Dungeons & Dragons Teases New Campaign Settings

Dungeons & Dragons seems to be preparing to explore brand new campaign settings. Last week, EN World had the opportunity to visit Wizards of the Coast headquarters and get new details about D&D's 2025 slate. While much of the focus was on the newly announced Eberron: Forge of the Artificer book or the upcoming pair of Forgotten Realms book, the D&D design team is also looking at expanding their official multiverse to include brand new worlds.

When asked about the decision to return to Eberron in 2025, the D&D design team noted that keeping the Fifth Edition ruleset allowed them to grow the game instead of rehash it. "One of the opportunities that we have by revising the game, as opposed blowing it up and starting over, is we can actually move forward," said Jeremy Crawford, game director . "And I can't wait until we can tell you about 2026 and 2027."

"With Jeremy Crawford taking on the game director role and then Chris Perkins taking on the creative director role is that we were able to really reestablish a world building environment," added Jess Lanzillo, VP of D&D Franchise at Wizards of the Coast. "What does that mean? We can really establish our worlds and settings like the Forgotten Realms and also look to creating new ones again. That's something that we are working on and we don't have anything to really discuss today other than to tell you like we are re-establishing everything that we have and we are going to make some new stuff too."

While Wizards of the Coast has integrated Magic: The Gathering worlds and Critical Role's Exandria as campaign settings for 5th Edition, D&D's last truly new campaign setting was Nentir Vale, a 'points of light' setting that established small bastions of civilization in an otherwise dark world. In 2023, D&D introduced the Radiant Citadel, a new city within the Ethereal Plane that was connected to numerous new civilizations and worlds briefly touched on in anthology books.

 

[TheSword]

A great idea for a campaign I had was for a party of young second and third children attending the Imperial College of Heraldry in Anuire. They are invited to ‘intern’ as heralds at a major event - the Crown and Sword or some such - and detect something foul at play. The uncover a plot but a magical catastrophe / monster release / attack / explosion (Think Sept of Baelor) kills half the attendees and catapults them into the rulership of their domains with little experience or readiness. At the same time as the surviving regents are fighting to seize opportunity in the chaos. How did these faction leaders survive? Were they complicit in the catastrophe, and do they know what the PCs uncovered. I thought it would make a great introduction to the setting.

 

[polyhedral man]

Also the name birthright seems like a misnomer if people can gain the heritage as an adult.

The concept is more about transferring political "magic", to the next generation.

Well there's the story of Jacob "stealing" his brother's birthright by deceiving their father (from the book of Genesis). So there's at least one example from an ancient worldview standpoint of "transferring" the birthright. Not to mention how cool that name is

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Let's remember now it may be different because a lot of people are very used to the rich lore of "Games of Thrones" and now there are more fantasy romances focused more into palace intrigues than hunting the monster of the week.

If it is updated it will be a "lighter" title, like the softcovers from 2nd Ed. Then it will be unlocked in DMGuild.

Hasbro is more interested into promote the IPs than selling sourceooks.

* My suggestion for Red Steel/Savage Coast (pirates and mutants with superpowers) is the vermeil is like a "living mineral fungus" and then it can "grow" if it not extracted. The cynnbryl can be produced artificially but it expensive or slow. And these minerals can appear in other worlds besides Mystara. Even there is theory that says thanks certain secret ritual or superpower somebody could travel between Cinnabryl deposits of different places, or even from different worlds.

 

[Mecheon]

And for reasons I am not fully privileged to, WotC has exceptionally taken steps to memory hole Birthright.

I mean, I think we know the reasons pretty well. Its too far from the D&D standards and just isn't that popuar to put the effort in to put everything down

Back in 2015 when they did that setting survey, Birthright was in the survey if I remember right, but sure didn't mention it in the results, which to me indicates not many people voted for it. The vibe I got from the survey is more people brought up Al-Qadim than Birthright, and that's just part of FR

Nentir Vale comes up more often than Birthright does. Its just not a popular setting

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I think a new setting is coming, not a revised older one.

 

[Remathilis]

I mean, I think we know the reasons pretty well. Its too far from the D&D standards and just isn't that popuar to put the effort in to put everything down

Back in 2015 when they did that setting survey, Birthright was in the survey if I remember right, but sure didn't mention it in the results, which to me indicates not many people voted for it. The vibe I got from the survey is more people brought up Al-Qadim than Birthright, and that's just part of FR

Nentir Vale comes up more often than Birthright does. Its just not a popular setting

I'm sure its low popularity was a factor. I don't know if thats the biggest (or only) factor. I will wager that it came out at a bad time (it was the last of the major settings of 2e prior to the collapse, in a time where they were supporting several other settings simultaneously). Dominion rules are a rather niche element of D&D, and the setting looked far more generic/Tolkien (compared to Ravenloft, Planescape or Dark Sun) than it actually was (it did some interesting twists on things, but in a way that didn't make it very compatible with the latest "Complete" splat book).

But even Mystara got some shoutouts in various 5e products (mostly in "where to set this module" sidebars) while Birthright got a single paragraph in the 2014 DMG, and I'm pretty sure that was the was the only mention of it outside of Dragon Mag since 1997. WotC doesn't just think it was unpopular, its persona non grata!

 

[Mecheon]

But even Mystara got some shoutouts in various 5e products (mostly in "where to set this module" sidebars) while Birthright got a single paragraph in the 2014 DMG, and I'm pretty sure that was the was the only mention of it outside of Dragon Mag since 1997. WotC doesn't just think it was unpopular, its persona non grata!

I mean, I think it got more than Jakandor did

in like. I genuinely forget Jakandor is a D&D setting and I keep thinking its some third party one that got roped in by accident before I remember, no, it is first party.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Jackandor was only two human factions fighting each other, and one of them very xenophobic and enthocentrist, and one of them hated the arcane magic. It is a place could be visited and explored during an adventure but not to "live" there during all a campaign. The lore was relatively poor comparing with others and WotC is more focused into selling crunch. The interesting thing is both factions had got their own "mechas". The only possibility of something close to a revival is the factions of Knorrs and Charontis to be transferred toward a different zone or world with other groups, maybe dragons, who thought they would be good thralls. (here battle dragons and shadow dragons could be right).

Today Conan is public domain, isn't it? Or at least the geography of Hyrborian and the name of realms and places aren't protected by copyright, are they?

Today a sourcebook about Mystara would be more like... "I will borrow some ideas from there to add to my own homemade setting".

* If WotC wanted to release a new setting then they would do a lot of effort to promote this. Other option could be other adventure while different unknown worlds are visited, working like a backdoor pilot episode.

* The Chronomancer could be a setting where the PCs can visit and explore alternate timelines, someones would be a more-friendly version of the region of Tyr(Dragonlance).

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I think a new setting is coming, not a revised older one.

That's how I read the announcement also. Eberron, and a new one.

I still contend, I would love one in actual space, not Spelljammer. Perhaps in the Tears of Selune with a robust "airship" traffic between the moonlets; giant "integral trees" (cf Niven's books) populated by elves; and instructions on how to build your own moonlet. And more of course.

 

[darjr]

Do we know this book is going to be in print at FLGS?