invoke Studios offered a closer look at their upcoming triple-A action title Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons.

In addition to getting to see the first actual gameplay footage, Invoke also revealed a bit more about the story, including the fact that it will take place in the Ravenloft D&D campaign setting in the Domain of Dread known as Darkon.

So just what else can fans expect when Warlock eldritch blasts its way onto consoles? Below, we break out everything else that was revealed at Gamescom.

What is Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons?

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons is an upcoming open-world, third-person action-adventure game, with players taking on the role of Kaatri, a female Warlock voiced by Tricia Helfer (of Battlestar Galactica fame). Notably, at Gen Con 2026, Wizards of the Coast revealed that her Warlock Patron is none other than Tasha (aka Iggwilv), the legendary witch queen who has appeared in countless D&D supplements and novels over the years and will be voiced by Maggie Robertson (who is perhaps known for portraying the villainous Lady Dimitrescu in the Resident Evil Village video game).

In a closed-door press conference held the week prior to Gamescom 2026, Invoke Studios confirmed that the game will not be using the D&D 5e rules. Instead, it will largely be a story-driven action experience, using D&D lore as a foundation without replicating any tabletop mechanics.

Invoke also described the game as being built around “immersive, expressive magic.” This means that players will be able to creatively mix and match magical abilities for combat, exploration and puzzle-solving. The developers cite influences like Deus Ex, Watch Dogs and Far Cry, with an immersive world that offers multiple approaches to challenges.

Warlock was first announced at the annual Game Awards in December 2025, at which time they released a brief teaser trailer, with additional details being released in recent months. Notably, Invoke Studios is based in Montreal and owned by Wizards of the Coast, having previously developed the 2021 D&D: Dark Alliance video game.

What was included in the Warlock gameplay footage?

In the eight-minute gameplay demo, Kaatri explores a small frontier town with her imp familiar before descending into a subterranean cellar crawling with undead and a beholder-kin,

The footage confirmed the setting as Darkon, the Domain of Dread once ruled by the lich-king Azalin Rex and which was recently featured in the Ravenloft: The Horrors Within D&D supplement. Sharp-eyed fans pointed out that Castle Avernus appears intact in the demo rather than in its usual state of perpetual magical ruin, suggesting the story takes place before Azalin’s attempted escape from his domain (a detail that’s already got Ravenloft lore-heads speculating about where the plot is headed).

When is Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons Coming Out?

Invoke Studios has confirmed that the game will launch sometime in 2027. We’ll update this page with an exact date once it’s been confirmed.

What platforms Will Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons be on?

Invoke has confirmed that Warlock will be available for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X | S. It’s not clear if it will later be ported over to Switch 2 or any other platforms.

What other D&D Video Games are in the works?

Warlock isn’t the only video game to feature the Dungeons & Dragons license, and in fact a number of other projects are in various stages of development:

• Untitled Hasbro Game: Wizards of the Coast has also indicated that an in-house studio at Hasbro is currently developing a currently unnamed D&D game, although little information has been revealed about what it will consist of.
• Untitled D&D surival sim: In development from Gameloft Montreal, the studio best known for the popular Disney Dreamlight Valley, this new D&D title will be an action-focused survival-life sim set in the Forgotten Realms.
• Untitled Saber Interactive game: The developers of the popular Space Marine 2 video game are also working on a new Hasbro title that may be D&D related.
• Baldur’s Gate 4: Wizards of the Coast has confirmed that a BG4 is in the works (although a studio and release date has not yet been announced).

Final Thoughts

Warlock: Dungeons & Dragons represents a major next step into the video game space for Wizards of the Coast following the success of Baldur’s Gate 3. Whether or not Warlock will cast a spell on fans, however, remains to be seen.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the game in the days ahead and will update this page with more information as it’s made available. In the meantime, you can learn more on the official Warlock website. Below is also the official gameplay footage that was unveiled as Gamescom.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post D&D: Warlock Steps Into Ravenloft With First Gameplay Reveal appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Review Score: 17 out of 20

Pros

• Innovative mechanics, with a unique fantasy espionage subsystem that allows for player choice and consequence.
• High player agency, that avoids heavy railroading and offers flexibility in how players complete missions.
• Incredible art and design, with gorgeous interior illustrations and smart, evocative writing.
• A unique new genre that blends the best of spy thrillers with the new D&D 5.5E system.

Cons

• A heavy DM burden to run a campaign for Level 11-20 characters, with the potential for combat that drags.
• Stumbles slightly at times, abandoning its unique spy-thriller pacing for traditional dungeon crawls.
• Familiar lore for Thay that long-time Forgotten Realms fans have likely read in previous supplements.
• A paper-thin BBEG, with Szass Tam portrayed as a somewhat generic threat and typical BBEG.

I’ll admit it: when I first received my review copy of Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall from Wizards of the Coast – a new high-level campaign starring the Red Wizards of Thay – I was prepared for the worst. After all, D&D’s bald BBEGs aren’t exactly the most original villains, having appeared in countless supplements, novels and video games, including making an appearance in the Honor Among Thieves film.

WotC’s track record with recent high-level D&D campaigns also isn’t exactly stellar, with their last outing, 2024’s Vecna: Eve of Ruin, being a bit of a mess in terms of player railroading and a “twist” ending that was more obnoxious than clever.

So color me surprised to find a high-level campaign for D&D 5.5E that actually manages to explore new ground, offers an impressive amount of player agency and presents a new genre of play that’s action-packed and mechanically sound.

That being said, Deadfall isn’t perfect, with the campaign occasionally stumbling. Its biggest drawback for some, however, may also be its biggest appeal to others. That’s because while high-level campaigns can be a blast to play, they can also be an absolute nightmare to DM, with combat that can grind to a crawl and the potential for players to hack, slash and cast their way out of every problem.

Still, Wizards of the Coast’s first big adventure of 2026 has more highs than lows, even if it might not appeal to everyone. Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall will be officially released in September, but you can order it now from your local game store, D&D Beyond and Amazon.

Table of Contents

• Is this the Red Wizards book teased in 2023?
• What’s included in the book?
• What’s the gazetteer like?
• What is the adventure like?
• What are the monsters and magic items like?
• What’s the art and design like?
• when is the book coming out?
• How much is the book?
• Is there an alternate cover?
• What other tie-in products are there?
• Final thoughts

Is this the Red Wizards book teased back in 2023?

It’s worth noting that a Red Wizards of Thay adventure was first announced way back in March 2023 at D&D Direct. At the time, Wizards of the Coast’s noted: “As other fan-favorite villains take center stage, more plots and connections will emerge over the next five years. The Red Wizards of Thay, who are featured as villains in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, will appear in an adventure in 2025.”

The book was never really mentioned again, but during a closed-door press conference I attended with other journalists back in mid-August 2026, Deadfall lead designer Amanda Hamon confirmed that yes, this is the same Red Wizards book, that’s now finally seeing the light of day almost four years after it was announced.

On paper, the book is also tangentially related to the recently released Arcana Unleashed supplement, but they’re really connected in name only (although in theory you can port over some of the new spells, subclasses and magic items featured in that book).

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What’s included in Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall?

The book is a 128 pages and is broken out into the following chapters:.

• Introduction: Treachery in Thay: Covers the premise of the campaign and offers a few tips on how to run it.
• Chapter 1: Thay, Dominion of Red Wizards: A 24-page guide which provides DMs with a high-level overview of Thay, including its provinces, Zulkirs, politics, society and intrigue surrounding the infamous Red Wizards.
• 14 magical items: These are all found throughout the adventure and range in rarity and use.
• Chapter 2: Thay in Danger: Offers advice on campaign setup and DM guidance for running a magical spy thriller.
• Chapters 3–7: Operation Deadfall: The mission-based campaign body, escalating from Eltabbar street-level espionage to a world-shattering finale.
• Appendix A: Magic Items. 15 new Thay- and espionage-themed items.
• Appendix B: Bestiary: Five new creatures, including a stat block for Szass Tam.

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What is the Thay gazetteer like?

This is a solid regional gazetteer that manages to pack in a ton of useful, entertaining and evocative information in just a few dozen pages. As expected from a gazetteer, it offers a breakdown of the culture, languages and overall vibes of the nation, and paints it as living, breathing destination and not just a place where of a bunch of evil bald wizards with a love of red hang out.

The capital city of Eltabbar, however, gets most of the focus, with ten city wards, each with named locations and hooks. That level of density is rare in a campaign book and it isn’t wasted, given that Eltabbar is where much of the adventure takes place.

The book also includes details on the eight Zulkirs (Thay’s ruling council), with some genuinely compelling descriptions (the Zulkir Nzas, for example, is described as veiling herself in shadow and often transforming her limbs into tentacles and bone spurs). The country’s eleven states (known as tharchs) also get a few solid adventure hooks, including a gnoll army led by a glabrezu threatening a fortress and two rival lizardfolk sovereigns plotting an uprising. It’s all excellent information that really brings Thay to life.

The only downside is that it’s also information Forgotten Realms grognards have likely read before in previous supplements released over the past 40 years. In fact, if you’re looking for a really thorough view of Thay and its people, I’d recommend going through Deadfall and then picking up Thay: Land of the Red Wizards, an excellent third-party supplement on DMsGuild written by Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood himself.

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What is the adventure like?

*** SPOILERS BELOW ***

As mentioned previously, Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall is an espionage-themed D&D campaign that takes characters from Levels 11 to 20. Players take on the role of secret agents working for a female red wizard Zulkir named Xelene Thrul. She is also the mastermind of Operation Deadfall, a series of clandestine missions to undermine and defeat Szass Tam before he can unleash a horde of demonic undead (known as malefites). It’s a high-stakes, high-level operation, and if the characters are discovered Szass Tam will kill them and everyone they love, unleash a horde of monstrosities upon Faerûn and potentially weaken the barrier between the mortal plane and the Nine Hells.

The spy-thriller framing

This is easily one of the best parts of the book. Chapter 2 doesn’t just tell you to “run it like a spy movie” and leave you to figure out the rest. Instead, it hands you an actual subsystem that provides a solid narrative framework. The idea is relatively simple: each time characters fail to maintain secrecy during play or catastrophically mess up a mission, the DM can choose from one of Three Failures (agents are killed, enemies go on alert or allies get raided). On the fourth failure, PCs become Compromised Characters, which forces the party into one of three hard choices to salvage their cover: destroy the evidence, fake their deaths or bribe a cleanup crew.

It’s a real, table-ready secrecy mechanic, not a paragraph of vibes or generic “be sneaky” advice. If the idea of running a D&D campaign that feel like a spy thriller sounds like your jam, this book has you covered (and the secrecy system is versatile enough to be used in other adventures).

The missions

Chapters 3 through 5 are the meat of the campaign, featuring eight named missions built on a consistent, reusable template: a briefing from your handler, travel, a mapped location, a resolution and a reward pulled from a running magic item list.

That consistency is genuinely useful for a DM prepping this at the table, and most of the missions use this formula to great effect. The Hooded Lantern mission, for example, has you win a hand of a bluffing card game in a tavern just to get an audience with your target; which is a nice mechanical break from combat. Two Plateaus Shipping Company is the campaign’s best set piece mission as it involves a full blackmail-evidence heist against a Rakshasa in human disguise. It’s tense, well-designed infiltration content, and it’s exactly what “epic magical espionage” should feel like.

That being said, not every mission lands as cleanly. By the fifth or sixth operation, the template’s edges start to show, and a detour like the Temple of the Red Knight (a straightforward mummy-lord dungeon crawl) feels like it wandered in from a different, more generic adventure.

Fortunately, the majority of missions are solid and have a nice variety of objectives and locations to keep things fresh.

Does the adventure railroad players?

I went in expecting the answer to be yes, especially given what we’ve seen in the past from WotC. Deadfall, however, proved me wrong. In fact, the book explicitly tells DMs that they can run missions in any order they see fit, and that players can choose which missions to take.

Players also have a lot of flexibility in how they actually execute their objective. For example, players might choose a stealthy approach or try to talk their way into a location. And even if (and when) things go sideways (which is a big part of the fun), there’s a ton of flexibility baked into the structure. In one mission for example, players are supposed to meet a messenger, but even if they end up killing them, the book still offers advice on how to handle the situation.

Even the secrecy subsystem reacts to the party rather than running on rails. The Three Failures track can trigger in any order the DM sees fit, and you can repeat events if you like, which means consequences genuinely carry forward in an organic and interesting way.

And while there’s definitely a narrative that takes players from the beginning to end, it never reads like a railroad, with players having a lot of agency in choosing how they actually get from Point A to Point B.

Is the ending any good?

Without giving away too much, the campaign stumbles a little as it reaches the finish line (which was also an issue we saw in Vecna: Eve of Ruin). The setup is great, but once players reach the final showdown, the spy thriller structure basically evaporates. Instead, you get two back-to-back dungeon crawls. After five chapters of investigation, disguise, and blackmail, arriving at “now fight through two dungeons” right when the tension should be peaking is a bit of a letdown.

That being said, Deadfall manages to stick the landing with an ending that offers two outcomes: Winning gives players a Legendary item and a real seat at Thay’s future. Losing gets a startlingly bleak epilogue where Szass Tam’s undead army kills thousands, he declares himself regent and survivors (including the PCs) become guerrilla resistance fighters. I don’t say this lightly: WotC rarely commits to an ending this unhappy, and I respect that they did here.

Does Szass Tam make a good villain?

As a CR 23 stat block, Szass Tam is definitely a massive threat for any players who want to take him on and expect some major fireworks when (and if) this finally happens in your campaign. More importantly, he’s presented as an ongoing threat throughout the campaign, rather than just an ominous presence who only influences events from the shadows (again, see Vecna: Eve of Ruin as an example of how not to do this).

That being said, everyone’s favorite red loving lich lord isn’t given much character beyond being a prototypical BBEG who wants to take over the world for… reasons. It would have been nice to see Szass Tam fully fleshed out (pun intended). Case in point: see the excellent (and now sadly out of print) 2007 Haunted Lands trilogy of Forgotten Realms novels by Richard Lee Byers, which portray Szass Tam as an evil, twisted, complex and even occasionally charismatic villain.

*** END SPOILERS ***

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What are the new magic items and monsters like?

The appendix includes 15 magic items that are a solid mix of magical spy equipment and Thay-flavored power items. While it would have been nice to see a few more off-the-wall options (I was expecting more James Bond’s Q meets D&D’s artificer class), the options are still decent.

The five new monster stat blocks are also solid, although it would have been great to see a few more peppered in, but that’s hardly a deal breaker.

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What is the art and design like?

The art in Deadfall is absolutely stunning, and from a visual standpoint this might be one of my favorite books of the past few years (outclassed only by Ravenloft: The Horrors Within for sheer style).

