Looking online, I haven't read about any plans to create a source that explains the gods of Dragonlance in detail like "Deities and Demigods" and "Faiths and Pantheons". The DLCS doesn't go into much detail outside a basic description. Does anyone know a place where I can get this information?
There is a book slated for sometime in 2005 called Holy Orders of the Stars, which will detail the Gods of Krynn and their respective religions.
So why not, in such a book, include a section on the God and Hero's of DragonLance, Mystara, GreyHawk, Ravenloft, etc? It would not have killed them. It probably would have helped sales, as people from different 'worlds' would have gone out to get them.
1) They don't support those worlds any more, additionally the D&D Pantheon = Scaled down version of Greyhawk pantheon
2) Mystara doesn't have gods, it has "Immortals"
3) The Ravenloft gods aren't real
Chapter 1- American Indian Mythos Gods and Figures
Chapter 2- The Arthur Figures and hero's.
Chapter 3- Central American Mythos/Deity's.
Chapter 4- DragonLance
Chapter 5- Egyptian
and so and and so forth, to include all the stuff that made the book (Norse, Celtic, Nonhuman) with key figures and sections on some of the different worlds out there
Well, a few reasons really.
3) The Ravenloft gods aren't real
They may not be real. We only know of one case where the object of worship is explicitly stated to be nonexistent, that being Zakhata. Ezra, Hala, and the rest are anyone's guess. :-)
For those comparing the 1E or 2E deity books to the 3E one, note that the 1E version was pretty much monster descriptions of the gods, and the 2E one didn't do much better. Now, the 3E D&DG spends a lot of time on those as well :-), but the writeups are much more indepth, and the book looks to include a lot more meat on designing and using 'divine' powers.
Matthew L. Martin
If we go back to 2E (and the infamous Spelljammer system), the big idea was that some major gods were the same no matter the setting but were worshipped under different names.
I don't see why Lathander couldn't be providing spells for clerics of the Morninglords for instance.
The only thing that I am reasonably sure of is that the Lawgiver may have been Bane at one time but not all the time. After all, when Bane was considered dead in the FR, it couldn't have been supplying spells to his RL worshippers. So - probably - it was the DP who "stepped in".
Now that Bane is back, maybe he is once again the source of their powers.
Only the Dark Powers know for sure, and they're not talking...
However they decided to change their minds. Sold the license, made the DLCS (for 3.5 mind you so I stand by my none for 3rd statement). Since the license for other books is with Sovereign Press I wouldn't expect to see any Dragonlance stuff to show up in Wizard's game accessories ever again.
Case in point?
The Monster Manual III. In the Monster Manual III monster descriptions will come with specific places the creatures are found... in Forgotten Realms, and Eberron. Not Greyhawk, not Ravenloft, not Dragonlance, or any of the other bastard children campagins they've shoved off into 'other roleplaying worlds'.
DMJoe, It's important to note that there is no 3rd Edition material for Dragonlance. When 3rd edition was being made, and as such Deities and Demigods Wizard's had no intention of ever supporting the setting again. So why would they include those gods?
However they decided to change their minds. Sold the license, made the DLCS (for 3.5 mind you so I stand by my none for 3rd statement).
There actually was 3.0 material for Dragonlance. In the novel Draconian Measures, there were stats for the five different draconian types as well as a magic item. In Dungeon magazine #86, there was the 3.0 Dragonlance adventure Anvil of Time, which had stats on a dragon orb, Magius, Huma, Lord Soth, among others. Of course, both of these products came out after Deities and Demigods, so Nived's quite correct in that at the time the Deities book was being published Wizards didn't have any intent to continue with Dragonlance.
Think about it: would you rather have 1 page per deity or 200+ pages devoted to the 2 dozen or so DL deities? I know which I prefer.
I do wish SP would come out and state if the book will in fact be out in 2005 though. Cuz I really don't want to hear in January that it's been moved back to 2006...
It will be much better to see the DL deities in their own book rather than as an add-on for the sake of completeness in the Deities & Demigods book.
Think about it: would you rather have 1 page per deity or 200+ pages devoted to the 2 dozen or so DL deities? I know which I prefer.
I do wish SP would come out and state if the book will in fact be out in 2005 though. Cuz I really don't want to hear in January that it's been moved back to 2006...
