The D&D art book Lore & Legends addresses the 5th edition, Critical Role

Dungeons & Dragons: Art & Arcanathe extraordinary visual story of the original tabletop role-playing game gets a sequel. Lore & Legends: A visual celebration of the fifth installment of the world’s greatest role-playing game will chronicle the explosive mainstream growth of Dungeons & Dragons Season 5, its impact on modern pop culture (and vice versa), and the rise of the actual game that brought new players into the D&D chain.

Polygon recently sat down with the authors of the new art book to discuss their approach to the material and to learn more about what the book will (and won’t) cover when it comes out on October 3rd.

Image: tenfold press

The biggest draw here — aside from the unparalleled access to Wizards of the Coast collaborators and primary sources — is the team leading the project: Michael Witwer, author of Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons; Kyle Newman, the filmmaker behind it fanboys And Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Movie of All Time; Emmy-nominated actor Sam Witwer, best known as the voice of Darth Maul; and historian Jon Peterson, author of Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons

“After the success of Art & Arcana“Wizards was obviously interested in working more with us on similar projects,” Peterson told Polygon in an interview with the group. “We realized there was a rare opportunity to tell the recent story of the game. If you look at Art & Arcana, around 2017 or so he’s really running out of steam. But something happened between 2013 and 2018 that is very unlikely – a tabletop brand in this digital age suddenly became this massive mainstream activity by a whole crowd. So the question that really raised this for us, and the story we’re trying to tell in the book, is why? What happened?”

Image: tenfold press

Image: tenfold press

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Image: tenfold press

This unique question brought the four into the project, which began with a close look at dozens of rulebooks, campaign books, video games, and other first-party content produced by Wizards and its partners. But they also traveled far beyond the walls of the publisher’s Seattle headquarters to fully chart the course of another breed of entertainment media – the growth of the actual game.

“You can’t ignore the actual game,” Witwer said. The book will chart its development from the early days of Penny Arcade’s Acquisitions Incorporated through The Adventure Zone and beyond.

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

The book will also address the many cultural touchstones of modern media that referenced D&D or fully incorporated it into their storylines. That includes Netflix stranger things and the recently released movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

“It was a perfect storm of influences, and that’s why we’re here,” Newman said. “You can see it evolving from a tabletop game to almost a lifestyle brand. You can see the brand itself changing identity and continuously evolving over the years.”

The authors tell Polygon that even the core gameplay, spanning from 2014 to the present, is actually far more than most players can fully comprehend. This makes this historical review valuable not only for casual fans, but also for experienced players.

Image: Wizards of the Coast

Image: tenfold press

“One of the things we talked about early on was, ‘Is this going to be an interesting book?’” said Newman. “But if you’re a DM, there’s no way you’re all DMed. So for us, being able to explore everything was a huge opportunity because that way we can expose people to some of these different rulebooks and different campaigns [Wizards] didn’t market it. […] These are the connective tissues, and that’s where we spend a lot of time how we curate, juxtapose, and shape this story.”

One thing the book won’t include, however, is a discussion of the Open Gaming License (OGL) fiasco that erupted earlier this year. While a leaked version of a new licensing agreement may have prompted D&D fandom to urge its company owner Hasbro to relinquish some of its control over the beloved brand, the incident went well beyond the confines of what the Lore & Legends team to do.

“We’re definitely interested in how the fan base in particular controls the brand,” says Peterson. “Wizards has always navigated, and I think they’ve put a lot of effort into creating the game that the fan community wants and updating the game to reflect what it is as it changes over time . And it has always changed, and will continue to change in the future.”

Image: tenfold press

Image: tenfold press

“When you pick up a D&D adventure and look forward to playing it with your friends,” Witwer said, “there’s typically not, shall we say, an OGL chapter in that adventure. It all came from a place of excitement and what we learned along the way Art & Arcana So far the excitement is quite an interesting story.”

Lore & Legends: A visual celebration of the fifth installment of the world’s greatest role-playing game is currently available for pre-order from your local bookseller and online.