[UPDATED] RAGE OF DEMONS! New D&D Storyline Features Drizzt, Underdark, & Demon Lords!

Following Elemental Evil this fall, Rage of Demons will launch a new storyline featuring Drizzt Do'Urden, the Underdark, and various demon lords from the Abyss including old favourites like Demogorgon, Orcus and Graz’zt. This will feature on tabletop, console, and PC. "The demon lords have been summoned from the Abyss and players must descend into the Underdark with the iconic hero Drizzt Do’Urden to stop the chaos before it threatens the surface." It begins with the adventure Out of the Abyss, which releases on September 15th for $49.95, and is being designed for WotC by Green Ronin Publishing. (Thanks to Charles Akins for that last scoop!)

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Drizzt? WotC's Chris Perkins says: "Drizzt's role in the RoD story varies depending on the platform. In the TRPG adventure, the PCs are the stars."

Inspiration: "My inspirations for RAGE OF DEMONS were Lewis Carroll's Wonderland stories and EXILE, by R.A. Salvatore." [Perkins] So this is the Alice in Wonderland inspired story that's been previously alluded to.

Here's the full announcement.

"Today, Wizards of the Coast announced Rage of Demons, the new storyline for Dungeons & Dragons fans coming in Fall 2015. The demon lords have been summoned from the Abyss and players must descend into the Underdark with the iconic hero Drizzt Do’Urden to stop the chaos before it threatens the surface. Rage of Demons is the story all D&D gamers will be excited to play this fall, whether they prefer consoles, PCs or rolling dice with friends.

Following on the critically-acclaimed Tyranny of Dragons and Elemental Evil stories, Rage of Demons will transport characters to the deadly and insane underworld. Rumors of powerful demon lords such as Demogorgon, Orcus and Graz’zt terrorizing the denizens of the Underdark have begun to filter up to the cities of the Sword Coast. The already dangerous caverns below the surface are thrown into ultimate chaos, madness and discord. The renegade drow Drizzt Do’Urden is sent to investigate but it will be up to you to aid in his fight against the demons before he succumbs to his darker temptations.

Dungeons & Dragons fans will have more options than ever to enjoy the Rage of Demons storyline. The themes of treachery and discord in the Underdark are in Sword Coast Legends, the new CRPG (computer role-playing game) coming this fall on PC from n-Space and Digital Extremes. The epic campaign that drives Sword Coast Legends' story forces players deep into the Underdark and continues well after launch with legendary adventurer Drizzt Do'Urden.

For fans of Neverwinter, the popular Dungeons & Dragons-based MMORPG will bring a new expansion – tentatively titled Neverwinter: Underdark – in 2015. The update will see adventurers travel with Drizzt to the drow city of Menzoberranzan during its demonic assault as well as experience a unique set of quests written by the creator of Drizzt, R.A. Salvatore. The expansion will initially be released on PC and will come out on the Xbox One at a later date.

Players of the tabletop roleplaying game can descend into the Underdark in Out of the Abyss, a new adventure which provides details on the demon lords rampaging through the Underdark. Partners such as WizKids, GaleForce 9 and Smiteworks will all support Rage of Demons with new products to help bring your tabletop game to life. To really get in the mind of Drizzt, fans will have to check out Archmage, the new novel by R.A. Salvatore, scheduled for release in early September.

“Rage of Demons is a huge storyline involving all expressions of Dungeons & Dragons, and we’re excited to bring players this story in concert with all of our partners,” said Nathan Stewart, Brand Director at Wizards of the Coast. “I can’t wait to see everyone interact with one of the world’s most recognizable fantasy characters: Drizzt Do’Urden. Descending into the depths won’t exactly be easy for him, and D&D fans will get their mettle tested just like Drizzt when they come face-to-face with all the demon lords.”

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[JeffB]

I am agreeing with many here regarding the Realms in general. When 3.0 released, I re-wrote a bunch of high level overview history of the Realms because I could not stand alot of what happened during the 2E transition and the 3E transition. I think I even posted it here years ago.

Eventually I just gave up, and when I have run realms games, just kept using the OGB, and the first few FRx books. I sometimes pick and choose from post ToT, 3E, 4E lore/books as I need (I get some mileage out the Volos guides, FRA, and the recent Elminsters guide, for example). Its made me much happier and I just handwave stuff like some of the fluff in Phandelver.

