D&D‘s NewMagicUniversity Sourcebook Gives You Many Foes to Take to Clown School

Usually your foes at school are bullies , bastardly teacher , and preparation deadline . But when you ’re a student inDungeons & Dragons , and the shoal is a magic crossover with the world of Magic : The Gathering , unsafe encounters are going to get abit tougher to facethan a paper spell an hour before it ’s due .

io9 ’s come your look inside the next sourcebook for D&D , Strixhaven : A Curriculum of Chaos . The in vogue crossover between the tabletop ’s 5th edition and Wizards of the Coast ’s other smasher hit phantasy game , deception : The Gathering , Curriculum of Chaos whisk players away to the titulary school for would - be mages from the Magic card setreleased earlier this year . Alongside asking histrion to balance the rigors of magically pedantic life , like choosing the right school of magic for you , or attend class and social event , Curriculum of Chaos is still a D&D sourcebook , which means there ’s going to be mountain of ways for you to put your studies into virtual software by … throw a cantrip or seven at them . Or , y’know , bludgeoning them a bit if you ’re one of Strixhaven ’s not - so - as if by magic - tend students .

“ Strixhaven had several elements that we felt made for a perfect D&D scene . First of all , it ’s a university , and we loved the idea of tell apart stories for characters who are coming into their abilities and their personality as hoi polloi in such a ecumenical and academic environment , ” Amanda Hamon , Senior D&D Designer and one of the writers on Curriculum of Chaos , told io9 over electronic mail . “ We loved the mind of the challenge of creating D&D adventures that take place in an environs where there are exams and extracurriculars , and where lifelong social bond are being formed . Plus , the setting is a charming college , so characters do n’t necessarily need to be mages , but they ’re all concerned in conjuring trick in some way , and that ’s a fun crook to put on the write up . The campuses are full of magical creatures in the mascots , and distinctive student shenanigans are all drape in playfulness and whimsical magic — such as a skate - off competition using magic skates!—so we hope the experiences this Word offers are singular . ”

Join the bad guys: free mask included!

Join the bad guys: free mask included!Image: Wizards of the Coast

Curriculum is far from the first Magic - meet - D&D crossover in 5th version , but according to James Wyatt — a author and senior interior decorator who also help shape some of the first tentative official steps to bringing more Magic into D&D , and vice - versa when the notice plot didAdventures in the Forgotten Realmsearlier this yr — the teams elementary centering on these form of crossovers persist making a good D&D experience first and foremost , rather than crossing over for crossover voter ’s saki . “ I worked on Guildmaster ’s Guide to Ravnica , Mythic Odysseys of Theros , Strixhaven : A Curriculum of Chaos , and the Magic set Adventures in the Forgotten Realms , as well as the early Plane Shift articles that set about this process of crossbreed the flow . My biggest takeout is that , basically , what we are doing is make existence created for one game and wait at them through the lens of the other game , ” Wyatt tell io9 over e-mail . “ We are not lock in any sort of rebirth or translating one game into another . Fundamentally , when D&D players sit down to recreate D&D , they want to play D&D — not some unearthly hybrid of D&D rule and Magic mechanics . And the reverse is evenly true — and for all the fun we had playing with d20 rolls in Adventures in the Forgotten Realms , that set is still all about expressing the creation of the Forgotten Realms through Magic machinist . So Strixhaven , like the other books before it , is first and foremost a D&D book . ”

That means making the kinds of wight you ’d see as bidding and spells in a Magic board adjust like Strixhaven : School of Mages into fully - fledged clash options in a game of D&D. “ The top priority was get sure we could give you a wide diversity of fun and interesting stat blocks for the immense potpourri of students and faculty you ’ll find at Strixhaven . Spellcaster Nonproliferation Center are always tricky for DM to run and especially to construct on their own , so we ’ve become casters from every college who really show off the variety of illusion used at Strixhaven , ” Wyatt added . “ I ’d say the next precedency was the mascot creatures ! These critter — inklings , art elementals , fractals , pests , and disembodied spirit statues — were an important element of the Magic circuit card fix and we had a feeling player would really bask interact with them in the adventures . I ’m particularly proud of that we were able-bodied to offer a way to use these puppet as familiar , and the adventures include a fun section where you have to interact with all five kinds of mascots . Beyond all that , we had a lot of play bringing some of the eldritch creatures found in the Magic set to life as D&D monstrosity , including thing like groffs and trudge incur in the bayou of the Witherbloom campus , the terrific daemogoths , and hefty digit like the Oracle , the founder dragons , and the archaics . ” Check out a few or the creatures you’’ll detect in Curriculum of Chaos below , making their debut here on io9 !

One particularly challenging foe here is n’t a creature , but a more insidious scourge to Strixhaven students — the Oriq recruiter , an broker of a mysterious organization of dark mages who can lure your heroes into working to their sinister aim . “ I think every good freak design start with the creature ’s story — what role it plays in the world , what you expect it to be able-bodied to accomplish in the context of use of an adventure , and what sort of adventure you might build around it . The beauty of work from an found stage setting like Strixhaven is that our start point is outlined in the Magic team ’s humans guide and elaborated in the actual plug-in of the set , ” Wyatt said of designing the Oriq member for D&D. “ So the Oriq are established as this unavowed society of mages who use ancient , minacious magic in pursuit of malefic finish . They ’re particularly important at Strixhaven because they wish to enrol students who have great potentiality but do n’t inevitably fit in the tidy boxes that bureaucratism enjoy so much . The Oriq recruiter is a member of this secret society whose intent is to nobble into Strixhaven ( hence their at - will mask self and Deception skill ) , and befriend these disaffected scholarly person ( so they have entree to good luck charm person and hint as well as Insight and Persuasion science ) . That ’s a pretty self-coloured starting point , which then we can flesh out with numbers to make an interesting foe that ’s moderately gentle for the DM to utilise at the table and work into an adventure . ”

Image: Wizards of the Coast