Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition was seen by most as the golden years of Dragonlance. With three boxed sets a ton of adventures and supplements, this revised vision of Krynn truly continued the tradition of AD&D. Buy Dragonlance: Fifth Age Dramatic Adventure Game: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16960/Time-of-the-Dragon-2e?affiliate_id=50797
Transcript
Cold Open
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition would see the first schisms between fans and TSR in three waves over their beloved setting….
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about Dragonlance in AD&D 2e. I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this channel, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate link. All of these titles are available as digital editions through my affiliate link.
Discussion
There would be three distinct waves of Dragonlance material for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition released by TSR. All were meant to recapture the sales and magic that Dragonlance saw in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. By the time Dragonlance Adventures was released TSR was already planning out its 2nd Edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game. But did this stop them from creating Dragonlance content for this coming edition? Nope. What we saw TSR do was to rush out the DLE trilogy of adventures in 1989, in the first wave of releases to reinvigorate Dragonlance. DLE1 In Search of Dragons by Rick Swan in January 1989, a few weeks before the new editions players handbook was even released! This set up Dragonlance as the first of the three primary worlds that would seem to be the focus of the 2nd Edition. This naturally meant that the adventure was compatible with AD&D and AD&D 2nd Edition, which also meant, it wasn’t quite compatible with either. DLE1 In Search of Dragons took what worked best about the original DL series of adventures from AD&D and recycled them, while simultaneously dropping the dungeon crawl element which became the hallmark of 2nd Edition. It set the heroes in the village of Fair Meadows, and they had to discover why good dragons were dying off. It also introduces the Dragons Graveyard to Krynn, inspired by the D&D cartoon, and reused in the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition Spectre of Sorrows adventure module. DLE2 Dragon Magic by Rick Swan was released in June 1989, and largely ditched the wilderness crawl of its predecessor for an urban crawl adventure, set primarily in Cirulon. Though it does introduce the isle of Schallsea for the first time in any real detail. By now the Dungeon Masters Guide and the Players Handbook have been released, so the adventures are much more in line with what was to become the 2nd Edition style. DLE3 Dragon Keep is the final adventure in the DLE trilogy by Rick Swan, released in October 1989. This adventure took place mainly under the Blood Sea, into the Abyss, and eventually onto Lunitari with a massive hex crawl. This was informed by the preludes novel Darkness & Light that was released several months earlier. The biggest problem in this post Weis & Hickman era of Dragonlance were the canonical issues. It introduces Astral Dragons & Kodo Dragons. This would also see the end of Dragonlance adventures for three years, replaced by Boxed Sets and supplements that were a focus of TSR.
Time of the Dragon by David “Zeb” Cook was released in October 1989. It introduces us to a whole new continent on Krynn called Taladas. It came out of the designer pitch session at Augie’s in Lake Geneva called by Manager James Ward in 1988. This saw the creation of both Spelljammer boxed Set and Time of the Dragon. This was a controversial move by TSR. They abandoned the continent that made Dragonlance popular in order to focus on a continent that had very few connections that the Dragonlance that fans knew and loved. It was also the pregenerator of the Afflicted Kender with the Marak Kender and the Thinker Gnomes from the Gnomoi for the coming Fifth Age game. It also connected to Battlesystem 2e with armies and warring factions. DLA1 Dragon Dawn by Deborah Christian was released in February 1990, and was the first of the Taladas trilogy of adventures. This adventure is a bit of a prequel to the War of the Lance, revealing the Ortholox dragons refusal to join the war, and players hunting Dragon Bounty hunters of good dragons. It takes place primarily in Highvale in the League of Minotaurs and through the Conquered Lands. It also introduced Dragon Knight as a class. DLA2 Dragon Knight by Rick Swan was released in October 1990. Swan picked up the rest of the writing for the DLA series and continued the story, creating more of a sandbox environment in the Southern Steamwall Region of Taladas. He even takes the characters to the Astral Plane, though there aren’t many setting issues as players saw with his DLE adventures. DLA3 Dragon’s Rest by Rick Swan was released in December 1990. This is a type of gonzo, extra-planar adventure famous of Swan and hardly takes place on Taladas at all, but rather a demi-plane called Eborium, or the Isle of Fire. The MacGuffin was the hunt for cindergems which were being created by magic-using entities in the Nine Hells. This created cannon issues as did Swans DLE adventures, and the story ended with Sargonnas trying to thwart Takhisis’ plans.
DLR1 Otherlands by Scott Bennie, Scott Haring, and John Terra was released in March 1990, and finally connected Ansalon to Taladas. It features three brand new lands of Krynn, Chorane, an underground civilization located at the south pole, past Icewall and Icereach. Selasia, the largest island of the Spine of Taladas, a chain of jungled, coral reef islands, and Watermere, the underwater realm of the Dargonesti. It is the best information source for the Irda and the Dargonesti elves yet and introduces Brine Dragons for the first time. It would be over a year before they returned to the DLR series with DLR2 Taladas: The Minotaurs by Colin McComb released in December 1991. This was seen as the end of the second wave of TSR’s Dragonlance push, and detailed out Minotaurs for Taladas, but also for all of Krynn. It would be two more years before we saw the end of the DLR line with DLR3 Unsung Heroes by Tim Beach and others. It was released in December 1993 and was inspired by Rogues Gallery from AD&D. It featured a number of NPC’s for dungeon masters to use. Some notable and some less so. Each NPC was inspired by the TSR Fantasy Collector Cards set. This DLR3 released in wave three and the DLC3: Dragonlance Classics Volume III released in 1994 would mark the end of Dragonlance in AD&D 2e. But before we get there let’s continue looking at wave 2 with the DLS series.
