Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

Since even before the first hints of a Dragonlance movie surfaced, many people on the net played along with the popular what if scenario: "Who would you cast in a movie?" Here's a great video I recently came across where one person attempts to answer just that question. I really like the use of existing Dragonlance art along with several photos of each actor.

The minotaurs of Krynn are very much different from their counterparts in the Dungeons and Dragons rules in general. For starters, they are a true species that has male and female members and can give birth to offspring. In D&D terms, they are Medium sized creatures and playable as PCs at first level. One other difference, depending on the source, concerns their feet. The MM version of a minotaur is a cloven hoofed creature, but the minotaurs of Krynn as ofter portrayed as having human like feet, though some art work has shown they with hoofs.

Most of the books and game materials for the Dragonlance setting take place on the content of Ansalon, but the setting officially (as of this post) has two other contents. Taladas was first detailed in the 1989 product " Time of the Dragon ", a Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition box set that detailed a hitherto unknown continent on the planet of Krynn . In the original box set, it mentioned that the people of Ansalon do not know of this new place, but a later novel seems to indicate that the minotaurs are aware of their Taladian "cousins". Adlatum is another content on Krynn. No information is known about this location, other than various maps of the Ansalonian continent pointing to the direction of this content as well as pointing to the location of Taladas. No novels or other game products make mention of this place so it's not known how much the Ansalon population knows about this other content.

When the party returned to Flotsam they were surprised find that they were no longer unwelcome (see "A Dungeon and a Dragon (Part 3)" ), but were now hailed as heroes for rescuing all the prisoners from Brightstone keep (see "A Different Keep on the Borderlands - Part 3" ). About one week later, while most of the other party members were training, Arterion received a formal summons to take his Test of High Sorcery (commonly refered to as just "the test") at a nearby location. Arti was well aware that this was to be a rigorous experience meant to test all his skills and abilities, and that failure often meant death. With that in mind, Arti left behind some of his personal possessions, including recent treasure the party had found in Brightstone Keep. With little fanfare, he set off down the path of his own personal destiny... Ten days later, Browyn the Red, who had been mentoring Arti in Flotsam, informed the party of his apparent demise. Browyn didn't...

As I mentioned in passing in the last game session ( "A Different Keep on the Borderlands - Part 4" ), in my version of Dragonlance , which I like to think of as Krynn 616 , there's more than just the gods of light, darkness, and balance in the celestial makeup. I've also included lesser beings, such as demons and devils . These lesser beings are very rarely hinted at in the novels; I'm only aware of one book, Lord Toede , which makes mention of devils. So in adding this new layer to the setting, I came up with a bit of history to explain how these new beings all fit in with the established history, which in this case dates all the way back to the Age of Starbirth . As part the All Saints War, there were many other beings fighting in this celestial war. At the end of the war, many of the lesser beings were NOT elevated to deities as they had hoped (or been promised). As a result they became the following: The Fallen. These beings comprise the warriors who fough...

After freeing the last of the slave/miners from the Brightstone Keep (see part 3 ), the party went to explore the mines for more information on the mysterious things going on here, and maybe find more clues regarding Bergan's missing friend, Catriona. The entrance to the mine was sealed, but the lock was picked with only a little bit of effort. Slowly everyone entered... * Theo - the kender, handy at unlocking locked locks * Hunter - the half-elven ranger who's precision with the bow is often fatal to his opponents * Greybear - the druid, able to access the divine power of nature itself * Arti - a mage wielding powerful arcane forces * Jessriel - a former prisoner with hand to hand combat skills as effective as any blade or club. * Bergin - a minotaur and cleric of Kiri-Jolith As they entered, the party found a crudely carved path way leading to forked intersection. Opting to head left, they encounter a pair of zombies milling about. Bergan is able to call upon the power of Kir...

Hidden away in the bowels of the WotC website are a great collection of tools and generators for DMs. It's a shame that they haven't been supporting these kinds of products for awhile now, long before the announcement of 4th edition. I think they really dropped the ball on the chance to build great loyalty among DMs with these time saving devices. Now one argument is that DMs only represent 1/6th of the game audience (the other 5/6ths being players), but the amount of financial investment a DM has (DM guide, campaign setting books, splat books, etc) is significantly greater than a player (PHB, PHB2, and maybe a few of the splat books) and therefore they represent a much larger financial share of the audience. Also a DM has the power to influence some players away from one game to another simply by running one game over another. OK... the rant is over... Anyway, here's the archive page of the tools WotC has on it's site, including name and background generators as well...