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

 

[Maxperson]

While I don't doubt they'll make them the same entities across worlds, I find that perhaps the least interesting way they could choose to handle them. But, I'm personally not a big fan of WotC's "make it all one big cosmology" approach. I prefer they let them be disconnected and discrete and unique in form and function.

I thought I read somewhere that the same god in different settings are the same being, but are essentially variants like Loki. So the Tyr of the Forgotten Realms and the Tyr of Norse Mythology are at the same time the same being, but different beings. For the life of me I can't remember where I saw it, though.

 

[Parmandur]

I thought I read somewhere that the same god in different settings are the same being, but are essentially variants like Loki. So the Tyr of the Forgotten Realms and the Tyr of Norse Mythology are at the same time the same being, but different beings. For the life of me I can't remember where I saw it, though.

Well, that seems to be what Wyatt is doing with the Dragons here, interestingly: not just the gods, but all Dragons. Each individual Dragon has echoes on different worlds, and can communicate with other versions under certain circumstances and grow in power.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Fair enough. One thing I'd note is that Warner doesn't own Lord of The Rings, they have the rights to make movies and video games with it. The ownership is still solidly in the hands of the Tolkien Estate. I personally think it should be public domain by now, but that's only tangentially related to the other thing.

Star Wars is a fun example, because the new movies have some bright points, but very few people love all three movies, far as I can tell, and I doubt anyone (even Abrams, Johnson, Kennedy, etc) would argue that the trilogy would have been worse if Lucas had given it to Filoni to make with Lucas' general oversight. Hell, I'd say that the prequels are better, and I enjoyed the first 2 movies of the sequels and still love the characters introduced, but I'd definitely posit that Lucas would have made a better trilogy. Especially if he learned from the prequels and made sure that he had strong willed editors and such working with him rather than basically doing it all himself.

The point of which is, sure, I love the MCU movies. But I don't think it's true that they are better than what would be made if all of those characters that are older than 30 years old were in the public domain, and the remainder were owned by their creators. Very different, sure, but not better.

In fact, if not for the consolidation of IP, hollywood wouldn't be able to just constantly dip into the same IP all the time, because others would have the same access to most of it, so they'd have to try to present something audiences wouldn't have watched twice last year from 2 different studios.

Yeah my LotR point was mostly just tied to "A good thing can be mad possible by a big corporation, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will be bad in quality."

As for the stuff on Star Wars... I'll just say I disagree. I don't love all three movies of the new trilogy, but I think the first two are definitely a full breadth of quality better than the prequels. I'm a younger person, and watched the prequels when I was a child (and enjoyed them), but now watching them I can only enjoy them with nostalgia glasses on. If I put my critic brain on, they're boring, bland dialogue with overly complicated politics with haphazard and predictable character development. The new movies have plenty of flaws but I can at least watch them and be entertained.

I now believe George Lucas was only able to create the incredible original films with quite a lot of studio interference, forcing him to take a step back as director (thank you Irvin Kershner), include the writing talents of Lawrence Kasdan and others, and allow the film editing talents of Paul Hirsch and Martha Lucas (he got lucky there!). The enforced budgetary concerns if anything kept the films tighter and more tonally consistent.

Rant over, I'm glad Star Wars is in other hands!

 

[Maxperson]

Well, that seems to be what Wyatt is doing with the Dragons here, interestingly: not just the gods, but all Dragons. Each individual Dragon has echoes on different worlds, and can communicate with other versions under certain circumstances and grow in power.

I saw that. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. For gods it's one thing and is highly dependent on mortal belief in them, but dragons for all of their power, are not as powerful as the gods.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Sure, but Tiamat and Takhisis are not unique in form in function. If they where, this wouldn’t be an argument

While I don't doubt they'll make them the same entities across worlds, I find that perhaps the least interesting way they could choose to handle them. But, I'm personally not a big fan of WotC's "make it all one big cosmology" approach. I prefer they let them be disconnected and discrete and unique in form and function.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I saw that. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. For gods it's one thing and is highly dependent on mortal belief in them, but dragons for all of their power, are not as powerful as the gods.

Well that is track I’ve been taking at times since BECMI, which basically treats dragons that way. I like the idea the T&B are just big old dragons, not “gods” at all

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The Feywild and Shadowfell are mirrors of the Material Plane, so there is only one Feywild the same way there is only one Material Plane, but like the Material Plane, the Feywild has many worlds within it.

Great. That sucks. let it be the case in The Great Wheel, and allow worlds like Krynn and Eberron to not be part of the Great Wheel.

Why? Why does your desire trump the desire of others? I’m mean it can be whatever you want in your game.

My desire is for settings to be built to tell their own unique story, not to support a metasetting that will never benefit 99% of games actually run in the real world, but will change the nature of individual settings and thus impact games set in those settings.

As much as I enjoy seeing Arkhan the Cruel in Avernus, that could have been done without making the entire dnd catalogue of published worlds into the same multiverse. It could be done without cheapening what Takhisis and Paladine are, or what the Progenitor Wyrms of Eberron are.

Exactly! It's easier to take out than to add.

Not always, and certainly not in this case. The settings get materially altered to fit the shared cosmology. What new players expect from the settings changes as a result, as well as the material in the books changing. It would have been vastly easier for you to connect the various settings using the basic premises of planescape than it will be for those of us who dislike this model to remove it from individual settings and figure out how to fit the pieces together after excising the unwanted material added solely to make Krynn and Eberron exist in the same material plane as Toril.

You made the connection between the Allegory of the Cave and xenophobia, which I admittedly thought was completely random, so I guess I just do not know what you were trying to say.

You can't see the connection between using it to talk about the supposed ignorance of a group of people and the superiority complex of ancient Greek and Roman society and the rhetoric used by imperialist throughout history to paint their expansion as good for the people they invade?

I mean, that is technically yucking other people's yum, even if it is a correct cinematic opinion. It would be yucking other people's yum in certain contexts.

No, it isn't.

Sure, you don't like it, other's do. Big deal.

In the meantime, the totally official make believe is that Paladine and Bahamut are the same. Or not at a given table. It doesn't matter.

If it doesn't matter to you, then why are you so adamant that it should be the way you prefer? If clearly does matter to others, but only your determination of how much a thing matters is relevant?

The new Star Wars material is uneven, but due to corporate backing is coming at a pretty consistent rate. As such, due to the odds if nothing else it has already put out more quality product since 2012 than Lucas did between 1984 and 2012.

Okay?

 

[Maxperson]

Why? Why does your desire trump the desire of others? I’m mean it can be whatever you want in your game.

Yes, absolutely. I think @doctorbadwolf is talking about the default of the settings, not what DMs what to make of a setting for their table. And I agree with that. Different settings with different cosmologies is one of the things that I really like about the various settings. I dislike this tendency I'm seeing to want to homogenize the settings by making sure all of the races are in Dark Sun and such. Let settings be unique.

 

[Parmandur]

I saw that. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. For gods it's one thing and is highly dependent on mortal belief in them, but dragons for all of their power, are not as powerful as the gods.

It seems to reinvent Dragons as minor deities of land and stream, as it were.

 

[Maxperson]

Well that is track I’ve been taking at times since BECMI, which basically treats dragons that way. I like the idea the T&B are just big old dragons, not “gods” at all

That's fair. And if you treat dragons as a few unique creatures that are reborn when they die, it can really work out. It's just not something that I have done and I'm not sure if I like it yet.