D&D General The Purple Dragon Knights are tied to an Amethyst Dragon (confirmed)

[Parmandur]

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I wonder if they'll be as gone as you think they are, as this art from the new books shows Sammaster and a dracolich!

It is an interesting question how these Factions will be handled.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I get the likely reasons by the PDK would expand beyond Cormyr to the rest of Faerun as a consequence of Cormyr expanding in 4e only to contract in 5e, but the Multiverse angle I don't get.

It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing, but I imagine the multiverse angle goes something like this:

• D&D has a multiverse and that multiverse is part of its brand identity these days. It hasn't always been important, but folks now have decided to highlight the multiverse angle for all of D&D, including the Realms. So now they're going to want to see it highlighted.
• Amethyst dragons in 5e are flavored with the multiverse - they're scholars of the planes. This is fairly new lore, AFAIK (though it's not alien or competing with the old lore, either). This might be coming from the above point, in part. There wasn't a whole lot of "amethyst dragon lore" before 5e's dive (some, but pretty skeletal).

I don't know how this would tether to Purple Dragon Knights and Cormyr, necessarily, but it makes some sense that if they decided that amethyst dragons + PDKs were a "thing" that they would take it in a multiversal direction. Or, alternately, that if they were looking to take some faction in FR in a multiversal direction, that they'd leverage their amethyst dragon lore to help with that.

Still kind of TBD on how dumb this is, but it's at least listing in the direction of considered, rather than random. Which is a good sign!

 

[Demetrios1453]

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I wonder if they'll be as gone as you think they are, as this art from the new books shows Sammaster and a dracolich!

I'm guessing they'll still be there as a major antagonist, just not as a faction you can gain rep towards. I mean... they are pretty unsubtly Evil with a capital "E". Even the Zhents and the Red Wizards (especially if the faction for the latter is a splinter group) have some wiggle room in being at least a bit morally (very dark) gray.

 

[I'm A Banana]

FWIW, Makenzie De Armas does a pretty good job fielding the question overall, and talks well about the subclass-specific feedback, but doesn't really dispel the "dragon is purple lol" accusations. "We wanted to explore what that purple dragon could be!" is evidence for this concept disrespecting the OG lore by way of not understanding it.

She mentions that the book goes into a lot of detail, too, which adds a bit to the "they thought about this more than they're talking about" column.

Curious to see what this brings in November!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I don't get why it is Amethyst Dragons either. Silver or Gold Dragons would make more sense.

DUH. 'Cuz they're PURPLE.

(I truly mean that as a joke, and not in any way insulting to your intelligence).

 

[tombowings]

I miss the sense of irony hidden in old lore about a knightly order founded by a moron who couldn't correctly identify the type of dragon be slayed.

 

[Necropolitan]

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I wonder if they'll be as gone as you think they are, as this art from the new books shows Sammaster and a dracolich!

Sammaster is dead AND destroyed though!

He became a Lich and then his Phylactery was destroyed during his scheme to use the Dracorage to force Dragons to become Dracoliches or die, it was specifically stated that he was gone for good because otherwise the Rage of Dragons would have kept going!

Bringing him back goes against all established lore and is just plain stupid since it was his destruction that led to the final splintering of the Cult of the Dragon that let Tiamat seize control of it.

Sammaster had more than served his purpose as a villain by founding the cult and setting off the Rage of Dragons, there's no reason to bring him back other than a refusal to just let characters stay dead.

 

[TravDoc42]

Sammaster is dead AND destroyed though!

He became a Lich and then his Phylactery was destroyed during his scheme to use the Dracorage to force Dragons to become Dracoliches or die, it was specifically stated that he was gone for good because otherwise the Rage of Dragons would have kept going!

Bringing him back goes against all established lore and is just plain stupid since it was his destruction that led to the final splintering of the Cult of the Dragon that let Tiamat seize control of it.

Sammaster had more than served his purpose as a villain by founding the cult and setting off the Rage of Dragons, there's no reason to bring him back other than a refusal to just let characters stay dead.

Honestly, I am not as deep in my knowledge of the Cult of the Dragon as compared to other factions. What you say does make a lot of sense though, and I do see WoTC bringing him back solely as a "Look at this guy you like" sorta thing.

Thanks for the insight!!

 

[Necropolitan]

Honestly, I am not as deep in my knowledge of the Cult of the Dragon as compared to other factions. What you say does make a lot of sense though, and I do see WoTC bringing him back solely as a "Look at this guy you like" sorta thing.

Thanks for the insight!!

Sammaster isn't even necessary since he'd already written the Cult of the Dragon's dogma centuries ago.

Just have an "Orthodox Cult of the Dragon" that follows his teachings and have a new Lich leading it if that's so important.

 

[pukunui]

Back when Tyranny of Dragons was new, and people were raging about how they’d changed the lore on the Cult of the Dragon, I did a deep dive into the older 2e and 3e books, and it turned out that the setup in Tyranny of Dragons was something that actually built off existing lore.

The 2e book, Cult of the Dragon, establishes that Tiamat was getting her faithful to infiltrate and take over Cult of the Dragon cells. Here's my original post about that: D&D 5E (2014) - Enhancing "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)

The 3.5e Dragons of Faerûn book established that Tiamat was behind Sammaster's activation of the dragon rage mythal. He had hoped to use it to convince more living dragons to become dracoliches to avoid going insane, but I'm thinking Tiamat was playing 4D chess and was hoping that Sammaster would not only be defeated but the mythal would also be destroyed -- which is exactly what happened. I'm sure Tiamat would've viewed that mythal as a major roadblock in her quest to take over Faerûn. Here's my original post about that: D&D 5E (2014) - Enhancing "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" (Practical stuff to try at your table!)

I believe the idea that Sammaster misinterpreted the prophecy as being about undead dragons instead of living ones was also established in 2e's Cult of the Dragon book, so that wasn't a lore change in the Tyranny of Dragons adventure either.

Lastly, I’ll also point out that in The Rise of Tiamat, there is some factional in-fighting between the new Tiamat cultists and the remnants of the old dracolich cultists. One of the latter, Naergoth Bladelord, appears as a wight at the Well of Dragons. He was originally detailed (in his living form) in 2e's Cult of the Dragon book.


Conversely, this alliance between PDKs and amethyst dragons feels like it comes out of left field and isn’t a natural progression on what has come before. I’ll reserve judgment until I see the full context in the book, though.


EDIT: I found some of my original posts and have edited the above post accordingly.