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

 

[Parmandur]

So, in the new article in the updated Issue 38 of Dragon+, James.Wyatt says that an echo of a given Dragon turns into a Dracolich, it has effects on other echoes on other worlds. So these different Dragons participate in a shared reality...

 

[Hexmage-EN]

So, in the new article in the updated Issue 38 of Dragon+, James.Wyatt says that an echo of a given Dragon turns into a Dracolich, it has effects on other echoes on other worlds. So these different Dragons participate in a shared reality...

This is increasingly feeling like the designers want to publish adventures that take place in more than one campaign setting and using dragons as a means to encourage players to cross between settings.

"Okay, we've got a dragon currently rampaging in our own world, but apparently his alternate self in Oerth is preparing to become a dracolich, which'll turn our world's rampaging dragon into a dracolich as well, so I guess we gotta make a detour to Oerth".

Now I'm curious if they'll add a Critical Role tie-in by saying that Thordak is an alternate version of Ashardalon since they are both red dragons with unusual hearts (a crystal heart containing the essence of the Plane of Fire for the former, a Balor for the latter).

 

[Parmandur]

This is increasingly feeling like the designers want to publish adventures that take place in more than one campaign setting and using dragons as a means to encourage players to cross between settings.

"Okay, we've got a dragon currently rampaging in our own world, but apparently his alternate self in Oerth is preparing to become a dracolich, which'll turn our world's rampaging dragon into a dracolich as well, so I guess we gotta make a detour to Oerth".

Now I'm curious if they'll add a Critical Role tie-in by saying that Thordak is an alternate version of Ashardalon since they are both red dragons with unusual hearts (a crystal heart containing the essence of the Plane of Fire for the former, a Balor for the latter).

Or encouraging people to use Dragons from whatever Setting in their homebrew, or change Settings, like using all the same Dragons in Tyranny of Dragons on Eberron with the names intacr.

 

[Aaron L]

Doubt all you want. But, yes, a unique dragon (that had 128 hp) that is treated as a lesser goddess (in D&DG) is the same thing as a greater goddess with 999 hp that does 1-1000 points of damage on a hit.

Whatever stats were appended to Takhisis for different purposes don't really make much difference regarding her identity. The people at TSR weren't really striving for that kind of internal consistency; they were far more concerned with creating game stats that gave a proper game challenge for PCs of appropriate levels.

Game mechanic stats are mutable things, able to be altered for whatever purpose required to make for a good fun game. Thus, the stats given for Tiamat as the Archdevil ruler of Avernus were whatever was needed to make her an appropriately challenging fight for high level PCs, while the stats given for Tiamat as the Goddess Takhisis were meant to be appropriate for something worshiped by Evil Clerics.

But regardless, they are both the same 5-headed Divine Draconic entity known as the Mother of Evil Dragons, with the exact same appearance, and both Bahamut and Paladine are The Platinum Dragon. Trying to insist that they are somehow different entities is just pedantry (and I have nothing against pedantry in and of itself, I do it myself quite a bit.) But in this case the only differences are due to being viewed through the lenses of different world mythologies. Perhaps Tiamat and Bahamut have greater power on the world of Krynn because on that planet they are worshiped as, well... Greater Powers? In the end it really doesn't matter... they are clearly the same entities who just wear some different clothing when on Krynn.

I only care about this subject at all because I am currently playing a War Cleric of Bahamut 4/Celestial Warlock 5 called Eryx of the North Wind*, and he refers to his primary God as both Bahamut and Paladine interchangeably. Since I didn't know a whole lot about the worship of Bahamut as a God when I created the character at the beginning of the year I did a lot of research about it.

(*Eryx of the North Wind just attracted a group of 36 cultists who worship him personally, which was not something that Eryx sought, and is something he now has to figure out a way to deal with without offending his actual Gods or Patrons. But interestingly, all of the various D&D paths for Apotheosis seem to always share the same 1st step of acquiring a group of followers who already worship the PC as a God... )

Even real-world mythology is rarely internally consistent, and is almost always full of contradictions. The crafted mythology of D&D is no different.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Those are two incompatible models,

I don’t agree. Sigil had doors to all worlds even in 4e, where Planescape’s model of the multiverse wasn’t a thing IIRC. Even if I’m wrong there (working from decade old memories), Sigil could easily have doors leading to all cosmologies.

The Raven Queen of Nerath and of Exandria don’t need to be the same entity, there just is a Raven Queen in both places, and there are a few rare points in the multiverse where you can get to any universe. Sigil, perhaps a Wood Between Worlds in the Feywild, etc.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I don’t agree. Sigil had doors to all worlds even in 4e, where Planescape’s model of the multiverse wasn’t a thing IIRC. Even if I’m wrong there (working from decade old memories), Sigil could easily have doors leading to all cosmologies.

