September means two D&D books, one of which is Arcana Unleashed, a book for both players and DMs. Like prior sourcebooks, this one follows the conceit of having a legendary character, in this case, Alustriel Silverhand, daughter of the god of magic, collecting and providing commentary on magical lore from the D&D multiverse. My review of the companion adventure, Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall, will be separate.
Subclasses
New subclasses are the main point of early discussion for Arcana Unleashed. The 2024 Players Handbook featured four subclasses for wizards, the Abjurer, Diviner, Evoker, and Illusionist. Those are not included in Arcana Unleashed, and I’m fine with that. While it would be completest if it did, they’re in the PHB which virtually every player has, so why waste the space?
The Arcane Domain is an option for clerics who want to explore arcane knowledge. Among other things, it means that this devotee always has Detect Magic, Magic Missile, Magic Weapon and Nystrul’s Magic Aura prepared starting at level 3, Counterspell and Dspel Magic starting at level 5, Arcana Eye, Leomund’s Secret Chest at level 7, and Bigby’s Hand and Teleportation Circle at level 9.
I like this version of the Arcane Archer, but that’s partially because I love Curving Shot. I also like the eight options for Arcana Shot, but think that only having three types of magical ammunication is a bit stingy. I do like Darkening Ammunition, Unlocking Ammunition, and Vine Ammunition, but want more options.
The Conjurer Wizard is fine, but only one thing about it intrigues me—Splintered Summons. This lets you summon two creatures instead of one, essentially doubling up a spell like Summon Aberration. They each have their stat block, follows the rules of the summoning spell that’s being splintered, etc. only they only have half the hit points of usual. Despite that limitation, this could be very effective if used wisely.
Similarly, the Enchanter is fine, and like the Conjurer, has Split Enchantment as a level 6 feature. That allows it to be cast at a higher level and then target a second person as well. At level 14 they can also Alter Memories.
The Transmuter can be effective, but the only thing I really find interesting is the level 10 Shape-Shifter ability, which means the Polymorph spell is always prepared, and if you use it on yourself you can modify it to be able retain your memories, be able to speak, your stats for Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, proficiencies, feats, and class features. You can also cast transmutation spells that don’t require material components. I could have a lot of fun with that.
To be clear, when I say a subclass is fine, that just means its class features are rather predictable or don’t excite me. They can still be very useful, and I don’t have any real objection to them.
Warrior of the Mystic Arts Monk is likely to please fans of Dragon Ball Z and the like. In addition to being able to cast spells, they get Mystic Focus, Focused Strike, and Improved Mystic Fighting Style.
Dealing With the Dead
In my review of Ravenloft: The Horrors Within I complained that they hyped it as having all of the horror-themed subclasses, but it was missing the necromancer. It turns out that’s because it’s included here. Personally, I would have made an exception and duplicated it in both books, but I understand why Wizards didn’t. This version of the Necromancer definitely gives you a lot to work with.
For example, at level 5 the class ability Grave Power lets you use Arcane Recovery to decrease exhaustion by one with Grave Resilience. You can also have damage from your spells ignore necrotic damage resistance with Overwhelming Necrosis.
Level 6 Undead Thralls means you always have Animate Undead prepared and can cast it without using a spell slot. Undead Fortitude means that so long as you’re holding your spellbook, any undead you create or summon have additional hit points equal to your Intelligence modifier + half your Wizard level. Withering Strike allows, if you’re holding your spellbook, undead within 60 feet of you to do extra necrotic damage equal to your Intelligence modifier when they attack.
The level 10 class ability Harvest Undead lets you, if bloodied but not at zero HP, drain an undead you control to zero HP as a Reaction, and for you to regain that same amount.
Death’s Master at level 14 lets you, if you’re holding your spellbook, Bolster Undead, giving them temp hit points so long as they’re within 60 feet of you. The temp HP are equal to your wizard level and you can do this with “any number of undead you have created or summoned with a necromany spell” within that distance range.
At the same class level, Extinguish Undead lets you make an undead you control that has been dropped to zero HP explode, causing necrotic damage. On a failed Dexterity save those hit by the explosion take necrotic damage and can’t take Reactions until the start of their next turn.
