Ever since I learned about the plane of Zendikar in Magic: the Gathering, I've loved it, and wanted to find a way to play a campaign there. After debating for years about doing a campaign in 5e with some friends, and never quite getting around to it, I've decided to try it online in Pathfinder.
This is just an interest check for the moment, since in addition to coming up with an actual campaign, I'd have to do some world building, statting out of monsters, etc. I want to know if there are people who would enjoy something like this before I put that much time into prepping a campaign.
There is more information below on what I have in mind, and what Zendikar is like for those who don't know. Other than letting me know if this interests you, any thoughts or questions are welcome.
Due to the nature of the world of Zendikar (see the "What is Zendikar?" spoiler), this would be a campaign involving a lot of wilderness travel and dungeon-delving. I'm envisioning something very "Durvin Gest-y": where the fate of the world isn't on the line, you're just doing a very magical version of what Indiana Jones normally does.
For those of you already familiar with the plane, I just want to let you know that this will take place in "classical Zendikar", pre-Eldrazi. None of the story from the MTG sets will have taken place, other than trapping the Eldrazi. There will be no Eldrazi and probably no planeswalkers, though you can change my mind on the second one with a good story prompt.
Zendikar is a wild world, unspoiled by civilization and brimming with life energy. The reason for this is an elemental phenomenon known as the Roil. The Roil is a magical force that continually reshapes the land, sometimes very violently, and can sink ships, replace grassy hills with forested flatlands overnight, and bury entire settlements. Other than a few special locales across the world, the only features resistant to the landscape alterations of the Roil are the ancient constructs known as hedrons (HE-drahns) that most believe are the relics of a long-lost civilization.
Current civilization on Zendikar is small-scale, with the largest "cities" only numbering in the thousands. Despite this, the peoples of the world do more than just survive, and Zendikar is crisscrossed by the trails of adventurers who map and remap its mercurial landscape and scour the ruins of bygone eras for artifacts of power. Many adventurers are part of one of the five major adventuring houses, which maintain networks of agents and hostels across Zendikar. The only limits to the fame and glory such explorers can attain is their luck and their resourcefulness.
Not familiar with the setting, but your write up of it sounds awesome. How frequent does the Roil occur?
Would this effectively be homebrew, or would you be adapting a published adventure?
Zendikar is a pretty cool setting. For playable races, you'd probably need to make a few adjustments to the standard Pathfinder suite. Canonical races on Zendikar that wouldn't be inappropriate for player characters are humans, elves, goblins, merfolk, and kor. Ogres and minotaurs also exist, but of course they're not exactly balanced as PCs.
Humans and elves are as you'd expect. Goblins are similar, but they eat rocks. Merfolk have legs, so rather than the Pathfinder Merfolk race, something like Gillmen or Aquatic Elves could be used as a substitute. Finally, Kor obviously aren't a thing in Pathfinder, but you could maybe use Oreads.
There's no sign of any dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orcs, or any other races on Zendikar, so I'd say just don't allow them if you don't want to add a lot of extra homebrew.
I'm not familiar with the setting, but it sounds interesting.
Sounds fun! I am definitely interested.
How frequent does the Roil occur?
Its never stated exactly how frequent the Roil is, and it is inherently unpredictable, but it is frequent enough to require regular remapping. Intervals for specific locations could be days to months. The Roil would likely be something that showed up on a random encounter table for wilderness travel or exploration.
As for homebrew, it would be a homebrew campaign. There are gazetteer-style resources, but there aren't any published adventures set there that I'm aware of.
@Newbonomicon - The merfolk and kor have racial stats in 5e, which I could use to adapt, but yes, the race list would be significantly smaller than Golarion's.
@Newbonomicon - The merfolk and kor have racial stats in 5e, which I could use to adapt, but yes, the race list would be significantly smaller than Golarion's.
Oh, I didn't know that, but it makes sense. I had heard they'd done Theros and Ravnica, at least.
Just curious, but would you be allowing any 3rd party content? Specifically Spheres of Power?
@AdamWarnock - I'm going to adopt the run it by me and maybe I'll allow it approach, so let me get back to you on Spheres of Power, since I've heard of it, but know next to nothing about it.
Oh man, this sounds like something I would be in. Probably go with an elven Treesinger Druid if this were to happen.
@Newbonomicon - I meant to reply earlier, but yeah, in 2016, WotC released a PDF titled "Plane Shift: Zendikar", which was designed for running 5e campaigns. It has race stats for all the PC races, a short gazetter, and a bestiary conversion section.
Alright, it seems like there is enough interest, so I'm going to put together the campaign and start a new thread with actual recruitment, probably sometime around or soon after Christmas. In the meantime, I will be watching this thread, and answering any more questions that you may have.
After looking into the Spheres rules, I'm going to say no, mostly because I won't have time to work on learning the system along with the holidays and all the other work for the campaign.
I'm not familiar with that, sounds like yet another book series to add to the check out list. Thanks for sharing.
