D&D General Dungeons of Drakkenheim & Lairs of Etharis: WotC Adds Third Party Products To D&D Beyond

Products from third party creators include a cosmic-horror campaign and a collection of horror fantasy adventures.

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WotC has just announced that it is adding products from Ghostfire Gaming and Dungeon Dudes to the D&D Beyond platform. The products in question are Ghostfire's Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis and Dungeon Dudes' Dungeons of Drakkenheim (produced in conjunction with Ghostfire Gaming) which made over $1M on Kickstarter in 2021.

Ghostfire is often seen on the TTRPG Kickstarter charts and has been involved with multiple 5E million-dollar campaigns.

While material from Critical Role has appeared on DDB, this is the first time that something from a publisher without a visibly established prior relationship has been seen there.


Today Wizards of the Coast announced a partnership with publisher Ghostfire Gaming to bring two exciting new products to its digital toolset on D&D Beyond. Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis showcases twenty horror-fantasy adventures with more than 75 new monsters while Dungeons of Drakkenheim presents a full campaign set in a ruined city for players to explore created by the popular Dungeon Dudes YouTube channel. Maps, monsters, and more in these offerings will be available for Dungeon Masters to use across D&D Beyond, including full integration in the Maps feature available to subscribers. With these two additions and more on the horizon, Dungeons & Dragons continues to invest in its talented partners and the inspiring creative community and surrounding the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game.

“It's incredibly important to us to showcase the ingenuity of the D&D community, and we’re excited to share the love of fantasy roleplaying with more fans by bringing the Dungeon Dudes and Ghostfire Gaming to D&D Beyond,” said Marjory Laymon, Vice President of D&D Beyond Product and Tech at Wizards of the Coast. “This is just the first step as we’ve got even more surprises planned for next year as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of D&D.”

Grim Hollow and Drakkenheim really are passion projects for Ghostfire and the Dungeon Dudes, respectively, with rich worlds meant to be explored and have stories woven within,” said Ben Byrne, Creative Content Director at Ghostfire Gaming. “That so many new D&D fans will be introduced to them through D&D Beyond is incredibly humbling.”

The locations, maps, and monsters within these offerings will be available to all fans who purchase them to use in their campaigns on D&D Beyond. Players can add feats, spells, and magic items to their character sheets, choose a new background for their character, or indulge in crafting items from parts harvested from adventuring. Dungeon Masters can quickly reference more than a hundred new monsters, faction NPCs, and more in the D&D Beyond compendium.

Dungeons of Drakkenheim began like every other D&D campaign; as a labor of love shared amongst a few friends at the game table (and a small audience of passionate viewers!) We started this project as a way to express our love of the game and showcase a world filled with all the aspects of fantasy role-playing games that we enjoy most: a blend of gripping action and cosmic horror where the player’s choices matter,” said Montgomery Martin and Kelly Mclaughlin, the Dungeon Dudes. “The original Drakkenheim characters were built and played on D&D Beyond, and so sharing the adventure we created on the platform is a dream come true. We can’t wait to hear the stories of other players’ adventures through the ruined city.”
 

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UngainlyTitan

Legend
Supporter
Yeah, there's a coding component at DDB that appears to require human intervention; at least at the moment, they can't just press a button and convert a text file into something that will look right or connect to all the other pieces of the system properly.
I would not expect anything like this in the near future unless AI really gets smart. I would expect that the content to be uploaded requires some markup or other parsing to allow stuff like the encounter tool and character builder to actually work.
 


MNblockhead

A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
Also, I think they're coding everything to actually work
True. I would like to see more development to support homebrew. I would think that tools to bring in rule books and modules would be easier than custom subslasses, monsters, and weapons. But then it would certainly be a lot more effort to support entire new rule systems for followers, strongholds, etc. I can understand that WotC would want to prioritize making sure that DnD Beyond provides the best support for the official rules, but I hope they work towards better home brew tools that would also allow third parties to sell their content.
 

timbannock

Hero
Supporter
Yes, they have it on their timeline of upcoming projects. They haven't promised details, but they have continuously brought up working on Creative Commons versions of prior Editions.
To clarify, you're saying Wizards of the Coasts have said unequivocally they are releasing prior editions into a CC?

Could you point me to one of these timelines?

I can't seem to find anything regarding an update to the initial statements I mentioned regarding past editions going into the Creative Commons. In fact, I'm having trouble even finding those initial "exploratory" statements in any form other than the videos announcing the 5E SRD entering creative commons.
 

Parmandur

Book-Friend
To clarify, you're saying Wizards of the Coasts have said unequivocally they are releasing prior editions into a CC?

Could you point me to one of these timelines?

I can't seem to find anything regarding an update to the initial statements I mentioned regarding past editions going into the Creative Commons. In fact, I'm having trouble even finding those initial "exploratory" statements in any form other than the videos announcing the 5E SRD entering creative commons.
Yes, they keep bringing it up in the periodic community updates.

 


Nikosandros

Golden Procrastinator
Yes, they keep bringing it up in the periodic community updates.

One "issue" about this, is that they talk about reviewing previous SRDs, so that would seem to limit it to 3.0 and 3.5. Technically, there's also a 4e SRD, but it contains little gaming material. Despite my wishes, I don't think that there will be a SRD for TSR-era D&D, much less DDB support.
 


Reynard

Legend
One "issue" about this, is that they talk about reviewing previous SRDs, so that would seem to limit it to 3.0 and 3.5. Technically, there's also a 4e SRD, but it contains little gaming material. Despite my wishes, I don't think that there will be a SRD for TSR-era D&D, much less DDB support.
I wonder how many additional years that review will take. Long enough for people to forget, I'd bet.

Is there anyone publishing using the 3.x SRD?
 

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