Dragons of Hope

As we move on to the end of the First Book of Dragonlance, things are getting messy. The heroes - Qualinesti red mage, Kender bardess, and Hill Dwarf cleric, the first true cleric on Krynn, actually - are gaining power, and at the same time attract the attention of more powerful evil beings. 

In Dragons of Hope, the characters are supposed to enter the ruins of Zhaman, a magical fortress that was created and then destroyed by the great wizard Fistandantilus. 

My one main problem with this adventure is that you bring them to the home of Fistandantilus - you even lead them to the man himself - it is stated in Dragons of Mystery that Fistandantilus created many spells himself... and there is not a single magic book or spell scroll. No books at all. 

This is not something that I want when the gang is raiding a wizard's lair. There had to be at least some light reading for when old F-tilus wasn't busy trying to conquer the world!

So I pulled out Vornheim, and we rolled some results on the library table. The kender found a book in Goblinese, dedicated to the political system in the goblin society, and a collection of kender non-fiction essays. Both proved surprisingly useful. 

The encounter with Fistandantilus himself is... dependant, I'd say, on the players' choices. The build-up is good, there's a series of magic traps that make the visitors much less capable of harming mister F., and the characters can avoid some of those traps if they're smart. 

And then, weakened as they are, they meet the most powerful wizard in history, who's also a demi-lich. I appreciate it that Fistandantilus doesn't hurt the characters if they don't attack him, but what if they do? Again - there's no spells. Apparently you were supposed to pick some for him - which is nice, but he's the bloody Fistandantilus, he's supposed to have some unique spells that he created himself! The self-absorbed braggart of a dragon has more spells! 

On the other hand,  there are some nice moments like the answering stone that only answers three dwarf-centric questions daily. The cleric spent all the daily questions trying to figure out a way to make the stone be useful, which was hilarious. 

It is funny how the amount of dragons per module grows here. The first adventure had one dragon. The second had two. This one had three. 

We'll see how many we'll encounter in the final module.