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

 

[DarkCrisis]

I think it's important to stress the rules part of the conversation here. Because a lot of the Dragonlance worldbuilding was shaped, not by any deep abiding lore, but by the mechanics of the game at the time. Dwarven wizards didn't exist in Krynn because they didn't exist in D&D back then, for example. The rules of the game have changed, so it's not that big a deal for me that Krynn will change as a result.



I'm an older demographic and I'm feeling pretty darn appeased by Dragonlance's return, period. Orcs, no orcs, tieflings in, tieflings out, tinker gnome red wizards, whatever. I'm not going to kvetch about little changes to make it feel more modern. Everything I've seen so far feels like Dragonlance to me, and that's what's important.

If I may ask, what makes it "feel Dragonlance" to you?

 

[dmar]

I just don’t want them to take pages away from the ‘real’ adventure. If they are a DnDBeyond release like SJ Academy, I am all for it.

When I first heard about them, my first thought was that they would be the DL equivalent to that

I don't use Beyond.
I'd rather have everything in one place and in print.

But I completely understand your point.

 

[DarkCrisis]

and you know what makes it way better... not to have a god level NPC (or 10) walking around your setting. (in my example it was symbul not even elminster but same thing)

The novels can have god powered elminster, but imagine a setting box/book that stated him as a 8th level lore bard (keeping him as both arcane and divine and martial abilities) and said his long life was a mystic boon, and he was a chosen that had silver fire and some immunities... he could STILL be the sage, he could still be a fun NPC... but even 1st level PCs aren't looking to him to solo a fight.

Now the 'down side' is how does he keep manssoon in check with mansoon being a 30th level wizard (number pulled from butt not looking him up) or the 9 red wizard archmages... simple we lower them a bit (not as much not 8th level) into the mid teens and say that they get apposed not by a single 30th level archmage, but by his cunning plans and use of adventurers (hey like the players)

doing it this way also allows each edition to just start over from scratch to make the setting fit the edition instead of blowing it up with a realms shattering event...

"Why are dragonbonr in 4e and 5e when they were not in 2e and 3e?"
because we restarted and reimagined the setting slightly each time.

You get those characters aren't omniscient right? They can't handle every single problem that pops up. They have their own lives and missions.

To go back to the comic book analogy. The Avengers are "Off on a space mission" every time Spider-man is dealing with a city wide event by himself. And they never mention they 400 other heroes running around NYC that could be helping... because it's Spider-mans story.

Elminster is activity involved with The Harpers so they can go out and "do good" without his hand holding because as powerful as he is, he's just one man.

There is a place for your heroes and stories and solving world shattering problems in Faerun. Happens in the novels all the time. Demons running rampant over the land in a Drizzt book and hey no Elminster in sight dealing with it, because it's Drizzt's story. Wolfgar gets kidnapped by a demon and taken to the 9 Hells, no Elminster is called in to help out. Heck, Drizzt could have asked Alustrial for aid... and doesn't. Because it's his story.

You don't like Faerun, thats fine. But there is room for you and your heroes to save the world there. Always has been.

 

[Alzrius]

The Art of Dragonlance book explains the creation of kender and one of the first quotes was regarding halflings was "too Tolkien" which makes me wonder if part of the design approach was trying to distance D&D from things that had previously caused them legal troubles.

I wasn't there when Dragonlance was being designed, but I'm fairly certain that the answer to that is "no," if for no other reason than the so-called "legal trouble" that TSR got into with the Tolkien Estate wasn't actually legal trouble at all.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Going to be interesting to see how they somehow meld "I'm playing a Dragonborn" (play what you normally play) with "You run into this new secret humanoid dragon race, the Draconians!"

Also a Half-Orc or Orc, though i can already guess.

The PHB suggests that dragonborn can be used for draconians anyway. I would like to just think that dragonborn are either the children of draconians or a lesser version.

I certainly hope they have guidance on that, but . . . it's not a hard challenge to solve.

Simply allow the player to play a dragonborn character . . . either with PHB stats, or new draconian stats if they're in the book. Either way, the PC is a draconian. Why are they part of the heroic party and not part of Takhisis' army? Are they rejecting slavery to Takhisis? Are they good, or just trying to survive? How do they navigate dealing with the other races when almost everyone is going to see them as an evil monster in service to the Dark Queen?

Sounds like fun!

Orcs are not canonically part of Dragonlance, but . . . neither does their inclusion break the setting. If I had a player that REALLY wanted to play an orc . . . I'd first suggest a hobgoblin or draconian, but ultimately I'd allow it, and find a place for orcs in MY Dragonlance.

A good draconian might be a noble draconian!

As for orcs...

They reason they were excluded is because draconians replaced them as the archetype race for evil shock troops. That was fine for a while, but a lot has changed since then. Doom Brigade and Draconian Measures showed draconians with free will. And now with 5e, orcs are being seen as more than savage monsters.

There has been the occasional mention of orcs in Dragonlance anyway, but those are all considered to be kender tales.

As it stands now in 5th edition, there's no reason not to have them, but you might need to do some work to make them fit in. They can be reskinned as half-ogres easy enough. Or you might say they exist, but only on Taladas.

