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[Let's Read] Dragonlance: Towers of High Sorcery
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<blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 7887817" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><p style="text-align: center"><strong>Chapter Six: Creatures</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/RUkSDKH.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>We’re in the home stretch, baby! This post is a 2-for-1 special due to the fact that the final chapter is really short. The meat of this section covers the new monsters, creatures which are either artificial creations of wizards or have some ability which makes them vital or dangerous to the work of High Sorcery.</p><p></p><p>Some things to clear up first. Quite a few of these monsters are related to the Ethereal Plane, which works slightly different in Dragonlance. For one, it is also the realm of dreams where spectral realms are conjured up by unconscious mortal minds. The Ethereal Plane as it’s commonly known in D&D parlance is the shores of the Material Plane, part of a much larger Ethereal Sea (aka the Deep Ethereal) which stretches to worlds beyond and is full of strange monsters never before seen on Krynn. When Takhisis stole the world during the Chaos War, her relocation of Krynn picked up quite a few strange monsters along the way.</p><p></p><p>We don’t have any new <strong>Familiars,</strong> but the book explains how the mundane animals are by far the most common. While some extraplanar familiars are not unknown, they are not exactly a welcome presence in magical academies. Pseudodragons are rare to the point of extinction in the Fifth Age, and during the Fourth Age they’d be in hiding pre-War of the Lance.</p><p></p><p><strong>Dread Beasts</strong> are undead animals meant to serve as spies for necromancers. Unlike typical zombies they are intelligent and have a telepathic link with their creator which can work out to 50 miles, and they emit disease and foul smells which can debilitate opponents in battle. We also have a Create Dread Beast spell and rules for having them as cohorts, although the monster and spell are evil-aligned so it’s not exactly suitable for heroic parties.</p><p></p><p>In Dragonlance the Ethereal Plane is closely linked to the dreams of mortals, although the unconscious musings of powerful entities and lucid dreamers can form more ‘real’ substances. Spells such as Mindscape can further solidify these phantasmal realities. <strong>Dreamshadows</strong> are quite simply illusory entities representing existing creatures: they are a simple template which has all the base qualities of the character/creature in question, save that their attacks count as illusions for rules purposes and they deal 1 Wisdom damage on all of their attacks. <strong>Dreamwraiths</strong> on the other hand are a specific species of malevolent entity spawned from nightmares and wicked thoughts. They function more as “hit and run” enemies who have high Wisdom and Charisma based skills, and in addition to the Dreamshadow traits <a href="https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/crushingDespair.htm" target="_blank">they have a gaze attack which causes depression.</a></p><p></p><p><strong>Eldritch Avatars</strong> are manifestations of raw magic, either from a powerful magical item or a nexus of arcane power. They can take just about any form, from monsters to humanoids, but their unifying factor is that they cannot ever make use of or learn divine magic. <strong>Eldritch Emissary</strong> is a template for magical locations whose main abilities include being able to cast spells from 1-3 cleric domains as arcane spells, the ability to reform upon death, and can temporarily discorporate from anti-magic spells. <strong>Eldritch Haunts</strong> are keyed to specific magic items. They are capable of shapechanging into said item (they are one and the same) and back to its creature form, can use the abilities of said item as though wielding it (such as gaining armor bonus if armor, cast spells from a wand’s charge as spell-like abilities, etc), and have the power to drain other magic items of charges to replenish its own charges.</p><p></p><p><strong>Fogdrakes</strong> are an ancient species of dragon which are nearly extinct. They are wicked souls who glide instead of fly and can detect when an arcane spell or magical item has been “cast” within 300 feet. They can also charge on a full attack, rage as a barbarian, and are constantly surrounded by a curtain of mist which they can see through thanks to Blindsight.