Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen is an adventure module for the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons. As the title implies, it takes place in the Dragonlance campaign setting. It was released on December 6, 2022 alongside the board game Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn, which can be played with this adventure module.
The adventure begins in the quiet little fishing town of Vogler, where the adventurers have come to pay respects to a mutual friend and participate in the annual Kingfisher celebration. But the festivities are soon shattered by a historical reenactment gone wrong, as treacherous mercenaries slaughter the town militia. This bloodbath is but a prelude to an even worse evil, however, as the Red Dragon Army soon descends on Vogler, seeking to conquer the town in the name of their dark goddess: Takhisis, the Dragon Queen. Now with the fate of Solamnia at stake, the party must learn more about this new threat that is sweeping across the land and lead the charge against the Red Dragon Army. But in the War of the Lance, no choice comes easy and their actions can have world-altering consequences...
This adventure provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass:
- Baaz Draconians' Death Throes was upgraded from merely trapping the weapon used to kill them to threatening to turn their killer and anyone nearby to stone.
- Sivak Draconians, who were often believed to have the most useless Death Throes of the lot, now release a horrifying specter of their killer that can Frighten any creature in the surrounding area.
- Kansaldi Fire-Eyes originated from a one shot where she was just an officer. Here she's a Dragon High-Master and promoted to the Big Bad, making her a much larger threat.
- Air Jousting: Near the climax of the adventure, the party ends up fighting the Red Dragon Army's ace Dragon Rider Red Ruin while riding their own dragonnels. It's a very literal example, as Red Ruin is trying to unseat the players with her jousting lance while everyone is hundreds of feet above the ground.
- Ambiguous Time Period: It's not clarified when the campaign actually take place except it likely is happening at the same time as Dragons Of Autumn Twilight. The presence of other Clerics would indicate it happened later on, as Goldmoon is the second Cleric chosen, and there's no mention of whether or not Dragon Highlord Verminaard is still alive, only that he's headed south and left Dragon High Master Kansaldi Fire-Eyes in charge.
- Animate Dead: Lord Soth uses the Cataclysmic fire to raise an army of death dragons from the ruins of the City of Lost Names. The death dragons can, in turn, use their own Cataclysmic breath to reanimate dead humanoids as zombies under their command.
- Anti-Regeneration: Lord Soth and his Skeletal Knights wield magical weapons which temporarily stop their victims from recovering hit points.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Lord Bakaris and his son, Bakaris the Younger, are simultaneously the only aristocrats living in Vogler and the only denizens of the town to have evil alignments. Both are pompous, self-important jerks fond of throwing their money and connections around. Late in the campaign, Bakaris the Younger defects to the Red Dragon Army, and his father tries to undermine Kalaman's defenses so he can join him.
- Ascended Extra: Kansaldi Fire-Eyes was originally a Red Dragon Army officer in a one shot, and mentioned in another source book. Here she's a Dragon Highmaster and the Big Bad.
- Big Badass Battle Sequence: The adventure module features guidelines on using the board game Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn to play out massive combat scenarios from the story, including rewards and outcomes that come from achieving a win or a hold in the board game.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Kansaldi Fire-Eyes is the leader of the Red Dragon Army, while Lord Soth is the leader of his own force of undead knights. The two of them work together to advance the Dragon Queen's agenda by conquering Vogler and Kalaman.
- Body Surf: The ghostly Caradoc can only leave the castle where his bones are located by possessing a living person. He canonically goes through two host bodies over the campaign and can potentially end up possessing the players if their dice rolls go horribly wrong.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": The gnomes have invented a backpack parachute and a two-way radio transceiver. They call these inventions the "narycrash" and the "fargab", respectively.
- The Cameo: Dalamar plays a small role in the plot while the party is exploring the Northern Wastes.
- Catapult to Glory: The Gnomeflinger is a catapult specifically built to launch people instead of projectiles. Its inventor meant it to act as a rapid transportation system. It's safe to use, so long as you're wearing a parachute and you don't crash into anything before you land.
- The Catfish: Benebog the Line Breaker is an enormous carp and a local legend among Vogler's fishermen. The players can potentially catch him during a fishing contest, though the odds of encountering him are low and the DC to reel him in is very high.
- Char Clone: Red Ruin is a downplayed fantasy version of this trope. She's a mysterious masked Dragon Rider who rides a red-armored dragonnel into battle when most of the Dragon Army's dragonnels have black armor, though she has no real role in the plot beyond giving the players a cool aerial boss fight near the end of the campaign.
