Dragons before Dragonlance?

[Deleted]

Howdy folks,

I'm tossing around some new ideas for a Swords & Wizardry campaign. And locally I've found that many folks seem to love Dragonlance, at least the first trilogy. Problem is they're not really my cup of tea.

I find the modules railroad-y, the names clumsy (Tasselhoff = Hasselhoff) and the good versus evil tone leaves me bored (I'm an Elric fan).

What I would like to do is re-imagine a DragonLance sandbox from a Sword & Sorcery perspective rather than a High Fantasy one.

So I thought I'd start at the beginning, with Dragons.

I'm looking for strong examples of Dragon lore in print or other media before Dragonlance was published, here is what I have so far:

Movies:
Dragonslayer
Excalibur

Fiction:
The Hobbit, Smaug
Alice in Wonderland, The Jabberwock
The Nibelungenlied , Fafninr

I'm sure I'm missing a ton of stuff, but that'll get me started.

Any additions or suggestions?

[kesher]

DEFINITELY, the Earthsea books, at least the first three. And, of course, Beowulf has the oldest dragon encounter in the English language at the end...

[makofan]

Farmer Giles of Ham has a hilarious dragon

[longcoat000]

Lazy link to legends of ancient American (North & South) Dragons:

www.theserenedragon.net/Tales/America.html

The site also has A LOT on tales, origins, types, and legends about dragons.

[geordieracer]

Whisht! Lads, haad yor gobs,
An Aa'll tell ye's aall an aaful story
Whisht! Lads, haad yor gobs,
An' Aa'll tell ye 'boot the worm

our local dragon.

[Falconer]

Yes, drop the massive good vs evil struggle. The problem is that they put humans and dragons on both sides, so everyone’s just a pawn of greater powers. The basic theme ought to be humans vs dragons. I say theme, not story, because the idea of a World War in the context of the D&D game is problematic (it means railroading). So drop dragonriders, drop good dragons except for very rare gold dragons (but even they are lawful but not necessarily benign towards humans), drop Dragon Highlords.

There are many things about DL that do work. For example:
1) Cataclysm - fantastic, great to explain the ruins everywhere
2) Return of the Dragons - Again, not Dragonarmies, just dragons dragons everywhere, taking over all the aforementioned ruins and wreaking havoc individually (like Glauring in The Silmarillion)
3) Return of the Clerics - I've always thought it would be cool to have only one cleric (or druid, etc, as appropriate) per deity. You would have to quest to become it rather than just join the local hierarchy.
4) The gods as super-monsters - In the original conception (see especially The Matter of Theology), each god has a physical form and a lair. Obviously the Platinum Dragon and the Chromatic Dragon, but also Kiri-Jolith the Bison-Minotaur, Zivilyn the World Tree, Shinare the Winged Griffon, Sargonnas the Red Condor, etc. Instead of the three moons there were three wandering spheres that supposedly you could run into. Forget the modern sensibility of "the gods are abstract/too powerful to fight/exist on other planes/in many forms/etc".
5) Knights of Solamnia - why not? Just make sure you don't treat them as a class or classes (i.e. DLA), just as a faction (like the Brotherhood of Gorm in B4)
6) Orbs of Dragonkind from Eldritch Wizardry - why not?
7) The Dragonlance as a single artifact rather than standard-issue weaponry - again, nothing wrong with artifacts

Hope this helps at all.

[Deleted]

First off thanks to all that answered.

Kesher:
Yes Earthsea, never actually read them, but always meant to. Some research shows that Dragons were a major part of that story, quite a lot of literary mining to do there.

makofan:
Chrysophylax Dives, that's one thing you could always could on the professor for, interesting names. I like it when Dragons sound like a forgotten species rather than the bogeyman. Also makes me think of Vyrmithrax Pejorative, which I quite like.

longcoat000:
Mythology is always good, maybe write a short Dragon creation myth after reading a few of these.

geordieracer:
Hey bud, nice to see you on here. ;D The Lambton Worm, which suggests Lair of the White Worm by Stoker. I even liked the movie, Amanda Donohoe could be my High-Priestess any century.

Falconer:
You give me much to think about my friend. Never have read A Matter of Theology before, though I find it fascinating. And I think your suggestions are spot on, have you given this subject uch thought before?

