We had one of the big culminations of a storyline the other night. We’re doing the Tyranny of Dragons storyline and we hit one of the climaxes of Hoard of the Dragon Queen.
Specifically, our group went up against The White Dragon Glazhael. Now, the last time I fought a dragon as part of my gaming group, I was probably in 10th Grade. Which means that we were still in the middle of 2nd Edition and 3rd Edition was a little more than a decade away.
The main thing I remembered from the 1989 fight was claw/claw/bite, tail sweep, and breath weapon. We won but lost half of our party, if I remember correctly. Red Dragons, man. I played a wizard. My wizard was one of the unlucky half. I got him with a couple of good spells, of course… but 2nd Edition wizards were glass cannons.
Remember the Dragonlance books? Well, we were still reeling from the original Twins trilogy following up the original Seasons trilogy. There was never a better time to be 15 years old playing D&D.
Or so I thought.
35 years later, I found myself sitting at the table going up against a dragon that breathed ice instead of fire and I was playing a cleric instead of a wizard.
We had to deal with stuff that didn’t exist back in 2nd Edition: Legendary Actions. These are little tricks that the various monsters can do in response to something that the players do on their own turn. For example, if your Ranger shoots a hail of thorns arrow at the dragon, the dragon can rear back and, with a mighty roar, flap its wings and screw up one of your Ranger’s best attacks.
Wanna hit the dragon in the butt and avoid not only its breath attack but claw/claw/bite? Well, now it has tail swish. It’s a lot worse than it sounds. It knocks you down. So then you gotta get up.
All in all, the dragon is a major pain in the bee-you-tea-tea.
Luckily, I had the best night of D&D in my life.
First off, we had the Rogue pretending to be the Evil Captain taking the dragon’s tribute down to the lair and the rest of the team were “the prisoners” who were carrying it for him. We got stopped by some guards who asked what the heck is going on and the Rogue did a good job of screwing up the persuasion roll. The DM threw us a bone and, instead of immediately attacking us, said that if the prisoners could get 20 on a persuasion check, we could convince the guards.
I rolled a nat 20. WOOOOO!!!!!
We got down to the dragon and, lemme tell ya, the ice weapon is no joke. The DM had one of the best rolls of his life and rolled 50-something on his breath weapon roll (and 12d6 can’t get higher than a 72). Well, I was left with a thimbleful of hit points because I screwed up my save throw. So I hit it with a 4rd level Guiding Bolt and rolled 3 6s, 1 5, and 2 4s. The fight continued, a claw/claw/bite left me unconscious but I had a single healing potion on my belt. The other party members were running around, doing damage here and there (the sorcerer got off a fireball), one of the others got me my healing potion and I spent the next few turns casting healing word on this or that fallen comrade and we whittled and whittled and whittled away (quite regularly being knocked out) until we reached the point where the dragon hissed at us and started running away to escape and I threw my Dwarven Thrower and rolled, like, EIGHTEEN DAMAGE.
Which was enough.
Then the guards came in and attacked us and we all had, like, only a few HP each but the guards were all level one weenies and so we managed to take them out quite handily. Like, we were surprised that we’d hit with a 13 or kill them after only doing 12 points of damage.
Most of the hoard was under ice but… hey. That’s my first dragon since the 80s. And it might have been the best night of D&D in my whole life.
You should start a gaming group. It’s awesome.
(Featured image is a DALL-E generated picture of a White Dragon breathing ice. I would have *LOVED* to have DALL-E back in the 80s.)
One of the most epic fights I’ve ever experienced in all the decades I’ve played D&D, and I say that even though my character (the aforementioned rogue) couldn’t make a save against the dragon fear and spent most of the fight running away…but THAT led to a hilarious moment where the barbarian, instead of trying to hit the dragon, spent a round grappling me to keep me from leaving the dragon’s lair and alerting the guards.
Such a fantastic night.Report
Back in the old days when I was a DM I had my players run up against a ship full of slavers. I’d spent a lot of time headcannoning them so each one would become an episode-boss as my players fell into slavery , escaped, and took their revenge.
Nope. They couldn’t throw a d20 that night below 18 if their lives depended on it.
so like all DM’s had to do, I improvised. They won, escaped enslavement, and navigated safely to Port. Where everyone was astonished. “You beat THOSE GUYS? Holy shit! Their bosses are gonna be PISSED!”
It worked out.Report
If the game would be ruined by a Natural 1, don’t let them roll.
20s can cause similar havoc, so I am glad you had a plan b. Many lesser DMs would have resorted to the railroad.Report
I think I’d be less annoyed (and possibly even not annoyed) by AI-generated artwork if they just admitted that they copied people’s stuff and let you see the original credits, instead of pretending that The Model Just Does This Independently After Being Trained.Report
I remember my 1988 Dragonlance calendar fondly.
But who did Elmore lift from? Caldwell? Parkinson?
I’d not be against having a list of names under any given generated picture (“this picture of an ice dragon being piloted by a female knight wearing a chain mail bikini was inspired by…”) but good artists borrow, great artists steal.
I can’t wait to see what the AI pulls off in 2026.Report
12 year old me was very confused when the Chronicles simply skipped the entire White Dragon campaign…Walrus Men? Ice Wizard? WHITE DRAGON (the gully dwarves of Takhisis dragonkind)Report
There were approximately one jillion Dragonlance books to come out after the Twins Trilogy and I read exactly zero of them.
Surely the white dragon storyline showed up in a short story anthology somewhere.Report
It did. The Lost Chronicles trilogy consisted of Dragons of the Dwarven Depths (finding the silver arm for Theros Ironfeld and recovering an artifact for the Dwarves of Thorbardin so the refugees could stay there), Dragons of the Highlord Skies (Laurana and co. go to Icewall, fight Highlord Feal Thas and the white dragon), and Dragons of the Hourglass Mage (roughly the story of what Raistlin got up to after he abandoned the companions to the Maelstrom).
Sadly, none of them get anywhere near the quality of the original Chronicles or the Twins trilogy.Report
Have you read Dragons of Deceit?
I’m scared to read it.Report
I haven’t.
Some of the non-Chronicles and -Twins Dragonlance books written in the 80’s and early 90’s were good. Many were not. Best to avoid them.
If you’re really jonesing for some Dragonlance just go back and reread the first two trilogies.Report
Legend of Huma (Knaak) was pretty awesome. Kaz the Minotaur less so.Report
Granted, I haven’t read the books in a few decades, but ever since Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies I can’t help but think how awesome it would be if someone made Dragonlance movies with the same level of skill and dedication (and, of course, money). They could get a second trilogy without even having to absurdly stretch a short prequel.Report
There was an animated DVD that came out in 2008 (starring Kiefer Sutherland as Raistlin!) and everybody *HATED* it.
They took 90 minutes to tell Dragons of Autumn Twilight and they needed a hell of a lot more than that.
They need to make a season of television out of it.
But keep the Rings of Power guys far away. Put a bunch of dorks in charge.Report
Not everyone hated it. I liked it quite a bit, but definitely wished they could spend more time on it.
I would love to see a Game of Thrones treatment of some classic D&D books.Report