Cultists of Takhisis all over the world, prepare your dark rituals, because Dragonlance is coming back. As announced on X, the legendary creators of the setting, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, are coming back to Wizards of the Coast alongside actor, Dungeon Master, Dungeons & Dragons fanatic, and Tiamat faithful Joe Manganiello.
Dan Ayoub, the recently-appointed head of D&D franchise at Wizards of the Coast, shared a picture with himself, Manganiello, Weis, Tracy Hickman and his wife Laura (who co-created the popular character Strahd von Zarovich and the Ravenloft setting), adding the following caption: “When I took over D&D, I had some very specific folks I wanted to bring back to The Table. Today, I had the honor of welcoming these folks back home. Amazing things ahead .”
Considering the people involved and the not-so-subtle Dragonlance T-shirt worn by Manganiello, it’s safe to assume that this project will be related to the world of Krynn co-created by Weis and Hickman for TSR (Wizards’ predecessor in holding the D&D rights) in 1984. Notably, Manganiello and the authors have been working on a Dragonlance TV series for some time, but announced last year that the project had been canceled.
This doesn’t mean, however, that the “amazing things” ahead will necessarily be limited to a show or movie. Manganiello is an avid D&D player and DM, who has also appeared in many actual play shows as the character Arkhan, a devotee of Tiamat/Takhisis (yes, he really likes Dragonlance), including Critical Role, where he pulled off the heist of the century. Weis and Hickman, besides being prolific fiction writers, also authored many gaming products.
There’s a chance, then, that D&D players may get some new Dragonlance products, which would be a boon after 2022’s disappointing Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, which only contained 20 pages of background. Ayoub has been hard at work trying to give D&D a new direction after creative director Chris Perkins and game director Jeremy Crawford left for friendly competitor Darrington Press. In a perfect future, fans will get both Dragonlance media such as a TV show and new D&D books for one of the most popular settings in the game’s history.