</p><p></p><p><strong>Huldrefolk</strong> are basically “grey aliens” in Dragonlance. They existed since the Age of Starbirth, making them older than all life forms on Krynn, and began to depart to the Ethereal Sea through standing stone portals once the gods put the souls of stars into mortal bodies. Huldrefolk are believed to be the ancestors of all fey, and while some visit Krynn they are so rare as to be mythical. They can cast spells as 8th-level sorcerers and gain a variety of powers related to a natural domain (Animal, Plant, or one of the four elements): they learn said domain spells as sorcerer spells, can merge their bodies into things made of said domain, teleport between them akin to the Tree Stride spell, and speak with the objects of said domain even if they’re not normally capable of speech.</p><p></p><p><strong>Remnants</strong> are incorporeal undead which look like glowing cloaked skeletons. They are what happens when a powerful arcane caster dies from a surge of raw magical energy, which in turn spontaneously animates them. Remnants are mostly (but not always) chaotic evil beings resentful of the power they lost. Much like the shadow undead they can create more of themselves via an ability drain touch (Intelligence) and are powerless when exposed to natural daylight.</p><p></p><p>The <strong>Thaumavore</strong> is our final monster, extraplanar incorporeal eel-like things from the Ethereal Sea. They are completely alien to Krynn and said plane’s very environment harms them, so they only ever appear in the mortal world due to a botched summoning spell, unstable planar rifts such as Takhisis stealing the world during the Chaos War, and so on and so forth. They are instinctual beings, capable of detecting, seeking out, and draining magical energy for sustenance as a touch attack. The more spell levels worth of energy they drain the more innate magical spell-like abilities they can cast. Said spell-like abilities include a healthy mixture of defense (blink, protection from good/evil, anti-magic field, etc), mobility (dimension door, plane shift), and debuffs (ray of enfeeblement, touch of idiocy, confusion, etc). The Plane Shift spell is the most costly in terms of charges, so needless to say it will cast that as soon as possible to return to the Ethereal Plane.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><strong>Chapter Seven: Rivals</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/6w9YTql.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>Numbering a mere five pages, this is the shortest chapter in the book and covers the Wizards of High Sorcery’s relationships with other spellcasters and magical organizations of Ansalon. It’s rather general and broad-sweeping, for example covering divine spellcasters in general as opposed to specific priesthoods.</p><p></p><p><em>Renegades</em> are perhaps the most well-known adversary to the Orders, although not the greatest currently (that’d be the Knights of the Thorn). They come from all walks of life but their unifying factor is their unwillingness to work within the strictures of the Conclave and Orders. Although those who refuse the Test are perhaps the most well-known, there are more than a few Robed wizards who end up exiled from their parent organization. As the Red and Black Robes are more hands-off in regards how individual members conduct themselves, said exiles tend to be very dangerous individuals pursuing some universal taboo or committed great crimes against the Orders as a whole. A few renegades are technically such, but live in such isolated or far-flung corners of Krynn that the Wizards of High Sorcery simply haven’t discovered them yet.</p><p></p><p>We have stats for one renegade, a wicked transmuter by the name of Rieve who has a bit of a folkloric reputation among story-tellers. He’s a 10th level (ex) Black Robe who specializes in evocation and transmutation magic, particularly polymorph and self-enhancement buffs.</p><p></p><p><em>Sorcerers</em> doesn’t really detail much that hasn’t been covered in previous chapters, save for the fact that most of them describe spellcasting as “drawing power from within and within the world.” Most of them are technically renegades but can get away with it due to the fact that they aren’t limited by typical factors such as literacy which need to produce wizards. Compounding this is the fact that during the Fifth Age they were the major arcane spellcasters for half a century while the Orders remained powerless and thus have a head start on numbers and power in the Fifth Age.</p><p></p><p><em>Knights of the Thorn</em> are the largest organized opposition to the Wizards of High Sorcery on Ansalon. All three Orders attempted to destroy them in their infancy during the siege of Storm’s Keep. Said battle ended in a draw, where the Orders were unable to complete their mission and had to retreat when Takhisis stole away the world. Although said goddess is now dead, the Knights of Neraka control a huge portion of central and eastern Ansalon. Unlike the Orders they are just as willing to recruit sorcerers into their ranks, meaning that in the current Age of Mortals they are pretty much the largest group of arcane spellcasters in Ansalon. The Orders have yet to resume their war, but it is only a matter of time.