From Page to Party: Raistlin Majere Comes to Idle Champions

The hourglass eyes are watching once more.

Raistlin Majere—the legendary wizard of the Heroes of the Lance—has returned. This week, he steps into Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms, marking his first appearance in a D&D video game in more than 30 years!

But how does a wizard from the Dragonlance setting arrive in a game set in the Forgotten Realms?

The answer lies in the vast expanse of the D&D Multiverse (and probably a few portals in Sigil). Idle Champions brings together iconic heroes from across multiple worlds and settings, uniting them in a single adventure. Though the game’s primary stage is the Forgotten Realms, its roster spans the planes - and now, at long last, Krynn’s most infamous wizard joins their ranks.

Peter Lee, Game Designer at Codename Entertainment and designer of such D&D board games as Lords of Waterdeep, Castle Ravenloft, and Tyrants of the Underdark, is here to talk a bit about how he approached bringing this iconic wizard into the game.

Let's dive in!

• What is Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms?
• Building a Formation with Raistlin
• Who is Raistlin Majere?
• Translating a Near God
• Supporting a Magical Savant with Positional Formation Abilities
• Raistlin's Kit
• Upcoming Heroes from Dragonlance
• How to Unlock Raistlin

What is Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms?

Ivy Lee

Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms is a Dungeons & Dragons strategy management game that lets you play in the sandbox of 50 years of D&D.

You can combine Champions from throughout the D&D multiverse, bringing together characters from D&D novels, video games, TRPG sourcebooks, and popular livestreams in ways that you could only ever see in your TRPG home game. There are over 150 Champions in the game as of this article, with new ones joining each month!

The gameplay is simple, but deep: Champions synergize their abilities based on where you place them in various formations to defeat waves of enemies in adventures based on official D&D sourcebooks from Vecna: Eve of Ruin, all the way back to Tomb of Annihilation.

At the end of each adventure, you reset, with the gold you've collected translating into favor with one of the deities of the Forgotten Realms. This favor allows you to collect gold faster in the next adventure, letting you unlock more Champions and upgrades, which lets you defeat more difficult foes as you continue through the campaigns.

Building a Formation with Raistlin

When we kick off design on a new Champion, the first question is usually: what role should that Champion fill in your formation? For Raistlin's design, we wanted to reward strategic formation-building and make him a focal point for your team. The two most important roles in Idle Champions are Support and DPS.

Support Champions have abilities that improve their fellow Champions in the formation, while DPS Champions are primarily designed to deal damage. One of the earliest skills to learn in Idle Champions is how to build a formation where your Support Champions increase the damage of your DPS Champion. This allows your formation to deal more damage and push further with each adventure!

In general, the Idle Champions design team tries to limit the number of DPS Champions we create for the game, as players generally only need to include one or two in a formation. The rest of the formation usually consists mainly of Support Champions, with Healing, and Tanking Champions added strategically.

When we add an affiliation (a group of Champions who are connected via the stories that they originate from) like the Heroes of the Lance, we usually reserve one or two Champions to be the main damage dealer of the group. It felt natural to make Raistlin the core damage dealer of the Heroes of the Lance; he's exactly the sort of Champion that players should focus on.

Who is Raistlin Majere?

Raistlin is a powerful mage from the world of Krynn, introduced to a wide audience in 1984 through novels such as Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman and adventures such as Dragons of Despair. Together with his fellow Heroes of the Lance, Raistlin quickly became a fan favorite.

Born frail yet gifted with an uncanny aptitude for magic, Raistlin Majere is the Sorcery to his older twin brother Caramon's Sword. The youngest wizard ever to attempt the Test of High Sorcery, Raistlin was forever changed, marked by white hair, golden skin, and hourglass eyes that see the accelerated passage of time. Together with his fellow Heroes of the Lance, Raistlin wields his formidable arcane talents against Takhisis, the Dragon Queen.

I am thrilled that Raistlin and other heroes from Dragonlance are joining Idle Champions in 2026. There are few characters in D&D that are as iconic as the Heroes of the Lance, and I personally believe that Raistlin may be one of the most important heroes from 50 years of D&D history.

Translating a Near God

Those who have followed Raistlin's arc in the Dragonlance novels understand that his tale is one of legend. We've been lucky enough to work with none other than Margaret Weis, who helped us better understand Raistlin and his friends, and ensured our translations were true to the characters she and Tracy Hickman created.

In Idle Champions, we allude to a character's entire arc through their abilities and equipment flavor text, but we need to lean on a specific snapshot of them for their base look. When we started designing the Heroes of the Lance, and Raistlin specifically, we had to decide which version of Raistlin we should lean on.

We ultimately decided to base the Heroes of the Lance Champions on the versions you meet in the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy, the first novels that premiered in 1984. This helped us sidestep the challenges posed by the power that Raistlin ultimately obtained, while also allowing a modern audience to learn about the origins of these characters and onboard them to the books in a more natural way.

