D&D 5E 16 More Details About Theros

The latest edition of WotC's online magazine contains some juicy tidbits about Mythic Odysseys of Theros!

1. It features Volothamp Geddarm.
2. It was headed up by James Wyatt, who used to work on D&D, and now works on Magic: The Gathering. He worked on the 3E Deities & Demigods.
3. It's based on a novella, which Wyatt spent considerable time researching.
4. He also read about the government of Athens, and the Greek calendar.
5. Subclasses include the College of Eloquence bard ("the philosopher ideal'), the Oath of Heroism paladin, and the Forge and Grave cleric domains.
6. The DMG piety system has been "blown up into a huge thing"... "That includes all sorts of rewards and restrictions for characters who choose to devote themselves to a god and track their piety.”
7. New magic items of the gods - artifacts and weapons.
8. “Everyone gets this extra leg up that is a gift of the gods, which is separate from the usual character background. It may be a magical thing about your nature, such as you have the mind of a sphinx and your thoughts can’t be read. Or you might be an oracle, which is an opportunity for your Dungeon Master to give you plenty of adventure hooks. It’s a straight power-up but not a huge power-up”
9. A table of omens with 100 entries.
10. Minotaurs, centaurs, merfolk (tritons from Volo), satyrs, leonine.
11. “The leonin is a different, stronger cat person, not just a tabaxi!”
12. "Satyrs are pretty much as you would expect. They’re party animals with good Dexterity and Charisma, they have a headbutt attack, they’re fast, they’re fey, they resist magic and they have musical instrument proficiency and persuasion."
13. Different lore for D&D creatures to match the Greek setting.
14. Mythic threats are boss fights. More than legendary. Aresta of the Endless Web is a spider. Has baby spiders which fight you.
15. Dyson Logos did the maps.
16. "There’s a temple of Athreos in two parts, split by the river that flows between the mortal world and the underworld."

 

[Morrus]

I have read a lot on how Theros is similar to Greek Mythology, but where does it differ?

They changed some names and filed off some serial numbers, but it’s pretty Greek. They have their own Trojan Horse and their own Iliad (the Theriad!) and their own Odysseus and stuff. I guess it’s to Greece what Pathfinder is to D&D?

 

[slobster]

I have read a lot on how Theros is similar to Greek Mythology, but where does it differ?

There are the Archons, a race of Angel's sort of that used to rule all of Theros in a sort of enlightened fascist dictatorship before they were overthrown by the poleis. They still rule the leonine, a race of proud warrior lion people, and occasionally attack the poleis or plot against them in order to reestablish what they see as their rightful rule.

There are also demons kind of like D&D demons. They live in the underworld and are basically evil, though they are just one group of many denizens there, they dont seem to rule the place.

Merfolk are a much bigger thing. Greek mythology had them iirc, but on Theros they are a full fledged people with cities and armies and leviathans that interact and trade with the poleis. Thassa, God of the sea and sort of Poseidon, is obvs their matron goddess.

There's a lot less rape and incest in the Theros pantheon than the original Greek. Still lots of naughty words, though.

Minotaurs are a race of berserker warriors in thrall to Mogis, god of slaughter instead of a one-off creature. Minotaurs plus Archons/leonin sort of fill the meeting's niche for foreign invading armies and general villains of the good folk of Theros

 

[Dire Bare]

A lot of it looks so similar to Greek lore that I almost wonder why not just use the Greek stuff straight up, rather than creating a version of Athens, and a version of Sparta, and a version of Odysseus, and a version of the Trojan Horse, and so on.

You could say the same thing regarding Western European or Nordic fantasy settings, which would include most official and homebrewed campaigns! Why run the Realms when you could just run a Fantasy Europe campaign? And of course, that's exactly what some RPGs do . . .

"Standard" D&D campaigns do tend to blend those historical, mythological, and literary references together into a hodge-podge, but Theros isn't completely different in that regard. Lots of non-Greek elements in the Magic cards and background stories (to keep things consistent with the larger Magic multiverse), and when we add D&D tropes to the mix it will be even more so. Elves and dwarves in Theros? You bet!

But it does, to me, still feel very Greek . . . Grecian? I've already got Odyssey of the Dragonlords and Arkadia, can't wait for Theros!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Thanks for responding Ashrym.


