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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[Scribe]

Way to evade the question.

Also, the Dragonlance religion dates from the early 80s. It is not an "older religion." Inspired by one, sure. Actually one, no.

A mortal wizard doing something would be like if I went and started dropping bombs. Yes, it would lead to my assassination or jail/execution.
If a Government does it though...its war.

Now in terms of dodging with the answer? No, DL is not a 'religion' but its absolutely a setting inspired by a world view and religion that is wildly different from the online morality of 2022.

 

[Faolyn]

A mortal wizard doing something would be like if I went and started dropping bombs. Yes, it would lead to my assassination or jail/execution.
If a Government does it though...its war.

If the government does it without first declaring war, or drops bombs on civilians, it's a war crime.

Now in terms of dodging with the answer?

Which you still did, because you didn't say if it is or is not genocide.

No, DL is not a 'religion' but its absolutely a setting inspired by a world view and religion that is wildly different from the online morality of 2022.

So? The writers still chose to include genocide. Moreover, they chose to ignore D&D alignments, chose to ignore solutions to the problems such as magic, chose to create a story that had so many gaping holes in it that it has people trying to claim that genocide is actually "justice."

I mean, this whole argument could have been averted if it was just written "the gods of good were horrified by what they did that they left Krynn to perform penance until they felt that they were morally fit enough to be around people again," instead of what actually happened--the gods victim-blaming the entire world for the actions of a few. We could argue about whether they actually performed that penance or not, but at least then they setting would acknowledge that mass murder is a bad thing.

 

[Scribe]

So? The writers still chose to include genocide. Moreover, they chose to ignore D&D alignments, chose to ignore solutions to the problems such as magic, chose to create a story that had so many gaping holes in it that it has people trying to claim that genocide is actually "justice."

And? So is the Biblical (and many many other Myth/Religion/Creation stories) Flood.

Within the context of the story, its the Flood of the Bible. This isnt ignoring the D&D Alignment. Its perfectly in line with how Alignment was used at the time.

 

[Faolyn]

And? So is the Biblical (and many many other Myth/Religion/Creation stories) Flood.

Within the context of the story, its the Flood of the Bible. This isnt ignoring the D&D Alignment. Its perfectly in line with how Alignment was used at the time.

We're not talking about any real-world religions, and D&D wasn't written thousands upon thousands of years ago. The morality of the 80s is not that much different from the morality of the 20s.

 

[Scribe]

We're not talking about any real-world religions, and D&D wasn't written thousands upon thousands of years ago. The morality of the 80s is not that much different from the morality of the 20s.

Were you raised Mormon? Because I was, in the 80s.

 

[Faolyn]

Were you raised Mormon? Because I was, in the 80s.

I'm still not talking about real world religions here.

 

[Scribe]

I'm still not talking about real world religions here.

The creators of the content were Mormon, and in a generation even before myself.

This is not a setting that is just 'Oh it slots right into the modern 5e D&D mythology no worries.'

A creation, a story, and that IS what we are talking about, will be influenced by the people who created it, this should be self evident.

I'm telling you right now, their religious beliefs clearly CLEARLY are present within the final work.

I mean it took me a minute of looking up on Google, but yeah. Feel free to look it up if you care.

You are talking about a book written by devout (at least so it appears from what I see regarding Hickman) members of a religion who would look at yes the Old Testament version of God, and, like myself, not blink over the story of the Flood.

That is what you are missing, or ignoring. You may not believe it, I left the Church as a youth, so I dont personally believe it, but the creators of this work did, and it 100% came through in the final product.

You dont have to like it, but to the people who created the setting, the Gods of Good are still good, and as the final authority on what is or is not Divine Judgment, their action would be seen just as the faithful would look at the Flood.

God is God, you dont get to question it.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

For the current standard the good deities allowing the Cataclysm is not rightly justified or explained. The punishment should be only against the kingpriest of Istar.

