D&D 5E Official: Dragonborn = Draconian

[Dausuul]

Just noticed this little tidbit in the Dragonborn section:

In the Dragonlance setting, the followers of the evil goddess Takhisis learned a dark ritual that let them corrupt the eggs of metallic dragons, producing evil dragonborn called draconians.

So, apparently WotC has decided not to bother trying to draw finicky distinctions between dragonborn and draconians, and just merged them. (The rest of the paragraph notes that draconians have "unique magical abilities" in place of breath weapons.) I wonder if half-dragons will end up getting folded in as well?

 

[Mouseferatu]

There's a half-dragon entry in the MM table of contents, so I'd guess no, they're not folding it in.

 

[Hrothgar Rannúlfr]

I don't think they're saying that Dragonborn = Draconian.

I think they're saying that Corrupted Metallic Dragonborn = Draconian.

To me, that's a difference.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Just noticed this little tidbit in the Dragonborn section:


So, apparently WotC has decided not to bother trying to draw finicky distinctions between dragonborn and draconians, and just merged them. (The rest of the paragraph notes that draconians have "unique magical abilities" in place of breath weapons.) I wonder if half-dragons will end up getting folded in as well?

I like Dragonborn a lot more as Draconians. Cool beans.

 

[MortalPlague]

How many hybrid dragon-person races do we really need? I would definitely support draconians being a 'variant dragonborn', in the same way that drow are a 'variant elf'.

 

[Mouseferatu]

How many hybrid dragon-person races do we really need? I would definitely support draconians being a 'variant dragonborn', in the same way that drow are a 'variant elf'.

Ooh...

I know it's not what you meant, but now I'm seeing a setting wherein drow are a mystical corruption of elves, as draconians are of dragon eggs on Krynn. I think I like that better than anything else I've seen done with them lately. (I'm kind of burnt out on the Menzoberranzan many-houses/political-infighting model.)

 

[Iosue]

I believe a more accurate proposition would be Draconian := Dragonborn, but Dragonborn ≠ Draconian.

 

[Blackbrrd]

To me, this says that there aren't any normal Dragonborn in the Dragonlance campaign setting, only Dragonborn of the subtype Draconian. Which have different abilities than breath weapon.

 

[SigmaOne]

I believe a more accurate proposition would be Draconian := Dragonborn, but Dragonborn ≠ Draconian.

In mathematics := means "equals by definition", which seems to be exactly what you don't mean. (It implies equality.) So can you explain your notation, and the context from which you're borrowing it?

 

[SigmaOne]

To me, this says that there aren't any normal Dragonborn in the Dragonlance campaign setting, only Dragonborn of the subtype Draconian. Which have different abilities than breath weapon.

I totally agree. I'm fine with having them unify the concepts under a single race. It makes too much sense to not do it. But if ever there was a justification for subraces, this would be it. I think the best implementation would be a draconian subrace of dragonborn specifically for Krynn, and that's the only subrace on Krynn. In retrospect, to prepare for that, I wish they'd made a subrace in the PHB.