Our third session of Shadow of the Dragon Queen saw us start on Chapter 4, bringing the characters and refugees from Vogler to the great city of Kalaman. (I note that I am writing this report several months after the session. I’m just preparing for the final session of the campaign.)

At least, it’s a great city for the villagers. Krynn is mostly devoid of great cities – it’s got Palanthas, and a lot of small settlements. I guess Thorbadin counts? But with Krynn, you’re very much in a world which is not in the middle of a Renaissance. (Except where it is, thanks to the gods returning).

This gives everyone a great chance to do some role-playing, as they’re the last to arrive at Kalaman – remember, they were acting as a rear guard. It’s likely your group will do a lot more role-playing than we did! It’s not like we didn’t do any, but we’re running the games over Skype and Roll20 – and without a video feed turned on, it’s supremely difficult to role-play effectively. We keep interrupting each other.

This wasn’t helped by my confusion about how to role-play Darrett, the young squire of the Solamnic Knight in Vogler. Darrett is important to the story going forward, but he has to change very quickly from a young, enthusiastic innocent into, firstly, the envoy between the commanders of Kalaman and the heroes, and soon thereafter, a war leader in his own right.

Young people grow up quickly in war, but because a lot of the events where he does the growing up are off-screen with the characters not present, it’s more difficult to portray it, if not impossible.

So, with the session beginning with the characters giving Becklin’s last bequest to Darrett, it didn’t quite feel like our play had the weight needed to convey this major turning point in Darrett’s life. A little of it? Yes. But I hope your group does it better.

The other main character to role-play early was Raven, the mayor of Vogler. Raven I found simpler to run, and though we nodded in the direction of the trauma all the refugees were feeling (yes, having your home burnt to the ground is traumatic), mostly Raven was used for exposition at this stage.

That exposition being that Lord Bakaris uth Estide and his son, Bakaris the Younger, had headed into the city to talk with the city’s leaders. I had done a good enough job portraying Bakaris that the players immediately realised what an awful idea this was, and so they set off after the nobles.

Not that they could stop the rulers of Kalaman being very happy to have the Bakarises there. Noble blood is, of course, far better than common blood. Why yes, they were aware there was an army stomping about. And, if you so-called-heroes would like to volunteer to help our forces, along with any of the refugees that are capable, then we might find it possible to shelter the rest.

Well, actually, they weren’t that horrible about it. But there was a feeling of Kalaman (and its nobles) first, everyone else next.

The heroes got themselves volunteered for a special operations group, and Darrett ends up being their go-between. Welcome to a large part of what Darrett does this adventure. And, honestly, it’s not entirely clear why Darrett gets this role. Yes, he’s the student of the Solamnic Knight Becklin, but – as far as I can see – he’s not of noble blood, nor has his name been entered in the rolls of the Knights as a squire. So this sudden importance he gains – and he becomes even more trusted as the adventure continues – is something that doesn’t quite make sense, certainly when seen from the players’ point of view.

Now considering it in retrospect, it would work a lot better if Marshall Vendri were an old friend of Becklin’s, and saddened by her old friend’s fate, she takes Darrett under her wing, training him up to the responsibilities he undertakes as the adventure continues. That would sell it better to the players.

We now get to a transitional section of the campaign where the group get sent out on several small missions to emphasise the situation the folks of Kalaman are facing. The first, a rescue mission, is set. After that, the missions are used as the DM desires.

This first mission introduces the characters to Tatina Rookledust, a gnome inventor who can provide the party with some useful devices, particularly the fargab, which is basically a walkie talkie. The party have to save her from some Red Dragonarmy troops – and some rogue inventions she set loose to defend herself.

As these things go, it was a fairly easy encounter. Ten goblins and a hobgoblin against a 4th level party is challenging, but not overly so – over in three rounds, or 20 minutes. The fact that it is the only encounter of the day also reduces its challenge.

Tatina is not a character I developed much further. She sort of exists for the rest of the campaign as an ally, but no-one really bonded with her enough in her first appearance for me to continue developing her.

The rest of our session was taken up with the first two of four “optional” encounters. In the first of these, the party were sent to track down some scouts that had gone missing. Vermin, with her superior Survival skills check (a natural 20) was able to discover their tracks and lead the party to a party of draconians that had captured the scouts. Into combat they charged, with Qinh the monk leading the party – and being swarmed by the draconians as a result. 20 minutes later of playtime – about four rounds – and the scouts were saved.

No further encounters occurred as the party escorted the scouts back to the city.

The final encounter of the night saw the party find a training camp for the Dragon Army, with several hobgoblins drilling under the command of a human officer. The party basically stumbled onto the camp, but Parren the Wizard won the initiative and sent a shatter spell to cause a lot of trouble for the hobgoblins. It was all over in two rounds, and the party found orders indicating that the Dragon Army wanted well-trained soldiers.

This was it for the session – basically a 2-1/2 hour block, which ended up being typical for the campaign. You could feel a significant drop in intensity from the high-stakes opening sessions, with a lot of the action being world-building rather than moving forward the plot.