The Age of Mortals

The Age of Mortal, introduced at the end of Dragons of a Summer Flame was a nifty idea.

It came at the wrong time, and its consequences, with a system change and a massive background change were, in my humble opinion, sad.

And yet...

My problems with the Fifth Age

My point is not to criticize, just list what didn't click with me, and thus, what I don't want to see in my Dragonlance campaign, be it as a game master, or as a player.

Here is what I didn't like with the ending of Dragons of a Summer Flame, and what followed after:

• Loss of magic (later replaced with alternative magic)
• Loss of high sorcery
• Loss of the three moons, and divine constellations
• Loss of gods
• Loss of the maelstrom in the blood sea
  
• The newly arrived magic "of the heart" (no, seriously...)
• The dragon antediluvians, their totems, the diablerie of dragons, and their destruction/alteration of half the continent
• The shadow sorcerer and the master of the tower
  
• The destruction/move of the Tower of Palanthas
  
• The Legion of Steel
  

All this come down to the fact that what we got in the end was a world that was reset, with all its cool features disappearing, and potentially replaced by.... new things I never asked for.

It's as if someone had just decided the next Star Trek: Next Generation's season would change to be more like Star Wars: Clone Wars. Both might be good, taken separately, but as a viewer of Star Trek: Next Generation, this was not what I was craving for.

Also, dragon antediluvians & diablerie...

So, yeah, my experience with Dragons of a Summer Flame, despite it being well written, was... not positive, because of its content, and what it led to.

... but still...

And yet, there is something that hinted at a meaningful change, the only sentence I actually loved in the book:

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

- Fizban, Dragons of a Summer Flame, Book 4, chapter 32

Ok, to be fair, at the time I've read that, I was furious, as it was before any game supplement contradicted the logical conclusion that it was the end of the Dragonlance world as a playable setting (if you wanted to follow the canon), despite it being barely explored (novels do not count - I wanted gazetteers).

But still, that sentence never left my mind.

Clash of the Titans (2010)

I'm a sucker for Greek mythology, which means that, no matter how bad that movie would be (20% fresh, 40% audience score), I'm still viewing it with pleasure. Mythological monsters, togas, and round shields do that thing, to me.

In the recent version (I don't remember much of the original), Kepheus, King of Argos, declared war to the Olympian gods.

King Kepheus, after ordering the destruction of the statue of Zeus - Clash of the Titans (2010)

And who can blame him?

Olympian gods were mean, prone-to-anger, egoistical, despicable and immoral morons. Wars were started in their name. Mortals were killed, raped, tortured, abandoned, orphaned, and/or exiled because of a god.

The Gods of Krynn

The universe of Dragonlance is very, very faith-heavy. Gods are everywhere, and half the wars (and without doubt the deadliest half one) have been fought because of some of them. More recently, during the Age of Might, the gods of good were on the rise, as Istar itself was on the rise...

... and wars were fought. Not just to defend, but to actively genocide entire species, because they were deemed evil. Powerful political figures, most of them on the "clerical spectrum" went deeper, and deeper in their religious, moral, and even racial intolerance, and brought their own people on board.

And the gods of good went along with that.

Wait, wat?

You might disagree with that statement: "the gods of good went along with that".

But in a systemic way, it was true. Let me explain:

Priests are gods' legitimate representatives

In a world so heavily religious, priest were agents of the gods, and were the only mortals able to wield divine magic, given to them by the gods.

Who could deny their legitimacy?

So, yeah, at that time, "following priests" was the same as "following gods".

Disagreeing usually meant suffering

Fun fact: The converse was also true: If you disagreed with the priests, then you were opposing the gods themselves.

And then their agents on Ansalon went berserk with religious, racial and moral intolerance.

And yet, gods remained silent

Of course, one might argue that priests supposedly lost their healing powers, but for some reason, it had no real effect. And for some reason, the priests still having kept their powers have been unable to make a difference.

So, let's not blame a population that had been educated to follow the gods' representatives' words, and/or that might have been fearful of publicly expressing any dissent.

Let's look, instead, at the gods themselves

For a long time, nothing happened, this means, at the very best, that the gods failed to make their disagreement understood by their followers.

The failure to clearly communicate is the gods' fault.

As well as their failure to predict/avoid the overall result.

Wait, it gets better!

At one moment, the gods decided enough is enough: If the mortals can't divine what is the exact will of the gods, then they need to be taught a lesson. And how would you do that?

You send a meteor right in their face.

Because, <sarcasm>between the passive-aggressive silence, and the orbital bombardment, there's clearly nothing in-between to communicate</sarcasm>.

