Production is well underway on The Dragon Prince Season 4. In 2020, the hit Netflix original animated series received an impressive four-season renewal to complete the epic saga laid out by the fan-favorite show's first three seasons. While fans patiently wait for the show's return, the franchise has expanded into a tabletop game titled The Dragon Prince: Battlecharged, a novel titled The Dragon Prince Book Two: Sky, and two graphic novels -- The Dragon Prince: Bloodmoon Huntress and The Puzzle House.
In an exclusive interview with CBR at New York Comic Con 2021, co-creator and showrunner Aaron Ehasz provided a Season 4 update and teased the importance of last year's original graphic novel The Dragon Prince: Through the Moon, along with next year's two graphic novel follow-ups. Ehasz also discussed how the vision of The Dragon Prince created strong partnerships, including with the miniature-based tabletop game Battlecharged.
This was the first in-person con appearance for The Dragon Prince since New York Comic-Con 2019. How was it getting that face time with the fans and seeing how excited they are for Season 4?
Aaron Ehasz: It feels amazing!
Being back in person with people who love these characters and this world is very energizing. Talking to people about the show and hearing what it means to them is awesome. Honestly, I expected some people to ask about where was Season 4 and everyone was so kind and patient about it and were like, "We know it takes a long time to make greatness so take your time and we'll be ready for it when you're ready to bring it." That was really surprising to me, that the vast majority of people we talked to were so kind and patient about it.
Having had the benefit of hindsight seeing how audiences responded to the first three seasons -- including maturing up the tone and expanding the cast and world -- did that inform how you approached Season 4?
I think The Dragon Prince community validated the attention to detail that the team puts into the show. The small things in other shows, maybe one in a hundred people notice, but most of the audience who care about The Dragon Prince pick up on those things, so we know we can build up a show with a lot of detail because people care enough to pay attention.
There's that, in knowing that those small details work but we also know that people are comfortable with a mixture of comic tones, amazing epic stuff, and real emotional arcs for these characters -- arcs that are sometimes painful and sad but also often joyful and inspiring, hopefully. We came away from the first three seasons knowing that we have a really smart and passionate audience and, anything we put out there, we know is going to be grappled with. [laughs]
The Dragon Prince has lent itself well to a full multimedia expansion into tabletop gaming, video games, prose, and comic books. How is it overseeing all that to make sure it stays consistent with the show but also expands into avenues that wouldn't necessarily be possible in animation?
You mentioned "overseeing" and I need to call out Emily Marzonie who is our fantastic franchise manager and creative executive at Wonderstorm who makes sure all those things have the right creative alignment. We met her as a fan who happened to be an art director and someone with a lot of leadership experience but also already got the show and loved it. She was already the perfect person to help us make sure there's creative continuity between the different partnerships and things we're doing.
That said, she plays a critical role in what has always been the vision. We were going to find partners and teams to help us build those things and would invest themselves into something that would build off the vision. So far we have found partners in all these things who have a passionate connection to The Dragon Prince in a way that lets them build stuff that isn't derivative but something great and original built from the same world. And that's more a comment on the broader things we're building rather than the game specifically, the game is its own thing.
The latest release you've got coming is the tabletop game The Dragon Prince: Battlecharged, complete with miniatures of the characters. How has it been working on that game and venturing into the tabletop space?
Battlecharged is developed with the company Brotherwise Games. Chris and Johnny O'Neal are great developers and true fans of the genre and real gamers and they're just really great to work with. The process with them has been easy and constantly inspiring and our team at Wonderstorm has been involved in playtesting and developing the game. It's been really fun and I personally enjoy it a lot.
During the pandemic, a lot of the playtesting went virtually to a tabletop simulator but the game itself is fun pretty quickly and there's enough depth there to learn more and get better at playing it. In terms of the actual materials, I feel like the figures are great are our art team put time working together with them to make sure that those are awesome, same with the art in the game. We're proud of it and grateful for our partnership with Brotherwise.
Next year you've also got two original graphic novels coming out. After Through the Moon got to explore Rayla more, what did you want to do with these next two graphic novels?
The next two graphic novels are giving us a bit more emotional depth to better understand the characters' arcs who we're going to watch unfold in the coming seasons. Bloodmoon Huntress has some stories of a younger Rayla and gives you more context on her relationship with Runaan and Ethari and what happened to her parents and some unusual things that happened as she was growing up that helped define her as a character. They're absolutely at the core of who she is and why her impact on the world has been what it is. I see a direct connection there.
The second of those two is called The Puzzle House and it follows a young Soren and Claudia and it's the story of a mysterious place that was basically built by Viren's mentor Kpp'Ar and he disappeared at some point so it's a spooky, old place that's got dark magic and traps built into it. I don't want to spoil too much but Claudia insists Soren come with her on an adventure to recover something there and that's the story. That one has a lot of insight into Claudia's story but also helps connect some of the dots between them and Season 3. Both of those graphic novels are canon stories and we've worked really closely with the artist and writer to bring them to life. I think people are going to love them.
Rayla and Claudia are opposite sides of the same coin, especially in their dynamic with Callum, and both at major crossroads coming out of Season 3. What can you tease about them going into Season 4?
Some context about what's going on with Rayla between Season 3 and Season 4 is in Through the Moon which is really important. That's an excellent observation that they have some interesting parallels in the family and emotional traumas they've been through with their parents and seeing how they've emerged from it with different sets of values and views on how to approach others. I think there's a lot similar about them and how they've grown as characters.
You're bringing in a new character in Season 4 with a Sunfire elf named Karim, voiced by Luc Roderique. What made you want to bring back Luc as a new character following his previous role as King Harrow?
He's awesome and a great actor to work with! He's one of those people who comes in with an idea of what the character might be feeling and experiencing but also an idea of what you might be thinking you want from the performance and other ways of interpreting it. Exploring a character with Luc is exciting and you discover things and sometimes go in a different direction than you had planned. He's just delightful to work with, a great performer and we knew for this character -- who is going to play a really important role and have a huge impact on the saga -- we knew we needed a great actor who could bring him to life right away and Luc does it. People are going to love this character and find this character extremely complicated and compelling.
While Season 3 had that cliffhanger tease with Viren, it also had a pretty definitive ending. Does Season 4 hit the ground running or does it take some time to catch up with audiences on what's been going on, especially for those that haven't read Through the Moon?
It is very helpful to have read Through the Moon but we've taken into account that some people will not have read and they're going to need some explanation. Does it hit the ground running? Yeah! It's the same big story but there's a new, specific thing that becomes clear in the issue pretty quickly. I'm being vague because I can't spoil too much... [laughs]
While you have an additional four seasons coming, do you have any plans to expand or explore beyond that?
There are definitely other parts of the universe and timeline that we think are worth exploring at some point. Right now, we're focused on what we think of as the core saga, the story of these characters at this moment in time. There are some other eras that I think are interesting that we've talked about exploring in different ways but, from a story perspective, we're very focused on this saga and getting this part of it right in the time that we have to tell the story.
What can you say about Season 4?
I can tell you a little about production progress which is that all the scripts for Season 4 have been written and recorded and it is in the process of being designed and storyboarded and brought to life by the team at Bardel Entertainment right now. We're well underway, being wowed every day with new designs, art, music, and things that are all coming back to bring it to life and people are working hard. Hopefully, we'll have more to announce about that very soon!
Created by Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond, the first three seasons of The Dragon Prince are available to stream on Netflix, with the fourth season currently in production. The Dragon Prince: Battlecharged is available now.