The Dragon's Demand: A non-DL module fitting for a DL adventure

In 2013, Paizo published The Dragon's Demand, by Mike Shel.

This module will be the one that introduced me to Pathfinder, and I loved it. (all the more because I choose to play an Arcanist, which was a Pathfinder 1e non-vancian wizard).

It starts with a single exploration mission, but soon evolves into a small sandbox around the village of Belhaim, surrounded by forests, swamps, and ruins. The village itself is described, giving the game master an idea of politics, important NPCs and their families/allies, etc..

And after playing it as a PC, and as a game master, I can tell this is a good module that can be easily converted to be played withing the Dragonlance Universe.

So, let's start the conversion!

The Conversion

There are two kind of conversion that needs to be applied, the first to the background, so the module can be integrated into a Dragonlance campaign, and the second the rules themselves, assuming you want to play it using D&D5e, or one of its variants (the original can be played, unmodified, using the Pathfinder 1e system, or the D&D3.5e system).

The Background

In the Dragonlance universe, the Dragon's Demand most probably happens after the War of the Lance, when the dragons are back on Krynn, after an absence of 1300 years. The village itself is probably situated somewhere around Solamnia.

The Location

The best location, I find, should be in the central forests around Tresvka, Patina and Delgaard, with 23km from west to east, and 35km from north to south. This location is very similar, if quite smaller, to the original location of Belhaim in the Verduran Forest of Golarion.

The map of Belhaim and its swamp is 4km from west to east, and 3km from north to south, so it fits, somewhat.

The Timeline

“I’m certain that, according to the Measure, women are not permitted in the Knighthood—”

“You are wrong,” Astinus stated flatly. “And there is precedent. In the Third Dragonwar, a young woman was accepted into the Knighthood following the deaths of her father and her brothers. She rose to Knight of the Sword and died honorably in battle, mourned by her brethren.”

- Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Dragons of Spring Dawning, Book I, Chapter 7

The Timeline is heavily modified, for it moves Tula Belhaim's life during the Third Dragon War, as one of the original Knights of Solamnia who fought against the Dark Queen's dragons, and most particularly, her nemesis, the black dragon Aetheperax. Unlike Huma, she came back from the war, and founded what would become the village of Belhaim near the swamp where she killed Aetheperax.

• 1045 PC — Birth of Tula in the town of Nazilli
  
• 1029 PC — Beginning of the Third Dragon War.
• 1028 PC — Nazilli is destroyed, and its population decimated, by the might black dragon Aetheperax. Tula, the last of her family of solamnic knights, swears justice will be delivered.
• 1025 PC — Tula Belhaim joins the Knighthood, as a Knight of the Crown.
  
• 1018 PC — End of the Third Dragon War.
• 1017 PC — Thanks to her courage and valor, Tula becomes lady Baroness of Belhaim, and marry Arturic Canteclure.
• 1001 PC — Death of Tula Belhaim and Arturic Canteclure, with no direct heirs. They will be buried in the crypt built by Tula during the last decade of her life. A cousin will inherit the title, and a long uninterrupted line of solamnic nobles will rule the village and its surrounding forests, quarries and swamp well after the Cataclysm.
• 253 PC — A group of monks of Majere build a monastery on the far side of Belhaim's swamp, the Monastery of Kyerixus
  
• 1 AC — The Cataclysm ravages Ansalon. The gods leave Krynn. The monks of Kyerixus vow to search for the gods.
• 103 AC — After decades of reserach, the monks of Kyerixus found something. No one saw them after the Night of the Eye, and those who dared visit the monastery either never came back, or came back with stories of haunted ruins.
  
• 335 AC — Beginning of the Rebellion, where peasants rise up against the solamnic nobility. In Belhaim, the locals rebelled against corrupt and cruel baron Sarvo Canteclure.
• 336 AC — Ending of the Rebellion, where Arkold Devy, a folk hero who led the rebels against the evil baron, became the baron of Belhaim.
• 343 AC — Death of Arkold Devy, leaving his wife, Origena Devy, as the Baroness of Belhaim.
• 348 AC — The War of the Lance begins.
• 353 AC — The War of the Lance officially ended.
  
• ??? AC — The Witch Tower collapses. Lady Origena asks outsiders to investigate.
  

The Dark Tapestry

The Dark Tapestry was believed, by the monks of Kyerixus, to be the planes beyond the stars and constellations of Krynn.  In their research, they came upon occult books mentioning the Great Beyond, from where the gods of Krynn came from before creating Krynn, so they naturally deduced the gods of Krynn to have come back there, or at least, they hoped to find traces of them there.

What they opened instead is an unstable portal to a demi-plane of alien creatures, who had been unable to force their way into Krynn because of the gods, but found the boundary separating the Dark Tapestry from Krynn's material plane to be weakened when the gods left Krynn. The monks were tricked into completing the work from Krynn's side, opening a portal, the Dark Window, enabling a creature to invade the monastery. Only by sacrificing themselves would the monks stop the portal to be permanently open. The last surviving monk would ritually bind himself to the monastery to wait for heroes to complete the destruction of the Dark Window.

An ambitious red robe, Balthus Hunclay, would follow the traces of occult book to the monastery, and would, as did the monks before him, try to unearth the secret of the Dark Tapestry. Szangi, a green dragon who had shown more wits than courage during the War of the Lance, had also heard about the Dark Tapestry, and would try to acquire one of Hunclay's book, the Secrets of the Dreaming Dark.

Bassy the Gnome

Gnomes of Krynn are quite different from their D&D counterparts. And gnomes of Golarion are even more different from the two previous gnomes ancestries:

Gloarion gnomes will usually end up searching for adventures and distractions, to avoid the Bleaching. They have colored hairs depending on their recent past experiences, and have peculiar eye brows.

Krynn gnomes are engineers, spending their lives in life quests to unearth the scientific knowledge from this or that phenomena, and/or building contraptions that are as complex as they are prone to undefined and unexpected behaviors.

On Krynn, Bassy would be better described as a Mad Gnome, a gnome who couldn't conform to the norms of gnomish society, and either was exiled or moved away from Mount Nevermind, to end up settling in Belhaim, after a few decades of adventuring and exploring. Finding an obsessive interest in history, she joined the local scribe/historian, and took over her business and archives after her passing.

The half-orcs

There are no orcs on Krynn, and thus, no half-orcs. Replacing them with half-ogres (or even humans with ogrish ancestry) is the easy solution for both the half-orcs NPCs of Belhaim, and the eventual PC wanting to play a half-orc.

The Treasures of Tula

This is where the fusion of Dragonlance and the Dragon's Demand really shines: Tula, being a solamnic knight during the Third Dragon War, came back from war with her own footman's dragonlance, as well as a few other dragonslaying weapons. This dragonlance has been buried with her in her crypt, and will come handy as the heroes explore the crypt for anything that could help them against "Aeteperax".

The Factions of Belhaim

The followers of Abadar are easily replaced with followers of Shinare.

The followers of Shelyn are easily replaced with followers of Branchala.

The followers of the Green Faith are easily replaced with followers of Chislev.

Of course, the gods came back recently, but these folks' philosophies existed since before the Cataclysm, and remained thus until the gods came back, prompting the construction of two temples in Belhaim: The House of Abadar for Shinare, and the Shrine of the Seven Roses for Branchala.

The Rules

You need to compare each creature from D&D5e to their equivalent in Pathfinder 1e. For example, the Gibbering Mouther: 

• Pathfinder 1e: CR5
• D&D5e: CR3

...

