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

 

[Sword of Spirit]

But you know what? Who cares? It doesn't matter how many people share your worldview on how D&D "works", because none of those millions of other people play in your game.

I agree with some of the things you said, and disagree with others, but I just want to make a quick comment on this one point.

It matters, because the less my D&D multiverse resembles whatever is currently being marketed by the IP holders, the less comfortable newer players who weren't fully introduced to the game by me will feel joining my game. Every time they make changes to the lore of D&D, they make it that much harder for established players and newer players to comfortably play together. They fracture the fan-base.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

To me, as long as setting books still represent that setting's cosmology (as Rising did with Eberron) I don't really care what other books say. I will treat the multiverse as the loki series treated the MCU. Tiamat has a lot of variants. Most of them are alike, trapped somewhere. But sometimes there is a variant that is different, like Takhisis...

Part of the problem is that D&D uses the term "multiverse" in a way unlike other media properties.

For example, Spider-Man in recent years has been shown to have many different iterations and counterparts in many different worlds through "Spiderverse" comics and movies. The idea of the multiverse is that there are many different Spider-Men or Spider-Man counterparts.

D&D, in contrast, goes the opposite direction (5E in particular). Here, the term "multiverse" refers to a standardized set of planes shared by all worlds.

Whereas in Marvel Comics the term "multiverse" means there are possibly infinite versions of Spider-Man or similar characters, in D&D "multiverse" means that there is only one Tiamat (or Bahamut, or Corellon, etc), and that seeming counterparts such as Takhisis are actually just the Tiamat in Avernus. 5E has gone even further than that by claiming, for example, all elves were created by Corellon, despite what the previous lore of various settings has suggested.

To put it simply, the D&D "multiverse" isn't actually a multiverse so much as it is a finite collection of planes. It was closer to what is more popularly understood as a multiverse during the 3E and 4E era.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

It matters, because the less my D&D multiverse resembles whatever is currently being marketed by the IP holders, the less comfortable newer players who weren't fully introduced to the game by me will feel joining my game. Every time they make changes to the lore of D&D, they make it that much harder for established players and newer players to comfortably play together. They fracture the fan-base.

Yeah, the more 5E homogenizes settings and says that every setting has the same planes and same gods the more players will be thrown by innovations by DMs or even takes based on older versions of settings. It also discourages DMs from creating their own cosmologies and gods.

I mentioned earlier the story I read where one player assumed that Mystra would have a presence in Eberron because she, as of 5E, exists in the Eberron cosmology (which is a subset of the default 5E cosmology) and is the goddess of magic, which has always existed in Eberron. In 3E and 4E Eberron was in it's own cosmology, but now in 5E it's just a little bubble with the default 5E cosmology and its gods just beyond it.

Though the DM who relayed this story didn't allow the player to play a follower of Mystra, I personally would have allowed it because in 5E Mystra definitely does exist in the same cosmology as Eberron and she is a goddess of magic, which Eberron has plenty of. I wouldn't have been particularly happy about it because it dilutes what makes Eberron unique, but players starting out by reading the 5E Eberron sourcebook will understandably have a greater expectation that followers of gods from other settings could be allowed since Mystra and company do now definitely exist in the same cosmology as Eberron.

 

[Bolares]

D&D, in contrast, goes the opposite direction (5E in particular). Here, the term "multiverse" refers to a standardized set of planes shared by all worlds.

I get that, but that implies D&D is saying only one thing, and it is not. When Tome of foes came out, it said all elves everywhere are born from Corellon, even if there was no Corellon in the setting. Then Rising came out and contradicted it directly by saying beings from the great wheel couldn't affect Eberron. So it take it to mean that the books are inconsistent and are to be treated as a collection of ideas, that serve as inspiration, not gospel

 

[DEFCON 1]

I agree with some of the things you said, and disagree with others, but I just want to make a quick comment on this one point.

It matters, because the less my D&D multiverse resembles whatever is currently being marketed by the IP holders, the less comfortable newer players who weren't fully introduced to the game by me will feel joining my game. Every time they make changes to the lore of D&D, they make it that much harder for established players and newer players to comfortably play together. They fracture the fan-base.

You (and I and everyone) ALWAYS deals with this. And we all get over it.

