D&D General Teased Lorwyn-Shadowmoor Supplement Crosses Magic: the Gathering and D&D

WotC has teased an upcoming Magic: The Gathering / Dungeons & Dragons crossover supplement. No info has been given other than a mention of Lorwyn-Shadowmoor and an art piece by Jesper Ejsing.

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Lorwyn-Shadowmoor is a Magic: the Gathering plane. The official MtG page for it describes it as:

Lorwyn is an idyllic world where races of fable thrive in perpetual midsummer. Its dark reflection, Shadowmoor, exists in perpetual gloom, its citizens bitterly transformed and locked in a desperate battle for survival.

Lorwyn is the land where the sun never set. Covered with dense forests, meandering rivers, and gently rolling meadows, it knows no nights or winters. One of the few planes without humans, it's populated by the short-statured kithkin, hot-tempered flamekin, petty-thief boggarts, territorial treefolk, diplomatic merfolk, iconoclastic giants, and mischievous faeries, all living together in harmony.

Also among them: the elves, Lorwyn's most favored and feared race. In a world of unspoiled nature, they consider themselves the paragons of this beauty. Signs of elvish supremacy are widespread, from their gilded forest palaces to their mercilessness toward "lesser" races. Despite the elves' dominion, Lorwyn's people thrive, respecting community and tradition.

The land itself, ancient and verdant, is locked in a perpetual cycle—and every three centuries, that cycle transforms the plane into Shadowmoor.

The mirror-image of Lorwyn, Shadowmoor is a realm of perpetual dusk and gloom. Here, the plane's races, without knowledge of their previous selves, are locked in a life-and-death struggle for survival. Like the plane itself, its denizens are transformed into darker versions of themselves.

The kithkin, once communal and cooperative, are isolated and xenophobic. The helpful, silver-tongued merfolk are now assassins and saboteurs. The boggarts, once mischievous and hedonistic, are vicious and warlike. The blighted treefolk are murderous. Wrathful giants drag around huge pieces of the land.

The transformations of the flamekin and elves are perhaps the most dramatic. Once bright and seeking transcendence, the flamekin are now smoking skeletons seeking revenge. Meanwhile, the vain elves are humbled and heroic in Shadowmoor, protecting every glimmer of beauty and light.

Only one race and one place remain unchanged: the faeries and their home of Glen Elendra. The fae are the fulcrum of this transforming plane—for it was their queen, Oona, who caused it.


This isn't the first such crossover--Ravnica, Strixhaven, and Theros were all Magic: the Gathering settings. Additionally, over the past few years, WotC has put out PDF D&D supplements for the MtG worlds of Amonkhet, Dominaria, Innistrad, Ixalan, Kaladesh, and Zendikar.
 

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3 times I can think of, Strixhaven, Theros and Ravnica. Not sure how they did, but I'm not too excited
Not sure how well they did, but I quite like Teros and Ravnica. I found Ravnica to be very fresh new D&D setting. But I have only enjoyed is as lonely fun. I don't have the time to homebrew adventures in the setting. If they had released a full adventure book for it as well, I would have seriously considered playing it. When I search DMs Guild for Adventure's League modules set in Ravnica, zero results are returned. I guess they didn't have an AL season focused on that setting. There just hasn't been much official support for that setting. Acquisitions Inc. had one of their live plays based in that setting and it was fun to watch.

Same goes with Theros. Not is new and interesting as Ravnica, but I liked its take on a setting inspired by Greek Mythology. The source and relationship between the settings peoples and their gods was interesting and I liked the mechanics for mythic monsters (the only thing from the book I've actually used in my games).

While they are not something that I'll likely use as a setting to run my games in, there are a lot of DMs who like to create their own campaigns and adventures, and have been asking for more setting books. As for myself, if I had time to create my own adventures, I'd homebrew my own world as well. What I find most helpful as a DM are books like Curse of Strahd, which provide a mini setting and long adventure. Other than CoS, however, all such books I've purchased have been from third‑party publishers.
 

