Dragonlance DRAGONLANCE LIVES! Unearthed Arcana Explores Heroes of Krynn!

The latest Unearthed Arcana has arrived and the 6-page document contains rules for kender, lunar magic, Knights of Solamnia, and Mages of High Sorcery.

In today’s Unearthed Arcana, we explore character options from the Dragonlance setting. This playtest document presents the kender race, the Lunar Magic sorcerer subclass, the Knight of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery backgrounds, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons.

Kender have a (surprisingly magical) ability to pull things out of a bag, and a supernatural taunt feature. This magical ability appears to replace the older 'kleptomania' description -- "Unknown to most mortals, a magical phenomenon surrounds a kender. Spurred by their curiosity and love for trinkets, curios, and keepsakes, a kender’s pouches or pockets will be magically filled with these objects. No one knows where these objects come from, not even the kender. This has led many kender to be mislabeled as thieves when they fish these items out of their pockets."

Lunar Magic is a sorcerer subclass which draws power from the moon(s); there are notes for using it in Eberron.

Also included are feats such as Adepts of the Black, White, and Red Robes, and Knights of the Sword, Rose, and Crown.

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[Parmandur]

I don’t believe “Gypsys” where ever characterized as having a “child-like innocence.”

Being child-like is, actually, and being constitutionally incapable of conforming to social norms...like the Kender.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Well, I don't think that the Hickman's were animated by a deeply personal animus against the Rpmani people: I rather suspect they had never encountered any explicitly Romani people in Utah growing up. They were engaged in common cultural tropes that I think a lot of Americans had forgotten were even racialized, which is lazy and unfortunate, but understandable coming from that time and place.

Wizards of the Coast in 2022 knows more about this sort of thing, and is responsible for acting on thst increased knowledge.

My understanding about Kender specifically is that Hickman made a Halfling Thief, but was opposed to playing an immoral character, so came up with the innocent, curious kleptomanoac shtick to justify Thief actions, and they thought it was hilarious and went Too Far.

Not to mention they were just copying Dracula who had “gypsys” as servants.

Don’t blame them, blame Bram Stoker.

 

[JEB]

I haven't seen many of those in this thread. Care to share a few examples?

How about @Dire Bare, who directly responded to one of your previous posts?

Like Umbran said, this is a discussion forum. If someone lists their opinion and make a big fuss about a minor change . . . I don't think it's out of question to ask them to justify their opinion on the change. Especially for something like changing the single most hated race in the history of D&D to get rid of the traits that make people hate it. That to me logically says that they just hate change for the sake of hating change. Especially when there are other posts from different threads backing up that mindset.

The poster in question gave their answer. You just didn't like it. As @Umbran also said, at that point it's time to move on, no need to paint them as a malevolent force.

 

[Parmandur]

Not to mention they were just copying Dracula who had “gypsys” as servants.

Don’t blame them, blame Bram Stoker.

I mean, "blame" is complex when it comes to propagating racist ideas. I don't think they are bad, immoral people, but they were infected with racist ideas and passed them on. I don't blame people for being sick, but I would recommend they take medicine to cease being ill and not spread it around.

 

[Azzy]

If Wizards thought that most folks aren't interested in setting books, and only scavenge them for useful bits, why wouldn't they just publish the useful bits in a "Worlds of the Multiverse" book or the like? Instead, they keep doing setting books. So I assume they think there must be a market.

Because that would be one book compared to several. Plus, I'm sure there's a likely a statistically significant non-zero amout of setting fans that want WotC to put out a book for their setting (and/or open it up on DM's Guild).

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

That weirded me out too. I am wondering if the book will include moon rules in general (this was the case in the 3.5 book) and then the moon sorcerer is special in that they basically can just choose whatever phase they want

Honestly I'm torn with the sorcere subclass. On the one hand it is very thematic and cool mechanically, but one the other it feels very much like they are going to do exactly what I worry they will with the lore: pretty much wipe the slate clean of the 3.5 lore changes.

First, I don't think moon magic is something that should be limited to one class for the setting and if it is it sure as heck should not be sorcerer, and I say this as someone who really feels the sorcerer could use the love as a class.

