WotC Dragonlance: Everything You Need For Shadow of the Dragon Queen

WotC has shared a video explaining the Dragonlance setting, and what to expect when it is released in December.

World at War: Introduces war as a genre of play to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Dragonlance: Introduces the Dragonlance setting with a focus on the War of the Lance and an overview of what players and DMs need to run adventures during this world spanning conflict.

Heroes of War: Provides character creation rules highlighting core elements of the Dragonlance setting, including the kender race and new backgrounds for the Knight of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery magic-users. Also introduces the Lunar Sorcery sorcerer subclass with new spells that bind your character to Krynn's three mystical moons and imbues you with lunar magic.

Villains: Pits heroes against the infamous death knight Lord Soth and his army of draconians.

Notes --

• 224 page hardcover adventure
• D&D's setting for war
• Set in eastern Solamnia
• War is represented by context -- it's not goblins attacking the village, but evil forces; refugees, rumours
• You can play anything from D&D - clerics included, although many classic D&D elements have been forgotten
• Introductory scenarios bring you up to speed on the world so no prior research needed

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Old sales data from the TSR days certainly supports that fragmenting your audience isn't exactly a winning sales strategy so I get their hesitation. We'll see long-term if luring in older fans with member-berries then delivering a half-baked product is a better strategy.

That isn’t the strategy, though.

They’re luring in nostalgic fans, sure, but the settings aren’t half-baked, they have room.

IME, most younger/new players love Spelljammer, Ravenloft, etc.
They fill in the open spaces with what they assume goes there, or they deep dive into the old lore and discard what doesn’t sit right.

 

[Maxperson]

Not much in the video except the micro-adventure concept, which I mean, I guess is fine, but I'm not sure I (or many DMs) would entirely approve of "make up whatever PCs you want with absolutely zero reference to or knowledge of the setting", as a general principle.

Kind of makes settings pointless if they're all so kitchen-sink that you can just make up whatever.

I will not be buying the setting it seems. The whole point of settings is to be unique and have differences from the kitchen sink default game. The original Dragonlance fit that bill.

 

[Vincent55]

Would have rather had darksun or planescape before this.

 

[Haplo781]

It looks like this takes place in Nightlund during 358 AC, which is ~3 years before the Heroes of the Lance met back up at the Inn of the Last Home. So there's plenty of time to get your hero on while Tanis and co. are faffing about looking for missing cats and whatnot.

 

[Maxperson]

Curious how they'll handle adding in classes to the setting that didn't exist before, at least as far as I'm aware:

Artificer
Bard
Druid
Monk
Paladin
Ranger
Sorcerer
Warlock

Far as I know, none of these classes had a prominent NPC that I can recall. Friend of mine said one of the novels did have a Monk from a far off land. I can see these classes coming from "Beyond Ansalon" continent. It was always "Wizard" when it came to magic, not sure where Sorcerers fit in. Are they just treated the same albeit different methods of using arcane magic? Same with Warlock, which I'm guessing would probably be those outcast kind of magic users.

Were there any Druids? I can't recall. I've read a lot of Dragonlance novels back then and the only classes I ever saw represented were Barbarian, Fighter, Cleric, Thief (Rogue), and Wizard. Heck I don't even know if Psionics exist in Krynn.

In the 1e Dragonlance Adventures the following classes are mentioned.

Krynn Minotaurs have a level 8 limit as a Ranger. Irda can also be Rangers, so Rangers are present. Half-elves show unlimited advancement as Druids, so Druids are there as well. Dimernesti Elves show advancement of 10/unlimited as Paladins, and Silvanesti Elves can hit level 12 as a Paladin. One of Caramon's kids discovers sorcery and becomes the first Sorcerer on Krynn in one of the novels. Gnomes are Artificers, even if there wasn't a class for it.

That leaves Bards, Monks and Warlocks.

In 1e Bards were a special class that you had to achieve through a long and difficult manner. I did find this in the book.
"Huma Dragonbane, known as the most perfect of the Knights, gathered together a group of heroes to destroy the dragons and drive them from the lands of Solamnia. Huma's legend, compiled by the great elven bard Quevalen Soth..."
There is also mention elsewhere of Elven Bards and one of the gods is a Bard.

Monks according to the book enter Krynn as heathen clerics of the same level, so Monks are not present on Krynn. Oddly enough, Majere is the favored god of Monks and is a 53rd level Monk, so color me confused.

Assassins are also called out as not being on Krynn, so if you are being true to the old setting that Rogue subclass would be forbidden.

Warlocks didn't exist in any manner in 1e, so they are of course not mentioned.

 

[Stormonu]

Waylorn Wyvernsbane was the druid from DL 10 - Dragons of Dreams. And he was usable as a PC, at 7th level ability.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Drows are possible in Krynnspace with a little retcon. Jiathuli, Takishis' handmaiden, would be a dark lady ruling a dark-domain within Krynnspace shadowfell, and the drows living in this domain aren't natives from Krynn but abducted from other places of D&D multiverse (and suffering the tyranny of the spider-dragons). Other dark domain would be ruled by a mad artificer gnome, a postapocaliptic zone with strange living machines and the mutants from Gamma World. Other dark domain would be a mixture of Krynn and Athas/Dark Sun, ruled by Raistlin (from an aternate timeline who failed to become the supreme deitie) and his archienemy Fistandantilus (each one a true pain in the neck of the other). This dark-domain wellcome the settlers from Athas/Dark Sun run away from the sorcerer kings, but there are also defilers destroying the flora.

And I suspects we are going to see a lot of retcons in the new edition of Dragonlance, and not only about the arcane-spellcaster classes. A rebooted Taladas could be used as excuse to add all those elements from last editions, for example the monks. And Feywild-Krynnspace could be the home of people more focused into the spirit world.

In my homebred Krynnspace the original psionic mistics (and ardents) were visitors by spelljammers, and later members of the seekers order studied the psionic powers. And there are gem dragons in Krynn, but these would rather to hide in the unknown/unexplored continent of Adlatum.

Other way to "create" dragonborns in Krynn is to use the origin from 3.5 Races of Dragons, original humanoids chosen by the god Bahamut to become champions against Tiamat.

Druids in Krynn could be Chislev's wordshippers, and bards could pray to Branchala. Even the monks and psionic mistics could be wellcome in Majere's temples.

 

[darjr]

Folks at WotC are sharing bits of art during this promotion. Have we seen these before?

Who’s in them?

 

[Stormonu]

I like the second, but the first looks rather generic (though, is that Maquesta Kar-Thon in the front?).

 

[Mark Craddock]

Things in there to make some people happy and others mad.

Exactly! It was the Best of D&D times & the Worst of D&D times.