Ansalon & Krynn

Krynn, the planet of Dragonlance, is a (very small) planet where one continent has been (not enough) explored in the novels: Ansalon.

Krynn has also a very defined cosmology, with constellations, and planets, and moons, tied to the gods of that universe.

And yet, few things are clearly known about Krynn.

And that can actually be harnessed to both offer a drastically different experience to the players, while tying to an (even more) apocalyptic vision of the universe of Dragonlance.

The State of the Art

Order! Order! Order!

The first thing to recognize is that Krynn is a very ordered system: Months are strictly 28 days long, moons have respectively a strict orbit of 8, 28 and 36 days, and years are composed of 12 months (in total, 336 days):

• Which means the Solar month is exactly the same as the Lunar (Lunitari) month.
  
• Which also means that in one year, Nuitari makes exactly 42 orbits around Krynn, Lunitari makes exactly 12 orbits.
• Which also means that in three years, Solinari makes exactly 28 orbits (i.e. 9+1⁄3 orbits per year).
• In other words, each and every years, at the same day, the sun and Nuitari and Lunitari are exactly at the same position in the skies.
• and, each and every 3 years, at the same day, the sun and Nuitari, Lunitari and Solinari are exactly at the same position in the skies.

(i.e. most numbers here are integers, there's at most one smallish rational number, and no real number.)

Where's the leap year? Where's the slow divergence between the calendar years and the real years we experience in the real world? Where's the slow divergence between the moon months and the real months, and at the same time, where are the months with seemingly random length?

One might argue that Krynn's cycles are "round" because, worldbuilding-wise, it's much simpler than create a fully-fledged calendar with all its quirks (e.g. the Antique Egyptian calendar, and its 5 additional days). And that one is most probably right (this is why D&D's Mystara has exactly the same calendar).

But I'd like to take an inverted approach: Our real world cycles are not perfectly rounded down because this is the real universe, which is very complex, is full or irrational numbers, and which works as-is. In contrast, Krynn is governed by gods who are mostly of lawful alignment, i.e., who are obsessed with Order (as opposed to Chaos).

In that case, it would make sense to have a Krynn whose perfect cycles are actually enforced by the gods themselves. This might even be considered as another proof that Krynn's gods exist in the universe of Krynn (in the case the existence of cleric's divine magic wasn't enough for you) (see P.S.).

So, the conclusion here is that the gods of Krynn, again, cannot be ignored, and that in case we find a correlation between two observations in the Krynn's universe, there's a greater chance this correlation is, instead, causation.

The Continent(s)

“We have seen the lands beyond the seas, haven’t we, apprentice. When we look into the flaming water, we can see them and those who dwell there. To control them would be simplicity itself—”

— Raistlin, to Dalamar
Legend of the Twins

Despite all the fan-made content like Adlatum, and even the official expansions like Taladas, the core novels and rulebooks focus only on one continent: Ansalon.

I can't find the source right now, but I seem to remember that, for Tracy Hickman, like Middle Earth, Ansalon was still full of unexplored zones that could lead to new adventures, and that we did not need more continents, which were published more for monetary reasons than real creative need.

Don't get me wrong: While I don't know Adlatum, so I won't speak about it, I respect the work done on Taladas, even if I only really care for the Minotaur League (which, in retrospect, seems like Mithas and Kothas had a child).

But in the end, the gods of Krynn seem awfully focused on Ansalon, with the Queen of Darkness trying to conquer it for eons.

One could argue that this fight of Good vs. Evil also happens elsewhere, but if that it's the case, then doesn't it seem like some kind of copy-paste? So, I'll pass on that idea.

The Constellations

The constellations of Krynn are awesome... I mean, no other D&D universe has this kind of map:

Even if the rest of Dragonlance's specifics were not already awesome, that map alone would have sold that universe, to me.

And yet, there's something missing, isn't it?

Don't you see it?

Are you sure?

Let me help you with a similar constellation map, for our Earth:

Yeah, there's something different: There's a whole hemisphere missing in the Dragonlance constellation map!

And that's not surprising, because as a universe so focused on Ansalon, what was the need for the northern sky hemisphere?

Also, if ALL the gods have constellations on the southern atmosphere... can we extrapolate the northern atmosphere's content? Not really.

The cheap solution would be to say the northern hemisphere to be a mirror image, or a symmetric image, of the southern hemisphere.

But we've seen that even the position of the constellation in the sky was important, with the major gods nearest to the pole, unless they have been vanquished by Raistlin in an alternate timeline and their constellations was drifting towards the equatorial plane. So the mirror/symmetric image doesn't really fit.

Please not that I'm aware there are probably more stars than just the ones forming constellations. In fact, stars are supposed to be the souls of Krynn's mortals. I'm just discussing the constellations, assuming the stars that compose them somehow stand out (like in the real world).

One way to make all these peculiarities count

Instead of just assuming the missing continents (in the core sources), or missing sky hemisphere, is explained by an unwillingness to describe them, for creative or simply economic reasons, let's assume that there is an in-universe reason for that.

What if Ansalon was the last interesting continent on Krynn?

One could assume the other continents (for there are others) are so uninteresting there's no point in making the effort to explore them, or even visit them: For the gods, the important bits of history happens on Ansalon, and for the mortals, with their current maritime science, the continents are so far away travel by sea is doomed from the start.

So, about these extra continents...?

Let's start from a clean state: all previous continents, fanmade and canon (including the blue-painted celts barbarians) do not exist. Then, let's see what we can have in their stead, that obey our premise of "they cannot be more interesting than Ansalon".

Brainstorming out of my head:

• A continent of large beasts, Skull-Island style, with dinosaurs, giants, possibly dragons (whose life there is much, much more dangerous), and possibly dragonborn! It might be the original continent where the first dragon war happened.
  
• A continent devastated by a cataclysm. Building crumbling, barely any life, and ground actually hostile to life (i.e. something like irradiated matter contamination, everywhere), rampant with mindless undead. It might be the original continent of the Irda, and Ansalon might be the continent where refugees fleeing that settled on? What secrets about the past could be discovered by exploring the ruins of this continent?
• A continent devastated by a chaos magic. Aberrations like beholders, or even demon-style creatures, might thrive, there. Of course, all this chaos magic irradiating anyone visiting this continent cannot be good for their health.
• A continent with a lava sea in its middle (like the lava sea on Taladas), but actually situated on the exact opposite side of Ansalon. The explanation would be that the mountain of fire that fell on Istar actually went through Krynn, and emerged from the other side. Imagine like a bullet going through a body, with a tiny hole on the entrance, and a large one on exit. This continent would be new, having emerged during the cataclysm, and its volcanic ash would have helped worsen the conditions of life on Krynn during the first decades after the Cataclysm (as any volcanic cataclysm would do). This continent would be very very fertile on its borders, colonized by birds, fish, and plants, and, of course, in the middle, the sea of lava, inhabited by alien creatures adapted to the extreme conditions. As the maelstrom of the Blood Sea is supposed to lead to the Abyss, the center of the lava see might be the exit of some other plane (the elemental plane of fire? a plane of chaos?)
  

All these examples seem designed with the Star Wars Universe design notes in mind (i.e. a planet of ice, a planet of desert, a planet of jungle, etc.).

