Thread by @hexcrawl

Our Let's Read of the #Dragonlance Saga draws to a close with

DL13 Dragons of Truth, by Tracy Hickman

&

DL14 Dragons of Triumph, by Douglas Niles

If you'd like to go back to the beginning, our Let's Read started over here!

https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1528081088001605634

I've said this several times before, but I'm not sure everyone is hearing me: The original Dragonlance Saga was not only an insanely ambitious project, it was also stunningly creative and daring in its experimentation.

Case in point, DL13 Dragons of Truth opens with a council meeting designed to dump a bunch of exposition on the players.

"How can we make this more interesting?" the designers ask.

Their solution?

Pre-printed cards that can be distributed to the players so that they can assume the roles of the councilors.

In practice, it's a little rudimentary. But it's a really good gag, and, again, I'm just mightily impressed at the firehose of ideas that the DL Saga is constantly gushing out.

(DLC3, it should be noted, can't do the cards, and so it just does a big ol' dump of boxed text here.)

What the players tell themselves is that the Council of Whitestone has decided that the only way to win the war is for the PCs to sneak into Neraka, the Dark Queen's home city, and "bring it down."

The Council proposes four options for getting to Neraka:

- Disguise good dragons as evil dragons and fly in.
- Disguise themselves as merchants.
- Disguise themselves as Dragonarmy soldiers.
- Just sneak in.

This is a situation where a GM sitting at home could just say, "Okay, how are you planning to get to Neraka?"

And then just prep some content based on whatever plan the PCs come up with.

Here, of course, the authors have to have everything prepped ahead of time, and so they prescribe the PCs' choices.

Oddly, though, this seems to be largely unnecessary? They don't actually script the four approaches.

Instead, the lands around Taman Busuk are described in general terms (including the frequency of land and air patrols), giving the DM all the tools they need to run any approach the PCs might care to make.

But the plan nevertheless gets off to a weird start because it begins with the Solamnic Knights teleporting the PCs "behind the enemy lines."

This obviously allows the writers to bypass "sneak through the enemy lines" (a potentially messy scenario), but raises some large questions.

Like: Why not just teleport straight to Neraka?

Also, can we back up for a second?

To that bit where the Council says we need to go to Neraka and "bring it down?"

Is there, like... I dunno... a plan for that?

Imagine the Council of Elrond, but the One Ring doesn't exist.

Elrond: We're gonna need... I dunno... 9 of you to go to Mordor and win the war.

Gimli: And you'd be leading us?

Elrond: Oh god no.

...

Frodo: Why's everyone looking at me? I don't even know what I'm doing here.

Gimli: So when we get to Mordor, what would we do, exactly?

Elrond: Win the war. Pay attention, dwarf.

Aragorn: And this "winning." What would it look like, exactly?

Elrond: Victory.

Legolas: What sort of victory?

Elrond: I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Okay. Let's ignore that.

The adventure is: Get teleported to Area 1, cross the map to Neraka.

And this is the map:

It's pretty cool.

The entire region is laced with underground tunnels known as the Dark Network, which is depicted in the hexmap on the right (which overlays the map on the left).

Oddly, AFAICT, there are no clues or references pointing the PCs in the direction of the Dark Network: So they'll only discover it if they happen to randomly stumble across one of the entrances.

That's possible, but not terribly likely.

The other thing to understand is that the REAL goal of the adventure is not to go to Neraka: It's to go to a place called Godshome, from which they can access the Glitterpalace.

And the design here is just utterly bizarre.

First, this is Godshome.

Or, rather both Godshomes.

Area 29A is a Godshome that has a magical entrance to the Glitterpalace. Area 29B is a Godshome that doesn't.

When the PCs leave the Glitterpalace, they enter Godshome 29B.

This is NOT, as you can see, Godshome 29A and the magical entrance to the Glitterpalace has disappeared.

It is an exact duplicate of Godshome 29A, located half a mile to the west.

