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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 7890640" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/hrEAMlZ.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> Chapter 7: A War of the Lance CampaignI’ve noticed a commonality among the Dragonlance sourcebooks I’ve read so far: each of their final chapters are quite short, and this one’s no exception at a mere 5 pages long. Chapter Seven is a series of broad advice for Dungeon Masters based on three distinct time periods within the 4th Age.An Age of Despair Campaign can take place anytime after the Cataclysm and before the War of the Lance proper. It is a time of desperation and violence where the higher values of the Age of Might are quickly forgotten. The lack of any kind of magical healing makes mundane doctors and herbalists the most important people in their communities, while steel and iron become more valuable than gold and other soft metals. Even many Knights of Solamnia, hated and distrusted in their own homeland, become mercenaries and sell-swords as a means of making a living. Wizards are vilified while false religions propagate. It is a more lawless sword and sorcery feel than the high fantasy tropes common to Dragonlance.The War of the Lance Campaign is the default, and immediately it asks the burning question of how can the characters’ actions feel meaningful when the novel characters are the ones saving the world. It suggests letting the players play as them, but throw in some plot twists like Raistlin confronting Fistandantilus and becoming a White Robe Wizard. Or the Heroes of the Lance get slain during their mission and the PCs pick up where they left off.Not really good advice. The general setting outlook emphasises the changing world: the Dragonarmies are steamrolling kingdom after kingdom, mythical dragons have been sighted laying waste to towns, and magic of the true gods is rumored to be returning both among the forces of Good and Evil. Populations are displaced from war, and it is during this time that people are starting to unite beyond petty grievances against this common threat. Less sword and sorcery, more standard epic fantasy.A Post War of the Lance Campaign reflects the pseudo-peacetime after the destruction of the Temple of Neraka and the deaths of Emperor Ariakas and the highest-ranking remaining Dragon Highlords. The Dragonarmies still exist and are a threat, but are now disorganized remnants. The more fortunate survivors of the War of the Lance can return to living a less exciting life, but cities need to be rebuilt, infrastructure repaired. While the gods are back and churches are being formed for them, there is still some initial distrust of people that remember the Cataclysm. The metallic dragons, no longer bound by their Oath of noninterference, now have a more active hand in the world. Silvanesti is still rife with nightmares (although not as bad as they once were) and while the Knights of Solamnia are back in the peoples’ favor there are warlords and opportunists unwilling to give up their ill-gotten holdings. PCs who were instrumental in the Dragonarmies’ defeat, or were Heroes of the Lance themselves may become respected figures of their communities...and thus asked to aid with all manner of problems, like perhaps a dwarf PC asked to help make peace between the hill and mountain clans of Thorbadin.The Lyceum Adventure <img src="https://i.imgur.com/hQGYOgQ.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />This adventure is actually a 3rd Edition conversion of an AD&D adventure. Originally written by Tracy Hickman and converted by Cam Banks, it is an 8th-level dungeon crawl set several months after the destruction of the Dark Queen’s Temple at the end of the War of the Lance.Said dungeon is the Lyceum, originally one of the anchor points for the Lost Citadel where the three Gods of Magic trained the first wizards-to-be. It then became a secret citadel for wizards, but during the final years of the Age of Might its extraplanar portal, the Skydome, served as a gateway for all of the true clerics of Ansalon. At the behest of their patron deities they came to this place to be raptured out of the world and start new lives in realms beyond Krynn.* The Red Dragon Highlord Rugoheras, a mere shadow of his accomplished predecessors, is desperate to turn things around and learns of the Lyceum’s location. By kidnapping a pair of siblings from a nearby village, he hopes with the aid of a Black Robe Wizard and Cleric of Takhisis to re-enact the tragedy of Berem Everman, the Green Gemstone Man. By creating a new Foundation Stone out of the scattered shards of the Dark Queen’s Temple with innocent blood, he hopes to accomplish what Emperor Ariakas failed to do and open up a portal for Takhisis to enter the world!