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

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

This idea that there is one Nine Hells, one Abyss, one Feywild, etc, is a planescape model of the multiverse. IMO, it's bad for the game as a whole and especially for the settings, in which the people of Eberron are now "berks" who only think that they're cosmology and history are true, and even immortal sages and such cannot both describe the cosmology and it's history as originally presented and be correct in their knowledge, where elves still somehow ultimately come from Correlon, and if we are very unlucky we are soon to find out that Dol Arrah is really just an aspect of Bahamut.

I mean on any setting other than Eberron, the Child of Khyber would probably qualify as a god. Certainly compared to many FR deities. Even if she isn't actually Tiamat.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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...

You....don't see the gross condescension in all this? Seriously?

 

[QuentinGeorge]

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

Greyhawk is. Dragonlance isn't. Do you see the problem when you try and mash them together?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean on any setting other than Eberron, the Child of Khyber would probably qualify as a god. Certainly compared to many FR deities. Even if she isn't actually Tiamat.

I mean, so would the Silver Flame, but I hope no one suggests that it is secretly Bahamut! lol

 

[QuentinGeorge]

You....don't see the gross condescension in all this? Seriously?

Don't you see? Only Dragonlance isn't able to dictate the conceit and themes of its own reality. It must conform to Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Greyhawk is. Dragonlance isn't. Do you see the problem when you try and mash them together?

This. All of DnD shouldn't have a unified theory of philosophical influence.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

This. All of DnD shouldn't have a unified theory of philosophical influence.

Eberron doesn't even work as a setting if you have objectively real deities!

 

[Umbran]

Just to build off of this... wouldn't any officially D&D setting, where possibly thousands of tables are telling their own stories with the material, fall into "shared world" territory as well?

Yep. Looking at, say, all the Dragonlance novels with different authors, and the various Forgotten Realms novels, how could they be considered otherwise?

I might hold off on considering DMs Guild stuff as part of the shared world - the position of that stuff is like... corporate-recognized fanfic.

 

[Parmandur]

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.

The Allegory of the Cave wasn't even just about Greeks in general, it was about educated Athenians very specifically (the same ones who ended up subsequently juridically murdering Socrates, recall): no shade on "Barbarians" to be found there, so not really sure what you mean by that?

In this case, the point isn't "this is how it is," but "please don't yuck our yum."

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I'm personally fine with certain worlds being part of a shared multiverse, but when a setting is created with its own specific cosmology and gods that essentially get invalidated by folding them into a multiverse I have more of a problem. I've never been an Eberron fan, but I dislike that it's unique cosmology was folded into the multiverse in 5E when 3E and 4E kept it separate. Further, it makes it harder to do something like the Ghostwalk campaign setting from 3E which is based on a cosmology that is very divergent from other D&D settings.

Since someone mentioned the Feywild earlier, I also wanted to mention how in 4E Dark Sun the Feywild was also known as The Land Within the Winds and was heavily damaged as a side-effect of defiling magic. Heroes of the Feywild would later claim that there was only one Feywild that all worlds shared, which I believe to be the first sign of the upcoming 5E approach to settings.

I'm also still curious how the MtG planes somehow fit into the 5E Great Wheel cosmology.