It’s a genuine work of art, with each page brimming with evocative images that really bring the campaign to life and showcase the setting. The layout is also incredibly efficient, making it easy to reference at the table, and the writing is sharp, evocative and a ton of fun to read. This was actually one of the most entertaining D&D campaigns I’ve read in years, which is definitely a step in the right direction given that some D&D 5E sourcebooks can read more like a dusty technical manual.

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When is Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall coming out?

Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall will be released on September 15th, 2026, at which point it will be available online and at physical retailers. Notably, if you pre-order from D&D Beyond and local game stores who have opted into the early release program, you’ll be able to receive digital and physical copies on August 24th.

The book is also be a key part of the new D&D Seasons initiative, which connects new books and community events around a specific theme. In particular, Deadfall will be part of the Season of Magic, which is running now from July to September 2026.

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How much is “Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall”?

The physical hardcover book retails for $29.99 USD (not including shipping and handling). The D&D Beyond digital version retails for $19.99 USD. You can also purchase a digital + physical bundle that will retail for $49.99 USD (although it is currently discounted to $39.99 USD for pre-orders).

You can also purchase the Arcana Unleashed: Ultimate Bundle which retails for $129.99 USD and includes both the digital and physical version of Deadfall, as well as the core Arcana Unleashed supplement.

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Is there an alternate cover of Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall?

Yes, there is an alternate cover of Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall. The price is exactly the same as the regular version and it will be available online and at local game stores.

Notably, the alternate cover is illustrated by Polish artist Couple of Kooks who has contributed art to numerous other D&D products, including interior work featured in the 2024 Player’s Handbook and 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide. He also contributed the alternate cover to the 2024 Book of Many Things supplement.

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What other tie-in products are there?

In addition to the campaign book, Wizards of the Coast will also be releasing:

• Arcana Unleashed: A supplement with 8 new subclasses, and a range of spells, magic items, monsters and new rules.
• Arcana Unleashed Map Pack: A collection of 10 digital and physical maps that tie into Deadfall.
• WizKids Minis: A collection of new miniatures featuring monsters from the campaign.
• Arcana Unleashed Platinum Edition: A high-end box set from Beadle & Grimm’s that ties into the Deadfall adventure.

Arcana Unleashed will also be part of Season 2 of the upcoming Dungeon Masters actual play series.

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Final thoughts

Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall gets more right than it gets wrong, and what it gets right, it gets really right. A secrecy subsystem I’d steal for other campaigns, a blend of espionage and high fantasy that’s tense and action packed, and way more player agency than we’ve seen in previous D&D 5E and 5.5E campaign.

If you’re a player looking for a taste of high level action, this is definitely the campaign for you. If you’re a DM, however, just bear in mind that there’s going to be a heavy lift to keep the campaign running.

Still if the idea of a D&D campaign that blends spies, sorcery and Szass Tam gets your juices flowing, then Deadfall is definitely worth donning your cloak and dagger for.

The book will officially be released on September 15th, but you can order it now from local game stores, D&D Beyond and Amazon.

See Our Complete D&D Book Coverage

Visit our D&D Books page for more reviews of the latest novels and game books.

Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post D&D Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall Review: A Fantasy Spy Thriller That’s Shaken, Not Stirred appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Review Score: 18 out of 20

Pros

• The new Evolving Magic Items system offers a smart fix for magic items going stale by mid-campaign.
• The 9 Factions are unique, mechanically backed and some of the most interesting design work from WotC in years.
• The character Feats are a sleeper hit, holding up next to anything in the 2024 Player’s Handbook.
• The book is gorgeous and well-written, packing in a ton of new ideas in a short amount of space.

Cons

• The 32 spells are largely forgettable, with only two or three options actually worth bookmarking.
• Most of the 19 new monsters are little more than a reskin of a single base stat block.
• Only two of the eight new subclasses are new, with the other six all being updates of past 5E designs.
• The appendix adventure feels like filler rather than a fully fleshed out concept.

Magic has always been the beating heart of Dungeons & Dragons, but it’s been a while since Wizards of the Coast gave it a dedicated sourcebook. Enter Arcana Unleashed, a new supplement that promises to add new character options and DM tools themed around the arcane arts. The book will officially hit shelves in September, but is available for order now from local game stores, D&D Beyond and Amazon.

I went in expecting a mixed bag of subclasses and spells – the kind of “flavor supplement” WotC usually ships between their big campaign books – but was genuinely surprised to find material steeped in new and innovative ideas. It’s easily the best D&D book of 2026, particularly when viewed as a follow-up to Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, which felt like a reprint of old material.

That being said, Arcana Unleashed didn’t totally put me under its spell. Some chapters genuinely push the design of D&D 5.5E in some interesting new directions, while others feel less than paper thin. But the highs are high enough, and frequent enough, that this is the first sourcebook in a while I’d tell a DM to buy on release day rather than wait for a sale. Below, you can check out my full review for all the details.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Whats included in the book?
• What are the new character options?
• What are the new spells?
• What is the magical worlds chapter like?
• What are the new factions like?
• What are the magic items like?
• What are the new monsters like?
• What is the added adventure like?
• What is the art and design like?
• What will the book be released?
• How much is Arcana Unleashed?
• Is there an alternate cover?
• What tie-in-products are there?
• Final thoughts

What’s included in Arcana Unleashed?

Arcana Unleashed is a 160-page supplement built around six chapters plus an appendix. The whole thing is framed as a gift of knowledge from Alustriel Silverhand (the human daughter of the goddess of magic Mystra and a familiar face to anyone who played through Vecna: Eve of Ruin.)

The chapters are as follows:

• Chapter 1: Character Options: 8 new subclasses, 10 backgrounds and more than two dozen feats
• Chapter 2: Spells: 33 new and revised spells
• Chapter 3: Creating Magical Worlds: A DM’s toolkit for building high-magic settings
• Chapter 4: Magical Factions: 9 full factions with renown, patrons and Bastion facilities
• Chapter 5: Magic Items: 47 items, including a new “evolving magic items” subsystem
• Chapter 6: Magical Creatures: 19 new monster stat blocks in total.
• Appendix: Tomb of the Shadow Serpents: A level 1 introductory adventure.

Chapters 1 and 2 are aimed at players. Everything after that is squarely DM territory, which is definitely worth considering if you are a player looking to pick this up just for the character options.

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What are the character options like?

There are eight new arcane subclasses. Of these, only the Vestige Patron Warlock and Warrior of the Mystic Arts Monk are new, with the Arcane Archer previously appearing in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, the Arcana Domain Cleric appearing in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, and the four Wizard subclasses (Conjurer, Enchanter, Necromancer, Transmuter) all appearing in the 2014 Player’s Handbook.

• Arcana Domain (Cleric) can spend Channel Divinity to modify a spell as it’s cast, plus gets a Fortifying Spell option that adds temporary HP, a Tenacious Spell option that punishes a failed save, and its capstone hands out four free wizard spells.
• Arcane Archer (Fighter) gets a full menu of Arcane Shot options (Banishing, Beguiling, Bursting, Enfeebling, Grasping, Piercing, Seeking Shadow Shot) fired through enchanted ammunition, with the Arcane Shot die scaling all the way from d6 to d12.
• The four Wizard subclasses all get real identity beyond their 2014 Player’s Handbook counterparts. The Conjurer’s capstone duplicates a summoned spirit at half HP; Necromancer can detonate a controlled undead for necrotic damage; and Transmuter’s stone gains genuinely powerful late-game options like a free Raise Dead or reversing a target’s aging.

The changes to these existing subclasses are solid (particularly for the Necromancer), but here’s hoping that now that the 2014 PHB has been fully ported over to D&D 5.5E, Wizards of the Coast has gotten it all out of their system and will release only completely new subclasses going forward.

Speaking of new subclasses, the Warrior of the Mystic Arts Monk is a completely new option that bolts on Sorcerer-style spellcasting fueled by Focus Points that convert freely back and forth into spell slots. It’s a cool concept, but also doesn’t really feel like it covers any new ground, when compared to similar options like the Eldritch Knight.

And then there’s the Vestige Patron Warlock, which is simultaneously the best idea in the book and its biggest letdown. On paper it’s fantastic: your Patron isn’t a distant voice, it’s a literal dying god manifesting at your side as a Vestige Companion (Celestial, Fiend, or Undead) with its own stat block fighting next to you. I wanted to love this subclass. But the actual payoff (a single Divine Power use per day) feels stingy next to a concept this big. The flavor is doing more work than the mechanics and it really feels like an underdeveloped premise.

Ten new backgrounds tie directly into the Chapter 4 factions (Agent of the Ninth Quill, Bejeweled Conclave Spy, and so on), plus one faction-free option for anyone building a familiar-focused character. But honestly? The Feats might be the sleeper hit of this whole book. I went in expecting filler and came out impressed. Origin feats and Epic Boons here hold up next to anything in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, which I don’t say lightly. Boon of the Iron Mind alone (an Epic Boon that makes you nearly impossible to knock out of Concentration) is worth building a level-20 caster around, and the Familiar Friend to Elemental Familiar to Otherworldly Familiar chain builds an entire playstyle out of what used to be a throwaway PHB option. If you only skim one part of Chapter 1, make it the Feats.

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What are the new spells like?

If Chapter 1 is the high point, Chapter 2 is where the book coasts. It features 32 new and revised spells that span levels 2 through 9. There’s nothing for cantrips or 1st level, so don’t expect this chapter to reshape a fresh character’s early options.

And while a handful of the spells are cool set-pieces, none of them struck me as build-defining. Detonate (a 9th-level evocation spell that implants an explosive seed in a creature before chaining into a 60-foot secondary blast) and Wail of the Banshee (a 9th-level save-or-die that instantly kills anything at 50 hit points or below) are the kind of spells that make for a great highlight-reel moment once at your table and then sit unused for the rest of the campaign. Illusory Dragon conjures a Huge shadow-dragon illusion that can frighten a whole room, and Dueling Ground is a genuinely clever 2nd-level option that turns a fight nonlethal by teleporting anyone dropped to 0 HP out of the arena instead of killing them (that one I’d actually run).

Taken as a whole, this is a chapter you’ll probably read once, bookmark two or three spells from, and rarely open again. It’s the least essential part of the book, which is a bit of a bummer.

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What is the “Creating Magical Worlds” chapter like?

This is a pure DM’s toolkit, and it’s the most quietly ambitious part of the book (in addition to taking up most of the page count). It walks through outlining a setting’s relationship to magic (attitudes toward it, religion, technology, law, commerce, even magical armies) and then maps that framework directly onto five existing D&D settings (Dragonlance, Eberron, the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk and Ravenloft), with cross-references to the relevant sourcebooks for each. It’s pure gold in terms of DM inspiration and ideation.

The standout subsystem here is Magical Group Patrons: six archetypal patron types (Archmage, Esoteric Institution, Magical Entity, Political Faction, Trickster, Wizards’ Circle), each with a tiered campaign outline running from level 1 all the way to 20, plus tables of ready-made patrons pulled from existing canon. You can genuinely drop Baba Yaga, Fizban the Fabulous or Strahd von Zarovich into your game as a Magical Entity patron using this framework, and if you want a political-faction campaign, the book will happily hand you Thay’s Red Wizards, the Simbarch Council of Aglarond or the witches of Rashemen, including a hook built around a mission to kill the lich Szass Tam.

The accompanhing campaign frames, however, are the weakest writing in the book. Each is presented as thin, bullet-point-deep outlines that tell you what a level 11–16 Archmage campaign is about in one sentence and then leave you to build the actual adventure yourself. It’s great that Wizards of the Coast is trying to streamline the approach to adventure design, but even experienced DMs are going to have a hard time scraping enough meat off the bone to actually run these frames at the table.

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What are the new Magical Factions like?

Chapter 4’s nine factions are the most content-dense part of the book, and thankfully also the most fun to read. Each gets a full write-up that breaks out leadership, motivations, patron perks, contacts, a renown reward table, a faction-specific Bastion facility and a ready-to-run “Using This Faction” campaign framing. The roster includes:

• Bejeweled Conclave: Courtiers and entertainers who are secretly a network of mind-manipulating enchanters and spies.
• Bringers of Cosmic Dawn: Far Realm-touched transmutation cultists channeling alien voices through an observatory called the Cosmic Oculus.
• Covenant of the Grave: Necromancers who treat death and undeath as a subject of clinical study, not a path to villainy.
• Crucible Keepers: Thrill-seeking evokers who chase natural and magical disasters, guarded by stone golems called Scorchborn.
• Horizon Weavers: Planar wanderers who operate multiversal waystations.
• Ninth Quill: Thieves, spies and saboteurs operating out of a former magic academy.
• Phantasmic Circus: Illusionist performers whose traveling carnival “monsters” are mostly just very good illusions
• Seers of Sea and Sky: Oracles who divine the future by watching clouds and waves.
• Sheltering Hands: Benevolent abjurers running shelters and soup kitchens.

All of these are original ideas and not just a reskin of something WotC already had lying around. Each of them is also backed by tangible mechanics rather than just a paragraph of flavor text. A Faction Attitudes grid tracks how all nine feel about each other, which is exactly the kind of DM-facing detail that gets cut for space in most hardcovers. If I had to point at one chapter and say “this is why you buy Arcana Unleashed,” it’s this one.

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What are the new magic items like?

47 items span the full rarity spectrum, from Common trinkets to two new Artifacts (Queen Ehlissa’s Marvelous Nightingale and the Universal Pantograph, the latter of which can grow a Clone of a creature inside it).

But the book’s real contribution is the Evolving Magic Items subsystem, which lets a DM decide when an item “levels up” alongside a character. Simple items with numeric bonuses just tick upward (+1 to +2 to +3), while attuned Armor, Staff and Weapons (up to Very Rare) can instead roll a new random property from a rarity-tiered table, with the item’s in-fiction name and appearance changing at each stage. It’s a smart answer to the perennial “my +1 sword is boring by level 10” problem, and it’s the kind of subsystem I could see getting reused well beyond this book.

My only real quibble is that there’s no design guidance for building your own evolving item from scratch beyond “roll on our small randomized table.” There’s also no advice on balancing a custom evolution path and no worked example walking through why a given property was chosen at a given tier. Five ready-made evolving items, including a Staff of Skulls tied to the Covenant of the Grave faction, show the system off well enough that I trust it works. I just wish the book trusted me with more of the reasoning behind it, instead of keeping the design process behind the curtain.

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What are the new monsters like?

This is the weakest part of the book, with 19 monsters in total. Almost half of these are specialized CR 15 archmages (Abjurer through Transmuter) and are really just minor variations on one base stat block. Swap the spell list, change the flavor text, repeat eight times. Outside the context of actually needing “a Diviner-flavored boss” for a specific patron encounter, there’s not much reason to reach for most of them individually and they read a little bland on their own.