Why not hobgoblings or half-ogres? The role of the orcs in Dragonlance has been replaced with the Ithin’carthians/Tarmaks, savege people from a far zone of islands.

And Dragonlance is the best setting to play with the idea of chronomancers and alternate timelines.

Why not the ursines as PC race?

Will we see any retcon of the Krynnspace?

Hobgoblins have always been in Dragonlance.

Dragonlance is great with time travel and alternate realities. For a really great sourcebook on just that, check out Legends of the Twins. There are six alternate timelines in there (three penned by yours truly).

The Ursoi might be covered by the Dragonlance Nexus soon enough!

I don't think that WotC is going to touch Krynnspace, but I sure might. Check out Dragonhelm's Guide to Krynnspace.

I think the "war" theme is gonna end up being one of those ideas that gets over-pushed and over-hyped in marketing, and in the adventure itself the war will be completely in the background with no player-facing way to mechanically engage with it. (Not that I'd really want to, anyway.)

I think Margaret Weis said it best...

Dragonlance is a story of love and friendship set against a backdrop of war.
-Margaret Weis

So yes, war is a very important aspect of Krynn, but it's the backdrop. It isn't the focus.

 

[Velderan]

I wasn't there when Dragonlance was being designed, but I'm fairly certain that the answer to that is "no," if for no other reason than the so-called "legal trouble" that TSR got into with the Tolkien Estate wasn't actually legal trouble at all.

That would make sense, weren't halflings originally called hobbits anyhow? Appreciate the clarification.

 

[DarkCrisis]

The PHB suggests that dragonborn can be used for draconians anyway. I would like to just think that dragonborn are either the children of draconians or a lesser version.



A good draconian might be a noble draconian!

As for orcs...

They reason they were excluded is because draconians replaced them as the archetype race for evil shock troops. That was fine for a while, but a lot has changed since then. Doom Brigade and Draconian Measures showed draconians with free will. And now with 5e, orcs are being seen as more than savage monsters.

There has been the occasional mention of orcs in Dragonlance anyway, but those are all considered to be kender tales.

As it stands now in 5th edition, there's no reason not to have them, but you might need to do some work to make them fit in. They can be reskinned as half-ogres easy enough. Or you might say they exist, but only on Taladas.



Hobgoblins have always been in Dragonlance.

Dragonlance is great with time travel and alternate realities. For a really great sourcebook on just that, check out Legends of the Twins. There are six alternate timelines in there (three penned by yours truly).

The Ursoi might be covered by the Dragonlance Nexus soon enough!

I don't think that WotC is going to touch Krynnspace, but I sure might. Check out Dragonhelm's Guide to Krynnspace.



I think Margaret Weis said it best...



So yes, war is a very important aspect of Krynn, but it's the backdrop. It isn't the focus.

War has barely started and the Draconians are largely a secret. Having good ones running around ruining "the surprise"... well... I know WotC wont care. Doesnt matter in the long run. Gotta let someone play a Dragonborn!

WotC thinks the focus of DL is the War. And from other DL threads on this forum, a lot of the fans and newcomers to it think so to. I tried to bring up that the Focus of DL isn't just the War and is about "friendship and noble knights and hope" etc but would just got shot down with "But THE WAR!" And WotC agrees.

As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, if this is going to have Orcs and Drow and Dragonborn and The Towers etc watereddown to be fairly generic... could have just made a "Dragon War!" campaign set in Faerun and had the exact same thing.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

What role to you want them to have? Because, "I want to play an orc in Dragonlance" isn't good enough for me.

Where did they come from? Everyone else on Krynn has an actual origin, in the setting.

I mean, if they just say "everything is okay, but in defualt here are the ones that are in the stories" would that be a compramise?

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Because most people buy campaign settings to fill in all those details so they don't have to? Did this conversation come up when Descent into Avernus was released, except why are there devils and demons when there could be different types of elementals instead? The established lore about Avernus was used and I don't recall there being a big issue with it. If you're not interested in playing a campaign setting that involves devils and demons, at the risk of being accused of gatekeeping, I'd suggest Descent into Avernus wouldn't be the campaign to play.

Respectfully, there was very little in Descent into Avernus that conforms to preexisting lore beyond the broad strokes of Avernus being a blasted wasteland where the Blood War is fought. All of the locations are new as far as I can tell, plenty of existing locations (the Bronze Citadel, the Pillar of Skulls, etc.) were absent, not a word was said about the 20+ exiled archdevils known as the "Rabble of Devilkin" living in the hinterlands of Avernus even as they introduced roving warbands on Mad Max-esque infernal war machines, and that's to say nothing of the massive backstory revisions to Bel and Zariel that essentially invert their roles from their Planescape-era incarnations (though that's admittedly more just how 5e's chosen to go with them in general, rather than a comment on Descent into Avernus specifically).

I am by no means saying that Descent into Avernus can't be played and enjoyed as is, but as a Planescape fan with very defined views on Baator in particular, I'm pretty much having to overhaul the entire module to integrate it into my version of the Great Wheel.

 

[jerryrice4949]

I really like the mechanics of 5e but I generally hate how they handle world building and the fluff. Just feels like everything they do is broad and lacking any world building and detail. I expect that to be the case here too. So many books could have been so much better whether it be Fizbans or this. Just seems like they keep things too superficial.