But in the current case, this is acceptable, because, again, Ansalon must remain the central continent of Krynn, and to be interesting, these other continents must be extreme in one way or another.

And what about the constellations?

Whatever what people would discover if moving well into the northern hemisphere, which would be more than 2000 km up the northern edge of Ansalon, would change everything:

• If there are no constellations, then that might mean the gods are really focused on the southern hemisphere, and thus, probably Ansalon
• If there are constellations, and these are not of the known gods, then there might be other gods, which would be really bonkers
• Perhaps there is a patch of sky that is fully dark, with no constellations, nor even stars. What could this mean?
  

One should remember that, unlike the constellations, which are in the southern hemisphere, the moons kinda see both hemispheres of the planet, only one half at a time, with a period of around 24 hours. The same could be said about the planets, who probably are on the same orbital plane as the sun of Krynn, and Krynn itself. So it might be said the most of the gods of neutrality and the gods of magic always have a direct sight on both hemispheres of Krynn, unlike Gilean, and the gods of Good and Evil.

<to be continued...>

P.S.: What about... π ?

Krynn numerologists would certainly agree with my assertions that all these integer (and one rational) numbers have a significance, and in fact, even more advanced Krynn scientists would. And they would all see in this kind of ordered perfection a sign of the gods' influence on Krynn's universe.

But then, take a look at π.

This is an unavoidable geometric constant, the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter. And π is an... irrational number (no matter what some U.S. general assembly congress might legislate).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pi-unrolled-720.gif

The mere existence of π in Krynn might be interpreted as: "No matter how much order the gods might try to impose, chaos will always be part of it." And this view might seem heretic to some...

This might be a way to enrich a D&D campaign conflict with a fundamental discrepancy that any player who went to high school could understand and appreciate.

Food for thoughts.

The Drakeling/Dragon-touched, Krynn's Aasimar/Tiefling

Preamble: This is an expansion of a comment I wrote on the Dragonlance Nexus' article on Aasimars on Krynn you can find here: https://dragonlancenexus.com/aasimar-the-light-bearers. This post will serve as a public expansion on the subject.

Drakeling: The Dragon-touched

Touched by a Dragon
by Illy Kostova

The Dragons of Krynn are much more than simple fire-breathing lizards found in other fantasy worlds. Dragons are powerful, primordial, magical creatures, the first children of the gods, the living embodiment of Krynn, and its primordial and elemental power.

And legends and stories tell of the physical union of such dragons with mere humanoids: The sacrifice of Huma and Heart, as well as the tragedy of Gilthanas and Silvara's love. But if history has told the physical union of dragons and humanoids (humans, elves, ogres, etc.) is possible (the dragon taking the physical form of their humanoid lover), it has also told this union is sterile.

Or is it?

Sometimes, a "miracle" happens.

To the surprise of everyone, no matter the parents, the resulting baby seems like a normal humanoid (i.e. of its humanoid parent's race), but has within them the "magic" of dragons, even if it remains dormant. This person can then grow, and have children of their own, this subtle magic remaining dormant, generation after generation, until, something, be it chance, randomness, tragedy, will cause this "magic" to awaken.

Sometimes, this results in innate magical abilities (see the Draconic Bloodline of the Sorcerer class). Sometimes, this results in physical traits, the signs of this person being "dragon-touched", or, as sometimes known in academic circles, a "drakeling".

Appearance

A drakeling can originate from any race, but its draconic traits will somehow override the traits inherited from their parents.

Most commonly, a drakeling will show a random set of draconic traits and behaviors, which varies from subject to subject. Among them, a peculiar color of hair, of eyes, or even skin, or also having vertical pupils, vestigial horns, a few scales, vestigial wings or tails, claws instead of nails, pointed teeth, unusual blood color, etc..

More subtly, as they bear the power of the dragons, they usually show some kind of strange charisma, as well as an unexpected resistance to extreme elements, like fire, or cold.

Freaks of nature?

The drakeling are so rare, generations could pass without one appearing, which explains both the lack of folk knowledge about them, as well as the poor academic writings on their subject. And the initial appearance of one does a lot to cement a perception of that person in the eyes of onlookers.

During the time of the Kingpriest of Istar, or after the capaclysm, during the rise of false religions here and there, as dragons had become a legend, the birth of a baby with such signs would probably condemn them to a horrible life as a freak, if not outright death (and the same for their parents) by superstitious mobs, who would consider them the spawn of evil, or the result of a horrible sin by their parents.

Few would see them as a sign of luck, or even divine favor (and most of them would have happened before the Third Dragon War).

Dragons themselves, no matter their alignment, might find such "dragon-touched" concept strange, alien, or even abhorrent, to be pitied or vilified.

Unless they hide their physical alterations, drakeling will, at the very best, provoke suspicion around them, explaining a life of adventure and/or loneliness.

D&D5 Traits

Drakeling share certain racial traits as a result of their draconic ancestry.

Ability Score Increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2.

Age: Drakelings mature at the same rate as humans but live a few years longer.

Size: Drakelings are about the same size and build as humans. Your size is Medium.

Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet/9 metres.

Darkvision: Thanks to your draconic heritage, you have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet/18 metres of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Draconic Legacy: You know the thaumaturgy cantrip.

Draconic Aura: Starting at 3rd level, you can use your action to unleash the draconic energy within yourself, causing your eyes to turn into pools of color related to your dragon ancestry, and two incorporeal wings to sprout from your back.

The instant you transform, other creatures within 10 feet/3 metres of you that can see you must each succeed on a Charisma saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier) or become frightened of you until the end of your next turn.

These incorporeal wings can enable you to control your fall: Using your movement provides you with the equivalent of a Feather Fall.

At the 10th level, the wings can actually enable you to fly, as per the Fly spell.

Once you use this Draconic Aura trait, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Draconic.

Subraces: Dragon Ancestry

While the dragon ancestry can be considered a subrace of the drakeling, in rule terms, they are all the same, providing the same kind of powers, templated after the dragon ancestry.

Ability Score Increase: Depending on your ancestry, and how it altered you, another Ability is increased by 1 (by default, Intelligence).

Draconic Resistance: You have resistance to one damage type depending on your draconic ancestry (e.g. a red drakeling would resist fire, a silver drakeling would resist cold, etc.).

Alignment: The alignement of the dragon ancestry also seems to color the morals and ethics of the drakeling, even if this effect is far from being dominant.

Appearance: The physical alterations of the drakeling are usually tied to the specifics of their dragon ancestry.

Conclusion

While I'm not sure aasimars and tieflings are adapted to the Dragonlance setting, them missing as a player option is problematic.

The drakeling is similar enough in concept with these races, and can integrate easily within the Dragonlance universe without stretching its credibility and coherence.

And with their origin, which is probably a tragic story (impossible/forbidden love, or something much darker), their existence is so exceptional it would have a potential for grandeur and tragedy.

P.S.: Design Notes

As a Dragonlance dungeon master, I try to keep only the subset of rules and options that is Dragonlance-friendly. For example, as orcs do not exist in Dragonlance, half-orcs are not an option. And yet, the concept is still available to players with half-ogres.

