#dl10

DL10 - Dragons of Dreams (1985) is probably the best of the Dragonlance modules? You might be questioning if “best of the Dragonlance modules” is really a metric of success at this point. I think it is! As I am wont to repeat: Dragonlance was a massive, boundary pushing experiment that happened in real time. At the time, I expect that the fresh excitement made overlooking the problems easier, something that, for me, wears off with time. But I could see myself running Dragons of Dreams! It stands alone pretty good and isn’t hobbled by the event-heavy narrative hand the other entries we’ve looked at so far.

Part of this is because it includes a memorable villain, the green dragon Cyan Bloodbane (though it always bugged that the green dragon’s name is essential “light blue”), who has infected the dreams of the elven king Lorac, turning the kingdom the players explore into a nightmare world. Hickman pulls out the stops, with dream versions of just about every major character (alive and dead) making appearances to terrify the players, who are never entirely sure what is real and what isn’t. I believe that this marks the first time the idea of dreams as an explorable reality for Dungeons & Dragons, and maybe for RPGs in general (Chaosium’s Dreamlands box would appear in 1986). At the very least, I can think of no module prior to 1985 that commits to the dream reality as completely as this.

I suspect that, in a game so dominated by the idea of simulating reality, the realization that you can just narrate wholesale changes to the fabric of reality must have been a pretty big light bulb going on for a lot of designers. D&D didn’t play with this too much, though (Nightmare Realms for Ravenloft is the only thing that immediately jumps to mind).

Owen

I stood over the raptor paddock watching Brook play fetch. Delta had brought her the stick but only three of them played. Blue was to cool to play. She stood next to Brook and hissed when the others got to rowdy.

"Girls stop fighting!" I said.

Echo and Charlie hissed as they looked up at me and Delta got the stick and ran back to Brook.

"Do you two want Brook to leave?"

Charlie and Echo backed away whimpering. They the turned and went back to Brook.

"Hey Owen. Why is there a lady with the raptors?"

I turned around and saw it was Hoskins. I hate this man. He wants to us my raptors as war weapons.

"She's a pretty girl."

"What do you want?"

"Just saw how they listened and understood you. They would work great out in the field."

"Your not using my raptors."

I turned and began to walk toward the stairs to get to the gate. It was time for Brook to get out. When I got to the cage she was petting Echo's head and talking to Barry.

"She's even prettier up close." Hoskins said following me.

She smiled as she saw me coming. Echo whined as Brook walked away from her. She wrapped her arms around my neck and laid her head on my chest. Barry laughed and walked away.

"Ready to head home?" I asked her.

~~~~~~~~~

"So why was Barry laughing when you hugged me?"

I sat by my bike working on it. It broke down just before we got to the hours and I had to push the rest of the way. Brook sat next to me and handed me tools.

"Probably because if the angry look on your face. The angry look because you were getting jealous. Why were you getting jealous?"

"That ass kept calling you pretty and he wants to use my raptors as war weapons."

She looked at me shocked and I assured her that I said no. She then placed her head on my shoulder and sighed.

"I found little information on the thing I couldn't tell you about. But I'll tell you anyway."

"Ok."

"Well the people in the lab way before I started working created a new dinosaur. They called her Indominus Rex. She is said to be bigger than a T-rex. But I haven't seen it yet. That's why I was yelling. I don't think it was right."

"Really Indominus Rex."

"They needed an easy name to say."

I turned as I heard a car pulled up. Claire stepped out of the car dressed in all white.

"Mr. Grady. Miss. Kiess."

"My names Owen."

Brook stood up then started to kick my ankle because she wanted me to stand. I just smirked at her and went back to work.

"I need your help with something." Claire said.

"What?"

"We have a new asset and we like it if you checked it out for us."

Brook stopped her kicking and I looked up at her. She was staring a Claire. She was so angry. Never seen her so angry.

"You mean the Indominus Rex." Brook said.

"How do you know about the asset?"

"I work in the lab. And why do you keep calling her and asset? She's an animal."

I stood up and grabbed Brook's hand and turned to Claire. She was staring at out hands then looked at me.