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
 
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Faolyn said:
In Ravenloft, it has been said numerous times in prior editions that the Dark Powers can rewrite history, literally modify people's memories, and even change the topography of the land. This has been canonical to the setting since it was a Core. It's why every domain had a false history that people just blindly accepted, even if they predated the domain's creation--except for a rare few domains such as Richemulot that had no history and the Dark Powers made it so nobody native to the domain was interested in finding out why and that nobody from outside could learn anything. The Dark Powers also have fired darklords who got boring (Nathan Timothy, Lord Soth).

New Ravenloft absolutely follows that paradigm. Things have changed because the Dark Powers want things to have been changed. They were probably bored with the Core. The end.

Spelljammer didn't really change things, except for the hadozee's origins and some of the monsters like the reigar, who now only care about "the art of war" instead of art in general. Spelljammer just left all of the lore out.

Which really puts forth the question: you don't like it when they change lore. You don't like it when they keep lore out. You clearly want everything to be the same all the time, everyone else's desires be darned. Why bother even complaining about the new books, since you can just stick with the old books?
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I wanted them to continue with the original story of those settings, adding new stuff along the way, as they did from their inception until about two years ago, when the decision was made to re-imagine everything. This is clearly too much to ask for in today's environment, so I'm going to take your advice and stop talking about it. As far as I'm concerned, the settings I grew up on ended whenever they were last touched upon. It is what it is.
 

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Faolyn said:
It reminds me of when my friends and I went to go see the opening day, midnight showing of Phantom Menace and the theater's manager came on stage--it was a very old, one-screen theater--and said something like "hate to spoil it for you, but the ship sank." Because we all knew that no matter what, Anakin would become Darth Vader.

But seriously, this is both a reason to not have game books dependent on the novels and a creates a fun possibility: a collection of "alternate Krynns." Specifically, what could happen if your group's actions go against what's in the books. Your players do X instead of Y? Here's some thoughts/plot hooks as to what could happen.

To go back to Star Wars, what if your group manages to stop or seriously delay the construction of the Death Star? This wouldn't stop Luke from becoming a Jedi, so he's still out there doing his Jedi stuff, but it would keep Alderaan around and may keep the Senate going, etc. Plenty of room to adventure heroically in that setting. A friend of mine and I were blue-skying an idea for a campaign (that never happened) based on "what if Qui-Gon had decided to go to head to the Intergalactic House of Ship Parts and Repair While-U-Wait that was set up to take money from all over the place and therefore never got to meet young Anakin."

"Alternate Krynns" could actually be a fun DM's Guild project for someone who knows Dragonlance history very well and enjoys speculating about alternate worlds.
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They actually made the book you're describing back in 3rd ed: Legends of the Twins. It was awesome, and packed with lore, and would never be published in today's environment.
 

Faolyn said:
In Ravenloft, it has been said numerous times in prior editions that the Dark Powers can rewrite history, literally modify people's memories, and even change the topography of the land. This has been canonical to the setting since it was a Core. It's why every domain had a false history that people just blindly accepted, even if they predated the domain's creation--except for a rare few domains such as Richemulot that had no history and the Dark Powers made it so nobody native to the domain was interested in finding out why and that nobody from outside could learn anything. The Dark Powers also have fired darklords who got boring (Nathan Timothy, Lord Soth).

New Ravenloft absolutely follows that paradigm. Things have changed because the Dark Powers want things to have been changed. They were probably bored with the Core. The end.

Spelljammer didn't really change things, except for the hadozee's origins and some of the monsters like the reigar, who now only care about "the art of war" instead of art in general. Spelljammer just left all of the lore out.

Which really puts forth the question: you don't like it when they change lore. You don't like it when they keep lore out. You clearly want everything to be the same all the time, everyone else's desires be darned. Why bother even complaining about the new books, since you can just stick with the old books?
Click to expand...
To be fair, the addition of the Astral Sea is a pretty big change to Spelljammer.
 

Faolyn said:
In Ravenloft, it has been said numerous times in prior editions that the Dark Powers can rewrite history, literally modify people's memories, and even change the topography of the land. This has been canonical to the setting since it was a Core. It's why every domain had a false history that people just blindly accepted, even if they predated the domain's creation--except for a rare few domains such as Richemulot that had no history and the Dark Powers made it so nobody native to the domain was interested in finding out why and that nobody from outside could learn anything. The Dark Powers also have fired darklords who got boring (Nathan Timothy, Lord Soth).

