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

 

[Kai Lord]

Oh man have you guys read the new excerpt posted on wizards.com?

Ariakas now says "Maclunkey" right before Tanis stabs him.

 

[Remathilis]

Also, while I don't care much for level and class limits, you could play with them in 5e right now without much trouble, if you can get players. My real issue is with the lore, as stated above.

But the LORE of the setting was that dwarves don't use magic. Until 2000, they didn't cast magic in any official setting, Krynn especially. By original intent, classes and races should be capped to what they were in the original book. No dwarf wizards, kender rangers, gnome druids, etc. But I think the majority consensus is that race/class limits are anachronistic and outside of OSR throwback games, rarely used. We're fine with lore changes when we agree with the change, and only scream about the Sacred Texts when we disagree with it.

 

[DarkCrisis]

But they're not necessarily saying it in the book. They didn't with Ravenloft, or Spelljammer, and those were reimagings too.

I guess they've learned to differentiate now since they noticed fans of those settings have a problem with them not mentioning it's "A reimagining". Willing to bet they use the same language for "Reimagined Planescape", though the book will just be called "Planescape".

 

[Remathilis]

But they're not necessarily saying it in the book. They didn't with Ravenloft, or Spelljammer, and those were reimagings too.

Every new version of a setting is a reimagining. Let's take Ravenloft. No, not that one. The one that added native PC rules, four new classes, a never before heard of race, and then removed three classes from playable options. That was Domains of Dread, made in 1997 by TSR, that reimagined Ravenloft from a bunch of weekend in Hell places to a place PCs could actually be from, a radical notion that people claimed ruined the original intent of the setting.

People said that of From the Ashes. For the Revised Dark Sun box. For the 3e Dragonlance book with by Weiss. For the 3e Ravenloft books by Arhaus, or the 4e Dark Sun books. Every setting gets reimagined. If it didn't, why would we need to rebuy the books?

 

[Micah Sweet]

But the LORE of the setting was that dwarves don't use magic. Until 2000, they didn't cast magic in any official setting, Krynn especially. By original intent, classes and races should be capped to what they were in the original book. No dwarf wizards, kender rangers, gnome druids, etc. But I think the majority consensus is that race/class limits are anachronistic and outside of OSR throwback games, rarely used. We're fine with lore changes when we agree with the change, and only scream about the Sacred Texts when we disagree with it.

Dwarves generally don't like or trust magic, but they're not necessarily incapable of using it. That remained generally true all the way through 3rd ed. The Theiwar clan, for example, does make use of magic. And of course, individual exceptions can always exist. As long as the story of the setting isn't compromised, it's the same story.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Every new version of a setting is a reimagining. Let's take Ravenloft. No, not that one. The one that added native PC rules, four new classes, a never before heard of race, and then removed three classes from playable options. That was Domains of Dread, made in 1997 by TSR, that reimagined Ravenloft from a bunch of weekend in Hell places to a place PCs could actually be from, a radical notion that people claimed ruined the original intent of the setting.

People said that of From the Ashes. For the Revised Dark Sun box. For the 3e Dragonlance book with by Weiss. For the 3e Ravenloft books by Arhaus, or the 4e Dark Sun books. Every setting gets reimagined. If it didn't, why would we need to rebuy the books?

Yet they made sure to title the new novel as "Classic Dragonlance". Why is Dragonlance so special?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Every new version of a setting is a reimagining. Let's take Ravenloft. No, not that one. The one that added native PC rules, four new classes, a never before heard of race, and then removed three classes from playable options. That was Domains of Dread, made in 1997 by TSR, that reimagined Ravenloft from a bunch of weekend in Hell places to a place PCs could actually be from, a radical notion that people claimed ruined the original intent of the setting.

People said that of From the Ashes. For the Revised Dark Sun box. For the 3e Dragonlance book with by Weiss. For the 3e Ravenloft books by Arhaus, or the 4e Dark Sun books. Every setting gets reimagined. If it didn't, why would we need to rebuy the books?

Those were all additive. I've mentioned this before. You can add new facets to a setting without invalidating the past. Domains of Dread did that.

Again, gameplay is not my issue, or my priority.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yet they made sure to title the new novel as "Classic Dragonlance". Why is Dragonlance so special?

The novels sit at the core of the setting for a lot of people. But they need to say the same thing, in print, in the gamebooks, for all "reimagined" settings.

 

[Alzrius]

But the LORE of the setting was that dwarves don't use magic.

Actually, the lore of the setting was that the Theiwar used magic, as did the Scions. References in that regard go back at least as far as the 1992 Tales of the Lance (affiliate link) boxed set, though insofar as I'm aware neither were available as PC options.

 

[Velderan]

Oh man have you guys read the new excerpt posted on wizards.com?

Ariakas now says "Maclunkey" right before Tanis stabs him.

If you reread that, you'll see that Ariakas actually tries to stab Tanis first. Tanis stabbed him in self-defense.