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

 

[AnotherGuy]

Yes, I genuinely believe that it is a superior way of world building a D&D-like TTRPG setting. Because it is the sweet middle ground between "include every race and try to explain how they all fit in" and "only allow a small amount of race options and go in depth for how they fit in the setting". It allows you to choose as many races as you want to be important in the world, while also accommodating the players that might want to play a character race not explained in-depth in the world. It's the best of both worlds, and I see absolutely no downsides. It's just better.

And there you have it. If you're doing it any other way it is BadWrongFun.
Is that clear enough for everyone?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes, I genuinely believe that it is a superior way of world building a D&D-like TTRPG setting. Because it is the sweet middle ground between "include every race and try to explain how they all fit in" and "only allow a small amount of race options and go in depth for how they fit in the setting". It allows you to choose as many races as you want to be important in the world, while also accommodating the players that might want to play a character race not explained in-depth in the world. It's the best of both worlds, and I see absolutely no downsides. It's just better.

Better and worse are subjective. You think, or you believe, it is better. Glad you landed on a place in which you're happy, but your opinion is not the only one that matters.

 

[Micah Sweet]

According to 5e, Eberron is somewhere inside the Great Wheel, but the Ring of Siberys blocks travel to and from Eberron and it's own unique cosmology. So the DM can officially choose to include stuff from other settings if they want, but the baseline is that travelling to or from Eberron is basically impossible.

So it's part of the multiverse in a way that's completely meaningless. Is that what you mean?

 

[Micah Sweet]

And I could always find a justification for including Tieflings in Middle Earth. Melkor corrupted a lot of creatures after all, the Tieflings could just be a unique corrupted-Maiar. And that Krynnian Orc could have come from space or some distant island that no one from Taladas has discovered yet.

Letting someone play an Orc/Half-Orc as a unique outsider is not going to ruin the game. Orcs are a generic fantasy race and Krynn is a fantasy world. It's really not an egregious thematic divergence, like playing a Time Lord in Dark Sun or Ultron in Theros. Dragonlance already has similar fantasy races and was obviously inspired by Lord of the Rings.

Then find your justification. I'm not going to change a setting I'm running in a way I don't care for because a player insists on playing their favorite heritage in a campaign that doesn't allow for it.

 

[Maxperson]

Why else would someone want the setting to say that Orcs are banned? Because, as demonstrated, Orcs can come to Krynn (Spelljammer and Planescape), they're just not native there. And most people that will buy this book probably don't know much about Dragonlance, so having the book say "Orcs are banned" in a sidebar would change how people play the setting. You are trying to control other people's tables. Or you just want the book to be beholden to your nostalgia for the setting when a sidebar that says Orcs are banned would add nothing meaningful or useful to the setting.

A simple sentence like 1e included is sufficient. "Orcs don't exist on Krynn, but they can travel there." That lets DMs and players alike know that 1) Orcs aren't on Krynn unless they travel there, and 2) they exist as a PC option if the DM okays the character having travelled to Krynn.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Every new race, class, etc he writes on his blog about how he feels it fits.

Who's he? Baker? It's his world (creatively, if not legally), and whatever he puts into it is part of Eberron as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Micah Sweet]

ERLW:

It is theoretically possible to travel between Eberron and other worlds in the multiverse by means of the Deep Ethereal or various spells designed for planar travel, but the cosmology of Eberron is specifically designed to prevent such travel, to keep the world hidden away from the meddling of gods, celestials, and fiends from beyond.

...

In your campaign, you might decide that the barrier formed by the Ring of Siberys is intact, and contact between Eberron and the worlds and planes beyond its cosmology is impossible. This is the default assumption of this book. On the other hand, you might want to incorporate elements from other realms. Perhaps you want to use a published adventure that involves Tiamat or the forces of the Abyss meddling in the affairs of the world. In such a case, it could be that the protection offered by the Ring of Siberys has begun to fail. You might link the weakening of Siberys to the Mourning—perhaps whatever magical catastrophe caused the Mourning also disrupted the Ring of Siberys, or perhaps a disruption of the Ring of Siberys actually caused the Mourning

And a couple sentences explaining this exact thing should be in the first section of the first book per edition of every setting. That's literally all I want from them. Apparently there are folks here that believe that's far too much to ask for.

 

[Micah Sweet]

funny story sidebit: I use the middle earth book for martial only campagins, but one of my buddies ran a LotRs game with it back when Covid started (I didn't get to play it was run while I was working) and he let a player be a teifling by saying he is the child of a [insert angel like gandalf thing] and a human woman... not only did it not ruin anything but one of my buddies says it was more 'true to tolken' then the new TV show.

Sounds great for that table. Doesn't mean it needs to be that way in the book.

 

[AnotherGuy]

. . . . I'm saying that's how it is in 5e. The base cosmology of 5e (and it actually has been around since 2e) was that almost all of the D&D worlds are connected to the Multiverse. Krynn is explicitly connected to it. Plasmoids are from Krynn's Moons from 2e Spelljammer. The Dragonlance setting is connected to Spelljammer so it never would have made sense for a DM to say that there is 0% chance of Orcs ever existing on Krynn.

Oh look who decided lore was important all of a sudden.

And my point is that the "historical limitations of the setting" are both outdated and completely unnecessary to include in a book.

Yes, you've made your preferences clear.

Banning orcs is outdated because the reason they were banned in the first place no longer applies to the modern iterations of Orcs (because Draconians became the main always evil race that serves the villain).

Seems a little unfair on the sentient draconians.

I have no opinion on Tieflings existing in the world

And yet, so much pathos for Orcs. Why?
What about Giff, Aaracrocka, Aasimar, Genasi, Gith, Yuanti Purebloods? You have no opinions on them?

 

[Maxperson]

That's an oversimplification. Krynn was created before Spelljammer, and it was incorporated into the Spelljammer setting by the Spelljammer creator against the wishes of the Dragonlance creators, who had always envisioned it as completely separate from the core D&D cosmology.

Spelljammer is not the only way to reach Krynn. In 1e orcs, halflings, druids, monks, etc. could travel to Krynn. Planar travel had to be possible in order for that to be true. So it doesn't make sense to completely disallow orcs in the setting and the 5e version should have similar language as the 1e setting.