DLS1 New Beginnings by Mark Acres was released in February 1991. This was seen as a return to introductory supplements and as TSR’s wave one focused on Taladas, so did this supplement. It would mark the end of TSR’s focus on AD&D 2e’s Taladas after DLR2. Two-thirds of the supplement is an introduction to roleplaying and morality for new players. The small adventure included is set in Boremium in the League of the Minotaurs. DLS2 Tree Lords is the first in a trilogy of elven focused modules, and was released in April 1991. Influenced by the Elven Nations trilogy released the same year, Tree Lords focuses on the Silvanesti and their reclamation of their forest by the Kirath. DLS3 Oak Lords by Blake Mobley was released in July 1991. It mirrors much of Kindred Spirits, released near the same time, and even discusses the graystone being in a sla-mori. The entire adventure is about the recovery of Qualinesti, and the Qualinesti elves. There are numerous canonical issues with this adventure. DLS4 Wild Elves by Scott Bennie was released in November 1991. set in Southern Ergoth, it featured an underdark area called the Deathdark. It includes Drow and driders, so it is essentially non canon. It was focused on the Kagonesti’s reclamation of their homeland from the Silvanesti and Qualinesti refugees.
Tales of the Lance was the second boxed set, and was seen as a soft reboot of Dragonlance after wave one’s focus on Taladas. Released in June 1992, It focused entirely on Ansalon and was headed up by Harold Johnson and Douglas Niles, who did not see Dragonlance the same way as Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis did. This caused a schism between fervent fans, though casual fans loved this boxed set. It set about clarifying, and correcting errors in previous sources and is seen as the most complete Ansalon centric Dragonlance source yet. DLQ1 Knight’s Sword by Colin McComb with Thomas Reid was released in July 1992. This was meant to be an introductory adventure to Krynn and be so much fun that you would buy more Dragonlance products. The adventure focuses on becoming a Solamnic Knight. DLQ2 Flint’s Axe by Tim Beach was released in September 1992. It is set in and features extensive details on Hillhome, as the players search for Flint’s Ax from the Flint the King novel. TSR saw that Dragonlance wasn’t selling well and decided to repackage the original modules, releasing DLC Dragonlance Classics Volume 1 in 1990, Volume 2 in 1993 and Volume 3 in 1994. They axed the idea of DLQ3 Huma’s Shield entirely.
Wave three saw the release of Dwarven Kingdoms of Krynn by Douglas Niles and was released in October 1993. It focused entirely on the history of dwarves, introducing the controversial Smiths into their history and focused on the six Dwarven Kingdoms. It was inspired by the Dwarven Nations trilogy, and largely retconned in D&D 3e. DLT1 New Tales: The Land Reborn is an anthology of adventures by John Terra and released in July 1993. It focuses on rebuilding the land after the War of the Lance through four episodic sandbox adventures. It is seen as a direct sequel to Dragonlance Chronicles. DLT2 Book of Lairs by Nicky Rea and Skip Williams was released in 1993 and is seen as the final Dragonlance publication for AD&D 2e. It contains a series of one session adventures for levels 6-10 that could be seen as stand alone encounters or folded into an existing campaign. Then we have sourcebooks in the form of the MC4 Monstrous Compendium Dragonlance Appendix. It is the fourth monster manual for AD&D 2e and published in February 1990. Though it was the fourth released, it featured a binder calling it volume two. 2e tried to release separate campaign monster collections, and this featured creatures from Taladas and Ansalon that were presented in various modules in production and release. PG1 Players Guide to the Dragonlance Campaign by Jonatha Ariadne Caspian and others was released in July 1993, and is more of a setting sourcebook taking much from the Tales of the Lance boxed set by way of an introduction to new players of Dragonlance.
The History of Dragonlance: Being the Notes, Journals, and Memorabilia of Krynn was released in 1995 and contains original thoughts, remembrances and creative information about Dragonlance as a campaign in the vein of the ‘Leaves From’ series, though this focuses more on the original creators and history of the setting itself. Dragonlance Classics 15th Anniversary Edition by Steve Miller and Stan! Brown was released in May 1999 and was a wholescale rewrite of the classic modules in one collection. It featured loose SAGA System rules as well, but focused on AD&D 2e. It was the silver anniversary of Dragonlance and glossed over the dungeon crawling for a more encounter based approach. It also ditched the multiple endings of the originals for a more streamlined presentation. More Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman was released in June 2000 and is seen as a continuation of the ‘Leaves from’ series featuring stories, poetry, songs and recipes. By this time, AD&D 2e had been gone for some years and SAGA System was ending as well. Dragonlance would take a hiatus until D&D 3e in 2003 and with the changeover from TSR to Wizards of the Coast and its attempt at milking the setting for all it was worth, fans would seemingly welcome the hiatus, and focus instead on the continuous stream of novels.
Outro
But that is all the time I have to talk about Dragonlance in AD&D 2e. What do you think of the products released? Do you have a favorite boxed set in AD&D 2e? Leave a comment below.
I would like to take a moment and remind you to subscribe to this YouTube channel, ring the bell to get notified about upcoming videos and click the like button. This all goes to help other Dragonlance fans learn about this channel and its content. Thank you for watching, this has been Adam with DragonLance Saga and until next time, remember:
When dragons make war, Krynn can only tremble in the shadow of angry wings.
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