One could even wonder if, when playing Sid Meier’s Civilization, all the gods had taken a look at the knowledge tree, and thought: "Aah, Diplomacy? What's the point!? I'll take Thermonuclear Bomb, instead!"

So, what was the plan the gods devised?

1. Take the true clerics away (so no more divine spells for mortals)
2. Make some ambiguous warnings that could be (and actually were) interpreted the wrong way
3. Make a half-hearted attempt to stop the whole thing by sending one moron to kill the Kingpriest, instead of telling everyone to unfollow him on twitter
   
4. Send a meteor on the Kingpriest's face, and ravage the whole continent (if not the whole planet) at the same time, killing and wounding countless people
   
5. ...
6. Profit?
   

<sarcasm>There's no way this could have led to a misunderstanding, could it?</sarcasm>

Wait, it gets even better!

No one really understood what happened, and their prayers to the gods remained unheard. Of course, there were no true clerics anymore to even try to explain them, so...

... Can you blame the mortals for being, at least, a bit bitter after being led astray by the gods' own representatives, then decimated by a cataclysm, and then abandoned amid the destruction?

Now, imagine a mortal, them and their family having suffering from religious persecution, then the destruction from the Cataclysm, then from war, famine and plague. That mortal, stumbling in a ruined temple in Xak Tsaroth, finding the statue of Mishakal, and then being told by the goddess that:

“The gods have not turned away from man—it is man who turned away from the true gods.”

- Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Book 1, Chapter 16

Would you blame that mortal if they had answered: "Are you freaking kidding me?"

... and what if...?

One could be tempted to find explanations, justifications, whatever, to justify that quote.

(And actually, I have a good explanation, at least, for my campaign... it is related to the notions of souls vs. spirit I wrote about before, but this is the kind of explanation a mortal might find disappointing)

But it is undeniable it would be dishonest to blame mortals for the crime of one moron and his church of morons, and then, on top of that, blame them for not understanding the cryptic messages the gods sent them, when even said gods' own priests are not able to do any of it.

By the way, what were the gods of Balance doing?

Gods of Evil were busy trying to conquer the world. Gods of Good were busy either supporting the Kingpriest, or gaslighting the mortals into thinking everything was their own fault.

But, what about the gods of Balance?

I mean, if we except the "free will" thing, the gods of Balance had been pretty silent for millennia. Reorx might have been busy mutating his own people, and Gilean might have been busy proof-reading his notes, but that hardly counts as being active, does it?

In my campaign...

... true to their philosophy, the gods of Balance worked hard to maintain the balance between good and evil... but the Cataclysm was an eye-opener for them:

What is the meaning of free will if your choice is limited to either "obey" or "suffer"?

To meaningfully exert free will, you need power.

And, in a fantasy setting, that power is magic.

In the Age of Dreams, magic was limited to a few creatures (dragons, and ogres, among them). Mortals were bereft of it. Unless they were clerics, and submitted their free will to a god, which then gave them access to divine magic.

It took Solinari, Lunitari and Nuitari, their meddling, and the Greystone, to bring arcane magic into Krynn. And, for the first time, mortals were able to exert meaningful power without direct control from the gods.

(The existence of renegade wizards proves the gods of magic were not controlling magic and its use).

This gave them the power to defeat the dragons in the Second Dragon War, and, at least, slow down the dragons, in the Third Dragon War.

And yet, despite that, mortals still couldn't really exert free will, as gods and their clerics were the only providers of divine magic (i.e. healing). Which means gods and their clerics, and their influence, could not be denied, nor ignored.

So, the gods of Balance decided that, to exert their free will, mortals needed unrestricted access to divine magic.

Conclusion

It may be cultural, but I have never been satisfied with the “The gods have not turned away from man—it is man who turned away from the true gods” as an excuse for the Cataclysm.

Yet, this is a very interesting point to analyze, and confront my players with. Which is why I will make a point to show both the gods of Good's benevolence (which is real) and how some of their decisions can be hard to justify. At which point, I'll offer an in-world explanation, and a way to, potentially, change (our own campaign world of) Krynn in a very concrete way, without needing another physical cataclysm to justify to change.

So...

Let's assume that the gods of Balance's plan is successful. What would be the consequences?

In the Dragonlance Campaign Setting book for D&D3.5, you can find two classes that didn't exist in previous editions rulebooks:

• The sorcerer (p53), which is the class described in the Player's Handbook
  
• The mystic (p47), which is a custom class, which can be summarized as "like the sorcerer, but with divine magic"
  

In my campaign, in the "Heroes of Apostasy" part, if the selected mortals (the players' characters?) succeed in uncovering secrets long lost to history, decide to act upon those secrets, avoid the anger of the gods, are deemed worthy (and by extension, if mortals are deemed worthy) of the tests and challenges, and are willing to accept the consequences of their act, then these two classes (and other variants) will suddenly become accessible to mortals.

