D&D General New Summary and Release Date for 'Dragons of Deceit'

There's a new Amazon Kindle page for Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's new Dragonlance novel, Dragons of Deceit with a release date of August 9, 2022.

There has been an older Amazon page for the book for a while, with a now-expired release date of July 2021. The existence of the new trilogy from the Dragonlance Chronicles authors was revealed in 2020 when they initiated a lawsuit against WotC for breach of contract.

The book description reads as follows (typos are on the actual Kindle page):

The first new Dragonlance novel from Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman in over a decade, and featuring fan-favorite characters from the iconic first two trilogies, Dragonlance Chronicles and Dragonlance Legends--books that brought a generation of readers into the fantasy fold.

Destina Rosethorn--as her name implies--believes herself to be very much a favored child of destiny. But when her father dis in the War of the Lance, her carefully-constructed world comes crashing down. Not only does she lost her beloved father, but the legacy he has left her: a wealthy fiance, and rule over the family lands and castle. With nothing left in the world to support her but wits and determination, she hatches a bold plan: to secure the Device of Time Journeying she read about in one of her father's books and prevent her father's death.

The last known holder of the Device was one of the Heroes of the Lance: the free-spirited kender, Tasselhoff Burrfoot. BUt when Destina arrives in Solace--home not only to Tas, but to fellow heroes Caramon and Tika Majere--she sets into motion a chain of events more deadly than she had ever anticipated: one that could change not only her personal history, but the fate of the entire world, allowing a previously-defeated evil to once again gain ascendancy.

Dragonlance - Dragonlance's Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman Are Suing WotC for Breach of Contract

For fans of the Dragonlance D&D setting, there's some mixed news which has just hit a court in Washington State: it seems that there's a new Dragonlance trilogy of books which was (until recently) being written; but we may never see them. On 16th October 2020, a lawsuit was filed in the US...

www.enworld.org

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Yeah, Dragonlance's true strength came from how personal interactions played out against a grand backdrop of war. It's about sweeping battles, good vs. evil, romance, dragons, scheming magical orders, code-bound knights. Dragonlance is Solace and the Inn of the Last Home, the Shoikan Grove, Thorbardin. It's Takhisis, Lord Soth, Fistandantilus, and other dangerous enemies. It's heroes like Flint, Laurana, and Huma.

It can be about new adventurers that find themselves becoming legends like those that came before. All the ugly tropes it had in the past can be shed without compromising what makes Dragonlance so special.

You could do a modern take on Dragonlance with all the new races and classes. To me the draw of Dragonlance has always been the sense of discovery that’s at the forefront of the War of the Lance. It’s almost like a setting somewhere in between Dark Sun (full on post-apocalyptic) and Forgotten Realms (standard D&D fantasy). A less drastic version of Dark Sun. That’s what I’ve considered the best part of Dragonlance.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It can be about new adventurers that find themselves becoming legends like those that came before. All the ugly tropes it had in the past can be shed without compromising what makes Dragonlance so special.

Maybe, but I think the authors may have a big problem, no matter how they write the books or update the setting to try and remove the problematic stuff, the whitewashing, and the outright racist bits. If they write the new trilogy to sound and feel like the two old trilogies they are supposed to be a direct follow-up for, people will rightly point out how horrible that sounds, or if they write them with a modern sense of inclusiveness, people will go back to read the older books and be turned off by that old way of thinking and ignorance. The world needs a reboot from the ground up and if, say those two original trilogies are all that stay canon, along with the new trilogy, they should be rewritten and cleaned up too.

 

[Jiggawatts]

My hope is they will use this to correct the timeline to what Tasslehoff first sees when he travels to the future using the Device of Time Journeying in the War of Souls trilogy. Basically the future that would have occurred had Tahkisis never stolen the world at the culmination of the Chaos War.

 

[Dausuul]

Say those two original trilogies are all that stay canon, along with the new trilogy, they should be rewritten and cleaned up too.

I agree, but I don't think the cleanup of the original trilogies is all that heavy a lift. Though I haven't read them in a long time, so there might be stuff I've forgotten.

Obviously, the gully dwarves are the big issue here, and revamping them would be a non-trivial exercise. You can't just get rid of them; Raistlin's relationship with Bupu is a vital part of his character, showing the spark of compassion that keeps him from being utterly unredeemable. At the same time, if you quit playing them for laughs and show how hard their lot really is, you risk making the other characters look callous and cruel when they don't share Raistlin's empathy.

So, that's a delicate and difficult task. But it isn't a large task. In terms of raw word count, gully dwarves don't take up a big fraction of the books. Raistlin's treatment of Crysania is textbook abusive-boyfriend behavior; but Raistlin is by that point avowedly evil, he's committing hideous crimes on a regular basis, and he is outright stated to be manipulating Crysania in the service of his insane ambition. It's not like theirs is presented as a healthy loving relationship.

I feel like the rest could be handled with minor edits, not much different from routine copy editing. (Which, frankly, the original trilogies could also use.)

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I agree with @Dausuul - it's not that difficult to make Dragonlance work with modern sensibilities. When you think about the parts that really mattered in the first two trilogies, it's not the horrible stuff.

