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.

​

 

[pemerton]

BECUSE THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE GAME I AM BUYING!!! game. game. game.

You seem to think that you have some special access to the meaning of the alignment definitions in the game. Why is your access more privileged than anyone else's? Including Gygax's, who (i) invented the contemporary D&D alignment system, and (ii) appears to have regarded it as consistent with divine punishment.

 

[pemerton]

I was talking about the 1e PHB.

D&D has absolute, objective morality in the form of alignments and the Outer Planes, which are literal exemplars of the alignments. Which means there can in fact be Just Wars in D&D, if the actions of one side are Evil. You can have truly Good and truly Evil people and creatures.

If you actually want to have any sort of realism in the game, though, you can't use alignment, because it leads to people arguing that a creature that is listed as Lawful Good can commit Good genocide.

The AD&D PHB defines LG thus (p 33):

Characters of lawful good alignment follow these precepts [of law and order] to improve the common weal. Certain freedoms must, of course, be sacrificed in order to bring order; but truth is of highest value, and life and beauty of great importance. The benefits of this society are to be brought to all.​

The DMG adds (p 23) that "Law generally supports the group as more important than the individual" and that

Creatures of lawful good alignment view the cosmos with varying degrees of lawfulness or desire for good. They are convinced that order and law are absolutely necessary to assure good, and that good is best defined as whatever brings the most benefit to the greater number of decent, thinking creatures and the least woe to the rest.​

We also know that LG is consistent with feudal systems of government, because we are told (PHB pp 22, 24) both that paladins must be LG, and that they "will take service or form an alliance with lawful good characters, whether players or not, who are clerics or fighters (of noble status)."

Feudal government is based around group membership. Social and political status is conferred in virtue of the group (family, village, etc) to which one belongs; there is not individual freedom of occupation and individual political entitlement and responsibility. The descriptions of LG alignment are consistent with this - they refer to "certain freedoms being sacrificed" and emphasise collective, not individual, participation in the benefits of society.

The descriptions of LG are not precise enough to entail any particular theory of punishment. Life is said to be of "great importance", but not pre-eminent importance. So the death penalty is not necessarily excluded. And to me these alignment descriptions clearly seem consistent with the possibility of collective punishment - "sins of the father" is just a counterpart to "rights of the father" which is the principal that underpins feudal nobility.

Obviously none of this is defensible within an enlightenment framework, but an enlightenment framework has no room for paladins who take up service with fighters and clerics of noble status. DL is not trying to present a vision of the enlightenment. It's using non-enlightenment tropes for its storytelling purposes.

 

[pemerton]

If someone wants to argue that WotC should publish settings that only use tropes consistent with enlightenment morality and politics, rather than reactionary tropes, that's their prerogative. That will kill stone-dead a lot of traditional fantasy - eg LotR, King Arthur, Robin Hood, Earthsea, as well as DL, FR, GH and many other worlds - but not all. A version of REH's Hyborian Age, but shorn of sexism and racism, makes the cut; so does The Dying Earth.

But it's silly to argue that fantasy works with reactionary tropes like death as a form of retributive violence (pretty common in D&D), or permissible killing in consensual violence (again, pretty common in D&D - even though the enlightenment outlaws duelling), endorse murder, or present murder as Good in some incoherent fashion. And it's similarly, in my view, to characterise a reactionary trope like collective divine punishment (as found in DL, and LotR/Middle Earth) as endorsing genocide, or presenting genocide as good.

In other words, argue against the use of reactionary tropes; don't misdescribe what the authors of the fantasy works are authoring.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Okay. Given @Dannyalcatraz's clarification of site rules on religion in discussions of this matter, I think I can write this without crossing a line.

I grew up Mormon. I fairly recently left the church, but I've spent more than 90% of my life a member of the same religion that influenced some of Dragonlance, notably how it treats its gods and religions in the setting. The parallels between The Great Apostasy and Dragonlance's Cataclysm are obvious to anyone educated in the topics.

