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

 

[The Perechon]

Just for a little context:

"One of the goals of DRAGONLANCE was to do different things with what were then established D&D concepts. No orcs or lycanthropes. Minotaurs as an intelligent race. Kender as more than just Tolkein-clone halflings. And then there were the gnomes. I'll take the blame for the last one." - Jeff Grub, The Annotated Chronicles

Sounds like they were making an attempt to differentiate Krynn from the standard D&D setting at the time, to make it feel unique. Removing something (Orcs, for example) allows another participant in the setting to come to the forefront (say, Minotaurs or Hobgoblins). Whether or not that attempt at making this new world unique is relevant almost 40 years later at your game table is, obviously, up to you. Orcs aren't native to Krynn because the creators of the setting didn't include them, story-wise it's because they weren't part of the creation of the world by the gods. They just never got around to orcs, I suppose. But Spelljammer gave a reason to let them show up later, and someone even let a half-orc slip into a non-Weis/Hickman novel, if I recall. When I run this, there won't be orcs or half-orcs, gnomes will be nuts, and gods help me, kender will be allowed. I'm sure plenty of folks will run it with orcs, no kender and sane gnomes and have a grand ol' time. Not sure what the fuss is about.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

They don't want to scare off all the new shiny customers they're targeting so forcefully. I also have doubts.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Just for a little context:

"One of the goals of DRAGONLANCE was to do different things with what were then established D&D concepts. No orcs or lycanthropes. Minotaurs as an intelligent race. Kender as more than just Tolkein-clone halflings. And then there were the gnomes. I'll take the blame for the last one." - Jeff Grub, The Annotated Chronicles

Sounds like they were making an attempt to differentiate Krynn from the standard D&D setting at the time, to make it feel unique. Removing something (Orcs, for example) allows another participant in the setting to come to the forefront (say, Minotaurs or Hobgoblins). Whether or not that attempt at making this new world unique is relevant almost 40 years later at your game table is, obviously, up to you. Orcs aren't native to Krynn because the creators of the setting didn't include them, story-wise it's because they weren't part of the creation of the world by the gods. They just never got around to orcs, I suppose. But Spelljammer gave a reason to let them show up later, and someone even let a half-orc slip into a non-Weis/Hickman novel, if I recall. When I run this, there won't be orcs or half-orcs, gnomes will be nuts, and gods help me, kender will be allowed. I'm sure plenty of folks will run it with orcs, no kender and sane gnomes and have a grand ol' time. Not sure what the fuss is about.

And here we are decades later and they are trying to turn it back and make it as generic as possible. Would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. Shades of Grey.

 

[bedir than]

I tried to bring up that the Focus of DL isn't just the War and is about "friendship and noble knights and hope"

The bonds developed between people during war are part of a war story, yes. Absolutely. The difficulty to find hope during war, and still finding it, is a war story - one which even peacetime veterans struggle with. And yes, riding that age between noble nights and struggling to survive by any means is a war story.

If Wizards does Dragonlance well everything you think they are missing will be in there, because that's the tales of war from which heroes rise.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

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.

Not a big deal. Planescape-era planar lore and that of Baator in particular is just an area where I have some...I hesitate to say expertise, but definitely a high degree of familiarity.

I generally don't get too hung up on lore retcons and changes because if I don't agree with any particular development I'm liable to simply ignore it for my own games, but I've been mapping out and detailing the political hierarchy of Baator for a personal project for years now, so the fact that WotC keeps making massive changes to it with every edition gets under my skin a bit.

 

[The Perechon]

And here we are decades later and they are trying to turn it back and make it as generic as possible. Would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. Shades of Grey.

Hey, look, when I send back surveys I tell them as much as I can that I want settings to be different from each other and unique, otherwise what's the point of having different settings, right?

Generally speaking, I would much prefer a more restrictive set of guidelines, with the option to throw in everything and the kitchen sink if that's what the table wants, rather than start with the kitchen sink approach and mention the ability of the DM to be more restrictive. That gives the impression that the DM is taking things away, as opposed to having a unique setting but including specifics that a player or group of players may want.

But I'll take whatever return to Krynn I can get, and SHAPE IT IN MY OWN IMAGE!!! BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

And here we are decades later and they are trying to turn it back and make it as generic as possible. Would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad. Shades of Grey.

Or perhaps, if they do decide to add orcs or any other specific element traditionally missing from Krynn into 5e Dragonlance, they could take the Eberron approach and, for example, make a place for orcs within the setting while also giving them a uniquely "Dragonlance" twist to help make them distinct from the orcs of other settings.

3e Eberron didn't have Dragonborn or PC Eladrin, but their addition to the setting in 4e didn't somehow make it "less Eberron". I see no reason why the same couldn't be done for Dragonlance as well, at least hypothetically.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The bonds developed between people during war are part of a war story, yes. Absolutely. The difficulty to find hope during war, and still finding it, is a war story - one which even peacetime veterans struggle with. And yes, riding that age between noble nights and struggling to survive by any means is a war story.

If Wizards does Dragonlance well everything you think they are missing will be in there, because that's the tales of war from which heroes rise.

Any reason to believe they will do it well?

 

[bedir than]

Any reason to believe they will do it well?

We'll disagree on this element, but I've enjoyed more of their 1st party books than those that I haven't enjoyed, so yes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

We'll disagree on this element, but I've enjoyed more of their 1st party books than those that I haven't enjoyed, so yes.

Different strokes. I'm glad WotC is still making content for you.