Tag Archive: Dungeons and Dragons


Candlekeep Mysteries–Add 17 mystery adventures to your next Dungeons & Dragons campaign

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January 17, 2021

Candlekeep attracts scholars like a flame attracts moths.  Historians, sages, and others who crave knowledge flock to this library fortress to peruse its vast collection of books, scribbled into which are the answers to the mysteries that bedevil them.  Many of these books contain their own mysteries–each one a doorway to adventure.  Dare you cross that threshold?

The new Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition adventure anthology Candlekeep Mysteries explores the Forgotten Realm’s renowned towering library fortress with 17 new mystery themed mini-adventures–each tied to a book in the library.  These can be run as standalone adventures or tucked into your latest campaign.  Including a poster map of the library fortress and detailed descriptions of Candlekeep and its inhabitants, you can pre-order the library cover here at Amazon now, or pick up the Victorian-inspired variant cover via your local gameshop.

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borg’s Best of 2020–The Best Comics and Games

Filed under: Backstage Pass, Comics & Books, Con Culture, Fantasy Realms, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, Superheroes — Leave a comment
December 18, 2020

Our borg Best of 2020 list continues today with the Best in Comics and Games.  If you missed them, check out our review of the Best Books of 2020 here, the Best Movies of 2020 here, the Kick-Ass Heroines of 2020 here, and the Best in Television 2020 here.

We reviewed comics from every major publisher this year, and were pleasantly surprised with all the new characters and content available.  You’ll find both some new creators on the list this year and some fan favorites who keep making better comic books each new year.  We also include some great games and more from 2020.

Let’s get started with The Best in Comics…

Best Comic Book Series – Bounty Hunters (Marvel Comics).  Writer Ethan Sacks and artist Paolo Villanelli played with the entire Star Wars universe in a single series, bringing back the cyborg Valance and a host of our favorite bounty hunters.  The result is a great series full of action and throwbacks.

Best Sci-Fi Comic Series, Best Limited Comic Book Series, Best Interior Artwork – Strayed (Dark Horse Comics) by writer Carlos Giffoni and artist Juan Doe.   In the future a military-industrial complex reigns over all humanity and actively destroys distant alien worlds.  The galaxy’s only hope can be found through an unlikely pair: an astral-projecting cat named Lou and his human Kiara.  Honorable mention: Rogue Planet by writer Cullen Bunn and artists Andy MacDonald and Nick Filardi (Oni Press).

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The Great Dalmuti–1990s tactics card game gets a re-issue by Wizards of the Coast with a D&D theme

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December 2, 2020

Just when you’re looking for a stocking stuffer for your favorite Dungeons & Dragons gamer, Wizards of the Coast steps in with an update to one of its classic card games.  The Great Dalmuti is a multi-player card game from the mind of Richard Garfield, creator of Magic the Gathering.  Artist Harry Conway has provided the D&D spin on the cards, but the core rules remain the same.  It’s available now here at Amazon, and via your local game shop.

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Wilderness Kit–Run through the jungle with new D&D Dungeon Master tie-in set

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November 14, 2020

Since the Fifth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons launched in 2014, Wizards of the Coast has been offering plenty of great tie-in products to enhance the gaming experience, many under the heading of Dice & Miscellany.  The latest tie-in is available in game shops and here at Amazon this week, the D&D Dungeon Master’s Screen Wilderness Kit.  Whether you’re exploring the jungles of Chult, sailing through Saltmarsh, or navigating the frozen frontier of Icewind Dale, the D&D Wilderness Kit will help you through it.

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Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything–Options, options, and more options arrive to expand your Dungeons and Dragons gameplay

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November 13, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

Next Tuesday Wizards of the Coast releases its new set of rules options and subclasses for Dungeons & Dragons in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, featuring the storied mother of witches and daughter of Baba Yaga as she pulls back the curtain to reveal new spells and other magic miscellany.  Tired of the standard 5th Edition rules and want to spice up your play a bit?  Tasha’s book is all about options–options to flip the framework of characters on end, options to expand strictures of backgrounds and races, maybe even changing that trait you always wished you could modify for your favorite character class.  It’s for players and Dungeon Masters as a supplement to the Player’s Handbook, the Monster Manual, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and can be paired with any previously issued adventure.  Pre-order it now here at Amazon for Tuesday delivery.  What’s all inside?

