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."

 

[jayoungr]

I find this a useful, gameable space and expect that, eventually, we'll be visiting all of these circles, since the Void is explicitly an intruder in our reality from their own, which suggests that each of these circles is their own plane.

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of, frankly.

 

[Mecheon]

I will note the elemental planes in Warcraft are specifically artificial constructs. They're not natural, they were built because the Titan-forged, servents of Order, needed somewhere to jam all of these chaotic elementals they'd just beaten up as they were a bit much to leave just running around, so they made a prison plane and just shoved the elementals in. The plane ended up splitting into the various elemental sub-dimensions, which are the various elemental 'planes'.

Other places, like Draenor, don't have elemental planes at all

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of, frankly.

Their pattern since vanilla is mundane/out there/mundane/out there, so I'd expect the next expansion to be back on Azeroth and more grounded. The old Dragon Isles rumors are going around again, and it's probably time for them. (Concept art for them was in the original Collector's Edition Making Of art book.)

 

[Demetrios1453]

Their pattern since vanilla is mundane/out there/mundane/out there, so I'd expect the next expansion to be back on Azeroth and more grounded. The old Dragon Isles rumors are going around again, and it's probably time for them. (Concept art for them was in the original Collector's Edition Making Of art book.)

Well, the Dragon Isles will at least give Alexstrasza something to do again...

...rather than going insane and attacking us all, like all her fellow Aspects have done (or, in the case of Nozdormu, will do).


I do have to have to admit I'm curious how Metzen will do. Warcraft as a setting is pretty much just D&D with the numbers filed off and with a few added quirks, so I'm thinking he should do just fine.

(And I'd love to see Azeroth and the rest updated to 5e, although that's obviously outside Metzen's hands).

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

On a side note, the official D&D Facebook page posted this announcement and their Twitter account retweeted the announcement too. While they share and retweet a lot of D&D-related stuff, I think this is the first ever 3rd party gaming book done this way. I don't know if that is a good or bad thing or what it may mean for the future of the product. I remember that both Acquisitions, Inc and Wildemount started out as independent 3rd-party products, and then WotC got involved with them and they became semi-produced by them. Will that happen with this one too, since they are directly plugging it? And does anyone remember if either of those two were directly promoted by WotC before they got officially involved with their production?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

On a side note, the official D&D Facebook page posted this announcement and their Twitter account retweeted the announcement too. While they share and retweet a lot of D&D-related stuff, I think this is the first ever 3rd party gaming book done this way. I don't know if that is a good or bad thing or what it may mean for the future of the product. I remember that both Acquisitions, Inc and Wildemount started out as independent 3rd-party products, and then WotC got involved with them and they became semi-produced by them. Will that happen with this one too, since they are directly plugging it? And does anyone remember if either of those two were directly promoted by WotC before they got officially involved with their production?

You're right... that is really odd.

Acq. Inc has long been promoted by WotC, Chris Perkins DMs most of their games! And Critical Role had also been plugged, most notably with Perkins guest-playing for a session (and quickly getting killed)!

This is fairly unique though, as the product is so new. Not sure what it could mean, honestly.

 

[Istbor]

Well color me interested.

And as for whatever weird WoW lore debate is going on, I am pretty fine with the job they have done. Lore isn't what chased me away. Less time, and the removal of skill trees is why I stopped. Sigh... I really really like skill trees people.

 

[jayoungr]

Their pattern since vanilla is mundane/out there/mundane/out there, so I'd expect the next expansion to be back on Azeroth and more grounded. The old Dragon Isles rumors are going around again, and it's probably time for them.

It's not that I object to visiting other planes. I'm just bored in advance by having all the themes for a decade to come laid out for me. And I also dislike the way they're trying to pigeonhole everything into one of those circles, making it all ever-so-neat-and-tidy, even if it means retconning earlier, more interestingly nebulous ideas (that were probably originally dreamed up by Metzen).

Well, the Dragon Isles will at least give Alexstrasza something to do again...

...rather than going insane and attacking us all, like all her fellow Aspects have done (or, in the case of Nozdormu, will do).

What makes you sure she won't visit the Dragon Isles, go insane, and attack us all?

 

[foolcat]

While I‘m not particularly keen on the underlying system of 5E(*), this looks interesting enough. To paraphrase an (in)famos WoW developer stance:

Bring the setting, not the system.

I expect nothing less than the fully-fledged, heavy-metal Metzen epicness. He had me at “Black Sabbath’s 1973 U.S. road tour”

wanders off to blast War Pigs

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*) I ran a one-shot once to get to know the system, and I get why it’s so hugely popular; this may be the best version of the rules since their original inception. Not that D&D was much of a staple during my 35+years of roleplaying; I was weaned on class-less, level-less systems like RuneQuest, and prefer them to this day. But now that Savage Worlds for Pathfinder is (soon to be) out there, who knows what can happen...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That Polygon article really does a good job of setting the scene, much better than their actual website does.

Rock and roll D&D -- I should have expected nothing less of Metzen.