Two races are, in my humble opinion, really problematic: the aasimar and the tiefling, because these taste too much of angels and demons (see The role of Fiends in Dragonlance, and Why reworking the "afterlife" for my campaign? for more details on that).

And yet, the concept is intriguing, and D&D5 players might feel cheated if they wanted to play one, and found no Krynn native equivalent to these races.

So, let's assume aasimar and tiefling do not exist in Krynn, as angels and demons do not (again, this is a personal take on Krynn), and that we need a similar concept to still keep the players' options open.

So, if we look up for mythical and powerful creatures in Dragonlance, the best we can find are... Dragons.

As proper to the setting, dragons are the apex creatures of the world, and can easily fill the role of angels and demons. And the canon already have stories of  tragic love affairs between dragons and humanois (see Huma/Heart, as well as Gilthanas/Silvara). The fact such love is supposed to be sterile is an invitation to exceptions.

So, let's ask the rethorical question: "What if Huma and Heart had a baby?

So, an aasimar/tiefling-style race originating from a forbidden union between a dragon and a humanoid is not only possible, but adapted to the setting.

In rule terms, the drakeling race is obviously based on the aasimar and tiefling races, which share the same D&D5e stats, so it was natural to reuse these stats, mostly unmodified.

Also, the way aasimars and tiefling traits appear, out of nowhere, from seemingly normal parents, is conserved with the drakeling.

In the end the only change is the original union: Instead of one angel or devil ascendant, we have a dragon ascendant, which obviously is much more dragonlance-y.

The last thing is to keep their number extra-low: There are no mention of such phenomena anywhere in the books (of course), so we can't just retcon everything. Few, if any, would suspect the "dragon gene" to be passed through generations, and most, if not all, would suspect something more like a spontaneous mutation.

Drakeling vs. Dragonborn vs. Draconians

The three races remain different.

A drakeling is obviously an humanoid, despite so traits. A dragonborn is a "walking lizard" with physical dragon powers, including dragon breath (also, there are no dragonborns in my campaign, obviously). Also, dragonborns mating would result in a dragonborn baby. A draekelin's offspring would be of its humanoid's race (perhaps with the "magic of the dragon" hidden gene)

The difference with the draconian similar, but with the following specifics: The draconian is a corruption of the parent dragon, and are sterile (if we except those having found a way to reproduce).

Appearance?

As said before, like the aasimar (and, to a less extent, the tiefling), there would be little difference between the drakeling and their humanoid parents, if we except random draconic traits.

One major difference with the aasimar is the the feathered-style wings we see in D&D5e aasimars are instead draconic-style wings for the drakeling. Instead of the devil-like deformities of tieflings, these might be draconic, too (not that this would change a lot).

Draconic traits vary from subject to subject, and could be peculiar colors of hair, eyes, or even skin, slit pupils, blood color, vestigial horns, a few scales, vestigial wings or tail, nails, pointed teeth, etc..

Sources

This drakeling/dragon-touched was inspired by Dragonlance' mythology, and reusing the standard D&D5 tiefling race stats, while giving a look to the aasimar found in the Volo's.

But, for what is worth, here's a playable race, available on the Dungeon Masters Guild. I didn't read it, but it might be interesting.

Why reworking the "afterlife" for my campaign?

TL;DR: Because it's bullshit. Let's see why...

Religion

It can't be stressed enough that the D&D's afterlife concept is heavily, like HEAVILY, based on christian mythology. You do good things, you go to Paradise. You do evil things, you go to Hell. That's simple. Also, angels and demons.

If you're lucky, non-christian mythology can be found, too. For example, in Pathfinder's River of Souls, you can be agnostic, or even (somewhat) atheist... but the first would still lead you to one of the outer planes (mirroring their alignment ― see below), and the last being... reincarnated, if they are lucky (or being condemned to some kind of Greek-style afterlife).

But, believe it or not, other religions offer other outcomes after death.

Some assess you'll remain as family god. Others will have you slowly fade into nothingness. Others, again, would have you reincarnate again, and again, until you find enlightenment and ascend beyond the needs of mortal existence.

Yet, none of that (or little of that) in the D&D mythology, and that's not only sad, it's also very mediocre.

Alignment

You can't have a RPG fantasy game with gods and demons, with alignment as a morality system, and not have that alignment concept being reflected on how the cosmology works.

 

So, yeah. Lots of planes. But as alignment is essentially a bad approximation of morality, what you have is some kind of extreme representation of afterlife places.

(I am not saying the outer planes have no interesting tidbits. The Blood War between devils and demons is entertaining, for 5 minutes. The difference in philosophy between the two factions is also... well, interesting, but as they are essentially filling the roles of gods, there's some kind of overlap. Anyways...)

But, do we really need such places?

Beyond the interplanar tourism and hobo-murdering theme parks, I'm not sure.

Alignment is an interesting morality system, but it's far from complete. I actually love better Vampire: The Masquerade's natures and demeanors, in addition to Humanity rating, to represent the psychology of a character. Even the paths of enlightenment are actually more interesting, showing both the moral and ethics your character (your path) and how deeply committed you are to these moral and ethics (how high you are in that path's rating). Again, an approximation (what isn't, in a game?), but something less primitive that just "law vs. chaos vs. good vs. evil vs. neutrality".

Anyways, in D&D, your alignment will send your soul to a specific plane. And again, if you're evil, you will get punished. If you're not, then you'll be rewarded. That's so christian I believe I can rewrite this sentence using only crosses, and it would still be legible.

Also, that's blatantly stupid, in the context of a universe where multiple gods exist, and have a tangible effect (i.e. priests with actual powers, within talking distance to the common character). If you **know** you will suffer for eternity after your death if you are evil, then, just out of preservation, you will be "good". And people are really good when preservation and survival are concerned. So, you get "good people" who are not good for any moral choice, or reasoning, but are good because they know they don't have a choice. Evil people are just crazies, in a world where the supernatural is common, and where gods can't stop showing up, and sending up supernaturally-charged representatives casting divine magic during dungeons crawls.

And I find all this lacks moral maturity.

And in Dragonlance?

Fun fact: There's no Hell in the Dragonlance mythology. Nor Elysium, or Heavens. Only the Dome of Creation, the Hidden Vale, and the Abyss (which is not D&D's Abyss).

Dragonlance Campaign Setting, p117
D&D 3rd Edition

Of course, you'll find, in some Dragonlance D&D's rulebooks (the 2nd Edition's Tales of the Lance, if memory serves), mentions of D&D's planes, but these are just glued there to support the "multiverse" concept of D&D. There are no mentions of these in the books. Because these weren't the point of Dragonlance.

Which is, arguably, a battle of good versus evil, which can be as epic as a war between the dragonarmies and the solamnic knights, but also as personal as the dilemma of Tanis, or even as complicated as the rule of the Kingpriest, and its genocide of all "non-good" races.

Dragonlance is more than Good vs. Evil, though. It's, in a way, an exploration of what good and evil are. And the fact that good people are not people just caring about their afterlife accommodations, but people looking into their own darkness, and growing as they realize their own prejudices, and fight a moral fight to shed them away.

Wasn't Dragonlance about Balance?

