Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment
Champions of Azeroth will soon be able to experience the dungeons of World of Warcraft in a brand new way when Dungeons and Dragons releases their World of Warcraft sourcebook on November 17th. In the main gameplay expansion, Dungeon Masters will find all they need to run classic dungeons like the werewolf-infested Shadowfang Keep, or fight against zealotry in the Scarlet Monastery.
However, while it is extremely cool that the larger Icecrown Citadel will be released as its own separate dungeon delve, these offerings are missing an area that is primed for a demanding and exciting Dungeons and Dragons adventure. In World of Warcraft, Blackrock Mountain is home to multiple dungeons and raids that have a unique design structure, and together they would make for an excellent mega-dungeon delve.
Real dungeon delving
Many areas of Blackrock Mountain were released alongside World of Warcraft itself, representing some of the highest-level content you could get at launch, and so were created while Blizzard was still experimenting with what high-end World of Warcraft should look like.
The formula in modern ‘retail’ WoW is very set – most dungeons are linear experiences moving from boss to boss, or with different “wings” of larger raids made to be taken on at the same time.
Back at release, it wasn’t obvious that this would become the winning formula for the next few decades, so Blizzard was still taking plenty of cues from classic MMORPGS like EverQuest. This meant that the Blackrock Depths and Blackrock Spire dungeons were sprawling affairs, with exploration at their heart, and were made to be approached a little bit at a time.
Nowadays, these dungeons have been massively split up to make them palatable to those looking for a quick dungeon run, but their original incarnations would be amazing for a Dungeons and Dragons adventuring party. The lower half of Blackrock is a mixture of winding volcanic tunnels and an entire urban environment to be found in Shadowforge City. The upper half is filled with reinforced architecture, traps, and plenty of optional areas.
Where these features might frustrate a modern World of Warcraft player, especially one who plans to run the dungeon multiple times, the variety of locations to discover is utterly stellar. It gives a single volcanic mountain multiple types of environments to explore, and enemies with different kinds of focuses.
Enemies on all sides
These different areas come with a plethora of different enemy types to make different major encounters feel unique on the tabletop. In the Blackrock Depths and the Molten Core beyond it, players can face off against different styles of elemental enemies, a city full of Dark Iron Dwarves, and their metallic automaton guardians. This all culminates in a face-off against the might of Ragnaros, an elemental lord wielding power and arrogance that players will struggle to face.
Up in the Blackrock Spire and Blackwing Lair beyond, players face off against not just an army of Ogres and Orcs, but the most coveted of enemies in any D&D adventure – actual, honest-to-goodness dragons. All kinds of dragons, as well – strange dragon-centaur creatures, flying drakes, hordes of dragon whelps, dragon scientists, multi-headed dragon experiments, and right at the end, a mighty ancient black dragon.
The final boss, Nefarian, is no simple dragon either. He’s also a powerful spellcaster and has effects that change based upon the class of the enemies that have come to fight him. As one final challenge, he would be the perfect culmination of a full Blackrock Mountain adventure.
That is, of course, if we don’t include the changes made to the mountain later in World of Warcraft’s life, during the Cataclysm expansion. Then, one more area was added – the Blackwing Descent, where, amongst a slew of nasty new enemies, Nefarian was resurrected as an undead dragon – or, as he would be known in D&D, a Dracolich. If you were unsure if just killing a dragon and an elemental lord wouldn’t cut it, there’s no way an adventuring party could be upset fighting an undead dragon sorcerer.
Big mountain, bigger characters
The enemies in Blackrock Mountain are also capable of bringing such big personalities. This is part of why Hearthstone had already brought the different dungeons of Blackrock Mountain together for a single-player TCG adventure. The big bad of Blackrock Mountain, Nefarian, is such an obviously deliciously evil villain.
Not that you couldn’t tell from him being called Nefarian, or his human alter-ego picking up the name ‘Lord Victor Nefarius’. Of the many things you can accuse World of Warcraft of, subtlety is not one of them, and that’s actually helpful when it comes to a Dungeons and Dragons adventure.
There are many other characters in Blackrock Mountain that perhaps you could talk and negotiate with, subverting the basic approach of Warcraft that everything you see must be killed. The Dark Iron Dwarves of Shadowforge City are aggressive, that is true, but they’re also chafing under the yoke of Ragnaros. There’s already one friendly faction – the Thorium Brotherhood – that you can ally with; why not create friends within the city?
The Dark Horde up in Blackrock Spire might conspire with Nefarian and fight for dominance of the mountain, but the right word in the right ear could lead to infighting, or an Orcish rebellion against Nefarian. Dungeons and Dragons gives players a lot more freedom to interact with their environment, so you want to make sure you have at least one big personality that can laugh evilly and taunt players, right up until that final confrontation.
Goal-oriented adventuring
Perhaps most importantly for any good Dungeons and Dragons adventure, delving into Blackrock Mountain comes with all sorts of small objectives and quests to lead players in. In World of Warcraft, an adventurer’s motivation doesn’t need to be too obvious. Why are we attacking this boss? Because he has a chance to drop decent loot, of course.
In Dungeons and Dragons, the roleplaying aspect is rarely so cut and dry. Sure, you could be a group of people genuinely adventuring for the gold, but Blackrock Mountain has more to offer. In Shadowforge City, the Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan has kidnapped Moira Bronzebeard, the heir to the Dwarven city of Ironforge. Getting her back is a decent enough hook, but you’ll find when you get there she’s not willing to leave, having already decided to marry and become Queen of the Dark Irons.
In World of Warcraft, this starts almost as a joke until Moira becomes a bigger character later. In Dungeons and Dragons, it becomes its own whole dilemma. Do you kill her husband, who is, to be clear, a war-mongering villain? Do you leave her and assume she’s telling the truth, or do you effectively just kidnap her back? It’s a hard choice, especially so deep into an actively hostile city.
This is all before you push further into the mountain to destroy Ragnaros, freeing the Dark Irons from his fiery tyranny. Does this push you towards peace or an alternative end to the quest? How does this affect your work in the top part of the mountain against the Orcs and Dragons?
Blackrock Mountain being a mega-dungeon of two halves adds more opportunities to an adventure, giving multiple angles and questlines, and letting the players decide what they want to prioritise at any given moment. In the hands of a skilled Dungeon Master, or a well-written Adventure Module, Blackrock Mountain has the potential to be not just an excellent showcase of World of Warcraft, but a contender for one of the greatest mega-dungeons Dungeons & Dragons has to offer.
FAQs
The DnD World of Warcraft Gameplay Expansion release date is November 17, 2026.
World of Warcraft continues to be a major leader in the MMORPG space, alongside other heavy hitters like Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2, and RuneScape. It still has a strong player base, even though there is continuous fair criticism about the direction World of Warcraft is taking.
Dungeons and Dragons can seem complicated from the outside, as the system is very rules-heavy, but most things come down to rolling a twenty-sided die and seeing what happens. The spells in D&D can get very specific, which can be both a help and a hindrance to learning.
The DnD Warcraft sourcebook adds Azjol-Nerub, Blackfathom Deeps, Deadmines, Dire Maul, Onyxia’s Lair, Scarlet Monastery, and Shadowfang Keep. You can also buy Icecrown Citadel separately.
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