Forgotten Realms Books to Have Several Digital DLCs, Including One Featuring Asterion

Wizards of the Coast plans to release several "digital DLCs" alongside the upcoming Forgotten Realms rulebooks. This week, Game Informer released a pair of articles about the upcoming Forgotten Realms rulebooks. Tucked away in the article is the announcement that the upcoming releases will include several "digital DLCs" that expand on the new setting. One example was Asterion's Book of Hungers, which focuses on urban vampire adventures featuring the character from Baldur's Gate 3.

No other details were made available about the upcoming releases, such as whether the new supplements will be paid DLC or free to D&D Beyond subscribers. Wizards has released several digital-only supplements alongside their various books, ranging from mini-bestiaries to supplementary adventures, but all were free to D&D Beyond subscribers or available as pre-order bonuses.

Since the Forgotten Realms books aren't currently available for pre-order, it's hard to say whether this is a new strategy or simply a continuation of current works. The fact that Wizards commissioned art specifically for Asterion's Book of Hungers and the usage of the phrase "digital DLC" suggests that this might be a new monetization scheme for the company, albeit one that makes sense given the growing use of D&D Beyond's marketplace.

 

[GarrettKP]

Game Informer released its article detailing the upcoming Forgotten Realms books for Dungeons and Dragons, and one small but important note is the inclusion of “several digital DLC” supplements.

“Astarion’s Book of Hungers is one of several digital DLCs that will further expand the new setting, in this case with a specific genre focus on urban vampire adventures.”

What other supplements are you hoping might accompany these books?

 

[Henadic Theologian]

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Game Informer released its article detailing the upcoming Forgotten Realms books for Dungeons and Dragons, and one small but important note is the inclusion of “several digital DLC” supplements.

“Astarion’s Book of Hungers is one of several digital DLCs that will further expand the new setting, in this case with a specific genre focus on urban vampire adventures.”

What other supplements are you hoping might accompany these books?

Hard to say until we find out more about the DLCs (DLCs for PAPER Books just sounds weird, this isn't a video game).

I do wonder if Astarion's Book of Hunger will update the Dhampyr species. I also wonder what FR city he will use as his example setting for a Vampire City.

 

[Spectral Anomaly]

I'm guessing these won't be free.

 

[Desdichado]

DLCs? LOL!

 

[GarrettKP]

Hard to say until we find out more about the DLCs (DLCs for PAPER Books just sounds weird, this isn't a video game).

I do wonder if Astarion's Book of Hunger will update the Dhampyr species. I also wonder what FR city he will use as his example setting for a Vampire City.

I really doubt they will make a “Vampire City.” More likely it’s just rules and adventure ideas for how to run a Vampire villain preying on people in a city like Baldurs Gate.

 

[GarrettKP]

DLCs? LOL!

Certainly a strange choice of words. But their modern day audience has heavy overlap with video games so using the same language makes some amount of marketing sense.

 

[Alzrius]

Even with the fall of Sigil, their VTT initiative, I suspect that WotC hasn't given up the proverbial ghost on trying to make digital offerings the future of D&D, so this is really no surprise.

I just thought they'd try to be a little more circumspect than flat-out calling these DLC, though.

 

[Christian Hoffer]

LOL, I'm literally writing this for the front page as we speak.

 

[Alby87]

Remember the UA we didn't know what book they were for? Here it is. Probably a lot of subclasses are "DLCs" (that should be... well, "downloadable" per definition XD)