ZENDIKAR -- Where Magic: The Gathering and D&D Collide!

I've never played Magic: the Gathering, so while I"m reporting on this, bear in mind I personally can't fully contextualise it. However, it appears that a M:tG world called Zendikar is now available as a D&D 5th Edition setting via a free 38-page PDF available from WotC's website. It contains three sections -- The World of Zendikar, Races of Zendikar, and A Zendikar Bestiary. There's an added note that the material is not fully playtested or legal in D&D Organised Play events. "Plane Shift: Zendikar was made using the fifth edition of the D&D rules. D&D is a flexible rules system designed to model any kind of fantasy world. The D&D magic system doesn't involve five colors of mana or a ramping-up to your most powerful spells, but the goal isn't to mirror the experience of playing Magic in your role-playing game. The point is to experience the worlds of Magic in a new way, through the lens of the D&D rules. All you really need is races for the characters, monsters for them to face, and some ideas to build a campaign."

Races include Humans, Kor, Merfolk, Vampires, Goblins, and Elves. Monsters include angels, archons, griffins, felidars, sphinxes, drakes, krakens, surrakar, demons, dragons, giants, ogres, minotaurs, hydras, hellions, trolls, and more. Click on the image below to download the 38-page PDF.


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Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering are two different games, but that doesn't mean their Multiverses can't meet.

From the beginning, Magic's plane of Zendikar was conceived as an "adventure world" where parties of explorers delve into ancient ruins in search of wonders and treasures, fighting the monsters they encounter on the way. Many of the plane's creative roots lie in D&D, so it should be no surprise that The Art of Magic: The Gathering—Zendikar feels a lot like a D&D campaign setting book. It's littered with adventure hooks and story seeds, and lacks only the specific rules references you'd need to adapt Zendikar's races, monsters, and adventures to a tabletop D&D campaign. And it's all surrounded by amazing fantasy art that holds boundless inspiration in itself.

You can think of Plane Shift: Zendikar as a sort of supplement to The Art of Magic: The Gathering—Zendikar, designed to help you take the world details and story seeds contained in that book and turn them into an exciting D&D campaign. The easiest way to approach a D&D campaign set on Zendikar is to use the rules that D&D provides mostly as written: a druid on Zendikar might call on green mana and cast spells like giant growth, but she's still just a druid in the D&D rules (perhaps casting giant insect).

Plane Shift: Zendikar was made using the fifth edition of the D&D rules. D&D is a flexible rules system designed to model any kind of fantasy world. The D&D magic system doesn't involve five colors of mana or a ramping-up to your most powerful spells, but the goal isn't to mirror the experience of playing Magic in your role-playing game. The point is to experience the worlds of Magic in a new way, through the lens of the D&D rules. All you really need is races for the characters, monsters for them to face, and some ideas to build a campaign.

Finally, The Art of Magic: The Gathering—Zendikar will help you create a D&D campaign in Zendikar, but you don't actually need the book to make use of the material in Plane Shift: Zendikar—you can also refer to the abundance of lore about Zendikar found on MagicTheGathering.com and the Zendikar plane profile.
 

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Neat, a while ago I had actually taken all the information from the website on Zendikar and put it into a pdf file, still needs some tidying up, but I figured it would make for a great setting. The block itself included 'hero' characters that levelled up and traps that could be played against your opponent. I'm going to enjoy reading through this conversion that they've done.

Are you willing to share the pdf so that I (and any others interested) don't have to go spelunking on the MTG site? :D
 

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Two things:

KISS is the worst offender. And one of the bands you mentioned at least put out a semi-relevant album recently.

Is that really necessary? Google his name and write it out or simply refer to him as "the new guy" or something. It is not very good form to represent yourself with phrasing like this, even if it's unintentional.


I only said this because the guys name is actually Chris Cocks. So nothing intended.
 

New races? Including different elves, goblins, and a Vampire race I can give to a player? For free? This is awesome. I don't even care that it's MtG.
 

Yes, new races and creatures are always good. I've never played MTG, but I wouldn't mind a MTG Monster Manual. I'm sure there are a lot of unique creatures that could be brought into D&D.


While I'd be interested in a Zendikar book for D&D, it sounds like Theros would be my go to MTG setting.

Well, Theros is basically a reskinned greek mythology. I don't think it is that necessary or is it? I'm having some ideas....
 


To everybody saying it is impossible to hybridize the magic systems: I disagree. It is not that hard. My group hashed out a playable framework in a little over an hour. These people are professionals, if there was a demand, they could do it easily.
 

Interesting, this is the absolute last campaign setting I'd ever want. It's interesting they have resources to put towards this, but not the established settings. Whatever, it's not as if they want money for it, well not yet anyway.
 


I am happy to see this product. Seems kinda like a mini-merger of great ideas that can hopefully benefit both Mike Mearls and Mark Rosewater. Good job WotC :-D I'm actually feeling hyped for this.

It's a win-win to both existing D&D gamers and outside gamers. Hear me out:
Benefit to Existing D&D Gamers
(1) Placing MtG references in D&D books can draw attention to new customers and buyers. Book-on-the-shelf at the FLGS is more likely to sell if the customers see something recognizable. And more D&D book sales = more benefit to the RPG hobby.
(2) New adventure paths can draw inspiration from the fluff-engine that is MtG. People will buy adventure paths if they have a thrilling fluff / story (Example: Myself, I bought both PrincesOfTheApocalypse and RiseOfRunelords, and I'm not even a DM. They were awesome reads). Good-Read-Adventures can sell even if you don't have 6 people to actually play the adventure with.
Benefit to Outside Gamers
(1) Outside gamers might discover that D&D tabletop gaming exists. If they go to stores to game, then they will notice D&D more and maybe join a group.
(2) Outside gamers might notice D&D exists, and become curious about the older / out-of-print settings. Maybe they'll become hooked on DMsGuild too :-) The more the merrier

This is probably something that's been on the burner for a while, but I wonder if the new CEO of WotC made this happen, seeing as he's a fan of both games?
Interesting point. It was probably a big indicator on his resume that he is passionate about both hobbies. So he can hopefully fit well into his position. Makes me wonder though. Maybe they're thinking of splitting WotC into 3 branches: Storywriters, MtG Game Management, and D&D Game Management. Maybe they are already doing this??
 

Interesting, this is the absolute last campaign setting I'd ever want. It's interesting they have resources to put towards this, but not the established settings. Whatever, it's not as if they want money for it, well not yet anyway.

The person who wrote this is on the MtG staff (ex-DnD staff) and it feels very much like something he did in his own time, or close to it. This didn't divert any time/resources from the DnD staff.
 

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