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Toshimo
Aug 23, 2012

He's outta line...

But he's right!


If I am to be judged by those who come after me, let me be judged for the truth.

So, like a lot of goons, I read Dragonlance as a kid in the late 80's and early 90's. It was the absolute coolest poo poo I had ever read, and I'm sure it has aged like fine quiche.

Apparently, I wasn't the only dumb kid growing up back then because, as I understand it, there are about 190 books in the entire series. I'm not masochistic enough to read all 190, but we'll see how far we get.

So, we'll start with the Chronicles: Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, and Dragon's of Spring Dawning.

After that, we'll see what we can do. I've found an allegedly complete publication list here: http://dlnexus.com/products/printdate.aspx . To be honest, if anyone can point me to somewhere I can get the "Adventure Gamebooks", the idea of forums-based CYOA seems rad as hell.

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Toshimo
Aug 23, 2012

He's outta line...

But he's right!


One of my fondest memories of the series is the songs. I'm just gonna drop the opening song here, because it's not something to easily describe.

code:
                CANTICLE OF THE DRAGON
Hear the sage as his song descends like heaven's rain or tears,
          and washes the years, the dust of the
                    many stories
        from the High Tale of the Dragonlance.
        For in ages deep, past memory and word,
            in the first blush of the world
          when the three moons rose from the
                lap of the forest,
            dragons, terrible and great,
          made war on this world of Krynn.

        Yet out of the darkness of dragons,
            out of our cries for light
    in the blank face of the black moon soaring,
        a banked light flared in Solamnia,
          a knight of truth and of power,
        who called down the gods themselves
         and forged the mighty Dragonlance,
                piercing the soul
        of dragonkind, driving the shade of
                  their wings
      from the brightening shores of Krynn.

          Thus Huma, Knight of Solamnia,
            Lightbringer, First Lancer,
        followed his light to the foot of the
                Khalkist Mountains,
          to the stone feet of the gods,
        to the crouched silence of their temple.
       He called down the Lancemakers, he took on
          their unspeakable power to crush the
                unspeakable evil,
           to thrust the coiling darkness
             back down the tunnel of the
                dragon's throat.

        Paladine, the Great God of Good,
            shone at the side of Huma,
    strengthening the lance of his strong right arm,
        and Huma, ablaze in a thousand moons,
          banished the Queen of Darkness,
      banished the swarm of her shrieking hosts
        back to the senseless kingdom of
          death, where their curses
       swooped upon nothing and nothing
       deep below the brightening land.

    Thus ended in thunder the Age of Dreams
        and began the Age of Might,
      When Istar, kingdom of light and
         truth, arose in the east,
      where minarets of white and gold
    spired to the sun and to the sun's glory,
       announcing the passing of evil,
      and Istar, who mothered and cradled
          the long summers of good,
            shone like a meteor
       in the white skies of the just.

       Yet in the fullness of sunlight
     the Kingpriest of Istar saw shadows:
     At night he saw the trees as things
         with daggers, the streams
      blackened and thickened under the
               silent moon.
    He searched books for the paths of Huma,
        for scrolls, signs, and spells
       so that he, too, might summon the
             gods, might find
        their aid in his holy aims,
       might purge the world of sin.

      Then came the time of dark and death
       as the gods turned from the world.
       A mountain of fire crashed like a
            comet through Istar,
    the city split like a skull in the flames,
    mountains burst from once-fertile valleys,
    seas poured into the graves of mountains,
       the deserts sighed on abandoned
            floors of the seas,
       the highways of Krynn erupted
      and became the paths of the dead.

      Thus began the Age of Despair.
        The roads were tangled.
    The winds and the sandstorms dwelt
        in the husks of cities,
    The plains and mountains became our home.
      As the old gods lost their power,
        we called to the blank sky
    into the cold, dividing gray to the ears
              of new gods.
     The sky is calm, silent, unmoving.
      We have yet to hear their answer.
Boy, howdy! That's sure a way to kick things off. We get the Reader's Digest version of Krynn's backstory: Dragons bad, Knights good. The paranoid Kingpriest seeking to craft a perfect world at any cost. The abandonment of the world by the old gods and the demands of the people for new ones. It certainly presents us with what appears will be a post-apocalyptic wasteland, full of the remaining dregs of humanity.