I'm not sure I'm really capturing the degree to which reading this will make you feel as if you're suffering some sort of psychotic break.

BECAUSE IT MAKES NO SENSE.

IT. MAKES. NO. SENSE.

Second: The PCs have never heard of Godshome before and have no reason for be looking for it.

There are exactly two ways for the PCs to learn about Godshome during the adventure.

1. There is a programmed encounter with a white baby fawn. If the PCs follow it for multiple days, it will lead them to Godshome.

2. There are two 1 in 20 chance rumors on the rumor table, both of which tell the PCs to not go to Godshome.

That's it.

And remember: Godshome is located in the middle of the mountains.

These mountains are, in fact, the Khalkist Range.

The Khalkist Range?

"Passage through these peaks on foot is impossible."

To review:

1. PCs are told to go to Neraka.

2. They're actually supposed to go to Godshome.

3. But the adventure won't tell them Godshome exists, or

4. It will tell them not to go there.

5. They can't accidentally stumble into Godshome, because it's in impassable mountains.

Even writing this, I find myself once again scrabbling through the book trying to figure out what I'm missing.

Because I must be missing something.

But there's nothing that I'm missing.

And I'm at an utter loss to explain this design.

It's like they went out of their way to break the adventure.

In any case, the PCs (probably don't) end up in Godshome and follow the Misty Paths to the Glitterpalace.

In Glitterpalace they hit up the typical buffet line of Tests to "prove their worth" and then Paladine shows up to tell them the secret of defeating Takhisis and ending the Saga.

Paladine, of course, does so in the form of a riddle, because...

Uh...

He's a dick?

I dunno.

Paladine's previous enigmatism could be explained because he was trying to protect the Oath, but the Oath doesn't exist any more. So why is he still making life difficult for the forces of good?

There's also some pretty strong implications that Paladine knew the Oath was broken the entire time and decided to just drop coy hints & threaten any good dragons who violated the Oath anyway.

So, actually, "Paladine is a frickin' asshole" is a perfectly legitimate explanation.

Oh, man. Right. I completely forgot: The adventure is so badly broken they actually just say, "Eh. I dunno. Have a magic door show up that will take the PCs to the ending."

There's so much batshit stuff in here.

https://twitter.com/nopipbutcpip/status/1601926072777555975

This brings us to the doorstep of the ending.

At several points in this Let's Read series we've discussed how the writers have addressed the chicken-and-egg relationship between the modules and novels: Starting with "don't let players who have read the novels spoil things" to...

..."okay, everyone has read the novels, here's how you can mix things up."

DL13 and DL14 take this to the ultimate level by randomizing the ending of the Saga.

Here's how it works: You draw one of the TALIS cards from DL12 and the suit of the card determines which of 6 endings the series will have.

The TALIS draw is actually done in character: The PCs find a magic TALIS deck and draw a card, teleporting them to their tests.

The TALIS draw determines the campaign's "Fate Number."

In addition to setting the method by which the gate to the Abyss can be closed in DL14, it also determines which version of the Glitterpalace the PCs experience (since various stuff is foreshadowed there).

There are six variations to the ending:

1. Fizban is Paladine and duels Takhisis.

2. Fizban is just a crazy wizard, Waylorn is Huma resurrected.

3. PC has to sacrifice themselves.

4. Fizban is just a crazy old man, Berem is Paladine.

5. Berem saves the day.

6. Did you try to copy the novel? Sucks to be you. It's opposite day and you've permanently opened the gate and doomed the world!

On the one hand, I get what they're trying to do.

On the other hand, this was clearly concocted at the last possible moment in development: So all the foreshadowing of Fizban being Paladine still exists. And all the bizarre effort to establish Berem as a character exists.

But, ultimately, all of that may have just been so much nonsense blowing in the wind.

I thought I was going to wrap up both DL13 & DL14 in this thread, but this has gone a little longer than I thought.

So we'll pick this up a little later, with a final thread for the final adventure.