Maybe, but I think the authors may have a big problem, no matter how they write the books or update the setting to try and remove the problematic stuff, the whitewashing, and the outright racist bits. If they write the new trilogy to sound and feel like the two old trilogies they are supposed to be a direct follow-up for, people will rightly point out how horrible that sounds, or if they write them with a modern sense of inclusiveness, people will go back to read the older books and be turned off by that old way of thinking and ignorance. The world needs a reboot from the ground up and if, say those two original trilogies are all that stay canon, along with the new trilogy, they should be rewritten and cleaned up too.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

I agree, but I don't think the cleanup of the original trilogies is all that heavy a lift. Though I haven't read them in a long time, so there might be stuff I've forgotten.

Obviously, the gully dwarves are the big issue here, and revamping them would be a non-trivial exercise. You can't just get rid of them; Raistlin's relationship with Bupu is a vital part of his character, showing the spark of compassion that keeps him from being utterly unredeemable. At the same time, if you quit playing them for laughs and show how hard their lot really is, you risk making the other characters look callous and cruel when they don't share Raistlin's empathy.

So, that's a delicate and difficult task. But it isn't a large task. In terms of raw word count, gully dwarves don't take up a big fraction of the books. Raistlin's treatment of Crysania is textbook abusive-boyfriend behavior; but Raistlin is by that point avowedly evil, he's committing hideous crimes on a regular basis, and he is outright stated to be manipulating Crysania in the service of his insane ambition. It's not like theirs is presented as a healthy loving relationship.

I feel like the rest could be handled with minor edits, not much different from routine copy editing. (Which, frankly, the original trilogies could also use.)

I'm fine with them being exposes as callous and uncaring if that is what there actions and behavior make them to be.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm fine with them being exposes as callous and uncaring if that is what there actions and behavior make them to be.

Well, yeah, but generally those aren't attributes you want in characters who are being presented as the heroes. (There are novels that deliberately showcase such "heroes," but Dragonlance ain't one of them.) So, their actions and behavior should be brought in line with the intended portrayal.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, yeah, but generally those aren't attributes you want in characters who are being presented as the heroes. (There are novels that deliberately showcase such "heroes," but Dragonlance ain't one of them.) So, their actions and behavior should be brought in line with the intended portrayal.

And it’s odd behavior, from them.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The strategy could to give an ambiguous end. For example the apocalyptic Krynn where Raitslin was the only god still remains, but it is a "domain" within the Abyss, like a far cousin of Ravenloft. They are a "perfect future" where almost everybody is happy, but this isn't totally real, but a "delight domain" in the afterlife, and then all the population are "petitioners". Or when a new timeline is created by the time-travelers and later "fixed" by others, really it is not "rewritten" but become a domain within the dream land, something like the original letters covered by a correction fluid. I guess here WotC only should open the door and allow the own players to create their own ideas to know what works better and can be accepted by the rest of the fandom.

Or Raitslin the god from the apocalyptic future finds a loophole for the repopulation of their sphere, a planar gate toward Kalidnay (the dark domain and the original from Athas), and lots of refugees are wellcome. And the defiler magic would work a little different. The life in the area would be damaged by the recovery would be faster, only this "returned" life would be "tainted", toxic for the no-necrotouched beings (only carrion-eater animals and werebeasts are (almost) immune). The god Raitslin also would allow chronomancers to use the Krynn-sphere like a hidding room if they help to the rebuilding.

Or lord Sorth in the afterlife search his wife and son, and the deities demand a special favor, and now lord Sorth is in crossfire between two factions, the god Raitslin and the "only god" the king-priest of Istar (Beldinas Pilofiro), fighting each other to save their own timeline using others as peripheral war (in one where Krynn is invaded by the Vodoni empire). The title would be "Lord Soth: undead (again) and furious".

Or a Krynn ruled by the seekers, and order of mystics with psionic powers. The truth is this is an artificial demiplane created by high-technology, by the fraals, like a hidding room or bunker within the space-time continium who face other alien faction with time-travel tech. the Oads, from the module "Where Chaos reigns"

* I don't like that ridiculous manicheism about a cosmic balance between good and evil. The true cosmic harmony is when people obey the Natural Law. "Sorry, your bride and family were eaten by those zombies with superpowers but it is a necessary sacrifice to restore the balance because the people from the little poney valley are too happy and purehearted".

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Well, I won't comment on the actual synopsis, as its implementation can range from as awful as The Cursed Child to as good as Avengers: Endgame. Time travel itself is not inherently negative, it can be written well or not.

But I am absolutely pro-reboot. I understand folks want to move the story forward, but Dragonlance isn't exactly Star Wars; its got its fair share of fans, but most of them are those who read the original books when they were first being released. The property has largely fallen off collective consciousness, and those who ARE familiar with it remember the War of the Lance, and not much else.

And yes, stuff like Gully Dwarves absolutely needs to be scrubbed out of the setting. So I have no problem with the "Star Trek Film Reboot" style where time-travel creates an alternate Krynn where the most problematic issues are stripped out, and we get to redo the most iconic Dragonlance material for 5E.