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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They transform when the plane does - every thousand years initially, and every night after the events of the novel. I suspect this would be handled by a universal day/night transformation mechanic for all characters and NPCs native to Lorwyn/Shadowmoor.
Now, you are far more familiar than I am, but from what I've found it seems like maybe the transformation aspect is gone?
 

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So what solution do you think the up coming D&D setting book & the MtG set will come up with for Lorwyn merfolk?

And remember there are at least two different kinds of Lorwyn/Shadowmoore Merfolk, Merrows & Selkies, both very different from each other, Selkies are mostly humaniod looking from the waist up, but Seals from the waist down, so they are a mammalian form of Merfolk vs the part fish Merfolk.
I just think they'll be able to transform. Tail for water, finned legs for land.
 

Now, you are far more familiar than I am, but from what I've found it seems like maybe the transformation aspect is gone?
It’s not entirely clear. By the end of the novel(s), the plane changes daily instead of millennially, and presumably it no longer alters the memories of the plane’s inhabitants when it happens. But the details are kind of vague and the game and story haven’t returned to the plane since, except for a passing mention during the Phyrexian invasion.
 

I'm point out despite Ravnica having bipedal Merfolk already, and Tritons having already been published in Volos, GMGtR didn't have playable Merfolk/Tritons in it, so it's not certain they will bother making Lorwyn Merfolk playable or if they do, it might be Selkies instead of Merrow, because at least Selkies can move on land like seals do.

They have plenty of new species to do as is, Flamekin (possibly other Elemental/Plant kin as well such as Living Lightening, Cloudkin, Leafkin, Cinders, etc. ), Groundlings, flying Faeries, Kithkin, Boggarts, Noogles, Ouphes, etc...,
 

I'm point out despite Ravnica having bipedal Merfolk already, and Tritons having already been published in Volos, GMGtR didn't have playable Merfolk/Tritons in it, so it's not certain they will bother making Lorwyn Merfolk playable or if they do, it might be Selkies instead of Merrow, because at least Selkies can move on land like seals do.

They have plenty of new species to do as is, Flamekin (possibly other Elemental/Plant kin as well such as Living Lightening, Cloudkin, Leafkin, Cinders, etc. ), Groundlings, flying Faeries, Kithkin, Boggarts, Noogles, Ouphes, etc...,
Merfolk are a bigger deal in Lorwyn than in Ravnica. It does definitely feel like this book has the potential for having a lot of Species options at hand.
 

Yeah its up there for sure. Feels like its from another era honestly.
This MtG set does really feel like another era, more 'fantastical' fantasy built with older tropes.

I bought all three of the MtG crossover books, Ravnica, Theros, and Strixhaven. I played campaigns in Ravnica and Theros. Both of these were great. My only complaint was that the worlds seemed limited. There was no sense of scale to Ravnica - how big is the plane? Yes it's a big sprawling single city, but how big? A small planet city? Just a super big city like Mexico City? No real maps other than one of the Tenth District, nor addressed in the text. And that works in Magic but falls short in D&D. Theros also felt similarly limited, but it did have a map and it was comparable in size to the ancient Mediterranean. As for Strixhaven... barely read anything in it.

But these aren't the only MtG content they created. They also did free PDFs for Amonkhet, Zendikar, and a couple others. The content was good, detailing the races and a little bit more.

Overall, I'm cautiously optimistic that this will be good. I'm hoping that they produce follow up content, which they did not do for the others.
 

IIRC those books were among their best selling. But I could be wrong, I don’t have the stats at hand.
Someone did (partly) and they did pretty well it seems. But I also suspect that it's because it's a crossover. They're selling to both D&D fans and MtG fans. Such a sourcebook would work very well as a pretty lore book for someone who has no intention of ever playing in a MtG setting/D&D campaign. Then we have the D&D collectors, that just buy the book with no intention of ever playing it...

So there might be some discrepancy between 'buzz' within the D&D community (low) vs the actual sales (high).

I think that WotC has learned from Hasbro that crossovers are generally low-effort, high-return projects, that if you pace them right, are an absolute no-brainer. We've seen Hasbro do G.I. Joe vs. Transformers, Star Wars vs. Transformers, and probably a TON I missed. Heck, I almost bought the 40k and D&D MtG Commander deck sets, just because...
 

Glad they chose this.

Tarkir would have been my other choice, but I wasn't as familiar with the lore. This lore sounds cool, with the turning.

I just hope the adventure included doesn't stink AND is for more than just levels 1-3
 

There was no sense of scale to Ravnica - how big is the plane? Yes it's a big sprawling single city, but how big? A small planet city? Just a super big city like Mexico City? No real maps other than one of the Tenth District, nor addressed in the text
That is actually addressed in the text: Ravnica is a planet wide city on an Earth-sized world. The Tenth District is a sample area (and where the novels took place), but the idea is thst the procedural generation material can help a DM with cresting further districts of their own across the planet.
 

My only complaint was that the worlds seemed limited. There was no sense of scale to Ravnica - how big is the plane? Yes it's a big sprawling single city, but how big? A small planet city? Just a super big city like Mexico City? No real maps other than one of the Tenth District, nor addressed in the text.
OK, so looking further into this, the Tenth District is about 70 square miles (but also mega stacked, so bigger in terms of real estate), and is one of ten historical districts from the "Old City" before the city took over the entire planet which is actually about the size of our Moon. That means the 10th District which gets some detail represents about 0.000005% of the whole city itself. Lots of room for DM creativity.
 

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