Heck, it even arguably breaks their previous cannon to have sorcerer be influenced by moons when the books are very clear to depict primal sorcery as both a) based on willpower and feeling moreso than study (i.e. charisma) and b) NOT something that comes from the moons. Heck it was even all but implied that the only reasons they could even use it was because the gods (i.e. the Moons) were gone and because of the residual effects of Chaos's magic messing with mortals and the world. It is a big retcon in the lore to make them just "charisma wizards", especially because...again...the cannon lore is that Sorcery is considered outright "blasphemy" by the moon gods. It's why Coryn is outright denied being the leader of the wizards in The Wizard Conclave, and frankly removing this tension and dichotomy between the magic users of the setting removes a lot of good storytelling potential for DMs.

...magical lore implications aside, I'm mixed on the backgrounds and feats, mostly because I don't like the idea of feats being restricted to backgrounds and I don't like the idea of any of the knight orders being "locked" behind backgrounds or feats either.

What I personally want from a sourcebook for the setting are moon magic rules for more than one class, some actual good mass combat rules, and some good faction material ala the Ravnica Guilds (except ideally not tied to certain backgrounds). I'd also like some dang material to work with for some of the gods that aren't freaking Paladine and Takhisis, because there are more than a few of them that literally have nothing more in any edition/book beyond a single paragraph or two (looking at you Sirion and Zivilyn!).

I'll be buying the book either way, just something tells me I'm likely to not use like half of it, despite running a campaign for the setting right now.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Honestly I'm torn with the sorcere subclass. On the one hand it is very thematic and cool mechanically, but one the other it feels very much like they are going to do exactly what I worry they will with the lore: pretty much wipe the slate clean of the 3.5 lore changes.

First, I don't think moon magic is something that should be limited to one class for the setting and if it is it sure as heck should not be sorcerer, and I say this as someone who really feels the sorcerer could use the love as a class.

Heck, it even arguably breaks their previous cannon to have sorcerer be influenced by moons when the books are very clear to depict primal sorcery as both a) based on willpower and feeling moreso than study (i.e. charisma) and b) NOT something that comes from the moons. Heck it was even all but implied that the only reasons they could even use it was because the gods (i.e. the Moons) were gone and because of the residual effects of Chaos's magic messing with mortals and the world. It is a big retcon in the lore to make them just "charisma wizards", especially because...again...the cannon lore is that Sorcery is considered outright "blasphemy" by the moon gods. It's why Coryn is outright denied being the leader of the wizards in The Wizard Conclave, and frankly removing this tension and dichotomy between the magic users of the setting removes a lot of good storytelling potential for DMs.

...magical lore implications aside, I'm mixed on the backgrounds and feats, mostly because I don't like the idea of feats being restricted to backgrounds and I don't like the idea of any of the knight orders being "locked" behind backgrounds or feats either.

What I personally want from a sourcebook for the setting are moon magic rules for more than one class, some actual good mass combat rules, and some good faction material ala the Ravnica Guilds (except ideally not tied to certain backgrounds). I'd also like some dang material to work with for some of the gods that aren't freaking Paladine and Takhisis, because there are more than a few of them that literally have nothing more in any edition/book beyond a single paragraph or two (looking at you Sirion and Zivilyn!).

I'll be buying the book either way, just something tells me I'm likely to not use like half of it, despite running a campaign for the setting right now.

I hope they do it like they did it in 3.5: the phases of the moon affect all arcane magic across the board. When one moon is full, certain spells get stronger. When it’s not in the sky, those spells get weaker. I use that system in my 5e Dragonlance game and it works just fine

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Or the person disagrees with the premise that the kender are a concept rooted in bigotry.

Or the person has never known a Roma in real life, or gamed with them, to know how they personally feel about trash stereotypes like that.

 

[Azzy]

I'm really ambivalent about the kender change. I previous poster argued that, while they're fine with the kender ace mechanics, they didn't like that it was magical in nature. I gently agree—I'm not super-fussed about it being magical, but slightly prefer it being otherwise.

 

[ersatzphil]

The principal difference between 4e and 5e Ravenloft is the explicit branding as such. It's still exactly as it was in 4e - rolled into the Deep Shadowfell.

Fair enough - I have to admit, I stopped playing the game for some time, and ended up skipping 3.5 and 4e entirely: my knowledge of what happened to campaign settings during that period is piecemeal.