Dragonlance DRAGONLANCE LIVES! Unearthed Arcana Explores Heroes of Krynn!

The latest Unearthed Arcana has arrived and the 6-page document contains rules for kender, lunar magic, Knights of Solamnia, and Mages of High Sorcery.

In today’s Unearthed Arcana, we explore character options from the Dragonlance setting. This playtest document presents the kender race, the Lunar Magic sorcerer subclass, the Knight of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery backgrounds, and a collection of new feats, all for use in Dungeons & Dragons.

Kender have a (surprisingly magical) ability to pull things out of a bag, and a supernatural taunt feature. This magical ability appears to replace the older 'kleptomania' description -- "Unknown to most mortals, a magical phenomenon surrounds a kender. Spurred by their curiosity and love for trinkets, curios, and keepsakes, a kender’s pouches or pockets will be magically filled with these objects. No one knows where these objects come from, not even the kender. This has led many kender to be mislabeled as thieves when they fish these items out of their pockets."

Lunar Magic is a sorcerer subclass which draws power from the moon(s); there are notes for using it in Eberron.

Also included are feats such as Adepts of the Black, White, and Red Robes, and Knights of the Sword, Rose, and Crown.

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[JEB]

Jester David did, IIRC.

Well, his work certainly seems close, though it still sounds more like conversion guides than an effort at a fully formed update of the setting.

To be honest, there's probably a fairly limited market for such a thing, particularly with all of the old material being on the DMsGuild anyways and easy enough to use as is.

Jester David's Ravenloft stuff seems to sell well enough, or at least they've all achieved various degrees of metal. A glance over the comments suggests it's especially appealing to exactly the folks I would expect (those who weren't happy with the official 5E reboot). Curious how mainly Classic Ravenloft stuff sells relative to stuff that's mainly supporting the 5E version (the most popular Ravenloft DM Guild products seem to mainly support Curse of Strahd, or are kind of generic).

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see if the same phenomenon plays out for Classic Dragonlance. Guess it'll depend on just how different the 5E version is. I don't get the sense there's a significant "Classic Forgotten Realms" or "Classic Eberron" strand on DM Guild, though, they always seem to assume compatibility with the official 5E version.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, his work certainly seems close, though it still sounds more like conversion guides than an effort at a fully formed update of the setting.


Jester David's Ravenloft stuff seems to sell well enough, or at least they've all achieved various degrees of metal. A glance over the comments suggests it's especially appealing to exactly the folks I would expect (those who weren't happy with the official 5E reboot). Curious how mainly Classic Ravenloft stuff sells relative to stuff that's mainly supporting the 5E version (the most popular Ravenloft DM Guild products seem to mainly support Curse of Strahd, or are kind of generic).

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see if the same phenomenon plays out for Classic Dragonlance. Guess it'll depend on just how different the 5E version is. I don't get the sense there's a significant "Classic Forgotten Realms" or "Classic Eberron" strand on DM Guild, though, they always seem to assume compatibility with the official 5E version.

Jester David is my favorite Ravenloft author, so you're dead on there.

Very little if anything in 5e's FR and Eberron directly contradicts previous material. That's the difference, as I see it.

 

[JEB]

Very little if anything in 5e's FR and Eberron directly contradicts previous material. That's the difference, as I see it.

There are some small things here and there as I understand it, but they can easily be considered retcons or just updates - no wholesale revisions there. Pretty much the opposite of what happened to Ravenloft. Guess we'll see where 5E Dragonlance falls (I expect somewhere in the middle).

 

[Hussar]

Yeah, I mean, you could take most of the current Forgotten Realms modules, plop them down in any point in time in the Forgotten Realms and it likely wouldn't make too huge of a difference. And, Eberron has the advantage of being developed more recently and, as such, is less prone to some of the more egregious fantasy stuff that we see in older works. No one bitches about Eberron Drow for example. Eberron Half Orcs aren't a problem AFAIK. Most of the themes and whatnot have managed to avoid the larger pitfalls anyway, so, there's a lot less reworking going on.

Plus, unlike Ravenloft (well until recently), Eberron and Forgotten Realms both actually do have setting guides. No comment on quality, just their existence. Ravenloft mostly just has a single module.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Again. Not true. Do you actually own the original modules?

No, I don't own them but I read them. And that is definitely not from DL1 Dragons of Despair (1984). Aside from the colour printing the characters are too high level, and those NPCs are not in it.

It's possibly from the DL Classics reprint (1990)?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

For a time the heroes of Dragonlance were the most famous characters of D&D franchise, even more than Drizzt D'ourden.

To start from zero a new IP allow total creative freedom, but to be enough original is a harder challenge, and to recover an old franchise also has some adventages, because they need less promotion if there are a part of the market who knew.

The remake of Transformers after Michael Bay's movies, or My Little Pony are too different from the original, the they have worked very well in the market. The Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles is a franchise with lots of reboots, but they are popular.

* With the current eyes, Dragonlance saga may show some elements of the spirit from the 80's.

* Could half-Tay to be designed as a PC race where one player could control two PCs (both twins sharing a telepatic link)?

* If in a timeline a villain finds the redemption but in other he doesn't, what is the ultimate fate of those sinner souls?

* Playing Dragonlance is not only following the same path of the heroes of the lance as a railroad. Create alternate timelines with different happenings is it also playing Dragonlance.

* If the heroes of the lance become demigods centuries after the war of the lance... could be the vestige patron of a warlock?

