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!

 

[Don Durito]

No RPG can handle a Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot style detective story well, since it either requires the PLAYER to be brilliant enough to assemble the clues, or reduces things to an unsatisfactory skill roll and the GM explaining the solution.

You sort of can, but it doesn't quite work out the same way narratively. The trick is you, and the players, have to be comfortable enough with the party failing (at least a little) and experiencing (some) frustration. This can be handled with partial successes rather than outright failures. E.g the party foil a crime, only to realise the whole thing may have been a distraction for something else. They round up a conspiracy, except for the one shadowy conspirator, who none of the others can clearly identify who slipped away.

Basically a long enough timeline can can take the place of brilliance, but you have to keep the game feeling like progress as they slowly get the chance to assemble the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. The trick is making sure the game doesn't get stuck for too long at the point where the players are just spinning their heels unaware of how to perceive. (Basically you need to be able to do the thing from the police drama where they cops get taken off the case to do something else until another opportunity arises to move forward).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You sort of can, but it doesn't quite work out the same way narratively. The trick is you, and the players, have to be comfortable enough with the party failing (at least a little) and experiencing (some) frustration. This can be handled with partial successes rather than outright failures. E.g the party foil a crime, only to realise the whole thing may have been a distraction for something else. They round up a conspiracy, except for the one shadowy conspirator, who none of the others can clearly identify who slipped away.

Basically a long enough timeline can can take the place of brilliance, but you have to keep the game feeling like progress as they slowly get the chance to assemble the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. The trick is making sure the game doesn't get stuck for too long at the point where the players are just spinning their heels unaware of how to perceive. (Basically you need to be able to do the thing from the police drama where they cops get taken off the case to do something else until another opportunity arises to move forward).

Then it wouldn't be a Holmes/Poirot style story.

I.e. you stat from the assumption that the detective is not a genius.

Which works perfectly well in D&D. But the "genius detective" trope is the one that has lodged in many people's minds, and what leads them to the false assumption that D&D can't do mysteries.

Of course, any adventure where the players don't know exactly what they will be fighting from the start is technically a mystery.

 

[TheIdeaOfGood]

Not particularly excited about this. I already have tons of premade adventures and can easily make my own. Just like I have more than enough monsters to run entire campaigns without the players encountering the same monster twice.
I really would love to see some other settings, though.

 

[Maggan]

Stoked about this! It'll be my first purchase since Curse of Strahd!

 

[Echohawk]

I'm pretty sure that every release from 2019 on has had an alt cover, even adventures. I'm thinking that DotMM was the last without one...

I don't think Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (March 2020) had an alt. cover.

 

[TheSword]

People raged about dungeon magazine bring canned and lamented it’s loss because it had short 10-16 page adventures, easily fitting into a campaign, and giving an opportunity to new talent...

...We had a thread a couple of months back, inspired by a top tier designer. How poorly new designers were treated by big firms and how hard it is to break into the industry...

...Along comes an anthology by up and coming designers by the largest RPG company in the world... chorus of “I’m not buying that”.

You know what? I’m not planning on buying a Gucci handbag but I don’t crow about it on the internet.

 

[TheSword]

D&D has Diplomacy, Deception, Intimidation, Perception, Investigation, History, Arcana, Religion, Nature, class abilities that improve these things, fantastic creatures, fantastic places, fantastic organizations, investigation magic, and things that prevent investigation magic. Most importantly, PCs have opportunities to interact with the world. There are plenty of opportunities to convert earlier editions adventures or other systems, because let’s be honest most mysteries are system agnostic.

I’m currently running an adventure where someone in the party gets given a parcel by a courier who has confused the name slightly. This starts a mystery of who was the parcel really for and why do the want the highly controversial contents. It could easily be adapted for 5e.

[Edit] I’m also half way the second part of the Rise of the Runelords adventure path. That has a very well detailed haunted house to explore and try to get to the bottom of what happened.

Don’t tell me 5e can’t do mysteries.

 

[tetrasodium]

No RPG can handle a Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot style detective story well, since it either requires the PLAYER to be brilliant enough to assemble the clues, or reduces things to an unsatisfactory skill roll and the GM explaining the solution.

Fortunately, most mystery stories are not like that. From the Hard Boiled detective subgenre*, to the Famous Five, to modern police procedurals, most mystery stories simply involve following a trail of fairly obvious clues (just like a treasure hunt) punctuated by regular fights, chases, or other action sequences that put our dogged detectives in jeopardy. D&D can do that perfectly well.


* The Dixon Hill parody in Star Trek TNG calls this out - every story begins with someone bursting into the office with a gun.

Fate can do it because sherlock's player can do things to create clues and such. Plus depending on a bunch of things the players might know just as much as the GM

 

[Don Durito]

People raged about dungeon magazine bring canned and lamented it’s loss because it had short 10-16 page adventures, easily fitting into a campaign, and giving an opportunity to new talent...

...We had a thread a couple of months back, inspired by a top tier designer. How poorly new designers were treated by big firms and how hard it is to break into the industry...

...Along comes an anthology by up and coming designers by the largest RPG company in the world... chorus of “I’m not buying that”.

You know what? I’m not planning on buying a Gucci handbag but I don’t crow about it on the internet.

Well maybe on a forum dedicated to haute couture?

 

[Morrus]

We now have a product description thanks to @Fezzwick!

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.