Dragonlance

[Zed5Duke]

[angrimm]

for the last picture (mandate of hell):
i am pretty sure that tanis, tika and skie are under copyright by TSR

[Gambit37]

Indeed they are. And I don't have a problem with that when these things are only shared within our little community right here. I think using imagery and assets from other games does become more problematic once you start getting more exposure though. Zed puts his stuff on ModDB which has a huge audience -- and that brings with it greater scrutiny...

[Ameena]

Hey, and Tas! Don't forget Tas in the corner there .

[beowuuf]

And Laurana top right, yes?

[Ameena]

Yeah, I was thinking that too...but are we sure that's Tika on the left there, near Skie/Khellendros? Tika has red hair and that person looks more like brown hair...can't be Kitiara though, as I'm pretty sure her hair is black, curly, and cropped quite short. It's certainly not Goldmoon, anyway .

[beowuuf]

Definitely tika
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=tika+m ... x=31&ty=67

[Ameena]

Oh, fair enough - she just looks too much the warrior there and her armour looks like it fits properly and stuff, aside from the hair colour.
Oh well...it's been a while since I read 'em anyway.

[Gambit37]

Weirdly enough, I've never read *any* of the dragonlance stuff. Now I'm grown up, I'm under the impression it's for kids and I would find it predictable and boring. Thoughts on that? -- or perhaps we're going too off topic!

[beowuuf]

Not for kids, I'd say more teenage. Still, Weis and Hickman are good authors, so there's no reason not to at least check them out. I would recommend the core two triologies only to start with or at least the 'dragons of' three novels. There's a ton of other books, some the 'new' age. D

[Ameena]

Yeah, the original trilogy was the Chronicles series - Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Winter Night, and Spring Dawning, respectively. After that it'll be the Twins trilogy - Time of, War of, and finally Test of the Twins. Then there's Dragons of Summer Flame, which is in the same storyline but some years in the future. There's also the Amber trilogy which takes plsce even later, and some other stuff too, though personally I kinda preferred the older stuff. There's some other trilogies like the one about the Minotaurs (all three titles contain the word "Blood"). And there's a load of anthologies of standalone, short stories, some of which concern familiar characters from the "main" storyline, but many of which are entirely unconnected and are about characters only existing in that story, or in several stories that pop up over a few anthology books (but are still unconnected to the "main" characters).
I like DragonLance, it's really cool . Though as mentioned, I found some of the more recent stuff a bit less good than the older stuff. I still enjoyed it, but htey just kinda messed around with the storyline a bit and so it didn't quite feel like it "fit", since a number of things got retconned and stuff and it felt wrong.

[beowuuf]

I really thought Summer Flame was a mis-step, but of course it was the bridge to lead to the new season. The original tales anthologies were good.

Basically, read the first triologies, or at least the first book Dragons of Autumn Twilight to know if you will like them:)

[Ameena]

Yeah. I'd say the turning point was Summer Flame, at which point various things from the end of preceding books are retconned. Actually no, wait...it's after Summer Flame - the ending of that book states one thing, and then it's basically retconned in later books (the Amber trilogy, I think).
Another thing about DragonLance is it's a series that movs on - you'e not with the same characters all the time. Time passes, and stuff happens which means older characters can no longer appear. Though some of them do anyway .

[oh_brother]

I never got as far as Summer Flame, I just lost track. Dragons of Autumn Twilight, etc. were fantastic, at least when I was 12 or so. And I loved the Twins books because Raistlin was a brilliant character (and ultimately why I liked Gothmog so much, hence the avatar). I have no idea how well tehy stand the test of time, actually I remember Trantor saying he was not a fan.

Maybe I should get back into it again, I read Chronicles, Twins, and a bunch of side stories/short stories from the same time (Kender, Gnomes and Gully Dwarves, and...um...forget the other names. Raistlin's apprentice was in one).

[Ameena]

I don't recall Raistlin having an apprentice. He had a nephew, if that's who you mean (Palin), who took after him in terms of having a love of magic. Unless you mean Dalamar? I think he may have been apprenticed to Raistlin, though I can't really recall. It's been a couple of years or so since I last re-read them. Raistlin seems to be generally one of the most popular characters anyway - he is cool, though he's not my personal favourite.

[beowuuf]

Dalamar was Raistlin's apprentice, and took over the tower after Raistlin.

[Ameena]

Ah yeah, I knew

Spoiler

Dalamar became the head of the Black Robes after Raistlin left, I just forgot that he'd been apprenticed to him prior to that. And they used the Tower of erm...the scary one in Palanthas, the name of which I've forgotten but it's surrounded by the Shoikan Grove.

Thought I should probably start using spoiler tags for those who've not read it yet...can't stand spoilers myself .

[oh_brother]

Dalamar, that was it. He was in the Twins books, and a short story in "The Magic of Krynn". Funny how these things come back to you, I can remember exactly where I was and what I was talking about (with my brother) while reading that story.

I just checked Wikipedia...I knew there were a lot of books but did not know there were that many! I counted and I read 19 books that I can remember, but that was only a fraction of those published.

[Gambit37]

Don't worry about spoilers on my account -- I'm unlikely to read them, I have far too many other unread books in my library

[beowuuf]

Yeah it's like going back to Magic: The Gathering recently rto see all the old cards, and seeing just a page of thigns I've never seen.

