D&D (2024) Dragon Delves Cover Revealed

At MagicCon: Chicago this last weekend, WotC revealed the cover art for July's Dragon Delves hardcover.

Two covers were revealed--the regular cover by Greg Staples, and the alternative cover by Justine Jones.

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Dragon Delves, coming out July 8th, is an anthology of 10 dragon-themed D&D adventures ranging from levels 1-12. Each adventure features a different type of dragon.

 

[dave2008]

Those are largely the same minor nitpicks I don’t care about.

I don’t really find the Eve of Ruin stuff negatives. I will find out with time if it’s too easy. (Though I really don’t agree that Vecna himself is too easy)

I've got you covered if you need some buffed villians: Apostles of Ruin

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We will see Lost Mines again. It's too good a module with too big a fan base not to pop up again in 7 to 10 years. Like Keep on the Boarderland or Ravenloft it will keep coming back.

A hardcover 15th anniversary edition for it in 2029 that combined it with Dragon of Icespire Peak would be an insta-buy for me.

 

[Distracted DM]

I’m running Eve of Ruin right now and my party got their asses kicked throughout the first dungeon with the rod piece. Idk why people are having issues but I haven’t had them so far.

It seemed very low-threat to the suggested party level at each step of the way. I'm not sure which first dungeon you're referring to- I can't imagine it's the Neverdeath Graveyard dungeon, that one has level 10 characters fighting wights and cult fanatics. I think the hardest part was a Marid that isn't there to fight, and the leader was a cr9 necromancer but is supposed to be by himself except for a nothic as backup.

 

[GarrettKP]

It seemed very low-threat to the suggested party level at each step of the way. I'm not sure which first dungeon you're referring to- I can't imagine it's the Neverdeath Graveyard dungeon, that one has level 10 characters fighting wights and cult fanatics. I think the hardest part was a Marid that isn't there to fight, and the leader was a cr9 necromancer but is supposed to be by himself except for a nothic as backup.

I’m talking about the first one with a piece of the Rod of Seven Parts. In the Underdark.

 

[Jolly Ruby]

I dunno, man. She was co-lead with Chris Perkins on Golden Vault. The two three books with her as solo lead are real mixed bags (Strixhaven, Shattered Obelisk and Eve of Ruin). Not a great track record in my book.

While I do agree Shattered Obelisk and Eve of Ruin are far from the best 5e books, I think she have an advantage with Dragon Delves: they are separate adventures instead of a campaign book. The number one flaw in Shattered Obelisk is making a Lost Mine a worst adventure by attaching an unrelated plot to it, while Eve of Ruin have some cool ideas that would be better if they were unrelated short adventures instead of a campaign.

 

[BookTenTiger]

That pink dragon cover is awesome. I 100% support more covers in this style. I love how eye-popping and grungy it feels.

 

[The Soloist]

For the alternate cover, I would've preferred the same style as the alternate core books.

 

[pukunui]

While I do agree Shattered Obelisk and Eve of Ruin are far from the best 5e books, I think she have an advantage with Dragon Delves: they are separate adventures instead of a campaign book. The number one flaw in Shattered Obelisk is making a Lost Mine a worst adventure by attaching an unrelated plot to it, while Eve of Ruin have some cool ideas that would be better if they were unrelated short adventures instead of a campaign.

Fair enough! I shall hold out some hope that this is a series of good adventures. We all know how we need more shorter adventures!

As I said before, though, I would really like these to be usable in Eberron without too much fuss, as my current episodic Eberron campaign is where I would most likely use these adventures.

(If it's anything like the preceding adventure anthologies, each adventure will include some suggestions on how to use it in several different settings. Eberron is usually included in these. However, Eberron has a very different take on dragons than FR or Greyhawk.)

 

[Parmandur]

Fair enough! I shall hold out some hope that this is a series of good adventures. We all know how we need more shorter adventures!

As I said before, though, I would really like these to be usable in Eberron without too much fuss, as my current episodic Eberron campaign is where I would most likely use these adventures.

(If it's anything like the preceding adventure anthologies, each adventure will include some suggestions on how to use it in several different settings. Eberron is usually included in these. However, Eberron has a very different take on dragons than FR or Greyhawk.)

I think that, as with a lot of things from Eberron, standard D&D takes on Dragons have moved progressively closer to Keoth Baker's approach over the years. The Dragon stuff in the new MM generally feels very Eberron influenced and compatible, and with the Eberron '24 booster coming out about a month after this anthology that is no doubt very fresh in the designer' minds.

We know that in addition to the 10 Adventures in this anthology, they apparently have 3 whole Campaign outlines on how to string them together in the style of the Campaign outlines in the DMG Greyhawk Gazateer, and dollars to donuts one of those outlines is Draconic espionage skuldugegery either linked implicitly or explicitly to the Draconic Prophecy approach.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For the alternate cover, I would've preferred the same style as the alternate core books.

Me too, but I don't think WotC wants to be locked-in to a single style of alternate covers. We had a good run of those with Hydra76 with the 2014 books and they were never bad, but I think everyone responded really well when we got a larger variety of artists and designs later on. (The Candlekeep Mysteries book that looked like an old timey library book was fantastic, for instance.)

Of course, that means that not every alternate cover will work for everyone, but it should mean that, eventually, there will be at least one cover that totally connects to each given fan.