D&D 5E Official Candlekeep Mysteries Announcement & Info About 'The Canopic Being' Adventure

The official announcement of the book that was revealed yesterday includes an image of the alternate cover. Clint Cearley did the standard cover and Simen Meyer did the alternate cover.

It looks like this isn't the book spearheaded by Kate Welch and featuring Marisha Ray and Deborah Ann Woll, as they don't feature on the list of designers.

The hardcover book will be available on March 16th for $49.95, and the alternate cover will be available from local game stores. Instead, the press releases describe it as a "New Book Full of Short Adventures from Up-and-Coming Designers".

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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?

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.

Adventure writers include: Graeme Barber, Kelly Lynne D’angelo, Alison Huang, Mark Hulmes, Jennifer Kretchmer, Daniel Kwan, Adam Lee, Ari Levitch, Sarah Madsen, Christopher Perkins, Michael Polkinghorn, Taymoor Rehman, Derek Ruiz, Kienna Shaw, Brandes Stoddard, Amy Vorpahl, and Toni Winslow-Brill.

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WotC's announcement on Facebook includes additional writers not mentioned on the product page -- Hannah Rose, and Chris Lindsay. I asked the company who does WotC's press stuff and they confirmed that they contributed but not as authors.


The Canopic Being
One of the adventures, by Jennifer Kretchmer, is called The Canopic Being. It's 10-12 pages, designed for a single session.

Like all the adventures it starts in Candlekeep, the greatest library in the Forgotten Realms, and features a dungeon located in Tashalar far to the south of the Sword Coast. As a wheelchair user, Kretchmer's adventure is a dungeon crawl beneath the earth, filled with fantasy elevators and ledges accessible by ramps.

The word "Canopic" refers to ancient Egyptian vases or jars often used during the mummification process. Canopic jars store and preserve the body's internal organs.
 

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Why can't the architect of the dungeon have also been in a wheelchair, so made their own dungeon so they could move around easily? Seems like an entirely easy (and normal) justification.

In my homebrew D&D setting such luxeries would only be designed for the upper class. But I can perfectly imagine a duke fitting his estate with ramps for his disabled son. And a duke's estate makes for a great dungeon.

Disabilities can also be a fantastic character trait. I had a baroness npc in my campaign who was missing an arm. Rather than wanting it restored with a spell, she kept is as a badge of honor, and as proof of what sacrifices she was willing to make to protect her people. She was by far one of the most impressive and charismatic characters I have ever written.
 
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Really, there's no reason a DM couldn't design every location in a campaign to be accessible to a wheelchair-user and/or centaur.

I've looked at the rules for the Combat Wheelchair before out of curiosity, and to be honest I'd expect such a thing to be a very expensive magic item just comparing it to other magic items. You can upgrade it to levitate up and down stairs, for example. Still, a DM could just hand wave the cost away, too.
 


Urriak Uruk

Gaming is fun, and fun is for everyone
In my homebrew D&D setting such luxeries would only be designed for the upper class. But I can perfectly imagine a duke fitting his estate with ramps for his disabled son. And a duke's estate makes for a great dungeon.

I was thinking that because this dungeons seems mummy themed, that maybe the person who built the tomb, or commissioned the tomb built, was once a wheelchair user themself. If you can afford to build a dungeon, you can probably afford putting in some ramps!
 


Stormonu

Legend
Prior to 5E, I'm pretty sure we've never had "standard" and "alternative" covers of any books released at the same time. This is new to 5E.

However, WotC has reprinted the core books of earlier editions with special alternative, or limited edition, covers. The core books, plus a few extra near-core titles like Unearthed Arcana.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there have been alternative covers since 1E.

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Even 2E had them

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3.5E's

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They usually came out with later printings, though - but they were available while the original covers were still available.
 
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embee

Lawyer by day. Rules lawyer by night.
A minor point of pedantry: Candlekeep isn’t located in Tashalar. I believe the adventure’s dungeon is.

Candlekeep is at the southern end of the Sword Coast, just south of Baldur’s Gate.

Tashalar is located on the isthmus between Chult and Halruaa.
Is it still an isthmus or is it now a penisula?
 



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