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DnD celebrates its 50th anniversary by… dropping a vinyl album?

Dungeons and Dragons' latest big 50th birthday promo is a 12-track record about the Forgotten Realms, featuring a 40-piece choir.

DnD 50th anniversary album Bardic Inspiration - DnD 2024 artwork from Wizards of the Coast showing a Halfling bard with a lute

Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro are pulling out all the stops to celebrate the 50th anniversary of DnD – including, it seems, commissioning a full musical record of funky fantasy tracks – with a physical vinyl release (funk not guaranteed).

Announced in a press statement by Wizards on Wednesday, the 12-track album is snappily titled DUNGEONS & DRAGONS – Bardic Inspiration: A Musical Journey through the Forgotten Realms, and it’s reportedly coming out in “Fall 2024”.

Wizards says the album’s songs are “created to evoke iconic locations within D&D’s most famous setting, the Forgotten Realms” – with a specific focus on (where else) the iconic Sword Coast region, most famous of all DnD settings, and the backdrop for Larian’s blockbusting Baldur’s Gate 3, a.k.a. the best D&D game ever made.

Headed up by movie and TV composer Michael Gatt (Kite Man: Hell Yeah!, Blood Drive); art-directed by A.J. Hanneld (The Legend of Drizzt novels) and co-produced by DnD and MTG artist Jeremy Jarvis, the album promises “unexpected instruments, otherworldly textures, and a spellbinding 40-person choir”.

And it’s not just coming out on digital streaming platforms to bang out in a browser tab alongside your next DnD campaign, either – Bardic Inspiration is being released as “epic double vinyl (180g, gatefold)” record, for the princely sum of $50 (£37.28). So if you’re the sort of tabletop RPG fan that has a turntable, sound system, and a love of music from the age of pressed plastic, this might be your ideal collectible.

DnD 50th anniversary album Bardic Inspiration - Wizards / Kill Rock Stars artwork for the cover of Spelljams tie in album from 2022, showing a Nautiloid spaceship

We at Wargamer have run out of record player needles (and record players) so we’ll likely listen online, as we did with Spelljams – Wizards’ last official musical tie-in, released to promote its new Spelljammer DnD book in 2022.

As you’ll read in our Spelljammer review, we thought that book was a bit of a let-down – but the album has some absolute bops in – so we’ve high hopes for the follow-up later this year!

In the meantime, you can refresh your in-game knowledge with our guides to all the DnD classes and DnD races; or get daily dungeoneering updates by bookmarking our DnD news page.