Which will usher a new age.

The Age of Mortals.

The Sepulchral Knight

Lord Soth
("The Hands of Doom" extract,
by Clyde Caldwell)

Lord Soth is a creature that is as Dragonlance-y as dragons can be.

Which makes the "Death Knight", the monster Lord Soth is supposed to be, as Dragonlance-y as dragons can be.

The problem is: I don't really like the Death Knight.

The Current State of the Art

D&D's Death Knight

First, the powers: Fireballs, walking through shadow, power word kill, magic resistance, ice wall. It seemed like an hodgepodge of miscellaneous powers.

Second, the Death Knight hints at a kind of undead knights that should be more diverse, in power, than the fixed heap of destruction. We should have undead squires, undead knights, undead uber-knight (sorry for the name).

The 5th edition of the Death Knight was much more focused on the Death theme. And yet, it's too much paladin-y to my taste, and lacks some of the cool powers of Lord Soth (the fear aura).

Pathfinder's Graveknight

The Graveknight (whose stats can be found here: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/graveknight-cr-2/) is a reinterpretation of the Death Knight: It covers the same category of "undead knight", keep compatibility in some form, and adds a cool armor system.

First, the graveknight's armor is actually its "phylactery". As long as the armor survives, the Graveknight will come back.

Second, each Graveknight is attuned to one type of energy damage, like fire, ice, electricity. So it has immunity, and powers related to that energy. By default, this is something I dislike, because this is an undead knight, nor an elemental knight. But for my Dragonlance campaign, it is actually well adapted, as you will see below.

My Sepulchral Knight

Before starting, here's the translation in French:

• "Chevalier d'Outretombe", which translates back (roughly) into "Knight of Beyond the Grave" (shortened into Grave Knight).
• "Chevalier du Sépulcre", which translates back into "Knight of the Sepulchre", shortened into "Sepulchral Knight"
  

What I want?

First, I want three level of sepulchral knights, each level adding powers to the level below: Sepulchral Knight, Sepulchral Champion, and Sepulchral Lord.

Second, I'll keep the energy attunement from Pathfinder, adding to the list "necrotic", which is the default one. I don't like this elemental spin, but I understand why the Pathfinder designers thought it was a necessity (compatibility with the 3rd Edition Death Knight), and I foresee how it could become awesome in my Dragonlance campaign (see conclusion).

Third, I'll keep the armor phylactery from Pathfinder: The armor is the identity of the sepulchral knight, so it makes sense to make it the anchor of this undead. Also, it helps make them different from the liches, mummies, and other cadaver-like undead..

Fourth, I need the fear aura, irradiating from the Sepulchral Knight. Something that even kender can feel.

Fifth, I need them leading armored and armed skeletal undead warriors.

Description

The Sepulchral Knight is the result of a curse, usually self-inflicted, an undead monster created by the extreme corruption of a knight who reneged all they vows, all their oaths, to pursue a path of revenge, the anger, the passion being so strong even death cannot smother it out.

Usually, the Sepulchral Knight will come back infused with a massive amount of necrotic energies, but sometimes, in very rare cases, another type of energy infuses them, too: Fire, cold, electricity... and in very rare cases, blood. This energy will taint the Sepulchral Knight and their powers.

Then, using the instructions given by the Dungeon Master Guide, p274, I can give a stats block.

Stats Block

	Knight	Champion	Lord
	Medium Undead	Medium Undead	Medium Undead
CR	7 (2900 XPs)	10 (5900 XPs)	14 (11500 XPs)
Prof. Bonus	+2	+3	+4
AC	18 (plate)	20 (enhanced plate)	22 (enhanced plate)
Hit Points	60 (7 HD)	90 (10 HD)	140 (14 Hd)
Attack Bonus	+5	+9	+13
Damage / Round	27-32	39-44	57-62
Save DC	14	15	16
Ability/Modifier	Strength: 16 (+3) Dexterity: 11 (+0) Constitution: 16 (+3) Intelligence: 12 (+1) Wisdom: 12 (+1) Charisma: 14 (+2)	Strength: 18 (+4) Dexterity: 11 (+0) Constitution: 18 (+4) Intelligence: 12 (+1) Wisdom: 14 (+2) Charisma: 16 (+3)	Strength: 20 (+5) Dexterity: 11 (+0) Constitution: 20 (+5) Intelligence: 12 (+1) Wisdom: 16 (+3) Charisma: 18 (+4)
Saving Throws	Dex +2 Wis +3 Cha +4	Dex +3 Wis +5 Cha +6	Dex +4 Wis +7 Cha +8
Damage Immunities	Necrotic, Poison, Energy (if relevant)
Condition Immunities	Exhaustion, Frightened, Poisoned
Senses	Darkvision 36m
Language	Common, as relevant

Miscellaneous

• Magic Resistance
• (Knight): None.
  
