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

 

[Vaalingrade]

No, it absolutely is not. Show me where in the DL modules or the setting guides orcs occur or are said to exist / be allowed as a player race.

If you cannot, then they are not canon. This is like saying Superman is canon in Star Wars because no one bothered spelling out that he is not in it in the first movie (or any other for that matter, unlike in DL)

"My character eats a sweeet potato."

"SWEET POTATOES AREN'T CANON! HANG THE TOXIC PLAYER"

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Kindly read my post again, I specifically said for "setting purists" so yes, these players are more likely to care.

right but I was going under the assumption of the mixed table... 1 or 2 puriests and 1 or 2 non purists... what I am saying is not seeing any orcs or half orcs will upset 0 people... it will only upset if you take half orc (or post 2024 full orc) from PHB and say no.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Swimming a few pages back upthread.

I think it's really, really telling that the "Dragonlance canon must be respected" crowd won't answer this. I've brought this up repeatedly that the whole "no orcs" thing is something that was added MUCH later. As in years after the modules dropped. I believe (although I don't have a quote) that it appears in the Dragonlance Adventures book, but, again, that's like two years after the modules wrapped up and was largely there to backfill restrictions that didn't exist and also to make sure that 1e D&D got cut out of the mix by not allowing half-orcs into the setting.

The point is though, for all people keep insisting that canon must be respected, as usual, there's a real selection bias as to what "counts" as canon or not.

They are apparently reverting Dragonlance back to it's original form. Which, to me, is about is good as you could want it for moving forward. You can always add that other stuff back in if you want, but, let's have the setting the way it was originally meant to be played first instead of playing "pin the tail on the canon" and try to guess which canon "counts" and which doesn't.

See to me, all the canon of a setting counts. Its all part of the story. The additional material is like a sequel; it adds to the setting. What you're suggesting sounds to me like, "they're reverting Star Wars to the original, so why would they keep all that later stuff from Empire Strikes Back"? Discounting Dragonlance Adventures is no different than that to me.

Sure, they didn't explicitly say there weren't any orcs until a little past the modules, but there weren't any before, and later they made it clear. That's more than good enough for me. I'm not picking choosing anything.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

"My character eats a sweeet potato."

"SWEET POTATOES AREN'T CANON! HANG THE TOXIC PLAYER"

oh god this reminds me of a 2e game I had to walk (maybe should have run) away from... I made the mistake of at a tavern ordering a steak... just to be told "This isn't the real world stop meta gaming, there is no such thing..."

so I got the stew... some how I made it another level (makeing me 2/3) after that and that was like 4 or 5 months before the BS made me leave.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Your math may be a bit off since 40 years is 1982.

But again I’m not the one who cares about canon. Personally do not care at all. I’m just pointing out the rather convenient arguments about how we must respect some canon that you personally like but can entirely ignore canon that you don’t.

Allowing orcs in Dragonlance absolutely is canon. Just not the canon you happen to prefer.

Which is fine and dandy. Play what you like. But planting the flag on canon and then completely ignoring inconvenient bits is awfully suspect.

What canon is being ignored?

 

[Micah Sweet]

warlocks... I can go make a deal with a fey lord or a genie and THEN go test for the mages of High Sorcery... what is THAT going to do to canon (or celestial for that matter).

wait, hexblade.

I can play a half orc hexblade from a tribe of half orcs that made a deal with a powerful axe in the shadowfel, then go test at the towers...

Do it! Sounds like a fun game for your table.

 

[Micah Sweet]

this is something we don't talk about enough... someone in the 80's could have bought the first 3 DL adventures, offered the pregens ben told that the players would rather make there own, and end up with 2 half orc PCs... and it fit the canon just fine.

And that would be fine, for that game. It doesn't put orcs in the books though, because they're aren't any.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

What you're suggesting sounds to me like, "they're reverting Star Wars to the original, so why would they keep all that later stuff from Empire Strikes Back"?

this is the perfect analogy of this argument I have ever seen (not sarcastic) and @Micah Sweet just won this thread...

imagine 5 players sit down to play star wars. (In this scenario SW isn't like a part of pop culture owned by Disney mega corp I guess, so lets say in 1980)

DM having seen all the movies knows that luke is vader's son, 2 players have never seen the movies but have heard about laser swords and psychic knights, 1 player has seen only return of the jedi, and 1 player has only seen the first one (now retconed to be named a new hope)

the player that has only seen the first one says "I have an idea, I want to play an alien jedi who was the son of Vader back when he was apprentice to obiwan, I will be Teial Vader. I have the same type of environmental suit since I come from the same planet but not black mine is red and grey... and even though I am his son I hate him."

the player that has only seen return of the jedi is like "I want to play an ewak"

the 2 players that never saw any of it are like "Those sound cool but I want to be ______"

the DM knowing that luke is vader's son and that under that helmet is a human

if that game was run in 1978 before empire only the ewok wouldn't work.

 

[Micah Sweet]

and it's current owners (wotc) and it seems (from what I have seen) the current owners are not fans of restriction just for restriction sake (again unless you or someone else can show how it matters or changes anything(

Exactly. WotC wants to change the setting, just like they changed Ravenloft and Spelljammer. That's what I'm objecting to.

 

[mamba]

If I wrote a detailed account of the first 25 years of my life there are PLENTY of things that both exist, and I didn't run intodirectly

Your world also doesn’t come with a settings guide that specifically says ‘X does not exist’, so you cannot just say ‘X does not exist because I have never seen it’…