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.

 

[Parmandur]

So, picked up the alt cover last night at my FLGS, have a cursory look through.

Love the art. Appreciate the little history sections.

I love the setup of the Black Dragon Adventure

 

[Burnside]

The 5th adventure is The Dragon of Najkir, for 6th level characters. A bronze dragon is denning beneath a remote island monastery. An evil assassin who is the son of the dragon's noble former companion retreats to the monastery to avoid punishment for his crimes. Out of loyalty to the assassin's deceased mother, and ignorant of the assassin's crimes, the dragon starts attacking ships that approach the monastery in order to protect the son from capture. The adventurers are sent to the monastery to rescue survivors of a ship wrecked by the dragon, who are sheltering with the monks.

Everything that is present in this adventure works, but the piece feels like either it needed some more time in development to enhance the content, or else it originally did have more content but things were cut or simplified, perhaps for space reasons. The result is a promising setting that feels strangely under-written, and a quest that I suspect would take most groups less than one four-hour session to resolve.

The Good

The art for this one is absolutely gorgeous and reflects the best examples of the traditional painterly 5E style (think the better pieces in Curse of Strahd or Rime of the Frostmaiden). I love the goats, and I wonder if they are a nod to the inside joke among Frostmaiden designers.

Two great full-color maps of the monastery and its demesnes. Even DMs who totally disregard the adventure as written, or heavily re-design it, will be happy to have two really nice, keyed, full-color, 5' scale expansive location maps that would work well as locations in many campaigns.

What story there is tracks pretty logically and everyone's motives make sense.

Even if I don't think the adventure takes full advantage of it, the physical location is an interesting one and DMs might get more use out of it beyond what's provided here.

Complaints

The visual centerpiece of the adventure is a two-level monastery map with 39 keyed locations. The bulk of its text describes these 39 locations. Unless the party is full of players who just really like to snoop around inside friendly areas and steal from allied NPCs , the structure and hooks of the adventure mean that most groups will visit less than 10 of these spaces. Some of those 10 or so areas contain traps, but most of those traps are known and controlled by friendly monks who have every reason to just tell the players how to avoid or disarm them.

The assassin, and his secret invisible sexy oni ally, and his two bodyguards (who are secretly dopplegangers, but as written this isn't relevant) are intriguing but apart from the assassin/dragon relationship there's nothing much going on with them. With the oni, in particular, it feels like something got left on the cutting room floor.

The main challenge of the adventure is in convincing the dragon of the assassin's guilt. The way the adventure suggests this is best accomplished is depressingly unimaginative: beat the assassin down to 20 hit points or less, whereupon he will surrender and confess everything to anyone, including the dragon if brought face to face with him. Since all the monks and all the shipwreck survivors know exactly who the assassin really is by the time the players arrive, no real investigation is required. It's pretty much just, "Thank God you're here; please go beat that guy up." And beating that guy up is empirically the right thing to do here.

There is a better adventure available here with a bit of re-working and additional development. Too many friendly NPCs who are sure exactly what's going on are alive and in control of the site when the players arrive. The whole thing would probably work better if the players arrived in a situation more like The Thing, or Let the Right One In, or the climax of Scream. I think it would work better if the shipwreck survivors arrived, blew the assassin's cover, and he and his buddies started killing everyone. The fact that you've got dopplegangers and an oni means monks and survivors could have been replaced and impersonated before the players arrived, but in enough haste that environmental storytelling, evidence, hastily interred bodies, journal entries, and investigation could ferret out the truth. There is also certainly enough physical space available in the monastery to include more story - and additional stories. It could be pretty thrilling. As written, it probably isn't.

One more thing. The adventure starts with a dragon attacking the ship on which the players are sailing to the island, either damaging or sinking it. I worry a little about this, not because it's a bad idea, but because it's the sort of encounter that D&D's rules tend not to handle very well. Whenever I see an encounter that tells me to look up such-and-such ship map and stats in the DMs' Guide, I always have the sense of an adventure designer just kinda throwing up their hands as to how this encounter is going to technically work.

Verdict

I'm torn. Nothing in this one is bad. I just feel like it's a great adventure site and offers the potential for a great adventure - and might even inspire DMs to shape it into one. But, on, paper, what is actually there is not a great adventure; it's only fine. B-.

 

[BJK Games]

The diverse artwork is excellent, and the book has imo the best art of any WotC book for a while (maybe since Frostmaiden).

It's true. The art is spectacular, and I was shocked that even the maps have different styles throughout it. It's precisely the kind of anthology I was wanting out of it. Looking forward to getting to run some of them, too.

 

[Distracted DM]

There is a better adventure available here with a bit of re-working and additional development.

That could be said about a few WotC 5e adventures :'D "well that could be said about any adventure!" some say. There's a difference between enhancing a solid adventure, and filling holes/making work an adventure that needs it to be run properly.

