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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[Tales and Chronicles]

This is a tangent, I know, but I've seen you complaining a lot about it recently, so I guess I'll give my viewpoint on this whole "Fey-Craze" thing that you and others have been talking about for several months now.

IMO, the root behind the recent addition of multiple fey races and the retcons to certain races to make them fey/fey-adjacent is largely due to the fact that creatures and options of the Fey type that could be used at the table were very lacking towards the start of D&D 5e.

For example, in the Monster Manual, there were only 8 Fey creatures, with the one with the highest CR being the Coven-version of the Green Hag. For comparison, Elementals (a pretty rare creature type) had 23 creatures, with the highest CR being the 4 Genies at CR 11. Roughly 3 times the amount of creatures in the Monster Manual, with over twice the CR range. Constructs (another rare creature type) had 16 creatures, with the highest CR being the Iron Golem at CR 16, which is twice the amount of creatures and triple the CR range that the Fey had in the core rules. That was it. For years, that was all of the fey that we had in D&D 5e, a paltry amount. If you wanted to do a Fey-centric campaign in D&D 5e using just the 3 Core Rulebooks . . . the tools were just not there. If you wanted to do a Dragon, Demon, Devil, Undead, Humanoid, or even Aberration-focused campaign, you could fairly easily do so. However, you absolutely could not for Fey. You were better off doing a campaign focused around Plants, of all things, than you were for Fey, which I honestly find baffling.

And Wizards of the Coast knew that certain creature types had far too few creatures to base a whole campaign around. That's probably a part of the reason why we pretty quickly got Princes of the Apocalypse (for elementals), Storm King's Thunder (for Giants), and recently got The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. While Wizards of the Coast also wanted to focus around adventures that included more popular creature types (Tyranny of Dragons for Dragons, Rage of Demons and Descent into Avernus for Fiends, Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation for Undead, etc), they also wanted to give tools to DMs that wanted to focus around other more rare creature types for their own campaigns. And through the various monster compendiums and adventure bestiaries that we have gotten throughout the years we have gotten more monsters for the rarer creature types, like the few fey in Volo's Guide to Monsters, constructs in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, and plants in Tomb of Annihilation.

And even after all of that . . . we still didn't have a lot of fey. After Volo's Guide to Monsters, we only got 10 more fey (more than the Monster Manual gave us, but still not a lot), with the highest CR one now being the Bheur Hag and Korred tied at CR 7. Then Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes gave us only 4 more fey, the different seasons of Eladrin, boosting the range of CR up to 10, still less than the upper ranges of Elementals, Constructs, and most other rare creature types (soon boosted up to the CR 18 Trostani by the release of Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica a few months later). And, again, that's still much less fey than there are, say, Undead, Fiends, or Dragons, with still a smaller range of CR.

That's about it. 5e started out lacking fey, and it only got worse as more and more books got released when compared to the other more popular creature types, so WotC has recently tried to remedy this by adding more fey creatures and player races to allow for whole campaigns themed around them/placed in the Feywild.

It's even worst for Plants!

Kender should have been Plants instead of Faes!

Joking aside, I think the small change to Kender lore (I dont see it coming up that often at a regular table) is partly due to give them some kind of reason to be obnoxious: they come from a place where being a chaotic weirdo is a good thing!

I'm not sold on the whole magic pockets thing since I'd rather make it more vague and unexplained as to why their bags are always stuffed with random trinkets, but the fey thing is pretty unobtrusive and give a little more creature variation to DL instead of moaaaaar dragons!

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is a tangent, I know, but I've seen you complaining a lot about it recently, so I guess I'll give my viewpoint on this whole "Fey-Craze" thing that you and others have been talking about for several months now.

IMO, the root behind the recent addition of multiple fey races and the retcons to certain races to make them fey/fey-adjacent is largely due to the fact that creatures and options of the Fey type that could be used at the table were very lacking towards the start of D&D 5e.