</p><p></p><p><em>Clerics</em> have been treated hands-off by the Wizards of High Sorcery* due to the fact that unlike sorcery there’s no real means of said magic growing beyond the caster’s control due to the strong hold their patron deity has over the acquisition of divine magic. While Wizards of High Sorcery can only have their respective moons as their patron deity, they can respect the ethos of various gods: Gilean’s emphasis on knowledge makes his priesthood a popular choice to work with for wizards, while Sirrion’s connection to alchemy and creativity is also a boon. The White Robes have a close working relationship with the priesthoods of Paladine and Mishakal due to said deities’ roles in the War of the Lance and in restoring and recovering lore from ancient ruins. The Black Robes are an exception, for Takhisis’ attempts at making her own wizarding Order has made him paranoid of losing any more potential Black Robes. Combine this with the fact that most non-Takhisis evil gods are a rather reclusive lot (and Sargonnas’ strong link to the anti-arcane minotaurs) makes this feeling from the priesthoods mutual.</p><p></p><p>*Historically the opposite has been true, what with the Kingpriest and all.</p><p></p><p><em>Mystics</em> are the other primal spellcaster which emerged during the Age of Mortals. Its power source stems from a universal energy present in all living things, and is the “divine” equivalent to sorcery even though it does not stem from any of the gods. Wizards are as distrusting of mystics as they are of sorcerers partly due to its similar seeming Chaos-spawned origins. However they are a bit more tolerant of the Citadel of Light as an institution which trains said mystics, although in a more “pick your battles” way in that the Knights of the Thorn are much larger, more powerful, and more present a threat.</p><p></p><p>Although it’s nestled in the back of the book, it is technically impossible to be a Mystic Theurge of any kind in Ansalon barring the Knights of Takhisis during the Chaos War. But with Takhisis dead, that avenue is now lost. As a moon counts as a “patron deity” wizards/clerics have to choose one or the other. The Mystic entry also explained that attempts for arcane spellcasters of both kinds in learning mysticism have failed as it appears that wild magic and focused magic simply cannot mix. You'd think that this is something that would be included in the core Dragonlance Campaign Setting considering how explicit the rules have been regarding class restrictions of other kinds: no post-Cataclysm non-evil divine magic before the War of the Lance, no spontaneous casting classes before the Chaos War, play a multi-class Knight of Solamnia instead of a Paladin, etc.</p><p></p><p><strong>Thoughts So Far:</strong> The monsters are quite interesting and I can see them being used for some nifty encounters. An Eldritch Haunt magical item can make for an offbeat sort of treasure, while Dread Beasts are perfect for necromancer minions beyond the stock skeleton/zombie tropes. If there’s one weakness in the bestiary it would be that the chapter’s rather template-heavy and so there’s not as much pre-created stat blocks ready to go. Remnants are too similar to shadows, while the huldrefolk feel a bit too sci-fi for Dragonlance. I do like the thaumavore even though they’re unlikely to be a “long-term” opponent or the kind that will hang out in a room during a dungeon crawl.</p><p></p><p>I don’t have much to say on Rivals one way or the other than the fact it gives out some rather vital information too late in the book. The Thorn Knights’ prominence puts the anti-sorcerer bias into some perspective, although they’re never mentioned in prior chapters, whether pro-recruitment (“we need to get the sorcerers to trust and join our Orders because they’ll otherwise be ripe pickings for the Knights”) or anti-sorcerer (“most sorcerers are likely sympathetic to the Thorn Knights so we may as well persecute/kill them”).</p><p></p><p><strong>Concluding Thoughts:</strong> Towers of High Sorcery is a mixed bag. It has a lot of good material to use in one’s gaming groups, Dragonlance or otherwise. But there’s a lot of material which is either mechanically suspect, like the “divine emulation” spells, or fluff text which is inconsistent with the world presented and ends up leaving more questions and plot holes than answers. There are times when it feels like chapters were written separate from each other rather than being part of a larger whole. Examples of this include key information being relegated to the very last pages, or how the Text is meant to weed out unethical minds despite the fact that the Black Robes are all about self-empowerment at the expense of others.</p><p></p><p>This is probably one of the few 3rd Edition sourcebooks where I can say that I liked the mechanical crunch more than the fluff; in the realm of third party products it’s usually the other way around. As to whether the book itself merits a purchase, I cannot say yes given that its chapters cover some very different ground and even by themselves do not often have enough material to use holistically beyond piecemeal insertions.