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

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

My groups stuck by the class rules until 3e came along, racial limitations and all. Not out of any real dedication to them, but just because it never occurred to us to change them, alas.

I'll admit that while I now recognize them as problematic, they also evoke a certain feeling of nostalgia. Which I suppose also speaks to the danger to find in nostalgia.

funny thing that was one of the first house rules my group made (not dwarf/wizard per say but using that as an example) and it was any race could be any class as long as you met other prereqs but you would be rare... and in our written rule it literally listed Dwarf Wizard as the example... and as such in my 3rd campaign as a DM I had a pale skinned dwarf king who was an archmage.

now i say all that to add when we played DL we DIDN'T use these house rules in the 90's, but when we went back to it in 4e we sure did (and it wasn't really a house rule all racists limits were removed by then) and We had someone pitch a swordmage as an axemage dwarf for our campaign. (we also had a deva warlock)

The Theiwar could, indeed, but they were also roughly translated to Derro in game and world terms, as opponents, not a playable race, and unless my memory doesn't serve me correctly (which is entirely possible), they didn't exist when I first came to Dragonlance, reading the books and playing in that world, instead appearing in the late 80s at the earliest.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if, for TSR's first fantasy epic, they created Kender as a way to have halflings and not fall under the shadow of Tolkien.

There were the Theiwar for dwarves that could use magic. The fact they were the only dwarves known to do so added some emphasis to them as being special imo.

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.

Absolutely! To me Dragonlance is about the battle between good and evil writ large, with personal drama playing out in the shadows of war (but no less important to the tale for it). It's about ancient legends coming to life again, inspiring heroes and villainy. It's about battles on dragonback, finding hope when all seems lost, about bonds of love and friendship - made and broken. And it sounds like much of that is going to be found in Shadow of the Dragon Queen.

Dragonlance is the Vallenwoods of Solace, the mountains of Thorbardin, the terror of the Shoikan Grove. It's Solamnic Knights that live by the Oath and the Measure. Arcane spellcasters that bind themselves to Nuitari, Lunitari, and Solinari. All these can survive adding orcs in, or tieflings, or paladins and sorcerers. If it means new people can come to the world and not be turned off because they love playing a certain thing that wasn't there before, I'm all for it.

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

 

[Micah Sweet]

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?

Yes, yes it would. Just that much of a nod would be nice.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe the origin of this controversy is the conflict between the coherence with the previous canon lore and the flexibility for gameplay. It is not only an update to add the crunch, new PC races and classes, but also the freedom to can create stories where not only the heroes of the lance save the day.

We shouldn't reject all the possible changes in the lore. Someones are really necessary.

Maybe in your game the Krynnspace is the secret battlepiece between the order of the chronomancers and their archnemesis, the reborn Vodoni empire, whose agents manipulated the king-priest of Istar for a cosmic conspirancy to steal the divine power. And now lots of these agents are cursed within a dark-domain in the Shadowfell-Krynnspace suffering the raids by diverse werebeasts, even something with a ridiculous image, like werelagomorphes, weredonkey, weresheeps and weretoads. (Everything is laughs until the bloodbath stars!).

Other point is if Hasbro's CEOs dare to ask a crossover between Dragonlance and other not-D&D franchise, for example Ash Williams(Evil Dead) vs lord Soth, or the characters from My Little Pony visiting a domain of delight within Feywild-Krynnspace.

If you want, you can say your dragonborn is a time-traveler from an alternate future whose mission is to stop the changes caused by an alien faction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

This is a HUGE part of my issue with WotC in general. Everything is so superficial! Worldbuilding is the best part of D&D (and fiction in general) to me and they just don't seem to care.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Because they are. Their narrative roll was taken by the goblinoids and the draconians.

Orcs have a different narrative role in general now, so this doesn't really matter anymore.

Look, if some group wants orcs and drow in their Dragonlance, go for it! I'm not policing anyone's table. But many settings have restrictions built into them, and any product based on that setting should at least make mention of that. Even 4e, the most "everything we make exists everywhere, accept it" version of D&D, acknowledged that in Dark Sun, the default is that only elemental clerics exist.

Maybe every setting does not need to be designed for every D&D player, no matter their tastes. People like different things.

