Unearthed Arcana: Heroes of Krynn

 Well, they aren't playing coy. Also, I called it!

The latest Unearthed Arcana brings a race, a Sorcerer subclass, and a few backgrounds and feats, all based in the world of Krynn, also known as Dragonlance.

Dragonlance is a world I'm not super familiar with, though I believe it was the most popular D&D setting in the 1980s, before the Forgotten Realms was adopted as the sort of default setting. Fizban is a character from that setting, and Wizards of the Coast recently reached a legal settlement with the Hickmans, who created it (they also originally created Ravenloft, but I think the rights there were more firmly in WotC's hands,) so I was pretty confident we'd see this brought in.

The Unearthed Arcana gives us the Kender, a diminutive race that seems to be Krynn's equivalent of Halflings, though perhaps with some Gnomish or Fey flavor.

Kender have the Halfling's Brave feature, but they also have a really fascinating one called Kender's Ace, which allows them, a few times per day, to pull random, supernaturally generated objects out of their pockets, which might be small light weapons, gold coins, tools, trinkets, and simple adventuring gear. They also have the ability to taunt foes and make them less effective fighters - granting them disadvantage on attack rolls for a round.

The UA also gives us Lunar Sorcery.

Lunar Sorcery is built around three phases of the moon. Like the Clockwork Soul and the Aberrant Mind, Lunar Sorcerers have additional spells, but it's three sets of them that change depending on the Sorcerer's lunar phase - which they choose like an Eladrin chooses its seasons once per long rest (at later levels you can use sorcery points to change it). Transitioning between Full Moon, Crescent Moon, and New Moon, the phases have various benefits that are themed around light, darkness, and balance.

Next, we come to backgrounds.

Mages of High Sorcery (renamed from Wizards of High Sorcery given that there didn't used to be so many spellcasters) is a world-spanning organization of spellcasters that includes basically anyone who had to learn their magic - Wizards, Bards, and Warlocks, though also including Lunar Sorcerers. One would assume this could include Artificers and Eldritch Knights and such. The Mages come in three varieties, with different colored robes based on Krynn's three moons - White Robes are good-aligned, Red are neutral, and Black are evil.

Knights of Solamnia, then, include Fighters, Paladins, and other martial classes (as well as Valor/Swords Bards). The knights are dedicated to pretty strong lawful good ideals. The knights have three orders - the Order of the Crown, the Sword, and the Rose, which emphasize different ideals.

Like we've seen in the Magic the Gathering settings, these backgrounds come with some extra, power-increasing features, which are feats. Each background gives you a feat at level 1 - the Initiate of High Sorcery gives you a cantrip and 1st level spell based on your affiliated moon (you get several choices for each). The Squire of Solamnia gives you martial weapons and medium armor, and a couple other benefits to mounted combat and a reaction to help friends on saving throws.

Each of these then lets you pick up a second feat at level 4 or higher that is based more around you specific order within the organization.

There's also another feat-path connecting you to a divine source, which starts with Divinely Favored, which grants you Thaumaturgy and a 1st level spell based on your alignment, and then at level 4 you can pick up Divine Communications, which gives you several languages (including Celestial as a mandatory choice) and the ability to cast Augury and Commune.

    One of the most striking things about this UA is how often alignment comes up as a concept. In previous editions of D&D, alignment had a more significant role in mechanics - paladins, for example, all had to be lawful good, and if they weren't, their powers wouldn't work. 5th Edition has tended to look at alignment as more of a general descriptor of the character's overall "vibe" with next to no real impact on the game itself.

Here, though, we see that certain feats and options will only work if you have a particular alignment. If you want to get Adept of the Black Robes, you cannot have a good alignment (at least you don't have to be evil).

This, to me, suggests that Dragonlance might be developing an identity as the "alignment matters" setting.

Anyway, I think this is tantamount to announcing a Dragonlance campaign setting book. They did say that this year would see two classic settings released, and judging from Travelers of the Multiverse, I think there's a very, very strong chance that we're looking at Spelljammer and Dragonlance for 2022.