D&D General Dungeons of Drakkenheim & Lairs of Etharis: WotC Adds Third Party Products To D&D Beyond

Products from third party creators include a cosmic-horror campaign and a collection of horror fantasy adventures.

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WotC has just announced that it is adding products from Ghostfire Gaming and Dungeon Dudes to the D&D Beyond platform. The products in question are Ghostfire's Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis and Dungeon Dudes' Dungeons of Drakkenheim (produced in conjunction with Ghostfire Gaming) which made over $1M on Kickstarter in 2021.

Ghostfire is often seen on the TTRPG Kickstarter charts and has been involved with multiple 5E million-dollar campaigns.

While material from Critical Role has appeared on DDB, this is the first time that something from a publisher without a visibly established prior relationship has been seen there.


Today Wizards of the Coast announced a partnership with publisher Ghostfire Gaming to bring two exciting new products to its digital toolset on D&D Beyond. Grim Hollow: Lairs of Etharis showcases twenty horror-fantasy adventures with more than 75 new monsters while Dungeons of Drakkenheim presents a full campaign set in a ruined city for players to explore created by the popular Dungeon Dudes YouTube channel. Maps, monsters, and more in these offerings will be available for Dungeon Masters to use across D&D Beyond, including full integration in the Maps feature available to subscribers. With these two additions and more on the horizon, Dungeons & Dragons continues to invest in its talented partners and the inspiring creative community and surrounding the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game.

“It's incredibly important to us to showcase the ingenuity of the D&D community, and we’re excited to share the love of fantasy roleplaying with more fans by bringing the Dungeon Dudes and Ghostfire Gaming to D&D Beyond,” said Marjory Laymon, Vice President of D&D Beyond Product and Tech at Wizards of the Coast. “This is just the first step as we’ve got even more surprises planned for next year as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of D&D.”

Grim Hollow and Drakkenheim really are passion projects for Ghostfire and the Dungeon Dudes, respectively, with rich worlds meant to be explored and have stories woven within,” said Ben Byrne, Creative Content Director at Ghostfire Gaming. “That so many new D&D fans will be introduced to them through D&D Beyond is incredibly humbling.”

The locations, maps, and monsters within these offerings will be available to all fans who purchase them to use in their campaigns on D&D Beyond. Players can add feats, spells, and magic items to their character sheets, choose a new background for their character, or indulge in crafting items from parts harvested from adventuring. Dungeon Masters can quickly reference more than a hundred new monsters, faction NPCs, and more in the D&D Beyond compendium.

Dungeons of Drakkenheim began like every other D&D campaign; as a labor of love shared amongst a few friends at the game table (and a small audience of passionate viewers!) We started this project as a way to express our love of the game and showcase a world filled with all the aspects of fantasy role-playing games that we enjoy most: a blend of gripping action and cosmic horror where the player’s choices matter,” said Montgomery Martin and Kelly Mclaughlin, the Dungeon Dudes. “The original Drakkenheim characters were built and played on D&D Beyond, and so sharing the adventure we created on the platform is a dream come true. We can’t wait to hear the stories of other players’ adventures through the ruined city.”
 

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Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
Maybe for 5e supplements, but thats not the whole industry. As a consumer, I can say that when I run 5e, I'd be MUCH more likely to purchase a product if were available on DnD Beyond. I've spent a lot of money on Kobold Press, MCDM, and Frog God Game 5e content over the years. But I have to run almost all of my games by VTT, usually overseas, and I just can't be lugging books around. I'm also at the point that I'm tired of fancy illustrated PDFs that are just digital paper and not very friendly for running games digitally. I'm finding that a lot of content I've purchased is going unused because I don't want to put in the prep time.

So, yes, on the one hand, as a consumer, I would happily contribute to the consolidation of 5e content on the DDB platform.

Then again, my next campaign will be Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay using the excellent system and modules for the Foundry VTT that Cubicle 7 sells. Not a cent of my gaming dollars for this campaign is going to WotC. Not out of any political stance. I'm just buying what I like and what works best for me.

I think the big challenge to smaller publisher is much less from big, "bad" WotC and much more the trend towards online gaming. Its more expensive to put out good digital content than selling PDFs and hard copies. It might be more affordable if they JUST publish digitally, but with VTTs you have to place your bet on which VTT as it may not be profitable to even develop for the top three. But, that's just business. There is going to be winners and losers.

Sorry to ramble on, but Goodman Games DCC system is a great example of this in my case. I was originally planning on running DCC Dying Earth after my 5e campaign. But there isn't VTT support for it (and I would have changed to any VTT that offered solid support for DCC Dying Earth system and setting). Running it pen and paper with a VTT just for maps, wasn't practical or fun for me, and doing all the work to get it somewhat working in a VTT was more hassle than I wanted to deal with. So looked around at systems that had solid support in Foundry and that's how I got into Warhammer Fantasy.

After my Warhammer Campaign is done in a year or so, I'll see where the WotC VTT is at and where the Foundry Crucible system is at an move to whichever makes it easier and fun for me to prep and run and my players to play in. Where things are at now, I'm not even considering other systems, mostly because of online/digital support.

And I'm 50 years old and started playing in the late 70s. There is a whole generation of new gamers who came to TTRPGs with 5e, many who mostly or maybe only play online. VTTs and online platforms are likely to be the TTRPG marketplaces of the future. Publishers who can't adapt to that will be relegated to small niches in the TTRPG market. Publishers like Goodman Games, Kobold Press, and Frog God Games need to up their game and provide decent digital tools to compete with WotC, Paizo, and Cubicle 7.
There's a flip side to that--VTTs are still in their infancy (relatively speaking, compared to tabletop gaming as a whole) and continually develop, too. Right now there are about 30 of them, and there will be more. But eventually, some common standards may well emerge which will mean--like web browsers reading web pages--it becomes easier for publishers to create content readable by multiple VTTs rather than developing for each one individually. I don't think that's close yet, but increasing fracturisation with competing standards isn't infinitely sustainable.

In that environment I can see WotC as becoming the 'iOS' of the industry, with a walled garden and its own standards, and everybody else operating on 'Android'. OK, it's not a great analogy, but I hope it gets across a sense of what I'm on about,
 

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Echohawk

Shirokinukatsukami fan
I already picked up Lairs of Etharis and it looks great. Can anyone confirm whether or not Dungeons of Drakkenheim includes maps for DnDBeyond's map tool?
The product page for Dungeons of Drakkenheim on Beyond says "Explore detailed maps and battle Drakkenheim’s forces with D&D Beyond Maps", so that seems very likely, but it is only releasing on December 21st, so I don't think anyone can confirm before then.
 

caudor

Adventurer
The product page for Dungeons of Drakkenheim on Beyond says "Explore detailed maps and battle Drakkenheim’s forces with D&D Beyond Maps", so that seems very likely, but it is only releasing on December 21st, so I don't think anyone can confirm before then.
Thank you. I had looked and completely missed that. Good enough for me. I'll definitely buy this as well.
 




darjr

I crit!
On behalf of Ghostfire, thanks for those who’ve been supportive of this news. I started working there in January of 2021, and so much hard work and sacrifice by so many have gone into our products. With the help and support of our audience and fans, we’ve been able to keep the company afloat, and this is a huge step for us in reaching a new and larger audience, who I hope will enjoy our content.

I’m sure you’ll hear more from other of my Ghostfire teammates going forward, and this is a first step in what I hope are a series of big announcements from us over the next year.

Happy gaming!

Shawn
This is awesome! And It's great to hear that this is only the beginning of the big news from ya'll! The Eldritch Lorecast is truly the greatest in all the lands!
 




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