Dungeons & Dragons Games Vol. 21: Gold Box - Death Knights of Krynn (MS-DOS) - Part 1

Developer:

SSI

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Release Date:

1991

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Systems:

DOS, Amiga, C64, PC-98

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This week on Super Adventures, it's the second game in Strategic Simulations Inc.'s Krynn series: Death Knights of Krynn. There's an interesting use of colour in that title screen. It makes me think of Halloween... or maybe Christmas. Regardless, it's very on-brand for Gold Box art.

I've been playing the Dungeons & Dragons games in as close to chronological order as I can figure out and so far there's been a lot of variety. I've been jumping between action games, wargames, dragon flight sims etc. That's not really the case for this next batch though, as they released three Gold Box RPGs in the same year: Death Knights of Krynn, Gateway to the Savage Frontier and Pools of Darkness - the middle chapter of one series, the beginning of another, and the conclusion to the original saga. Oh, plus there was Neverwinter Nights, the Gold Box MMO.

Death Knights of Krynn is once again taking me back to the Dragonlance campaign setting, and I actually know a bit about the place now. I know about the War of the Lance and the Solamnic Knights and their fearsome moustaches, I know about the Dark Queen Takhisis and the Draconians made from corrupted dragon eggs. I don't think I know anything about Death Knights yet, but I'm here to learn.

I should probably warn you that this is going to have SPOILERS. Not just for Death Knights of Krynn, but also Champions of Krynn, as this is a sequel.

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Well, character creation is still the same as ever. My party has six characters and for each I have to choose their race, class, moral alignment and sex.

Though every time I start one of these Gold Box RPGs I have to check the manual and plan out my team, because I always forget what all the bonuses and level caps are for the different fantasy races. I'm glad no one's making me take an exam afterwards, as I would not score highly... unless I could just modify my scores afterwards like I can in this! I did still click the re-roll button a couple of times to get a good starting HP, but it turns out even that can be edited so I didn't need to bother.

I do remember that multiclass demi-humans aren't harshly restricted by level caps in Dragonlance, unlike in the Forgotten Realms games, so I can go wild making a bunch of 'cleric/fighter/mages' safe in the knowledge that they'll do just fine if I import them into the third game once I'm done with this one.

In fact, I could just press the 'Import progress' button in the Steam launcher now and continue with my previous team from Champions of Krynn. Then I won't have to make any decisions at all! Even better, I won't have to go through the sprite editor again to give them all their colours.

Unfortunately they were only level five when I left them, so I'm not sure they're the heroes the world needs right now. Death Knights characters start a bit higher than that.

Incidentally, the Steam launcher also gives me the manual, journal, cluebook etc. and I'm pretty sure the GOG version includes them too, because you won't be getting very far in the game without them. I haven't played a lot of '80s RPGs, not for long anyway, but I've become extremely aware of how reliant they are on their manuals.

In fact, I should probably read the intro.

Hey we've got an invite! It's been a year since Champions of Krynn (in-universe as well as out of it) and we've been invited to the anniversary. I suppose this means that we're definitely supposed to be the same characters from the first game.

Wait, Sir Karl died? Wow, spoilers for the last game.

Champions of Krynn (MS-DOS)

Sir Karl was the first person we met in Champions of Krynn. He was the guy who gave us our orders... plus there was a weird subplot in the journal entries I found, about him dating a much younger woman called Maya. 

He seemed like a good bloke though, pretty much what you'd expect from a noble Solamnic Knight.

Here's what I've come up with for my six heroes.

I've simplified their descriptions a bit, as I had more options than in the Forgotten Realms games, with the races having different variants and there clerics having different gods to worship. Technically Celes is a Qualinesti elf and a Majere cleric/fighter/white mage, but that wouldn't have fit on the screen. She's also lawful good, not that you can even be evil in this, as it would make no sense.

Anyway, after 25 minutes of character making I've got my team together and I'm ready to go to a party.

Oh cool, Myrtani was defeated at the ruins of Kernen. I'm glad to know my characters sorted that out. (I don't actually remember if I'd even heard about Myrtani by the time I stopped playing the first game).

I feel like I know Gargath though. It sounds like a place I visited in Champions of Krynn, or maybe a country in War of the Lance. I also remember that the Amiga version of Champions had the towns labelled on the map so you had any clue of where anything was.

