Previews of the upcoming Magic the Gathering block called Theros are all over the internet, and the theme is obvious – Greek mythology. As I scanned through the cards, I realized how many of the creatures were prevalent in both Magic and D&D, and I got to thinking that now more than ever is a great opportunity to bring the flavor and story of Magic into Dungeons & Dragons.
The set is rife with classic creatures from D&D that I personally haven’t used in quite a while. There are minotaurs, medusas, griffins, pegasi, centaurs, and sphinxes. Cerberus has a card, there are several scary hydras, and lots of cards that bring the Greek myths to mind, like chained to the rocks, lost in a labyrinth, and rescue from the Underworld.
The process of mining Theros for D&D can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. There are lots of named cards that can become NPCs in your game, either allies or enemies, like Hythonia the Cruel, Tymaret the Murder King, and Medomai the Ageless. You can just steal the setting, creating the city of Polis, or the countries/continents (don’t know which yet) of Asphodel, Benth, Nessia, and/or Setessa. Even just the art from a card can be inspiring -- the image of the skeletal griffin on the sentry of the Underworld card is a fantastic and creepy image to show your players just before a fight.
You can take a group of monsters and use the cards as inspiration for new powers. For example, cavern lampad, leafcrown dryad, nimbus naiad, observant alseid, and spearpoint oread are all nymph cards in Theros. Each one is associated with a different color in Magic, but also a different terrain type. Each card suggests changes one could make to the standard dryad in D&D 4E to create something new that players wouldn’t expect. (Although the cards are the nymph type, the flavor of the cards leans more toward the dryad D&D creature).
Cavern lampad lets you know right off the bat that it can be encountered underground. Change forest walk to earth walk, replace the treestride power with the stoneslip power, and voila! You have an underground dryad. If we want more flavor, we can also add the fear keyword to the claws attack and weakness (save ends) to the damage to reflect the lampad’s intimidate ability.
Cavern Lampad Level 9 Skirmisher
Medium fey humanoid XP 400
HP 92; Bloodied 46 Initiative +9
AC 23 Senses Perception +12
Fortitude 22; Reflex 21; Will 21
Speed 8 (earth walk)
Standard Actions
M Terrifying Claws (fear) * At-Will
Attack: Melee (one creature); +14 AC
Hit: 1d8+4 damage, and the target has weakness (save ends).
Move Actions
Stoneslip (teleportation) * At-Will
Effect: The dryad can teleport 8 squares if it begins and ends adjacent to a boulder, stalagmite, or rock wall.
Minor Actions
Deceptive Veil (illusion) * At-Will
Effect: The cavern lampad can disguise itself to appear as any Medium humanoid, usually a beautiful elf or eladrin. A successful Insight check (opposed by the lampad’s Bluff check) pierces the disguise.
Skills Bluff +10, Insight +12, Stealth +12
Str 19 (+8) Dex 17 (+7) Wis 17 (+7)
Con 12 (+5) Int 10 (+4) Cha 13 (+5)
Alignment Unaligned Languages Elven
Similar changes can be made for each of the other cards. The observant alseid could be an elite dryad that ignores flanking, the nimbus naiad could lose forest walk and treestride and gain fly and water breathing, the spearpoint oread could gain the earth walk and stoneslip powers as the cavern lampad above, as well as a bonus to initiative, and the leafcrown dryad could have the standard dryad statistics along with the following ranged attack.
r Entangling Vines * At-Will
Attack: Ranged 5 (one creature); +12 vs. Reflex
Hit: 1d8+4 damage, and the target is immobilized (save ends).
Another group of creatures prevalent in the Theros set are satyrs. Simply changing all the damage the 4E satyr rake causes to fire damage emulates the firedrinker satyr card. If you add knocked prone to the satyr’s damage instead of increased damage for combat advantage, you can emulate the satyr rambler card. Making the satyr’s attacks able to target objects and making him focus on weapons and equipment instead of characters emulates the wild celebrants card. You could give the satyr a healing ability for allies to emulate the boon satyr card, or give it forest walk or earth walk to emulate the voyaging satyr card.
Firedrinker Satyr Level 7 Skirmisher
Medium fey humanoid XP 300
HP 80; Bloodied 40 Initiative +9
AC 21 Senses Perception +9
Fortitude 18; Reflex 19; Will 19 low-light vision
Speed 6
Resist 5 fire
Standard Actions
M Flaming Short Sword (fire, weapon) * At-Will
Attack: Melee (one creature); +12 vs. AC
Hit: 2d6+8 damage, plus 2d6 fire damage if the satyr has combat advantage against the target.