That being said, there are standouts like the Baelnorn (benevolent undead elf-wizard guardians tied to Myth Drannor) and the Taisus (mortal mages who ritually ascend into semi-corporeal beings of pure magic, with a Brain Drain attack that forcibly burns through a target’s spell slots). There’s also a set of eerie Living Spells that are amorphous constructs literally made of a single spell effect given a body, which is a genuinely cool concept.

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What is the accompanying adventure like?

*** MINOR SPOILERS BELOW ***

The appendix adventure (entitled “Tomb of the Shadow Serpents”) is a tight one-to-two-session level 1 dungeon crawl: the legendary wizard Venger baits the party into raiding one of his “testing ground” tombs with the promise of real treasure, when the actual point is that he’s auditioning them for future schemes.

Twelve keyed areas mix natural cave with carved stone, gated behind a genuine serpent-puzzle door, using stock Monster Manual threats (Ghouls, a Worg, Animated Armor). It’s perfectly serviceable, and the text explicitly suggests reskinning higher-level tombs (from Tomb of Annihilation or Vecna: Eve of Ruin) as sequels, which is a nice hook.

But let’s not oversell it. Twelve rooms of stock monster reskins reads a lot like a low-effort excuse to get Venger’s name in front of fans who know he actually is, and it’s the one part of the book I’d call filler rather than content.

*** END OF SPOILERS ***

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What is the art and design like?

As with most recent WotC D&D product, the artwork is absolutely gorgeous. The cover, by Javier Charro is stunning and it features work from 40 interior illustrators, including Julie Dillon, Magali Villeneuve and Kevin Glint. All of the images are incredible and really help bring the book to life.

The writing is also evocative and entertaining, managing to pack in a ton of information without getting too bloated. There’s a reason why D&D is the biggest TTRPG company on the planet, and the quality of their designers reflects that status.

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When will Arcana Unleashed be released?

Arcana Unleashed will be available on September 15th, 2026. As with previous D&D books, if you pre-order from D&D Beyond and local game stores who have opted into the early release program, you’ll be able to receive digital and physical copies as of August 24th.

The book is also a major part of the new D&D Seasons, which is a concept that connects new books and community events around a specific theme. In the case of Arcana Unleashed, it’s part of the ongoing Season of Magic, which runs from July to September 2026 and includes tie-in products and organized play events tied to high magic.

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How much is Arcana Unleashed?

The physical hardcover book retails for $49.99 USD (not including shipping and handling). The D&D Beyond digital version retails for $29.99 USD. You can also purchase a digital + physical bundle that will retail for $79.99 USD (although it is currently discounted to $59.99 USD for pre-orders).

You can also purchase the Arcana Unleashed: Ultimate Bundle which retails for $129.99 USD and includes both the digital and physical version of the book, as well as the associated Deadfall adventure.

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Is there an alternate cover available?

Yes, as with other recent D&D books, there is an alternate cover of Arcana Unleashed. The price is exactly the same as the regular version and it’s available exclusively at local game stores.

The alternate cover is illustrated by Polish artist Couple of Kooks, who has contributed art to numerous other D&D products, including interior work featured in the 2024 Player’s Handbook and 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide. He also contributed the alternate cover to the 2024 Book of Many Things supplement.

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What other tie-in products are there?

In addition to the main sourcebook, Wizards of the Coast will also be releasing:

• Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall: A Level 11-20 campaign featuring magical espionage and involving a civil war taking place between the Red Wizards of Thay .
• Arcana Unleashed Map Pack: A collection of 10 digital and physical maps.
• WizKids Minis: A collection of new miniatures featuring monsters from the campaign.
• Arcana Unleashed Platinum Edition: A high end box set from Beadle & Grimm’s that ties into the Deadfall adventure.

Arcana Unleashed will also be part of Season 2 of the upcoming Dungeon Masters actual play series.

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Final thoughts

Here’s the thing about Arcana Unleashed: it’s not consistently great, but it’s great often enough, and specifically enough, that it’s worth picking up. I didn’t expect a faction chapter to be the best thing in a WotC hardcover this year, but it is. I didn’t expect a chapter on building magical words to be so engrossing, but it si. I didn’t expect the Feats to be a highlight either, and they might be the best set WotC has printed since the core rules.

Where it falls down though, is in the same familiar areas we’ve seen from other D&D 5.5E books: The subclasses are mostly updates of older materials, the spells are largely forgettable and the monsters are mostly reskins. None of that is a dealbreaker on its own though, and the positive more than outweighs the negative.

In the end, I came in skeptical of a mixed bag of magical goodies and instead found a tome worth picking up. It’s imaginative, mostly well-built, and worth owning even if you never touch its companion campaign book. Just go in knowing which chapters are the real reason to buy it.

Arcana Unleashed is slated for release on September 15th, but you can pre-order it now from local game stores, D&D Beyond and Amazon.

See Our Complete D&D Book Coverage

Visit our D&D Books page for more reviews of the latest novels and game books.

Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post D&D Arcana Unleashed Review: A Spellbook Worth Adding to Your Library appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Movie night is about to get a buttery blend of saving throws and snacks, courtesy of AMC Theatres. The US movie theatre chain has just released the officially licensed Dungeons & Dragons: Mists of Ravenloft 20-Sided Dice Popcorn Bucket, which is available exclusively from its online shop.

The oversized plastic D20 is the latest in a long line of themed popcorn buckets that have exploded in popularity over the past few years and become highly sought-after collectibles. It’s also the second official D&D popcorn bucket from AMC, which also released one for the Honor Among Thieves movie back in 2023.

Below, we scoop up all the details.

What is the D&D Ravenloft Popcorn Bucket?

The new collectible bucket is shaped to look like an oversized D20 themed around the Ravenloft campaign setting, which recently appeared in the Ravenloft: The Horrors Within D&D supplement. The bucket has a 130 oz capacity, which is about the size of a large movie popcorn, but chances are most fans will add it to their shelves rather than using it for snacks.

How much does it cost?

The new Ravenloft Popcorn Bucket retails for $39.99 USD (not including shipping and handling) on the official AMC Theatres Shop. Because these types of collectibles often sell out quickly, AMC has listed the item as a limited-edition exclusive, enforcing a limit of three purchases per customer.

How do you get it?

The new bucket is available only on the AMC Theatres Shop website, while supplies last. That means unfortunately you won’t be able to pick it up at physical theatres.

What was the D&D Honor Among Thieves popcorn bucket?

If this giant D20 gives you a sense of déjà vu, you aren’t imagining things. When Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves hit the big screen in 2023, AMC released a similar promotional popcorn bucket and a plastic ale stein, both of which sold out quickly.

Today, on eBay, the Honor Among Thieves popcorn buckets are going for $60 to over $100 USD (with pristine, boxed versions occasionally commanding upwards of $200). Given how well those original movie buckets held their value, it’s safe to say this new Ravenloft variant will likely follow a similar trajectory once it sells out.

Final Thoughts

The new AMC Ravenloft popcorn bucket is further proof of the growing reach of Dungeons & Dragons into mainstream culture. And while it didn’t quite make the D&D Season of Horror, chances are it’s going to sell out quickly.

If you want to pick one up for yourself, you can grab one now while supplies last on the official AMC Shop.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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Dungeons & Dragons is heading back into the shadowy depths below in its latest Unearthed Arcana playtest. Entitled Underdark Options, much of this new UA is focused on the city of Deep Imaskar; an isolated subterranean enclave in the Forgotten Realms inhabited by the human descendants of an ancient, fallen empire.

The playtest introduces two new subclasses related to the mysterious metropolis: the Path of Unlight Barbarian and the Imaskarcanist Wizard, both of which are built around a volatile magical energy known as Unlight. The UA also includes a new dark elf-themed subclass known as the House Agent Rogue, which is steeped in the politics and infiltration techniques of the drow city of Menzoberranzan. The playtest also includes a new series of feats known as the Path of Ceremorphosis that allows you to slowly transition into becoming a Mind Flayer.

It’s not entirely clear what new sourcebook (if any) the materials will be appearing in given Wizards of the Coast’s current D&D release schedule for the remainder of 2026 and early 2027. It’s also not clear what plans they have for the enigmatic city of Deep Imaskar. Below, we dive deep into all the details.

What’s Included in the New Underdark Options Playtest?

The latest UA packet introduces three brand new subclasses, two of which are focused on a new magical power known as Unlight, which is used by the dwellers of Deep Imaskar to protect their city. In the wrong hands, however, this mysterious power can also corrupt and destroy, burning creatures from within until they die in a fiery explosion of brilliant light.

Barbarian: Path of Unlight

For barbarians who prefer to channel volatile, blazing arcane magic rather than simple brute rage, the Path of Unlight draws upon the lost secrets of Deep Imaskar. When you rage, Unlight infuses your body and you shed bright light in a 20-foot radius, granting you Blindsight within that area and inflicting radiant damage on anyone foolish enough to strike you in melee combat. At Level 10 you also unlock the Infectious Unlight ability, which allows you to transmit harmful Unlight effects onto a target, slowly destroying them from the inside.

Rogue: House Agent

Operating out of the intricate political webs and deadly shadows of drow houses from Menzoberranzan, the House Agent is a master of infiltration, espionage and social manipulation. Armed with a magical House Insignia that grants you thematic spellcasting (such as Charm Person, Suggestion and a spider-form Find Familiar), you can also leverage the Influence action as a Bonus Action. In addition, you can utilize cunning strike options like Stunning Betrayal to turn charmed or friendly targets against their allies.

Wizard: Imaskarcanist

Channeling the ancient, lost wizard-king arts of Deep Imaskar, the Imaskarcanist bends Unlight to both devastating and restorative ends. This subclass allows you to weave Unlight into your spellcasting, swapping traditional elemental damage types for pure radiant damage while manipulating light levels. Additional features like Unlight Restoration let you expend Hit Point Dice to heal allies or purge harmful conditions like paralysis and blindness. At Level 14 you also get access to Doom of Unlight, which infuses enemies with the volatile and corrosive radiant energy that literally tears them apart.

Path of Ceremorphosis (Feat)

Similar to the Path of the Lich and Path of the Death Knight materials that appeared in recent Unearthed Arcana Playtests, the Path of Ceremorphosis allows you to gradually become a Mind Flayer. The path and its features are in part influenced by Baldur’s Gate 3, which allows players to potentially become an Illithid.

Characters begin this process at level 4 or higher with the Tadpole Host feat, which grants an Intelligence increase, the Mind Sliver cantrip and a pool of Psionic Energy Dice that fuel abilities such as Psionic Overload. As you progress, you can select intermediate feats like Illithid Thrallmaker, Tadpole’s Safeguard or Ulitharid’s Might to upgrade your dice to d8s, gain telepathy and unlock thematic features like retaliatory psychic damage or extended physical tentacles.

Upon reaching level 12 or higher and selecting at least two prior feats, you can then take the Full Ceremorphosis feat to finalize your transformation into an Aberration. This capstone stage upgrades your Psionic Energy Dice to d10s or d12s and lets you choose from specialized illithid talents. These also grant access to powerful psiconic abilities, including enhanced tentacle attacks that can grapple foes, and innate spellcasting featuring spells like Mind Blast.

What is the city of Deep Imsaskar?

Deep Imaskar, also known as the City of the Great Seal, is a hidden and highly isolated city located in the lower Underdark of the Forgotten Realms. It was founded thousands of years ago by human refugees fleeing the destruction of the ancient Imaskar Empire.

The city is now inhabited by tall, thin pale-skinned humans who refer to themselves as Deep Imaskari and utilize extensive extradimensional spaces so that buildings are much larger on the inside than they appear on the outside.

Over the centuries, Deep Imaskar has been ruled by various councils and nobles known as “Planners” (including the Body of Planners and High Lord Planners). The settlement maintains its secrecy through a massive magical barrier called the Great Seal, which convinces outsiders that the Imaskari Empire has been completely destroyed, with no traces remaining.

In the real world, Deep Imaskar has appeared in several sourcebooks and novels over the years. For D&D third edition it appeared in the Underdark supplement in 2003 as well as in Lost Empires of Faerûn in 2005. It was also mentioned in the 4th edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide in 2008, which detailed its geography, society, and post-Spellplague state.

The city was also featured prominently in the 2006 D&D Forgotten Realms novel Darkvision by Bruce R. Cordell, which centered around a crisis involving the breach of the Great Seal.

Final Thoughts

It has been over a decade since D&D visited the Underdark, with the 2015 Out of the Abyss campaign book being the last time a 5E product really explored the subterranean realm. Wizards of the Coast has also had a somewhat complicated relationship with drow in the past few years, having moved away from treating them as a race of evil monsters and viewing them more as a playable species. That too, however, recently changed when the 2026 Adventures in Faerûn supplement introduced the Drow of Lolth monster stat blocks. How D&D approaches the Underdark and its inhabitants going forward, however, will remain to be seen.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on what comes out of this UA in the days ahead, but it will likely be several months before we learn what new book (if any) these subclasses will be published in.

In the meantime, you can check out all the material for yourself via the Unearthed Arcana page or download the PDF directly. Player feedback opens on August 27th, 2026.

Below is also an interview from the official D&D YouTube channel featuring an interview with designer Leon Barillaro.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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After being abandoned for over a decade, Athas is officially returning to Dungeons & Dragons, with Wizards of the Coast recently announcing several new Dark Sun products that will bring the world into the D&D 5.5E ruleset.

One of those titles is a new setting expansion entitled Dark Sun: Edge of Oblivion, which is designed to provide Dungeon Masters with everything they need to run a complete campaign in the blood-soaked desert wastelands. Notably, the book will also carry D&D’s first-ever mature, 18+ rating, and is slated for release in early 2027 alongside a companion volume known as Dark Sun: Blood and Power.

Below, we take a closer look at everything we know so far about this new take on the unforgiving sands of Athas.

What’s included in Dark Sun: Edge of Oblivion?

Dark Sun: Edge of Oblivion is a setting expansion designed for Dungeon Masters. As such, its focus is largely on providing a detailed overview of the world of Athas, updating lore and background that’s been established in past Dark Sun materials in previous editions of D&D.

In particular, it provides details on the following city-states:

• Tyr: Caught in the grip of a violent revolution that has overthrown the former sorcerer-king.
• Draj: Now under the control of a powerful cult that worships a mysterious lunar entity.
• Gulg: Ruled by the sorcerer-queen Lalali-Puy and home to living towers made of dying plant matter.
• Urik: A brutal military state controlled by the war-hungry sorcerer-king Hamanu.
• Raam: A city of debauchery and vice, where anything can be purchased for the right price.
• Nibenay: Home to dark scholars who have joined their minds with their sorcerer-king in pursuit of forbidden knowledge.
• Balic: A wasteland shaped by its sorcerer-king’s reckless ambition and populated by bizarre and monstrous creatures.