The balance between Good, Evil and Neutrality is not what Dragonlance is about for those who read or live Dragonlance stories. But this balance is at the heart of Dragonlance's cosmology. The Dragonlance universe can only exist because of that balance, and no matter how good or evil a character are, this is just the "physics" of the Dragonlance universe, similar on how it doesn't matter how good or evil someone is in the real life, gravity will still affect them no matter what.

So, in parallel with the idea of heroes facing overwhelming odds against evil that is Dragonlance for readers, players and game masters, the pendulum moving around Good, Evil and Neutrality is as real for Dragonlance than gravity is real for our universe.

So the game master must still take that pendulum into account in the background, for the players to thrive while playing epic heroes.

Personhood

I like the idea of personal enlightenment, of cultivating and growing one's morality and ethics, to be more than simple instincts and barely existing social rules.

And I like the freedom of choice, because only through this freedom one can really be good (instead of being smart and simply "invest" in their afterlife stock options).

Both lead to personhood as the central concept of morality. You won't be rewarded/punished by external forces after your actions and beliefs. Instead, there will be consequences, for you and others, that you'll need to take responsibility for.

The case for Silent Hill

If you ever played Silent Hill 2, then you'll have a good idea of what a hellish afterlife might be: A "place" where your mind tortures itself because of guilt, no matter how in denial they are (James), stubborn they are (Eddie), or traumatized they are (Angela).

In this, Silent Hill is not fair. It simply uses its victims' own tormented psyche to give life (unlife?) to their guilt, and torture them with it.

Back to Dragonlance

My take on the Cycle of Souls reflects that: A character is a ephemeral conscience whose choices and experiences will enrich their soul. And if you respect and care for others, this is what you are. And if you exploit or tyrannize others, then this is what you are.

In this, being evil makes sense: You can be just some kind of egotistic moron, who believes might makes right, and live through that, enjoying your strength until it fails you. And an afterlife (temporary afterlife, in my Cycle of Souls) might be you continuing to be part of similar situations (a good example might be a pop-culture Valhalla, where wrarriors spent half the time fighting, maiming and killing, and the other eating and dring). And someone who thrives on exploiting others will certainly enjoying continuing to do that after their death. In the same way, someone who thrives caring for others will spend an afterlife continuing to do that.

And in the context of Dragonlance's physics, neither are wrong, for Good, Evil and Balance must exist, with the pendulum freely swinging between them.

It's just that, as Dragonlance persons, and players, we enjoy exploring the path of heroes, who made the choice of being good.

Conclusion

I wanted something more focused on persons for their afterlife.

And I wanted move away from the rather overly simplistic Christian's ideas of paradise and hell.

I also wanted something that explained evil beyond "muahahah! evil", so choosing good was a real choice, with consequences, and sacrifices, instead of being the "smart" choice.

And more importantly, and wanted the gods to have little power over the souls themselves, justifying their motivation to shepherd/convince the souls into their side.

Last but not least, I wanted the souls to be free.

This is why the default, vanilla D&D outer planes didn't make the cut, in my campaign.

It doesn't mean my characters won't be visiting something that looks like Gehenna, or Limbo. It's just that these planes would simply be planes, and not define a whole morality system forced down the throats of said characters.

About that "Shadow of the Dragon Queen" announcement...

Recently, WotC announced something that felt like the return of Dragonlance in the D&D multiverse.

The official announcement is the trailer, of course. But then, there's the Gizmodo article, and, last but not least, a free Unearthed Arcana beta-test supplement.

After taking a look at all of them, I must admit I am not really convinced, even if there's a specific consequence that could be good news for Dragonlance lovers.

Here's why.

The Trailer

The trailer can be found here:

The trailer is... not good.

Because it says nothing: Dragons. Wars. Battles.

That's all.

Ah, yes. There's also "dragonlance" written somewhere, in generic D&D fonts.

So, it's an appeal to fandom, and nothing concrete for now.

The Article

The article can be found here: https://gizmodo.com/d-d-direct-spelljammer-dragonlance-starter-set-1848822873

... and, I'm sorry, but it's freakingly bad.

The mistakes & misconceptions

First, because of some misconceptions and mistakes.

For example, Dragonlance was not originally a series of novels. It was instead both an enormous adventure path of 13 modules, and at the same time, a novel that soon became a trilogy, then was followed by another trilogy. Then a campaign setting sourcebook was published, etc..

Also, the following quote:

This is about as classic swords-and-sorcery role-playing as D&D can get, and it doesn’t seem from the trailer that WoC is deviating much from the formula.

... is actually missing that fact that Dragonlance was actually everything but the classic swords-and-sorcery, and at the time, revolutionized the industry. And this will become important, later.

If you want classic swords-and-sorcery settings, D&D's Forgotten Realms and Pathfinder's Golarion are exactly that (with Golarion having a dumber name, but a much better setting, IMHO). In these settings, everything is possible, every class/race exists, and every culture you can think of can be found somewhere. Generic is the right term, I guess.

What's in the "Shadow of the Dragon Queen"?

Let's make a list:

• lore-light game
  
• a brand new setting/story (but during the War of the Lance)
• situated on "Ancelon", a place not covered in previous Dragonlance materials
  

So... That's all?

A tasteless logo, some vague tidbits, ignoring the existing lore, and a place whose name is suspiciously similar to the original Ansalon?

Really?

What's in the "Warrior of Krynn"?

Who cares?

I mean, Dragonlance is not even back on track, and they are publishing a board game.

That would be like producing the merchandising before the Marvel Cinematic Universe even started in.

Also, the following quote:

Dragonlance is a war story

Dragonlance is as much a war story as is The Lord of the Ring.

Both are a story of a group of people caught in the middle of an epic war with fantastic beasts and monsters. Both are a story of Good vs. Evil. Both feel "personal", with well-beloved characters, with amazing backstories.

Being set during a war, or having one in thirteen modules being a wargame doesn't make Dragonlance a war story.

Red Flag: New designers

The following extract:

Original Dragonlance authors, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, were not associated with this setting or board game.

... is a red flag.

Not that T. Hickman, nor M. Weis need to be involved in everything Dragonlance.

But quite a few Dragonlance luminaries could have been involved. I'm thinking about the people who had worked on the 3.5 edition of Dragonlance books, some of them being involved in the excellent Tasslehoff's Pouches of Everything.

I guess having a few of them (even one), and mentioning it in the article would have be reassuring, as having someone who loves Dragonlance, and who knows the setting, would have helped made sure the new iteration wasn't changed into something Dragonlance is not.

So... it could become anything.

And what about Heroes of Krynn Unearthed Arcana?

It would be a mistake to not mention this Unearthed Arcana article, providing Krynn flavored features for beta-testers.

The PDF can be downloaded here: https://dnd.wizards.com/unearthed-arcana/heroes-krynn

So...?

Yeah, underwhelming.

The Kender is an underdeveloped joke of a mutant to try to avoid the "race-as-a-thief" controversy. The Sorcerer is... well, not very Krynnish (slapping a moon on a class doesn't suddenly make it Dragonlance-y).

A revised version was published here: https://dnd.wizards.com/unearthed-arcana/heroes-krynn-revisited

The kender is better (the supernatural curiosity is cute, even if I would have liked an emphasis on the chaos kender create around them), but still less developed than in Tasslehoff's Pouches of Everything.

The use of feats to customize characters even more is... interesting.

