Welcome back to the weekly D&D and Tabletop Gaming thread!  Here’s a place where we can talk about Dungeons & Dragons or any other tabletop games that you nerds might be into.  Tell us about the games you’re playing, speculate about future expansions, recruit your fellow Avocados into new groups, whatever you want.

Let’s talk about another recently announced release from Wizards of the Coast: Dragonlance! Available for preorder now, to be released on December 6, Wizards is bringing the classic setting to 5e for the first time in the form of an adventure book, Shadow of the Dragon Queen. The adventure is set during the War of the Lance, and puts your characters on the front lines in the war against the evil Dragon Armies. The book includes options for players to make characters from the world of Krynn, including the Kender race, the Lunar Magic Sorcerer subclass, and backgrounds and feats to make a character part of the Knights of Solamnia or the Towers of High Sorcery. It is also the first adventure to really focus on large-scale war as a theme, and WotC is also putting out a board game, Warriors of Krynn, that lets you play out some of the massive battles that occur in the campaign.

In another first, you’ll be able to buy the physical book and the digital D&D Beyond version as a bundle package. It’s nice to see WotC experimenting with combining physical book sales with digital downloads since acquiring D&D Beyond.

Personally, I have a lot of fondness for Dragonlance–I devoured the novels as a young teenager, though at the time I never knew it had anything to do with D&D apart from sharing a genre. Getting to play in that world definitely has some draw for me, just for nostalgia alone. I’m not sure I’ll bother with the Warriors of Krynn board game, mostly because I’m not sure how it’ll translate to on-line play, which is the majority of my games. Let us know your thoughts below!

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[spoiler title=”Players and Characters”]Wafflicious is back in the DM’s seat to continue our 5e Cthulhu Mythos adventure. Our players include:

• JosephusBrown as Anton Illinois (Human Inquisitive Rogue/Fighter), a disgraced archaeology professor who has turned to seeking arcane rituals
• CleverGuy as Bastian Updelver (Deep Gnome Alchemist Artificer), an eccentric local potionmaker
• TheHayesCode as Hazel Green (Dhampir Spirits Bard), a flapper, séance MC, and aspiring spiritualist
• Spiny Creature as Ku (Kenku Twilight Cleric), a local priestess of Bastet, goddess of protection
• The Wasp as Leah Zann (Tiefling Great Old One Warlock), a professor from Miskatonic University who accepted a deal with Yog Sothoth to get an advantage over her male colleagues
• The Ugly One with the Jewels as Minty Rocksmasher (Dwarf Berserker Barbarian), survivor of an eldritch accident which decimated her tribe[/spoiler]

[spoiler title=”Trenches and Tyranosaurs”]

Excerpts from the notes of Bastian Updelver…

After hiding the Elder Thing bodies the best we could, we scurried back down the mesa to get out of the open. We headed back the we came, planning to take the long way around the karstlands. We followed the course of a narrow ravine southward for a ways, until the high rock walls closed in and the ravine turned into a box canyon. Hazel and Ku climbed up the cliff wall to see if they could find another path. After a few minutes, Ku signaled that we should follow. As I got to the top, Ku pointed out another ravine we could climb down into that seemed to be going the way we wanted–we’d only have to cover about 100 feet of open ground to get there. Before we could start, though, we saw a few more fireworks appear in the sky, signaling the approach of more Elder Things. We quickly scrambled back down into the box canyon to hide.

As we waited for the Elder Things to pass us by, Ku started taking off her heavy armor. She said it was impeding her ability to move quietly more than it was helping her stay alive. I must say I don’t like the thought of her being unprotected though. I think I can at least make her cloak a little tougher, to give her some measure of defense. Anyway, after a little while, we determined that the Elder Things seemed to be patrolling the sky overhead. We waited until they were as far away from us as possible, then made a run for it up and over the open ground into the other ravine. Minty hoisted me up onto her shoulders, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to run as fast as everyone else, and we made our break. I was keeping an eye on the sky as we neared the next crevice and I saw the Elder Things off in the distance heading our way. Minty tossed me over the edge and jumped after me, along with the rest of the group. Hazel used her magic to slow our fall and actually managed to beat the rest of the bottom just by crawling along the wall the way she does. We landed softly and hid again, just in time to get a glimpse of the Elder Things flying by overhead. They didn’t seem to see us, but we waited a few minutes for them to move on before we started along the ravine again.

After some time, the ravine walls started widen out and we even started to see some vegetation starting to sprout, but just we came to end of the ravine we found the path blocked by a pair of giant tyranosaurs, who were posturing at each other over a freshly killed dinosaur. They didn’t seem to notice us right away, so we stayed hidden to see what would happen, hoping that they’d get distracted enough with each other that we could sneak by. At least that was the plan, but Hazel made too much noise and one of the tyranosaurs came over to investigate, probably thinking that eating Hazel would be easier than fighting the other dinosaur. Hazel was able to charm the beast though, and it even let her climb up onto its back. If Hazel could keep its attention, we might all be able to sneak by I thought. The second tyranosaur seemed to content to eat its dinner as long as we didn’t approach.

I’m not sure why Minty decided to go out into the open. Maybe she though Hazel had complete tamed the beast, but it clearly only had eyes for Hazel. Anton had the right idea, quickly moving past the distracted dinosaurs, but he kept his crossbow trained on the charmed monster in case it decided to attack. I kept myself hidden, moving slowly along the far wall, but Leah cast another spell at the beast, apparently making it believe it was trapped in a tarpit and couldn’t move. The beast started thrashing about and lunged at Minty, catching her in its teeth and lifting her off the ground. Anton took his shot and Hazel leaped off the creature’s back and ran into the woods. I was about to make a break for it, but seeing that Minty was going to get eaten, I hit the tyranosaur with a Ray of Sickness, hoping it would decide to spit the dwarf out. Minty was just screaming at us to run and leave her behind but none of us willing to go without at least trying to save her. Hazel ran back, jumped into the air and grabbed onto Minty’s dangling leg, then the two of them disappeared in a puff of smoke and reappeared on the ground next to Anton. With Minty safe, the rest of us were able to run by the dinosaur, since it still thought it was trapped in the tar and couldn’t move. We managed to run and escape into the jungle without being pursued…[/spoiler]