While it has not yet been confirmed by Wizards of the Coast, we can most likely expect adventure hooks, campaign advice, new magic items, new Bastion options and new monster stat blocks.

When will Dark Sun: Edge of Oblivion be released?

An official release date has not yet been confirmed, but based on the official D&D Roadmap and upcoming release schedule, we can likely expect the book to come out in February 2027. Notably, it will also be a cornerstone product of the upcoming Season of Survival, which is expected to run from January to March 2027.

How much is Dark Sun: Edge of Oblivion?

Pricing has not yet been confirmed. Wizards of the Coast has, however, said that Edge of Oblivion and Blood and Power will collectively be around 500 pages in length. That means it’s on par with the Heroes of Faerûn and Adventures in Faerûn supplements, which had a similar page count and retailed for $59.99 USD.

Will there be an alternate cover available?

Wizards of the Coast has not confirmed if there will be an alternate cover, but chances are extremely likely given that they’ve been produced for every print product over the past few years. These are typically only available at local game stores, although the price is the same as the standard cover version.

What other tie-in products will be released?

In addition to Edge of Oblivion and Blood and Power, there will also be a number of tie-in products, including:

• DM Screen: Featuring original art along with tables and reference info specific to the Dark Sun setting.
• Map Pack: A print and D&D Beyond digital version of maps featured in Edge of Oblivion.
• Alternate Player’s Handbook: A reprint of the 2024 Player’s Handbook with new Dark Sun art.
• WizKids miniatures: New Dark Sun based on characters and creatures featured in the two books.

Final Thoughts

Dark Sun: Edge of Oblivion is shaping up to be one of the biggest risks D&D has taken in years, reviving a fan-favorite setting while committing to an 18+ rating that no mainline D&D book has carried before. Whether or not the new book will make it out of the Wastelands of fan expectations, however, remains to be seen.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on Edge of Oblivion in the days ahead and will update this page with new information as it’s made available.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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Wizards of the Coast has recently revealed more information on one of its most ambitious new supplements: D&D: World of Warcraft. 

Slated for release in November 2026, the book is the first entry in the new D&D Universes Beyond line and features iconic creatures, characters and classes based on Blizzard’s popular MMORPG. It’s currently available for pre-order now from your local game store, D&D Beyond and Amazon. 

And while there’s much we still don’t know about what will be included, Wizards of the Coast has recently released a ton of new artwork. Below, we’ve put together all the images that have been released so far.

Final Thoughts

Visually, the new D&D: World of Warcraft supplement looks absolutely stunning. Whether or not the content that goes along with it resonates with fans, however, remains to be seen.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the new supplement in the weeks ahead and will be doing a complete review closer to launch. In the meantime, you can pre-order the book now from your local game store, D&D Beyond and Amazon. 

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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D&D Beyond’s August Drop has arrived, with new content focused on one of the game’s nastiest locations: the sewers. The Drop adds a three-part sewer dungeon, along with over a dozen accompanying stickers, plus three new ooze monsters, five new magic items, a new feat and four vermin-themed character sheet backdrops. It’s also the first D&D Drop ever to include new rules errata, tweaking several feats, spells and monster stats.

Paying subscribers can pick up the August Drop now on D&D Beyond. Below, we dredge up all the details.

What are D&D Beyond Drops?

D&D Beyond Drops is a subscription perk program first introduced in May 2026, giving Hero and Master tier subscribers free evergreen content. Drops land on the first Thursday of each month with new content like spells, feats, and backgrounds for players, plus maps, monsters, magic items and adventures for DMs.

Unlike D&D Beyond’s typical limited-time bonus content, Drops are meant to be permanent: you keep everything released to date and everything that comes after, for as long as you remain subscribed. Wizards of the Coast has said the format was a direct response to subscriber requests and is meant to be community-driven, with regular surveys shaping future content. Drops can also be shared among D&D Beyond users in the same way that digital books can.

What’s New for DMs in the August Drop?

The headline feature is a sewer dungeon broken across three separate maps (an entrance, a set of inner chambers and a boss chamber leading to the exit), which can also be combined into a single lair. There are also 13 sewer-themed digital stickers, plus an urban map entitled “Neighborhood along City Walls.”

The Drop also includes a new monster family that’s perfect for the sewers: the Sovereign Oozes. These consists of three slimy threats that can be combined to create more powerful variants. They are:

• Sovereign Ooze Vassal (CR 4): A discarded magical experiment brought to life by a stray spark.
• Sovereign Ooze Lord (CR 9): The result of two Ooze Vassals merging, with sharper intelligence and its own agenda.
• Sovereign Ooze Monarch (CR 17): Born from two Ooze Lords combining and possessing a high degree of intelligence.

What’s New for Players in the August Drop?

Players aren’t left in the muck either. Five new magic items headline the Drop:

• Alarm Pylon: A stone post that releases an alarm when specific conditions are met.
• Silencing Satchel: Seals an enemy’s mouth shut with a silencing hex.
• Sync Ring: Mirrors anything you write into a paired blank book.
• Unraveling Cloak: Releases a magical thread you can follow.
• Wand of Misdirection: Casts Mislead up to four times a day.

There’s also a new feat, Fey Tormentor, which builds on the Fey Pact line by giving characters new ways to confound and curse enemies. Rounding things out are also four vermin-themed character sheet backdrops, for anyone who wants their sheet to match a sewer crawl.

What else is included in the August D&D Beyond Drop?

This month also marks the first rules errata pass for Drops content. Highlights include:

• Fey Pact: Honeyed Words now limits its reroll to once per Long Rest after a success.
• Infernal Pact: Infernal Resistance now offers a choice between Fire or Poison, while Infernal Sight’s Darkvision is now explicitly unimpeded by magical Darkness.
• Shifting Combatant: Domino Strike’s save DC and damage have been clarified and adjusted.
• Astral Flood: Rewritten for clarity, now deals half damage on a save, drops its Blinded-condition distance restriction and joins the Warlock spell list.
• Tortoise Shell and Void Star both receive wording fixes to tighten up how and when their effects apply.
• Salubrious Armor has a reworded description clarifying its AC bonus and healing trigger.
• Angel of Slaughter and Angel of Vengeance both swap their old Disguise Self spellcasting option for a restricted form of Shapechange.

Final thoughts

Between the new ooze bosses, a modular dungeon built for sewer crawls, and the first real errata pass for Drops content, this is one of the more mechanically ambitious Drops yet – and a sign the team is listening when players flag issues.

If you’re a Hero or Master Tier subscriber, you can grab the August Drop for yourself now on D&D Beyond.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

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One of Dungeons & Dragons’ most iconic monsters is getting the full dice treatment, with tabletop RPG accessory maker FanRoll recently releasing new D&D Mind Flayer Dice.

The officially licensed seven-piece set features a tiny 3D Illithid figure inside every die, letting you add a pinch of psychic dread to your rolls. You can pick up the set now from your local game store, select online retailers and FanRoll.

So are these brain-sucking baddies worth adding to your dice collection? Below, we bury our tentacles into all the details.

What is FanRoll’s D&D Mind Flayer Dice Set?

The new D&D Mind Flayer Dice Set is a standard seven-piece polyhedral set consisting of a d4, d6, d8, two d10 percentile dice, d12 and d20. Notably, the highest number on the D20 consists of the iconic D&D ampersand symbol.

The dice themselves are created using FanRoll’s inclusion technique, which suspends a miniature 3D figure inside solid resin. In this case, the figure is a tiny blue illithid head, complete with tentacles and the back of a cloak.

How much is the D&D Mind Flayer Dice Set?

The set retails for $24.99 USD (not including shipping and handling), putting it right in line with FanRoll’s other inclusion dice sets, such as the recently released D&D Beholder Dice Set and the D&D Gelatinous Cube set.

When was the D&D Mind Flayer Dice Set released?

The set was officially released on June 15th, 2026, so should be available now at most online and physical retailers that carry FanRoll products (although you can always order it directly from their website).

What is a Mind Flayer in D&D lore?

A Mind Flayer (also known as an illithid) is one of Dungeons & Dragons’ oldest and most iconic monsters, first appearing all the way back in 1975. Instantly recognizable by its octopus-like head and face tentacles, the creature is a highly intelligent, psionic predator that feeds on the brains of sentient humanoids, using its psionic abilities to stun and subdue prey before devouring their gray matter.

Mind flayers typically operate within the Underdark as part of sprawling hive societies ruled by an elder brain; a massive, disembodied psychic intelligence formed from the collective brains of the community.

In the real world, the creature has become one of D&D’s most recognizable monsters, inspiring a villainous creature in Netflix’s Stranger Things TV series and appearing as a central threat in the best selling Baldur’s Gate 3 video game.

Who is FanRoll?

FanRoll (formerly known as Metallic Dice Games) is a US-based company specializing in premium dice and tabletop gaming accessories. Founded in 2014 by Adam Hackett, the company originally built its reputation on high-quality metal dice before expanding into polymer, glass and gemstone sets.

In 2023, an investor group led by toy industry veteran Neal Hoffman acquired the business and rebranded it as FanRoll. The company has since expanded significantly and now includes hundreds of different dice and accessory products, moving far beyond the company’s metallic roots.

In recent years, FanRoll has secured licensing agreements with a number of major brands, including a partnership with Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast to produce official Dungeons & Dragons dice, as well as working with Paizo to release Pathfinder products. They have also produced custom dice for a number of major TTRPG Kickstarters and crowdfunding campaigns.

Final Thoughts

Mind flayers have been terrorizing D&D parties for 50 years, so it’s only fitting they finally get to ride along in your dice bag instead of just waiting in the Underdark to eat your brain.

You can pick up these new dice sets now from your local game store, select online retailers and the FanRoll website.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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Third-party D&D publisher Beadle & Grimm’s is heading back into the Domains of Dread and resurrecting one of their most popular products, with a complete reprint of the Legendary Edition Curse of Strahd box set.

First released in late 2020, the original set was a tie-in to the popular D&D 5E Curse of Strahd campaign published in 2016 and quickly sold out online. The new reprint will be available this coming Halloween, but you can pre-order your copy now via the B&G website.

So just what can B&G and D&D fans expect from this returning set of high-end horror? Below, we dig up all the details.

What’s included in the Legendary Edition Curse of Strahd box set?

The reprint box set is identical to the 2020 version and is meant to support the original 2016 Curse of Strahd campaign. It’s important to note that all materials still use the base D&D 5E rules from 2014.

The box set includes the following:

The Complete Module, Broken Out

The entire Curse of Strahd adventure is broken out into four booklets, making it easier for DMs to flip to the right section on the fly instead of wrestling with one giant tome at the table.

Battle Maps of Castle Ravenloft

This is the marquee feature of the set, with 33 battle maps covering the entirety of Castle Ravenloft, gridded and scaled for use with miniatures. Every hallway, tower and dungeon level of Strahd’s home is represented, and the whole collection comes rolled up together in a protective map tube.

Additional Battle Maps

Beyond the castle itself, the set also includes dedicated battle maps for several other key locations from the campaign, including:

• The dungeon level of Death House
• The Coffin Maker’s Shop
• The Village of Barovia Church
• Old Bonegrinder
• The Wizard of the Wines Winery

In-World Map of Barovia

The set also features a textured, in-world map of Barovia, illustrated by cartographer Deven Rue, giving players an opportunity to plot their route through Strahd’s domain.

Jewelry & Artifacts

The set comes with a pair of physical artifacts pulled straight from the pages of the campaign, including a metal replica of the Holy Symbol of Ravenkind (one of the most iconic magic items to be found in Barovia) along with a set of three replica Barovian Coins.

In-World Handouts

The box also features a collection of in-world handouts, covering everything from letters and notes to other pieces of in-game ephemera.

Bonus Encounters

DMs also get 4 bonus encounters exclusive to the B&G set, giving you extra material to weave into the campaign beyond what’s found in the core module.

Pre-Built PCs

For tables that want to jump straight into Barovia without the prep work, the set includes a selection of pre-built player characters, ready to go right out of the box.

Encounter Cards

The set features 60 encounter cards, each with player-facing art on the front and DM-facing stat blocks on the back (the idea being that you hang them on top of your DM screen). The cards cover a range of monsters across multiple Challenge Ratings and creature types, all taken from the campaign.

Custom DM Screen

The box also includes an exclusive DM screen, built specifically for the B&G set and filled with quick-reference tables specific to Ravenloft and the campaign.

Finger Puppets

The box also features a set of hilariously creepy finger puppets based on key creatures and NPCs. This includes a jester, a werewolf, a faceless bride, an undead priest and a vampire.

Tarokka Deck

Rounding out the set is a complete physical Tarokka deck, which is used throughout Curse of Strahd to determine the location of the Tome of Strahd, the Symbol of Ravenkind and the Sunsword, and to shape the fate of the campaign’s final showdown. Notably this is the older version and not the new Tarokka deck released by Wizards of the Coast in 2026.

How much is the Legendary Edition Curse of Strahd box set?

The Legendary Edition Curse of Strahd box set normally retails for $425 USD (not including shipping and handling). Beadle & Grimm’s, however, is currently offering 10% off, bringing the price down to $382.50 USD, if you pre-order ahead of the set’s return. As with their other premium releases, the B&G website also offers interest-free installments via their ShopPay program if you’d rather spread the cost out over time.

When is the new Beadle & Grimm’s Legendary Edition coming out?

The reprinted set is scheduled for a release by Halloween 2026. It’s worth noting, however that it does have a limited print run, however, so if you want to get your hands on it, you’ll probably want to pre-order it as soon as possible.

Final Thoughts

Curse of Strahd remains one of the greatest D&D 5E campaigns of all time, so it’s no surprise that the original Beadle & Grimm’s box set was so popular and why a reprint is now in the works. It’s also worth noting that this isn’t B&G’s only visit to the Domains of Dread, with the company recently releasing a Strahd Silver Edition box set as a tie-in to the Ravenloft: The Horrors Within supplement.

We’ll try and get our hands on a review copy of the Curse of Strahd Legendary Edition box set reprint closer to launch in October 2026. In the meantime, you can pre-order the set now via the B&G website.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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Back in September 2024, we took a first look at Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone, a DMsGuild-exclusive sourcebook written by Eberron creator Keith Baker and released under a third-party license from publisher Visionary Production & Design. The book is set in the lawless frontier between the kingdom of Breland and the nation Droaam, and thematically is very much inspired by the Wild West, complete with steampunk steeds and wand duels at high noon.

Now, Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone has made its way to D&D Beyond, marking yet another major third-party product to appear on the digital platform.

Below, we saddle up and ride down all the details.

What’s included in “Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone” on D&D Beyond?

