Set for release on December 6th, 2022, Dungeons and Dragons: Dragonlance – Shadow of the Dragon Queen aims to see players adventuring once more in the world of Krynn, but the adventure won’t just contain the usual small-scale skirmishes. The Warriors of Krynn board game will be released at the same time, offering players a chance to take on the armies of the Dragon Queen, Takhisis, as they begin their invasion by attacking the small fishing village of Volger.

We were lucky enough to be invited to a media event, hosted by Greg Tito, the Senior Communications Manager for DnD, as he was joined by Wes Schneider and Rob Daviau, who spoke about Shadow of the Dragon Queen and Warriors of Krynn respectively.

The two-hundred and twenty-four-page campaign booked, releasing on December 6th will re-introduce players to new characters that can only be found in the Dragonlance setting, such as the Knights of Solmania or Mages of High Sorcery, while also bringing back the Dragon Highmaster, Kandaldi Fire-Eyes. In saying that, if you make use of DnD Beyond, the digital version will be available for download as of 22nd November.

As Greg and Wes were discussing how they wanted to tell a new story with the campaign, beautifully created imagery was being shown off, depicting vast armies preparing for war, or towns burning as the villagers fled, and they noted that the campaign book will contain a variety of images like this, wanting a way of portraying a cinematic experience to the players as they played through the campaign. They also used this as a means of introducing two of the NPCs you’ll meet early on; Darrett Highwater, the Squire to a Knight of Solamnia, and Mayor Raven, Mayor of Volger and avid fisherwoman, as she prepares the town for upcoming celebrations. While enjoying the festivities you’ll hear a number of rumours, and eventually, be tasked with investigating them.

As the situation rapidly deteriorates, your party will join the defences of Volger, aiming to stop the advancing horde, or at the bare minimum, buy the townsfolks some time to escape, and this is where the new campaign board game, Warriors of Krynn, comes into play. Don’t worry if you don’t have a copy of this, however, as the campaign has been created in a way that allows you to complete it without having to have a whole separate game.

Having worked on a number of board games, including Axis & Allies: Pacific, Rob Daviau is no stranger to making large-scale wars play out on the battlefield, so it should come as no surprise that he worked on Warriors of Krynn, a standalone system that was designed to work hand in hand with Shadow of the Dragon Queen. Players will use their DnD characters to help turn the tide of battle, with six scenarios specifically written to coincide with events that take place during the DnD campaign, and your success and failures can influence how the campaign flows.

Rob mentioned that the mechanics were kept quite simple to help with the flow of the game, with each character getting 4 actions a turn, allowing them to move around, explore and loot, or use an ability to help sway the overall fight. Armies are portrayed by coloured tokens, with shapes representing foot soldiers, cavalry, and archers, and whoever has the most unit tokens on the battlefield of the selected unit type wins the combat for that turn, drawing a card and completing whatever action is on the card.

Designed to be played by three to five players, each player is represented by one of five miniatures, though players are welcome to use their own, and cards have been included to represent the twelve possible classes, each with four abilities that can be used to influence the battle or handle tile-specific objectives. If the party contains less than five characters, even the Dungeon Master is invited to take part as a mercenary to help fill the player count, and while characters can run off and do their own thing, it is strongly advised that they work together to complete their goals.

The Warriors of Krynn isn’t purely for use with the Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign, however, and you could play it as its own board game, and the Dungeon Master could work a way to incorporate it into another campaign if they so desired. It could be as simple as renaming the characters. They wanted to reiterate that it isn’t a legacy game. It wasn’t inspired by Dungeons and Dragons. It’s a campaign game designed to work hand in hand with the existing system.

I’m sure Dungeon Masters and players alike will be adding this new campaign to their Christmas wishlist, and if you haven’t already, you’ll be wanting to pre-order it so that you can access the DnD: Dragonlance – Shadow of the Dragon Queen campaign on the 22nd of November. I can think of at least one person in the MKAU team who will be jumping onto this one as soon as they can.