• (Champion): The sepulchral knight has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
  
• (Lord): The sepulchral knight has advantage on saving throws against spells and other magical effects.
• Regeneration: As long as they have at least 1 hit point, each day spent inactive, brooding over their existence, enables the sepulchral knight to regenerate 10% of its maximum hit points.
  
• Rejuvenation: Unless the sepulchral knight's armor is completely destroyed/sanctified, after an inactivity period, it will go back to 1 hit point, and thus, its regeneration (see above) will restart:
• (Knight): No rejuvenation (if reduced to zero hit points, a Knight is definitively destroyed)
  
• (Champion): 1d100 days of rejuvenation, before regeneration starts again
• (Lord): 1d10 days of rejuvenation, before regeneration starts again
• Turn Resistance: The sepulchral knight has advantage on saving throws against any effect that turns undead. In addition, any undead of their choice within a specific distance from the sepulchral knight can also profit from this resistance:
• (Knight): No other undead can profit from that resistance
  
• (Champion): Distance: 6m
• (Lord): Distance: 18m
• Aura of Fear: Anyone perceiving a sepulchral knight's presence feel hear. But anyone within a specific distance (see below) of a grave knight must succeed a Wisdom Saving Throw (see below), or become Frightened. If failed, the subject can attempt another saving throw every turn, until successful. If successful, the subject is not affected anymore by the sepulchral knight's aura until the next short rest:
• (Knight): Distance: 1.5m, Wisdom Saving Throw DC: 14
  
• (Champion): Distance: 3m, Wisdom Saving Throw DC: 15
• (Lord): Distance: 4.5m, Wisdom Saving Throw DC: 16

Actions

• Multiattack (longsword): 1 for Knight, 2 for Champion, 3 for Lord
• Longsword Attack
• (Knight): Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 1.5m, one target. Hit: 7 (1d8+3) slashing damage, or 8 (1d10+3) slashing damage if used with two hands, plus 5 (1d8) necrotic damage (or 1/2 necrotic + 1/2 elemental, if relevant).
• (Champion): Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 1.5m, one target. Hit: 8 (1d8+4) slashing damage, or 9 (1d10+4) slashing damage if used with two hands, plus 10 (2d8) necrotic damage, (or 1/2 necrotic + 1/2 elemental, if relevant).
• (Lord): Melee Weapon Attack: +13 to hit, reach 1.5m, one target. Hit: 9 (1d8+5) slashing damage, or 10 (1d10+5) slashing damage if used with two hands, plus 15 (3d8) necrotic damage, (or 1/2 necrotic + 1/2 elemental, if relevant).
• Cone of Death: As an action, the sepulchral knight can emit a line/cone of death (see below), dealing damage (see below), which is either 100% necrotic, or 50% necrotic/50% element (as per the grave knight will). Damage is halved if Dexterity Saving Throw (see below) is successful. This power can be used a limited times (see below) until next long rest
• (Knight): Cone length: 3m, cone angle: 0°, damage: 5d6, Dexterity Saving Throw DC: 14, once per day
  
• (Champion): Cone length: 6m, cone angle: 0° or 90°, damage: 10d6, Dexterity Saving Throw DC: 15, twice per day
• (Lord): Cone length: 12m, cone angle: 0°, 90° or 180°, damage: 15d6, Dexterity Saving Throw DC: 16, thrice per day
• Undead Mastery: As an action, The sepulchral knight can try to bring under their control any undead within a specific distance (see below), as long as the undead's CR is under a specific value (see below). The target must succeed a Wisdom Saving Throw (see below). Success means the undead is free, and cannot be affected anymore until 24 hours have passed. A failure means permanent control for an unintelligent undead, and control for 24 hours for an intelligent undead, after which the intelligent undead must try again to succeed the saving throw. The sepulchral knight can keep under their control only a limited number of undead (see below):
• (Knight): distance 3m, controlled undead maximum CR: 2, Wisdom Saving Throw DC 14, maximum hid dices under control: 35
  
• (Champion): distance 6m, controlled undead maximum CR: 3, Wisdom Saving Throw DC 15, maximum hid dices under control: 50
• (Lord): distance 12m, controlled undead maximum CR: 4, Wisdom Saving Throw DC 16, maximum hid dices under control: 70
• Raise Skeletons: Once per day, as long as suitable bodies are available, the sepulchral knight can raise undead of any skeleton type. They are automatically under his control (see Undead Mastery).
• (Knight): 2d10 hit dices of undead can be raised
• (Champion): 4d10 hit dices of undead can be raised
• (Lord): 6d10 hit dices of undead can be raised
  

...

