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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dnd.wizards.com

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Some times our words can accidentally offend others, but we should notice when it is intentional or not. The rules about political correctness have changed. Disney has self-censored some old productions, any tropes about native Northamericans aren't allowed in the current Western movies, and even current generation is not happy with some things from the sitcom "Friends". Maybe the next ten decads the pirates will be not wellcome in the fiction because they attacked villages in the coast to catch slaves, and did really horrible things with the women. Or in a near future the setting "Ixalan" will be offensive for the vampires, because the morrion (helmet by the Spanish conquerors) was a symbol of the Spanish "Tercios" (Spanish infantery unit during Hamburgs dinasty), the best anti-vampire terminators in the Western civilitation for centuries. (Disclaimer: I was kidding, of course vampires would say nothing because they don't want us to remember they bought slaves catched in the Spanish coasts but when these started to pray the saint rosary the bloodsuckers started to feel strong headaches until to be totally KO).

I imagine it will be "modular" or flexible, showing different optional pieces and you will choose what to be used. For example images of Tika with different hair colors, or a female version of Tasshelfold, or Raistlin with rune tatoos on the face (by fault of Finstandalius' curse), Goldmoon could be a cleric, a druid or a divine soul sorcerer. Other reason for the reboot is some couple of secrets today are too spoilered to cause surprise now, the secret of that cracy old wizard with long bread and green ropes or that sexy female silver-haired elf. Let's imagine there is a teleserie based in the original novels. Then those secrets will be spoilered to pontential players of those modules. Or a future videogame telling the same story, although here we could see alternate paths.

Other point is after the modules to be published, some videogame gamers could use software to create their own videogame version of the quests: Core (Manticore Games), Dreams (Playstation), Roblox, Litle Big Planet..

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Some times our words can accidentally offend others, but we should notice when it is intentional or not. The rules about political correctness have changed. Disney has self-censored some old productions, any tropes about native Northamericans aren't allowed in the current Western movies, and even current generation is not happy with some things from the sitcom "Friends".

yes, the rules didn't really change so much as got enforced by more social pressure (Be nice and don't insult people on purpose was a rule in the 50's).
However I have found the new 'counter culture' is the counter to this. (bare with me this is about D&D) the idea you can't have a native narrative like you do in old time westerns is also mixed with people making 'call' out narratives where the N word is thrown around 100 times in an HBO show that takes place in the 30's... where when 'friends' was on dropping that word once was taboo enough to get attention.

this matters to D&D when WotC decides to go with culture or counter culture (neither of these are the bigots, those are never going to get a main stream push again...I hope) and if they will use shock, or not. So far (and my bet going forward) will be no chain mail bikini, no kender as stand in for gypsy, and no mentally challenged races played for laughs.

There WILL be a 3rd party call for counter culture though.

 

[Faolyn]

"Childlike innocence" is has been, in my experience, generally interpreted as "extremely unwise" or "does not consider consequences of actions" which can, in fact, be dangerous when the party is in life-or-death situations.

Heh, poor choice of words there on my part.

I didn't mean dangerous as in, "Watch out for the kender, they're coming to kill us all with their hoopaks!"

I meant dangerous to the social order. Bringers of chaos. "If our lovely civilized town is to continue, the kender must be driven out."

These are true. But neither of these are dangerous in the way that the Romani are "dangerous" according to the bigots. Nobody is saying that kender are evil--to the point that, in 1e and 2e, they literally couldn't have an evil alignment. Or at least PCs couldn't.

I couldn't even find anything that said that kender would be driven out to protect our lovely civilized towns. What I did read indicated that the townsfolk would not only not even bother to protect their belongings from the kender, but that if they should happen to upset the kender, they would go out of their way make the kender feel better.

 

[Faolyn]

Have you adventured with a kender in the party!?

Yes, actually. I knew a guy in college who always played kender, unless he couldn't, in which case he played halflings.

But this is actually one of my points: kender are, for whatever reason, treated as beloved by the setting (at least by the game books; I don't remember from the few novels I read), no matter how disruptive or awful they prove to actually be in reality.

 

[darjr]

Reading the wikipedia article on Kender and I think it's worth noting that even Mr Hickman had a problem with a "race of thieves" and so tried to modify that.

Kender (Dragonlance) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Remathilis]

Yes, actually. I knew a guy in college who always played kender, unless he couldn't, in which case he played halflings.

But this is actually one of my points: kender are, for whatever reason, treated as beloved by the setting (at least by the game books; I don't remember from the few novels I read), no matter how disruptive or awful they prove to actually be in reality.

I think part of the problem isn't that people played kender, it's that people played Tasselhoff.

