Hear the sage as his song descends
Canticle of the Dragon
like heaven’s rain or tears,
and washes the years, the dust of the many stories
from the High Tale of the Dragonlance.
For in ages deep, past memory and word,
in the first blush of the world
When the three moons rose from the lap of the forest,
dragons, terrible and great,
made war on this world of Krynn.
There are few campaign settings that bring as much fierce loyalty, love, and nostalgia as the worlds of Krynn. Created by Tracy and Laura Hickman all the way back in 1981 from their discussion on a cross-country drive, to interview at game giant TSR, about a world dominated by dragons.
In 1982, having been hired, Tracy Hickman proposed a three-module series for this concept called Dragonlance. Two years later, he would collaborate with Margaret Weis to pen Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and birth a legend.
Every edition of Dungeons & Dragons since that time, aside from 4th edition, has contained Dragonlance material. This continues now with the release last year of Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen. I’ve spoken often on the show, and in articles, about how enjoyable this adventure has been. This is made doubly so with the inclusion of Warriors of Krynn, the cooperative wargame, that adds the necessary scale to such a massive campaign.
There has been much discussion about how some of the major features that separate the Dragonlance setting from other settings were left out of the adventure. While this allows DMs and players unfamiliar with the setting to not feel completely lost, it does leave a good deal of work to a DM (like myself) who loves the Krynn setting and wants to have it feel different and special.
With this in mind, here is the way that I and resident Terrain Wrangler, Scott “The Wizard” Washburn, cobbled together a small and simple change to make the return of True Clerics to Krynn after three centuries feel special – without rewriting all the mechanics of 5e!
Remove the Inventory
As with most things, these changes happened organically during gameplay, as the players (who were generally unfamiliar with Krynn) learned about the world.
The first thing that Scott approached me with was the idea of Material Components. While 5e has done away with the majority of them through the idea of the Arcane Focus, certain powerful spells, like Revivify, require a cost. He asked the question as to why Mishakal, Goddess of Healing, would care about a 300 gold piece diamond? I agreed, so between the two of us, we decided that the cost would be for Scott’s cleric, Eeva, would be to sacrifice a portion of herself.
For spells that require Material Components, we decided that Eeva would remove one-quarter of her Hit Point maximum. This would, obviously, become slightly less dangerous as she leveled up, which makes narrative sense as well, as she would be learning more about her power and strengthening her faith.
The additional caveat to this that Scott offered was that this sacrifice had to feel dangerous. Therefore, the lost Hit Points could not be magically healed – Eeva would regain one-third of the Hit Points per day.
Let The Gods Decide
The second adjustment we made, to make the return of True Clerics to the world have even more weight, was to remove the preparation of spells.
The backstory of Eeva Pyrope, Squire of Solamnia, helped make this change all the more logical. Eeva was a young, orphaned girl, left on the doorstep of Castle Ligett in Solamnia. Raised by the Knights of Solamnia, her dream was to become one of the few female Knights in history. However, with Mishakal beginning to reveal Herself to Eeva, this left her at a crossroads. Continue her Knightly training or heed the call of the Gods as they returned to the world?
This offered some excellent roleplaying opportunities, as well as the concept of Eeva having no idea how any of these Cleric abilities, or spells, even worked. With that, how would she know what to prepare?
Yet again, Scott and I worked together to craft the idea that Eeva would not need to prepare spells each day. Instead, all of the Cleric spells of the appropriate level would be available to her. Now, this sounds like I really OP’d the Cleric, right? Yes, but not without some appropriate limitations.
While Eeva had more spells available to her each day, she was still limited by the Spell Slots of the class itself. Additionally, because Mishakal is a Goddess of Good, some spells would never be granted (like Inflict Wounds, for instance), while others would be left to the Goddess (DM Dave!) to decide if it would be granted (i.e. Guiding Bolt), dependent entirely on the reason that Eeva was calling on that type of power.
With these two changes, the Cleric class now felt like a divinely-inspired Herald of the True Gods of Krynn, while not breaking the bank (or the game!)
Final Thoughts
There are different campaign settings for a reason. Whether they’re homebrew or published, these settings are meant to create the backdrop to tell your own unique, singular, and epic story.
What are the differences in the setting you’ve chosen? Maybe it’s the Forgotten Realms, where most anything is possible and allowed. But what about settings like Eberron or Krynn? Worlds that have certain flavors that change the types of stories we can tell in them? I highly recommend leaning into the limitations and special advantages of these settings. You don’t go watch Super Hero movies to see a procedural crime drama of only normal people, right? Let the setting do what it does – SET the scene for a unique story.
Finally, make sure you get the player buy-in for these types of setting-specific changes, and homebrewed mechanics. In this instance, the player approached me with wanting to institute limitations, as well as benefits, to make the Cleric seem more Cleric-y. But, if you’re hoping to capture the flavor of a special setting, put together a small one sheet, like I did for the Dragonlance campaign, which you can see here, to help the players craft characters that are unique to the setting that you’ve all agreed to play in.
Until next time, Heroes… LIVE THE ADVENTURE!
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