At any rate, I would love to see GH, TKW products, and would prefer D&D to be setting light/free at its core too, but no "story" means no money for a corporation like Hasbro. They cannot make enough money on rules without the story, the SRD/OGL showed them that. So they stick with what they can cal their own. GI Joe, Transformers,MLP, whatever, its about characters and stories/movies/setting, and now D&D is in the same corporate boat. Thus they go with their best known "story setting" in D&D (thanks to novels, and video games), and jam every trope since 1974 into it (Demogorgon, fwiw,, was my first exposure to a demon prince when I bought EW in 1977).

I love 5E rules, but the TTRPG is a second class citizen these days in the grand scheme of things. It stinks. I am used to (as a D&D fan/customer since 1977) a certain type and level of support. Those days are over. Unless D&D starts to see the worldwide fad success of the late 70s, early 80s.

But hoping they are going to focus on settings that are even lower on the popularity scale in the TT world than FR is futile. My guess is we will see some lip service...like GH in the 3.0/3.5 era, or in the new 5E books, and that's about it.

 

[justinj3x3]

But hoping they are going to focus on settings that are even lower on the popularity scale in the TT world than FR is futile. My guess is we will see some lip service...like GH in the 3.0/3.5 era, or in the new 5E books, and that's about it.

Pretty much.

 

[Wicht]

The problem is, in order to continually support a setting, it needs to move along, not stay static. Otherwise, you're going to see a book about mannerisms and fashion in Verbobonc. Because, if it's static, new books are only going to include more detail. What color are the Viscount's socks, I wonder?

The cool thing is, if you liked a setting at a certain time, it's pretty easy to just use the material from that time and ignore everything else. They're even making it easy for non-grognard collectors with pdfs at DTRPG.

I'm running my 5e game in 3e FR. It could have easily been in 1e or 2e FR, or even 1e Greyhawk or Mystara, but I wanted use the cool Silver Marches book I've had for years and never used.

The problem with this is when the new adventures make assumptions about events along the timeline. The astute DM can remove it, I am sure, but it becomes more and more work the further the setting gets removed from the base assumptions.

I much prefer the Paizo model where the adventures can change the world, but by and large the adventures are independent of one another. Might they need to do another setting book at some point? Sure, but they are years into their setting and the campaign books first put out are still pretty valid. A new campaign book every ten-fifteen years I can live with. But a new one every two or three becomes problematic. (I think that the Golarion model seems largely in response to perceived problems with the Forgotten Realms model, so I appreciate them noting the same issues I have.)

 

[Celtavian]

The pushing of FR over Greyhawk stems from the Lorraine Williams days at TSR. Promote the stuff not created by the guy you just ousted. So, from that, FR snowballed into the D&D's biggest setting, especially after the video games, like Baldur's Gate, and the novels. It became the most popular setting by a large margin, and nothing has come along to uproot that.

You can complain about the good ol' days of Settingpalooza, but the fact is, FR is the money maker, even back in the heady 2e days. Going against something tried and true is a big risk.

Agree.

I enjoyed the hell out of the video games. I loved Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights.

I know people that love Drizz't that don't even play D&D. He was the first D&D character I heard people talk about that didn't even play or know anything about D&D other than it was some strange game.

 

[Dire Bare]

It has been proven to be the most popular setting because, when they started publishing it, they spent the next decade actively promoting the heck out of it while actively neglecting, or sometimes even consciously undermining, other settings (hello, Castle Greyhawk). I've made this point before in other threads, but of course Greyhawk doesn't have half the popularity of the FR; it hasn't had anywhere close to half the support in, like, almost 30 years!

I think this is a chicken-or-egg argument. Is Forgotten Realms the most popular D&D setting BECAUSE WotC puts more resources behind it? Or, does WotC put more resources behind the Forgotten Realms because it is their most popular setting?

I'm sure it's not that black-or-white either, that good setting support has a snowball effect of increasing popularity, even if the setting was already popular.

The closest we can compare is WotC's effort to use Greyhawk as the default setting for early 3rd edition. Classic D&D with a strong fanbase . . . but ultimately not popular enough to survive even until the end of the 3rd edition cycle. Some argue that's because WotC didn't try hard enough (put out tons of amazing products), but I think that's wishful thinking.

 

[Dire Bare]

The setting was some of the best stuff in 4e and is widely lauded. The problems with 4e had pretty much nothing at all to do with the setting.