I did some digging, and the poem itself was actually (like many poems in the series) penned by Michael Williams, not Hickman or Weiss.

Prologue: The Old Man

quote:

Tika Waylan straightened her back with a sigh. flexing her shoulders to ease her cramped muscles.
She tossed the soapy bar rag into the water pail and glanced around the empty room.

And thus is introduced our protagonist: Tika Waylan, Barmaid.

quote:

It was getting harder to keep up the old inn. There was a lot of love rubbed into the warm finish of
the wood, but even love and tallow couldn't hide the cracks and splits in the well-used tables or
prevent a customer from sitting on an occasional splinter. The Inn of the Last Home was not fancy,
not like some she'd heard about in Haven. It was comfortable. The living tree in which it was built
wrapped its ancient arms around it lovingly, while the walls and fixtures were crafted around the
boughs of the tree with such care as to make it impossible to tell where nature's work left off and
man's began. The bar seemed to ebb and flow like a polished wave around the living wood that
supported it. The stained glass in the window panes cast welcoming flashes of vibrant color across
the room.

Wait a sec, this hardly sounds post-apocalyptic at all!! I think I may have been hornswoggled. In fact, we get more description of this inn-within-a-tree in the chapter than we do of any of the characters. I may have been truly mistaken and the inn, itself, may be our protagonist.

quote:

Tika looked around and smiled in satisfaction. The tables were clean and polished. All she had left to do was sweep the floor. She began to shove aside the heavy wooden benches, as Otik emerged from the kitchen, enveloped in fragrant steam.

Should be another brisk day-for both the weather and business," he said, squeezing his stout body behind the bar. He began to set out mugs, whistling cheerfully.

"I'd like the business cooler and the weather warmer," said Tika, tugging at a bench.

Our first reference to the changing seasons. I, for one, cannot wait for the second novel, wherein I clearly expect they will tell us how cold Winter is no less than 400 times.

quote:

"I walked my feet off yesterday and got little thanks and less tips! Such a gloomy crowd! Everybody nervous, jumping at every sound. I dropped a mug last night and-I swear-Retark drew his sword!"

"Pah!" Otik snorted. "Retark's a Solace Seeker Guard. They're always nervous. You would be too if you had to work for Hederick, that fanat-"

"Watch it," Tika warned.

Otik shrugged. "Unless the High Theocrat can fly now, he won't be listening to us. I'd hear his boots on the stairs before he could hear me." But Tika noticed he lowered his voice as he continued. "The residents of Solace won't put up with much more, mark my words. People disappearing, being dragged off to who knows where. It's a sad time." He shook his head. Then he brightened. "But it's good for business."

First of all, Otik: "But it's good for business" shouldn't brighten your face when discussing religious fanatics dragging people off in the middle of the night. That's some incredible late-stage :capitalism: logic.

Second off: Pay your drat barmaid a living wage so she doesn't have to scrounge for tips. :colbert:

quote:

"It must be thirsty work, haranguing people about the New Gods day in and day out-he's in here every night."
Tika stopped her sweeping and leaned against the bar.
"Otik," she said seriously, her voice subdued. "There's other talk, too-talk of war. Armies massing in the north. And there are these strange, hooded men in town, hanging around with the High Theocrat, asking questions."

Well, we've made some progress since the end of the poem. The New Gods are apparently here, and possibly the cause of some of the misfortunes in the area. Also, the Northern army seems like a dangling plot lead if I ever heard one. Just the thing for a band of young adventurers to investigate.

quote:

The door opened.
Both Tika and Otik started in alarm and turned to the door. They had not heard footsteps on the
stairs, and that was uncanny!

Uncanny! Like the X-men! (Good thing they got that whole "nobody can sneak up Chekov's stairs" gun fired early.)

quote:

The Inn of the Last Home was built high in the branches of a mightyvallenwood tree, as was every other building in Solace, with the exception of the blacksmith shop.
The townspeople had decided to take to the trees during the terror and chaos following the Cataclysm. And thus Solace became a tree town, one of the few truly beautiful wonders left on Krynn. Sturdy wooden bridge-walks connected the houses and businesses perched high above the ground where five hundred people went about their daily lives. The Inn of the Last Home was the largest building in Solace and stood forty feet off the ground. Stairs ran around the ancient vallenwood's gnarled trunk.