R Flaming Shortbow (fire, weapon) * At-Will
Attack: Ranged 15 (one creature); +12 vs. AC
Hit: 2d8+6 damage, plus 2d8 fire damage if the satyr has combat advantage against the target.
mr Harrying Attack (fire, weapon) * Recharge 56
Effect: The satyr makes a flaming short sword or flaming shortbow attack, shifts up to 3 squares, and makes another flaming short sword or flaming shortbow attack.
Move Actions
m Feint * Recharge when the satyr hits with a basic attack
Attack: Melee (one creature); +10 vs. Reflex
Effect: The satyr can shift 1 square before or after the attack.
Hit: The satyr gains combat advantage against the target until the end of the satyr’s turn.
Skills Bluff +12, Nature +9, Stealth +12
Str 12 (+4) Dex 18 (+7) Wis 12 (+4)
Con 16 (+6) Int 10 (+3) Cha 18 (+7)
Alignment Unaligned Languages Common, Elven
Equipment leather armor, short sword, shortbow, arrows (30)
Even without delving into mechanics, the Theros set can give a DM great inspiration. The five gods of the setting all have artifacts, champions, and ordeals tied to them that could be extrapolated for any campaign with equivalent gods. The Hammer of Purphoros could become the Hammer of Moradin that creates iron golems in half the time and with half the cost, thus an item greatly sought after by good and bad artificers and spellcasters alike. The Whip of Erebos could become the Whip of Kiaransalee that is housed within a drow stronghold and animates dead bodies in an aura around it. Thassa’s emissary could become Deep Sashelas’ emissary, a tiny crab that relays the will of the god to an elf.
A DM could construct an entire campaign from this one Magic the Gathering set and never have to create a monster totally from scratch. Not only are the Greek myths there for adventure inspiration, but the tv shows Hercules and Xena now come to mind, so all those episodes provide more material from which to draw. This is the most fertile non-gaming source for D&D material I’ve encountered in a long, long time.
Have you converted anything from Magic the Gathering to use in your D&D campaigns? Have you used Greek mythology as the basis for a campaign? Let me know your ideas and inspirations in the comments below.
The set is rife with classic creatures from D&D that I personally haven’t used in quite a while. There are minotaurs, medusas, griffins, pegasi, centaurs, and sphinxes. Cerberus has a card, there are several scary hydras, and lots of cards that bring the Greek myths to mind, like chained to the rocks, lost in a labyrinth, and rescue from the Underworld.
The process of mining Theros for D&D can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it. There are lots of named cards that can become NPCs in your game, either allies or enemies, like Hythonia the Cruel, Tymaret the Murder King, and Medomai the Ageless. You can just steal the setting, creating the city of Polis, or the countries/continents (don’t know which yet) of Asphodel, Benth, Nessia, and/or Setessa. Even just the art from a card can be inspiring -- the image of the skeletal griffin on the sentry of the Underworld card is a fantastic and creepy image to show your players just before a fight.
You can take a group of monsters and use the cards as inspiration for new powers. For example, cavern lampad, leafcrown dryad, nimbus naiad, observant alseid, and spearpoint oread are all nymph cards in Theros. Each one is associated with a different color in Magic, but also a different terrain type. Each card suggests changes one could make to the standard dryad in D&D 4E to create something new that players wouldn’t expect. (Although the cards are the nymph type, the flavor of the cards leans more toward the dryad D&D creature).
Cavern lampad lets you know right off the bat that it can be encountered underground. Change forest walk to earth walk, replace the treestride power with the stoneslip power, and voila! You have an underground dryad. If we want more flavor, we can also add the fear keyword to the claws attack and weakness (save ends) to the damage to reflect the lampad’s intimidate ability.
Cavern Lampad Level 9 Skirmisher
Medium fey humanoid XP 400
HP 92; Bloodied 46 Initiative +9
AC 23 Senses Perception +12
Fortitude 22; Reflex 21; Will 21
Speed 8 (earth walk)
Standard Actions
M Terrifying Claws (fear) * At-Will
Attack: Melee (one creature); +14 AC
Hit: 1d8+4 damage, and the target has weakness (save ends).