The digital version is essentially an exact reprint of the DMsGuild print and PDF versions, all updated for the D&D 5.5E 2024 rules. It includes:

New Subclasses

There are 6 new subclasses, one for each of the following classes:

• Barbarian: Path of the Demonshard: Channels the fiendish power of an embedded shard of demonglass.
• Bard: College of Wands: A dueling spellcaster who blends showmanship with arcane firepower.
• Cleric: Commerce Domain: A follower of Kol Korran who wields divine coins as a source of power.
• Ranger: Bloodhound: A bounty hunter who tracks marked prey across vast distances.
• Sorcerer: Nemesis Sorcery: Built around the precision and misdirection of the arcane duel.
• Warlock: Stone Sovereign Patron: Draws power from Droaam’s earthen forces, including the daelkyr Orlassk.

New Species & Backgrounds

The book introduces 7 new species: the Gargoyle, Gnoll, Harpy, Medusa, Tiefling (with new Eberron-specific fiendish legacies), Warforged, and Worg.

It also includes 5 new backgrounds: Dragonmarked Bravo, Dragonmarked Foundling, Dragonmarked Scion, Magewright and Wandslinger. Three of those backgrounds grant a new Lesser Dragonmark feat, giving dragonmarked characters a fresh set of mechanics to replace the older approach used in Eberron: Rising from the Last War.

New Feats

There are 15 new feats, including species-specific options like Stone Eyes and Shadow’s Gift of Stone for Medusas, Voice of the Fury for Harpies, and Wings of Stone and Hewn for Battle for Gargoyles. Others are open to any character, such as the Wandslinger fighting style feat and a trio of arcane-focus specializations (Staff Expert, Wand Expert, and Rod Expert), plus five feats tied to Eberron’s druidic orders: the Ashbound, Gatekeepers, Greensingers, Wardens of the Wood and Children of Winter.

New Spells & Magic Items

The book introduces 3 new spells, including the petrifying Gray Gaze cantrip and the short-range teleport Orien Step, alongside a batch of classic spells reprinted for the setting. It also adds over 35 magic items split across Frontier Magic Items, Fiendish Treasures, Daelkyr Symbionts and Treasures of Droaam, including the artifact-level Kharash’s Promise and Orlassk’s Reach.

New Monsters

There are 25 new monsters, including the cult leader Breggan Blackcrown, the daelkyr Orlassk, Demonglass Warriors, the fey lord King Grayfinger, the mysterious Merchant of Misthaven, and the dreadful Overlord Tol Kharash, the Horned King.

Heart of Stone Adventure & Arcane Duels

The book also includes “Heart of Stone,” a four-part adventure path by designer Imogen Gingell that takes characters from 1st to 5th level as they investigate a cult operating out of Quickstone. In addition, there are new rules for Arcane Duels so characters can face down rivals at high noon.

How Much is “Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone” on D&D Beyond?

The digital edition retails for $39.99 USD on D&D Beyond, published under the Visionary Production and Design label. That’s a fairly big step up from the $33.95 PDF which you can currently pick up on DMsGuild.

What you’re really paying for, however is the ability to integrate all of the features directly into the D&D Beyond character builder and Maps VTT.

Final Thoughts

If you already picked up a copy of Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone through DMsGuild, there’s probably not much incentive to double-dip on this D&D Beyond release. If you don’t already own it, however, and are a fan of Eberron and an avid D&D Beyond user, it’s definitely worth snagging.

Notably, Keith Baker has said that Quickstone is the last Eberron book he’ll likely ever work on, but the setting itself isn’t going anywhere. At Gen Con 2026, Wizards of the Coast announced that Visionary Production & Design (the studio behind Quickstone) is moving from third-party publisher to an official second-party partner for Eberron. They’ll be producing a new adventure featuring the Lord of Blades slated for 2028, although it’s not yet confirmed whether Baker himself will be involved in that project.

In the meantime, you can pick up Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone now on D&D Beyond or snag the PDF and print-on-demand version from DMsGuild.

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At this year’s Gen Con it was revealed that two of gaming’s biggest brands were crossing over, with Wizards of the Coast and Blizzard teaming up on a new D&D: World of Warcraft expansion. Scheduled for release later this fall, the primary focus is on a new D&D sourcebook featuring species, subclasses and spells taken from the world of Azeroth.

As part of the release, Wizards of the Coast is releasing both an alternate cover and a collector’s edition slipcase set. Both will be released on November 17th, 2026, but you can pre-order them both now from your local game store, D&D Beyond and Amazon. 

Below, we take a closer look at these alternate versions of Azeroth.

What is the alternate cover for the D&D World of Warcraft supplement?

The alternate cover (referred to by Wizards of the Coast as the “hobby” cover) is a version that will be available exclusively from local game stores. The price is $59.99 USD, which is an identical MSRP to the standard cover variant.

The front and back art on the cover is by longtime Blizzard illustrator Forrest Imel. Notably, it depicts a group of Murlocs, which are an iconic monster species that have been heavily featured in the World of Warcraft MMORPG over the years.

What is the D&D World of Warcraft Collector’s Edition?

In addition to both the standard and alternate hobby cover variants, you can also purchase a limited-edition D&D: World of Warcraft Collector’s Edition. It comes in a slipcase with foil and sculpted cover treatments featuring the logo for the Alliance and the Horde (you can choose the logo you prefer so it displays in the circular slipcase window).

This version is available from D&D Beyond, local game stores and select online retailers. It retails for $99.99 USD (not including shipping and handling). On D&D Beyond you can also pick up the Ultimate Bundle for $144.99 USD, which includes the slipcase along with a physical map pack, DM screen and other digital exclusives.

Final Thoughts

The new World of Warcraft supplement is the first entry in the new D&D Universes Beyond line and Wizards of the Coast is going all in, both with its alternate cover and slipcase set, as well as new products including a DM screen, Map Pack and Miniatures.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the new D&D WoW supplement and will be doing a complete review closer to launch. In the meantime, you can pre-order the book now from your local game store, D&D Beyond and Amazon. 

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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It’s official: Wizards of the Coast is heading to Azeroth, with the company recently unveiling a new D&D: World of Warcraft crossover. Scheduled for release in November 2026, the upcoming sourcebook will contain new species, subclasses, spells and magic items all based on Blizzard’s iconic MMORPG.

As a tie-in to the upcoming book, Wizards of the Coast has also revealed a new line of D&D: World of Warcraft Dungeon Miniatures. There will be two sets in total, each containing 7 minis: one for the Horde and one for the Alliance. Surprisingly, the new figures are being produced internally by Hasbro and not long-time D&D miniatures producer WizKids.

The sets will also be available in early November, but you can pre-order them now from your local game store and Amazon. Below, we zoom in on all the details.

What’s included in the new D&D World of Warcraft Miniatures?

The new D&D WoW minis come in two sets, on for the Horde and one for the Alliance, each of which contains seven unpainted miniatures covering a variety of sizes and including several well-known characters from the video game:

The Horde Set

• Illidan Stormrage
• Blood Elf
• Troll
• Goblin
• Orc
• Undead
• Tauren

Get it on Amazon

The Alliance Set

• The Lich King
• Human
• Night Elf
• Draenei
• Worgen
• Dwarf
• Gnome

Get it on Amazon

How much are the new D&D Warcraft Miniatures?

Each of the new sets of D&D WoW minis retails for $24.99 USD (not including shipping and handling). That’s actually a surprisingly decent price point considering that a standard unpainted D&D WizKids mini is around $9 to $10 USD.

When are the new D&D Warcraft Miniatures coming out?

The two sets will be released on November 1st, 2026, which is actually several weeks before the new D&D WoW supplement (which will be released on November 17th, 2026). The minis will also be heavily featured in the upcoming Season of Champions, running from October to December 2026, which will be focused on the World of Warcraft setting.

Final thoughts

Wizards of the Coast’s crossover with World of Warcraft is the first entry in their new D&D Universes Beyond line, so there’s a lot riding on its success. In fact, the new minis are also one of several official WoW products, including the sourcebook, a new campaign for the Dungeon Masters actual play series, a DM screen and Map Pack.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on these new miniature sets in the weeks ahead and will offer a full review closer to launch. In the meantime, you can pre-order them now from your local game store and Amazon.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

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At this year’s Gen Con, Wizards of the Coast officially revealed it was working on a new D&D: World of Warcraft crossover. Slated for release in November 2026, the player- and DM-facing sourcebook will contain new subclasses, species, magic items and adventures taken from Blizzard’s popular MMORPG.

As part of the launch, Wizards of the Coast has also announced a new D&D: World of Warcraft Dungeon Master’s Screen, which will be released as a tie-in product to the new supplement. The screens will also be available in November, but you can pre-order them now from your local game store, D&D Beyond and on Amazon.

Below, we unfold all the details on what’s included.

What’s included in the new D&D World of Warcraft DM Screen?

The new DM screen uses the standard four-panel, foldout design. The front features brand-new artwork featuring some of the iconic creatures, locations and characters from World of Warcraft.

The interior consists of a list of all D&D 5.5E Conditions (on panel 1), a list of Actions, movement and Damage charts (on panel 2), assorted tables related to skill checks, object AC/HP, DC ranges and travel times (on panel 3) and Azeroth-specific tables for Warcraft factions, languages, Renown perks and Gathering professions (on panel 4).

How much is the new D&D Warcraft DM screen?

The new DM screen retails for $24.99 USD (not including shipping and handling). This is an identical price point to what we saw with the 2024 DM screen and the more recently released Ravenloft: The Horrors Within DM screen.

When is the new D&D Warcraft DM screen coming out?

The screen will be released on November 17th, 2026 to coincide with the release of the new D&D WoW supplement. It will also be a key product for the upcoming Season of Champions which will be running from October to December 2026 and will be focused entirely on World of Warcraft.

Final thoughts

Wizards of the Coast seems to be going all in on Azeroth, with this Dungeon Master’s screen being part of a much larger product launch around World of Warcraft, including the sourcebook, a new campaign for the Dungeon Masters actual play series and a complete D&D WoW Map Pack.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the new DM screen in the days ahead and will offer a full review closer to launch. In the meantime, you can pre-order it now from your local game store, D&D Beyond and on Amazon.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

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At this year’s Gen Con, Wizards of the Coast announced the arrival of a new official D&D World of Warcraft sourcebook. The product is part of the larger D&D Universes Beyond crossover line and will feature a range of classes, species, locations and lore taken from Blizzard’s iconic MMORPG franchise.

As part of the upcoming release, Wizards of the Coast will also be releasing a D&D World of Warcraft Map Pack, which will be available in digital and physical formats. The product will feature 10 individual maps and the Icecrown Citadel Adventure (a digital-only module designed for levels 16-20 characters and based on one of WoW’s most infamous dungeons).

The map pack will be released in November 2026 at the same time as the new sourcebook. You can, however, pre-order it now from your local game store, D&D Beyond and Amazon.

So just what can D&D and WoW fans expect in this new cartographic crossover? Below, we raid all the details.

What’s included in the D&D World of Warcraft Map Pack?

There are two different versions of the map pack, one physical (with gridded fold-out posters that can be used at the table) and the other digital (with assets designed exclusively for the D&D Beyond Maps VTT). All of the maps are for the accompanying Icecrown Citadel Adventure.

Physical Version

• 10 maps printed on five double-sided posters (each of which is 22” x 30” in size)
• Cardboard monster tokens, traps and arcane terrain pieces.
• A D&D Beyond code for the Icecrown Citadel Adventure

Digital Version

• 10 digital maps for use with the D&D Beyond Maps VTT
• 10 digital stickers that can be dragged and dropped in the VTT
• A D&D Beyond code for the Icecrown Citadel Adventure

What is the Icecrown Citadel Adventure?

The adventure included in the D&D WoW Map Pack is designed for Levels 16 to 20 characters and features:

• 5 individual story chapters
• 10 unique locations (using the accompanying maps)
• 10 boss encounters
• 16 new magic items

The adventure is inspired heavily by the lore and in-game content featured in the World of Warcraft MMORPG. It’s worth noting, however, that there is no print version available of the adventure, and it is only accessible on D&D Beyond.

What is Icecrown Citadel in World of Warcraft lore?

In official World of Warcraft lore, Icecrown Citadel stands as the dwelling place for the dreaded Lich King and the central command fortress of the undead horde known as the Scourge. Located in the frozen wastes of Northrend, it is constructed primarily from saronite (the hardened blood of an ancient god). It is also the location of the Frozen Throne, the literal seat of power of the Lich King Arthas Menethil (a once-noble ruler who was corrupted by evil).

In the real world, Icecrown Citadel first appeared as an overworld zone landmark with the release of the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King expansion on November 2008. It was later fully unlocked as the expansion’s flagship 10- and 25-player endgame raid instance on December 2009, as part of Patch 3.3.0, entitled “Fall of the Lich King.”

The iconic fortress has since featured prominently across several other WoW releases, including serving as the core theme and setting for the Hearthstone digital card game expansion Knights of the Frozen Throne in August 2017, It also played a key role in in the story featured in the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands in November 2020, and later returned as an active raid location during World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic in October 2022.

How much is the D&D World of Warcraft Map Pack?

The physical version of the map pack retails for $29.99 USD (not including shipping and handling), while the D&D Beyond digital version is $19.99 USD. Notably, you can also pre-order a Digital + Physical Bundle that retails for $29.99 USD.

If you pre-order the digital version or bundle you’ll also receive an Icy Throne Digital Dice Set for use on D&D Beyond.

When is the D&D World of Warcraft Map Pack coming out?

Both the physical and digital version will be released on November 17th, 2026 to coincide with the release of the D&D World of Warcraft sourcebook. It will also be a featured accessory for the new Season of Champions that’s running from October to December of this year.

Final thoughts

The crossover between Dungeons & Dragons and World of Warcraft feels like a solid match for fans of both franchises. Releasing a map pack with an adventure inspired by one of Blizzard’s most iconic in-game locations also feels like a smart way to flesh out the setting. Whether or not fans will venture iinto the chambers of Icecrown Citadel, however, remains to be seen.

We’ll be providing a full review of both the print and digital versions closer to launch, but in the meantime, you can pre-order the D&D WoW Map Pack now from your local game store, D&D Beyond and Amazon.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

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In a major disruption to one of the world’s largest tabletop game conventions, Gen Con 2026 in Indianapolis essentially ground to a halt following severe weather on Saturday.

Heavy rains had been hitting the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium for most of the day, but it wasn’t until later in the afternoon that the roof began to noticeably leak.

The ceiling flooding first occurred in Hall B, where a number of game vendors were set up and running playtests of new products for hundreds of participants. A heavy stream of water fell for about 20 minutes, spreading through multiple areas. Vendors scrambled to get merchandise out of the area and Gen Con staff attempted to use several large trash bins to help catch the water as the situation worsened.