Conclusion

The Dragonlance-ification of the Dragons Demand does not damage the original adventure in any way, and enables Dragonlance players and game masters to enjoy a very well done adventure within the Dragonlance universe.

I'd even argue the Dragon's Demand is more dragonlance-y than most recent official Dragonlance books from WotC... But that's another story.

Let's talk about Istarian Droids...

Only one question applies, there, and this question is... WHY?

Technology in Fantasy Universes

It's okay to have fantasy universes with technology, or firearms.

Some have these by design, like the firearms of Legends of the Five Rings.

And some others can have these design, like Pathfinder's Golarion and D&D's Forgotten Realms that either have advanced technology in some form, but usually rare or difficult to access (the Numerian technology of Golarion, the smokespowder of Toril): It these worlds, you could spend your whole life campaigning without any firearm in sight... Or you could be a gunslinger.

Matt Mercer's Exandria embraces the idea as Percy was the very first gunslinger, and knowledge of his discovery has slowly expanded.

Technology and Dragonlance

Krynn is a low-technology world.

Technology in the history of Krynn

The only civilization who somehow showed interest in advanced technology, and actually engineered something worthwile are the gnomes of Mount Nevermind.

Tinker gnomes have been cursed by the god Reorx to forever desire to build things, and yet, never succeeding in building something that works as expected and reliably (*).

(*) There has been one exception, though. He died, though.

Every other known civilization barely reached medieval-era technology like iron forging. The only clocks were water-based clocks, and certainly no firearms exist anywhere.

What about Istar?

Istar was described as having a lot of things, but advanced technology was not one of them. Nor did they had flying citadels, but that's another story.

So, lets take a look at Shadow of the Dragon Queen

So...

• Having technology or firearms in fantasy universes is not something shocking per se. But as every concept, you need to be sure this is coherent with that universe.
• Dragonlance has no firearms nor automation technology (if we except the gnome "inventions").

And yet, at some point, someone at WotC, out of nowhere, because their campaign was not original enough, decided to introduce advanced technology in an universe were technology was at its best primitive and/or unreliable.

And the problem is not the technology, it's how it's introduced in a setting where none existed before.

Indeed, this is important enough to warrant its own adventure, or important event. Maybe a continent in the northern hemisphere of Krynn has been discovered, maybe the Ogre Race had actually built droids 9000 years ago... Whatever. But in the end, as a writer, you need to do **the works** when you are deviating that much from the canon.

But in Shadow of the  Dragon Queen, this isn't even worth a footnote: p154, it abruptly starts with "monitoring tower", and "consoles, levers, colored stones, dull-glass hemispheres". Then it follows with "Energy Field", "magical systems", "drone monitoring", complete with a console to take control of "istarian drones".

Translation: You're on the bridge of 1960's era USS Enterprise, half-expecting an elf giving you the Vulcan Salute.

Someone thought: What this Dragonlance campaign really needs, is droids

Then come the droids: Someone in the Shadow of the  Dragon Queen team clearly wondered what if a Star Wars prequel's Droideka and a Portal's Sentry Turret had an illegitimate baby, but shooting electrified gel hardening into cristal instead of bullets or blasters:

Then, the authors pulled out of their ass a story about how these droids were somehow the robots who built the buildings of Istar, again, retconning half of the Time of the Twins novel, just for the lulz.

And this is how D&D5 adventurers end up fighting discount-cylons on discount-Dragonlance.

This is sad.

Let's Talk about the Lunar Sorcerer...

The Lunar Sorcerer was introduced in two Unearthed Arcana 81: Heroes of Krynn, then published in Shadow of the Dragon Queen, p34-35.

It is clear this was a subclass created for Shadow of the Dragon Queen, for many reasons:

• It is an application of the idea that mages of Krynn were not just Wizards, but also could be any arcane spellcaster
• It is very moon-centric, in an attempt to tie them to the famous Krynn moons (in a way the new High Sorcery D&D5 feats are not)
  

And yet, I'd argue all this is at best superficial, and at worst the antithesis of what a Krynn sorcerer might be.

Moons & Magic

Let's describe why the Moons of Krynn, and magic, are closely tied. Much more than moons and magic in other D&D and D&D adjacent settings.

The Moons of Krynn

Krynn has three moons, which are the celestial embodiment of the three gods of magic, Solinari (good, white, largest, period of 36 days), Lunitari (neutral, red, normal-sized, period of 28 days) and Nuitari (evil, black, smallest, period of 8 days).

Fun fact, the black moon, Nuitari, is invisible in the sky because it emits no visible light, but it still roam the skies and hides astrophysical bodies behind it, like stars, or even part of the other moons...

The three gods of magic became the patrons of the Orders of High Sorcery, an organization of three orders, each one working to further the knowledge of magic, following their particular patron's teachings. Each mage can be recognized by the color of their robes, which is the same as the color of the moon of their patron. The orders are governed by a Conclave of 21 mages, 7 for each order.

Second fun fact: Nuitari actually emits a very specific kind of light, a light that only undead, and black robe mages, can see.

Wizards of High Sorcery had once five towers, but 360 years after the Cataclysm, only two remain. There towers were powerful, magical fortresses where the mages were safe to study and live. For all mages of the three orders, their first and foremost loyalty is for magic.

An interesting thing about the Wizards of High Sorcery was that the power of their magic is influenced by the phases of the moons. Mainly the moon of their patron, which make their magic more powerful during the full moon phase, and weaker during the new moon phase. But also because of conjunctions, where two moons are aligned together, increasing the power of the wizards tied to them.

And of course, the famous Night of the Eye, happening once every 1.5 years, where the three moon are aligned in the sky, forming a great eye, Solinari forming a white sclera, Lunitari forming a red iris on it, and Nuitari forming a black pupil on top of both of them.

What about other settings?

Let's take a look:

• Greek mythology: Hecate is a goddess of witchcraft, but also of the moon. But she was far from the only one. For example Artemis and Selene had nothing to do with magic, and yet, had the moon as their symbols
• Golarion (Pathfinder): Nethys is the god of magic, but has nothing to do with Somal, its only moon.
• Forgotten Realms (D&D): Selûne is the goddess of the moon (also called Selûne), and Mystra is the goddess of magic. There's some kind of moon magic there, and it seems like heavy inspired by Krynn's moon/magic mythology. The moon is followed by a "shower" of asteroids called the Tears of Selûn.
• Greyhawk (D&D): Luna and Celene are the two moons of the setting. Boccob is the main god of magic (there are many gods of magic in Greyhawk), Wee Jas is another. None has any special connection with the moons, if we except some "holy days". Corellon Larethian, god of elves, has a crescent moon as symbol, and has magic as one of the many items in his portfolio, but that's it.
• Eberron (D&D): Eberron has 12 moons, but they seem unrelated to magic. Instead, they seem related to a dragonmark. There are two gods of magic, Aureon and The Shadow, and none are related to moons.
• Dark Sun (D&D): Dark Sun has two moons, Ral and Guthay. Magic comes from draining the energy of the surrounding soil. Fun fact, there's no gods in Athas.
• Exandria (Critical Role): Exandria has two moons, the white Catha and the red Ruidus. They have no direct relation to magic, even if they sometimes interfere. The god of magic is most probably Corellon who, appart from his symbol of two crested moons over a star, has nothing to do with magic.
  

