Authors Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis are suing Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast for breach of contract. According to court documents, the pair were working on a new trilogy of novels set in the Dragonlance universe, and at least one manuscript had received approval when the publisher pulled the plug on the project.

Hickman and Weis are seeking damages in excess of $10 million.

The Dragonlance Chronicles began at D&D’s original publisher TSR in the 1980s. The novelization kicked off in 1984 with the publication of Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and the original trilogy was rounded out with Dragons of Winter Night and Dragons of Spring Dawning. The action takes place in the high-fantasy world of Krynn, and stars characters such as Tanis Half-Elven, Raistlin, Flint Fireforge, and Goldmoon. The franchise also included numerous tabletop role-playing adventures that were designed and published contemporaneously.

According to documents filed in a United States District Court on Oct. 16, Hickman and Weis allege that in 2017 they were approached by Wizards to write a new series of novels. A licensing agreement was negotiated by both parties. There was also an additional publishing agreement with Del Rey Books, an imprint of Random House Publishing Group. One complete manuscript, titled Dragons of Deceit, was completed and approved while the draft for a second book — provisionally titled Dragons of Fate — was also completed.

The complaint alleges that the project was going well until early 2020, when Wizards was embroiled in a series of serious public relations issues with its two marquee franchises — Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering — as well as a high-profile claim of workplace hostility. From the lawsuit:

As Plaintiff-Creators subsequently learned, Defendant’s arbitrary decision to terminate the License Agreement — and thereby the book publishing contract — was based on events that had nothing to do with either the Work or Plaintiff-Creators. In fact, at nearly the exact point in time of the termination, Defendant was embroiled in a series of embarrassing public disputes whereby its non-Dragonlance publications were excoriated for racism and sexism. Moreover, the company itself was vilified by well-publicized allegations of misogyny and racist hiring and employment practices by and with respect to artists and employees unrelated to Dragonlance. Plaintiff-Creators are informed and believe, and based thereon allege, that a decision was made jointly by Defendant and its parent company, Hasbro, Inc., to deflect any possible criticism or further public outcry regarding Defendant’s other properties by effectively killing the Dragonlance deal with Plaintiff-Creators. The upshot of that was to inflict knowing, malicious and oppressive harm to Plaintiff-Creators and to interfere with their third party contractual obligations, all to Plaintiff-Creator’s severe detriment and distress.

After multiple alterations and rewrites of the first book in the series were ordered and completed, on Aug. 13 Wizards informed the authors that it would not be approving any more drafts. That decision, Hickman and Weis say, effectively terminated the project.

“When challenged about the grounds for such termination,” the lawsuit states that Wizards’ legal representative, “responded with the nonsensical statement, ‘We are not moving toward breach, but we will not approve any further drafts.’”

Wizards’ refusal to continue approving content related to the Dragonlance license has effectively prevented Hickman and Weis from publishing their work, short circuited any effort to “mitigate or modify their storylines,” and prevented them from collecting on their “guaranteed advance [...] royalties, [and] incentive payments” with Random House.

As a result, Hickman and Weis claim, years of hard work — including story concepts and outlines previously approved — are now locked away from public view. Reached for comment, Wizards of the Coast said through a representative that it does not comment on pending litigation.

Update (Oct. 20): Polygon reached out to legal representatives of Hickman and Weis, who declined to comment further. “The matter is currently being handled through the judicial process,” wrote Josiah Prendergast of the law firm Weintraub Tobin

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I want to know about the earlier allegations, and why they lead Wizards to drop Dragonlance.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Kind of weird for an organization with both D&D and MTG in its house to be so out of touch with nerd counterculture.

SamusDrake wrote:
Ah, Courtrooms and redtape, we do the dance once again.

Meanwhile, on the customer front, it seems strange that there aren't any Dragonlance stuff on the shelves. Was never into D&D but I do remember Dragonlance being the "face" of D&D back in the day.

The ruins of Xak Tsaroth would be perfect for one of those solo-coop boardgames, like Castle Ravenloft.

 chromedog wrote:
You do realise it's Hasbro at the top, right?

