Dragonlance WotC Officially Confirms Takhisis and Tiamat Are The Same

It's been an issue in dispute for decades, over various editions of D&D, but WotC has officially confirmed that - at least in 5E - Dragonlance's Takhisis is, indeed, currently Tiamat. In previous editions, Tiamat has varied from being a big dragon to a minor goddess, while Takhisis has been a greater god on Krynn. At times they've been the same entity, and at others different entities. Today, WotC is putting its foot down and saying that Takhisis and Tiamat are, indeed, the same being.



Of course, this is not an opinion universally held. Dragonlance co-creator Margaret Weis emphatically stated that "TAKHISIS IS NOT TIAMAT, DAMN IT!"

Fizban's Treasuryof Dragons confirms that the beings echo across various settings.

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...

www.enworld.org

 

[Scribe]

What? DC's singular vision of Batman or Superman?

Kind of my point. I don't invest in either franchise, in any way because there isn't one.

 

[Maxperson]

"If I like it, don't change it - otherwise I don't care?"

Is there something wrong with that? Why would someone care about something they don't care about?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Currently, with IP locked behind copyright . . . 90% of everything is crap.

If we did away with copyright, or weakened it, allowing others to create using well known characters like Batman and Superman . . . 90% of everything would still be crap.

I mean, this not a great point imo.

It's just a reiteration of "90% of everything is crap", and it's not even specific to this, it applies to all media.

The big difference is that, with copyright, you get X attempts and 90% of them are crap, outside it, you get X*Y attempts and 90% of them are crap, but that results in a higher number of non-crap results, which thanks to word of mouth and reviews and so on, people will skim off. It's a simplification of course but no more so than "90% of everything is crap".

The main issue with the extremely long copyrights the US has is that it encourages companies with IPs that have been successful to super-invest in those IPs, so it directly causes and leads to the endless reboots and reiterations of essentially the same stories and content. If copyright was a great deal shorter, as it used to be, the temptation to super-invest in properties and endlessly reboot them would be a great deal weaker. With shorter copyright, it makes more sense to regularly do genuinely new stories and characters, because you'll have some significant period during which you get the copyright.

So there's a dual-benefit to shorter copyrights in terms of creativity and storytelling:

1) More access to existing characters, especially for marginalized artists or people wanting to tell riskier stories.

2) More creativity and more new stories/characters from existing media houses due to a real incentive to invest in new stories rather than reboots, and thus likely actual creatives getting more opportunity to create.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes, the Age of Mortals was "additive" and moved the campaign forward. And it was not a popular move among DL fans, although I'm sure there were some who enjoyed the rebooted setting and new game that went along with it.

You're not alone in preferring that settings grow in size and complexity, but never hit the "reimagine" button. And that's okay. It's the constant negativity and just bringing it up over and over again that gets tiresome.

There is a reason why both major comic book houses reboot their settings every couple of years . . . canon, continuity, becomes a bloated, complicated straight-jacket that makes it hard to tell new stories. D&D settings aren't quite as bad as the comic book universes . . . but Dragonlance approaches it with the Age of Mortals, followed by the War of Souls. And guess what? Dragonlance died.

WotC is bringing it back, yes . . . but by going back to the beginning, with very minor tweaks to canon. So minor, most folks, even long-time fans, won't even notice. So minor, that folks are complaining about things that aren't even happening, like WotC adding orcs to the setting or shaving off all the Solamnic mustaches.

You and a few loud folks are unhappy, but I suspect this approach will work better, for more fans (old and new) than simply adding another "age" to the setting and pushing forward that bloated, contradictory, complicated mess of a canon even more into the future.

Thank you WotC, for bringing Dragonlance back to the core experience, the War of the Lance and the struggle against the dragonarmies!

Does anyone know yet if any of the above is even mentioned in the book? It makes a difference to me.

 

[Remathilis]

But an  additive retcon.

So let me get this straight...

Let's say there is a guild of evil mages. We'll call them the Withered Hand. Your PC fights them a bunch of times, they do evil plots, etc. Pretty stock evil villains.

The next time you encounter them, you find out they are actually a bunch of Orcus Worshippers/cult. This never came up in the previous encounters with them, but now they're all Orcus, all the time. So you ask the DM "When did the Withered Hand go from just evil mages to an Orcus cult?"