To Serve a Dying God
The Vestige Patron Warlock is the most interesting of the AU subclasses. A dying, forgotten god is sharing its power with the warlock in the hopes of regaining its prior power. The god can be of any moral inclination, and when you reach level 2, the vestige will have regained enough power to become the warlock’s vestige companion, which is friendly to you and your allies regardless of whether you select the Celestial, Fiend or Undead type.
While it’s tempting to compare the Vestige to the Binder from 3.5, Amanda Hamon, the Arcana Unleashed project lead, said the Vestige Patron Warlock is not a Binder under another name. Binders summon, Vestige Patron Warlocks do not.
It does, however, add a lot of role-playing possibilities, especially for a long campaign as the pact between the warlock and the Vestige begin to slowly regenerate the god’s power. The things the warlock and Vestige do could be perceived as miracles that could gradually rebuild its base of worshippers.
The Vestige Companion has an AC equal to 13 plus your charisma modifier and hit points equal to 4 + four times your warlock level. Not bad, especially since those will increase as you level up.
In combat, the Vestige acts on your turn. Normally, it can only take the dodge action unless
Magical Factions
Arcana Unleashed introduces nine magical factions, one for each of the eight types of magic, plus a ninth, the appropriately called Ninth Quill. That’s the faction for spies and thieves to collect lore and artifacts, though the reason for acquisition can vary from “to keep it out of dangerous hands” to personal gratification.
Overall, I love having additional factions. They can used or ignored as a DM or group sees fit. They’re easy ways to stir the plot pot. Each also connects to a background.
That said, I’m more intrigued by some factions than others. Crucible Keepers (they study the effects of magical natural disasters), Horizon Weavers (conjurers studying summoning magic), and Seers of the Sea and Sky (oracles using water and sky) don’t particularly spark my imagination. The Ninth Quill, The Bejeweled Conclave (entertainers, mediators, and other positions you’ll find at a royal court), Covenant of the Grave (seeking knowledge about death), Phantasmic Circus (showy illusions), and Bringers of the Cosmic Dawn (transmuters that seek alien intelligence) absolutely do. And the benevolent actions of the Sheltering Hands can always be worked into a campaign.
Thankfully they were smart enough to not limit each faction aligned with a type of magic to only wizards or wizards specializing in that type of magic. A chart details the character classes that might be drawn to or useful for a specific faction.
Each faction gets a decent-sized section with details like goals and activities, leadership and organization, joining the group, and so forth. There’s also a renown chart, member benefits, a mini trinket chart, and more—basically the basics an DM would need to get started and then tailor it for their campaign.
Speaking of Backgrounds…
Backgrounds are actually in the front of the book, but it makes more sense to discuss them in conjunction with factions since nine of the backgrounds are connected to factions. The 10th one is Familiar Trainer, a background that will make a certain type of player very happy.
In short, Familiar Trainer allows any PC of any class to have a magical familiar. The flavor text says that you’ve had a magical familiar since you were young, you’ve learned to work together, and can’t imagine life without your friend. It grants the Familiar Friend feat, and skill proficiencies in Animal Handling and Arcana.
Agent of the Ninth Quill does pretty much what you’d expect—proficiency with thieves’ tools, Arcana, and Sleight of Hand. That actually describes most of the backgrounds: You can pretty much predict the proficiencies from the background description.
Still, Cosmic Dawn Experiment shakes it up a little. The feat Transmuted Anatomy. Magic has basically warped your body, increasing speed by 5 feet, and giving advantage on saving throws that would force a shape-shift. When you fail a Constitution save, you can make a 1d4 Reaction roll and add that to the save, possibly reversing the fail. And, of course, you can set up a lot of role-playing potential in terms of what your transmuted anatomy looks like.
Feats
Personally, I’m not a fan of feats because I feel like they’re a game mechanic that adds unnecessary complexity rather than using existing mechanics, albeit a little differently, to achieve the same results. That said, Arcana Unleashed has some interesting feats.
In addition to the ones I already cited, Portal Jumper lets you spend 15 feet of movement to teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 15 feet. The uses of this equal your proficiency bonus but only one can be used per turn. A long rest restores it. You also get resistance to either necrotic, psychic or radiant damage.