I think in later sets, like Core sets, they introduce Leafkin, Living Lightening (Lighteningkin), Cloudkin, so I don't think it'll just be Flamekin anymore.

But yeah I agree, it doesn't mean really fit Elementals in MtG, even less in D&D.

Leafkin might be Elementals or they might end up plants.
I mean, there are cards with “whateverkin” in their names, but I don’t think they have anything to do with Lorwyn.
 

I’ll be curious to see how they handle species options, since one of the more noteworthy elements of Lorwyn/Shadowmoor’s worldbuilding was the total absence of humans on the plane (apart from 4 of the original 5 planeswalkers). I’m sure that will change in the new set with the addition of Omenpaths, but I hope they don’t use that to handwave D&D species into the setting too…

Aww, who am I kidding, that’s probably exactly what they’ll do… 😩
I'm in the camp of liking settings that establish a unique feel through lore, new options, AND limitations. I would hope that they would just have a page that explains how certain assumptions from the PHP and more popular settings don't apply in this setting, but if you want to work in character species that don't exist by default in the setting, here are some ways to do it. Maybe some DMs and players would be upset, but I've never understood why. The group can ALWAYS decide to make changes to ANY setting or adventure.
 


I'm in the camp of liking settings that establish a unique feel through lore, new options, AND limitations. I would hope that they would just have a page that explains how certain assumptions from the PHP and more popular settings don't apply in this setting, but if you want to work in character species that don't exist by default in the setting, here are some ways to do it. Maybe some DMs and players would be upset, but I've never understood why. The group can ALWAYS decide to make changes to ANY setting or adventure.
Oh, for sure. I mean, the original Lorwyn set features the first planeswalker cards despite them being wildly out of place for the setting and literally zero relevance to its story, which at the time was justified by saying “they’re planeswalkers; being out of place is their whole thing.” And of course, now with the omenpaths, characters don’t even have to be actual Planeswalkers to travel to other planes. So there’s room to have your orc or Dragonborn or whatever end up on Lorwyn if you want to. And even if there weren’t, people can and should do whatever they want at their own tables. It’s just that the setting material shouldn’t go out of its way to accommodate that in my opinion. It should focus on being the best version of itself, and let groups who want to bring in elements from outside the setting decide for themselves how to make that work.
 

It’s just that the setting material shouldn’t go out of its way to accommodate that in my opinion. It should focus on being the best version of itself, and let groups who want to bring in elements from outside the setting decide for themselves how to make that work.
Exactly. I can understand WoTC wanting every setting book to support every option in the PHB for business reasons, if their market research showed that it was necessary to achieve the sales numbers they need. I won't like it, but I can understand it. But the D&D fans who get worked up about it perplex and annoy me. It is the only example I can think of where I'm more charitable to the corporation than the fans. There is a lot of criticism I can give WotC, but sometimes we're the reason we cannot have nice things.

I also don't get the strong feelings many have about using MtG settings in D&D. I can see not liking a specific setting as it is implemented, but not liking it just because it is a MtG inspired setting? I guess if you are familiar with the specific MtG setting, or with all MtG settings, and have no interest in using any with D&D. Fine. But from some comments in this and prior thread, there are comments that only base their complaints on it being a MtG setting. As if that means anything.
 


I guess many players bought Theros to recycle the crunch and part of the lore for their homebred settings.

I wonder if flameskins/cinders could start easily fires in the forests without elves could stop them.

The comingsoon sourcebook will have to explain what happens with big auroras if PCs are native or from outer, or if natives can be affected by the big aurora when they are in other plane, for example Eldraine.

I thought Kaldheim had got more possibilities to be adapted to D&D.

* The "old" Kamigawa was too linked to the plot of the kami war and the cyberpunk version would need a lot of magitek crunch to be playtested.
 


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