History Literature / Dragonlance

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* WorldSundering: ** The ''TabletopGame/{{Spelljammer}}'' Wiki reveals that Zivilyn, an outer planet in Krynn's crystal sphere where the titular deity resides, was home to people who tried to challenge the gods much like the Kingpriest did. They failed and now Zivilyn, once a normal terrestrial ball planet, is a series of floating islands floating in clouds.

* CloningSplitsAttributes: [[PunnyName Draconian Measures]] of the Kang's Regiment subseries introduces the [[HeartOfTheMatter Heart of Dracart]] which is capable of turning one Draconian into about thirty. The problem is that this is achieved by splitting the Draconian's soul, which causes the individual clones to have a marked loss of such things as willpower, aggressiveness, intellect, magical power, and skill. They also lose their after death attack, as there's not enough magic present to activate the spell. Kang himself observes the resultant clones also look like low res versions of the original, a fact that prevents him from realizing one of his own Draconians was subjected to the process as well. Additionally the cloned Draconians have a marked decrease in vitality, only able to survive for about a thousand days before simply turning to dust. Sadly, this was being used by a mad (and narcissistic) Draconian general in an attempt to stave off his OneGenderRace's eventual extinction, a plan he wanted to move forward with despite Kang finding the other gender.

Notable for taking extreme D&D influences and making them ''work'' on their own. For example, the original "Heroes of the Lance" consisted of such a generic TabletopRPG party that they could easily be renamed according to their character classes -- if it weren't for the fact that each character is given a strong and distinct personality, detailed backstory, and oodles of CharacterDevelopment (for most of them) throughout the series. Also notable for mixing stock MedievalEuropeanFantasy with a Native American flavor (the Plainsmen, and a lot of the artwork), a bevy of unique and sometimes quirky races (Kender, Gully Dwarves, Draconians, and plenty of others), a unique magic system and a greater focus on Dragons as the primal movers and shakers of world events.

The ''Dragonlance'' world has turned into a major setting with many authors writing stories for it- in total, at time of writing there are more than ''200 novels'' comprising it, ''not'' including anthologies, manuals and various other extras.

!!Works that are set in ''Dragonlance'' include:

!!This series provides examples of:

* AirJousting: Sort of the whole idea behind the ''Dragonlance'' to begin with, with the titular dragonlances being used by {{Dragon Rider}}s in the air. In-game, dragonlances allowed the user to add their entire hitpoint total to the damage inflicted if they hit a dragon. Used mounted, you added your own hitpoints and the mounts. If you're a reasonable level, on the back of any reasonably powerful good dragon, you could one-shot any evil dragon with a single blow. (First Edition AD&D dragons were woefully underpowered and had lousy hitpoints, even the biggest baddest evil dragon topped out at 88HP, which a 6th level fighter could reach with good rolls and a high con bonus).

* ''Literature/TheDefendersOfMagicTrilogy''

On April 2022, during the D&D Direct event, Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast announced that the Dragonlance setting will be adapted for ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsFifthEdition'', complete with an adventure module titled ''Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen'' along with a board game titled ''Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn''. Both of these titles are expected to be released in late 2022.

On April 2022, during the D&D Direct event, Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast announced that the Dragonlance setting will be adapted for TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsFifthEdition, with an adventure module titled ''Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen'' as well as a board game titled ''Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn''. Both of these titles are expected to be released in late 2022.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: With over 200 novels, there are a ''lot'' of characters.

* BondVillainStupidity: Verminaard, the BigBad in ''Dragons of Autumn Twilight'', manipulated Flamestrike, a Giant Red Dragon mother grieving for the loss of her children in The War of The Lance, into guarding his prisoners' children because in her senility and grief she came to regard and love the human children as if they were her own, and would willingly watch over them at all times. When he had the Heroes of The Lance, the escaping prisoners and their children cornered and dead to rights, Verminaard somehow believed it was a [[SarcasmMode bright idea]] to shout on the top of his lungs "I will destroy the children!" within ''earshot'' of said Red Dragon who has come to love said children. Cue Flamestrike bursting out of her lair in motherly-rage to protect her beloved "children", turning the tide of the battle in the Heroes of the Lance's favor.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: ''Lord Toede'' was a ''Series/{{Blackadder}}''-like comedy about the eponymous minor villain who had been previously killed and had later returned. This was so bad, it was actually commented on by the author of ''Lord Toede'' in the 15th-anniversary edition of the ''Chronicles''.

* UnwittingPawn: Crysania fits this perfectly. Tasslehoff also sort of fits this trope at times. When he isn't being a SpannerInTheWorks, that is. [[spoiler:The Kingpriest himself to Fistandantilus. [[FanNickname Fisty]] didn't get ''exactly'' what he wanted out of that scheme, but the Kingpriest was his pawn all along nonetheless. The Gods of Magic become Takhisis's [[UnwittingPawn Unwitting Pawns]] in ''Dragons of the Hourglass Mage.'']]

