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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Azzy

ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ
After a few days of though on the matter, I've decided that I'm going to purchase the Zendikar art book next month. And I've never had interest in playing MTG...

Dammit, WotC, you win!
 

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robus

Lowcountry Low Roller
Supporter
After a few days of though on the matter, I've decided that I'm going to purchase the Zendikar art book next month. And I've never had interest in playing MTG...

Dammit, WotC, you win!

Me too. I leafed through a dinged up copy today at B&N and it looked great.
 

zeldafan42

First Post
Hey! So, I'm a long time Magic player and a slightly less but still long time D&D player, so when I first saw this, I was PUMPED!
Like, Magic is a huge part of my life. I've been playing it for the better part of 15 years, and I've always been trying to find ways to mix the Magic worlds I love with the gameplay of D&D. So this has me soooooooo excited at what they may release next. My personal hope is for a Ravnica pdf sometime soon.

That said, I've noticed a lot of people in this thread that have never played Magic, so you guys might not realize the depth of worlds that mixing these two IP brings. For about the first 13 years of its life, Magic largely stuck with one world, Domnaria, with only occasional trip to another plane of existence. However, in 2003 with the release of the Mirrodin block came a major shift in Magic's story telling. Each block (A block used to consist of three expansion sets, now they consist of two) would take place on a different plane. At the rate of one block per year, and accounting for the occasional return to a previously visited world, since 2003, they've visited a total of 10 worlds that were fully fleshed out in blocks, as well as 5 other worlds that have had varying levels of partial fleshing out as part of core sets or supplemental products. So, to help people better talk about the potential that opening up Magic worlds to D&D brings, I decided to list those worlds for you, as well as with a brief description of what the world is like.

Dominaria - For the longest time, Magic's default setting. Originally a generic kitchen sink high fantasy world with several continents fleshed out due to the majority of sets for the first 13 years of Magic's life taking place somewhere on Dominaria. However, numerous apocalyptic events have happened to the world, and the last time we visited it during the Time Spiral block, Dominaria has become a post-apocalyptic high fantasy world. Think Dark Sun meets Forgotten Realms. Dominaria is probably the world that would get the most out of a physical hardback campaign guide, with tips for running games in Dominaria's numerous distinct eras.

Mirrodin/New Phyrexia - An artificial world of metal, where even the organic life forms have natural metallic growths, and "naturally" occurring constructs roam the world. It has since been invaded by a force known as Phyrexians, a classic Magic baddie that believe that are basically Borg-like in their desire to "compleat" all organic life into mechanical horrors. The Phyrexians successfully managed to conquer Mirrodin and twist it into New Phyrexia, although there are still pockets of Mirran rebels.

Kamigawa - Japanese mythology world. The events of the Kamigawa block detailed the Kami War, an event that actually takes place thousands of years before the rest of the Magic timeline, so we have no clue what Kamigawa currently is like.

Ravnica - An entire plane covered in one big city, kind of like a fantasy Coruscant. Ravnica is home to ten guilds that control the plane and vie for power, each guild being based on one of Magic's ten unique two color combinations and each with a distinct role in the city. Caught in the crossfire of the guilds' feuds and machinations are the plane's numerous guildless population, who have little to do but join a guild or just scrape by the best they can.

Lorwyn-Shadowmoor - A world inspired by Celtic myth/fairy tales, notable for the fact that humans aren't native to and don't exist on this plane, short of visiting Planeswalkers. It used to be that Lorwyn was a world of perpetual day, and once every couple of hundred years the Great Aurora would sweep through, turning it into Shadowmoor, a world of eternal night. But the events of the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block ended with the cycle being broken and the two halves of the world fused into one, but we haven't returned to the plane since so we don't know what the new fused Lorwyn-Shadowmoor is like.

Alara - A long time ago, the world of Alara was shattered into five shards. These shards continued to exist as demi-planes where three of the five colors of mana thrived, but the other two colors were completely absent. These shards were:
-Bant: A world of White, Green, and Blue mana. An orderly, lawful society of knights, with a rigid caste system based on merit and honor. Combat and warfare here are highly ritualized and honor bound affairs, with wars often being decided on the outcome of single battle between two designated champions.
-Esper: A world of Blue, White, and Black mana. A logical world populated by artificers. Artificers on Esper work with a highly magical metal known as Etherium, and all living things on Esper are enhanced with Etherium implants and limbs.
-Grixis: A world of Black, Blue, and Red mana. Because Green and White are the colors of life, Grixis is a world of death and undeath where no new life exists. Even the land itself seems to be a giant corpse, and the few living things on Grixis struggle to eek out a meager existence.
-Jund: A world of Red, Black, and Green mana. A world of jungles and volcanoes, where the only rule is survival of the fittest. Everything comes down to being the top of the food chain, and nothing is higher than the dragons of Jund, so really your best bet is too shoot for second place.
-Naya: A world of Green, Red, and White mana. A vibrant living jungle world, where gargantuan beasts roam and various tribal societies worship and/or hunt them.

