DND 5th Edition

Zendikar Overview

A World of Adventure

Deadly perils. Priceless treasures. Zendikar is a wild, untamed world fabled among planeswalkers. Ancient forests conceal trapped ruins. Catacombs leak poisonous vapors into the sky. Magma bursts unexpectedly from a placid lake. The landscapes are breathtaking – if you can survive the dangers. Zendikar hides treasures beyond imagining, but only an elite few can survive long enough to find them.

This is a place where rules are broken: Violent forces roll across the horizon, constantly altering the shape of the land. Massive stones float on air. Vampires dwell in cultured, decadent cities. But elsewhere, the trappings of civilized life are rare. A sturdy machete will keep you alive longer than a chest full of gold.

Overflowing with Magic

Even Zendikar's innate magic is unique – more intense, more powerful, more desired by those who know how to wield it. Like other planes, the lands flow with power that mages use to fuel their spells. But Zendikar's magic is different from other planes of the Multiverse. Crackling with spell-like effects, the land pulses with incredibly potent magic all on its own.

Ancient Prisoners

Planeswalkers – powerful mages with the ability to travel from world to world in the vast multiverse – have a larger perspective. To them, the dangers of Zendikar take on a different meaning. Ages ago, three alien beings of tremendous power were imprisoned on Zendikar in an effort to prevent them from consuming the entire multiverse, plane by plane. But the presence of these Eldrazi within the plane is like a festering infection within a living body. Zendikar isn’t trying to exterminate all the creatures that inhabit the plane – it’s been trying in vain to destroy the Eldrazi. Its inhabitants just happen to get in the way.

After centuries of being trapped in their magical prison, the Eldrazi are once again free. The other dangers of Zendikar pale in comparison to the rampaging of the three titans and the numberless broods they spawn. Civilization on Zendikar, always fragile and tentative, now teeters on the brink of destruction, and the plane itself seems threatened with extinction.

Adventures on Zendikar

Zendikar is a world rife with adventure opportunities. Bold heroes, covetous treasure hunters, and sages seeking long-forgotten lore can all find numerous ruins to explore, mysteries to uncover, and villains and monsters to slay. Expeditionary houses, academic institutions, wealthy merchants, and retired adventurers all sponsor missions of exploration and discovery. Caravans need guards to protect them from bandits, predators, and the Roil. At the same time, the schemes of villains draw would-be heroes in like moths to the flame.

Braving the Roil

Zendikar's unique magic, the hedrons, its own fierce ecology… these elements combine to cause violent and erratic changes in the terrain. The land shudders and writhes, causing tectonic chaos, extreme weather, and sudden destruction. This volatility is known as "the Roil." Large boulders and shards of rock erupt from the earth, and then subside when the Roil shifts away. Winds generated by the Roil turn debris and vegetation into devastating funnel clouds. Over water, the Roil creates whirlpools that can suck a boat to the bottom of the ocean or waves that crash into high cliffs and flood the forests beyond.

For those born on Zendikar, the Roil is a natural phenomenon – just the way things are. To planeswalkers, it's obvious that this volatility is what keeps Zendikar dangerous, untamed, and without well-developed civilizations.

Zendikar's intense magic and unique treasures inspires dreams of wealth and power in the bold and adventurous. Driven by tales of wondrous places of mystic power, bands of explorers venture into the wilds of Zendikar. Many such expeditions fail, overwhelmed by the world's many dangers. But a handful of elite, daring souls manage feats of discovery that have earned them riches and renown. Guides, porters, cartographers, sell-swords, lullmages, ruin-sages, and healers form expeditionary parties and team up to scour the world for treasure.

The World Itself

Akoum

Life on the Teeth of Akoum is treacherous, but manageable. Rock slides on this unstable terrain are perhaps the biggest threat. Clinging to what little shelter there is, humans survive by rallying together, protecting each other, and finding the quickest paths to safety.

Akoum is a mountainous continent where magma glows from crevasses in the earth. Crystalline fields shimmer beneath the sun, but the sharp edges of most surfaces will slice through skin and bone. In some areas, the temperatures are extreme – burning an explorer's skin during the day and causing frostbite during the night. Gases occasionally spew from the ground, and around these vents, bizarre trees and plant life have arisen in pockets of weird biome. The region is plagued by geological instability, causing magma geysers to erupt unexpectedly and shards of rock to rain down unexpectedly.

