Dungeons & Dragons Reveals Alternate Art Cover for 2024 Player’s Handbook

Dungeons & Dragons has revealed the hobby store-exclusive alt-art cover for their upcoming 2024 Player’s Handbook. Today, Polygon revealed the alt-art cover for the 2024 Player’s Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons, which is set for release in September. The cover, by Wylie Beckert, features a classic D&D adventuring party (consisting of a fighter, wizard, cleric, and rogue) enjoying some tea alongside a gold dragon. You can check out the cover, which will be exclusively be sold at hobby stores, down below. The regular cover for the new Player’s Hadnbook was revealed earlier this week. 

Wizards of the Coast has released alternate art treatments for rulebooks for several years, with Beckert (a well-known Magic: The Gathering artist) having previously been tapped for the alternate art cover for Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, the last major “expansion” for Dungeons & Dragons. 

Per Polygon, the cover will also feature a special gold filigree border designed by Simen Meyer, who designed the alternate art covers for Candlekeep Mysteries and Keys from the Golden Vault. 

The 2024 Player’s Handbook will mark the beginning of a new era for Dungeons & Dragons, with the rulebook featuring revamped character-building rules and rebalances for many classes. The Player’s Handbook and other rulebooks will also feature new subsystems, including a weapon mastery system that adds secondary features to most martial weapons beyond simple damage. Perhaps more importantly, The 2024 Player’s Handbook will feature tons of new artwork with an aim of defining the game and illustrating its many spells, species, and characters for the first time. While the Player’s Handbook will feature revamped rules, Wizards of the Coast is insistent the rules do not constitute a new edition.

The 2024 Player’s Handbook will be released on September 17th. Pre-orders should be available here on Amazon soon. New versions of the Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual will be released in November 2024 and February 2025 respectively.