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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[James Gasik]

I love the old school art so much.

1E Krynn has Paladins but later on there are no Paladins or are super duper rare.

There was at least two 2e Paladins from Krynn, Chaladar from The Legend of the Spelljammer, and Denys of Shiningburg, an emissary sent from Krynnspace to the Rock of Bral (which I think was in Realmspace).

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

It's the association with the negative trait that is a trait associated with a real-world people that's the problem. It doesn't matter one little bit if the kender are directly modeled on Romani. It's the result that matters. You should not ignore reality when designing your mass-market game. As I stated explicitly before, it sucks that the Romani have been associated with thievery. But ignoring the fact that they have doesn't help anything, and actually hurts. You can't just pretend the association isn't there.


This brings to mind the issues that goblins have in Harry Potter. Goblins in Harry Potter do have long noses....which is a trait traditionally associated (in the west) with Jewish people. Oh and they happen to be greedy bankers too. So even if these goblins were not actually based on Jewish people, the associations are still there, and they suck.

Harry Potters goblins... There is a convergence of two common stereotypes of a rw group toward one fictional race. Your accusation is a little bit more strong than in Kender issue, and it worth some further invetigation... Let me see: China is not capitalist and is ideologically against western concept of bank. More: chinese people call long nose the western people. It can be that HP goblin are bad representation of western people by a chinese friendly author?
This way of thinking leads to McCarty like paranoia, my friend. With basic similarities is very easy to associate planets and apples. Be careful.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I will never understand the absolute diligence to which some people cling to propagating negative stereotypes thought fiction.

"No, see I changed the name of the people being attacked, so it's totes okay, guys!"

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Gypsy was a rogue-wizard class in Ravenloft AD&D.

Here we should ask an Asian, but once I read the long nose of the tengu (avian humanoid from Japanese folklore) was symbol of their hubris. (In my game the tengu wear a long-nose mask as symbol they don't want lower classes to be too near of their faces, something like the crow-peak masks used by the plague doctors).

Anytime people can't see the potential link between pejorative tropes because they lack those predjudices. Any example to explain it? In a fiction work there is a Spanish who is a "don Juan" ( = womanizer), a very known trope in the Spanish culture, but usually an ordinary Spanish wouldn't be offended by this, but if all male Spanish characters followed the same stereotype. Wouldn't be enough to add tokens, characters from other communities with enough positive traits? There are good and bad people among all the groups. I don't complain in a fantasy work a character wears a morrion, but in the fiction all the morrion-wearer characters are usually potential enemies or the bad guys.

And sometimes the reasons of the censure are ridiculous, for example Winnie the pooh and Pepa Pig in China.

 

[darjr]

I think I see some of the criticism as kinda the same as it ever was. Like a desire to cleave to the first edition version of the setting. Which is cool. But I think I’ve seen plenty of that kind of thing and I’m going to go with taking Dragonlance as more than that. And I’ll include the 5e material as well. Probably primarily for my current games.

I honor M&W but I also want to honor all the other contributors since. It really was a marketing vehicle from the very beginning, a fantastic one by many accounts, and I’m going to carry on in that spirit and light.

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

I will never understand the absolute diligence to which some people cling to propagating negative stereotypes thought fiction.

"No, see I changed the name of the people being attacked, so it's totes okay, guys!"

Do you think that the aim of what I'm writing is to "propagate negative stereotypes"? Wow!

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

And sometimes the reasons of the censure are ridiculous, for example Winnie the pooh and Pepa Pig in China.

You seem to miss the point: unfortunately for those opposing these arguments, there is no ridiculous reason. Since one is offended you have to remove. Nor there is a unlogic reason. The fact that one feels offended is sufficient reason to remove or avoid. Frankly speaking I can find this barely reasonable if it were a mere marketing choice, but when it comes to be a philosophical position I find it disquieting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As far as the modules go, he was a straight up fighter/mu. Nothing too odd there.

Didn't say it was odd. The tradition "elf", as depicted in D&D's earliest days, was functionally a fighter/magic-user.

 

[James Gasik]

Whereas the Dwarf was a Fighter with Dwarf stuff and the Halfling was a Fighter with Halfling stuff, as I recall.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think you need to show that kenders were inspired by Romani (or more accurately, the gypsy stereotype) but only that they share the same conceptual space strong enough that the attitudes of one group can be implied onto the other. The issue is that many of the same kind of prejudices can be applied, which makes the kender act like stand-ins for those stereotypes. Kenders are wanderers, have child-like brains, do not understand personal property, lie as easy as breathing, in tune with nature, and are viewed as "other" by those people who live in "civilized society". You don't need tambourines and head scarves to draw a parallel. And the fact that most people (in and out of game) react to kender as thieves, liars and vermin (often invoking the notion of violence against them for their disruptive behavior) isn't a connection that is lost on some.

The issue isn't that, unlike the Vistani who were clear Romani parallels, kender are a race whose culture includes some of the same hurtful stereotyping that hurts Romani. The question really becomes "should a fantasy races be defined by negative traits that have been ascribed to RW peoples, including the negative reactions to said traits?"

The questions seems to be becoming, "should a fantasy race be defined by any negative traits at all?"