A new Dungeons & Dragons guidebook is coming out later this year. DK Books has announced The Book of Dragons, a new guidebook featuring the dragons of D&D. The new book is written by Michael Witwer and will be released in August 2025. The 224-page book isn't a rulebook but rather a licensed book that focuses on the lore of dragons. The book is written at least partially from the perspectives of Tiamat and Bahamut.
The book will cost $40, with the description found below.
This definitive guide unveils the rich lore, diverse types, and legendary characters of the dragon realm. Essential for every D&D fan, it offers unparalleled insights into these iconic creatures that for decades have been the heart and soul of the game. Elevate your campaigns and deepen your knowledge—discover why The Book of Dragons is a must-have for every adventurer's collection.
I feel like there have been three or four official hardcover books all about D&D dragons published in like the last couple of years. I can understand Fizban's but is the appetite really here for so many naughty word books about naughty word fictional animals?
I also understand that like a lot of people get pulled into Dungeons and Dragons because they just read a book about dragons and then found out it was cross-promotion, so is that what wizards of the coast is trying to do here?
That amethyst dragon art is simply amazing. I was disappointed a bit by their art in Fizban's, but this is so much better.
(The bulky end of the tail looked too big in the Fizban's art in my opinion, while this art keeps that bulk, but dials it back to more reasonable and aesthetic proportions)
That amethyst dragon art is simply amazing. I was disappointed a bit by their art in Fizban's, but this is so much better.
(The bulky end of the tail looked too big in the Fizban's art in my opinion, while this art keeps that bulk, but dials it back to more reasonable and aesthetic proportions)
Just another reason to intensely dislike the new Gold design then.
The fish-like pseudowings were the thing I disliked most about the old design. They decided that was the single most important part.
Edit: I'd also say the top-down stretched view looking like weapons, at least, isn't unique to Gold. Some of the other concept art also pretty clearly has such an effect.
Of course, the only design I dislike more than Gold (which, as noted, I dislike a lot!) is the Black....because those wings are straight-up phobia fuel for me, as I have arachnophobia. Not as strong as it could be...but pretty strong. The unexpected sight of a spider has, in fact, made me scream bloody murder more than once in my life.
I get why folks appreciate that. I, personally, think metallic and chromatic dragons should remain clearly Western (even if the Gold was, for actually only a relatively brief time, the only Eastern-style dragon), and then separately there should also be Eastern-style dragons. IIRC, that's what 2e and 3e did? I could be mistaken about 2e but I know 3e (and PF1e) did that.
My problem with the nu-Gold is that it isn't either thing. It isn't an Eastern dragon, like at all, and the stumpy, almost vestigial pseudowings look, frankly, feeble and useless, not graceful and powerful. The face definitely isn't Eastern, it's 100% Western, especially the horns. The only vaguely Eastern elements it has are an excessively long body, and the "whiskers" (and even those are more a D&D invention than a traditional thing).
If they were going to make it Eastern, make it Eastern. But since they clearly don't want to do that, make it Western. We instead got something that's not only not either one, it's not even half either one (albeit closer to Western overall).
It's the extensions from the digits on the wings. They're straight-up spider legs. They have nowhere near enough flesh to be manipulable the way they are, instead looking like chitinous appendages.
Spoilered for folks like me who might not appreciate arthropod leg references.
I also don't care for the pretty blatantly xenomorph-inspired knobs along the spine, but that's not an intense dislike thing, just...it feels like lazy aesthetics, aping a singular notorious visual rather than doing something distinctive but acting like it is distinctive.
I get why folks appreciate that. I, personally, think metallic and chromatic dragons should remain clearly Western (even if the Gold was, for actually only a relatively brief time, the only Eastern-style dragon), and then separately there should also be Eastern-style dragons. IIRC, that's what 2e and 3e did? I could be mistaken about 2e but I know 3e (and PF1e) did that.
The Lung Dragons appeared in 2e's Oriental Adventures. The Imperial Dragons appeared in PF1. Eastern-style dragons do need to make a comeback, as we could then role-play as Eastern-style Dragonborn.
The AD&D 1E Fiend Folio had a whole group of six or seven “Oriental” dragons. Since the book was written in 1979 and published in 1981, it used the older Wade-Giles transliteration for the Chinese word for “dragon” (lung), which has now been largely replaced by Pinyin (long). So there were East Asian dragons available for use in D&D throughout the 1980’s and beyond, even if they were not used much in other official materials. Oriental Adventures (1985) had a chapter of Asian monsters for use in the Kara-Tur setting, but for four or five years the only official East Asian monsters in D&D were the kirin and ogre mage (oni) from the MM, the lung dragons and penanggalan from FF, the dragon horse from MM2, and maybe a few others I have forgotten.
The 1E FF was kind of a strange place for Asian dragons to appear, but then the book was a bit of a grab bag. It was produced by TSR UK and included lots of reader submissions to the “Fiend Factory” column from White Dwarf magazine (some of which were too weird or quirky to catch on with D&D fans), but it was also the first official appearance of the githyanki and githzerai, and collected a bunch of important monsters that had first appeared in early AD&D modules (dark elves, deep gnomes, kuo-toa, etc). Unfortunately that meant that you had to have FF if you wanted to use Asian dragons in your game.
I get why folks appreciate that. I, personally, think metallic and chromatic dragons should remain clearly Western (even if the Gold was, for actually only a relatively brief time, the only Eastern-style dragon), and then separately there should also be Eastern-style dragons. IIRC, that's what 2e and 3e did? I could be mistaken about 2e but I know 3e (and PF1e) did that.
My problem with the nu-Gold is that it isn't either thing. It isn't an Eastern dragon, like at all, and the stumpy, almost vestigial pseudowings look, frankly, feeble and useless, not graceful and powerful. The face definitely isn't Eastern, it's 100% Western, especially the horns. The only vaguely Eastern elements it has are an excessively long body, and the "whiskers" (and even those are more a D&D invention than a traditional thing).
If they were going to make it Eastern, make it Eastern. But since they clearly don't want to do that, make it Western. We instead got something that's not only not either one, it's not even half either one (albeit closer to Western overall).
It's the extensions from the digits on the wings. They're straight-up spider legs. They have nowhere near enough flesh to be manipulable the way they are, instead looking like chitinous appendages.
I was half-right. 2e did introduce actual, legit Asian-inspired dragons, as noted above. But it also still had the wingless Gold. It was 3e that introduced the (IMO profoundly ugly) fish-fin-wings. Which means, at this point, no particular form for the Gold is any more traditional than any other--they've all got roughly the same history.
I was half-right. 2e did introduce actual, legit Asian-inspired dragons, as noted above. But it also still had the wingless Gold. It was 3e that introduced the (IMO profoundly ugly) fish-fin-wings. Which means, at this point, no particular form for the Gold is any more traditional than any other--they've all got roughly the same history.
