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

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Sorry, I still don't get it.

No worries. A scenario is soemthing like “a heist”, whereas a setting is a place, time, etc.

 

[Maxperson]

Imagine you're at a coffee shop, enjoying your latte, minding your own business, when suddenly somebody runs up to you and starts proselytizing to you. You tell them that you're not interested in whatever religion they're selling, but then they reveal that they're Baha'i and argue that whatever you believe, Baha'i's got that covered, because really, all religions are just different stages of the revelation of Baha'ism, and are fundamentally the same in their reverence of God, and all the world's major religious icons were prophets of that God.

Except that you're a Buddhist and thus don't even believe in the existence of a capital-G God, much less the idea that Gautama Buddha was a misinterpreted prophet of said God rather than a perfectly enlightened being above all gods. And so you stare at them going "What the actual hell are you talking about?" Only for said God to have been the barista the entire time, watching your conversation and silently laughing at you, before showing you a vision with incontrovertible proof that everything you believed about the universe was wrong.

Doctorbadwolf's example of the Progenitor Dragons being "demoted" by being shoved into the Great Wheel is similar. If we take Eberron as standalone, the Progenitors created everything. They may have been literal god dragons, or they may be personifications of the abstract forces of creation, destruction, and transformation; but point is, they're top of the heap. But if we take Eberron as being one universe among many in the Great Wheel... well, we don't have the solid story of who created the universe; maybe it was Ahriman and Jazirian, maybe it was the interplay of the purest essences of Law, Chaos, Good, and Evil mixing together and reacting with each other, or maybe WotC's gonna retcon it in Fizban's as being Bahamut and Tiamat who created not just the Material Plane but everything; but point is, it wasn't the Progenitors. The Progenitors are now three powerful, but not all-powerful beings who rather than creating the entire universe decided to go to an existing, if empty corner of the universe and turn it into their playground. The story largely plays out the same as before: the Progenitors create the 13 planes, Siberys and Khyber argue, eventually Khyber kills Siberys but then Eberron imprisons Khyber, creating the planet Eberron; but the Progenitors in this scenario still have been demoted to a lower class of being. And if a person from Eberron learns the truth of their existence and place within the universe, whether by communing with the Progenitors or by being shown the truth by an interloper from another world, that would shatter their entire worldview.

Nobody got demoted, though. Even if the Progenitor Wyrm myth is real, they only created the universe, not multiverse. They created only Eberron and the planes that exist around it, not everything. They were never the end all be all, since Eberron existed as only one setting among many in 3.5 which had the Great Wheel. It was always a default part of the D&D multiverse. It's just that the beings inside the setting had no idea and believed their myth to be real and Eberron to be the only planet(setting).

 

[Dire Bare]

Well that is completely opposite from my viewpoint! The only D&D novels I have read are some dragonlance novels about 35 years ago or something!

Over the decades, I've read ALL of the D&D novels and most of the D&D RPG books (and the comics, the movies, and the cartoon show). That sounds like a flex, but is rather more of an embarrassed confession. The lore as revealed in the many, many D&D novels over the years is just as inconsistent and ever-changing as the lore revealed in the RPG books.

I'm getting to a point in my life where canon matters . . . but is secondary to story. If you tell me a good D&D story, even if you fudge or change the details of canon . . . I'm good. I can enjoy each novel on it's own merits (or not, some of them are stinkers), and I can enjoy each game product on it's own merits. I only need to reconcile differences in canon when I feel like doing so in my game, or when discussing lore on the intertubes with other nerds.

I don't get the PASSION some of us nerds have to GET THE DETAILS RIGHT . . . not just with D&D, but with other nerd franchises like Star Wars, Marvel, Star Trek, etc, etc . . . None of these long-lasting major story franchises have ever had consistent and unchanging canon.

 

[Bolares]

At the end of the day... I'm just happy to be able to spend this much time discussing the cosmology and metaphisical implications of a setting I love...

