Talk:Dragonlance timeline

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 7 April 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents

[edit] All Saints War

It's the all saints war not the all dragons war. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jamhaw (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Time Line Wrong

If the companions went on their seperate quests in 346 AC, they shouldn't have returned until 351 AC because it was a five year quest. This would mean the War of the Lance started in 351 AC and ended in 352 AC, if you're using the original Chronicles as canon, which I hope you are. I'm not going to edit the page just yet. I'll let you do it if you in fact find that your current time line is incorrect. However, it might in fact be correct because I don't think they slap a precise date on when the war actually began. They went on their quests in search of evil and rumor of armies massing to the north. The books make it look as though the war didn't officially "begin" until right around the time the companions had their reunion at the Inn of the Last Home...which would have been 351 AC.

Great job on the timeline by the way. --Soulforge19

No, the war did not start on 351. On 351 Verminaard invaded Abanasinia, where the Heroes were staying, however the war had already started with the invasion of Port Balifor and Flotsam, which is far from where they were (and thus the assumption the book does that the war was beginning is fine, as they were not supposed to know other areas had already been invaded, like Icewall). -- ReyBrujo 18:01, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
You're right, I'm sorry.--Soulforge19 07:20, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
No problem, thanks for discussing before changing :-) -- ReyBrujo 13:06, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Secundus Cataclius

Just a comment, the Second Cataclysm term in the timeline should be relagated to being as such: 421 AC (38 SC). WotC, as per the DLCS, has retconned the Timeline away from SC and back to AC. Thoughts?--Kranar drogin 02:00, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I would say it makes sense, since a SC implies a second cataclysm, which usually needs to be explained. I think we can add a note stating about the change, if there is a verifiable source around explaining what and hopefully why. -- ReyBrujo 02:54, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
As far as an explaination as to why they did the change, that I can't find. What I can find is that all sourcebooks starting from Dragonlance Campaign Setting (DLCS), the dates have been changed to the AC format. Take a look at the Age of Mortals Timeline on page 208 of the DLCS. That is one example. Then all the SP books dealing with AoM has them including the book Age of Mortals, Key of Destiny, etc. I don't think I need to name all the new gaming novels. I think the Bertrem's Guides were the last of the novel line to deal solely with the SC dating system, with the newer ones now having pretty much only AC dates, with SC as a sidenote.--Kranar drogin 22:52, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, we can transform everything to AC dates, keeping the SC dates from the second cataclysm until the war of souls in parenthesis, and explaining that books afterwards went back to the original notation. What do you think about that? -- ReyBrujo 01:19, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Well, even after the War of Souls I would continue to do it, because some DL scholars may use it in their stories and stuff in the future, not knowing that things have been changed. Also, I have heard that the Legion of Steel still uses SC, but I don't have anything confirmed on that end. Other than that, that sounds like a plan.--Kranar drogin 02:23, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Wasn't the Legion of Steel the one that "created" the SC nomination? I don't like the idea of having two numbers for every entry, whenever the third cataclysm occurs, things would become messy. -- ReyBrujo 02:44, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lord Soth

Why is there nothing in here about Lord Soth? He is a major character in this saga and needs to be in here. Magnus 18:39, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dragonlance Novel Timeline

PLEASE HELP Let me start by saying that I am a great fan of Dragonlance Novels and collect them as much as possible. However, I am increasingly frustrated about not knowing the order in which to read them in the Krynn Storyline. Please!!! Can anyone guide me to a list of Dragonlance Books in storyline or Krynn historical order. THANKS!

HUTCH jhutchinson3@gmail.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.154.81.126 (talk • contribs) .