To be fair, we must admit there are more Tiamats in these settings than moon gods of magic, or even moon magic, which is saying a lot.

Let's taker a look at the game mechanics

From a mechanics viewpoint, this is a sorcerer subclass whose main feature is to be able, every morning, to choose one among pre-determined set of "domains of spells". That's all.

This is so simple that this is not limited to lunar phases: Any concept with multiple domains can be applied. For example:

• Rainbow Sorcerer: Seven Color Domains!
• Seasons Sorcerer: Four Season Domains!
• Moral Sorcerer: Good, Neutral and Evil Domains!
• Societal Sorcerer: Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic Domains!
• Fey Sorcerer: Feywild and Shadowfell Domains!
• Tactics Sorcerer: Attack and Defense Domains!
• Coin Sorcerer: Heads and Tails Domains!
• etc.

This is pretty generic, and as shown above, you can find a set of domains that would easily work in any setting. And I mean, any setting.

That's problematic, but it can still be salvaged.

Let's experiment: How was the Lunar Sorcerer created?

Let's take the pattern above, and try to create such an subclass adapted Krynn's Moons, and see how it fares on other D&D settings.

Application to Dragonlance

In the current case, on Krynn, one would have thought they would have chosen a set of domains specific to that universe, for example:

• Krynn Moons Sorcerer: Solinari (Good)-magic, Lunitari (Neutral)-magic and Nuitari (Evil)-magic Domains!

The spells in each domain are adapted to the notion of good/white magic, neutral magic, and evil/black magic as commonly understood by everyone.

And bonus on top of that, that description does fit with the illustration, as the guy seems to be playing with three different colored moons. And that is a problem.

Indeed, as designed, this Sorcerer can switch allegiance every morning, using either Solinari (Good)-magic, Lunitari (Neutral)-magic and Nuitari (Evil)-magic.

But in the Dragonlance universe, there is a definitive lore about the moons and magic practitioners. In particular, following one of the moons is, mostly, a moral choice. Not something you change at whim, every morning.

So the solution is to erase the gods of magic from the sorcerer subclass domains...:

• Moral Sorcerer: Solinari Good-magic, Lunitari Neutral-magic and Nuitari Evil-magic Domains!

 ... and replace the them with the next best thing lunar-related: Moon phases:

• Lunar Phase Sorcerer: Good-magic Full Moon, Neutral-magic Crescent Moon and Evil-magic New Moon Domain!

Suddenly, the original illustration above doesn't fit anymore.

So let's modify this illustration a bit to take phases into account...

The problem is that it stops fitting the Dragonlance universe: Not only the Lunar Phases sorcerer is unrelated to the specifics of the moons of Krynn, but it is inadequate to be used in a RPG setting where there are three moons instead of one.

But at least, it has a superficial link with moons, hasn't it?

Application to other settings

One would think that the Lunar Phase sorcerer would be adapted to other D&D settings.

And indeed, it is adequate for single-moon settings, like Toril or Golarion.

But there are other D&D worlds with a different number of moons, like Exandria, Oerth or Eberron (and of course, Krynn), and when you have many moons, what does this Lunar Phase sorcerer means?

Nothing much, and thus, in all the worlds where there are more than one moons, this subclass, as described, remains inadequate.

But it doesn't even stop there: Do you remember, at the top of this article, how almost no setting had moons and magic related as concepts?

So even for Golarion and Toril, this doesn't really work because Golarion's and Toril's magic is not tied to its moon.

Conclusion

I'm quite sure the Lunar Sorcerer is a badly executed concept trying to satisfy too many constraints at the same time, and failing spectacularly at each of them.

And it only takes a bit of examination to realize that.

In general...

Let's stop pretending: The Lunar Sorcerer from Shadow of the Dragon Queen is:

• Barely suited to Golarion and Toril, because, even if they have one moon, but their magic is unrelated to the moon.
• Not suited to any multi-moon setting, because it stops to make sense
• More particularly not suited to any other D&D setting, because none of them consider any of their moons a source of magic
• It's not even related to an actual phase of the moon.
  

For Dragonlance...

The "best part" is that, despite having been designed for a Dragonlance product, this Lunar Sorcerer is specifically incompatible with Dragonlance, as:

• ... if you take the original wording, it has nothing to do with the three moons, only with "moon phases"
• ... and if you tweak the subclass wording to attach each "phase domain" to one "moon domain" instead (full moon becomes Solinari, etc.), it becomes ridiculous as the sorcerer can change its "domain" from "one moon to another" despite this going against a main concept of Dragonlance.
  

Isn't this a lot like taking inspiration from the original Wizards of High Sorcery, and doing exactly the opposite?

Krynn Ephemeris HTML App

Krynn has always been fascinating for the amount of worldbuilding. Among them, the three moons fo different colors, and, of course, the constellations!

I've always dreamed of providing my players both the night sky and the moon phases of each day, in a precise en predictive way, and until now, all I had, was a way to randomly set the moon phase at the start of an adventure.

So, having a bit of programming skills, I did an HTML app, which can run on any browser, to get my ephemeris:

In the app, you get, for a specific night, both the year-day, the season, the equinoxes and solstices, but also the moon phases (either classic and Taladas) and, best of all, the night sky around 02:00 (2am for the imperial-unitists).

All this can be animated: By pressing either '+' or '-' on your keyboard, you can increase/decrease the "current day", and this will update everything on the graph.

You can try the app in your browser, at the following address:

• https://www.paercebal.org/HtmlKrynnEphemeris/

You can get the ZIP file containing the HTML, CSS, JS, and image files both on Github, and on a GDrive:

• Github: https://github.com/paercebal/HtmlKrynnEphemeris
  
• GDrive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1k5F9UfdUACL855dgGUH_c0YyCJbZecsL?usp=share_link

For what is worth, the (transparent) image for the constellations I've used is below:

This image is slightly different from the original, as I was more constrained by a circular shape than a page-rectangular shape, as with the original, but the order of constellations is somewhat respected, and I made sure the outer constellations were more or less zodiacal in latitude.

Monk Subclass: The Way of Zivilyn

Preamble: This was posted to Reddit, but for some reason, posting something the evening of Christmas might not be the best idea if you want lots of people to read it.

I'm trying something different for my Dragonlance campaign, and I came up with the idea of a monk following the precepts of Zivilyn, a god of Dragonlance.

The names marked with [temporary] will be changed for better flavored names. Suggestions are welcome.

Behind the scenes, this heavily taps into the "many-worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics. The monk is able to briefly "visit" multiple possible futures, and then choose the future that align with their aims. The similarities with the video game Life is Strange is coincidental.

---

(CC) Woman Standing in Front of Flowing Water

Zivilyn is the Krynn's god of Wisdom, able to see the past, and all the possible futures. The god exists both within time, and outside time.

The Way of Zivilyn [temporary] is a Monk subclass in which the monk, favored by Zivilyn, and through meditation, discipline, one-ness with the universe, and mastery of ki, can briefly evoke the divine power of Zivilyn.

Important: Please note that this cannot be used to acquire information. For example, cancelling a timeline where the character learns the name of the traitor means the character forgets the name of the traitor. At the GM's discretion, the character can retain the fact they can learn the information by reproducing the steps, or that a mysterious traitor will act. A good rule of thumb is to make a character roll Intelligence when they want to remember something, with the difficulty increasing with the specificity of the information.

Level 3: Prescience

As you sometimes get brief glimpses of the immediate future, it is exceptionally hard to catch you off guard.

