Last week we received an exciting announcement that D&D Beyond had partnered with Riot to produce an RPG campaign, Dark Tides of Bilgewater, using D&D Fifth Edition rules as the gaming system. Sadly, this news was extremely short-lived. Soon after the announcement of the launch of the module, along with a one-shot adventure stream with some well-known personalities, they cancelled everything.

Quote From DnD Beyond
We apologize for the short notice but due to unforeseen circumstances the planned 'Dark Tides of Bilgewater' stream on Saturday has been cancelled. We'd love to get this incredible cast together for a session in the future, so we'll keep you posted for when we can make it happen!

Well, at least the source material is still available, right? Not so much. Immediately after the cancellation, all the links from the website were removed and even the site search won't pull it up by name. You have to go directly to the source page and scroll all the way to the bottom to find it now.

Even as disappointing as this was, we can still continue to access the campaign...oh, come on!

As of August 10, the material is being removed and will no longer be available on the D&D Beyond website.

Quote From DnD Beyond
We recently released 'Legends of Runeterra' unofficial content on DDB, and we are thrilled with the enthusiastic response we have seen from the community! This content will be available until 8/10. Find out more here.

Just to clarify, Riot didn’t ask us to remove the Bilgewater content. D&D Beyond takes full responsibility for the miscommunication and we apologize for the inconvenience.

This has caused some to speculate why they would remove content that was supposed to be available permanently so hastily.

Reddit user DarkRyter offers this possible explanation

Quote From DarkRyter
Current prevailing theory is that Legends of Runeterra is a direct competitor to Magic the Gathering, WOTC's other major property, so DND beyond promoting a direct competitor's IP didn't sit well with WotC higher ups.

D&D Beyond offered a little more clarification, but would only go so far in explaining the debacle, when asked if circumstances changed.

Quote From DnD Beyond

Yes, circumstances have changed. While we intended for this content to be available indefinitely, upon review, we are not able to do so. We take full responsibility for the miscommunication and apologize for the inconvenience.

…that is as transparent as we are able to be. I highly-value transparency (which is why I answer most any question thrown my way for 30 minutes most every week in Dev Updates), so I assure you no "cloak and dagger" is intended.

Whatever the reason for the cancellation, it's clear someone did not have their ducks in a row before launching this production. Hopefully, we may see some more content in the future, but I'm not getting my hopes up. What are your thoughts? Share them in the comments section below.