One more thing. The adventure starts with a dragon attacking the ship on which the players are sailing to the island, either damaging or sinking it. I worry a little about this, not because it's a bad idea, but because it's the sort of encounter that D&D's rules tend not to handle very well. Whenever I see an encounter that tells me to look up such-and-such ship map and stats in the DMs' Guide, I always have the sense of an adventure designer just kinda throwing up their hands as to how this encounter is going to technically work.

Ha, with 5e my concern would be the assumption that the dragon will actually survive the encounter. Characters have so many ways of making sure that an enemy can't escape, especially in 5e24. Might need some DM fiat in there, if it already isn't provided. It's an adult bronze, I assume? That'd make it properly intimidating. A young one likely wouldn't stand a chance.

 

[Burnside]

That could be said about a few WotC 5e adventures :'D "well that could be said about any adventure!" some say. There's a difference between enhancing a solid adventure, and filling holes/making work an adventure that needs it to be run properly.

Ha, with 5e my concern would be the assumption that the dragon will actually survive the encounter. Characters have so many ways of making sure that an enemy can't escape, especially in 5e24. Might need some DM fiat in there, if it already isn't provided. It's an adult bronze, I assume? That'd make it properly intimidating. A young one likely wouldn't stand a chance.

It’s a Young Bronze, and yes it probably needs plot armor to ensure it survives that encounter. I mean, it doesn’t HAVE to survive; if it doesn’t, that just makes a short adventure even shorter.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I agree that, with an invisible oni and two dopplegangers, an assassin on the run would be using those assets to save his bacon. I'd definitely be trying to replace murdered NPCs who know too much with them and let the players realize that NPCs are suddenly changing their stories and behavior and also "hey, where did bodyguard #2 go?"

 

[Sulicius]

The fourth adventure in the book is called For Whom the Void Calls, for level 5 characters.

-snip-

I just finished reading this adventure, and I agree. A lot of elements are interesting, but don't go anywhere. Not the modrons, not the dragon, not even the quest giver or the Astral visitor. None of them are dynamic, like the fearful guards of Death at Sunset, or the indecisive cultists of The Will of Orcus.

I do like that this adventures centers around one of the most important dragon characteristics: their hoard. It just doesn't really make it work. To me, this was the weakest of the bunch.

 

[Zaukrie]

I just opened my hard copy .... what a beautiful book.
As I said, the intro sections for every adventure are great. The art is diverse, and A LOT (not all, sigh) of the maps are interesting to look at and useful in a VTT. The adventures have some cool ideas and unique hooks. I'm surprised by how much I want to run all of these.

However.....as many are posting, some of the ideas are better than their execution. I'm 100% changing things up here and there. But, that's to be expected of most books this long, imo.

All in all, this book is nearly great. The art. The intros. The good maps (which I might use for other adventures). The cool ideas.

 

[Burnside]

The sixth adventure is The Forbidden Vale, for Level 9 characters. This is also the second adventure in which those darn ancient githyanki have left their problematic headquarters behind for the rest of us to deal with.

In this case, a red dragon (born "from the ashes" of a previous red dragon) has awoken from its cyclical multi-century slumber in an ancient githyanki ziggurat to immolate the surrounding countryside, as this red dragon and its predecessor have done every 200 years. The situation is problematic for the nearby settlement of Aborean Springs (whose townsfolk don't offer any tangible reward for dealing with the dragon, but isn't virtue its own reward?)

The Good

I really, really love the old-school pen-and ink monochrome art used for this adventure. It's something I'd expect to find in a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure, and I mean that in the best way. Unfortunately, this art style isn't really the right choice for this particular adventure, so see Complaints for more on that.

Arborean Springs has three NPC factions, each of which wants the dragon dealt with in a different way:

- The Traditionalists want the dragon dead, but want the players to kill it while it is outside the ziggurat, because it's taboo to go in there. Although the adventure really doesn't provide a ton of material supporting luring the dragon into a fight in the countryside, it's a valid strategy. But it would mean skipping the best part of the adventure.

- The Merchants just want you to kill the dragon. They don't care where you do it.

- The Nature Lovers point out that the dragon's rampage is actually now a burn cycle that has become a key part of the local ecosystem. They have a ritual that will enable the adventurers to induce the dragon to return to its slumber for another 200 years, when it will be time for the fires to begin again. Components must be collected from various locations inside the ziggurat's magical gardens, and then the dragon must be confronted by adventurers who have brewed and then treated their weapons with the magical sleeping potion. Needless to say, this is the most interesting route to pursue, mainly because it prompts the adventurers to explore the 4-level ziggurat which represents the bulk of the adventure's text; the other two options above make doing that totally optional or even unlikely.

