We played our eighth session of Shadow of the Dragon Queen on Monday, July 17, 2023, continuing through chapter 5: The Northern Wastes. At the end of the previous session, the characters had rescued a dragon egg and some sea elven captives from Camp Carrionclay, and then returned to Heart’s Hollow to recuperate.
This left them with a few dangling threads. The leader of the sea elves was not amongst those rescued; he had been taken to a place known as the Sunward Fortress, although the elves were unaware where it was. The young scout, Clystran, wanted aid feeding some dragonnels. And, most importantly, they needed to find the City of Lost Names.
Back to Heart’s Hollow
There was one in town who knew the location of the city: its leader, Ness, who was secretly a dragon. I made sure that she encountered the characters after they returned and discussed what had occurred – of course the leader of a town would be interested in what an enemy army was doing! But upon becoming aware of the dragon egg they possessed, she revealed her true identity and asked for custody of the egg. This the party agreed to, and as a reward for doing the right thing, she told them where the City of Lost Names was.
As I noted last session, this was an invention of my own, caused by omitting the Dalamar storyline. I’m not particularly fond that Dalamar is the only way to discover the City’s location in the adventure – it doesn’t make that much sense. And it means a potential hexcrawl where the party can go many different directions ends up as a predictable one-way, linear path.
This revelation, of course, causes a significant problem – one that exists in both the original and my revised version. Once you learn the location, why don’t you just go there right away? Isn’t there time pressure? I’d say so! So, all the interesting things you can do in the wilderness get pushed aside.
We knew that, and we agreed it didn’t make much sense for the characters to do anything more, but we decided to do the two minor quests first.
And the one that was more important? On to the Sunward Fortress.
By this time, I was omitting all random encounters. Given the relatively short length of our sessions (3 hours), they were slowing down the plot without adding anything significant. Especially as they were worth no XP: a drawback of story-based progression.
The Sunward Fortress
The Sunward Fortress is a highlight of this adventure: a small dungeon complex that is very evocative. The basic idea is that the Dragon Army excavated the site and discovered a chaos shard… which caused some of the soldiers to become slaad-draconian hybrids. Or a full slaad, in the case of the leader. And this gives the DM a lot of options for horror and tension. Or just fun fights if your party lean that way. (This site would be visited by players in the Dalamar questline).
The interest began as they approached the site and noticed abandoned tents and supplies – obviously those of the Dragon Army. A pit led into the ruins’ underbelly. The four heroes descended.
More abandoned mining tools and supplies – and no sign of any survivors, not even the elf leader. But this didn’t continue. From the shadows, four mutated draconians emerged and attacked the party.
Tordek and Hrothkar won the initiative and charged into battle, and their rolling was exceptional. Tordek struck twice for 24 damage total, while Hrothkar managed a critical hit, and that was 38 damage in his first round! Not surprisingly, the draconian hybrid died, and the two warriors needed to dodge out of the way of it dissolving into acid. Tordek rolled out of the way, but Hrothkar, with a natural 1, was covered in acid.
The next draconian attacked Hrothkar, critically hitting him, but failing to implant an egg. (That could be bad!)
Parren caught two in the full blast of an upcast shatter spell, and Vermin sniped from the shadows.
From there, it was down to basic attacks until the draconians were dead. It didn’t take long, ending in the third round of combat. (16 minutes).
The Depths of Horror
In one of the side chambers, they discovered two escaped prisoners of the draconians: the leader of the sea elves, Yearkal, and a hunter from Heart’s Hollow, Rone. Rone was in bad shape, having been implanted with a slaad egg. Luckily, Vermin could both identify and cure the situation, using a lesser restoration spell.
A ramp led down to the lowest level, and it was there that they came face to face with a red slaad and a few tadpoles, which had been summoned here through the power of the Spawning Shard. Battle was soon on, but there was another figure lurking: the onetime leader of the forces here, now a green slaad! This was a longer fight, with the green slaad attacking from the shadows at the end of the second round. However, the party were up to the task. Around 35 minutes for this fight – but the party were well on top the entire way.
Between the information relayed by the prisoners and the notes of the draconians, the party were very wary of the Spawning Stone, and made sure to collapse the ruins on top of it before leaving.
All the sea elves had been rescued! Hooray! Back to Heart’s Hollow!
A Short Diversion
The party then went with Clystran to feed the dragonnels. This was very short – although something Vermin really wanted to do. They went to the spire, watched Clystran feed the dragonnels, then left.
Clystran is incredibly important to later events. It stuns me that this isn’t brought up in the first paragraphs of this chapter, instead it’s buried in the description for Heart’s Hollow . Design tip: Put in the chapter summary all the events that must occur for the adventure to work!
Wind’s End
The final part of the session involved the approach to the City of Lost Names. At which point Darrett and the rest of the army reappear after mostly forgetting about them for the past few session. I’m sure that other DMs might be able to use them well… but they really feel out of place in this chapter. Even now, they seem more to be there just to give the designers of the complimentary board game, Warriors of Krynn, something to do.
The basic idea of this section is that the party find the Dragon Army blocking the entrances to the City. So, Darrett and his forces attack to draw them away from one of the entrances – a canyon through the cliffs – allowing the party to slip through. It doesn’t really make a lot of sense, but it does lead to an enjoyable battle, one that once more uses the idea of “The Fray” – an area boarding the battlemat – and battlefield events.
Against the party were arrayed three Dragon Army officers and a dragonnel – the officers surprised when the party attacked, since they were watching the mass melee that had erupted as the Kalaman forces attacked.
This battle took four rounds or about 25 minutes to resolve. I like looking at what Parren does for a hint of how it was going: he started with a fireball spell, and then stuck with cantrips for the rest of the encounter. Yes, it didn’t take long for the heroes to gain the upper hand, although the battlefield events did a good job of making things unpredictable. Enemy dragonnel riders strafing the party – or falling dead from the sky – can do that!
But eventually, the party stood victorious. It was time to brave the canyon and make their way into the City of Lost Names. We’d finished Chapter 5. Now for Chapter 6!