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 various version can merge into one single form.

Takhisis is the five-headed dragon god of evil from the Dragonlance setting. Paladine is the platinum dragon god of good (and also Fizban's alter-ego).

Additionally, the book will contain psychic gem dragons, with stats for all four age categories of the five varieties (traditionally there are Amethyst, Crystal, Emerald, Sapphire, and Topaz), plus Dragonborn characters based on metallic, chromatic, and gem dragons.

D&D 5E - Check out Fizban's Alternate Cover!

WotC's James Wyatt talked to Polygon about Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, which also revealed the alternate cover, which you can only get from hobby stores. https://www.enworld.org/threads/fizbans-treasury-the-dragon-book-now-has-a-description-and-a-feat.681399/

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Fizban's Treasury: The Dragon Book Now Has A Description... And A Feat

Courtesy of Amazon, we now have a description for Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, the October D&D hardcover. The book introduces gem dragons, dragon-themed player options, and plenty of draconic lore! This joins September's The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and November's Strixhaven: Curriculum of...

www.enworld.org

 

[QuentinGeorge]

They are Platonic Ideas more than physical beings. Gods are gods, not big lizards.

You can do what you want in your game, but I prefer the official Lore for this.

Weird comment since the Dragonlance deities are absolutely not "platonic ideas".

 

[Parmandur]

Weird comment since the Dragonlance deities are absolutely not "platonic ideas".

Apparently they are.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Pssst, it's all made up.

What a strange and irrelevant comment.

 

[Parmandur]

What a strange and irrelevant comment.

Not really, it's important context for our discussion of make-believe dragons pretending to be silly wizards.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Good for Plato? His ideas are pretty wild in the context of most of his own culture, much less polytheists more broadly.

The point, as mentioned by me and @Parmandur upthread, is that the D&D cosmology is very heavily influenced by the philosophy of Plato.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Apparently they are.

A nice example of the Allegory of the Cave...

 

[Parmandur]

A nice example of the Allegory of the Cave...

Bahamut is the one who went back...?

 

[Bolares]

Yeah, but the pushback will still be wrong, because the correct order is:

1. Keith Baker
2. WotC
3. Everybody else

I’d put it this way. It doesn’t matter what the canon is. Because kanon > canon

 

[Demetrios1453]

Bahamut is the one who went back...?

It's just that that poster chained in the Cave of Dragonlance, seeing what he calls "Paladine", and refusing to believe the truth that it's merely a shadow of the real thing...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In some ways, sure. In the Star Wars example, I think it's pretty good that the brand has shifted to other hands, as the Prequels are proof that Lucas was not really the sole perfect designer of Star Wars.

In other ways it is not good, as in the Star Wars example we see a large corporation like Disney trying to milk the brand for money, sometimes at the cost of good storytelling, trying to tell stories that please everyone (and sometimes please very few).

So it's a mixed bag. I also think it is the reality we live in, with corporate media companies quick to pick up any brands that look like they can become valuable. Sometimes that leads to good material, sometimes bad.

I really like the MCU for example, but a lot of folks think it's completely soulless film. It's a fair argument, even if I don't feel that way.

Well, at least you're making statements of quality, not just "this is how it is get used to it". I can respect that. I disagree that it's ever a good thing, but digging into that would derail the thread way past the point of reasonable discussion drift. Thanks for the explanation of your POV!

Zifnab! He first appeared in Elven Star, the one set on the hollow, jungle-covered “fire” world.

From the Wikipedia page on the Death Gate cycle:

Spoiler

The character Zifnab is similar to the character Fizban from Weis and Hickman's Dragonlancenovels. Zifnab makes a few references to Fizban during the series (when he's asked for his name he said "Fiz..., no can't use that one", or such as the importance of a Wizard's Hat) and he is described with a similar appearance. He makes references to the Pern series of books, The Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, Star Wars, Star Trek, James Bond, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Arthurian legend, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, and soul music; within the context of the books, these are historic references to the former Earth. The character type appears again in a similar capacity in the Starshield novels, where the parallel character is known as Zanfib.

Are Zifnab and Fizban the same person? The simplest (and legal) answer, in Hickman's own words, is always: "The answer is that Fizban is a crazed wizard owned by TSR under copyright, while Zifnab is a completely different crazed wizard owned by Margaret and I. Incidentally, neither Fizban nor Zifnab have any relationship whatsoever to Zanfib—a crazed wizard from our Starshield series. I hope I have cleared this up once and for all."[7]

As to the actual nature of Zifnab within the world of the Death Gate Cycle, Hickman wrote: "Zifnab was actually a Sartan wizard who opposed the council's decision to sunder the world. Zifnab is not a god ... indeed, he is actually a chosen and blessed subject of the dragon-avatars of the Death Gate series."

So why does Zifnab seem, at times, to act just like Fizban? How can he remember Tanis and Raistlin, and why does he nearly call himself Fizban? Hickman: "I like to think that Zifnab is very well read." And so, as far as we know, that is all there is to it: the crazy old wizard was a fan of Dragonlance, as well as, apparently, Tolkien and James Bond. The rest is purely speculation.

Hickman has said that the Zifnab/Fizban/Zanfib character is like him in that they are similarly misunderstood and possessed of great depth, and so the character type continues appearing in his works with Weis.[8] On multiple occasions, Hickman has jokingly suggested that the three characters are distinctly different because they are separately owned and appear in separate series.[9][10]

"Zifnab," "Fizban," and "Zanfib" are anagrams.

Yes! Thank you! It's been nearly 20 years since I read the series, but I recall it fondly!

The point, as mentioned by me and @Parmandur upthread, is that the D&D cosmology is very heavily influenced by the philosophy of Plato.

And my point is that this does not serve the game well. "This is how it is" isn't especially helpful, unless you think that I'm unaware of the influence of Plato and of Hermetic Philosophy (itself influenced heavily by Plato) on DnD? If so, I can assure you, I am quite aware.

A nice example of the Allegory of the Cave...

The level of correlation between using the allegory as an explanaition of the ignorance of people within a setting and the truth of the larger metasetting is exactly what is wrong with the "berk" concept in planescape. I think modern people are quite capable of being better than repition of the mindset of the the ancient Greeks and Romans toward outside cultures.