Everything You Need to Know About Dragon Delves

Dragons and Dungeons

If you’ve ever wanted to run a dragon-centric adventure without the multi-year campaign commitment of Tyranny of Dragons, Dragon Delves might be your lifeline.

This upcoming adventure anthology from Wizards of the Coast brings 10 dragon-themed adventures to your table, spanning characters from level 1 all the way to level 12. Each one focuses on a different iconic dragon—yes, that’s every chromatic and metallic flavor—with encounters designed to drop into almost any campaign setting.

What the Adventure Anthology Includes

Each chapter pairs a dragon type with a unique scenario and location—but it’s not just a jumble lairs and dragons. Based on the table of contents released on the Dragon Delves marketplace page, there will be a noticeable sense of progression and variety, both in level and theme, that feels curated for a rewarding playthrough.

The book starts with the classic forest mystery in “Death at Sunset” (Level 1, Green Dragon), which is perfect for easing newer players into intrigue and environmental danger. From there, we rise through the ranks with a Gold and Silver dragon adventure, each of which will likely involve helping the Good-aligned metallic dragon, rather than slaying them.

By the time you hit the mid-tier range, things start getting weirder in the best way. “For Whom the Void Calls” features a Bronze Dragon and an ominous subterranean lair. “The Dragon of Nihil,” featuring a Bronze Dragon in a blind monastery, sounds like a setting lifted straight from Dark Souls. Atmospheric, unsettling, and promising big roleplay payoff.

At the start of Tier 3, the book turns up the heat—literally in the case of “The Forbidden Vault,” where a Red Dragon looms over volcanic ruins. And “Before the Storm” with a twist of Black Dragon malevolence and pirate-themed plundering

Finally, the late-game epic boss fights: “Shivering Death” (White Dragon) hits level 11 and leans into arctic horror, while “A Copper for a Song” and “Dragons of the Sandstone City” both offer level 12 adventures with a solo-friendly twist (in the former) and a sandbox-style ruin exploration (in the latter).

The result is a structure that scales smoothly for DMs and players alike. Each chapter escalates challenge and tone, but never loses the central appeal: dragons, and the chaos they bring. It’s a neat blend of theme park and storybook, with enough tonal swing to keep every session fresh.

A Lair for Every Dragon

Each adventure takes place in a unique lair tailored to its draconic resident—from molten lava chambers to sky-top ruins and underwater strongholds. The diversity in settings keeps each adventure feeling distinct, and they span all the classic dragon archetypes: Red, Blue, Green, Black, and White (chromatics), plus Gold, Silver, Bronze, Brass, and Copper (metallics).

Some lairs are likely to be combat-heavy death traps. While others, the low-level chromatic or metallic, will probably lean into exploration or negotiation. Each dragon’s personality, alignment, and preferred style of conflict is woven into the environment. Want to try diplomacy with a haughty red dragon? Or escape a paranoid green dragon’s illusion-filled jungle? You can.

Adventures in Living Color

Each of the 10 adventures has been illustrated in a completely different art style, curated from 10 illustrators and 7 cartographers. It’s a bold choice that will add to the dragon’s personality as much as it adds to the book’s visual flavor.

Before each adventure, you’re treated to a slice of Dungeons & Dragons history through legacy dragon art—yes, actual illustrations from across editions, side-by-side with behind-the-scenes commentary about the redesign of dragons in 2024. For longtime fans, this is visual nostalgia eye candy on top of 10 draconic adventures.

New Quick Start for Quick Games

Let’s be honest: Sometimes life gets in the way of prepping D&D. Dragon Delves is designed to help make DMing less of a prep chore, so you can focus on the fun.

One of its most DM-friendly innovations is the quick-start guide that opens each chapter. These spreads act like mission briefings: they lay out the stakes, the location, and the major players in a clean, digestible format. You’re given a bullet-point list of plot points, a roster of NPCs with roleplaying notes and stat block references, and even suggestions on when and where to use each map element. It’s like having a showrunner’s cheat sheet for the adventure.

For example, the Level 1 Green Dragon adventure, ‘Death at Sunset’, opens with a tidy summary of Redwood Watch (the village at the story’s heart), a clear breakdown of the local tension, and a table of NPCs with quick-hit motivations. You don’t need to memorize a whole chapter to get rolling. If you’ve got 15 minutes and a pencil, you’re ready.

This format might not seem revolutionary if you’re already a veteran GM with your own shorthand system, but for anyone who’s run published adventures before and felt bogged down by lore dumps and layout sprawl, this is a breath of fresh air.

Interestingly, three of the ten adventures can be run with a solo player, which is great for duets or one-on-one side arcs.

Dragon Delves Pricing

The standard digital version of Dragon Delves comes in at $49.99 on D&D Beyond—which is $10 cheaper than the most recent Quests from the Infinite Staircase and right in line with other anthologies like Keys from the Golden Vault and Candlekeep Mysteries.

Dragon Delves also appear to be trying out a new bundling system—or at least a new name for the digital+ physical bundle. The Dragon Delves “Ultimate Bundle” comes with a digital and physical copy and clocks in at $59.99. That’s just $10 more than buying either version alone, and it includes full integration with D&D Beyond, so you can run your game in-person with a beautifully printed book or jump online and have everything linked and ready.

It also comes with 5 additional digital maps for the D&D Beyond Maps VTT, 10 stickers (generic pieces of environment that can be used in Maps), and the Ancient Gold Dragon Digital Dice Set that can be used on D&D Beyond character sheets.

So, while the Ultimate Bundle provides significantly more value for those immersed in the D&D Beyond toolset, it won’t offer much if you’re group is already committed to other VTTs, like Foundry or Roll20.

Final Thoughts

We’ve seen adventure anthologies before—Journeys through the Radiant Citadel, Candlekeep Mysteries, and Keys from the Golden Vault come to mind. What usually sets these anthologies apart is their laser focus on a certain theme. Keys from the Golden Vault was all about heists. In Dragon Delves, dragons are the centerpiece, not just a chapter or a villain twist. And for a game literally named Dungeons & Dragons, that feels overdue.

Is it for everyone? If you want a long, open-world campaign or political intrigue across five kingdoms, maybe not. But if you want a modular, easy-to-run dragon adventure that doesn’t require rewriting your whole campaign plan, this is it.

In short: Dragon Delves feels like it was made for Dungeon Masters who want to celebrate dragons without spending 20 sessions building up to them.