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?