On June 2nd and 3rd, Wizards of the Coast brought together figureheads from the D&D community under one roof and set up a stream of games and announcements for one purpose: to annihilate our minds! And they delivered in spades. During the Stream of Annihilation, these figureheads, such as Matthew Mercer, Matt Colville, and Chris Perkins, and many more, along with a few celebrities like Joe Manganiello, Matthew Lillard, and Dylan Sprouse played in several sessions of D&D.  These were great fun to watch, but the real meat of the program showed in between games. It was during these intermissions that the near future of D&D was announced. The first of these announcements being…

The Tomb of Annihilation

Oh yes. The next campaign setting will take place in the land of Chult, a lost continent filled with lush forests, fierce dinosaurs, and relentless undead. The big bad evil guy of this setting is Acererak, the demilich from Tomb of Horrors. The good news is this almost certainly means we’re getting a 5e conversion of the Tomb adventure; the bad news is we’re getting the Tomb adventure. For those of you unfamiliar with Tomb of Horrors, it’s the adventure you throw at your group when you want the game to end. It’s simply built to be unfair; in fact that was the reason it was written. It was Gary Gygax’s intention to knock down players who thought D&D was too easy. Hopefully they keep the original intention, but ease up on the unfairness of the module. We’ll see whether or not this is the case when Tomb of Annihilation hits stores on September 19th. But that was only the first in a long line of announcements. Next up is…

Neverwinter Expansion

The D&D MMO is getting its own version of Tomb of Annihilation, including digitized locations from Chul, and the inhabitants within. The really awesome feature to note here is the dungeon, which has 90 variables. 90! That sounds incredible to me, as an addict, err, player of World of Warcraft, whose dungeons only have a few variables. Having an ever changing dungeon does wonders for the endgame of an MMO. This strikes me as something I might want to try out, if for no other reason than to hear Chris Perkins voice Volo. Moving right along, our next update is…

D&D Beyond

Now this is the update I am most excited for! The developers of the D&D Beyond app talked a bit about their next phases of development. Step one is already underway; it is an open beta that allows users easy access to a variety of tools to help make your game run smooth. Step 2, coming out later this month, involves taking this concept to an interactive character sheet. Step 3 will include homebrew integration and (hopefully) DM tools. Besides all of these plans, the announcement that grabbed my attention was Twitch stream integration.This means that when you watch a party playing D&D on Twitch, you can use Beyond’s tech to view important information such as character stats, initiative, status effects, and more! This allows anyone to jump into a stream and have their basic questions answered so that they can just enjoy the show. This got me so hyped up! This is the type of harmony between the game and technology that adds so much to the experience. I love the harmony between the old school and the new school at play here, and I hope to see it evolve more with time. On to the next update, which is…

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Who is Xanathar? Only the crime lord of Waterdeep, who happens to be a beholder, and is obsessed with his pet goldfish. As a beholder, Xanathar is gifted with great knowledge, and he is being kind enough to share this knowledge with us. This comes in the form of DM rules like how to deal with down time and trap creation (evil laugh intensifies), player options including at least 2 subclasses for each class (but only one for wizards, sorry!), and new monster and race stuff like the adorable Grungs (tiny frog people). This book is going to be filled to the brim with content, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it; though I must until November 21th. The final part of the big updates announced is…

Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate

Avalon Hill, developers of the smash hit Betrayal at House on the Hill, have teamed up with Wizards of the Coast to produce this new game. It’s basically Betrayal with D&D flavor and character classes, though that’s not a bad thing. Betrayal is a joy to play in both its forms: the cooperative exploration, and the plot twist into a competitive game. Betrayal is the operative word here; in each game one or more of your party members will betray the rest and from that point it is up to them to survive or pull off their fiendish plot. With50 different scenarios to play out, this game looks to have a lot of fun tucked into it. As a fan of the first Betrayal game I’m eagerly awaiting its arrival on October 6th.

That does it for the Stream of Annihilation. There’s a lot coming down the pipeline, so fans of D&D should have a lot to be excited (and broke) for. What has you hyped up? Let me know below! And as always, keep those dice rolling high!