It's been a fair old stretch since D&D released a chunky new book for us to delve into - but it's finally that time again! Adventures in Faerûn, the first of two new Forgotten Realms DnD books from Wizards of the Coast, has gone live in digital form on DnD Beyond ahead of its physical release next month. And we've had just enough time to break down the biggest bits of new content into digestible chunks for you.
Half of Wizards' long promised duo of brand Forgotten Realms sourcebooks for 2025, Adventures in Faerûn is the Dungeon Master focused twin. It's stuffed with well over 50 premade adventures, spread across setting-based lore chapters on beloved places like Icewind Dale, Calimshan, and (of course) Baldur's Gate, king of all the DnD cities. We also get a bestiary with 39 new DnD monster entries and statblocks, sorted into which parts of the Realms you're most likely to find them.
Interestingly, at the end, we get a chapter outlining seven very powerful new Wondrous magic items. And there's a brand new set of rules called 'Epic Destinies', which are a pretty freeform extra layer to the main DnD backgrounds, intended to shape characters' journey from zero to godlike hero. Among other things, these will provide some narrative structure to how you can get your hands on those shiny new magic items. So, let's get into it.
Epic Destinies
We'll start (as WotC does in the book) with the new Epic Destinies rules.
Epic Destinies are basically frameworks for privately planning out each player character's long term story and progression, so each PC gets a robust, satisfying personal story that's pre-planned and thus easier to weave into a campaign. As DM, you'll plot in key beats, mechanical rewards, and items they'll get when they hit key "milestones" - which the book recommends you tie to specific DnD level ups.
Honestly, there's not much prescribed 'crunch' to this. As the book itself says, "An epic destiny is something the DM and player decide together", and while Adventures in Faerûn offers a couple cool examples, they're just to give you ideas to cook up your own with your players.
There's more than a whiff of Blades in the Dark's short and long term goals system here - and that's absolutely a good thing. At minimum, this is going to give players something genuinely meaningful to plan for and enjoy when they hit a level up that would usually be one of D&D's fallow 'economy round' ones. At maximum, it could really help pull less engaged players into their character's story, and up the game overall.
DMs should be wary when planning them, though, and keep an eye on power creep. The book rightly acknowledges that "A character with an epic destiny might be more powerful than a traditional character, gaining an additional feat or acquiring a powerful magic item at a lower level than the guidelines suggest", and so advises that "every character in the party should receive such benefits at about the same time so no one feels left behind or pushed to the sideline".
The new magic items
Obviously I won't spoil the details (lore or rules) of all seven new magic items in this book - but suffice it to say they're all Wondrous rarity, and they're all, in their own ways, wildly powerful objects intended for high level characters to obtain late on, potentially as satisfying rewards for walking the path of their chosen Epic Destiny.
Here's a brief summary:
- Calimemnon Crystal - A 60 sided diamond filled with over 100 imprisoned genies, and also crammed with nasty ass magical abilities.
- Crown of Horns - An infamous relic of the minor death god Myrkul. Imbued with incredibly powerful death magic, and also very, very cursed.
- Harper Pin - A neat little silver brooch with a box of rules tricks to make you the ultimate master of disguise (inside and out).
- Mechanical Wonder - A magical pocket gizmo that's the D&D item equivalent of Inspector Gadget, and can transform into multiple different, highly useful things (two of which have stat blocks and work as creatures.
- Orb of Damara - A magic sphere, created with the intent of turning oneself into a dragon. Slight spoilers: it can work - but there are a lot of interesting side effects that I really want to see come up in games.
- Tome of the Dragon - Ever wanted to turn a dragon into a Dracolich? This very old, very horrid book is the thing you want - but even if it works, it'll cost you in more than gold.
- Windskiff - I actually will spoil this one, because it's just delightful. It's a piece of jewelry that turns into a magically hovering windsurfing board on command. Excellent if you're roleplaying a Californian.
The new monsters
Adventures in Faerûn includes 39 "new and returning monsters", organized into sections based on the region of the Forgotten Realms they most often appear.
There are five from Baldur's Gate, all of them, unsurprisingly, cultists and apostles of the Dead Three: Bhaal, Bane, and Myrkul. We get three from Calimshan, three from the Dalelands, six from Icewind Dale; five from the Moonshae Isles; and 15 beasties who can be found in "any region" of Faerûn.
To be clear, several of them, including the giant undead monstrosity Zlan; the rusting pirate Queen Forfallen, and ancient Zhentarim wizard Manshoon, are specific named characters, not categories of monsters for DMs to play with. This book isn't self sufficient, monster wise, and you'll need a Monster Manual to play its many, many prewritten adventures.
But there are some brilliant critters in this bestiary. My personal highlights are the Aranea - (mostly) peaceful, artful, spider limbed shape shifters from remote areas of Calimshan - and the graceful Swanmay of the Moonshae Isles: nature guardian spirits of the Fey who normally look like willowy humanoids, but can (of course) turn into Swans when they fancy it.
The setting chapters and adventures
Adventures in Faerûn is, first and foremost, a setting book with a metric butt ton of pre-written adventures in it. I haven't had time yet to delve into them all, because there are 51 of them in the dedicated "Adventures" chapter alone, ranging from 1st to 13th level.
You find even more prewrites in the region based chapters; and one big 1st level adventure, titled The Lost Library of Lethchauntos, that gets an entire chapter of its own, and can be played in any of the book's five settings.
Those five settings are, in order of appearance:
- The Dalelands
- Icewind Dale
- Calimshan
- Moonshae Isles
- Baldur's Gate
For each place, you get sections explaining its big narrative themes and aesthetics that could shape a campaign; its native peoples, traditions, and magical phenomena; maps, vehicles, and other relevant technologies, various story hooks, and more. I can't tell you yet if these sections are good, but I can tell you they look chonky and immersive to me.
I haven't run a D&D game in the Forgotten Realms in so long, I've forgotten the realms - so my interest has been piqued by the sheer amount of refreshed lore that's on offer here, and the smorgasbord of prewritten adventures to try. Once I do, you can bet I'll share my thoughts right here on Wargamer.
In the meantime, what are your thoughts on Adventures in Faerûn? Will you be picking this one up to run some games in Calimshan or Moonshae? Come join the free Wargamer Discord community to share your takes, or campaign ideas - we love to hear 'em. Or, if you've been out of the game awhile, check out our guides to the many DnD races and 13 playable DnD classes to get back up to speed.