Forgotten Realms Books to Have Several Digital DLCs, Including One Featuring Asterion

Wizards of the Coast plans to release several "digital DLCs" alongside the upcoming Forgotten Realms rulebooks. This week, Game Informer released a pair of articles about the upcoming Forgotten Realms rulebooks. Tucked away in the article is the announcement that the upcoming releases will include several "digital DLCs" that expand on the new setting. One example was Asterion's Book of Hungers, which focuses on urban vampire adventures featuring the character from Baldur's Gate 3.

No other details were made available about the upcoming releases, such as whether the new supplements will be paid DLC or free to D&D Beyond subscribers. Wizards has released several digital-only supplements alongside their various books, ranging from mini-bestiaries to supplementary adventures, but all were free to D&D Beyond subscribers or available as pre-order bonuses.

Since the Forgotten Realms books aren't currently available for pre-order, it's hard to say whether this is a new strategy or simply a continuation of current works. The fact that Wizards commissioned art specifically for Asterion's Book of Hungers and the usage of the phrase "digital DLC" suggests that this might be a new monetization scheme for the company, albeit one that makes sense given the growing use of D&D Beyond's marketplace.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I’m not convinced of that.

Given that it seems like these “DLCs” are going to include updates to pre-2024 subclasses

[citation needed]

 

[Charlaquin]

A ton of stuff ends up on the cutting room floor - far more than ever makes it into print. That’s the backstory behind The Mortuary.

Yes, and that’s just part of the creative process. I am comfortable with cut content actually being cut instead of being repackaged and sold digitally.

No, they are not, they are going to be short adventures, similar to the ones in the print books.

Unless you have some inside information the rest of us don’t, this is pure speculation. All that has been publicly said is that they are digital “DLCs” that expand on the content in the main books. However, given the recent Unearthed Arcana that were very specifically themed and seemingly not for any book that had been announced yet, I think it’s pretty obvious that it was testing for content to be featured in these DLCs. Especially in light of one of the UAs being horror themed and one of the DLCs being “Asterion's Book of Hungers.” And those UAs did include updates to multiple pre-2024 subclasses.

 

[Charlaquin]

[citation needed]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/ua/horror-subclasses

 

[Charlaquin]

Subclasses will be in print books, so people have to pay for them. They ain’t giving them away free.

Nowhere does it say these “DLCs” will be free. Indeed, I will be shocked if they are.

 

[Kurotowa]

All that has been publicly said is that they are digital “DLCs” that expand on the content in the main books. However, given the recent Unearthed Arcana that were very specifically themed and seemingly not for any book that had been announced yet, I think it’s pretty obvious that it was testing for content to be featured in these DLCs.

That is a wild assumption based on highly speculative reasoning, with no actual evidence to back it up. Nothing in the officially released statements supports that idea. So I'm just going to file it under "Highly Doubtful" until we get an actual content index.

 

[Demetrios1453]

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/ua/horror-subclasses

That's supposition, not proof. Can you prove that those aren't for a 2026 product? All UAs so far have gone into actual print products, as long as they weren't outright rejected.

 

[Charlaquin]

That is a wild assumption based on highly speculative reasoning, with no actual evidence to back it up. Nothing in the officially released statements supports that idea. So I'm just going to file it under "Highly Doubtful" until we get an actual content index.

It’s also highly speculative to assume they’ll be free and contain short adventures. The fact of the matter is, we don’t know their contents or pricing. We just know that they’re digital only, which I strongly dislike for the reasons we’ve been discussing. And I think people who say “well if it wasn’t digital only, the content wouldn’t be released at all” are assuming too much.

 

[Charlaquin]

That's supposition, not proof. Can you prove that those aren't for a 2026 product? All UAs so far have gone into actual print products, as long as they weren't outright rejected.

The notion that they’ll just contain short adventures and will be free is also unprovable supposition. My actual point that their contents being digital only is bad, and that we can’t assume the only alternative to a digital only release is no release at all, holds true regardless of what the actual contents are.

 

[Demetrios1453]

It’s also highly speculative to assume they’ll be free and contain short adventures. The fact of the matter is, we don’t know their contents or pricing. We just know that they’re digital only, which I strongly dislike for the reasons we’ve been discussing. And I think people who say “well if it wasn’t digital only, the content wouldn’t be released at all” are assuming too much.

It's not highly speculative. We've had these before for multiple other releases. Planescape, Spellljammer, and so on. They've been either extra monsters or short adventures. For Spelljammer, for example, it was one of each, and for Planescape it was a short adventure.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's not highly speculative. We've had these before for multiple other releases. Planescape, Spellljammer, and so on. They've been either extra monsters or short adventures. For Spelljammer, for example, it was one of each, and for Planescape it was a short adventure.

We’ve had small digital-only releases before. We do not know that these are the same thing, and given this new “digital DLC” branding, I don’t think it’s safe to assume they’re going to be.