Dragonlance Dragonlance Creators Reveal Why There Are No Orcs On Krynn

Talking to the Dragonlance Nexus, Dragonlance creators Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman revealed why the world of Krynn features no orcs -- in short, because they didn't want to copy Tolkien, and orcs were very much a 'Middle Earth' thing.

Weis told Trampas Whiteman that "Orcs were also viewed as very Middle Earth. We wanted something different." Hickman added that it was draconians which made Krynn stand out. Read more at the link below!

Why are there no Orcs in Krynn? Weis and Hickman give us the answer! – Dragonlance Nexus

dragonlancenexus.com

 

[Maxperson]

Oh, boy....

Well. I'm sorta glad I missed that.

 

[Cadence]

Not once is my decades of DL fandom have I ever thought "you know what makes Krynn unique and interesting? The fact that there aren't any orcs."

I think I'd kind of worry about anyone who thought that was the the only thing that made the world unique W&H sure didn't claim it should feel unique solely because there weren't orcs, and they said right after bringing up orcs that Draconians filled the role as being what they had as the main non-human enemy.

It doesn't make it somewhat unique at all, because there are many fantasy worlds which have no orcs.

Sure, there are a bunch without orcs. And so their leaving them out feels to me like it shouldn't require much justification. I wonder if most of the other fantasy world creators thought about it similarly, that "World creation isn’t like a blender. You can’t just toss in tropes, hit pulse a few times, pour out something and claim ‘it’s unique’. Worlds have to be organic, as my wife likes to say. All the parts make up a living, breathing whole." In any case, not being a kitchen sink campaign feels to me like it helps with feeling unique.

What makes it unique are the things that actually make it unique. Defining something based on what it isn't is a terrible idea.

As a total aside, lots of things are defined by what they lack though, right? Vegetarian (no meat), vegan (no animal products except probably accidental insect parts), non-binary, non-metric scaling, non-Abelian rings, non-sectarian, NGO, etc...

 

[Seramus]

If only they'd applied that to Hobbit like things, we might have been spared Kender ;-)

They did! Kender were an intentional effort to move away from Hobbits!
But sometimes you move out of the frying pan into HELL ITSELF.

 

[Cadence]

They did! Kender were an intentional effort to move away from Hobbits!
But sometimes you move out of the frying pan into HELL ITSELF.

Are they gnomes now? (Or at least descended from them?)

 

[Seramus]

Are they gnomes now? (Or at least descended from them?)

Both Dwarves and Kender are mutated Gnomes.

 

[Von Ether]

My son and I go round and round about this. I claim that it's perfectly fine to mix things up by not including every heritable as a player option, never mind just not including them. My son thinks it's "limiting" player options.

I'm all for kitchen sink settings but now we have plenty of options to curate something more unique with fewer heritages. Frankly, I've been a very causal DL fan and never noticed orcs never existed.

 

[Haiku Elvis]

If only they'd applied that to Hobbit like things, we might have been spared Kender ;-)

They did! Kender were an intentional effort to move away from Hobbits!
But sometimes you move out of the frying pan into HELL ITSELF.

Leave off Kender! Some of my favourite characters in the books were Kender.

Of course if someone in your party wants to actually play one, tell them you switched to only playing one page story-games about sadness from itch.io, turn the lights out and hide under the table until they go away.

Same goes with the Gnomes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Both Dwarves and Kender are mutated Gnomes.

My headcanon says that all intelligent species in D&D are mutated gnomes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My son and I go round and round about this. I claim that it's perfectly fine to mix things up by not including every heritable as a player option, never mind just not including them. My son thinks it's "limiting" player options.

This is probably something for a Session Minus One. Find out what options the players want to have represented before you do any world-building, and leave out the stuff they don't. (Sorry, xvarts; you didn't make the cut yet again.)

Everyone wins, except for the people who just instantly say "I want every option on the table," which means it's their turn to DM.

 

[Seramus]

My son thinks it's "limiting" player options.

I will never have an issue limiting player options. No, you cannot be a Gundam in my fantasy setting. On the flip side, I have no problem reskinning mechanical things into thematically appropriate things. If someone wants to use the Orc mechanics in my DL game, I'm fine with them being burly humans (or whatever).