For example, in the Monster Manual, there were only 8 Fey creatures, with the one with the highest CR being the Coven-version of the Green Hag. For comparison, Elementals (a pretty rare creature type) had 23 creatures, with the highest CR being the 4 Genies at CR 11. Roughly 3 times the amount of creatures in the Monster Manual, with over twice the CR range. Constructs (another rare creature type) had 16 creatures, with the highest CR being the Iron Golem at CR 16, which is twice the amount of creatures and triple the CR range that the Fey had in the core rules. That was it. For years, that was all of the fey that we had in D&D 5e, a paltry amount. If you wanted to do a Fey-centric campaign in D&D 5e using just the 3 Core Rulebooks . . . the tools were just not there. If you wanted to do a Dragon, Demon, Devil, Undead, Humanoid, or even Aberration-focused campaign, you could fairly easily do so. However, you absolutely could not for Fey. You were better off doing a campaign focused around Plants, of all things, than you were for Fey, which I honestly find baffling.

And Wizards of the Coast knew that certain creature types had far too few creatures to base a whole campaign around. That's probably a part of the reason why we pretty quickly got Princes of the Apocalypse (for elementals), Storm King's Thunder (for Giants), and recently got The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. While Wizards of the Coast also wanted to focus around adventures that included more popular creature types (Tyranny of Dragons for Dragons, Rage of Demons and Descent into Avernus for Fiends, Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation for Undead, etc), they also wanted to give tools to DMs that wanted to focus around other more rare creature types for their own campaigns. And through the various monster compendiums and adventure bestiaries that we have gotten throughout the years we have gotten more monsters for the rarer creature types, like the few fey in Volo's Guide to Monsters, constructs in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, and plants in Tomb of Annihilation.

And even after all of that . . . we still didn't have a lot of fey. After Volo's Guide to Monsters, we only got 10 more fey (more than the Monster Manual gave us, but still not a lot), with the highest CR one now being the Bheur Hag and Korred tied at CR 7. Then Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes gave us only 4 more fey, the different seasons of Eladrin, boosting the range of CR up to 10, still less than the upper ranges of Elementals, Constructs, and most other rare creature types (soon boosted up to the CR 18 Trostani by the release of Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica a few months later). And, again, that's still much less fey than there are, say, Undead, Fiends, or Dragons, with still a smaller range of CR.

That's about it. 5e started out lacking fey, and it only got worse as more and more books got released when compared to the other more popular creature types, so WotC has recently tried to remedy this by adding more fey creatures and player races to allow for whole campaigns themed around them/placed in the Feywild.

A reasonable chain of events. Guess I'll just have to wait until they move away from the fey and on to something else.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is a tangent, I know, but I've seen you complaining a lot about it recently, so I guess I'll give my viewpoint on this whole "Fey-Craze" thing that you and others have been talking about for several months now.

IMO, the root behind the recent addition of multiple fey races and the retcons to certain races to make them fey/fey-adjacent is largely due to the fact that creatures and options of the Fey type that could be used at the table were very lacking towards the start of D&D 5e.

For example, in the Monster Manual, there were only 8 Fey creatures, with the one with the highest CR being the Coven-version of the Green Hag. For comparison, Elementals (a pretty rare creature type) had 23 creatures, with the highest CR being the 4 Genies at CR 11. Roughly 3 times the amount of creatures in the Monster Manual, with over twice the CR range. Constructs (another rare creature type) had 16 creatures, with the highest CR being the Iron Golem at CR 16, which is twice the amount of creatures and triple the CR range that the Fey had in the core rules. That was it. For years, that was all of the fey that we had in D&D 5e, a paltry amount. If you wanted to do a Fey-centric campaign in D&D 5e using just the 3 Core Rulebooks . . . the tools were just not there. If you wanted to do a Dragon, Demon, Devil, Undead, Humanoid, or even Aberration-focused campaign, you could fairly easily do so. However, you absolutely could not for Fey. You were better off doing a campaign focused around Plants, of all things, than you were for Fey, which I honestly find baffling.

And Wizards of the Coast knew that certain creature types had far too few creatures to base a whole campaign around. That's probably a part of the reason why we pretty quickly got Princes of the Apocalypse (for elementals), Storm King's Thunder (for Giants), and recently got The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. While Wizards of the Coast also wanted to focus around adventures that included more popular creature types (Tyranny of Dragons for Dragons, Rage of Demons and Descent into Avernus for Fiends, Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation for Undead, etc), they also wanted to give tools to DMs that wanted to focus around other more rare creature types for their own campaigns. And through the various monster compendiums and adventure bestiaries that we have gotten throughout the years we have gotten more monsters for the rarer creature types, like the few fey in Volo's Guide to Monsters, constructs in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, and plants in Tomb of Annihilation.

