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

 

[ersatzphil]

I mean, I don't know how else to interpret a book that on one hand goes out of its way to reference Angel Pajaro from Children of the Night: Werebeasts and the Whistling Fiend from Van Richten's Guide to Fiends, but then turns around and claims that one of the Dark Powers has a name and a cult. There are a number of places in the book - Bluetspur, off the top of my head - where it feels like the authors were building to something really good, and then they just... stop. Like a lot of 5e books, it feels like a lot of "wink, nod, if you know the old 2e and 3e lore, you know what to fill in here" kind of stuff.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I mean, I don't know how else to interpret a book that on one hand goes out of its way to reference Angel Pajaro from Children of the Night: Werebeasts and the Whistling Fiend from Van Richten's Guide to Fiends, but then turns around and claims that one of the Dark Powers has a name and a cult. There are a number of places in the book - Bluetspur, off the top of my head - where it feels like the authors were building to something really good, and then they just... stop. Like a lot of 5e books, it feels like a lot of "wink, nod, if you know the old 2e and 3e lore, you know what to fill in here" kind of stuff.

They couldn't even give Harkon Lukas a monocle...

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

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.

Exandria has gotten two official books in 5e. Ravenloft has also gotten two. Greyhawk has appeared in 2 (Saltmarsh and Yawning Portal). As you noted, Eberron and the Forgotten Realms have also gotten multiple. However, 5e is not making dozens of books for every setting because 2e tried that and failed. 5e is trying to avoid the strategies that causes previous editions to fail. You might like those strategies and the books produced by them, but WotC clearly really doesn't want 5e to fail and to have to make another edition of the game (and by "edition", I mean a different system like 3.X and 4e, which were much more different from 5e than OneD&D is).

So for 5e they've chosen to publish one or two books for the settings and then allow the fans to make their own adventures and expansions for the settings on the DMsGuild.

 

[Hussar]

/edit

The content of this post has been removed as its meaning was unfortunately unclear and only served to derail the conversation. All unclear meaning has been removed.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

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.

I don't see any evidence from the descriptions of the adventures, personally. And sheesh, metaplot through adventures? Yikes, I thought we decided that was bad.

 

[Velderan]

Forgotten Realms was largely the start of the whole "Here's a fun setting for DM's to read about but, we're not going to bother actually writing any modules for the setting, so, good luck in having adventures there" approach to settings.

Except that's not actually a thing. A simple Google search shows they released a bunch of modules for the Forgotten Realms. It wasn't my thing so I can't speak to the quality, but they existed. Dragonlance had 20 or so modules released outside of the DL1-16 series. Even poor selling settings like Birthright had modules, so not entirely sure what your point was supposed to be there.

And, to going back to the point about running alternative campaigns in Krynn during the War of the Lance - you'll notice the examples given RADICALLY change the scope of the campaigns. They are all very local in scope - just minotaurs on ships, only dealing with one nation - that sort of thing. But, that's not only what Dragonlance is about though. Dragonlance is epic fantasy. That's always been the baseline for Dragonlance. Which means you need that cast of thousands, dealing with the fate of the world, that involves traveling all over the setting.

It's weird you say that, because most of the modules they released for Dragonlance in the past outside of DL1-14 are exactly what you describe. But since you're bagging on the examples I provided for stuff I've played, I never said they were epic. I said the groups playing them felt involved and enjoyed themselves without the constant specter of "what are the companions doing right now?" hanging over the group because people were literally saying it was impossible to run stuff without killing the companions immediately so the group feels special. Maybe your group need epic, to each their own.

Sure, you can change that scope and play a local campaign. Great. But, WotC wants this to be the epic fantasy campaign. War of the Lance, not, "local characters dealing with a single problem in a small location" campaign. And, really, you can only have so many Epic Fantasy type campaigns in a single setting. That's kinda that point of an Epic Fantasy campaign. You can only throw the ring in the volcano so many times.

You're speculating an awful lot about a book we don't have yet and just have their marketing hype to go on. We have enough info to know there will probably be 6 battles based on info for the board game's scenarios, but not where. They might not stray outside of eastern Solamnia and guess what that is? A local campaign. Do you honestly think this book will feature battles in Silvanesti?

 

[Alzrius]

Forgotten Realms was largely the start of the whole "Here's a fun setting for DM's to read about but, we're not going to bother actually writing any modules for the setting, so, good luck in having adventures there" approach to settings.

"Not going to bother writing any adventures for the setting"? Are you kidding? How about H4 Throne of Bloodstone, which was the only official adventures for characters level 18-100? How about FRE1-3, Shadowdale, Tantras, and Waterdeep, the adventure modules of the Time of Troubles? Or the Marco Volo trilogy? Or For Duty and Deity, which was a crossover adventure with Planescape's The Infinite Staircase? Or Castle Spulzeer, which was a crossover adventure with Ravenloft's The Forgotten Terror? Or the entire "Dungeon Crawl" line of adventures, such as Hellgate Keep, Undermountain: Stardock, and The Dungeon of Death?

I could go on, but honestly, if you think the Forgotten Realms was typified by not having any modules written for it, then you quite obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[Hussar]

Sigh.

When was Forgotten Realms grey box released?

When were those modules released?

 

[Alzrius]

Sigh.

When was Forgotten Realms grey box released?

When were those modules released?

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Archive

A complete list of all 1st and 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons products

tsrarchive.com

 

[Older Beholder]

As much as I’m less likely to buy another adventure, I do think it’s a better way to do Dragonlance. It’s always worked better as a story than a setting, at least for me. (Not counting Taladas)

If I do end up getting it, I’ll probably look to combine it with ideas from Fizban’s treasury of dragons.