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

 

[Maxperson]

No women, only Man

Reducto Absurdum for the lose. Especially since Male and Female are in the book.

 

[Stormonu]

Yep these are the only monsters that exist in Dragonlance no matter what other novels and books say.
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How long before someone notices there's no sea elves, fetch, shadowpeople, or good dragons on the list, and the only Wyrmling dragon listed is a black dragon? Among other absences...

 

[pemerton]

Yep these are the only monsters that exist in Dragonlance no matter what other novels and books say.
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Those charts are found on pp 115-6 of Dragonlance Adventures (1987). As per my post not far upthread, p 114 of the same book mentions Kobolds and Bugbears. It also mentions Griffons, which are not on the charts. It's decades since I've read the book closely, but I seem to recall that there are other editing errors. I don't think they're that big a deal. Back at that time, anyone who wanted to use Bugbears, Kobolds or Griffons in DL could just get the stats from their MM.

As you say, there are already goblins, hobgoblins, bugbears, and kobolds. Why change the world to add a heritage that brings no value to it?

I'm not sure who you are envisaging making a change.

Why would WotC publish a DL book that mentions Orcs or Half-Orcs? For the reason that @Faolyn has given, ie, to place their core game elements in their new setting.

Why would an individual table do it? Presumably because someone at that table wants to include one or more Orcs or Half-Orcs in their DL RPGing.

If the WotC book is in fact silent on the matter, that (obviously) does not constrain any individual tables. If the WotC book mentions Orcs or Half-Orcs, that also (and obviously) does not constrain any individual tables.

This is why I don't really see what the big deal is.

 

[pemerton]

How long before someone notices there's no sea elves, fetch, shadowpeople, or good dragons on the list, and the only Wyrmling dragon listed is a black dragon? Among other absences...

I was writing my post just upthread while you posted this. Exactly. The pp 115-6 charts and the p 114 list are mostly but not completely consistent. It's not a big deal.

 

[mamba]

I'd like to see Irda, but I don't expect that since they didn't have it in the UAs.

I wouldn't want anyone picking them anyway, so not having them is fine by me. You can always go with Tasslehoff's Pouches of Everything for them

 

[darjr]

Hot dang! I had a good time with Theros.

Players dealt with a king who's kid was kidnapped by Medusa and they had to go to the city of the dead to negotiate with a fate to figure out where they were who told them they had to get it from a cyclops who lived in a swamp who was blinded, he was gargantuan and his flock were cattleblepas. The the sirens attacked from flight and the barb bounced like a cricket into the air to grapple them and bring them down.

In the mean time the king had cursed his city state and when the players came back they had to navigate a wasteland of cursed people to get to the king and free his people of his curse.

I need to run another campaign there.

If Dragonlance does anything remotely like that I'm going to run three campaigns of it you watch.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Those charts are found on pp 115-6 of Dragonlance Adventures (1987). As per my post not far upthread, p 114 of the same book mentions Kobolds and Bugbears. It also mentions Griffons, which are not on the charts. It's decades since I've read the book closely, but I seem to recall that there are other editing errors. I don't think they're that big a deal. Back at that time, anyone who wanted to use Bugbears, Kobolds or Griffons in DL could just get the stats from their MM.

It was sarcasm. I know other creatures clearly exist outside that chart. But I was told that appearntly that chart had all the monsters that where allowed, where I said it was clearly just a quick reference for common Dragonlance monsters.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I wouldn't want anyone picking them anyway, so not having them is fine by me. You can always go with Tasslehoff's Pouches of Everything for them

Honestly, Tasslehoff's Pouches of Everything really beat WotC to the punch on this one. They would likely have gotten my money despite my misgivings if a superior product hadn't come along first.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

In Krynn a too dangerous relic is hidden, and this only can be used by somebody with orc blood, for example by scros(Spelljammer). Then orcs aren't wellcome to avoid this hidden relic could be used to cause serious troubles. Or a deity created a racist anti-orc epidemic, or they were eaten by the yaggols because their brains were tatesful.

And if DM wants, Tahkisis creates dragonspawns after draconians. Or Fistandantilus could become a dark lord, or there is a dark domain ruled by yaggols, and these can send secret agents to the material plane for infiltration.

Have you stopped to think about the potential impact of the Shadowfell and the Feywild in the Krynnspace? Or the possible retcons of the Krynnspace.

What if there is a demiplane created by the dreams of dragons? And here imagined things may become real, for example fictional characters from fables or fiction.

* What if the heroes of the lance are teenages living in parallel world with 80's technology, and they are sent to other alternate Krynn where the age of despair lasted more time, thousands of years, and now they have been abducted to save the day? Or the heroes of the lance with a tribal-punk look style Dark Sun.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Then what's the point of even having a game set in that universe?

There is a war on.

You're clearly making it out to be a setting that's to be read, not to be played in or explored, and certainly not one where the players can make their mark in it--because doing so might go against the stories, lore, characters, and history.

To an extent, this is built into the setting. It's always been a hard railroad built around a single narrative.

And yet it was hugely popular and successful.

Try this: people actually LIKE that kind of thing.

Maybe that is why I have next to no memories of my time playing in Dragonlance back in college. It's not a setting for PCs to be interesting in. The only thing that stood out was the expletive-deleted kender.

Which is fair enough. Not every setting is going to appeal to every player.

So bring that up more. Make it a good versus evil frontier world. Only, you know, without the fake white Native Americans. A D&D frontier--again, without the colonialism--would make for a pretty cool setting. I'd play in it.

You don't need to make it that. It is that (with an added world war).

But, you know, it's pretty weird--when I look up descriptions of Dragonlance, descriptions written by people who presumably really like the setting, like on the various Dragonlance wikis and on fan pages, I get "armies on dragonback" and "war against the Gods of Evil/Chaos" with "Epic High Fantasy," "fabled dragonlances," "lots and lots of dragons," "color-coded wizards," and "lots of named NPCs" thrown around as well.

That's like saying everyone in the Star Wars universe spends all their time doing trench runs against Death Stars. It builds up to that gradually, over around a dozen modules and a couple of thick novels, and that is at the climax.

The way Krynn differs from the Forgotten Realms is the villages are not constantly threatened by rampaging monsters and marauding orc tribes. There are few tombs full of undead and demon summoning cults. It really pretty peaceful and idyllic (if you like chopping wood and hunting game). There really wouldn't be much for adventurers to do - if there wasn't a continent sized war on.

And as such pretty much all conflict, and all adventures, relate to the war. Anyone who doesn't choose a side, adventurer or monster, is going to be crushed between them.