• The Teeth of Akoum are a series of northern mountain ranges that are essentially impassable without some means of flight or a very experienced and clever guide.
• Affa is a mostly human settlement at the base of the Teeth, though elves, kor, and the occasional vampire will call it home for a time.
• Fort Keff is a high-walled encampment built at the mouth of a deep ravine.
• The Eye of Baltia, a secret underground cavern, has been recently discovered in Akoum.
• Goma Fada – literally "The City that Walks" – is an enormous caravan of wandering kor, humans, and a few elves that moves at a slow pace through Akoum.
• Tal Terig, or "The Puzzle Tower", is a ruin site rising hundreds of feet high out of Akoum's basin.
• Ora Ondar, sometimes called "The Impossible Garden", is an exceptional spring of life energy that has lasted almost a hundred years. The plants here contain the raw, wild magic of Zendikar and mutate the elves who live there.
• Glasspool is the only fixed body of water of any notable size in the region — a huge lake, strangely hexagonal in shape, over two miles across. Seismic activity somehow fails to affect it.

Bala Ged

Humid rainforests cover this low-lying continent. A humid haze blankets the landscape, which is riddled with poisonous molds, fungi, and strangely colored algae. Deep within the network of limestone caves and tunnels, catacombs, sacrificial altars, and rune-inscribed chambers hide countless treasures. These are the domain of the ferocious, reptilian Surrakar and countless primordial monsters. Bala Ged is home to two tribes of elves: the warlike Joraga tribe as well as the secretive Mul Daya. Mul Daya elves can be recognized by their tattooing, and have a connection with the spirits of their elvish ancestors that sets them apart from the rest of the elves.

Although the jungles of Bala Ged have always been defined by massive vegetation, that is beginning to change. Since the rising of the Eldrazi Ulamog, all life in Bala Ged is being slowly devoured. Much of the continent has already been reduced to an endless desert of fine dust.

• The Guum Wilds is a region of humid rain forest that covers most of Bala Ged. Bloodbriar and cut-fungus are just some of the deadly flora that make up the vast jungle. Almost every inch of the Guum Wilds is covered in dense flora and the air is often heavy with fetid humidity.
• Deep in the Guum Wilds are the Surrakar Caves, a series of limestone outcroppings and hillocks that serve as the primary habitat for the vicious surrakar. There is rumored to be a vast tunnel system underneath this portion of the Guum Wilds, but exploration is next to impossible due to the extreme territorial behavior of the surrakar. Despite the cavernous nature, this region is primarily covered in a thick algae and marsh.
• Bojuka Bay is less a bay and more a giant marsh that developed inside the Guum Wilds. Initially an inlet, the prolific flora of the Guum Wilds overtook the water creating a vast swampy region. The Bojuka Bay serves as the mouth of the Umung River and is home to fearsome marsh trolls as well as the Grotag goblins.
• The Umung River is one of the only safe ways to traverse the Guum Wilds. After passing through the dangerous Bojuka Bay, there are dotted settlements of humans and elves that were created to help travelers get past areas of rapids and waterfalls. Each waterfall step takes explorers even deeper into the heart of Bala Ged.
• The Tangled Vale is a series of interconnected jungle valleys that lie in the southern portion of Bala Ged. Joraga elves primarily call this home utilizing bloodbriar patches to defend themselves against the beasts that life here. The various hilltops that dot this region are rife with deadly fungus and well known to be gomazoa feeding grounds.

Guul Draz

This is a humid region of teeming lagoons, and tangled, fetid swamps – this is the homeland of the vampires. Predators stalk the wilds, and traps are hidden in mangrove jungles and around settlements. The rancid waterways that twist into the vast marshes and swamps conceal predators and plagues. There are more ruin sites here than elsewhere, including the Hagra Cistern, a huge complex of ruins that's gradually sinking into the muck and water. Even in the dangerous world of Zendikar, this is considered a treacherous place; the opulent city of Malakir is run openly by vampires.

• Malakir is the best-developed city on Zendikar. It is divided into five districts, each named after the vampire family that controls it:
1. Nirkana District, built on the water.
2. Kalastria District, located on the highest ground. It is the oldest, wealthiest part of the city.
3. Emevera District, built in a low point in the city, but well protected by giant stone dykes.
4. Urnaav District, a mix of stone-paved roads and narrow canals, lying between the low point of Emevera District and the high ground of Kalastria District.
5. Ghet District, a flooded and impoverished part of the city.

