If you want to place Fizban's in the categories of 5th Edition books, it's officially going to be the next "monster book" in the vein of Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. Each of those books was primarily focused around a theme - Volo's being about the commonly found monsters of the multiverse, and Mordenkainen's being primarily focused on the combatants of the "grand conflicts" of the multiverse.
Fizban's is going to be a monster book in that style - a lot of lore, and then some player options, and then a big bestiary of stat blocks.
Let's talk about each of those categories.
On the lore front, Fizban's intends to expand upon what makes Dragons such a fundamental part of D&D. The first part of that answer has to do with dragons' connection to the material plane. Dragons are inextricably linked to the material plane, and have been there since its creation. It seems one might almost think of them as being the core denizens of this plane - if fiends are tied to the lower planes, celestials to the upper planes, fey to the Feywild, then Dragons are the beings so totally linked to the material world. (Perhaps this explains their treasure-hoarding tendencies?)
The book also links dragons in a really interesting way: there are many worlds of the material plane, such as Toril, Krynn, Oerth, Exandria, etc. Fizban himself is an avatar of Paladine, a good-aligned draconic deity from Krynn (the Dragonlance world.) But Paladine is actually just another name for Bahamut - Bahamut and Paladine are one and the same, but also weirdly sort of different.
Fizban's will explain that dragons in general exist across these different worlds as echoes of the same transcendent being (not sure if this means that each dragon has counterparts in other worlds or just that all dragons are an aspect of the greater draconic deities, though I lean toward the former.) Dragons can cultivate something called "Dragonsight" to share awareness and knowledge with other echoes of themselves on other worlds.
I actually really like this - Dragons are such cool monsters, but it does seem that between the scheming of the gods, of devils and angels and demons and all the other crazy monsters, dragons sometimes feel left out as the kind of "oh yeah, they also exist" monsters. But by making them the fundamental creatures of the material plane, I think it gives them a cool niche that you can build some really epic myth around.
Moving on to player options:
Unlike previous monster books, Fizban's will include two subclasses. The Way of the Ascendant Dragon for monks will let you take on various dragon aspects in combat. The Drakewarden for Rangers will allow you to summon a draconic combat pet that fights alongside you (one that grows to large size by late levels.) Along with subclasses, there will be some feats and spells along that theme.
Additionally, like the other supplementary monster books, Fizban's will bring new racial options. These appear to be a variant version of the Dragonborn, as seen in a recent UA (which I've heard is mostly unchanged from the Unearthed Arcana version.) With new variations on Metallic and Chromatic dragonborn, along with new Gem dragonborn, which actually get somewhat different features beyond breath weapon and damage resistance type (though that's still part of it,) this looks like a great update to a slightly underpowered PHB player race. (Planning to convert my Fighter when this comes out if my DM lets me.)
In addition to some maps and details about how different kinds of dragons built their lairs, the book includes a bestiary with many new dragon-themed (though not all dragon) monsters. Among those announced are the evil draconians from Dragonlance (who are kind of evil dragonborn, but they can convert others into themselves) as well as "Great Wyrms," which are all CR 20+ mythic dragons that are meant to be more powerful than even Ancient dragons.
The broad theme will be of dragons along with monsters that might serve as the minions of dragons, and that latter category opens up a lot of really interesting possibilities. The book comes out October 19th.
No comments:
Post a Comment