The latest official module to arrive for Dungeons & Dragons, Lorwyn: First Light, is a 32-page digital-only supplement that hit D&D Beyond on Nov. 18, introducing players to the dual realms of Lorwyn and Shadowmoor.
This lightweight setting primer offers just enough tools for Dungeon Masters and players alike to explore the whimsical daylight world of Lorwyn and its Upside Down-esque counterpart of Shadowmoor, trapped in eternal night. Notably, Lorwyn-Shadowmoor is a plane from Magic: The Gathering that debuted in 2007. They’re slated to return to the trading card game early next year as part of Lorwyn Eclipsed, a new set scheduled for a Jan. 23, 2026, release.
First Light is technically coupled with the Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerûn and Heroes in Faerûn books released earlier in the month as a digital add-on, just like Astarion’s Book of Hungers and Netheril’s Fall. Whereas both of those supplements are deeply intertwined with Realms lore, Lorwyn exists on a completely different plane. So why was it included as part of the Forgotten Realms Ultimate Bundle? (Or for the cost of $14.99 as a standalone?)
Officially, a Wizards of the Coast blog post explains the tie-in. “While exploring the untamed wilds of the Moonshae Isles, you stumble across a shimmering portal bathed in a sunbeam that filters through the canopy above,” it reads. “On the other side lies Lorwyn—a whimsical realm of eternal daylight, wandering giants, mischievous faeries, and living incarnations of nature itself.”Lorwyn is full of “colorful creeks, bright meadows, verdant forests, and gentle hills.” Its denizens live in cozy little villages and enjoy endless, bright summer days. Shadowmoor is the literal flipside: unending night and oppressive gloom with skeletal forests and treacherous bogs. Sort of like if the idyllic Shire had its own Upside Down. There are elves and giants, along with boggarts (goblins), kithkin (halflings), merrow (merfolk), flamekin (genasi), and more. It’s a setting with its own rhythms and rules, one that doesn’t naturally plug into anything else in D&D — it has to be a place you travel to, not part of the current world.
Lorwyn-Shadowmoor draws inspiration from Celtic folklore that inspired the Moonshae setting, and is described as a Fey realm, though it’s not explicitly associated with the Feywild, which is itself a parallel echo of the Material Realm. In fact, it has no canonical connection to the Forgotten Realms at all. Other previous D&D releases like Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos can slot nicely into just about any campaign or universe and say so.
On digital paper, First Light offers two backgrounds, two feats, two magic items, eight monsters, two new species, and two adventure examples. But so much of what’s included is just reskinned material rather than unique stat blocks or character options.
A mystical six-legged pegasus with a beaked head called Eirdu frequently appears in the sunny skies over Lorwyn. First Light says to just use an Ancient Gold Dragon stat block to represent Eirdu — and we don’t even get any art for it. That pretty much sums up the approach the game design of this mini-module takes for much of the material.
Boggarts exist in both Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, though their physical features and cultures differ accordingly. Rather than cook up unique species options for both, First Light just says to use the Goblin species from Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. It’s the same for Fairies and Flamekin as well.
This is an odd choice, especially because the D&D 2024 rules make species selection far more flexible. All it really influences is size, speed, and potentially languages. This is a digital-only module where printing costs aren’t an issue, so why not just include it? Instead, we get a hyperlink to Mordenkainen Presents where you can buy it for $59.95. (Is this approach an attempt to drive more revenue to D&D Beyond?) Several of the monsters in the bestiary also similarly redirect to other sources for things like Scarecrows and Treefolk.
We do get full species traits and details for the Changeling and Rimekin, probably the two more enticing species options here. The former’s a silly-looking fuzzy green guy. The latter looks like a White Walker.
All that said, Lorwyn-Shadowmoor offers some very cool lore and roleplaying options.
Shadowmoor is suffused with Wild Magic, so some or all of it can be a wild magic zone at the DM’s discretion. Spells could backfire or trigger any sorts of effects instead. A simple Fire Bolt spell could instead light the surrounding forest on fire — or turn the caster into a tea kettle. Traveling between Lorwyn and Shadowmoor is also ill-advised, since the border areas, called the Eclipsed Realm, drain a person of their will to live, and they eventually become a petrified “calciform creature.” That border between the two is also constantly in flux as Lorwyn and Shadowmoor fight for dominance over the landscape, shifting and morphing when all sorts of events happen, or sometimes for no reason at all.
Imagine this: The wrong person is born in Shadowmoor, so the boundary suddenly extends to consume a player’s home and family in Lorwyn, leading them to seek out a magical talisman so they might venture into Shadowmoor to save them. Otherwise, crossing the border transforms them into the opposite aspect of themselves. A kind and brave kithkin might suddenly become bitter and selfish. A happy little Lorwyn farmer could emerge as a tyrannical wizard in Shadowmoor. The possibilities are endless.
Perhaps the most valuable segment of the module is the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Gazetteer, which outlines a number of locations across both realms with “Reasons to Visit” that serve as solid plot hooks for either a one-off or a string of adventures. They’re all rather simple, but they do collectively give the sense that you’re in a living, breathing place. Yet we don’t get a regional map or even maps of the various villages and settlements, so DMs are left to figure out their own.
That flaw’s also apparent with the two sample one-shot adventures at the end of the book: The Inventor’s Sabotage (level 1) and Blood at the Banquet (level 5). In both, you’re hired as security either for an inventor’s fair or a banquet for a refurbishment company. They’re interesting enough and have plenty of details and complications for fun play sessions, but the module offers no maps or even art here to supplement an otherwise great introductory adventure for Lorwyn-Shadowmoor.
To pay $14.99 for a comparatively thin digital-only supplement when you can pay barely more than twice that for almost any fully fleshed-out sourcebook right now seems like too steep a price to pay. I sincerely wish that we could have gotten Lorwyn-Shadowmoor as a full sourcebook with more stat blocks, maps, and a bona fide adventure in it.
Unfortunately, this one seems trapped in the Eclipsed Realm.