New Ravenloft absolutely follows that paradigm. Things have changed because the Dark Powers want things to have been changed. They were probably bored with the Core. The end.

Spelljammer didn't really change things, except for the hadozee's origins and some of the monsters like the reigar, who now only care about "the art of war" instead of art in general. Spelljammer just left all of the lore out.

Which really puts forth the question: you don't like it when they change lore. You don't like it when they keep lore out. You clearly want everything to be the same all the time, everyone else's desires be darned. Why bother even complaining about the new books, since you can just stick with the old books?
Click to expand...
Last thing: all I ever wanted was for the setting's history to not be re-written. Plenty of franchises make an effort to maintain continuity, even over decades of content. Why is it so hard to understand (and apparently anathema) that I want that for D&D too?
 

Velderan said:
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I meant easier to explain adding in orcs and tieflings and sorcerer and tabaxi and whatever else you can think of. Just create another event like the graygem creating the kender and you can easily explain why this stuff is now there and you don't have to ignore previous lore while doing it.
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ah for that, yes that would work, still would change the timeline if you wanted this to happen before the War of the Lance ;)

Velderan said:
As for the bolded part, I'm not sure the campaign I ran would have been considered a mini-reset because the events of the DL module series and the events of my campaign didn't really impact each other one way or the other.
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I just meant that you went back in time, not that you changed anything, which presumably is mostly what WotC is doing now too
 

Micah Sweet said:
Last thing: all I ever wanted was for the setting's history to not be re-written. Plenty of franchises make an effort to maintain continuity, even over decades of content. Why is it so hard to understand (and apparently anathema) that I want that for D&D too?
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Because other franchises are creator-side only. You watch a show or read a series, you're watching what the creators put out with minimal input from the viewers and readers. If you don't like a story-arc, the best you can do is stop engaging in the story, or write fanfic.

RPGs are somewhat creator-side but mostly player-side. And there are millions of players, each of which run or play in their games differently and this is not only OK, but encouraged. If a game designer actually wrote "you must adhere to my canon at all times and can't deviate from it," that person would be laughed at.

Micah Sweet said:
To be fair, the addition of the Astral Sea is a pretty big change to Spelljammer.
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The Astral Sea was a thing from 4e, as were ships in it. And you know how I converted some Spelljammer monsters recently? Issue #159 was all about Spelljammers... and had an article called "Voidjammers!: An Astral taxi service for AD&D 1st Edition games" with a ship that was very similar to those of Spelljammer.

1666463372281.png

So the kernels of the idea have been there forever. It was just made "canonical" in 5e. But as I said before, you've never been required to accept the game's canon as your own, and lots of people don't.
 

Micah Sweet said:
Last thing: all I ever wanted was for the setting's history to not be re-written. Plenty of franchises make an effort to maintain continuity, even over decades of content. Why is it so hard to understand (and apparently anathema) that I want that for D&D too?
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Yes we know, you have said it often enough and consider this, from what I can tell, this is one of the most sympathetic forum for your point of view since it skews old in terms of active membership. Consider that from what I can tell the vast majority of current D&D player stated in the last 20 years or so. with more later than earlier.
 

Micah Sweet said:
Last thing: all I ever wanted was for the setting's history to not be re-written. Plenty of franchises make an effort to maintain continuity, even over decades of content. Why is it so hard to understand (and apparently anathema) that I want that for D&D too?
Click to expand...
I don’t think we do not understand that this is what you would have wanted. It’s just not as important to most.

In the case of DL I am actually glad they did not try to continue from wherever things ended, because they had certainly run that storyline straight into the ground.
 


mamba said:
ah for that, yes that would work, still would change the timeline if you wanted this to happen before the War of the Lance ;)
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But I didn't want it to happen then so not sure why you're mentioning the obvious. My entire point is leave everything as is and just write some new material. To be clear and repeat what I've already said a few times now, I completely get why they're not doing that and I'm fine with their new book as a concept (we'll see in about a month how it is in execution). I just would have been interested in seeing what they'd come up with, that's all.
 

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