** Any of Creator/RichardKnaak's books. Special mention goes to the ''Minotaur Wars'' trilogy. Even being immortal doesn't save you!

** Very prominent in many of Richard A. Knaak's books involving the Minotaur empires.

* HypnotizeThePrincess: A rare case of a good guy doing it. Well perhaps not 'good' exactly (Jaymes Markham is canonically LawfulNeutral) but still the character we are suppossed to be rooting for.

* OurMinotaursAreDifferent: Minotaurs are a major race with their own civilization, and are among the setting's greatest seafarers. They are fairly civilized, if not always ''nice'', ProudWarriorRace.
* OurOgresAreDifferent: Krynnish ogres are very different from - and more prominent in-universe than - the D&D standard. They're actually the degenerate descendants of the local {{precursors}}, who were blessed with incredible beauty, strength, magic and long lives by the gods of evil and used them to enslave ancient Krynn. They ended up being consumed by decadence and were overthrown by their slaves and splintered into various sub-races, including the Irda ([[DefectorFromDecadence defectors from decadence]] who [[HiddenElfVillage hide in remote regions]]), the minotaurs (saved from destruction by [[WarGod Sargas]] and remade in his image and who consider themselves the true inheritors of the ancient ogre empire) and the more "classic" ogres (whose downfall twisted them to become monstrous barbarians but who still dream of reclaiming their ancestors' power).

** Minotaur are Always Lawful, and although most of them are evil and worship Sargonnas, some turned to Good and the worship of Kiri-Jolith.

* OurMinotaursAreDifferent: Minotaurs are a major race with their own civilization, and are among the setting's greatest seafarers. They are fairly civilized, if not always ''nice'', ProudWarriorRace.

* ALoadOfBull: Minotaurs are a major race with their own civilization, and are among the setting's greatest seafarers. They are fairly civilized, if not always ''nice'', ProudWarriorRaceGuy.

* MagicAIsMagicA: Played straight sometimes, but averted at other times. ''Dragonlance'' is based off of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', so VancianMagic is in effect for Wizards and Clerics, but not every author adheres to this, as many of them just have magic do whatever they need it to do in the story. Primal Sorcerers and Mystics magic is more freeform (or at least it is supposed to be) so they do not have any rules to follow, aside from that initially Primal Sorcerers could only manipulate non-living matter and Mystics could only manipulate living or once-living matter under the SAGA ruleset, but that bit of flavor seems to have been dropped.

* OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame: Varies depending on the writer. ''Dragonlance'' is one of the few settings that brings in the ''varied'' dwarf races that are present in D&D. At the very least, Flint (main character in early books) is a ''hill'' dwarf, not a mountain dwarf - and then there's the gully dwarves (technically hybrids). In a few books you get the equivalents of the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' "derro" and "duergar": the Thiewar and Dewar, one of whom is a pale race that can't handle bright lights but spawns the only dwarven mages, and one of which is apparently AlwaysChaoticEvil with a tendency to madness. Morlocks also exist, but appear to be isolated to a very small geographical area beneath Karthay, as seen in ''Dalamar the Dark.''

* OurOgresAreHungrier: Krynnish ogres are very different from - and more prominent in-universe than - the D&D standard. They're actually the degenerate descendants of the local {{precursors}}, who were blessed with incredible beauty, strength, magic and long lives by the gods of evil and used them to enslave ancient Krynn. They ended up being consumed by decadence and were overthrown by their slaves and splintered into various sub-races, including the Irda ([[DefectorFromDecadence defectors from decadence]] who [[HiddenElfVillage hide in remote regions]]), the minotaurs (saved from destruction by [[WarGod Sargas]] and remade in his image and who consider themselves the true inheritors of the ancient ogre empire) and the more "classic" ogres (whose downfall twisted them to become monstrous barbarians but who still dream of reclaiming their ancestors' power).

* BadassMustache: The Solamnics Knights sure do think mustaches look cool.

* BondVillainStupidity: Verminaard, the BigBad in ''Dragons of Autumn Twilight'', manipulated Flamestrike, a Giant Red Dragon mother grieving for the loss of her children in The War of The Lance, into guarding his prisoners' children because in her senility and grief she came to regard and love the human children as if they were her own. When he had the Heroes of The Lance, the escaping prisoners and their children cornered and dead to rights, Verminaard somehow believed it was a [[SarcasmMode bright idea]] to shout on the top of his lungs "I will destroy the children!" within ''earshot'' of said Red Dragon who has come to love said children. Cue Flamestrike bursting out of her lair in motherly-rage to protect her beloved "children", turning the tide of the battle in the Heroes of the Lance's favor.

''Dragonlance'' is a series of HighFantasy novels and an accompanying ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' setting, devised by [[CreatorCouple husband-and-wife]] team Creator/TracyHickman and Creator/LauraHickman, and popularized via novels by Creator/MargaretWeis and Creator/TracyHickman.