Felldrakes, did Bahamut get even with Tiamat over the draconians?

[Alzrius]

Generally, I go with the more sensible one. Considering the vast number of parallels between Bahamut and Paladine, Tiamat and Takhisis, I go with their being one in the same. Something which there is some support for.

If that's what works for you in your games, more power to you. But there's very little support for (and mountains of evidence against) them being one and the same.

Two different platinum dragon gods and two different five headed chromatic dragon goddesses, completely separate from one another, is just silly.

That's your opinion. Others disagree. I think it makes perfect sense.

Now, different aspects of the same god? Fully fine by me. Heck, Dragonlance already did that by offering up the regional variations different folk had for their pantheon.

Lot's of campaigns have the gods have different names in different regions; and still have very similar gods for the same world.

As for Douglas Niles comments, it seems more fueled by the fact that the intention was that what Paladine did in Dragonlance wouldn't be in anyway influenced by what Bahamut did elsewhere, and that Paladine could exist independently in the authors hands without bothering with the continuity to some other campaign setting.

Maybe, but ultimately, who cares what the design philosophy was? The in-game result is that Tiamat and Takhisis (and Bahamut and Paladine) are distinct and separate gods.

For the most part, Dragonlance seemed intent on escaping a number of D&D'isms, at least at first. Among them silly ideas such as a multiverse and what not.

Actually a multiverse is one of the best ideas for D&D's cosmology that was ever done, IMO. We still see a multiverse even in the current edition of D&D.

 

[Cam Banks]

Bahamut and Tiamat were not originally gods, at least not in the sense that they are considered now. They were the 2 most powerful dragons in the Monster Manual, singular heads of the good and evil dragons. Dragonlance used them as models for the gods Paladine and Takhisis because of the association between the platinum and chromatic dragon to the other dragons, which were the focus of the adventures. It was only natural to do so.

However, Paladine and Takhisis are more powerful and more extensive in nature than either of the unique dragons upon which they were based. If anything, Bahamut and Tiamat are avatars or aspects of Paladine and Takhisis. We can acknowledge the original connection conceptually between the gods and the dragons they were inspired by, but only in a design sense.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[reanjr]

Just to nitpick, but they were modelled after the Greyhawk gods and meant to be altogether separate gods (which is what Jeff Grubb said).

Ah, I apologize, I couldn't get to the link so I was going off memory.