The Dragonlance mystic was first introduced in the Fifth Age line of products, which used the SAGA system. The timeline had jumped forward 30 years past the end of Dragons of Summer Flame, when the magic of the world left with the gods.
Or so we thought. As it turned out, Takhisis stole the world of Krynn, leaving mortals to search for new magic. They found it in the form of sorcery and mysticism, the ambient arcane and divine magics of Krynn. Ambient magic effectively functioned as a replacement for the old magic.
Mysticism served as the replacement for the divine magic of clerics, druids, and paladins, and even touched upon concepts that could be classified as “psionics” in Dungeons & Dragons. Mysticism was divided between mystic spheres (alteration, animisim, channeling, healing, meditation, mentalism, necromancy, sensitivity, and spiritualism). Spheres functioned in a similar way to the cleric spheres of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition.
When the War of Souls trilogy was released, the old magic returned, coexisting side-by-side with the new. At the same time, Sovereign Press (which later evolved into Margaret Weis Productions), gained the Dragonlance gaming license for D&D 3.5.
In the 3.5 version of the game, the mystic functioned as a divine sorcerer. The mystic gained a single domain. Unlike the cleric, the mystic could choose from any domain, including some reserved for mystics only.
Two prestige classes would follow – the Citadel Mystic and the Legion Mystic. Both offered access to an additional domain and gave some flavor for the Citadel of Light and the Legion of Steel. The Citadel Mystic captured some of the flavor of the Fifth Age mystic, while the Legion Mystic gained his power from his belief in the Legacy.
Can a mystic be played in 5th edition? Yes, though it’s going to take some reskinning. But that’s a topic for another day.