No worries. Never know unless you ask. :)
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I just wanted to add a comment regarding the Eldrazi. The Eldrazi are MtG's version of the Cthulhu mythos, and Pathfinder was written with the Cthulhu mythos in mind; it's peppered all throughout the published modules and adventure paths, and in the ruleset. While I definitely see the appeal of a pre-Eldrazi Zendikar campaign, it would be just as easily to run a post-Eldrazi Zendikar Rising campaign, where the impact of the Eldrazi is still evident, though they themselves are no longer actually present.
Just wanted to throw it out there for consideration! There are three versions of Zendikar in MtG, and two of them don't have any Eldrazi around, so you have a choice in which non-Eldrazi version of Zendikar you run.
There are three versions of Zendikar in MtG
I'm not all that familiar with MtG lore. What does it mean to have three versions of this plane?
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They are more historical periods than versions. The Eldrazi are immensely powerful interplanar beings that feed on the magical essence of worlds, and the fight against them is the main timeline marker in the MtG continuity for Zendikar.
Dotting for interest.
After the Eldrazi were sealed, it led to the second era and the more modern version of Zendikar, where adventurers run around and go through ancient ruins. Eventually the Eldrazi were broken from their seal and continued their destruction of Zendikar. This was the plot of the original Zendikar block (Zendikar, Worldwake, and Rise of the Eldrazi).
The next era would be set during the Eldrazi attack and Zendikar's battle with them. The people of Zendikar were united and led by a group of planeswalkers. Zendikar was eventually successful in destroying the Eldrazi and began to rebuild. These events were told in the Battle of Zendikar block (Battle for Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch).
Finally, there's the current version Zendikar that was shown in Zendikar Rising. This set takes place several years later and after the most recent storyline. Zendikar has been rebuilt, the five adventurer guilds known as expeditionary houses are prospering, and the remaining six skyclaves (ancient kor ruins) have been raised. The plot revolves around Nahiri trying to stop the Roil. She uses her magic to explore the skyclaves to try and find an artifact called the Lithoform Core to do that. However, her using the artifact would lead to thousands of lives being lost. In the end, Nissa Revane (a elven planeswalker from Zendikar) used the artifact to restore the soil and wild nature of Zendikar, healing the land to a state that is stronger than before the battle with the Eldrazi.
I'm a big fan of wilderness survival games, so peg me as interested.
If we're looking for races to mimic ogres and minotaurs, 3rd party races probably have you covered. Dreamscarred Press has the Half-Giant which might work for the former, and Rogue Genius's Asterion race is pretty solid as well.
Speaking of Dreamscarred, do you have any experience with Psionics or Path of War, and if so opinions on allowing one or the other? The first character idea that came to mind was playing a Soulknife, particularly.
I am familiar with Dreamscarred Press, mostly with Psionics. I'm not going to blanket greenlight it, since psionic casting is quite powerful, but I'd allow a soulknife.
Questions/comments:
1. Will the MTG mana color wheel be relevant, if so how much so?
2. I think a game in this setting would strongly benefit from a sort of session zero character creation, since this is where the ally mechanic came from.
3. I swear there was a third but I forgot it.
Questions/comments:
1. Will the MTG mana color wheel be relevant, if so how much so?
I'm also interested in the answer to this, because I wouldn't really be able to meaningfully engage if it was a huge part of the game. I've never really gotten people's obsession with Zodiac signs/horoscopes/astrology/whatever, and my minimalist understanding of MtG "color theory" is that people use the color wheel the same way.
"Oh I'm a Red/Blue personality type!" - I have no idea what this means.
This might help explain the ideas behind the colors.
I thought it had something to do with schools of magic. Not as neat as "Red=Evocation", but along those lines.
The color pie of Magic can be very complex. But the link that ElbowtotheFace provided is very informative. The colors of Magic are, in the lore, connected to the mana of a plane. Each color is associated with a land type:
White = Plains
Blue = Island
Black = Swamp
Red = Mountain
Green = Forest
Some magic types in MtG is connected to specific colors. Some examples are that necromancy is connected to Black mana, more druid type magic is connected to Green, and fire magic is connected to Red. Also, some races in MtG are usually connected to specific colors. There can be exceptions, with some creatures and characters having additional or different colors. It is a big multiverse after all. But it usually the same colors. Here are some Zendikar examples:
Kor, Angels = White
Merfolk = Blue
Vampires, Demons = Black
Goblins = Red
Elves = Green
Humans = Humans on Zendikar are flexible and diverse enough to be in any of the colors
Eldrazi = Eldrazi are very unique when it comes to the color pie. Since their main thing in the lore is absorbing, consuming, turning other creatures into Eldrazi based creatures, and leaving behind wastes where there was land, they're in an area known as Colorless. Some Eldrazi cards from the Zendikar sets do have colored mana in their casting cost. But they usually have a keyword called Devoid which makes the card colorless, despite the colors of its casting cost.