Speculating on the Contents of Mythic Odyssey to Theros

(Edit: Corrected the title, because obviously it's Mythic, not Mystical)

Well, the new campaign-setting book leaked (notably before Explorer's Guide to Wildemount has even come out - which gives me hope that this isn't like "overriding" some wacky Spelljammer or Planescape or other D&D setting book - I say this as someone who was overjoyed at Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica despite others complaining) I've been looking into Theros as a setting.

Naturally, it's a Greek-mythology-themed world.

Despite the fact that I love to come up with lore for a world's setting, the things I get most excited about in D&D sourcebooks are the stuff you can pillage for your own settings. So let's go through and see what we find:

Races:

Every world has its own peoples, and Theros will likely have a number of appropriately Greek-mythology-based playable races.

In Magic settings, they often have about one "normal humanoid" race for each of the five colors, with Humans often inhabiting either White mana in particular or being found in all five colors. Given the way that humans are sort of instantly relatable, one tends to find them in every setting (though notably not in Magic's Lorwyn/Shadowmoor setting.)

So, Humans are obvious.

Minotaurs and Centaurs are both found in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, and I imagine we'll simply see them reprinted in Theros unchanged. Minotaurs are one of Magic's staple "red" races, second only to Goblins in their frequency.

Centaurs are a staple "green" race.

Given that both originate in Greek mythology, it shouldn't surprise you to find that these pop up in Theros.

Aside from humans, Theros' other "white" race (man that phrasing feels problematic outside of context) are the Leonin, who are Lion-people (and are found on many Magic worlds.) The Leonin tend to be represented simply as "cats" in Magic's game mechanics, but would likely be considered a playable race in their own right. However, unlike D&D's existing cat-people, the lithe Tabaxi, Leonin are more the kind of proud, brave types, and thus would probably get a bonus to strength instead of dexterity, and possibly have a totally different set of abilities.

Theros' "blue" race is very easy to translate: while they have the Merfolk creature type (a common blue creature type in Magic,) Theros' merfolk are called Tritons, which... is already a playable race in D&D! So just swap out the lore slightly and reprint that from Volo's Guide to Monsters and you're set.

Now, Theros' "black" race (again, problematic out of context) is less obvious. Often, in Magic, the "black" creature type that's most common for human-scale creatures is Zombie. Theros does have Gorgons, but I don't know how common they are. Still, they're a possibility. Likely, given that D&D calls Gorgons Medusas and has a different monster called Gorgons (both can petrify people, but the latter is like a big metal bull monster,) we'd likely see the playable race called Medusas as well. If that's the case, I'd definitely make them playable in Ravnica, as they're certainly a presence there.

Theros also has another humanoid green race in Satyrs. While these guys are Fey in the Monster Manual, we also say Minotaurs and Centaurs swap creature types in Ravnica (ironically, Minotaurs are changed to humanoids while Cenaturs are changed from humanoids to fey.) Like Centaurs, I'd probably count Satyrs as fey creatures  but still allow them to be playable (and certainly give them bonuses to charisma.)

With seven baseline playable races, the setting is pretty decently set up.

Subclasses:

Now that we've found out about this, a few of the recent Unearthed Arcana subclasses seem like obvious fits. The Circle of Stars Druid feels extremely appropriate for Theros, given the way that things related to the otherworld of Nyx all have a star-like form to them. A Star Druid's celestial form is described exactly as a Nyx-related thing would appear.

Similarly, the Unity Domain Cleric feels like a good fit for many Greek-like gods, such as Athena or Aphrodite. While these don't have direct equivalents in Theros, it wouldn't be hard to find other good fits.

The Bard College of Eloquence could play into the idea of Greek poets, allowing you to basically be Homer.

And the Paladin Oath of Heroism is just about the most Greek mythology thing I can imagine, given the emphasis in Greek myth on how fame was the way to achieve glory and a paradise on the Elysian Fields.

While the Lurker in the Deep Warlock patron feels a bit more Lovecraftian than Greek, one could affiliate it with the Titans trapped in the Underworld (or the Hundred-Handed Giants from actual Greek mythology, which, to be frank, are kind of the original Cthulu-like creatures.)

The Monks' Way of the Astral Self feels similar to the Druid Circle of Stars as another Nyx-themed subclass.

I think a lot of those subclasses would work well for other settings - the Psionic ones being very good for Dark Sun, for instance. But given Ravnica's introduction of Circle of Spores and the Order Domain, it seems likely we'd get at least a couple new ones with Theros.

Monsters:

A lot of stuff is covered by the Monster Manual here, so I imagine we'll either get a light bestiary or we might see a lot more variants on existing monsters, somewhat like we did in Ravnica. I'd love to see statblocks for the Gods, who are much more approachable here than they are in other D&D settings.

Obviously, the book hasn't actually been announced yet, but I'm always eager to dig into these campaign setting books, and I'm glad to see them ramping them up in this stage of 5th Edition.