Dungeons & Dragons Teases New Campaign Settings

Dungeons & Dragons seems to be preparing to explore brand new campaign settings. Last week, EN World had the opportunity to visit Wizards of the Coast headquarters and get new details about D&D's 2025 slate. While much of the focus was on the newly announced Eberron: Forge of the Artificer book or the upcoming pair of Forgotten Realms book, the D&D design team is also looking at expanding their official multiverse to include brand new worlds.

When asked about the decision to return to Eberron in 2025, the D&D design team noted that keeping the Fifth Edition ruleset allowed them to grow the game instead of rehash it. "One of the opportunities that we have by revising the game, as opposed blowing it up and starting over, is we can actually move forward," said Jeremy Crawford, game director . "And I can't wait until we can tell you about 2026 and 2027."

"With Jeremy Crawford taking on the game director role and then Chris Perkins taking on the creative director role is that we were able to really reestablish a world building environment," added Jess Lanzillo, VP of D&D Franchise at Wizards of the Coast. "What does that mean? We can really establish our worlds and settings like the Forgotten Realms and also look to creating new ones again. That's something that we are working on and we don't have anything to really discuss today other than to tell you like we are re-establishing everything that we have and we are going to make some new stuff too."

While Wizards of the Coast has integrated Magic: The Gathering worlds and Critical Role's Exandria as campaign settings for 5th Edition, D&D's last truly new campaign setting was Nentir Vale, a 'points of light' setting that established small bastions of civilization in an otherwise dark world. In 2023, D&D introduced the Radiant Citadel, a new city within the Ethereal Plane that was connected to numerous new civilizations and worlds briefly touched on in anthology books.

 

[Duo Maxwell]

If WotC does an honest to goodness new setting, I would like to see them do something radically different from other D&D settings. Give me a world of flying islands and airship pirates. give me a aquatic setting. Give me super far future science fantasy. give me a dyson sphere.

If they do an update to the Champions of Mystara: Heroes of the Princess Ark boxed set, which was basically airship articles reprinted from Dragon magazine, I would gladly buy this.

No other D&D setting has ever presented me with an airship shaped like a twenty-sided die.

 

[TwoSix]

not sure why you need a setting specifically for this, can’t you do that with any of the existing ones?

A setting built around the knowledge that people from Earth randomly appear and become adventurers because they have amazing powers.

Not a one-off thing, a setting built around that knowledge.

 

[Parmandur]

A setting built around the knowledge that people from Earth randomly appear and become adventurers because they have amazing powers.

Not a one-off thing, a setting built around that knowledge.

So, thinking about what they could bring to that game-wise...Backgrounds built around different types of Portal traveller's with distinct new Origin Feats?

 

[Staffan]

All that is old is new again.

Isn't that Morrus's thing?

 

[TheSword]

Birthright's lore limited its country rulership system to a select number of nobles and races. The setting would need a massive rework to begin with to make room for lots of the class and flavor options that have been added since 2e, but plenty of players would love to rule a country but not necessarily be a noble. The lore changes to the setting to make it playable with the expectations of the contemporary audience would practically necessitate a new setting anyway, so why use the name and lore when there's a lot more potential for baggage?

A little fact checking needed in this post. This isn’t true. Anyone can be a regent, and any race you don’t need to be a noble, or human. Regency is a magical investiture of a dead gods power. You can be born to it, but you can also have it passed to you, or steal it. For instance Rogr Aglondier of Ilien (one of the first domain books) was a common wizards apprentice and received his regency from his master. The books are filled with dozens of non-human/elf/dwarf regents. It was also designed for most of AD&D classes. Which classes wouldn’t fit in the setting/rules as written?

Reboot an extremely obscure setting from the TSR days, you'll only really appeal to the small handful of people who remember that gameline and have a big risk of pissing them off. Whereas if you make a setting from scratch you can probably have lots of mainstream outlets carry a story about "D&D introduces its first new world since 2008!" or however they want to phrase it, and because it's a fresh world you can make sure to jam it packed with elements more relevant to the consumers of today (whose tastes may not align particularly with you and I, the kind of people enthusiastic enough and with enough free time to discuss this on a weekday).

It was a great setting but it came towards the end of TSRs run and so was always going to suffer from that. The products were great, with the exception of the first two adventures which like most AD&D2e modules, were pretty dire. The rest of the products were actually very innovative though. One of the best monstrous villain books with truly great backstories. A solid adventure anthology. The domain books packed with hooks and lore. Mass combat rules on land and sea. Plus the domain system. There was a collaborative element to Birthright that was well ahead of its time. People knock the domain system but I’ve lost track of how many hours I spent on the Gorgan’s Crown, which was almost all domain management.

EDIT: To elaborate; Birthright restricts the player to one system of government. Fresh lore could allow players to run republics, theocracies, military dictatorships, anarcho-syndicalist communes, whatever.

No it doesn’t. There were Magicracies, Theocracies, Bandit kingdoms, Merchant houses, city states etc in the starter domains. There doesn’t even need to be one regent in the kingdom - the rules specifically suggest council of regents as a viable approach to run a kingdom campaign.

I’ll go further and say the down time rules of 5e would support domain play more than any previous edition, now it has been established that periods of more abstract non-adventure play are part of the game.

Birthrights setting has strong notes of The Witcher series and obviously Game of Thrones. It’s Iron Throne was being fought over a year before Martin’s first book was released.

If Witcher style, Game of Thrones shenanigans won’t appeal to a modern generation of gamers, then I don’t know what to say to you.

I’d love to see a three book set… Domain rules, bloodlines and mass combat. The separate gazetteer of Anuire with the regents and domains. Finally a really good starter adventure that showcases the system.

 

[TwoSix]

Isn't that Morrus's thing?

That was T.H.E.N., this is N.O.W.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Some guesses for new settings. Primal World they keep bringing up & Domains of Delight.

 

[Tonguez]

Didn't like 4 people buy that setting when it was new. If I recall from ben Riggs' numbers, it was NOT a popular setting.

Birthright was popular enough to win the Origins Award for best setting in 1996.
The major problem with Birthright was that its modules was rubbish and didnt know how to integrate Domain Play with adventuring.

The settings use of Unique Elite Monsters was awesome and I for one would love to see proper Domain level play integrated, but Bastions seem to be a mediocre nod without taking the risk.

Pathfinders Kingmaker showed that it can be done, but as much as it pains me I think the Birthright ship has long since sailed to the west

 

[Reynard]

Birthright was popular enough to win the Origins Award for best setting in 1996.

Critical success and commercial success are not always (or even often) linked.

 

[Reynard]

Some guesses for new settings. Primal World they keep bringing up & Donains of Delight.

That's an interesting idea: the First World as a playable setting. it could even be a high level "First Age Middle Earth" style setting with the high in "high fantasy" turned up to 11.