5E D&D Worldbuilding Insights from New Mythic Odysseys of Theros Playable Races

Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted continue exploring Mythic Odysseys of Theros for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This time they take a close look at the new races for character options in the campaign setting. Up until now in my own games players have been free to create characters with very little restriction. But with the inclusion of Supernatural Gifts for characters adventuring in Theros there’s been a shift in my thinking. Let’s get into the new races in MOoT and touch on how it changes perspective on what to include and exclude when it comes to creating a setting, worldbuilding and running a campaign in 5E D&D.

Races shape Theros in 5E D&D

Each of the official setting source books for 5E D&D — Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica, Eberron: Rising from the Last War and Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount — explains the races who populate each world, specifically in terms of player character options. This crucial information often goes unnoticed by players looking at the shiny new options in any given book. When it comes to MOoT the book explains how Theros is home to a diverse assortment of people. Humans feature prominently, as they do across other settings. They’re the default, the one players relate to the most because we ourselves understand the human experience.

Players are free to choose from among humans, centaurs, leonin, minotaurs, satyrs and tritons for characters adventuring in Theros. What about elves, dwarves, and other standard races found in the Player’s Handbook? Absent from Theros, these staples of D&D may find themselves in the campaign setting as visitors from other worlds but they are not native to the world. This is an incredibly important distinction to recognize as you excitedly peruse the new content. You may come away feeling like leonin are substandard to tabaxi for an anthropomorphic feline race but this is irrelevant! The two don’t exist in the same world. If you’re like me, or like I was until MOoT arrived, this comparison is unfair.

Characters in Theros receive Supernatural Gifts during character creation along with choosing race, class and background. Each of these special traits grants your character new features and abilities appropriate for embarking on mythical and legendary quests under the auspices of the gods. There ain’t no Nyxborn tieflings running around! Limiting character options to those thematically and mechanically designed for play in the setting becomes a tremendous aid for Dungeon Masters and all the players in the game because it clearly delineates who and what the setting is about.

All of the races in Theros with one exception have lifespans comparable to humans. Set aside your feelings on crunching the numbers to make the most effective warlock or whatever and consider how this affects the world. There are no ancient kingdoms of elves or dwarves with rulers living for centuries, for one example. The races of the world are relatively short lived, and this informs a lot about their cultures and perspectives. The one exception are tritons, who can live for a couple of centuries. This gives tritons a unique outlook, one not so distinct if they were but one of several extremely long lived races.

If you look at new character options from a particular setting in a vacuum, certainly there’s space to compare and contrast the ever growing list possibilities available to players. Official 5E D&D sources alone swell the choices with each new book and countless creators around the world contribute more content every day. We do it ourselves in videos, website posts and our Patreon. Theros really made me reconsider my thoughts on character options for games, specifically for long term campaigns. Wide open character options for one shots like our monthly fan games hasn’t changed (much, see below). Likewise players for games in my own setting can keep on creating just about any sort of character they imagine. The difference is now I consider character options another DM resource to facilitate storytelling.

Talislanta has tons of incredible character types, exotic locations and rich cultures to explore or borrow for your own RPG campaigns. These characters from the Seven Kingdoms are only a handful of the unique character types for players to choose from.

5E D&D playable races as a worldbuilding resource

Our Secret History series here on the site gets into thematic campaign ideas inspired by books detailing folklore from a fictional perspective. Giants, hobgoblins and merfolk campaign ideas incorporate the existing playable races in 5E D&D to generate adventure and plot hooks. This is a great starting point for tailoring other thematic campaigns using playable races to help shape and mold the stories. Here’s a few more campaign ideas where curating the character options could add strong narrative quality to your campaign.

5E D&D fey campaign

• Elf
• Gnome
• Half-elf
• Satyr
• Firbolg
• Goblin
• Hobgoblin
• Changeling
• Centaur

5E D&D Norse campaign

• Human
• Dwarf
• Elf
• Goliath
• Aasimar

5E D&D Shadowfell campaign

• Duergar
• Drow
• Shadar-kai
• Svirfneblin
• Kobold

5E D&D reptilian campaign

• Dragonborn
• Kobold
• Lizardfolk
• Yuan-ti pureblood
• Tortle
• Simic hybrid

5E D&D small folk campaign

• Gnome
• Halfling
• Goblin
• Kobold
• Verdan (until 5th level anyway)

5E D&D big folk campaign

• Dragonborn
• Half-orc
• Orc of Exandria
• Goliath
• Bugbear
• Firbolg
• Orc
• Orc of Eberron
• Centaur
• Loxodon
• Minotaur

Coming up with these handful of lists already gives me several ideas for what these campaigns might be like. In a big folk campaign what challenges would a group of adventurers face in a world of smaller people? Beds at the inn are too small, seats at the tavern are too small — everything is too small! Imagine combining the big folk and small folk settings, or the dour group of heroes in the Shadowfell. At least Sunlight Sensitivity won’t be an issue.