D&D 5E (2024) Predict WotC's 2026 D&D releases

[Stormonu]

Within the past 5 years, having run both Tamoachan and White Plume due to nostalgia feelings about them (none of which my players shared) I found them both to be tricksy adventures with little internal consistency. At least Tamoachan I tied into my campaign by loosely connecting it to Chauntea, and planting the pyramid in the middle of the Evermoors. And then I made the flavor be all about Chauntea having beef with Lolth and visa versa.

White Plume was harder to logical-ize, and in fact after finishing it, I ran out of... steam and that campaign ended within 4-5 sessions.

And because I'm a nut this way, now I'm going to be running the Tamoachan group through Tsojcanth. I found the Infinite Staircase version to be WAAAAY better than the og, which I also own.

All of which to say, re-doing Giants again as a single chapter in an overall lvl 3-15 Against Lolth campaign would be great, if done well. There are some echoes though with STK and Out of the Abyss and even Descent into Avernus.

I had to do a rewrite of Tamoachan for 3E because my players were above the recommended level and I really wanted to run them through it. I ended up doing a fair amount of Mezoamerican research because of it and it gave me a much greater appreciation of the overall adventure. I think some of things I was able to explain to the PCs (one of them had a high History score and rolled very well) rubbed off pretty well and Tloques-popolocas became a campaign villain who showed up several times afterwards.

In 5E, for White Plume things took an interesting turn when I ran it, and I had to end up making and running a mini-adventure in Keraptis's Dungeon. I had a lot of fun with that (the PC initially less so, but quickly leaned into it) and is another reason I love that adventure so.

I do think, in the right hands, if each of those adventures was given an OAR-style treatment, they would be very well-received.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In 5E, for White Plume things took an interesting turn when I ran it, and I had to end up making and running a mini-adventure in Keraptis's Dungeon. I had a lot of fun with that (the PC initially less so, but quickly leaned into it) and is another reason I love that adventure so.

Fleshing out everything with Keraptis and the surrounding region (which I gather may have been tackled by Return to White Plume Mountain) seems the obvious way to upgrade the adventure.

 

[tetrasodium]

Re: Thay, At the first D&D Direct in 2023, WotC announced a Red Wizards-focused adventure was coming in 2025 (presumably as a “timely” follow up to the movie) but the project seemed to get scrapped (possibly related to the departure of Chris Perkins) and a kinda half-baked fragment of it, Hold Back the Dead, got dumped for free on DNDBeyond in 2024. I don’t think anything is coming on that front this year.

That might have been for the best withThay. I might cry if Thay came out all bright and shiny or some cartoonishly plot armored nightmare realm one domino away from Total collapse rather than a seemingly stable and advanced nation floating atop Nietzsche's abyss already studying a useful puppet like the PC's and their strings long before players thought to stare into the abyss that has been supplying them with enchanted gear for quite a few levels now

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Fleshing out everything with Keraptis and the surrounding region (which I gather may have been tackled by Return to White Plume Mountain) seems the obvious way to upgrade the adventure.

Don't dash out to find RtWPM, I found it kind of mid to read (maybe it runs better!). But fleshing out the environs wasn't bad. Sadly, I gave it away I think, so can't even go look it up to see why I didn't like it.