</p><p></p><p>But that hasn’t quelled my passion for Dragonlance. For my next Let’s Read I’m going to cover the War of the Lance sourcebook, a setting companion which details the continent of Ansalon during the iconic original Dragonlance Adventures but for 3rd Edition!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Libertad, post: 7887817, member: 6750502"] [center][b]Chapter Six: Creatures[/b] [img]https://i.imgur.com/RUkSDKH.png[/img][/center] We’re in the home stretch, baby! This post is a 2-for-1 special due to the fact that the final chapter is really short. The meat of this section covers the new monsters, creatures which are either artificial creations of wizards or have some ability which makes them vital or dangerous to the work of High Sorcery. Some things to clear up first. Quite a few of these monsters are related to the Ethereal Plane, which works slightly different in Dragonlance. For one, it is also the realm of dreams where spectral realms are conjured up by unconscious mortal minds. The Ethereal Plane as it’s commonly known in D&D parlance is the shores of the Material Plane, part of a much larger Ethereal Sea (aka the Deep Ethereal) which stretches to worlds beyond and is full of strange monsters never before seen on Krynn. When Takhisis stole the world during the Chaos War, her relocation of Krynn picked up quite a few strange monsters along the way. We don’t have any new [b]Familiars,[/b] but the book explains how the mundane animals are by far the most common. While some extraplanar familiars are not unknown, they are not exactly a welcome presence in magical academies. Pseudodragons are rare to the point of extinction in the Fifth Age, and during the Fourth Age they’d be in hiding pre-War of the Lance. [b]Dread Beasts[/b] are undead animals meant to serve as spies for necromancers. Unlike typical zombies they are intelligent and have a telepathic link with their creator which can work out to 50 miles, and they emit disease and foul smells which can debilitate opponents in battle. We also have a Create Dread Beast spell and rules for having them as cohorts, although the monster and spell are evil-aligned so it’s not exactly suitable for heroic parties. In Dragonlance the Ethereal Plane is closely linked to the dreams of mortals, although the unconscious musings of powerful entities and lucid dreamers can form more ‘real’ substances. Spells such as Mindscape can further solidify these phantasmal realities. [b]Dreamshadows[/b] are quite simply illusory entities representing existing creatures: they are a simple template which has all the base qualities of the character/creature in question, save that their attacks count as illusions for rules purposes and they deal 1 Wisdom damage on all of their attacks. [b]Dreamwraiths[/b] on the other hand are a specific species of malevolent entity spawned from nightmares and wicked thoughts. They function more as “hit and run” enemies who have high Wisdom and Charisma based skills, and in addition to the Dreamshadow traits [url=https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/crushingDespair.htm]they have a gaze attack which causes depression.[/url] [b]Eldritch Avatars[/b] are manifestations of raw magic, either from a powerful magical item or a nexus of arcane power. They can take just about any form, from monsters to humanoids, but their unifying factor is that they cannot ever make use of or learn divine magic. [b]Eldritch Emissary[/b] is a template for magical locations whose main abilities include being able to cast spells from 1-3 cleric domains as arcane spells, the ability to reform upon death, and can temporarily discorporate from anti-magic spells. [b]Eldritch Haunts[/b] are keyed to specific magic items. They are capable of shapechanging into said item (they are one and the same) and back to its creature form, can use the abilities of said item as though wielding it (such as gaining armor bonus if armor, cast spells from a wand’s charge as spell-like abilities, etc), and have the power to drain other magic items of charges to replenish its own charges. [b]Fogdrakes[/b] are an ancient species of dragon which are nearly extinct. They are wicked souls who glide instead of fly and can detect when an arcane spell or magical item has been “cast” within 300 feet. They can also charge on a full attack, rage as a barbarian, and are constantly surrounded by a curtain of mist which they can see through thanks to Blindsight. [b]Huldrefolk[/b] are basically “grey aliens” in Dragonlance. They existed since the Age of Starbirth, making them older than all life forms on Krynn, and began to depart to the Ethereal Sea through standing stone portals once the gods put the souls of stars into mortal bodies. Huldrefolk are believed to be the ancestors of all fey, and while some visit Krynn they are so rare as to be mythical. They can cast spells as 8th-level