Yes, in Modern Greek, várdos refers to a "bard", but that word is tied to Celtic (non-Greek) culture. It was borrowed into late (post-Classical, Hellenistic) Ancient Greek from the Proto-Celtic language, and referred to Celtic barbarian bards. But my understanding is that the world of Theros is "all Greek."

That's also why I didn't translate "College" as kollegio--because that's a later borrowing from Latin, not really a native/ancient Greek term.



Right, those are pretty good too. I looked them up, and see...

Aiodos mean 'singer', and is the oldest term, dating to the Homeric age. This one is very good, because of its ancientness and genericity.

A Rhapsode is a later term which speficially refers to a a performer of epic poetry. It's not as generic as aiodos.

Citharode refers specifically to a musician who plays a cithara.

So of these, I think Aiodos is the best. I went with the more generic "musician", because presumably many different 5E bardic colleges and types of bards, playing many different kinds of ancient Greek instruments, with voice or without, are going to be 'legal/recommended/converted' to Theros.



It's interesting to see how official 5E foreign language translations deal with D&D terminology. As far as I know, sometimes they strive for cognates, other times they will go with a native word which is unrelated to the English term. But in this case we're not just doing a translation into Modern Greek -- if we were, then we'd definitely go with words like Vardos and Paladínos. For the Theros book, we're translating into Ancient Greek. There were no "bards" in Greek culture, and no "paladins" until Carolingian French myths were translated into Greek in medieval times. And so ideally, for an Ancient Greek setting such D&D terms would be represented by their closest ancient analogue. So Hippótēs "knight, horseman, heroic champion" instead of Paladínos. And Aiodos or Mousikos instead of Vardos.



Yeah but all the D&D class names are 'abstracted / iconic' names which don't necessarily encompass all the non-heroic characters who have a similar profession. There people are who fight who aren't Fighters. There are acolytes and priests (and thus, 'clerics') who aren't Clerics, there are wise-men who aren't Wizards, and there are Celtic musicians and poets (and thus 'bards') who aren't Bards. Any number of synonyms could've been chosen as the D&D class name. It's just that by the Gygax's (and other D&D designers') whim, we have 'Bard' instead of, say, Minstrel or Troubadour.



I totally agree. I looked at the Greek-language Wikipedia article on Orpheus, and he is referred to as a 'poet' (poietes) and 'musician' (mousikous) , but not a 'bard' (vardos).

"Ορφέας θεωρήθηκε ένας από τους βασικούς ποιητές και μουσικούς της αρχαιότητας..."
"Orpheus was considered one of the foremost poets and musicians of antiquity..."

On why the bard is named that, no. It isn’t by whim that we have a Bard rather than a minstrel. The two are not at all the same. Minstrels are not lorekeepers, storytellers, bringers of news, do not enjoy an elevated status that protects them from most social reprisals and allows them freedom to criticize kings, and are not believed to have the power to use their speech to tangentially affect the world and people in it beyond what lesser humans can do.

For that, you need Bards.

A better translation would be a term for a storyteller or even philosopher. Socrates is more like a Bard than the guy singing in a tavern who doesn’t know a Socrates from a Ptolemy.

 

[Charles Rampant]

I'm really looking forward to this one. I've been keen to move beyond generic European fantasy for a while now, and an Ancient Greek setting is definitely up my street. Like many here, I've already got Odyssey of the Dragonlords, a book that didn't quite set my cockles on fire when I looked through the PDF, but clearly the combination of that and this should give a lot of options. The fact that this is a Magic setting also means that there is a gloriously huge amount of art that can be converted into tokens for Roll20, which is also nice.

 

[Marandahir]

I guess my one issue with that 26-letter cypher is the use of Sampi, which was more likely used for a long ss sound or even a ts sound, and NEVER a kh sound like the English C.

Greek never had a C, so acting like it needs an extra letter just because English does bothers me a bit. Why not just make it a 25 letter alphabet and say that in this language they don't use C, but K or S as needed?

 

[gyor]

A lot of it looks so similar to Greek lore that I almost wonder why not just use the Greek stuff straight up, rather than creating a version of Athens, and a version of Sparta, and a version of Odysseus, and a version of the Trojan Horse, and so on.

