DEATH KNIGHTS OF KRYNN The War of the Lance has been over for many years, but still the land of Ansalon, in the world of Krynn, is besieged by evil forces. One year earlier, a brave band of adventurers succeeded in defeating the evil Aurak Draconian Myrtani, servant of the goddess Takhisis. In the first SSI Dragonlance adventure, CHAMPIONS OF KRYNN, Myrtani and his Death Knight ally, Sir Lebaum, raised an army of Draconians and undead. They used their forces to steal dragon eggs overlooked after The War of the Lance, with the intent of using powerful magic to corrupt the eggs into a massive Draconian army. The Solamnic Knights, kept ignorant of Myrtani's mass corruption ability by misinformation, would attack his stronghold in Kernen and be slaughtered by a huge army of rapidly created Draconians. A small group of novice adventurers discovered Myrtani's plans, and though their warnings to the Solamnic leadership went mostly unheeded, they slipped into Kernen and battled Myrtani. They stopped the mass corruption, saved the Knights from a disastrous ambush, and became true CHAMPIONS OF KRYNN. As DEATH KNIGHTS OF KRYNN begins, you have been invited back to Gargath outpost to celebrate the one year anniversary of the defeat of Myrtani. This is also a sad occasion, as it is a commemoration of those who fell, as well as a memorial to Sir Karl, former commander of the outpost who was slain by the forces of Myrtani. The memorial is to be given by Maya, Sir Karl's lover, a white dragon able to assume human form. During the ceremony, Sir Karl himself, raised from the dead by the evil Lord Soth and converted to a Death Knight, swoops down on the outpost with a force of Skeletal Knights and Nightmares. After dropping some items he obtained from a previous battle with Solamnic Knights, and stealing the powerful Dragonlance on display, he flies off with Maya in pursuit. With the shock of his return and his taunts still ringing in your ears, you are immediately thrust into battle with a defensive force he left behind. (This review is based on the IBM-PC version of the game.) To save Krynn from this new threat of undead forces commanded by Lord Soth, you will have to follow Sir Karl's trail, battle hordes of Skeletal Knights and clerics who serve Takhisis, earn the trust of Lord Soth's former right hand man, uncover treacheries, and finally defeat Lord Soth himself. Along the way, you can elect to embark on side missions around Krynn, earning experience, righting wrongs, and collecting valuable magic items. As in CHAMPIONS, the game is pretty linear and driven by the story. There are several side missions as well, but the main plot is event-triggered: You have all the time you want, and the events are set in motion in the form of quests, or by discovering clues. When the main villian is vanquished, a maze called "Dave's Challenge" will be accessible in the NW corner of the map. At Champion level, it truly is a "killer maze," complete with Iron Golems, Flesh Golems, and a final room with five Spectral Dragons, Vampires, Spectres, and Death Knights -- a little added bonus for those who want a bit more for their buck! For those unfamiliar with the SSI AD&D games, the game relies heavily on magic and magic items. There are lots of undead creatures in this one, as Lord Soth is stealing the bodies of Knights to convert to Death Knights. Death Knights are immune to most magic, can reflect some magic, can cast one powerful blast Fireball per day, and can cause fear in those around them. There are lots of level-draining vampires, spectres, and other ghoulies, making it tough to keep your levels up. At almost every turn, you will run into Skeletal Knights and magic users, many of which cast Slay Living, powerful Magic Missiles, and other nasty spells. It's almost a must that each character be part cleric, magic user, fighter, or all three, to stand and fight these undead legions. The starting party supplied with the game can get you all the way through, for those who have no prior experience with AD&D. I was able to win the game playing at Champion (hardest) level all the way, using the default party, so I'm sure a beginner can win at Veteran (default) level. The level may be set or changed at any time, from five choices (Novice to Champion), allowing you to get past those tough battles. The level selected, unlike previous games, will affect the number of opponents (in most cases), their hit points, and their magic damage (dragons especially). However, the lower the level, the less experience gained per battle, and the slower your characters advance. You may use the starting party, create your own characters, or transfer them from CHAMPIONS. The default party and most created characters begin with Plate mail armor, Long Sword +1 (Hoopak +1 for Kendars), Mace +1 (really better against all those Undead), and a normal shield. Knights automatically get Solamnic Plate armor. Transferred characters get everything they had at the end of CHAMPIONS; if you transfer characters that haven't finished, they