Dragonlance Dragonlance: Best Sources?

[Jack Hooligan]

Coming back to D&D after many editions away, but was a big DL fan back in the day. So, Besides the 2e stuff, where there ever quality materials produced for the setting? Taking publishing materials from all the editions into account, which stands as the best source for the setting? also, what's been the best published adventure so far?

 

[Voadam]

I am a big fan of the Dragonlance Campaign Setting for 3.5. A good overview of different stuff, gives good descriptions of the different eras and a lot of good info on the places and timeline and history.

A lot of the 3.5 Dragonlance stuff was good quality. I heard complaints about the first supplement, the Age of Mortals, but a lot of praise for a lot of the rest of it.

 

[jgsugden]

I think of Dragonlance like I think of Eberron - It was a setting created to focus on a particular time. It is best run at that moment in time - the War of the Lance. As such, the only time I ever touch it is during the War of the Lance. I am running a campaign right now that features a lot of extraplanar travel - and the PCs will be going to Kyrnn and exploring a location during a famous battle in the War of the Lance, racing to find something before it is destroyed in the carnage. Even when just visiting for a moment, I pick that time in the timeline to visit.

 

[toucanbuzz]

While 2nd 1E started it all and had some good stuff with Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home, 3rd edition dominated with the most detailed resource books that hit all your favorite eras, including but not limited to:

• Age of Mortals 3.5 campaign book + monster manual
• Legends of the Twins (time travel campaign book, go back to Istar at the brink of the Cataclysm, etc., probably my favorite of the bunch)
• War of the Lance (setting book)
• Towers of High Sorcery (great layout for doing the Test)
• Dragons of Krynn (everything you could ever want)
• War of the Lance adventure (3 massive books recreating the DLA Classics of fighting the War)

Personally, I found the AD&D Taladas boxed setting & maps to be a beauty, though it (purposefully) lacks your traditional stuff like the Towers. I ran a trilogy set there using 3 published modules - (DLA1-3, Dragon Dawn, Knight, & Rest) - which gets about as awesome as you could ever want with dragons + stopping Takhisis + time travel.

Otherwise, there were 3 published modules for Age of Mortals and another 3 promising ones in AD&D (Dragonlance Expansions, DLE1-3), but never played them and can't comment on their quality.

Finally, if you haven't already found it, the fansite dragonlancenexus.com has always had some great resources.

 

[Morrus]

I have all the 1E stuff - the DL modules, the hardcover setting books, etc. I guess it depends what era you want?

 

[Voadam]

While 2nd edition started it all

Did you mean 1st edition when the Dragonlance modules and the original trilogy of novels came out?

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

You can check out the Dragonlance Wiki.


(I have been discovered)

 

[toucanbuzz]

Did you mean 1st edition when the Dragonlance modules and the original trilogy of novels came out?

Correction, yes. Still got my DLA 1E book. Threadbare on description compared to 3rd edition but still spurred the imagination.

 

[GreyLord]

While 2nd 1E started it all and had some good stuff with Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home, 3rd edition dominated with the most detailed resource books that hit all your favorite eras, including but not limited to:

• Age of Mortals 3.5 campaign book + monster manual
• Legends of the Twins (time travel campaign book, go back to Istar at the brink of the Cataclysm, etc., probably my favorite of the bunch)
• War of the Lance (setting book)
• Towers of High Sorcery (great layout for doing the Test)
• Dragons of Krynn (everything you could ever want)
• War of the Lance adventure (3 massive books recreating the DLA Classics of fighting the War)

Personally, I found the AD&D Taladas boxed setting & maps to be a beauty, though it (purposefully) lacks your traditional stuff like the Towers. I ran a trilogy set there using 3 published modules - (DLA1-3, Dragon Dawn, Knight, & Rest) - which gets about as awesome as you could ever want with dragons + stopping Takhisis + time travel.

Otherwise, there were 3 published modules for Age of Mortals and another 3 promising ones in AD&D (Dragonlance Expansions, DLE1-3), but never played them and can't comment on their quality.

Finally, if you haven't already found it, the fansite dragonlancenexus.com has always had some great resources.

This is one of the best replies.

I'd say that if one just wants setting material, it depends on the time period they want. The Dragonlance Campaign Setting for 3.5 is good, and for basics I'd also get War of the Lance and Legend of the Twins.

Age of Mortals is good if one is interested in playing after Dragons of Summer Flame or War of Souls.

Other good DL material which isn't mentioned here (and the OP probably has all of this already though) are the Dragonlance Chronicles, Dragonlance Legends, Second Generation and Dragons of Summer Flame, and finally the War of Souls trilogy (basically the stuff by Hickman and Weis). The Iron and Amber series is also good for additional major developments in the setting.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

All of the typical sites and sources I typically suggest have been mentioned already, though I will always be the first to be a strong proponent of the Age of Mortals book + campaign setting 3.5 book combo (alongside the wikis listed for reference). Also seek put digital copies of the Tasselhoff map packs for use for the major cities if nothing else.

The inevitable arguement that always drops up when referencing Dragonlance is when/where to set your campaign. While I understand the criticism of the Age of Mortals, but I am a staunch defender of doing an Age of Mortals game set right after the War of Souls being the optimal place to use for games with the second best place being right AFTER War of the Lance. Use the books set during those times for reference and NPC ideas but chuck them out the first moment your players go off script.

The reason I suggest post war of souls is because it's prime real estate for new characters starting out at lower levels, continent basically just had their equivalent to WWII and the two primary gods of good/evil are now mortal/dead, the elves are now a wandering diaspora in search of a homeland, and every nation is damaged and seeking to recover and rebuild. It shakes up not only the heavens but the mortals as well.

Not to mention, it also completely avoids the concerns of things like "well sorcerers, bards, etc. shouldn't exist during the war of the lance!" problem that always pops up when discussing the setting. As a reminder the meta-narritive reason they chose to "blow up the world" and start the Age of Mortals stuff in the first place was to make the setting fit the more modern 3e class set and while 5e has a lot of callbacks to older editions, less magic users that "break war of the lance cannon" there are not.

Some of the actual book cannon I've used for story fodder is the Amber and Ashes trilogy (using Chemosh and Mishakal trying hard to influence the party is quite nice and the Beloved of Chemosh make for creepy as hell villains, albeit I had to homebrew them as monsters for 5e), the Rise of Solamnia trilogy for a mass combat / political intrigue sort of thing, and a few of the other novels. Again, I wont claim they are great written quality but that's not the point. Take elements and craft the story you want, not keeping the cannon as all important.

Honestly? The Ebberon sourcebook for 5e is actually great for describing a sort of post major war-fluff stuff that fits that time period quite well.