sorcerers and gain a variety of powers related to a natural domain (Animal, Plant, or one of the four elements): they learn said domain spells as sorcerer spells, can merge their bodies into things made of said domain, teleport between them akin to the Tree Stride spell, and speak with the objects of said domain even if they’re not normally capable of speech. [b]Remnants[/b] are incorporeal undead which look like glowing cloaked skeletons. They are what happens when a powerful arcane caster dies from a surge of raw magical energy, which in turn spontaneously animates them. Remnants are mostly (but not always) chaotic evil beings resentful of the power they lost. Much like the shadow undead they can create more of themselves via an ability drain touch (Intelligence) and are powerless when exposed to natural daylight. The [b]Thaumavore[/b] is our final monster, extraplanar incorporeal eel-like things from the Ethereal Sea. They are completely alien to Krynn and said plane’s very environment harms them, so they only ever appear in the mortal world due to a botched summoning spell, unstable planar rifts such as Takhisis stealing the world during the Chaos War, and so on and so forth. They are instinctual beings, capable of detecting, seeking out, and draining magical energy for sustenance as a touch attack. The more spell levels worth of energy they drain the more innate magical spell-like abilities they can cast. Said spell-like abilities include a healthy mixture of defense (blink, protection from good/evil, anti-magic field, etc), mobility (dimension door, plane shift), and debuffs (ray of enfeeblement, touch of idiocy, confusion, etc). The Plane Shift spell is the most costly in terms of charges, so needless to say it will cast that as soon as possible to return to the Ethereal Plane. [center][b]Chapter Seven: Rivals[/b] [img]https://i.imgur.com/6w9YTql.png[/img][/center] Numbering a mere five pages, this is the shortest chapter in the book and covers the Wizards of High Sorcery’s relationships with other spellcasters and magical organizations of Ansalon. It’s rather general and broad-sweeping, for example covering divine spellcasters in general as opposed to specific priesthoods. [i]Renegades[/i] are perhaps the most well-known adversary to the Orders, although not the greatest currently (that’d be the Knights of the Thorn). They come from all walks of life but their unifying factor is their unwillingness to work within the strictures of the Conclave and Orders. Although those who refuse the Test are perhaps the most well-known, there are more than a few Robed wizards who end up exiled from their parent organization. As the Red and Black Robes are more hands-off in regards how individual members conduct themselves, said exiles tend to be very dangerous individuals pursuing some universal taboo or committed great crimes against the Orders as a whole. A few renegades are technically such, but live in such isolated or far-flung corners of Krynn that the Wizards of High Sorcery simply haven’t discovered them yet. We have stats for one renegade, a wicked transmuter by the name of Rieve who has a bit of a folkloric reputation among story-tellers. He’s a 10th level (ex) Black Robe who specializes in evocation and transmutation magic, particularly polymorph and self-enhancement buffs. [i]Sorcerers[/i] doesn’t really detail much that hasn’t been covered in previous chapters, save for the fact that most of them describe spellcasting as “drawing power from within and within the world.” Most of them are technically renegades but can get away with it due to the fact that they aren’t limited by typical factors such as literacy which need to produce wizards. Compounding this is the fact that during the Fifth Age they were the major arcane spellcasters for half a century while the Orders remained powerless and thus have a head start on numbers and power in the Fifth Age. [i]Knights of the Thorn[/i] are the largest organized opposition to the Wizards of High Sorcery on Ansalon. All three Orders attempted to destroy them in their infancy during the siege of Storm’s Keep. Said battle ended in a draw, where the Orders were unable to complete their mission and had to retreat when Takhisis stole away the world. Although said goddess is now dead, the Knights of Neraka control a huge portion of central and eastern Ansalon. Unlike the Orders they are just as willing to recruit sorcerers into their ranks, meaning that in the current Age of Mortals they are pretty much the largest group of arcane spellcasters in Ansalon. The Orders have yet to resume their war, but it is only a matter of time. [i]Clerics[/i] have been treated hands-off by the Wizards of High Sorcery* due to the fact that unlike sorcery there’s no real means of said magic growing beyond the caster’s control due to the strong hold their patron deity has over the acquisition of divine magic. While Wizards of High Sorcery can only have their respective moons as their patron deity, they can