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

 

[Demetrios1453]

Sigh.

When was Forgotten Realms grey box released?

When were those modules released?

Almost immediately, in some cases of the ones listed.

List of Forgotten Realms modules and sourcebooks - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The Gray Box was published in 1987, and there are modules dating from that year. There were significant numbers of modules released in 1988 and 1989...

 

[QuentinGeorge]

eir marketing hype to go on. We have enough info to know there will probably be 6 battles based on info for the board game's scenarios, but not where. They might not stray outside of eastern Solamnia and guess what that is? A local campaign. Do you honestly think this book will feature battles in Silvanesti?

Sigh.

When was Forgotten Realms grey box released?

When were those modules released?

N5: Under Illefarn was released in September 1987. The Grey Box was in July 1987. Forgotten Realms was always intended to be released as a multimedia product, with adventures and novels - just like Dragonlance.

 

[Hussar]

And thus you get my point.

The setting material for FR came first. Unlike earlier settings which have modules that predate the setting by several years.

Which is the point I originally made. Presenting settings through modules is as old school as it gets.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

And thus you get my point.

The setting material for FR came first. Unlike earlier settings which have modules that predate the setting by several years.

Which is the point I originally made. Presenting settings through modules is as old school as it gets.

Not really. The adventures and novels were all in development before the setting was released. The Bloodstone modules were already out. As was Pharaoh. And technically the Forgotten Realms started with a short story written by a pre-adolescent Ed Greenwood.

What exactly is your "point"?

 

[Hussar]

My point is, if you played Dragonlance, as it was released, you’d likely finishe the entire campaign before the setting guide hit the stands. Heck you didn’t know what Ansalon looked like until over a third of the way through the campaign unless you read the novels.

Same with Greyhawk. You could easily have played the entire Giants series and not have seen the Darleen map because it didn’t exist yet.

Going into Forgetten Realms, you would have the setting first and then the adventures. It was a huge shift in how things are presented.

As a DL player in 1985, you would have no idea that there weren’t orcs in DL. That wasn’t “canon” because outside of the first three novels and the adventures, there was no canon.

FR presented canon first and then adversely in that canon. DL was making stuff up on the fly and then backfilling afterwards to justify things.

Insisting that we must follow canon in DL ignores the fact that that’s not how the setting was presented. It’s forcing newer play styles onto older ones which is exactly the complaint being made about WotC.

I’m still trying to untie that knot. If we’re expected to respect older play styles then why aren’t we respecting older play styles.

 

[Fifth Element]

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Archive

A complete list of all 1st and 2nd Edition Dungeons & Dragons products

tsrarchive.com

Compare the ratio of adventures to campaign setting accessory books in FR to the same ratio in DL. They're not remotely similar.

 

[Haplo781]

For me, it was Orcus. One of the first dungeons I ran when we switched from D&D to AD&D had Orcus at the bottom. I feel like I did him dirty by this. One day I want to run him as the big bad in a campaign to atone.



That is a glorious story. I think we've all been there, reading the wrong box text in an adventure and having to rewind. Perhaps not so dramatically, however.

I did once (in my own adventure, no less) start off by describing a room as "filled with illusions of holes in the floor."

 

[Faolyn]

Almost immediately, in some cases of the ones listed.

List of Forgotten Realms modules and sourcebooks - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The Gray Box was published in 1987, and there are modules dating from that year. There were significant numbers of modules released in 1988 and 1989...

Also all of the Realms-specific adventures printed in Dungeon Magazine.

 

[Dire Bare]

A friend of mine has asserted (based on secondhand information) that the Adventurers League series Mist Hunters (affiliate link) actually puts forward an in-game reason for why the setting changed from its previous incarnation to how it's portrayed in Fifth Edition.

That said, neither of us have ponied up a hundred dollars to find out, so that might not be the case.

Holy cow; I had no idea AL series were that expensive.

It's a bundle of 14 highly-rated adventures, working out to be about $7-10 per module. It's not an unreasonable price.

 

[Dire Bare]

In fairness, the product lead for VRGtR was Wes Schneider, who originally cut his teeth working on the netbooks from the Fraternity of Shadows; and Van Richten's Guide is overflowing with references to nearly every 2e Ravenloft product. Having read the design blog on the topic, the book feels to me much more like a couple of writers who wanted to deliver something true to Ravenlofts' origins, but were told 'no'. Particularly this line:

Huh, I just went and reread that . . . you and I had very different take-aways. Nothing in that blog entry gave me the impression that the Ravenloft book was by "a couple of writers who wanted to deliver something true to Ravenloft's origins, but were told 'no'".