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'Dungeons & Dragons' announces 5 new books for 2023, plus 'Dragonlance' details
Wizards of the Coast revealed what's in store for D&D next year, and shared more details about the Dragonlance release that will wrap up 2022.
Dungeons & Dragons has big, big things coming up next year. A blockbuster movie, Honor Among Thieves, will bring D&D to the big screen, but the iconic tabletop role-playing game is going to be bringing a lot to the, well, table as well. During Wizards Presents on Thursday, D&D teased the five major releases that will be coming out over the course of the next year, as well as several new details about 2023’s last remaining release, a long-awaited return to the classic Dragonlance setting.
Speaking during a press preview ahead of the Wizards Presents event, D&D’s Product Manager, Chris Lindsay, and Game Design Architect, Chris Perkins, briefly alluded to what fans could expect in the coming year. No art, in-depth details, or specific release dates can be revealed yet, but the teasers are plenty exciting all the same.
First on the docket is Keys From the Golden Vault, which is set for a winter release. Perkins describes the book as “Ocean's Eleven meets Dungeons & Dragons,” saying it’s an “anthology of short adventures, each one involving a heist.”
Next, in the spring, Bigby Presents Glory of the Giants, which will do for giants what Fizban's Treasury of Dragons did for dragons last year, adding additional lore and presumably monsters and player races focused on another of the game’s tentpole fantasy creatures.
Summer will see two new releases. Perkins describes The Book of Many Things as “a fantastic collection of creatures, locations, and player-facing content, all thematically tied to one of the greatest artifacts in D&D lore, which is the Deck of Many Things.” That magical item is an infamous deck of cards that can either greatly benefit an adventurer or doom them, depending on what card they draw.
After that will come a Phandelver Campaign (final title presumably to come), an adventure that will expand on the classic Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure that came in the initial Fifth Edition starter set. However, Lindsay warns that this expanded campaign will be “tinged with cosmic horror.”
Finally, in the fall, Planescape, a classic D&D setting from the ‘90s that sends adventures across various planes of existence, will make a return in Fifth Edition. Like Spelljammer earlier this month, the Planescape release will be a three-book package tucked into one slipcase. Spelljammer: Adventures in Space featured a DM/player-focused book, a Monster Manual, and an adventure book, so it stands to reason that the Planescape collection will be similar.
Before any of that, though, D&D needs to close out 2022 with Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen and the accompanying board game Dragonlance: Warriors of Kryn. The events of the adventure (and the board game, which has the ability to tie into and affect the events of the campaign) take place during the earlier stages of the fabled War of the Lance.
Kate Irwin, D&D’s Principle Art Director, says the art for the book — including the two-page spreads that open each chapter, take inspiration “from movies like Saving Private Ryan or 1917, where you are involved in the characters in the movie but you also get this feeling of being a part of something so much bigger.”
Dragonlance will be available as a standalone book or as part of a deluxe edition featuring the Warriors of Kryn game, too. For the first time, D&D is offering a physical and digital bundle. Long requested by players, the new move is made possible since Wizards of the Coast acquired the leading D&D virtual tabletop, D&D Beyond in April. Players can preorder a bundle here, either the deluxe or standard editions, and get access to the content digitally on D&D Beyond and receive a physical copy by mail. (At this time, there does not appear to be a way for people who purchase a physical book at a brick-and-mortar store to be able to get digital access.)
Those who preorder the physical-digital bundle will get early digital access on Nov. 22, a couple of weeks before the standard Dec. 6 release date.
Looking for more fantasy? Check out the new original series Vampire Academy on Peacock, premiering Thurs., Sept. 15.
