D&D 5E Is Paladine Bahamut? Is Takhisis Tiamat? Fizban's Treasury Might Reveal The Answer!

According to WotC's James Wyatt, Fizban's Treasury of Dragons introduces a new cosmology for dragon gods, where the same beings, including Fizban, echo across various D&D campaign settings with alternate versions of themselves (presumably like Paladine/Bahamut, or Takhisis/Tiamat). Also... the various version can merge into one single form.

Takhisis is the five-headed dragon god of evil from the Dragonlance setting. Paladine is the platinum dragon god of good (and also Fizban's alter-ego).

Additionally, the book will contain psychic gem dragons, with stats for all four age categories of the five varieties (traditionally there are Amethyst, Crystal, Emerald, Sapphire, and Topaz), plus Dragonborn characters based on metallic, chromatic, and gem dragons.

D&D 5E - Check out Fizban's Alternate Cover!

WotC's James Wyatt talked to Polygon about Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, which also revealed the alternate cover, which you can only get from hobby stores. https://www.enworld.org/threads/fizbans-treasury-the-dragon-book-now-has-a-description-and-a-feat.681399/

www.enworld.org

D&D 5E - Fizban's Treasury: The Dragon Book Now Has A Description... And A Feat

Courtesy of Amazon, we now have a description for Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, the October D&D hardcover. The book introduces gem dragons, dragon-themed player options, and plenty of draconic lore! This joins September's The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and November's Strixhaven: Curriculum of...

www.enworld.org

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Just looked up the origin for Takhisis and Paladine, and it's one of two things, not sure which one is accurate.

Back in OD&D with the Greyhawk supplement the Dragon Gods were just called the Chromatic Dragon and Platinum Dragon, with no names attached until the Monster Manual came out a couple years later. Hickman, and Weis may have came up with Takhisis and Paladine for the two of them in their home game, and continued using it when they fleshed out the Dragonlance setting officially.
The other scenario I heard, is that Hickman and Weis were not comfortable with using the names of real life mythological deities for their setting and so changed the names to Takhisis and Paladine.

 

[Dire Bare]

Just looked up the origin for Takhisis and Paladine, and it's one of two things, not sure which one is accurate.

Back in OD&D with the Greyhawk supplement the Dragon Gods were just called the Chromatic Dragon and Platinum Dragon, with no names attached until the Monster Manual came out a couple years later. Hickman, and Weis may have came up with Takhisis and Paladine for the two of them in their home game, and continued using it when they fleshed out the Dragonlance setting officially.
The other scenario I heard, is that Hickman and Weis were not comfortable with using the names of real life mythological deities for their setting and so changed the names to Takhisis and Paladine.

Dragonlance isn't based on Weis & Hickman's home game . . . Dragonlance was created by a team at TSR, which included Weis & Hickman. The idea was loosely based on an idea Hickman proposed of a setting focused on dragons, and the work on the setting at TSR occurred post Monster Manual.

As the team worked on what would become Dragonlance, they were definitely playing games in the TSR office, and this was the genesis of several of the characters, most notably Raistlin.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Dragonlance isn't based on Weis & Hickman's home game . . . Dragonlance was created by a team at TSR, which included Weis & Hickman. The idea was loosely based on an idea Hickman proposed of a setting focused on dragons, and the work on the setting at TSR occurred post Monster Manual.

As the team worked on what would become Dragonlance, they were definitely playing games in the TSR office, and this was the genesis of several of the characters, most notably Raistlin.

Yes I know that. But that does not rule either of those out. Takhisis and Paladine could have come from home game names for the Chromatic and Platinum Dragons, nothing to do with Dragonlance other then the names being used later.
Or when they were making Dragonlance for TSR they were not comfortable using Tiamat and Bahamut as the names for the Big Evil and Big Good of the setting.
It's possible it's even both.

 

[darjr]

Or all three?

 

[Dire Bare]

Yes I know that. But that does not rule either of those out. Takhisis and Paladine could have come from home game names for the Chromatic and Platinum Dragons, nothing to do with Dragonlance other then the names being used later.
Or when they were making Dragonlance for TSR they were not comfortable using Tiamat and Bahamut as the names for the Big Evil and Big Good of the setting.
It's possible it's even both.

Weis & Hickman didn't have a shared home game, it's certainly possible that the names came from a home game from anyone on the team. But . . . there is no evidence of either of your suppositions. I would be interested to learn where the names Paladine and Takhisis came from . . . but with actual evidence from back in the day.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Weis & Hickman didn't have a shared home game, it's certainly possible that the names came from a home game from anyone on the team. But . . . there is no evidence of either of your suppositions. I would be interested to learn where the names Paladine and Takhisis came from . . . but with actual evidence from back in the day.

I never said they shared a home game. It was supposedly from one of theirs.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Just looked up the origin for Takhisis and Paladine, and it's one of two things, not sure which one is accurate.

Back in OD&D with the Greyhawk supplement the Dragon Gods were just called the Chromatic Dragon and Platinum Dragon, with no names attached until the Monster Manual came out a couple years later. Hickman, and Weis may have came up with Takhisis and Paladine for the two of them in their home game, and continued using it when they fleshed out the Dragonlance setting officially.
The other scenario I heard, is that Hickman and Weis were not comfortable with using the names of real life mythological deities for their setting and so changed the names to Takhisis and Paladine.

Well that falls apart since Chemosh is a real-life deity as well, the deity of the Moabites.

(Which isn't the only Biblical borrowing for Dragonlance gods: Habakkuk (Dragonlance drops the second "k") is a prophet with his own book in the Bible, Chislev is a month of the Jewish calendar, and Zeboim was a city that was near Sodom and Gomorrah)

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Well that falls apart since Chemosh is a real-life deity as well, the deity of the Moabites.

(Which isn't the only Biblical borrowing for Dragonlance gods: Habakkuk (Dragonlance drops the second "k") is a prophet with his own book in the Bible, Chislev is a month of the Jewish calendar, and Zeboim was a city that was near Sodom and Gomorrah)

I think Hickman was more ok with Biblical stuff.

 

[Azzy]

Well that falls apart since Chemosh is a real-life deity as well, the deity of the Moabites.

(Which isn't the only Biblical borrowing for Dragonlance gods: Habakkuk (Dragonlance drops the second "k") is a prophet with his own book in the Bible, Chislev is a month of the Jewish calendar, and Zeboim was a city that was near Sodom and Gomorrah)

From what I remember, Neraka is also an Indonesian word for "hell". One of my friends in high school (who was a HUGE DL fan) was half-Indonesian and his mother was like, what are you talking about. I think there are some other Easter eggs, but I can't remember anything else off hand.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

Okay, I'll humor you. In 2e's Monster Mythology, Tiamat is still listed as a lesser goddess not a greater goddess and has different stats. You'd think, that if they were the same being, they'd get this right when they updated things. I'm sorry, you (and others) haven't shown a convincing argument that Tiamat and Takhisis are the same entity (in 1e).

"BuT thEY LOoK ThE SAme!" even though they have different names, goals, personalities, stats, diety status, etc. is not a compelling argument. In addition, the authors even stated that they weren't supposed to be the same being. It's only in mid/late 2e that they are retconned to be the same being.

I’m sorry I’m not following. What are you supposed to convince me about 1e with a description of a 2e product?