Summary
Wizards of the Coast has revealed the cover art for the next edition ofDungeons & Dragons’Dungeon Master’s Guide.
The book, which is part of a major rules revamp coming late 2024 and early 2025, has a villainous tone that includes some famous faces from across D&D’s 50-year history.
The cover is illustrated by prolific D&D and Magic: The Gathering artist Tyler Jacobson, and shows off the hordes of evil through D&D. There’s skeletons, dracoliches, and even statues of Mindflayers on the back.
However, the most interesting inclusion are the three figures at the front, who long-time D&D fans might recognise as Skylla, Warduke, and Venger from the Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon back in the 1980s.
Blasts From The Past
Skylla and Warduke were both fairly minor villains, and had already been brought into in fifth edition thanks to their inclusion in the Fae-focused The Wild Beyond The Witchlight, complete with new looks. Now it’s the turn of Venger, the cartoon’s main antagonist and potentially your next campaign’s Big Bad, who gets a creepier, more withered appearance, while also retaining his famous one-horned cap.
In an interview withThe Mirror, D&D’s head of art Josh Herman said the goal of the cover was to show off the “amazing toolkit that DMs get to play with”, with multiple levels of monsters, ranging from the Skeleton grunts right up to Venger himself.
On the back cover, alongsidethe Mind Flayerswhich new players will be very accustomed to thanks to Baldur’s Gate 3, there’s also a party deep in the distance. According to Hernan, this is to help counteract the more combat-heavy focus of the rest of the cover, showing “a scene that would show that sometimes D&D is about exploration, but also wanted to add a bit of mystery and storytelling with some of the things in the foreground and background.”
Dungeons & Dragons' 2024 Revamp
While not a full-blown sixth edition (it’ll still be compatible with existing 5e releases), the new Dungeon Master’s Guide is part of a streamlining that seeks to make the game more accessible for both new players and veteran DMs trying to run a campaign.
It, the new Player’s Handbook (which had its cover, also by Jacobson, revealed earlier this month), and the new Monster Manual all form an overarching revamp that has been playtested throughUnearthed Arcana for years, and marks the biggest shakeup to the game in a decade.
The Dungeon Master’s Guidelaunches on July 07, 2025. This is approximately two months after the Player’s Handbook on September 17, giving you time to get a grip on the new rules player-side before taking over and running your own games.
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game that first took the world by storm in the 1970s, and continues to enchant millions of players today. With a seemingly endless number of modules and campaigns for you to play, as well as the possibility to do your own thing, you’ll never get bored of playing D&D.