respect the ethos of various gods: Gilean’s emphasis on knowledge makes his priesthood a popular choice to work with for wizards, while Sirrion’s connection to alchemy and creativity is also a boon. The White Robes have a close working relationship with the priesthoods of Paladine and Mishakal due to said deities’ roles in the War of the Lance and in restoring and recovering lore from ancient ruins. The Black Robes are an exception, for Takhisis’ attempts at making her own wizarding Order has made him paranoid of losing any more potential Black Robes. Combine this with the fact that most non-Takhisis evil gods are a rather reclusive lot (and Sargonnas’ strong link to the anti-arcane minotaurs) makes this feeling from the priesthoods mutual. *Historically the opposite has been true, what with the Kingpriest and all. [i]Mystics[/i] are the other primal spellcaster which emerged during the Age of Mortals. Its power source stems from a universal energy present in all living things, and is the “divine” equivalent to sorcery even though it does not stem from any of the gods. Wizards are as distrusting of mystics as they are of sorcerers partly due to its similar seeming Chaos-spawned origins. However they are a bit more tolerant of the Citadel of Light as an institution which trains said mystics, although in a more “pick your battles” way in that the Knights of the Thorn are much larger, more powerful, and more present a threat. Although it’s nestled in the back of the book, it is technically impossible to be a Mystic Theurge of any kind in Ansalon barring the Knights of Takhisis during the Chaos War. But with Takhisis dead, that avenue is now lost. As a moon counts as a “patron deity” wizards/clerics have to choose one or the other. The Mystic entry also explained that attempts for arcane spellcasters of both kinds in learning mysticism have failed as it appears that wild magic and focused magic simply cannot mix. You'd think that this is something that would be included in the core Dragonlance Campaign Setting considering how explicit the rules have been regarding class restrictions of other kinds: no post-Cataclysm non-evil divine magic before the War of the Lance, no spontaneous casting classes before the Chaos War, play a multi-class Knight of Solamnia instead of a Paladin, etc. [b]Thoughts So Far:[/b] The monsters are quite interesting and I can see them being used for some nifty encounters. An Eldritch Haunt magical item can make for an offbeat sort of treasure, while Dread Beasts are perfect for necromancer minions beyond the stock skeleton/zombie tropes. If there’s one weakness in the bestiary it would be that the chapter’s rather template-heavy and so there’s not as much pre-created stat blocks ready to go. Remnants are too similar to shadows, while the huldrefolk feel a bit too sci-fi for Dragonlance. I do like the thaumavore even though they’re unlikely to be a “long-term” opponent or the kind that will hang out in a room during a dungeon crawl. I don’t have much to say on Rivals one way or the other than the fact it gives out some rather vital information too late in the book. The Thorn Knights’ prominence puts the anti-sorcerer bias into some perspective, although they’re never mentioned in prior chapters, whether pro-recruitment (“we need to get the sorcerers to trust and join our Orders because they’ll otherwise be ripe pickings for the Knights”) or anti-sorcerer (“most sorcerers are likely sympathetic to the Thorn Knights so we may as well persecute/kill them”). [b]Concluding Thoughts:[/b] Towers of High Sorcery is a mixed bag. It has a lot of good material to use in one’s gaming groups, Dragonlance or otherwise. But there’s a lot of material which is either mechanically suspect, like the “divine emulation” spells, or fluff text which is inconsistent with the world presented and ends up leaving more questions and plot holes than answers. There are times when it feels like chapters were written separate from each other rather than being part of a larger whole. Examples of this include key information being relegated to the very last pages, or how the Text is meant to weed out unethical minds despite the fact that the Black Robes are all about self-empowerment at the expense of others. This is probably one of the few 3rd Edition sourcebooks where I can say that I liked the mechanical crunch more than the fluff; in the realm of third party products it’s usually the other way around. As to whether the book itself merits a purchase, I cannot say yes given that its chapters cover some very different ground and even by themselves do not often have enough material to use holistically beyond piecemeal insertions. But that hasn’t quelled my passion for Dragonlance. For my next Let’s Read I’m going to cover the War of the Lance sourcebook, a setting companion which details the continent of Ansalon during the iconic original Dragonlance Adventures but for 3rd Edition! [/QUOTE]
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