The Next Dungeons & Dragons Storyline Will Be...

And the new storyline for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is...

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Waterdeep: Dragon Heist! The plot will focus on an urban treasure hunt and a focus on urban and city-based adventures with special rules for running games in that environment. The adventure itself will have variable goals and antagonists similar to the original I6: Ravenloft module, where the DM chooses what "villain" will be the secret villain of the campaign, which will change outcomes of various events. The adventure itself will also have downtime built into the adventure along with the ability to own property in Waterdeep. The adventure for Level 1-5 will be released on September 18, 2018, with an MSRP of $49.95.

A second announcement is anticipated later this weekend, as the product codenamed "Catacombs" has a release date of November 20 and is also a 256-page hardcover book. This would make Waterdeep: Dragon Heist the codename "Broadway" (which also had a custom dice release announced for solicitation last year with the other products, including "Marathon" which turned out to be Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes).

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Wizards of the coast made the announcement as part of a weekend-long live streaming event on their Twitch channel, "Stream of Many Eyes". Other products announced during the live stream include updates to the Neverwinter MMO and its Barovia expansion, a new official history artbook about Dungeons & Dragons with images throughout the history of the game, and a new series of boxed sets with props and handouts for published adventures released so far as well as for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist.

This article will be updated with more information as the Wizards of the Coast live stream continues.

 

[Duo Maxwell]

From the YouTube clip, it sounds like this is the best version of Undermountain we're getting: NPCs with a lot depth, motivations for you to be there, each level being completely distinct from one another and more. This is a great year for Waterdeep/Undermountain fans.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Dungeon of the Mad Mage, levels 6-20 plus a very nice base in Waterdeep - very happy. I'll be getting my old City System maps and encounter tables out!

 

[Yaarel]

I appreciate the urban setting for the adventure, and am curious about how 5e handles it.

 

[Yaarel]

If Jarlaxe makes a cameo appearance, I hope his associate Kimmuriel Oblodra (the psion) does too!

 

[Kurotowa]

If Jarlaxe makes a cameo appearance, I hope his associate Kimmuriel Oblodra (the psion) does too!

Cameo? He's on the cover! From the D&D Beyond videos it looks like he's one of the four choices for the Dragon Heist antagonist. It's him, a Manshoon clone, Xanathar, or a noble house (the Cassalanters) with infernal ties.

 

[guachi]

Pass.

Unless the level 1-5 adventure is generic enough to easily put somewhere else.

 

[LordEntrails]

I want to know how much interaction these books have, can you say teleport back to the surface to manage your inn between devling levels for example?

Very. The discussion in the stream, expecially at the very end of todays, it that you are expected to take your level 5 characters from DH and drop them into DotMM.

Undermountain is known for numerous portals, plus a pair of large vertical shafts that allow travel between the levels (though they are typically guarded, so you have to be on somebodies good side).

I have to believe that since we'll just have gotten a huge book on everything about Waterdeep that they will expect people to head back up to the city from time to time for downtime activities (which in itself will be expanded upon in that book). So I'm pretty sure that there will be a good amount of (optional) integration with Dragon Heist material...

Agreed.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Just thinking - now that we have an official dungeon going to level 20, will we finally see some high-level creatures specific to the Forgotten Realms setting like sharn or phaerimm?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Pass.

Unless the level 1-5 adventure is generic enough to easily put somewhere else.

Waterdeep is an extremely generic D&D city. That is what makes it so dull.

But I'm sure this adventure will be entirely portable to any standard world.

 

[Yaarel]

Pass.

Unless the level 1-5 adventure is generic enough to easily put somewhere else.

I am assuming, it will be easy to plug this city into my setting.

The city can be as distinctive as possible. As long as it avoids heavy-handed cosmology assumptions, it can go into any medieval-esque ... renaissance-esque setting.