Sometimes there are accidental offense by people because these lack predjudices, and they couldn't notice with their words others may take the hint. Here apologies should be enough. Let's try to be polite, but please, don't lose the good sense. Not only we have to demand apologies, but also to can forgive.

* But the cominsoon M&H's trilogy, we aren't going to see more fiction about Dragonlance, at least until the launch of the videogame or teleserie.

* Hasbro could dare to sell a expansion of Dragonlance with miniatures of heroes of the lance, draconian monsters and archivillains (Kitiara, lord Soth and company) for Heroquest. At least speculators would dare to buy it.

* A mash-up mixing Dragonlance and Dark Sun is so freak and fool idea than it should be at least a future set of Magic: the Gathering.

 

[James Gasik]

So why aren't we caring about the Knights of Solamnia or the Dwarves of Krynn? Well, the reason is...

The Knights of Solamnia, much like the Jedi Order, FAILED. Despite their mandate to protect the world, they fell apart and were rendered unable to preserve any order in a world gone mad. Sturm Brightblade embodied their beliefs more than any of them did.

And to further the parallel, the greatest knight of the Rose fell from grace and became a Death Knight who was so obsessed with Kitiara that he buggered off to a different campaign setting entirely.

The Dwarves of Krynn aren't terribly different from Dwarves anywhere else. And their God, Reorx, is a sham and a charlatan. So yeah, sorry Flint, you were a good guy, but you were just another grumpy, irascible Dwarf in a long lineage of grumpy, irascible Dwarves.

A lot of what made Krynn interesting were the ancient mysteries and long-forgotten tragedies of the world, most of which are actually visited by the heroes- the long-lost city of Tanis and it's white winged ships turned out to be a decaying slum. Xak Tsaroth was totally plundered. The Elves were freed from Cyan Bloodbane- the list goes on.

But it remained a cool setting for awhile because other authors found neat things to do with it (and some ridiculous things, like the visit to Nuitari in Darkness and Light). Lord Toede's attempt at redemption, a ne'er-do-well eventually becoming a Knight (Weasel's Luck and it's sequel). The Time of the Twins was, IMHO, a narrative mess (you really have to be careful with time travel, folks), and the less said about Dragons of Summer the better- I know some people liked it, but I was like, so...the best thing you can think to do with your setting is light it on fire? Awesome.

Krynn changed a lot, and in many ways, it became unrecognizable over the years. Now we're finally going back to that well, and finding that there really isn't a lot -there-. D&D has evolved and changed a lot from when Dragonlance was king, and I don't think we can go back in time- the classic setting was full of odd restrictions and forced flavor. And the later stages of Krynn most people won't find familiar.

Speaking of restrictions, I'm surprised nobody has brought up the level cap yet.

 

[Minigiant]

Yeah, I mean, you could take most of the current Forgotten Realms modules, plop them down in any point in time in the Forgotten Realms and it likely wouldn't make too huge of a difference. And, Eberron has the advantage of being developed more recently and, as such, is less prone to some of the more egregious fantasy stuff that we see in older works. No one bitches about Eberron Drow for example. Eberron Half Orcs aren't a problem AFAIK. Most of the themes and whatnot have managed to avoid the larger pitfalls anyway, so, there's a lot less reworking going on.

Plus, unlike Ravenloft (well until recently), Eberron and Forgotten Realms both actually do have setting guides. No comment on quality, just their existence. Ravenloft mostly just has a single module.

Yes, Eberron was more or less made with sensibilities modern just 15 years ago. Whereas Dragonlance is forty years old and harkened of themes even older. Even if Eberron remained static,it would be several decades before society could even move enough for it to be problematic and would even take time for those themes to feel old.

As for FR, well we;ve more or least been trained to it having constant updates and it having a generic kitchen sink feel where fixes can be plopped it.

But new setting, please? Can't wait for the announcement of one of the 2 new settings.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Maybe Dragonlance was a beatiful toy broken in pieces, but if we put these together again, maybe replacing someone, we can get something even better than the previous.

If Hasbro wants to produce an animation show based in Dragonlance, the team of screenwriters could suggest dozen of different new ideas, and the main plot could be rebooted almost totally. I advice to be not too violent, or at least optional level of censure to can be watched by +10y audence. Tales of Uncle Trapspringer could be a kid-friendly cartoon, telling stories from "kender folklore" for the kender children.

* There is an option about to create a "spiritual succesor", a totally new IP but getting the more interesting elements from Dragonlance. Maybe WotC should do it before this was created by a 3PP. Maybe Krynn has got a "twin world" in the Krynnspace, but this sent to a parallel plane, or to a "twin crystal sphere". Maybe it is a "cosmic" quarantine because of fault by planar-travelers defilers from Athas(Dark Sun) starting to cause serious troubles in the biosphere, and now it works as a "firewall" zone to stop invasion by the Vodoni empire, and creatures from Far Realm.

* If knights of Solamnia had been always perfect it had been a very boring story, practically a brotherhood of "Mary Sue". Yes, Dragonlance is more interesting thanks the constract between good light and dark, hope&faith vs anguish&despair, folk music and heavy metal, mixing Disney's magic and J.R.R. Grimdark, adding a little of sweet and sour taste.

 

[James Gasik]

A twin world out of phase with the original, yeah, and there could be some sort of "manavirus" which spreads throughout the world, forcibly merging Krynn with it's twin...

Nah, sounds like a silly idea, nevermind.