I’ve only really played Dungeons and Dragons since the 4th edition, and have only dabbled in 5e. There are scores of new players like me who have never had the chance to play classic campaigns like Tomb of Horrors, or White Plume Mountain. Wizards of the Coast is fixing that with Tales from the Yawning Portal that updates those campaigns with new states and monsters that work perfectly in 5e.
The cover of Tales from the Yawning Portal was illustrated by Tyler Jacobsen. It depicts Durnan the Wanderer, the longtime owner and barkeep of Waterdeep’s most famous tavern. Adventurers from all over the Forgotten Realms gather in the taproom at the Yawning Portal to trade stories of their exploits and rumors of far-off treasures, some even from other worlds in the D&D multiverse. The Yawning Portal is the one place you’d expect to hear tales of the seven dungeons in this book.
Tales from the Yawning Portal is 248-pages and contains seven full adventures including Forge of Fury and Dead in Thay. Tales from the Yawning Portal is scheduled to arrive on April 4, 2017.
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I am incredibly excited about this compilation. It appears that the folks at Wizards have done a fantastic job of curating just the right variety of adventures to tap into several generations on fans. The adventures in this book look to have been pulled from every edition of the game, but the one that caught my eye was The Sunless Citadel. I remember picking this one up off the shelf when I worked for B. Dalton (yes, I worked for B. Dalton) back in 2000. I believe that this adventure was the first one published by Wizards for 3rd edition. The adventure was so innovative, introducing Twig Blights and the idea of druids working towards corruption. This adventure released the shackles on my mind, unleashing my creativity. If druids could corrupt, did orcs have to be evil? Did paladins have to be good? The possibilities were suddenly endless, and inspired me to create a world where nothing was quite what it seemed and the tropes of traditional fantasy were turned on their heads. The adventure itself was well written and planted the seeds for a whole arc of adventures released by WotC, and while I bought the whole series, this was the gem I returned to time and again. I can’t wait to introduce it to my 5th Edition players.