And even after all of that . . . we still didn't have a lot of fey. After Volo's Guide to Monsters, we only got 10 more fey (more than the Monster Manual gave us, but still not a lot), with the highest CR one now being the Bheur Hag and Korred tied at CR 7. Then Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes gave us only 4 more fey, the different seasons of Eladrin, boosting the range of CR up to 10, still less than the upper ranges of Elementals, Constructs, and most other rare creature types (soon boosted up to the CR 18 Trostani by the release of Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica a few months later). And, again, that's still much less fey than there are, say, Undead, Fiends, or Dragons, with still a smaller range of CR.

That's about it. 5e started out lacking fey, and it only got worse as more and more books got released when compared to the other more popular creature types, so WotC has recently tried to remedy this by adding more fey creatures and player races to allow for whole campaigns themed around them/placed in the Feywild.

Also, adding more fey monsters is perfectly fine. I agree they were lacking. Changing things that weren't fey into fey is what I take issue with. They didn't retcon creatures into the Shadowfell that I recall.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Also, adding more fey monsters is perfectly fine. I agree they were lacking. Changing things that weren't fey into fey is what I take issue with. They didn't retcon creatures into the Shadowfell that I recall.

I don’t believe so either though they did retcon an entire setting into it.

im hoping the next focus is fiends. I’m all about them fiends and we have gone too long without Demodands

 

[Umbran]

I don't think a central focus is the way to go. The percentages are spread pretty evenly. 35+ is 27%. 25-34 is 36%. 15-24 is 36%. Those are all very sizable numbers. Rather than a central focus, taking all three major age ranges into account in roughly equal margins seems to be a good strategy.

Ah. I think strategically - for long term health, focusing on the younger end is preferable. While older gamers at the moment may have more disposable income, they are probably already lifetime hobbyists, cemented in the hobby. And their remaining span in the hobby is relatively short. The young gamers may not have the disposable income (though, this is arguable), they generally have a longer potential lifespan in the hobby. Cementing them, turning them into lifelong hobby gamers, so you are getting some of that disposable income now, and more in the future, seems a reasonable strategy.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

And their remaining span in the hobby is relatively short.

Cause we are going to go live on a farm upstate and run around with all the other gamers in a few years?

 

[Stormonu]

It is interesting there was nothing for Tinker Gnomes in the UA, even something as slim as a “Tinkerer” background that somehow meshed with the Artificer class.

Also surprised that after Fizban’s there were no PC options for Draconian characters.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Also, adding more fey monsters is perfectly fine. I agree they were lacking. Changing things that weren't fey into fey is what I take issue with. They didn't retcon creatures into the Shadowfell that I recall.

They kind of did. Since 4e, the Domains of Dread have been moved to the Shadowfell, so the unique races to there have sort of been retconned to be from the Shadowfell (Dhampir, Reborn, Caliban--->Hexblood). And, as has been discussed before, the only creatures that they've retconned to have fey origins are ones that were fey in the folklore (Goblinoids, Changelings, and now Kender, which have roots in Tolkien's Hobbits, which themselves have roots in Hobs). It's not like they're turning Dragonborn, or Tieflings, or Orcs into Fey, or anything like that. They've just taken a few classic D&D creatures that have roots in folklore as Fey and expanded upon their background to relate them to the Feywild. And two of the races that arguably should be Fey/descended from Fey (Halflings and Gnomes) don't have any connection to the Feywild in D&D 5e.

 

[Umbran]

Cause we are going to go live on a farm upstate and run around with all the other gamers in a few years?

Well, that, and other things. Overall, if folks weren't falling out of the hobby as they aged, that 40+ group would hold all the GenX gamers from the 80s, and be much bigger.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I’m all about them fiends and we have gone too long without Demodands

They're actually already official in D&D 5e. They were published in Minsc and Boo's Journal of Villainy (page 136), which is available on DMsGuild.