That said, I own almost all the 4e-era adventures that WotC published, in part because there was really nothing that couldn't insert smoothly and easily into my game- the setting really didn't intrude (unless you count the planar stuff in the Shadowfell and Feywild- which, personally, I think are excellent additions to the D&D multiverse anyhow).

I enjoyed the Nentir Vale setting, although I enjoyed the larger "World Axis" cosmology even more! It was a quality setting that was coherent and a lot of fun . . . and very generic D&D. But I think it is telling that WotC did not bring the Nentir Vale forward into 5th edition (at least, not yet), did not create a *new* generic fantasy world for 5th, but instead put the focus of the core books on both *all* and *none* of the classic D&D settings and have chosen the Realms for their initial focus.

 

[AriochQ]

Greyhawk was Gygax's vision of a fantasy setting. FR is more in line with the commonly accepted idea of a fantasy setting.

Gygax was into dramatic histories, mass migrations, wars, and cataclysmic events. FR seems more like a world pulled out of any of the numerous high fantasy novels that followed the introduction of D&D.

 

[justinj3x3]

I think this is a chicken-or-egg argument. Is Forgotten Realms the most popular D&D setting BECAUSE WotC puts more resources behind it? Or, does WotC put more resources behind the Forgotten Realms because it is their most popular setting?

I'm sure it's not that black-or-white either, that good setting support has a snowball effect of increasing popularity, even if the setting was already popular.

The closest we can compare is WotC's effort to use Greyhawk as the default setting for early 3rd edition. Classic D&D with a strong fanbase . . . but ultimately not popular enough to survive even until the end of the 3rd edition cycle. Some argue that's because WotC didn't try hard enough (put out tons of amazing products), but I think that's wishful thinking.

I can agree with the first part of what you said (to an extent), but I'll reiterate what I said before about this (still not sure if you chose to ignore me before, but in case you missed it....). WOTC saying the core world is Greyhawk and then proceeding to put out generic information (minus the occasional nod) is not supporting the setting. Greyhawk specific information is setting support and that was lacking in 3rd edition. So to say Greyhawk fans stating WOTC didn't try hard enough is wishful thinking is actually the wishful thinking. If you want to see Greyhawk support during 3e look at Dungeon magazine because it wasn't in WOTC's products. WOTC even told Mona to chill on the Greyhawk support from what I've read from him.

 

[Celtavian]

I think this is a chicken-or-egg argument. Is Forgotten Realms the most popular D&D setting BECAUSE WotC puts more resources behind it? Or, does WotC put more resources behind the Forgotten Realms because it is their most popular setting?

I'm sure it's not that black-or-white either, that good setting support has a snowball effect of increasing popularity, even if the setting was already popular.

The closest we can compare is WotC's effort to use Greyhawk as the default setting for early 3rd edition. Classic D&D with a strong fanbase . . . but ultimately not popular enough to survive even until the end of the 3rd edition cycle. Some argue that's because WotC didn't try hard enough (put out tons of amazing products), but I think that's wishful thinking.

You have to give some credit to Ed Greenwood as well. He put a lot of work into the setting. I know it's derivative and has a lot Mary Sue's, but Ed put his heart and soul into the setting. He did some fun, creative things with it. He helped promote and develop it. He seemed to have a lot of fun doing so. It was his fantasy land he shared with the D&D community. Ed Greenwood's enthusiasm for The Realms was infectious and seemed to inspire a lot of fluff and crunch development for D&D. When people are hating on The Realms, they seem to forget that it was created by fellow gamer geek Ed Greenwood, a man passionate about fantasy, D&D, and world creation.

 

[justinj3x3]

You have to give some credit to Ed Greenwood as well. He put a lot of work into the setting. I know it's derivative and has a lot Mary Sue's, but Ed put his heart and soul into the setting. He did some fun, creative things with it. He helped promote and develop it. He seemed to have a lot of fun doing so. It was his fantasy land he shared with the D&D community. Ed Greenwood's enthusiasm for The Realms was infectious and seemed to inspire a lot of fluff and crunch development for D&D. When people are hating on The Realms, they seem to forget that it was created by fellow gamer geek Ed Greenwood, a man passionate about fantasy, D&D, and world creation.

Great post and great point. For the record when I'm sticking up for Greyhawk I'm not hating on the realms. I have no opinion of the realms either way because I'm ignorant of most details. I don't think any setting is a bad setting and every setting has it's shining examples of why fans love them.