• You get a +5 bonus to initiative and to your Perception passive value.

• You can use your reaction to make an attack of opportunity against a creature that moves out of your melee zone even if it uses the disengage action.

Level 6: Superposition [temporary]

By spending 2 ki points, the monk can do two turns instead of one, happening simultaneously, instead of their normal turn, but with the caveat that only one of them is real.

In game terms, the monk player plays two simultaneous turns (with actions, rolls, attacks, etc.), and at the end, must choose one between them: The chosen one becomes what really happened, and the other is cancelled (as if it never happened).

Note: This is alike a quantum superposition of state, collapsing at the moment, selecting the state preferred by the monk's player.

Note 2: A variant of this power might be using as much ki points (limited to proficiency bonus) as desired simultaneous turns (i.e. spending 4 ki points means 4 simultaneous turns, collapsing into one turn only).

Level 11: Déjà-vu

By spending one ki, the monk can have a premonition, enabling them to actually change that future by acting differently.

In game terms, this enables the monk to cancel 1 turn. The play goes back one turn before, but the cancelled turn will replay EXACTLY as it did before BUT the monk can choose to act differently, thus causing what happens after to be altered.

For example, if the party falls into a trap, the monk can spend one ki, and the turn is cancelled, and replayed, but the monk can decide to discreetly stay behind, and thus, all the party but the monk fall in to the trap. Or the monk might warn everyone, and thus, the trap is avoided.

Note: The duration of the cancelled time could be extended by spending more ki (max, the proficiency bonus), which could even extend that to the day, but that would probably make this power too similar with Checkpoint (see below).

Note 2: The cost might increase when using again before a long rest: 1 ki the first time, 2, the second, 3 the third, etc.

Level 17: Checkpoint [temporary]

By spending 1 ki point, and meditating 1 minute, the monk can explore the most probable immediate future (one hour max), and either let that future happen, unchanged, or cancel it. The monk can add other characters to that meditation group by spending 1 additional ki point per character.

In game terms, this means the state of the world is "saved", and the players can play for one hour (in-character time, not real time). At the end of the period (or before), the monk can either decide to accept that future, or refuse it.

Accepting the future means it really happened, and the game continues as normal.

Refusing the future means the game goes back to the moment of the meditation (erasing all events after it), the monk and the other meditating characters wake up, and the game restarts from that point.

This ability can only be used once per long rest of all the meditating characters.

Takhisis is not Tiamat

Queen of Darkness, by Den Beauvais
(Dragons of Autumn Twilight)

Regularly, someone will mention that Dragonlance's Takhisis is actually D&D's Tiamat, and, if you look a bit deeper on the subject, you'll probably find, like I did, that this is really problematic.

In this post, I'll explain the reasons for and against this "hypothesis", and then, I'll go in detail about what I believe are the real reasons people want to make that Takhisis/Tiamat connection, and how these reasons are not legitimate from a storytelling or worldbuilding viewpoint.

1. - The Claim

A very good example of this claim is also the most recent, that is, this video, used as a marketing tool for Shadow of the Dragon Queen:

Let's read what's being said about Takhisis:

Todd Kenreck: So, I used to say Takhisis, but this is effectively Tiamat.

F. Wesley Schneider: Yes.

Todd Kenreck: So Tiamat is known by a certain amount of names in the D&D Multiverse. Who is Tiamat?

F. Wesley Schneider: So, Dragonlance has always played things a little coy with the goddess Tiamat or Takhisis, but they're one in the same. They are the Dragon Queen. They are the five-headed queen of the chromatic dragons. You'll know her from... Dungeons & Dragons: Dungeons & Dragons' history, dozens of past  adventures.

F. Wesley Schneider: In Shadow of the Dragon Queen, again she is the Dragon Queen. She's the threat that is in the title of the book, and she is the goddess of evil, sinister, dragons and she has been banished from the world for centuries and centuries. And now with the absence of the Gods, and the weakness of the peoples of Krynn, she's using this opportunity to rally her forces back on Krynn and make a play for dominating the entire world.

F. Wesley Schneider is making an interesting claim: Takhisis is Tiamat, and Tiamat has been part from D&D since eons.

We'll examine below the origins of both Takhisis and Tiamat, and then, take a step back to understand why conflating the two together makes sense when you are, say, F. Wesley Schneider, but quite less if you are, say, Tracy Hickman or Margaret Weis...

2. - Objective Reasons

Here, I will not "quote" people giving opinions. Just look at the settings information, as reported by their creators, or by sourcebooks.

2.a - Reasons why Takhisis could be Tiamat

Both Tiamat and Takhisis have a few things in common:

• Both have a Lawful Evil alignment
• Both have a five-headed chromatic dragon physical form
• Both are, in their own mythos, creators of evil chromatic dragons
  

But is this enough to be an objective reason for Takhisis and Tiamat being the same character?

2.b - Digressions

2.b.i - Let's talk about Vampires

Bram Stocker's Dracula is a masterpiece of literature. And Tracy & Laura Hickman's Strahd von Zarovich is a masterpiece of RPGs.

It is clear that Strahd was heavily inspired by Dracula: Both are gloomy vampires with undead brides and gothic castles. But it is also clear they are not the same characters, despite the similarities, and the fact one if heavily inspired by the other.

Conclusion: One character might be inspired by another without both characters being the same.

2.b.ii - The Origin of Takhisis and Tiamat

The similarities between the two characters are not even surprising when you learn of their origins.

Indeed, when creating Dragonlance, Jeff Grubb's original pantheon was reused for Dragonlance, Dragonlance's Takhisis being inspired by Jeff Grubb's own "Draco Cerebus".

And Jeff's Grubb "Draco Cerebus" was inspired by the "Dragon Queen", a.k.a. the "Chromatic Dragon", which was an otherwise unnamed monster that appeared in the 1975 Greyhawk supplement:

The Dragon Queen: The Chromatic Dragon is a huge creature with five heads, one of each color of the five Chaotic Dragons. Her body is striped in these same colors, and her tail is that of a Wyvern. She can employ all heads at once, either to breath or cast spells. Her major abode is in a stupendous cavern far beneath the earth. Her guard consists of five dragons, each of largest size, of the five Chaotic types of dragons. Her major aim is to spread evil.

- Source: Greyhawk (1975)

So "Takhisis" was inspired by "Draco Cerebus", and "Draco Cerebus" was inspired by the "Chromatic Dragon".

At the same time, in 1977, the "Chromatic Dragon" monster would be renamed Tiamat, and its lore would evolve, slowly but regularly, into what we have today.

So, both Tiamat and Takhisis come from the same barely-defined "source", whose name was neither Tiamat nor Takhisis.

But it doesn't stop there, because when recycling Jeff Grubb's original pantheon, Tracy Hickman made an interesting decision. Quoting Jeff Grubb:

"Don’t know where Trace [Tracy Hickman] got the name Takhisis (May be Indonesian – Neraka definitely is) but part of his decision to rename was to separate DL’s cosmology from Greyhawk’s."

- Source: https://dragonlancenexus.com/jeff-grubb-gods-krynn/

So, not only Tiamat and Takhisis were separate evolutions of the same concept (the Chromatic Dragon), but there was also a clear desire from Dragonlance's designers to keep the Dragonlance setting and the Greyhawk setting separate.

2.b.iii - Tiamat's lore

From the original Chromatic Dragon, TSR added lore and backstory to the character, giving to it the name of a ancient Mesopotamian goddess: Tiamat.