To make matters worse, shortly after the flooding began, a tornado warning was issued for Marion County. Gen Con organizers used loudspeakers to ask attendees to shelter in place and avoid windows and enclosed rooms for fear of shattering glass. The alert was called off several hours later, but caused significant confusion.

As of this writing, however, Gen Con is continuing and the final two days of the event are expected to proceed without any issues.

This type of extreme weather disruption is the first of its kind for Gen Con since it relocated to Indianapolis in 2003. The Indiana Convention Center, however, is over half a century old and clearly beginning to show its age.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story as Gen Con wrap up.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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At this year’s Gen Con, it was revealed that actor and longtime Dungeons & Dragons super fan Joe Manganiello would be leading a new initiative called D&D Icons. The publishing program would see seminal creators return to the D&D space, with a new Greyhawk project from Luke Gygax, new Dragonlance materials from Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, and new Drizzt content from R.A. Salvatore.

It was also revealed that the upcoming Icons line will include a new official D&D setting created by Manganiello. The first product will be entitled Death Saves: The Blood War and is co-created by Mike Mearls; an RPG icon in his own right who spent almost two decades at Wizards of the Coast and was instrumental in the development of both D&D 4E and 5E.

While many details on the Death Saves: The Blood War have not yet been revealed, we do know that it in addition to being part of Icons, it will also be part of a new “Black Label” publishing line from Wizards of the Coast that allows creators to use the official D&D property, while also producing more experimental game content for a mature audience.

Below, we take a closer look at everything we know about Joe Manganiello’s new D&D Death Saves setting.

What is Death Saves: The Blood War about?

Death Saves: The Blood War is an official D&D campaign world that will be published by Wizards of the Coast. It’s set in the aftermath of the legendary Blood War from D&D lore, in which the forces of demons and devils are locked in a seemingly endless conflict.

In the Death Saves world, however, the demons have finally won, swarming across the Nine Hells and overrunning the outer planes, destroying everything in their path. Only the cosmic city of Sigil (of the popular Planescape setting) has survived, becoming the last bastion of the multiverse against the advancing demonic hordes.

Outnumbered and about to be overrun, the enigmatic Lady of Pain uses her dying breath to unleash a final cataclysmic wave of energy that essentially destroys the multiverse, collapsing multiple realms, including the Elemental Planes, the Shadowfell and the Feywild, into a single realm known as the Last World, which is now hanging on by a single thread.

In this grimdark, post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, the gods have been largely decimated, and the Abyss continues to grow, tearing away at the last remaining world in existence. While the demonic armies of the Blood War have been mostly wiped out, a few remnants have also managed to escape to the Last World, hoping to regain their strength.

Players take on the roles of heroic survivors navigating the blighted, famine-racked land and struggling to push back the tide of darkness that threatens to snuff out the last light of hope in the multiverse.

How much is Death Saves: The Blood War?

An exact price for the new D&D Death Saves product has not yet been confirmed, and it’s not yet clear if it’s an adventure or a campaign setting book. It’s also not yet clear if it will be a print or D&D Beyond exclusive. We’ll update this page with an exact price and format once it’s been confirmed.

When will Death Saves: The Blood War be released?

An exact release date has not yet been confirmed by Wizards of the Coast. On Instagram, Joe Manganiello did preview the cover and a one shot was run at Gen Con which was DMed by Mike Mearls, with players including YouTubers Professor DM (of Dungeon Craft and Deathbringer fame) and Daði (of the Mystic Arts channel), as well as Luke Stratton (better known as Limithron and the creator of the Pirate Borg RPG).

This suggests the product is well into development, although it is not listed in the official 2027 D&D Roadmap and during the actual play session Mike Mearls noted that “keep in mind this is a very early preview, so things may shift.”

What is the Death Saves brand?

Death Saves is a dark fantasy and heavy-metal-inspired streetwear and merchandise brand created by actor Joe Manganiello. The brand draws inspiration from vintage metal album art, horror comics, classic fantasy illustration and OSR-style aesthetics from the 70s and 80s.

In addition to a range of clothing and apparel, Death Saves also produces jewelry, dice trays, posters and other accessories. Death Saves: The Blood War, however, marks the first standalone TTRPG product from the brand.

What is a D&D “Black Label” product?

During Gen Con, Mike Mearls described the new D&D Black Label line as “basically, we’re being allowed to do some things with D&D lore that in a canon book would be like, ‘that’s a little too far.'”

The approach sounds very similar to the DC Comics Black Label, which features unique creative takes on classic superheroes, while exploring mature themes.

Final Thoughts

Wizards of the Coast has been aggressively guarding the D&D brand for years, so it’s interesting to see them turn it over to Manganiello to create something darker and more experimental. It’s also interesting to see the involvement of Mike Mearls, who remains one of the most influential designers on modern D&D. What the final product will be, however, remains to be seen.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on Death Saves: The Blood War in the days ahead and will update this page with more information as it’s released. In the meantime, below is the D&D live one shot that was run at Gen Con 2026.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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At this year’s Gen Con, Wizards of the Coast officially unveiled a new range of features on D&D Beyond to help users find groups to play with in-person and online.

The initiative includes a new D&D Event Finder, which will show players sessions taking place at local stores, along with a new D&D Discord channel specifically designed to connect online players. In addition, Wizards of the Coast has announced a special, limited-time promotion with online game matchmaker StartPlaying that allows you to find and join a game for just $0.99 USD. More information on the new Find a Group features is available on D&D Beyond.

Below, we take a closer look at this initiative to expand the D&D player base.

What is the D&D Event Finder?

The new D&D Event Finder is an option built directly into D&D Beyond that allows users to find local in-person Dungeons & Dragons games in their area, with the option to sort by any location in the world.

The feature also includes a list of stores that are part of the Wizards Play Network who are running games and selling official D&D products.

What is the D&D Beyond partnership with StartPlaying?

D&D Beyond confirmed a new partnership with StartPlaying, the popular online platform that connects players directly with professional, highly-trained Dungeon Masters. Hosted on StartPlaying, the tool asks users to submit their location, availability and the type of game they want to participate in and then attempts to find a match.

As part of the launch of the new partnership, Wizards of the Coast announced a limited-time promotion letting first-time plaers find and join a game on StartPlaying for $0.99 USD.

How does the new Discord Find a Game Feature work?

D&D Beyond has also rebuilt its official Discord server to include a dedicated “Find a Game” channel, letting players looking to join a group connect directly with others inside Discord.

The new channel also includes advice from the official D&D moderator team on how to find a group and play both online and in-person.

Final Thoughts

One of the biggest impediments to the growth of Dungeons & Dragons is just how difficult it can be for both new and experienced players to find a group. With the new D&D Beyond Event Finder, the StartPlaying partnership and the Discord expansion, Wizards of the Coast is definitely taking a step in the right direction.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on these new features in the days ahead. In the meantime, you can learn more and try them for yourself now on D&D Beyond.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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At this year’s Gen Con, Wizards of the Coast officially introduced D&D Universes Beyond, a new banner for officially licensed RPG crossover content. The reveal came hot on the heels of the newly unveiled D&D World of Warcraft gameplay expansion, which Wizards of the Coast confirmed is the first release to carry the Universes Beyond label. This will be followed by a new untitled D&D Star Wars crossover.

The news, however, isn’t entirely surprising given that the D&D team has been hinting about this approach for some time, including releasing a recent D&D Vampire the Masquerade supplement and announcing an open role for a second-party publishing lead. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks has also previously stated that D&D crossovers were in the works.

Notably, Universes Beyond is also a popular sub-brand for Magic: The Gathering, which has featured crossover card sets for pop culture franchises such as Final Fantasy, Lord of the Rings, Fallout and Marvel, generating several billion dollars worth of revenue for Wizards of the Coast in the process.

Below, we look at everything we know so far about the D&D Universes Beyond initiative and what it means for the future of the game.

What is D&D Universes Beyond?

D&D Universes Beyond is a new publishing line from Wizards of the Coast that will consist of Dungeons & Dragons products using third-party IPs from film, television and video games.

In a private press conference held prior to Gen Con, D&D Creative Leader Laura Hohman described the initiative as an “opportunity to bring incredible hand-picked collaborations to our world of collaborative storytelling. With Universes Beyond, D&D will provide more ways to play in more worlds for more fans everywhere. These collaborations are authentic love letters to fans and beloved franchises… It’s made by fans for fans.”

What brands will be featured in D&D Universes Beyond?

Universes Beyond officially kicks off with the newly confirmed D&D World of Warcraft gameplay expansion, arriving later this year. In mid-2027, we’ll then see a D&D Star Wars crossover as part of the upcoming Season of Rebellion.

Wizards says the goal for every Universes Beyond release is that it should “feel authentically” like the source material, rather than trying to shoehorn in mechanics or lore.

No other franchises beyond World of Warcraft and Star Wars have been confirmed, but Hasbro has inked a number of recent licensing deals that include specific mention of RPG products for brands including Harry Potter and K-Pop Demon Hunters. They also have a larger license in place for the popular Fourth Wing book series, which would seem ideal for a potential D&D product.

Why is Wizards of the Coast launching D&D Universes Beyond?

The simple answer appears to be financial. Universes Beyond for Magic: The Gathering was initially launched in 2021 and since that time has generated close to $2 billion in revenue, by many estimates. This includes making over $200 million in a single day following the launch of the Final Fantasy card series.

And while D&D fans haven’t exactly been clamoring for these kinds of crossover products, Wizards of the Coast clearly sees a potential financial benefit in this type of approach. The big question, however, is whether this approach will resonate with new and existing D&D fans in the same way it has with Magic: The Gathering players.

Will D&D Universes Beyond tie in to Magic: The Gathering?

During the closed-door pre-Gen Con press conference, the Wizards of the Coast team was asked directly whether the previous Magic: The Gathering x D&D collaborations would continue under the Universes Beyond banner. Wizards said it’s “definitely open to continuing that collaboration in the future,” citing the strong world-building coming out of the Magic team.

So it’s possible that we may see more crossovers between Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons, and that shared Universes Beyond franchises could potentially feature in both games. For example, a Harry Potter launch that includes both a D&D setting book and new MTG card set (although Wizards of the Coast has not confirmed if this approach is in the works).

Final Thoughts

It’s clear Wizards of the Coast is trying to walk a careful line here, leaning into major licensed crossovers like World of Warcraft and Star Wars without turning D&D’s release calendar entirely over to outside IP. In fact, during the pre-Gen Con press conference, Wizards of the Coast was explicit that it does not want Universes Beyond to overtake its original settings, pointing to this year’s slate which includes original content like Dark Sun and Greyhawk as well as their new D&D Icons initiative.

According to Wizards, there is no fixed target number of Universes Beyond releases per year. Instead, the team is aiming to make sure there’s “something for everyone” across each release season rather than leaning entirely into crossover content. Whether that balance holds up once Universes Beyond launches, however, remains to be seen.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story in the days ahead and will update this page with new information as it’s made available.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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In one of the most surprising announcements from the Dungeons & Dragons Keynote at this year’s Gen Con, it was revealed that an official D&D Star Wars crossover is in the works.

The news was announced by Darth Vader himself, who appeared silently on stage as the final announcement following major updates from the D&D design team. Exact details on specific D&D Star Wars products and release dates were not confirmed. We do, however, know that it will be the second franchise to become part of the new D&D Universes Beyond line, which features D&D products based on popular entertainment IPs.

We also know that the upcoming D&D Stars crossover will be part of a larger Season of Rebellion, which which also revealed at Gen Con. Below, we count our midchlorians and break out everything we know about this crossover between the D&D multiverse and a galaxy, far, far away.

Has Star Wars appeared in Dungeons & Dragons before?

Officially, no official Dungeons & Dragons books for Star Wars have ever been published. The two franchises, however, have intersected over the years in both official tabletop RPG adaptations and several fan-lead projects.

The closest we’ve come to seeing an actual D&D Star Wars game was several decades ago. In the year 2000, Wizards of the Coast published the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, which utilized the D&D 3rd edition d20 system framework. The game was well received, eventually getting an update in 2007 known as the Star Wars Saga Edition. The latter, featured a design team that included Chris Perkins (who would famously go on to develop D&D 5E).

At the time, the Star Wars Saga Edition was partially influenced by the D&D 4th Edition game which was being developed by Wizards of the Coast (a recent July 2026 interview on historian Ben Rigg’s podcast “Reading D&D Aloud” details more about how the two games intersected).

The official Star Wars license left Wizards of the Coast in 2010 and was picked up by Fantasy Flight Games, but it’s close relation to D&D continues. In fact, an unofficial fan-made product entitled SW5e (aka Star Wars 5E) was released in 2018 by a developer Galiphile (aka Stephen Kiel). The game took the D&D 5e ruleset and released a complete library of digital rulebooks, including a Player’s Handbook for classes and Force powers, Scum and Villainy for equipment and gear, Wretched Hives for adversaries and creatures, and Starships of the Galaxy for vehicle and starship combat rules.

It became a massive hit among the 5E homebrew community, with a number of products and resources developed by a dedicated team of fans. In 2020, Galiphile shut down the SW5E site citing burnout and his growing workload to maintain the game. It was, however, quickly picked up by a new team of volunteers calling themselves Delta Squad, who continues to run the site and maintain the SW5E game to this day.

What other Star Wars RPGs have been published over the years?

Over the decades, several. different publishers have obtained the official license to bring a galaxy far, far away to the tabletop.

• West End Games’ d6 System (1987–1999): Widely regarded as the gold standard for space opera roleplaying, WEG’s Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game utilized a fast-paced d6 dice pool mechanic. Beyond its gameplay, it also fundamentally shaped the Star Wars universe as Lucasfilm heavily relied on WEG’s sourcebooks to establish canon during the creation of the modern Expanded Universe (Legends). This included using West End’s aliens, starships and planets in films, novels and other official Lucasfilm projejcts.
• Fantasy Flight Games (2012–2021): After taking over the license from WotC, Fantasy Flight released Star Wars Roleplaying. The game was split into three thematic experiences: Edge of the Empire (smugglers and outlaws), Age of Rebellion (military campaigns) and Force and Destiny (Jedi and Force users). The rules involved rolling custom narrative dice, allowing players and GMs to create unique storytelling experiences during play (these rules would later go on to form the popular Genesys system, which has since inspired modern TTRPGs like Daggerheart).
• Edge Studios (2021 – Present): In 2021, Edge Studios took over the Star Wars license from Fantasy Flight Games (both are subsidiaries of board game giant Asmodee) and announced plans to create new content. While this has yet to materialize, in more recent years Edge Studios has been releasing reprints of Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars RPG supplements.