[Falconer]

Yes, indeed. Dragonlance is my guilty pleasure. I’ve never actually run (or played in) a Dragonlance game*, but I have long thought it would be possible to adapt it to enjoy the best of DL in a pre-DL style game (removing the plot, expanding the dungeons). The Matter of Theology really brings it alive as an OD&D world to me. Anyway, at one point I considered myself somewhat of a DL guru, so feel free to pick my brain on any subject (what products are good starting points, what products are worthless, etc.).

* - [edit] That’s actually not quite true; I have done a lot of online gaming relating to DL, and I have run SOME tabletop DL before, and definitely played DL-themed PCs in generic AD&D, but the majority of my tabletop gaming has been non-DL.

[Deleted]

I might just take you up on that offer to pick your brains Falconer.

I've been inspired.

Check it out, heres's a cover I assembled from random free old-school clipart I found on the web.



I just need to color it with flats now.

[Falconer]

Haha, nice! Or just print it out in one color ink on another color cardstock!

[Finarvyn]

I loved the DragonLance books when they first came out (at least the original 2 trilogies) but found them to be painful in re-reading more recently.

I also endorse Earthsea, Farmer Giles of Ham and The Hobbit as being excellent representations of dragons in literature.

My wife liked the Pern books, but I've never read them. I suspect that they are kind of like DragonLance in that humans and dragons work together instead of having dragons as a feared foe.

[premmy]

Oct 20, 2010 10:10:16 GMT -6 @scrootch said:

What I would like to do is re-imagine a DragonLance sandbox from a Sword & Sorcery perspective rather than a High Fantasy one.

If I wanted to do that, with emphasis on Sword & Sorcery, I would probably not even reach for mythology too strongly; I'd just create the dragons whole cloth - S&S doesn't put too much effort into emulating folklore, so why should I?

Anything based on giant snakes is a good place to start with. Some dragons might be just that: giant poionous snakes, prossibly with breath weapons, no legs. Want them to fly? Give them big leathery wings, and you get something that probably isn't quite identical to any mythological dragons but would feel right at home in a Conan story. Dinosaurs are a good fallback - the dragon in Red Nails isn't described in too much detail, but I remember thinking "Stegosaur" when first reading the story.

Now, you want to do Dragonlance, so armoured folks fighting each other from a dragon's back is still a necessity. However, you can't have the good guys... sorry, this is S&S, so I mean the self-serving neutrals do it, the positive protagonists would never do something like that in S&S. Therefore, all dragon riders will be cultists from opposing cults that are using sorcerous powers to summon and/or enslave their mounts.

What else is there in Dragonlance? Big goody-two-shoes solar-themed knightly order. Well, knights in shining plate are out for S&S, so how about the warrior order of a terrible masked, many-armed, Indian-inspired solar deity? Good in the sense that they're rather visible, have temples in cities, keep the order, are not interested in destroying mankind or summoning demons, and oppose the obviously bad "let's destroy everything" cultists. As good as it gets in S&S.

[James Maliszewski]

Oct 20, 2010 15:05:08 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Hope this helps at all.

It sure helped me -- and I generally have a very low opinion of Dragonlance. Seriously, this is awesome stuff. What a pity the real Dragonlance was nothing like this.

[Finarvyn]

Falconer, just read your earlier post again and I wish I'd read it more carefully the first time. That is and awesome post, and I'd love to see a DL-style campaign based on your ideas!

Wow!

[waysoftheearth]

I just came across this thread (late to the party, as ever)...

I've recently been contemplating "back porting" some (or even just one) of the early DL adventures for OD&D. I have gone so far as to purchase ratty old copies of DL 1 to 3 from Ebay for a couple of bucks (still waiting for them to arrive).

I wasn't certain what I was going to do with them next, but there is a lot of food for thought here -- thanks to all who've contributed

Another thing that I distinctly recall as having genuine "WOW factor" when DL 1 first appeared was the isometric map. I'm not sure how well it fits into OD&D "dungeon level model", but the DL 1 map was certainly awe inspiring to look at as a school boy.

I wonder what my reaction will be when I see it again 30 years later?

[geordieracer]

Oct 21, 2010 18:17:14 GMT -6 premmy said:

....dragon riders will be cultists from opposing cults that are using sorcerous powers to summon and/or enslave their mounts.

.... the warrior order of a terrible masked, many-armed, Indian-inspired solar deity? Good in the sense that they're rather visible, have temples in cities, keep the order, are not interested in destroying mankind or summoning demons, and oppose the obviously bad "let's destroy everything" cultists.

Yes !

[waysoftheearth]

Time to touch on Dragonlance again..?

Well, I've been reading DL1 & DL2 the last few evenings -- probably the first time I've ever really studied them.

