Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen Reactions

Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen is the D&D 5e reboot of the classic adventure setting (although many who purchase and use this product are probably completely unfamiliar with the source and previous material like me). Prior to my upcoming playthrough of this module, I wanted to capture some of my reactions and thoughts about it. I also plan to periodically post about alterations that I've made to the adventure as written. When (if) my group finishes the module then I plan to post a final "actual" review because I will have playtested it by running through the adventure.

Initial thoughts: I was very excited to hear about the planned Dragonlance title as I began playing D&D in 2022. It seemed that all of the settings that shaped so many players experiences from 2e AD&D and onwards were now becoming more accessible for new members of the hobby. I'm not sure what I expected. I had just barely purchased my copy of Eberron: Rising from the Last War when Dragonlance released, and I didn't have any other of the in-depth sourcebooks. I supposed I expected at least a gazetter of the world, descriptions of the deities, calendar, and some ideas for adventures if not a mini adventure or two in the setting. That isn't at all what we got in this product though.

For the positives regarding setting details, I do appreciate the descriptions of the deities. They take several pages, and the depictions of their holy symbols are some beautiful art pieces. Some more evocative art harkening back to depictions of the deities in earlier editions would have perhaps improved it, but I suppose Fizban's Treasury of Dragons did a bit of that the year prior at least for Paladine and Takhisis.

Much of the design work is focused on the character options for the Dragonlance setting; how are those then? Not bad at all actually, although I have to agree with other reviewers like Mike Shea (Slyflourish) that I’m not a huge fan of handing out a feat at first level. There’s already plenty for new players to keep track of. 

As for the new sorcerer subclass, I actually quite like it in concept. I’m not the best judge of balance until I see a character in play (remember, I’ve only run for about ten different characters), but the subclass seems to have some design assumptions baked in because of the mages of high sorcery feat that the designers intend you to take. The initiate feat essentially gives you constant access to one of the first level spells that the lunar sorcerer gets depending on the phase of the moon you select. The subclass also doesn’t seem to match the dichotomy of good, evil, and neutral being major and almost incompatible that is an important theme of Dragonlance according to a video by the Dungeoncast I watched while writing this post.

My main critique; in general, information on the world of Krynn and the Dragonlance setting is severely lacking. The section on player ancestries name drops many locations, but there’s no information to flesh them out. The GM is left to figure out what Thorbardin and Nevermind are like out of their own mind or have to consult another resource or the internet. Outside of the information on Vogler, Kalaman, and the Northern Wastes provided in the adventure, the wider world is not described and unpopulated with adventure hooks. The adventure suggests the possibility of continuing a higher level adventure against the dragon armies, but without doing the extra work of purchasing an older book like the Dragonlance Campaign Setting from 3e or reading through lots of wiki pages, I honestly wouldn't know where to start. No fantastic locations corresponding to the places on the beautiful poster map are described, nor any clues about their inhabitants, notable NPCs or hooks for potential stories. It's really very disappointing that I’ve learned more about the setting researching what is missing for this reaction that is available to me in the book. I even noticed passages where the current book appears to simply be a paraphrased, shorted version of the 3e setting book. This is probably why what information there is on other locations in Ansalon seems sporadic and incomplete. As it says itself in the introduction to chapter two “Prominent details about the setting are covered in these sections, but the wider world is left for you to detail as you please.” It’s audacious to set the price for this product as the same as for a real setting book like Eberron then.

So what do we have left? Well, we have an adventure that minus the regional map and town names could probably be transplanted to any world or setting if you decide to add a dark goddess (maybe we can call her Tiamat?) and an army of evil dragons (oh wait, I think we already have one like this). In all seriousness, the adventure has some interesting elements, but as a whole is extremely linear and often marginalizes the player characters or removes their agency over the story (in part because the adventure provides no information about any part of Ansalon beyond the Kalaman regional map. Everything outside it would have to be made up anyway). Making an NPC that should be a sidekick have a more compelling and more rapid arc that the characters also strikes me as lazy railroading. Another thing that bothers me is the lack of a meaningful system for mass combat outside the peripheral board game marketed beside the book (but check out MCDM’s Kingdoms & Warfare if you’re interested in fixing that—I’ll be using it in my upcoming Dragonlance campaign, and I plan to do a deep dive and additional spotlights of its systems as I use it in my Storm King’s Thunder campaign). 

Reservations and issues from my reaction aside, I will be using this adventure and book in a campaign. One of my players is a Knight of Solamnia, and another is a Mage of High Sorcery, so I’ll get a view of their progression. As mentioned, I’ll write about modifications (improvements) I make to the adventure. As far as a recommendation or not, I’d say if you have any interest in running the setting at all then probably pick the book up. If you can’t see yourself playing in the setting, then definitely pass of this book and put your money towards something else nice like a title from MCDM or Kobold Press instead.