Still Working at This

Pardon my absence, I was trying to find a job in a whole other state then the one I currently live in. Having done that, I am now waiting on a background check. So more free time, yay...

Anyways, I did find a little time to gather some notes on the mega adventure for Dragonlance. This will be a straight comparison of the DLs, DLCs, 15th Anniversary book, and the 3E books, encounter for encounter. Paths that deviate from the original three books, will be also be complied as a just in case measure.

 Having read DL1 to prep, I’m trying to find the railroad most people talk about. Other then  the initial encounter and a little bit of “keep the meta plot moving” rules, the module is a straight up wilderness hexcrawl. If they even make it to Solace, they still have to go to the bar, mingle a bit, and engage the old man telling stories. Skip any of that and no quest. Additionally Xak Tsaroth is just a two part dungeon crawl. If anything, people should be grumbling about the GM map and the Player map not matching up like they should. There are two different maps (style wise), and every single peak labeled on one, is else where on the other. And the GM map is done in black and shades of grey, on white. With white encounter numbers. My vision isn’t all that bad, and I have trouble reading the thing. Can’t imagine someone with worse vision trying.
————-

Now I will point out that it might be assumed that the players of DL1 are knowledgeable about the plot of the books, and thus their quest. Because outside of the above mentioned NPC with a quest or Goldmoon and Riverwind’s background, there is nothing to serve as a plot hook until they either get to Haven (then directed to Xak Tsaroth) or stumble into Qualinesti/Darkenwood (not only directed to Xak Tsaroth [screw it, XT from now on] but immediately taken there as well).

If some how the characters haven’t gotten a clue or fast traveled to XT, they can wander around the open plains in the Eastern half of the map until the Dragon army takes over everything and kinda pushes them into XT. This might be why people think these are a railroad, but I don’t feel that’s the case. We’ll have to see how the rest of the modules pan out.
———
However the characters make it to XT, it turns from a wilderness crawl to a dungeon crawl. And an  extremely deadly one at that. Simply slogging through the swamp -vice walking on the out of water land parts- can result in combat with either a catobelas [Save vs Death gaze attack], a nest of black dragon hatchlings [with three attacks each], a nest of poisonous snakes [damage + poison attacks], or upwards of a dozen level draining wraiths. And then the characters get to fight the black dragon itself. A GM with a “let the dice decide” attitude, would TPK a group in no time, because there is no healing magic in the world yet. Survive that, and you get to head down a level and try not to fall into the bottom of XT.

Making it to the bottom allows characters to take in the sunken city of XT. But any prolonged or noisy combat could net players upwards of 50 draconians or even the black dragon again. The later can only be killed through luck, or the blue crystal staff and its “win button” move of smacking the dragon with the staff.
————-

Anyway, I’ll finish getting the Dragons of Despair arc written out and post it in a few days.