Dragon Delves
Dragon Delves is an epic fantasy adventure anthology for Dungeons & Dragons, published by Wizards of the Coast and designed by Amanda Hamon and James Wyatt.
By Aaron T. Huss
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Dragon Delves is an anthology of thematic adventures all centered on a different type of dragon. The adventures can be used separately, dropping into or sprinkled into your own games, or strung together to create a dragon-themed campaign. There are ten adventures, each one focusing on a different colored dragon, and prefixed by a short history piece of that dragon. Overall they cover character levels 1 – 12 with each adventure supposedly playable in 1 or 2 gaming sessions and the characters advancing after each one.
Over the years, Dungeons & Dragons, in its many iterations, has shaped and molded each dragon type to create something unique and personal (personal from the dragon’s perspective) along with flowing that design throughout its many supplements, creating a homogeneous design. Dragon Delves continues and advances those efforts by denoting how each type of dragon has evolved over the years and what they’ve become, creating the unique design they are now. The dragons included are – Green, Gold, Silver, Brass, Bronze, Red, Black, White, Copper, and Blue.
Although dragons are at the central theme of each adventure, they are not always the antagonist; they are simply the central figure. Additionally, some of the adventures can even be played solo. Adding a bit of fun to the book, each adventure is not only thematic in the dragon, they are also thematic in their artwork. Each one has a unique artwork approach to the adventure, somewhat coinciding with the overarching theme of the adventure (the non-dragon parts of the adventure’s theme). Each one has a locale with an on-page map and described locations, much like you would expect from every WotC adventure. The only difference is that each one sticks to a localized theme, closes out cleanly, and allows you to move on, going wherever you want.
I like this book; I think the thematic design is fun but it also provides a GM with very specific adventures that can be dropped into their own campaigns. I know I’ve seen third-party products do similar design methodologies and be very successful. But dragons are iconic Dungeons & Dragons and a central theme for Wizards of the Coast; it is only logical that they would produce a book that focuses on dragons.
There’s really nothing here for players, unless you really like to horde books with supplemental material about dragons, but there’s lots here for GMs.