Amiga

Here's the Amiga game by comparison, looking a bit more natural in its shades. Death Knights of Krynn came out after Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday made the jump to 256-colour VGA on PC, but it's still using the more primitive EGA graphics so its Amiga port has better visuals. Plus you can look directly at them without being blinded. No labelled towns this time though.

Hang on, my heroes donated their equipment? They just gave up all their +2 hoopaks and enhanced armour? Man, this is my own fault for putting Solamnic Knights in the team. I remember having to shuffle my money around so that they weren't holding it, or else they'd just give a chunk of it away at each outpost we stopped at.

Okay I looked it up and Gargath is the last town I visited before I stopped playing Champions of Krynn, with the outpost being a little south of it.

It seems like this second game takes place north west of the first, with a bit of overlap in the map. Last time we were visiting the bad guy towns of the fallen Highlord forces, now I'm travelling to the towns of the relatively virtuous Whitestone alliance. 

Before the plot even starts the game asks if I want to rest, which is kind of weird. Usually these games let me walk around a town first and buy some gear.

Resting is how the spellcasters memorise their spells, so the game's basically giving me a chance to choose what grenades I'll carry into battle.

Rinoa is a multiclass cleric and magic-user, so there are a lot of numbers at the bottom of the screen here. Those show her level 1 spell slots on the left, level 2 in the middle, and level 3 on the right. And you better believe the two 3rd level magic-user spells I'm taking are both going to be 'fireball'.

They could've made this a lot easier by splitting the spell list into separate cleric and magic-user spells, but I guess they expected players to have all of this memorised. I mean it must be pretty obvious to veteran D&D players that 'dispel magic' is a cleric spell, and 'dispel magic' is a magic-user spell.

Hey, Maya's back. And she's still got the bright white skin and atypical animated portrait she had in the last game. She's "amazingly beautiful" apparently, for a silver dragon.

Wait, silver dragon? Maya's a silver dragon in human form? Wow I really missed a lot of twists from the first game. I suppose that explains why she was dating an 'older' man, and the unnatural glow she has in her portrait. Well, she has it in some versions of the game at least.

This was supposed to be a comparison of the different systems, but I think I accidentally made pop art.

I'm pretty sure either the DOS (top left) or C64 (top right) versions were the original, so it seems like she's supposed to have a faint blue tint to her skin. The Amiga version (bottom left) went and gave her a Caucasian skin tone though. And the PC-98 version gave her grey hair, a stripey top, and made her Asian. Also she blinks constantly in that version. This GIF is not an accurate representation of how excessively she blinks.

Anyway it would be nice if the game showed me a picture of this celebration we're all attending, to set the scene, but there's no time for that now!

"A huge death dragon, flanked by nightmares, sweeps toward the suddenly silent celebration. You notice something familiar about the decaying leader atop the dragon."

I have to admit, I did not see this coming.

The scene would've been a lot more dramatic though if the game actually had any music. I know this because the PC-98 version does have music, here have a YouTube link so you can hear what PC players were missing.

It turns out that Sir Karl has become a zombie and turned traitor. He's attacked the celebration, flanked by Nightmares apparently. So Nightmares are the flying horses then? Oh, night-mare, I get it!

"'Catch these trophies from the first knights I have met.' He tosses down a pile of armor and weapons. As you look up again, he has grabbed the dragonlance on display and is heading away. Maya streaks after him. Before you can follow, the nightmares have deposited their riders before you. Other knights rush to your aid."

Man, even as an evil zombie he just can't help donating his weapons and armour. Wait, what do you mean, "before you can follow"? Maya's a dragon who's flying after a dude riding another dragon. We are not dragons and we don't have dragons to fly on, so there's no way we were ever going to follow them.
 
Unless we do have dragons. Do we have dragons?

Nope, no dragons. Though I do have a bunch of Solamnic Knights backing me up and my own knight's leadership skill is high enough to command one of them, so that's cool. Man, the game doesn't waste any time; I'm already fighting the undead riders and their smoky steeds in battle #1  

Right away I can see the big engine improvement this has inherited from Buck Rogers: they've moved all the commands out onto two rows so I don't have to go into a sub menu. Though I've gotten used to the mouse-driven Eye of the Beholder interface, so I need to mentally shift gears back into Gold Box mode.

To bring everyone reading this up to speed, the game is a tactical RPG where every unit takes turns to move and then attack. Those extra windows bolted onto the side of DOSBox were not available in the original game, that's Gold Box Companion working its magic. Without that battlefield map it gets very hard to keep track of all the enemy units in this grey wilderness.

