Dungeons and Dragons has taken players to a myriad of worlds over its long history. Settings like the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and more recently Wildemount are just a few of the settings that have graced sourcebooks and players' tables over the years. With DnD well into its fifth edition, fans may get a chance to return to one of its classic and most-requested settings soon, Dragonlance. Newer Unearthed Arcana materials could point toward the return to one of DnD's most iconic settings.
After a tumultuous period including a lawsuit from its original creators, it seems like Dragonlance is poised to return to DnD. Now that new novels are confirmed to be on their way, it would be a good time for a trip back to one of the settings that has truly defined DnD's aesthetic. Dragonlance is one of the DnD settings that best fits the traditional forms of fantasy games and literature. Epic heroes battle across ages against evil dragons and wizards in order to prevent cataclysmic outcomes, alongside a wide variety of characters like gnomes, dwarves, elves, and even minotaur. The latest UA material could suggest that Dragonlance might return sooner rather than later.
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Unearthed Arcana is the means by which new content makes its way into official sourcebooks, after being playtested by both the community and the game designers themselves. New material in UA is slowly adapted for better balance and then later released, like the new Undead Patron Warlock coming officially in Van Richten's Guide to Everything. The last released material features some very specific allusions to the Dragonlance world, other than obviously being focused on new Draconic Options.
The newest UA adds new spells and other features, like a variant version of the kobold, small lizard-like creatures that revere dragons as their long-lost ancestors. But the new variants for the Dragonborn race are what's most telling about a possible return to Dragonlance.
The three broader categories allow for players to claim ancestry from either a chromatic, metallic, or gem dragon. While the gem dragon variant references the DnD versions of Tiamat and Bahamut specifically, chromatic and metallic dragons are an almost impossible to conflate allusion to the world of Dragonlance. Bahamut and Tiamat (the good and evil dragon gods in DnD) have their Dragonlance parallels in Paladine and Takhisis.
In the world of Dragonlance, chromatic dragons are powerful and vibrantly colored dragons that represent the evil forces of the world and the raw fury of nature. Meanwhile, the metallic dragons are generally associated as good and define the more noble aspects of civilization, like crafting and inspiration. These clues seem hard to ignore now that three more sourcebooks have apparently been confirmed for the year.
Wizards of the Coast has shown a tendency to release new adventures with near-opposite themes immediately after each other. It would seem apropos for it to release a more light-hearted, traditional fantasy setting after the more horror-themed Van Richten's Guide, which features gothic elements like the College of Spirits Bard. While it's largely conjecture, there are some clues pointing toward a new Dragonlance sourcebook that are hard to ignore.
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft is the next confirmed sourcebook for Dungeons and Dragons, releasing on May 18, 2021.
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