Why are lycanthropes in general not in DL?
Just curious.
Please don't bring Drow, Orcs, Psionics into this forum as I've heard enough from both sides of the argument on this one and tend to agree with Trampas (probably will on lycanthropes as well
) Any history offered on the decision making process Ms. Weis and Mr. Hickman went through? or any of the game designers for that matter.
Thanks.
Originally posted by kendernbabe
Not to open a whole new can of worms but...
Why are lycanthropes in general not in DL?
Two main reasons, one more likely than the other. The first (and most likely) reason is similar to that given for the lack of other staple D&D creatures such as orcs and drow, and that's setting specificity. Early on a number of creatures were suggested by the design team (Tracy, Jeff Grubb, Harold Johnson, Doug Niles, and others) as simply not appearing on Krynn to heighten the distinction between Krynn and other worlds. Krynn is, after all, not supposed to be Generic D&D World X, and the original modules made great efforts to portray it as a fantasy world in its own right.
The second reason, which is also pretty good but can be solved with a little clever thinking, is that Krynn has three moons, not one. Lycanthropes that shift with the lunar phases on other worlds are therefore complicated by the tripling of the moons. The clever solution is to tie them to the corresponding moon of their alignment (werewolves to Nuitari, werebears to Solinari, etc) but this makes werewolves shift once every week, practically. One could also simply tie them all to Lunitari (not as desirable given that it's a curse and not so much just a transformation) or remove the ties altogether. A few lycanthrope-like characters have appeared in Dragonlance which do not share the same details of the cursed creatures of the Monster Manual, such as the cursed wizard Thorne (who becomes a wolf once a year) or the shapeshifter race of wyld (from the Ergoth trilogy) or Karnuthians (from Dark Heart and Heroes of Defiance.) None of these, however, are strictly lycanthropes either.
Cheers,
Cam
It has never really been explained why, by them.
But the official word is: No, they are not there because we (the creators) say so.