In the end, it feels like as if they wanted to give a light nod to the rule specifics of Dragonlance, but at the same time, changing as little as possible to the 5e character classes and races.

This is good in a way (reusability, as well as being rules-light), and yet somehow underwhelming. I guess I wanted more lore...

My advice is keep in mind the excellent Tasslehoff's Pouches of Everything, which you can download here: https://dragonlancenexus.com/tasslehoffs-pouches-of-everything/ and which usually provides better rules.

But... why?

The article-and-trailer are unconvincing because they give us little to no information, and seem to be missing the fact that what's interesting in Dragonlance is not its title, no matter how fanbait-y it can be.

My fear is that "Shadow of the Dragon Queen" will become some kind of cheap remake.

For example, it could be a follow up on the Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat, a way to bring and introduce the players from these modules into the Dragonlance setting, for some reason.

Or it could be a cheap remake of the Chronicles modules into the Fifth Edition, perhaps going as far as Disney did when they created the new Star Wars trilogy, copy-pasting the scenario and renaming characters and locations to hide the plagiarism.

Or it could be something new and as detached from Dragonlance as possible, not only rebooting the franchise, but cutting ties with everything Dragonlance from the past. But keeping the brand, because of its business value. It makes me think of what Sony shamelessly did when pumping out Spiderman movies as to make sure they would keep the rights to the setting, instead of it reverting back to Marvel.

In the end, I'm not sure there was a good reason to make a new Dragonlance product. But I'm quite sure there could be very bad ones.

WotC vs. Hickman & Weis

A piece of drama happened recently, with Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis going public about the fact Wizards of the Coast had no intention of going forward with their new Dragonlance novels trilogy. This was apparently resolved, and the new trilogy is happening, but the damage of that fallout is done.

I am not taking sides, here. I don't know why the disagreement happened. I just know the disagreement happened.

(Note: Roaming around on the internet, I have a very unfounded suspicion it happened because WotC might have asked Hickman & Weis to be more "inclusive" in the new trilogy. I don't know, different races, gay romances, transgender characters, or character with disabilities. For what is worth, I support more inclusivity, and the last years showed that we needed, as a community, to be more actively inclusive than just pay lip service and remain neutral on that social subject, so if that's the case here, I'm might side with WotC. But again, that's pure speculation, so, let's keep neutral.)

If the disagreement is real, that might be a motivation for WotC to part ways with Weis & Hickman once and for all.

Not convinced?

Remember the "Ancelon" vs. "Ansalon" typo above? Remember the generic font Dragonlance logo above?

If you look closely at the Dragons of Deceit image above, you'll see something weird. Don't you see it? Let me help you by zooming:

Still not seeing it? Zooming again...

So, the question is... What The Fish is this cancerous growth of a "classic" label on the top of the pristine Dragonlance logo?

Why the WotC products above write "Dragonlance" in a generic font, and this novel logo has some kind of "classic" ugly patch on it?

It feels like this is the result of a behind-the-scenes settlement, where Weis & Hickman kept the logo, but had to put the "classic" patch on top of it as WotC's kept the name, somehow. Like as if the WotC product and the Weis & Hickman Trilogy are distinct, unrelated products.

And that's not good, for a healthy setting.

Not many 5e Settings

Have you noticed there were few settings sourcebooks for the Fifth Edition?

If you want to explore the Forgotten Realms, you might as well search for previous edition books, or use the relevant public fan-made Wiki. The same for Greyhawk.

You can search DM's Guild, and see for yourself:

https://www.dmsguild.com/browse/pub/44/Wizards-of-the-Coast?filters=0_0_0_45462_0_0

That means even if we got a genuine awesome Dragonlance product, it would probably not be a setting book. At best, a campaign book, probably designed to be easily reusable in any other setting.

I can't really blame WotC, there. Any old setting has a lot of lore to compile, and making a 5e version might be a simple rehash of what has been done before, and these apparently never really profitable. Also, there are wikis out there doing exactly that, for free. So, if they can manage to minimize setting-specific rules, they don't even need to publish a rulebook only a subset of their customary clients will buy.

But there's a good news, there: This could be enough to make DM's Guild be open to Dragonlance products by non-WotC authors.

What it might be: Curse of Strahd

Curse of Strahd is a "remake" of the Ravenloft module. But it was done with love.

First, Tracy and Laura Hickman were creative consultants, which meant they had a say on what went there, and what was not appropriate. And they even took inspiration from other past Ravenloft products.

Second, they put most of Barovia in there, with many dungeons. It became an extended adventure path, not just a dungeon crawl in Castle Ravenloft. Many characters are present, some new. I mean, our beloved Rudolph van Richten is there.

This was a product born of love.

And the result is awesome.

I hope, I really hope, this new Dragonlance product will be of the same quality. But that hope is not based on the current article, trailer, and supplement. 

Dragonlance is not D&D

Strangely, I don't think I will make many friends writing that. But that's true. D&D has this concept of multiverse, but this never really applied to Dragonlance, no matter the similarities, or the ruleset.

Dragonlance is not an universe where everything is possible and okay, like the Forgotten Realms, or even Pathfinder's Golarion. There is no Elysium, nor Hell. Only the Dome of Creation, and the Abyss. This is not an "open" universe, where any god you can think of, including our own Greek and Egyptian ones, do exist.

Like it or not, this means Asmodeus has no place there. Nor Mystra. There's no drow per se, but there are Irda, and Kender. And it means Takhisis is not Tiamat, nor Paladine is Bahamut, nor draconians are dragonborns, despite all attempts at maintaining a semblance of compatibility.

And my greatest fear, I believe, is to have Dragonlance's very essence diluted so it can mix with the rest of the generic fantasy universes out there.

I don't really mind sharing rules, but having aasimars or tieflin in Krynn need a better explanation than: "Oh, they appeared in D&D 3rd Edition, so now, we have them". The same for sorcerers.

Of course, this is personal, and I know not everyone would agree with me. But that is important, in my humble opinion.

Conclusion

It's important to remember that everything in this post is based on the trailer, the Gizmodo article and the two Unearthed Arcana supplements (and knowledge of the fallout between WotC and Hickman & Weis)

I am not impressed by both the article and the trailer. And the lack of proper logo for Dragonlance is very worrying.

I really fear they are working on a adventure path parallel to the original Dragonlance modules, with half-baked feather-light Krynn-specific rules, happening in some "Ancelon" place, created from scratch by unknown people, the board game that goes with it, and paste a "Dragonlance" title on it.

So, yeah...

Meh...

The only exciting news is that it might mean that anyone might publish its own Dragonlance books on DM's Guild. From then, everything's possible!

• a new campaign settings with updated rules, à la Tasslehoff Pouches of Everything, with rules on how to play iconic characters like knights of solamnia, or wizards of high sorcery.
• the return of the RPG staff formerly working in Weis Production, so they could, again, publish updated 5e books.
  
• a gazetteer of Ansalon (or many gazetteers, one per nation), with background information on how each nation is organized, the important people, city maps, etc., like it was done with the Mystara Gazetteers.
• a new ambitious campaign building on what exists now, with emphasis on the PC protagonists and their relation with the Krynn universe. Perhaps there's a new Tracy/Laura Hickman out there, with outrageous ideas for the next RPG revolution. (Ok, this one is hard, but... well...).