Okay, it's my turn and I'm controlling a cleric/fighter/mage, so I can do basically anything. I can buff my characters, I can run up and hit enemies, I can cast a spell... what would be the most tactically effective move to start with?

How about a bit of 'fireball'!

Hey they've given the fireball spell a brand new visual effect. It looks a lot more... hang on, why did it stop? It was supposed to hit all of the enemy units, not just three of the horses.

We carried on taking turns, and 'stinking cloud' and 'magic missile' were ineffective as well. Oh no, don't tell me that the Skeleton Warriors are completely immune to magic! Did the game tell me to rest and learn my spells just because it wanted me to troll me? I suppose it's effective on the horsies.

PC-98

At least hitting them with a sword works.

Here's the PC-98 version showing off with its high-resolution units and lower res ground that actually looks like the ground. It hasn't actually got that many colours on screen, just 31, but it looks like it's from a different generation.

My heroes were ultimately victorious, but these skeletons made them look like amateurs. They no-sold every spell I threw at them and cutting them down was like chopping down a tree. Everyone just had to join in and keep hacking away at them until they finally fell. Better weapons, that's what I need.

GARGATH OUTPOST

We defeated that group, but that only bought us enough time to pack up our picnic and run indoors before the evil forces closed in to lay siege to Gargath Outpost. We helped carry the wounded inside (off-screen) and the game asked if I want to help with healing those in agony. 

Well I can't play an evil character, so I think the answer to that is probably 'yes'. Though Faris only cast my rubbish 'cure light wounds' spell on them (off-screen), so they're not really getting the best in medical care. The outpost commander walked up (off-screen) and said that once we've rested we should see him in his chamber upstairs in the keep to the northeast.

I like how this is a proper fort with a wall you can walk along the top of. They haven't actually upgraded the engine to support floors of different heights, they just stuck a low barrier at the side I can't see over and said I'm up on a wall, but it works.

Champions of Krynn (MS-DOS)

This location was just a picture and a menu back in Champions of Krynn, so it's nice that I get to walk around it for real now. Though it does mean that I actually have to find the inn and the training hall myself instead of choosing them from a menu.

I found a graveyard at least! Though I have to get out the Adventurer's Journal and read entry 40 if I want to know what's going on there. Fortunately Gold Box Companion comes with a button I can press to show it over the game screen.

Damn. Turns out that the bad guys have dug a back door into our fort!

So hang on, Zombie Sir Karl flew in on a skeleton dragon and ruined everyone's party, and no one thought to check on his grave?

Now I have to deal with this dread wolf that's perched on a tombstone chuckling at me.

He says he's going to stop my meddling and then sends legions of carrion snakes to swarm over us (off-screen)!

Fortunately we were bailed out by the fort's priest who brought some knights over to seal up the holes with spells and sometimes rocks. So that was an interesting little event. The priest told us to get some rest, and I'm starting to get the impression that we must look exhausted, as that's the third time the game's told me to rest so far. I thought these guys were Solamnic Knights not Somniac Knights.

I don't want to rest though, I want to go use my money to buy weapons! Hang on, do I even have money? Or did we donate all that as well?

I've found the outpost's bank, at least I think it's a bank? It looks like they handle money, book lending and torture.

I'm actually really glad this place exists as I've had real problems with money in the other games. The problem being that it weighs a ton and I need to store it somewhere. Right now though I need to be carrying it as I want to go spend it. Faris is a kender and she needs a proper hoopak!

I also found the weapon shop and the shopkeeper art makes more sense now that I know it's reused for different merchants. I suppose they could be twin sisters.

Hey look, it's showing me how much money I've got to spend! I feel like I've got Buck Rogers to thank for this upgrade.

Alright, everyone started with a long sword +1, a shield and plate mail, while my thief has a short bow +1. I'll give her a hoopak (a melee and ranged weapon that doesn't need ammo), and give the bow to someone else. Then I'll buy bows for everyone else... even though I'm really not looking forward to manually switching during battle. Haven't I done it enough already in the earlier games?

Plus in Champions of Krynn everyone needed a spare weapon in case one got stuck in a bad guy when they died, so I'll buy some extra swords. Now where the hell was I supposed to be going? A tower in the north west or something? I really wish these games would add a proper quest journal.

Oh right, I remember now: I'm suppose to go and rest!

Seriously? We're doing this again?

