Dragon Delves Dedicated to Chris Perkins

The new Dragon Delves anthology is dedicated to Chris Perkins, who recently retired from Wizards of the Coast. The new adventure anthology is officially out in early release today. The new anthology contains a brief dedication to Perkins in the credits, acknowledgind his "decades of contributions" to Dungeons & Dragons. Perkins is also credited as a designer for the book.

Perkins had worked for Wizards of the Coast since 1997, holding a variety of design-related roles with the company and spearheading much of the work for D&D's popular 5th Edition. Perkins announced his retirement back in April, following the release of the final 2024/2025 Core Rulebook. However, his retirement was a brief one, as Critical Role's Darrington Press announced that he was joining the publisher as Creative Director, a role similar to the one he held at Wizards of the Coast.

 

[Yenrak]

The book as a whole? It just came out digitally; I've been doing a quick scan when I can while working. Each chapter ends with art from most of the previous Monster Manuals for the dragon type in the adventure, as well as some other art (such as Dragonlance covers).

Also, each chapter starts with a list of all the monsters that will be appearing in that chapter, which is very helpful. That's followed by a key NPC list, which is something we've seen before.

I really like listing all the monsters in that chapter. It’s something I do on my own with published adventurers, in part to prepare miniatures that I might use. Very helpful to have that work already done.

 

[TravDoc42]

Interesting (and good to see, in my opinion!) that one of the adventures, For Whom The Void Calls, has NPCs who use Common Sign Language! Good way to incentivise use of that language for PCs

 

[pukunui]

I haven't finished reading the third adventure (with the silver dragon pretending to be Orcus), but the premise feels kinda flimsy ... perhaps it explains it better later on, but in the first parts, the premise that these cultists are dumb enough to go along with being told to destroy everything to do with Orcus in his own temple is kinda flimsy. Like, the dragon getting them to go out and steal stuff to attract attention so that some adventurers will come investigate works fine, but the whole "I'm Orcus and I want you to demolish my temple!" bit feels far-fetched.

As far as I can tell, there's no "I want you to demolish my temple so we can rebuild it from scratch" sentiment. It's just "Destroy everything! Mwahahaha!"

 

[Parmandur]

I haven't finished reading the third adventure (with the silver dragon pretending to be Orcus), but the premise feels kinda flimsy ... perhaps it explains it better later on, but in the first parts, the premise that these cultists are dumb enough to go along with being told to destroy everything to do with Orcus in his own temple is kinda flimsy. Like, the dragon getting them to go out and steal stuff to attract attention so that some adventurers will come investigate works fine, but the whole "I'm Orcus and I want you to demolish my temple!" bit feels far-fetched.

As far as I can tell, there's no "I want you to demolish my temple so we can rebuild it from scratch" sentiment. It's just "Destroy everything! Mwahahaha!"

I mean...one imagines the Wisdom Save of Orcus cultists is pretty dang low.

 

[pukunui]

I mean...one imagines the Wisdom Save of Orcus cultists is pretty dang low.

I know, but still ... it shouldn't take much Wisdom to see that's counterintuitive.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I haven't finished reading the third adventure (with the silver dragon pretending to be Orcus), but the premise feels kinda flimsy ... perhaps it explains it better later on, but in the first parts, the premise that these cultists are dumb enough to go along with being told to destroy everything to do with Orcus in his own temple is kinda flimsy. Like, the dragon getting them to go out and steal stuff to attract attention so that some adventurers will come investigate works fine, but the whole "I'm Orcus and I want you to demolish my temple!" bit feels far-fetched.

As far as I can tell, there's no "I want you to demolish my temple so we can rebuild it from scratch" sentiment. It's just "Destroy everything! Mwahahaha!"

That feels fixable -- "You call this a temple? Tear it down and start over!" -- but yeah, it shouldn't need to be fixable; it should be addressed from the start.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

the premise that these cultists are dumb enough to go along with being told to destroy everything to do with Orcus in his own temple is kinda flimsy.

Evil gods enjoy destruction, as do those who choose to follow evil gods. You could probably get away with ordering them to kill each other too, without involving adventurers.

 

[pukunui]

Evil gods enjoy destruction, as do those who choose to follow evil gods. You could probably get away with ordering them to kill each other too, without involving adventurers.

The cult leader, Xia, is a ghast gravecaller with Int 18 and Wis 14. She ain’t no fool, and yet she seems happy to have her zombies paint fluffy white clouds and silver dragons on the temple walls for no apparent reason. (As an aside, the accompanying picture of Xia and her ghoul guards is captioned as “NPC with zombies” on DDB.)

At least the cultist named Yondis “can’t understand why Orcus would be ordering Xia to destroy the iconography of Orcus around the temple”, so there is that.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

she seems happy to have her zombies paint fluffy white clouds and silver dragons on the temple walls for no apparent reason

It’s called faith.

 

[JusticeArman]

I’ve read through the first two adventures so far.

In the first one, I feel like it doesn’t do a good job setting up how the players can figure out that the elves have been tortured into being hostile and resolve those conflicts without killing them.

Yes, the adventure provides mechanics for it via the Influence action, but in my experience, once combat has started, players don’t bother trying to talk to their attackers.

For new DMs in particular, a bit more guidance on how to resolve these encounters so the PCs can save the elves would have been nice.

I wonder if Perkins wrote the second adventure. It has his sense of whimsy all over it. It’s a fun little adventure that I wish had been out when my Eberron PCs were level 3. (They’re level 7 now, soon to be level 8. This would’ve fit right in along with “Pudding Faire” and the like.)

"Baker's Doesn't" was written by me! But Chris was the developer. It will come as a surprise to no one, but he is a very good one.

I was deeply inspired by my (at the time) somewhat recent foray into the world of baking, Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and the fairytale of Hansel and Gretel, among other things. Since then, I have spent a lot of time baking various treats for friends, family, and neighbors; sometimes, we enjoy these with coffee during a game night! Last fall, my mom actually flew out to the PNW, and we took a four-day class on advanced lamination techniques from the King Arthur Baking School in Skagit Valley, WA. The art of the baker also features conchas, which became a favorite of mine when living near several panaderías in Texas.

To me, baking is truly magical: creating something delicious and beautiful with fire and ingredients transcend the sum of their parts. It's dangerous sorcery! It's also the perfect backdrop for a story featuring a dragon, especially one with such wholesome and whimsical artwork by Andrew Kolb.