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

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Is "no orcs" really heavily restrictive? Talk about mountains out of molehill. It cuts both ways.

It's not just "no orcs". It's all other standard fantasy/D&D races that weren't originally allowed there, too. And Orcs exist in many similar worlds and "monster" races that they've coexisted with in other settings are present in this one. The only reason you want them to not exist there is because of tradition. Not for any actual issues with worldbuilding or thematic coherence. "Tradition" is one of the worst reasons to include/exclude something that could be fun from a setting.

If you really would be annoyed about the book not calling out that Orcs don't exist in the world (and I don't mean just not including them, you already said that you would still be annoyed even if they just didn't include them in the adventure, but not outright mentioning that they don't exist there), then you're the one overreacting. Not me for being worried that your restrictions could diminish the fun of newer, inexperienced players being introduced to the setting through this book.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not just "no orcs". It's all other standard fantasy/D&D races that weren't originally allowed there, too. And Orcs exist in many similar worlds and "monster" races that they've coexisted with in other settings are present in this one. The only reason you want them to not exist there is because of tradition. Not for any actual issues with worldbuilding or thematic coherence. "Tradition" is one of the worst reasons to include/exclude something that could be fun from a setting.

If you really would be annoyed about the book not calling out that Orcs don't exist in the world (and I don't mean just not including them, you already said that you would still be annoyed even if they just didn't include them in the adventure, but not outright mentioning that they don't exist there), then you're the one overreacting. Not me for being worried that your restrictions could diminish the fun of newer, inexperienced players being introduced to the setting through this book.

I already told you I would compromise with them (and the other non-DL heritages) not actually being in the adventure. You win.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Sure, but that wouldn't be a bad thing, would it? I mean I hate to be my dad but "It didn't do us any harm", did it?

Like most things dads use that to try and justify: probably.

Legit, my dad once said that about him and his brothers shooting fireworks at each other.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

For tables where someone wants to play an Orc/Half-Orc but aren't allowed because of "tradition" it would be a bad thing.

A player threw their toys out of the plan because they couldn't play X, that's not someone I would want to share a table with.

 

[Older Beholder]

General question: what’s your favourite thing about Dragonlance?

 

[mamba]

Unless I've missed something, we don't know that either. I'm still betting on there being a sidebar or even a page or so of "Here is what a traditional DL campaign consisted of; you can run this adventure that way - or not, your choice".

Agreed, that too is purely speculation

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The orcs aren't wellcome in the Krynnspace. If a colony of orcs go to the Krynnspace to live there, then the divine curse will cause their offspring will born as humans, half-ogres or hobgoblings, at least if you want in your game.

Lots of characters from comics and fictions have to be "nerfed" in the adaptation of a game. And not only the characters, also the firearms are "nerferd" in the videogames, when we know in real fight one shot is enough to be KO.

* What if I wanted "warmages" in the mass battles? Or warlords. I mean classes.

* I guess the lore of Dragonlance will be frozen or untouched until WotC to see the ideas published in the DMGuild.

* Maybe the gem dragons are the rulers of the third continent, Adlatum, and when they were warned about the Cataclysm they used planar gates to escape toward a "safe space", but this planar gates had got a secondary effect because when they returned to Adlatum they found "okupas", settlers from other wildspace (maybe Athas) running away from the dystopy of their original world.

Or in the island of dragons there is a secret planar portal toward the setting "Councyl of Wyrms".

* We shouldn't be too surprised about a crossover, for example a group of children from a Disney+ cartoon show play Dragonlance, and later in the night they are dreaming to be characters within Krynn, but with more creative freedom to alter changes, for example Tika is a member of the first adventure. or Flint is replaced with a gnome artificier. Or Dragonlance-Dr Who where the doctor and company enter a zone and they discover they are within a virtual simulation inspired in Dragonlance.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Gosh this thread grew fast since yesterday.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned but the elves of Mystara or elves from BECMI are quite different, IMO, to the elves from LotR. The Elves of Alfheim Gazetteer I think made an effort to differentiate the two.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

I must be honest and admit I don't understand the whole orcs in Dragonlance discussion. For me the difference between a kitchen sink, anything goes setting and other settings is that other settings has restrictions, be it races, class, no sunlight, only low magic or whatnot. And in Dragonlance there are no orcs.

If you want orcs in Dragonlance, just do it. But then it's not core Dragonlance. And it's ok if you don't want to play in core Dragonlance - I would guess most of us mod official core setting to different degrees.

 

[Vaalingrade]

A player threw their toys out of the plan because they couldn't play X, that's not someone I would want to share a table with.

And others don't want to share a table with a DM who throws their toys out of the pram because a player doesn't want to just play characters from the novel the DM wrote in their head.