If this happens, then let me change my mind: The new Dragonlance product will be awesome, no matter what's inside!

P.S.: Official Announcement

Shadow of the Dragon Queen had been announced, here https://dndstore.wizards.com/us/product/768939/shadow-of-the-dragon-queen-deluxe-edition-bundle ... and here https://dndstore.wizards.com/us/product/768939/shadow-of-the-dragon-queen-deluxe-edition-bundle ... which is not confusing at all.

One seems to be the rulebook, and the other contains the rulebook, plus the wargame.

Dragonlance®: Shadow of the Dragon Queen™ is a tale of conflict and defiance set during the legendary War of the Lance.

Create characters from Krynn, the world of the Dragonlance setting, then march them to the front lines of battle against the terrifying Dragon Armies.

A Dungeons & Dragons® adventure that takes characters from 1st to 11th level.

It might be some kind of "remake" of the original scenarios, and in that case, to avoid ending with a 500 pages book, they'll probably need to cut some content to make room for expansion of other content.

Also, they abandoning the logo is... really puzzling. I mean, the only lance there is the icon on the top left:

I mean, Legend of Vox Machina had a dragonslaying lance that was more dragonlance than the above logo...

https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Vox-Machina-Season/dp/B09PZG2979

Strange...

Zeboim, divine power of Strife

 After Morgion, and Chemosh, last in the series of divine refactoring is Zeboim.

The goddess is somewhere between Chemosh and Morgion: You know why people might follow her teachings, but she seems to be kinda... aimless?

I agree, Strife is a difficult divine power to qualify, but I believe the goddess can be modified so she becomes more active, instead of just being the goddess you placate when going at sea.

So, for my campaign... what to do with Zeboim?

Constraints

All gods of Krynn must have an active, inspiring contribution and teaching to soul's evolution and learning. This constribution/teaching does not need to be pleasant, but it has to make sense, even in a twisted way.

The corollary is that priests of all gods should have a philosophy/teaching that makes sense, even in a twisted way: No one should become priest of Chemosh by being coerced into it. If one thing, faith should be sincere.

The modified god (here, Zeboim) should remain recognizable, and, perhaps, from casual examination, should appear like the original version. Only when digging deeper will someone (a reader, or a character) would realize the difference.

Inspirations

For our rework of Zeboim, we need to look around to see if there are interesting concepts we could borrow.

Original Zeboim

Like for Chemosh, The wiki entry for Zeboim is quite extensive, but spends a lot of time in stories where she is not shown in her best light.

From the Holy Orders of the Stars sourcebook, we have the following attributes for Zeboim:

• Portfolio: Oceans, storms, jealousy, spite
• Worshipers: Sailors, pirates, evil druids, evil sea creatures
  
• Domains: Chaos, Evil, Storm, Water

What comes out, for me, is both chaos and nature, as well as, obviously, water and ocean. Also:

[Zeboim] admonishes the soul to unleash its deepest urges, acting fully in the throes of any pent-up aggression and frustration. In doing so, she foments unrest, anarchy, disorder, and rebellion. [...] Her driving need is to create anguish and volatility between the souls of the world, so that they remain vital and active, not stagnant or witless.

-- Holy Orders of the Stars, p107

The takeway of Zeboim's entry is that she is volatile, and regularly stirs up trouble... and that's all.

Eris, Greek goddess of discord

Like most Greek gods, Eris is more suited to a "Desperate Housewives of Olympus" than anything worthwhile. Let's not go there.

Set, Egyptian god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence and foreigners

This one is heavy. First, Set should not be mixed with its caricature (i.e. Conan's serpent god). He was actually defender of Ra against Apep, the serpent god of chaos... until foreign invaders, the Hyksos, came to Egypt, and became real fans of Set. This didn't go well when said foreigners were ousted out. Set's worship didn't get easier in later periods, for similar reasons. And like that, Set was seen as... some kind of traitor god?

Vikings

The obvious source of inspiration is the viking raids who had plagued western Europe around the 9th century, or at least, our highly fictional, even romanticized, version of it: Fearsome and fearless warriors burning and killing.

No settlement was safe from such raids, even those who were deep inside land.

Also, Skyrim's Nords (despite their lack of relation to liquid water) and a Song of Ice and Fire's Ironborns (including their adoration for their Drowned God), because they themselves took inspiration from vikings.

Pirates

The difference between pirates and vikings lies only in the romanticized "freedom" the pirates were supposed to uphold. They, and the few ports they controlled, were free from any crown, living the good life, instead of submitting to others' control.

Berserkers

Assimilated to the vikings, berserkers are actually a bit different: Any warrior entering some kind of frenzy in the midst of battle can be considered a berserker.

The Barbarian class of D&D is actually well-fitted for this role. The Wildfire archetype for the Druid (found in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything) might be a good fit, too, but the fire kinda doesn't mesh with Zeboim's water element.

Werecreatures

Werecreatures are just like Berserkers, but with less control, and more animals in them.

Problem: There are no werecreatures on Krynn, and even if there were, having three moons wouuld make the lives on those affected by moon phases very miserable.

Kaiju

How many monsters came from the seas, from the "here be dragons" of ancient maps, to the kaijus plaguing the Pacific Ocean for some reason. Monsters from the Greek mythology, like the Kraken, Charybdis, Scylla.

Partial conclusion

There aren't many satisfying inspirations.

Vikings, pirates and berserkers might serve as inspiration for various kind of worshipers for Zeboim, but these are "land-focused", which is a problem:

The sea

Zeboim being a goddess of seas, it makes sense she might have some influence on anything underwater... Also, the obsession of the gods and mortals with Ansalon might be explained by a forced isolation caused by hostile oceans surrounding it. Is Zeboim's mission to isolate Ansalon through tempests and currents?

Marine beasts

Beyond the normal dangers we can expect from high sea waters, there are some dread things lurking in deep waters, things you don't want to meet. So you pray Zeboim for her clemency and her favor, so the monster actually leaves you alone.

Any monster will do. Most notably, aquatic dinosaurs, but also dragons, and giant version of marine life, like octopuses, whales, or sharks (megalodons!).

Aquatic elves and civilizations

If Zeboim is the mistress of the seas, then I don't see how aquatic elves can live there without her permission. At the very least, unlike on the lands, the aquatic elves (mostly the deep sea Dargonesti) might be under constant threat of attack from a giant monster.

The strife

Perhaps we need to focus on the reasons for strife, and what strife can achieve. Beyond raiders like vikings, we have revolts, revolutions. When a population reaches a point where it can't bear much oppression anymore (whether real, or imagined), then the disorder coming from the revolt can topple leadership, governments, and possibly, whole nations.

The breaking point in the French 1789 Revolution was an elite trying to hold to its privileges, facing a population that was more and more oppressed, both by the political power of their elite, and by poverty, and several years of famine. Had the Habeas Corpus been integrated in France's monarchy, perhaps the 1789 Revolution would never had happened. The chaos and disorder (and lots of death, let's face it) were at this point necessary to induce a change that had been denied many times before when asked "nicely".

Sirrion might have been perfect for this role, but here, we are looking at something that suddenly breaks, and destroys everything in its wake.

