In the run up to the release of D&D book, Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, Wizards of the Coast has dropped new gameplay details about the adventure. Through its online platform D&D Beyond, it’s shared lore on two factions you’ll be able to join in the book, both of which provide unique feat and background options for your character.
Two DnD backgrounds from Dragonlance were revealed, in a D&D Beyond post published Thursday, October 27. You’ll have the option of joining either the Knights of Solamnia or the Mages of High Sorcery, and (if your DM allows) can take either of these as backgrounds during character creation.
They’re pretty much exactly what you’d expect: one is a bunch of oath-swearing knights, the other is a mysterious association of magic students, who also police the use of magic in this DnD setting. We’ll let you take a wild guess which is which.
As well as providing you with a few language and DnD skills proficiencies, each of these backgrounds has a different, and unique DnD 5e feat associated with it.
If you take the Knight of Solamnia background, you’ll get the Squire of Solamnia feat (this is also available to the DnD Fighter or DnD Paladin.) This lets you mount and dismount horses for less movement cost, but more dramatically, it also lets you gain automatic advantage on a limited number of attacks per long rest – also dealing more damage on a hit.
Meanwhile, the Mage of High Sorcery background provides the Initiate of High Sorcery feat (also available to the average DnD Wizard or DnD Sorcerer.) This gives you an extra free Wizard cantrip, as well as two level-1 spells from a limited list that you can cast once a day without using a spell slot. You can also choose which DnD stat becomes your spellcasting modifier for these spells.
The D&D Beyond post provides more details, including three ‘subfactions’ for both the Knights of Solamnia and Mages of High Sorcery.
Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen is expected to release on December 6. Stay tuned for more news as we get closer to its release date.