lose the nice items like the Dragonlance (you'll find one later). The game interface accepts keyboard, mouse, or joystick input, and the command menus are highlighted for clicking (or you may press the first letter of your choice). The targeting system cycles through the enemies only, where it formerly cycled through allies, also. Manual targeting is available, so you can place that fireball just so, and you'll have to confirm attacking an ally. NPCs acting on their own, as well as PCs in "quick" mode, still do pretty stupid things, like shooting normal arrows at magic or undead creatures. The "quick" mode is pretty useless, and wastes spells and magic items. If you have a Knight in the party, a "leadership check" is made at the start of combat, allowing you to control some or all of the NPCs. This is a nice improvement; it stops NPCs from rushing at the enemy when you want to Fireball them, and stops them from casting unneccessary spells. Other improvements have been made in the combat system, but you'll only appreciate them if you were annoyed by the games before the changes. In the version I have (1.00), money is no problem. In fact, you aren't charged for any healing that I could see, and Knights no longer automatically tithe when entering a city, as in CHAMPIONS. Every battle with wizards or clerics in the enemy ranks nets at least two Bracers AC 6, each worth 3000 SP each. There is only one shop later in the game that sells 10 arrows +2 for 5K SP, and a Dart of Hornet's Nest for 15K SP. Even with the new vault feature for storing items and loot, I had so much jewelry and gems that I started just dropping money because of the weight. They changed the "Fix" command, so you may not memorize spells while automatically healing the party; that was a nice "bug," though. Mages may only be of the Red or White Robe order; you still can't play an evil Black Robe mage. Unlike standard AD&D, mages and their powers are affected by the moons of Krynn. When the moon (shown at the top of the screen) governing your mage is full, he can memorize bonus spells, and his magic is more potent. Once you specify a set of spells to memorize, you need not re-enter them each time you rest in camp mode. This, while a nice feature, has a loophole: If your moon is full, and you select two extra spells to memorize, you will be able to memorize these bonus spells even when the moon is new. One bug that really bothered me occurred in Vingaard Keep. I entered a room adjacent to the bar and found I could not exit. Every time I re-entered the bar, the options were "Have a Drink," "Talk," or "Leave." If you "Leave," you're back in the room. If you "Talk" or "Drink," nothing else happens. The only solution is to keep trying the three options until you pass out (bad), or until the message "You do it too loudly" appears and a battle ensues. After the fight, you're outside the room, inside the bar, free to leave another way. The plot of DKOK is well done, and like the other SSI games, vital info is provided by looking up "Journal Entries." For the nosy folks, of course, the Adventurer's Journal also contains some "red herrings." The story contains side quests, plot twists and deceptions: There are a couple of surprises, a romantic plot resolution between Sir Karl and Maya, and two loosely allied enemy factions. Copy protection consists of a Journal Entry word look-up when beginning a session, and a word look-up in the Rule Book occasionally when saving a game. You may save up to 10 games, labeled A through J. The manual itself doesn't give you as much background on the world of Krynn as CHAMPIONS did, so those unaquainted with the Dragonlance world may have some complaints. I think they did a little better explaining the spells and magic items, but fell a bit short explaining the classes and races. My game came on two 5-1/4" floppy disks, but 3-1/2" disks are available. The game may be played from two floppy drives, one floppy and hard drive, or hard drive only. Even on my system, a 386/33 clone, hard drive loads and saves take about a minute. I wouldn't want to run it from floppies, as five 5-1/4" or three 3-1/2" disks are required, plus one for saves. A minimum of 1.5Mb of free space is needed on your hard drive. DOS 2.1 or greater and 640K of RAM are required. CGA, EGA, and Tandy 1000 16-color graphics are supported. VGA users only get EGA graphics, although they are good. Keyboard, mouse, and joystick are supported, though the mouse won't work with Tandy graphics. Sound boards are supported, but if it's like CHAMPIONS, the music and sound effects are just as good through the PC speaker. Taken as a whole, DEATH KNIGHTS OF KRYNN is another good AD&D game from SSI. They keep working on the game engine, and although its not perfect, it keeps improving. DEATH KNIGHTS also has a good plot and interesing side missions, and if played at CHAMPION level should give you a run for your money. DEATH KNIGHTS OF KRYNN is published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. and distributed by Electronic Arts.