Elemental Familiar requires the Familiar Friend feat, and then allows you to imbue your familiar with elemental power, choosing from acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder damage, while also granting one ability score of your choice by 1. That gives them resistance to the chosen type of damage, As a bonus action for imbued familiar can unleash an energy pulse, using a reaction to do it. It forces those affected to make a dexterity save and if failed, they take 2d4 damage of the chosen elemental type and knocks them prone.
Otherworldly Familiar is similar to Elemental Familiar but imbues the familiar with otherworldly might and also granting an ability score increase. The familiar gets resistance to either necrotic, poison, psychic, radiant or thunder damage as well as the ability to phase walk. Warlike Familiar similarly provides a +1 to an ability score and allows you to always have the Battle Familiar spell prepared.
Other boons are useful but not terribly exciting. Each type of magic has its own adept feat, granting additional spells and benefits. They’re more utilitarian but could be fun in the right hands. All in all, Arcana Unleashed has 29 feats.
Spells
A book called Arcana Unleashed has to have spells, so we get 33 new and revised spells. At the top of the list is Battle Familiar. It allows you to summon an animal of your choice and you can pick if it’s the Celestial, Fey, or Fiend type. Regardless of type and appearance, it uses the Battle Familiar stat block. You also get to choose whether it’s the Brute, Flyer or Stalker type, which dictates some things from the stat block. A Battle Familiar rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn.
Wither and Bloom deals necrotic damage within a 10 foot-radius sphere while also allowing one being of your choice in that sphere to regain hit points. Summon Plant lets you conjure the spirit of an animated plant, which gets its own stat block. It’s akin to Battle Familiar but flora instead of fauna.
I think people will like Grave Ground. It allows the caster to cause skeletal hands to erupt from the ground in an area of up to four 10-foot squares that you can arrange as the caster likes. Enemies in the area must make a strength save to break free from being grabbed. If they fail, they take 6d6 necrotic damage. This can be cast at higher levels, too.
Magic Items
Arcana Unleashed has 47 entries for magic items, some of which are updates from older editions of D&D like Queen Ehlissa’s Marvelous Nightingale from Greyhawk, which orwas originally published in the Book of Artifacts. That item is a legendary artifact but Arcana Unleashed has a mix of magic item types, including common ones like Lucky Foot. It’s a one-time use item that lets you reroll when you rolled a 1 on an ability check or saving roll. The new roll stands, and the item disappears.
Wand of Freshness is handy, casting Purify Food and Water. Magical Manacle is useful for bounty hunter, binding a target to you.
But my favorite part of the magic item section is the rules on how to evolve magic items. It’s suggested that magic items evolve when the player graduates to the next tier of power, which is a sensible guideline. An item can be evolved multiple times.
It also provides five already created evolving magic items to provide examples. I really like the Keyhole Dagger.
When it’s an uncommon magic item, the Keyhole Dagger, it’s a +1 magical dagger for attacks and damage. On your attack action, you can transform it to a hand axe or mace until the start of your next turn. When it’s a rare magic item, the bonus becomes +2, and it can transform into any simple melee weapon. The very rare version is +3, and can transform into a battleaxe, longsword, rapier, scimitar, or warhammer.
Bestiary
Arcana Unleashed has 19 magical creatures. That includes stat blocks for an archmage of each magic variety, and new animated spells (Living Thunderwave, Living Vitrolic Sphere, and Living Cone of Cold).
Spellguards basically specialize in protecting against magical attacks. This type of NPC would fit in well with the new factions. We also get a full stat block for Venger and a table of plots for Venger so you can pop him into any campaign.
Speaking of Venger, the book finishes with a short adventure for 1st level characters. It’s a fairly straightforward adventure. Use the Venger’s schemes table to get started, and the players get to explore the Tomb of the Shadow Serpents. It’s enough for new players to get the hang out of how D&D works or for experienced players to get used to their new characters.
The Look
The art style for Arcana Unleashed is bright, colorful, and does a good job of trying to capture the wonders of magic. Art director Sergio Jaramillo commissioned terrific pieces, all of which fit the theme in my opinion.
For the mainstream cover, I really like what Javier Charro did. The art of Alustriel Silverhand is downright sunny as she emerges from an archway, surrounded by glowing magic. It will stand out on a game store shelf from other books.
