A Dive Into Dungeons And Dragons Dragon Delves And The DM Vault
The new era of Dungeons and Dragons has officially begun. July saw the release of Dragon Delves, the first new adventure collection for the 2024 Core Books. After reading Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual, it's exciting to see where the world's most popular role playing game is headed.
Even though we're starting fresh, some things don't change. Beadle & Grimm's Pandemonium Warehouse is still along for the ride with deluxe expansions for official D&D releases. Dragon Delves gets its own DM Vault ready to help Dungeon Masters take their games to the next level.
Dragon Delves Contents
Dragon Delves is an adventure anthology featuring 10 adventures for use in a D&D campaign. Each adventure is themed around a particular type of dragon. They can be dropped into any campaign, though there are frameworks available in the book for those groups that want to stitch these stories together.
The adventures cover levels 1-12 and offer a solid mix of situations. As they feature chromatic and metallic dragons, the creatures fill several different roles in the stories. Sometimes they are the antagonist, sometimes they set the characters on a quest and sometimes they are one of many characters in the story.
Each chapter kicks off with a collage of images from the history of the game depicting the dragon. The first page collects all the important information, such as important plot points, NPC locations and monster stat blocks the Dungeon Master should have handy. This section also gives a rough estimate of how many sessions the story should take to resolve.
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Dragon Delves Impressions
The current direction of D&D's biggest strength is how it organizes its books. I really liked the one page summary at the beginning of each adventure. It made for easy reference when running the games and also allowed for a quick glance when prioritizing which ones to read or run first.
I thought the art collages at the beginning of the chapters were not successful. I know they are meant to inspire but those pages could have been given over to deeper lore about each dragon that expanded on their write ups in the Monster Manual. For that matter, they probably could have fit in another adventure or two or given some of the shorter ones in the book a little more room to breathe.
There weren't any adventures that I really disliked though two stood out for me. 'Baker's Doesn't' took advantage of the new art direction by featuring gingerbread style art to tell the tale of a baby dragon messing with magical bakeries. 'For Whom The Void Calls' opens with a fun premise and leads players into a dungeon full of factions where the intrigues are just as dangerous as any trap.
Dragon Delves DM Vault Contents
Beadle & Grimm's DM Vault products are full of accessories that help Dungeon Masters immerse players in the game. They include battle mats, handouts and even artifacts from the game. Unlike their complete editions, they require separate purchase of the expansion they support.
This boxed set blows up all the battle maps in the book to an appropriate scale. It also includes copies of the handouts and encounter cards featuring monster art. There's also another campaign frame for groups that want to bring this together in a single storyline.
Dragon Delves DM Vault Impressions
My favorite part of these boxed sets are the battle maps. They add so much to the experience when initiative is rolled. It's far more exciting than watching me squiggle out a shaky approximation on my dry erase grid.
The Orcus necklace is a good artifact that feels like it could be used in other adventures too. I liked the campaign threads they included over the one in the original book. Dungeon Masters looking to build a whole campaign around this release will find a lot of useful stuff here.
Both companies provided review copies for this article. Dragon Delves is available in physical form and as a digital release on D&D Beyond. Dragon Delves DM Vault is available directly from Beadle & Grimm's.
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