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Review–Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, an exciting story and visually stunning D&D adventure

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September 9, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

Franklin, Scott, Shackleton, Dyre, Hillary, MacReady, Torrance, Norgay.  Name your favorite stone-cold adventurer from real life or fiction and ready yourself for what may be the deepest, most detailed world building in your Dungeons & Dragons gaming yet.  Ed Greenwood and R.A. Salvatore’s Icewind Dale will take on new meaning for you as a place of excitement and troubled outcasts, nonstop pitfalls, and numbing despair–if you’re not careful.  In Wizards of the Coast’s latest adventure, Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden, players will journey across lands doomed to darkness by a frostmaiden of many faces, known to embody all of winter’s cruelties.  Your most bone chilling nightmares lie ahead, and survival is only the beginning.

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Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything–A new D&D rule book expansion is coming

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August 27, 2020

   

From Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons is issuing a new set of rules options and subclasses for the “world’s greatest roleplaying game.”  Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything will be available on November 17, 2020, with a cover by Magali Villeneuve and an alt-cover by Wylie Beckert only available through local game stores. Pre-orders are available now here at Amazon (note: it’s not searchable by the title name yet, but can be found at this link).  Fans will get a chance to preview some of the new subclasses and more at D&D Celebration, an online gaming event open to fans all over the world, taking place September 18-20.

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Book review–R.A. Salvatore’s latest trilogy wraps today with his exciting new Drizzt novel, Relentless

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July 28, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

Come, let us be quick.  The crumbling world will not wait for heroes who pause.

Returning with a story at the very foundations of Dungeons & Dragons today is fantasy author R.A. Salvatore with the final novel in his latest Drizzt Do’Urden trilogy and his 34th Drizzt novel overall, Relentless.  In this third act everything is at stake for the friends of the dark elf ranger, especially for his mother, his father, and his wife, as Salvatore takes readers back to the very circumstances of Drizzt’s birth–and reaches far into his future.  The plot switches from skirmishes and battles to the careful ministrations of dark influences in the matriarchal society of Menzoberranzan and the reactions and responses of everyone to them.  Available here at Amazon today, the release is also nicely timed to the forthcoming 5th edition of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden–Salvatore first presented Drizzt in the Ten Towns of that realm three decades ago.

Plus, bugbears, yochlolk, and glabrezu–oh, my!

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Mythic Odysseys of Theros–Enter a realm inspired by Ancient Greece in your next Dungeons & Dragons campaign

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July 16, 2020

Review by C.J. Bunce

The new Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition adventure Mythic Odysseys of Theros has an inspired twist on the mythology and real world of the Ancient Greeks, creating a bit of a mirror fantasy setting that is still nicely footed in that world.  The new campaign, which arrives online and in game shops July 21, has a very different look and feel from your typical D&D sourcebook.  You’ll harken back to when you first imagined living among a pantheon of dueling Gods, and encountering your first images of hydras, hippocamps, krakens, and chimera (or watched Clash of the Titans).  And a book full of some enticing new maps will keep you absorbed in hours of roleplay this summer, even if you’re needing to make it all work with your friends over Zoom instead of in person.

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Icewind Dale–Take on the treacherous tundra of Ten-Towns and a Frostmaiden in next D&D adventure

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July 1, 2020

The next adventure from Dungeons & Dragons is coming this summer.  Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden is a tale of dark terror. Wizards of the Coast promises players will visit the forlorn, flickering candlelights of civilization known as Ten-Towns and traverse many bone-chilling locations that surround these frontier settlements.  Beneath the unyielding night sky, players will stand before a towering glacier and recite an ancient rhyme, causing a crack to form in the great wall of ice.  Past this icy dungeon is a secret so old and terrifying that few dare speak of it.  What fantastic secrets and treasures are entombed in the heart of the glacier, and what will their discovery mean for the denizens of Icewind Dale?  Do you dare try to save Ten-Towns from the Frostmaiden?  The new supplement to the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons is available for pre-order now with an add-on frosty set of dice.

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