Dungeons & Dragons’ next adventure is both a return to a classic setting and an attempt to integrate a classic type of fantasy story into tabletop roleplaying. Set for release next month, Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen brings Dungeons & Dragons players back to Krynn, the home of the Dragonlance campaign setting. The campaign itself will follow players as they intercede in an early part of the War of the Lance, with the forces of Takhisis invading Eastern Solamnia. Also included are several new player options, including kenders (a race tied closely to Dragonlance), a new Sorcerer subclass focusing on lunar magic, and several feats that allow players to join one of Krynn’s iconic factions like the Mages of High Sorcery or the Knights of Solamnia.
However, Shadow of the Dragon Queen doesn’t begin with the players already at war. During a press event held by Wizards of the Coast held in October, lead designer Wesley Schneider explained that the adventure actually starts off at a small village called Vogler, with the party assembling to celebrate a mutual friend’s birthday. The quaint village life is quickly threatened by rumors and threats of “dragon-like creatures” lurking in the hinterlands outside of Vogler, with the village being one of the first settlements in the paths of the Dragon Army. Players will be placed in charge of the defense of Vogler, holding off the Dragon Army so its residents can escape.
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While Shadow of the Dragon Queen will feature traditional Dungeons & Dragons tropes, such as exploring dungeons or encountering iconic D&D creatures, one key difference is that the players’ activities will be shaded by the war going on in the background. “You go to dungeons, you fight dragons, you encounter hobgoblins,” Schneider said. “You will have all the typical D&D adventures that you love, but the stakes are much higher.”
Since Shadow of the Dragon Queen is an adventure focused on war, the players will eventually find themselves in major conflicts. To help guide players through those conflicts, Shadow of the Dragon Queen will have new rules for mass conflicts, with players participating through more focused fights within the larger fray of battles. Alternatively, Wizards of the Coast worked with Rob Daviau and Stephen Baker to design a traditional tabletop board game to depict the major conflicts of the new campaign so that players can focus on the larger conflicts of armies.
Warriors of Krynn is a supplemental board game that can be used in conjunction with Shadow of the Dragon Queen, with specific scenarios from Warriors of Krynn tied directly to the adventure. Players can drop in their D&D campaign characters into Warriors of Krynn to face off against “vile champions” of the Dragon Army, while the battle wages around them. Co-designer Rob Daviau noted that Warriors of Krynn wasn’t a war game in the traditional sense, with players determining the positioning of armies. Instead, players (as their characters) will attempt to “put their finger on the scales” to push the battle in their side’s favor while trying to complete a specific mission. Each scenario will take place over 5-6 turns, with each player taking 4 actions per turn. The armies are represented by plastic pieces representing foot soldiers, missile units, and mounted units, with players choosing to have units “shaken” or removed from the board as the battle progresses.
Victory in Warriors of Krynn is determined by who has the most units on the board, with the Alliance usually being at a disadvantage at the start of most conflicts. Interestingly, the Dragon Army is always meant to be controlled via the AI – the DM can either act as a mercenary aiding the players or as a pure facilitator for the game, but never as the “commander” of the army. Success and failures in Warriors of Krynn are reflected in a Shadow of the Dragon Queen adventure, with players getting items and rewards depending on the results of a battle. The narratives of the D&D adventure and the board game are also closely intertwined so that characters who are killed off in the adventure don’t appear in future scenarios of the board game.
Notably, the Heroes of the Lance won’t appear in Shadow of the Dragon Queen, although Lord Soth and a few other villains from past Dragonlance material do appear in the adventure. Schneider noted that past Dragonlance characters would appear in the adventure only if it were appropriate for them to appear within the context of the War of the Lance. The world of Krynn itself will largely be introduced via play through the campaign, so that players don’t need to know forty years of canon and history to enjoy the story.
Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen will be released on December 6th, with D&D Beyond subscribers receiving early access to digital material on November 22nd. Pre-orders are live on Amazon now for the standalone book. The Warriors of Krynn bundle is also available on Amazon.
