As someone who has loved dragons for longer than I can remember, including rocking dragon button-up shirts in high school as my “style” and theming my son’s bedroom around the scaled creatures, I was happy as a wyrm and his hoard when Wizards revealed they were releasing Dragon Delves: Adventure Anthology for Dungeons & Dragons. This collection puts front and center one of the namesakes of the TTRPG, featuring 10 adventures, while also highlighting the legacy of the creatures in this long-running franchise. After peeling back the pages and seeing what it has to offer, I find this book to be a fine addition to my shelf, but I wish it went further to really give these mythical creatures the celebration they deserve.
Dragon Delves is a collection of 10 short adventures, each one focused around chromatic (Green, Red, Blue, White, Black) or Metallic (Gold, Silver, Brass, Bronze, Copper) dragons that can be dropped into your existing campaigns or played back-to-back in a campaign that takes players from novice level 1 heroes up to level 12. It would have been nice if the designers offered some manner or tips, or recommendations for GMs to adjust the included quests for higher levels, but worst case, you could always just choose higher level enemies of a similar style, young dragons instead of wyrmlings, for example, to raise the challenge. There is a good variety of quests in this anthology, from solving mysteries behind corruption, sentient bags of holding, or uncovering forgotten verses of a song, but all of them will, at some point, have you and your party cross paths with a dragon.
All but one really hit for me. The one that didn't is the Gold Dragon’s adventure, “Baker’s Doesn't,” which involves a golden dragon named Briochebane that bakes bread, and has the party dealing with animated candy creations and visiting places like Candied Apple Orchards and Taffy Factories. Outlandish and silly in TTRPGs isn’t an automatic turn-off for me. Hell, in my own homebrew campaign, the party encountered an island of sentient vegetables and took a cauliflower puppy back with them. But in the scheme of Dragon Delves, this quest just doesn’t feel like it belongs among quests like “Death at Sunset” or “Shivering Death”. That said, its whimsical nature could be perfect for a little jaunt in the Feywild or to add a bit of levity to your campaign after an emotionally-packed couple of sessions.
This book's real strength is how easy it makes it to drop the adventures into a campaign. Each of the 10 stories has been designed to last only one or two sessions, with the first page of each one providing simple and clear directions on where these can be dropped in, the level of characters it is for, the general plot points, how to prepare, and what state blocks you will need.
For example, the Silver Dragon’s “The Will of Orcus” adventure states, “It can take place anywhere there are mountains and settlements,” and is for level 4 characters. All of those important bits of information you need can be gleaned from just a quick glance. As a GM, the faster I can get the info, the better, and I think the layout and design are wonderfully done here in Dragon Delves (and honestly, all of the updated 2025 5th edition books).
One thing of note, while this anthology contains the details of the adventures, it does not have any stat blocks for the creatures, so whoever is running these will also need the Monster Manual (see it at Amazon) – either 5th Edition book will suffice. The fact that this book doesn’t contain any unique stat blocks is a bit of a bummer. I would have loved to have blocks for each of the 10 dragons that are the focus of each one, which would give them something slightly unique or tweaked from their stock counterparts in the Monster Manual. Also, where are my updated gem dragons at, Wizards?!
In addition to the quests, this book also showcases how the visuals and designs of each dragon have evolved over the course of Dungeons & Dragons' nearly five-decade-long lifespan. I appreciate the two-page spread of artwork, but when I heard that this book would also showcase the history of the dragon types, I expected more. I would have loved to see blurbs from Wizards’ designers on how, if any, the approach and gameplay design of the various types have shifted or changed over the years. How has Wizards approached its stat blocks, or despite “dragons” being in the franchise's name, why is the team as reserved in showcasing or highlighting them? Much of this art I could obtain simply by searching Google; give me the information or material that has been hoarded away in the Wizards’ vaults.
Whether they are spewing acid, lightning, or breathing the more traditional fire, dragons have been, and always will be, really, really cool. There is a reason that these scaled creatures have become so closely ingrained and intertwined with the fantasy genre. Dragon Delves: Adventure Anthology gives players some relatively quick outings to enjoy and drop into their story whenever parties have a hankering for some dragon goodness. That said, this book never reached the heights of excitement I had imagined when I first heard about it. The fact that it relies solely on the basic stat blocks from the Monster Manual and there aren’t any fun adventures for higher-level parties is a bit disappointing. The fact that Tiamat, arguably the most recognizable dragon in Dungeons & Dragons, is absent is also a strange omission.
Dragon Devles comes off more as a great introductory package for dragons, and for newer or younger players just learning how to play D&D, it's a fun collection of quick stories. But for more experienced players, or those hoping for setups for big confrontations with some ancient dragons, you may want to look elsewhere. Personally, I was hoping for and expecting more, but hopefully this anthology just marks the beginning of more dragon-centric books and campaigns to come.
Scott White is a freelance contributor to IGN, assisting with tabletop games and guide coverage. Follow him on X/Twitter or Bluesky.