Dragonlance Here's That Official Dragonlance Novels Announcement, Featuring Classic Characters & An Old Logo!

We've known about it for a while due to lawsuits and product placeholder pages on Amazon, but Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have just announced their new Dragonlance series of novels!

It returns 'the most beloved characters from the original novels', as well as a 'new, strong protagonist'. Previous information from the lawsuit about this series indicated that the first book was to be called Dragons of Deceit, and the second Dragons of Fate. The Amazon placeholder page says the release date is 29th July 2021. Of course, any of that information may have changed.

Original (classic) DL logo

Later (Fifth Age) DL logo​

The branding refers to "Classic Dragonlance" and uses the older, original (and my favourite) Dragonlance logo. Whether that in some way distinguishes it from any potential WotC Dragonlance materials remains to be seen. The logo changed in the 1990s, and continued to be used throughout the 3E era.

The news was shared on Twitter and on Tracy Hickman's website.

 PRESS RELEASE

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Wilmington, NC – January 25, 2021 – Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman are pleased to announce a multi-year licensing agreement with Wizards of the Coast to produce a new, three book series of Classic Dragonlance novels.

The new trilogy will return fans to the most beloved characters from the original novels along with introducing a new strong protagonist. The books will be published by Del Rey Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Although a publishing date has not yet been formally set, they anticipate announcing when the first book will be released later this year.

“We couldn’t be happier to be returning to the world we love,” says Margaret Weis. “Dragonlance is what brought Tracy and I together so many years ago. We’re thrilled to be able to do this for existing lovers of Krynn while bringing our beloved characters to a new generation of readers.”

The first Classic Dragonlance novel, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, was written by Weis and Hickman and published in 1984. Since that time, more than 190 novels have been published in the setting. Weis and Hickman have collaborated on numerous series over the last 30 years including projects set within the world of Classic Dragonlance and outside of it. Two notable series are The Death Gate Cycle and The Darksword Series, both published by Penguin Random House.

“We credit the fans of Dragonlance for making this journey possible,” says Tracy Hickman. “We wrote this series out of our thanks to them for this amazing life-long journey…and from our wish that they join us once more on the road to Solace.”

The license for the series was secured by Weis & Hickman in 2018. Their recent dispute with Wizards of the Coast was resolved at the end of 2020, with all parties pleased to have come to agreement on how best to move forward with the trilogy. All are focused on producing the best series possible and will not comment on the past dispute other than to say it has been resolved.

Watch for additional news from Weis and Hickman about Classic Dragonlance and other projects on the horizon in the coming months.

 

[Scribe]

Gully Dwarves are black people? Who's saying that??

My (again, long time ago, like over 15 years ago) reading was that this was an isolated, destitute, small community of dwarves.

My grade 5 (11, 12?) self assumed they were just not part of dwarves culture, and so didn't have a grasp on what others like the adventure party would have understood, like books, or thinking a dead rat was magical.

I don't think I want to know where a comment or association with real world people came from because again.

It's Fantasy.

 

[Dire Bare]

Honestly hope they change nothing.

A human isn't an ogre isn't a kender.

That's fantasy. Biology is real, and sentient races are actually different.

Yeah, that means Gully Dwarves are uneducated.

Honestly hope they change everything.

While we can imagine that a human, an ogre, and a kender are different humanoid species . . . portraying any of them as inherently evil, kleptomaniac, or mentally challenged AS A SPECIES is pretty damn racist.

Regardless that it's fantasy, not biology. Racism isn't biology either.

In the novels, it's not that gully dwarves are uneducated, but that they are severely mentally challenged as a species.

It's racist, it's problematic, and WotC is very aware of this and is starting to take (baby) steps in rectifying these sorts of issues.

 

[Scribe]

A culture that looks a possessions as temporary is not racism.

Ogres being fundamentally different from Humans in terms of Size, Strength, or yes even culture, is not racism.

 

[Mercurius]

Does this mean that they are re-writing the Chronicles or continuing on from after the Chronicles as if the rest didn't happen? Or do we not know yet?

 

[Morrus]

Folks, we’ve pretty much had enough of the repeated ‘evil orcs aren’t racist it’s just fantasy!’ (and its variants) around here. If you’re determined to talk about such things, you’ll need to find somewhere else to do it. Drop the subject, please.

 

[toucanbuzz]

It never takes long for these conversations to diverge into whether D&D is "racist." So:

 

[Mercurius]

Burp.

(delete).

 

[Dire Bare]

I never - and still don't - understood the 'gully dwarves are black people' complaint. So they're a race of dimwitted but loveable creatures. So what? People don't have problems with races of hypergeniuses, so why the reverse? ISTM it's just people wanting to take offence. Le sigh.

Actually, for the longest time I thought the Solamnics were primarily black.

You misunderstand the argument if you think folks are equating gully dwarves with African-Americans, or other black people across the world.

In Dragonlance, and D&D, and in the fantasy genre at large . . . . the way we think and talk about race is the same thought processes used in racist thinking in the real world. Despite the fact that gully dwarves aren't real.

If I told you that African-Americans were inherently violent, savage, and dim-witted . . . . that'd be pretty racist. But we describe orcs that way. Orcs aren't real, but the thought process is. If I told you that African-Americans were inherently superior athletes . . . that's a positive stereotype (kinda), but really just the flip-side of the above and just as racist. If I told you that African-American characters in my D&D game get a -2 to Wisdom and a +2 to Strength . . . that's pretty racist.

Now . . . that doesn't mean that the many authors and designers over the years are white supremacists, or that the gaming community, including you and I, are racist. What we're talking about is institutional racism. It's subtle, hard to notice unless pointed out (or you suffer directly from it), and . . . . white folks often push back against the idea because they haven't suffered from it and don't like to think of their favorite activities as racist.

If you don't believe me . . . oh well, you're on the wrong side of history, and the game is changing whether you accept the necessity of the change or not.

EDIT: Sorry, I was typing this up as Morrus posted above in moderator red. I'm done.

 

[Morrus]

Did I stutter? Folks, drop it. Or the thread gets closed.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Does this mean that they are re-writing the Chronicles or continuing on from after the Chronicles as if the rest didn't happen? Or do we not know yet?

Totally curious how this plays out as the hint is we're getting the old crew back together (before anyone died?). They did a TON of prequel books with the original heroes, so it's hard to imagine what they could squeeze in-between. And, I wouldn't want a revisionist history (e.g. let's change what happens to Sturm) with some time travel angle. That's been overplayed.

Given the release date of July 29th from Amazon UK, suppose it's already ready, but I would be eager to return to Krynn one more time. It's been awhile.