WotC Dragonlance: Everything You Need For Shadow of the Dragon Queen

WotC has shared a video explaining the Dragonlance setting, and what to expect when it is released in December.

World at War: Introduces war as a genre of play to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Dragonlance: Introduces the Dragonlance setting with a focus on the War of the Lance and an overview of what players and DMs need to run adventures during this world spanning conflict.

Heroes of War: Provides character creation rules highlighting core elements of the Dragonlance setting, including the kender race and new backgrounds for the Knight of Solamnia and Mage of High Sorcery magic-users. Also introduces the Lunar Sorcery sorcerer subclass with new spells that bind your character to Krynn's three mystical moons and imbues you with lunar magic.

Villains: Pits heroes against the infamous death knight Lord Soth and his army of draconians.

Notes --

• 224 page hardcover adventure
• D&D's setting for war
• Set in eastern Solamnia
• War is represented by context -- it's not goblins attacking the village, but evil forces; refugees, rumours
• You can play anything from D&D - clerics included, although many classic D&D elements have been forgotten
• Introductory scenarios bring you up to speed on the world so no prior research needed

 

[Parmandur]

Yes, okay, I buy that - but I think it'll be a one-way deal. The board game will contain suggestions on inserting itself into the adventure. The adventure itself as written will ignore the existence of the board game, though.

Highly doubtful thst it will ignore it, but theybhave said there will be quick and dirty alternate resolution mechanics similar to prior 5E Advebgures like Tyranny of Dragons or Ghoats of Saltmarsh. But still they have been quite clear that the Adventure will provide hooks to integrate the boardgames into the campaign directly as a resolution mechanic for major war events.

 

[Parmandur]

This posts on the WotC seems to suggest it: Dragonlance

"Optionally, use the Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn board game to bring this adventure’s massive battles to your Dungeons & Dragons game."

and this from the Warriors of Krynn boardgame info...

"Demonstrates options for integrating play with six Shadow of the Dragon Queen encounters by providing scenarios with win/loss outcomes that impact the roleplaying game experience, resulting in different encounter and quest choices for players"

View attachment 264207

I mean, not only is that clear about the board game working with the Adventure, that also makes it clear that the Adventure will have 6 large scale war scenarios to work through at any rate.

 

[Velderan]

Given what you've said and what they've revealed it makes it interesting then as to what the conclusion of the adventure/module may be...

Yep, it'll be interesting. In theory, Kalaman falls and the Knights of Solamnia forces get pushed all the way back to the High Clerist Tower but I doubt they go that route because then it introduces the problem of the companions who fought there. There seems to be a new dragonarmy officer introduced, or at least WizKids is selling a mini of a character named Kensaldi mounted on a red dragon so that gives them something new to work with so they can sidestep the existing lore. I'm insanely curious how far they'll go to work around the existing lore.

 

[Burnside]

Guessing her name may be referenced, but one of the promo articles said red dragonarmy so maybe not. My guess is they'll sidestep the whole thing because they were pretty clear in the D&D live event a couple months ago that they weren't bound to what happened in the books and how the characters people knew were doing their thing in a different part of the world. The adventure is supposed to be set in Kalaman during the initial invasion, so this would take place before the companions even met in the inn. There were already rumors of war in the north and such, so it works. It does get dicey explaining clerics when they hadn't really returned at that point, but guessing again they'll sidestep the whole thing with a simple "clerics recently returned, though they're rare still" and leave it at that.

I'm only familiar with Chronicles and Legends, but logically I guess aside from Soth (who we know is in it), Kitiara, Ariakas, and Verminaard could logically appear. So could Fizban (he's a god, so could be anywhere) and potentially other named dragon characters (Silvara, etc.).

Regarding PC clerics, I assume that one of the early quests will be something similar to Goldmoon finding the disks, but the Kalaman-area version and an artifact relevant/introducing the whole pantheon. Something like that could have happened pre-Dragons of Autumn Twilight with the Last Home gang just never hearing about it.

 

[dave2008]

double post

 

[dave2008]

Yes, okay, I buy that - but I think it'll be a one-way deal. The board game will contain suggestions on inserting itself into the adventure. The adventure itself as written will ignore the existence of the board game, though.

I think ignore is to strong of word. I am sure you can run the adventure without the board game, but I think there is a greater than 90% probability that the adventure will give you the option to use the board game to resolve the 6 encounters mentioned.

 

[grimslade]

Yes, okay, I buy that - but I think it'll be a one-way deal. The board game will contain suggestions on inserting itself into the adventure. The adventure itself as written will ignore the existence of the board game, though.

Well, of course, the adventure has to be able to run without the board game and vice versa. You can just use narrative defaults instead of the outcome of the board game. Some people use Theater of the Mind for combat, some use a battlemat, and some skip combat altogether.
The trick is the 6 encounters that can change depending on IF you use Warriors of Krynn in your play through of Shadow of the Dragon Queen.
That is the whole gimmick of this tie-in product.

 

[Velderan]

I'm only familiar with Chronicles and Legends, but logically I guess aside from Soth (who we know is in it), Kitiara, Ariakas, and Verminaard could logically appear. So could Fizban (he's a god, so could be anywhere) and potentially other named dragon characters (Silvara, etc.).

Regarding PC clerics, I assume that one of the early quests will be something similar to Goldmoon finding the disks, but the Kalaman-area version and an artifact relevant/introducing the whole pantheon. Something like that could have happened pre-Dragons of Autumn Twilight with the Last Home gang just never hearing about it.

WizKids is selling a mini of a character named Kensaldi who rides a red dragon, so guessing he/she (hard to tell from the mini) is the replacement for a dragon highlord.

 

[pukunui]

I think ignore is to strong of word. I am sure you can run the adventure without the board game, but I think there is a greater than 90% probability that the adventure will give you the option to use the board game to resolve the 6 encounters mentioned.

Yes, I expect at given points in the adventure there will be some text that says something along the lines of "If you have the Warriors of Krynn board game, run scenario X here. If you don't, do this instead."

 

[Burnside]

Highly doubtful thst it will ignore it, but theybhave said there will be quick and dirty alternate resolution mechanics similar to prior 5E Advebgures like Tyranny of Dragons or Ghoats of Saltmarsh. But still they have been quite clear that the Adventure will provide hooks to integrate the boardgames into the campaign directly as a resolution mechanic for major war events.

This just seems like the sort of big-picture stuff that frankly I think is well beyond the logistical capabilities and focus and general coordination/editorial chops of WotC's designers based on recent offerings. But I would be happy to be proven wrong here.

They couldn't even follow their own travel times in Chapter One of Rime of the Frostmaiden when designing Chapter Four of the same book.

There is a level of "right hand knowing what the left hand is doing" required to actually integrate this that I'm not saying is impossible, but it would surprise me to see them actually successfully do it.