This is no different than your game not having dragonborn in it (if that was your choice). If you indeed go looking for a new player, and that player has read the PHB and seen that dragonborn are in the Races chapter... you now have to tell them they can't play a dragonborn. And if they really want to and that's their only choice, they won't be playing in your game.

That's what we ALL do. All the time. This whole multiverse thing is no different.

If you can let this "new player" to your game know that your setting doesn't have dragonborn... or only uses the Core Four classes... or is run in a modified Mystara setting... or that the ability score that modifies Intimidation is STR rather than CHA... or rearranges the order of the Exhaustion table... or any other house rule / modification to your game of D&D... you can let them know that the "Great Wheel" is not the default cosmology of your game either.

And that "new player"? They'll hear what you have to say and go... "Uh... okay. Whatever you say."

We all get over it. We always have... and we always will.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

This is no different than your game not having dragonborn in it (if that was your choice). If you indeed go looking for a new player, and that player has read the PHB and seen that dragonborn are in the Races chapter... you now have to tell them they can't play a dragonborn, if they really want to, they won't be playing in your game.

I realize this is my own perspective on things (and definitely colors my other opinions in this thread), but if an official book has options for players that aren't specifically noted as being limited to that setting only then I feel like I don't have a right to arbitrarily tell them they can't have a dragonborn character when the official books tell them they can. At the very least I should accommodate them by having their dragonborn character be very unique.

PCs being special snowflakes doesn't bother me nearly as much as official books saying that all settings have the same Outer Planes with no allowance for removing or adding to them and any unique planes previously mentioned by a setting as being aberrations contained as lesser planes with the one true set of Outer Planes.

 

[Bolares]

because she, as of 5E, exists in the Eberron cosmology (which is a subset of the default 5E cosmology)

This is just not correct. Even in 5e, eberron has it's on pantheons and cosmology, and by default the rest of the multiverse can't affect it. Players will always have assumptions, and that's okay. It's our job as DMs (In my opinion) to adjust their expectations with the world we are using/building and acomodate when possible and give alternatives when not possible.

 

[dave2008]

I can't be sure because of the medium, but when you say "shape the cosmology takes" implies to me that either I am not explain my point well (most likely) or you are not understanding. There is no shape to the Great Wheel. Is is simply a name used to provide an organization in the minds of those who use it. It is really nothing, it does not have the "shape" assigned to it. So, Eberron being "in" the Great Wheel is the same as Eberron being "outside" the Great Wheel. The Great Wheel is not a thing, it is a way of understanding a thing, albeit poorly.

So when one says: Eberron is within the Great Wheel cosmology. That doesn't mean it is physically within the Great Wheel (since the GW is not a thing), it simply means: It means I understand the relationship of Eberron to the rest of reality within the context of my understanding of the Great Wheel.

Hmm. I finding this hard to explain.

@doctorbadwolf as a follow up, I want to understand what the "Great Wheel" is to you? Is it basically as @Hexmage-EN described in post #569?

 

[Hexmage-EN]

This is just not correct. Even in 5e, eberron has it's on pantheons and cosmology, and by default the rest of the multiverse can't affect it. Players will always have assumptions, and that's okay. It's our job as DMs (In my opinion) to adjust their expectations with the world we are using/building and acomodate when possible and give alternatives when not possible.

5E Eberron's cosmology is just a segregated subset of the default 5E cosmology, meaning that all the gods and lore that are mentioned in the Forgotten Realms are equally true in the cosmology of 5E Eberron. Even if the rest of the 5E default cosmology is arbitrarily cut-off from it (which raises the question of why the designers even put Eberron and its entire cosmology inside of the canon 5E cosmology in the first place), as of 5E Eberron is in a bubble and separated from the real Outer Planes and the true gods that exist just beyond that bubble.

 

[Bolares]

5E Eberron's cosmology is just a segregated subset of the default 5E cosmology, meaning that all the gods and lore that are mentioned in the Forgotten Realms are equally true in the cosmology of 5E Eberron.

Not by default. Rising from the last war is pretty clear on this point.
""Eberron is part of the Great Wheel of the multiverse, as described in the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide. At the same time, it is fundamentally apart from the rest of the Great Wheel, sealed off from the other planes even while it's encircled by its own wheeling cosmology."

If it's sealed of from the other planes, Mystra can't access Eberron