*Does this mean that this is also the dungeon where 18+ level PCs went to in the AD&D versions of the setting?The hook for the adventure is investigating a strange mist near the small town of Turog and the gathering and sudden disappearance of traveling Red Dragonarmy soldiers near the area. THeir camps have been left completely empty after some strange black clouds boiled out from the Lyceum’s location. If you’re wondering why such a vaunted citadel was never claimed by the Wizards of High Sorcery or some other group since the Cataclysm, it was magically warded from intrusion until a small force of draconians occupied it by disabling its wards. Given that the Highlord, cleric, and wizard arrived until after the war's end and there’s no Aurak or similarly powerful draconian spellcaster among their ranks, I don’t know how they managed to do this.The Lyceum is a 64 room dungeon crawl. It has random encounters as well as rooms with monsters and/or traps, and barring a few exceptions said encounters punch well below the party’s weight level due to the ‘war of attrition’ aspect of dungeons. A fair amount of the rooms are empty thematic set-pieces reflecting the places’ role as a mystical safe haven for wizards. The monster/trap rooms are more or less self-contained: barring the exception of the named bad guys, the Dragonarmy soldiers don’t really act like a fighting force who will take advantage of the dungeon’s layout or traps or where they’ll most likely move in case of searching for intruders. There are some creatures who are creations of the old mages or features of the dungeon itself, but there’s no indication of examples indicating any interaction: “the draconians had a bad run in with the spectral minions in Area 28. The corpse of a baaz can be found here” and similar things do not appear in this module.Some of the more interesting rooms include a kitchen and pantry holding a captured kender* and griffon who the draconians are planning on eating; a room with a ghostly wizard teacher who presumes the PCs are students and will magically summon a dunce cap on any character who appears to not understand arcane magic (and will demonstrate “the effects of a fireball upon an annoying group of adventurers” as a magical trap); a hallway with three glowing gems that unlock doorways in the rest of the complex, but have a puzzle where they teleport into each other’s pedestals if one tries to grab them and thus all three must be grabbed at once; a maze constructed of dimensional teleportation magic which bend light and sound so that it looks like it’s one long hallway going on forever; a fountain whose waters can bestow Cure Moderate Wounds and Lesser Restoration once a day on those who drink from it**; a pair of towers whose tops and bottoms are dimensionally connected so that the monsters and treasures inside are in freefall; and a library with 17 spellbooks...whose “books” only contain one spell each and have most of their content dedicated to treatises, various uses, and the history and development of said spell.*with said kender not being statted up, how he’ll react to the PCs saving him, or information he may know about the Lyceum.**said water loses its magical potency if taken out of the Lyceum.One of the Lyceum’s interesting figures is Estigon, the ghostly former Keeper of the Lyceum who appears every so often to drop helpful hints to the PCs. He is a multi-class cleric/wizard who discovered that the source of all magic is the Highgod and thus reflects his ‘universal understanding.* He and Justin, the spirit of a cleric guarding the Skydome, will drop hints to the PCs to use a unique magic item found elsewhere in the dungeon: Justin’s Icon of Truth, which can be used as a weapon against the forces of evil. Estigon’s class combination breaks earlier sourcebooks like Tower of High Sorcery, which stated that you cannot multi-class in an arcane and divine casting class at the same time because the magic just doesn’t work together. On the one hand, this adventure was written by Tracy Hickman and thus likely counts as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_expanded_to_other_media#Official_levels_of_canon" target="_blank">“G-Level Canon.”</a> On the other hand, Towers of High Sorcery had Margaret Weis as one of the primary writers, so I don’t know who overrules who in this case.*Dragonlance’s uber-deity, or Ao, equivalent who created all of the true gods and is not known or worshiped among the general populace.As for the major villains, they are all encountered in different areas of the Lyceum. The Black Robe Wizard has a shield guardian ally enchanted with Dispel Magic to imbue into a slam attack, and will regroup with his assistant in the library who has a retinue of human Dragonarmy soldiers standing watch. Spirior Minsi Tarenthela, the cleric, talks to herself via prayers to the Dark Queen and can spill the beans on the evil plot if the PCs are sneaky enough to eavesdrop. 