I'm playing the Steam versions of the Gold Box RPGs and the publisher thoughtfully removed the copy protection from most of them. Not the Krynn trilogy though it seems! I have to open up the manual, or check the code sheet provided.

PATROL DUTY

I have found Post Commander Bertil in his cupboard! Sup Bertil, how can we assist you?

He could really use our help with the evil forces besieging the outpost. He doesn't want us to rush out and face them though, instead we've been given a choice of three jobs: cemetery, patrol, or guard. Well, I already met the dread wolf at the cemetery and guard duty sounds like standing in one place, so I'll go do a patrol. I met some folks on patrol as I was walking around so I already know the drill. 

Every guard I've ran into stopped me and said "Stand and be identified!"

Hang on, isn't this Post Commander Bertil? I guess a lot of the men here would look alike from a distance with their armour and their official Solamnic Knight moustaches.

I selected 'patrol' and we were told to report to Ayn Rampike out on the town wall. That doesn't really narrow it down though, as the wall surrounds the whole outpost! I guess I'll just walk all the way around until I run into her.

Ah this must be the comely woman I was sent to report to! No seriously, this isn't one of the male soldiers, everyone gets the same art.

She asks what duty I've been sent on and I got the same three choices, which is a bit weird. I repeated that I was here to patrol, so she said I should wander around alert for invaders until relieved.

First though I have a question. What does 'comely' mean?

Okay, it means beautiful. Got it.

It wasn't long at all before I found evil forces had made their way up onto our wall. I got ready to say the line "Stand and be identified!" but I was dragged into a fight instead.

Oh no, they've brought wizards! The priority in a battle is usually to gang up on the most wounded enemies to take them off the board quickly... unless there's a wizard or cleric around, then the priority is to stop them casting. Either by interrupting them with an attack, or by killing them with an attack.

Alright, what spells did I bring with me? I don't know 'sleep', but that would be useless at these levels anyway. Paralysing them with 'hold person' or 'stinking cloud' might work... oh, I know what I'll use: 'fireball'!

The game doesn't show you a spell's area of effect so you have to find it out yourself and then visualise it. It's actually pretty easy with fireball as it has a seven tile diameter and the game window is seven tiles wide, so it hits the whole screen minus the corners.

You can see here that this group of enemies are conveniently arranged so that I can hit all of them with a fireball spell at the same time without hurting any of my own guys. It's taking off an average of 12 HP and the real threats have around 32 HP, so I'm a third of the way to winning with my first move. More importantly I'm a lot further from losing, because I just interrupted any magical attacks they were about to make on their next turns. They're not going to paralyse half my team with 'hold person'.

My next move was also fireball, then I had the others walk over and cast 'sword'.

The enemies dropped a whole bunch of gear, only slightly scorched, and my 'detect magic' spell has placed asterisks next to half of it. I bet it's still mostly crap though. I'll take the bracers and leave the rest. 

I'll have to remember to go to the weapon shop later and pay to get them identified. They probably won't be anything impressive, but even the worst magical bracers are still worth a small fortune so the cost of identification is trivial by comparison.

Right after the fight someone told me that I was relieved, so that was a pretty short patrol. I guess I'll go back to Bertil for more work.

JOURNEY TO KALAMAN

After completing Bertil's jobs the enemies outside just went away and now I'm free to finally get started on the main quest. 

Turns out that a guy called Sir Thom had a bad dream and recorded it to a Sleepstone. My mission is to take the Sleepstone to the Dream Merchant in Kalaman so we can investigate further.

I also need to find a training hall as my character's names have started turning purple. That's another Gold Box upgrade from Buck Rogers that lets me know that they're ready to level up. The first thing I need to do though is go walk around the fort, as I've never been able to see a town from the outside like this!

There are only a few tiles of wilderness around it though, the game's not Daggerfall. To go anywhere I need to exit to the blindingly bright entirely unlabelled world map.

No, I don't want to enter the town that I'm currently leaving, that would be weird.

Though I suppose this would be a good time to take a break. I've escaped the starting zone, there's a whole map out there for me to explore, and maybe this time there'll even be something to do in towns before the plot tells me it's time to visit them.

Come back soon for part 2 I guess!

TO BE CONTINUED

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Next time, the Krynn continues with part two of Death Knights of Krynn.

Thanks for reading part one, I hope it brought some joy into your life or at least gave you an excuse for putting off doing something that doesn't bring joy for a bit. If you're looking for something else to do now, you could also leave a comment.