Dragonlance playtest materials released for Dungeons & Dragons

Rumors that the Dragonlance setting will be returning to 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons were all but confirmed on Tuesday when publisher Wizards of the Coast released a new packet of playtest materials. Called Unearthed Arcana: Heroes of Krynn, the bundle includes one new race, one new subclass, multiple new backgrounds, and a selection of related feats.

The Heroes of Krynn bundle is free to download. It includes rules for creating a kender, Krynn’s version of the classic halfling race. It also includes rules for the Lunar Magic sorcerer subclass. Two new backgrounds, the Knight of Solamnia and the Mage of High Sorcery, also align with Dragonlance lore. Wizards indicated that, as with all playtest materials, that these rules are “in draft form, usable in your D&D campaign but not refined by final game development.”

Originally created by Laura Hickman and Tracy Hickman during a cross-country road trip, the Dragonlance setting became a key product line for D&D’s original publisher TSR throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s. But most fans know Dragonlance best from a series of novels, written by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss, which began in 1984 with Dragons of Autumn Twilight. The novelizations were in the news once again in 2020 following a $10 million lawsuit against Wizards of the Coast, but those issues were eventually smoothed over. As a result a new Dragonlance trilogy was formally announced in Jan. 2021. The release date for the first book, Dragons of Deceit, is set for Aug. 9.

This isn’t the first bit of older content rumored to be getting a reboot for 5th edtion. Late last year Wizards released another set of Unearthed Arcana that hints at the return of the beloved Spelljammer setting.