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

 

[Stormonu]

Yeah, I'm not sure where this knights are all sexist bit came from. Some of the novels have used the rights of women in Solamnic society as a plot point which is fine for a story; it works fine in House of the Dragon for instance. But I sincerely hope people aren't using all 200+ novels as game rules considering the amount of contradictions between the different authors involved in those products.

Where in the game books does it make any reference to gender for creating a knight? The 2E book shows a portrait of a female for the Knights of the Sword and that's the closest the books come to refencing gender that I'm aware of. @Levistus's_Leviathan where are you getting any hint of sexism in the game books from?

Granted, it's been 20 years since I've read them, but In the novels, the knights (at least Derrick Crownguard and those allied with him who think like him - Gunthur and Sturm don't seem to share Derrick's sentiments) have a real problem with taking orders from Laurana, because she's a woman (and not human on top of that). They get shown up for the bigots they are though, with the likes of Kitiara, whose one of the most respected dragon lords, with the epitaph of "the Blue Lady". After the Clerist tower events, Laurana is much more favored as she becomes known among the troops as the "Golden General".

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Having the super-stache as a Solamnic tradition for male knights and nobility isn't stupid world-building, it can be excellent world-building. Having super-staches as a requirement, hard or soft, for belonging to the Order of Solamnic Knights IS stupid world-building, for a D&D setting (perhaps not for a non-game setting). And, pretty sure that's not canon anyway.

To complain that a few pieces of teaser art show male Solamnic knights sans stache is beyond pedantic. To claim this as an example of WotC ruining the setting is histrionic.

I agree, it's the tiny details like regulation facial hair that can bring a setting to life. But it doesn't matter if the art is not an exact match for your actual game.

Regulations and customs around facial hair have a long tradition in various armed forces around the world, and where often a sign of rank. One might suppose that many of those in the artwork have yet to achieve the rank of full knight and are clean shaven for that reason.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I dunno - at the end of the day, I don't know what separates "Krynn doesn't have any orcs in it" from "Hey gang, I have some ideas for a 'Thieves Guild' campaign, make some criminal characters".

I would say that nothing separates a “Krynn doesn’t have any orcs in it” and a “Thieves’ Guild campaign” make some criminal characters, at that stage.

What separates the two campaigns is how the DM responds to the next question: “Why can’t I play an orc?” or “Why can’t I play a paladin?”.

Several posters have argued that the DM explaining why is very important.

On a first level, it provides information that the player can use to determine if they want to play in the campaign or not. “Because Krynn doesn’t have any orcs” is a terrible response, not only because it doesn’t add any new information, but also because the DM is refusing to take responsibility for something that is ultimately their descision.

On a deeper level, the Why? plays another role. It allows the player to address the concern raised by the DM so both of them get what they want.

Let’s take the thief campaign as an example.
“Why can’t I play a paladin?”

There are two principal concerns to playing a paladin in a thief campaign: one narrative and one mechanical. Narratively, the paladin ethos and tenets often conflict with the goals of a criminal campaign. Mechanically, paladins often have poor Dex, are untrained in Stealth and wear heavy armor, which may render a more Stealth based campaign impossible.

But what if the player responds:
“You know, I was thinking of playing a Dex-based Oath of the Crown Robin-Hood type paladin. He is an outlaw because he objects to the usurper and still hopes for the return of the rightful king”

That’s an interesting character. It’s an interesting character that would work in a thieves’ based canpaign and more importantly, would add to it.

And it is important to encourage players like that rather than shut down such ideas before they start.

However, if I'm planning that campaign, a 'monastic paladin' character might not be a great fit for the game. That character might be both awesome and fun to play, but not every character is a right fit for every campaign. To be completely honest, given that 5e has 140+ races in it (I stopped counting when Van Richtens came out), I don't know that excluding one or two races from a setting is really that big of a deal.

 

[FrozenNorth]

And what about men who can't grow mustaches?

Ninja'd by Levistus.