I was surprised to find that these "classics" are the ultimate railroad trip. I can't recall seeing anything else quite so heavy handed.

They tend to read more as a "choose your own adventure" style story than a D&D campaign. There are so many places throughout the text where the authors explain that if the the PCs do X, then Y will occur -- and if the PCs don't do X, then Y will occur anyway. It seems that the players are superfluous extras, present merely to observe the grand story unfolding before them -- but totally unable to influence it. How sad

But I still love the maps, and now I'm dead keen to "fix it" (cough!).

I got started on DL1 last night, and I reckon it can be cracked open and boiled down to 3 or 4 one page dungeons.

Tonight I worked this...

"But why?" you ask... I'm pretty sure it's some kind of syndrome ;D

[havard]

Oct 20, 2010 10:10:16 GMT -6 @scrootch said:

Howdy folks,

I'm tossing around some new ideas for a Swords & Wizardry campaign. And locally I've found that many folks seem to love Dragonlance, at least the first trilogy. Problem is they're not really my cup of tea.

I find the modules railroad-y,

Beating a dead horse much? Railroads are only a problem for an inexperienced DM. Anyone else will know how to accomodate players who will not walk from A to B.

the names clumsy (Tasselhoff = Hasselhoff)

As opposed to Gygaxian names?
Besides, Tass is the comedy sidekick. Can't blame him for having a funky name.

and the good versus evil tone leaves me bored (I'm an Elric fan).

Actually DL treats the subject very differently from any other fantasy literature. Where else can evil characters be so much more likable than good ones?

What I would like to do is re-imagine a DragonLance sandbox from a Sword & Sorcery perspective rather than a High Fantasy one.


-Havard

[havard]

Oct 20, 2010 15:05:08 GMT -6 Falconer said:

So drop dragonriders, drop good dragons except for very rare gold dragons (but even they are lawful but not necessarily benign towards humans), drop Dragon Highlords.

Personally I would go the opposite way. Make every PC a dragonrider. How many DL campaigns have actually allowed the players to ride dragons? Instead of toning things down, I would keep the large scale and move the players to the center of it!

-Havard

[Lord Kilgore]

Oct 21, 2010 20:45:11 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

Another thing that I distinctly recall as having genuine "WOW factor" when DL 1 first appeared was the isometric map. I'm not sure how well it fits into OD&D "dungeon level model", but the DL 1 map was certainly awe inspiring to look at as a school boy.

I wonder what my reaction will be when I see it again 30 years later?

Agreed. I'm placing the ruins of Xak Tsaroth as a legendary sunken city in our hombrew setting based on Lendore Isle. I'm not quite sure what's going to populate it yet.

[Falconer]

Apr 24, 2011 6:05:02 GMT -6 havard said:

Personally I would go the opposite way. Make every PC a dragonrider. How many DL campaigns have actually allowed the players to ride dragons? Instead of toning things down, I would keep the large scale and move the players to the center of it!

Sure, if you like the dragonriding concept, then go for it big time. Personally, I think it reduces dragons to mounts—a neat concept for a tactical wargame of some sort, a fantasy-themed dogfight, but is it worth it in a RPG?—and I think it reduces alignment to mere colors. As I said, then you have humans and dragons on both sides, so there is no difference between them save for motive. I prefer the more raw idea of a struggle of men against dragons.

[zeraser]

Apologies for reviving this long-dormant thread, but as it happens I'm in the process of preparing to start DMing a campaign set on Krynn during the War of the Lance. I'll be using a tweaked version of that indispensable Gedankenexperiment Searchers of Unknown. My goals in terms of adapting the Dragonlance source material are threefold:

First, detolkienize. No elves, no dwarves, no goblins, no Campbellian quests. Kender are in because playing a Kender can turn a normal player into a hyperactive anarchist, which is super fun. Despite the fantasy trappings, I'm shooting for a 1912-1945 struggle-against-militated-fascism (Takhisism, if you will) affect.

Second, decanonize. I'm certainly not going to look up Dragonarmy troop deployments and the names of municipal councilmembers. Making stuff up to meet the moment-to-moment needs of play is the order of the day.

Third, dedestinize. Whether they're unaffiliated adventurers, Knights of Solamnia, or wizards of whatever color robe, the PCs will be pitching in to help the resistance eff with the occupying Dragonarmies - sabotage, assassination, theft, reconnaissance, and espionage - with possible forays into creepy dungeons in search of potent artifacts to help the cause. They'll probably never march into Sanction to confront Takhisis, although they may work toward claiming some bounties on human or draconian Highlords or older dragons.

