Wizards of the Coast have announced a raft of new products for the world’s most played RPG, Dungeons and Dragons, as part of their D&D Direct (which can now be viewed on YouTube).
First off, the new D&D Movie will be called “Dungeons & Dragons – Honor Among Thieves” which will have a release date of March 3rd, 2023.
The big news is that Spelljammer: Adventures in Space will be the next new campaign setting. This setting mixes piracy and high-seas themes with space fantasy, which means it’s the D&D setting with big wooden ships in space.
The campaign setting will be a set of three books in one slip-case, each a 64-page hardcover book.
The Astral Adventurer’s Guide™: A campaign setting book that includes space-based character options, spells and magic items, deck plans and descriptions for spelljamming ships.
Boo’s Astral Menagerie™: Featuring over 60 creatures found in Wildspace and the Astral Sea, including astral elves, cosmic horrors, lunar and solar dragons, murder comets, and space clowns.
Light of Xaryxis™: An adventure for Dungeon Masters set in the Astral Plane and designed for characters of levels 5–8.
The set will also have a double-sided poster map of the Rock of Bral, an asteroid-city that can serve as both an adventure location and a campaign hub in the Astral Plane, as well as a four-panel Dungeon Master’s screen designed for use with the books in this set.
Lead Games Designer Chris Perkins has told the press that this book was a passion project of his that was produced during the pandemic. The setting draws inspiration from a wide variety of sources, everything from classic RPG Star Frontiers to the Tobe Hooper movie, Life Force. Those familiar with the previous versions of Spell Jammer may be interested to learn that Phlogiston, the ‘sea of space’ has been abandoned in favour of the Astral Sea. The concept of Realm Space (the local mystic space-sea for various D&D settings will be covered in another product, the forthcoming Spell Jammer Academy). There will also be a soundtrack available for Spell Jammer.
Dragonlance is coming back to D&D later this year. They will launch two products; a battle game called Warriors of Krynn and a D&D adventure/setting book called Shadow of the Dragon Queen. The book will be a complete campaign, with setting specific information, races (such as Kender), Orders of Wizards and Knights and so on. The book will feature a lot of cameos for fans of the original 80’s game, but the focus is on the player characters. A major villain from Dragonlance features heavily in the book though Wizard’s have not confirmed which one it is. (Though Lord Soth didn’t appear in Ravenloft, so it seems likely he’ll be here.)
The two products will synergise with each other. The new books will be set during the War of the Lance, the same period of time as the original Dragonlance books from the 80s. It’s a new story and will feature some of the major villains from the War of The Lance storyline. Scenarios and battles are designed so you can flip from epic battle mode to more traditional RPG styles.
The new Starter Set – Dragons of Stormwreck Isle has also been announced. It promises to have a few sneaky references to the classic Dungeons and Dragons Cartoon and has been stream-lined to be very accessible to new players. Though it’s not connected thematically to the other two starter sets, it does seem to be designed to capture young imaginations.
They’ve also announced a new range called Campaign Case. There will two types; the Terrain case will let you create a flat terrain/ dungeon and the create case will let you add monsters. Speaking of miniature style things, Wizkids are producing a D&D themed skirmish game called D&D Onslaught.
