D&D 5E Official D&D Greek-Themed 'Mythic Odysseys of Theros' Setting Coming In May

My inbox just exploded! It looks like Penguin Random House accidentally leaked an upcoming book listing for D&D, before removing the entry. It's dated for May 19th, and it's called Mythic Odysseys of Theros.

What's Theros? It's a Greek(ish) themed Magic: the Gathering world! This will make it the second, after Ravnica, to make it to an official D&D campaign setting. Here's what the MTG wiki says about it:

"Theros is a plane governed by the gods of Nyx, where heroes face monsters, the sea rages, people offer burnt offerings and adventures take place. It is defined by mankind's struggle against the primal forces of the world, and mankind's conflict with the many other sapient races that populate the world."

In ancient times, the archons of Theros held a massive empire, tyrannizing the world in the belief that they were imposing a strict justice. The most notable of these Archon tyrants was Agnomakhos, who used the leonin as an army. Eventually, the Archon empire fell, being instead replaced by the poleis, and the remaining Archons now lash at these, slighting the "honor" they feel was stripped from them.

There's an enormous list of races, too -- though how many of those will translate from MtG to D&D, I don't know. Some of these are clearly 'monsters' in the D&D sense rather than 'races'. It includes cats, centaurs, gorgons, merfolk, minotaurs, satyrs, spirits, zombies, archons, basilisks, chimeras, cyclopses, demons, dragons, giants, hags, harpies, hounds, hydras, krakens, lamias, manticores, pegasi, phoenixes, spines, and sirens.

There's a whole bunch of Greek-themed or inspired D&D settings, including:

• Arkadia by Arcana Games. "Arkadia is a combined setting and players handbook for 5e - inspired by the history and myths of Ancient Greece. The book contains 100 pages of densely packed all new Greek themed content for both Players and GMs."
• Hellenistika from Handiwork Games. "From the Pillars of Herakles in the West to the Silken Cities of the East, from the isle of Hyperborea in the North to the Mountains of the Moon in the South, the world spreads before you, alive with gods and marvels."
• Odyssey of the Dragonlords from Arcanum Worlds. "Odyssey of the Dragonlords is an epic fantasy campaign for the fifth edition of the world’s greatest roleplaying game. The Player’s Guide is a 28-page companion booklet that will provide you with everything you need to begin your career as a prospective hero in the forgotten land of Thylea."
• Land of Myth by Seven Thebes. "A Fantasy Setting in Mythical Ancient Greece.A world of Heroes, right after the end of
  the Trojan War, steeped in myth and conflict."

Of course, this all assumes this isn't come kind of epic troll on WotC's part -- they have recently started putting placeholder names on products on Amazon and then changing them at the most minute, although with limited success. This could be a more elaborate attempt at that!

 

[Jer]

This would be the 3rd and 1/2 Greek setting for 5e in last couple of years. (Ken Hite's Hellenistika is hopefully heading to KS soon.)

Yeah - I'm hopeful that this doesn't douse the fires of folks putting out mythic greek inspired settings - I've been looking forward to Hellenistika (though I still wish it had been a 13th Age setting instead of me having to do the work to retrofit it myself).

So am I imagining things or has 5e gotten a lot of Geek mythology love as compared to 3.x and 4e especially in such a short amount of time?

Speaking for just the circle of kids my kid runs with, Percy Jackson fans appear to be the right age to be really into D&D right now.

 

[Gradine]

Seems smart; you continue to hook in the M:TG fans, and I'm sure there are plenty of D&D fans who don't give a crap about Magic but are always down for some official Greek mythology stuff

 

[bedir than]

I can't believe my first response to this thread WASN'T to post this image:

View attachment 118898
My response to news Theros is getting a campaign setting book.

I LOVE my Satyr deck. It wins enough, but it's just fun

 

[eyeheartawk]

Personally, I'm of the opinion that if I wanted to experience a MTG setting, I would play MTG.

That being said, one thing sticks out to me immediately:

Why Theros?

Like, from what I understand (and MTG players please chime in to tell me I'm right or wrong here), isn't Theros as a setting and the sets that came out featuring it not even close to the most popular MTG settings? Seems like more of a mandated brand synergy thing that got handed down from on high because Theros stuff is coming out on the MTG side.

Or maybe I'm just cynical and the timing is coincidental and the dev team really wanted to show us a world and stories that Theros happened to be best for.

I'm cynical.