• The Hagra Cistern is a huge complex of ruins near Malakir, gradually sinking into the muck and water.
• The Hanging Swamp is a giant sinkhole, north of the Hagra Cistern, with a floating swamp suspended above it in a glittering arc of water blobs connected by reeds.
• The Free City of Nimana is a coastal city built by humans; its title is ironic in light of that fact that Nimana is the major port where slavers arrive and sell their wares.

Murasa

Surrounded by towering cliffs, Murasa is a continent of jaddi-tree forests, deep valleys, and steep ridges. Vines and other vegetation wind through deep valleys, up cliff walls, and down into dank, half-lit caverns in the earth. The Kazuul Road provides the easiest access into Murasa. But Kazuul, an ogre slavemaster, controls the route and demands tribute from any explorer who tries to enter the continent.

• Murasa is encircled by the Murasa Wall, the towering cliffs surrounding the continent. Inland from these cliffs, the land drops off sharply. Glint Pass, a huge sea cave, leads under the east side of Murasa's Wall. At its rear lies a cavern opening accessible when the tide is low. Vampire guides often provide safe passage to the inland.
• The Cliffs of Kazuul and the Kazuul Road are the easiest access into Murasa, but they are controlled by Kazuul, an ogre slavemaster.
• Sunder Bay is a huge bay full of hull-rending submerged harabaz trees. Elves of the Tajuru tribes and assisting merfolk have set up a network of flags and beacons to mark the safest route. The Tumbled Palace, the capital of the Tajuru elves, is based on the cliffs of Sunder Bay.
• Thunder Gap is a passage into the continent following the route of the rushing Vazi River as it heads out to sea. Boats can navigate the dangerous rapids for a couple miles inland through the canyon, but travelers must then disembark and take the precarious trails and rope bridges further inland. Thunder Gap cuts through a section of Murasa's Wall known as the Pillar Plains, where the wall is cracked and broken into thousands of massive pillars, the tops of which are grassy plains.
• The Skyfang Mountains, high, steep-sided mountains covered in forests. The Shatterskull Pass, a wide trail passing through on a relatively shallow incline, cuts the Skyfang Mountains.
• The Na Plateau is known for its many-armed, gargantuan statues. It is also home to the Singing City, a cyclopean maze of strange structures and tumbled towers named for the eerie, almost musical sounds that come from underground chambers below the ruined buildings. The Raimunza Falls cascade off the southern side of the Na Plateau.
• The Living Spire is a huge mountain with hedron-shaped caverns, which draw great draughts of air like a breathing thing. The Spire is covered with titanic vines.
• The Grindstone Crucible is a thundering mass of huge, rune-covered boulders and shards of rock compacted together and grinding rapidly.
• Kazandu is a collapsed region, consisting of a mass of irregular canyons, twisting valleys, and high broken steppes, all dotted here and there by plateaus that tower above the landscape – surviving pillars of the previous ground level.
• The Doom Maw, a root cave, is the dominion of bone-hoarding sphinxes. The Silent Gap, another root cave, is plumbed by a group of vampires that seek some secret beneath the earth.

Tazeem

Tazeem is a perilous combination of the Oran-Rief, a gigantic, twisted forest; Halimar, a deep inland sea; and the Umara, and a great rushing river that bisects the continent. Some ancient ruins have been co-opted by denizens, who make their homes in the remains of the massive hedrons. Other ruins remain hidden underground, but are sought after by both merfolk loremasters and power-hungry expeditionary leaders.

Colossal hedrons float in the sky above Tazeem. This rubble field stretches across the entire continent, obscuring direct sunlight and blocking natural rainfall patterns. The massive stones perpetually turn and tumble across the heavens. Amid the ruins, there are the shattered remains of a sky-castle. Merfolk call this Emeria, the Sky Ruin. They believe it was once the home of Emeria, the goddess of the sky.

Run by merfolk scholars, the Lighthouse at Sea Gate on Tazeem's coast is the center of learning for explorers of all races. A library filled with scrolls, and maps, and writings about the lost civilization, this is a storehouse of all the collected knowledge about Zendikar.