For the game store exclusive cover, Couple of Kooks features symbols for the eight schools of magic. It’s a cool-looking cover that would look right in an arcane library. It’s printed on silver paper, which allows the metallics in the art to shine through. There’s also a slight pearlescent effect thanks to how the illustration from Couple of Kooks combined with the design work by WUP (White Under Print).
The Verdict
While very different in tone and style, I couldn’t help comparing Arcana Unleashed to Ravenloft: The Horrors Within from earlier this year. The latter was pitched as being the ultimate compendium for everything you needed to know to run horror within D&D, and while it had some very good material, it also copied certain sections exactly from the earlier Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft without making that very clear. The marketing hype also didn’t make it clear that it only had two new subclasses.
Arcana Unleashed and its promotional team learned from those mistakes. While it has new subclasses, too, it was also upfront about ones that were revised, like the 5E Necromancer. Overall, that helps to set better expectations for this book. The fact that the revised necromancer is essentially a glowup, also helped.
I like Arcana Unleashed because it strikes a very good balance between providing good material in terms of mechanics (subclasses, backgrounds, feats, etc.) and setting the stage for great role-playing opportunities using the same material. When reading a RPG book makes me both think of what I could do in combat and how I could use it for good role-playing scenarios, I’m happy. Often material leans a bit more one way or the other.
I also really like the flexibility and growth provided by the options, like evolving magic items, imbuing your familiar with power, etc. There’s a lot of potential.
Last, but certainly not least, Arcana Unleashed has a very good section on creating magical worlds. It gives excellent advice on the sort of things you need to consider when creating your own campaign setting, and a chart that details the differences in how magic is handled and viewed in D&D’s established, official campaign settings.
Arcana Unleashed isn’t a perfect book because there is no such thing. But it is an improvement over R:THW (diving deeper into horror was a great idea, but the way they reused prior material was annoying for those who already own VRGtR) and an extremely useful magical supplement. Can you just make do with everything in the Player’s Handbook? Of course, but I don’t think a player or DM would regret getting Arcana Unleashed because it has a lot of rich ideas and good material for both PCs and campaign creation. Arcana Unleashed: A-.
Subclasses
New subclasses are the main point of early discussion for Arcana Unleashed. The 2024 Players Handbook featured four subclasses for wizards, the Abjurer, Diviner, Evoker, and Illusionist. Those are not included in Arcana Unleashed, and I’m fine with that. While it would be completest if it did, they’re in the PHB which virtually every player has, so why waste the space?
The Arcane Domain is an option for clerics who want to explore arcane knowledge. Among other things, it means that this devotee always has Detect Magic, Magic Missile, Magic Weapon and Nystrul’s Magic Aura prepared starting at level 3, Counterspell and Dspel Magic starting at level 5, Arcana Eye, Leomund’s Secret Chest at level 7, and Bigby’s Hand and Teleportation Circle at level 9.
I like this version of the Arcane Archer, but that’s partially because I love Curving Shot. I also like the eight options for Arcana Shot, but think that only having three types of magical ammunication is a bit stingy. I do like Darkening Ammunition, Unlocking Ammunition, and Vine Ammunition, but want more options.
The Conjurer Wizard is fine, but only one thing about it intrigues me—Splintered Summons. This lets you summon two creatures instead of one, essentially doubling up a spell like Summon Aberration. They each have their stat block, follows the rules of the summoning spell that’s being splintered, etc. only they only have half the hit points of usual. Despite that limitation, this could be very effective if used wisely.
Similarly, the Enchanter is fine, and like the Conjurer, has Split Enchantment as a level 6 feature. That allows it to be cast at a higher level and then target a second person as well. At level 14 they can also Alter Memories.
The Transmuter can be effective, but the only thing I really find interesting is the level 10 Shape-Shifter ability, which means the Polymorph spell is always prepared, and if you use it on yourself you can modify it to be able retain your memories, be able to speak, your stats for Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, proficiencies, feats, and class features. You can also cast transmutation spells that don’t require material components. I could have a lot of fun with that.
To be clear, when I say a subclass is fine, that just means its class features are rather predictable or don’t excite me. They can still be very useful, and I don’t have any real objection to them.
Warrior of the Mystic Arts Monk is likely to please fans of Dragon Ball Z and the like. In addition to being able to cast spells, they get Mystic Focus, Focused Strike, and Improved Mystic Fighting Style.
