D&D Adds Two New Books to 2025 Slate, Including New Eberron Book

Wizards of the Coast is adding two Dungeons & Dragons books to its 2025 slate, including Eberron: Forge of the Artificer in August and an unnamed mystery book in October. Eberron: Forge of the Artificer will include the revised Artificer class, several new backgrounds and feats, and revised Eberron species, including the “classic” species that previously appeared in Eberron: Rising From the Last War and the new Khoravar species. The design team for Eberron: Forge of the Artificer includes James Wyatt (who worked on the original Eberron line), with original Eberron designer Keith Baker consulting on the new book.

The Forgotten Realms Player's Guide will introduce circle-casting, a new way to cast spells. Full details on the new mechanic was not revealed, but it will involve multiple spellcasters working together to amp up a spell or give it additional effects. One example given was making a spell's effects permanent instead of having a temporary duration.

While no other details were provided for the October mystery book, EN World received a host of new details about the rest of D&D's 2025 slate during a press visit to Wizards of the Coast's new office headquarters last week.

Dragon Delves - July 8, 2025 Release Date

The previously unnamed dragon anthology is called Dragon Delves and will feature 10 short adventures, each of which features a different type of chromatic or metallic dragon. Three campaign options will be provided in the anthology to link together the adventures. Not every adventure pits players against dragons, especially as the adventures range from Level 1 to Level 12. The adventures are described as being relatively short and utilize the prep-style seen in the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. There's also an art section showcasing dragon art from across 50 years of D&D material.

Dragon Delves also noticably departs from Wizards' in-house style for D&D. Each adventure features art by a different artist, with the artists each providing their own style instead of conforming to the "fantastic realism" typically found in D&D books. Artists in Dragon Delves includes Luke Eidensink, Dominik Mayer, and Ed Kwong, with example pieces seen below.

Eberron: Forge of the Artificer - August 19, 2025 Release Date

Eberron: Forge of the Artificer serves as a "companion" book to Eberron: Rising From The Last War, with looks at different parts of Eberron that wasn't explored in the previous rulebook. The book will include new backgrounds, new bastion options tied to Eberron, and expanded rules for airships. The book also includes some changes/evolutions of Eberron lore. Notably, dragonmarked houses are no longer "species-locked" with characters able to join the houses later in life. Dragonmarks are also being made into feats as opposed to having a separate subsystem.

As a note, lead rules designer Jeremy Crawford specifically noted that the Khoravar are being considered a new species and distinct from half-elves. Crawford noted that this change came from Eberron lore itself and reflects how the existing lore of D&D is influencing the mechanics.

While the book won't include a full campaign, there are three chapters presented as campaign "options" with sample adventures. The three chapters, titled Sharn Inquisitives, Dragonmark Intrigue, and Morgrave Expeditions are organized using the methods explained in the Dungeon Master's Guide and include several sample adventures.

At one point, Eberron: Forge of the Artificer was described as a "Xanathar's Guide to Everything" book, but specific to Eberron. The book will also have a different page count and price point than typical D&D rulebooks, although no further details were given.


Heroes of the Borderland Starter Set - September 16, 2025 Release Date

Heroes of the Borderlands is a return to the Keep in the Borderlands, although "time has passed" since the original adventure module. The physical starter set will also contain several new innovations designed to make playing D&D easier for beginners. Notably, the starter set includes numerous new components including "tiles" that players mix and match to create new characters. The tile system was described as one of the quickest character creation systems ever for new players, short of giving them a pre-generated character. The Starter Set will also include support for having multiple DMs run the campaign.

Forgotten Realms Player's Guide - November 11, 2025 Release Date

The Forgotten Realms Player's Guide will feature new backgrounds, feats, and 8 new subclasses. The 8 new subclasses will be revealed today as part of an Unearthed Arcana (found here). Instead of rehashing existing subclasses, at least some of the subclasses are inspired by different parts of the Forgotten Realms. For example, the bard subclass is inspired by the Moonshae Isles, while the genie-themed paladin is focused on Calimsham.
The eight subclasses are:

• College Of The Moon (Bard)
• Knowledge Domain (Cleric)
• Purple Dragon Knight (Fighter)
• Oath Of The Noble Genies (Paladin)
• Winter Walker (Ranger)
• Scion Of The Three (Rogue)
• Spellfire Sorcery (Sorcerer)
• Bladesinger (Wizard)

Forgotten Realms Adventure Guide - November 11, 2025 Release Date

The Forgotten Realms Adventure Guide will contain deep dives on five different parts of the Forgotten Realms, each of which are meant to focus on a "different kind of fantasy." The five areas include the Moonshae Isles, Icewind Dale, the Dalelands, Calimshan, and Baldur's Gate. Each area will have short adventures for DMs to run or help launch a campaign.

When asked whether the Forgotten Realms would have any changes, Crawford said that some areas of the Forgotten Realms would have new developments, particularly in areas where Fifth Edition hasn't touched before. Additionally, Baldur's Gate 3 will be referenced in the artwork of the Baldur's Gate section and there would be some other nods to the game in that section as well.

