D&D art book Lore & Legends will explore 5th edition, Critical Role

Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcana, the visual history of original tabletop Role-Playing Game, will be getting a follow up. Lore & Legends: A Visual Celebration of the Fifth Edition of the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game will chart the explosive mainstream growth of 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, exploring its impact on modern pop culture (and vice versa) and the rise of actual play that brought new players into the D&D fold.

Polygon recently met with the authors of its new art book, to talk about their approaches to the subject and learn what it will cover (and not). The book is due to be released on October 3.

Image: Ten Speed Press

The biggest draw here — other than the unprecedented access to Wizards of the Coast staff and primary sources — is the team helming the project: Michael Witwer, author of Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & DragonsKyle Newman is the director behind The Fanboys The following are some examples of how to get started: Raiders!The story of the greatest fan film ever madeThe Emmy nominated actor Sam Witwer is best known for his role as Darth Maul. Jon Peterson has written the book, “The History of Star Wars”. Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons Other Books. That’s the quartet that brought us Art & ArcanaIn 2018, by the way.

“After the success of Art & Arcana, Wizards obviously was interested in working with us more on similar projects,” Peterson told Polygon in an interview with the group. “We realized that there was a rare opportunity to tell the more recent story of the game. You can see this by looking at Art & Arcana. it runs out of steam about 2017 or thereabouts. But something happened between 2013 and 2018 that is a very unlikely thing to have happened — a tabletop brand in this digital age suddenly became this massive, mainstream activity of a whole throng of people. We were really intrigued by the answer to the question: Why? What happened?”

Image: Ten Speed Press

Image: Ten Speed Press

Wizards of the Coast

Image: Ten Speed Press

This single question prompted the quartet to embark on the project. They began by taking a closer look at the many rulebooks, game manuals, videogames, and first-party material produced by Wizards, its partners, as well as other third party content. But they also journeyed well outside the walls of the publisher’s Seattle-based headquarters to chart the course of another kind of entertainment media entirely — the growth of actual play.

“You cannot ignore actual play,” said Witwer. The book will chart its growth from the early days of Penny Arcade’s Acquisitions Incorporated to The Adventure Zone, and beyond.

“We all understand that everything changed pretty significantly in 2015,” Witwer continued, “when this group of well-established voice actors put on a show called Critical Role. […] That changed the game.”

The book will also linger on the many cultural touchstones of modern media that referenced, or fully incorporated, D&D into their storylines. That includes Netflix’s Stranger ThingsRecently released films Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

“It was a perfect storm of influences, and that’s why we’re here,” said Newman. “You’re watching it go from a tabletop game, to almost a lifestyle brand. You’re watching the brand itself change its identity, and continually evolve over those years.”

The authors tell Polygon even the core material of the game, from 2014 to today, is more than the average player can comprehend. This historical review is not only valuable for casual players, but also for those who are more experienced.

Wizards of the Coast

Image: Ten Speed Press

“One of the things we talked about early on was, ‘Is this going to be an interesting book?’”Newman. “But if you’re a DM, there’s no way you’ve DMed everything. We were able to do this because it was an opportunity to expose players to different rules and campaigns. [Wizards] didn’t market it. […] These are the connective tissues, and that’s where we spend a lot of time in how we curate, and juxtapose, and shape that story.”

The book does not discuss the Open Gaming License fiasco, which broke in the spring of this year. While a leaked version of a new licensing agreement may have galvanized D&D’s fandom into pushing its corporate owner, Hasbro, to relinquish some of its control over the beloved brand, the incident fell well outside the bounds of what the Lore & Legends The team had a mission.

“We are definitely interested in how the fan community in particular steers the brand,” said Peterson. “Wizards has always navigated, and I think they have tried very hard to create the game that the fan community wants to have, and to update the game to reflect what that is as it changes over time. And it always changed, and it will continue to change going forward.”

Image: Ten Speed Press

Image: Ten Speed Press

“If you pick up a D&D adventure and you’re looking forward to playing it with your friends,” said Witwer, “there generally isn’t, say, a chapter on the OGL in that adventure. It was from an enthusiastic place, and we learned a lot along the way. Art & Arcana to now is that the enthusiasm is quite an interesting story.”

Lore & Legends: A Visual Celebration of the Fifth Edition of the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game Preorders are currently being taken by your local bookshop and online.