Conclusion

This above enables me to create the "undead knight" of my dreams.

I have three candidates in mind:

• A random "skeleton warrior" kind of sepulchral knight (Knight), with no dedicated element. It's the typical "undead knight"
  
• Lord Soth, which would be a sepulchral knight (Lord), whose element is fire, for he died in the fire of his own castle
• Kitiara Uth Matar, which would be a sepulchral knight (Champion), whose element is electricity, for she has been the dragon highlord of the blue wing, she favored blue dragons, and she died because of a lightning bolt attack cast to her by a wizard
  

All three will be used in my campaign.

I can't wait to see the horrified faces of my players when realizing that the blue lady they (probably) will abandon to Soth (as Tanis did in the books) is back, riding a skeletal Skye...

😁

The Order of High Necromancy Arcane Tradition

Arterion, Undead Elven Wizard, by AlexSturdee

For my "Requiem of Heroes" Dragonlance campaign, I needed evil necromancers.

But necromancers have been greatly weakened in D&D5, and frankly, neither cleric nor wizard necromancers are very impressive.

Also, I needed a group of renegades to oppose one of my players, whose character was a wizard of High Sorcery.

This is the result...

 

Arcane Tradition: The Order of High Necromancy

Necromancy energy, when affecting both spiritual necromantic (cyan) and physical necromantic (red) energies, has a very specific purplish color.

This is the color chosen by the renegades of the Order of High Necromancy to represent their order, which explains why they usually wear purple robes, and will be nicknamed "Purple Robes" in contrast to their Orders of High Sorcery colleagues.

Abandoning the magic of the moons, they instead receive the favor of Chemosh, god of Undeath. And indeed, each "Purple Robe" wears a Medaillon of Faith of Chemosh.

This translates into the following Arcane Tradition powers:

Level 2

The Purple Robe gains access, in addition to all the spells from wizard spells list, to all the spells that are categorized as "necromancy" in their description (some spells will need adjustment, though).

These spells are, from the viewpoint of a Purple Robe, regular wizard spells, that are written down in their spellbook, etc.. Other wizard reading such spellbook would be able to read and understand the non-wizard spell if it was written down, but trying to cast it would always fail (as if something was missing...)

Level 6

The Purple Robe can now use Channel Divinity as a cleric of the same level (the DC equals the Purple Robe's spell save DC), but limited to:

• Turn Undead (as per the Cleric's)
• Destroy Undead (or Control Undead, if using the feat described above)

Level 14

The Purple Robe now knows the ritual to lichdom, or vampirism, or leading to the transformation of a living being or a recent corpse into any kind of undead, enabling them to create one such undead individual.

The details of this ritual are specific to each desired undead type.

 

Feats

Please see the following blog post for the Control Undead and Undead Master feats: https://paercebal.blogspot.com/2021/06/custom-spheres-for-priest-archetype.html

Spells

Undead Sovereignty

• Level 1 Necromancy
• Casting time: 1 minute
• Range: self
• Components: V, S, M (one onyx of 50 gp per level)
  
• Duration: instant
• Class: Cleric, Wizard
  

Casting this spell will convert its slot into a permanent "undead control slot" of the same level, until this "undead control slot" is converted back into a spent spell slot (thus needing a rest to be reused).

While active, such "undead control slot" can take over the control of one of more undead already controlled by the caster (for example, through a Channel Divinity control, the casting of an Animate Dead spell, etc.), thus freeing the total of undead controlled by these powers. 

While uintelligent undead controlled by such "undead control slot" will remain under control indefinitely, or until released, intelligent undead might try to free themselves by succeeding a Wisdom saving throw with a DC equal to the caster's spell save DC, once per 24 hours. Undead freeing themselves (or being released) will not affect the "undead control slot", which will then remain available to take over the control of another undead.

Each "undead control slot" can be used to lock the control of one, and only one (for this slot), type of undead (e.g. skeleton, zombie, etc.), and as long as the total sum of each controlled individual's CR is less or equal to the slot's level.

