Here we have the beginning of my Actual Play for the D&D 5e campaign, Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, my first time running a game in several years, my first time running for people I wasn’t related to, and my first time running 5e. As I mentioned earlier, I’m running the game using Foundry VTT because my players are fairly geographically widespread.

The party this session is:

• Drystan Silverhart – Level 1 Aasamar Paladin (Knight of Solamnia)
• Yseult De Lorimar – Level 1 Human Warlock (Noble)
• “Fletch” Siannodel – Level 1 Kagonesti Elven Ranger (Folk Hero)

Additionally, I used two of the Sidekick characters to round out the party – Hrigg Roundrook and Tem Temble – both healers, since we don’t have a lot of actual healing magic in the party. We have a couple more players who may drop in later in the game.

Drystan and Yseult’s players are married, as are their characters.

I opened the game running the Eye in the Sky prelude for Yseult – where I did run into one slight issue with the prologue as written – Yseult doesn’t have Detect Magic – nor is she trained in Investigation… or Arcana. I did tip the players off that the runes on the wall are written rather deliberately, rather than appearing strictly for decoration, as an anti-frustration measure, and that (combined with a very good Arcana check) lead to being able to cast Knock to open the door.

From there we had the party reunite – I gave each of the characters (or groups with Drystan and Yseult) – rumors that I’d rolled in advance. Fletch’s rumor ended up explicitly tying in to the first combat encounter – against a group of Draconians, and he leaned into that.

Our first combat encounter went pretty well – there were some bumps in the road as we figured out how to handle the combat, but it worked well. As is intended by the monster design and the encounter, the Death Throw abilities of the Draconians absolutely threw the party for a loop, especially the petrification abilities of the Baaz. Drystan and Hrigg on different occasions ended up failing their first saves, but Drystan made his second. I did fudge things a little for Hrigg on the second save, because he was also near the Kapak when it went down, so I had the acid burn through the petrification. For one of the Baaz, it was killed through a very creative use of the bonfire spell by Yseult, and I ruled that the bonfire consumed the petrification gas (as honestly that made sense at the time).

Drystan, while he did give a proper funeral for the 3 fallen Knights of Solamnia from the wagon, did retrieve their armor and wanted to get it fixed – there isn’t any in town who could particularly did that, so I did put forward having the local Tinker Gnome, Than, could try to fix it – leading to also the possibility that there could be… extras.

Speaking of which, the players were very amused by Tinker Gnomes, both when I brought up the Gnomeflinger, Mt. Nevermind, and the Naryfall. The players have… limited familiarity with Dragonlance – they’re familiar enough with Kender by reputation, that’s about it – they didn’t expect the Tinker Gnomes, and, again, were caught completely off-guard by the gnomes.

The session wrapped after the funeral and wake for Ispin Greenshield. “Fletch” put together a big story about him and Greenshield that was fun, dramatic, and well-told. I had Bakaris the Younger heckle one of the townsfolk, with Drystan stepping up to tell him off.

Next month – the battle!

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