Final thoughts

The crossover between D&D and Star Wars represents a massive possibility for both brands. Whether the final product lives up to its potential, however, is something even a Jedi master can’t forsee.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story in the days ahead and will update this page with new information as it’s made available. Below is also the official D&D Keynote video on YouTube, timestamped to the section featuring the Star Wars announcement.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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Dungeons & Dragons is returning to one of its oldest and most beloved settings, with a brand new campaign entitled Greyhawk: Crown of the Witch Queen, which was just unveiled at Gen Con 2026.

As the name suggests, the adventure will be set in the world of Oerth, with players taking on the villainous Drelnza, a powerful vampire who also happens to be the daughter of the legendary wizard Tasha.

The book will be available in both physical hardcover and D&D Beyond digital format in the later half of 2027. Below, we take a closer look at everything we know so far.

What is Greyhawk: Crown of the Witch Queen about?

Crown of the Witch Queen is a 160-page campaign adventure set in the world of Greyhawk. The primary antagonist is Drelnza, the vampire daughter of Iggwilv, the powerful witch-queen better known to modern players as Tasha (of the D&D supplement Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything and the spell Tasha’s Hideous Laughter). The characters’ levels and plot details have yet to be announced, but it’s been described as being a darker and more antagonist-driven campaign than a typical D&D release.

During a press conference held prior to Gen Con 2026, Wizards of the Coast Product Architect Andy Chilton previewed several illustrations from the upcoming campaign book and noted that “visually we’re going for operatic, thrilling, archetypal, big, dramatic silhouettes on bold impactful shapes that feel like classic Greyhawk but reimagined and updated for today’s adventures.”

How much is Crown of the Witch Queen?

Wizards of the Coast has not yet confirmed pricing, but given the page count, the hardcover will likely retail for $29.99 USD with the D&D Beyond version going for $19.99 USD (which is the same pricing we saw for Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall).

When will Crown of the Witch Queen be released?

Wizards of the Coast said the book is targeting a release in the “back portion” of 2027. They also confirmed that Crown of the Witch Queen will be the anchor release for the upcoming Season of Sword & Sorcery; one of several new D&D Seasons planned for the coming year.

Will there be an alternate cover?

The Wizards of the Coast team has not yet confirmed if an alternate cover will be released, but it’s extremely likely given what we’ve seen from past D&D products.

We’ll update this page with more details and images on the covers as soon as they’ve been confirmed.

What other tie-in products are available?

In addition to the primary core campaign book, Wizards of the Coast will also be releasing:

• Crown of the Witch Queen Map Pack: Available in print and as a digital product on D&D Beyond, it will feature a variety of maps taken from the campaign book.
• Crown of the Witch Queen DM screen: This will feature original art along with useful references and tables for the world of Greyhawk.

Notably, we saw two similar map pack and DM screen products released for Ravenloft: The Horrors Within.

Who is Drelzna in D&D lore?

Drelnza (also sometimes spelled as Drelzna) was born in the world of Oerth sometime between 481 and 491 CY. She is the daughter of the powerful witch Iggwilv (better known as Tasha) and is the half-sister of the dark wizard turned demigod, Iuz. In D&D lore, she was later transformed into a powerful and bloodthirsty vampire. She is described as having black hair and ruby-red lips and is often seen wearing golden full plate armor and wielding a magical sword known as Heretic.

In the real world, Drelnza first appeared in the 1982 adventure module S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. She’s been since periodically mentioned in other official D&D publications, including Dragon Magazine and the 1985 adventure Isle of the Ape.

Final Thoughts

After a decade of being largely overlooked by Wizards of the Coast, Greyhawk has been back in the spotlight in recent years, including being prominently featured in the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide and the focus of the Legends of Greyhawk organized play program.

More recently, the world of Oerth is also front and center in Luke Gygax’s new supplement Melf’s Guide to Greyhawk, as well as being a primary setting for the new D&D Icons program.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on Crown of the Witch Queen in the days ahead and will update this page with new information as it’s made available.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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In one of the more structurally significant announcements at Gen Con this year, Wizards of the Coast confirmed a new publishing partnership program that will see official Dungeons & Dragons content produced by outside studios.

The news isn’t a total surprise, as there have been signs that D&D was headed in this direction, including an April 2026 job posting looking for a lead to manage second-party publishers. The goal is to meet the growing demand from fans for new content for established D&D settings – a gap, which the internal Wizards of the Coast team is unable to fill.

The initial roster of second-party D&D studios includes Ghostfire Gaming (who will be producing materials for Ravenloft), Visionary Production & Design (who will be taking on Eberron) and Kobold Press (who will be developing new content for the Forgotten Realms).

Below, we take a closer look at why Wizards of the Coast is making this strategic shift and what it means for the future of D&D.

Why is Wizards of the Coast bringing on partner studios for D&D?

In a private, closed-door press conference held prior to this year’s Gen Con, D&D Executive Producer Greg Bilsland explained that Wizards of the Coast had launched the new partnership as a way to address the lack of new content for established D&D settings.

“Players shouldn’t have to wait decades for D&D to return to a setting. We should be making it easier to adventure in those worlds,” Bilsland said. “The problem is, of course, we only have so many people on the D&D team and supporting all of our settings wasn’t feasible. Until now. At Gen Con we’re going to be announcing new partnerships with several amazing studios that are going to be supporting our settings with official content.”

During the press conference, Wizards of the Coast also confirmed that all releases from these new studio partnerships will be available in both physical and digital formats, and described this as “just the beginning” of an ongoing partnership model, with plans to continue working with second-party studios on a yearly basis, regardless of which settings are in the spotlight that year.

What is Ghostfire Gaming making for Ravenloft?

Ghostfire Gaming, the studio behind the popular third-party gothic horror setting Grim Hollow, will be producing an official Ravenloft supplement that Wizards says will include both gameplay options and adventure content.

An exact release date has not yet been confirmed, although Wizards of the Coast did indicate that the supplement is intended to bridge the gap for Ravenloft fans following this year’s Season of Horror and the release of the recent Ravenloft: The Horrors Within sourcebook.

What is Visionary Production making for Eberron?

Visionary Production & Design has already published third-party D&D 5E and 5.5E Eberron content written by setting creator Keith Baker and released under the Open Game License. This includes the recent Exploring Eberron supplement (which was first published on DMsGuild and later ported over to D&D Beyond) as well as Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone (which was released exclusively on DMsGuild).

The studio’s first official release as part of the new second-party publishing program will be an Eberron adventure featuring the Lord of Blades, a fan-favorite villain from the setting. The new Eberron adventure will be arriving in 2028. It’s not clear if Keith Baker will be involved in any of the content development.

What is Kobold Press making for the Forgotten Realms?

Kobold Press, which is best known for Tales of the Valiant and a significant library of unofficial third-party D&D 5E and 5.5E supplements, will be producing a series of new adventures set in the Forgotten Realms. An exact release date and what the content will consist of was not confirmed by Wizards of the Coast.

It’s worth noting, however, that this isn’t the first time that Kobold Press has published official D&D materials. In fact, the company was contracted out to produce the 2014 Hoard of the Dragon Queen supplement, which was the first official campaign for D&D 5E.

Final Thoughts

Over the past few years, Wizards of the Coast has been producing new D&D content at a sluggish pace, with roughly 3-5 new books a year. This new partnership program represents a potential way to overcome this lack of new content for established D&D settings, by effectively licensing out official support to studios that already have deep expertise (and fan trust). If it works as intended, it could mean a much steadier stream of official content for settings that have historically gone years between releases.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story in the days ahead and will update this page with new information as it’s made available.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
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At this year’s Gen Con, Wizards of the Coast officially unveiled a new publishing initiative called Dungeons & Dragons Icons, which is designed to bring some of the most influential creators in the game’s 50-plus history back into the fold.

The program will pair veteran creators with the current D&D design team at Wizards of the Coast, with the goal of launching a range of official new products. The initial roster of D&D Icons creators will include Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (creator of the Dragonlance campaign setting), Luke Gygax (an RPG designer and son of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax) and R.A. Salvatore (author of the best-selling Legend of Drizzt novels).

Actor and longtime D&D fan Joe Manganiello has been appointed Chief Creative Officer of D&D Icons, in addition to launching his own product for the publishing line with a new campaign setting called Death Saves. Below, we take a closer look at everything we know about this new initiative.

What is Dungeons & Dragons Icons?

D&D Icons is a new publishing initiative that pairs well-known creators with the current in-house design team at Wizards of the Coast. The idea is to give some of the game’s most important voices – many of whom haven’t had an official hand in D&D products for years – a direct role in building what comes next.

In a closed door press conference prior to Gen Con, Dungeons & Dragons VP Dan Ayoub noted that “There are a lot of classic creators who still have really magnificent stories to tell and, you know, this is one of the lines we’re leaning into to specifically do that.”

Which veteran D&D creators are joining Icons?

Wizards of the Coast confirmed the following legacy creators are joining the initiative:

Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

The co-creators of the Dragonlance setting and the authors behind the Chronicles and Legends trilogies of novels will be working on new products set in Krynn. It was also noted during a pre-Gen Con press conference that they are working on a new Dragonlance product that is also being produced outside of the Icons line.

Notably, back in October 2025, Manganiello posted a photo on Instagram of himself with Weis and Hickman at Wizards of the Coast headquarters in Renton, Washington, which led many to speculate at the time that a new Dragonlance project was in the works.

Luke Gygax

Son of D&D co-creator Gary Gygax and a prolific tabletop RPG designer in his own right, Gygax will be joining the Icons line to work on content connected to the Greyhawk setting.

It’s not clear if this upcoming Icons product will be the new Melf’s Guide to Greyhawk: Borderlands of Iuz book or a separate product related to Greyhawk. It’s also worth noting that the upcoming Greyhawk: Crown of the Witch Queen campaign is not being developed by Luke Gygax and is not part of the Icons line.

R.A. Salvatore

The New York Times’ best-selling author of The Legend of Drizzt novels will also be a major contributor to the new D&D Icons line, although it’s not yet clear what projects he’ll be working on.

Notably, Salvatore is primarily known a novelist, and has not developed any extensive game materials, although the Drizzt novels are set in the Forgotten Realms and he has contributed extensively to D&D lore.

Final Thoughts

D&D Icons looks like one of the more fan-forward moves Wizards of the Coast has made in years, formally welcoming back some of the creators most associated with the game’s golden era.

Notably, in addition to serving as COO, Joe Manganiello’s Death Saves setting will also be part of the new Icons line, and it’s expected that projects from other D&D veteran creators will also be announced in the near future (Ed Greenwood, in particular seems like a likely candidate for the program).

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story in the days ahead and will update this page with new information on the Dungeons & Dragons Icons program as it becomes available.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

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Despite being one of the most controversial settings of all time, over the past few years all signs have pointed to the return of Dark Sun to Dungeons & Dragons. It began with Wizards of the Coast refiling the Dark Sun trademark, mentioning the setting in the 2024 Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide and, more recently, releasing the Apocalyptic Subclasses playtest.

Now, at this year’s Gen Con, Wizards of the Coast has officially confirmed that new Dark Sun products are coming to D&D 5.5E. In early 2027, players will be able to return to the post-apocalyptic, bloodsoaked sands of Athas with five new products, including a setting expansion, gameplay expansion, map pack, DM screen and limited edition Dark Sun art variant of the 2024 Player’s Handbook. What’s more all of the content will have an 18+ mature rating and feature violence, nudity and extreme content. You can learn more on the official D&D website.

It marks a major strategic shift for Wizards of the Coast who have previously stated they would not be returning to the Dark Sun setting and felt it was “problematic” due to themes like slavery, cannibalism and forced breeding. Now, however, it seems the company is embracing its inner brutality. Below, we head back into the Wastelands of Athas to dig up all the details.

What is Dark Sun?

Dark Sun is a Dungeons & Dragons setting that takes place on the planet Athas, a once green and verdant paradise that has been reduced to a barren wasteland in the wake of a magical apocalypse. The survivors – composed of the traditional D&D races of elves, dwarves, halflings and humans, along with several other species such as Thri-Kreens and Muls – now struggle to survive the inhospitable environment and the tyrannical rule of a group of warring city states.

The first official TSR product was the Dark Sun Boxed Set, which was released in 1991. It was accompanied by the Prism Pentad, a five-book fiction series written by longtime D&D author and designer Troy Denning. Additional game products and Dark Sun novels were released over the next few years before the line was abruptly ended in 1996 due to flagging sales.

In 2004, Dark Sun was briefly revived for the 3rd edition of D&D by publisher Paizo (creator of the Pathfinder system) who released an updated version of Dark Sun under the Open Game License. The website Athas.org was also created around this time as a gathering place for fans. Several years later in 2009, the setting was again revived by Wizards of the Coast for the fourth edition of D&D, with several new game books published at that time.

Since then the setting has largely been retired and has not appeared in any official D&D fifth edition materials. There have, however, been a number of fan-led projects, including Cities of the Trembling Plains and the Sand Marches campaign. In a 2023 interview with YouTuber Bob Worldbuilder, D&D Executive Producer Kyle Brink stated that “I’ll be frank here, the Dark Sun setting is problematic in a lot of ways and that’s the main reason we haven’t come back to it.” Brink would later leave Wizards of the Coast and the D&D team.

What new D&D 5.5E Dark Sun products are being released?

During a closed-door press conference with journalists prior to Gen Con, Wizards of the Coast outlined a large product suite for the setting’s return, totalling almost 500 pages of new content. This includes:

• Edge of Oblivion: A setting expansion for Dungeon Masters.
• Blood and Power: A gameplay expansion for both players and DMs.
• A Player’s Handbook reprint: This is a limited edition of the 2024 PHB with new Dark Sun art.
• A Map Pack: This is available as either a physical product or as D&D Beyond assets for the Maps VTT.
• A DM screen: With brand new art, tables and reference materials for the city-states of Athas.

What’s included in the new Dark Sun D&D 5.5E content?

During the pre-Gen Con press conference, the Wizards of the Coast team offered more details on what would be included in the new products, including:

New lore for the city-states of Athas

This includes new art and info on Athas’s iconic city-states:

• Tyr: Freed from its sorcerer-king, the city’s revolution continues as its people hunt down those still sympathetic to tyranny.
• Draj: A city that has forsaken the old ways to glorify the moon, where magic and reality bend for those willing to sacrifice everything to their lunar god.
• Gulg: Ruled by the sorcerer-queen Lalali-Puy, where life and undeath harmonize under towers grown from living plant matter.
• Urik: A brutalist “engine of war” ruled by the sorcerer-king Hamanu, marching to conquer as the world burns around it.
• Raam: A city where consequence and taboo mean little, and any debauchery can be purchased for the right price.
• Nibenay: Home to scholars who join their minds with their sorcerer-king in pursuit of forbidden knowledge, seeking to outwit their own extinction.
• Balic: A wasteland shaped by its sorcerer-king’s reckless ambition, dominated by the bizarre and deadly remnants of his failed schemes.

