Dungeons & Dragons Shows Off Redesigned Tiamat

Wizards of the Coast has revealed a new look for Tiamat, the iconic and deadly god of chromatic dragons. In a video posted yesterday to detail new information about the 2024 Core Rulebooks, Wizards of the Coast revealed new art of Tiamat, the five-headed goddess of chromatic dragon. The image, seen below, shows Tiamat looming over a town while several adventurers attempt to battle her or at least trying to contain her rampage. You can see the full image (with an unknown artist) down below. 

The image is also notable in that it shows off the redesigned looks of the various chromatic dragons. Tiamat’s five heads each represents one of the five chromatic dragons, all of which have received updates as part of the new Core Rulebooks. While Wizards of the Coast had previously shown off the red dragon, the new image is also the first tease of what the new dragons will look like. Notably, the green dragon looks more serpentine in design, with a head that resembles a furled cobra’s head, while the blue dragon’s horn has drastically changed looks. The black dragon’s horns have also been modified, with a more antler-esque look than the curved look that’s been prominent for several editions. 

Wizards of the Coast has previously revealed several metallic dragon re-designs, including the gold dragon. Speaking with ComicBook about the dragon redesigns, D&D art head Josh Herman explained why the D&D franchise decided to refresh all of the dragons. “We wanted to refresh the dragons as a whole,” Herman explained. “There are several facets to it. The critique I would have on D&D dragons is they didn’t feel like they had unique identities in what their personality was or where they lived in their biome. They really spearheaded what a “modern-day” dragon looked like at that time. But since then, they hadn’t really been innovated on in a while, and so we kind of wanted to give them a push while we were doing this refresh. So, this is a good time to reinvent that and kind of look at them as a whole.”