Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

Death in the Burning Sea This issue starts off with each of the party members riding a different dragon, while Riva and Maraghiz lament about how they should have foreseen Erestem's influence on Skrum through the ring. They then arrive at a location near a lava flow where Skrum commands the dragons to drop off the party members off in a nearby valley. Once Skrum dismounts, all the dragons fly away. He tells everyone that he has brought them here to meet the goddess. Rising up from the pool, a gigantic lava-form of Erestem appears. She taunts Riva about their previous meeting (in issue #3 ). Meanwhile, Sulai casts an ice storm spell on Erestem. Skurm laughs at the elf mage's attempt, saying that "a little hail won't extinguish Erestem's flame!" What Skurm didn't realize was that Sulai's real intention of the spell was not to harm the goddess, but to use the mixture of flame and ice to create enough steam for the party to escape unseen. Under cover of th...

I've seen plenty of D&D licensed merch, from comics, to toys, to the Saturday morning cartoons , and even an AD&D beach towel (BTW, if you know of anyone selling said beach towel, contact me, I'm desperately looking for one) but this latest announcement from Jones Soda is most unexpected one I could find. After looking at the drink titles, I started thinking about a second series of bopttles, but all in a Dragonlance theme, like maybe: Draconian Brew Ansalonian Ginger Ale Toade Sweat (sorry, I just saw Tropic Thunder again, and can't get Booty Sweat out of my mind) Fizban's Fruitpunch Solamnic Soda and of... Raistlin's Tea Any ones I've missed? Please leave a comment.

The battle with the jarak-sinn who had confronted the party right after the Harpy attack , didn't last long. While the party defeated most of the attackers, one had managed to get away, escaping deeper into the lair of the jarak-sinn. Between the two recent fights, everyone was a little bloody and bruised and decided to take refuge in the nearby alcove in the tree-lair, considering it an easily defensible position. The first few hours were uneventful and the party starting thinking the night might go by without incident, that was not to be... The jarak-sinn, noticing that the most recent patrol hadn't returned and several other tribesmen had gone missing, started to worry about intruders. DM Note: (Behind the Scenes) Incidentally, the one lizardfolk who had gotten away died before being able to tell the others what exactly had happened, but the dead body was clearly an indication that it wasn't good. Later that night, Jes and Hunter, while on watch, heard the faint sounds o...

In previous posts, I've mentioned some of the tools I use as a DM ( Post-it Notes , and Heromachine ), but one of the fundamental tools is inspiration, or more importantly, where to get inspiration. Madonna once sang that "you can dance for inspiration", though anyone seeing me dance might only be inspired to think "that poor man is having a seizure... right there on the dance floor!" So, other than Madge's advice, where do I find inspiration as a DM? A lot of different sources, actually, and hopefully a few you haven't thought of yourself. I think anything can be a source of inspiration, from an automobile, to a sudoku puzzle, and for everything from a character name (Katera-- as in Cadillac Catera), to a method of random dungeon generation . The real trick for the DM is keeping their DM hat on (in the background) as they go about daily life. Here are some of the sources that routinely inspire me. By far and wide the best resource I've found is the ...

Ring of Evil This issue starts out with General Axantheas holding a meeting. Around the table are humanoids of different races and genders (including a traag draconian and a hobgoblin). Behind the general is a statue of Erestem (aka Takhisis). The mintour proclaims this small group to be the greatest champions of evil on Taladas, each representing one of the Erestem's five heads. There is infighting within the group, and Axantheas even kills one of the other "heads", believing him to be a spy for the rival nation of Thenol. Elsewhere, Riva starts the morning in prayer to Paladine. Afterward the rest of the party convince her that the best way to stop the general and Esterem, is to reveal their plot to the emperor of the League of Minotaurs. Later they unleash an attack on the emperor's entourage in an attempt to get a private audience with the leader. After fighting the emperor's minions, he steps out of his carriage in full battle gear. As he listens to the party...

If you are like me, and were born in the late sixties or seventies, you probably grew up with one or more of those fabulously simple Mattel hand held games that were nothing more than red blips on a screen (I'll spare everyone my curmudgeonly sounding argument about how we were so imaginative that even red blips could keep us entertained for hours back then while kids today blah, blah, blah). If you've never seen these before check this YouTube playlist of these games "in action". As you'll see there were versions for baseball, football, basketball, and a whole bunch of others. ANYWAY... somewhere around that time, Mattel and TSR (before they got bought out by WotC, before WotC got bought out by Hasbro) got together and must have thought that red blips were too much for the D&D community, and came up with a 2 player game featuring only four miniatures--a single treasure chest, one figure for each player and one for the puniest looking dragons, I've ever s...