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

 

[Mirtek]

. Also regarding diety status, there was a good Dragon article during 1e that explained that goods have different power on different worlds based on their worshipers / influence on that world. So Tiamat can be a greater god on Krynn and lesser god on Oerth.

Which even back then failed to clarify anything. If one encounters her on the plane is she a lesser deity that just get's a multiplier when affecting Krynn or a greater deity that just had such a narrow tether to Toril that allows her to only squeeze through as much power as a lesser deity could?

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Early D&D just loved throwing names from real world religions and mythology on anything, regardless of appropriateness.

"So what are we gonna call the plane of absolute law that's inhabited by weird geometric dudes?"
"IDK. Nirvana? That's something from some religion, right?"

Also, guess what Bahamut, Moradin, Torm, Heironeous, the Babylonian fire god, the Chinese goddess of childbirth, and the Japanese goddess of the sun all have in common according to Planescape? If you said "they all dwell in Celestia", have a cookie!

Now I'm wondering how the gods of the real world pantheons explain that all their followers' beliefs about the afterlife are wrong (except the followers of the Norse pantheon, more or less, thanks to Ysgard) and that everybody's actually in this Great Wheel.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I just took a quick look at the 5E PHB and noticed that Takhisis is listed as Lawful Evil and has the Death domain suggested, while Tiamat is noted as Lawful Evil and has the Trickery domain suggested.

Tiamat was soon after statted-up in official adventures with the Chaotic Evil alignment. Then, in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, Tiamat is specifically labelled as a "force of Chaos bound in a plane of Law", and that the abishai (who are all Lawful Evil) could possibly be her jailors.

New theory: Takhisis is the Lawful Evil version and conspired to have her Chaotic Evil counterpart imprisoned in Avernus with the Lawful Evil abishai as jailors who masquerade as servants of Tiamat while actually keeping her imprisoned for the benefit of Takhisis. Tiamat may also have been an interloper lesser goddess who was attempting to steal the greater goddess Takhisis' identity, followers, and power, and despite imprisonment is still largely succeeding.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I just considered how things get even more fun when you throw Joe Manganiello's PC, Arkhan the Cruel, into the mix:

So, Joe Manganiello is a big Dragonlance fan and is especially fond of Takhisis (who he personally believes is the same being as Tiamat). From what I've gathered, his character Arkhan started out in Manganiello's home game (which I wouldn't be surprised if it was set in Krynn) before going on a quest throughout various worlds in service of his goddess Tiamat. He acquired the Hand of Vecna from the world of Exandria before heading to Avernus, where he appeared in the adventure Descent into Avernus as the leader of Tiamat's forces. This Vecna had been born in Exandria, had a long history there (where he was opposed by the Raven Queen, who is her on can of worms regarding how beings can be gods or not depending on setting seeing as she's in the Shadowfell and not an Astral Plane), and had only recently become a god before Arkhan seized the Hand; that Arkhan was already aware the Hand was something he could seize implies that he had foreknowledge of Vecna. Considering that the cosmological changes from 2E to 3E were explained as the results of actions Vecna took to become a lesser power, leading (among many other things) to the Forgotten Realms separating from the Great Wheel cosmology to instead have Toril as a kind of hub linking at least three Astral Planes associated with different planes and gods, it's not impossible for a planar traveler like Arkhan to have heard of this Vecna guy already and searched for a counterpart of Vecna in the multiverse that was relatively easy to get to for the sake of acquiring his hand.

Arkhan has a number of possible fates in Descent into Avernus. One is that he can attempt to kill the archdevil Zariel and rule Avernus with the backing of the still imprisoned Tiamat and her underlings. Another is that Tiamat herself can be convinced to help with defeating Zariel and saving Elturel, at which point she possesses Arkhan to speak directly through him before later emerging from her lair (that she apparently is not physically imprisoned within and can leave to roam Avernus whenever she wants; I had previously thought she was literally imprisoned in a location in Avernus, not just unable to leave Avernus).

I feel it's also important to note that Gale Force 9 miniature release for Arkhan and his allies describes Arkhan as a Dragon Highlord (a term from Dragonlance). Plus his alignment is Lawful Evil, despite his goddess being Chaotic Evil. So maybe even Arkhan himself doesn't know what's up with Tiamat.

TL;DR: D&D cosmology and gods don't actually make any coherent sense and are subject to the whims of decades of official writers and individual DMs who all have their own preferred way of doing things.

 

[dave2008]

Which even back then failed to clarify anything. If one encounters her on the plane is she a lesser deity that just get's a multiplier when affecting Krynn or a greater deity that just had such a narrow tether to Toril that allows her to only squeeze through as much power as a lesser deity could?

The article was not specifically directed at a setting, just the general concept of deities. It was Gygax's (I think he was the author) idea about deities, but I think it is relevant that it never made it into an official product like Deities and Demigods.

