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

 

[Vaalingrade]

Dan Brown will be diving into this in his next book.

Considering the real life theory that the Mona Lisa that's on display is a copy covering for the real one that was stolen... I kind of want the story to turn out that the original had her with a big, cheesy smile and a kicky beret.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I don't understand the confusion.

I was caught in a Dragonlance time loop that involved a kender and a gully dwarf.

 

[mamba]

he asked me what it would take for me to change MY mind then he called me a hypacrit even though I have given my way...

there was an IF in my statement, I assume you know how conditions work… also I wrote that in my question, so before you gave your answer

This time I will be calling you dishonest. Your reply was

all it takes is someone (wotc, you, one of the other posters) how it would impact or hurt Krynn if there were Orcs living someone on the planet.

and reasons were given, just not any that you accepted… so, what does it take? What would be a good enough reason? You can also admit that it doesn’t exist, but then you trigger the IF condition

 

[Demetrios1453]

Considering the real life theory that the Mona Lisa that's on display is a copy covering for the real one that was stolen... I kind of want the story to turn out that the original had her with a big, cheesy smile and a kicky beret.

I go by the Douglas Adams/Doctor Who theory that the one on display is indeed a copy, but a copy painted by Da Vinci, with "THIS IS A FAKE" written in felt-tip marker under the paint...

 

[Mecheon]

So it is just asthetics then. Fair enough, but not a good reason for me.

I'd argue a lot of the elf variants out there are just for the aesthetic reason of wanting to be an elf but with different stats

But frankly, given Krynn is the land of the "Three seperate aquatic elf sub-races", its not like superfluous races is an unusual concept for it (just they gotta be elves to get a pass from folks apparently)

Beholders are an intelligent, sentient race that has fans with ideas. Why single out orcs like this? Beholders and every other sentient creature with fans also needs to be taken from evil monster to fight and turned into a playable race, right?

Orcs been playable since the 80s and can sneak in via loose canon threads, much like Kenku in Dark Sun. We're looking at what's already been written and expanding on it to say "Oh yeah, they were off there" rather than just, throwing in new stuff.

People that rare don't need to be taken into consideration by the books. They're a case by case DM makes the decision thing, like playing an unusual race in Theros.

That's all you gotta do. I just love the fact there's juuuust enough room in soft canon that you can tug at it and go "Yeah, orcs just, existed somewhere else and didn't get involved in any of this" and just, not contradict anything pre-existing

Mind I'm not a Dragonlance fan and its pretty abundant folks who are probably don't want that little bit of canon tugged at, content for it to remain "Error" rather than "Let's explain it later". But I am a Transformers fan, and we did have a comic series recently that basically took earlier errors and made them no longer errors, but make sort of sense in hindsight, so I may just be biased

Also can I just agree on the love towards Dragonlance's minotaurs? I will absolutely dump on their elves any day of the week, but the minotaurs are where its at

 

[Remathilis]

Pretty much what Perkins made a big announcement about.
So I'm curious, now, for the in-game reason why there are orcs in Krynn (because of the Half-Orc race option).

Or if they actually do plan to follow Krynn lore, why there isn't (which begs why when we are literally seeing D&D do this whole "multiverse" theme, and even prior to that we knew portals and Spelljammers and other world-hopping methods existed).

Wish D&D lore was just consistent. Almost as bad as Legacy Star Wars at this point.

You have not experienced true suffering until you try to piece together Doctor Who canon.

 

[mamba]

Because the solutions proffered aren't ways to be a non-renegade wizard unaffiliated with the Towers of High Sorcery, they're ways to justify a character surviving as a renegade wizard.

Fundamentally, I don't buy into the premise of there being only a single wizarding order that has an ironclad monopoly on practitioners of the arcane. Do the elves not have their own archmages? Has no king ever taken issue with the idea that their court wizard (assuming such exists) might be more loyal to the Towers of High Sorcery than to the crown they claim to serve? Has no one in the Towers ever argued that maybe the way they do things is somehow wrong? Have wizards declared renegade by the Towers never banded together for safety? Are there no independent wizarding schools on the other side of the world?

The idea that these are questions that Dragonlance just...doesn't think it necessary to answer, or seemingly even consider, simply baffles me.

There are novels that answer a lot of them, I don’t think you find them in a setting book however (maybe the one specifically about the towers, no idea though)

So let’s go through them a bit (to the best of my knowledge)

1) elves do, they are also members of the towers, those are not exclusively human

2) kings do take issue, but there is not much they can do about it - other than get lucky and get one that turns out more loyal to them than the towers (you get your wizard assigned by the order…)

3) no idea, if so, then not successfully
They had a good reason not to change, a renegade almost caused the end of the world, made them much more vigilant - I’d argue that changed again with the Cataclysm though (logistics…)

4) yes, but they are few, so it does not really help

5) no idea, none that have their wizards end up on Ansalon at least, apparently

As before, what is stopping you from going that route ? Check with your players if that deviates too much from DL for them to enjoy it and if not, run with what you want.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Also can I just agree on the love towards Dragonlance's minotaurs? I will absolutely dump on their elves any day of the week, but the minotaurs are where its at

While Dragonlance's impact on other races has been mixed at best, they changed the game, for the better, with minotaurs.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Eh... it comes back to certain out of universe elements that informed a lot of why DL is the way it is and which we're not allowed to talk about on this board, but the long and short of it is (I believe) that magic is a gift from the divine via the towers, so whoever controls the towers get to be in charge of magic and trying to extract the wizards is 1) trying to fight wizards in D&D with non-wizards, so you WILL lose, and 2) seen as an attack on the divine.

Which... to me doesn't really hold up because the gods left everyone to go hang, so I'm not sure why anyone honored it after the world ended.

Maybe the entire population is nerds, so tradition really held on that long.

I suppose that does help to clarify some of the idiosyncrasies that stick in my mind, albeit not in a way that makes me any more enthused about the setting...

I've never been a big fan of stories that explain why things are the way they are with a dogmatic "the gods made it that way" and never bother to go any further than that. I like differing viewpoints, contradictory competing mythologies, questions that can have many different answers or no answer at all.

I don't care for "one-true-way-ism"... It's why I gravitate toward Eberron and Planescape.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You have not experienced true suffering until you try to piece together Doctor Who canon.

My dad was over recently, and we watched the final Jodie Whitaker episode together.

"Don't ask about any of it. It'll be a lot more enjoyable if you're not trying to make this all make sense. Just assume there were wonderful episodes that you didn't see," that don't actually exist, "that make it all make sense."

I really don't envy everyone trying to right the ship after this last era. Whitaker deserved so much better.