The next D&D book goes to Candlekeep for a series of short adventures

(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast)

Remember Candlekeep? It's where the tutorial of the original Baldur's Gate takes place, a monastic library fortress where you run errands, cure a sick cow, and learn to fight before heading off into the Forgotten Realms. When you return, you need to donate a rare book to be allowed back in even though you grew up there. Those monks are still obsessed with their books, as we'll see in the next Dungeons & Dragons supplement, Candlekeep Mysteries.

It's a collection of 17 short, self-contained adventures for characters of levels 1-16 that all begin with tomes being found in Candlekeep, and are themed around "mystery". As well as the adventures it includes a poster map of Candlekeep and write-ups of its inhabitants.

I ran a bunch of D&D over the internet last year, mostly short adventures to suit the format of our weekly Zoom calls and Discord hangouts. I managed to find enough prewritten scenarios on the DM's Guild and in the D&D Essentials Kit to keep us going, as well as writing a few of my own, but having more to choose from would be a huge help. Candlekeep Mysteries will be out on March 16.

Here's a primer on the virtual tabletop software that can help you play D&D on PC.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.