D&D 5E (2024) Wargamer Takes Shot At WotC for Not Respecting Forgotten Realms Canon.

[ECMO3]

Amethyst dragons featured pretty heavily alongside the other gem dragons in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, which IIRC was a popular book in the 5e line-up.

Yeah but they are not in the Monster Manual, they are not in any novels that I know of, they are not in any of the Forgotten-Realms specific stuff, they are not in any published adventures. I would wager that fewer than 10% of players even know what they are.

 

[pemerton]

You know what would be evocative: Red Dragon Knights. They could tie this to the Githyanki in BG3 (you know knights that actually do ride Dragons) and then maybe change the lore a bit so it is not just Githyanki that do it. Or alternatively tie it instead to the Cult of the Dragon.

Traditionally, red dragons are evil. So don't seem a good prospect to be the mounts for heroic knights.

 

[Jensaarai]

Yeah but they are not in the Monster Manual, they are not in any novels that I know of, they are not in any of the Forgotten-Realms specific stuff, they are not in any published adventures. I would wager that fewer than 10% of players even know what they are.

From a quick check of the Forgotten Realms wiki, amethyst dragons show up in; Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk, and "Queen of the Mountain" in the Realms of the Dragons II anthology.

 

[Jensaarai]

Traditionally, red dragons are evil. So don't seem a good prospect to be the mounts for heroic knights.

That, and the Cult of the Dragon is supposed to be evil too.

So, if in some alternate reality we were instead seeing something like that happening instead of the Purple Dragon Knights, I think there'd be similar levels of discontent about the new lore. Probably more, actually. Unless it was made as a more explicit "evil subclass" like the Oathbreaker or something, maybe. Even then I think you'd get complaints about how red dragons don't actually like being the whole dragon rider thing, and only go along with the Githyanki for their own selfish reasons.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Traditionally, red dragons are evil. So don't seem a good prospect to be the mounts for heroic knights.

Traditionally, Amethyst dragons are neutral, which makes them suitable mounts for PCs of any alignment.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

If you don't understand why WotC needs to do Fourth Wing in D&D, you have been living under a rock for the last couple of years (which is understandable, frankly).

Even more understandable is not having read it, and therefore not knowing what it's really about.

I wasn't joking when I called it "Top Gun with dragons" earlier. The important thing isn't the dragons, they are just the fighter jets. The important thing is competing for status and prestige in a long established very tradition-based elite military academy. Hence the Purple Dragons, and not a loner wilderness guy subclass or evil dragon cultists. Likewise, creating a "new" prestigious organisation of dragon soldiers with hundreds of years of tradition would have been a massive retcon - how come no one has heard about them before?

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

What is gained by calling something new by the name of an old thing you find boring?

Nobody likes the old PDK subclass, so by replacing it with something new and cool you erase it from the game.

If 5.5 wasn't designated as backwards compatible this move wouldn't be necessary, and they could have called the new dragonrider subclass something else, but here we are.

 

[Incenjucar]

Nobody likes the old PDK subclass, so by replacing it with something new and cool you erase it from the game.

If 5.5 wasn't designated as backwards compatible this move wouldn't be necessary, and they could have called the new dragonrider subclass something else, but here we are.

It's such a weird way to go about things. Even with all the wacky and unnecessary cataclysms FR has gone through to force it to meet the new mechanics, those were at least events and in response to the game itself changing. This is a half edition and they're just peeling the label off and sticking it onto something that's unrelated because the name isn't entirely obvious and literal.

Watch out, Sword Coast.

 

[ECMO3]

Traditionally, red dragons are evil. So don't seem a good prospect to be the mounts for heroic knights.

I think they are better than Amerthyst Dragons which are a "traditional" nothing.

There are numerous examples of heroic Red Dragon and Red Dragon riders in the Forgotten Realms. Red Dragon riders have heroic parts in BG3 as well as in both the Azure Bonds novels and the Cadderly novels. One of the members of The Brotherhood of the Griffon rescues and then rides a Red Dragon for a time in the Brotherhood of the Griffon novels. A Red Dragon, Brimstone, played a heroic role in the Rage of Dragons novels. That is 5 examples off the top of my head, all in the forgotten realms.

Can you give me any examples of heroic Amethyst Dragon riders in the Forgotten Realms? Any at all in any D&D fiction on any world?

 

[Jensaarai]

Can you give me any examples of heroic Amethyst Dragon riders in the Forgotten Realms? Any at all in any D&D fiction on any world?

I mean... these new Purple Dragon Knights seem pretty heroic, and wouldn't you guess they also by-default ride amethyst dragons. And those dragons even date back to 'The Dragon #37' in 1980 as well. That's certainly up there in being "traditional," isn't it?

Complaining about tradition in d&d feels farcical to the extreme; go back far enough and everything was new at some point. I'd bet you there were probably some people who grumbled about the changes from the red dragon's "tradition" back when the Azure Bonds and Cadderly novels first came out.

Or maybe they realized how cool this new thing was, and accepted it for what it was.