The bulk of this adventure is a GREAT monster hotel-style dungeon. It's 1E style, but has a bit more internal logic and ecosystem than a 1E dungeon typically would (but not THAT much more - a spirit naga and a behir are still like two doors down from each other), and some fun innovations like two "danger room" areas where githyanki warriors once trained to fight githzerai in the Plane of Limbo or mind flayers. If you love something like Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth but wish it made like 20% more sense, you'll probably like this adventure a LOT. This is a place where a coven of green hags, a spirit naga with yuan ti followers, a behir, a treant, a marid, three manticores, a chimera, and a red dragon are living together in a githyanki tomb/magical garden. Oh and there's a Mirror of Life Trapping with a hydra, hill giant, and plenty of other stuff that might also get released. AND there's an invisible githyanki knight in suspended animation. You can get on board with it or not.

Lots of good magic items here, but it's a 9th level monster hotel so that works just fine.

The epilogue section contains the phrase "But at what cost?"

The Complaints

Again, I love the art on its own merits. But this is an adventure filled with colorful magical gardens and a countryside filled with forest fires and magical flame-colored flowers (this stuff gets pretty vivid - and strong - descriptions in the text). It's begging for color art and color maps. I do like the art, as I said, but I wish this artist had been assigned to a different adventure in this book.

There is an overland journey from Arborean Springs to the ziggurat. It's fine. It has some choices, some combat, some exploration challenges, and maybe one roleplaying encounter. I hesitate to even list it under Complaints. There's nothing wrong with it. It's aggressively fine. But nothing very memorable or innovative.

The ziggurat's layout has a decent chance of prompting the adventurers to beeline - accidentally or deliberately - right into the dragon's lair and boss fight pretty early in their exploration of the ziggurat. For some groups, this is fine. And groups using the Nature Lovers strategy will realize they'll need to explore more of the ziggurat anyway to get the components, so they will back out of the lair if they stumble into it - if they can. I'm just flagging here that this adventure has a chance of climaxing really quickly and unexpectedly due to the map layout - some DMs may want to adjust things to prevent that.

There's no reason this red dragon needs to be the virgin birth offspring of a previous red dragon - it might as well just be the original dragon that once lived here with the githyanki and keeps going into suspended animation.

The townsfolk should be offering a reward of some sort.

Verdict
There's no way this is less than a B+ and for a lot of groups it's probably an A-. With the caveat that this style is not for everyone, and for some groups this dungeon will absolutely overstay its welcome. But it is a very good example of this style of dungeon, and I'm glad this book has one like this.

 

[Burnside]

The seventh adventure is Before The Storm, a very straightforward adventure for level 10 characters about a black dragon who has taken control of a pirate gang and is terrorizing a seaside town.

The Good

The splash page art, featuring the dragon, is awesome. The maps are even better, including my aesthetically favorite dungeon map in the book so far. Colorful, gnarly, and evocative while also being quite practical in play.

The dragon stole two gems that protect the town from storms; if they're not recovered before tonight, the impending storm will break and destroy the town. Good, simple, high stakes imposition of a time limit that precludes a long rest during the adventure.

This is a straightforward, no-frills dungeon crawl (well, the gorgeous map is a frill) and if that simplicity means it probably won't wow anyone, it also means that nothing is botched either - the whole thing makes sense and should play quite smoothly.

We're seven adventures into the dragon book and this is the first one wherein the BBEG is an evil, adult dragon that the adventurers unambiguously really should fight and kill.

The dragon killed the former leader of the pirates and set up his skeleton as a warning to any other potentially disobedient pirates it's a nice touch, and also neat that you can Speak With Dead on it, although tbh the resulting conversation isn't anything revelatory.

Complaints

It's...very straightforward. Go to the dungeon, get the macguffins back, kill the dragon, get back before nightfall. No twists and really not a lot of innovation in the encounters. While there is nothing wrong with it, there's also nothing that I think anybody is gonna find super memorable either.

The dragon itself could have been the twist, actually. It could have sent the pirates to raid the town and do its dirty work without revealing itself. The players discovering that the bloodthirsty new captain of the pirate gang is actually a dragon would have been a cool moment. But as written, the dragon led the pirate attack on the town. I'd probably change that if I ran it.

I'll also add that, while of course monsters don't always need to revert to type, the behavior of this black dragon isn't particularly black dragon-y. It's quite red dragon-y, and, if it concealed itself, could also be pretty classic green dragon behavior. The lore on black dragons tends to have them involved with cultists and undead - there aren't any here.

I think, but am not sure, that most of the combat encounters - except for the boss fight, as the dragon does have three darkmantles with it - are probably a bit easy for a level 10 party - but that might be mitigated by the fact that there is a time limit.

There's some stuff about the town is in an area where the barrier to the Elemental Plane of Air is thin and a lot of people who live there are essentially genasi except genasi don't technically exist yet in 5.5 so they're just described as blue-skinned humans with floaty hair and... you know what, it just doesn't really matter, doesn't really change anything, and probably isn't worth the time spent communicating it to the players. It can just be a coastal town that needs its magic gems to protect it from storms.

Verdict
I think this is a B. It does what's on the tin. I'd actually say it's a stronger B than, say, Death at Sunset, because it's less flawed - but it's also kinda less interesting.