Spoiler: Similarities between the Great Apostasy and Cataclysm

The Great Apostasy according to Mormon doctrine - "A period of hundreds of years where the true religion was lost and the Priesthood, a divine power that can heal people, was taken from Earth by God until the world was ready for their religion to return. Eventually, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed prophet found records from an ancient, now-destroyed civilization carved into metal that held the texts of the 'true religion' and restored it to the Earth and brought back the Priesthood."

The Cataclysm according to Dragonlance lore - "A period of hundreds of years where all true religions were lost and Clerical Magic, which can heal people, was taken from Krynn by the Good Gods until the world was ready for their religions to return. Eventually, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed prophet found records from an ancient, now-destroyed civilization carved into metal that held the texts of the "true religions" and restored them to Krynn and brought back the Clerics."

Dragonlance's Cataclysm wasn't "inspired by Mormon theology". It is a huge part of Mormon theology that's transplanted to the setting. The disaster that caused Dragonlance's "Great Apostasy" is also clearly "inspired" by the Great Flood from the Bible. It's so obvious that it comes up basically any time someone wants to talk about Dragonlance's take on religion on this site.

Tracy Hickman is Mormon. His religion influences the books he writes. I'm no longer Mormon, but the stuff I write is definitely still influenced by my previous religion in some way. I can't change that, even when I want to. And we can't debate religion on this site or the morality of the Great Flood, but The Cataclysm is still a problem. It would probably be less of a problem if it didn't make its source material so obvious.

There's nothing wrong with "the true religion was lost, but brought back through metal plates" as a plot device in a fantasy novel or setting. But the backstory is problematic and could be easily avoided through "No one knows what truly caused the Cataclysm. Every person that did know died in the event, and the gods haven't been around for the last 350 years to answer the question." Do an Eberron and don't give an explanation behind the Mourning. That way you don't cross into controversial topics like divine collective punishment. Or if you do really want the gods to be the ones that threw that mountain on Istar, have there be a Rapture of all innocent people before you kill all of the wicked.

 

[Velderan]

But the backstory is problematic and could be easily avoided through "No one knows what truly caused the Cataclysm. Every person that did know died in the event, and the gods haven't been around for the last 350 years to answer the question." Do an Eberron and don't give an explanation behind the Mourning. That way you don't cross into controversial topics like divine collective punishment. Or if you do really want the gods to be the ones that threw that mountain on Istar, have there be a Rapture of all innocent people before you kill all of the wicked.

The 2e game material has pretty close to an entire page theorizing what caused it while summarizing with "we'll never know what actually happened" so they seem to agree it's best to blur the facts and let DMs figure out what they want it to be. As best I remember it, there were a few possibilities suggested:

• The Kingpriest had gained enough followers to bind the gods and prevent them from taking any direct action. If the gods did throw the mountain down, it was the result of a last desperate act with whatever power they had left.
• How did the Kingpriest manage to gain this level of power? By gaining the devoted followers that blindly followed him, he violated the gift of free will that was given to mortals at creation which threatened to unbalance the world and destroy it.
• It's possible the Kingpriest himself summoned the mountain. He had gained some level of arcane ability since he took up the abandoned Tower of High Sorcery in Ister as his abode. During some ritual to summon the gods and demand power, he accidently summoned the mountain instead and the Cataclysm was the result. I'd guess most if not all of us would agree this is the best cause you could use to not create any controversy. Why did the gods disappear after it? Perhaps they blamed themselves for not doing more and were ashamed I guess. I forget if the book went into further depth theorizing why.

For the DL1-14 campaign I'm about to run with a table that doesn't know anything about DL, all I've laid out in the campaign pitch is a fiery mountain fell from the sky and destroyed the religious center of the world with the gods withdrawing from the world in the aftermath. To me, it doesn't make sense to explain anything further because my player's character would not know the details. Depending on how they interact with Fizban or if they attempt to visit the Great Library in Palanthus, I may reveal bits that explain things later.

