Dimension 20 evokes Watership Down in new D&D actual play season featuring a family of stoats
Furry with a chance of sorrow.
Nothing tugs at the heartstrings quicker than animals in mortal peril, something the super popular tabletop actual play series Dimension 20 obviously knows. The trailer for their upcoming season, Burrow’s End, portrays the crew as a family of stoats forced to venture into a dangerous world in search of a new home.
Beloved tabletop facilitator Aabria Iyengar returns to the D20 dome as the game master for a 10-episode season of adventure using the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition ruleset. Usual DM Brennan Lee Mulligan will fill a seat on the player bench alongside Intrepid Heroes Isabella Roland, Siobhan Thompson and frequent guest Erika Ishii. Two newcomers - Rashawn Nadine Scott and Jasper William Cartwright - fill out this season’s furry retinue.
Premiering on October 4th, Burrow’s End takes place in the Blue Forest where a certain family of stoats comprised of matriarch Ava, adult sisters Tula and Viola, Viola’s husband Thorn Vale, and Tula’s children Jaysohn and Lila find their once peaceful existence threatened by forces both natural and otherwise. As they leave their warren, each member of the family will face a crisis of identity and values as the whole lot hope somewhere safer lies beyond the horizon line.
The trailer released alongside the season’s announcement portrays a tone that strikes a careful balance between hope and dread, with adorable stoat miniatures traversing ravines, rivers, dense forests and at least one very ominous human fortress - those viewers who enjoy Dimension 20’s massive battlesets are in luck. Character art will be illustrated by Annalise Jensen and Michael Schaubach will be directing the season.
Burrow’s End introduces a new world to the Dimension 20 actual play universe but won’t contain any ties or mentions of previous campaigns. The show’s 18th and 19th seasons, Dungeons & Drag Queens and Mentopolis, respectively, followed a similar formula by branching out from the usual Intrepid Heroes crew and even brought in a non-D&D system to power their storytelling.
Episodes will air on the Dropout app and website every Wednesday, but only the season premiere will be hosted on Dimension 20’s YouTube channel for free. Dimension 20 recently announced that it had reached an agreement with the still-striking SAG-AFTRA that their actual play recordings did not cross digital picket lines and could continue. The coalition of writers, actors and many other film and television workers are still attempting to bring the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television to the bargaining table over critical issues such as pay, job security and a human-led adoption of AI technology in the future.