If the DM says, "well, they've always been Orcus worshippers, they're just more vocal about it" that's a bad retcon because it changes what was fundamentally known about them.

If the DM says "well, last year while you were off fighting pirates, the Withered Hand was infiltrated by an Orcus cultist who rose in the ranks and quickly turned them into an Orcus cult" that's a good retcon because it added to or advanced the timeline.

Does that sound about right?

 

[SkidAce]

"And I would have gotten away with it too if hadn't been for you meddling kender!"

"And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling kender!" hiss...
"And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling kender!" snarl...
"And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling kender!" growl...
"And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling kender!" roar...
"And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling kender!" bellow...

 

[Micah Sweet]

So let me get this straight...

Let's say there is a guild of evil mages. We'll call them the Withered Hand. Your PC fights them a bunch of times, they do evil plots, etc. Pretty stock evil villains.

The next time you encounter them, you find out they are actually a bunch of Orcus Worshippers/cult. This never came up in the previous encounters with them, but now they're all Orcus, all the time. So you ask the DM "When did the Withered Hand go from just evil mages to an Orcus cult?"

If the DM says, "well, they've always been Orcus worshippers, they're just more vocal about it" that's a bad retcon because it changes what was fundamentally known about them.

If the DM says "well, last year while you were off fighting pirates, the Withered Hand was infiltrated by an Orcus cultist who rose in the ranks and quickly turned them into an Orcus cult" that's a good retcon because it added to or advanced the timeline.

Does that sound about right?

I don't like either, but the second one is at least internally consistent.

 

[wellis]

The next time you encounter them, you find out they are actually a bunch of Orcus Worshippers/cult. This never came up in the previous encounters with them, but now they're all Orcus, all the time. So you ask the DM "When did the Withered Hand go from just evil mages to an Orcus cult?"

If the DM says, "well, they've always been Orcus worshippers, they're just more vocal about it" that's a bad retcon because it changes what was fundamentally known about them.

If the DM says "well, last year while you were off fighting pirates, the Withered Hand was infiltrated by an Orcus cultist who rose in the ranks and quickly turned them into an Orcus cult" that's a good retcon because it added to or advanced the timeline.

Does that sound about right?

The second explanation feels like one where the GM actually cared about how to fit or retcon something in, in a manner that feels respectful of the setting.

The first explanation just feels lazy.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I can explain it: The god Loki from the Marvel multiverse travelled to the D&D multiverse searching a possible alliance of Vecna. And then the famous "timecop" Time-Variant-Authority arrived to the D&D multiverse following the steps of this Loki-variant. The case is Loki and Vecna using a couple of time-dragons as agents tried to get the Graygem from the Krynnspace. You can imagine the scene, a true pain in the neck and in the complete back for the TVA. In the end it seemed everything was going to be fixed, but the "reset charge" wasn't ready to work in a different multiverse.... there were secondary effects, and TVA had to ask help to the chronomancers (and a group of time dragons wanted to rule a variant version of the Krynnspace). In the end almost all was like before, amost all.

And other secondary effect of all these troubles is a third transitive plane between the Feywild and the Shadowfell, the Greybright, an eternal battlefield among Chaos and the different dragons, not only chromatic and metalic.

 

[FoolishFrost]

I can explain it: The god Loki from the Marvel multiverse travelled to the D&D multiverse searching a possible alliance of Vecna. And then the famous "timecop" Time-Variant-Authority arrived to the D&D multiverse following the steps of this Loki-variant. The case is Loki and Vecna using a couple of time-dragons as agents tried to get the Graygem from the Krynnspace. You can imagine the scene, a true pain in the neck and in the complete back for the TVA. In the end it seemed everything was going to be fixed, but the "reset charge" wasn't ready to work in a different multiverse.... there were secondary effects, and TVA had to ask help to the chronomancers (and a group of time dragons wanted to rule a variant version of the Krynnspace). In the end almost all was like before, amost all.

And other secondary effect of all these troubles is a third transitive plane between the Feywild and the Shadowfell, the Greybright, an eternal battlefield among Chaos and the different dragons, not only chromatic and metalic.

That. That’s what I heard.