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

 

[pemerton]

only by people that do not understand the story…

In the books it is very clear that the Kingpriest was not very good at all. He might have been a good man, but with very misguided ideas of what good is.

This seems right to me.

Here's the passage again:

“Yes,” he continued, seeing their astonishment, “the Kingpriest of Istar was a good man. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t, because both of you have seen what goodness like that can do. You’ve seen it in the elves, the ancient embodiment of good! It breeds intolerance, rigidity, a belief that because I am right, those who don’t believe as I do are wrong. “We gods saw the danger this complacency was bringing upon the world. We saw that much good was being destroyed, simply because it wasn’t understood."

It seems tolerably clear that "a good man", followed as it is by "goodness like that", is being used in some sort of "inverted commas" or moderately ironic or at least qualified sense ("like that").

You mentioned upthread about "the road to hell being paved with good intentions", and one of the tensions that the quote brings out is between intention and action: the Kingpriest intends to promote good, and therefore engages in actions that aren't good.

I'm not going to argue that the moral outlook of DL is fully coherent - it seems to want to integrate (i) naturalistic, Daoist-like views of the necessity of balance and the risk that is posed by human intentional actions (which Gygax, in his alignment system, identified with True Neutrality) with (ii) the moral outlook of the Abrahamic religions, which includes ideas of benevolent divinity, divine providence and the like. I'm not sure the works really pull this off, and the Cataclysm is one of the obvious points at which the weakness shines through.

But the weakness is a literary and perhaps an intellectual flaw. It doesn't mean that the books are endorsing genocide!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Let's back up a second and try to refocus.

we can but it will just show the holes more.

The people supported the Kingpriest. It's not like he was some fascist dictator that held the people under his thumb. The people loved him. Loved him for generations - nearly a century. Loved him so much that they committed numerous atrocities and genocides (attempting to kill all non-humans, all wizards) over the decades and no one so much as batted an eye. They loved him so much that they actually literally worshipped him to the point where he was a step away from becoming a god.

and this is shown as an example of a time GOOD was too much... how can any of

they committed numerous atrocities and genocides

be good... maybe if we conceptualize it as "There was too much evil..."

These are the people that you're saying are innocent.

we are saying that the entire world could not have been this... some of the people (children, objectors, people affraid but hiding rather then speaking out)

Everyone deliberately, intentionally

again this is a hard sell.

I don't know you personally, but have you ever tried to get 20 role players to agree on a course of action? SOmething simple like "What do we want on pizza?" How about 30? 50? the more you add the harder it is... and you just made it Everyone.

I know it's a hard thing to accept, but, even good gods do horrible things. Good does not equal nice.

I LOVE this theme... good isn't nice and evil isn't mean... sometimes Good can be a jerk and Evil can be especially nice and attractive. If that was what they were going for they missed it by miles.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Where was the revolt by these "good" people to overthrow the evil leader?

the same place most revolts are... nowhere.
Not following or believing in leaders doesn't allow you to overthrow them.
Plenty of people can be BOTH good and hate what he is doing AND powerless to do anything of any value against it.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Fascism and worshipping a leader are not contradictory concepts.

yeah I remember that quote from one of the less good star wars movies "This is how democracy dies, to thundurs applause."

 

[Vaalingrade]

The concept we're all dancing around but not naming is 'evil unto evil', the idea that one is justified in doing all sorts of terrible things to other people as long as you can justify it as 'well, they had ti coming'. This is the core of the Punisher or Dexter or the Book of Exalted Deeds.

Which then dovetails into acceptable casualties in the pursuit of visiting evil unto people you don't like... er... I mean who are evil. What's a few thousand kids, slaves, and independent contractors when you're getting to vent righteous fury-er... I mean set the worlds right?

So the idea is one of compromising a character's morality in order to perform an act of already compromised morality.

This is the paladin in 3e that detected for evil and murdered whoever procced, all the things that could produce a false positive be damned because it's worth dicing a dude into a fine mist for having picked up an evil item than to let someone who lies or casts deathwatch a lot survive another second longer.

And... it's the kind of thing early D&D was down with. Remember Gary said it was good to immediately kill someone converted to Good from Evil so they don't backslide.

But the game and the audience has largely moved on. No matter how much one can demand others engage the fiction and just accept it, most people don't like engaging in things that tout supremely messed up stuff. Remember: this is a product being sold. Just like it would be a stupid idea for WotC to print something telling players to merc converts, it's also not a good idea telling them genocide isn't really genocide when you really hate those guys.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

again it doesn't even need to just be in universe... take all the gods the 'good' ones the 'evil' ones and the 'neutral' ones and give them all "Unaligned" alignment with a sidebar saying "Most see the good gods as good and evil as evil but really they are all just forces of nature not withholding to a mortal alignment" could do it.

The good gods can still be considered "good" as far as I'm concerned - though I would prefer it being made more clear that their hand was forced by the Kingpriest himself, the combined will of the neutral/evil gods, or both. I just want this incredibly traumatic event in the world's relatively recent history to be treated as more than set dressing, and for people (some of whom, amongst the longer-lived races, actually lived through it themselves) to have more nuanced views on the matter than "Well, I guess we got what was coming to us. Please talk to us again Lord Paladine. We'll be good this time, promise."

There is very fertile ground here for a wide variety of viewpoints that could add depth to the setting, even without needing to change much of anything.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I bought my copies of the AD&D PHB and DMG in the first half of the 1980s. One of the interesting features of the way that Gygax defines good is that it encompasses the full range of values - life, wellbeing, freedom, truth, beauty are the main ones he mentions - and the full range of moral conceptions - Benthamism (greatest good of the greatest number), human rights, virtue, wellbeing. He doesn't use alignment to distinguish between modernist, rights-based conceptions of good and more theological conceptions that emphasise humility before and obedience to the divine.

part of this is also the swaping of what alignment means... the more modern the alignments look the worse Dragon Lance will look

 

[AnotherGuy]

@GMforPowergamers what do you think of my idea in post #2227.
Is that something you could stomach?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

They are angels. They bring to life the vision of Eru.

angles and demons... spirit things is maybe more accurate. remember balrog Sauron and saruman the white examples as much as gandalf

 

[Maxperson]

In a way. He helped the good guys beat the bad guys.

Not directly he didn't. His spells cast saved the party a few times, but he didn't directly attack the evil.