D&D’s annual weekend of announcements and general live play mayhem has kicked off for 2021, and to kick things off Wizards announced a new sourcebook for Dungeons & Dragons, Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons.
As the name so clearly states, this book is all about the most iconic monster in the game. Anyone who has read even a few of the details about dragons knows they’re a lot more than just ‘monsters’, and this book finally brings deep lore on the very nature of dragons to the 5th Edition game – and how dragons are linked to the very existence of the multiverse.
Introducing the new book, designer James Wyatt explains that the book aims to give a toolbox to DMs that opens up draconic themed options across all the existing classes as well as the Dragonborn race. And there’s also a tease to suggest we might even get options to play as dragons.
“It felt like it was time,” says designer James Wyatt. “We’ve had Volo’s Guide to Monsters and we realised we have a lot to say about dragons and it was time we did it.”
Amongst examples for character classes mentioned, we heard about Rangers choosing a Drake companion, a Monk wielding Draconic energy, or a Circle of the Land Druid tied to an area around a dragon’s territory.
“Dragons were part of the creation of the Material Plane itself, and this book explains what we already see in the game,” says Wyatt. “Why they hoard treasure, why they effect the world the way they do and why ancient dragons are the most powerful creatures on the Material Plane.”
This connection to the reality of the game world itself is a cool prospect – dragons are in the name of the game and have all too often seemed sidelined in the stories we play. Solidifying dragons as the biggest, baddest, most fundamental creatures in all existence? This is what we’ve neeeeeded.
Wyatt even points to the idea that the game will include the idea that dragon’s lairs can even hold connections to the multiverse, potentially offering doorways between Material Planes – so if your game has been set in the Forgotten Realms but you’ve always wanted to take the game to Eberron or… somewhere else? That’s going to be a thing now.
While the ‘monster’ section of this book is unsurprisingly all dragon action, we’ve learned the gem dragons are returning to D&D after an absence of a few editions of the game. But we’re also going to discover the majesty of a dragon-sized mimic that is pretending to be a dragon hoard, and if you find mind flayers annoying then wait until you’re dealing with an elder brain dragon.
As with the line of past books like Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons is presented by the weird, doddering, very kind Fizban the Fabulous, an old wizard from Dragonlance (who is secretly Bahamut, the great Lawful Good dragon god).
Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons will hit stores on October 19, four weeks after the next big campaign book, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, is released. We’ll hear more about that book this weekend during D&D Live too.
Seamus runs Byteside. You may also have spotted his words at the Australian Financial Review, the ABC, Junkee, Gamespot, The Esports Observer, CNET, Gizmodo and a few other spots over the years. He's very happy that he gets to nerd out for a living.