 

[Maxperson]

I'm pretty sure everybody in the thread agrees that the Eberron cosmology exists and is real within the setting. It's that the very idea of Eberron existing within the Great Wheel rather than being an independent universe has metaphysical and ontological implications for that setting that people don't like.

But Eberron has always been a part of the D&D setting community. All of the settings exist within the D&D cosmos, whichever variation of the cosmos that is, and have since Eberron came out in 2004. It was just isolated by its unique cosmology.

Since the default for 5e is the Great Wheel, that's the community that Eberron is isolated within. Nothing has really changed.

 

[Dire Bare]

That quote is from Rising actually.

Rising has another section that more explicitly details possible interactions between Eberron and the rest of the multiverse.

Eberron and the Multiverse​

It is theoretically possible to travel between Eberron and other worlds in the multiverse by means of the Deep Ethereal or various spells designed for planar travel, but the cosmology of Eberron is specifically designed to prevent such travel, to keep the world hidden away from the meddling of gods, celestials, and fiends from beyond.

The three progenitor wyrms worked together to form Eberron and its planes as a new cosmic system in the depths of the Ethereal Plane. They recreated the elves, orcs, dragons, and other races found throughout the multiverse and placed them in their new world, but allowed them to develop beyond the reach of Gruumsh, Corellon, Lolth, and other influences for good and ill.

In your campaign, you might decide that the barrier formed by the Ring of Siberys is intact, and contact between Eberron and the worlds and planes beyond its cosmology is impossible. This is the default assumption of this book. On the other hand, you might want to incorporate elements from other realms. Perhaps you want to use a published adventure that involves Tiamat or the forces of the Abyss meddling in the affairs of the world. In such a case, it could be that the protection offered by the Ring of Siberys has begun to fail. You might link the weakening of Siberys to the Mourning — perhaps whatever magical catastrophe caused the Mourning also disrupted the Ring of Siberys, or perhaps a disruption of the Ring of Siberys actually caused the Mourning!

If contact between Eberron and the wider multiverse is recent and limited, consider the implications for everyone involved. In the Great Wheel, Asmodeus is an ancient threat, with well-established cults, lines of tieflings, and a long history of meddling that sages might uncover in dusty old tomes hidden in remote libraries. But if Asmodeus has only just discovered Eberron and begun to influence it for the first time, there is no lore about him to be discovered on Eberron. He has no power base and needs to recruit new followers. Unusual alliances might form against him, as celestials and fiends join forces to expel this hostile outsider.

I feel like I must be missing something, because none of that changes the conclusions I'm drawing from Wayfinder's, Rising, and the Crawford interview.

After reading the excerpt from Rising, I'm also struck by something . . . It's been a while, so I might be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure that Lolth, Tiamat, Asmodeus, and other D&D iconic figures DO exist in Eberron! But they are recast as Lords of Dust or something else Eberron-appropriate. Much like the difference between Tiamat and Dragonlance's Takhisis . . . these beings are simultaneously the same being and yet not the same being . . . and how exactly that works doesn't matter and is intentionally left vague. Just like Thelanis both is and is not the same thing as the Feywild.

 

[Bolares]

but I'm pretty sure that Lolth, Tiamat, Asmodeus, and other D&D iconic figures DO exist in Eberron!

Tiamat is the Daughter of Khyber, an overlord. Lolth and Asmodeus I'm not sure about though.

 

[Bolares]

Just like Thelanis both is and is not the same thing as the Feywild.

Depends if you consider Exploring Eberron canon (you should ). They are quite different.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

To me, what's in print is "canon", and interviews with authors and designers are interesting and useful to get the intent behind the canon, but are not canon themselves. Of course ultimately, what is or isn't canon is decided by WotC. Which we are then free to use, ignore, or adapt as we feel!

But still, thanks for the links, the conversation between Tito and Crawford was interesting and informative on how WotC views Eberron in 5E!

However . . . I'm not pulling the same conclusions from that blub and interview that you are.