However, I thought it was pretty clear. Gods have different power when the manifest on different planes (and can only manifest on planes where they have influence). When the manifest on their home plane the are the combination of the discrete manifestations. This concept could easily explain Tiamat lesser god = Takhisis greater god. Now, I am not particularly fond of this approach (I don't like the idea that a god's power is based on its worshipers), but it seems foundational to the understanding of deities in D&D.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I just took a quick look at the 5E PHB and noticed that Takhisis is listed as Lawful Evil and has the Death domain suggested, while Tiamat is noted as Lawful Evil and has the Trickery domain suggested.

Tiamat was soon after statted-up in official adventures with the Chaotic Evil alignment. Then, in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, Tiamat is specifically labelled as a "force of Chaos bound in a plane of Law", and that the abishai (who are all Lawful Evil) could possibly be her jailors.

New theory: Takhisis is the Lawful Evil version and conspired to have her Chaotic Evil counterpart imprisoned in Avernus with the Lawful Evil abishai as jailors who masquerade as servants of Tiamat while actually keeping her imprisoned for the benefit of Takhisis. Tiamat may also have been an interloper lesser goddess who was attempting to steal the greater goddess Takhisis' identity, followers, and power, and despite imprisonment is still largely succeeding.

That is a fun take. I like the idea that avatars of fod would compete against each other

 

[Hexmage-EN]

The article was not specifically directed at a setting, just the general concept of deities. It was Gygax's (I think he was the author) idea about deities, but I think it is relevant that it never made it into an official product like Deities and Demigods.

However, I thought it was pretty clear. Gods have different power when the manifest on different planes (and can only manifest on planes where they have influence). When the manifest on their home plane the are the combination of the discrete manifestations. This concept could easily explain Tiamat lesser god = Takhisis greater god. Now, I am not particularly fond of this approach (I don't like the idea that a god's power is based on its worshipers), but it seems foundational to the understanding of deities in D&D.

The Raven Queen muddies this a bit by being in the Shadowfell, which is connected to all worlds according to official 5E lore, rather than in an Astral Plane. The 4E default setting defined her initially, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes radically changed her and said that she wasn't a goddess, but the wildly popular Critical Role essentially uses the 4E take on the Raven Queen and ignores the version from MToF. We could just say that the Critical Role version isn't canon, but Arkhan the Cruel is specifically stated to have gotten the Hand of Vecna from Exandria in Descent into Avernus, and the WotC-published Wildemount setting book uses the 4E/Critical Role take rather than the MToF version.

So what does this mean? If a party made up of people from Toril, Oerth, the Nentir Vale, and Exandria all went to visit the Raven Queen in the Shadowfell would the former two see the MToF version of the Raven Queen and her realm while the latter two got the 4E/CR Raven Queen experience?

 

[PsyzhranV2]

The Raven Queen muddies this a bit by being in the Shadowfell, which is connected to all worlds according to official 5E lore, rather than in an Astral Plane. The 4E default setting defined her initially, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes radically changed her and said that she wasn't a goddess, but the wildly popular Critical Role essentially uses the 4E take on the Raven Queen and ignores the version from MToF. We could just say that the Critical Role version isn't canon, but Arkhan the Cruel is specifically stated to have gotten the Hand of Vecna from Exandria in Descent into Avernus, and the WotC-published Wildemount setting book uses the 4E/Critical Role take rather than the MToF version.

So what does this mean? If a party made up of people from Toril, Oerth, the Nentir Vale, and Exandria all went to visit the Raven Queen in the Shadowfell would the former two see the MToF version of the Raven Queen and her realm while the latter two got the 4E/CR Raven Queen experience?

They see both versions at the same time, to the extent that their limited mortal brains can handle the strain of perceiving such a thing.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The Raven Queen muddies this a bit by being in the Shadowfell, which is connected to all worlds according to official 5E lore, rather than in an Astral Plane. The 4E default setting defined her initially, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes radically changed her and said that she wasn't a goddess, but the wildly popular Critical Role essentially uses the 4E take on the Raven Queen and ignores the version from MToF. We could just say that the Critical Role version isn't canon, but Arkhan the Cruel is specifically stated to have gotten the Hand of Vecna from Exandria in Descent into Avernus, and the WotC-published Wildemount setting book uses the 4E/Critical Role take rather than the MToF version.

So what does this mean? If a party made up of people from Toril, Oerth, the Nentir Vale, and Exandria all went to visit the Raven Queen in the Shadowfell would the former two see the MToF version of the Raven Queen and her realm while the latter two got the 4E/CR Raven Queen experience?

So much easier if they’re just wholly separate entities in parallel universes with their own distinct and unique cosmologies.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

I quite like the idea that there is a platonic pure form of The Chromatic Dragon that manifests as Tiamat, Takhisis or The Daughter of Khyber on different worlds. If the implication is that Tiamat of Baator is that pure form, that notion can die in a fire.