Dungeons & Dragons Encyclopedia announced by Penguin Random House

Penguin Random House is publishing a Dungeons & Dragons Encyclopedia. The new 320-page book was written by Matt Forbeck, Michael Witwer, Jon Peterson, Kalysta Harmon, and Jessica Lee Patterson and will be released on October 20, 2026. The book will contain information on more than a half-dozen different campaign settings, including the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, and Greyhawk, along with information on monsters, locations, heroes and villains, and iconic items.

Penguin Random House has published licensed Dungeons & Dragons books for years and also has a robust line of guide/encyclopedia books covering various licensed properties. For the Dungeons & Dragons Encyclopedia, Penguin brought in several experts. Forbeck is a longtime game designer who worked for TSR and Wizards of the Coast on various book projects. Witwer has written multiple D&D books for Penguin, including multiple art guides and also wrote a biography of Gary Gygax. Peterson is considered one of the foremost historians of Dungeons & Dragons and has written several books on the game Patterson is an art historian that has collaborated with Peterson on an art exhibition of D&D.

The Dungeons & Dragons Encyclopedia will retail for $60.

 

[Nikosandros]

In love with that art where can I see the whole piece?

I found this on Amazon.it

 

[Wintersbite]

I wish all of the major RPG licenses would do a master reference book at some point. Just a giant in-universe history with appendices and sections for magic, tech, locations, people, etc. But no RPG notes.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

They should have done these for individual settings, one Emcyclopia each, now a huge chunk is going to go the things like the Monsters and settings will once again get shafted for depth and space. You could easily fill several of these with just FR lore. Honestly I'm holding off until I see a table of contents or a kick ass sale.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I wish all of the major RPG licenses would do a master reference book at some point. Just a giant in-universe history with appendices and sections for magic, tech, locations, people, etc. But no RPG notes.

Same, but this one should have been split into one encyclopedia per setting, instead of stuffing them all into one book along with universal D&D stuff.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

They should have done these for individual settings, one Emcyclopia each, now a huge chunk is going to go the things like the Monsters and settings will once again get shafted for depth and space. You could easily fill several of these with just FR lore. Honestly I'm holding off until I see a table of contents or a kick ass sale.

I seriously doubt sales projections would justify that approach. There is just not enough interest in all the settings to make a boom for each.

Instead, my preference would be is they make it setting neutral. Just making it about everything, but don’t even bring up settings. Maybe, IDK

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I seriously doubt sales projections would justify that approach. There is just not enough interest in all the settings to make a boom for each.

Instead, my preference would be is they make it setting neutral. Just making it about everything, but don’t even bring up settings. Maybe, IDK

Well there is for some of them like FR, probably others like Planescape and DL

 

[mamba]

I seriously doubt sales projections would justify that approach. There is just not enough interest in all the settings to make a boom for each.

Instead, my preference would be is they make it setting neutral. Just making it about everything, but don’t even bring up settings. Maybe, IDK

not sure there is enough interesting stuff if you make it setting neutral rather than include multiple settings. What have you left in that case, mostly a bunch of monsters

 

[Dire Bare]

not sure there is enough interesting stuff if you make it setting neutral rather than include multiple settings. What have you left in that case, mostly a bunch of monsters

There is a TON of "setting neutral" stuff, plain old core D&D has a lot more than monsters going for it.

Several pantheons of gods are shared . . . elves, dwarves, orcs, and more.

Despite the Planescape setting, the entirety of the outer planes.

Lots of adventure locations from classic modules. And several named characters in the lore.

And, let's not sell those monsters short! Plenty of creatures unique to core D&D. Hardback volume after volume of them!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

According to the press release:

The book will contain information on more than a half-dozen different campaign settings

This looks to me that it's more of a book about D&D though, not a book to use to play D&D, so I would anticipate information about the authors, illustrators, different editions, development over time, etc, rather than a who was king of Cormyr in 1201 DR type reference.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

not sure there is enough interesting stuff if you make it setting neutral rather than include multiple settings. What have you left in that case, mostly a bunch of monsters

I think you could, or I would like to see, make a D&D lore book that includes everythin, but isn’t broken out by setting. Similar, I guess, to the 2024 DMG but greatly expanded