- Chekhov's Gun: The party can obtain a rusty spearhead from Zanas Sarlamir's sarcophagus. This spearhead is all that remains of a corrupted dragonlance, which can be purified and restored to its former glory much later in the campaign. Should the party do this, they can then use the dragonlance to thwart the villains' scheme.
- The Chosen One:
- The Divine Classes' prologue sees them chosen by one of the gods as their champion against the Dragon Army. It's notable as Divine Classes haven't existed on Krynn since the Cataclysm and thus they're among the first to be chosen by the gods in centuries. If they're chosen by a god outside of Paladine or Mishakal, they're the first known one.
- Kansaldi Fire-Eyes is a Cleric of Takhisis, meaning she's an evil chosen one.
- Disney Villain Death: Subverted at the climax. If the party successfully extinguishes the Cataclysmic fire keeping the Bastion of Takhisis aloft, the floor will give out beneath Lord Soth, and he'll plummet hundreds of feet to the ground below. Since Soth is an immortal death knight, he survives the landing.
- Dracolich: Death dragons are long-dead dragons which have been reanimated by the fires of the Cataclysm.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Dragon High Master Kansaldi Fire-Eyes is one of Dragon Highlord Verminaard's Co-Dragons, but Verminaard is presently in the far south being the Big Bad of Dragons Of Autumn Twilight, leaving her as the main villain of the adventure. Depending on time placement, she may be a Dragon Ascendant, as Veminaard might actually be dead already but no one knows it.
- Dragon Rider: Many members of the Red Dragon Army ride lesser dragons called dragonnels into battle, while its leader, Kansaldi Fire-Eyes, rides a proper red dragon. Lord Soth also rides one of his death dragons, though not while fighting the party.
- Dungeon Bypass: When the party ventures into the Kalaman Castle catacombs, they'll discover that Lord Soth smashed his way through two twenty-foot-thick walls and a door to get to the room furthest from the entrance as quickly as possible. Sadly, the tunnels he smashed are unstable and will collapse if anyone tries to go through them, forcing the players to take the scenic route through the catacombs.
- Elemental Weapon: The Dragon Army's soldiers wield weapons imbued with the magic of a dragon's breath, letting them inflict the corresponding type of elemental damage. In the Red Dragon Army's case, that element is fire.
- Floating Continent: The City of Lost Names was once Onyari, an entire flying Istari city. It crashed somewhere in the Northern Wastes prior to the Cataclysm, and the villains’ goal is to find the city and get it airborne again so it can be used as a floating battle station.
- Giant Wall of Watery Doom: The canyons of the Northern Wastes are prone to flash flooding due to the tidal pull of Krynn’s three moons. Any creature in the canyons that fails to heed the warning signs risks getting smashed against the canyon walls when the tide comes roaring in.
- Greater-Scope Villain:
- Takhisis is the leader of the gods of evil and the ultimate authority that Lord Soth and the Red Dragon Army answer to, but she herself does not appear in the module, beyond potentially manifesting as a glowering face in the sky during the final battle.
- Dragon Highlord Verminaard is the true leader of the Red Dragon Army, with Highmaster Kansaldi Fire-Eyes being one of his lieutenants. He does not appear in the module, being preoccupied with events happening far to the south in Dragons Of Autumn Twilight, and depending on where in the timeline it's set, he might already be dead.
- Hero of Another Story: The events of this book are happening concurrently to Dragons Of Autumn Twilight, and thus the party's adventure begins around the same time as the Companions are having their quest to the far south.
- Hero's Evil Predecessor: Zanas Sarlamir and Lord Soth were two pre-Cataclysm heroes chosen by the gods for great deeds, but both failed, committing heinous acts and contributing to the Cataclysm happening in the first place. If any of the party are Divine classes, they're among the gods' first chosen heroes since the Cataclysm and will inevitably come into conflict with Sarlamir's undead body (though not of his own free will) and Lord Soth, pitting the gods' previous fallen champions against their successors.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: In-universe, Zanas Sarlamir is remembered as a hero who gave his life defending people from a horde of rampaging evil dragons. In truth, the situation was much more complex, and his final moments were far from heroic. The dragons were good, they were mad that the Kingpriest of Istar had used their sacred burial ground as the foundation/power source of a flying city, and Sarlamir, instead of calming the dragons like he was supposed to, provoked the attack by thoughtlessly slaying the dragons' leader, corrupting a holy dragonlance in the process. The knight who brought back Sarlamir's body twisted the truth to protect his reputation.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: The mirror of reflected pasts paralyzes anyone who looks into its depths by showing them an idealized version of their own past, unless they make a saving throw to resist the effect. Lord Soth will fail his saving throw automatically if the party uses the mirror against him, taking him out of the action for up to one hour.