First, I'd like to commend them on basic fire safety for not putting the blacksmith in a tree hut.

Second, this is basically an Ewok village and I think we can all acknowledge that.

quote:

He stood in the doorway, leaning on a worn oak staff, and peered around the Inn. The tattered hood of his plain, gray robe was drawn over his head, its shadow obscuring the features of his face except for his hawkish, shining eyes.
"Can I help you. Old One?" Tika asked the stranger, exchanging worried glances with Otik. Was this old man a Seeker spy?
"Eh?" The old man blinked. "You open?"
"Well . . " Tika hesitated.
"Certainly," Otik said, smiling broadly. "Come in, Gray-beard. Tika, find our guest a chair. He must be tired after that long climb."
"Climb?" Scratching his head, the old man glanced around the porch, then looked down to the ground below. "Oh, yes. Climb. A great many stairs .. ." He hobbled inside, then made a playful swipe at Tika with his staff. "Get along with your work, girl. I'm capable of finding my own chair."

And thus is introduced our protagonist: Gray-Beard, the Old One.

It's clear by his "hawkish eyes" and the fact that he didn't take the stairs that this man is also secretly... a bird. Some sort of... Bird Man.

quote:

He stood in the center of the Inn, peering around as though confirming the location and position of each table and chair in the room. The common room was large and bean-shaped, wrapping around the trunk of the vallenwood. The trees smaller limbs supported the floor and ceiling. He looked with particular interest at the fireplace, which stood about three-quarters of the way back into the room. The only stonework in the Inn, it was obviously crafted by dwarven hands to appear to be part of the tree, winding naturally through the branches above. A bin next to the side of the firepit was stacked high with cordwood and pine logs brought down from the high mountains. No resident of
Solace would consider burning the wood of their own great trees. There was a back route out the kitchen; it was a forty-foot drop, but a few of Otik's customers found this setup very convenient.

Ok, I'm back on the "The Inn is our secret protagonist" plan.

What we know about our protagonists:
Tika: Barmaid, 19, Redhead, Tired
Grey-Beard: Old, Also a Bird
The Inn: FOUR ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS

{Not pictured: Several pages of Grey-Beard literally rearranging the furniture.}

quote:

"Bring the chairs. That's a good girl. And I want one, right here." The old man gestured at a spot in front of the firepit. "For me."
"Are you giving a party. Old One?" Tika asked as she carriedmover the most comfortable, wellworn chair in the Inn.
"A party?" The thought seemed to strike the old man as funny. He chuckled. "Yes, girl. It will be a party such as the world of Krynn has not seen since before the Cataclysm! Be ready, Tika Waylan.
Be ready!"
He patted her shoulder, tousled her hair, then turned and lowered himself, bones creaking, into the chair.
"A mug of ale," he ordered.
Tika went to pour the ale. It wasn't until she had brought the old man his drink and gone back to her sweeping that she stopped, wondering how he knew her name.

Thus endeth the Prologue. I can't wait for Tika to go out on so many rad adventures.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸
Wherever I see a song or poem of more than six lives in a fantasy book my eyes glaze right on past

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

I am so on board for this.

Gato The Elder
Apr 14, 2006

Pillbug
this is tickling my nostalgia! Looking forward to more =)

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


I have no nostalgia or even much knowledge at all of Dragonlance, but I'm ready to sign up for your Patreon.

Infinite Karma
Oct 23, 2004
Good as dead





I tried to read this to my son out of nostalgia and I wasn't able to. I didn't have what it takes. I think I got to the end of Chapter 2. Godspeed, gentle goon.

berenzen
Jan 23, 2012

Never read these books when I was a kid. Boy howdy does it seem aggressively mediocre.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord
God I'm tempted to listen along on audiobook so I can "read" while doing better things.

If there's audiobooks that is.

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company
Yesssssss this is gonna be fun

mostly for poor Toshimo's pain

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
Cold and cheerless breakfast! Cold and cheerless breakfast!

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



I managed to miss these books as a childe so now I'll be able to understand everyone's crap.