Table: Undead Control Slots

Undead Control Slot Level	Total of CR controlled by the slot
1st	1/8
2nd	1/4
3rd	1/2
4th	1
5th	2
6th	3
7th	4
8th	5
9th	6

This "undead control slot" can be converted back into a spent spell slot by freeing it, which also frees any undead under its control. The spent spell slot must be regained back as usual (usually through rest).

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the resulting "undead control slot" is of the same level, enabling the cast to control more, and/or more powerful undead, as per the table above.

For example, a caster might:

• use one level-2 slot to control one skeleton (one skeleton is CR 1/4), or
  
• use one level-4 slot to control one ghoul (one ghoul is CR 1), or
• use one level-4 slot to control four skeletons (one skeleton is CR 1/4), or
• use one level-6 slot to control one wight (one wight is CR 3), or
  
• use one level-6 slot to control three ghouls (one ghoul is CR 1), or
• etc.
  

It is not possible group slots together to control higher-CR undead (e.g. combining two level-3 slots to control a ghoul).

Conclusion

This is an NPC-only arcane tradition, so I didn't focus on balancing this for players.

If you have suggestions to make arcane tradition better, please do not hesitate to share.

On the Nature of Evil (and Good, and Balance) in Krynn

In simple Manichean settings, you have the forces of good trying to save the world, and forces of evil trying to destroy it, or make it some kind of hell, or whatever.

The world of Exandria, with its Prime Deities being mostly good, and its Betrayer Gods being uniformly evil, has a clear binary divide between good an evil (see The Founding).

Compared to that, and despite it's emphasis on a binary Good vs. Evil conflict, I'm not sure that kind of manichean principles apply to Dragonlance's universe, because the lore of the setting actually contradicts this binary conflict.

So... what's the point of evil, in Krynn?

First, a disclaimer

I am not arguing that Dragonlance, as seen by the players, game masters and even readers, is not about Good vs. Evil.

It is.

What I'm arguing is that, from a worldbuilding viewpoint, the design of Dragonlance, unlike Exandria, is not Good vs. Evil, and that Evil is not just about ruining the lives and experience of the good people on Krynn.

Instead, it is from the worldbuilding design, and then the story, that this Good vs. Evil conflict emerge naturally.

This paradox can summed up by Tanis' comment, and Fizban's answer, at the end of the first trilogy:

“So this is the end,” Tanis said. “Good has triumphed.”

“Good? Triumph?” Fizban repeated, turning to stare at the half-elf shrewdly. “Not so, Half-Elven. The balance is restored. The evil dragons will not be banished. They remain here, as do the good dragons. Once again the pendulum swings freely.”

-- Dragons of Spring Dawning, chapter 14

Role in Creation

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

This clearly implies each alignment is important for the universe to exist. And yet, we have the following:

“Evil cannot create,” Astinus remarked, “it can only destroy. It turns in upon itself, gnawing itself.”

- Test of the Twins

This quote from Astinus, taken in isolation, doesn't seem right when contrasted with the core principle of Dragonlance.

But if we don't ignore the context, we need to remember Raistlin was about to become the only god of Krynn. Which means we could interpret Astinus quote as: "Evil alone cannot create".

Let's put Astinus' words aside, and focus on the next quote:

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

Now, this is more interesting: Each alignment contributed something. It could be interpreted as:

• Good gave control/power
• Evil gave weakness/motivation
• Neutrality gave free will
  

Last but not least, we have the philosophies:

1. Good Redeems its Own: [...] Good seeks to forward its goals and aims by redeeming and recalling the lost members of its flock [...].
2. Evil Feeds Upon Itself: [...] this reflects evil's belief in natural selection through the elimination of weaker beings. [...].
3. Both Good and Evil Must Exist in Contrast: [...]. Neutral gods who see the diversity of both view points as balancing one another on a universal scale. [...].
4. The Law of Consequence: [...] For every law and rule that is obeyed there is a reward and blessing; for every law transgressed there is a punishment. [...].
   

- Dragonlance Adventures

The fourth law is a more fundamental law, saying that each obeyed law will be rewarded. My understanding is that this Fourth Law is what makes a oath given by a god binding (e.g. Takhisis' exile from Krynn after her oath to Huma).

The three first laws govern the behavior of the three alignments of gods. And this is something that contradict the naive narrative: "the evil gods are out there to destroy the universe".

Instead, it actually makes a more mature, and in the end, more rewarding, point of what is good, and what is evil:

The good guys are the good guys because they think compassion and justice is more important than selection of the fittest.

In the same way, the evil guys are the evil guys not because of some crazy desire to destroy the world, but because they adhere to the position that the fittest (strongest, smartest, etc.) should be favored, while the weakest are to be used, then discarded. And, while this might be a philosophy you despise (I actually despite it, for example), this makes sense, in a cold, psychopathic way.

