D&D 5E Upcoming D&D Tidbits: Phandelver, Book of Many Things, Venger, & More!

D&D Beyond has shared some more tidbits of information about upcoming products, including this summer's new Phandelver campaign, and information about Vecna, Planescape, and spring's Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants, and more.

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Here are the highlights:

• In the 2024 Vecna adventure, you will visit various worlds.
• Art by Brian Valezer and Kent Davis from fall 2023's Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants was shared (see below), along with art from the Phandelver campaign by José Manzanedo. There was additional art from Planescape and more which you can see in the video.
• The new Phandelver book will include the existing adventure Lost Mines of Phandelver in the first half and then continue on to higher levels from there.
• They're reimagining Planescape for today's audience--honouring the roots then expanding.
• More cards are being added to the Deck of Many Things in winter 2023's Book of Many Things. A new product type--a deck of cards and an accompanying book. The book digs into the history of the deck and its cosmic place as a force of chaos. It contains player and DM content.
• Venger, the villain from the 1980s D&D cartoon who will be featuring in an upcoming storyline and WotC's Chris Perkins might have hinted he is actually a Red Wizard--'a redder Red Wizard' was the phrase used.
• Many of the various bad guys in the League of Malevolence appeared in the D&D cartoon series -- Kelek, Warduke, etc.

Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants (art by Brian Valezer)

Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants (art by Kent Davis)

Phandelver Campaign (art by José Manzanedo)

Book of Many Things (art by Craig J. Spearing)​

 

[Parmandur]

Am I the only person who thinks Lost Mines is rather dull and generic?

But it's fairly obvious they would have to include it in the new book, since the original starter set is going out of print. This adventure is a sequel to one you can't get any more!

Generic, absolutely, It's a starter set adventure. Meant to show off basic D&D tropes. Dull is more about what people bring to the table, honestly, and Loat Mines gives a lot of space for PC Shenanigans. See also, Adventure Zone.

 

[Stormonu]

Well, D&D has certainly included reprints of adventures in larger products, such as the old T1-T4. Also been done as recent as 5E with Tyranny of Dragons, which combined Hoard and Rise. It's not the best solution to include Mines, but it does help those don't have access to the original for one reason or another. And you can always sell your starter copy if you don't want duplicates and want to get some of the money back.

Just as an aside, here's a list of TSR's and WotC's old compiled/reprint of module series that I'm aware of

Spoiler

1st Edition
A1-A4 (Scourge of the Slave Lords)
D1-D2 (Descent into the Depths)
G1-G3 (Against the Giants)
G1-3, D1-3, Q1 (Queen of the Spiders)
I3-I5 (Desert of Desolation)
S1-S4 (Realms of Horror)
T1-T4 (Temple of Elemental Evil)

2E
Against the Giants - The Liberation of Geoff
Return to the Keep on the Borderlands
Return to the Tomb of Horrors
Return to White Plume Mountain
TSR Jam 1999
House of Strahd

3E
Expedition to Castle Ravenloft
Expedition to the Demonweb Pits (D1-3, Q1 remix)
Expedition to Castle Greyhawk (Ruins of Castle Greyhawk remix)

4E
Tomb of Horrors

5E
Tales of the Yawning Portal
Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Tyranny of Dragons
Curse of Strahd
Storm Giant's Thunder (G1-G3 remix)
Tomb of Annihilation (Jungles of Chult, Dwellers in the Forbidden City, Tomb of Horrors remix)
Out of the Abyss (D1-D3, Q1 remix)
Princes of the Apocalypse (T1-T4 remix)

BECMI
B1-B9 (In Search of Adventure)

Dragonlance
DL1-4 (Dragonlance Classics Volume 1)
DL6-9 (Dragonlance Classics Volume 2)
DL10,12-14 (Dragonlance Classics Volume 3)
Dragons of Autumn (3E, DL1-4)
Dragons of Winter (3E, DL6-9)
Dragons of Spring (3E, DL10, 12-14)

Miscellaneous
A0-A4 - Against the Slavelords (40th year)
S1-S4 - Dungeons of Dread (40th year)

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Am I the only person who thinks Lost Mines is rather dull and generic?

Agreed! As a fan, what I like about it is it introduced the tropes of zero to hero; rescue the person; escalating bosses; constrained dungeon play mixed in with sandbox/side questy play. Feels very D&D. Also the help they give you the new DM to run the game is more than any other WotC product (I haven't looked at Shipwreck, Dragonspire, or other intro products - maybe they are good too)

That said, the timing of this is strange (as discussed else-forum). I would have fast tracked this to have it on shelves by release of DADHAT; or waited until OneD&D's release.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Well, D&D has certainly included reprints of adventures in larger products, such as the old T1-T4. Also been done as recent as 5E with Tyranny of Dragons, which combined Hoard and Rise. It's not the best solution to include Mines, but it does help those don't have access to the original for one reason or another. And you can always sell your starter copy if you don't want duplicates and want to get some of the money back.

