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...

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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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[Micah Sweet]

Gods created in the modern day that are intended to be worshipped (even by fantasy peoples) and be labeled "Good" need to actually, you know, be good in the view of modern society.

I really don't think they do.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I have no problem with fantasy gods acting like the gods of the Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Mesoamerican, and other mythological pantheons. I love mythology and have spent tons of hours learning about it since I was 12. However, I do have a problem with them being labeled good when they commit atrocities. I would never worship Zeus because a) I don't believe that he's real and b) he's a serial-raping authoritarian egomaniac.

It's different for mythology because those pantheons are mostly not worshipped today and our moral values have shifted a lot over the last couple thousand years. Gods created in the modern day that are intended to be worshipped (even by fantasy peoples) and be labeled "Good" need to actually, you know, be good in the view of modern society.

He is supposed to be the ultimate good in the setting. He's the head deity of the Good Pantheon in Dragonlance. If anyone in the world is supposed to be "the Big Good", it's Paladine.

Paladine didn’t create “good”. “Goodness” doesn’t flow from him.

He’s the “good” god. That’s it.

Good law etc are primal forces and the gods try to act to certain ideals and natures.

Again Zeus/Odin etc are bad examples but it’s what these D&D gods and how they work are based on.

You are literally “thinking about it to hard”. It’s fantasy religion based on real world old religions. It’s not modern dogma.

Modern dogma in my fantasy rpg would be not fun IMO

 

[Maxperson]

You can be intolerant of evil without taking away their agency and forcing them to be good. Thinking evil is bad is not bad. Good is good. It has to be, or else it isn't good and shouldn't be called by that name.

Not evil. Sin. Flaws. Extreme good expects and demands perfection and enacts punishments to help you get past those things.

There is no extreme that I can think of, good included, that is good. All things in moderation is a saying for a reason.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I really don't think they do.

You don't think that Good people have to do good things in order to be considered good? That's certainly a take.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you murder innocent people, take away the mental privacy of your subjects using Detect Thoughts to make sure they aren't evil, and are so egotistical that you want to become a god, you're not good. The Kingpriest was not good. He did not do good things, so he was not good. He was very, very evil.

A person that intends to do good but does evil things is evil.

But he was on Team Good. The captain of Team Good, actually.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Paladine didn’t create “good”. “Goodness” doesn’t flow from him.

He’s the “good” god. That’s it.

Good law etc are primal forces and the gods try to act to certain ideals and natures.

Again Zeus/Odin etc are bad examples but it’s what these D&D gods and how they work are based on.

You are literally “thinking about it to hard”. It’s fantasy religion based on real world old religions. It’s not modern dogma.

Modern dogma in my fantasy rpg would be not fun IMO

Norse, Greek, and other mythologies didn't tend to split their pantheons into "Good" and "Evil" labels. Sure, there were the different categories like the Aesir, Vanir, Titans, Giants, and Olympians, but none of those groupings were about "who is morally superior to the others".

Dragonlance does divide its pantheons into absolute groupings of morality. It has the three pantheons: "Good, Neutral, and Evil". It's fundamentally different from mythology because it comes with those terms attached to the fundamental identities of their gods. If it wants to label 1 out of 3 of the gods as good, then it needs to have them actually be good. "Goodness" is fundamental in the identity of Paladine. He is a Lawful Good god that is the Head God of the Good Pantheon. He has to do good. It's a part of who he is.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You don't think that Good people have to do good things in order to be considered good? That's certainly a take.

Did you actually see what I specifically responded to? Look again.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

But he was on Team Good. The captain of Team Good, actually.

"Good" is not a "team" that you root for like sports. It's a label that you achieve through good acts. If the captain of Team Good does evil, then he's not actually good and the team that's rooting for him isn't good either. He's evil and so are his enablers and patrons.

 

[Faolyn]

No. They say that she's "Lawful Neutral". Which I disagree with, because she murders people regularly in order to maintain total control of her domain. Thus, I say she's "Lawful Evil".

I think we can safely ignore any alignment when it comes to her. And she's a good example of why alignment is often very useless in the first place.

 

[DarkCrisis]

You don't think that Good people have to do good things in order to be considered good? That's certainly a take.

No body is 100% perfect. Not even the gods.

Stop thinking of them as cosmic forces. Good/evil etc exist without them.

In Faerun when a god dies, another god (or mortal) takes over their spheres of influence. Because those things are cosmic forces, not the god themselves.

Think of them as powerful people trying to fill a couple of boxes. Law and Good. Neutral and Evil. Etc

Maybe Greyhawk did it better where all the gods where just ascended mortals. (I think they were, could be wrong). Or maybe that was Mystara?