In 2013, Paizo published The Dragon's Demand, by Mike Shel.
This module will be the one that introduced me to Pathfinder, and I loved it. (all the more because I choose to play an Arcanist, which was a Pathfinder 1e non-vancian wizard).
It starts with a single exploration mission, but soon evolves into a small sandbox around the village of Belhaim, surrounded by forests, swamps, and ruins. The village itself is described, giving the game master an idea of politics, important NPCs and their families/allies, etc..
And after playing it as a PC, and as a game master, I can tell this is a good module that can be easily converted to be played withing the Dragonlance Universe.
So, let's start the conversion!
The Conversion
There are two kind of conversion that needs to be applied, the first to the background, so the module can be integrated into a Dragonlance campaign, and the second the rules themselves, assuming you want to play it using D&D5e, or one of its variants (the original can be played, unmodified, using the Pathfinder 1e system, or the D&D3.5e system).
The Background
In the Dragonlance universe, the Dragon's Demand most probably happens after the War of the Lance, when the dragons are back on Krynn, after an absence of 1300 years. The village itself is probably situated somewhere around Solamnia.
The Location
The best location, I find, should be in the central forests around Tresvka, Patina and Delgaard, with 23km from west to east, and 35km from north to south. This location is very similar, if quite smaller, to the original location of Belhaim in the Verduran Forest of Golarion.
The map of Belhaim and its swamp is 4km from west to east, and 3km from north to south, so it fits, somewhat.
The Timeline
“I’m certain that, according to the Measure, women are not permitted in the Knighthood—”
“You are wrong,” Astinus stated flatly. “And there is precedent. In the Third Dragonwar, a young woman was accepted into the Knighthood following the deaths of her father and her brothers. She rose to Knight of the Sword and died honorably in battle, mourned by her brethren.”
- Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Dragons of Spring Dawning, Book I, Chapter 7
The Timeline is heavily modified, for it moves Tula Belhaim's life during the Third Dragon War, as one of the original Knights of Solamnia who fought against the Dark Queen's dragons, and most particularly, her nemesis, the black dragon Aetheperax. Unlike Huma, she came back from the war, and founded what would become the village of Belhaim near the swamp where she killed Aetheperax.
- 1045 PC — Birth of Tula in the town of Nazilli
- 1029 PC — Beginning of the Third Dragon War.
- 1028 PC — Nazilli is destroyed, and its population decimated, by the might black dragon Aetheperax. Tula, the last of her family of solamnic knights, swears justice will be delivered.
- 1025 PC — Tula Belhaim joins the Knighthood, as a Knight of the Crown.
- 1018 PC — End of the Third Dragon War.
- 1017 PC — Thanks to her courage and valor, Tula becomes lady Baroness of Belhaim, and marry Arturic Canteclure.
- 1001 PC — Death of Tula Belhaim and Arturic Canteclure, with no direct heirs. They will be buried in the crypt built by Tula during the last decade of her life. A cousin will inherit the title, and a long uninterrupted line of solamnic nobles will rule the village and its surrounding forests, quarries and swamp well after the Cataclysm.
- 253 PC — A group of monks of Majere build a monastery on the far side of Belhaim's swamp, the Monastery of Kyerixus
- 1 AC — The Cataclysm ravages Ansalon. The gods leave Krynn. The monks of Kyerixus vow to search for the gods.
- 103 AC — After decades of reserach, the monks of Kyerixus found something. No one saw them after the Night of the Eye, and those who dared visit the monastery either never came back, or came back with stories of haunted ruins.
- 335 AC — Beginning of the Rebellion, where peasants rise up against the solamnic nobility. In Belhaim, the locals rebelled against corrupt and cruel baron Sarvo Canteclure.
- 336 AC — Ending of the Rebellion, where Arkold Devy, a folk hero who led the rebels against the evil baron, became the baron of Belhaim.
