Review by C.J. Bunce
Dungeons & Dragons has provided some great fan service in the past few years for gamers drawn to the game by its title creatures. You may have begun your D&D journey with Dragon of Icespire Peak (reviewed here). Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons (reviewed here) is the ultimate guide to dragons. The Practically Complete Guide to Dragons (reviewed here) is a field guide to dragon lore. And of course all dragon quests begin with the D&D Monster Manual (reviewed here). If your favorite element of Dungeons & Dragons has always been the dragons, then Wizards of the Coast’s latest adventure anthology is for you. Dragon Delves (available now here at Amazon with its standard cover and here with a chromatic variant game shop cover) is all about the dragons, a showcase of adventures set in each of ten lairs and its colorful, good or evil, occupant. Not just a new adventure for your next Dungeons & Dragons campaign, the latest 5th edition anthology is a new option to enhance gameplay.
There be dragon history here, too–like you’ve never seen it before in a D&D volume. Take a look inside the latest adventure source for D&D…
First, Dragon Delves could be used as a complete campaign. It also is intended to introduce “filler episodes” between campaigns. But new to the D&D guide books is a history of each dragon type included before each standalone adventure. The history showcases how artists have drawn each dragon over the course of D&D’s fifty year history. The result is eye-opening and intriguing. Some dragons have changed only a little, and others much more. One of the goals of each adventure in this book is creating something that will allow players to see the differences between these dragons.
It begins with the Level 1 adventure Death at Sunset featuring a green dragon. The Level 3 adventure Baker’s Doesn’t features a gold dragon. The Will of Orcus is a Level 4 adventure starring a silver dragon. For Whom the Void Calls is a Level 5 adventure with a brass dragon. A bronze dragon takes center stage in the Level 7 adventure The Dragon of Najkir. The Forbidden Vale is a Level 9 adventure featuring a red dragon. A black dragon is the focus of the Level 10 adventure Before the Storm. Shivering Death is a Level 11 adventure about a white dragon. A Copper for a Song is a Level 12 adventure about a copper dragon. And it all culminates in a Level 12 adventure featuring a blue dragon, called Dragons of the Sandstone City.
The gold, bronze, and copper dragon adventures are designed to be played as either a group or solo campaign. Roughly the first six pages of each chapter showcases artwork and artists who created the signature look of each dragon across the decades. Each chapter/adventure ranges from ten to twenty pages, including a variety of map styles familiar to players who have dabbled in all five D&D Editions.
Even the end papers feature some gorgeous dragon art. Note that as with other adventures, you need copies of the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual. No stat blocks are included in the book.
Not every journey is like a visit to Smaug in The Hobbit—Baker’s Doesn’t is a surprising twist on a fairy tale world like that in Hansel and Gretel. And yet it still has parallels with your favorite classic dragon stories.
For fans of Magic: The Gathering, keep an eye out for images of each dragon from its card in Adventures of the Forgotten Realms.
You’ll learn more about dragon types with each new adventure, and the goal of each adventure will be unique to each story–something the Dungeon Masters can make use of as part of the current campaign or a story expansion.
History and art. Adventures featuring each of the key dragon types. Fun for players of all levels and DMs looking to expand their campaigns, look for the standard cover for Dragon Delves available now here at Amazon, and a chromatic variant game shop cover here.
