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

 

[Micah Sweet]

yes that I remember they took the clerics to heaven

They took the true clerics (those who had held faith and maintained their abilities) away from Krynn immediately prior to the Cataclysm. It was called the Night of Doom (12 days before the event IIRC).

 

[Maxperson]

in your mind is killing an orc attacking the town defense of self/other?

Yes. The threat to the townsfolk is imminent and it's probably going to be attacking you anyway. That's essentially war and in war the point is to kill the other side before they kill you.

in your mind is being asked by the mayor to track down the orcs that kidnapped towns folk, then you get to there camp, and you attack a guard 'defense'?

That's harder. Did the mayor authorize/ask you to make sure the orcs don't survive? Did they kill townsfolk other than the ones they kidnapped? If they only kidnapped folks, how many, who and why are all questions to get answered. If all they took were the two healers and their apprentices, then there might be some dire need back at their village for healing and they took pains not to kill anyone.

I'd really need to know a lot of details that are tough from a internet scenario. So I guess the short answer is maybe.

 

[Velderan]

I don't really buy that, either. I can see people, even huge numbers of people, perhaps even the majority of people turning away, but there would still be true believers. Also, didn't the gods take their clerics away from the world after the cataclysm? I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere, which makes it more the gods turning away than the humans.

I mean ultimately, the Cataclysm marked the start of both sides turning their back. The gods took the true clerics away prior and with no one able to act on their behalf, people would turn their back since they were left to deal with the problems created on their own. Some people may have taken longer, probably depending on how bad the Cataclysm impacted them personally I'd guess. Maybe some families held on to their faith longer.

 

[Velderan]

It was a pretty weaksauce attempt. Let's look at what Wikipedia has to say about Soth (my bolding):


So they sent this one guy who was an adulterer, had already murdered his own wife and child (a child who was "an abomination" simply because it was a mirror of Soth's soul, which was apparently already rotten and evil), and who had escaped the execution he had been lawfully sentenced to for those murders. And he abused his current wife. Note that Soth didn't get this information from Paladine. Paladine apparently didn't want to send anyone to stop the Cataclysm, or didn't care. Instead, Mishakal told someone else, who then told Soth. I have to wonder if his wife bothered to tell Soth that he was destined to die. He sounds like he would have been such a terrible husband that she might have left that part out. And he was so filled with rage and jealousy that he decided to stop his quest to save the world in order to go confront his wife.

Why would Mishakal send someone so ill-suited for the job on such an important quest?

No. This was, at best, an attempt to look good. Mishakal didn't actually try to stop the Cataclysm. She just wanted to be able say "Hey, not my fault that the Cataclysm went on. I sent this one guy and he messed up. That's on him, not me."

Respecting the mod's post, I won't get into the intent of what you posted. Jeez though, that Wikipedia entry seems to draw from a bunch of later novels which don't sound like very good writing if that's the outline. Yet another reason it's probably best to leave the random novels out of the "is this canon?" conversation.

 

[Faolyn]

Deleted

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I mean ultimately, the Cataclysm marked the start of both sides turning their back. The gods took the true clerics away prior and with no one able to act on their behalf, people would turn their back since they were left to deal with the problems created on their own. Some people may have taken longer, probably depending on how bad the Cataclysm impacted them personally I'd guess. Maybe some families held on to their faith longer.

there is a self fullfilling thing going on.... they knew people HAD godly magic and it stopped, so they lost faith

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

In a story about somebody with the power to travel time.... I will not say the title, but it is almost a spoiler, the main character in the end had to allow a loved being to die for a disaster to avoid this later to become a serial killer.

Maybe the story of the catalcysm should be retconected. In my own story the kingpriest is more an allegory about Henry VIII of England.

Maybe the lord Soth's firstborn was an orc. Her mother used magic to get pregnant, but this could cause some malformation. Some evil god would willing to create a clone of this firstborn to become the archnemesis of his father.

Other point is oficially the TTRPG and the novels follow two differen continuities, and different editions are different continuity.

* Now I am imagining Krynn and other worlds of D&D multiverse to have something like the "Hollow World" from Mystara setting. This wouldn't be really an underground realm but more a demiplanes whose portals are in the underground. These "terracava" (= hollow earth in Latin) would work something like "theme parks". It is also work as a secret security measure to avoid possible time paradoxes created by chronomancers (Teferi Akosa, the planewalker, this time I am not saying it had been your fault!).

 

[Faolyn]

If you don't like the pre-modern explanation, how about thinking of the Kingpriest as the captain of Team Good, who begins taking more and more actions that conflict with Team Good's patrons (the gods of Good), but are still being done in Team Good's name and supported by the majority of Team Good on Krynn? Ultimately, the efforts to get him to stop fail, and the patrons of all the teams resort to the nuclear option collectively in an attempt to clear the board and start the game over on a more even footing, restoring the balance the league commissioner (the High God) originally instituted as the most important of the league rules.

See, that would be OK... if clearing the board didn't mean killing people. Because the Cataclysm had repercussions that harmed people all across the world, not just in this one part of it. And if the efforts to stop the Team Captain didn't involve (a) signs that were also all over the world, had no context that would reveal their intent, and, due to low communication technology and magic, there was little chance that the Team Captain would be even aware of them all; and (b) an emotionally unstable guy who had already murdered his wife and child.

 

[Velderan]

it could have to do with subclass... like in 2e different robes had different schools they were good or bad at.
it could be tied to the moon (I mean it always was) and have something to do with lunor magic
it could just be what side you agree with "Black wants to hunt rogue wizards down and kill them, and white wants to leave them be and red want to try to 'shoot or recruit'"

1) I wonder if we've seen all the subclasses that will be in the book. It seems like the only subclass is going to be the lunar sorcerer, with the different colored robes being handled through Feats.
2) I like the idea, but that goes against Crawford saying they didn't want to tie anything directly to a setting mechanic since then you'd need 3 moons on other settings to bring this concept over.
3) Something like that could work, becoming more of an ideology thing that might not be distinctly Good or Evil in nature.

 

[Umbran]

You don't think good gods deciding to commit genocide or allow genocide to be committed demonstrates a shift in personality?

Mod Note:
Per my previous note - this line of discussion has proven to be going nowhere. Nobody is going to change positions on it at this point, and it is more likely to produce acrimony than accord.

So please stop. Thank you.