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)​

 

[Juomari Veren]

There was some confusion about it, so for anyone curious; The Phandelver adventure was advertised as being a full 1-20 campaign module, which not only makes the fact that they're cramming the whole original start set adventure into it impressive (considering the next longest adventure book published was Dungeon of the Mad Mage at 5-20), it should also presumably account for about 25% of the book/adventure.

Of course, things always change, but I would assume there hasn't been any big divergence from that plan or they probably would've informed us.

 

[Parmandur]

There was some confusion about it, so for anyone curious; The Phandelver adventure was advertised as being a full 1-20 campaign module, which not only makes the fact that they're cramming the whole original start set adventure into it impressive (considering the next longest adventure book published was Dungeon of the Mad Mage at 5-20), it should also presumably account for about 25% of the book/adventure.

Of course, things always change, but I would assume there hasn't been any big divergence from that plan or they probably would've informed us.

Oh, did they say this was going to Level 20...? Was that in one of the afterwards discussions somewhere...?

If this ends up being a 320 page book, thst would leave 280 pages for the last 3 Tiers of play, or about 90 pages each or nearly 20 pages per Level. Doable, actually, since they don't Ned to be quite as densely packed as Mad Mage was with maps and keys.

 

[mamba]

The Phandelver adventure was advertised as being a full 1-20 campaign module

This is new to me, where did they say that?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

There was some confusion about it, so for anyone curious; The Phandelver adventure was advertised as being a full 1-20 campaign module, which not only makes the fact that they're cramming the whole original start set adventure into it impressive (considering the next longest adventure book published was Dungeon of the Mad Mage at 5-20), it should also presumably account for about 25% of the book/adventure.

Of course, things always change, but I would assume there hasn't been any big divergence from that plan or they probably would've informed us.

I know of no source that said 1-20. It was announced as expanding Lost Mines to a full campaign, but you don’t have to get to 20 to be a full campaign.

 

[Juomari Veren]

Oh, did they say this was going to Level 20...? Was that in one of the afterwards discussions somewhere...?

If this ends up being a 320 page book, thst would leave 280 pages for the last 3 Tiers of play, or about 90 pages each or nearly 20 pages per Level. Doable, actually, since they don't Ned to be quite as densely packed as Mad Mage was with maps and keys.

This is new to me, where did they say that?

I know of no source that said 1-20. It was announced as expanding Lost Mines to a full campaign, but you don’t have to get to 20 to be a full campaign.

Well, I went back and watched the video where they first announced it (Wizards Presents 2022), but apparently they do just say full campaign. And that is fair; There's no precedent for an "entire campaign" to go all the way to 20, especially how 90% of their other modules don't go to 20th level themselves, but if the book were even 250-60 pages it'd still have enough room if the volume of tiers (1-4) were equivalent in size to Lost Mines.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, I went back and watched the video where they first announced it (Wizards Presents 2022), but apparently they do just say full campaign. And that is fair; There's no precedent for an "entire campaign" to go all the way to 20, especially how 90% of their other modules don't go to 20th level themselves, but if the book were even 250-60 pages it'd still have enough room if the volume of tiers (1-4) were equivalent in size to Lost Mines.

Ah, yeah, I doubt it goes to 20, then.

 

[doctorhook]

Throughing some guesses out there but the most obvious one is mixing in Eberron Cosmology

bleh, please no.

Eberron is beautiful and perfect as it is, and tossing it into the melting pot with everything else can only diminish it. Maybe Planescape fans want to hop in and out of Eberron, but I struggle to imagine a knowledgeable Eberron fan wanting to dilute the cosmology.

Thirteen planes, one inaccessible—that’s the Baker’s Dozen. No more, no less. WotC tried to shoehorn The Nine Hells into Eberron in 4E, and look what happened to that… I’m just sayin’.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

bleh, please no.

Eberron is beautiful and perfect as it is, and tossing it into the melting pot with everything else can only diminish it. Maybe Planescape fans want to hop in and out of Eberron, but I struggle to imagine a knowledgeable Eberron fan wanting to dilute the cosmology.

Thirteen planes, one inaccessible—that’s the Baker’s Dozen. No more, no less. WotC tried to shoehorn The Nine Hells into Eberron in 4E, and look what happened to that… I’m just sayin’.

For what its worth I suspect Eberron's cosmology with be semi quartined off into its own Crystal Sphere.

 

[doctorhook]

For what its worth I suspect Eberron's cosmology with be semi quartined off into its own Crystal Sphere.

I’d accept that solution. Emphasize some language about it being “extra difficult” to cross into Eberron’s sphere, and that would be plenty enough for we Eberron purists to keep things clean.

 

[R_J_K75]

Will have to watch this later too, I do hope it is a spin on it though, not simply a reprint. Kinda hoped for a completely separate story, I can always mix in the Lost Mine stuff myself.

Lost Mines is just the first part of the adventure. The rest of the book is higher level stuff.

I don't follow WotC's announcements too closely anymore, but I was apparently mistaken when I assumed this was a campaign setting and not an adventure? I'm not joking and genuinely asking, is WotC using term campaign and adventure synonymously nowadays?