Zeboim, divine power of Strife

Zeboim represents the divine power of strife, which enables souls to rise up, against anything that might inhibit, control or hinder it, by releasing their deepest, most shameful impulses, fully acting when one is overwhelmed by aggressiveness or repressed frustrations.

Unlike Sargonnas, who is focused against specific slights, Zeboim encourages unrest, lawlessness, disorder and rebellion, in a systematic attempt to counteract imposed order and law.

In this, she directly opposes both of her parents, Sargonnas, and mostly Takhisis, whose obsession for control opposes the disorder and resulting freedom favored by Zeboim.

Zeboim, through her priests, will inspire and support anything that will undermine a status quo, be it the power of the aristocracy, or of a dictator, or even a perfectly functioning and just society. This makes her the enemy of most of Krynn's gods, who usually favor lawfulness and order, no matter their pantheon.

Oppressed people are, of course, much more likely to revolt with violence, and in this, the followers of the goddess will both inspire them, encourage them, and support them. But make no mistake, the ultimate aim of this divine inspiration and support is to replace the status quo with chaos, and nothing, including the well-being and self-determination of the population, will calm down the followers of Zeboim.

On the other hand, pirates and raiders couldn't care less about the goddess (if we except the mandatory reverence when at sea), but it doesn't matter, as she couldn't care less herself about them, as long as they do what they do best: Raid, kill, destroy, and undermine civilizations. In this, they will find the support of Zeboim's priests, bards, and barbarians.

Berserkers (i.e. D&D barbarians) are more than likely to attract Zeboim's attentions. They usually end up dead, finding their rage failing them at the most crucial moment, or succumb to their most base instincts and join bands of raiders and priests of Zeboim.

One unexpected side of Zeboim is represented by her druids. The exploitation of nature, and its taming by mortals and their little ordered societies, and thus, the lack of respect for it, isn't really something she appreciates. Unlike druids of Habbakuk, or even Chislev, Zeboim's druids won't shy away from the worst crimes to remind the mortals to not only respect, but fear nature itself.

Conclusion

I'm not really satisfied by this version of Zeboim. It's hard to keep the what exist of that goddess, and makes it interesting for my campaign while keeping the new version compatible with generic Dragonlance for other to uses.

But focusing on her role in inspiring revolt and chaos, and less on her personal problems and indulgences, I believe I made her a bit more proactive goddess, directly opposing most other gods, instead of skulking in a corner like a frustrated teenager whose smartphone was confiscated.

Chemosh, divine power of Permanence

Next in the series of divine refactoring, Chemosh.

While not as problematic as Morgion, or, say, Zeboim, Chemosh is still the "baddie" who apparently has nothing else to do in his eternity than torment and depress people.

Undeath is too much a fascinating concept to be left as it is now.

So, for my campaign... what to do with Chemosh?

Constraints

All gods of Krynn must have an active, inspiring contribution and teaching to soul's evolution and learning. This constribution/teaching does not need to be pleasant, but it has to make sense, even in a twisted way.

The corollary is that priests of all gods should have a philosophy/teaching that makes sense, even in a twisted way: No one should become priest of Chemosh by being coerced into it. If one thing, faith should be sincere.

The modified god (here, Chemosh) should remain recognizable, and, perhaps, from casual examination, should appear like the original version. Only when digging deeper will someone (a reader, or a character) would realize the difference.

Inspirations

For our rework of Chemosh, we need to look around to see if there are interesting concepts we could borrow.

Original Chemosh

The wiki entry for Chemosh is quite extensive, but spends a lot of time in stories where he is not shown in his best light, to be fair.

From the Holy Orders of the Stars sourcebook, we have the following attributes for Chemosh:

• Portfolio: Death, the undead, murder, false hope
  
• Worshipers: Crazed cultists, assassins, necromancers
• Domains: Death, Evil, Trickery, Undeath†

The really part I want to work with is that his portfolio/domains include both death and undeath.

Examples not to take inspiration from

Both Pathfinder's Pharasma and Exandria's Raven Queen are not sources of inspiration. These gods strive to maintain some kind of status quo between life and death, and undeath is not their focus (and is usually a problem for them).

In the same way, Death, the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, the Grim Reaper, and Orcus (despite being as Chemosh-y as Tiamat is Takhisis-y) are not sources of inspiration.

The Necromancer Archetype

A necromancer isn't just a practitioner of dark, or demonic magics. A necromancer deals in the magics beyond life and death. While this knowledge is not necessarily "evil" per se, it is clearly violating classical and modern societal taboos about life and death.

This taboo is very interesting, if we can somehow integrate it in the narrative. The ultimate necromancer might be quite active, striving to irrevocably change known and accepted laws of life in the universe, for some reason (power over the dead, desire to mitigate the cruelty of death, etc.).

Partial Conclusion

There aren't a lot of satisfying inspiration.

Chemosh, divine power of Permanence

Chemosh represents the divine power of Permanence. That is, how a soul might resist change induced by external factors, and thus, evolve only in a way it wants, at its convenience.

The Cycle of Souls is imposed by the current law of Krynn's universe, and is, in Chemosh's viewpoint, by design messy and lossy: How many memories are lost to time? How much enlightenment has been cut short by a premature death, and reset to zero?

This cycle is deemed necessary, and even desirable, by most of Krynn's gods. But as far as Chemosh is concerned, it is widely inefficient. And Chemosh believes that, with his own divine power of permanence, he can cheat the process, and foster the souls Chemosh favors into an accelerated ascension.

To mortals learning about the truth of the Cycle of Souls, the mortality of their own identity, their own avatar is the real tragedy, and Chemosh offers a hope to fix that. This is why Chemosh favors necromancers, as they are the only one able to research necromancy, and push its limits beyond. Chemosh hopes that, with the right inspiration, and with the right necromancers, the god might unearth the secret to circumvent the limitations of the Cycle of Souls.

This is clearly the most outrageous violations of the Laws of Krynn, and Chemosh knows the others gods, no matter the pantheon, would not let that happen, for Chemosh would then be all-powerful, dwarfing both Paladine, Takhisis and Gilean.

So the god works slowly, through indirection, and showing less ambition, and more glee at witnessing the antics of the undead puppets shambling their way around Krynn.

Conclusion

I know, the moment I decided I wanted to do something like Death Knights of Krynn in my campaign, I needed more than just "Lord Soth wants to invade Solamnia".

In my humble opinion, the undead are the only "fiends" that matter, the universal creature opposing and/or feeding from life, that were universal in every culture, which automatically increased the importance of Chemosh in my campaign.

By giving Chemosh, something more than wanting to spawn undead, and seduce Mina, I make it (again, in my humble opinion) a very, very frightening god, worthy of being opposed by heroes, beyond the undead-rising monster of the week.

Morgion, divine power of Ordeal

By now, it might be obvious I'm not a fan of some of the choices done in Dragonlance.

One of them is having gods that serve no purpose but "be there".

In my humble opinion, Morgion is the most egregious on that subject: That god's modus operandi is to contaminate someone with a disease, and then promise them with the disappearance of symptoms if they become a priest of Morgion, and they start contaminating others... in a universe where Mishakal can heal diseases. You might be forgiven if you think such priests might be fools. I know I do.