How many people played a kender that was anything but an unwilling thief? Granted in 2e other options were limited, but in theory there are kender fighters, kender wizards, kender paladins, kender monks, kender druids and kender warlocks. Likewise, who ever played a kender with an alignment* of Chaotic Good or Neutral? There should be Lawful Evil, True Neutral and even Lawful Good kender. Kender as a race should be as diverse as any, and we are moving past mono-cultural races so I think we need to sit down and think about what kender are because they can't all be child-like kleptomaniacs any more than all drow are evil slavers.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And, let’s not forget. We’re talking about one of the most disliked player races in the game’s history. Even Dragonborn bewbs don’t come close to this level of loathing in the fandom.

Also very much one of the most beloved races.

I haven’t ever seen quite so strident defense of Dragonborn as I have of kender.

I was disappointed at the diminishment of Tymanther in the 5e books. I would refuse to even consider purchasing a Dragonlance book that diminished the role of Kender, and one thing I’ve seen a lot of people mad about in later DL is the razing of Kendermore.

the association of Romani with thievery is so strong that any race of people who are all thieves are implicitly tied to that view. It sucks, but it's a fact.

I’m not sure I buy that. Seems more than a little bit of a jump. A race with a penchant for lifting has to be handle carefully, at best, because it’s a whole race with an inborn penchant for an anti-social behavior. Any particular mirroring of a real stereotype is going to be offensive, but so is the simple act of giving a whole race an inborn behavioral trait that is directly anti-social.

So is Sean Connery’s Bond, who was active in the 60’s, the same person as Craig’s Bond, active 50 years later?

If not, why do they have the same name? The fact that 007 is a designation has been confirmed in the movies, but the “James Bond” name is not associated with the 007 rank. In the latest James Bond, Bond continues to go by James Bond even after he leaves MI6, and the new 007 doesn’t go by James Bond.

What about Ernst Stravo Blofeld? Is the Christopher Waltz version the sane character who was killed 60 years ago? What about Felix Leiter? Somewhere along the line he turned into a black man? Why is everyone surprised by the existence of Spectre in the Craig Bond films if it is the same entity they have been fighting since the 60s?

The Bond films are pretty clearly reboots.

Craig’s Bond is, sure. Others really are in a floating timeline.

We'll either have Idris Elba or a Female Bond for a new bond movie and it'll completely ignore the prior movies.

I hope so. Idris Elba deserves better than the failed Dark Tower movie, much as I loved the casting and general concept.

I didn't think Timothy Dalton wasn't that bad as all as Bond. Course, Roger Moore was always my fave. But then, my dad had a collection of all the James Bond videotapes when I was growing up and I remember most of the ones I would watch were the Roger Moore Bond movies.

Now to remain on topic: How would Q or Bond respond to Kenders? the same way or would they somehow end up pulling through for Bond in the end?

Dalton was very good. As for kender, surely they’d have some trinket of the villain’s that Bond needs to win, and realize they have it just in time to hand it over exactly when it’s needed.

 

[Azzy]

Yes, actually. I knew a guy in college who always played kender, unless he couldn't, in which case he played halflings.

But this is actually one of my points: kender are, for whatever reason, treated as beloved by the setting (at least by the game books; I don't remember from the few novels I read), no matter how disruptive or awful they prove to actually be in reality.

I hate having to explain a joke. But my post was in response to the question of whether kender are seen as dangerous, and it (attempts to) humorously imply that that adventuring with a kender is a dangerous proposition (as they can and will get you into danger).

 

[UngainlyTitan]

These are true. But neither of these are dangerous in the way that the Romani are "dangerous" according to the bigots. Nobody is saying that kender are evil--to the point that, in 1e and 2e, they literally couldn't have an evil alignment. Or at least PCs couldn't.

I couldn't even find anything that said that kender would be driven out to protect our lovely civilized towns. What I did read indicated that the townsfolk would not only not even bother to protect their belongings from the kender, but that if they should happen to upset the kender, they would go out of their way make the kender feel better.

In another thread I was tempted to opine that one the characteristics of a Mary Sue was that they were universally loved for no obvious reason, so by that criteria are Kender a Mary Sue peoples

 

[Faolyn]

Kender as a race should be as diverse as any, and we are moving past mono-cultural races so I think we need to sit down and think about what kender are because they can't all be child-like kleptomaniacs any more than all drow are evil slavers.

Very much agreed.

It's said that the reason kender steal is because they can't understand personal property. If that's the case, then they should be treated as Robin-Hood types--they don't take things because they're shiny; they take things because they know of someone who needs it, or will need it more. Or they could be written as recyclers. They find the stuff that nobody else wants and take it for themselves, possibly making it better. (In either case, since they could have 18 Int and 16 Wis in 1e and 2e, there was no reason that they couldn't be able to understand that other people believed in personal property).