For whatever it's worth, this is the text from SotDQ:

Spoiler: SotDQ Cataclysm explanation

As a last effort to avoid mass destruction, the gods sent the Thirteen Warnings, a series of signs meant to deter the kingpriest. Trees wept blood, fires raged unnaturally, and cyclones struck the gleaming Temple of the Kingpriest. The gods also warned a few chosen mortals, reasoning that if any of them reached Istar and prevented the ritual, the world might not be beyond redemption. But the messengers failed—the kingpriest and his followers dismissed the warnings as the work of evil and continued on their path. As the hour of the kingpriest’s ritual to attain godhood arrived, the gods whisked away their most devout followers and unleashed punishment on all who remained.

A mountain of fire fell from the sky, destroying Istar. The Blood Sea—a new ocean that split eastern Ansalon—consumed the empire. Coastlines shifted all over the world, sundering nations, drowning whole regions, and stranding ports miles from the sea. Though some lands escaped the worst of the destruction, none were spared divine wrath.

The gods and their blessings then faded from the world, and in time, even their names were all but forgotten.

While it does use the term "divine wrath", it's also a little looser with who the gods saved. "Their most devout followers" instead of simply saying true clerics. You could read that as "people who didn't worship the Kingpriest" easily imo.

 

[pemerton]

While it does use the term "divine wrath", it's also a little looser with who the gods saved. "Their most devout followers" instead of simply saying true clerics. You could read that as "people who didn't worship the Kingpriest" easily imo.

There's a tendency in a lot of storytelling for "the masses" to fade into the background. Their fate becomes, implicitly at least, subsumed into the fates of the prominent characters who represent their position or interests.

I'm thinking here of stories from War of the Worlds to Star Wars to JRRT on the Fall of Numenor to countless others.

So I think it's no surprise that DL is similar in this respect. If the lack of specificity is an issue at a table, the participants at the table have all the resources they need - ie their imagine - to fill in the details.

This could be done in the direction of cynicism or hatred, but also in the direction of providence and hope - eg a particular peasant survived the cataclysm because their pet cat had run away, and in pursuit of it they had run to higher ground where they were able to shelter under a rock.

 

[Velderan]

There's a tendency in a lot of storytelling for "the masses" to fade into the background. Their fate becomes, implicitly at least, subsumed into the fates of the prominent characters who represent their position or interests.

I'm thinking here of stories from War of the Worlds to Star Wars to JRRT on the Fall of Numenor to countless others.

So I think it's no surprise that DL is similar in this respect. If the lack of specificity is an issue at a table, the participants at the table have all the resources they need - ie their imagine - to fill in the details.

This could be done in the direction of cynicism or hatred, but also in the direction of providence and hope - eg a particular peasant survived the cataclysm because their pet cat had run away, and in pursuit of it they had run to higher ground where they were able to shelter under a rock.

Agreed, I personally don't have an issue with how it's been presented because I think the material presented generally gives enough wiggle room to explain it if you take the entire story into account. Subsequent editions reworded things to make them clearer also, such as 2e actually using capital E evil to describe the Kingpriest in case the interaction with Fizban at the end of Dragons of Spring Dawning was confusing. Otherwise if 1 particular issue is the dealbreaker, simply homebrew a fix and move on.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If Dragonlance becomes enoughly famous in the culture for masses then we could see more controversy about the causes of cataclysm. And if Hasbro wants Dragonlance with enough space to be family-friendly then they will not want that type of troubles.

I would rather to imagine the deities weren't totally responsibles. Maybe Chaos was it, manipulating the kingpriest, Raistlin and maybe others to be its "chosen champions" to destroy the Krynnian pantheon. Or the Cataclysm was caused because an incarnation of kingpriest from an alternate future was going to arrive. Other suggestion is the kingpriest (accidentally?) summoned the wrong people, and then several visitors appeared, but these were archienemies who hated each other, and the fight among them had caused more destruction than the Cataclysm itself. Or the fall of the meteor was accidentally caused by the destruction of a planar-gate created by time-traveler invaders from other Wildspace, or not so accidentally because Chaos wanted to cause the Cataclysm for its own plans.

