Campaign idea: The Third Dragon War

Reading The Legend of Huma has rekindled an old idea of mine: adventures during the Third Dragon War. There’s little actual information about this time, so it is necessary to dig around various materials to find what is needed to accurately describe this time in history. Much like my write up on Fistandatilus, I have looked to the novels, The Legend of Huma to be precise, in order to get a feel for the era.

Because the novel is not meant for gaming there is a need to somehow incorporate game mechanics into the story. In this post, which I will hopefully update over the next couple of days, I will attempt a description of this era and its movers and shakers. The idea is that the background material will be sufficient to create an interesting campaign, where the PCs can run into the luminaries of the time. I am linking to the Dragolance Nexus Lexicon, as it is full of really good descriptions of characters etc.

Galan Dracos

Galan Dracos was the most powerfrul renegade mage during the Third Dragonwar. He served the Queen of Darkness in her attempts to conquor Krynn as her own. The Legend of Huma suggests that Dracos betrayed Takhisis in order to ascend to godhood. apparently the Queen knew of his doublecross and he was forced to use his magic in order to escape her wratch. The master mage ceased to exists and was thereby able to escape Takhisis’ revenge.

Galan Dracos resided in a citadal that built on the border between the Abyss and Krynn. Here he conducted his heinous experiments with his  renegdade followers, while at the same time directing the war. The Legend of Huma indicates that towards the end, Galan Dracos left war efforts to the Warlord Crynus.

Dracos was known to use a bone white staff. this staff has lost when he was defeated and the citadel ruined. The fate befell the green emerald sphere he used to open the gate to the Abyss. However, the sphere was almost repaired years later, when the an elven renegade mage sought out the legacy of Galan Dracos.

Huma Dragonbane

Kazigahthi de-Orilg

Magius

Crynus

Charr

Gwyneth

More to come…

Now reading: The Legend of Huma

legendofhumaHaving finished some of the “newer” Dragonlance novels, I have decided to return to one of the classics, The Legend of Huma. In the past I have always read this novel after Chronicles and Legends, but this time around I am avoiding the two original trilogies in order to focus on the “peripheral” stories. I have always found Richard A. Knaak to be one of the best Dragonlance writers and this one is in my opinion of the best ever written. I mean think about the characters: Huma, Magius, Kaz, Crynus and of course the renegade mastermage Galan Dracos. Furthermore we meet some ultimate dragons like Charr and Wyrmfather not to mention a young Cyan Bloodbane What’s not to like?

From a gaming perspective there’s a ton of material that can be turned into some really exciting content. Unfortunately no one ever did. So be it. We still have a really good novel, which I have read several times and probably will read several more times.

New old project

Ever since I started this blog in 2009, I have wanted to create  list of all the RPG materials I own. I have considered many different approaches, from wikis to an Access database, but I have decided to keep in simple. I have just created a couple of pages where I will document my stuff. There will be no fancy functionality, just a couple of lists.

I used Krynnwoman’s list of novels, as my books are packed away. So, thanks for sharing your work

Dragons of a vanished moon

I finished Dragons of a vanished moon the other day. This is the second time I have read that book, and strangely enough, I liked much better the second time around. I think it’s because I rushed through the first time I read it. Back in the day, I just wanted to get through it and get to the part where the gods return. This time it was much more enjoyable to just enjoy the story and follow the progress.

Having finished the War of Souls trilogy, I am still left with a weird feeling. Call me old fashioned, but I never really understood the change that the Age of Mortals brought. The whole Chaos aspect of the pantheon always seemed very out of place or perhaps a bit rushed, and that makes the story a little abrupt for me. On the other hand one could argue that Dragonlance really had nowhere to go after the Legends since the stories were so powerful. However, I still think it was a good time to move the setting forward. Anyway, killing of some gods and changing pretty much everything about the setting certainly changed that. The Dragonlance we saw right before the setting died was much darker and grittier than we had ever seen.

In many ways, the setting was left much more interesting than before and from that perspective, the Age of Mortals was a good thing. It ensured that Dragonlance left a beautiful looking corpse.