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

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This line of discussion is very enlightening. Thanks. I’d love more info along these lines.

I'm going off a 40 year old memory! My memory is good, but not that good! I never even owned it, I read someone else's copy.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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

The Tasslehoff character in the novels, although irritating, dials it back a notch and doesn't go round griefing the party. It was more the players who took what was meant to be an (ill judged) amusing quirk and blew it out of proportion.

It's pretty clear that "authorial intent" was that kender be lovable, not loathable. I don't think there is any "going against the author" in fixing that aspect. Making them fey is a different thing though, since as written Krynn has no fey and no Feywild.

 

[darjr]

The Tasslehoff character in the novels, although irritating, dials it back a notch and doesn't go round griefing the party. It was more the players who took what was meant to be an (ill judged) amusing quirk and blew it out of proportion.

It's pretty clear that "authorial intent" was that kender be lovable, not loathable. I don't think there is any "going against the author" in fixing that aspect. Making them fey is a different thing though, since as written Krynn has no fey and no Feywild.

The Hidden Vale's Forest of Zhen seems like a fey realm, of sorts. No, not THE Feywild. But what if the pockets thing is from a cross of the Dome of Creation and the Forest of Zhen?

Note I'm not very learned about the Dragonlance cosmology.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

There's Summerhome, a hidden valley between two-worlds, where fey-elves trick mortals into stumbling in their land where time works differently. Those elves also often switch their youngs with human babies and they are called changelings.

That's pretty much a fey-world's by-the-book definition.

 

[darjr]

Wait, this wiki entry talks about the otherwordly realm of the fey?

Summerhome

Summerhome is the inner domain of the Hulderfolk, located in the Hulder Realm of Southern Hosk. In actuality, the domain is located between the Prime Material Plane and an otherworldly realm of the fey, where only sylvan creatures exist. The terrain in Summerhome changes constantly, and foggy...

dragonlance.fandom.com

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Wait, this wiki entry talks about the otherwordly realm of the fey?

Summerhome

Summerhome is the inner domain of the Hulderfolk, located in the Hulder Realm of Southern Hosk. In actuality, the domain is located between the Prime Material Plane and an otherworldly realm of the fey, where only sylvan creatures exist. The terrain in Summerhome changes constantly, and foggy...

dragonlance.fandom.com

yeah, there's not much information going on on that. Given, even Summerhome is on another continent, so not very usable to justify some kind of relation between it and Kendermore.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Wait, this wiki entry talks about the otherwordly realm of the fey?

Summerhome

Summerhome is the inner domain of the Hulderfolk, located in the Hulder Realm of Southern Hosk. In actuality, the domain is located between the Prime Material Plane and an otherworldly realm of the fey, where only sylvan creatures exist. The terrain in Summerhome changes constantly, and foggy...

dragonlance.fandom.com

Also, not a W&H creation.

 

[Faolyn]

This may have been mentioned somewhere in the 53 pages of posts, but...

1. I am very happy for the return of Dragonlance. Back in the 80's, I read all the books and played most of the modules.

2. I think Kender are cool. However, I question the addition of the "bag of many things". In past editions, Kender never had magic abilities. Why change? In my opinion, "ever-full pockets" is a meta-game addition that stretches in-game realism. ALL Kender can summon stuff at any time? If so, why would they do anything or go anywhere? They would just sit at home and pull whatever they want out of their bags. Kender would become shopkeepers who sell equipment (and make huge profits in the process). What's wrong with them being thieves? They aren't malicious, they're just curious about everything around them. They absentmindedly pickpocket all the time. It's actually very endearing and fun, in my opinion. The Kender have a different perspective on personal property and ownership.

I think it should be clear by now that for a lot of people, both in and out of game, this is neither endearing nor fun. I am not endeared or amused by people stealing from me in real life. I worked with developmentally disabled adults--people who all had intellectual disabilities, sometimes quite severe--and wasn't endeared or amused on the occasions they stole. And they often legitimately couldn't understand that stealing was wrong; they simply had a want-take-have mentality.

If kender are legitimately incapable of not stealing, then they honestly shouldn't be a PC race. Having them be known as a race of kleptomaniacs should mean, as @GMforPowergamers said, that they are not allowed in stores or even in towns, and between the evil races and people who just want revenge, they likely should have been killed off years ago. Any race that had a "constantly performs an antisocial act and to them it's totally normal and they don't get why people get upset at them for doing it" is not a good PC race. Make them into a type of faerie or some other supernatural creature where such a compulsion makes sense.

If kender are capable of not stealing, but choose to do so anyway, then they're basically sociopaths.

And even more importantly, making them into a race of kleptomaniacs encourages players to be jerks while playing them. Because the player has to make the conscious decision to have their PC steal from the PC's friends (who are played by people who are likely the player's friends). Stealing from your party members is usually considered a breach of gamer etiquette; you shouldn't get a pass just because you're playing a kender.

(I wonder if the reason that kender get such a pass is because Elmore always drew them as looking like short, kid-like elves; i.e., cute. The actual description of kender always says they look "wizened" and wrinkled, like they're apple-head dolls. Would they have as many defenders if they actually drawn depicted that way?)

I'm sure some tables can and will discuss this out of game and come to a decision about how it will be handled, but I doubt that this happens frequently.

If a "race of thieves" is such a terrible ethical issue for WOTC, then what do we do with Murder Hobos for heaven's sake? From an ethical standpoint, murder is a much worse than petty theft! Even worse, Murder Hobos murder THEN they steal. A Kender will just take the trinket you have tucked into your belt...

Murderhobo isn't a race.

But you'll notice that there is a growing trend to make formerly murderous races, such as orcs and drow, into non-murderous races.

 

[darjr]

from DLA1 Dragon Dawn published in 1990. By Deborrah Teramis Christian, yea, not W&H, sure.

Here the fabric of the Prime Material Plane of Taladas stretches thin, blending and overlapping with a parallel Material Plane inhabited by faerie-folk in an idyllic sylvan environment. The boundaries of each area within Summerhome, described below, are blurred where Planar matter shifts and blends. This has the effect of creating hazy or fog-filled border regions where objects seem to blur and run together. In fact, the very air here glows with an other- worldly radiance, a result of plane-spanning magic.
The geographical details of Summerhome shift as planar energies flux. Terrain traversed just moments before can sud- denly become unfamiliar, although it will remain similar to its previous form. For instance, oak trees may seem to change position or shape, but they will remain oak trees in roughly the same number they had a moment before. Characters can easily become lost here, but will always run into hulders or settled areas if they move around long enough.

Time runs differently in this other-dimensional space. For the purposes of this adventure, no matter how many days or nights the PCs spend in Summerhome, it is eight weeks later in Taladas when they finally emerge, on the night of the next triple moon conjunction.

I mean that is almost a ringer for a Domain of Delight.

 

[Mordhau]

So if, as it seems on reading, backgrounds give proficiencies instead of class, and the Squire of Solamnia only grants medium armour how is the Knight of Solamna/Fighter meant to gain Heavy Armour Proficiency?