• Halimar is a deep artificial inland sea. Surrounded on three sides by rocky cliffs, the fourth side is enclosed by an ancient seawall, which is more than 500 feet tall. No one knows when the seawall was built, but they believe that Halimar must be an old sea because it is home to many species of brightly colored fish, tusked seals, and massive leviathans that dwell in the depths. The sea itself is viewed as the safest way to get from the Sea Gate to the mouth of the Umara River Gorge, and there is a substantial maritime trade and traffic.
• The Halimar Sea Caves serve as both the breeding ground of giant squids and the dumping ground of hardened criminals. Built on the flat space at the top of the sea wall, the city of Sea Gate is the largest settlement of Tazeem. A white-stone cylindrical tower known as the Lighthouse soars an additional 350 feet into the air, and serves as the center of all learning in Tazeem.
• Sky Rock, a huge hedron floating in the air near Sea Gate, has become a safe haven for refugees from the Eldrazi.
• Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, a gigantic, twisted, ever-expanding twisted reef-rock forest, occupies most of the interior of Tazeem.
• From its source at Halimar Sea to the northern edge of continent, the Umara River runs through the deep Umara River Gorge that bisects the continent. It drops over 800 feet over a series of waterfalls, most famously the Magosi Waterfall. Built on a large island in the middle of the Umara River, the Merfolk Enclave is a hive-like structure consisting of bathing halls, corridors, and sleeping chambers. It is the largest merfolk settlement on Zendikar.
• Coralhelm is a floating landmass protected by a large gorge on all sides.

Ondu

The geography of Ondu is dominated by a sense of sweeping verticality. The precarious Makindi Trenches, the skyscraping trees of the Turntimber, and the depths of the Crypt of Agadeem all contribute to the strange sensation that travel in Ondu occurs up and down rather than east and west. Jwar, the Isle of Secrets, lies near the southern coast. Huge granite heads known as the Faduun loom half-buried in the earth, and a beam of pure blue light can be seen shooting straight up out of the island. But no explorer has yet uncovered the source of the light.

Upon discovering that certain healing spells were amplified by the hedrons here, humans were eager to build a settlement nearby. They pass along any information they gain about this phenomenon, diligently recording and storing all of their findings at the Lighthouse of Sea Gate.

• The Makindi Trenches, a maze of high-walled canyons, crisscrosses the mainland. Birds, reptiles, goblins and kor make their homes on the trenches' sheer surfaces. Fast-moving whitewater rivers course through many branches of the Trenches. Throughout the canyons and plateaus of Makindi are famous boulders perched in unlikely, precarious, gravity-defying positions, the Teetering Peaks.
• The region known as Turntimber is a vast temperate forest with enormous trees, supporting many dangerous creatures like baloths and snakes. Within this forest lies Mosscrack, home tree of the Joraga Nation. Additionally, Graypelt, a small settlement of druids, hunters, and trailblazers, can be found on the outer edges of Turntimber.
• Agadeem, the large, southernmost island, is littered by broken hedrons. The laws of nature warp strangely around these hedron fields, causing bizarre and unpredictable thaumaturgical and gravitational phenomena. Kabira, a community of humans and other races encamped near the hedron fields, is home to the Kabira Conservatory, a small academy which sponsors research of the hedron ruins. The Crypt of Agadeem, a natural cavern converted into a heavily trapped burial site, is where the Kabira natives place their dead.
• Beyeen, a smaller temperate island, consists of several small volcanic landmasses connected by bridges of clinging vegetation. The kor call the small range the Crown of Talib, after their god of the earth. Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, is the largest and most active peak of the Crown range. Zulaport, a community on the coast, consists of mages, explorers, and artisans, of mixed races and origins.
• The Boilbasin is a group of massive hot tide pools that stair-step down the mountainous slope toward the sea.

Sejiri

This polar region is like an enormous mesa with permafrost steppes, wind-blasted mountains, and impossibly tall cliffs that encircle the continent. Despite its inhospitable terrain, creatures such as felidars, griffins, and sphinxes make their home in the snow-covered wastes. There are many ruins sites, and explorers brave the cold to see what treasures lie deep beneath the snowy surface.

• The Midnight Pass is the only way to access Sejiri via sea. Only ships with a dedicated merfolk navigator have any real hope of successfully steering into the pass. Deep into the pass, ships can dock and adventurers can begin the slow and dangerous ascent to the tundra plateau.
• Ikiral is an outpost hidden in the ruins of a massive broken hedron.
• Benthidrix, a mythic underwater shrine, supposedly belongs to a lost culture of ice merfolk.

