Dungeons & Dragons Announces Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall, New Adventure Book Featuring Red Wizards of Thay

Paul Farquhar · Monday at 3:30 PM

Parmandur said:
Campaign Adventure and tie-in material.

They were working on the red wizard adventure long before they started work on the new FR books. It got put on hold in the rush to get the 2024 rules out on time, and has now been repurposed to accompany Arcane Unleashed, a core rules supplement focusing on arcane magic classes. Neither product has much to do with the FR setting books.

Parmandur said:
We know thst the book is set to be ~192 pages and has ~100 pages of

You put it on the cover, you don’t bury it in the text. One thing all Forgotten Reslms setting books have in common is Forgotten Realms on the cover.

Parmandur · Monday at 4:30 PM

Paul Farquhar said:
They were working on the red wizard adventure long before they started work on the new FR books. It got put on hold in the rush to get the 2024 rules out on time, and has now been repurposed to accompany Arcane Unleashed, a core rules supplement focusing on arcane magic classes. Neither product has much to do with the FR setting books.

Was it delayed? Has the been officially stated anywhere? Arcane Unleashed is a product that has a number of highly thematic Subclasses, sure, but the crunch still doesn't account for the page count. The Adventure tie in having material that ties into the Adventure seems likely.

Paul Farquhar said:
You put it on the cover, you don’t bury it in the text. One thing all Forgotten Reslms setting books have in common is Forgotten Realms on the cover.

It is on the cover, both have FR characters front and center and are co-branded as a story Season. Few Forgotten Realms products for 5E have said "Forgotten Realms" on the cover.

Paul Farquhar · Monday at 5:21 PM

Parmandur said:
Was it delayed? Has the been officially stated anywhere

The “Red Wizard adventure” was first mentioned (by Perkins I think) about three years ago. There is a freebee sample on DDB.

mamba · Monday at 5:25 PM

Paul Farquhar said:
The “Red Wizard adventure” was first mentioned (by Perkins I think) about three years ago. There is a freebee sample on DDB.

three years is about the normal time for a product to get finished, maybe upper end but not extraordinarily out

Paul Farquhar · Monday at 5:27 PM

mamba said:
three years is about the normal time for a product to get finished, maybe upper end but not extraordinarily out

But no one mentions it until it is well on in development, for it to have been mentioned then it must have started at least a year earlier.

Parmandur · Monday at 6:36 PM

Paul Farquhar said:
The “Red Wizard adventure” was first mentioned (by Perkins I think) about three years ago. There is a freebee sample on DDB.

He mentioned it a bit ago, right, it takes a while for these things to percolate. I wouldn't be surprised if they originally intended for the Adventure to be a companion to a unitary FR Setting book before that mestatisized into two books.

Now we have a Forgotten Realms specific Adventure with a co-branded supplement thst has a FR character on the cover.

Parmandur · Monday at 11:37 PM

So, sitting here thinking about it...the DM Adventure portion looks to be ~112 pages. If, as seems probable, Agalrond is the core area for PCs to be based out of, the average length of the regional gazateers in Adventures in Faerun is ~36 pages. Strategic use of the compact DMG short Adventure format would probably help the book punch above it's weight, with some climactic big Dungeons that get more detailed.

For player side material, the main FR PC book already covers the Red Wizards and Rashemeni Wanderer Backgrounds, and the various magic School Backgrounds here along with some others could really help make the region a distinct high magic sub-Setting thst can also be looted for homebrew.

Jared Rascher · Tuesday at 1:16 AM

I definitely get the feeling if this is the reworked version of the Thay adventure Perkins was talking about, that it got delayed a bit in the middle, and probably got reworked a bit. They generally didn't mention details of an adventure unless it was within about a year or so of coming out. Those layoffs were no joke, it seemed like they were all hands on deck just to deliver the core books within spitting distance of the anniversary.

I don't know how much they plan on picking up on plot threads from AL or other sources, but there was a Red Wizard in exile in Aglarond recruiting allies for an attempted coup in some of that backstory.

MonsterEnvy · Tuesday at 2:17 AM

Paul Farquhar said:
Further inspection of the alt cover: I think the head on the left might be a bone devil rather than undead.

Demons and devils and liches (oh my)!

It's a Death Tyrant, the undead Beholder.

Paul Farquhar · Tuesday at 7:35 AM

MonsterEnvy said:
It's a Death Tyrant, the undead Beholder.

I was wondering about the significance of the dots.

That would be CR 14, so suitable for party level 10.

Dungeons & Dragons Announces Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall, New Adventure Book Featuring Red Wizards of Thay

Paul Farquhar

Legend

Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him

Paul Farquhar

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mamba

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Paul Farquhar

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Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him

Parmandur

Book-Friend, he/him

Jared Rascher

Explorer

MonsterEnvy

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Paul Farquhar

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