Dragonlance Lunar Sorcery: A Preview from Shadow of the Dragon Queen

WotC has posted a preview from the upcoming Shadow of the Dragon Queen on D&D Beyond, diving into the Lunary Sorcery subclass.

Traditionally magic in Krynn has been represented by the Wizards of High Sorcery, who owe their allegiance to one of the black, red, or white moons (and gods) of magic. Sorcerers weren't around in D&D when Dragonlance was created.

Lunar Sorcerers also draw power from the moons, based on the moon's phase (Full, New, Crescent). You choose the phase each day (though at later levels you can do so more often). The subclass gets a lot of spells (15 additional spells!)

Lunar Sorcery Sorcerer Preview From Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen

Harness the power of the moon with the Lunar Sorcery sorcerer! Here's a look at the versatile features granted by this celestial subclass.

www.dndbeyond.com

 

[Faolyn]

Gnomes in dragonlance were tinkers, not artificers. They made items based on technology rather than magic.

Technically, you're supposed to reskin all of your spells as being technological, not magical. So it might still work.

 

[cbwjm]

Technically, you're supposed to reskin all of your spells as being technological, not magical. So it might still work.

I suppose you could, but the artificer seems like a very magical class to me rather than a tinker/engineer. I'd be more inclined to convert the tinker class from the WoW RPG than use artificer. Depends how much work you'd want to do though since reskinning is easy, converting a class and associated subsystems from an earlier edition is a bit more difficult.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

I wish WotC had the guts to just say hey Dragonlance doesn't have Sorcerers. Not try to force every option into every world.

I don't see why they would ever do that, given how much they officially lean into the notion of "make D&D your own". And really, when it boils down to it, what would be the actual benefit for them to be officially exclusionary in any campaign setting? Why would they aim to shrink the modern game to fit into a setting rather than adapting the setting to the modern game?

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

Yup. Right here.

[LINK=youtube.com/dQw4w9WgXcQ[/LINK]

Not the right link.

 

[Maxperson]

"Dragonlance was originally released in 1984 by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. If you wish to play the setting as originally envisioned, please consider the following optional rules:

• The following races aren't known on Krynn naturally: halflings, drow, orcs, half-orcs, dragonborn, tieflings, and all optional races from Monsters of the Multiverse unless the DM allows it.
• The following classes are not considered native to Krynn: artificer, bard, druid, monk, sorcerer and warlock.
• Humans should have a racial traits removed. All other races are limited to only 10th level maximum. Humans can go to 20th level.
• Humans can be any class. Elves and half-elves cannot be paladins or barbarians. Dwarves cannot be wizards, rangers or paladins, kender cannot be wizards, rangers, paladins, or barbarians. Any race can be a fighter, rogue or cleric.

These rules will allow you to experience Krynn as it was 38 years ago.

- WotC staff"

I would argue that Artificers are in the original Krynn, but not as a formal class. The gnomes fit that bill quite nicely, so in 5e I would insert the class into the game as a gnome only class(barring a good written background explaining why some other race is one).

Monks are both in and not in 1e Dragonlance. There are gods with the monk class and one god is literally the god of monks. At the same time it says that monks that come into Krynn become heathen clerics. This is an obvious contradiction. You can't have both no monks and a god of monks. This requires a DM ruling and so I'd rule in favor of monks being present and having a god to follow.

Level limits were ignored by most tables anyway, so no need to put those back in. Same with racial limits. Those were often ignored, though less so than level limits.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Technically, you're supposed to reskin all of your spells as being technological, not magical. So it might still work.

Except artificers definitely use magic, even if narratively they're not casting spells.

 

[Older Beholder]

The entry for Artificers in Tasha's specifically mentioned Tinker gnomes from DragonLance as an example of artificers.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The entry for Artificers in Tasha's specifically mentioned Tinker gnomes from DragonLance as an example of artificers.

And they definitely have some kind of magic. How else would they get up into Spelljammer and create Autognomes?

 

[ECMO3]

This. The wizard class might refer to himself as a sorcerer or warlock in the fiction, but he's a guy who learns magic from a book.

I agree!
I am playing a Shadar-Kai Bladesinger-Cavalier right now. She is a servant of the Raven Queen, was in the Raven Queens cavalry in the Shadowfell before coming to the campaign. She has a lot of Warlock like thematics. She is very dark and creepy. Her "mistress" communes with her, sent her on a mission etc and she talks about this and is extremely loyal.

She joined a group at 8th level, literally coming to the prime from the Shadowfell through a portal. When I joined the group initially others players thought I was a Hexblade or other melee bladelock for quite a while, but she is not, she learns her spells from a book and is all wizard.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Gnomes in dragonlance were tinkers, not artificers. They made items based on technology rather than magic.

And the whole thing was they were bad at it! They built giant contraptions that were needlessly complicated but somehow worked unintentionally.

Thinker gnomes on the other hand…