The third installment of Dungeons and Dragons‘ ultra-successful Young Adventurer’s Guide series is coming soon. The first book, Warriors & Weapons, focused on the playable races and classes of the tabletop role-playing game. The second, Monsters & Creatures, focused on the battles you can fight. This third one, Dungeons & Tombs, will highlight the classic settings of D&D and how players can explore them.
Young Adventurer’s Guide: Dungeons & Tombs is written by Stacy King, Jim Zub, and Andrew Wheeler. King gave some insight into the book as she stated:
We go to a couple of really interesting places. Ironslag is in there, the Temple of Elemental Evil, The Sea Ghost gets some oceanic pirate adventures. Ravenloft, which gets a little bit more into the dark and Gothic options. Chult, which explores some of the really interesting wilderness stuff you can get in Dungeons & Dragons. And then Undermountain, which is just the dungeon of all dungeons.”Â
The pages contain fun prompts and information to help players and Dungeon Master decide what adventures can be had in these locations. It also highlights important places within these locations. Points of interest for players to explore. In addition to the already established locations, it features a whole chapter on creating your own dungeons. King pointed out:
We really wanted the whole book to build to the section where you get into building your own dungeon. Because all of these locations and descriptions serve partially as imaginative prompts for how stories could work. The book shows how Dungeon & Dragons can cover this really broad variety of settings and styles of adventure, which hopefully inspires the reader to go and create a story for themselves.”
These books are primarily geared towards younger readers, breaking down the essence of D&D into a more easily understood format. But the fanbase as a whole has welcomed the books. There is already a fourth installment, Wizards & Spells, that will be released in 2020. Dungeons & Tombs will be available on November 26th, 2019. When discussing how librarians of schools have increased the demand for these books as well as for school-based D&D clubs, King said:
Hilariously, the books have also gotten some great feedback from these librarians . . . they said that these were great books as introductions for adults who hadn’t really dipped their toe into fantasy worlds either. Everyone should have a great fantasy life in my opinion.”