 

[Von Ether]

Yeah - I'm hopeful that this doesn't douse the fires of folks putting out mythic greek inspired settings - I've been looking forward to Hellenistika (though I still wish it had been a 13th Age setting instead of me having to do the work to retrofit it myself).

That seems like a low-hanging fruit for stretch goal.

I'd be curious if someone would do a contrast and compare between the different settings to see how much each one splits the difference between D& D-isms and mythic Greece.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Do remember psionic powers have to be published before Dark Sun....and maybe they are going to await to publish until some future videogame adaptation.

* I see Theros as an one-shot settin. Maybe it needs a new continent with civilitations with a Hirborian age style. Throne of Eldraine would be better because this allow more different stories.

* Any new about "Odissey of the dragonlords" by Arcanumworlds?

* Will Innistrad be published as an anteroom/anterchamber of Ravenloft?

* I am start to imagine a future Magic plane(/D&D world) about cute (horseface) centauresses D&D version of my little pony but a different morphology. A cute face with equine traits, like horse-girls from furry fandom ( = antropmorphic animals) cartoons, with big nose holes (to aspire more air for great physical efforts, like running for races), and the ears on the side like humans, monkeys and apes, not on the top of the head like horses, and below the baist wouldn't be like the classic centaurs, but more like four-legged humanoids. The lower limbes would have got fingers, one of them, the "pinkie" a true hooeve, and two of them opposible dumps, allowing to be no-so-bad climbers. The lumbar vertebrae wouldn't be too long, allowing to brush their hairy tails with their ownn hands (upper arms are longer than usual body proportions for humanoids). Only one rig cage (proportionally bigger than the rest of humanois) with a mixture of shoulder blade and pelvic girdle for the limbs in the midle), and two lungs and one heart. The body proportions would be more like the fuko figure of Orisha, the centaur-like robot from Overwatch. (I know it is a crazy idea, but at least telling it is funny)

 

[slobster]

The moment they spoiled Gallia, I went through scryfall to look at Satyrs. It was...not an amazing list.

But! I did manage to draft a satyrs deck in once that did pretty well, and someday I'll try to cobble together a Pioneer Gruul deck that just uses Gallia as a way to draw cards. I just really love my party girl satyr!

 

[robus]

Very cool. The final leg of our multiyear campaign has been set in my imagining of Theros. We'll probably be done by the time this comes out, but I've been enjoying the setting (and it was the perfect antidote to a year spent in the Underdark!)

 

[slobster]

Personally, I'm of the opinion that if I wanted to experience a MTG setting, I would play MTG.

That being said, one thing sticks out to me immediately:

Why Theros?

Like, from what I understand (and MTG players please chime in to tell me I'm right or wrong here), isn't Theros as a setting and the sets that came out featuring it not even close to the most popular MTG settings? Seems like more of a mandated brand synergy thing that got handed down from on high because Theros stuff is coming out on the MTG side.

Or maybe I'm just cynical and the timing is coincidental and the dev team really wanted to show us a world and stories that Theros happened to be best for.

I'm cynical.

As an MtG player who loves the lore, I think Theros is a pretty good fit for campaign treatment for a number of reasons. It has a strong and resonant identity, so people who couldn't care less about playing an MtG setting will hopefully still be able to loot it for spare parts easily. It's a setting that isn't super similar to an existing D&D setting; for example, Dominaria is more just a generic fantasy world to people who aren't already invested, Innistrad is reeeeally close to Ravenloft, Zendikar is explicitly modelled after trying to simulate a D&D-type world, etc.

That said, the reason Theros is coming out now is absolutely because it's the current set WotC is trying to sell to people. Product synergy is fine (IMO) as long as the products themselves are good, and I'm hopefuly about this one even if I found the Ravnica one lackluster enough (again, IMO) that I didn't buy it.

As a sidenote no Theros isn't the most popular setting, but it's pretty popular and I think it's possibly the one I hear people say "man that would be a cool D&D game" about the most. Entirely apocryphal, of course.

 

[R_J_K75]

Yea, DS5E is not going to happen this decade. Not directly from WotC.

Kind of looking like old campaign setting books that aren't in adventure form are going to be released sparsely, maybe every few years. Unless I'm not remembering right there's only been 2 for 5E, Eberron and Sword Coast. We'll probably see another adventure and who knows what else this year.

Why Theros?

My guess is that it draws in the MtG players but is generic enough for D&D players to drop in any setting with little trouble.