Dragonlance WotC Officially Confirms Takhisis and Tiamat Are The Same

It's been an issue in dispute for decades, over various editions of D&D, but WotC has officially confirmed that - at least in 5E - Dragonlance's Takhisis is, indeed, currently Tiamat. In previous editions, Tiamat has varied from being a big dragon to a minor goddess, while Takhisis has been a greater god on Krynn. At times they've been the same entity, and at others different entities. Today, WotC is putting its foot down and saying that Takhisis and Tiamat are, indeed, the same being.



Of course, this is not an opinion universally held. Dragonlance co-creator Margaret Weis emphatically stated that "TAKHISIS IS NOT TIAMAT, DAMN IT!"

Fizban's Treasuryof Dragons confirms that the beings echo across various settings.

D&D 5E - Is Paladine Bahamut? Is Takhisis Tiamat? Fizban's Treasury Might Reveal The Answer!

According to WotC's James Wyatt, Fizban's Treasury of Dragons introduces a new cosmology for dragon gods, where the same beings, including Fizban, echo across various D&D campaign settings with alternate versions of themselves (presumably like Paladine/Bahamut, or Takhisis/Tiamat). Also... the...

www.enworld.org

 

[Reynard]

There are some interesting cosmological implications by saying that Takhisis IS Tiamat -- especially if we are holding Tiamat in her current 5E incarnation.

The first and most obvious is that Takhisis, then, is not a goddess at all but a powerful demon lord -- but not even the most powerful demon lord. So, in order for Takhisis to rule over the other evil gods of Krynn, that means they themselves are likely not actually gods either, but similarly powerful entitites aka demons. If that is the case, and there is still a question of supremacy over Krynn between the evil "gods" and the good, the obvious implication is that the good "gods" are also not gods. presumably, they are powerful celestials. This makes Krynn a proxy battleground for the conflict between not The Good and The Evil, but just good and evil in the wide, Great Wheel sense. The happenings on Krynn are certainly important to those that live there, but are cosmologically insignificant.

The second interesting this is that it makes Krynn's balance of power subject to events happening elsewhere in the multiverse. If a handful of high level heroes from the Realms decides they have had enough of Tiamat's nonsense and head off to Avernus to kill her once and for all, that leaves a gaping hole in Krynn's evil pantheon completely disconnected from any events on Krynn itself. That is some existential cosmological horror right there: your "gods" could be hunted down and murdered by alien super-heroes at any time.

In short, I'm all for it! Let's kill some gods.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I’ve always thought and played my campaigns going back to 2e as they are the same…and I’m also glad Ed doesn’t take such a tone when “his Forgotten Realms” stuff has something like this happen like this. If he has, then I’ve missed it but none of his responses come to mind.

Ed gets to create and post on the DM Guild for us to enjoy so how he handles things works for him and us fans.

You should read what Salvatore had to say about his and Greenwoods reaction to 4th ed and jumping the Faerun timeline up 100 years thus obliterating long standing canon and iconic characters.

 

[DarkCrisis]

There are some interesting cosmological implications by saying that Takhisis IS Tiamat -- especially if we are holding Tiamat in her current 5E incarnation.

The first and most obvious is that Takhisis, then, is not a goddess at all but a powerful demon lord -- but not even the most powerful demon lord. So, in order for Takhisis to rule over the other evil gods of Krynn, that means they themselves are likely not actually gods either, but similarly powerful entitites aka demons. If that is the case, and there is still a question of supremacy over Krynn between the evil "gods" and the good, the obvious implication is that the good "gods" are also not gods. presumably, they are powerful celestials. This makes Krynn a proxy battleground for the conflict between not The Good and The Evil, but just good and evil in the wide, Great Wheel sense. The happenings on Krynn are certainly important to those that live there, but are cosmologically insignificant.

The second interesting this is that it makes Krynn's balance of power subject to events happening elsewhere in the multiverse. If a handful of high level heroes from the Realms decides they have had enough of Tiamat's nonsense and head off to Avernus to kill her once and for all, that leaves a gaping hole in Krynn's evil pantheon completely disconnected from any events on Krynn itself. That is some existential cosmological horror right there: your "gods" could be hunted down and murdered by alien super-heroes at any time.

In short, I'm all for it! Let's kill some gods.

Hence the problem. The Krynn gods are so tight nit between themselves and the world that having her able to be slain elsewhere doesn’t click with the setting.

Raistlin slays all the Krynn gods, so what does that mean for Faerun etc?

 

[Remathilis]

You should what Salvatore had to say about his and Greenwoods reaction to 4th ed and jumping the Faerun timeline up 100 years thus obliterating long standing canon and iconic characters.

To be fair, what WotC did to 4e Faerun is a little more extreme than "we linked two gods that are practically the same together officially."

 

[DarkCrisis]

To be fair, what WotC did to 4e Faerun is a little more extreme than "we linked two gods that are practically the same together officially."

Right, but the poster implied Greenwood was cool with Faerun changes. Which he was not, at all.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That and the definitive thing that is D&D. But it can’t be both. Or even part of both.

yeah, athas and krynn at least got 'its hard to get to this one' but I can't imagine why the creators take so much time to tell us they don't want the world included...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Because he goes on to state that that wasn't her final iteration as she appeared in Krynn:

Don’t know where Trace got the name Takhisis (May be Indonesian – Neraka definitely is) but part of his decision to rename was to separate DL’s cosmology from Greyhawk’s. (Another possibility – when I built my mythology (a time when Trace was first playing as well) neither Bahamut nor Tiamat were so named in the game books- so the idea of creating new versions of them unique to DL would not be too far a reach)).

He states point blank that her new name was reflective of the fact that she wasn't the same Chromatic Dragon as the one in Greyhawk and that the "new version" of her was unique to Krynn, separate from Greyhawk, separate from his own campaign.

weiss and hickman didn't invent her... they took her from Grub who said she was tiamat.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If you use elements from speculative fiction for satirical comments, let's remember the other side also can play with the same cards.

---

Marvel comics is wrong, the original Thor from classic mythology is redheared.

Do you remember the Squadron Supreme in Marvel comics? A rip-off of Justice League.

Squadron Supreme (Earth-616)

The Squadron Supreme was formed by members of various superhuman groups from different realities, all of whom had lost their own world because of the incursions. They all found themselves on Earth-616, and decided to band together to protect their new home at any cost. Their first mission was to...

marvel.fandom.com

DC also has got their won patische of Avengers, the Champions of Andor, but these are practically forgotten.

https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Champions_of_Angor_(New_Earth).

Let's say they are like different reflections from the same jewel.

Other option is Takhsisis is like a "forked", like a clone with the memory of the original, something like transhuman technology from sci-fi novels.

We need a right balance between the coherence with the previous lore, and flexibility for the changes when these may be really necessary.

 

[DarkCrisis]

weiss and hickman didn't invent her... they took her from Grub who said she was tiamat.

They took what he started with (character even had a different name) and they worked on it and other aspects of Krynn proper.

It’s like saying Greyhawk is just Blackmoor.

 

[Oncewasbenji]

In my headcanon, Tiamat was always the lesser copy of Takhisis. It seems like the god would be the original and the demon-dragon the echo.