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

 

[Velderan]

I bet many things are created this way, it's just not documented publicly. Kender are awesome.

I think people sometimes forget Tracy and Laura Hickman came up with the initial pitch for the setting, but the actual development was a larger team project with about a dozen people involved. Some of the concepts came about simply due to art created by Easley, Elmore, Parkinson, or Caldwell for example.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don’t think we do not understand that this is what you would have wanted. It’s just not as important to most.

In the case of DL I am actually glad they did not try to continue from wherever things ended, because they had certainly run that storyline straight into the ground.

I get it. The settings of D&D have ended (except the Realms and Eberron, because they were updated to 5e first), and functionally no one cares or is unhappy to see them go. Fair enough.

 

[Reynard]

Obviously, the focus on adventures and player facing mechanics has worked out really well for WotC and will likely continue to do so, but I miss the depth we used to get. like, the Eberron book is really well done. It makes me sad that they didn't follow it up with an Eberron specific Big Adventure Book, and a bunch of other support. i know, i know -- that's what DMs Guild is for. Well, aside from the Baker stuff, there's no reliable curation of the DMs Guild so while there is certainly good material there, if I can't find it it doesn't do me any good. I liked it when the company that makes D&D products made D&D products.

DL is another one that could easily have been a campaign setting plus a big adventure plus a player facing book, along with online support.

 

[Kai Lord]

I get it. The settings of D&D have ended (except the Realms and Eberron, because they were updated to 5e first), and functionally no one cares or is unhappy to see them go. Fair enough.

For 22 years Dragonlance adventures coincided with the passage of time in the novels from DL1 in 1984 all the way to Price of Courage in 2006. 1E, 2E, and 3.5E also retained at least one of the original "creators" of Krynn for each era of game material whether it be Margaret and/or Tracy or Douglas Niles. But 5E breaks that long-standing tradition on both counts in that no one from the original team is involved with Shadow of the Dragon Queen nor is it giving PC's the clean slate of new stories to tell beyond the published works of the novels.

So to me it is a true end of an era for Dragonlance and everything going forward will forever be disconnected from what came before. The only reason I'm anticipating its release is because it's been a good 15 years since DL was connected in any way to D&D and I'm looking forward to the new material as a collector only. Hopefully it's a fun novelty item and provides some worthwhile conversion mechanics should I ever play or run a DL campaign in 5E.

As it stands I still play 1E on Krynn because those rules just feel right to me for that particular setting. Thankfully with the treasure trove of material that has come before I'll have all I'll ever need.

 

[ersatzphil]

The only WoTC employee to have experience in classic Ravenloft, ironically is Chris Perkins, but his 2E adventure, Horror's Harvest, is likewise set in a version of Falkovnia that no longer exists. Sort of funny, I guess.

In fairness, the product lead for VRGtR was Wes Schneider, who originally cut his teeth working on the netbooks from the Fraternity of Shadows; and Van Richten's Guide is overflowing with references to nearly every 2e Ravenloft product. Having read the design blog on the topic, the book feels to me much more like a couple of writers who wanted to deliver something true to Ravenlofts' origins, but were told 'no'. Particularly this line:

D&D is D&D, and we shouldn’t try to make it a game it isn’t.

 

[mamba]

Obviously, the focus on adventures and player facing mechanics has worked out really well for WotC and will likely continue to do so, but I miss the depth we used to get. like, the Eberron book is really well done. It makes me sad that they didn't follow it up with an Eberron specific Big Adventure Book, and a bunch of other support. i know, i know -- that's what DMs Guild is for. Well, aside from the Baker stuff, there's no reliable curation of the DMs Guild so while there is certainly good material there, if I can't find it it doesn't do me any good. I liked it when the company that makes D&D products made D&D products.

DL is another one that could easily have been a campaign setting plus a big adventure plus a player facing book, along with online support.

I would prefer a setting book, one or two big campaigns and some one-shots for each setting, but that is not what WotC does, and chances are they have a good reason for it. It certainly did not go well for TSR.

So given what we can expect from WotC, I take a big DL campaign over nothing, esp. if it is a return to the War. If it were a continuation of the story, I probably would not have cared however.

Another side effect is that DL material can now be published on the DMsGuild, and there certainly will be some items that flesh out the setting.

 

[Alzrius]

New Ravenloft absolutely follows that paradigm. Things have changed because the Dark Powers want things to have been changed.

A friend of mine has asserted (based on secondhand information) that the Adventurers League series Mist Hunters (affiliate link) actually puts forward an in-game reason for why the setting changed from its previous incarnation to how it's portrayed in Fifth Edition.

That said, neither of us have ponied up a hundred dollars to find out, so that might not be the case.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In fairness, the product lead for VRGtR was Wes Schneider, who originally cut his teeth working on the netbooks from the Fraternity of Shadows; and Van Richten's Guide is overflowing with references to nearly every 2e Ravenloft product. Having read the design blog on the topic, the book feels to me much more like a couple of writers who wanted to deliver something true to Ravenlofts' origins, but were told 'no'. Particularly this line:

This makes sense to me.

 

[Faolyn]

A friend of mine has asserted (based on secondhand information) that the Adventurers League series Mist Hunters (affiliate link) actually puts forward an in-game reason for why the setting changed from its previous incarnation to how it's portrayed in Fifth Edition.

That said, neither of us have ponied up a hundred dollars to find out, so that might not be the case.

Holy cow; I had no idea AL series were that expensive.

My personal plan is that when my players finally go after Strahd and (presumably) kill him, that will trigger the change.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

In fairness, the product lead for VRGtR was Wes Schneider, who originally cut his teeth working on the netbooks from the Fraternity of Shadows; and Van Richten's Guide is overflowing with references to nearly every 2e Ravenloft product. Having read the design blog on the topic, the book feels to me much more like a couple of writers who wanted to deliver something true to Ravenlofts' origins, but were told 'no'. Particularly this line: