Dragons of Despair. The end

 

So last week we finished playing Tracy Hickman's Dragons of Despair, the adventure that started Dragonlance. 

And before talking about the fun we had, I'll nitpick a little more. 

Previously... 

Alignment and colours and stuff... 

And some earlier nitpicking...  

So, here we go. 

Personally, I had some trouble with the formatting. Maybe it was just the way TSR did it back in the day, but I had to spend precious minutes trying to find where do the characters end up after they jump into the big iron pot that brings them down, and also the stats for the ancient black dragon that they face in the end. Both are kind of important - you need to tell the players where their characters are and what they can do there, and you need to be able to describe how the dragon is about to destroy them. 

Then there's stuff like this. 

 All nice and well until you check out the description of the crystal staff itself. 

 

Goldmoon has a really peculiar way of folding her clothes if a 5 feet long stick can just fall out of a fold. When my players asked me how did it happen, and how did the staff fit into a fold of her robe in the first place, I was unable to provide an answer. 

Then there are little moments like this one. 

It's a fun situation and we enjoyed playing it out, but then the players said "Okay, this is the treasury, what sort of treasure is there?" 

And there's absolutely nothing in the room description about that. Only the hungover draconian officer and the gully dwarves with wooden spears and oversized helmets. 

You don't call the room a "treasury" and then skip on the treasure, mister Hickman. That's not something the players forgive. 

Despite all that, we had fun. 

The adventure, strangely enough, ended pretty much the way it was intended. One of the unexpected heroes destroyed the dragon, the crystal staff, and seemingly himself and the Disks of Mishakal, but was rescued by the grace of gods. Now the party has a grumpy, highly sceptical dwarven cleric. I still don't know who is his deity. 

And speaking of gods - the one problem I had to struggle with a lot was trying to make the gods look less like total bastards. If you know the Dragonlance lore, things happened like this: a powerful lawful good priest decided to destroy all evil on Krynn and called out to the gods to lend him the power to do that. And the gods dropped a fiery mountain on him, killing the priest, killing thousands of people, destroying cities, changing the climate, causing chaos and countless suffering. And all the true clerics disappear for hundreds of years.

Then, as the adventure unfolds, the gods tell the characters: "No, the gods didn't turn their back on you! You turned your back on us!" Uh, no, that's not what happened, you dropped the bloody asteroid on us. Why would we want to deal with you again? 

I never understood why it was supposed to be okay. The priest was channeling the gods' power. Why not just cut him off? 

Religion, eh. 

Anyhow, I changed this a lot - once again bringing in the Colours, having the gods explain that the priest tried to destroy all the Colours except for proud and noble White, and this is what caused the Cataclysm, despite the gods trying desperately to prevent it. Without Black, there would be no crafts, without Green - no healing, without Red - no passion. The Kingpriest's perfect world would be lifeless and pathetic, but he failed, because the sheer amount of White energy he gathered was too much for him to control, and the magical explosion destroyed the Kingpriest and changed the face of Krynn forever. The chaos brought to the Colours prevented the gods from making contact with the mortal races for many years to come. Which, in my opinion, makes more sense. 

I think the epic ending of the adventure is exactly how such things should happen.

"The huge black dragon screams as the light from the broken staff envelops her! She falls back, and you can feel her dark aura weaken and tear apart as she dies". 

Elf: 

"I tear a single scale off her body". 

Kender: 

"I pull the magic ring off her talon". 

Dwarf: 

"So I exploded? Wait, I was carrying the Disks! Did they explode with me?! Oh, man, we lost the Disks..." 

Next: Dragons of Flame.

Dragons of Despair, pt 3. In which I'm nitpicking

No game this Sunday. So let's get back to talking about how Tracy Hickman started the whole story about dragons, and lances, and three moons. 

Much as I like it, there are some issues that make me wonder. 

Like this one. 

I'm pretty sure that being a cleric is more than just being able to cast spells (if you want to point and make something explode in flames, play a magic-user). You've been a chosen of your deity, and now all of a sudden your link to the deity is severed. Um, forever. You can become a chosen of some other god if you'd like? That's not a big deal, right? 

Well, maybe for people who just want to be able to wear heavy armour while pointing and making things explode, and to cast healing spells. And those who enjoy a chance to roleplay some drama, losing your faith, finding your faith anew. 

It's not a terrible problem, it just seems bigger to me than Hickman makes it sound. 

It's suggested that the players take on the characters specifically written for the adventure, who are big superstars by now, Tasslehoff and the twins and... uh, the rest of them, anyways, those guys, the future Heroes of the Lance. Which, I suppose, is more fun to do now, when we have dozens of books and videogames and an animated film about them. The film could've been better, I admit. 

But if the players are stubborn beasts and don't want to play the characters so generously suggested to them, fine! 

The differences are: clerics are powerless, gold is worthless, and dragons haven't been seen for over a 1000 years so no one believes in them. 

Kind of like our world, in some ways. 

So, basically, "you're poor, you have no divine spells, and no, you absolutely cannot play a dragon!" 

Fair enough.What else do we need to know before we play? 

Uh, okay. What's special about being a Qualinesti elf? There's not a single word about it in the module. Just write down that you're a Qualinesti. Maybe it'll be important later. 

One thing I do love about Dragons of Despair is the mental image of Fewmaster Toede, a fat and cowardly hobgoblin commander, jumping 30 feet up and down in frustration over not getting the crystal staff. 

Also, when you're on your way to the sunken city of Xak Tsaroth, you have to cross the swamps.

 

I will let you know that Appendix 4 covers the random encounters, and it's more or less usable. If you look at this table, you can figure out which monsters can appear at which part of your characters' travel. 

I just wonder why are giant spiders, ogres, wraiths, trolls, and the ancient black dragon Khisanth herself diving in the swamp. Snakes and will-o-wisps make sense. I'm not a swamp monster ecology purist, but come on. 

Also, there are black dragon hatchlings in the list. Apparently their dragon parents just left them in the swamp to fend off for themselves. I'm getting a feeling that black dragons are not very good at parenting. 

There are other fun things, like the giant eagles who always show the players the wrongest possible direction. 

I have no idea if I'll have a chance to finish playing it with our group. It's kind of sad.