Friday, March 17, 2006

Dragons of Despair: Errata

In DL2, Dragons of Despair, the party acquired 800 refugees from Pax Tharkas. The aim of DL3 (and DL4) is to transport those 800 to permanent safety. In DL3, the party gets the refugees into temporary shelter and finds a way to the only viable hideout in the region: the hidden dwarven city Thorbardin. In DL4 the party prepares that hideout. There is a time limit.

DL3 is organised into Encounter Areas (EA#). There are 31 of these, described in summary form over pp. 9-13. Some of them duplicate, like #16, #18, #20, #29, #31. (We'll keep our eye on #20.) DL3 then details two of these NONrepeating locations: Agharpost (#9) and Skullcap (#32).

DL3's clock starts on the trigger of Event #5. The dragonarmies proper, not just their baaz scouts, enter EA#1 from EA#2 and in four game hours overrun it. The process repeats for an adjacent EA as chosen by the DM - unless it is of the five (because EA#31 repeats) defined in Event #5. Crueler DMs might cut the number and more lenient DMs might increase it; #30 could well repeat too. By my calculations, all EAs will be overrun from EA#2 in around 6 days. At that point Event #8 kicks in; and if the refugees are in the best of these temporary locations then they get another 108 more game hours (4.5 days) before the dragons take all EAs, attack the refugees, and slaughter the lot.

As a matter of pacing, DL4's introduction will maintain that seven days is ample time to resolve that module.

If you are running the DL3 module copyright 1984, then there are a few errors to watch out for. Actually even if you're running the "edition". The "edition" did less well at dividing the EAs from each other. The edition usually boosts the number +143: so #2 > 145 (Pax Tharkas) etc. Tho' you cannot read that particular numeral in any version.

#7 is "Neidarbard" in later literature.

EA#28 is a three-mile-wide valley leading to points north (of DL3?) which belong to ogres and not to the dragonarmies. EA#28 was - like #2 - DAMN hard to read in DL3, as its label crossed a creek. The revision marks it clearly (and correctly) as 171.

The builder of the "Bridge of Dirken" #13=156 is spelled "Dirken" in DL3; but since then the DragonLance designers have settled on spelling this name "Derkin", and so it is in the edition. Derkin was a king of the mountain dwarves. DL3's also missing an entry for EA#19. The editor has, reasonably, replaced the particular #18 northeast of bridge #13, making that the #19 so enumerating it 162.

The "Hopeful Vale" is officially EA#20 (p.12); however there is confusion elsewhere in the text as to whether this vale was EA#20 (p.7) or 21 (pp.8,27). Note, the edition is of no help since it too has two of the equivalent, #163, and marks #164 as the safe zone.

#21 / 164 is, by the way, no safe zone. It is a nondescript narrow defile, with a river through it, running south from the first hopefulvale #20.

Oh yeah, the map sports two locations for EA#20: one in the centre of the mountains adjoining various EA#18 regions, and another on the opposite side of "The Bog" in the Plains of Dergoth. We'll speculate on why the mess.

[REPOSTED 5/16/2020.]