Anita Ho

Spoilers

While the Raistlin you unlock comes with red robes, having completed the Test of High Sorcery, we are releasing a Theme Pack at his release, which comes with a unique skin turning Raistlin into the black-robed version and a feat that turns him Chaotic Evil if you are more interested in the version of him from the Legends trilogy.

Supporting a Magical Savant with Positional Formation Abilities

In Idle Champions, a formation is our version of an adventuring party. It is a pattern of nine or ten slots unique to each adventure, where a Champion can be assigned and moved around to better utilize their abilities. These Champions are typically chosen to support one key damaging-dealing Champion, as described above. The way Champions support is as unique as the Champions are: some buff based on ability score thresholds, while others care about specific species or alignments.

One of the more common ways a Support Champion can buff your DPS Champion is with a positional formation ability. A positional formation ability buffs Champions in specific slots of your formation. For example, Bruenor Battlehammer increases the damage of all Champions that share a column with him: in other words, Champions that are directly above or below him.

Anita Ho , Adam Kosh

Raistlin's Savant ability was designed to reward the player for cleverly placing support Champions who have positional formation abilities. Savant increases Raistlin's damage if you are able to support him with positional abilities that target three or fewer other Champions. This ability grows in power the more you're able to precisely buff Raistlin, so try to target him with positional abilities that affect just his slot if possible!

Raistlin's Kit

Jasmine Wei

To allude to the price he paid during his Test of High Sorcery, Raistlin's Debilitating Magic ability allows him to deal extra damage when he's at or near full health, but these attacks cause him a small amount of damage.

It's difficult to heal Raistlin, but his Herbalism ability allows him to take a small sip of his healing Herbal Tea after an ally uses their ultimate attack.

Raistlin's signature spell that he uses as his ultimate attack is Raistlin's Wheel of Flame, which he will use to envelop enemies with a deadly ring of fire.

With Flames of High Sorcery, Raistlin will cast Fireball across the screen, softening up enemies in an upcoming area. It's almost like he could see those enemies coming!

Raistlin's Equipment further buffs his abilities.

Finally, every Champion has a specialization that allows you to customize them during an adventure. For Raistlin, this choice increases his power based on the other Champions in the formation.

• Heroic Mage buffs him based on the number of good Champions in the formation
• Reclusive Mage buffs him based on the number of Champions with a melee or ranged attack
• War Mage ability buffs him based on the number of Tanking Champions.

For those planning ahead, Raistlin's twin, the good-aligned, sword-wielding tank Caramon, will work well with any of these choices when he joins the game later this year.

Upcoming Heroes from Dragonlance

While Raistlin is the first Champion from the Heroes of the Lance affiliation, he won't be the last! Stay tuned for both Tasslehoff and Laurana joining the game in the coming months. Both of these Champions are specifically designed to work well with Raistlin, as they have positional formation abilities that can precisely target columns of the formation.

Pay close attention to Tasslehoff's Diversion ability, which turns off positional formation abilities in the slots next to him, which you can use to increase Raistlin's Savant stacks. Just don't place him too close to Raistlin!

We're also starting to see the initial art for Laurana, including her awesome ultimate ability, where she flies across the screen on the back of the gold dragon Quallathon!

Laurana will come with fifteen extra in-game achievements that illustrate her rise to become the Golden General. As you complete these achievements, her Support and Tanking abilities will permanently increase. Her Battle Plan specialization choice will selectively buff certain columns in the formation behind her, which will be flexible for use in a variety of situations and work well with Raistlin's Savant ability.

How to Unlock Raistlin

You can unlock Raistlin through play for free in this week's Fleetswake event, which launches on March 4th at Noon Pacific Time. The event will also herald a week-long Dragonlance Celebration in-game, with daily free Chests full of goodies that can help super-charge your formation! We hope you'll join us to celebrate Raistlin's release.

Use this code in-game to unlock 3 Gold Raistlin Chests, so you can be sure to have gear ready for him when he is unlocked!

RAIS-TLIN-2026

Epic Games Store Giveaway

Additionally, if you play on the Epic Games Store, we have an exclusive giveaway starting on Thursday, March 5th at 8 AM Pacific time, where you can unlock Raistlin, along with 4 other Champions, and collect a bunch of chests for them as well as an exclusive Baaz Draconian Familiar for free, just by logging into the game!

We are so excited to welcome Raistlin into the ranks of Idle Champions, and we can't wait to introduce more Heroes of the Lance characters in 2026!

Peter Lee is a Game Designer at Codename Entertainment. Previously, he was a core contributor on D&D fifth edition and a designer of D&D board games such as Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons, Lords of Waterdeep, and Castle Ravenloft. When he isn't crafting entertainment for D&D fans, he can be found playing video games with his wife, or curling up with his three cats.