(also, fun fact, Bahamut is a fish...)

TSR's Tiamat, in addition to being the Queen of Evil Dragons, is also a devil stuck in Avernus, the first layer of Hell.

Apparently, she was once duke of that layer of Hell, but somehow lost favor with the topmost devil of Hell, and lost her job.

She became a deity around AD&D2 (how?), but she is still somehow Asmodeus' pet, because, after being tempted to destroy her for having failed him once too much, he realized she had never acted against him willingly: Unlike the other devils whose ambitions were to take his place, Tiamat was only a very loyal, but very incompetent, subordinate.

And that's all.

Taking a step back, Tiamat is not even that important: She is just one among the many, many, many evil antagonists in D&D-adjacent settings, some much more interesting than Tiamat will ever be (Vecna? Tasha? Strahd? Graz'zt? Tar-Baphon? Abrogail Thrune?).

2.b.iv - Takhisis' lore

Queen of the Evil Dragons like the original Chromatic Dragon, and leader of evil knights like Jeff Grubb's Draco Cerebus, Takhisis has expanded well beyond these characters she was inspired from, in terms of portfolio, or power, or nature.

She is a deity since its inception, and was instrumental in the creation of the world of Krynn, and the living being inhabiting it (chromatic dragons, but also the ogre race).

She is also the leader of the Pantheon of Evil (i.e. the other evil gods submit to her will), and rules the Abyss.

In addition to evil dragons (who were created by her and Paladine, then corrupted by her), her portfolio include Domination, Hatred, Intrigue, and Night. Her domains are Destruction, Evil, Law, Trickery, and Tyranny.

In addition to the Five-Headed Chromatic Dragon aspect she shares with Tiamat, she has many aspects, and among them: the Dark Warrior, and the Dark Temptress.

Last but not least, her divine power is Control. While this seems to come out of nowhere, this actually informs what Takhisis is, at its core: A Tyrant deity, whose ideal is to have everything in the universe under her direct or indirect command. That, and her leadership of her pantheon, makes her the goddess of ultimate evil of Krynn.

In conclusion: Takhisis is The Big Bad Evil of the Dragonlance setting.

2.d - Reasons why Takhisis could not be Tiamat

As shown above, Tiamat and Takhisis have their origin in Greyhawk's "Chromatic Dragon", but since that origin, both went their separate and different ways, by design.

So, now that we know why one might think Takhisis might be Tiamat, how similarity and origins don't make two characters merge into one, and how the two characters evolved from a common source, let's see the actual arguments on why Takhisis is probably not Tiamat:

2.d.i - The setting creator decided it to be so

Let's remember the two quotes:

• "So, Dragonlance has always played things a little coy with the goddess Tiamat or Takhisis" (F. Wesley Schneider)
  
• "Part of [Tracy Hickman's] decision to rename [Takhisis] was to separate [Dragonlance]’s cosmology from Greyhawk’s." (Jeff Grubb)

Let's ignore the undeniable contributions of Tracy and Laura Hickman to the RPG hobby (Ravenoft, anyone?), and let's just focus on Dragonlance. Not only Tracy Hickman is one of the co-creator of this setting, but he brainstormed it with his wife Laura before even reaching TSR HQ, and he is one of the great storytellers of our hobby.

On the other hand, F. Wesley Schneider is one of the many current employees at Hasbro.

So, yeah, on anything Dragonlance, between F. Wesley Schneider and Tracy Hickman, and if I relied only on argument of authority and/or legitimacy, I would favor the viewpoint of Tracy Hickman, hands down.

But this is not just an argument of authority and/or legitimacy.

Tracy Hickman & co. had a very definitive idea of what was the Dragonlance universe, and for that universe to reach its full potential, it needed to not be weighted down by lore from other D&D universes. This is why you had a Cataclysm in Dragonlance, and Toril and Oerth were safe. This is why the Krynn gods turned their backs on mortals, and yet, Toril and Oerth's clerics still had divine magic.

This is why Toril had a cataclysmic event for every D&D edition change, and no one on Krynn gave a damn. (This will become important, later).

In the end, the creator of the setting decided Takhisis was distinct from Tiamat for reasons important for the setting. And that's more than enough.

2.d.ii - Tiamat's lore and Takhisis' lore are too different

As shown above, while Takhisis and Tiamat share a common, barely defined and unnamed ancestor qualified as "The Dragonqueen" or the "Chromatic Dragon", from there, their lore have diverged greatly:

To the point where they are incompatible, unless you are willing to sacrifice what is great about Takhisis (or give Tiamat an ultra-massive boost).

Despite superficial similarities, Tiamat and Takhisis have different character arcs

What if someone on Krynn killed Takhisis. Would it impact the Tiamat on the Forgotten Realms? What if someone went to Hell, and added a new head (magenta?) to Tiamat. Would it impact Takhisis?

Because the questions above are a reality:

• For better or worse, the Dragonlance authors killed Takhisis (and demoted Paladine into mortality) in the War of Souls trilogy.
• In the Forgotten Realms, Tiamat is the loyal but dumb pet of Asmodeus, confined into a small part of the first layer of Hell
  

One might argue that, for "cosmo-spiritual reasons" or something, the death of Takhisis/Tiamat in Krynn doesn't mean Takhisis/Tiamat is dead in other universes...

... but arguing that is actually confirming the universe/setting is actually what separates Takhisis from Tiamat:

• In the Dragonlance setting, Takhisis is dead, period, and no one there cares about Tiamat surviving in Hell.
• While in the Forgotten Realms setting, Tiamat is still alive (and confined in Hell as a pet to Asmodeus), and no one in the Forgotten Realms setting cares about Takhisis being dead on Krynn

And every attempt to unify the two lead to discrepancies or credibility-overstretching.

2.e - Partial Conclusion

Objectively, Tiamat and Takhisis are actually very different characters:

• They only have a barely defined origin in common
• Their lore is incompatible
• Their character ares are different
  
• The creator who actually matter decided it so
  

So, why would someone want to merge them?

3 - It's all about settings

A subjective reason to merge Tiamat and Takhisis is the fact D&D has many settings, and there has been a trend to actually make them coexist, or even conflate them together. Some kind of D&D Cinematic Universe à la MCU, I guess.

In that vision, Dragonlance is seen as part of D&D...

3.a - Advantages of coexistence: Marketing

This multiverse idea is a very tempting idea, that has been done in many ways, but you can see it done at least with three settings: Spelljammer (a.k.a. D&D in space), Planescape, and Ravenloft.

But here, we go a step further, because, decades ago, having different settings had been very costly for D&D's owners to maintain. So, today, from a marketing viewpoint it makes sense to standardize these different settings, as to make sure every D&D supplement can be used as-is for each setting, and thus bought by everyone, no matter their setting of choice.

From a marketing viewpoint, this is the Holy Grail, and this is why F. Wesley Schneider is mischaracterizing Takhisis: He's actually selling Dragonlance as part of the "D&D Multiverse".

It just happens that Tiamat/Takhisis is just the very visible tip of that marketing iceberg: For a setting called Dungeons & Dragons, the idea of having a draconic big-bad-evil is very tempting, and Tiamat, in appearance, at least, fits perfectly the role, even if her backstory is less than stellar. This explains why so many recent D&D supplements are about her (Tyranny of Dragons? Hoard of the Dragon Queen? Rise of Tiamat?)

