Dragonlance Dragonlance Adventure & Prelude Details Revealed

Over on DND Beyond Amy Dallen and Eugenio Vargas discuss the beginning of Shadow of ther Dragon Queen and provide some advice on running it.

Running a Session Zero for Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen

When starting a new adventure, it's a good idea to get on the same page as your party. Here's how to run a session zero for the upcoming Dragonlance adv...

www.dndbeyond.com

This epic war story begins with an invitation to a friend's funeral and three optional prelude encounters that guide you into the world of Krynn. Amy Dallen is joined by Eugenio Vargas to share some details about how these opening preludes work and some advice on using them in your own D&D games.

There is also information on the three short 'prelude' adventures which introduce players to the world of Krynn:

• Eye in the Sky -- ideal for sorcerers, warlocks, wizards, or others seeking to become members of the Mages of High Sorcery.
• Broken Silence -- ideal for clerics, druids, paladins, and other characters with god-given powers.
• Scales of War -- ideal for any character and reveals the mysterious draconians.

The article discusses Session Zero for the campaign and outlines what to expect in a Dragonlance game -- war, death, refugees, and so on.

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[Reynard]

In that particular case, Goldmoon was objectively first in bringing the non-evil gods back to the world (or whatever wording of that you prefer). You can change that if you want in your game, but doing so changes the story. If that doesn't matter to you (seems a lot of people don't care about it), then go for it.

It actually doesn't have that big of an impact on the story if Goldmoon is still the one to sell that info to the Knights of Solamnia and others. That is, presuming the Heroes of the Lance are still off doing their thing while the PC story takes place elsewhere (which seems to be the case) the idea that all the gods starting making contact with potential worshippers on the downlow doesn't really impact the politics of the situation.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

I assume the Neutral gods followed suit in their own way (like the Chisliev example mentioned above) once Goldmoon opened the door. Probably immediately after.

The neutral gods never really completely left, Gilean as Astinus was working in the library the whole time

 

[QuentinGeorge]

In that particular case, Goldmoon was objectively first in bringing the non-evil gods back to the world (or whatever wording of that you prefer). You can change that if you want in your game, but doing so changes the story. If that doesn't matter to you (seems a lot of people don't care about it), then go for it.

Yeah, I’m not sure that’s true for the neutral gods. The dwarves never stopped worshipping Reorx. Gilean’s avatar was on Krynn the whole time. And the three moon gods never ended their relationship with the orders of high sorcery.

 

[Demetrios1453]

It actually doesn't have that big of an impact on the story if Goldmoon is still the one to sell that info to the Knights of Solamnia and others. That is, presuming the Heroes of the Lance are still off doing their thing while the PC story takes place elsewhere (which seems to be the case) the idea that all the gods starting making contact with potential worshippers on the downlow doesn't really impact the politics of the situation.

I mean, you could play DL1 by replacing Goldmoon with another character (the epilogue states "The PC who broke the staff" receives the Disks, and not Goldmoon specifically), so from the start of the entire setting, it's been possible for someone other than Goldmoon to be be the first...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I mean, you could play DL1 by replacing Goldmoon with another character (the epilogue states "The PC who broke the staff" receives the Disks, and not Goldmoon specifically), so from the start of the entire setting, it's been possible for someone other than Goldmoon to be be the first...

as these threads have gone on about not changing or changing the canon I wonder how people would react to "I want to be the cleric of a CG god that has been sneaky and granting power to a secret cult breaking the rules all along, and can't use that knowledge to call Big lady T on it cause he only knows she is breaking the rules cause he is... and I am a member of this cult (1st level cleric) that has been sent to find away to expose her"
Yeah Goldmoon brings back the gods and I am like "wow, look at my cool cleric powers" but I have been useing them for some time by that point wink at my god

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, I’m not sure that’s true for the neutral gods. The dwarves never stopped worshipping Reorx. Gilean’s avatar was on Krynn the whole time. And the three moon gods never ended their relationship with the orders of high sorcery.

To be fair, there were no dwarven clerics after the Cataclysm until after Goldmoon, Astinus never presented himself as an avatar of Gilean (despite it being quite clear if you think about it), and the moon gods have never presented themselves as beings to be worshipped, thus never had clerics.

 

[Micah Sweet]

as these threads have gone on about not changing or changing the canon I wonder how people would react to "I want to be the cleric of a CG god that has been sneaky and granting power to a secret cult breaking the rules all along, and can't use that knowledge to call Big lady T on it cause he only knows she is breaking the rules cause he is... and I am a member of this cult (1st level cleric) that has been sent to find away to expose her"
Yeah Goldmoon brings back the gods and I am like "wow, look at my cool cleric powers" but I have been useing them for some time by that point wink at my god

If I had a player with that story, I would strongly suspect it was concocted specifically to get around the cleric issue, so the lack player buy-in is the real issue. Of course, if they're on the level, it could work I suppose.

 

[darjr]

I mean, you could play DL1 by replacing Goldmoon with another character (the epilogue states "The PC who broke the staff" receives the Disks, and not Goldmoon specifically), so from the start of the entire setting, it's been possible for someone other than Goldmoon to be be the first...

Yea this. From the very beginning.

 

[Reynard]

I mean, you could play DL1 by replacing Goldmoon with another character (the epilogue states "The PC who broke the staff" receives the Disks, and not Goldmoon specifically), so from the start of the entire setting, it's been possible for someone other than Goldmoon to be be the first...

I don't even care about that. Let Goldmoon play Goldmoon's role. But we know the evil gods were empowering clerics on their own. And we can pretty confidently surmise Goldmoon's job wa to actually sell an uncertain public on the return of the good gods. Nothing in that prohibits the idea that there weren't secondary plans or simply attempts to get some good clerics on the ground to counter evil clerics -- plus whatever machinations the neutral gods were up to. Goldmoon's job was primarily political and public relations and has little to do with solving right-now problems.

There is no way the CG god(s) at least weren't throwing miracles against the wall to see what stuck.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I don't even care about that. Let Goldmoon play Goldmoon's role. But we know the evil gods were empowering clerics on their own. And we can pretty confidently surmise Goldmoon's job wa to actually sell an uncertain public on the return of the good gods. Nothing in that prohibits the idea that there weren't secondary plans or simply attempts to get some good clerics on the ground to counter evil clerics -- plus whatever machinations the neutral gods were up to. Goldmoon's job was primarily political and public relations and has little to do with solving right-now problems.

There is no way the CG god(s) at least weren't throwing miracles against the wall to see what stuck.

I mean, I agree. My post was simply to point out to all those who claim "Goldmoon was indisputably the first" that in the very first adventure, this could very well not be the case.