Modulo16
Feb 12, 2014

"Authorities say the phony Pope can be recognized by his high-top sneakers and incredibly foul mouth."

I loved Dragonlance, I even had the Dragonlance RPG that my friends and I played. It was our first foray into pen and paper RPG.

Mors Rattus
Oct 25, 2007

FATAL & Friends
Walls of Text
#1 Builder
2014-2018

I honestly wonder how long this will take to get to the three Dragonlance books I actually read. I have no idea where they sit in the publishing history.

Lord_Hambrose
Nov 21, 2008

*a foul hooting fills the air*



Excited for the weird Gnome books. Best part of the setting.

Arivia
Mar 17, 2011
Hell yes, I am totally here for these. Dragons of Spring Dawning was my introduction to D&D, I stayed up all night reading it and got my mom to cut my hair into a topknot and call me Tas for years. I was like 8.

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
Thank you for doing this. I am ready to cast a shadow in the shape of a dragon because Polymorph doesn't fool moonlight somehow.

Maxwell Lord
Dec 12, 2008

I am drowning.
There is no sign of land.
You are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand.

And I hope you die.

I hope we both die.


:smith:

Grimey Drawer
I recall enjoying Dragons of Autumn Twilight well enough when I read it, by the standards of game fiction, but Winter Twilight totally lost me- it just felt scattered.

Humbug Scoolbus
Apr 25, 2008

The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers, stern and wild ones, and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
Clapping Larry
Somehow I managed to avoid every D&D novel, no matter the setting or author. Now I finally get to see what I missed!

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Arivia posted:

Hell yes, I am totally here for these. Dragons of Spring Dawning was my introduction to D&D, I stayed up all night reading it and got my mom to cut my hair into a topknot and call me Tas for years. I was like 8.

Wait. Is there something to a topknot beyond long hair and a really high ponytail?

I've always assumed "topknot" was basically the same as "gently caress I need to do a lot of cleaning with chemicals and need my hair really, really out of my face".

I'm sincerely curious.

Also this a great thread and I'm ground flooring this bad boy. I think I have some garbage supplement thing sitting in a box somewhere with recipes and crap. If I can find that book I'll totally make those potatoes that come up in EVERY GODDAMN CHAPTER. (The recipe sucks by the way, if I remember.)

Omnicrom
Aug 3, 2007
Snorlax Afficionado


Ground Floor! Yes!

I know nothing about Dragonlance except my high school library had all the books and I dutifully ignored them in favor of their collection of Discworld novels. I am eager to learn about a piece of history that completely passed me by, judging by the TG industry thread this spun off from it should be fascinating.

Except for the prologue, that bored.

Also if you're writing a fantasy novel you are not allowed to write big long songs unless your name is literally John Ronald Reuel Tolkein, and even then I'm probably going to skim them.

cptn_dr
Sep 7, 2011

Seven for beauty that blossoms and dies


I tried reading the three original books earlier this year on a whim. A friend loaned me his annotated edition, which was actually kind of interesting.

I mean, I still gave up maybe three chapters into book two, but eh.

Name Change
Oct 9, 2005


Splicer posted:

Wherever I see a song or poem of more than six lives in a fantasy book my eyes glaze right on past

Same, but there's a group who does Tolkien poems and it rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxfoa23skHg

thetoughestbean
Apr 27, 2013

Keep On Shroomin
It’s have watched the animated movie, can’t wait to see how the book compares

Darwinism
Jan 6, 2008


Echoing the, "I loved it as a kid, I cannot read it today," sentiment. I got them on Kindle super cheap last year and couldn't even make it past the lake in the first book. I can't wait for some of the sillier stories, like Sturm and Kitiara Visit The Moon or the segue into post-post-apocalypse, with more and biggerer dragons now

Bruceski
Aug 21, 2007

The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Sodomy Hussein posted:

Same, but there's a group who does Tolkien poems and it rules

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxfoa23skHg

The Rankin-Bass movies do pretty well as well. Not spectacular or anything, but they remind me of the melodies my dad would do when he read the books to us. Also some of them are sung by Glenn Yarbrough who was a great folk singer. One of my dad's favorites and I think he influenced the reading by complete coincidence, Dad started reading the books to us before we saw the movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5vu8vU9yCw

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



As a kid I sort of felt obligated to read these, scraped my way through Autumn Twilight and maybe the next one? But then lost track of the order and also just wasn't hugely compelled. I did read a short story collection from the setting though, which was if anything more bewildering. (Ground floor!)