Has anyone else here tried applying any of the ideas kicked around in this thread? We'll be starting in a few months, but I thought I'd run my theses up the flagpole here first because this is a cool board.

[Deleted]

So ... how did the DL campaign for S&W (and other pre-1980's versions of the game ... wink) turn out?

[oldkat]

I like Vermiithrax (?)....

the one from Dragon Slayer

Attachments:

[rossik]

loved this topic

i was a big fun of DL, and we loved to play the misions at the books.

now, things are different, and i dont think me and my group would enjoy the same. the ideas here are very nice.

i think the War of the Lance could be the "last thing" that happend.

now, the world feels the post war afflictions. some are hungrym some are wealthy. priets with little to no power at all try to gain followers. new religions rise from the ashes of war.

art is not important, at least for the commom folk. only a few rich familys try to remain "as things were".

so, we have room for thieves, assassins and a darker moon. the land was a "playgrond" for the Good god and the Evil Godess, and now, all that rest are crumbs of civilization

(not the stuff in 5th age )

[zeraser]

That would certainly be the OSR-ratified sandbox way to go about it - and I'm sure it would be a lot of fun. But one of the things I want to salvage from Dragonlance is the notion of a state under occupation and a large, bureaucratic oppressor with an evil dragon-goddess at the top, a bunch of underpaid officers in the middle, and a whole lot of disaffected goons at the bottom. In other words, I want to pit the PCs against enemies, not (as is sometimes the case with sandbox-style games) accidents.

I was rereading the beginning of the first DL module, and what struck me the most was the "tidal" quality of the Dragonarmy's invasion - the way that current events in the game world were producing refugees, destroying cities, and generally effecting social consequences. One day everything was peachy, and the next, you had to get in line for 45 minutes for a loaf of bread or whatever. My hope is that I can evoke this feeling with a minimum of world-renovation and prep.

I don't know what the 5th age is, so I doubt I'll be including any of that!

[Deleted]

That was one aspect of the television series Babylon 5 I truly enjoyed: the growing horror at the certainty of war. The show built on this quite nicely and if that feeling can be captured at the gaming table the resulting campaign will be the stuff of legends.

[Finarvyn]

Mar 22, 2011 6:01:10 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

I've been reading DL1 & DL2 the last few evenings -- probably the first time I've ever really studied them.

I was surprised to find that these "classics" are the ultimate railroad trip. I can't recall seeing anything else quite so heavy handed.

It suffers the same problem as many modules designed to follow the books -- it follows the books.

What they "should" have done was to set up some generic encounter modules instead of a sweepong epic that does exactly what the books do. That would make more sense to me, and would probably have gotten more gamers interested.

Mar 22, 2011 6:01:10 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

Tonight I worked this...

Darned cool logo, if you ask me. Screams "retro clone" to me. I think that fundamentally the DL (or WS ) setting is a good one. I like the clearcut good-evil breakdown. And riding dragons is cool, as long as it doesn't happen in every campaign. (My campaigns tend to last 6-9 months before I blow 'em up and start another.)

[zeraser]

"I like the clearcut good-evil breakdown."

Can I ask what it is about that arrangement that's important to you? And - moreover - are you opposing a "clear-cut good-evil breakdown" to a) a Sword & Sorcery-type amorality, to b) a setting whose social characteristics confront the players with moral quandaries related to ambiguities between good and evil, or to c) something else entirely?

[rossik]

Jun 23, 2012 7:11:24 GMT -6 zeraser said:

That would certainly be the OSR-ratified sandbox way to go about it - and I'm sure it would be a lot of fun. But one of the things I want to salvage from Dragonlance is the notion of a state under occupation and a large, bureaucratic oppressor with an evil dragon-goddess at the top, a bunch of underpaid officers in the middle, and a whole lot of disaffected goons at the bottom. In other words, I want to pit the PCs against enemies, not (as is sometimes the case with sandbox-style games) accidents.

[...]

I don't know what the 5th age is, so I doubt I'll be including any of that!

well, you can still do that way, kind like Dark Sun:
the Dragonarmy may have taken diferent places, and each place is a "city-state".

lets say highlord Karalas is running his place, with iron fist. ogres all around, bullying people. you still have to fight for each day to survive the ruler's rules.
but then, lets say highlord Lucien just pretend to be friends with Karalas, and is planning killing him.

so, you have some "darksun+gh scarlet brotherhood+dragonlance+dark fantasy" thing