War of the Lance Timeline | DragonLance Saga

The War of the Lance would only last five years, but its planning goes back a millenia. Let’s examine the War of the Lance Timeline.. Buy War of the Lance: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/...

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Transcript
Within five years, the Queen of Darkness had near total control of Ansalon, let’s take a closer look.
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about the War of the Lance Timeline. I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this channel, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. I am referencing DL11 Dragons of Glory, Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home, and War of the Lance sourcebooks for this information. If I leave anything out or misspeak, please leave a comment below!
Discussion
The first event that pops into the mind of anyone who knows Dragonlance must be the War of the Lance. It’s the seminal event that introduced us to the campaign world, its colorful cast of characters and for some the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game. But as much as is known about the War of the Lance, many are not sure when it started, what events preceded it and exactly how it ended. For example, if you are a gamer, there were many possible endings, with the journey to them filled with a continent of exploration and danger, mass combat with the Battlesystem supplement and immersion that has never been fully realized up to that point in AD&D. For novel readers, you got one ending which excluded much that the modules presented so as not to spoil the possible AD&D encounters. Because Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen is now out, I would like to explore the official War of the Lance timeline and hopefully educate those who are new to the world in the process.

The seeds of the War of the Lance were planted at the end of the forty-two year long Third Dragon War in The Age of Dreams at The Time of Knights in 1018 Prae Cataclius, when Huma banished the Queen of Darkness. He extracted a promise from her to forever leave the mortal realm and take her dragons with her to the Abyss. She complied, and to maintain balance, as it is an essential world element of Dragonlance, the good dragons also left, returning to the Dragon Isles to sleep. As Dragons traveled into the realms of myth, an empire rose in the absence of the Dark Queen’s shadow. The great empire of Istar led by their Kingpriest rose to prominence and for the next thousand years, righteousness would reign. Well, almost. In the absence of the balance of evil, good will inevitably look for evil, even if it has to manifest it. They began with racial groups, then classes and eventually the edict of thought control. The gods of every alignment were upset by this and ultimately joined by Takhisis who saw her opportunity to return and dominate the world, they sent a mountain crashing into Istar, punishing those who believed themselves to be better than the gods themselves.

The Queen of Darkness needed a gateway to reenter the world, and at the center of Istar was the Temple of Istar. This holy structure held the inherent power to allow her to pass through the Gate of Souls, creating a portal to the mortal realm. Just as the mountain reigned down on Krynn devastating the continents of Ansalon and Taladas, the Dark Queen stole the Temple into the Abyss, and planned to raise its mirror in Neraka, a region of darkness, filled by warlords and her own mortal creations, the Ogres. For the next three hundred and forty-one years, disease, famine, war and despair would descend upon Krynn as the gods left their mortal creations to their own designs. Could you imagine the immense folly of Istar that the Age of Despair was its balancing act? In 141 Alt Cataclius, the Dark Queen planted the sacred Foundation Stone, the core of the Temple of Istar in Neraka and for the next decade, she wandered the land in disguise, waking her dragons in secret. In 152 AC two siblings would come upon the Foundation Stone, and as Berem the brother was stealing a green gemstone from the Foundation Stone, he accidentally killed his sister Jasla as she tried to stop him. This trapped Jasla’s soul into the Foundation Stone, and the gemstone became magically embedded in Berems chest, granting him immortality. With her gate now closed, Takhisis would send her minions searching for the Everman so she could once again enter Krynn...