There is the proverb “If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”
Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen very much reminds me of this. Not in a good way.
Fans had been calling on WotC to release a Dragonlance book for 5e for years.
And yes technically that is what WotC have delivered.
But is it the book that fans were asking for?
In my opinion it is not.
With Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen, WotC have decided to give the D&D fans a fish instead of teaching them to fish.
Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen is an adventure set in the Dragonlance world. More on that later.
If we are to compare it with previous WotC publications Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen sits on the shelf along side previous WotC adventures such as The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, etc.
The majority of Dragonlance fans were hoping that WotC would give the setting the same sort of love that Eberron got with the Eberron Rising from the Last War. Whilst avoiding the poorly thought out, content light Spelljammer effort.
Why did I get Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen?
For me Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen will provide me with fifth edition bits such as kender species details for players, classes, monster stats, magic items, etc. that I can then use with another recent arrival.
That recent arrival being the D&D 3.5 Dragonlance Campaign Setting book.
A combination of the two should allow me to run a homebrew Dragonlance campaign with a reduced work load running it in 5e.
Before ordering this edition of Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen I did watch and listen to some previews by those content creators deemed safe hands by WotC.
Yes I’d prefer the Lord Soth store exclusive cover. But not enough to warrant driving to my FLGS and the addition cost to get it.
But the major decision was between the adventure itself or all that comes in the (not cheap) deluxe edition.
Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen can be played in conjunction with the Dragonlance boardgame WotC have released at the same time. In the deluxe edition you get both the adventure (this has a third cover) and the boardgame, plus a DM screen exclusive to the deluxe edition.
At certain points in Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen you have the option to switch to the boardgame to play out the battle instead of taking part in a local level “skirmish” of the bigger battle.
Obviously the opinions about the boardgame were from those more into ttrpgs. However the overall consensus that I saw/listened to was that the boardgame didn’t add much, took too much time, and that the “skirmishes” were lots of fun.
The DM screen didn’t sweeten the deal, or seem attractive enough to tempt me. Hopefully WotC will see sense and release this separately in the future.
The adventure itself (see told you I’d do more later) is set at the start of the War of the Lance, in Solamnia. It will take a party of four to six adventurers from first level to eleventh as they get involved in trying to defeating the invading Dragon Armies of Takhisis the Dragon Queen.
The story/adventure is told over six chapters. Although if you want to get technical it’s really five chapters.
The first chapter is actually a pick and match from three encounters that are designed to introduce characters to the world of Krynn. Which ones you run really depends on the make up of your party playing the game.
I’m not going to describe the plot, I’ll let you discover that if you get the book. However I will tell you about the bits I plan to use in my homebrew stuff, and bits I like the look of.
In the first real chapter of the adventure is a fishing contest. It’s not complicated and something I think I can reuse not only as a competition but also as rules for fishing if a party want to fish for their dinner.
I like the look of the battlefield encounters (also introduced in the same chapter as the fishing contest). I like how the actual battle is abstracted out and the party are thrust into a potentially tide-turning encounter. The edge of the encounter map is called the fray and what happens if a character enters this zone changes depending on the encounter. Entering the fray is not good.
What would be great for this adventure is a map pack of the battle encounters that could be used with the players. The maps in the book are so small.
The regular dungeon maps are fine, and there are a few I can reuse in my own stuff for sure.
I like the hex crawl that’s introduced. It wouldn’t be too much effort to reuse this for my own purposes. Once again though, the map for this could be larger. Even the player friendly one is too small. I think this is going to be a general comment on the included maps. Especially the ones that show a lot of area. I find it hard this wasn’t picked up or commented on by an editor/reviewer.
There are the usual appendices, items, monsters, magic items, and now sidekicks. Plus a page or two of some concept art. Plus a couple of maps, and a pull out map.
Reading the adventure it feels epic in scope. I want to say Rogue One like. Hats off to WotC on trying something different by tying the adventure to the boardgame for that battlefield armies clashing experience. Although I’m disappointed they didn’t do something along the lines of MCDM’s Kingdoms and Warefare rules. Although the battlefield encounters are a nice compromise that give that cinematic feel to the battle where we are focusing on what our heroes are doing.
I hope this first look/initial impressions has helped anyone stumbling upon this post.