Just as an aside, here's a list of TSR's and WotC's old compiled/reprint of module series that I'm aware of

Spoiler

Return to the Keep on the Borderlands
Return to the Tomb of Horrors
Return to White Plume Mountain

I'm not sure if the "Return" books from TSR have the original module in them. I've got Return to White Plume on my shelf at home, I'll have to check when I get back this evening...

 

[Stormonu]

I'm not sure if the "Return" books from TSR have the original module in them. I've got Return to White Plume on my shelf at home, I'll have to check when I get back this evening...

Return to White Plume wrecks the original module, but the others do appear to have the originals in them, with expanded and slightly modified/updated content.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, D&D has certainly included reprints of adventures in larger products, such as the old T1-T4. Also been done as recent as 5E with Tyranny of Dragons, which combined Hoard and Rise. It's not the best solution to include Mines, but it does help those don't have access to the original for one reason or another. And you can always sell your starter copy if you don't want duplicates and want to get some of the money back.

Just as an aside, here's a list of TSR's and WotC's old compiled/reprint of module series that I'm aware of

Spoiler

1st Edition
A1-A4 (Scourge of the Slave Lords)
D1-D2 (Descent into the Depths)
G1-G3 (Against the Giants)
G1-3, D1-3, Q1 (Queen of the Spiders)
I3-I5 (Desert of Desolation)
S1-S4 (Realms of Horror)
T1-T4 (Temple of Elemental Evil)

2E
Against the Giants - The Liberation of Geoff
Return to the Keep on the Borderlands
Return to the Tomb of Horrors
Return to White Plume Mountain
TSR Jam 1999
House of Strahd

3E
Expedition to Castle Ravenloft
Expedition to the Demonweb Pits (D1-3, Q1 remix)
Expedition to Castle Greyhawk (Ruins of Castle Greyhawk remix)

4E
Tomb of Horrors

5E
Tales of the Yawning Portal
Ghosts of Saltmarsh
Tyranny of Dragons
Curse of Strahd
Storm Giant's Thunder (G1-G3 remix)
Tomb of Annihilation (Jungles of Chult, Dwellers in the Forbidden City, Tomb of Horrors remix)
Out of the Abyss (D1-D3, Q1 remix)
Princes of the Apocalypse (T1-T4 remix)

BECMI
B1-B9 (In Search of Adventure)

Dragonlance
DL1-4 (Dragonlance Classics Volume 1)
DL6-9 (Dragonlance Classics Volume 2)
DL10,12-14 (Dragonlance Classics Volume 3)
Dragons of Autumn (3E, DL1-4)
Dragons of Winter (3E, DL6-9)
Dragons of Spring (3E, DL10, 12-14)

Miscellaneous
A0-A4 - Against the Slavelords (40th year)
S1-S4 - Dungeons of Dread (40th year)

Good list, but the 5E Adventures you call out as "remixes" don't actually have any reprinted material: theybare indeed homages, but entirely seperate texts.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Am I the only person who thinks Lost Mines is rather dull and generic?

I don't think it's dull, but generic works in its favour as an introductory adventure.

 

[Stormonu]

Good list, but the 5E Adventures you call out as "remixes" don't actually have any reprinted material: theybare indeed homages, but entirely seperate texts.

Yeah, I was going to leave them out initially, but figured since they were essentially modern takes I'd include them - same goes for a lot of the Return... and two of the Expedition to... adventures, though the Tomb of Horrors one actually included a reprint of original Tomb.

And I missed Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil apparently, now that I think about it.

My main point, though, was this sort of thing has been done before, usually when the original's gone out of print. For example, I never had a chance to get the original D1 or G1-G3 individual adventures, but picked them up in the compilations (GDQ, specifically)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Am I the only person who thinks Lost Mines is rather dull and generic?

It is generally pretty generic -- barring elevating the nothic, of all things, to the mainstream -- but I believe that's what's needed for a starter adventure, particularly one at the start of a new edition.

When I started my campaign, I intentionally started with a pretty generic set-up, so that I could introduce the players (many of whom were new to D&D or hadn't played in years or decades) to the tropes immediately, before subverting them later on.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Dull is more about what people bring to the table, honestly

That's not a well-advised argument, I'd suggest, because you could immunize any adventure, no matter how fundamentally boring, obvious, rigid, and generally weakly-conceived on that basis. So it's kind of a self-negating argument, as applies to all adventures equally.

I would suggest there are 100% absolutely bad, dull, rubbish, boring, poorly-designed, rigid or otherwise crummy adventures out there (not just from WotC or for D&D, either - I can't think of a system I have more than a few adventures for where at least a couple aren't pretty crummy), and blaming the people who are foolish enough to run/play them for them being a bad experience is, imho, both bad form (essentially a form of victim-blaming and author-worship - i.e. authors can do nothing wrong, it's always the players/DM who "brought the wrong energy to the table" or w/e), and just outright wrong! I get you probably don't intend it that way, I'm just pointing out the consequences of arguing that way.

That said I don't think that applies to Phandelver. I wouldn't call it "dull" or "boring" - as you say it's not a bad introduction at all. My personal experience is that there's isn't any requirement for intro adventures to be very "on-brand", but it's absolutely fine if they are.