- 343 AC — Death of Arkold Devy, leaving his wife, Origena Devy, as the Baroness of Belhaim.
- 348 AC — The War of the Lance begins.
- 353 AC — The War of the Lance officially ended.
- ??? AC — The Witch Tower collapses. Lady Origena asks outsiders to investigate.
The Dark Tapestry
The Dark Tapestry was believed, by the monks of Kyerixus, to be the planes beyond the stars and constellations of Krynn. In their research, they came upon occult books mentioning the Great Beyond, from where the gods of Krynn came from before creating Krynn, so they naturally deduced the gods of Krynn to have come back there, or at least, they hoped to find traces of them there.
What they opened instead is an unstable portal to a demi-plane of alien creatures, who had been unable to force their way into Krynn because of the gods, but found the boundary separating the Dark Tapestry from Krynn's material plane to be weakened when the gods left Krynn. The monks were tricked into completing the work from Krynn's side, opening a portal, the Dark Window, enabling a creature to invade the monastery. Only by sacrificing themselves would the monks stop the portal to be permanently open. The last surviving monk would ritually bind himself to the monastery to wait for heroes to complete the destruction of the Dark Window.
An ambitious red robe, Balthus Hunclay, would follow the traces of occult book to the monastery, and would, as did the monks before him, try to unearth the secret of the Dark Tapestry. Szangi, a green dragon who had shown more wits than courage during the War of the Lance, had also heard about the Dark Tapestry, and would try to acquire one of Hunclay's book, the Secrets of the Dreaming Dark.
Bassy the Gnome
Gnomes of Krynn are quite different from their D&D counterparts. And gnomes of Golarion are even more different from the two previous gnomes ancestries:
Gloarion gnomes will usually end up searching for adventures and distractions, to avoid the Bleaching. They have colored hairs depending on their recent past experiences, and have peculiar eye brows.
Krynn gnomes are engineers, spending their lives in life quests to unearth the scientific knowledge from this or that phenomena, and/or building contraptions that are as complex as they are prone to undefined and unexpected behaviors.
On Krynn, Bassy would be better described as a Mad Gnome, a gnome who couldn't conform to the norms of gnomish society, and either was exiled or moved away from Mount Nevermind, to end up settling in Belhaim, after a few decades of adventuring and exploring. Finding an obsessive interest in history, she joined the local scribe/historian, and took over her business and archives after her passing.
The half-orcs
There are no orcs on Krynn, and thus, no half-orcs. Replacing them with half-ogres (or even humans with ogrish ancestry) is the easy solution for both the half-orcs NPCs of Belhaim, and the eventual PC wanting to play a half-orc.
The Treasures of Tula
This is where the fusion of Dragonlance and the Dragon's Demand really shines: Tula, being a solamnic knight during the Third Dragon War, came back from war with her own footman's dragonlance, as well as a few other dragonslaying weapons. This dragonlance has been buried with her in her crypt, and will come handy as the heroes explore the crypt for anything that could help them against "Aeteperax".
The Factions of Belhaim
The followers of Abadar are easily replaced with followers of Shinare.
The followers of Shelyn are easily replaced with followers of Branchala.
The followers of the Green Faith are easily replaced with followers of Chislev.
Of course, the gods came back recently, but these folks' philosophies existed since before the Cataclysm, and remained thus until the gods came back, prompting the construction of two temples in Belhaim: The House of Abadar for Shinare, and the Shrine of the Seven Roses for Branchala.
The Rules
You need to compare each creature from D&D5e to their equivalent in Pathfinder 1e. For example, the Gibbering Mouther:
- Pathfinder 1e: CR5
- D&D5e: CR3
...
Conclusion
The Dragonlance-ification of the Dragons Demand does not damage the original adventure in any way, and enables Dragonlance players and game masters to enjoy a very well done adventure within the Dragonlance universe.
I'd even argue the Dragon's Demand is more dragonlance-y than most recent official Dragonlance books from WotC... But that's another story.
