The Dalelands 2026 sourcebooks: a DM's guide
Ed Greenwood's new Dalelands sourcebooks are landing through 2026. What each book covers, why the Dalelands is a great campaign setting, and how to bring it to your table.
Among the flurry of 2026 announcements, one that’s easy to miss but worth a look for Forgotten Realms fans is a set of Dalelands sourcebooks from Ed Greenwood, the creator of the Realms himself. Released through Mythmakers Studio on DMsGuild under D&D’s creative commons licence, they put a spotlight on one of the setting’s most beloved and most gameable regions. If you’ve been looking for a fresh place to set a campaign that doesn’t require swallowing a thousand pages of city lore, the Dalelands is a strong answer, and 2026 is a good year to run it.
What’s being released
The plan, as announced, is four books spread across the year:
- Guide to the Dalelands (early 2026): the regional overview, covering the dales, their people, their politics and the lay of the land. The natural starting point.
- Inn Sites of the Dalelands (mid 2026): a book of inns and taverns, the kind of grounded, ready-to-use locations a campaign actually runs through.
- Delves of the Dalelands (later 2026): dungeons and delves dotted through the region, for the parties who want to go underground.
- Adventures in the Dalelands (end of 2026): an anthology of adventures tying it all together.
It’s a sensible spread. A guide to set the scene, a set of social hubs, a set of dungeons, and adventures to string them into a campaign. Note that these are DMsGuild community releases rather than official Wizards core books, which means you can pick up exactly the pieces you want.
Where the Dalelands sits in the Realms
The Dalelands is a cluster of independent farming communities in north-east Faerun, threaded through and around the great forest of Cormanthor and hemmed in by bigger neighbours: the kingdom of Cormyr to the south-west, the merchant cities of Sembia to the south, and the old elven woods to the north. The dales themselves are small, proud and largely self-governing, each with its own character.
That setup is gold for a DM. The region is a frontier of small towns rather than a single dominating metropolis, so you can drop a party into one dale, give them a local problem, and have a complete campaign foundation without needing to explain the politics of an empire. The threats are grounded and legible: bandits on the trade road, something stirring in the forest, a feud between two dales, a ruin nobody’s dared enter. It’s the Realms at a human scale.
Why it’s a great setting for a campaign
The Dalelands shines for exactly the campaigns most groups actually run: character-driven, community-rooted, growing outward from a single home base.
Because each dale is small and self-contained, your early sessions stay focused. Players can learn one town, its people and its troubles, instead of drowning in lore. New players especially benefit, because “this is your village, and this is what’s wrong with it” is far easier to hold onto than the geopolitics of a continent. And when the party is ready to expand, the region naturally opens up: the forest, the neighbouring dales, the looming powers on the borders. You can run a whole campaign in one dale or use it as the launch pad for something epic.
The new books lean into this. A guide to set the tone, a book of inns to give the party places to rest and hear rumours, a set of delves for when they’re ready to go underground. That’s the spine of a campaign right there.
Bringing the Dalelands to your table
You don’t need every supplement to start. A regional map, a couple of towns, a single roadside inn and one local conflict are enough to open a Dalelands campaign. Build outward from there as the players pull on threads.
What a rural setting like this does demand is the right kind of map. Dalelands sessions run on villages and farmsteads, forest clearings and old roads, the common room of a country inn, and the occasional ruin or delve beneath the trees. That’s a different palette from a city campaign, and having those scenes ready is what lets the region feel alive when the party arrives somewhere new.
Maps for a Dalelands campaign
The 250,000+ RPG Battlemaps Mega Bundle (£30 £9) from MakeMythic covers exactly the rural mix a Dalelands campaign lives on: villages and farmland, forest paths and clearings, roadside inns and taverns, old ruins and the dungeons beneath them. Because the library is so deep, you can give each dale its own look and have a fitting map ready the moment the party wanders somewhere you didn’t plan for.
Everything is high resolution and gridless, ready for Roll20 or Foundry, or printed for a table gathered around the quiet troubles of a single dale.
Frequently asked questions
- What are the new Dalelands sourcebooks for 2026?
- Ed Greenwood announced four Forgotten Realms supplements for the Dalelands in 2026, developed by Mythmakers Studio and released on DMsGuild under D&D's creative commons licence: Guide to the Dalelands, Inn Sites of the Dalelands, Delves of the Dalelands, and an Adventures in the Dalelands anthology, rolling out across the four quarters of the year.
- Where are the Dalelands in the Forgotten Realms?
- The Dalelands is a region of independent farming communities in north-east Faerun, scattered through the Cormanthor forest and bordered by larger powers like Cormyr, Sembia and the elven woods. It's a classic 'frontier of small towns' setting: rural, grounded and full of local conflicts, which makes it ideal for character-driven campaigns.
- Is the Dalelands good for a new campaign?
- Yes. The Dalelands is one of the most approachable corners of the Forgotten Realms because it's built from small, self-contained communities rather than sprawling cities. You can start a campaign in a single dale with a local problem and expand outward, which keeps early sessions focused and easy for new players to grasp.
- Do I need official books to run the Dalelands?
- No. The Dalelands has decades of published lore, and the 2026 supplements are DMsGuild releases rather than core books, so you can run the region with as much or as little of it as you like. A regional map, a few towns and inns, and one local conflict are enough to start a campaign there.
- Where can I get maps for a Dalelands campaign?
- MakeMythic on Etsy includes villages, farmland, forests, roadside inns, ruins and dungeons in its 250,000+ battlemap bundle, all high resolution and gridless for VTT or print. That's exactly the mix a rural Dalelands campaign runs on, from a quiet dale to a delve beneath the trees.
Keep reading
From the shop
Battlemaps, spell cards, and magic item cards, ready to print.
Browse MakeMythic on Etsy →