D&D's new storyline brings Drizzt back to the forefront

R.A Salvatore's iconic Drizzt Do'Urden, the dark elf from Dungeons & Dragons' Forgotten Realms campaign setting, is the focal point of Rage of Demons, the franchise's newest shared storyline. Rage of Demons will launch across console, computer and tabletop incarnations of D&D starting this fall.

Sword Coast Legends, the new CRPG from n-Space and Digital Extremes in partnership with Wizards of the Coast, will be among the first properties to explore the Underdark with Do'Urden. Later in 2015 Neverwinter, the D&D-based free-to-play MMO will offer an expansion tentatively titled Neverwinter: Underdark.

R.A. Salvatore himself will be writing a unique questline for Neverwinter, which will first come to PC and later to Xbox One.

Finally, tabletop players will be able to get in on the action with Out of the Abyss, a new adventure being designed by Green Ronin and published by Wizards of the Coast. WizKids, GaleForce 9 and Smiteworks — makers of the Fantasy Grounds suite of online tabletop tools — will be supporting the Rage of Demons storyline with accompanying physical and virtual tabletop products.

A new novel by Salvatore, called Archmage, is also on the way in September.

"The pall that had descended over the North is gone," reads the books Amazon pre-order page. "A new day has dawned on a victorious Mithral Hall, but no matter how bright things seem on the surface, Drizzt and his companions know that what lurks just under their feet remains steeped in evil and charged with unimaginable power.

"The dark elves of Menzoberranzan, including the powerful Archmage Gromph, aren’t done with Drizzt yet. And consumed by their own power struggles, feeling backed into a corner, the drow may just be desperate enough to call on demonic forces from the deepest reaches of the Abyss, and unleash a disaster even the Underdark could never have prepared for."