D&D 5E The New D&D Book: Candlekeep Mysteries: 17 Mystery Adventures [UPDATED!]

The cover of the upcoming D&D book has been revealed! Candlekeep Mysteries is an anthology of 17 mystery-themed adventures for character levels 1-16. The image has appeared on Penguin Random House's product page for the book. UPDATE! Penguin's product page appears to have now vanished, but we now have the product description! Thanks to @Fezzwick for spotting that! An anthology of...

The cover of the upcoming D&D book has been revealed! Candlekeep Mysteries is an anthology of 17 mystery-themed adventures for character levels 1-16.

Screen Shot 2021-01-11 at 6.35.34 PM.png


The image has appeared on Penguin Random House's product page for the book.



UPDATE! Penguin's product page appears to have now vanished, but we now have the product description! Thanks to @Fezzwick for spotting that!

An anthology of seventeen mystery-themed adventures for the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

Candlekeep attracts scholars like a flame attracts moths. Historians, sages, and others who crave knowledge flock to this library fortress to peruse its vast collection of books, scribbled into which are the answers to the mysteries that bedevil them. Many of these books contain their own mysteries ̶—each one a doorway to adventure. Dare you cross that threshold?

· 17 mystery-themed D&D adventures, each tied to a book discovered in the famed library fortress of Candlekeep
· Easy to run as stand-alone mini adventures or to drop into your home campaign
· Adventures span play from levels 1 to 16
· Includes a full poster map of Candlekeep, plus detailed descriptions of the various locations, characters, and creatures that reside within it
· Introduces a variety of Dungeons & Dragons monsters, items, and non-player characters (NPCs)

Candlekeep Mysteries is a collection of seventeen short, stand-alone D&D adventures designed for characters of levels 1–16. Each adventure begins with the discovery of a book, and each book is the key to a door behind which danger and glory await. These adventures can be run as one-shot games, plugged into an existing Forgotten Realms campaign, or adapted for other campaign settings. This book also includes a poster map of the library fortress and detailed descriptions of Candlekeep and its inhabitants.


There have been mentions of an upcoming adventure anthology since 2019, with Kate Welch's name attached, along with other celebrity adventure writers including Critical Role's Marisha Ray, and actor Deborah Ann Woll. There were also suggestions that the authors might all be women. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow!

 

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Reynard

Legend
I don't think D&D is a very good venue for mysteries, generally speaking.

That said, I would love to see some of these adventures really lean into the things that make mysteries hard to do in D&D. If "speak with dead" make mysteries hard, don't nerf it but instead make it integral. If detect magic or locate object or whatever are a problem, have the perpetrator really have thought about them -- not just to block them but to lead the investigators astray. MAKE the PCs raise the murder victim to find out who the killer was (hint: it was the murder victim all along).

More likely there will be a lot of "you can't do that in this house/castle/dungeon."
 

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darjr

I crit!
Elminsters Guide to Candlekeep is awesome and I’m going to read it again in anticipation.


Confrontation at Candlekeep is also good, but kinda a one shot with a lot of combat. Also going to reread.

note those are my affiliate links.
 

Whizbang Dustyboots

Gnometown Hero
I don't think D&D is a very good venue for mysteries, generally speaking.
If I was your DM, and you determined that you absolutely had to murder an NPC and not get caught, I am confident that you could figure out a way to do it and (probably) get away with it.

I don't think elaborate game-breaking stuff is required to make mysteries work, if you assume that the murders that PCs will care about (not a crime of passion between jealous goatherds, in other words) will include NPCs who know about the existence of magic and how to deal with it.
 


R_J_K75

Legend
If TFtYP is any gauge for page count, at 17 adventures in this new book, (and I'm just guessing) but that comes out to about 13 pages per adventure?
 

Lidgar

Gongfarmer
If TFtYP is any gauge for page count, at 17 adventures in this new book, (and I'm just guessing) but that comes out to about 13 pages per adventure?
Depends on how much they have up front and in appendices, but that's in the right range. Assume some will be short (almost Side Treks, a few pages long), others longer (maybe 20 pages).
 

OB1

Jedi Master
If TFtYP is any gauge for page count, at 17 adventures in this new book, (and I'm just guessing) but that comes out to about 13 pages per adventure?
Which is more than enough to set up bite sized mysteries
2 pages - Questgiver NPC and intro to setting
3 pages - Social NPCs with clues to mysterious location and/or reasons for the mystery
5 pages - Exploration of mysterious location and confrontation with the cause of the mystery
2 pages - Conflict with cause of the mystery
1 page - Resolution
 


R_J_K75

Legend
Depends on how much they have up front and in appendices
I did take this into account when I came up with that number, but I think youre correct that there will be some variation in page count between adventures. I might consider running a few at that length if they were different types of mysteries.
 


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