D&D Beyond Releases New Free D&D Adventure Featuring 1980s Cartoon Characters

D&D Beyond has a new adventure featuring the cast of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon as playable characters. Today, D&D Beyond released Uni and the Hunt for the Lost Horn as a free adventure for all D&D Beyond subscribers. The adventure, which was originally released at PAX West as a part of D&D's 50th anniversary celebration, is a Level 4 adventure. As part of the adventure, players can use pre-made character sheets for the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon characters, now grown up. A seventh character, Niko, is also in the adventure as a new character who came from a different set of real-world adventurers stuck in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Uni and the Hunt for the Lost Horn also features a grown-up Uni and Kelek of League of Malevolence and D&D toy fame.

You can take a look at the grown up cast of the D&D cartoon (plus Niko) below:

 

[Yaarel]

Which of these applies to the cartoon characters, who knows. It's probably just retcons but I guess there could be a more complicated story where they visited the Realm and it got merged into the Forgotten Realms (where were these characters during the Spellplague, hmm?) and then the world got separated back out again. But I doubt there's any such complex storyline sitting on a shelf somewhere at WotC.

Personally, I prefer the Cartoon takes place in the "Realm", and the Realm is somehow part of the Forgotten Realms. The Spellplague and various planar displacements can explain how both are true.

Pretty much, the only feature that needs to be explained is the Realm has three moons, while the Forgotten Realms has one. For example, the "extra" moons might be a local planar phenomenon while in the region on Toril, such as being able to also perceive the "echoes" of the moon of Feywild and the moon of Shadowfell.

 

[cbwjm]

Was Niko in the original cartoon? I can remember the others well enough but I'm drawing a blank on her and wonder if they just added her in so that they'd have a healer. It was the 80s/90s though so I don't fully trust my memory.

 

[Parmandur]

Was Niko in the original cartoon? I can remember the others well enough but I'm drawing a blank on her and wonder if they just added her in so that they'd have a healer. It was the 80s/90s though so I don't fully trust my memory.

She is new: apparently they have developed a new entirely seperate party that went through the same experience, but that is some sort of vague preview for something yet to come.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Personally, I prefer the Cartoon takes place in the "Realm", and the Realm is somehow part of the Forgotten Realms. The Spellplague and various planar displacements can explain how both are true.

Pretty much, the only feature that needs to be explained is the Realm has three moons, while the Forgotten Realms has one. For example, the "extra" moons might be a local planar phenomenon while in the region on Toril, such as being able to also perceive the "echoes" of the moon of Feywild and the moon of Shadowfell.

Didn't we have two Suns in Eltruiel for a while?

 

[Yaarel]

Didn't we have two Suns in Eltruiel for a while?

I am unfamiliar with Elturel. From reading a fansite, it seems the "Kingdom of the Two Suns" is a political name, presumably for two-leader government system?

But it could be literal, if one the suns is as a Fey echo, for example.

 

[Yaarel]

For reference, here are images of the three moons from the Cartoon. The three seem to be one prime moon with two auxiliary moons orbiting it. So the extra moons seem somewhat "echoey". It could easily be the prime moon is the one in the Material Plane, while the others are how it appears in the Fey and Shadow, but are somehow slightly off. In other words, the moon is part of a Fey Crossing and a Shadow Crossing.

Additionally, there is a region in North Central Faerun that is a strong candidate for where the "Realm" literally is. Thus it is one of the "Forgotten" Realms. Compare the official map of Faerun with a fan guesstimation of where things are from the Cartoon. This area of Faerun is near the region of Thay, which is to the southeast from it, hence the connection between Venger and the Red Wizards. Note, the "forest at the edge of the [known] world" in the "far west" is the famous elven forest, the High Forest, in northwest Faerun. The difference of names is between the local names (endonyms) from the Cartoon, versus the foreign names (exonyms) that the Faerun cartographers refer to.

(@DarkCrisis, how is this for canon reconciliations? At least when a DM chooses for the Realm to be part of the Forgotten Realms, this is a reasonably smooth way to do it.)

In my view, the roller coaster ride of the Cartoon, is simply the Witchlight Carnival which then transported the riders directly to Faerun on planet Toril.

Here is the where the Cartoon characters got on the ride, while the Witchlight Carnival appeared temporarily in reallife.

 

[pukunui]

@Yaarel those moons look more like Krynn’s moons (white, red, and black).

 

[Micah Sweet]

The stat blocks were, yeah, but the character races (species, now) were still Humanoids, and it was implied the monster versions were special cases, like the Eladrin. I'm fine with it; the inclusion of the Feywild in 2014 felt like a bit of an afterthought to not have to retcon too much of 4th Edition, but they've since significantly leaned into it and fleshed out the ecology a bit.

They leaned into it a fair bit too hard IMO. The designers must be huge Fey fans. To each their own.

 

[DarkCrisis]

For reference, here are images of the three moons from the Cartoon. The three seem to be one prime moon with two auxiliary moons orbiting it. So the extra moons seem somewhat "echoey". It could easily be the prime moon is the one in the Material Plane, while the others are how it appears in the Fey and Shadow, but are somehow slightly off. In other words, the moon is part of a Fey Crossing and a Shadow Crossing.

Additionally, there is a region in North Central Faerun that is a strong candidate for where the "Realm" literally is. Thus it is one of the "Forgotten" Realms. Compare the official map of Faerun with a fan guesstimation of where things are from the Cartoon. This area of Faerun is near the region of Thay, which is to the southeast from it, hence the connection between Venger and the Red Wizards. Note, the "forest at the edge of the [known] world" in the "far west" is the famous elven forest, the High Forest, in northwest Faerun. The difference of names is between the local names (endonyms) from the Cartoon, versus the foreign names (exonyms) that the Faerun cartographers refer to.

(@DarkCrisis, how is this for canon reconciliations? At least when a DM chooses for the Realm to be part of the Forgotten Realms, this is a reasonably smooth way to do it.)

In my view, the roller coaster ride of the Cartoon, is simply the Witchlight Carnival which then transported the riders directly to Faerun on planet Toril.

Here is the where the Cartoon characters got on the ride, while the Witchlight Carnival appeared temporarily in reallife.
View attachment 380934

WotC doesn't care, so whatever. We probably won't really know more unless they make a bigger adventure tied to the cartoon or they make a new cartoon.

I'd say the comic is more cannon than a 1 off 5 page adventure though. Not to mention that adventure is just a rehash of an episode but with adult characters for some reason.

 

[DaffCon1]

About the only genre franchise I know that have not rebooted/retconned in some fashion after 30 years is Doctor Who and Battletech.

Doctor Who as it seems continuity has been a low priority for the BBC overall.

And Battletech because CGL seems stubborn?

I dunno, I'd call the entire Jihad/Dark Age thing a reboot, for BattleTech. It wasn't a continuity reset, but it dramatically changed the nature of the setting. It's been mostly brushed aside, now, with the ilKhan stuff, but it's still part of the continuity.