I read the basic series, the twins series, read the two tales, didnt' read the second generaton book but read summer flame, read the first 5th age book and went 'meh', read most (all?) of the xmeetings sextet, preludes I and II, and heroes I and II others but I think basically ditched out at 1994 at the strat of the villains, when there just seemed to be too many books to read. Checking out Summer flame and the start of ther war of souls was the last I ever read of Krynn. Not sure I'd want to adventure in it as a campaign setting, just because I've read so much of the books, funnily enough!

[oh_brother]

A friend of mine had a book for setting games in Krynn. Looked very nice, but we never got very far. Mainly because another guy - who happened to be the only good DM we had - considered anything other than Forgotten Realms to be strange and unnatural.

And you wouldn't set a campaign in Krynn because you read too many books? Surely that would be a good thing, rather than a negative?

[Ameena]

DragonLance and Forgotten Realms have plenty of stuff in common anyway - the ten colours of dragon, for example. Stuff like kender and draconians are unique to Krynn of course, and only Faerun has people like Elminster and Drizzt Do'Urden, but you can run a whole game without any such NPCs even being mentioned. You could probably even run a game in one of those worlds, not tell anyone which one it was, and yet they wouldn't be able to guess. Hmm, actually, that wouldn't work if you had any Divine classes 'cause the gods are different. Well, meh...I'd love to play a game set in Krynn - it'd be cool, though it might depend on which point in time it was set (in relation to the books) as to the current status of the world. But I'd play a kender. No other option - I'd have to play a kender .

[oh_brother]

You could probably even run a game in one of those worlds, not tell anyone which one it was, and yet they wouldn't be able to guess.

Probably, but I cannot remember many of the monsters in Krynn (other than draconians). I remember there were goblins, and undead, and minotaurs, but not much else. Probably the main difference other than divine spells is that the mages would all be wearing black, white or red robes.

But I'd play a kender. No other option - I'd have to play a kender

Lol, I probably would have guessed that!

[Ameena]

Krynn had elves (Silvanesti, Qualinesti, Kaganesti), dwarves (mountain, hill, gully), kender (of course!), gnomes (whose main home was Mount Nevermind), five species of chromatic dragon and five metallic (in the same colours as the ones on Faerun), three moons (Lunitari the red, Solinari the silver, and Nuitari the black) from which wizards drew their power, a load of gods (the uberest of which were the three siblings Paladine, Takhisis, and Gilean, though each are known by numerous other names and Takhisis is also technically in Forgotten Realms in her five-headed-dragon form as the goddess Tiamat), the knights whose order I've forgotten the name of but Sturm was one and they were divided into three "levels" - Rose, Sword, and Crown...ahh and loads of other stuff too . Oh yeah, five species of draconian too, of course.

[cowsmanaut]

just don't watch the movies.. you'll cry and want to beat Margret weis with a large tuna for letting them trash the books like that..

[beowuuf]

They have no say over the film though, do they? I don't beleive they own the Dragonlance novels in any way, just whatever small royalties. Certain Tracy Hickman didn't, I think he is of the same opinion regarding the film.

[oh_brother]

Yeah, I saw a bit of the movie - first 10 minutes or so. It was not good. Not good to a startling degree.

[beowuuf]

And you wouldn't set a campaign in Krynn because you read too many books? Surely that would be a good thing, rather than a negative?

Sorry, meant to reply to this before! It's hard to state why exactly, after all I reguarly game in the Lone Wolf setting, a setting whene I've played the gamebooks extensively already. However, for things like Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance, Elric, Star Wars, etc, it feels like half the alure of the setting and the story are the characters you follow. I've never been interested in playing a different version of a character already established, and the setting itself is usually a backdrop to the story of the characters, and exploring it for its own sake isn't as fun. Especially since the sources are usually second hand.

I guess the Star Wars universe is well fleshed out, but others feel like they are variations on a theme. Again, the story just as much as the settign is important, and I've now read the story. In the Dragonlance case, the core stories actualyl come from roleplaying sessions based on the campaign! However, by readign the boosk, I've effectively seen a good version fo that campaign run. The rest of the world and stories ahead and behind could just as easily be set in other worlds unless you want to make sneaky connections to the existing stories.

Lol, like I said, not quite sure why I'm so ambivalent given how much I play in the Lone Wolf world! Then again, that world exists a little more fleshed out, sicne the gamebooks by necessity had the story as fluid and your character less fleshed out (since you were playing him).


So there you go, an unhelpful reply!

[oh_brother]

Okay, makes more sense now. I could not play an existing character either, but would have enjoyed playing my own character in Krynn. The back stories give depth - I briefly played a mage who underwent the test and found it enjoyable.

Then again Lord of the Rings or even Star Wars I would find hard to play, because, I don't know, the worlds seem more set in stone. I would feel like I was breaking the canon history if I did, so I guess that is kind of what you feel in Krynn.

[beowuuf]

Yeha, I think Krynn does benefit from being a campaign setting for an RPG first, and then the novels second. There is a seonse of lots of hooks, exactly because there are lots of hooks. Still, there are so many Dragonl;ance books that have mined those hooks and areas for the next story that I'm not driven to see it for myself. Maybe back when I was reading the books I might feel differently, or maybe if I was gaming it I would change my mind