The Raven Queen of Nerath and of Exandria don’t need to be the same entity, there just is a Raven Queen in both places, and there are a few rare points in the multiverse where you can get to any universe. Sigil, perhaps a Wood Between Worlds in the Feywild, etc.

So the two models I described were;

• A consistent multiversal theory to make it simpler for games to jump from setting to setting.
• Distinct cosmologies that do no overlap with each other.

Travel between settings is possible in both models. But the first wants a consistent, umbrella approach to cosmology. The second needs each cosmology to be specific to their own world, none more dominant than another. These two models are incompatible, even if travel between worlds is possible in both.

I'm not going to comment much on which is a better model; I prefer a more consistent approach, but that's my personal preference (I don't think anyone can prove either is objectively better), and I understand how that throws a wrench at folks who want it official that D&D cosmologies are more distinct from each other (I sympathize).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yet so mundane - these a deities, they should be outrageous!

I’m not sure they need to be outrageous, but we may just disagree on what that means. Either way, I don’t see what is mundane about gods being part of and definitional to a specific cosmology.

I want humans to have been wrought from trees and then given breathe and consciousness and will by Odin and his brothers in a setting with a World Tree and 9 worlds, and for them to have been made by the god of inventions in another world, and to have evolved from earlier primates in another. That is vastly less mundane to me than a “First World” that causes all elves and all dwarves and all humans to have just one single origin each, regardless of setting.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So the two models I described were;

• A consistent multiversal theory to make it simpler for games to jump from setting to setting.
• Distinct cosmologies that do no overlap with each other.

Travel between settings is possible in both models. But the first wants a consistent, umbrella approach to cosmology. The second needs each cosmology to be specific to their own world, none more dominant than another. These two models are incompatible, even if travel between worlds is possible in both.

I'm not going to comment much on which is a better model; I prefer a more consistent approach, but that's my personal preference (I don't think anyone can prove either is objectively better), and I understand how that throws a wrench at folks who want it official that D&D cosmologies are more distinct from each other (I sympathize).

I genuinely don’t understand how it can possibly be a good thing for two settings with no need to relate to eachother to have the same cosmological model. Not only to have the same model, but to actually all be within the same cosmology, where there is just the one Hells, Abyss, Feywild, Shadowfell, etc, and just the one Material Plane.

It boggles my mind to think that folks prefer that it be strange and against canon to make a world with its own cosmology that isn’t within the Great Wheel and cannot be influence by the beings of the Great Wheel.

How on earth is that vastly more restrictive model preferable?

 

[Urriak Uruk]

I genuinely don’t understand how it can possibly be a good thing for two settings with no need to relate to eachother to have the same cosmological model. Not only to have the same model, but to actually all be within the same cosmology, where there is just the one Hells, Abyss, Feywild, Shadowfell, etc, and just the one Material Plane.

It boggles my mind to think that folks prefer that it be strange and against canon to make a world with its own cosmology that isn’t within the Great Wheel and cannot be influence by the beings of the Great Wheel.

How on earth is that vastly more restrictive model preferable?

Well, you're asking for my opinion, so I'll explain mine. To be clear, I don't think this is objectively better, because it actually isn't for every table and the game style they prefer.

The reason I prefer there to be an umbrella cosmology that connects all worlds (even if individual worlds have their own smaller, unique cosmologies) is that it makes the Multiverse seem more natural. It hints that there is a commonality to all worlds, that they all share an origin. It feels like how all life evolved from one single-celled organism. It makes my Multiverse feel more real, the gods seem more powerful and prescient, if there are commonalities and shared origins across worlds. It makes the Multiverse feel bigger, and the PCs feel smaller, compared the workings of the Multiverse. A PC prays to Bahamut, but that same god is listening to billions of prayers across the Planescape (or the Timescape, or the Multiverse). A god is unfathomable to a PCs tiny mind.

That said, I also like when there are exceptions like Eberron; I like how that world explicitly states that somehow, for some reason, it managed to cut itself off from the greater Multiverse and form its own cosmology around itself. It adds to the mystery when there are exceptions to the norm.

This is again, just my opinion. There are plenty of reasons not to like any of the above, but this is how I feel.

 

[dave2008]

I’m not sure they need to be outrageous, but we may just disagree on what that means. Either way, I don’t see what is mundane about gods being part of and definitional to a specific cosmology.

I wasn't being serious, just having some fun.

I want humans to have been wrought from trees and then given breathe and consciousness and will by Odin and his brothers in a setting with a World Tree and 9 worlds, and for them to have been made by the god of inventions in another world, and to have evolved from earlier primates in another. That is vastly less mundane to me than a “First World” that causes all elves and all dwarves and all humans to have just one single origin each, regardless of setting.

My preference is to have both! All of that to be true and everything connected. An aspect of a Moradin sings dwarves to life in one world, another forges them in in the bowels of the earth, and yet another simply convinces a tribe of small hairy apes that it is the god of creation!

The truth is neither is more or less mundane or exclusive, we all just have our preferences.