D&D General D&D Archetypes that spread out to other settings and media

[Tonguez]

The ones that alway amuse me is the ubiquity of armoured Clerics in Anime

And Slimes, I am aware that Nuppeppō exist it Japanese folklore but their existence in Anime is a fusion of folklore and DnD inspiration turned Otaku weirdness.

 

[Mecheon]

Almost no one actually involved with Dragonlance the setting wants to connect them, it is a push from outside designers. Which makes sense because it cheapens Dragonlance as its own thing for the sake of "muh multiverse".

If they wanted them to be unique stand-alone gods, they should have given them unique stand-alone designs and not gone "oh this character that looks 100% identical to Tiamat? yeah that's not-tiamat who's 110% different with no connections despite sharing her job description and personality"

It doesn't even work as a Powermaster Optimus Prime and Ginrai thing because canonically Ginrai's just using a stolen body intended for Optimus

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If they wanted them to be unique stand-alone gods, they should have given them unique stand-alone designs and not gone "oh this character that looks 100% identical to Tiamat? yeah that's not-tiamat who's 110% different with no connections despite sharing her job description and personality"

It doesn't even work as a Powermaster Optimus Prime and Ginrai thing because canonically Ginrai's just using a stolen body intended for Optimus

Weis and Hickman never accepted that Dragonlance was work for hire. In fact they were the outsiders (especially Weis) on a group project by TSR, managed by Gygax and with regular TSR bods such as Doug Niles making major contributions. I'm sure TSR always took it as read that the five headed dragon queen in Dragonlance was the same five headed dragon queen that was in the monster manual.

Its a huge contrast to Keith Baker, who has always been "well in my Eberron I would do this, but there is no canon version so you do you". And as such continues to have a good relationship with the IP owners.

 

[Seramus]

Almost no one actually involved with Dragonlance the setting wants to connect them, it is a push from outside designers.

It was more of a group project, with simultaneous launches of both the Dragonlance modules and the Dragonlance novels. Weis is on record that the initial idea of knights riding dragons was thought up in the car, and several of the initial characters. But it's hard to tell how much cross discussion was involved. It is pretty likely they thought up a dark goddess character, and it was someone like Gygax that pushed the imagery of her having a five headed dragon avatar while thinking of Tiamat. Because it would fit.

Oh hey, wait. I just found this amazing article!

- Jeff Grubb

Paladine (by whatever name) – Draco Paladin in my campaign, and was the Platinum Dragon as described in the Greyhawk supplement (I think he gained the Bahamut name when he showed up in the first AD&D Monster Manual). When Trace was doing the original forging of Krynn, I tossed him my campaign’s godhead and he easily folded it into his mix. Draco Paladin became Paladine. He was the Paladin’s God in my campaign, and venerated by Fenetar the Paladin, run by Frank Dickos, the player who was the one who convinced me to set down my godhead in the first place.

Takhisis – Draco Cerebus in my campaign, the Chromatic Dragon, Tiamat. Draco Cerebus also went by the name Draco Cerebrint in my campaign (I think the name change came about because of the sudden appearance of a short, grey aardvark in the comics). Don’t know where Trace got the name Takhisis (May be Indonesian – Neraka definitely is) but part of his decision to rename was to separate DL’s cosmology from Greyhawk’s. (Another possibility – when I built my mythology (a time when Trace was first playing as well) neither Bahamut nor Tiamat were so named in the game books- so the idea of creating new versions of them unique to DL would not be too far a reach)). Draco-Cerebus may have had the anti-paladin as followers, but that class came and left from my campaign several times.

 

[cbwjm]

I swear there was an old dragon magazine which went into the dragonlance gods which called out paladine = Bahamut and Takhisis = Tiamat. I prefer them being separate deities but there are obvious similarities.