Did Joe Manganiello Tease Dungeons & Dragons’ Plans to Bring Back Dragonlance?

Joe Manganiello recently teased that he has some unreleased Dungeons & Dragons material that ties into one of the game’s most iconic campaign settings. Earlier this week, Wired posted a 20-minute video of Manganiello answering Twitter questions about Dungeons & Dragons. When asked about ideas for homebrew races, Manganiello offhandedly mentioned some of the ideas he’s used in his campaign. While discussion some abominations that he’s used in his game that sits between “dragon and draconian,” Manganiello casually mentioned that he has Fifth Edition Draconian stats, before looking at the camera and saying “Don’t tell anyone.”

Draconians, also known as dragonmen, are one of the iconic creatures that appear in Dungeons & Dragons‘ Dragonlance setting. These creatures resemble the dragonborn used as a core race in Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, but have wildly different origins. Draconians are actually human-sized corruptions of dragon eggs, created by exposing the eggs of metallic dragons to evil magic. Draconians were a common sight in the Dragonarmies of the High Queen Takhisis, and have special magic that activates when killed.

Currently, draconians don’t have an official statblock for Fifth Edition rules, which is why Manganiello’s mention in the video is such a big deal. If Manganiello has a set of “official” stats for Draconians from Wizards of the Coast, it certainly seems to indicate that the D&D design team is working on a Dragonlance campaign setting for Fifth Edition. Manganiello is a well-known Dragonlance fan, and has even collaborated with Dungeons & Dragons to release a series of Dragonlance-inspired clothes for his Death Saves streetwear, so Manganiello would certainly be in the know when it comes to plans for the setting. Given that Manganiello has even worked on official Dungeons & Dragons books before, we wouldn’t be surprised if Manganiello has some creative role in an upcoming Dragonlance project.

It shouldn’t be a total surprise that Wizards of the Coast has at least considered bringing back Dragonlance as a campaign setting for Fifth Edition, especially as D&D confirmed it was planning on bringing back up to three past campaign settings for use in the current edition of the game. Earlier this year, news broke of a lawsuit brought by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, which revealed that the duo were set to release a trilogy of new Dragonlance novels before Wizards of the Coast terminated their licensing deal with the pair’s publisher. Although the status of that lawsuit certainly casts some doubt that Dungeons & Dragons is still planning on bringing back Dragonlance, it certainly seems that plans were in the work at some point.