The position of neutral guys as trying to keep balance is based upon the idea that too much of a thing might be a bad thing, and that without contrast, that thing might, at the very best, lose meaning.

All in all, if you play good guys in Dragonlance, it is not to "save the universe". It is to make sure that justice and compassion and redemption prevail, which is a very worthy aim. Much more than simply the "survival of creation", in my humble opinion.

Role in Existence

With this in mind, it is easy to understand that each alignment pantheon (and, most probably each god) must want to move the cursor between "Good vs. Evil vs. Balance" in the position they feel is the best, according to their own philosophy.

Also, each alignment pantheon (and, most probably each god) have a vested interest in proving the others wrong, including sabotaging successful experiments, or denying these successes. So, according to evil, good only produces weaklings that cannot exist without everyone holding their hands. And according to good, evil only destroys, leaving nothing but ruins and desolation behind.

Last but not least, it is important that, in the Krynn universe, the most important resource is souls/spirits. They were so important gods even warred against each other for them.

In my campaign, souls/spirits are to be nurtured into ascending into something greater, and the conflict is indeed about how the gods want to nurture them. Some want to coddle them, and some others want to challenge them.

Priests and Free Will

[...] if a mortal chooses, she may surrender her free will to her god and thereby gain power of her own. In the process, the god gains a measure of influence within the mortal world it would not otherwise possess and is strengthened and bolstered by it. [...] this surrender, this alignment and service of a mortal soul to a god, is the truest of covenants and a measure of a god’s might. Even so, the power of choice remains within a mortal—to deny her god and take another path. Although the consequences can be dire, there is no greater example of the power of a mortal’s free will.

- Holy Orders of the Stars, p78

This is a very interesting passage: My interpretation is that, by surrendering part or all of their free will, mortals acquire divine power. In other words, priests. This might be the nature of faith in Krynn: A mortal surrendering their free will (i.e. having faith in their god) gets divine powers.

Back to Evil

All this is why, in my campaign, having evil gods being morons invested only in hurting others for maniacal purposes is not acceptable. The last thing I want is to confront my players to something similar to the ancient Greek pantheon, where the gods were vain, greedy, childish and stupid.

This is why I don't want evil followers to be painted as "stupid" or "deceived". Some of them are, but the greatest among them know exactly what philosophy they are supporting.

For example, priests of Morgion should not be "enslaved", forced to foster plagues just to avoid their own disease to get worse. Instead, they "know" that pain and suffering is the way to spiritual growth (and considering how some real-life religious people relish in inflicting pain, including upon themselves, this is not as far fetched as it can seem).

Is Good the new Cool?

Not really.

If you recall, the gods of Good gave souls control over the physical world. And they are quite interested in "redemption". But where do the gods of Good stand, on the subject of "free will"?

Remember this?

 “The gods have not turned away from man—it is man who turned away from the true gods.”

- Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Book 1, Chapter 16

This is Mishakal, talking to Goldmoon. I am not even kidding.

Because, yeah, only a god of Good would remove all the faithful clerics from Krynn, then hurl a fiery mountain on that planet, then remain silent to the mortals' pleas and suffering, and then complain three centuries later that no one is praying to them anymore...

Redemption is the gods of Good's thing, indeed. And mortals have free will but... don't you dare deny your redemption, nor disagree with the gods of good when exercising your free will!...

In my campaign, this means they would act as overbearing parents, always knowing better than their "children" (no matter how much shown the contrary), and sometimes being very angry when teaching mortals how to behave.

(Yes, by now, you might have realized my whole campaign is, truly, about this Mishakal/Goldmoon quote.)

And what about Balance?

The gods of Neutrality have remained very silent and ineffective, all those centuries.

You have the gods of good inspiring the Solamnic Knights and Kingpriests, the gods of Evil waging wars of conquest... and the god of neutrality apparently passively counting points from afar?

This is not satisfying.

Instead, what if their greatest contribution have been free will, and unlike the other gods, they kept from meddling with mortals, and they recently realized this wasn't enough?

What could the neutral gods do, while still respecting their self-attributed own non-intervention?

No spoilers...

Conclusion

While Good vs. Evil seems at first to be main theme in Dragonlance

In my campaign, the aim of evil gods is to nurture the souls in the way they feel is the best. And this is a cruel way, causing pain and suffering. But "pain and suffering" is not the objective. It's the mean.

The gods of good nurture mortals, too, but have always been very overreaching and, in some way, overly controlling on that.

Mortals have thus been in the middle of a battle for control over them, suffering wars and cataclysms.

The following question might be: What would the gods of Balance do about all that?