Ruins of Zendikar

Ancient, rune-carved monoliths called hedrons are strewn across Zendikar. Up to ten miles long, some of these stones drift in the sky; others are buried in the ground, some whole, some broken. They're remnants of a lost civilization, but their original purpose is unknown. This ancient empire wielded unimaginable power – enough to suspend gravity and alter the land to suit its purposes. Trap-riddled ruins can be found on every continent. Mysterious glyphs hint at truths long forgotten. Unspeakable monsters lurk in the quiet of these hidden monuments of a forgotten past. These ruins still emanate power, and both planeswalkers and local explorers will undergo great peril to reap their rewards.

Before the rise of the Eldrazi, expeditions to such sites were largely motivated by curiosity, the hunt for wealth or fame, or quests for magical power. Since the Eldrazi broke free of their prison, though, brave explorers have delved into these ruins in hopes of learning more about the threat they face – and how to stop it.

Player characters in a Zendikar campaign might find ruins dating from any era of that plane’s history: before the arrival of the Eldrazi, the period when the Eldrazi first arrived and became imprisoned, or the relatively peaceful time afterward.

Pre-Eldrazi Ruins

Before the Eldrazi ever came to Zendikar, it was not an especially remarkable world. It had powerful innate magic and boasted mighty civilizations of humans (on all seven continents), kor (primarily in Ondu and Akoum), elves (primarily in Murasa and Bala Ged), and merfolk (primarily in Tazeem, Guul Draz, and Sejiri). Ruins from this era naturally suggest no knowledge of the Eldrazi or the three gods inspired by the Eldrazi titans. These civilizations had their own gods, unrecognizable to contemporary eyes. In modern times, before the rise of the Eldrazi, these civilizations were often mistakenly identified as “Eldrazi,” giving rise to a number of misconceptions about the nature of those alien creatures.

The time before the Eldrazi was an age of powerful magic. Ruins from this era are often warded by magical traps, but they offer commensurate rewards in the form of magic items and other magical effects (such as healing fountains). They are often haunted by spirits, shades, and wraiths, and lingering magical effects make them attractive homes for such dark creatures. Magical constructs and golems can also be found in such ruins (though not constructs made from hedrons), often standing guard over treasure vaults. Of course, some ruins have been exposed to the elements and claimed as lairs by natural animals or goblins. Monetary treasure in the ruins of Zendikar is often in the form of gems or precious art objects, but they also hold ancient coins of strange provenance, including electrum and platinum.

It is possible that living descendants of these ancient civilizations still inhabit particularly remote ruins. Such inhabitants might be monstrously degenerated from their original forms – kuo-toa with only the vaguest resemblance to their merfolk ancestors, or tieflings or yuan-ti descended from human cultures that polluted their bloodlines with dark magic. Sites from this era include the following:

• Ior Ruin (Akoum)
• Singing City (Murasa)
• The Cipher in Flames (Murasa)
• Faduun (Jwar Isle in Ondu)
• The Sunspring (Tazeem)
• Benthidrix (Sejiri)

Ruins of the Eldrazi Era

When the Eldrazi first became trapped on Zendikar, the resulting chaos and devastation ultimately led to the downfall of the plane’s ancient civilizations. Before that fall, though, powerful nations mustered mighty armies and great magic to fight the Eldrazi spawn that swarmed over the world. They harnessed existing magic as well as the power of the hedrons to aid their efforts, and magical technology from this era is now highly sought after with the threat of the Eldrazi renewed. Magical weapons, often incorporating patterns that resemble the engravings on the hedrons, are often found in the ruins of this age. Likewise, scrolls and tomes containing knowledge of the Eldrazi and spells useful for binding or destroying them can still be found in ancient libraries of the Eldrazi era.

Temples from this era depict some of the old gods, but the worship of angels also began in this period. Some churches were raised around godlike images of the legendary figures responsible for imprisoning the Eldrazi.

