The Obvious Choice For A Dungeons & Dragons Live-Action TV Show Would Be Adapting This Huge 40-Year-Old Series
With the future of Dungeons & Dragons media up in the air after Paramount abandoned plans for a live-action D&D show, we’re all left wondering who will step up to the plate. Live-action D&D adaptations have a polarizing past. On the one hand, 2023’s box office flop Honor Among Thieves has proven to be a streaming success, and on the other hand, there’s the much-maligned 2000s live-action D&D movie many would rather forget.
D&D has come out with a whole multiverse of stories and worlds that would make for great television, but the building blocks of a phenomenal series can all be found in a classic campaign setting — Dragonlance. First released in 1984 with the adventure module Dragons of Despair and the corresponding novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the setting stood out among other published material for first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and remains popular to this day. Beyond remaining a favorite of franchise fans, Dragonlance has many qualities that would make it the ideal launchpad for a live-action series.
Dragonlance Would Make A Perfect Starting Point For A Live-Action D&D Show
Dragonlance originally consisted of a series of 14 adventure modules and two novel trilogies, released between 1984 and 1986. The adventures and first novel trilogy, the Dragonlance Chronicles, detail the events known as the War of the Lance, where Krynn descended into an all-out war between good and evil as its gods returned following three centuries of ignoring mortals. The second trilogy, Dragonlance Legends, follows the same cast of characters several years later, but also centuries before, thanks to time-travel shenanigans and an evil wizard’s predestination paradox.
Dragonlance
uses many of the default aspects of
D&D
, like elves and dwarves, but with a few notable exceptions.
In the place of halflings are the diminutive kender
, who do resemble halflings but culturally speaking are kleptomaniacs with selective amnesia. Similarly, some of
Dragonlance
‘s gods are analogues of the default
D&D
deities, such as Bahamut/Paladine or Tiamat/Takhisis, while others are wholly original.
The original book trilogy could easily make for a three-season TV show on its own, with its twists and turns as the heroes, known as the Heroes of the Lance or the Companions, become entangled in the War of the Lance from its outset, going from reluctant adventurers to leaders and legends in their own time as they fight against the minions of Takhisis. While at the outset there are few dragons in Dragonlance, by the end of the series they are everywhere, serving on both sides of the war. Indeed, Dragonlance likely has the highest ratio of dragons to non-dragon characters in any D&D setting – a potential audience draw.
The Villains Of Dragonlance Show A War Between Good And Evil Still Has Shades of Grey
Aside from the dragons themselves, however, the real selling point of Dragonlance are the villains. While Takhisis the Dragon Queen is a fairly one-dimensional evil goddess, the mortal villains are some of the most dynamic characters Dungeons & Dragons has ever produced. From the scheming and insecure Kitiara, half-sister to two of the Heroes, to the tragic death knight Lord Soth, to the evil dragons that resent being under the command of mortals, these characters are a key part of why the setting has endured so long.
The complex villains and antiheroes of Dragonlance are what make the setting such fertile ground for storytellers, and a live-action Dungeons & Dragons TV show would be a phenomenal seed to plant in that soil. With a balance of massive spectacle and subtle character development, such a show would absolutely appeal to fantasy fans of all stripes.
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