Dragonlance Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen shows up in the wild!

[pukunui]

Information travels at the speed of a horse-drawn wagon. At the time, no one believed dragons were real. They’d been gone 351 years. No one had seen one and they’re repeatedly referred to as children’s stories until they actually show up in the novels. So when a few merchants from the east start talking about armies invading and dragons, most people would reasonably dismiss them as madmen or fools. You’d likely also have some pretty good disinformation going. With shapechanging and simple illusions, you could even have draconians taking the place of some merchants, so they wouldn’t be talking.

Oh sure. I can buy that people disbelieve reports of dragons. But news can travel faster by sea, and Kalaman is a major port city where "merchants from across Ansalon" do business. In fact, "every day there’s a 10 percent chance a merchant ship from a distant land puts into port here, its crew eager to sell unique wares and tell tales of danger on the sea." Why aren't those crews also telling tales of danger in the distant lands they came from?

The other thing is that this adventure involves a significant portion of the Red Dragon Army marching north from the mountains and crossing the Vingaard River in order to reach Vogler and the Northern Wastes. And yet, aside from reports of mysteriously burned villages, no one in Kalaman has any idea that a large army passed by recently. The Red Dragon Army must be really good at covering its tracks.

Ansalon isn't much bigger than Europe. It's always felt a bit far-fetched to me that, even three centuries after the Cataclysm, so many of the continent's inhabitants are so ignorant of other places. Even in Europe's Dark Ages, news still got around. As for Ansalon, take Tarsis: how come nobody's noticed that none of the famous "white-winged ships" have appeared in any ports in the past 350 years? Haven't any merchants come back to report that they couldn't reach Tarsis by the old routes?

This isn't an issue that's new to this adventure. It's just reminding me that this is something that's always bugged me about Dragonlance.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Information travels at the speed of a horse-drawn wagon. At the time, no one believed dragons were real. They’d been gone 351 years. No one had seen one and they’re repeatedly referred to as children’s stories until they actually show up in the novels. So when a few merchants from the east start talking about armies invading and dragons, most people would reasonably dismiss them as madmen or fools. You’d likely also have some pretty good disinformation going. With shapechanging and simple illusions, you could even have draconians taking the place of some merchants, so they wouldn’t be talking.

The gods had been gone 351 years. Dragons had been gone over 1300 years, since the end of the Third Dragon War. So they were even more legendary...

 

[overgeeked]

I just find it hard to believe that the entirety of the eastern part of Ansalon can be taken over without the western half having any real idea ... despite the fact that trade is still occurring.

I guess we have very different notions of what's reasonable for the situation. Most trade isn't one person running goods from one edge of the map to the other, it's one merchant running from town A to town B, another merchant running from town B to town C, etc. So the eyewitness to the armies, dragons, draconians, etc isn't the one making the claims and trying to convince people in town F that town A was burned or ransacked. You very quickly get into a game of telephone with 16th-hand information.

I mean, a city like Kalaman is right on the edge. It's the easternmost city in western Ansalon. How can they not have more verifiable reports of what's happening not all that far to the east?

Fairly easily. Most settlements are incredibly isolated. Travel is dangerous, there are generally few if any direct routes, and it's not easy to do. People don't go from town to town just to gossip. They travel and trade and if there's any gossip to share, they do. The same person telling you about armies to the east also tells you about buried treasure, offers to sell you a map, and and a discount on bulk healing potions. They're not an inherently reliable source of information. Everything would be rumor until you see the campfires on the horizon or have an influx of refugees pounding on the door...and by then it's already too late. Assuming there are any refugees to speak of. It all depends on how fast and how thorough the Dragon Armies are being.

Looking at the map, there's not much to the immediate east of Kalaman. There's a lot of mountains to the south, southeast, and east of the city. Lots of bottlenecks for people to get blocked off by. There's no villages, towns, or cities within several days' travel except Volger to the west.

Furthermore, this particular adventure involves the Red Dragon Army passing Kalaman not all that far to the west and yet, again, they have no idea other than that there's been reports of mysteriously burned villages. If an army marches past, there ought to be obvious signs of lots of feet and wagons having passed in a particular direction. If regular trade and commerce are still occurring in the region, someone should have noticed that a large army passed through the countryside recently.

It all depends. How close? Did the army use a major road or walk across country? At sea level the distance to the horizon is only 3 miles. At 100ft the distance to the horizon is 12.?? miles. Medieval cities are usually really small. The DMG says up to 25,000 people. That's a lot. But it's not like the city of Kalaman is a bustling, modern metropolis with miles after mile of urban sprawl.

But no, the good guys have to be taken completely by surprise by the bad guys for some reason. This is something that irked me about the original Chronicles trilogy and it still irks me now.

It's totally plausible. I get you don't like it.

 

[pukunui]

@overgeeked I rewrote my post while you were busy quoting me. I included some quotes from the adventure itself that makes it clear Kalaman is a major port city that gets lots of foreign ships.

I would find the setup more plausible if the War of the Lance took place within the first century or so after the Cataclysm, but 350 years later, the people of Ansalon shouldn’t be anywhere near as isolated / ignorant as they are presented as being.

That said, this isn’t a hill I intend to die on. It’s just something I find irksome. When I get around to running this adventure, I might put a little more effort into making the war less of a surprise.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Not with that statblock, unfortunately. PCs aren't quite generic Rebel troops in any event.

You seem to be vastly underestimating his statblock.

The Level 11 party has very little chance of beating him.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Information travels at the speed of a horse-drawn wagon. At the time, no one believed dragons were real. They’d been gone 351 years. No one had seen one and they’re repeatedly referred to as children’s stories until they actually show up in the novels. So when a few merchants from the east start talking about armies invading and dragons, most people would reasonably dismiss them as madmen or fools. You’d likely also have some pretty good disinformation going. With shapechanging and simple illusions, you could even have draconians taking the place of some merchants, so they wouldn’t be talking.

Dragons have been pretty much gone for over a thousand years.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Of course, as GM I would absolutely have a monstrous Soth statblock on hand if they were feeling brave. TPKs are valid campaign endings, too.

His default statblock will kill nearly any party not built to counter him at mid levels.

 

[darjr]

Prelude playthrough! Four players via Roll20

 

[pukunui]

The adventure also includes gnomish field radios.

Spoiler

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is a huge difference in the difficulty of an encounter when the PCs know the statblock of what they are fighting, and when they do not know the statblock of what they are fighting.