This era boasted the creation of sites such as these:

• Eye of Baltia (Akoum)
• Tal Terig (Akoum)
• Crypt of Agadeem (Ondu)
• Emeria, the Sky Ruin (Tazeem)

Post-Eldrazi Ruins

Once the Eldrazi vanished from the surface of Zendikar and Nahiri entered her stasis in the Eye of Baltia, the face of the plane changed forever. The Roil destroyed many settlements, and the kor began their nomadic lifestyle. Over time, the true nature of the Eldrazi horror was forgotten, and artistic representations of the titans as the gods of the merfolk and kor appeared in temples. Among the kor, these images were sometimes accompanied by statues of Nahiri, the “prophet of Talib” who taught her people the stoneforge arts.

Post-Eldrazi sites include the following:

• The Living Spire (Murasa)
• Ula Temple (Tazeem)
• Hagra Cistern (Guul Draz)
• Helix of Zof (Guul Draz)

A Zendikar Bestiary

Felidars

Standing fully ten feet high at the shoulder, the great cats called felidars are noble, fierce beasts charged with purifying magic. Felidars consent to be ridden only by knights they consider virtuous. The crystalline horns rising from a hard plate on their foreheads glow with white or golden light when they spring into battle, sometimes brightly enough to blind their foes.

Griffins

Less intelligent and less magical than felidars, griffins share those great cats’ noble nature and alignment with the principles of law and purity. Larger griffin species are about the size of horses and can be ridden. Indeed, such griffins are often the only reliable means of reaching certain remote locations, particularly in Akoum. Smaller griffins range from the size of donkeys to large dogs, and are trained to carry messages or supplies without a rider.

Sphinxes

Utterly inscrutable, sphinxes are mysterious creatures known for their wisdom and knowledge. They are utterly devoted to gaining and possessing knowledge – but not to sharing or acting upon it. Sphinxes are content to search out the mysteries of Zendikar, then sit in quiet contemplation of what they have learned. To them, everything is an intellectual exercise, including conversation. They are famously oblique, answering questions with questions and posing riddles to test the acuity of others.

Sphinxes choose remote locations for their lairs, preferring sites of great natural beauty such as waterfalls, high promontories, and small islands. They jealously protect their lairs from other sphinxes and large predators, such as dragons, but they pay little attention to smaller visitors. A sphinx’s lair is often difficult to reach, and typically involves treacherous climbing for creatures without the ability to fly. A visitor who can reach the spot is often rewarded with an audience – but those who come in search of answers are likely to leave disappointed.

Krakens

Lurking in the deepest reaches of Zendikar’s seas, krakens are mysterious monsters of unpredictable wrath and terrible destruction. Though they take the form of rampaging brutes when they appear on the surface, the truth of their existence is more complex. Krakens embody force of will and the drive for self-determination shared by all thinking beings. When their will is turned to destruction, they are capable of wreaking terrible havoc upon ships at sea or coastal settlements. But they live most of their adult lives in utter isolation in the deeps, focused on their own probing of the seas’ mysteries.

A kraken has a roughly humanoid shape, with two strong arms and a broad chest. Its head is encased in a rough shell that sprouts two large horns, and one of its hands is a bony claw. It has dozens of tentacles – a writhing mass below its toothy mouth, another mass at the end of one arm, and several long tentacles in place of legs. On its back is a huge conch-like shell.

Though traditional D&D has its own version of the kraken, Zendikar’s krakens are actually more similar to storm giants.

Gomozoa

Zendikar’s seas and skies tend to blur together, and creatures typically found in the sea often find their way to the clouds, gliding through the plane’s gravitational currents by consuming the magic infused in the wind. The windrider eels hunted by the kor and the cloud mantas sometimes ridden by Emeria-creed merfolk are two examples. The gomazoa found in Murasa and the Makindi Trenches are another.

Gomazoa are similar to aquatic jellyfish, but their bodies are encased in stony growths. A gomazoa drifts motionless among floating rocks or hedrons with its long, sticky tentacles dangling below. When they brush against another creature, those tentacles grab and constrict it, or might slam larger prey against a cliff face. Some species can withdraw their tentacles into their bodies, extending them only to grab their prey. Gomazoa almost never release prey once they’ve caught it.

Venemous Vermin

The dark magic that brews and festers in Zendikar’s swamps infuses a wide variety of natural animals, creating large, deadly vermin – rats, bats, insects, scorpions, and spiders that spread death and decay with their bites, stings, or caustic saliva. The swamps of Guul Draz are home to many such creatures, from the enormous heartstabber mosquitoes to giant scorpions large enough to hold a struggling vampire in one claw. The gigantic, ant-like caustic crawlers shape burrows from stone with their acidic saliva, creating strangely smooth walls easily mistaken for ancient construction. Gloomhunter bats the size of griffins have reservoirs of vaporous aether in their heads, causing their bite to tear at the spirit as well as the flesh.

