D&D General New Summary and Release Date for 'Dragons of Deceit'

There's a new Amazon Kindle page for Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's new Dragonlance novel, Dragons of Deceit with a release date of August 9, 2022.

There has been an older Amazon page for the book for a while, with a now-expired release date of July 2021. The existence of the new trilogy from the Dragonlance Chronicles authors was revealed in 2020 when they initiated a lawsuit against WotC for breach of contract.

The book description reads as follows (typos are on the actual Kindle page):

The first new Dragonlance novel from Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman in over a decade, and featuring fan-favorite characters from the iconic first two trilogies, Dragonlance Chronicles and Dragonlance Legends--books that brought a generation of readers into the fantasy fold.

Destina Rosethorn--as her name implies--believes herself to be very much a favored child of destiny. But when her father dis in the War of the Lance, her carefully-constructed world comes crashing down. Not only does she lost her beloved father, but the legacy he has left her: a wealthy fiance, and rule over the family lands and castle. With nothing left in the world to support her but wits and determination, she hatches a bold plan: to secure the Device of Time Journeying she read about in one of her father's books and prevent her father's death.

The last known holder of the Device was one of the Heroes of the Lance: the free-spirited kender, Tasselhoff Burrfoot. BUt when Destina arrives in Solace--home not only to Tas, but to fellow heroes Caramon and Tika Majere--she sets into motion a chain of events more deadly than she had ever anticipated: one that could change not only her personal history, but the fate of the entire world, allowing a previously-defeated evil to once again gain ascendancy.

Dragonlance - Dragonlance's Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman Are Suing WotC for Breach of Contract

For fans of the Dragonlance D&D setting, there's some mixed news which has just hit a court in Washington State: it seems that there's a new Dragonlance trilogy of books which was (until recently) being written; but we may never see them. On 16th October 2020, a lawsuit was filed in the US...

www.enworld.org

 

[darjr]

If the books are good and do the originals some honor and it’s also the original authors? I’m all ok with even a full reboot.

Especially if the uber fan Joe gives it a nod.

 

[JEB]

Especially if the uber fan Joe gives it a nod.

Yeah, that's probably a pretty key test for them to pass, since his disapproval would be noted. I wouldn't be surprised if Wizards involved him in some way with any 5E version.

 

[darjr]

Yeah, that's probably a pretty key test for them to pass, since his disapproval would be noted. I wouldn't be surprised if Wizards involved him in some way with any 5E version.

Ha! I wouldn’t be surprised if many at WotC would do DL precisely to make Joe happy.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We should remember Dragonlance as settin in DM Guild. This means possible adventures in alternate timelines. Maybe the rumores about Raitslin's daughter, a half-irda, are true, or if the timeline is altered, the fate of lord Soth, and his time in Sithicus, would be different. Maybe lord Sorth is a second Sithicus, a dark domain within Krynn (shadowfell) sphere, not with the rest of the demiplane of the dread.

I love the heroes of the Dragonlance, they are maybe my favorite D&D characters, but they lived their own stories. They are perfect as demigods ruling some delight domain, but returning to the live for new adventures may a jumping the shark effect, but Caramon would be sad for their brothers Raitslin and Kitiara.

And if the chronomancers return updated to 5th Ed the D&D cosmology could be affected radically.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The concept is pretty weak tea, storytelling wise. I'd be more excited by a fresh redo of the DL modules without reference to any outside metaplot, if WotC wants to do a reboot: let DMs and players make the original adventures their own.

I wouldn’t be especially excited about that but I’d be fine with it.

My preference would be to “reset” the world to a very similar status quo as the original story by going full circle. You meet in Solace, there are armies threaten the entire continent in the name of Takhisis who has maybe returned but then where is Paladine? Etc etc, but this time there is a monument to fallen heroes in Solace, and the tavern-owning mayor’s surname is Majere and she’s descended from Heroes of The Lance, the various Kanan family elves are still around and ruling elf kingdoms that have rebuilt, Kendermore has been rebuilt at some point, etc, but with things still impacted by the hundred years or whatever that is covered by the existing novels.

the War of The Lance is history and legend, inspiration for young heroes who see history repeating itself as evil rises in a time where the forces of Good are scattered and weakened. Someone must seek out the dragonlances, or forge new ones, and find lost relics like the staff of magius, and gather allies to fight back the new dragon armies.

Same broad goals accomplished, without a weak sauce DL equivalent of yeeting the city of Shade into Myth Drannor in FR because grumpy fans didn’t like that Myth Drannor wasn’t a ruin anymore.

Id prefer a flat reset like you suggest, or just a rewrite of the Chronicles with no obligation to keep things the same, and simply saying, “it’s a reboot because we are better authors now and the setting can be better than it has been this way.”

 

[Teemu]

The history of Dragonlance (soft) reboots is pretty wild if you think about it. The original stuff came out in the mid 80s, but then just a decade later the whole setting is basically uprooted and drastically altered by the Fifth Age stuff. That’s just around ten years of publication history before a massive change. That’s insane.

Then five years later a big change again, War of Souls, which kind of retcons much of the Fifth Age stuff, except that now the two protagonist gods are gone, the elves are left without a home land, and a new god is introduced. No one in charge was interested in taking care of the IP huh. Eberron’s been around for nearly two decades yet it’s been handled with silk gloves in comparison.

