One of the players is planning on playing an evil wizard wearing the Black Robes. Is this doable in the campaign seeing that the group is going to face off against some Black Robes, or is this really hard to uphold in a further good aligned party?
Our Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign has been my favorite so far that I’ve run. We’ve talked at length on the show and in articles on many of the reasons: a curated group, the use of narrative side quests to build out the characters and their story between sessions, the amazing terrain that we’ve been playing with thanks to our resident Wizard/Artificer, Scott Washburn from PaperTerrain, the best intro hook in 5e adventures so far, the use of the companion strategy board game, Warriors of Krynn, and my absolute love of the source material. The original Chronicles trilogy is still one of my favorites.
One of the most important things about playing in an established campaign setting, like the world of Krynn, is the specific flavors and lore that make this world different from any other. This could be races allowed, the way magic works, the pantheon of deities, how those deities interact with the world and characters… the list is nearly infinite. Suffice it to say, there should be something significantly different playing in Krynn than Eberron.
This is where a lot of the criticism on SotDQ has come; the ways in which the writers didn’t lean into some of what makes Krynn different. I’ve discussed this in a previous article about how we changed Clerics to feel more “God-touched,” especially since the whole of Dragonlance is about the return of the Gods to the world. I’ve also played with bringing the cycles of the three moons into how magic works (getting stronger and weaker as they wax and wane).
But the focus on this article is going to be about my response to my fellow Dragonlance DM about how I handled something similarly in our campaign, and how I feel it points towards an important lesson about how increased player agency leads to the creation of better campaigns and more memorable stories.
The Krynn Paradox
As I said, I love the original Chronicles trilogy comprising Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, and Dragons of Spring Dawning. Truth be told, these are the only Dragonlance novels I’ve read, other than picking up the newest books in the Destinies series.
One of the things you start to realize as you delve into the lore of Dragonlance (which I did for this campaign) is the amazing lack of continuity within it. With over 150 novels, that’s bound to happen. One of my go-tos for this campaign prep was the Dragonlance Saga channel on YouTube… great lore as well as pointing out the inconsistencies within the lore, spanning editions, sourcebooks, and novels.
While this might seem like a problem, in a TTRPG setting, it’s gold. This builds the license for creative freedom into the campaign setting itself… nothing is completely off limits. You just have to frame it right.
The Laws of Krynn
Each of the three alignments – good, evil, and neutral – has its own law. These three laws are the cornerstones on which the universe is built. – Dragonlance 3.5 Edition Campaign Setting
Alignment played a huge part in what separated Krynn from all other campaign settings. The gods and goddesses themselves were broken into the three alignments and, in the original iteration of the setting, the alignment was tracked by the DM. Certain boons or curses would befall characters who strayed too far from their chosen alignment.
This was something that I felt was important for the campaign I was running. In our Cleric article, we describe how certain cleric spells were not available to a Cleric of Mishakal. And I began to add or remove power to the two “God-touched” characters as they played. Obviously, we’ve discussed how we handled the Cleric of Mishakal. But what about our troubled Knight of Solamnia, Sir William de Grey, played by DM Tony?
The Grey Jedi
Our Dragonlance campaign has had multiple times that Star Wars references came up. This seemed strange until I read that the writers of SotDQ wrote this adventure with Rogue One in mind… the creation of the first Death Star being the inspiration for the building of the first Flying Citadel. Pretty cool.
DM Tony’s Paladin/Knight of Solamnia, Sir William de Grey, was inspired by the Grey Jedi idea of the Star Wars universe from inception. Imagine how the prequel trilogy might have looked if Anakin Skywalker had fallen to the Dark Side early in the series, and Revenge of the Sith became his actual redemption arc, instead of waiting until Return of the Jedi?
My response to the original poster in the Dragonlance forum was this:
“I have a Paladin Knight of Solamnia who started out worshipping Sargonnas because they thought it was the only way to save Krynn. Through the campaign, they were brought towards Chislev, finally agreeing to serve the Nature God, who would protect them from the wrath of Sargonnas. It’s always your choice to allow anything, but it’s good for storybuilding to ask if ‘Yes, and…’ could work.”
Now, many posters felt like a Knight of Solamnia worshipping Sargonnas would make them not a Knight of Solamnia. There are two points I considered with Tony’s request:
1) the Knighthood in Dragonlance, during the Age of Despair, is already fractured and a shell of what it used to be. They are following the Measure, but it is empty of anything; little remains of the true Oath of Vinas Solamnus and the honor and deeds of Huma Dragonbane. This is what set Sturm Brightblade up to reignite the passion in the Knighthood following his sacrifice at the Battle of the High Clerist’s Tower.
And, 2) while the Knights of Solamnia worship gods like Paladine, Kiri-Jolith, and Habbakuk; there are no Paladins during the Age of Despair, so anything could happen. Truth be told, Paladins were rare within the Knighthood the whole time… for any of our fellow Grognards, its not a surprise as it was HARD to become and stay a Paladin in 1st edition!
By saying “Yes, and…” to Tony’s concept for the character, it created real tension in the story, as he knew that he had damned himself, thereby creating a sacrifice for the protection of Krynn. Further, it allowed him to discover the spirit, and not just the letter, of the Oath and the Measure. The same way that the Measure changed following the Age of Despair.
It also allowed our other Knight of Solamnia, the Cleric of Mishakal, Eeva, to have someone to try and redeem. This pushed so much of the story along without me having to write anything!
Final Thoughts
Campaign settings and worlds, like Krynn, are special because not everything works exactly like it does in other settings. It’s the reason we love certain worlds: the politics, the way magic works, the principles that the world revolves around. But this shouldn’t feel like something to stifle yours and your players creativity, it should stoke it.
If Tony had come saying that he wanted to be an evil Paladin, that would probably have been a different story. But, instead, by allowing him the choice to choose between the God of his Father’s and a new God, Sargonnas, with temptation and designs of his own – we created a character arc that rivals our favorite Knight of Solamnia – Sturm.
As we say on the podcast all the time… “Yes, and” works wonders to create stories and adventures that are so much bigger and more memorable than anything you could come up with on your own. It’s why books, television series, movies, and videogames will never be able to replace TTRPGs.
Until next time, Heroes… LIVE THE ADVENTURE!
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