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.

 

[Starmaster]

Reading the back of the book copy, I'm wondering how excited people will be to have five of the adventures be about metallic dragons. One or two -- gold and silver, especially -- sure, but how many players will be excited to also have copper, bronze and brass dragons they have to care about, compared to going up against five different chromatic dragons?

I know there are some fans of all of these metallic dragons, but realistically, if you are told "this is going to be an adventure with a dungeon and a dragon," you're probably not hoping for a shapechanged bronze dragon giving you a fetch quest. I'm hoping the writers have some ideas on how to make the metallic adventures as compelling as "and now we need you to sneak into a black dragon's lair and rescue the hostages without getting caught."

In the 5.5 MM promo video for the new dragons, the WotC folks talked about some scenarios where good PC may have to fight good-aligned dragons, but I agree that it's always much more fun to go up against those nasty, scheming chromatics. I, also, think it would be better to have more adventures revolving around chromatics than metallics.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In the 5.5 MM promo video for the new dragons, the WotC folks talked about some scenarios where good PC may have to fight good-aligned dragons, but I agree that it's always much more fun to go up against those nasty, scheming chromatics. I, also, think it would be better to have more adventures revolving around chromatics than metallics.

Maybe they could double up and have the PCs team up with a metallic against a chromatic, so all bases could be covered without players having to participate in a joke contest with a copper dragon.

 

[Weiley31]

I had to take a double take at the alt cover.

Update: okay, seeing the WHOLE makes it look a whole heckin better to be quite honest.

 

[Hussar]

It is such a shame they messed up Shattered Obelisk.

You have one of the best adventures of the last 30 years as your base. Then you have untold amounts of digital ink online that was spent by folks explaining ways to expand and enhance it that you can gain inspiration from. But nah just shove some unrelated adventure on the back end of the book and call it a day.

All that said I don't know the corporate direction she was given so hard to say if that was her fault or someone above her, but they squandered the potential.

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.

I can't really disagree with this.

The problem with Shattered Obelisk, IMO, is that it is far too formulaic. You have some really cool dungeon crawls. But, they're all pretty much the same - find the keys to the end room, open the end room, fight the boss, move to the next dungeon and do it again. As a resource for some great one shot dungeons? Fantastic. As an actual adventure? Too repetitive.

The fact that you basically spend all of the first half of the module developing all these ties to Phandelver, only to have none of that matter in the second half doesn't help. You go from this really open ended sandbox adventure to a straight as an arrow linear adventure is so jarring.

There's lots to like in Shattered Obelisk, but, there is lots to dislike too.

 

[ngenius]

Unless special reflective paint is used, I much prefer the standard cover this time round. I miss Hydro74 art.

 

[Reynard]

I had to take a double take at the alt cover.

Update: okay, seeing the WHOLE makes it look a whole heckin better to be quite honest.

I want a felt blacklight poster of that cover.

 

[Azzy]

I want a felt blacklight poster of that cover.

I hate to admit it, but that would be sweet!

 

[Distracted DM]

@Morrus

Here are the full covers:

I'm still not a big fan of either, but I think I actually like the alternate one better. Not a fan of the regular cover graphic design at all. (If that's going to be the new layout for 2024 standard covers going forward, I think I'll only be getting alt covers from now on, even if I don't really like them.)

One thing to note: it looks like each dragon will be getting its own art style as a sort of "extensive visual history of D&D's dragons over the last 50 years."

Source: D&D Unveils Cover Art for the Dragon Delves Anthology at MagicCon: Chicago

If anything I like the back of the alternative cover the best. I think @Burnside was right about it being a shame that the cover didn't lean harder into the style like we see with their other works.

Edit: you know I'm thinking about it, two ways to look at this: we don't know if they were asked to dial back the style, or if they decided to do it themselves, or if they think that this is spot-on for their style. Ofc we can critique and speculate!
On the other hand, from my experience creatives are their own harshest critics... So we might be spot on