The Ring of Siberys protects and isolates Eberron from the greater D&D multiverse, Eberron has no direct connections to the planes of the Great Wheel. We can probably agree on that point. Crawford relates the ring to Eberron's crystal sphere, but IS the ring Eberron's crystal sphere? The 13 planes of Eberron were described in the interview as "mini-planes" and unique to Eberron's universe, while they could be finite (they are certainly more focused in theme), that doesn't necessarily mean they exist within Eberron's crystal sphere and exist within the material plane. There isn't really anything in the interview (at least, that I got) that changes the idea that Eberron's planes are outer planes floating in the Astral, but they are different planes than those on the Great Wheel.

Of course, whichever model you prefer is good. I personally don't care for the idea of outer planes within the material plane within more outer planes, it seems unnecessarily complicated and inelegant. And I'm not convinced this is how Baker, Crawford, and WotC view Eberron's place in the greater D&D cosmology.

And ultimately . . . I don't think it matters. You and I could play in an Eberron campaign together for years, and not realize we have different views on how exactly Eberron's cosmology is or isn't connected to the other D&D worlds. Heck, we could play in a Planescape campaign with the same result.

I don't think this is a problem that really needs an answer. The vague statement from Wayfinder's that you quoted is enough for me, really even more than I needed.

I largely agree with your entire comment here; I personally think the DMG gives an open invitation to ignore all printed material on the planes entirely, and although most material likes to use the Great Wheel as its preferred model (or default), the DMG kind of says that this can never truly be confirmed.

Once you've decided on the planes you want to use in your campaign, putting them into a coherent cosmology is an optional step. Since the primary way of traveling from plane to plane, even using the Transitive Planes, is through magical portals that link planes together, the exact relationship of different planes to one another is largely a theoretical concern. No being in the multiverse can look down and see the planes in their arrangement the same way as we look at a diagram in a book. No mortal can verify whether Mount Celestia is sandwiched between Bytopia and Arcadia, but it's a convenient theoretical construct based on the philosophical shading among the three planes and the relative importance they give to law and good.

Sages have constructed a few such theoretical models to make sense of the jumble of planes, particularly the Outer Planes. The three most common are the Great Wheel, the World Tree, and the World Axis, but you can create or adapt whatever model works best for the planes you want to use in your game.

This largely gives an open door for DMs to completely disregard the Great Wheel, essentially saying "The sages of Candlekeep think the Planes are in a Great Wheel... but they're wrong, it's actually a giant plate on the back of four cosmic tortoises!"

My original comment is largely trying to take all of the default assumptions and trying to collate it into one thing... but the DMG quote above can invalidate any multiversal theory.

Someone did point out to me that the Eberron Planes aren't encased in the Ring, so that does mean that they float... somewhere. I believe they just orbit Eberron as normal (I guess in the Phlogiston, but I prefer the Astral which makes more sense here).

 

[Dire Bare]

Nobody got demoted, though. Even if the Progenitor Wyrm myth is real, they only created the universe, not multiverse. They created only Eberron and the planes that exist around it, not everything. They were never the end all be all, since Eberron existed as only one setting among many in 3.5 which had the Great Wheel. It was always a default part of the D&D multiverse. It's just that the beings inside the setting had no idea and believed their myth to be real and Eberron to be the only planet(setting).

It's not current canon, but I don't have a problem with all of these ideas co-existing together as "truth" . . .

1. Eberron is a part of the D&D multiverse that also contains other worlds like Krynn, Toril, Athas, Oerth, etc.
2. Eberron is linked to a different set of planes than some other worlds, some of these planes may be unique, others may be echoes of Great Wheel planar locations, and others might just be the same planes from the Great Wheel with different names.
3. The progenitor wyrms DID create "all of existence".
4. Yet, other worlds exist outside their influence, with their own creation stories.
5. It all might be seemingly contradictory, but it's all true. Ultimate truth is beyond mortal, and perhaps even godly, comprehension.

Ideas that I don't think we really need . . .

1. A convoluted and unnecessary explanation of why Eberron is isolated and "protected" from the greater multiverse. Or Athas, or Krynn.