There's something about Krynn Ogres

Unlike other fantasy worlds, Krynn gives a prestigious past to its ogres, making it one of the three main races (among elves and humans).

Yet, there are a few facts that bother me with the ogre race.

Ogre Diversification

One of the main reason so many fantastic species exist on Krynn is the Greystone, whose chaotic energies mutated many species, creating, for example, the sirens from humans, the sea elves from elves, the hobgoblins and bugbears from the goblin, and most famously, the dwarves and the kender from the gnomes.

But ogres actually mutated before the passage of the greystone, as we can see described in the Races of Krynn diagram found in the Dragonlance Adventures, and from which I extracted a subset, below

Extract of Races of Krynn, Dragonlance Adventures, p114

 

For example, from ogres, we got:

• Giants
• Ogres
• Irda
• Goblins
  

(We remove minotaurs from that list, as subsequent rulebooks made it clear minotaurs were created by the Greystone's passage)

So, the ogres mutated extremely, before the Greystone event.

(I know the wiki page of the Graygem of Gargath list most of the races above as created by the Graygem... Just bear with me, there...)

Ogre Curse

According to multiple sources, the ogres' own evil is what caused their degeneration. For example:

The greed and cruelty of the ogres was unparalled, and eventually caused their fall and degeneration
[...]
Over the next few centuries, the ogres fell deeper into ignominy. Their appearance became hideous, matching the ugliness they harbored in their souls. Their civilization fell into ruin, becoming naugt but a reminder of their former glory. By the close of the Age of Dreams, the ogres had completely degenerated into the slow-witted brutes of modern Krynn.

-- Races of Ansalon, p180

... which is strange because it follows the concept that beauty and morality is somehow related (and thus, ugliness and immorality), which is... not what Krynn is supposed to be (i.e. Krynn is about good, evil and balance)

A (most probably biased) text adds the following information:

The Irdanaiath, a book unknown among men of Ansalon, tells a tale of the most ancient days. When ogres walked the world in beauty and power, men awoke and had dealings with this evil race. In this exchange, the humans unwittingly gifted Igrane, a great and powerful ogre clanleader, with free will. For this Igrane both cursed and blessed men, for he looked upon the world with new eyes.

The gift spread among his clansmen until they all saw the curse of evil and the future of destruction and debasement that it held for them. They tried to convince other ogre clans of their folly but kindled anger. Civil war erupted among the ogres. The Ogre Wars of the Age of Dreams were fought in places hidden from the eyes of men.
[...]
The ogres who did not foresee their debasement eventually fulfilled the Irda's vision and became uglier and more misshapen until their appearance matched the evil in their hearts.

-- Dragonlance Adventures, p68

... which implies that free will is what caused the ogre's degeneration, either by not acquiring this gift from humans, or actually acquiring it, but refusing to abandon their "evil ways". Which is barely better than the previous explanation.

While it makes a fantastic mythology, this, in my humble opinion, is a poor explanation for this degeneration.

(I seem to remember that some claimed the gods of good cursed the ogre for being evil, which is worse, and comes with its own massive can of worms, so I'll discard that theory.)

So, the ogre degeneration's explanation is not convincing, at least, to me.

An alternative explanation

The Greystone had been imbued by the very essence of chaos (if not more), and causing extreme mutations. So it makes sense a similar cause, chaos, not free will, nor evil, might be instead involved in a mutation.

In this case, in my campaign, the ogres did something that is almost a staple of Krynn: The ogre, as a species, tried to ascend into some form of godhood by harnessing the power of magic.

Ogres at the time were innate magic users, at a time when magic wasn't really accessible to anyone.

This was most probably dangerous magic, and with enough power and arrogance, anyone can think the risk is worth the reward.

So, the ogre, with repeated use of the ritual, ended, as a species, being irradiated with chaos magic.

The results were not immediate, but when they came, the chaotic nature of the magic they used became most apparent:

• High birth defect/death rate
• Extreme physical and mental mutation on the survivors
  

In the end, the ogre civilization collapsed for lack of true ogres, as they were replaced by a congregation of mutants, most of them being mentally impaired.

Conclusion

The irda, having fled the ogre nation,were not affected by the ritual, and thus continued as the original ogre species, the only survivors, thanks to their exile.

But the ogre suffered from something that would be unheard of, for thousand years, until the Greystone's passage produced similar effects on everyone around it.

For my campaign, this will come handy as I expect the players to start investigating in the true nature of magic, both ambient and High Sorcery magic, how powerful (and unreliable?) it is, and what they can learn from the ogre failed experiment, and how this experiment could result, in the end, to the Age of Mortals.