At the end of the Alara block, the five shards collided and reformed into a single world, with the landscapes of the shards becoming mixed with each other but still somewhat existing as distinct regions within a whole world.

Zendikar - An adventure world the eventually became besieged by cosmic world eating horrors. But you guys have already been introduced, so I'll move on.

Innistrad - Gothic Horror world. A world where humanity does its best to survive against dark forces amassing to destroy it. As of the current block, strange things are afoot and madness has begun to twist the inhabitants of Innistrad, most startlingly turning the planes angelic protectors against the humans they once swore to protect.

Theros - Greek mythology world. A world of heroes, monsters, and gods. Not much to really add here, other than that as a consequence of the events of Theros block, a planeswalker named Ajani is currently stirring up the inhabitants of Theros against the gods due to the death of his friend, a planeswalker named Elspeth, at the hands of Heliod, God of the Sun.

Tarkir - This one is complicated. The block that took place on Tarkir involved a time travel story, so the version of Tarkir we initially saw no longer exists. But I'll detail both versions anyways.
In the original timeline, we're introduced to Tarkir as a world that was once plagued by dragons, but the dragons have since gone extinct. In their place exist five clans based on different Asian cultures that each exult a different quality of dragons. These five clans clash for power and dominance. They are:
-Azban - A Persian inspired clan that venerates the Endurance of dragons.
-Jeskai - A Chinese Shaolin monks inspired clan that venerate the Cunning of dragons.
-Sultai - A Indian inspired clan that venerates the Ruthlessness of dragons.
-Mardu - A Mongolian inspired clan that venerates the Speed of dragons.
-Temur - A Siberian inspired clan that venerates the Savagery of dragons.

Due to the interference of time traveling planeswalker Sarkhan Vol, the timeline of Tarkir is altered so that the dragons never go extinct and instead they rule over Tarkir and its clans, renaming them after the dragonlord in charge of the clan but venerating the same draconic qualities. The Azban became the Dromoka, the Jeskai became the Ojutai, the Sultai became the Silumgar, the Mardu became the Kolaghan, and the Temur became the Atarka.
As far as the greater Magic multiverse is concerned, the original timeline NEVER HAPPENED. The dragon ruled version of Tarkir is all that has ever existed. The only person with any memory of the original timeline is Sarkhan Vol. Still, remnants and forgotten artifacts of the ancient versions of the original clans still exist.

And those are the ten most fleshed out worlds. In addition, there are a handful of other worlds we've seen glimpses of. Of those worlds, Shandalar is probably the most promising for getting a pdf out of. Originally created for an old Magic computer game, it has since been fleshed out further by Wizards for use when they still did core sets as a generic kitchen sink fantasy world to replace the post apocalyptic Dominaria.
 


Tony Vargas

Legend
And so it begins...
Long overdue, if you ask me. They have this huge fan base that already has some cross-pollination/awareness, already. D&D's biggest long-term challenge is attracting/retaining new players. They should have been trying harder to tap (npi) it for D&D since they bought out TSR.
 

Azzy

ᚳᚣᚾᛖᚹᚢᛚᚠ
Long overdue, if you ask me. They have this huge fan base that already has some cross-pollination/awareness, already. D&D's biggest long-term challenge is attracting/retaining new players. They should have been trying harder to tap (npi) it for D&D since they bought out TSR.

While I agree with you on this, Tony, I'm a little disappointed that the pun wasn't intended. -50 points from House Gryffandor.
 

ZzarkLinux

First Post
Long overdue, if you ask me. They have this huge fan base that already has some cross-pollination/awareness, already. D&D's biggest long-term challenge is attracting/retaining new players.

Agreed. Even simple things like crossjoining a random planeswalker and a random D&D wizard could be an instant bestseller.

Like, have Nissa Revane's homeworld collide with the Athas desert. Some type of adventure where savage nature briefly assaults Athas. The PCs go through the adventure, fight evil on both sides, and their actions can either wipe out vegetation or allow some small oasis to endure. Both results have a Bad End, because Darksun.

I guarantee that it would meet their sales threshold.

EDIT: They may need to make an explicit note in the adventure "Darksun, Alara, and all other MtG settings are not eligible for DMsGuild writing". That's the only risk I see: they don't want to open up any Magic IP.
 
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