 

[GarrettKP]

Could the October book be the Non-Humanoid player option book? Especially if WoTC wanted to capitalize on the meta joke of how everybody just seems like "Human wearing a Halloween mask?"

My guess would either be a Tasha's-Xanathar's Hybrid book or an Adventure book.

 

[GarrettKP]

For the October book, I'm calling a Magoc the Gathering connection.

IDK which site it was (maybe Comicbook) but one of them said WotC pushed back all MTG crossover plans until after 2025 to focus on the 2024 refresh and 50th anniversary celebration. So I would be shocked if it was.

 

[Afroconan]

I don't understand how you're all getting "Dragonmarks" will be decoupled from species.

The post talks about house membership not being tied to species. Which is not the same as the dragonmarks themselves.

I wouldn't be surprised if this were a new development in the settting but what I'm getting so far is that you can have an orc be a card carrying member of House Lyrandar when before it was made up only of half elves (both marked and unmarked).

 

[DEFCON 1]

I actually don't like this version of the greater marks, because it ties the higher-level abilities to classes. Say you have the Mark of Handling, giving you power over animals. In 3e, the Least mark gave you calm animal, charm animal, or speak with animals. Upgrading to Lesser got you dominate animal or greater magic fang, and Greater got animal growth or summon nature's ally V. So, the 5e equivalent would be to become a druid, or possibly a beastmaster ranger... but those all come with a whole host of other abilities. The Mark of Handling shouldn't let you call lightning or heat metal or rusting grasp. I mean, sure, you could play a druid and just not use those abilities, but that's a pretty severe nerf. Druids in particular also come with quite a bit of other baggage in being a guardian of nature and such. But that's not what the Mark of Handling is about. It's not about befriending animals – it's about commanding them, and in the long term changing them (3e even had a template for animals that had been bred by House Vadalis to be harder better faster stronger). You're not in harmony with nature, you are telling nature to sit down and shut up because I'm the one in charge, Balinor-damn-it.

Further, it means you can't combine them with other classes. One of the neat things about 3e dragonmarks was that you could use them to add some magic that would normally be outside your wheelhouse. You could be a wizard with the Mark of Healing, adding some healing to your repertoire. Or maybe a fighter with the Mark of Making, fighting beside your Warforged buddy and then healing them afterward. If higher-level Marks are restricted to being class abilities, all of that goes away.

That's all true. Don't disagree. But at the same time on the opposite side of the coin one could say that it weakens the thematic power of the dragonmarks when a character with a specific class can be better and more magically inclined to the theming of the mark. A Mark of Making might give you certain abilities, but they would pale in comparison to a mere regular Artificer. Or a Siberys greater-marked Sentinel still pales in comparison to your run-of-the-mill Fighter with their standard Fighter abilities.

But that's something I think was always true and will always be true when having to align the narrative idea of dragonmarks to the actual game mechanics of D&D-- Classes get so many features and mechanics that they will always thematically overpower anything you might get through a dragonmark. So Keith's comment in his book was trying to split the difference. Since a high-leveled Class will always overpower a Greater Dragonmark feat in terms of giving abilities that thematically apply to the House they belong to... aligning the Class to the Mark to be the "most powerful" Dragonmarked member of a House is probably narratively the best way to do it. A true Jorasco healer doesn't have just the selected healing spells that the feats might provide... they also have all the additional healing and resurrection functions that you can get from the Cleric class (and you can just refluff the Cleric class as needed if you don't want the religiosity as a part of being your ultimate Jorasco healer.)

Perfect system? Not at all. But it's always going to be an issue between the narrative of the setting and trying to create them game mechanically.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I wouldn't be surprised if this were a new development in the settting

There are no new developments in Eberron. It’s always set at zero year (10 years after the Great War). Any changes have always been that way.

 

[Afroconan]

There are no new developments in Eberron. It’s always set at zero year (10 years after the Great War). Any changes have always been that way.

I know.

Should've worded that as "a new development for the setting" instead of "in".

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I looooove the dragon illustrations.

Yeah, this is a big win.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

For the October book, I'm calling a Magoc the Gathering connection.

Tarkir book or even a big general Magic the Gathering Setting book, with multiple settings?

Perhaps the events at the end of the Dragonstorm arc create a link with the D&D multiverse?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I really like the eclectic art style for Dragon Delves.

However, I'm not enthusiastic about the adventures in this book being done in the style of the ones in the new DMG. Those are perfect examples of the amount of info you actually need to write down if you're just running a homebrew adventure for your group & not writing for publication. But for a PUBLISHED adventure, I want something much more fleshed out than those are.

Given the size of the book, they can't truly be the size of the DMG prompts, unless there's a lot of art to take up the rest of the pages.

 

[mamba]

My guess would either be a Tasha's-Xanathar's Hybrid book or an Adventure book.

I assume it is too early for the Tasha side, they just dropped a UA for the FR book subclasses, and that book comes out a month later