Simple, you can fit ancient Greece into a colour wheel, you can't copy write it, and it doesn't have Leonins. It likely had nothing to do with rape in Greek Mythology, that you could deemphasis.

1) To fit into the MtG multiverse, which doesn't include real world locations.

2) It allows you to make changes (e.g. to update gender roles) without any constraints of historical authenticity.

Rabiah, with its city of Baghdad being the exception.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

On why the bard is named that, no. It isn’t by whim that we have a Bard rather than a minstrel. The two are not at all the same. Minstrels are not lorekeepers, storytellers, bringers of news, do not enjoy an elevated status that protects them from most social reprisals and allows them freedom to criticize kings, and are not believed to have the power to use their speech to tangentially affect the world and people in it beyond what lesser humans can do. For that you need Bards.

Are talking about in the D&D Multiverse, or in real life?

Yes, in the D&D Multiverse, the Bard encompasses all those wondrous things and more, while the "minstrel" has no official status in the game, and so represents nothing but fluff.

Yet, in the real world, (as you know) the word "bard" is simply the word in Celtic languages (such as Gaulish, Irish, and Welsh), for the ancient and medieval class of Celtic minstrels. And the word "minstrel" (from Latin ministralis 'attendant') is simply the Latinate (Italian and French) word for the medieval class of Italian-French "bards." Yes, the status of the bard in ancient Celtic cultures was especially lofty (as was the scop and gleeman and skald in Germanic cultures, or similar musical-shamans in probably every ancient/traditional culture on earth). Yet many of archetypes included in the term "minstrel" are also lofty.

If we sat down and read the medieval tales and Romantic-period novels (and Tolkien!) about "minstrelsy", I'm sure we'd find many stories of Minstrels who are lorekeepers, storytellers, news-bringers, with elevated status, with prerogative to criticize the rulers, and the magical power to effect the world and people through speech and song.

See:
Minstrels - Tolkien Gateway (but also Luthien)

Minstrel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And vice versa, in everyday Irish and Welsh of the early modern period, the term "bard" had degenerated into referring to more a ordinary profession.

A better translation would be a term for a storyteller or even philosopher. Socrates is more like a Bard than the guy singing in a tavern who doesn’t know a Socrates from a Ptolemy.

So now you've switched to talking about what might be the best translation of the word "Bard" into Ancient Greek, for D&D Hellenic Adventures. I never suggested "Minstrel" as an Ancient Greek word for Bard. I only mentioned "Minstrel" and "Troubadour" as medieval-flavored words which could've been used by Gygax instead of "Bard", and if he did, we'd never know the difference--the words would serve just as well.

My point was to not get hung up on the word "bard", and just recognize that, in the context of D&D, the word simply means "music-wielding hero". And so, when coming up with an Ancient Greek D&D term, we'd want to use a similarly wide-encompassing word, such as Mousikos, rather than trying to keep the Celtic connections (by using the Late Greek word "Vardos"), which are incongruous with Ancient Hellenic culture.

Yes, in D&D English, Orpheus is a Bard. I'm suggesting that in an Ancient Greek translation of D&D, that Orpheus is a Mousikos, rather than a "Vardos."

Thanks for responding.

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Thanks for your interest Marandahir.

I guess my one issue with that 26-letter cypher is the use of Sampi, which was more likely used for a long ss sound or even a ts sound, and NEVER a kh sound like the English C.

The English letter "c" (when in front of an "i" or "e") came from Old French "c", which was pronounced /ts/. See for example, the Old French word cité (source of English "city"). It was pronounced /tsité/:

cité - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

en.wiktionary.org

Greek never had a C,

Greek did have letter C - there was a scribal variant of the letter sigma called "lunate sigma" (moon-shaped sigma) which looked exactly like Roman "C." See:

Greek alphabet - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But I went with the letter "sampi" instead of "lunate sigma", because the archaic letter sampi looks more exotically Greek.

Why not just make it a 25 letter alphabet and say that in this language they don't use C, but K or S as needed?

Because that's a slippery slope. You're going back into phonemic pronunciation, rather than a spelling cipher.

