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

 

[mamba]

Seriously, what is with these Dragonlance fans getting up in arms when it comes to the slightest changes to the world? Didn't the setting already ruin itself decades ago through the metaplot? Why are you complaining about mustaches and the possibility of Orcs not being outright banned when you could be complaining about all of the terrible things that happened to the setting under TSR?

I suggest you reread the thread and keep track of who is writing what. While there are many posts, there are not that many posters… your summary is certainly completely off

Apart from one person that does not want any changes to existing lore, I am not aware of anyone else arguing against orcs, let alone mustaches (or a lack thereof)

Granted, there was one more poster wondering why they had to change it, not that I saw an answer that is more than ‘I think mustaches are silly’ or ‘what about women / men that cannot grow them’, neither of which is a good reason (not that I think one is all that important…)

I can also turn this around and ask why for you it is important that knights do not traditionally have a mustache, because either mustaches are unimportant for both sides, or they are important enough to care - but then I just get those silly answers we already have (and misrepresentations that all knights have them, when that is clearly not true, a few are clean shaven or have a beard)

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's impossible to please everyone. The goal is to please the newer players, because they're the biggest portion of the player base. But they also don't want to actively offend older players. Apparently that's impossible because some older players seem to think mustaches are core to the identity of Dragonlance.

That's a bit hyperbolic. They certainly don't all need to have them, but one or two in a big picture of Knights of Solamnia would be nice.

As an aside, if I recall correctly, there is an exchange in one of the Chronicles novels between Laurana the elf princess, a knight, and Astinus, loremaster of Krynn, about women in the order. The knight claims its never been done, but Astinus corrects him and provides a historical example. So they're not entirely unheard of. Still better to let that go for the game though.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Imagine if Keith Baker said that, kanonically, no one in Eberron has a mustache. That that kind of facial hair just never evolved on Eberron. It wouldn't somehow ruin the setting. It would be silly, but I can't imagine anyone complaining about it besides saying that it serves no purpose.

Imagine the thread where because of this, someone was affronted when I decided to play a bugbear and ask how that works.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Apart from one person that does not want any changes to existing lore, I am not aware of anyone else arguing against orcs, let alone mustaches (or a lack thereof)

@DarkCrisis was complaining about the art for the Knights of Solamnia not having mustaches. They also complained about the possibility of Orcs being playable back on the last post of page 4.

@Micah Sweet was also originally complaining about the Dragonlance book possibly not banning Orcs. There were several other people through the past 50ish pages arguing against the prescence of Orcs.

I'm not referring to you, @mamba. There have been people complaining about the slightest potential changes to the setting.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Imagine the thread where because of this, someone was affronted when I decided to play a bugbear and ask how that works.

You have an anti-mustache. A patch of hairless skin where your lip hair normally would be.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That's a bit hyperbolic.

But a valid point when the discussion of an upcoming book devolves to people arguing about whether or not mustaches are necessary to include in the book's art.

They certainly don't all need to have them, but one or two in a big picture of Knights of Solamnia would be nice.

Someone might have just decided that that style of mustache is stupid (I agree). Or it's actually included in the text somewhere, and the artists just didn't include it (things like this have happened before in 5e). Or they decided to remove them entirely because women can be Knights of Solamnia now.

As an aside, if I recall correctly, there is an exchange in one of the Chronicles novels between Laurana the elf princess, a knight, and Astinus, loremaster of Krynn, about women in the order. The knight claims its never been done, but Astinus corrects him and provides a historical example. So they're not entirely unheard of. Still better to let that go for the game though.

I don't remember that, so I either didn't read that book or forgot about it. And I'm pretty sure someone was complaining in one of the earlier threads about women being allowed to join the knights. I forget who, though.

 

[mamba]

@DarkCrisis was complaining about the art for the Knights of Solamnia not having mustaches. They also complained about the possibility of Orcs being playable back on the last post of page 4.

@Micah Sweet was also originally complaining about the Dragonlance book possibly not banning Orcs. There were several other people through the past 50ish pages arguing against the prescence of Orcs.

I'm not referring to you, @mamba. There have been people complaining about the slightest potential changes to the setting.

You do not have to refer to me for the summary to be a misrepresentation of this thread.

I amended my post to mention the second poster, still, ‘what is it with these DL fans’ when you are talking about two people seems pretty hyperbolic

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I amended my post to mention the second poster, still, ‘what is it with these DL fans’ when you are talking about two people seems pretty hyperbolic

There were plenty of others complaining about orcs. I gave two examples of posters that were still posting in this thread. And there's two other locked threads about Dragonlance that had Dragonlance fans complaining about similarly trivial changes.

I can also turn this around and ask why for you it is important that knights do not traditionally have a mustache, because either mustaches are unimportant for both sides, or they are important enough to care - but then I just get those silly answers we already have

I think they look silly and that it's ridiculous to claim that removing them will make them indistinguishable from other knightly orders.

I'm not making a big deal about the mustaches themselves. Whether or not they were included would have no effect on whether or not I buy this book. I'm calling out the "mountain out of a molehill" complaints that have plagued all recent threads about Dragonlance that don't seem to affect discussions about most other settings to the same degree.

 

[DarkCrisis]

@DarkCrisis was complaining about the art for the Knights of Solamnia not having mustaches. They also complained about the possibility of Orcs being playable back on the last post of page 4.

@Micah Sweet was also originally complaining about the Dragonlance book possibly not banning Orcs. There were several other people through the past 50ish pages arguing against the prescence of Orcs.

I'm not referring to you, @mamba. There have been people complaining about the slightest potential changes to the setting.

What I said was it was an odd change. A change made just to change something. Someone had to look at that and say “Despite t he lore behind it, We should take out the facial hair because reasons.”

And you may have missed whee I said Orcs can come from other worlds. I do stand by that Orcs shouldn’t naturally come from Krynn.

 

[Faolyn]

It would be great if we could find a way to not turn off either.

Well, older gamers need to understand that things are different now. Those of us who gamed in the 80s and 90s can't expect the world to stop just for us. And more importantly, older gamers need to learn that different doesn't mean bad.