Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Zendikar (Magic: The Gathering Setting) Gets a D&D Sourcebook Online

I've only started doing D&D within the past year, jumping into the deep end as I DM my own home-brew setting. However, the Wizards of the Coast property I've been far more familiar with in Magic: The Gathering. I started playing when I was eight years old, from roughly Fallen Empires to Tempest block, then picked it up again in college (using a Virtual PC emulator to play it online - seriously, would it kill them to make MTGO available for Macs?) for Kamigawa and Ravnica (the latter of which is probably my favorite block I've played.)

While I haven't played actively in quite some time, I have followed the game on occasion, and two of its more recent settings, Innistrad and Zendikar, kind of split the difference for my tastes in fantasy.

Wizards has kept MTG and D&D separated for over twenty years, which is probably wise, preventing them from growing too similar. But they're breaking that rule in a free online sourcebook to accompany some art book coming out thanks to their return to the Zendikar setting.

Zendikar was conceived a bit as the "RPG" block, what with creatures that leveled up and its focus being on small bands of adventurers seeking treasure, so it makes sense that they would adapt the setting to D&D.

The sourcebook (which can be found with this link) adds or modifies playable races, so you can be a Kor, a Vampire, a Goblin, or a Merfolk, in addition to Humans and Elves. It also adds a ton of monsters, largely using existing creatures in the Monster Manual as analogous creatures from Zendikar, with slight tweaks in some cases to make them fit better.

Given that my D&D setting has a lot of Lovecraftian beings and the Monster Manual is pretty limited in that regard, I'm sure that I'll be stealing some of the ideas about Eldrazi creatures.

I'm really happy about this sourcebook, especially given that it's free, as it's a kind of chocolate and peanut-butter of nerdiness. I recommend checking it out if you're looking for a new D&D setting or at least looking for inspiration.

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