D&D 5E Auroborus: A Mountain-shattering Rock-and-roll D&D World from WoW Developers

What happens when some of the developers of Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch make a D&D setting? You get a 'rock-and-roll' high-powered world called Auroboros!

Coming to Kickstarter on April 20th from Warchief Gaming, Auroborus: Coils of the Serpent is set in a land called Lawbrand. Players can wield immense power, able to shatter mountaintops. The Kickstarter is for the first 'Worldbook' which details Lawbrand.

"Ancient magic flows through the grimy streets of Lawbrand’s bustling Trade-Cities. Tensions between the ruling Sularian Church and the new generation of upstart adventurers threaten to ignite a firestorm of societal upheaval. In the wilds beyond Lawbrand’s borders, long-forgotten races and newly formed cults rise to claim their own territories – and exert their will upon civilization. And beneath it all, the ancient World-Serpent, Auroboros, awakens to devour all…"

The setting contains 5 new races (including the aquatic Atsaad), and 4 subclasses (including the fighter Wildkeeper).

As for that 'mountain-splitting" power? Here's what they say: "The ancient World-Serpent, Auroboros, coils throughout Creation; its vast power capable of birthing startling new life or annihilating all that is. By taking the dread Mark of the Serpent, players can wield the Auroboros’ awesome power directly, gaining the ability to heal the sick and shatter mountaintops alike – but at great peril to themselves."

 

[oreofox]

The name bugs me so much I'm having trouble getting past it. "Hey guys, it's an Ouroboros but we sexied it up with this sweet 'A'!"

As @grimslade said, it's probably for the TM capabilities. Also, perhaps this world serpent Metzen speaks of is gold in color? Auro being the word for gold (at least, a form of the word anyway).

As for the setting itself? I'm not sure. Metzen seemed like a good dude back when I played WoW. I am not sure if I will back this thing or not, but I do wish it success. And Metzen is very enthusiastic about his endeavors, which is always a good thing.

 

[TwoSix]

As @grimslade said, it's probably for the TM capabilities. Also, perhaps this world serpent Metzen speaks of is gold in color? Auro being the word for gold (at least, a form of the word anyway).

As for the setting itself? I'm not sure. Metzen seemed like a good dude back when I played WoW. I am not sure if I will back this thing or not, but I do wish it success. And Metzen is very enthusiastic about his endeavors, which is always a good thing.

Metzen strikes me as the type of guy who's enthusiastic about ordering his daily Starbucks.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The name bugs me so much I'm having trouble getting past it. "Hey guys, it's an Ouroboros but we sexied it up with this sweet 'A'!"

"We made it something we can trademark!"

 

[Weiley31]

The Chronicle books, the Eastern Kingdoms items book and the forthcoming Shadowlands lore book would be a great basis for a set of 5E sourcebooks. I'm mildly surprised that Blizzard hasn't gone for this, honestly, given how popular D&D is both internally and with the general public.

And the fact that there WAS both a Warcraft and World of Warcraft pen and paper RPG using the 3.5 rules of DND. I even came upon the book(World of Warcraft version) for it yesterday while checking out one of the local brick and motor hobby shops I haven't been to in a while. Part of me is actually tempted to buy it for lore stuff if I ever felt like doing a 5E Warcraft campaign.

 

[Weiley31]

My only problem with Warcraft (and its lore right now) is the fact that it just went....I honestly don't known after a certain point. I pretty much stopped following it after vanilla Burning Crusades. Got into it around Warcraft 3 and Frozen Throne(which were the only Warcraft games I've ever played.) Groaned at the fact it lead into an MMORPG, but still kept up with it a tad bit before stopping. It's only like, the basic PDF bullet point version of each expansions main lore/gameplay gimmicks (Undead's new leader, Lich King returning/Death Knights/Demon Hunter's back, certain NPCs/Characters from Warcraft III/Frozen Throne being regulated to Raid Bosses, Deathwing coming back, Pandas, Were(not)Wolves, Artifact Weapons, traveling back in time(Iron Horde), and last time I checked, both the Alliance and the Horde now in some kind of Mcguffin/Resource arms race all while Shadowland crap is now happening with...Not Angels or something? Burning Hells, I'm surprised that Sylvanas Windrunner hasn't been killed yet in WoW at this rate.

I rather deal with the outdated lore and stuff from the Pen and Paper rpg version of Warcraft and just add choice selections from later WoW expansions into it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And the fact that there WAS both a Warcraft and World of Warcraft pen and paper RPG using the 3.5 rules of DND. I even came upon the book(World of Warcraft version) for it yesterday while checking out one of the local brick and motor hobby shops I haven't been to in a while. Part of me is actually tempted to buy it for lore stuff if I ever felt like doing a 5E Warcraft campaign.

That lore was off even at the time, though. Ratchet is not, even in game lore, a metropolis, like it was in the RPG book. And the 3E stats for everything were pretty shaky (it came out early in the cycle, which didn't help).

I would almost just go with the Wowpedia wiki instead.

 

[jayoungr]

Yeah well, don't get me started on the current state of WoW lore. I'm a Horde player first and foremost, and the entire faction has just been on a downward rollercoaster ever since Garrosh.

