D&D 5E The New D&D Book: Candlekeep Mysteries: 17 Mystery Adventures [UPDATED!]

The cover of the upcoming D&D book has been revealed! Candlekeep Mysteries is an anthology of 17 mystery-themed adventures for character levels 1-16.

The image has appeared on Penguin Random House's product page for the book.

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UPDATE! Penguin's product page appears to have now vanished, but we now have the product description! Thanks to @Fezzwick for spotting that!

An anthology of seventeen mystery-themed adventures for the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

Candlekeep attracts scholars like a flame attracts moths. Historians, sages, and others who crave knowledge flock to this library fortress to peruse its vast collection of books, scribbled into which are the answers to the mysteries that bedevil them. Many of these books contain their own mysteries ̶—each one a doorway to adventure. Dare you cross that threshold?

· 17 mystery-themed D&D adventures, each tied to a book discovered in the famed library fortress of Candlekeep
· Easy to run as stand-alone mini adventures or to drop into your home campaign
· Adventures span play from levels 1 to 16
· Includes a full poster map of Candlekeep, plus detailed descriptions of the various locations, characters, and creatures that reside within it
· Introduces a variety of Dungeons & Dragons monsters, items, and non-player characters (NPCs)

Candlekeep Mysteries is a collection of seventeen short, stand-alone D&D adventures designed for characters of levels 1–16. Each adventure begins with the discovery of a book, and each book is the key to a door behind which danger and glory await. These adventures can be run as one-shot games, plugged into an existing Forgotten Realms campaign, or adapted for other campaign settings. This book also includes a poster map of the library fortress and detailed descriptions of Candlekeep and its inhabitants.

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There have been mentions of an upcoming adventure anthology since 2019, with Kate Welch's name attached, along with other celebrity adventure writers including Critical Role's Marisha Ray, and actor Deborah Ann Woll. There were also suggestions that the authors might all be women. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow!

 

[Flamestrike]

It's odd there's a (TM) sign after the book title. D&D books don't usually do that.

Recent legal disputes may have made them jumpy.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I thought Kate punted and left D&D....was this her swan song project that was in the pipeline before she left.

Yes

Let’s try and keep an open mind folks.

Agree

Nice! I actually guessed a thing!

Same

I hope there's an alt cover, but not expecting it (Yawning Portal didn't have one, but Saltmarsh did). Which is too bad, because I'm not super stoked about the cover revealed in the OP.

 

[darjr]

Alt Cover!!!!

 

[R_J_K75]

Which is too bad, because I'm not super stoked about the cover revealed in the OP.

In my opinion the two characters are too front and center and the picture doesnt depict the large scale and grandeur I always pictured of Candlekeep. I always thought of huge sprawling chambers full of 40 story bookcases.

 

[Magister Ludorum]

I will buy it even though I rarely run any published adventure. Since these are smaller one shot adventures, there's a better chance I'll actually run them instead of just reading them for ideas.

Been playing since the late 1970s and I really like what's been published so far for D&D 5e. I suppose some folks "think" that this makes me one of Hasbro's slaves, but I have no fracks to give for the opinions of random strangers

I love mystery stories. In 40+ years of D&D, most of my games have had lots of mysteries. What my group gets bored of is "orc and pie" type stories. And also big adventures where characters go from 1st to 15th level in month or two.

My current Nyrond game is beginning campaign year 3 and the characters are 7th level. I remember* when you could enjoy a level for a while and allow your characters to grow in setting instead just mechanically in a month. I blame PAIZO and their interminable adventure paths.

When it comes to published adventures, I definitely prefer stand alone stories. Usually I have to tweak them so characters don't level twice in the course of a single adventure.

It was back in my day, so get off my lawn!

 

[Don Durito]

Well, it's a thing I guess.

 

[Charlaquin]

It will be interesting to see how they make it to where magic users don't just make the non-casters more or less pointless. D&D kind of works if you have a bunch of grindy filler encounters to let the BMX Bandit get in his ramp jumps before Angel Summoner saves the day. But in a low combat adventure (which mysteries tend to be), it's hard not to feel useless next to the guy who can cast ESP, Speak with Dead, Detect Lie, find the path, etc. I mean, sure you can just have everyone with amulets of nondetection, mind blank, etc but then the mages will rightly feel shafted.

Well, there are very few non-casters in 5e.

Also, I’m betting these adventures will be mysteries in the same way Waterdeep: Dragon Heist was a heist.

 

[Charlaquin]

And now we have a description on Amazon...

Candlekeep attracts scholars like a flame attracts moths. Historians, sages, and others who crave knowledge flock to this library fortress to peruse its vast collection of books, scribbled into which are the answers to the mysteries that bedevil them. Many of these books contain their own mysteries ̶—each one a doorway to adventure. Dare you cross that threshold?

· 17 mystery-themed D&D adventures, each tied to a book discovered in the famed library fortress of Candlekeep
· Easy to run as stand-alone mini adventures or to drop into your home campaign
· Adventures span play from levels 1 to 16
· Includes a full poster map of Candlekeep, plus detailed descriptions of the various locations, characters, and creatures that reside within it
· Introduces a variety of Dungeons & Dragons monsters, items, and non-player characters (NPCs)

Candlekeep Mysteries is a collection of seventeen short, stand-alone D&D adventures designed for characters of levels 1–16. Each adventure begins with the discovery of a book, and each book is the key to a door behind which danger and glory await. These adventures can be run as one-shot games, plugged into an existing Forgotten Realms campaign, or adapted for other campaign settings. This book also includes a poster map of the library fortress and detailed descriptions of Candlekeep and its inhabitants.

You know, I wasn’t excited by the announcement at first, but this description makes it sound like it could actually be pretty useful for my campaign...

 

[Don Durito]

I miss when TSR, WotC would release a catalogue at the beginning of the year with planned releases and decent product descriptions. I know why they dont anymore but liked it better than them being how secretive they are now.

Doing it this ways means that people will regularly start threads on internet forum boards speculating on what the release will be and building hype.

 

[Demetrios1453]

16*16=256

So, if the book is about 256 pages, less than 16 pages per adventure. Might be more, though, we'll find out more details soon..

The new description mentions the usual mini-bestiary at the end for NPCs and non-MM creatures appearing in the book, so that will probably take up at least 10 - 20 pages, if not more (using other books of this type as a comparison, the one in Yawning Portal took up 18 pages, Saltmarsh's took up 26)