LEGO Ideas D&D set has a little something from every original finalist design

LEGO Ideas 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale includes plenty of iconic D&D imagery, echoing some of the ideas from the other original challenge finalists.

In the original fan-designed project from Lucas Bolt, 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale had plenty of D&D references – but not as many as it ended up with in the final product. Plenty more has been added, so much so that you can see elements from every other challenge contender. While Lucas Bolt’s design came out on top, there were other runners-up as well: KolonelPureCake’s The Monster Manual, Shaddowtoa’s Xanathar, The Beholder, farmfarm’s Transforming Mimic, and tcompton1234’s Tiamat’s Dice Tower.

It’s worth noting that it doesn’t seem like these inclusions are intentional. In the main reddit discussion for the reveal of 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale, lead LEGO designer Mark Stafford appears to have joined in the discussion and in passing noted that the team deliberately didn’t include design elements from other fans. While people were discussing that the brick-built tower could have been a dice tower, the designer revealed more about what went on behind the scenes.

“I would have been happy to base the set on [Bowtied Trombone’s Tiamat’s Dice Tower] if it had won (actually all of them were great),” Mark wrote. “It’s also one of the reasons we very early rejected including a dice-rolling function into Lucas’s idea.

“It would have been uncool for you (the fan designer of the dice tower) to not win and then we use the core of your suggestion in the Ideas set anyway.”

Nonetheless, it’s fun to pick out the extra images and creatures from the world of D&D that have been included in 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale. It’s almost inevitable for some of the imagery from the other finalists’ builds to appear in the LEGO Ideas set, especially as Lucas’s original project only proposed the dragon and the beholder.

A buildable mimic

First up, there’s a minifigure-scaled mimic that echoes farmfarm’s Transforming Mimic and, even closer to the original design, there’s a Mimic Dice Box GWP available until April 7. While the fan vote didn’t ultimately choose the Transforming Mimic build as the winner to become a main D&D set, the image of the mimic, a shapechanger that can take any form, was clearly something the LEGO Ideas team wanted to capture in brick form somehow.

The Tiamat statue

This next one is less direct, but there’s a tiny golden Tiamat statue tucked away within 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale. This links directly to tcompton1234’s Tiamat’s Dice Tower. Although Mark highlighted that including the dice-rolling element from this project would be too far, Tiamat makes sense to include in some shape or form, seeing as red dragons are one of the common chromatic dragon species that Tiamat rules over.

A brick-built Beholder

Lucas included a buildable Beholder in his original design but it has had some design changes from that original concept. Plus, Lucas’s project wasn’t the only one to include the familiar Beholder figure. It was also featured in Shaddowtoa’s Xanathar, The Beholder. While the many-eyed creature didn’t make it to become a full build, it’s good to see it included in some sense in the final LEGO Dungeons & Dragons set.

Several monsters from the Monster Manual

Speaking of monsters, there are many of them in 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale that also appeared in KolonelPureCake’s The Monster Manual. Those include the gelatinous cube, the aforementioned mimic, and even the titular red dragon, changed from Lucas’s original green.

Now, all of these inclusions are not to say that the LEGO Ideas team lifted them from the other fan designs. Indeed, Mark Stafford explicitly says that the team made efforts not to do that. However, for D&D fans, at least as much of the IP imagery has made it into the LEGO Ideas set. If all we ever get from LEGO Dungeons & Dragons is 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale and the now-confirmed minifigure series, at least the LEGO Group included as much as possible in the build.

LEGO Ideas 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale will retail for £314.99 / $359.99 / €359.99 from April 1 for LEGO Insiders from April 1 and from April 4 for everyone else. LEGO Insiders who buy before April 7 will also score a free Mimic Dice Box gift-with-purchase while stocks last.

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