Restless Undead

Magic fueled by necromancy can alter the natural cycle of life and death. Whether wielded by mortal wizards or demons, or simply an environmental manifestation of magic’s flow through the land, such black magic can trap spirits between the realm of the living and the mysterious fate of the dead. These ghostly undead are as destructive and hateful as the necromancy that calls them into being.

Not all spirits are created with dark magic, however, and not all are malevolent. The spirits of the dead sometimes linger in the world to protect their kin or communities, or to stand guard over sacred or important sites. These spirits can be dangerous, but they are not usually malicious. Both the kor and the Mul Daya elves remain in communion with the spirits of their dead kindred, entreating them for wisdom and protection.

Vampire Nulls

The various forms of undead ghosts are the incorporeal remnants of life and personality left after the death of a mortal body. But sometimes the reverse is true: a body retains its animation and hunger while losing any trace of its soul. When a vampire who is not a bloodchief drains the blood from a living humanoid, that creature undergoes a horrible transformation, becoming a stronger, faster version of a zombie called a null. Nulls’ heads are featureless except for a gaping mouth filled with jagged teeth. Their bodies are shriveled and distorted, but preternaturally strong. They are mindlessly loyal servants to the vampire nobility, and the number of nulls under a vampire’s control is a mark of status and power among the vampire houses of Guul Draz.

Giants

Zendikar’s giants are enormous humanoids that live in tight-knit tribes as far as possible from the settlements of other races. Compared to ogres and trolls, they are civilized and intelligent, though they are wilder than the smaller humanoid races.

Three major groupings of giants inhabit three of Zendikar’s continents. In the mountains of Akoum, the giants of the Boulderfoot tribe have a well-earned reputation for trampling their enemies underfoot (hence their name). In the Skyfang Mountains of Murasa, the giants of the Shatterskull tribe are rough brigands who often extort “tolls” from travelers trying to navigate the treacherous pass that shares the tribe’s name.

In Ondu, the giants of the Turntimber tribe live in the forest of the same name. They hunt baloths and other large game, living in close harmony with the woodland. Their druids are the only giants of Zendikar that are inclined toward magic. Some legends hold that the Turntimber giants are unrelated to the other giant tribes, but were originally druids who became giants only after years of living among the twisted trees. Elsewhere on Ondu, in the Makindi Trenches, a handful of deformed giants called trench giants scale the canyon walls looking for prey. They are solitary and do not think of themselves as members of a tribe. In fact, they are outcasts of the Turntimber tribe, banished because the magic of the forest warped their bodies and their hearts.

Hurdas

Hurdas are huge, semihumanoid creatures thought to be distantly related to giants. They are primarily employed as heavy labor – hauling stone, shifting earth, and drawing the huge carts of the Goma Fada caravan, for example. They are essentially beasts of burden, no more intelligent than a baloth or terastodon – but significantly more pliable. Murasan hurdas are more aggressive than their calmer Onduan kin, serving as protection for the caravans instead of drawing its carts.

Hurdas are bipedal, but they walk on their hugely developed arms while their tiny, vestigial legs dangle beneath them. Thick tails keep them balanced. Their massive bulk allows them to carry tremendous loads in addition to pulling carts and wagons behind them.

Trolls and Ogres

The trolls of Zendikar are rare, reclusive giant-like creatures that live in remote forests and marshes. Savage and ill-tempered, they are made particularly dangerous by their regenerative abilities, which let them quickly heal even apparently mortal wounds. They are fiercely territorial, often demanding bribes from people who pass through their lands – and slaughtering those who refuse to pay.

The ogres of Zendikar are towering brutes driven by cruelty, greed, and savage ferocity. They favor the jagged mountains of Akoum but can be found on every continent. Their size and strength help protect them from the dangers of Zendikar, so they have little need of walls or roofs – which is good, since they have little skill at building. Ogre society, such as it is, revolves around leaders who gather small gangs (usually six to ten other ogres) to join them in pillaging, extorting, or slaving.

