D&D 5E Is Dragons of Stormwreck Isle Based on the 80s D&D Cartoon?

We've known about the new starter set for D&D, Dragons of Stormwreck Isle, for some time, but we've known precious little about the boxed set.

The folks over at comic book.com have a theory, though -- they posit that the adventure is based on the 1980s Dungeons & Dragon cartoon. Looking closely at the cover art (which is very blurry) it looks a lot like Hank the ranger with his energy bow, and Diana the acrobat leaping over the dragon's lightning breath, while the one piece of interior art we can see features somebody with a glowing shield -- the signature magic item of Eric the cavalier in the cartoon.

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But that's not the only clue! WotC has been teasing the cartoon in various social media posts over the last couple of weeks, as has D&D Beyond.

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The cartoon ran in the 1980s and featured a group of children who found themselves in the magic world of Dungeons & Dragons, and were granted magical items by the mysterious Dungeon Master. Those children became Hank the ranger, Eric the cavalier, Diana the acrobat, Presto the magician, Shelia the thief, and Bobby the barbarian. The show also featured Uni the unicorn, plus the Dungeon Master, the villain Venger, and, of course Tiamat the 5-headed dragon.

A couple of years ago, a Brazilian car commercial featured a live action version of the D&D cartoon heroes.

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[Parmandur]

Signs pointing to maybe.

 

[Sacrosanct]

They did escape. Maybe not televised, but the script was written, and complet d via old school radio voice acting, with some of the original voice actors.

That's good enough for me to consider "official"

 

[Steampunkette]

That... makes a ton of sense.

Though I'd be kind of shocked if they tried to introduce new, young, impressionable players to a 40 year old cartoon. Then again, there's enough nostalgia to it to get us older players to introduce our kids to the game with Saturday Morning Cartoon Fondness, too.

Honestly, I kind of hope they do the whole setting.

 

[Jer]

They did escape. Maybe not televised, but the script was written, and complet d via old school radio voice acting, with some of the original voice actors.

That's good enough for me to consider "official"

Canon script left open whether they stayed or not.

Fan production of the script changed the ending!

 

[volanin]

This renault commercial... it's brilliant! I could watch this over and over non-stop!

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I'm not sure I'm excited about this, and even less so for an "acrobat" sub-class. But anything new that will get new players in - I'm for it.

I hope though that it's a L1-5 (or even higher!) progression like Phandelver, instead of a bunch of semi-related like Icespire Peak.

 

[Undrave]

Those artworks sure point that way. Etiher it's actually the cartoon world, or it's just an hommage, is something we'll have to see.

 

[Faolyn]

I'm surprised that they aren't actually going to be making a new D&D cartoon (or at least, that they haven't announced that they're working on one). The old concept would still work well enough, there's tons of streaming services available so that they wouldn't be competing for time slots, and D&D is definitely popular enough.

 

[Dire Bare]

They did escape. Maybe not televised, but the script was written, and complet d via old school radio voice acting, with some of the original voice actors.

That's good enough for me to consider "official"

There was a D&D promotional comic, set in the Realms, that featured older versions of the kids from show. They are trapped in the Forgotten Realms! Or at least, they were pre-Spellplague.

Not that any of that matters . . . they escaped in my campaign!