We played the fifth session of Shadow of the Dragon Queen on June 19^th, 2023. These events occur during the latter portion of Chapter 4: Shadow of War.

With the death of Qinh, his player rolled up a new human barbarian, Hrothkar, for the rest of the campaign. One of the real drawbacks of having only four characters is that you have much less room to play “weird stuff”. Going into a campaign like this without two frontline combatants is a hard ask, and though a monk strikes in melee, they’re at their best when they hit and retire. Taking all the blows? Not so good.

I honestly can’t remember how we introduced Hrothkar; though I believe he was a prisoner in the outpost. At this point in the campaign, there were lots of options as to how to introduce a replacement character. Hrothkar began at 5^th level, like the rest of the characters. In a game with story-based levelling, it’s the best way to do it. In a game with XP? I will often start a new character at a low level because XP allows them to catch up in an organic manner.

The session began with the heroes receiving a message from their friend Darrett: apparently, Lord Bakaris had convinced the forces of Kalaman to make a foolhardy attack on the Dragon Army, and they needed help. The characters, by now agreed on the worthlessness of Lord Bakaris, hurried to Steel Springs to help as much as they could.

This is a point where you might bring out the board game to resolve what happens to the Kalaman forces. As we were playing online, this wasn’t really an option. I’m curious how many players actually integrated the board game into their campaign, and how it went.

However, our characters arrived and they soon discovered that things weren’t going well: the army was fleeing, with the Red Dragon Army in pursuit. The adventure uses a small encounter in which the party must defend some Kalaman allies against a group of Dragon Army soldiers on horseback. The enemy encountered Parren’s fireball spell, and that was it for the encounter.

Meeting up with Darrett, they joined with the survivors of the rout. Unfortunately, Lord Bakaris had survived the debacle, but he was in shock because his son, Bakaris the Younger, had fallen in the fray. Our heroes rejoiced at this last bit of news. Darrett, now the de facto leader of the troops, began the retreat to a defensible position, sending the heroes back to Kalaman to report on what had occurred.

There they learnt that a high-ranking Knight of Solamnia had arrived with his retinue – something that the populace of Kalaman viewed as their salvation. Surely, the Knights would soon arrive and disperse the Dragon Army menace? The players hurried to the council halls to learn what was occurring.

Unfortunately, things soon went poorly. They were denied entry by a pair of Knights. Things escalated – Hrothkar might have tried intimidating them – and the Knights attacked. As the battle progressed, the party realised that these Knights of Solamnia were not amongst the living! Undead knights? Surely that wasn’t good?

And so it proved – upon gaining entrance to the council chambers, the heroes took in a scene of slaughter. All of the ruling council were dead, with a lone Knight – apparently living – standing in their midst. He mocked the party, revealing that his name was Caradoc. He wasn’t really interested in fighting them, but Hrothkar had other ideas, and soon battle was joined – Hrothkar and Tordek in melee, while Vermin and Parren used toll the dead spells. After a couple of rounds, the knight was slain – but something more dreadful was revealed. The knight wasn’t Caradoc; instead, Caradoc was the ghost possessing the poor man. The spirit moved to attack, but after a couple of rounds, dark magic swirled around him and transported him away. The party was left with the bodies of the dead.

They did find one thing, however. A letter from “Lord Soth” claiming the province as his own. Vermin and Parren were familiar with the name – but surely this legendary Knight of Solamnia, who had lived before the Cataclysm, couldn’t still be alive?

(Three of us were well aware of who Lord Soth was. We explained it to Hrothkar’s player, the one person who was experiencing Dragonlance for the first time).

It was at this point that Leedara, an elven musician they’d met in Vogler (in the first session), appeared, telling them that Lord Soth was here, and was searching for something in the crypts beneath the castle. Of course, our heroes pursued!

This is a mostly linear dungeon crawl. There’s one area that seems like it’s not linear – but then forces the party to get back on the route when they attempt to take a short cut. Sigh.

The catacombs were unsettling, with large patches of violet fire burning throughout, but often subsiding as the characters approached, but not before they were granted a vision of Soth’s history. Wraiths and skeletal warhorses attempted to stop the characters from proceeding, but not that effectively. They also met a spirit, the remnants of a Knight of Solamnia who died from a Cataclysm. Being cautious, they were able to converse with her, where she revealed that ahead was the tomb of Sarlamir, a Knight of Solamnia who disgraced himself and was cursed by Paladine due to his actions.

This is one of the bits of Dragonlance lore that the adventure mucks up massively. Everything that Sarlamir did wrong involves dragons – and the lies that were later told about him to make him seem a hero involved “He helped save us from invading dragons.” There’s one problem: all of this occurred during the Age of Might, when all the dragons had withdrawn from the world. Now, while you can put in a “but you didn’t know about this one” disclaimer, if you’re writing the first Dragonlance adventure in a long time, get the core parts of the setting right. Age of Dreams? Huma banishes the evil dragons. Age of Might? World without dragons, Kingpriest rises to power and angers the gods enough until they throw a flaming mountain at him. Age of Despair? The evil dragons return and do so before the good dragons wake up… which is a major plot point in the story. As in, absolutely massive.

Here’s the thing: If this was the only revision to the Dragonlance lore, I could forgive it. If you’re respecting everything else, then one slight change to make a better story? Entirely understandable. Unfortunately, it’s only one of a cavalcade of mistakes.

Lord Soth got to the heart of the tomb before the heroes, in one of those scripted moments that likely drives Justin Alexander mad (along with a lot more of the adventure), and flew off with the mysterious purple fire. When the party arrived, they were faced with the undead corpse of Sir Sarlamir. A battle ensued! This is one of those good end-of-a-session battles, bringing an end to this chapter of the adventure.

My notes indicate they slew Sir Sarlamir in three rounds.

Round 1: Vermin attacks with ranged hoopak, Hrothkar with greataxe, and Tordek with longsword. Salamir got to attack the barbarian and take him down (necrotic damage – your rage doesn’t protect you!), and Tordek used his reaction to hit Salamir once more. It’s an ability he has. Parren cast shatter.

Round 2: Vermin manuevered out of danger. Hrothkar rolled a natural 20 on his Death Save and struck back. Tordek kept attacking, and Parren used shatter again.

Roung 3: Vermin hit Sir Sarlamir, and the battle was over.

Lone combatants, huh? Sir Sarlamir could do a lot of damage, but any opponent that does that much damage also has to fall quickly, or you get a TPK.

That was it for this session. My notes indicate the session ran for about 3 hours. The final battle? 13 minutes.

Storywise, it was an effective ending. Not so effective were Sarlamir’s ramblings about the City of Lost Names, which was the clue for where to go next. But that’s where the adventure wanted the characters to go. So,