Despite their low intelligence, some more clever ogres master the use of certain kinds of magic. The use of destructive magic complements an ogre’s fierce and angry tendencies, and some ogres can produce fiery spells and manipulate the volcanic forces of Akoum. Other ogres channel black magic to immerse themselves in necromancy and diabolism, accentuating their amoral nature and their willingness to enslave others for their own benefit.

Trolls and ogres on Zendikar sometimes ally with roving tribes of orcs.

Other Beasts

• Baloths are perhaps the most distinctive of Zendikar’s beasts. They are muscular, omnivorous hunters covered in horns, spines, and plates of various shapes. The woodcrasher baloths of the Turntimber forest are surprisingly agile, leaping from tree to tree by using their great claws to clutch each spiraling trunk. The leatherback baloths of Ora Ondar are heavier and keep to the ground, where their thick, plated hide protects them from danger. Baloth herds occasionally stampede across the Onduan plains – and do so more frequently since the rise of the Eldrazi, as if sharing in Zendikar’s anger.

• Basilisks are six-legged lizard-like reptiles with large horns and long tails. A creature that meets the gaze of a basilisk turns instantly to stone. They are common in the wooded regions of Guul Draz as well as the Turntimber forest of Ondu.

• Gnarlids are about the size of a large dog and resemble a cross between a bear and a wolverine. They have horns with distinctive shapes that vary by species, and some varieties have similar spikes elsewhere on their bodies. They have an innate ability to grow larger by drawing on transmutation magic in the environment, nearly doubling in size as well as ferocity.

• A terastodon is an enormous elephant with four tusks and armored hide. A bony plate on its head, sharply pointed on the edges, extends back to protect its neck. Their distant relatives, terra stompers are six-legged behemoths that can grow as large as the trees in the Vastwood of Tazeem.

Artificial Creatures

With the power of magic at their disposal, mages of the ancient past and of Zendikar’s present have been able to create objects bearing the semblance of life, capable of carrying out orders and even acting independently.

In a number of ancient sites associated with the Eldrazi, stone creatures have been found standing eternal guard. Created from fragments of hedrons or carved to resemble them, these constructs were intended to help the people of Zendikar eliminate the brood lineages after the titans were imprisoned, and were implanted with a fragment of the power that bound and imprisoned the Eldrazi. They have served as useful allies in battling the Eldrazi broods, and some mages have had limited success in prying the secrets of their magic from their artificial minds. Other hedron constructs are of more recent make, fashioned in imitation of the originals. These have no power over the Eldrazi beyond what their physical strength gives them, and their creators used them for menial tasks. They are most often found in the ancient ruins of the kor or in merfolk cities.

Eldrazi

Extradimensional Horrors

The Eldrazi are a race of interplanar beings that once traveled from plane to plane through the aether. They fed on the magic and life energy of the planes, leaving lifeless husks in their wake as they moved from one world to the next. Their origin is unknown and their nature is poorly understood, and if they have thoughts or goals beyond simply feeding, their minds are utterly inscrutable. Even their magic transcends the categories of spells and classifications of schools of magic, recognizing no distinction between types of magical effects.

The Titans

Three monstrous Eldrazi titans were bound on Zendikar in eons past: Ulamog, Kozilek, and Emrakul. No one can say whether more titans might exist somewhere in the vast multiverse, but these three have power enough between them to threaten countless planes. In their true forms, these titans are huge, alien leviathans made up of an immaterial substance akin to the aether. A group of ancient planeswalkers forced them into material forms in order to bind them on Zendikar. Now that the titans are free, their first priority is amassing enough energy to leave Zendikar and return to their astral forms.

Eldrazi Broods

Multitudes of lesser creatures – drones, spawn, and more powerful servitors – seem to emanate from the titans when they are active, much as clouds of vapor emanate from boiling water. Each titan has its own brood lineage, which shares certain common features. The people of Zendikar have named the various kinds of lesser Eldrazi, but they appear in such multifarious variety that they are difficult to fully categorize.

Some speculate that the lineages of lesser Eldrazi are extensions of their titan sires, extending the titans’ will and reach across the plane, and harvesting magic and life energy that is then channeled back to the titans. In effect, the great multitudes of lesser Eldrazi are organs of the titans, serving sensory and digestive functions for these alien beings.

These lesser Eldrazi come in a bewildering variety of forms, from weak spawn to towering behemoths nearly as large as the titans. The brood lineages of the three titans are markedly different from each other, and they have different effects on the land and its creatures as they spread across Zendikar.