A world where the gods are just returning to the world, where people are entirely unprepared for the storm that is on the horizon, where people think dragons are myths until they see one, where the gods dance around eachother is a continuous struggle centered on The Balance, etc, is a very different world from Faerun or Greyhawk. Regardless of whether all the same player options are available to play.

The difference is, in most adaptations, new versions exist side by side with the originals. In D&D publications, new thing replaces old thing, and old thing is all too often shouted down.

That isn't how dnd canon works. The only thing that is canon for 5e is what's in the books for 5e, but that has no impact on the 2e DL books.

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.

Does Faerun have missing gods and dragons absent for so long people thinkg they're a myth? Factions opposed to eachother in a balance that mirrors the the cosmic balance the gods work to maintain?

Are the Purple Dragon Knights the same as the Knights of Solamnia? What in Faerun is the same as the Towers of High Sorcery? Does Faerun has semi-important half-ogres and a history where ogres are descended from a race of beautiful? Tiamat's role in Faerun isn't even remotely the same as the role of Takhisis in DL.

No, the realms are different enough that the adventure would need to change. Otherwise, Tyrrany of Dragons would already just be the War of The Lance.

 

[Stormonu]

Here’s one of those pieces without the text

View attachment 264243

Anyone noticed that the Kender looks afraid?

 

[DarkCrisis]

Yes, yes it would. Just that much of a nod would be nice.

You would hope WotC at the minimum could do this. "Orcs don't exist here but they can if you/your DM want them to!" but I have doubts.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Orcs have a different narrative role in general now, so this doesn't really matter anymore.

A world where the gods are just returning to the world, where people are entirely unprepared for the storm that is on the horizon, where people think dragons are myths until they see one, where the gods dance around eachother is a continuous struggle centered on The Balance, etc, is a very different world from Faerun or Greyhawk. Regardless of whether all the same player options are available to play.

That isn't how dnd canon works. The only thing that is canon for 5e is what's in the books for 5e, but that has no impact on the 2e DL books.

Does Faerun have missing gods and dragons absent for so long people thinkg they're a myth? Factions opposed to eachother in a balance that mirrors the the cosmic balance the gods work to maintain?

Are the Purple Dragon Knights the same as the Knights of Solamnia? What in Faerun is the same as the Towers of High Sorcery? Does Faerun has semi-important half-ogres and a history where ogres are descended from a race of beautiful? Tiamat's role in Faerun isn't even remotely the same as the role of Takhisis in DL.

No, the realms are different enough that the adventure would need to change. Otherwise, Tyrrany of Dragons would already just be the War of The Lance.

None of that Gods missing Knights of Solomnia etc etc stuff yo mentioned matters for "Dragon War!" They are all easily explained or changed. Nobel Knights exist in Faerun. The Gods have infact vanished for a small period of time in Faerun, but does that really matter for "Evil god uses dragons to wage a war?"

You are already prepared to change somethings to change Dragonlance why not go the whole 9 yards and just call it "Dragon War!" and set it in Faerun. Would anyone really notice or care? You get your Dragon War "Focus" and Dragonlance isn't changed and waterdown.

But I dont make those decisions and WotC needs to bank on a name and nostalgia. Just seems funny to me that again some people would be fine with changing if Orcs existed but apparently not if the Knights of Solomnia did. Very selective of whats added or subtracted to fit into whats being heralded simply as "The Dragon War adventure".

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Anyone noticed that the Kender looks afraid?

interesting

 

[Velderan]

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.

Completely fair and admittedly I'm not familiar with a lot of the specific lore so maybe that was the wrong word to use. I was focusing more on the emphasis on the devils and demons being replaced by elementals since people seem to want orcs added to a setting that has historically not had them. I appreciate the correction on the other bits though.

The Theiwar could, indeed, but they were also roughly translated to Derro in game and world terms, as opponents, not a playable race, and unless my memory doesn't serve me correctly (which is entirely possible), they didn't exist when I first came to Dragonlance, reading the books and playing in that world, instead appearing in the late 80s at the earliest.

Theiwar were lumped in with mountain dwarves in the 1e Adventures book, specifically calling out they were spell-casters. It does also specify all PC mountain dwarves should be Hylar though, so you're right that they were not considered a playable race and I don't think that changed in later editions either.