* If Dragonlance is going to be adapted to a main media production then the Cataclysm and other details could be retconected.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Including Gygax's, who (i) invented the contemporary D&D alignment system, and (ii) appears to have regarded it as consistent with divine punishment.

And a slew of bias crimes, murder and slavery!

A truly worthy concept to keep going for fifty bloody years.

 

[Faolyn]

The AD&D PHB defines LG thus (p 33):

Characters of lawful good alignment follow these precepts [of law and order] to improve the common weal. Certain freedoms must, of course, be sacrificed in order to bring order; but truth is of highest value, and life and beauty of great importance. The benefits of this society are to be brought to all.​

The DMG adds (p 23) that "Law generally supports the group as more important than the individual" and that

Creatures of lawful good alignment view the cosmos with varying degrees of lawfulness or desire for good. They are convinced that order and law are absolutely necessary to assure good, and that good is best defined as whatever brings the most benefit to the greater number of decent, thinking creatures and the least woe to the rest.​

We also know that LG is consistent with feudal systems of government, because we are told (PHB pp 22, 24) both that paladins must be LG, and that they "will take service or form an alliance with lawful good characters, whether players or not, who are clerics or fighters (of noble status)."

Feudal government is based around group membership. Social and political status is conferred in virtue of the group (family, village, etc) to which one belongs; there is not individual freedom of occupation and individual political entitlement and responsibility. The descriptions of LG alignment are consistent with this - they refer to "certain freedoms being sacrificed" and emphasise collective, not individual, participation in the benefits of society.

The descriptions of LG are not precise enough to entail any particular theory of punishment. Life is said to be of "great importance", but not pre-eminent importance. So the death penalty is not necessarily excluded. And to me these alignment descriptions clearly seem consistent with the possibility of collective punishment - "sins of the father" is just a counterpart to "rights of the father" which is the principal that underpins feudal nobility.

Obviously none of this is defensible within an enlightenment framework, but an enlightenment framework has no room for paladins who take up service with fighters and clerics of noble status. DL is not trying to present a vision of the enlightenment. It's using non-enlightenment tropes for its storytelling purposes.

First off: My experience with AD&D--and my first edition was 2e, and yes, I played a fair amount of Dragonlance back then--is that the assumed settings didn't really involve feudal framework. Not one that revolved around slaves-in-all-but-name serfs and women being property and the Church being a law unto itself and tons of wars and everyone dying from the plague or the other nasty parts of the actual Medieval time period. AD&D assumed a fantasy world of knights in shining armor who actually performed great deeds and stood up for the beleaguered peasantry, who were mostly beleaguered due to Obviously Evil tyrants or monster attacks (or both), not because they were basically property.

AD&D was not built with actual Medieval feudalism in mind.

If it were, then the "awful lawful" paladin who wants to kill their teammates for stealing or not tithing would be considered good roleplaying, not game-wrecking jerkiness.

Secondly, did you see the thing I wrote about Deadlands? In case you didn't, the book calls out the racism, bigotry, and sexism endemic to the time period as being wrong, even though those things were considered normal or even good at the time. Why? Because the game isn't being played in the 1880s. It's being played today, in the 2020s.

Likewise, Dragonlance isn't being played in the Bronze Age or Iron Age or Medieval period. It's not even being played in the real world. It's being played in a fantasy world with fantasy races and fantasy inventions, where it is 100% possible that the philosophy of enlightenment was developed hundreds or thousands of years ago by, like, gold dragons.

Literally the only reason to bring in "it was considered OK in a pre-enlightenment time" is if you actively want to have cruel or evil things be considered good in this world. Just like the only reason to say "sexism and racism is considered to be OK" is if you want them to be OK (generic you, btw), not because you're being forced to by history.