Xiahou Dun
Jul 16, 2009

We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.



Bruceski posted:

The Rankin-Bass movies do pretty well as well. Not spectacular or anything, but they remind me of the melodies my dad would do when he read the books to us. Also some of them are sung by Glenn Yarbrough who was a great folk singer. One of my dad's favorites and I think he influenced the reading by complete coincidence, Dad started reading the books to us before we saw the movies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5vu8vU9yCw

My dad read us The Hobbit and some of the Lord of the Rings when we were kids, and he tried his best on the songs but... uh. He is not a musical man. Let's leave it at that. And I've wondered before if that's part of the reason why I can't stand the loving songs. I adore the Rankin-Bass ones from The Hobbit cause we'd get those from the library and they just sound like childhood now, but when I'd see them in the books when I was a teenager and reading LotR I just checked out and got some content words and then went back to the story. I know there was content there, but I just couldn't. And that's still a reason why I have no desire to ever reread those books. And I love deep dives into settings and slow narratives! I just could never get into those.

Somehow this didn't infect when my dad read us The Last of the Mohicans and I heard my dad's "French" which is, let's say unique. I love the hell out of all of those books despite him poorly reading parts in period French he didn't understand with basically no knowledge of French and just guessing. He actually learned to read a decent amount of French but his pronunciation is hilariously garbage and I still tease him for it.

In conclusion, I should go read to my nephew.

Karatela
Sep 11, 2001

Clickzorz!!!


Grimey Drawer
I am glad you finally got this going, Toshimo, and I plan to follow along closely.

Also yes, any poem/song/whatever longer than like 6 or 8 lines is an easy way go get me to glaze over. Like, yes, we get it, did you really need to spend 50 lines on this?

DrBouvenstein
Feb 28, 2007

I think I'm a doctor, but that doesn't make me a doctor. This fancy avatar does.
Sometimes I lurk over in the D&D thread, and I saw you post this link, and I'm all about this thread in the worst kind of way.

I was way too big of a Dragonlance grognard in high school and a bit into college. Read the first trilogy (I think the first two books were in my HS library, oddly enough), and the second trilogy about the twins going back in time, and a couple of the collections of short stories, including the one about everybody's kids. Then I read the maybe sort of unofficial "fourth book" in the first trilogy, Dragons of Summer Flame? (I guess they decided keeping the naming scheme 100% and calling it Summer's Day would be a little dumb...)

IIRC, the book was written because TSR (I think D&D was still owned by TSR then) was completely changing the Dragonlance campaign setting. And not in the way they did with Forgotten Realms, where a D&D version change just meant some gods died and new ones appeared...instead, they completely REMOVED all the gods (which was resolution to the book), and changed the entire RPG mechanics so it wasn't the same as current AD&D. Looked it up just now and it was called the SAGA system.

Then they undid all of that a couple years later with the Souls trilogy where the old gods came back because:
*surprise*, they didn't actually leave like they said they did at the end of the other book, the main antagonist evil goddess just tricked the other gods, "stole" the world and hid it from them. (Not sure if it needs spoiling, it's a freakin 20 year old trilogy.)
If I remember right, Weis and Hickman basically said they didn't like how they
That's where I stopped, early 2000's, I was in college and realized I could read GOOD books, instead.

Silhouette
Nov 16, 2002

SONIC BOOM!!!

For the love of all that is good, please just stick to the Weis & Hickman books and a few select spinoffs. Nobody wants to see you lose your mind.

thetoughestbean posted:

It’s have watched the animated movie, can’t wait to see how the book compares

We don't talk about the movie in polite company.

El Fideo
Jun 10, 2016

I trusted a rhino and deserve all that came to me


This will be fun! I'm pretty sure I read less than ten Dragonlances as a young teen. Definitely the first trilogy. Some Raistlin and Caramon and Lord Soth thing, and a book(maybe more than one?) from the perspective of some goblins who were trying to get a better life.