Hasbro owns D&D, and MTG. Their interest is in making craploads of moola from nerds, by owning all the stuff that nerds obsess over.

 Lance845 wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Ah, Courtrooms and redtape, we do the dance once again.

Meanwhile, on the customer front, it seems strange that there aren't any Dragonlance stuff on the shelves. Was never into D&D but I do remember Dragonlance being the "face" of D&D back in the day.

The ruins of Xak Tsaroth would be perfect for one of those solo-coop boardgames, like Castle Ravenloft.

DnD has changed ownership hands quite a few times. Some of those owners respected the source material and the customers and some of them didn't. Dragonlance along with a bunch of other settings were created mostly during the ADnD era when the people who didn't were running the show and paper back novels were viewed as a very lucrative side hussel by the owners.

When Wizards got the ownership and moved to 3rd the books slowed down and many of the settings from ADnD all but, if not flat out, disappeared. Dragonlance and Starjammer are two of those.

 Lance845 wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
Ah, Courtrooms and redtape, we do the dance once again.

Meanwhile, on the customer front, it seems strange that there aren't any Dragonlance stuff on the shelves. Was never into D&D but I do remember Dragonlance being the "face" of D&D back in the day.

The ruins of Xak Tsaroth would be perfect for one of those solo-coop boardgames, like Castle Ravenloft.

DnD has changed ownership hands quite a few times. Some of those owners respected the source material and the customers and some of them didn't. Dragonlance along with a bunch of other settings were created mostly during the ADnD era when the people who didn't were running the show and paper back novels were viewed as a very lucrative side hussel by the owners.

When Wizards got the ownership and moved to 3rd the books slowed down and many of the settings from ADnD all but, if not flat out, disappeared. Dragonlance and Starjammer are two of those.

Bran Dawri wrote:


Spelljammer, not starjammer IIRC. Though IMO the biggest lost setting is Planescape.

 Super Ready wrote:
It was - and a critical if not commercial darling at that, Planescape Torment. You can still get it on GOG and Steam, I believe.

 Super Ready wrote:
It was - and a critical if not commercial darling at that, Planescape Torment. You can still get it on GOG and Steam, I believe.

 Lance845 wrote:
Spelljammer right. Spelljammer and planescape are basically the same setting with dfiferrent modes of getting around the planes.

There is no reason not to make the two one and the same (Spellscape? Planejammer?) and lets all hope it's one of the 3 settings being released next year.

SamusDrake wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:


Spelljammer, not starjammer IIRC. Though IMO the biggest lost setting is Planescape.

Wasn't that the setting for a PC game at some point? It rings a bell.

 Turnip Jedi wrote:
As I recall there were two games, one was a big box many discs rpg like Pools of Radiance etc

The other was a total stinker of a side scroller where losing Goldmoon and possibly Raistlin early meant it was unwinnable

 Azreal13 wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:


Spelljammer, not starjammer IIRC. Though IMO the biggest lost setting is Planescape.

Wasn't that the setting for a PC game at some point? It rings a bell.

There was even a Dragonlance RPG at one point, back in the 8 bit era. I bought a used copy on cassette and had no idea what was going on. It did, however, come boxed with some book called Dragons Of Autumn Twilight and that was a pivotal moment in my childhood.

I'm not a huge fan of RPGs so I'm not sure they ever did one once the tech advanced, but that trash, monochrome, silent, confusing mess had a huge impact on me, albeit indirectly.

 trexmeyer wrote:
What sets Planescape apart from the extraplanar elements present in Forgotten Realms?

SamusDrake wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:


Spelljammer, not starjammer IIRC. Though IMO the biggest lost setting is Planescape.

Wasn't that the setting for a PC game at some point? It rings a bell.

There was even a Dragonlance RPG at one point, back in the 8 bit era. I bought a used copy on cassette and had no idea what was going on. It did, however, come boxed with some book called Dragons Of Autumn Twilight and that was a pivotal moment in my childhood.

I'm not a huge fan of RPGs so I'm not sure they ever did one once the tech advanced, but that trash, monochrome, silent, confusing mess had a huge impact on me, albeit indirectly.