Dealing With the Dead
In my review of Ravenloft: The Horrors Within I complained that they hyped it as having all of the horror-themed subclasses, but it was missing the necromancer. It turns out that’s because it’s included here. Personally, I would have made an exception and duplicated it in both books, but I understand why Wizards didn’t. This version of the Necromancer definitely gives you a lot to work with.
For example, at level 5 the class ability Grave Power lets you use Arcane Recovery to decrease exhaustion by one with Grave Resilience. You can also have damage from your spells ignore necrotic damage resistance with Overwhelming Necrosis.
Level 6 Undead Thralls means you always have Animate Undead prepared and can cast it without using a spell slot. Undead Fortitude means that so long as you’re holding your spellbook, any undead you create or summon have additional hit points equal to your Intelligence modifier + half your Wizard level. Withering Strike allows, if you’re holding your spellbook, undead within 60 feet of you to do extra necrotic damage equal to your Intelligence modifier when they attack.
The level 10 class ability Harvest Undead lets you, if bloodied but not at zero HP, drain an undead you control to zero HP as a Reaction, and for you to regain that same amount.
Death’s Master at level 14 lets you, if you’re holding your spellbook, Bolster Undead, giving them temp hit points so long as they’re within 60 feet of you. The temp HP are equal to your wizard level and you can do this with “any number of undead you have created or summoned with a necromany spell” within that distance range.
At the same class level, Extinguish Undead lets you make an undead you control that has been dropped to zero HP explode, causing necrotic damage. On a failed Dexterity save those hit by the explosion take necrotic damage and can’t take Reactions until the start of their next turn.
To Serve a Dying God
The Vestige Patron Warlock is the most interesting of the AU subclasses. A dying, forgotten god is sharing its power with the warlock in the hopes of regaining its prior power. The god can be of any moral inclination, and when you reach level 2, the vestige will have regained enough power to become the warlock’s vestige companion, which is friendly to you and your allies regardless of whether you select the Celestial, Fiend or Undead type.
While it’s tempting to compare the Vestige to the Binder from 3.5, Amanda Hamon, the Arcana Unleashed project lead, said the Vestige Patron Warlock is not a Binder under another name. Binders summon, Vestige Patron Warlocks do not.
It does, however, add a lot of role-playing possibilities, especially for a long campaign as the pact between the warlock and the Vestige begin to slowly regenerate the god’s power. The things the warlock and Vestige do could be perceived as miracles that could gradually rebuild its base of worshippers.
The Vestige Companion has an AC equal to 13 plus your charisma modifier and hit points equal to 4 + four times your warlock level. Not bad, especially since those will increase as you level up.
In combat, the Vestige acts on your turn. Normally, it can only take the dodge action unless
- you are incapacitated or
- you use a bonus action to command it to use an action from its stat block or
- you sacrifice one of your attacks to command it to perform the Vestige Strike action.
- Fiendish Swap (Fiend): You and the Vestige can swap places if you’re within 60 feet of each other. The description does not specify line of sight, which adds flexibility.
- Cursed (Undead): Someone within 30 feet of the Vestige is cursed, causing to have disadvantage on all attack roles against you and the Vestige.
- Healing Touch (Celestial): A target touched by the Vestige regains 2d8 plus Charisma modifier hit points plus and the blinded, deafened or poisoned conditions end.
Magical Factions
Arcana Unleashed introduces nine magical factions, one for each of the eight types of magic, plus a ninth, the appropriately called Ninth Quill. That’s the faction for spies and thieves to collect lore and artifacts, though the reason for acquisition can vary from “to keep it out of dangerous hands” to personal gratification.
Overall, I love having additional factions. They can used or ignored as a DM or group sees fit. They’re easy ways to stir the plot pot. Each also connects to a background.
That said, I’m more intrigued by some factions than others. Crucible Keepers (they study the effects of magical natural disasters), Horizon Weavers (conjurers studying summoning magic), and Seers of the Sea and Sky (oracles using water and sky) don’t particularly spark my imagination. The Ninth Quill, The Bejeweled Conclave (entertainers, mediators, and other positions you’ll find at a royal court), Covenant of the Grave (seeking knowledge about death), Phantasmic Circus (showy illusions), and Bringers of the Cosmic Dawn (transmuters that seek alien intelligence) absolutely do. And the benevolent actions of the Sheltering Hands can always be worked into a campaign.
