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.


white dragon ed kwong.jpg

green dragon.jpg

red dragon.jpg


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

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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

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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

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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.
 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer


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I thought even Radiant Citadel had some kerfuffles upon release. Something about "savages" if I recall correctly.
Not pulling anything up with that in Google. Could you be thinking of Tomb of Annihilation?
I’m pretty sure that was the Candlekeep book, which referred to the frog people (Grippli?) as “savage.”
 


Probably, but hopefully not. If they are fey, they need some racial trait that lets them ignore Detect Evil and Good and other abilities like that. The intrigue of changelings is mostly lost if wide-magic Eberronians can just cast a low level spell to reveal them.
Fey Changelings should easily disguise their type as well as their form, appearing as if Dragon, Elemental, Celestial, Humanoid, whatever.
 

I'm likely experiencing D&D burnout or fatigue, but nothing that WotC is releasing sounds very appealing or exciting. It all feels very 'been there, saw that'.
Have you considered more Forgotten Realms? That’s probably what you’re missing.

(I agree. They’ve basically declared that they will not be doing anything actually new for ten years.)
 



They’ve basically declared that they will not be doing anything actually new for ten years.
I would call Radiant Citadel, the MTG stuff and Wild Beyond the Witchlight to be WotC striking out for new territory. Even before we saw the resulting books, there were howls of outrage from some quarters that WotC was not essentially updating all the 2E setting books to 5E first before doing anything new.

I would love for them to go all-in on new stuff, myself, but they clearly are being pulled in multiple directions on that score.
 

re: the mystery book, it would make sense if it was a big book-length mini-campaign, created by an outside vendor, like the early 2014 adventures were. That would off-load most (but not all) of the work involved to someone out of house, which would explain it being added to the release calendar at this late date, probably not require any UA development time (since we're already getting UA for a later product) and add a missing type of book to the calendar.

Also, hooray for Heroes of the Borderlands for being moved up a month!
 

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