3.b - Disadvantages of coexistence: Worldbuilding

Having specifics for each settings make them more original, less bland.

The problem with coexistence is that it dilutes and/or damages the specifics of each setting

On the positive side, in more than one occasion, Dragonlance was set apart:

• No orcs
• No halflings
  
• No drows (if but one typo).
• Dragons are smaller in size (because there's no point in having a dragonlance when your dragons are colossal)
• The Abyss of Dragonlance is clearly not the Abyss of D&D
  
• In particular, these two quotes for the AD&D2 and D&D3 rules for Dragonlance:
  

The point here is to maintain immersion in the players' mind. And this need for immersion preservation is why Dragonlance is not "playing coy", but is "playing correctly", instead.

Now, on the negative side, there are many ways to damage a setting.

• One infamous occasion was when the Ravenloft setting "stole" Lord Soth from the Dragonlance setting: While it is understandable to be tempted by getting together a "League of Evil NPCs" for a setting which is essentially a theme park of evil characters, removing Lord Soth from Dragonlance made the Dragonlance setting "poorer".
  (In addition to show you are unable to come up with a good villain for your own setting, that is)
  
• Another example are Raistlin and Fistandantilus. These are great, original characters, with a lot of depth. They were also the greatest mages of the Dragonlance settings. But Raistlin and Fistandantilus are but footnotes in the D&D multiverse, because, of course, you have then to compare them with Elminster, or Mordenkainen.
• Another is the specifics of the settings that need to exist for that setting to make sense. For example, teleportation in Dragonlance is a rare occurrence, limited to powerful wizards... And suddenly, with D&D5, you got teleportation circles so everyone could teleport everywhere (turning your fantasy campaign into a Star Trek rip-off?).
• The same for planar travel: Going into the Abyss is not something you just cast a spell for, in Dragonlance, as Raistlin has to charm and manipulate Crysania to open that portal for him. But in D&D5, you're welcome to travel everywhere like there's some kind of thriving tourist business.
  
• Last but not least, the Dragonlance's Age of Despair was about gods of Krynn not answering the mortals' prayers anymore. Mortals tried to find other gods, but of course, no other gods existed, so their prayers went unanswered. How does that even work in a multiverse with an infinite number of gods who could have stepped up?

Thus, the Dragonlance setting has been, by necessity of internal coherence and player immersion in the story, actively separating itself from the mainstream, vanilla D&D lore, from its conception up to the 3.5 edition (which is the last time a genuine, legitimate Dragonlance alumni had been in control of the license).

So, by conflating settings together for D&D5, you are just erasing specifics, and introducing inconsistencies in the original setting, just to make it compatible with the others.

And this is problematic.

3.c - The "D&D Multiverse" is but one setting among others

The mistake is, I believe, considering the  D&D Multiverse as "the setting of settings".

I'd argue that, at best, it could be, by itself, considered just as one setting whose premise is: "What if there was a setting inside where all the other cool settings exist?" (which is not as original as some would like to think).

And looking closer, I'd argue it's not even a setting: It is a framework restricting the creativity of worldbuilders, to make it easier to market and publish D&D books that can be used by everyone without a second thought.

While the idea is tempting (which is why we have Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman in the same DC universe), there's actually no need to enforce such framework/setting. All you need to do is to make compatible rules.

But this is not what is being done. Instead, there's a willingness to make the settings as close to each other as possible, to enable a seamless crossover of rules and characters.

And all that assume they actually have an idea about what that "D&D Multiverse Setting" is about, but they can't stop tinkering with it. For example, they spent the last editions changing the organization of the outer planes, for some reason. Do they really expect Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, and all the Dragonlance campaigns out there to update the planes of Dragonlance to take that into account?

Do they really think all the real settings need to be updated because "someone" got an "idea" for their "settings framework"?

Which is why, for those who don't care about the "crossover" benefits, the gratuitous damage inflicted by this framework on the setting is infuriating.

In addition to the inconsistencies I mentioned above, this is why you had the external planes organized as the D&D alignments (which is, in retrospect, quite stupid, even if it seemed cool 50 years ago), which then damaged Dragonlance when its AD&D2 sourcebook, Tales of the Lance, contradicted Dragonlance's own planes (The Dome of Creation, the Hidden Vale, and the Abyss).

And this framework is why the Dragonlance's "Queen of Darkness" was changed into the "Dragon Queen" in the "Shadow of the Dragon Queen" book, retconing the character into its much-less-interesting copy, which ends up damaging the original character, and thus, the Dragonlance setting as a whole.

4 - In the end, the game master decides...

There are objective reasons to think Tiamat and Takhisis are not the same "characters".

And there are marketing reasons to merge them together.

But in the end, depending on where you stand as a game master, having Dragonlance as part of D&D might be something that appeals to you, and I respect that: It's your game, and thus, your world and your players' world.

In the same way some other might prefer Dragonlance as a standalone setting, which you can visit as a reader by reading the novels, as a writer by writing fiction, or as a game master or a player by playing an RPG using this setting, and some ruleset that could be D&D5... Or AD&D1, or Pathfinder 2, or the Storyteller System.

5 - Conclusion

When asking yourself "Is Takhisis the same as Tiamat?", there are real, deeper questions you need to answer for yourself:

The first is about Worldbuilding vs. Marketing:

• From a marketing viewpoint, until Hasbro sells the Dragonlance IP to someone worthy of handling it, Tiamat is Takhisis, and Dragonlance is part of the D&D multiverse.
• From a worldbuilding viewpoint, Tiamat and Takhisis are separate, distinct entities with some similarities, and Dragonlance is a distinct, independent setting.
  

The second is how you, as a creator, want to use Dragonlance:

• If you want to play Dragonlance as part of the D&D Multiverse, then you are right: It's your game.
• If you want to play Dragonlance as it was meant to be played, then you are also right, because, again, it's your game.
  

I, for one, am clearly on the Worlbuilding side.

Because everything, from the original creators designs, to the history of the characters, to the worldbuilding imperative, tends to support Takhisis not being Tiamat, and this coherence is important for my own immersion in the setting.

And because I want to play Dragonlance in isolation, without being weighted down by a ruleset, other full-fledged settings, or even the parasitic "setting of settings" that brings nothing, but unwanted distraction.

I just wish Hasbro had done a better job in respecting the Dragonlance setting, in Shadow of the Dragon Queen...

P.S. "Separate"

source: https://twitter.com/WeisMargaret/status/1820245402525815038

'nuf said.

A Modest Proposal for the Age of Mortals

Dragonlance is a bit of a mess.

What about the Mess?

It would be difficult to deny it:

• H&W (Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis), essentially neutered Dragonlance by removing all magic and gods, at the end of Dragons of Summer Flame, coining the term "Age of Mortals".
  
• TSR created the SAGA System and the Fifth Age to salvage the setting without contradicting H&W, adding primal sorcery and giants dragons
  
• H&W and WotC (Wizards of the Coast) made Dragonlance a viable fantasy RPG setting again by writing the War of Souls trilogy, bringing back most of the gods and magic, dumping the giant dragons, and a D&D3.5 ruleset.
  
• And now, somehow, H&W and WotC are not BFF anymore, and seem to diverge in their handling of Dragonlance:
• H&W seem to go in a direction where they will retcon everything after the Legends trilogy, by (ab)using Time Magic again so a new timeline can emerge
• WotC seem to go in a direction where they don't really care anymore, producing a watered down, canon-ignoring, version of Dragonlance called Shadow of the Dragon Queen, so they can continue their streak of producing Tiamat-related campaigns, but this time, with a homeopathic Dragonlance touch.

