Dragonlance DragonLance Paladine and Takhisis, how did they return?

[georbit]

So first off, I searched DragonLance in this forum already and didn't see a discussion on how these two gods returned in the threads. I only looked back 4 months...

With that said, in the PHB under pantheons they have the DragonLance pantheon with Paladine and Takhisis back in their respective roles as leaders of the good and evil groups of gods. From a rules perspective this is fine and makes sense balance and all, but from a story content, is this just a backhanded retcon? Has WOTC stated anything about this from the developers or designers?

So I'm curious if anyone has any ideas about why these two gods are back, and what the eventual plans might be in the future from WOTC in regards to this. A friend of mine also noticed that some FR gods were back too, but I can't recall who those were.

 

[I'm A Banana]

My guess is that, rather than "coming back," 5e allows for a Dragonlance where the War of the Lance hasn't happened yet.

This means that you don't need to play with the novel-canon, you can just pick up at the start of the War (or whenever) and run with it yourself, in your own games.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Maybe they're just assuming that most people want to set their campaigns during the War of the Lance. I'm not a Dragonlance expert, but this would describe my experience in most DL campaigns I had the opportunity to play in through the years.

 

[Zaran]

A world without Fizban is a very sad place.

 

[georbit]

I can see that. But I was wondering if they have something in the pipes like what they did for Forgotten Realms and jumping ahead centuries. Still doesn't quite explain the return of the Forgotten Realms god/s.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I can see that. But I was wondering if they have something in the pipes like what they did for Forgotten Realms and jumping ahead centuries. Still doesn't quite explain the return of the Forgotten Realms god/s.

For FR, it probably has to do with the Sundering (5e's Realms-Shaking Event) and whatnot.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I think the general idea is to make 5e as "timeline neutral" as possible so that people can use all their old books (as well as the PDFs at D&DClassics). Therefore, it makes sense to publish the entire Dragonlance pantheon, even if some of the gods are missing in the "current" spot of the timeline.

 

[Raunalyn]

I think it's more as an example of deities that are typically canon within established D&D worlds. While there are quite a few people that are familiar with Dragonlance and it's history/canon, I'm sure some of them have not read beyond the core Chronicles/Legends. And those who have likely have a favorite era they like to play in. Remember, what's going on with Paladine/Takhisis is only a recent phenomenon in the Dragonlance story.

 

[georbit]

The conclusion of the War of Souls was 13 years ago. It was incorporated in the 3.5 dragonlance books too. Now, nothing has basically been published in dragonlance since 2008. But I think that anyone who is interested in Dragonlance would be aware of the last major books. Like I said, I agree that the goal may be to allow for timeline neutral gods. Just curious about why they decided to do that with no discussion in the phb.

 

[fjw70]

My guess is if they do a DL story for 5e it would be set in the War of the Lance period. However, since we got a big evil dragon god story already is that we won't get much of anything for DL in quite some time.