By Ed Fortune

With all this fuss over the Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves movie, it’s worth knowing that this isn’t the first time D&D has gone for a big multimedia affair.  Way back in 1984, we had Dragonlance. It launched with setting material, adventures, modules, tie-in books, miniatures, and board games, which was ground-breaking at the time but is pretty standard now. Like many D&D settings, it’s not been around for a while, but now it’s back, much to the delight of nostalgia-fuelled old hands and new gamers alike.

Dragonlance Shadow Of The Dragon Queen is a full campaign that takes players’ humble beginnings all the way to level eleven. Set on the world of Krynn, the story takes place during the same time as the original 1984 Dragonlance campaign, but with mostly different characters and focus. Dragons have long since left the world as the game begins, and the gods have forsaken mortals. So no divine magic such as healing or prophecy. Wizards have retreated into their towers and secretive societies. Honourable knights are mistrusted due to cataclysmic events from long ago. Or, to put it another way, Krynn is looking like a tough place to be a hero.

Then, just in case you thought the name Dragonlance was an ironic joke, the dragons return, waving the banner of their dark goddess, Takhisis the Dragon Queen. Looks like gods and dragons are back. But just the evil ones. Things start getting bad very quickly, and it’s up to the players to meet the challenge.

It’s interesting to note that this book highlights how very different D&D is these days. 1984’s version of D&D was a lot harsher in terms of rules and design approach, so in old-school Dragonlance, players would be underpowered for a good quarter of the campaign. The Fifth Edition focuses more firmly on fun, so the first-level adventures address details like divine spell-casters, wizards, knights, etc., meaning that you can play these sorts of things for the rest of the campaign, but you are just a little bit special. (Which is exactly how D&D is supposed to work.)

Fundamentally, this story is about heroes trying to make a difference during an epic struggle between good and evil. Dragons and an army of monsters, waving the banner of evil, are set to cover the land in darkness, and the good guys are scattered and poorly organised. The party will have limited options at the start of the campaign, but then it’s war; sometimes, it’s all you can do to survive. After a while, though, the players will have to figure out where they can do the best, which allies to save and which battles to support. Every spell can be a life saved or a monster defeated, but they can only do so much without allies and a good deal of planning and luck.

If this sounds a little like a war game, well, it’s not really, it’s more a Lord of The Rings–style fantasy epic. A separate, inter-connected wargame called Warriors of Krynn will scratch that itch if you want. However, we found it wasn’t needed at all. Instead, Dragonlance Shadow Of The Dragon Queen works well as a war story. Your party can sabotage siege weapons, free supply lines, protect fleeing villagers, and so on. There are plenty of war story-style tropes here, and the focus is very much on making the party big damned heroes.

There are, of course, lots of dragons, dragon riders, and dragon-related troops and creatures, just in case you missed the theme here. And epic battles, some really tough villains to face, and one of D&D‘s big bad guys lurking in the shadow, waiting for an epic confrontation. It all just makes for a memorable game.

The book also has a small section on the actual Dragonlance setting, with some rules provided to modify core D&D, so it suits the setting. There are options for in-world wizards, knights and holy types, of course, but it also introduces Kender, the hobbit-like happy-go-lucky wandering mischief makers that might remind you of the Harfoot from The Rings of Power. Dragonlance is very traditional in terms of major fantasy races, apart from the Kender, it’s mostly humans, dwarves and different sorts of elves.  The setting does have Walrus people (called Thanoi) and Minotaurs, but alas, no rules are given for them in this book. We get a sidebar giving the Dungeon Master advice in case their players really want to play something like a devilish Tiefling or a cat-like Tabaxi, but really this is a campaign focused on fantasy tropes. Mostly though, Dragonlance Shadow Of The Dragon Queen is epic fantasy fun and a delight for D&D fans.

Overall, this is an amazing return to a much-loved part of D&D’s legacy.