So, we have many "versions" of Dragonlance, around, some defunct, and at least three still kicking and alive.

So, of course, the solution is yet another version of it.

This is sarcasm, of course. I'm self-aware enough to understand I'm, at my modest scale, contributing to the "mess".

Fundamentals of Dragonlance

Let's redefine what's canon or canon-friendly, and what is not.

Keeping What's Important

First, we need to agree on what's reason important for Dragonlance to remain Dragonlance:

• The Chronicles trilogy
• The Legends trilogy
  

These two trilogies embodies what Dragonlance is, from which we can deduce a few things that are important for the setting:

• Heroism: Characters (players, and some non-players) are heroes, or even anti-heroes
• Gods: More than any other D&D setting, Dragonlance's gods have a deep influence on their world, usually through their priests, but sometimes even intervening directly, with catastrophic consequences
• Good vs. Evil: This is the main conflict that, at character level, drives the stories
• Balance: This is the secondary conflict that, at setting level, explains how gods and settings exist and interact. In a nutshell, Good, Evil and Neutrality must co-exist in balance so the world can exist.
• Dragons: These are mythical creatures of Dragonlance, more than other D&D settings, because of their importance in the whole history of the world. This includes Dragonlances, and other related topics
• Personal yet Global: Despite the War of the Lance being all over the continent, some of the most important actions and decisions were done by a few select people, with their hopes, their ideals, and, of course, their flaws. This means relationships are also a large part of the stories
• Monuments and Organizations: Krynn has some setting-specific "monuments", like three moons, constellations, knights of solamnia, dragon highlords, holy orders of the stars, wizards of high sorcery. These need to stay, because they make the setting what it is.
  

Didn't you forget Time Travel?

Surprisingly, what Dragonlance is not is time travel. Back to the Future was about time travel, and time paradoxes.

Despite time travel featuring heavily in the Legends trilogy, Dragonlance should not be about Marty McFly trying to fix "something wrong", like their father dying on the walls of the High Clerist Tower.

In the Legends trilogy, time travel was a pretext for writers and readers to explore two different eras of Ansalon (when the Kingpriest was in power, and a post-Cataclysm Ansalon): Raistlin never intended to change time, only to acquire power from its source (Fistandantilus) and then enter the Abyss at a time where the gods were at their weakest yet investing for the War of the Lance.

So no, time travel isn't really important, even if the River of Time is.

What about everything else?

Everything happening after the Legends trilogy is out.

Everything described outside the Chronicles or Legends trilogy will be considered.

Rules themselves are not to be kept canon, as rule evolves with editions. What's important is that the "spirit" of the rule remain, if it's worth it. Same for the background and lore. For example, there's a boatload of rules about High Sorcery, how the moons affect magic, etc.. The spirit of this rule is that High Sorcery mages are badasses, they are divided in three orders that feel different, and their magic grows powerful with the moons. The fact they are D&D sorcerers, or D&D wizards, or D&D whatever, is not important. In particular, f*ck Vancian magic.

From there, where should we go?

Evolving with time

It is also important to acknowledge there are good things within D&D5, and that players might want to play some permutation that were unimaginable in AD&D1. As long as it doesn't blatantly contradict the setting and a suitable explanation is found (including the "my half-orc came from a portal, from Faerun" thingy).

Some races are not playable, and might have an equivalent on Krynn. The half-ogre can be used instead of a half-orc. Same for the kender instead of a halfling.

But can we find a way to be more inclusive of the races and classes of D&D5e, but integrating them into the setting to enhance it, not to dilute it?

One easy way is to divorce the actual D&D class and the organization, even if that means tweaking that class. For example, there's no need for a "priest" of a god to be a Cleric (as defined by the rules). Such priest could be a "Druid", or a "Ranger", or even a "Bard", as long as this doesn't contradict the theme of that god. I've already written about some of such customizations here:

• Monks in Dragonlance
• Minstrels: Bards in Dragonlance
• Rangers in Dragonlance
  
• Druids in Dragonlance
  

Modernizing the Setting

That may not be obvious for everyone, but Dragonlance is heavily biased toward Christianity.

This is not even about the gods having biblical names (which can be immersion-breaking).

This is about having Dragonlance religious dogma heavily inspired by an afterlife where evil souls will be punished (i.e. whatever happens when you are a follower or priest of an evil god).

This is also about the tension between two opposite design choices: On one hand, the necessary balance between good, evil and neutrality and their contribution to their creation, and on the other, evil being so blatantly stupid and wrong, one can't wonder how they can still have followers (see my takes on Morgion, Chemosh, and Zeboim).

This is also about how gods (at least, the gods of good) to never be wrong, about that concept that "gods should not be blamed for the suffering of mortals", including when their own priests were actually guilty of that (Kingpriest, etc.).

Note: The often repeated "The gods didn't turn away from mortals after the Cataclysm. It's was mortals who turned away from the gods" is particularly obnoxious.

Summary: apparently, the mortals were to blame as they followed the commands of the gods' priests. Gods themselves should not be blamed for enabling these priests by their own inaction.

If you are not a believer in one of the many variants of the judeo-christo-muslim god, this kind of "peculiar" way of thinking does not come naturally.

This is strange because, here and there, you have the "gods can make mistakes, too", but these never go anywhere.

Instead of making the gods of Krynn the stand-ins for the gods and devils of "real religions", the gods of Krynn should be kept grounded in the fundamental guiding principle of Dragonlance, which is the balance between Good, Evil and Neutrality.

Note: Also, wizards of High Sorcery being categorized as Good, Neutral and Evil mages is a bit too cheesy.

Having them instead embrace magic, influenced by the divine power of their respective patrons (vigilance for Solinari, mystery for Lunitari, and ambition for Nuitari) would remove the cheesiness.

It would also justify why they can stick together instead of splitting and joining other Good/Neutral/Evil organisations, or even why the Holy Orders of the Stars and the Knights of Solamnia would distrust them. (You can learn more about this here: Philosophies of the Wizards of High Sorcery).

The Age of Mortals, v2

The Anger of Mortals

Now is begun what will be known on Krynn as the Age of Mortals. 

- Dragons of Summer Flame

That one peculiar quote from Dragons of Summer Flame piqued my interest: Without going fully on the "let's destroy the setting", what would be an "Age of Mortals" in Krynn.

After the Cataclysm, there was at least two reasons for divine magic to have disappeared:

• The gods (or at least, the gods of Good) retrieved the last remaining true clerics of the World
• Mortals were too angry against the gods to successfully pray for miracles
  

The second point, the Anger of Mortals, is an interesting one, because there are historical, factual events to back up that argument:

1. Ansalon becomes essentially a theocracy under Paladine
2. Then genocides are attempted, under the name of Good
3. Then, even neutral races/organizations are targeted
4. In the end, even good organizations were targeted, for not being supportive enough
   

It is important to recognize that, at each step, the gods of good enable this, by providing miracles to their followers and/or not acting decisively nor non-ambiguously to make their disagreement known. ("signs that need interpretation" are not non-ambiguous).

Disagreeing with the governing authority is already difficult in general, but when they have the divine power to back their claims (and eliminate their enemies), this is essentially a choice between life (agreeing) or death (disagreeing).

