The upcoming Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook, Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos, is a Magic: The Gathering crossover set in the magical academy the card game visited earlier this year. The setting itself takes plenty of inspiration from Harry Potter and other stories about magic schools. A Curriculum of Chaos is set in magical university that has five distinct colleges, each founded by an elder dragon and with its own reputation for attracting a specific type of student. The book will introduce a variety of new spells, magic objects and a new player race, as well as an adventure module that takes players from levels 1 through 10.

Strixhaven also introduces new concepts to D&D, such as mechanics for taking exams and rivalries with school bullies, replacing the large-scale epic battles associated with the game for more focused personal struggles. However, while this will be a new place for D&D players to explore, the actual-play web series Dimension 20 actually ran a memorable campaign that, in some ways, predicted Wizards of the Coast's official material. "Misfits and Magic" stands out among Dimension 20's creative, nuanced stories, and not just because of its similarities to Strixhaven.

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Dimension 20. Misfits and Magic

Like D&D's Strixhaven, Dimension 20's "Misfits and Magic" took inspiration from the Harry Potter books. The story follows four U.S.-born teenagers who are invited to attend a magic school in the U.K., the first such students born to non-magical parents who have been allowed to attend. The show's usual Dungeon Master Brennan Lee Mulligan plays his first character of the series: Evan Kelmp, who is basically Tom Riddle if Tom didn't want to grow up to become the Dark Lord Voldemort. The incredibly talented Aabria Iyengar, known for her appearances on Critical Role, DMs this short adventure, and her style of storytelling perfectly captures the magic, dramatic tension, humor and horror of the genre.

"Magic and Misfits" incorporates school houses and interactions with bullies, features that will be officially introduced to D&D through Strixhaven. The absence of such concepts from Fifth Edition may partially explain why this was the first season of Dimension 20 not to use the 5e's rules. Instead, it uses the Kids on Brooms system, created by Jonathan Gilmour, Doug Levandowski and Spenser Starke, and published by Renegade Game Studios.

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Dimension 20 did not merely realize the demand for a Harry Potter-inspired role-playing game, but understood the limits of D&D's mechanics to tell such a story -- even as Wizards of the Coast was developing a book to add such features into the game. Additionally, "Misfits and Magic" is actively an inclusive endeavor from its cast to its story, rejecting the transphobic views of author J. K. Rowling.

"Misfits and Magic" provides an exciting adventure in a similar world while also calling out the kinds of bigoted attitudes that have overshadowed the Harry Potter franchise in recent years. While Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos will soon allow D&D players to create these kinds of adventures for themselves, Dimension 20's adventure is well-worth revisiting for reasons that extend beyond its prophetic nature.

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