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

 

[Dire Bare]

I really am at a loss how folks are not getting it...

You repeat this line a lot here in this thread. Maybe it's not us . . .

Again, how you prefer to view the D&D worlds and multiverse is fine, how you choose to use it in your games is fine. Not trying to tell you your preferences aren't legit or are somehow lesser. But to be upset that your ideas don't match up with current official canon, and that others actually like the existing canon, or have even other ways of looking at things . . . I mean, it's okay that they don't, but it just isn't something to get so worked up over.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Heh, Baker doesn't get to decide that! He is the original author of the setting, but doesn't own or control it.

The novels contradict each other and the setting books at multiple points, so even without Baker's statement, it's still an easy assumption to make.

 

[Bolares]

Heh, Baker doesn't get to decide that! He is the original author of the setting, but doesn't own or control it.

I'm not saying he decided that. But if you follow him at all, he's always pretty clear about what WotC believes is or isn't canon. The novels are not canon. That doesn't mean npcs and locations in them can't be made canon later, but those specific stories aren't canon.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The Eberron novels aren't canon? Since when?

Since every Eberron campaign is assumed to start at the same exact "current year" of 998 (and has been that way in 3.5E, 4E, and 5E)... nothing that appears in anything written down after that could be considered "canon". It's all just one player's (or one writer's) extension and story.

Not that "canon" means anything anyway, so I don't even know why I'm bothering to answer.

 

[Bolares]

Not that "canon" means anything anyway, so I don't even know why I'm bothering to answer.

Well, metaplot progression matters, and if novels are canon the metaplot progresses. So discussing if novels are canon has it's value

 

[Urriak Uruk]

This is fine fan-design, but does not represent any version of official canon I've ever heard.

The idea that a world with a unique cosmology (Eberron), that it's entire cosmology exists within it's crystal sphere (inner, outer, mirror planes and all), which then floats in the material plane, which is then surrounded by the Great Wheel . . . no thanks. It's not elegant, doesn't make much sense, and doesn't really match up with D&D lore.

How various worlds with unique cosmologies interact with the greater D&D multiverse is deliberately left vague in 5E D&D, and in most of the recent prior editions. Tortured explanations of how Athas (Dark Sun) and Krynn (Dragonlance) fit into D&D cosmology existed during the 2E era . . . but that's best left in the past.

Officially? Eberron has it's own set of outer planes that echo D&D cosmology, but are not directly a part of it. Is Eberron connected to the other D&D worlds? Yes. Exactly how does that work? Unclear, deliberately so. It's something that doesn't need to be explained in official lore, and only matters in your home game if you want it to.

I didn't make this up. Look at the below, from Eberron's book;

Eberron is part of the Great Wheel of the multiverse, as described in the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide. At the same time, it is fundamentally apart from the rest of the Great Wheel, sealed off from the other planes even while it's encircled by its own wheeling cosmology. Eberron's unique station in the multiverse is an important aspect of the world: its planes have profound and shifting influences on the Material Plane, and it is sheltered from the influences and machinations of gods and other powers elsewhere on the Great Wheel.

The planet of Eberron is the heart of its own Material Plane. It is surrounded by the Ring of Siberys. Beyond this band of dragonshards, twelve moons orbit the world. To date, no creature from Eberron has explored the moons, and none can say whether they are lifeless rocks or thriving worlds. Some sages believe that the moons are connected to the planes, or that they might even be physical extensions of the planes, but the truth of these assertions remains unknown.


Jeremy Crawford then clarifies the above text in this video, at about 24:30. At around 28, Crawford specifically mentions how Keith Baker devised how the Ring of Siberys separates Eberron from the multiverse with "little planes" to call their own. The Ring encircles the crystal sphere of Eberron, that shields it from the Great Wheel.

My above comment with images was my best attempt at collating the above two sources. If you don't consider this Crawford interview as serious that is your prerogative, but he does say this was devised jointly with Keith Baker, and it does seem like just a clarification of the text from Rising from the Last War.

 

[DEFCON 1]

. . . I mean, it's okay that they don't, but it just isn't something to get so worked up over.

Especially when there is nothing can be done about it anyway... as the books have already been printed and aren't going to be changed any time soon. But who knows... maybe when 6E gets written, everything about the "multiverse" will be put back to the way they want it.

But of course... that would just prove our points that the lore doesn't matter, because it would show once again that no lore is official and any lore can be written and re-written on a whim by whomever has the WotC D&D letterhead at the time.

 

[dave2008]

I wouldn't call it a misunderstanding but rather a different view of what D&D is about. For me D&D was always it's story. I only followed D&D by reading it's novel for years before I played my first P&P and since years when I played my last P&P (around the time Curse of Strahd was released).

When I played a game of FR, I always only saw it as taking a snapshot of the official canon at that point, play with it for a while and then letting this borrowed bubble burst once the game was done. Next campaign would jump off from the then current canon at that time.

So for me it's way more important how WotC sees the official canon then whatever happens in my current game. Because that's how I will experience the story going forward with the next novel and splatbook

Well that is completely opposite from my viewpoint! The only D&D novels I have read are some dragonlance novels about 35 years ago or something!

 

[DEFCON 1]

Well, metaplot progression matters, and if novels are canon the metaplot progresses. So discussing if novels are canon has it's value

Eberron does not have metaplot. That is an explicit point of Eberron's design.

 

[Maxperson]

You are describing a completely different kind of being from what the progenitor dragons would be in a 3.5 or 4e Eberron game wherein they created the entire universe.

From what I can see, the language used for the creation portion are "legends say" and "sages agree" and so on. It's rumor that they created the universe, and it's possible that it was true that they created the Eberron universe by isolating it from the rest of the Great Wheel. Or that they never existed at all.

Is there something outside of the 3.5 creation myth that gives the progenitor wyrms objective reality and says definitively that they created everything?