D&D 5E 5e Narnia?

[halfling rogue]

Has anyone tinkered with this idea for 5th Edition?

I'm pretty impressed with the modularity with 5e and I've done some searches for some Middle-earth settings and have discovered some pretty impressive homebrews. A bit of this, minus a bit of that and you have yourself a pretty fantastic Middle-earth setting using 5e rules.

But I couldn't find anything for Narnia. My assumption is that it's because it is obviously not as close to D&D as Middle-earth. It would likely take a bit more of a detour. However, I still think it could work with a bit of re-skinning and with 5e's creating character/monster rules.

My initial feeling is that I would just open the PHB and start reskinning the races into animals (save human) and seeing how classes might fit best within Narnia. Obviously it would be low magic and surely some classes would just not work.

But before I dive in, I wanted to check things out here to see if anyone has done anything or has any ideas about how to tackle this, be it mechanics or setting/flavor or whatever.

 

[Ashrym]

Apply the awaken spell to any plant or animal you want, or assume it's been applied to all animals. That would be the biggest first thought.

 

[halfling rogue]

Took a look through the DMG last night with this in mind and was surprised to see that they specifically mentioned in an example that a halfling could be reskinned as an "anthropomorphic mouse". So I've got that going for me.

Setting-wise, there seems to be lots of little places within the timeline of Narnia one could concevably play. A tempting option is the time just before Caspian when the Telmarine pirates invade Narnia. A couple other options would be just after Caspian's reign (before Rilian) and the time between the Silver Chair and the Last Battle, as it's rather open.

As it is, I'm contemplating this being set towards the end of the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, specifically during the reign of the Pevensie children. I think there is about a 15 year period where they rule. This is appealing, first of all because it offers many opportunities to participate in 'cleaning up' the rest of the White Witches army. There is also talk of Peter off facing the giants of the north. Aside from the cold north, and Narnia itself, Calormen, Archenland, and the Isles offer fantastic settings where adventures could take place.

I picture a party that has been selected by the Kings and Queens, or else a party that is sympathetic to their cause and desire to aid them in adventure and justice. This opens a certain dynamic that I think would be interesting for Backgrounds. Namely, while the PCs would serve all four rulers, perhaps they might select one of the Sovereigns they are particularly dedicated to, and in this they receive a special boon. For instance, a PC who chooses High King Peter might have the benefit greater strength or leadership, while one who chooses Queen Lucy might be able to heal or has a special sort of bravery. Those dedicated to Susan might excel in archery or lend encouragement. For Edmund I'm thinking of a type of special knight in his service dedicated to righteousness and justice. Just thoughts, but it is appealing to me.

I don't know if I can quite do an exact reskinning (despite the DMG's example), but I am starting to wonder if maybe characters can choose from a group of 3 or 4 categories and go from there. For example, you might have a few categories such as "Small Beast" "Large Beast" "Fey Creatures" "Humanoids"

So the Small Beast category would include animals like Beaver, Badger, Mole and maybe even Fox and all would be based on the halfling. Obviously each would have their own particular traits, but the structure would be essentially the same. The Large Beast category would cover animals like Bear, Lion, Leopard, etc.. Fey Creatures would include Fauns, Wood/Water Spirits, Centaurs, maybe Unicorns. And Humanoids would include Humans, Dwarfs, Marsh-wiggles, and maybe even Earthmen (reskinned gnomes?) or Giants.

The magic would need limiting. Fey Creatures would basically be the only group that could wield any kind of magic, but I'd need to peruse the spell list. Wood/Water Spirits could likely be reskinned elves/druids. Centaurs could possibly be reskinned halforcs. I think the hardest thing to reskin will be the Large Animals, unless they might be playable via the Monster Manual stats, but not sure.

Classes may need to be lingered over a bit more. I think the magical classes will need to be morphed into certain races, and maybe each Fey Creature would need this done outright. ie a dryad = elf/druid.

But other than the reskinning, race/class pruning process, which will take a bit of thought, I really think this is pretty doable with 5e.

There are more than enough monsters mentioned in the text to use, and I'm sure I'll hardly need to change much other than flavor for most of them.

Anything else you can think of that would need to be addressed?

 

[fuindordm]

If I remember right, when Aslan gave certain animals speech, the small ones became larger (say halfling size) and the large ones became smaller (say half-orc size at most).

To answer your original question, I don't think I've every seen an adaptation of Narnia in any edition.

Spellcasters do exist in Narnia; for example, the wizard that Lucy met in Dawn Treader. I don't think it's a big stretch to let at least one PC take a spellcasting class or to give fey races minor spellcasting abilities like the high elf and tiefling have.

 

[halfling rogue]

If I remember right, when Aslan gave certain animals speech, the small ones became larger (say halfling size) and the large ones became smaller (say half-orc size at most).

To answer your original question, I don't think I've every seen an adaptation of Narnia in any edition.

Spellcasters do exist in Narnia; for example, the wizard that Lucy met in Dawn Treader. I don't think it's a big stretch to let at least one PC take a spellcasting class or to give fey races minor spellcasting abilities like the high elf and tiefling have.

Right, so Reepicheep was basically a halfling size mouse.

I think the best option might be some kind of innate spellcasting abilities for the fey races. But they'd need to be appropriate to the flavor. A naiad isn't going to be casting fireball. And like I said, I might have to fuse certain races and classes (elf/druid) in that case for the foundation. Their spells would definitely have to be restricted to their flavor or certain classes might only be restricted to certain races (bard magic might be restricted to fauns,etc) I haven't tackled it yet so I'm not sure how difficult/feasible that will actually be.

Of the classes that I think would work just fine would be: Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian, and I would like to have a spell-less Ranger, Paladin, and Bard. I'd still like the Bard to grant benefits to the party, but maybe some flavor would just have to change. Druid of course might reflect what I said above. But for the Cleric, Monk, Wizard, Socerer, Warlock, I don't think it would work quite as well in Narnia. Maybe an NPC, but not a playable character.

Humans wouldn't be Narnia, nor of our world, but they would be those from Archenland, Calormen, and the Islands. I'm thinking there could be a mercenary background or a refugee, etc. There are lots of fun little bits like that which make me think 5e will work just fine, (once PCs are figured out).

One thing I've been musing over are certain animal stats from the Monster Manual. By that I mean taking certain aspects and abilities that animals have to add to the PC traits. So Lions and Foxes can pounce, and all animals typically have teeth and claws and so I'm trying to figure out how to implement that as a PC. Thoughts?