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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Yeah, this is going to be sort of a riot of difand wild stuff for D&D...but at the same time, Lorwyn D&D just makes a lot of sense in a heavy metal Jim Henson's Dark Cryatal sort of way.

I sort of feel that the Golden Age of Msgic Lore was when James Wyatt was working on their world building team...but I just kind of like Wyatt's work, I guess?
YES.

Especially Dark Crystal vibes. I love that comparison. But also yeah, James Wyatt is great.
 

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I sort of feel that the Golden Age of Msgic Lore was when James Wyatt was working on their world building team...but I just kind of like Wyatt's work, I guess?
That gave me a thought.

I feel like Lorwyn-Shadowmoor and Shards of Alara blocks really had thematic overlap with 4e D&D's cosmos. It was like Shards of Alara explored the Elemental Chaos (what happens if we take these pure-color/elemental planes and smash them up into one conflux of a world) while Lorwyn-Shadowmoor explored the parallel planes that were focused on and made more core and prominent in 4e.

Makes sense; Lorwyn was 2007, right when "Dungeons & Dragons Presents: Worlds and Monsters" was coming out. Wonder if the world building teams for 4e had overlap with these new planes bridging the gap from the Mending to the Magic 201X Planeswalker era.
 

That gave me a thought.

I feel like Lorwyn-Shadowmoor and Shards of Alara blocks really had thematic overlap with 4e D&D's cosmos. It was like Shards of Alara explored the Elemental Chaos (what happens if we take these pure-color/elemental planes and smash them up into one conflux of a world) while Lorwyn-Shadowmoor explored the parallel planes that were focused on and made more core and prominent in 4e.

Makes sense; Lorwyn was 2007, right when "Dungeons & Dragons Presents: Worlds and Monsters" was coming out. Wonder if the world building teams for 4e had overlap with these new planes bridging the gap from the Mending to the Magic 201X Planeswalker era.
I actually do remember hearing James Wyatt talk about thst on Mark Rosewood's podcast, if I recall the place correctly: total coincidence, the Magic and D&D teams historically did not coordinate at all, to the point where Innostrad and Curse of Strahd coming out around the same time was an unforseen coincidence.
 

I actually do remember hearing James Wyatt talk about thst on Mark Rosewood's podcast, if I recall the place correctly: total coincidence, the Magic and D&D teams historically did not coordinate at all, to the point where Innostrad and Curse of Strahd coming out around the same time was an unforseen coincidence.

I think Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos might be an exception to that and the upcoming Lorwyn products seem very likely to be a collaborative process between the two teams.
 

I think Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos might be an exception to that and the upcoming Lorwyn products seem very likely to be a collaborative process between the two teams.
Oh, yeah, after Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica and changes in WotC structure and lead that definitely began changing. This was a discussions about earlier history of the games relationship.
 

Eldraine would need a map to show all the neighbour realms and it is too "linked to its own metaplot".

Innistrad allows space for stories of conflicts between different neighbour realms and factions. In the new Ravenloft you can't tell plots about vampire clans fighting each other because there aren't enough preys to feed so many supernatural predators

Stryxhaven was more for a otome dating sim videogame. Maybe it needed antagonist factions like the deatheaters or to play a cozier style.

And let's remember some players want to add their favorite crunch, special classes or PC species we don't find in the original settings. How do you explain a dragonborn or a goliah in Lorwyn? (and how would be a fey dragonborn?)
 

Agreed. The little DDB supplement was nice but I'd have liked at least something like the Planeshift articles. An Artbook like what we got for each block of 2015-2019's Gatewatch Saga (save Ravnica due to Guildmaster's Guide) would be lovely too.

The other thing I like about Lorwyn-Shadowmoor is that it went hard on D&D tropes before that became Zendikar's shtick for MtG to imitate D&D.

So we got Lorwyn and Shadowmoor card sets (the two large expansions) focused on Kindred typal matters (equivalent to D&D Species), while Morningtide and Eventide card sets (the two small expansions) focused on Class typal matters (i.e., D&D classes or subclasses). This is in regards to the draft archetypes. It didn't work quite as well as they hoped given the conflicting matters – it probably would have done better to have each mini block focus on a single typal matters and not split their focus, but it was a fun way to explore the different tribes and adventuring careers of the peoples of Lorwyn and then see how those tribes and jobs manifested in Shadowmoor later.
That was also when they did the first Great Creature Type Update, to retroactively give species to all the old cards that had a class but no species.
 
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Yeah, Lorwyn leans heavily on actual pre-19th century Fey folklore and such vibes, whereas Eldraine is like what Innistrahd did for Gothic Horror but applied to 19th Romanticism about chinvalric Knights and reconstructed didactic "fairy tales". The former is about vivesz the latter about tropes as game mechanics.

Still think Eldraine D&D would have been pretty dope, NGL.
The Faerie Queene was published in 1590. It wasn't the Victorians who started the Romanticisation of folklore trend.
 
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Eldraine would need a map to show all the neighbour realms and it is too "linked to its own metaplot".
Eldraines metaplot is the questing beast challenge to become High King of a Chivalric world of Knights and Castles - its classical Arthurian setting that DnD currently lacks (and hasnt really done for a long time) and while the particular iteration of that in MtG is very specific, its only one possible iteration. Beyond the five courts the plane provides for the Borderlands and the Wilds - with the Wilds having all the wild magic and shifting borders of the Feywild.

If I were doing eldraine in DnD I'd put an emphasis on the Wilds and Borderlands and then have the five Courts of the Realm as a possible example but encourage GMs to create their own Realm in other parts of the Wilds. Then have the questing Beast as a common thread connecting all the different Realms together
 

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