Making it one-to-one is most straightforward. Because you could similarly argue about all the other letters. If you really look into it, nearly all of the letters in my Fantasy Greek Alphabet similarly serve multiple purposes, or no purpose. For example, the next suggestion along those lines would be to say: "They use Γ only for 'Hard G', but use ΔZ̈ for the "Soft G" sound as in "gel"."

...But then, what happens to the "J" letter?

And then, you could say: "Well, English has two different "th" sounds: voiceless "th" as in "thin" and voiced "th" as in "then" -- so why not distinguish these in your Fantasy Greek Alphabet?"

And why not distinguish the English sounds "sh", "zh", and "soft ch" (vs. "hard ch" as in choir), by giving them their own Fantasy Greek letters. etc etc

Which I could and did do originally; but like I said, then it becomes a phonemic script rather than a simple, easy-to-use "game cipher." Distinguishing between "hard C" and "soft C" is simply the first step down that slippery slope. And what the Greek letter "sampi" (or "tsampi") represented (namely, the sound /ts/), is a very close to the phonetic orgin of the English letter "c", via the Old French letter "c" (pronounced /ts/). So, that's why.

 

[Ashrym]

Are talking about in the D&D Multiverse, or in real life?

Yes, in the D&D Multiverse, the Bard encompasses all those wondrous things and more, while the "minstrel" has no official status in the game, and so represents nothing but fluff.

Yet, in the real world, (as you know) the word "bard" is simply the word in Celtic languages (such as Gaulish, Irish, and Welsh), for the ancient and medieval class of Celtic minstrels. And the word "minstrel" (from Latin ministralis 'attendant') is simply the Latinate (Italian and French) word for the medieval class of Italian-French "bards." Yes, the status of the bard in ancient Celtic cultures was especially lofty (as was the scop and gleeman and skald in Germanic cultures, or similar musical-shamans in probably every ancient/traditional culture on earth). Yet many of archetypes included in the term "minstrel" are also lofty.

If we sat down and read the medieval tales and Romantic-period novels (and Tolkien!) about "minstrelsy", I'm sure we'd find many stories of Minstrels who are lorekeepers, storytellers, news-bringers, with elevated status, with prerogative to criticize the rulers, and the magical power to effect the world and people through speech and song.

See:
Minstrels - Tolkien Gateway (but also Luthien)

Minstrel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

And vice versa, in everyday Irish and Welsh of the early modern period, the term "bard" had degenerated into referring to more a ordinary profession.



So now you've switched to talking about what might be the best translation of the word "Bard" into Ancient Greek, for D&D Hellenic Adventures. I never suggested "Minstrel" as an Ancient Greek word for Bard. I only mentioned "Minstrel" and "Troubadour" as medieval-flavored words which could've been used by Gygax instead of "Bard", and if he did, we'd never know the difference--the words would serve just as well.

My point was to not get hung up on the word "bard", and just recognize that, in the context of D&D, the word simply means "music-wielding hero". And so, when coming up with an Ancient Greek D&D term, we'd want to use a similarly wide-encompassing word, such as Mousikos, rather than trying to keep the Celtic connections (by using the Late Greek word "Vardos"), which are incongruous with Ancient Hellenic culture.

Yes, in D&D English, Orpheus is a Bard. I'm suggesting that in an Ancient Greek translation of D&D, that Orpheus is a Mousikos, rather than a "Vardos."

Thanks for responding.

I see I am falling behind in my discussions, lol. Vardos was used in reference to bards carried over from the Roman invasion. It's legitimate but more importantly real world history does not need to change D&D terms just because it's in a Hellenistic setting.

As for the elevated status, "bard" is used from specific cultures but the equivalent existed in other cultures under other names as well, but in those examples the name change doesn't change that they are the same role. "Griot" would be an example with the same historical roles, some mythology, and much more than just a musician.

Bards don't actually need to play music at all. They can use a musical instrument as a spell focus to replace components but the two are not dependent on one another. "Minstrel" still falls under the entertainer background. While it's true that all bards are musicians in D&D terms it's still also true that all musicians are not bards and the terms are not synonymous.

Having said that, I encourage you to play it as you see fit. There's definitely a "music equals magic" trope than can be applied these days if a person likes it. I just wouldn't be so quick to try and force the translation in the way you have.