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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."

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.


Screen Shot 2016-04-27 at 16.50.32.png

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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robus

Lowcountry Low Roller
Supporter
Some of the M:tG settings are way cooler than majority of the official D&D worlds, and especially cooler than Forgotten Realms. Not to say the FR are bad or not fun, because they are, but they really haven't changed much since their inception, and it's become a rather stagnant game setting over the years.

I would love to see more of these other worlds get D&D'd. :)

That's exactly my feeling too. Just looking at the range of worlds they've created for M:tG and suddenly FR seems quite dated and tame. I can't describe how excited I got to think of exploring some of these worlds from a D&D perspective (I'm too old for these sensations ;) )
 

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robus

Lowcountry Low Roller
Supporter
And as mentioned in the middle of this thread there is a survey about the potential of doing more with this cross-over.

I, of course, said "shut up and take my money". But others might want to offer more reasoned feedback :lol:

There's no link to it on the OP (perhaps something to tweak [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] ?)
 

sulimo0310

Explorer
I, for one, can't wait to play test this with my new group!
Did I miss something, or do the Goblins only have one ability score bonus (+2 Con). It seems like the different tribes should each have their own +1 to a different ability.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk
 

Knightfall

World of Kulan DM
Is Zendikar an acceptable setting for DMs Guild? I would love to see a better Monster Manual than the half-arsed effort in the PDF for example...
I doubt it, but you could pose the question to Mike Mearls or James Wyatt for its possible inclusion in the DMs Guild, if there is enough support for it.

Personally, I think it would be a great idea. However, I'd prefer Mystara and/or Greyhawk to be added first before one of the MTG worlds.
 

jgsugden

Legend
...Did I miss something, or do the Goblins only have one ability score bonus (+2 Con). It seems like the different tribes should each have their own +1 to a different ability.
They're goblins. All they're good for is being abused. Thus, only a Con bonus and resistances. I think they're very good implementations. Not many people will play them, but they're quite appropriate.
 

S

Sunseeker

Guest
I doubt it, but you could pose the question to Mike Mearls or James Wyatt for its possible inclusion in the DMs Guild, if there is enough support for it.

Personally, I think it would be a great idea. However, I'd prefer Mystara and/or Greyhawk to be added first before one of the MTG worlds.

One thing that's nice about opening up the DMGS to a more light-weight setting with little history and little material would give people more room to get creative with what could be in the setting.
 

robus

Lowcountry Low Roller
Supporter
I doubt it, but you could pose the question to Mike Mearls or James Wyatt for its possible inclusion in the DMs Guild, if there is enough support for it.

Personally, I think it would be a great idea. However, I'd prefer Mystara and/or Greyhawk to be added first before one of the MTG worlds.

Unfortunately for me, I've made a pledge to never emit a tweet. :)
 

sulimo0310

Explorer
They're goblins. All they're good for is being abused. Thus, only a Con bonus and resistances. I think they're very good implementations. Not many people will play them, but they're quite appropriate.
I didn't notice any resistances. I will double check, but I only saw a con bonus, darkvision, and a natural ac of 11+ dex if not wearing armor. Then each tribe gets a different skill or tool proficiency.

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Azzy

ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ
Here it is. Like said, it isn't very pretty, I don't have any software which can make it look nice but it is all there and easy to read. The word doc is a little large so I haven't uploaded it (it's 250mb due to the images which gets compressed down for the pdf).

Also, don't let the number of pages fool you, lots of images take up a lot of space. I kept them in since they help form the image of the world.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0zVcgpzPBEEZmpFRHdSYVFFQk0/view?usp=sharing

Thank you very much. :)
 

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