- The Magic Comes Back: Being this is the start of War of the Lance, Divine magic returns to the world with the gods choosing their first champions since the Cataclysm.
- No Cure for Evil: Subverted with Kansaldi Fire-Eyes, who despite being the Big Bad, actually has access to healing magic due to being a Cleric and can heal herself or allies each turn as a bonus action.
- Outside-Context Problem: The Dragon Armies and their Draconian minions are complete unknowns to the people of Vogler and Kalaman. No one is prepared for a vast army to come rolling in out of nowhere, or for it to count monstrous dragon people that variously turn to stone or explode when killed amongst its ranks.
- The Poorly Chosen One:
- The Solamnic knight Zanas Sarlamir was chosen by Paladine Himself to mediate a serious dispute between the people of Onyari and the metallic dragons whose sacred burial ground those people had desecrated to build a flying city. But instead of finding a peaceful solution to the problem, Sarlamir used a dragonlance to kill the dragons' leader out of paranoia. This craven act outraged the other dragons, sparking a battle which led to the city's destruction and the deaths of everyone involved.
- There's also Lord Soth, who the gods chose to be the world's Last-Second Chance to stop the Kingpriest and avoid the Cataclysm. He ended up throwing the chance away to go accuse his wife of infidelity instead, and was cursed to be an immortal Death Knight for his actions.
- The creators mentioned during interviews that part of why the Cataclysm happened in the first place: Sarlamir and Soth's failures were only two of several chosen ones they sent to try and give mortals a chance to avoid the Cataclysm, and none of them worked out.
- Posthumous Character: Ispin Greenshield died shortly before the start of the module. The player characters all knew him in some capacity, and coming to Vogler to attend his funeral is what brings the party together.
- Shout-Out: Bakaris the Younger looks and acts suspiciously like Draco Malfoy.
- Siege Engines: The boilerdrak is a gnomish war machine used by the Dragon Army in their attack on Vogler. It resembles a mechanical dragon on wheels and acts like a cross between a cannon and a flamethrower, with a chance to explode and kill its operators each time it fires.
- Technicolor Fire: Cataclysmic fire is a supernatural flame which burns bright purple.
- There Is Another: If there is a cleric PC involved in the module, it means that Goldmoon was not the only one chosen by the good (or neutral) gods to spread their word.
- They Call Him "Sword": Ispin Greenshield took his name from the distinctive green shield that he always wore on his adventures. The party can end up inheriting his shield after the funeral.
- The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Bastion of Takhisis, an Ominous Floating Castle and temple to the gods of evil raised from the ruins of the City of Lost Names. It is the lynchpin of the Red Dragon Army's final attack on Kalaman, and the place where the party will have their final showdowns with Lord Soth and Kansaldi Fire-Eyes.
- Villainous Glutton: Fewmaster Gholcag messily chows down on stolen fish even as she leads the Dragon Army's attack on Vogler and orders her soldiers to Rape, Pillage, and Burn.
- War Reenactors: The Kingfisher celebration includes a re-enactment of a famous battle between Solamnia and Istar, with the Vogler militia playing the former and a group of visiting mercenaries playing the latter. This mock battle turns deadly when the mercenaries, who have been bought off by the Red Dragon Army, draw real weapons and slaughter their unsuspecting foes.
- Warrior Undead: Lord Soth, the iconic death knight of D&D, is one of the adventure's main villains. He is served by a retinue of similarly undead knights, including his ghostly seneschal Caradoc and his ghoulish standard-bearer Wersten Kern.
- Worf Had the Flu: One of the campaign's introductory scenarios can see the players go up against two draconians from a scouting party that just killed a band of Solamnic knights. These draconians are tired and wounded from the slaughter and start the fight at half health, making it a bit easier for 1st-level characters to bring them down.
DISCLAIMER: The Dragon Armies cannot ensure that owners of this book will not have their lives repurposed in the service of the Dragon Queen's glorious will. Promises to the contrary should be considered best-case scenarios, not statements of certainty. Thank you for supporting the Dragon Armies and a cataclysmically bright future for all of Krynn.