Move Actions
Stoneslip (teleportation) * At-Will
Effect: The dryad can teleport 8 squares if it begins and ends adjacent to a boulder, stalagmite, or rock wall.
Minor Actions
Deceptive Veil (illusion) * At-Will
Effect: The cavern lampad can disguise itself to appear as any Medium humanoid, usually a beautiful elf or eladrin. A successful Insight check (opposed by the lampad’s Bluff check) pierces the disguise.
Skills Bluff +10, Insight +12, Stealth +12
Str 19 (+8) Dex 17 (+7) Wis 17 (+7)
Con 12 (+5) Int 10 (+4) Cha 13 (+5)
Alignment Unaligned Languages Elven
Similar changes can be made for each of the other cards. The observant alseid could be an elite dryad that ignores flanking, the nimbus naiad could lose forest walk and treestride and gain fly and water breathing, the spearpoint oread could gain the earth walk and stoneslip powers as the cavern lampad above, as well as a bonus to initiative, and the leafcrown dryad could have the standard dryad statistics along with the following ranged attack.
r Entangling Vines * At-Will
Attack: Ranged 5 (one creature); +12 vs. Reflex
Hit: 1d8+4 damage, and the target is immobilized (save ends).
Another group of creatures prevalent in the Theros set are satyrs. Simply changing all the damage the 4E satyr rake causes to fire damage emulates the firedrinker satyr card. If you add knocked prone to the satyr’s damage instead of increased damage for combat advantage, you can emulate the satyr rambler card. Making the satyr’s attacks able to target objects and making him focus on weapons and equipment instead of characters emulates the wild celebrants card. You could give the satyr a healing ability for allies to emulate the boon satyr card, or give it forest walk or earth walk to emulate the voyaging satyr card.
Firedrinker Satyr Level 7 Skirmisher
Medium fey humanoid XP 300
HP 80; Bloodied 40 Initiative +9
AC 21 Senses Perception +9
Fortitude 18; Reflex 19; Will 19 low-light vision
Speed 6
Resist 5 fire
Standard Actions
M Flaming Short Sword (fire, weapon) * At-Will
Attack: Melee (one creature); +12 vs. AC
Hit: 2d6+8 damage, plus 2d6 fire damage if the satyr has combat advantage against the target.
R Flaming Shortbow (fire, weapon) * At-Will
Attack: Ranged 15 (one creature); +12 vs. AC
Hit: 2d8+6 damage, plus 2d8 fire damage if the satyr has combat advantage against the target.
mr Harrying Attack (fire, weapon) * Recharge 56
Effect: The satyr makes a flaming short sword or flaming shortbow attack, shifts up to 3 squares, and makes another flaming short sword or flaming shortbow attack.
Move Actions
m Feint * Recharge when the satyr hits with a basic attack
Attack: Melee (one creature); +10 vs. Reflex
Effect: The satyr can shift 1 square before or after the attack.
Hit: The satyr gains combat advantage against the target until the end of the satyr’s turn.
Skills Bluff +12, Nature +9, Stealth +12
Str 12 (+4) Dex 18 (+7) Wis 12 (+4)
Con 16 (+6) Int 10 (+3) Cha 18 (+7)
Alignment Unaligned Languages Common, Elven
Equipment leather armor, short sword, shortbow, arrows (30)
Even without delving into mechanics, the Theros set can give a DM great inspiration. The five gods of the setting all have artifacts, champions, and ordeals tied to them that could be extrapolated for any campaign with equivalent gods. The Hammer of Purphoros could become the Hammer of Moradin that creates iron golems in half the time and with half the cost, thus an item greatly sought after by good and bad artificers and spellcasters alike. The Whip of Erebos could become the Whip of Kiaransalee that is housed within a drow stronghold and animates dead bodies in an aura around it. Thassa’s emissary could become Deep Sashelas’ emissary, a tiny crab that relays the will of the god to an elf.
A DM could construct an entire campaign from this one Magic the Gathering set and never have to create a monster totally from scratch. Not only are the Greek myths there for adventure inspiration, but the tv shows Hercules and Xena now come to mind, so all those episodes provide more material from which to draw. This is the most fertile non-gaming source for D&D material I’ve encountered in a long, long time.
Have you converted anything from Magic the Gathering to use in your D&D campaigns? Have you used Greek mythology as the basis for a campaign? Let me know your ideas and inspirations in the comments below.