Thankfully they were smart enough to not limit each faction aligned with a type of magic to only wizards or wizards specializing in that type of magic. A chart details the character classes that might be drawn to or useful for a specific faction.
Each faction gets a decent-sized section with details like goals and activities, leadership and organization, joining the group, and so forth. There’s also a renown chart, member benefits, a mini trinket chart, and more—basically the basics an DM would need to get started and then tailor it for their campaign.
Speaking of Backgrounds…
Backgrounds are actually in the front of the book, but it makes more sense to discuss them in conjunction with factions since nine of the backgrounds are connected to factions. The 10th one is Familiar Trainer, a background that will make a certain type of player very happy.
In short, Familiar Trainer allows any PC of any class to have a magical familiar. The flavor text says that you’ve had a magical familiar since you were young, you’ve learned to work together, and can’t imagine life without your friend. It grants the Familiar Friend feat, and skill proficiencies in Animal Handling and Arcana.
Agent of the Ninth Quill does pretty much what you’d expect—proficiency with thieves’ tools, Arcana, and Sleight of Hand. That actually describes most of the backgrounds: You can pretty much predict the proficiencies from the background description.
Still, Cosmic Dawn Experiment shakes it up a little. The feat Transmuted Anatomy. Magic has basically warped your body, increasing speed by 5 feet, and giving advantage on saving throws that would force a shape-shift. When you fail a Constitution save, you can make a 1d4 Reaction roll and add that to the save, possibly reversing the fail. And, of course, you can set up a lot of role-playing potential in terms of what your transmuted anatomy looks like.
Feats
Personally, I’m not a fan of feats because I feel like they’re a game mechanic that adds unnecessary complexity rather than using existing mechanics, albeit a little differently, to achieve the same results. That said, Arcana Unleashed has some interesting feats.
In addition to the ones I already cited, Portal Jumper lets you spend 15 feet of movement to teleport to an unoccupied space you can see within 15 feet. The uses of this equal your proficiency bonus but only one can be used per turn. A long rest restores it. You also get resistance to either necrotic, psychic or radiant damage.
Elemental Familiar requires the Familiar Friend feat, and then allows you to imbue your familiar with elemental power, choosing from acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder damage, while also granting one ability score of your choice by 1. That gives them resistance to the chosen type of damage, As a bonus action for imbued familiar can unleash an energy pulse, using a reaction to do it. It forces those affected to make a dexterity save and if failed, they take 2d4 damage of the chosen elemental type and knocks them prone.
Otherworldly Familiar is similar to Elemental Familiar but imbues the familiar with otherworldly might and also granting an ability score increase. The familiar gets resistance to either necrotic, poison, psychic, radiant or thunder damage as well as the ability to phase walk. Warlike Familiar similarly provides a +1 to an ability score and allows you to always have the Battle Familiar spell prepared.
Other boons are useful but not terribly exciting. Each type of magic has its own adept feat, granting additional spells and benefits. They’re more utilitarian but could be fun in the right hands. All in all, Arcana Unleashed has 29 feats.
Spells
A book called Arcana Unleashed has to have spells, so we get 33 new and revised spells. At the top of the list is Battle Familiar. It allows you to summon an animal of your choice and you can pick if it’s the Celestial, Fey, or Fiend type. Regardless of type and appearance, it uses the Battle Familiar stat block. You also get to choose whether it’s the Brute, Flyer or Stalker type, which dictates some things from the stat block. A Battle Familiar rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn.
Wither and Bloom deals necrotic damage within a 10 foot-radius sphere while also allowing one being of your choice in that sphere to regain hit points. Summon Plant lets you conjure the spirit of an animated plant, which gets its own stat block. It’s akin to Battle Familiar but flora instead of fauna.
I think people will like Grave Ground. It allows the caster to cause skeletal hands to erupt from the ground in an area of up to four 10-foot squares that you can arrange as the caster likes. Enemies in the area must make a strength save to break free from being grabbed. If they fail, they take 6d6 necrotic damage. This can be cast at higher levels, too.
