Created by Dungeons & Dragons designer Gary Gygax for his own campaign, the wizard Mordenkainen is one of the most famous characters in the game’s history. He’s given his name to many spells and has served as the narrator of sourcebooks including Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes and Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. Now, Mordenkainen is assembling some of the greatest heroes of the Forgotten Realms (despite hailing originally from the Greyhawk setting) to deal with an apocalyptic threat in Dark Horse Comics’ Dungeons & Dragons series, which launches in November.
This version of Modenkainen has been stripped of his magic, so he needs to rely on others like the traveling scholar Volo and the witch Tasha to stop a draconic apocalypse. Both heroes have their own rich roles in the game, with Volo narrating Volo’s Guide to Monsters while Tasha got her own game-changing book in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Wizards of the Coast has been using these famous characters to spice up what could be otherwise dry rulebooks, but this is a rare chance to see them actually going on an adventure rather than just sharing their wisdom between stat blocks.
Dark Horse revealed the series from Eisner Award-nominees Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing (Star Trek, Kang the Conqueror) at a July 23 panel at San Diego Comic-Con. Dungeons & Dragons is penciled by Ibraim Roberson (Star Wars: The High Republic, Uncanny X-Men), inked by Arabson Oliveira, colored by Dan Brown, and lettered by Haley-Rose Lyon. The ongoing series adds to Dark Horse’s other D&D titles, including The Fallbacks and Ravenloft.
Each issue will feature a foil variant cover from Antonio J. Manzanedo, who has provided art for the D&D adventure Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk and several Magic: The Gathering sets including Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. Polygon can exclusively reveal the art for the first three. The special issues will also come with the dragons’ in-game stats and lore so Dungeon Masters can use them in their own adventures. From the images, one of them should be Bahamut, the mighty god of good-aligned dragons.
Other versions of the cover will be illustrated by Esad Ribić, Tyler Jacobson, Karen Darboe, Mateus Manhanini, and Eric Canete. Along with kicking off an epic high fantasy story, the first issue will include an essay from voice actor Erika Ishii, who has appeared on Dimension 20 and The Twenty-Sided Tavern. Future issues will include essays from other RPG personalities and more campaign assets for Dungeon Masters.
Dungeons & Dragons #1 will be released on Nov. 4 and is now available for preorder from your local comic book store for $4.99.