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]

Well, yes, actually. You have read some Dragonlance, right?

Tiamat and Takhisis have pretty similar personalities and plans.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

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.

You have the beginning correct, but missing out that the Krynnish pantheon started on Jeff Grubb's homebrew. It was ported over from there and changed a bit (some of the deities had their sex changed). Note having the same conceptual origin does not mean they are they same entity in their fully realised forms.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Tiamat and Takhisis have pretty similar personalities and plans.

Tiamat is interested in breaking free of Avernus. Takhisis doesn't even live in Avernus so not sure how that is "similar". Their personalities are only alike if you consider "evil" the sum total of their personalities.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Tiamat is interested in breaking free of Avernus. Takhisis doesn't even live in Avernus so not sure how that is "similar". Their personalities are only alike if you consider "evil" the sum total of their personalities.

Tiamat breaking free of Avernus only came in 5e. And even beside that, she desires domination of the Material Plane, generally through Dragons acting in her interest.

 

[Mirtek]

Tales of the "Lance" (not Tales of the Dragonlance - there's no such work) is notorious for its sloppy attempt at continuity and has several entries in it that contradict countless other sources.

So was Guide to Hell, yet the Asmodeus is actually a big serpent deity slowly healing his wounds became a fan favorite

 

[Hexmage-EN]

This is rather tedious, but it seems that people don't really get the idea that on Krynn Paladine is not a "dragon god". He's the leader of the Pantheon of Good who has the avatar of a dragon amongst many other avatars. It is not his preferred form, he doesn't seem to favour dragons over his other divine subjects (elves are actually his favored creation). The only time he takes the form is when he very pointedly rejects one of his followers. When he makes the ultimate sacrifice and gives up his divinity (rendered meaningless if he merely a tiny aspect of another deity, of course), he takes the form of an elf, not a dragon.

I assume WotC's linking Paladine to Bahamut and dragons because they already stated in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes that all elves in every setting are descended from the primal elves created by Corellon.

 

[dave2008]

OK, I now think we (or maybe just me) have some misunderstanding of what we are talking about.

not only that, but every story you could tell in this new model could have been told before, when the Great Wheel hadn’t eaten all other cosmologies and there were multiple material planes. I’ve described how already. You could even have had The Great Wheel as a setting that includes many worlds, from Oerth to Toril to Mystara to Exandria, without changing the cosmology of worlds that were their own before, or making the official canon that all worlds exist on the same material Plane.

Is that the official canon? I don't recall that being stated. I was under the assumption there could still be multiple alternate prime planes.

I also just don’t get how y’all can possibly not understand why this matters. Like, it can’t just be that because y’all like this new model you can’t be bothered to think about why someone might dislike it, but that’s what it feels like having this discussion.

I believe I stated a couple times that I understand it matters to you. However, it doesn't really matter to me for a few reasons:

1. I don't run published settings (though I borrow from them).
2. I assume all cosmological lore for all settings and core books is to some degree false / speculation. No one has it correct, it is all guess work.
3. The tend to work with the idea that the nature of reality is fluid. Not only are all of the settings wrong - they could actually be changing!
4. I have a hard time understand why people can't ignore the parts they don't like. I do this for all sorts of things in D&D and it works just fine. However, I do understand some people can't do this as readily as I can. I just don't understand why.
5. Cosmology rarely (like never) comes up in my games. As I DM I like to think about, but it never relevant in game. So it really doesn't matter to anyone but me at the table.

Eberron’s progenitor dragons, before 5e, created a universe. Not part of a universe, not a world, but a whole and entire cosmology. It existed separate and alongside other universes in the D&D multiverse. Now they created a bubble and went, “hey let’s have our own elves and dwarves and whatnot, but separate from the real deal on all those other worlds.”

Or, even worse, everything in Eberron comes from some First World that fractured into the “multiverse”.

That all seems possible in my understand of the 5e cosmology, but my understanding could be wrong. However, even if in "reality" it is not possible, it doesn't change anything a game perspective. If I am playing in a discrete Eberron game, all the connective tissue in hinted at in the books as not impact on my game.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

The idea of multiple versions of Vecna and his Hand as part of different settings, rather than the same Vecna and Hand moving through those different settings, feels so weird to me. But maybe Die Vecna Die made him into a multiversal entity...

I did see a blog post the other day that was attempting to reconcile cosmology changes between 2E and 5E as all effectively caused by the events of Die Vecna Die. The gist was that the module's events supposedly untethered many worlds from the Great Wheel for 3E and 4E before being pulled back to it in 5E.

Interesting if true, and more than enough reason to have the instigator, Vecna, become a multiversal entity.

 

[dave2008]

Tiamat is interested in breaking free of Avernus. Takhisis doesn't even live in Avernus so not sure how that is "similar". Their personalities are only alike if you consider "evil" the sum total of their personalities.

The both want to conquer (Tiamat many worlds and Takhisis at least Krynn). Now, they may be even more similar, we just don't know nearly as much about Tiamat's personality as we do Takhisis (except maybe cartoon Tiamat).

 

[dave2008]

It’s literally a reduction in plausible options.

No, it is one more option. It is additive, not subtractive.