Magic Items
Arcana Unleashed has 47 entries for magic items, some of which are updates from older editions of D&D like Queen Ehlissa’s Marvelous Nightingale from Greyhawk, which orwas originally published in the Book of Artifacts. That item is a legendary artifact but Arcana Unleashed has a mix of magic item types, including common ones like Lucky Foot. It’s a one-time use item that lets you reroll when you rolled a 1 on an ability check or saving roll. The new roll stands, and the item disappears.
Wand of Freshness is handy, casting Purify Food and Water. Magical Manacle is useful for bounty hunter, binding a target to you.
But my favorite part of the magic item section is the rules on how to evolve magic items. It’s suggested that magic items evolve when the player graduates to the next tier of power, which is a sensible guideline. An item can be evolved multiple times.
It also provides five already created evolving magic items to provide examples. I really like the Keyhole Dagger.
When it’s an uncommon magic item, the Keyhole Dagger, it’s a +1 magical dagger for attacks and damage. On your attack action, you can transform it to a hand axe or mace until the start of your next turn. When it’s a rare magic item, the bonus becomes +2, and it can transform into any simple melee weapon. The very rare version is +3, and can transform into a battleaxe, longsword, rapier, scimitar, or warhammer.
Bestiary
Arcana Unleashed has 19 magical creatures. That includes stat blocks for an archmage of each magic variety, and new animated spells (Living Thunderwave, Living Vitrolic Sphere, and Living Cone of Cold).
Spellguards basically specialize in protecting against magical attacks. This type of NPC would fit in well with the new factions. We also get a full stat block for Venger and a table of plots for Venger so you can pop him into any campaign.
Speaking of Venger, the book finishes with a short adventure for 1st level characters. It’s a fairly straightforward adventure. Use the Venger’s schemes table to get started, and the players get to explore the Tomb of the Shadow Serpents. It’s enough for new players to get the hang out of how D&D works or for experienced players to get used to their new characters.
The Look
The art style for Arcana Unleashed is bright, colorful, and does a good job of trying to capture the wonders of magic. Art director Sergio Jaramillo commissioned terrific pieces, all of which fit the theme in my opinion.
For the mainstream cover, I really like what Javier Charro did. The art of Alustriel Silverhand is downright sunny as she emerges from an archway, surrounded by glowing magic. It will stand out on a game store shelf from other books.
For the game store exclusive cover, Couple of Kooks features symbols for the eight schools of magic. It’s a cool-looking cover that would look right in an arcane library. It’s printed on silver paper, which allows the metallics in the art to shine through. There’s also a slight pearlescent effect thanks to how the illustration from Couple of Kooks combined with the design work by WUP (White Under Print).
The Verdict
While very different in tone and style, I couldn’t help comparing Arcana Unleashed to Ravenloft: The Horrors Within from earlier this year. The latter was pitched as being the ultimate compendium for everything you needed to know to run horror within D&D, and while it had some very good material, it also copied certain sections exactly from the earlier Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft without making that very clear. The marketing hype also didn’t make it clear that it only had two new subclasses.
Arcana Unleashed and its promotional team learned from those mistakes. While it has new subclasses, too, it was also upfront about ones that were revised, like the 5E Necromancer. Overall, that helps to set better expectations for this book. The fact that the revised necromancer is essentially a glowup, also helped.
I like Arcana Unleashed because it strikes a very good balance between providing good material in terms of mechanics (subclasses, backgrounds, feats, etc.) and setting the stage for great role-playing opportunities using the same material. When reading a RPG book makes me both think of what I could do in combat and how I could use it for good role-playing scenarios, I’m happy. Often material leans a bit more one way or the other.
I also really like the flexibility and growth provided by the options, like evolving magic items, imbuing your familiar with power, etc. There’s a lot of potential.
Last, but certainly not least, Arcana Unleashed has a very good section on creating magical worlds. It gives excellent advice on the sort of things you need to consider when creating your own campaign setting, and a chart that details the differences in how magic is handled and viewed in D&D’s established, official campaign settings.
Arcana Unleashed isn’t a perfect book because there is no such thing. But it is an improvement over R:THW (diving deeper into horror was a great idea, but the way they reused prior material was annoying for those who already own VRGtR) and an extremely useful magical supplement. Can you just make do with everything in the Player’s Handbook? Of course, but I don’t think a player or DM would regret getting Arcana Unleashed because it has a lot of rich ideas and good material for both PCs and campaign creation. Arcana Unleashed: A-.
