
I picked up Andrew Kolb’s Neverland 5e setting with some Christmas money, and I’ll be honest, I pretty much did it based on the beautiful cover (more on that in a bit).
This book brings the world of Peter Pan into Dungeons and Dragons 5e, reimagined as a dark fantasy hexcrawl. In this setting, Wendy, Peter, and Michael grew up and were forgotten by Peter Pan, but they still remain in Neverland — Wendy exists as a Swamp Hag, Peter discovered dark magic and transformed himself into a lich, and Michael lives in isolation in the forest.
Pan and the Lost Boys are represented, of course, as are Hook, Smee, and the Pirates, the Mermaids, the Crocodile and many more inhabitants of Neverland. Tinkerbell and the fairies are present as well, led by the powerful Queen Mab of Elphame, land of the fairies.
The Physical Book Is GORGEOUS

I honestly think Andrew Kolb’s Neverland 5e might be the prettiest physical gaming book on my shelf. It has a beautiful green storybook cover with gold inlay, a classic storybook style that echoes the aesthetic of the source material.
It even has a freaking ribbon bookmark, which is a feature I wish more TTRPG books would adopt.
My only complaint about the physical book is that the font size is very small in order to layout the content in three columns. I feel like this was probably a choice to keep the page count low so the book could be sold at a lower price point, but it’s a strain on my eyes.
DriveThruRPG has PDF copies of the book, though, so do yourself a favor and pick up the PDF for general reading and the hardback for shelf display.
Funky pricing?
Pricing is a bit odd. The PDF on DriveThruRPG retails for $19.99, but you can often find the hardback on sale for $15.87 on Amazon, and it’s a little strange that you have to go to different vendors to get them.
If you don’t want to purchase from Amazon, the book is available through other vendors, including Barnes and Noble and Bookshop.org, but expect to pay closer to $27.99 there. With Bookshop.org starting to bring ebooks onboard, maybe we’ll see a Hardback + PDF bundle coming soon.
The Island of Neverland 5e

The Neverland 5e setting is designed as a hex crawl, with an island map of 23 hexes. The Lost Boys’ hollow trees and fairy-fueled flight are presented as options for quickly getting around the island, as are swirling Mermaid Whirlpools.
These hexes are packed with detail — each hex includes its own d20 encounter table, a d12 creature table, a d12 NPC table, a d12 area effect table, and a d6 exploration table.
There’s also a unique feature called Chime Hours, which are weird things that happen in each hex at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. For example, in Hex 02, the Beach Caves, crabs swarm the beach during the Chime Hours, forming circles of twelve and swaying to unheard music. In Hex 05, the Wetlands, the landscape shifts to reveal important messages, only visible from the air.
I really adore the way Neverland 5e presents hex detail, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot as I work on hexcrawl elements for my Warpwalkers Campaign Setting. Each hex in Neverland 5e feels unique and distinctive from others, so you don’t have endless hexes of empty land.
Many of these hexes also include maps of special locations found within them, including the 12 floors of John Darling’s Lich Tower in Hex 02 and the labyrinthine Giant’s Hill, home to the giant insects, in Hex 22.
As if the Island weren’t enough, the book also includes details about Elphame, the land of the fairies, an antithesis of the Island that plays by a different set of rules.
The Skull Is Always Different

One of the coolest features of the Island is The Skull, a giant skull-shaped island just off the northeast coast. The Skull is the domain of a strange chaotic entity that reshapes the dungeon every time it is entered.
The Skull comes with a d100 collection of rooms, and DMs can roll as often as they like to create a dungeon of any size. In addition to the hex’s d12 creatures list, the Skull comes with three d20 templates that can be applied to each creature.
Together, these elements mean that the Skull is essentially an infinite dungeon, which can be reoriented at any point to suit the demands of the adventure.
Neverland 5e’s Creatures and Inhabitants
The book includes a whopping 100 creatures, some of whom are unique individuals and some of whom are generic, ranging from giant insects, tree people, all manner of fey, Pirates and Lost Boys and so many more.
Kolb really makes some interesting choices in the creature designs here. Instead of adhering to the 5e standard statblock, Neverland 5e opts for a more minimalistic statblock.
Every creature, for example, is presented with three saving throw bonuses, representing an Great, Fine, and Bad saving throw. DMs are encouraged to use whichever bonus makes sense, rather than having saving throws specifically assigned to ability scores.
To-hit bonuses for attacks are derived from these saving throw bonuses, adding the Great and Fine results.
Creatures are presented without ability scores, Initiative scores, Senses, Languages, or Challenge Ratings, leaving these attributes solely up to the DM. This design philosophy harkens back to old school statblocks from early editions of D&D and from OSR products, and may chafe with some 5e purists, but the creatures are all incredibly flavorful and fully functional.
Obviously, these were dropped from the book due to the racist depictions of them in the source material, but I would love to see the author work with some Native American TTRPG designers to release a respectful supplement for the book that brings them back into the setting in an appropriate way.
The Crocodile is handled in a really interesting way — it’s presented as an absolutely colossal creature, large enough to use the dungeon-inside-a-living-monster trope — in most cases, the PCs will instead be pitted against Crocodile Spawn, the big OG’s children who inherit mama’s ticking clock ability.
Folk Magic in Neverland 5e
Although not a lot of detail is given to it in the book, Neverland 5e presents a lot of delicious options for incorporating folk magic into the setting, including things like Witch Bottles, Fettered Hearts, and Cunning Dolls as ways to protect against spellcasters.
The book does a great job of presenting various options for the DM to convey information to the player through this folk magic, offering options like burning names, scrying in still pools, or casting toad bones to learn new information.
I do wish the book offered more details of some of these items and processes — there aren’t a lot of options for treasure presented, beyond some random tables for objects. I don’t think even D&D mainstays like gold, gems, and magic items are particularly useful in Neverland, and the book seems to encourage more esoteric forms of treasure and currency.
Using Neverland 5e
There are a lot of cool ways a DM could present the setting to players — a strange shipwreck could bring an established adventuring party to Neverland’s shores for a short detour adventure, for example, or you could offer an entire campaign in the setting.
One could even imagine a storybook-hopping campaign where the players venture from Neverland to Oz or Wonderland, two of the author’s other settings.
And the setting is also perfect for a quick one-shot — the book even includes six pregen characters, including the Big Game Hunter, Child Pickpocket, Stranded Pirate, Teen Prodigy, and more.
If you’re looking for inspiration, Kolb has even written a whole series of session reports from his own adventures in the setting. Here’s a Master Thread of them on Reddit.
All in all, I think the book is a fantastic resource, and the hardback book is priced at a steal. Even if you don’t use the setting as presented, there’s a lot to learn from the way Kolb writes hex keys and creatures.
More from Andrew Kolb
The author offers some downloadable resources for Neverland 5e on his website, including Character Sheets, Printable Maps, and Quick Reference Sheets.
There’s also the Kolb’s Fantasy Role-Playing Settings Discord, where you can chat with other Neverland DMs and players, look for a group to play the setting, or explore a couple of homebrew creations made for the setting.
Andrew Kolb is active on Bluesky and Reddit.