OMG that must have been Heroes of the Lance!

When my parents picked up a second hand ZX Spectrum that game was in there with an amazing box but sadly the tape would crash. Ah, the days of willing a game to load only to learn years later that worshipping to Sir Clive Sinclair did diddly squat...

There was another one called Dragons Of Flame, but never got round to that one.

 Azreal13 wrote:


I was lucky, I started with a +2, so the built in tape deck meant I didn't have to fiddle with volume levels or dodgy connections. I wasn't completely spared though, prior to that our neighbours had an old 48k and trying to get Rambo: First Blood or Track and Field to load was as much an act of faith and luck as anything!

 Flipsiders wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
What sets Planescape apart from the extraplanar elements present in Forgotten Realms?

I haven't ever been too invested in the FR lore as opposed to general/Greyhawk stuff, but I believe the Planescape setting uses the latter cosmology rather than the former. The FR setting and Planescape mostly have the same planes (Heaven, Elysium, Hell, the Abyss, etc. etc.), but Planescape/Greyhawk has a bunch of extra minor ones such as Pandemonium and the Beastlands, and they're all arranged in a massive alignment-based wheel with the Planescape "home base" in the middle. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that the Realms use an orrery for their planar model? I'm unsure.

However, there was also some old canon that Faerun and the Greyhawk and Dragonlance planets are all in the same galaxy, which throws a massive wrench in the whole thing. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the guys writing the older editions cared more about "rule of cool" than setting consistency.

Bran Dawri wrote:

 Flipsiders wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
What sets Planescape apart from the extraplanar elements present in Forgotten Realms?

I haven't ever been too invested in the FR lore as opposed to general/Greyhawk stuff, but I believe the Planescape setting uses the latter cosmology rather than the former. The FR setting and Planescape mostly have the same planes (Heaven, Elysium, Hell, the Abyss, etc. etc.), but Planescape/Greyhawk has a bunch of extra minor ones such as Pandemonium and the Beastlands, and they're all arranged in a massive alignment-based wheel with the Planescape "home base" in the middle. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that the Realms use an orrery for their planar model? I'm unsure.

However, there was also some old canon that Faerun and the Greyhawk and Dragonlance planets are all in the same galaxy, which throws a massive wrench in the whole thing. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the guys writing the older editions cared more about "rule of cool" than setting consistency.

As I recall according to Planescape all the other settings were different subplanes in (mostly) the Prime Material with some exceptions like Ravenloft. Some of those just got their cosmology wrong, one of the reasons Primes were considered backwards yokels by most Planars.

 Flipsiders wrote:

Bran Dawri wrote:

 Flipsiders wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
What sets Planescape apart from the extraplanar elements present in Forgotten Realms?

I haven't ever been too invested in the FR lore as opposed to general/Greyhawk stuff, but I believe the Planescape setting uses the latter cosmology rather than the former. The FR setting and Planescape mostly have the same planes (Heaven, Elysium, Hell, the Abyss, etc. etc.), but Planescape/Greyhawk has a bunch of extra minor ones such as Pandemonium and the Beastlands, and they're all arranged in a massive alignment-based wheel with the Planescape "home base" in the middle. Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that the Realms use an orrery for their planar model? I'm unsure.

However, there was also some old canon that Faerun and the Greyhawk and Dragonlance planets are all in the same galaxy, which throws a massive wrench in the whole thing. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the guys writing the older editions cared more about "rule of cool" than setting consistency.

As I recall according to Planescape all the other settings were different subplanes in (mostly) the Prime Material with some exceptions like Ravenloft. Some of those just got their cosmology wrong, one of the reasons Primes were considered backwards yokels by most Planars.

Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar. I do seem to remember something about Faerun being in some sort of "planar bubble" which was supposed to explain why no one ever drove over there with Spelljammers, although I may be recalling it incorrectly. However, even that explanation still leaves a lot of questions, such as why everyone who dies in the FR setting has a meet-and-greet with the soul DMV and Wall of Atheists after they die, whereas if you bite the dust on Greyhawk or Athas you just wake up wherever you're supposed to be without the paperwork session.