"Dust" and "Midway" - Codenames for Upcoming D&D Hardcovers

Tales from the Yawning Portal was codenamed Labyrinth. Curse of Strahd was Cloak, and Storm King's Thunder was Dagger (or vice versa). Now two new codenames have emerged, spotted by EN World member kettite. Dust is dated 19 Sep 2017, hardcover, $49.95, and Midway is dated 21 Nov 2017, hardcover, $49.95. These have both appeared over on edelweiss' catalog. They do not match the four unnamed RPG Accessories on Amazon. Engage speculation mode - two new hardcovers later this year!

Typically the September release has been an adventure, and the November release a rules book (Sword Coast Adventurers Guide; Volo's Guide to Monsters). WotC has been hinting at a "major rules expansion" for a while now.

My guess? Take it with a massive truckload of salt, but I'm going to guess that Dust is fey or fey wild related. Possible the thing Adventure Time's Pendleton Ward helped with. But it really is a wild guess.

"Dust"
Wizards RPG Team
FRONTLIST
On Sale Date: 19 September 2017
9780786966103, 0786966106
Hardcover
$49.95 USD, $63.95 CAD


"Midway"
Wizards RPG Team
FRONTLIST
On Sale Date: 21 November 2017
9780786966110, 0786966114
Hardcover
$49.95 USD, $63.95 CAD

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[FitzTheRuke]

Isle of Dread would be one. Isle of the Ape is another. Arguably Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan is pretty jungle focused.

That's true. When I ran it, I even increased the jungle-ness of it.

I am looking forward to a good jungle adventure.

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[Demetrios1453]

That's true. When I ran it, I even increased the jungle-ness of it.

I am looking forward to a good jungle adventure.

We got lots of dinosaurs and yuan-ti in VGtM, so this would be an excellent place to use them (with a yuan-ti anathema as one of the big bads?). Granted, they would need to reprint the stat blocks like they did in TftYP, but I'm fine with that if we get a good jungle adventure out of it!


Hmm... A sudden thought. If they are planning a Chult adventure, I would assume it would give us an overview of the peninsula, in a similar manner that STK did for the northern Sword Coast. Perhaps this will be their answer to putting out geographic accessories - start setting adventures in a region and use that to update the region to the new edition....

 

[FitzTheRuke]

We got lots of dinosaurs and yuan-ti in VGtM, so this would be an excellent place to use them (with a yuan-ti anathema as one of the big bads?). Granted, they would need to reprint the stat blocks like they did in TftYP, but I'm fine with that if we get a good jungle adventure out of it!


Hmm... A sudden thought. If they are planning a Chult adventure, I would assume it would give us an overview of the peninsula, in a similar manner that STK did for the northern Sword Coast. Perhaps this will be their answer to putting out geographic accessories - start setting adventures in a region and use that to update the region to the new edition....

That's the idea, as far as I can tell.

It works. They could later do a best-of reprint that looks like a campaign guide.

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[Demetrios1453]

That's the idea, as far as I can tell.

It works. They could later do a best-of reprint that looks like a campaign guide.

Interesting that they would go straight for Chult though, as it's a fairly remote area distant from where most people would base their campaigns. Granted, it does have unique hooks (jungles! dinosaurs! yuan-ti!) that make it a distinct and interesting place to set an adventure, so in the end you can't begrudge the fact that Chult is being detailed ahead of places such as Cormyr or the Dalelands. Hopefully, we'll get adventures set in those area as well!

(Of course, this is all predicated on the surmise that we are getting a Chult adventure - however likely it may seem, we don't know that for sure quite yet, so this may end up being idle speculation...)

 

[DEFCON 1]

Eyes of the Lich Queen (an Eberron adventure) also has a strong jungle section to start its story, taking place in the jungles of Q'barra.

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[Morrus]

Interesting that the ISBNs don't show up in searches any more.

 

[ArchfiendBobbie]

Hopefully these have not been cancelled.

 

[Morrus]

Hopefully these have not been cancelled.

"You can't cancel something if you never announced it!" -WotC

 

[Quickleaf]

Interesting that the ISBNs don't show up in searches any more.

I know that a separate unique ISBN is created for each version/edition of a book. But do ISBNs ever change prior to publication? I've been wondering that for a while.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Isle of Dread would be one. Isle of the Ape is another. Arguably Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan is pretty jungle focused.

For the first time I really took a look at Chult on a 4E era map of Faerun and noticed that Chult is in fact an island now, no longer a peninsula (assuming the waters didn't recede again following the Sundering.) So adventuring in Chult could very well be an Isle of Dread style adventure (with perhaps Acererak's secret complex taking the place of the Central Plateau of X1). As far as the codename "Dust"... Calimshan, the Calim Desert, and Calimport are right across from Chult across the Shining Sea... so there could easily be a chapter or two there to start with (before you headed across to the island of Chult).

No idea of the likelihood of any of this... but pieces do kind of align to WotC's more recent MO on designing / rebooting famous adventure paths.