I signed up for a world of grey where the two sides had different philosophies but were both mixtures of good and bad, with the tantalizing hope for peace always just out of reach due to recognizable flaws on both sides. And now it's turned into the virtuous and longsuffering good guys fighting off the depraved and primitive (yes, I went there) bad guys. I am bitter.

Come to think of it, this is probably a good reason not to update the old RPG. Because they'd just enshrine and canonize this stuff.

Anyway, to circle back to the topic, I think Warcraft did a much better job of keeping the story balanced when Metzen was in charge, so that offers some hope for his D&D setting.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My only problem with Warcraft (and its lore right now) is the fact that it just went....I honestly don't known after a certain point. I pretty much stopped following it after vanilla Burning Crusades. Got into it around Warcraft 3 and Frozen Throne(which were the only Warcraft games I've ever played.) Groaned at the fact it lead into an MMORPG, but still kept up with it a tad bit before stopping. It's only like, the basic PDF bullet point version of each expansions main lore/gameplay gimmicks (Undead's new leader, Lich King returning/Death Knights/Demon Hunter's back, certain NPCs/Characters from Warcraft III/Frozen Throne being regulated to Raid Bosses, Deathwing coming back, Pandas, Were(not)Wolves, Artifact Weapons, traveling back in time(Iron Horde), and last time I checked, both the Alliance and the Horde now in some kind of Mcguffin/Resource arms race all while Shadowland crap is now happening with...Not Angels or something? Burning Hells, I'm surprised that Sylvanas Windrunner hasn't been killed yet in WoW at this rate.

I rather deal with the outdated lore and stuff from the Pen and Paper rpg version of Warcraft and just add choice selections from later WoW expansions into it.

The lore is actually more coherent than it may look if you just drop in and out. The Chronicle books are really good at knitting Warcraft 1, 2, 3, Lord of the Clans, the novels and comics, and WoW all together.

Thrall's Horde has never quite gotten its crap together until relatively recently, between the various tensions within the Horde and Thrall's own reluctance to be its singular leader. So that's allowed Horde conservatives, like Garrosh, to double-down on the violent (and racist!) tendencies of some of the Horde to escalate hostilities between the Alliance and Horde, which played out over several expansions. (When he was deposed, he escaped his war crimes trial with the help of a bronze dragon, which gives us the time travel adventure Warlords of Draenor.) The Pandaren expansion actually turned out to be a fairly meditative affair focused on the consequences of war and the collateral damage inflicted by it. The most recent Warchief, Sylvanas, has been quietly working with an outside force, which we've known for a while, sweeping the Alliance and Horde into an incredibly bloody Fourth War, which played out in Battle for Azeroth. The outside force turned out to be an imprisoned god of death who is the big bad of Shadowlands. The Horde, tired of playing Warchief Musical Chairs (Vol'jin was briefly warchief before getting killed to put Sylvanas on the throne) now has a war council, which looks to be more stable going forward.

Meanwhile, there's been supernatural shenanigans going on, with the Old Gods/Void making their moves, the Titans fighting back and the Burning Legion attacking. A lot of the stuff from War3 has been explained as part of a larger supernatural/multiversal war going on (there's a really cool map of the Warcraft multiverse in the inside cover of Chronicle, which shows that Blizzard has a lot of D&D players in it and that they loved and wanted to improve upon the D&D cosmology). Arthas: Tool, ultimately, of both the imprisoned death god and the Burning Legion. Deathwing: Tool of the void/Old Gods. Illidan: Fighting a good fight against the Burning Legion, tripped up by his inability to get along with anyone for longer than five minutes tops. The end of the war with the Burning Legion damaged the planet, which is where the Azerite resource came from. But for the most part, that conflict is over, at least for now, with the Old Gods dead/put back in their box, the Burning Legion defeated for at least a few years or decades, etc. Now the game is heading out into the multiverse, as high level campaigns do, starting with finding out what Sylvanas and the death god she's working with want.

The expansions see-saw back and forth between grounded expansions, like vanilla or Battle for Azeroth, and more out there stuff, like Burning Crusade and Shadowlands.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah well, don't get me started on the current state of WoW lore. I'm a Horde player first and foremost, and the entire faction has just been on a downward rollercoaster ever since Garrosh.

Sylvanas has been pretty much the same person since WoW started, though. Back in vanilla, she had low level undead players testing plague out on prisoners of war in the Brill tavern's basement.

If anything, it looks like the Alliance is heading toward a period of Drama, with Tyrande essentially resigning from the Alliance and Anduin, at least for the rest of this expansion, being turned into a tool of the imprisoned god of death.

I think the whole point of creating the War Council for the Horde was to end their period of Draaaaaaamaaaaaaa. Blizzard knows everyone, especially Horde players, is sick of that stuff.

 

[jayoungr]

I'm not going to get into the whole Sylvanas debate. I'm upset at the state of the entire Horde. Ending the drama now is too late. I don't even recognize the faction that I joined anymore, so I don't really care if this new ersatz ... thing ... that it's become lives or dies.

But I told you not to get me started, so I'll just leave it there.