 

[Ath-kethin]

The history of Dragonlance (soft) reboots is pretty wild if you think about it. The original stuff came out in the mid 80s, but then just a decade later the whole setting is basically uprooted and drastically altered by the Fifth Age stuff. That’s just around ten years of publication history before a massive change. That’s insane.

Then five years later a big change again, War of Souls, which kind of retcons much of the Fifth Age stuff, except that now the two protagonist gods are gone, the elves are left without a home land, and a new god is introduced. No one in charge was interested in taking care of the IP huh. Eberron’s been around for nearly two decades yet it’s been handled with silk gloves in comparison.

This is all true, and a good point.

But it might be because Eberron has never been divisive, for whatever reason, and Dragonlance definitely has been.

I've never seen anyone attack Eberron as a concept. Not everyone loves the setting, and there's been some snark about it, but I've never seen anyone being outright vicious about it.

What I have seen are people who seem to hate Dragonlance with a burning passion. I've never understood it, but I've seen it many times in the last 30+ years.

 

[humble minion]

I've never seen anyone attack Eberron as a concept. Not everyone loves the setting, and there's been some snark about it, but I've never seen anyone being outright vicious about it.

What I have seen are people who seem to hate Dragonlance with a burning passion. I've never understood it, but I've seen it many times in the last 30+ years.

I strongly suspect that's because Eberron has always been a PCs world, in a static state waiting for home games to do anything. It's never been subject to the tyranny of metaplot - especially novel-driven metaplot.

Seriously, when you look at what people most hate about in those older settings, it almost always comes back to metaplot and novels. FR - Drizzt and Elminster doing everything. Dragonlance - the Heroes of the Lance already won the War of the Lance in the novels, and there were so many metaplot changes after that, that even the most devoted DL fan was bound to find something they hated. Dark Sun? Everyone hated how the Prism Pentad exploded the setting. Metaplot again. Poor old Planescape copped Faction War and Die Vecna Die. Even Greyhawk - I wasn't around for it personally, but the reception From the Ashes got is still the stuff of vitriolic legend. And that's the thing about people hating settings - you have to like them a bit first, to care enough about them to hate them later. People who never really got into a setting don't hate it anything like as hard as alienated hardcore fans.

Eberron never made that mistake. They decided not to do metaplot, and they stuck with that decision. The setting is not everyone's cup of tea, but it hasn't driven any of its hardcore fans into resentment, either (except possibly with the dumb way 5e handled dragonmarks, but I digress...)

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

It is not really a spoiler if I say the novel "Tanis the shadow years" showed a way for a fake time travel.

If you were the evil god, how to manipulate or trick the time-travels? For example lord Soth travels to the past to kill the king-priest and like this the cataclysm is avoided, cleaning his honor, but really he is tricked killing the good version of the king-priest from an alternate timeline, or a demiplane imitating that time. Or there are different demiplanes as "universe pockets" within the Krynnsphere, and all fighting for the "anchors", a special cosmic flux neccesary for a stronger link with the space-time continium. Without these the invasion or interference by time-travelers or creatures from the Far Realm are easier.

Or the Krynn Shadowfell (let's name it Sithicus 2) could be the batlefield between different ghost factions, three of them leaded by Kitiara, Raitslin and lord Soth.

If Hasbro wants Dragonlance to be a multimedia franchise then we can bet for the "multiverse" with alternate timelines, like the productions of Spiderman, not only the action-live movies but also the cartoon series. Other reason is to produce game-live shows set in Krynn, and maybe players will want "exotic" characters, for example a gnome artificer, a que-shu druid or a sorcerer/favored soul (herexy!). They could tell the story of the conflict between two superfamous heroes, Captain Absalon and Iron Gnome, because they didn't agree with the new law about the spellcaster registration act.

Sometimes I wonder how a webcomic about Dragolance would be.

How would feel Tanis the half-elf knowing the fate of their parents in the afterlife, being punished by their sins?

* What if in an alternate Krynn Sturm is a LG hexblade warlock whose patron is an ancestor or the glorious hero Huma? Or the order of the seekers discovered the psionic powers.

* With a right redesign the spider dragon from Wild Elves would be perfect to sell miniatures and figures.

* As Spanish-speaker I can say (again after a couple of times in the past) I don't like the name "Kagonesti" because it sound like a Spanish verb about a sitting action in the toilet, to say it softly.

* Maybe there were time-travels living in Taladas before the cataclysm because it was the perfect hidding place.

* Adlantum. the unknown continent could have suffered some event like the Sundering in FR, and giving a good reason to avoid the time-travel to avoid new reboots, or different futures/timeline fighting to change their own past.

 

[dmar]

So, what is cool about Dragonlance?
Armies of draconians and bad guys riding dragons invade!

What does WotC need?
To sell an updated version of the original campaign, Curse of Strahd style, that does not restrict the players to the novels' characters.

So I guess the novels will provide a way to remove the Heroes of the Lance, other NPCs, and streamline the concept somewhat. Keep some concepts like Knights of Solamnia, the Cataclysm and the Towers of High Sorcery, remove the Knights of Takhisis, Chaos and other later stuff. But maybe the gods are not that entirely gone and PCs can start as clerics without being so exceptional.