The good things about Dragons of Flame

The second adventure in Dragonlance campaign, Dragons of Flame, kind of has the same advantages that Zak's Cube World adventure Castle Terravante does. You have your dungeon with giant slugs, zombies and long-dead kings. You have your heist - sneaking dozens of children from under the nose of a crazy dragon lady. And you have your drama - the young and spoiled elven princess is madly in love with one of the characters, and her brother has to be your guide through the dungeon. 

Perfect. 

It's also playable if you're lazy/hateful/depressed and want to skip large parts of what Douglas Niles had written specifically for your enjoyment. Like I did. Sure, returning to Solace makes sense for the Innfellows, but our party was made up of a dwarf, a kender, and a Qualinesti elf - why not go directly to Qualinesti? 

The slave caravan part still worked - just with the adventurers outside of the cages. Their elf guide (Porthios, in our case) was captured by the draconians and kept in one of the cages, which is why it made sense for the party to mess with the caravan. 

And since Porthios, quite in character, was not amused by the idea of his sister falling in love with an outcast adventurer; and since our kender bardess, also quite in character, had composed a long and naughty ballad about Laurana's love to our mage; and since the mage was not amused either by the ballad or by Porthios, interactions with the NPC were fun. 

The magic sword that shines and buzzes when dragons are nearby is a beautiful weapon, but I got a little bit tired saying "No,  it is not a lightsaber!" 

Though now I'm thinking about giving one of the villains a red sword, just to make the players happy... 

Fewmaster Toede is still here, and everyone loves to hate him. Poor hobgoblin commander. 

Before we played it, I never noticed how the amulet you can find in Dragons of Despair turns really useful when you get to the giant chain room in Dragons of Flame. 

Next, we travel to the dwarf kingdom of Thorbardin. With eight hundred refugees. And a very angry Highlord Verminaard following us. Not to mention a certain couple of special agents of Takhisis. 

Things are about to get interesting.

Dragons of Flame

 

 

When a kender walks in on a kinky threesome, 

you know you're playing it right. 

I hope things are going well in your part of the world, Dear Reader. Even if you are healthy and unharmed, listening to explosions at night and then looking at buildings that were hit by russian missiles during the day is something you can do without. 

Sadly, we can't. So we do what all normal people do, we play Dungeons and Dragons to distract ourselves and raise our spirits. 

The Dragonlance campaign fits well, because the people of Krynn have to deal with an invasion of cruel murderers and monsters, and that's something we can imagine easily. It shouldn't surprise you that the draconians and hobgoblins in our game all speak russian, or at least with a heavy accent. 

As a lazy Referee, I skipped some parts that looked boring to me, so the party moved straight to Qualinesti. A little family reunion, some plot-required meetings, and hey, looks like you're all going to the ancient fortress of Pax Tharkas to free the slaves and distract the dragonarmy while the elves evacuate from their forests! Sounds like fun! Sounds like treasure and experience ahead! 

I think the most fun was playing with Laurana. 

Why, yes, we do have a male PC elf from Qualinesti. 

By the way, Laurana is described by Douglas Niles as having skin of "a rich woodland brown" colour. Qualinesti elves in general have darker skin than their Silvanesti brethren. So why didn't Larry Elmore do her justice and paint us a beautiful brown-skinned princess? 

No idea. Shame, really. 

Anyhow, Laurana at this point is a naive young girl who's hopelessly in love with a figment of her imagination that, unfortunately, shares a name and face with our wandering mage of the Red Robes. On the plus side, she's fiercely defensive of him, and protests against any attempts to smear his name. On the minus side, she believes they're soulmates, and it's exactly as annoying as it sounds. 

"No one respects the wizard..." 

"You know who respects the wizard? Laurie". 

"Laurie doesn't know him at all! ... Which actually fits the canon". 

The players, however, seem to think that the most fun was kicking Fewmaster Toede's butt. And shooting him with bows and crossbows in the butt. And casting Magic Missiles. At his butt. 

I think there's some kind of fixation there.

After their adventure with Onyx in Xak Tsaroth, the dwarven fighter suddenly realized that he is now a true cleric. After consulting the Disks of Mishakal, he decided that he now worships Kiri-Jolith, the god of war and strategy. 

That, and the fact that the wizard made a lucky roll on Zak's Random Advancement Table and ended up with a powerful Army Of One spell, spelled doom for the fourty zombies of Sla-Mori. 

The lucky zombies obeyed Goldmoon's "Turn Undead" command, locked themselves in their stone coffins and refused to crawl out again. Several were destroyed by our glorious kender bardess ("She's a girl! Stop miskendering her!") and by Laurana's boring brother. The rest - dozens of them - were crushed into paste by an Army-Of-Oned dwarf. The dwarf had three battleaxes at the start of the fight, but all three broke, lacking their wielder's unstoppable strength. 

Now the heroes need to sneak into Pax Tharkas, free the slaves, somehow deal with the dragons, and save Laurana who was kidnapped by Fewmaster Toede. 

Piece of cake.