2d6 baaz draconians will come to her aid if a fight breaks out at which point she will flee. To what rooms or out of the Lyceum proper, the adventure does not specify.Finally, the Red Dragon Highlord Rugoheras, is in a room torturing the kidnapped sister. His red dragon companion is using magic to show her torturous visions in the hopes of driving her to suicide by stabbing herself with one of the Nerakan temple shards...which isn’t a reenactment per se of Berem Everman’s tragedy: the man and his sister, after coming upon the Foundation Stone, get into an argument over the risk of taking it. Berem sought to pry out the green gemstone with a knife, but when his sister tried to stop him he pushed her off...and onto a nearby sharp column which instantly killed her.I also have to ask why the kidnapped brother is needed in this case, who is held in a different room. I can get that villains may have an illogical plan or throwing things at the dartboard to get their Queen back, but the adventure doesn’t really acknowledge this plot hole.The battle with the Highlord and his dragon has a surprising amount of tactics. The dragon has no orders to harm either sibling and thus will not turn his breath weapon on PCs who are too close, while the Highlord will do everything he can from preventing said siblings from leaving the room. If Justin’s Icon of Truth is used, it will automatically cast Order’s Wrath, stunning both the Highlord and the Dragon for one round with the former dropping any held weapons.But oddly, the adventure presumes only one solution even though Rugoheras can be killed normally and is only 8th-level himself: the PCs use Justin’s Icon of Truth or somehow push or manipulate the Highlord into falling through the Skydome,* where he will come face to face with the Dark Queen. His happiness is quickly overshadowed by her anger, as his form is enveloped into the void of the Abyss. The dragon somehow teleports into the portal as well if he’s still outside. Justin will thank the PCs for ensuring that justice was served and lets them keep whatever they found in the Lyceum as a reward. The Lyceum will disappear shortly thereafter, any memories of the place wiped from the minds of all but the PCs.*Which is well away from the room the battle takes place and must be traversed via the teleportation-illusion hall.We have three magic items before we wrap up this book. The Black Shards are pieces of stone remnants flung from the Temple of Neraka’s explosion. They are purely a plot device power for the bad guys’ ritual, but can be dispelled or turned as though they were undead/evil, at which point they become wisps of darkness which fade back into the Abyss. Orbs of the Moons are three orbs colored after an appropriate Order of High Sorcery. When an arcane spellcaster who worships the appropriate God of Magic wields such an Orb, they can cast Lesser Globe of Invulnerability 1/day or Dispel Magic 3/day each. Justin’s Icon of Truth contains all the powers of said magic item detailed in Chapter Two, but takes the form of carved ivory disks detailing how arcane and divine magic have the same source: the Highgod, a force even greater and beyond that of the true Gods of Krynn. Said Icon of Truth is highly Lawful and grants any wielder the ability to cast all but the highest-level spell from the Law domain.Thoughts So Far: Chapter Seven is far too short for me to have any real opinions on, and felt more like words to help fill out the page count.As for the dungeon, it feels more like a fun house than a living place. The Highlord’s plot is never explained if he’d be successful in unleashing Takhisis into the world or not, but either way I feel that this is a weak point of the module. The high stakes seem out of place when juxtaposed against the fact that it’s literally “villagers gone missing” cliche, and the party has no prior ties to the Lyceum or those inside it. Not to mention that it kind of commits the fallacy of repeating the Big Bad Evil Guy’s Plot from the main Chronicles, and thus you cannot help but compare it to that and how much less epic it is than the final module in the original Dragonlance series.After reviewing <a href="https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/lets-read-dragonlance-towers-of-high-sorcery.856820/page-3#post-23014331" target="_blank">Towers of High Sorcery</a> I cannot help but notice that the sourcebooks are contradicting not just themselves but each other: in that book, it was explained that arcane and divine spellcasting were impossible to be learned by the same person. But here we have the Lyceum’s ghostly keeper as a multi-class Cleric/Wizard. The fact that Krynn’s magical nature is so specific and hard-wired to the setting makes this feel less tolerable to happen than in a setting like Eberron or Forgotten Realms where all sorts of things in D&D are said to have a place.Final Thoughts: I love this book. It has pretty much everything but conversions of the original adventures when it comes to running games set during the War of the Lance. It does a great job detailing the world of the Age of Despair, and has plenty of stat blocks for generic Dragonarmy baddies and most of the named characters from the Chronicles. The new rules-facing material tends to be divided into two camps: if it’s related to magic it’s good. If not, like most of the Prestige Classes, feats, and the Master core class, it’s not so hot. The adventure at the end of the book is subpar for the reasons outlined above, but even this weak ending does not tarnish the shine of what may very well be the most comprehensive sourcebook for the 3rd Edition line of Dragonlance products.While my next planned review is Dragons of Krynn, I do not know when I’ll get around to that. I plan on taking a break for now, but after a month and a half of writing three reviews I feel that it is a rest well-deserved.See you all next time until the next Let’s Read!</blockquote>

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