Maybe there were other reasons, but these have to be secret, at least for the characters. Maybe the kingpriest was about to be called by the dark powers to become a dark lord, or the last call by the kingpriest wasn't for Krynnian deities but some other, and that was knocking in the wrong door. Or it was not by fault of deities, but by the Istar empire, what was a step to become a third reich. Or the good deities really tried to warn and avoid the worst damage, but their efforts were sabotaged by the evil deities. Maybe the main responsible was Chaos, even being within the Greygem. The kingpriest was manipulated, and the divine punishment caused more destruction than the original plan.

In some things morality of 80's and this decade are different about what things can be showed in the media. Other thing is the Natural Law can't change.

 

[Faolyn]

The creators of the content were Mormon, and in a generation even before myself.

This is not a setting that is just 'Oh it slots right into the modern 5e D&D mythology no worries.'

A creation, a story, and that IS what we are talking about, will be influenced by the people who created it, this should be self evident.

I'm telling you right now, their religious beliefs clearly CLEARLY are present within the final work.

I mean it took me a minute of looking up on Google, but yeah. Feel free to look it up if you care.

You are talking about a book written by devout (at least so it appears from what I see regarding Hickman) members of a religion who would look at yes the Old Testament version of God, and, like myself, not blink over the story of the Flood.

That is what you are missing, or ignoring. You may not believe it, I left the Church as a youth, so I dont personally believe it, but the creators of this work did, and it 100% came through in the final product.

You dont have to like it, but to the people who created the setting, the Gods of Good are still good, and as the final authority on what is or is not Divine Judgment, their action would be seen just as the faithful would look at the Flood.

God is God, you dont get to question it.

And again. We are not talking about the gods of any real-world religion.

We are talking about fictional gods for a fantasy religion in a D&D universe who have literal stats, including hit points and armor class. Weiss and Hickman, no matter how devout they were, wrote their gods as beings you can literally kill.

Did TSR make them include stats and refuse to publish their setting until they did? I don't think so.

So try to separate your real-world beliefs from these fictional gods for a moment and actually judge Paladine and the other Gods of Good for their actions. Believe me, I know that there are deliberate parallels. I'm ignoring them because I'm only talking about this fantasy religion. Because Paladine is not God. Paladine is a little-g god.

The actions of Paladine, who is supposedly Lawful Good, do not fit the definition of either Lawful or Good as per the PHB. His actions would be considered evil if they were committed by a mortal spellcaster of the same level. The unknown tens or hundreds of thousands of people killed in the Cataclysm didn't even get the opportunity to repent before they were murdered, as per Gygax's own warped belief as to what constitutes LG.

 

[Scribe]

And again. We are not talking about the gods of any real-world religion.

We are talking about fictional gods for a fantasy religion in a D&D universe who have literal stats, including hit points and armor class. Weiss and Hickman, no matter how devout they were, wrote their gods as beings you can literally kill.

Did TSR make them include stats and refuse to publish their setting until they did? I don't think so.

So try to separate your real-world beliefs from these fictional gods for a moment and actually judge Paladine and the other Gods of Good for their actions. Believe me, I know that there are deliberate parallels. I'm ignoring them because I'm only talking about this fantasy religion. Because Paladine is not God. Paladine is a little-g god.

The actions of Paladine, who is supposedly Lawful Good, do not fit the definition of either Lawful or Good as per the PHB. His actions would be considered evil if they were committed by a mortal spellcaster of the same level. The unknown tens or hundreds of thousands of people killed in the Cataclysm didn't even get the opportunity to repent before they were murdered, as per Gygax's own warped belief as to what constitutes LG.

We will just have to disagree. No harm, no foul.

And to be clear, they are not my real-world beliefs. They are the beliefs of the creators of the setting and the novel series which formed the bedrock of the settings canon for decades.

I dont care about the morality of today's PHB. It says very (depressingly) little.

I'm simply trying to make clear the morality upon which the setting SEEMS to be based to me, has its roots in a few people who were seemingly devout, members of a religion where the Cataclysm is the act of a Pantheon that had Good Gods (and I do disagree that Paladine is a "little g god", he was the head of the Good gods).

Its a parallel to the Flood, simple as.