Lemniscate Blue
Apr 21, 2006

Here we go again.

Silhouette posted:

We don't talk about the movie in polite company.

The SA forums, though we've grown less actively malicious, are not and have never been polite company.

Adding to the chorus: I read a lot of Dragonlance as a nerdling before developing the ability to evaluate quality. I think I stopped in the mid-90s? The last I read was Second Generation and Dragons of Summer Flame, after which I didn't particularly care to continue.

I have fonder memories of some of the side books and short stories than the main storyline these days. Weasel's Luck/Galen Beknighted in particular. Some of the Tales and Preludes series, plus a whole freaking lot of the short stories in the anthologies, were obviously written as generic fantasy and clumsily shoehorned into the Dragonlance setting, which did them a disservice. Example that I can't remember the book it was in was Raistlin and Caramon in the city with the cat god dude. The first Dragonlance I ever read - really the first D&D fiction - was the anthology Dragons of Krynn.

Toshimo: You should take an intermission every once in a while to do some of those short stories rather than power through them all at once when you get to the books they're in. Maybe it'll help keep you from burning out going from one epic trilogy to another.

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord
Yeah thinking back I think I only ever really completed the Chronicles. I also read the Moon book at some point, because I was hoping it was Spelljammer, and IIRC I was kinda disappointed.

I should do an F&F of the AD&D Dragonlance Adventures hardcover though. I think I still have it around somewhere.... I am probably not the best dude for it because my DL lore is ... shaky.

Angrymog
Jan 30, 2012

Really Madcats

I read the first trilogy, a book focusing on Kitiara, maybe one about Tanis, and there was also one with a dark elf

Rhandhali
Sep 7, 2003

This is Free Trader Beowulf, calling anyone...
Grimey Drawer
I had the companion books they made - Leaves From the Inn of the Last Home and More Leaves From the Inn of the Last Home. More songs, more (probably terrible) poetry and recipes. Many recipes. I'll see if I can't dig them up somewhere. Always tried to get my mom to cook the spiced potatoes but could never get her to go along with it.

Mr. Humalong
May 7, 2007

I’m definitely a latecomer to D&D (never played until 2017), but what’s the general opinion of the Dragonlance setting? I know next to nothing about any of the settings besides Forgotten Realms (seems like a kitchen sink setting) and Eberron (rules imo).

That Old Tree
Jun 24, 2012

nah


Mr. Humalong posted:

I’m definitely a latecomer to D&D (never played until 2017), but what’s the general opinion of the Dragonlance setting? I know next to nothing about any of the settings besides Forgotten Realms (seems like a kitchen sink setting) and Eberron (rules imo).

As someone who only knows broad, mostly third-hand information, it seems that despite a variety of interesting ideas for the time (fantasy post-apocalypse, world forsaken by gods, fundamentalism vs actual compassion Good v Good), it's aggressively mediocre.

The cartoon with Lucy Lawless and Keifer Sutherland and a bunch of terrible CGI was hilarious, tho.

(And yes Eberrowns.)

That Old Tree fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jul 19, 2019

dwarf74
Sep 2, 2012



Buglord

Mr. Humalong posted:

I’m definitely a latecomer to D&D (never played until 2017), but what’s the general opinion of the Dragonlance setting? I know next to nothing about any of the settings besides Forgotten Realms (seems like a kitchen sink setting) and Eberron (rules imo).
Eberron is good and cool.

Forgotten Realms is extremely kitchen-sinky and you have a bunch of tools who are way, way, way too deep into the altogether-way-too-expansive lore and canon.

Dragonlance got expanded a ton in novels, but it has never been a premier RPG setting except for a few minutes during the late 80's or whatever. It's much more well-known for its books. It has some clever bits that were atypical for its era, and it prided itself on being a deep, dramatic setting, but it's still an Extremely Generic Fantasy World.

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W.T. Fits
Apr 21, 2010

Ready to Poyozo Dance all over your face.
+1 to the list of "read a bunch of this poo poo in high school/college" pile. Been years since I read any of my old books that are packed away in storage, save for my well-worn copy of The Legend of Huma by none other than the WoW Lore Thread's favorite author punching bag, Richard A. Knaak.

I'm both looking forward to and dreading seeing where this thread ends up going.

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