Mythic Odysseys of Theros

• 1. Introduction

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  Mythic Odysseys of Theros announced its existence on the 2nd of March 2020 through an accidental Amazon product listing. The 256-page sourcebook carries the Theros campaign setting into the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Theros was a world born inside a card game. It first appeared in a Magic: The Gathering set released in September 2013, drawing its inspiration from the myths and legends of ancient Greece. At its center stood a pantheon of gods who remained active and present within the world. These gods also took a direct interest in the everyday lives of the people within that world. How does a world designed for card play make the leap to a game where characters walk through it and speak to gods directly? And what happens when that book is delayed by a pandemic and arrives into a marketplace that barely notices?

• 2. The Plane Shift Pipeline

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  James Wyatt had spent more than a decade working on Dungeons and Dragons before moving to Magic: The Gathering in 2014. Beginning in 2016, he launched a series of free PDFs under the name Plane Shift.

  Wyatt also wrote the text for the Art of Magic: The Gathering coffee table books. Those volumes reprinted card illustrations alongside each plane's lore. The Plane Shift releases were created so that players could use those same books as campaign setting guides.

  Between 2016 and 2018, six articles appeared, covering Amonkhet, Dominaria, Innistrad, Ixalan, Kaladesh, and Zendikar, along with an Ixalan-set adventure.

  In 2017, Mike Mearls explained the series' unofficial status. "It's basically a thing James does for fun," he wrote, adding that formalizing it would require more work than Wizards was willing to take on.

  The warm reception to those articles helped make the case for Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica, a full hardcover published in 2018. That book was the first of its kind to bring a Magic: The Gathering setting to Dungeons and Dragons as a proper hardcover release. Its success cleared the path for Mythic Odysseys of Theros.

• 3. The Movie Set Problem

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  F. Wesley Schneider joined James Wyatt as co-lead designer on the project. Between them, they faced a challenge specific to carrying a world from one game to another. When asked in an interview what elements from Magic were kept and what was cut, Wyatt reached for a visual comparison. "I think of Magic worldbuilding like building a movie set," he said. His example was a classic western town: convincing storefronts, nothing behind them. "The Magic team is very good at creating the illusion that there is a world beyond those walls," Wyatt said. "But D&D players need to be able to go there, in ways that the card set doesn't."

  "I think the process was more additive than anything else," Wyatt said. The team drew on world guides produced for the Theros card sets and extended them outward. That expansion reached every corner of the book, including a set of new divine mechanics designed to make the gods' attention feel tangible rather than abstract.

• 4. Races, Monsters, and Mechanics

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  Two entirely new character races appear in the sourcebook: the satyr and the Leonin. The Leonin is a feline race drawn directly from Magic: The Gathering. Three previously published races were also included: the centaur, the minotaur, and the Triton. Simon Yule noted this distinction in a review for GeekDad. In Theros, he wrote, the reprinted races carry "their own unique traits, abilities, and characteristics that distinguish them from their Forgotten Realms counterparts."

  Two new subclasses also appear: the College of Eloquence Bard and the Oath of Glory Paladin. For character creation, the book introduced a supernatural gift mechanic, a new ability players select at the start of a campaign. The Piety system was expanded from the Dungeon Master's Guide. It gave players a way to track how deeply a character's relationship with their god had developed. An omen chart added another layer of divine communication to sessions.

  The bestiary section covered 50 pages of new creatures. At the upper end sat Mythic level monsters, each carrying Mythic Traits and Mythic Actions. Dungeon masters could activate those traits mid-encounter to escalate difficulty and drive home the sense of a world-threatening threat. Riley Silverman, reviewing for Nerdist, praised how the book handled the individual god chapters. Each chapter included examples of myths the folk of Theros might tell about their gods.

  WizKids released 45 themed miniatures through their Icons of the Realm blind box line as a companion product. The hardcover's path to readers would prove longer than anyone had planned, due to disruptions entirely outside the book's control.

• 5. The Launch Context

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  Originally scheduled for the 2nd of June 2020, the hardcover edition of Mythic Odysseys of Theros was delayed. COVID-19 pandemic printing disruptions pushed the release to the 21st of July 2020. An alternate art version of the cover was released as a local game store exclusive. Digital editions through D&D Beyond, Fantasy Grounds, and Roll20 remained available throughout.

  The book appeared at a moment when the Theros setting carried fresh controversy from Magic: The Gathering. Theros Beyond Death, a post-block expansion, had released in January 2020. By February 2020, coverage had noted that story materials for that set had been delayed indefinitely. No novel appeared, and story updates were never posted to Magic's website. The official position from Wizards of the Coast was that the company was waiting for the right time and channel. Some coverage suggested that a Dungeons and Dragons sourcebook could be exactly the opportunity the setting was waiting for. The reviews that arrived in the summer of 2020 would point in several directions at once.

• 6. A Divided Reception

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  By the week ending the 25th of July 2020, the sourcebook had sold 14,028 units. That placed it seventh on Publishers Weekly's bestseller list for hardcover nonfiction. Gavin Sheehan, writing for Bleeding Cool, observed that the book's timing placed it in a difficult position. It arrived between Critical Role's sourcebook and the uncertainty of the pandemic. Sheehan wrote that it "got passed over in a lot of eyes." By the time the D&D Live 2020 event arrived, he noted, the focus had shifted to Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. His overall assessment was that the book "feels like a throwaway book made simply to rehook MTG players after Ravnica." Sheehan compared Theros to a card set that "came, did its thing for a year, and barely left a mark on the series."

  Riley Silverman offered a different frame in Nerdist. The setting, Silverman wrote, is "entirely self-contained within the gaming system." Players need not know the card block or Greek mythology to engage with it. Silverman described Theros as a setting for players looking for "a little more Clash of the Titans instead of Lord of the Rings."

  Simon Yule, writing for GeekDad, compared the book's origins to those of "the accidental second child of an already stretched and loveless marriage." D&D players, he suggested, would encounter Magic's "oversized hand-me-downs." Yule also saw new life in those inherited elements. "Those slightly worn-out jeans and unwanted, stained Converse All-Stars," he wrote, "can find a new lease of life as second hand treasure." Silverman's conclusion put it simply: Theros is "a vibrant and exciting setting that is definitely worth a look."