So, for my campaign... what to do with Morgion?

Constraints

All gods of Krynn must have an active, inspiring contribution and teaching to soul's evolution and learning. This constribution/teaching does not need to be pleasant, but it has to make sense, even in a twisted way.

The corollary is that priests of all gods should have a philosophy/teaching that makes sense, even in a twisted way: No one should become priest of Morgion by being coerced into it. If one thing, faith should be sincere.

The modified god (here, Morgion) should remain recognizable, and, perhaps, from casual examination, should appear like the original version. Only when digging deeper will someone (a reader, or a character) would realize the difference.

Inspirations

For our rework of Morgion, we need to look around to see if there are interesting concepts we could borrow.

Original Morgion

The wiki entry for Morgion is a bit light, but already goes where I don't want to go: Decay and entropy are not "active forces", they are "expected statistical outcome".

From the Holy Orders of the Stars sourcebook, we have the following attributes for Morgion:

• Portfolio: Disease, famine, poison, vermin, suffering, madness
• Worshipers: Crazed cultists, ratcatchers, corrupt druids
• Domains: Destruction, Evil, Madness†, Pestilence
  

Also:

... spreading his unholy message: only the strong will survive, for to survive is to suffer, and to suffer is to know the truth.

-- Holy Orders of the Stars, p102

This makes Morgion someone whose modus operandi is to inflict pain and suffering, for its own sake. Psychological pain, physical pain, it doesn't matter. The question would then be: Why?

Pathfinder's Zon-Kuthon

© 2014, Paizo Inc/Yu Cheng Hong

In Pathfinder's Golarion universe, there's one god that stands out: Zon-Kuthon.

Zon-Kuthon share many similarities with Morgion, actually: Both are considered mad, and both seem to enjoy the pain and suffering of others.

Kuthites [followers of Zon-Kuthon] run the gamut in their origins and motivations for joining the faith, whether they be evil sadists, demented masochists, or those whose spirits are so wounded that only overwhelming pain distracts them from their sorrows. Others who immerse themselves in spiritual darkness often find themselves drawn to his anthracite embrace.

[...]

Clergy tend to take their fervor for pain and agony to higher levels than lay believers, but are also experts at blending in with normal society.

[...]

Temples of Zon-Kuthon are, for all intents and purposes, torture chambers, and often function as such even when not in use for religious ceremonies. Because of the unique and often disapproved-of practices that take place in the church, temporary temples in caves or basements are kept fairly simple with decorations and tools brought in especially for services. The tools are often disguised as farming implements, should the secret cult be exposed. In more remote areas, believers might make impromptu shrines in places where violence and pain have occurred.

[...]

Kuthites are not bookish worshipers, often choosing to experience their faith rather than study it in a text.

-- Source: Pathfinder Wiki, https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Zon-Kuthon

This clearly makes suffering a tool of enlightenment, at least, in the minds of Zon-Kuthon's followers.

Silent Hill

© Konami

The series of video games, Silent Hill, is known to its disturbing horror, self-inflicted psychological pain due to real or imagined guilt.

The first and third installments are all about a cult trying to bring back some kind of (genuine) paradise through inflicting pain and torture.

The second is actually a self-inflicted hell, by people who have, consciously or not, committed real (or imagined) crimes, and whose guilt (real, or imagined) is now torturing them. There's nothing binary there, only gray areas. In a way similar to Ravenloft's Dark Powers, Silent Hill seems to twist reality to trap its victims, amplifying their pain.

Then, there's the body horror, and the monsters. All you have to do is to google "silent hill monsters" (warning, explicit/disturbing content: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&safe=off&q=silent%20hill%20monsters), and you'll find the horrific, disturbing, and yet fascinating creations of Team Silent, the original developers of Silent Hill. (Also, the music... seriously).

Resident Evil

Despite what one may think, Resident Evil is about mutation. The "undead" zombies are a byproduct of a contamination with the T-virus or one of its variants. But the most important effects of these viruses and parasites are the exceptional and obscene mutations of some of the host bodies, turning them into a great variety of monsters, depending on circumstances.

You can find examples of these grotesque monsters in the following link (warning, explicit/disturbing content): https://www.google.com/search?q=resident+evil+monsters&tbm=isch&oq=resident+evil+monsters&safe=off

Unlike the other inspiration sources, the Resident Evil monsters are there only to provide a roster of creatures.

The Tzimisce Vampires

Vicissitude, by John Cobb

Created by White Wolf for their Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing games, the Tzimisce are demented, monstrous deviants, dealing with torture and body horror.

Their main power, Vicissitude, is all about body modification, both of the self, and others. And Tzimisce do enjoy experimenting on others, finding there some kind of crazy spirituality.

Tzimisce are the stuff of nightmares, even for other vampires (who are far from being angels themselves). One would rightly prefer Final Death to falling into the hand of a Tzimisce, and those unlucky to find themselves the subject of Tzimisce's experimentations (or art creation!) sometimes come out "whole", even if joining their torturers in their cruelty and spiritual beliefs.

Other Sources of Inspiration?

There are other potential sources of inspiration, but they all fall back into one of the examples above. For example, the Cenobites from the Hellraiser movies, which are, arguably similar to Zon-Kuthon, above.

Partial conclusion

All these inspirations lead us to a variant of Morgion, which (hopefully) is more "active" and has a clear motivation beyond ruining everyone's day.

Morgion, divine power of Ordeal

Morgion represents the divine power of ordeal: Only through pain and suffering can one soul find true enlightenment.

Any kind of suffering will do: disease, madness, physical and psychological torture. And it is best when self-inflicted, even if unwilling subjects can still profit from a fraction of their "beneficial" effects.

Mercy is, in the disturbing mind of Morgion or his followers, an empty lie, leading to a stagnation of the soul. It is much better to foster its growth and self-understanding by pushing its limits beyond what it can tolerate. Some will never recover from the ordeal, falling into catatonia that won't really protect them from further abuse. But others will ascend into a higher understanding of the soul, and will become true paragons of Morgion's philosophy.

A victim of Morgion's acts might search for Mishakal for relief... or might become so damaged mentally they now embrace their suffering. A sadist might find in Morgion's teaching some kind of moral excuse to indulge in their urges. A torturer or executioner might find solace in "knowing" their victims will grow spiritually under their "care". Truth is, Morgion doesn't really care about the original motivations: Both the tormenter and the tormented will learn from the ordeal.

Of course, from the outside, Morgion's small cult of followers are best described as a group of cruel, sadistic and masochistic creatures, enjoying inflicting pain on themselves, as well on others. There are also rumors of monstrous, aberrant creatures flesh-sculpted from victims (or even leaders?) of the cult.

Conclusion

Followers of Morgion are not anymore coerced into having faith. They are not unwilling victims (at least, not anymore). They are active believers in some kind of deviant spirituality that is pushed into extremes, that leads to horrific acts, all in the name of spiritual enlightenment and ascension.

In the end, instead of dumb cultists to oppose our heroes, we can now have a wide range of either gory or sophisticated cultists, both primal and civilized, all hell-bent into sharing their vision of enlightenment with others, with of without their consent.

I sincerely believe this version of Morgion is more "believable" than the original one.