I have not read a DEITYS AND DEMIGODS book in earnest since the 1st edition version back in the late 80's. In it, I thought they did an outstanding job in giving you the jist of the Hero's and Gods and GOddess of the many, many earthly mythos out there. From Hercules of the Greeks to Thor of the Asgardian gods, to Lolth of the Drow to King Arthur himself, They presented stats, background bio and stuff. I thought they did a good job of it. Why not have a well done chapters within the book done. If we go by our own DLCS, I believe there are pages 119 to 132 (front and back) on the DragonLance gods in it, so It seems that it would not have killed them to do it that way.
There is a book slated for sometime in 2005 called Holy Orders of the Stars, which will detail the Gods of Krynn and their respective religions.
Which authors have been assigned to work on this supposed tome, if any... ?
Which authors have been assigned to work on this supposed tome, if any... ?
I don't think it has been mentioned anywhere, but my guess would be Jamie Chambers at least, and possibly another co-author.
Which authors have been assigned to work on this supposed tome, if any... ?
Well, let's see...
Currently the authors for Holy Orders of the Stars are:
Myself
Margaret Weis
Chris Pierson
Cam Banks
Trampas Whiteman
Joe Mashuga
Sean Macdonald
Andre LaRoche
Jamie Chambers
Jennifer Brozek
Christopher Coyle
I'm the project manager for that book, which means I'm in charge of making it happen.
Right now we're tenatively looking at a March 2005 release, but that is not set in stone. I will tell you though that nearly 1/3 of the book is finished already.
Well, let's see...
Currently the authors for Holy Orders of the Stars are:
Myself
Margaret Weis
Chris Pierson
Cam Banks
Trampas Whiteman
Joe Mashuga
Sean Macdonald
Andre LaRoche
Jamie Chambers
Jennifer Brozek
Christopher Coyle
I'm the project manager for that book, which means I'm in charge of making it happen.
Right now we're tenatively looking at a March 2005 release, but that is not set in stone. I will tell you though that nearly 1/3 of the book is finished already.
Sweet Aunt Jemimah, that's cool.
You guys are going all out on this work? Good for you. Any chance it will be out before March 05? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
Why, is something happening in March of 2005?
Cheers,
Cam
I would hope that they are never stated. They are never really shown to have character classes but as beings that have always been gods. Sometimes you get beings like Fizban and thats well and good but it just does not seem like the gods have been detailed enough to know who has what. Plus its just going to make people upset one way or another.
I doubt they'll be statted. DL, unlike Greyhawk and FR, has a set pantheon without ascended or interloper gods.
Basically I don't see why the deities cannot be statted in Rpg terms. They are no more or less gods then the deities in the Forgotten Realms setting. They represent character archetypes and possess vast divine power. Honestly if you understand the mechanics behind Faiths and Pantheons/Deities and Demigods..it's actually kinda cool and puts a lot of perspective onto the behind the scenes cosmology. Suddenly the political manipulating and behind the scenes manuevering takes on a whole new level when you can tangibly envision the gods - and more now then before the deities are really taking on a lot more personality and hands on interacting with one another and the mortals in the recent direction of Dragonlance. They're no longer abstract and unfleshed out beings.
Also while there are no 'ascended' mortals thus far in Dragonlance, the game world makes it quite clear that the deities are not invulnerable and stack up against one another and other beings in terms of powers. In order for Huma to wound Takhisis with the dragonlance on the material plane - Takhisis 'avatar' would need to have had stats. In order for Raistlin to defeat Takhisis on the material plane after drawing her out of the abyss, Takhisis would need stats. In order for Chaos to be challenged by the gods - he would need stats and so would the rest of the gods. Deities can die in Dragonlance and mortals can take their place. Raistlin could have done it theoretically (albiet with catostrophic results) and Gilean was once mortal.
(This is from a pure RPG perspective. Naturally from the perspective of the novels they aren't rolling 1d20+whatever against each other.)
I don't think we'll see stats done anyway though. WOTC has said they hav eno more plans for deity books on the same scale as Faiths and Pantheons because the demand isn't as high for them. I imagine Sov. Press feels much th esame way and will likely not stat the gods - but that doesn't mean they cannot be statted or that there's no justification to do it.
For a homebrew campaign I once statted a deity that was a parallel to Paladine. He came out with 20 levels of Paladin and 20 levels of Cleric. (Most deities are made up of 40 HD of class levels plus 20 HD of outsider I believe.) I then went on and added a few more levels just to flavor him up some. Paladine would probably be like the above and either have a few more levels in fighter and wizard. Fizban, as an avatar, could mimic alot of 'spells' via his deity salient divine abilities (A fancy name for deity powers .. like turning you into a pillar of salt.)