The following post is a recap of information written by Chris Lindsay for the April 2019 issue of Dragon+.

D&D Adventurers League play is divided into story seasons. Since the beginning of the program there have been eight story seasons, each one focusing on and supporting a given adventure product(s) released by the D&D team.

In addition to the content offered by the D&D team at Wizards and the supporting adventure content created by the D&D Adventurers League administrative team, there is also Community Created Content (CCC) created by and for specific events, by authorized event organizers.

As we move forward, we’d like to offer cool and unique play opportunities for each story. Sometimes this might take the form of variant character creation guidelines, sometimes it might involve specialized magical items as treasure, and sometimes it might even include unique play opportunities.

To facilitate this in a manner that provides equal opportunity to everyone, starting with DDAL Season 9 (beginning in September 2019) we’re going to ask players to create a new character (or new characters, for those of you who play more frequently) at the beginning of each season.

Your new characters will be able to play ALL the content from the new season, they may play any Community Created Content (CCC), and they may participate in the Dreams of the Red Wizards non-seasonal campaign. In all such play, your character will receive rewards (story awards as well as treasure and advancement checkpoints) normally. (You can also read the announcement of Dreams of the Red Wizards in Dragon+!)

While you can certainly play that Season 9 character in an adventure from an older season, the character may not gain access to story awards or magic item unlocks from those earlier seasons. They may only gain story awards and magic item unlocks from the season for which they’re built. Treasure and advancement checkpoints will be earned as usual.

Likewise, story rewards received during a given season can only be utilized when playing content from that season, and if your character has a story-based magic item, we will provide an alternate version for use in adventures that are not part of the season your character was built to play in. This includes CCC and Dreams of the Red Wizards adventure content.

For answers to a few Frequently Asked Questions regarding Seasonality, and to learn about a bonus for new Season 9 characters, read the full article in Dragon+.