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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Kithkin can and should be represented with Halflings. I could see an argument to represent them with Gnomes or Halflings, pick either. I could even see an argument for "Human, but size Small only" – though that would be hard to play "as is" out of the box.
This came up in my spouse's D&D campaign a couple of years ago. A player wanted to play a small-sized Dwarf, so the DM let him change his size to Small while retaining all of the other stats of a Mountain Dwarf. The only real restriction was that the character wouldn't be able to use Heavy weapons--not that big of a deal for a ranger (or was he a fighter? I can't remember, it was before the pandemic.)

I don't know why he wanted to play such a character and not, say, a gnome or halfling. But the character played just fine.
 

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This came up in my spouse's D&D campaign a couple of years ago. A player wanted to play a small-sized Dwarf, so the DM let him change his size to Small while retaining all of the other stats of a Mountain Dwarf. The only real restriction was that the character wouldn't be able to use Heavy weapons--not that big of a deal for a ranger (or was he a fighter? I can't remember, it was before the pandemic.)

I don't know why he wanted to play such a character and not, say, a gnome or halfling. But the character played just fine.
Oddly, Humans, Tieflings, and Aasimar can all be small, but Elves and Dwarves are Medium-locked.

Honestly, outside of something like Goliath where the fiction is literally you want to play a GIANT but be balance, I let any PC species choose between Medium or Small. And even with Goliath, if a PC has a reason to play a small Goliath, I'd be willing to consider it. I just think it's odd that this is the norm for Humans and the Planetouched peoples, but not for Elves and Dwarves (too similar to Gnomes if you make either small?).
 

Oddly, Humans, Tieflings, and Aasimar can all be small, but Elves and Dwarves are Medium-locked
Tieflings and Aasimar might have gnome or halfing parents. They are not necessarily part-human.

I don’t know the reasoning behind small humans - I would have said that is what halflings are.

But a species does not have to be biologically the same as another in order to have an identical stat block.
 

They really haven't. Kithkin have always been the in-universe Halflings of MtG.

Halfling creature type was created to refer to Halflings by their actual species name in the D&D Crossover sets and this had dividends because then they could refer to Hobbits as Halflings in the LotR set without having to come up with a new creature type here.

If anything, Kithkin should go the way of the Viashino and just get merged into the Halfling creature type, because that's what it's been for used since 1994's Legends expansion first introduced them (Viashino were a creature type until last year, when the were merged into the Lizard creature type ahead of Bloomburrow which is filled with BR Lizardfolk that AREN'T Viashino, and 90% of the time Viashino have been Lizardfolk. The only exception has been Streets of New Capenna, where they're more akin to Dragonborn as they have breath weapons there.

I'd note that same set reimagined Cephalids (creature type Octopus) as humanoid beings walking on 2 legs, but with octopus heads, instead of being just Octopuses with humanoid intelligence and language to converse and treat with the other peoples of Otaria (when they last showed up - in 2001-2003's Odyssey and Onslaught blocks). But even despite the changes, they're not creature type Cephalids. They're creature type Octopus. And in New Capenna, Viashino are now creature type Lizard due to errata, not Dragon, even though Dragonborn in the D&D set are creature type Dragon.

This all comes down to WotC only using D&D creature types in D&D sets (unless the creature type has a reason to show up elsewhere such as Universes Beyond). Tiefling even has a MtG equivalent in the Azra of Kylem, but Tieflings weren't typed Azra in the D&D sets, nor were they typed Devil the way Dragonborn were typed Dragon; Tieflings were creature typed Tiefling. Probably because in 4e & 5e lore, Tieflings are NOT devils, but have a connection to devils. While Dragonborn -are- Dragons, just a cadet branch of them a la the Dragon Turtles (which appropriately typed both Dragon and Turtle in the D&D set of MtG).

Kithkin can and should be represented with Halflings. I could see an argument to represent them with Gnomes or Halflings, pick either. I could even see an argument for "Human, but size Small only" – though that would be hard to play "as is" out of the box.

These connundrums, I think, are a big part of why we didn't get Viashino in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. People weren't sure why they were there if we have playable Dragonborn and Lizardfolk and Kobolds already. The other playable spp in GGtR were either entirely new to 5e (Centaurs, Loxodons, and Simic Hybrids), or Goblins, who were on a PR journey and a reworking over years since Volo's Guide to Monsters.
Viashino having their creature types changed to lizard and Cephalids to octopuses was a travesty, and changing Kithkin to haalflings in the next Lorwyn set, while very likely, would also be a tragic loss for the card game.
 



If you are going to include developmental conditions, then you should have it for dwarves and (tiny) halflings, etc.
I agree, they should have a Small option for all Medium races. Tiny has more significant mechanical implications, so I’d be fine with them saying such conditions don’t affect small species to a significant enough extent to constitute being Tiny.
And Dinklage is 4 ft. 5, which makes him medium by D&D rules.
I just thought the image was an amusing response, I didn’t mean that Peter Dinklage specifically is an actual example of a Small (by D&D size category standards) human. There definitely are other humans who would fall into the Small category though.
 

I would have preferred Innistrad for D&D, but I can understand that some may see that there is too much overlap with Ravenloft.
 



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