As part of the promotional push to highlight the Elsweyr expansion coming to The Elder Scrolls Online, a Dungeons & Dragons adventure set in the location was put together and posted on ESO’s Facebook page this past Tuesday. That adventure, however, has now been removed as it appears to be a plagiarized piece of work.
The Elsweyr adventure bears an uncomfortably striking resemblance to the D&D adventure The Black Road, an official Wizards of the Coast product released in 2016. The Elsweyr adventure’s flavor text, gameplay scenarios, and descriptions all appear to be lifted wholesale from The Black Road, with only a few words and names changed. The ESO tabletop adventure raised a great deal of furor from D&D fans and at least one of the authors and designers of The Black Road, Paige Leitman.
The Elsweyr tabletop game was reportedly from Bethesda Netherlands according to a quote pulled from the Facebook link. However, all links to the material are now dead on official channels and Bethesda is “digging in deeper to figure out what happened” according to a spokesperson.
We have pulled a previously shared ESO tabletop RPG adventure while we investigate the source. Thank you to those who reached out with concerns.
— The Elder Scrolls Online (@TESOnline) May 8, 2019
