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

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not much in the video except the micro-adventure concept, which I mean, I guess is fine, but I'm not sure I (or many DMs) would entirely approve of "make up whatever PCs you want with absolutely zero reference to or knowledge of the setting", as a general principle.

Kind of makes settings pointless if they're all so kitchen-sink that you can just make up whatever.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Why not hobgoblings or half-ogres? The role of the orcs in Dragonlance has been replaced with the Ithin’carthians/Tarmaks, savege people from a far zone of islands.

And Dragonlance is the best setting to play with the idea of chronomancers and alternate timelines.

Why not the ursines as PC race?

Will we see any retcon of the Krynnspace?

 

[Burnside]

I think the "war" theme is gonna end up being one of those ideas that gets over-pushed and over-hyped in marketing, and in the adventure itself the war will be completely in the background with no player-facing way to mechanically engage with it. (Not that I'd really want to, anyway.)

 

[Burnside]

I also want to see how the board game mass combat and adventure interconnect, as that could be an interesting path forward for new settings.

Spoiler: they won't.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I think the "war" theme is gonna end up being one of those ideas that gets over-pushed and over-hyped in marketing, and in the adventure itself the war will be completely in the background with no player-facing way to mechanically engage with it. (Not that I'd really want to, anyway.)

Yeah it sounds like "the war is ragging 10 miles north, but you are heading 4 miles south to this adventure site."

I mean I had a story teller try to do this with starwars back in college, we started out on a planet, we ended up with a ship and smuggling (with a bit of piracy) and hearing of the rebels but never meeting them (and the one time we tried we got to Hoth after it was already evacuated) it was okay for a bit but keeping all the big events 'off screen' ended up making us feel (much like I do in D&D in the realms alot) like we were the b or c story and not that important. Even if we failed to do X, it doesn't matter the farm boy is blowing up the death star,

 

[Burnside]

Yeah it sounds like "the war is ragging 10 miles north, but you are heading 4 miles south to this adventure site."

I mean I had a story teller try to do this with starwars back in college, we started out on a planet, we ended up with a ship and smuggling (with a bit of piracy) and hearing of the rebels but never meeting them (and the one time we tried we got to Hoth after it was already evacuated) it was okay for a bit but keeping all the big events 'off screen' ended up making us feel (much like I do in D&D in the realms alot) like we were the b or c story and not that important. Even if we failed to do X, it doesn't matter the farm boy is blowing up the death star,

I mean, I do think the players will get to do meaningful stuff in the adventure, but it will be done by doing the usual D&D 5e adventure stuff, not by fighting battles in a war using any mass combat mechanics.

 

[Velderan]

Am I the only person who thinks stopping play mid-session to setup a board game sounds like an awful idea?

 

[sevenbastard]

They need to kill the companions in the first scene. Players watch as they get murdered by Lord Soth. Let folks know it's a alternative timeline.

 

[darjr]

Spoiler: they won't.

They are supposed too. I think there is supposed to be a way to bring in your characters.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Am I the only person who thinks stopping play mid-session to setup a board game sounds like an awful idea?

it depends...
If I sign up to play in a dungeon crawl and it happens more then once I will be annoyed
If I sign up to play special forces and have the war as the back drop I wouldn't mind it happening every couple of levels
If i sign up to play the game in war I can see it being a blast.

(also with Virtual Table Tops I can set up 3 'tables' inbetween weeks and just move the party from bar to forest with bandits to WW3 no issue.)