Mark Rosewater States that a Return to Arcavios Shall Focus Specifically on Strixhaven
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on May 2, 2025, 9:02 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
In this post, Mark Rosewater stated that the upcoming return to the plane of Arcavios would focus on Strixhaven, as did the initial visit to that plane in Strixhaven, the set, and I have no problem, with that, because I enjoyed both the set and story, but I do hope that WotC shall eventually explore the plane of Arcavios outside of Strixhaven, because there is an entire plane to explore, and I feel that one specific location on a plane should not be the main focus of that entire plane.
What does everyone else say, about this? Do you hope that WotC shall eventually explore the plane of Arcavios, beyond Strixhaven?
psionictemplar says... #3
I dont feel that having the characters in a different setting will matter all that much since we are talking about the future. My early prediction is some form of an alliance between the archeologists and liliana during the rebuild period to explore new terrain. In this terrain I predict some way to resurrect gideon to help in a future fight against bolas. But then again I'm probably off my rocker and just need to go lay down again.
May 4, 2025 10:03 a.m.
I’ll be honest, I am surprised we are returning to Arcavios so soon. The plane simply has no real depth to it - even if you count the surrounding areas, they did not have enough lore to fill a whole D&D book. Unlike Theros and Ravnica - where the D&D sourcebooks on the subject were cover to cover with rich information and lore from their respective planes, the Strixhaven book provided what little lore existed, and the rest of the book was various other non-lore mechanisms to pad out the page count.
That said, since they are going back, I hope the focus is on Kasmina - a particularly interesting and under-explored character. Her entire schtick was causing trauma to people in an attempt to orchestrate situations where their sparks ignite, trying to build an army of planeswalkers for some future threat.
That is a unique, interesting, and somewhat terrifying story to tell - and one that they have been reluctant to explore (I think that lore is in an art book somewhere - not really a primary lore delivery system). I am disappointed it did not get explored before they scaled back on planeswalkers - I hope it gets explored now, with her trying to figure out how to adjust her plans in the modern planeswalker era.
May 4, 2025 10:54 a.m.
Caerwyn The current depth of lore covers a school and some convenient nearby research sites--archaeological digs, wetlands, and similar sites.
There's the entire rest of the continent of Orrithia, plus an entire second continent that hasn't been covered yet, plus possibly even more area.
- "Most of the known plane is broken across two huge continents—the northern continent of Orrithia, commonly known as the Vastlands, and a mysterious southern continent, called Galathul. The two are linked by a land bridge called the Isthmus of Omens. Strixhaven University is situated in the northeast of Orrithia."
While Strixhaven is currently the most developed area, and much of the rest of Orrithia appears to be generally open, I can't believe that the school is the only major settlement on the entire plane. Owning the largest library in the multiverse is great, but people have to come from somewhere, and it doesn't look like there's a ton of family housing around the campus.
So while the current story of the plane has limited depth, I'm going to say the plane as a whole has much more potential depth that just hasn't been touched yet. There's only so much you can do when you limit your storytelling to Oxford or Yale or Tokyo University or whatever, but there's a big world outside of that. If Arcavios ends up as just "the plane with a school on it" without anything else to build off, that's a huge pile of wasted possibilities.
On the other side of things, telling Kasmina's story is a great idea, and that should definitely be worked in somehow.
legendofa says... #2
I agree. The first visit to Arcavios showed glimpses of a much wider, more variable world, and I'd like to see more of that.
I'm also not sure how they're going to make a return to the school setting unique and different from last time. While it was well developed, there are only so many stories you can tell in this setting. I don't know if it hurts or helps that at least two of the main characters are on other planes right now.
May 2, 2025 10:15 p.m.