Publisher: Wizards of the CoastIn the heat of an unnaturally warm summer, the Knights of Takhisis conquer nearly every inch of Ansalon, even the glorious city of Palanthas. Mere days later a messenger arrives in Palanthas bearing a dire missive: Something wiped out the Knights posted at the Tower of the High Clerist and now cuts a swath of destruction across the countryside!
Chaos Spawn pits your heroes against one of Chaos's strongest minions: the Daemonlord. They must race against time to save the city of Maelgoth and its citizens from a terrible fate at the hands of this spawn of Chaos. If it razes Maelgoth, the Lord of Daemons may grow too powerful for anyone to stop - your heroes are Ansalon's last best hope!
Chaos Spawn uses the AD and amp;D game rules and provides information suitable for running the adventure using SAGA rules as well. This adventure and its companion, Seeds of Chaos, detail the epic battles of the Chaos War, described in the novel Dragons of Summer Flame by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
Product History
Chaos Spawn (1999) is a Chaos War adventure for the Dragonlance: Fifth Age RPG. It was published in December 1999.
Abut the Cover. Nothing says Dragonlance like dragons. This Todd Lockwood piece nicely encapsulates the Dragons of Summer Flame (1995) era because it shows an evil blue dragon and a good silver dragon fighting together against their common foe, a chaos fire dragon.
Origins (I): Back to the Summer of Flame. Chaos Spawn is the second and final Dragonlance adventure set in 383 AC, during the Summer of Chaos. It picks up the story from Seeds of Chaos (1998). Like its predecessor it is written for the AD and amp;D rules, but also includes conversions for the SAGA rule system.
Origins (II): Many Sorts of Chaos. The main enemy of Dragons of Summer Flame was Chaos, the opposite number of the High God, long trapped in the Graygem. It makes sense that a major battle against his minions in this adventure occurs in the and quot;Caverns of Chaos and quot;. However, one can't help but wonder if this isn't a clever reference to the and quot;caves of chaos and quot;, one of D and amp;D's best-known dungeon crawls, found in B2: and quot;The Keep on the Borderland and quot; (1979).
Origins (II): The End of Summer. Chaos Spawn is the last of just two Chaos War adventures. It sort of feels like there should have been a third, to fill out a trilogy and to move the story to the end of the Chaos War, but at the time D and amp;D was rapidly moving toward 3e (2000) and Dragonlance was rapidly moving toward the War of Souls (2000-2002).
There would only be one more SAGA supplement, Rise of the Titans (2000), and it would be more oriented toward the Fifth Age.
Adventure Tropes. Chaos Spawn is on a bit more of a railroad than Seeds of Chaos, as there are five distinct sections and an epilogue that players must move through, in order. With that said, some of the individual parts of the adventure have real freedom, including the two dungeon crawls (actually, a cavern crawl and a cloud crawl) and the relatively open investigation of the city of Maelgoth, complete with and quot;timeline of doom and quot; to keep things moving along.
Exploring Krynn. Chaos Spawn begins in Palanthas and has some nice detail on the city, but mainly leans on Seeds of Chaos and the recent Palanthas (1998) supplement for its background material. After that, it tours southward to the High Clerist's Tower and the Plains of Solamnia before ending in the city of Maelgoth. The last is the most important exploration of this adventure, because it's a major city that had never before received any attention.
Monsters of Note. The daemon warriors of chaos were briefly noted in Dragonlance: Fifth Age (1996) and then received more attention in The Bestiary (1998), but Chaos Spawn was the first book to stat up the daemonlords (for both AD and amp;D and SAGA), for the first time laying out all of the enemy forces from the Summer of Chaos.
NPCs of Note. Basalt Fireforge from Flint the King (1990) again appears here as a pre-generated character; this would be his last appearance to date.
About the Creators. Niles was one of the original Dragonlance crew, the author of DL2: and quot;Dragons of Flame and quot; (1984) and four other and quot;DL and quot; adventures in the original 14-module sequence. He'd previously authored Wings of Fury (1998) for the Fifth Age and now would be the author of both Chaos War adventures.
About the Product Historian
The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of and nbsp;Designers and amp; Dragons and nbsp;- a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.