New Psion Class

The new Dark Sun 5.5E setting will also include the new Psion Class which was playtested in an October 2025 Unearthed Arcana and which is only the second official D&D 5E class to be introduced, following the Artificer.

Notably, Psionics have long been a major part of the Dark Sun setting, so it remains to be seen how these rules are integrated into the new D&D 5.5E ruleset and whether they’ll have any utility in other campaign settings.

Why is the new Dark Sun material mature-rated for 18+?

Wizards of the Coast confirmed Dark Sun is being developed as D&D’s first mature-rated (18+) setting, going so far as to say their legal department required a shrink-wrap and an on-package warning label. According to the team, the books will include “profanity and depictions of bloodshed, nudity and sexuality,” a notable departure from the otherwise family-friendly tone D&D has been going for in recent years.

The Wizards of the Coast team was also explicit that Dark Sun is leaning heavily into its brutal themes, rather than high fantasy. During the pre-Gen Con press conference, D&D Executive Producer Greg Bilsland noted that “This isn’t the world that you save, it’s a world you survive.”

When are the new Dark Sun products coming out?

An exact release date has not yet been confirmed by Wizards of the Coast. We do, however, know that Dark Sun will anchor the new Season of Survival, which kicks off in February 2027.

How much are the new Dark Sun products?

Wizards of the Coast has not yet confirmed pricing, but given the page count, the hardcovers will likely retail for $29.99 USD with the D&D Beyond version going for $19.99 USD (which is the same pricing we saw for Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall).

We’ll update this page with exact pricing details once they’ve been confirmed and pre-orders are open.

Will there be alternate covers?

The Wizards of the Coast team has not yet confirmed if alternate covers will be released, but it’s extremely likely given what we’ve seen from past D&D products.

We’ll update this page with new art once it’s been confirmed.

What other tie-in products will be available?

We also do not yet have confirmation if there will be other tie-in products. However, given how massive the focus is, it’s likely we’ll see some related releases from brands like WizKids and Beadle & Grimm’s (we’ll update this page once we know more).

Final Thoughts

While the signs have all been pointing to the return of Dark Sun to Dungeons & Dragons, even we didn’t expect Wizards of the Coast to go all the way to an 18+ rating. Between the mature content rating, the new Psion class and nearly 500 pages of material, this is definitely one of the most ambitious setting revivals D&D ever produced. Whether Wizards of the Coast will be able to survive both the bloodsoaked sands of Athas and player expectations, however, remains to be seen.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on the new Dark Sun products in the days ahead and will share more information as it’s available. You can learn more on the official D&D website. Below is also a teaser video debuted at Gen Con showing the brutal new tone the D&D design team is going for.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post D&D’s Dark Sun Is Back With a Brutal and Bloody 18+ Rating appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Sirius Dice is paying homage to one of Dungeons & Dragons’ most iconic products. Hot on the heels of last year’s Holmes Boxed Set metal minis, the RPG dice and accessory maker has now unveiled the new D&D: Red Box Basic Set; a four-figure collection of metal miniatures that recreates one of the most famous pieces of D&D cover art: the legendary 1983 “Ancient Red” painting by Larry Elmore.

The set retails for $79.99 USD and will be coming out in November 2026. You can, however, pre-order it now from your local game store, Sirius Dice and Amazon.

Below, we get the lead out and take a closer look at these classic D&D metal minis.

What’s included in the Sirius D&D Red Box Basic Set Minis?

The set contains four metal miniatures based on an alternate version of the cover of the 1983 D&D Basic Set: a fighter, a magic-user, a thief and, of course, the red dragon squaring off against them. Each figure is designed to look like an old-school mini and is cast at 32mm scale in a metal alloy finished with a faux antique patina. Sirius notes the figures carry a heft of roughly 60 grams apiece (a deliberate callback to the lead miniatures that were common at hobby shops in the early ’80s – albeit without the associated health hazards).

Sirius describes the line as being built for both “display and play,” meaning you can showcase the set on your shelf as a piece of D&D history or use the figures at the table in an actual game.

How much are the Sirius Red Box D&D Minis?

The Red Box minis set retails for $79.99 USD (not including shipping and handling). That makes it considerably more than the Holmes Boxed Set metal minis, which retailed for $49.95 (although that set only included three figures instead of four). As with that release, however, this is clearly aimed at collectors and old-school D&D fans rather than players looking for a cheap set of table-ready minis.

When will the new Red Box D&D minis be released?

The Red Box set will be available on November 30th, 2026, at which time you’ll be able to find it from local game stores or online from Amazon and the Sirius Dice website.

What Is the D&D Red Box Basic Set?

The Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (often referred to simply as the “Red Box”) was released by TSR in 1983 as a revision of the earlier Holmes and Moldvay basic sets. Edited by Frank Mentzer, the set included a Players Manual, a Dungeon Masters Rulebook, a set of dice and (in early printings) a crayon for coloring them in.

What made the box legendary, however, was the cover. Illustrated by Larry Elmore, the artwork originally depicted a full party of adventurers facing off against a dragon, similar to earlier D&D box art. But TSR co-founder Gary Gygax reportedly asked Elmore to simplify the scene down to a single fighter squaring off against a red dragon atop a pile of treasure. The resulting image went on to become one of the most recognizable pieces of fantasy art ever produced.

The Basic Set also kicked off the five-box “BECMI” line (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master and Immortals) that Frank Mentzer would go on to write between 1983 and 1986, introducing an entire generation of new D&D players to the game.

Who Is Sirius Dice?

Sirius Dice is a tabletop gaming accessory company based in Brooklyn, New York, that designs and produces a range of dice, coins, miniatures, jewlery and other physical RPG components. Founded in 2019 by tech entrepreneur Lax Chandra and business consultant Tina Trenkler, the company has grown significantly in a short period of time.

Over the past few years in particular, Sirius has established major partnerships with a number of prominent entertainment and gaming IP holders, releasing official products for brands including Dungeons & Dragons, Stranger Things, Magic: The Gathering and Critical Role.

Final Thoughts

With the Holmes set that was released earlier this year and now the new D&D Red Box collection, Sirius is firmly establishing its metal miniatures line as an ongoing tribute to Dungeons & Dragons history. Chances are we’ll also see more classic covers getting the same treatment down the road.

In the meantime, you can pre-order Sirius’ new D&D Red Box minis now from your local game store, Sirius Dice and Amazon.

See Our Other D&D Accessories Coverage

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post Sirius Recreates the Legendary D&D Red Box With New Metal Minis appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Trading card accessory maker Ultimate Guard has just unveiled a new line of official Dungeons & Dragons deck boxes. The products are the latest in the company’s “Squaroes” line, which offers deck storage for TCG fans, with unique character designs from brands like Transformers, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and DC Comics.

The new Squaroes D&D deck boxes include 9 different designs featuring official Wizards of the Coast monsters and villains, plus a larger storage box based on the infamous Tomb of Annihilation adventure. It’s expected to be the first wave in a larger D&D product line. You can pick them up now from local game stores, Ultimate Guard and Amazon.

Below, we unbox all the details on these new D&D deck solutions.

What are the new Squaroes D&D Card Deck Boxes?

Each Squaroes D&D deck box can hold up to 100 double sleeved, standard- or Japanese-sized trading cards (which means they’re ideally suited for games like Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, Lorcana and Yu-Gi-Oh!)

There are nine options in total, each featuring a specific D&D creature or character:

• Mimic
• Owlbear
• Gelatinous Cube
• Beholder
• Mind Flayer
• Xorn
• Gnoll
• Red Dragon
• Acererak (NOTE: This is a rarer chase variant)

This first wave of D&D decks will also include a Tomb of Annihilation: Collectors Case that can hold up to 1,000 single-sleeved cards or eight of the Squaroes deck boxes.

How much are the new Squaroes D&D card deck boxes?

Each D&D deck box retails for $24.99 USD (not including shipping and handling). The Tomb of Annihilation: Collectors Case retails for $84.99 USD.

When are the new Squaroes D&D card deck boxes coming out?

The new D&D deck boxes were officially released on July 21st, 2026, so they should be showing up in local game stores soon. One thing to note is that the Ultimate Guard website ships only to Europe, but in North America you can order them from Amazon and a few other online retailers.

Who is Ultimate Guard?

Ultimate Guard is a German-based company specializing in accessories for trading card games. Founded in 2011 as a sub-brand of the global collectible company heo Group, over the years the company has released a number of products aimed at players of Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon and Disney Lorcana. Some of their key product lines include Katana card sleeves, Sidewinder and Boulder deck boxes and Xenoskin card binders.

In more recent years they’ve expanded into a number of major pop-culture partnerships, including official licensing agreements with Wizards of the Coast for Magic: The Gathering. They’ve also expanded their Squaroes product line which now features a number of major IPs and brands, including One Piece, South Park, SpongeBob and Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Final Thoughts

In recent years Ultimate Guard has released a ton of new Magic: The Gathering products, so it’s not surprising to see the company expand their partnership with Wizards of the Coast into Dungeons & Dragons.

You can learn more and grab your own Squaroes D&D Deck Box now from local game stores, Ultimate Guard and Amazon.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post Guard Your Trading Card Hoard With New Squaroes D&D Deck Boxes appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

In surprising news, a recent US SEC filing posted on the Hasbro website notes that John Hight is stepping down as President of Wizards of the Coast. The transition will take place on September 1st, although Hight will remain in an advisory role with the company.

Hight has been in the position for just two years, having joined Wizards of the Coast in August 2024 after taking over for Cynthia Williams. Prior to that, Hight has spent almost 20 years working in the video game industry, including 13 years in a senior role at Blizzard.

We look at what Hight’s departure means for the future of Dungeons & Dragons.

Who is John Hight?

Before taking the reins at Wizards of the Coast, Hight served an executive at Blizzard Entertainment, where he managed the Warcraft franchise and played a key role in several high-profile game releases, including overseeing the development of titles such as Hearthstone and Diablo III: Reaper of Souls.

His background in video games was a major part of his hiring as the company began a shift towards digital products via D&D Beyond, as well as aggressively producing video games, both in-house and with partners.

Why is John Hight stepping down as President of Wizards of the Coast?

It’s not entirely clear why Hight is leaving the role. In a statement provided to GamesIndustry.biz, Wizards of the Coast noted only:

“After two years as President of Wizards of the Coast, John Hight is transitioning from the role, effective September 1. We’re deeply grateful for his leadership and the contributions he’s made to our teams and our games during his tenure. John will continue to support Wizards in an advisory capacity while pursuing other creative and professional opportunities he’s passionate about.

“There is no change to the strength of the Wizards business. Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons continue to perform incredibly well, consistent with our most recent earnings release, and our upcoming 2027 video game slate, including Exodus and Warlock remains on track.

“We’re launching an internal and external search for John’s successor and will share updates as appropriate.”

It’s possible, however, that Hight’s departure may be the result of a recent $56 million write-down that Hasbro recently recorded in relation to a number of cancelled video game projects, almost all of which were under Hight’s purview.

The timing does also seem sudden, given that Wizards of the Coast is giving its D&D Vision Keynote at Gen Con in just two days.

Final thoughts

Being the President of Wizards of the Coast is clearly a challenging position. And one with a high attrition rate, as Hight’s predecessor Cynthia Williams herself only lasted two years in the role. It remains to be seen who will step into the role next and how they’ll shape the future of Dungeons & Dragons.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on this story in the days ahead.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post John Hight Steps Down as President of Wizards of the Coast appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

If you’re looking for that fresh-from-the-dungeon feeling of clean, you’re in luck: Wizards of the Coast has teamed up with popular men’s self care brand Dr. Squatch on a new official Dungeons & Dragons soap. The first scent is referred to as “Mimic Bricc,” with each bar featuring a range of real-world ingredients, including dried fruit, cedar wood, saffron, plus a dash of “dragon’s blood extract” for color.

You can learn more about the new Mimic Bricc and pick up a bar for yourself from local retailers and the Dr. Squatch website. Below, we lather up all the details on this sudsy new D&D collaboration.

What is the new D&D Mimic Bricc Soap from Dr. Squatch?

The official Mimic Bricc product page describes it as a “medium-grit bar that smells like Treasure & Deception and clings like a mimic guarding its hoard.” The overall smell contains notes of strawberry, citrus, cinnamon and saffron, with undertones of cedar and tonka bean.

Notably, the ingredients in each bar are 98% natural in origin, with no harmful ingredients. They’re also specially formulated for men (although there’s no reason why women can’t use them).

Each Mimic Bricc pack contains one 5 oz. bar of soap and retails for $8 USD (not including shipping and handling). Inside, you’ll also get access to an exclusive code to unlock free digital dice on D&D Beyond (which does require an account to activate).

Who is Dr. Squatch?

Dr. Squatch is a US-based personal care company that specializes in hygiene and grooming products marketed primarily toward men. Founded in 2013 in San Diego, the company initially made a name for itself by producing natural bar soaps with unconventional scents like Pine Tar and Grapefruit IPA. Over the years, they’ve expanded their lineup to include items like deodorant, hair care and toothpaste.

More recently, the company has released a number of limited-edition soap bundles (which they refer to as “briccs”), which often feature major pop-culture and entertainment collaborations. Some of the major brands and franchises they’ve partnered with include Star Wars, Harry Potter, Stranger Things, DC Comics and Marvel. The new Mimic Bricc represents the first official D&D partnership for Dr. Squatch.

Final Thoughts

Over the past few years, we’ve seen D&D collaborate with a number of unique brands, with everything from clothing and toys to beer and even “mystery meat.” This new partnership with Dr. Squatch, however, is the first time we’ve seen official Dungeons & Dragons soap on the market.

You can pick up a Mimic Bricc for yourself now from local retailers and the Dr. Squatch website.

See Our Other D&D Accessories Coverage

Visit our D&D Accessories page for more reviews and news.

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Jason Volk is the Publisher of Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics and lives in the wilds of Western Canada. He has been playing D&D for over 25 years and is a huge fan of Dragonlance and the Forgotten Realms. His favorite character of all time was a Necromancer named Neek who spent most of his adventuring career resurrecting the corpses of slain monsters. When he’s not playing TTRPGs, Jason enjoys video games, Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer 40K, watching football and spending time with his wife and adorably nerdy children.
Follow him on Bluesky or on Instagram

The post Smell Like a Mimic With New D&D Soap from Dr. Squatch appeared first on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics.

Dark Horse Comics has just revealed more details on a new ongoing Dungeons & Dragons comic book series. The series was first previewed back in May 2026 for Free Comic Book Day, with a digital version later released on D&D Beyond.