But if mustaches are so important, why not say their uniform consists of mustache-bearing helmets, like some old samurai helmets?

View attachment 264947

Actually, that would be awesome, especially for elves and women.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Can people in your fantasy make believe world not grow mostaches?

I mean, it was a plot point in freakin’ Dragonlance that Tanis Half-Elven could grow a beard, unlike full-blooded elves, so yeah, there are men in DL that can’t grow mustaches.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

They definitely handled the Realms and Eberron differently than they did Ravenloft and Spelljammer. (I also wonder if they'll use 2024 as an opportunity to do similar reboots to the former two settings.)

a reboot grey box FR with modern story conventions would make me SOOO happy

 

[Velderan]

Granted, it's been 20 years since I've read them, but In the novels, the knights (at least Derrick Crownguard and those allied with him who think like him - Gunthur and Sturm don't seem to share Derrick's sentiments) have a real problem with taking orders from Laurana, because she's a woman (and not human on top of that). They get shown up for the bigots they are though, with the likes of Kitiara, whose one of the most respected dragon lords, with the epitaph of "the Blue Lady". After the Clerist tower events, Laurana is much more favored as she becomes known among the troops as the "Golden General".

For sure, there were novel examples and as @Micah Sweet pointed out there's also a novel example of a character who would definitely know (Astinus) pointing out the inaccuracy of the Knighthood being only for men. Since this thread has largely been about arguing about older game design concepts, I'm just curious where people are getting the idea only men can be knights in D&D. I may be missing something and I'd like @Levistus's_Leviathan to clarify what I very well could be missing. I know 1E and 2E exclusively use the pronouns he and him, with 2E having that BS "he doesn't actually mean he because apparently we're unfamiliar with they" paragraph in the PHB so maybe the game books using he exclusively gave that impression.

 

[Stormonu]

On a first level, it provides information that the player can use to determine if they want to play in the campaign or not. “Because Krynn doesn’t have any orcs” is a terrible response, not only because it doesn’t add any new information, but also because the DM is refusing to take responsibility for something that is ultimately their descision.

May be my bias, but for me the DM saying "Can't play X race because they don't exist in this campaign world" is sufficient enough reason for me. Someone running a Star Wars game and refusing someone to play a Klingon, for example, wouldn't seem out of place.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

In 1E it was even harder than that. You had to take a certain amount of levels in Fighter, Thief, and Druid.

Keeping in mind for the younger crowd, it was harder to multi class back then.

if it was like 2e you had to take levels in a class, then stop and take in another (like take 5 levels in fighter then go back to being a 1st level thief) when you restarted you kept you hp stats and equipment but got no XP for useing your old class features unless you get to higher level...

my go to example was my friends human character who went 6 or 7 levels as ranger (in 2e they didn't get spells till 8 or 9 and I know he didn't have ranger spells) and then switched to wizard. He then had to play until he hit 7 or 8th in wizard pretty much 'forgetting' how to use his weapons. then BOOM at that level he could fight like a ranger AND cast spells... but the XP charts were easier at lower level so a 6/7 wasn't as expensive as most characters at 10th.

I even abused it with a character that took 2 levels of fighter then 3 level of ranger then went up as thief... when I hit level 3 thief (easy to do) I got my weapon specilization back in short swords, and when I hit 4th I got my two weapon fighting and the boost to my move silent and hide in shadows... and no party member had a single class over 7th and I had 3d10+4d6 for my HD/HP

 

[mamba]

May be my bias, but for me the DM saying "Can't play X race because they don't exist in this campaign world" is sufficient enough reason for me. Someone running a Star Wars game and refusing someone to play a Klingon, for example, wouldn't seem out of place.

Agreed, that is very much enough for most worlds.

To me the question then becomes why does the player want to play an orc and whether the same goal can be accomplished by picking a race that actually exists (and I cannot really think of anything that requires the char to be an orc and cannot possibly be done while playing eg a minotaur)