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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[Pentallion]

Why? It doesn't seem to serve any important purpose in the adventure. Doing so only serves to adhere to a particular historical lore that serves no purpose other than to demand this thing is true. Allowing other characters-- aka PCs -- to be empowered by the gods doesn't actually endanger the established lore, since we know Goldmoon wasn't the first between Verminaard and others. It feels like grasping at minutiae for no benefit beyond nostalgia.

Well, it serves the purpose of saying "TSR gave players a sandbox to play in where there are no clerics."
Going ahead and playing clerics in that sandbox seems silly and pointless

 

[Demetrios1453]

Not really. All the adventure did was potentially change Goldmoon's name and appearance. The PC "Goldmoon" still didn't have clerical powers until the disks were found at the appropriate spot in the story.

The party could all die to the black dragon (or to other foes). Or the PC who is granted the Disks could reject them (they, or another party member, could be so bitter at the gods leaving and not happy that "Oh, now they want to return" that they could, say, toss the Disks into the Newsea which is conveniently right there).

Those are possibilities as well. DL1 does not guarantee that Goldmoon, or anyone else in that adventure for that matter, gains and keeps the Disks. Which means that someone else gets to be first. The very first DL product allows this, so why worry over the possibility of the same thing happening in this adventure (which it may not anyway - we won't know until someone reads it and tells us the details on the timeline).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

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.

How would that actually work though? According to the novels, the information in the disks of Mishakal is what was required for clerics to connect with their deities.

Or some form of cheating on the deity's side.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Ok, looking at the timeline a bit more closely now, the whole discussion could very well be moot. The adventure starts in a seaside village in Solamnia, presumably on the northern shore relatively close to Lord Soth's home at Dargaard Keep, where the War of the Lance hasn't quite reached yet. Solamnia was invaded by the Dragonarmies in the spring of 351 AC, but it was not a quick conquest - they only got to the High Clerists Tower at the end of winter 352 AC. The city of Kalaman, which is somewhat to the east of the likely location of this village, was a tough nut to crack, and only fell when the Dragonarmies brought up their floating citadels for the very first time (note that the Red Dragonarmy was the one that attacked Kalaman - there have been some posts here that were unhappy with red dragons and not blue being featured, when red is canonically correct, although the Blue Dragonarmy probably supported them). So, it's not unlikely that towns further west along the shore weren't attacked until very late in 351 AC, or even into early 352 AC. Goldmoon gains the Disks early in autumn 351 AC, making it quite possible that the events of the adventure could start after that time.

So, after researching all that, I'm now firmly of the opinion that we really need to see the actual product before going any further into the "Was Goldmoon first?" conversation...

 

[QuentinGeorge]

How would that actually work though? According to the novels, the information in the disks of Mishakal is what was required for clerics to connect with their deities.

Or some form of cheating on the deity's side.

I really think Goldmoon was only the catalyst for clerics of good gods (eg Elistan). It doesn’t make sense for the disks to be relevant for the neutral or evil pantheons.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I really think Goldmoon was only the catalyst for clerics of good gods (eg Elistan). It doesn’t make sense for the disks to be relevant for the neutral or evil pantheons.

However it worked, the idea that there exists a precise point point in time at when Goldmoon did X. Before X: absolutely zero good and neutral deities. After X: good and neutral deities for everyone across the whole planet just does not hold up to any kind of logical scrutiny.

Anyway what was X? If it was the information contained in the disks, then the return must have been gradual as the information was disseminated, and limited to the 6 deities described. If it's not the information that matters, then what does? What exactly did Goldmoon do?

 

[GreyLord]

My thoughts on the running commentary on this thread...

The more threads that get made on Dragonlance, the more the comments seem to stay the same...



I could swear we've had this exact same conversation three times in the past week in every thread on Dragonlance...Deja Vu...is this a glitch in the Matrix...

 

[Eubani]

Just read the new write up of Tanis Half Elven. They ....um smoothed out his origin for the sensitive of pallet yet loud of opinion. Whilst his original circumstances were not kind, they were informative of the times (in world) and of the Qualinosti.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My opinion is the coherence with the lore should ca be sacrificed in the name of a more flexible and confortable gameplay.

Maybe Goldmon wasn't the first cleric divine spellcaster after the age of despair. In my game the true clerics started to be possible in the moment when Berem Everman suffered that incident where he became immortal and a cursed jewel was encrusted on the chest. I guess that was when the rest of deities had got enough freedom for their own actions and strategic movements. Goldmoon was the first cleric in the sense she was the first one who started to preach about the deities.

If I want in the age of despair there are archivists, an order or arcane spellcasters who could craft single-use magic item with spells from the list of divine magic. Or magic divine was possible if this was not from the true deities but patrons as ancestors or legendary heroes, but only the lower levels. For example a paladin whose saint patron was Huma could cast some divine spells for paladins. Or magic divine was possible but only in special temples and sacred places. Then the order of the seekers could cast divine spells thanks their levels of archivist class.

When the draconians were created Takhisis' clerics were necessary, and before there was a phase of experimentation.

I wonder if with the current rules Raistlin would be at least a level of warlock with Fistandantilus as patron.

What if the return of deities were blocked by agents of Vodoni empire who time-traveled to avoid the incident of Berem Everman? Then the trick would be to send the companions of the dragonlance to the future. But as if it was not enough strange a new player joins to the party, Chaos is free thanks the break of the Graygem.

Other idea is lots of innocent lives could be saved than the "rapture", a deal between the deities and "god Raistlin". This would save them to repopulate his alternate timeline because this stayed empty when the future was rewritten.

* What if Sturm returned but reincarnated into an aasimar?

 

[bedir than]

Just read the new write up of Tanis Half Elven. They ....um smoothed out his origin for the sensitive of pallet yet loud of opinion. Whilst his original circumstances were not kind, they were informative of the times (in world) and of the Qualinosti.

Where is this write-up?

As he's not part of the new adventure it's not something I expected to see at all