Dragonlance is Back!!!

Full stop. No shame. Enthusiastic two thumbs up: I am a HUGE Dragonlance fan.

I adore this world. I think the characters in it are interesting, complicated and beautifully fleshed out. I think the magic system is inspired and macabre. And the Draconian antagonists are brilliant and always threaten danger.

I was so completely excited when I heard Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman were coming back to write another set of novels in this world, and now that the new book, Dragons of Deceit, is here and in my hand, I am ultra geeked to lose myself in the tale they have to tell.

My First Love

Countless people first dipped their toes into fantasy fiction with Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit or something like that. For me, it was Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first Dragonlance book.

I was maybe 11 or 12. My siblings and I were tight friends with the two kids who lived next door and the one kid who lived on the other side of them. One of those kids who was 2-3 years older than me (I was the youngest of the bunch), saw me with my nose buried in the original Red Box set, a box of unpainted miniatures I had bought at a garage sale for maybe a buck spread out before me.

He left and returned shortly thereafter with Dragons of Autumn Twilight in his hand and asked me if I wanted to read it. I’ve always been a big reader, so I was definitely interested, but when I saw that cover, I was mesmerized. Here was a red dragon(!), curled menacingly around a tree and creeping up on a trio of heroes - a sober-looking man with his bow ready, arrow knocked; a strong, confident woman with an intriguing spear; and the aptly named knight, looking stern and battle-worn.

This promised to be a window into the stories I had been creating in my head each time I leafed through those D&D books or brought out those miniatures.

To say I consumed the book voraciously is an understatement. I devoured the setting of Krynn and pulled from it hungrily to create homebrew campaigns I used to DM for my younger cousins. I created from scratch classes like Ranger, Mage, and Knight for them to play before I even knew these classes existed in official D&D books.

I have read every single book set in the Dragonlance Universe. The Chronicles Trilogy, however, is my first and truest love in the fantasy fiction genre. People like Stephen Colbert and Christopher Lee have famously read and re-read Tolkien’s works over and again. For me, the Dragonlance Chronicles are my Lord of the Rings epic. I have read though that entire trilogy multiple times and I go back to it often. I’ve even purchased the weighty tome that is the annotated versions of the Chronicles and read through that, savoring the flavor text in the margins by Weis and Hickman.

Dragonlance IS Fantasy to Me

When I came across the Art of Dragonlance in a bookstore as a kid, I greedily snatched it up. I poured through it over and again, consuming every detail of the pictures and absorbing the commentary from author and artist as they shaped the many iterations of antagonists and protagonists alike. To this day, when I picture fantasy art in my head, it is the art style of Dragonlance that I see in my head. It is what a sword and sorcery world of magic and dragons and adventure looks like to me.

So, yes, Draonglance and the world of Krynn have left an indelible mark on my childhood that remains every bit as powerful as an adult. Alas, I recognize I am largely alone in this level of adoration for the setting.

I’ve owned the Dragonlance roleplaying books. I’ve purchased all the modules to take you through the Chronicles storyline. But I never got to play them. I’ve never rolled dice a single time in the Dragonlance setting. As I said, I’ve struggled to find people who want to have an adventure in the setting. Often they’d rather stay in Eberron or another Forgotten Realms world they are more familiar with. Other objections are not wanting to simply play through the storyline of the book series, preferring a wholly unique adventure.

Honestly, I don’t begrudge anyone those feelings. I’m not here to yuck on anyone else’s yums. I respect it.

I may never play an adventure in Krynn while sitting at the table among friends. But it is more than ample compensation to have played through hours upon hours of adventures in my head, lost in the pages of novels set in this world I deeply love.

Can’t wait to read Dragons of Deceit and let you all know my thoughts. Full disclosure - I am saving it to tear through while sitting by the water on my upcoming vacation. I am tempted every night just to crack the cover and absorb the preface…but I relent! For I know the taste will be all the sweeter when the proper time comes!