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...

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[dave2008]

Another daft lore decision from the company that specialises in them.

I mean it has been a part of the lore since at least 2e which was the TSR era, so...

 

[Demetrios1453]

"Look we worship Venus here, not Aphrodite. They're completely different goddesses."

Astarte/Ishtar reflexively forwarding worshiper emails to her alt accounts

Totally off subject, but the Inanna - Ishtar - Astarte - Aphrodite - Venus progression is really fascinating as it's one of the few times in history you can clearly see a deity progress and change as they gain new worshipers and are adopted by new cultures. You can even see when the goddess, originally of love and war, loses the war aspect. When the Phoenician Astarte was adopted by the Greeks as Aphrodite, she was worshiped on Cythera first, which was Spartan territory. The Spartans were fine with her being an aspect of both love and war, and worshiped her as Aphrodite Areia, Aphrodite the Warlike. But the rest of the Greeks were like "Nope, we like our goddesses either sexy or warlike, you can't combine the two." So while Athena and Artemis could be goddesses with combative sides, they had to be chaste, while Aphrodite, being a goddess with a sexual aspect, had to lose the warlike side for the other Greeks...

 

[Demetrios1453]

True, but since I don't own the original (OD&D) materials I had honestly forgotten that original Greyhawk gave her an unnamed listing in such detail so it was fun to see that posted.

Just so I'm clear, Gygax and Kuntz invented the Chromatic "Dragon Queen," then Grubb named her Tiamat for his own campaign (which later impacted her MM listing) and then Tracy called her Takhisis for Dragonlance? With Tracy and Margaret then doubling down on the notion that their version was different enough from the others as to be unique?

As with most things concerning deities and the planes in D&D, things are getting pretty Platonic here...

 

[AnotherGuy]

Totally off subject, but the Inanna - Ishtar - Astarte - Aphrodite - Venus progression is really fascinating as it's one of the few times in history you can clearly see a deity progress and change as they gain new worshipers and are adopted by new cultures. You can even see when the goddess, originally of love and war, loses the war aspect. When the Phoenician Astarte was adopted by the Greeks as Aphrodite, she was worshiped on Cythera first, which was Spartan territory. The Spartans were fine with her being an aspect of both love and war, and worshiped her as Aphrodite Areia, Aphrodite the Warlike. But the rest of the Greeks were like "Nope, we like our goddesses either sexy or warlike, you can't combine the two." So while Athena and Artemis can be goddesses with combative sides, they had to be chaste, while Aphrodite, being a goddess with a sexual aspect, had to lose the warlike side for the other Greeks...

Interestingly Ares as the god of war did not have to be chaste and he bedded Aphrodite.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I'm guessing that Grubb felt enough ownership of the original Chromatic Dragon concept that he felt slighted when Tracy renamed her and ran with the concept to the point that the latter considered her a different character. If I were Grubb I could definitely see myself going, "hey now, that's still just Tiamat!"

But did Tiamat in Greyhawk or FR ever appear as a beautiful human temptress? That's a pretty big aspect of her character in DL and if it's solely unique to DL then to me it does cement Margaret and Tracy's notion that she really is an evolution into something completely separate from the Chromatic Dragon in other settings.

The way I see it with 5e, since they want to go the route of the original world being shattered and aspects appeared of the dragon goddess within the multiverse, is that...

There indeed was 1 Chromatic Dragon Goddess (name perhaps lost in time). Her universe shattered and aspects of her splintered into the multiverse. The Forgotten Realm's aspect took on the name Tiamat. The DL aspect took on the name Takhisis. They evolved within their respective universes. Although their heritage is the same, they are indeed different beings. They both have some common traits but they are for all intents and purposes different creatures.

Think Michael Keaton from Multiplicity. The original Michael Keaton is destroyed, only the copies now remain but they are indeed different beings. WotC definitely dropped the ball on this IMO. WotC going Tiamat = Takhisis is about as creative (and respectful) as David Benioff's and D.B. Weiss's storyline for Dorne, which is to say not at all.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Tahksis being an Echo of Tiamat doesn't change the fact that they are one and the same. Tiamat having an Echo called Tahksis doesn't change the fact that they "can't" be the same as well.

My point is that they are both echoes of something of even more primeval power than both of them. Echoes are always fainter than the original. Are the 3rd and 4th recursions of a scream in the night the same? Or are they two separate, different things?

Anyway, just throwing some ideas I find cool.

 

[Blue Orange]

Seriously, neither of these gods exist so it's all about whose canon you want to follow.

WoTC owns the IP, so legally their word goes. I suspect their marketers looked at the issue and figured they couldn't differentiate them enough to, say, sell two lines of $400 miniatures (which seems to me to be a nice way to make money off nostalgic middle-aged nerds, but they do this for a living).

Weis and Hickman wrote the Dragonlance books in the 1980s that got a lot of people into the hobby and Dragonlance specifically, so a lot of people are going to follow her lead. Besides, if what you like is Dragonlance, you don't want your evil arch-goddess diminished by being just a ruler in someone else's plane.

You can always have your own headcanon for your game. See, Tiamat and Takhisis are actually in a polyamorous triad with Bahamut, who's actually evil and is collecting the worship energy of lots of silly paladins. And, I mean, it's a triad. They're both into each other too, you can do all kinds of fun things with five heads.

 

[EthanSental]

I’ve always thought and played my campaigns going back to 2e as they are the same…and I’m also glad Ed doesn’t take such a tone when “his Forgotten Realms” stuff has something like this happen like this. If he has, then I’ve missed it but none of his responses come to mind.

Ed gets to create and post on the DM Guild for us to enjoy so how he handles things works for him and us fans.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

In other news; Sorcerers Apprentice Officially Confirms That Mike Mearls and Ray Winninger Are The Same.

 

[Remathilis]

Though, to be fair to Dragonlance, my understanding is that Weis and Hickman weren't too thrilled with Krynn being linked up to the Great Wheel either...

For whatever reason, they seem to like it being a walled garden locked away from anything else.

To be fair, I get the impression that they viewed Dragonlance as separate from D&D and only connected by shared rules. If it was invented 20 years in the future, Krynn would have been a d20 OGL setting rather than a part of the D&D stable.