So, the gods coming back centuries after the Cataclysm with the excuse of "It is not the gods who turned their back on mortals, it was mortals who turned their backs on the gods" seems like gaslighting of the highest order. Even if we ignore that with the gods coming back, Ansalon becomes, again, the battleground for their conflicts.

So it would not be surprising, for some people of Ansalon, to ponder the question: "Weren't we better, without the gods?"

Arcane and Divine Magic

Somehow, at first, mortals couldn't really use magic. There are some mentions of dragons using magic, or even ogres with magic abilities. But unless you prayed for miracles, you would get no magic.

The Reorx, Solinari, Lunitari and Nuitari changed that: Using the essence of chaos, a gem, the Graygem, was crafted, kept on one moon, and then let lose on Krynn. In addition to chaotic effects (like the mutations creating the dwarves, the kenders, the minotaurs, the pegasi, etc.), the gem freed the arcane magic on Krynn, enabling mortals to be able to use it. The gods were horrified, and the three siblings of magic, Solinari, Lunitari, and Nuitari, were punished. They still ended becoming the gods of magic, though.

Yet, divine magic was beyond the ability of mortals to use.

(One thing brought up by the SAGA system, and the D&D3.5 ruleset for Dragonlance was new magic classes, including... the mystic class, which was essentially a sorcerer, but using divine magic instead, without needing to pray for the gods.)

What if there was a way to finish what the gods of magic had started, and, as arcane magic was freed before, free divine magic^(*) so mortals could access it without needing to submit to gods' wills?

(*) and potentially, other kind of supernatural, like psionics.

What happened to the ogre race?

According to the mythos, the ogre race was cursed because they were evil.

Let me put in the full context:

The ogre race was created first, by the Evil Gods. They were evil. They created an empire, and enslaved other races (mostly humans). Also, they were evil. Then for some reason, at one point the gods cursed them because they were evil. And the Evil Gods just let that happen.

Of course, history is written by the winners, so, there a reasonable probability it didn't happen exactly that way. But we know it happened, so perhaps, by changing what really happened, and making it relevant to this post.

What if the ogres had attempted a ritual to achieve some form of divine ascension, and failed, irradiating their people with chaos magic, leading to its slow degeneration, generation after generation?

What was the Kingpriest attempting, and how?

By all accounts, the Kingpriest of Istar wanted to become a god.

His reasons where to lead the gods of good in a holy war and cleanse what evil remained in the world.

What if the Kingpriest learned about the ritual enacted by the ogres? What if the Kingpriest somehow wanted to power his ascension using, not the Graygem, but the Miceram, to power his ambitions with the faith of the believers and the faithful around him?

Other Continents

... but certainly not Taladas. As written before, Taladas is not considered canon, for two reasons:

• Taladas brings nothing new: It is essentially another Ansalon.
• Same races, same civilizations (humans, elves, minotaurs, gnomes)
  
• The Burning Sea is a good idea, but it would be better as the exit wound of the Cataclysm's meteor, instead of the result of a second meteor, falling on the planet at the very same time as the first
  

Other lands are also ignored, for now.

This leaves much needed place for very specific continents, as well as other continents, to discover, explore, but also...

The main objective of having new lands/continents is using them as the origin of races/species/ancestries and also original civilizations, until now unknown to Ansalon.

What were the neutral gods doing?

This is the last item in the list.

For eons, Goods and Evil Gods have been somehow working to "conquer" Ansalon. There was the Third Dragon War, when Takhisis really really wanted in. Then the Age of Might, when Paladine and friends favored the rise of Istar, until it went horribly wrong, and the gods had to reset it all by smashing a meteor on the face of Ansalon.

But what about the neutral gods? We don't see a lot of them doing things, actually. One answer would be they are keeping the balance by allying themselves with the weaker side of a conflict.

But this doesn't give them much agency. It does even contradict the idea of the "triangle" design of Dragonlance:

Three were the pillars upon which this universe was forged: Good, Evil, and Neutrality. This was the great triangle upon which all the universe was brought to be.

- Dragonlance Adventures

Neutrality is not the referee, here. It's another "active force", as are Good and Evil. Let's take a look at the gift of the gods to the souls:

The Gods of Good, Evil, and Neutrality would each be allowed to bestow one gift upon the spirits.

The Gods of Good gave the spirits life and physical form. Thus, the spirits gained control over the material world and became more like the Gods themselves. The Gods of Good hoped the spirits would bring peace and order to the worlds and lead them along the path to righteousness.

The Gods of Evil decreed that these physical beings would hunger and thirst and have to work to satisfy their needs. The Gods of Evil hoped that through hunger and suffering they could subjugate the races.

The Gods of Neutrality gave the spirits the gift of free will, to choose freely between Good and Evil. Thus did they preserve the Balance.

- Dragonlance Adventures

I emphasized the parts where the gods "do" things, instead of "hoping".

The gods of neutrality's gift was free will.

But is free will really "free" when your choice is limited by coercion?

For example: "You are free to speak against me, but if you do, I will kill you and your family". Or "If you follow my rules, you will be given miracles, but if you don't, then I'll leave you alone against the others, who already have access to their own miracles, and have been commanded to enslave you".

So, after so many godly-inspired conflicts, what if the neutral gods finally decided to actively enforce their gift to the souls, and remove the exclusivity of divine magic to gods and empower mortals by letting them use it?

Putting all this together

Let's keep the setting from the Chronicles and Legends, modernize it, and usher a new Age of Mortals!

After the Cataclysm, the gods of neutrality had enough.

Again and again, good and evil pantheons were fighting through proxy wars, devastating Krynn, and the mortals had no choice but follow, or they would be subjugated by those who served the gods.

So the pantheon enacted a plan, to give the mortals a choice between leaving things as they are, or obtain more freedom from the gods by freeing divine magic (thus, in rule terms, enabling the mystic class).

But for this quest to succeed, a selected group of mortals will have to uncover history that would be considered as heretical by the current churches of all pantheons, recover the graygem, acquire the power to enact the ritual that would free divine magic, learn the knowledge necessary to succeed, when others had failed, and the will to do the right thing, by using this power for all souls, even at the cost of one's soul. Which would result in a true Age of Mortals.

This would put them in danger, both from the forces of Evil, and the forces of Good, who, understandably, would not want mortals to acquire such power (and independence).

Conclusion

This is not the first time I mention this on this blog, but I believe this is the first time I ever summarized the whole thing before, in one post.

This is the subject of the campaign I'm currently storytelling to my players, aptly named:

• Prelude of Heroes: Where a group of individuals become heroes of a small barony by ousting a local tyrant
  
• Test of Heroes - War of the Blue Lady: Where each hero is tested, and what the hero will do during the War of the Blue Lady
  
• Requiem of Heroes: How the heroes will react to an invasion of undead, shambling into Solamnia, and how they must stop Lord Soth from finishing a ritual that would give him absolute power over half Ansalon. This campaign will also unearth a few secrets considered heretical by the churches, among them, the Cycle of Souls.
  
• Apostasy of Heroes: How the heroes embrak in a journey, to learn about secrets the gods would not want anyone to know. And what the heroes will to with that knowledge.
  

One of the core philosophies of these campaign is telling stories, all the while offering explicit points of choices and consequences, where the characters (and their players) must decide between the multiple options, with a good idea of the direct consequences of these options.

One of these choices will be to free the divine magic, or to exile the graygem, ending any possibility (to their knowledge) to do the same attempt, again.