We open with a sea shanty sung by a group of adventurers aboard a wooden ship…then we zoom out and realize that’s no sea…that’s wide open space…that’s right, this space shanty is heralding the arrival of Spelljammer: Adventures In Space, and D&D will never be the same again. A ton of exciting things were announced today, and we summarize them for you below!

SPELLJAMMER

Spelljammer confirmed! After much speculation, Wizards of the Coast announced Spelljammer: Adventures in Space. Spelljammer is being sold as a box set of three 64-page books, a DM screen, and a double-sided poster map, that together invites you into Wildspace to discover adventures among the stars.

The first of these books is the Astral Adventurer’s Guide, a book containing everything you need to make a Spelljammer character. This includes new backgrounds, spells, magic items, and six new races that we’ve seen before! All six play-tested races from the Travelers of the Multiverse Unearthed Arcana will be available in this book. That includes the spacey Astral Elves, the robotic Autognomes, the winged monkey-like Hadozee, the fierce hippo-people of the Giff, the incestile Thri-Kreen, and D&D’s first playable Ooze race: the Plasmoids. This book will also include deck pans and rules for flying your very own spelljamming ship.

The second book in this box set is Boo’s Astral Menagerie. Named after D&D’s most famous miniature giant space-hamster, this is the space Monster Manual you’ve been waiting for. Monsters include Space Clowns, Vampirates, Murder Comits, Solar and Lunar Dragons, and of course, Giant Space Hamsters. It’s been confirmed to have over 64 new creatures contained within, and if you want a preview, I have good news! Wizards of the Coast have already released the Monstrous Compendium Vol 1: Spelljammer Creatures, a free document containing 10 brand-new creatures like the Star Lancer (a space shark mount), and the Fractine (a living mirror dimension that traps its foes).

The final book is Light of Xaryxis, an adventure module for characters level 5-8. This adventure has 12 episodes, and it’s teased that each one ends on a cliffhanger! Not much is known about the plot at this time, but a free prequel called Spelljammer Academy is set to release in July, so keep your eyes peeled!

Naturally Wizkids is releasing a series of Icons of the Realms miniatures to coincide with this release. Some of the previewed figures show the new races, a ridable Space Swine, Giant Space Hamster, a Void Scavver, and a gigantic Astral Dreadnought! Some figures, including the Solar Dragon, have options to stack other figures on top of them for a ridable effect, and they even have spelljamming ships to use in tactical space combat! These figures will be available in the fall, but are up for pre-order now.

DRAGONLANCE

A surprise preview was released for a book that won’t be released until much later in 2022 – Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen. This book is intended to be a tour of the world of Dragonlance as you make a character to fight in the epic War of the Lance! Many of the player options in this book have been previewed in the Heroes of Krynn Unearthed Arcana and while we are unsure how much of this content will make it into the book, the Kender will be available as a playable race along with the Draconians.

As a new twist, this book will be released alongside a tactical board game. Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn is a tactical board game that will also be released in late 2022. This game will be used to simulate the large-scale battles that will occur throughout the adventure, and you can even translate your character into the board game! How this works has yet to be revealed, but the game has been compared to cooperative European board games.

STARTER SET: DRAGONS OF STORMWRECK ISLE

Even though the box art of this starter set had been leaked by Hasbro earlier this month, this stream was the first formal announcement of a new boxed starter set! This box will include 6 polyhedral dice, 5 pre-made character sheets, a streamlined rulebook, and a level 1-3 adventure that will be chock-full of dragons! Additionally, WOTC included a QR code for online assistance in learning to play and run a game of D&D! This includes tutorial videos that cover many of the aspects of the game new players have previously found confusing. Pay attention to that box art, because it appears to show the characters from the beloved 1980s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. Villains from the cartoon made cameo appearances in last year’s Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and we may be seeing the heroes leveled up as NPCs! This box is set to release in Target stores on August 1st and have a General Release on October 4th.

VIDEO GAMES

Baldur’s Gate 3 had a video showing off the many upgrades to the game that they have developed over the past year and promised more updates later, but nothing new was shown. By comparison, Neverwinter showed a very exciting trailer for their newest expansion: Dragonslayer. Spoiler alert! Your character is going to be sent to slay dragons.

OTHER NEWS

A new live play show was previewed, called Legends of the Multiverse. It appears to have characters built using rules from the Astral Adventurer’s Guide, so pay attention, and you might get a preview of some of the new mechanics. Players include Deborah Ann Woll, Brennan Lee Mulligan, B. Dave Waters, Aabria Iyendar, and many other players fans of TTRPG live shows will recognize.

Updates were given on the upcoming Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. This anthology book contains 13 adventures written by people of color and draws exciting adventures from a variety of cultures. Previewed today, was a level 5 adventure called Wages of Vice, a vibrant adventure with inspiration from the Caribbean. A 14th level adventure called Orchids of the Invisible Mountain, takes players through both the Feywild and the Far Realm and presents new and terrifying monsters. Finally, The Fiend of the Hollow Mind is a 4th level adventure and has clear ties to Día de Muertos as a festival and has relatives come back from the dead for one day only.

The Dungeons and Dragons movie has finished filming, and a brief teaser revealed the title to be “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” set to release in March 2023.

Two Campaign Cases were revealed as well. The Campaign Case: Creatures is a case containing different sized tokens and reusable creature stickers. You can create tokens for 159 unique creatures and use them in your campaign. The Campaign Case: Terrain is similar in concept, but it can be used to create maps. Different terrain tiles can be combined with reusable clings to represent a wide variety of environments and is a new and exciting way to create maps for in-person games!

The last update is extremely exciting for international D&D Fans! Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Monsters of the Multiverse, Curse of Strahd, and Dragons of Stormwreck Isle will now be available in French, Italian, German, and Spanish.