We could create an article about that, but it is hard to do that without incurring in original research. I remember there was an old page where the order was established, will see if I can find it. -- ReyBrujo 19:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
At http://www.dlnexus.com/products/chronological.aspx the novels are ordered in chronological order. However, the short stories are skipped. Also, note that reading them in chronological order does not ensure you to have a good experience; in example the Kingpriest trilogy has small tips that you would only understand if you read the Legends trilogy first. -- ReyBrujo 19:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Tracy Hickman and Maragret Weis (the authors of the original Dragonlance books) have always told fans who ask this question that their suggestion is to read their books at least in the order in which they were written, and that includes the new Lost Chronicles books they are writing which are midquels to the original Dragonlance Chronicles trillogy. --aikisenshi 21:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Objection to the proposed deletion of this article

This article has been proposed for deletion for the following reason: Unsourced, in-universe, and most of all a violation of WP:NOT for plot summaries. I'll address the three reasons in order:

Unsourced - That is a reason for the article to be cleaned up - not a reason to delete it. If we deleted every unsourced article wikipedia would probably contain less than 1 percent of what it does now. I agree that sources for this article should be given and so do Wikiproject Dragonlance. They already have this article listed as an article that needs to be cited. As an article where citation is being worked on I therefore believe that this objection to the article's existance is not valid.

In-universe - Again that is a reason for the article to be cleaned up - not a reason to delete it. The culture of the real world features references to mythology, and fiction. It also features hypothetical ideas (like teleportation). The WP:NOT article makes it clear that articles about fictional things like Star Trek are acceptable subjects of Wikipedia articles. I therefore believe that Dragonlance articles fall into the same situation and that this second objection is also not valid.

Plot summaries - To save people time here is the text from WP:NOT

Plot summaries. Wikipedia articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely a summary of that work's plot. A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic.

This I believe, is the only area of WP:NOT that could be used to argue against the existance of this article. However, again I think that deletion is not the best course of action. As the above part of WP:NOT, i:tself says "A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic." The Ages of Krynn, give background detail which help explain how the background of the fictional Dragonlance world works. Some trimming might be justified, or perhaps merger with the main Dragonlance article, but I think that deletion is the wrong way to go.

I'd certainly agree that this article needs attention, but as Wikipedia Dragonlance are already working on it, I think that we should trust them to do the job (or offer them assistance). I will put an urgent call to clean this up on their talk page, but I'm taking off the deletion template. Big Mac 01:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Removing the deletion template is all well and fine...but I am of the belief that this article fails to meet Wikipedia's criteria. It is unsourced, excessive plot summary bordering on cruft, and stands no chance of ever going beyond in universe by its very nature. Therefore, I'll be nominating it for AFD. DoomsDay349 03:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't mind you putting it into the AFD category as that invites discussion rather than automatic deletion after 5 days. (In fact I only tried to take off the automatic deletion, so while I disagree with you, I'm glad you put it back on.)Big Mac 03:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clean up of unsourced material

Lack of source material is one of the reasons why this page was proposed for deletion. This page can be properly cited by looking at pages 196 to 210 of the Dragonlance Campaign Setting as well as similar sections of several older Dragonlance RPG books. I can't see any point in doing a lot of citation work if the article is going to be deleted anyway, but I don't mind helping to tidy this page up if it is going to stay. Big Mac 03:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] There is no such thing as the Age of Light

There are too many ages in this article. So far there have only been 5 ages, hence the current books being set in the 5th Age. The Age of Light is incorrect and needs to be removed. It should be the Time of Light and it is one of the three periods of the Age of Dreams.Big Mac 05:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Quite correct. DoomsDay349 18:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Actually, originally there was an Age of Light. But that was retconned when I believe TotL (Tales of the Lance) came out. So in theory, there has been Six Ages, but that of course is not accepted in today's continuity.--Kranar drogin 22:52, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clean up

Here's my advice on cleaning up this article, add direct references to the books and other material of Dragonlance. This would greatly increase the value of the page. FrozenPurpleCube 23:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thoughts.

So I've realized that yeah, the content here, 'tis probably worth it. However, what we need to do, we need to take it out of in-universe, yeah? So that makes me think, well, why can't we just summarize it in paragraph style by age, with footnotes for each statement, or as applicable? Then, we could rename the article to History of Dragonlance, or something along those lines. What you think? DoomsDay349 21:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I see what you are saying, something similar to Buffy timeline#Chronology? Personally, I think it is fine style-wise as is, ala Star Wars timeline#Timeline of Star Wars History or Star Trek timeline#Timeline. I am sure some things can be trimmed, though a large majority of this can be easily found in the books. I will try to put some more time aside to work on the citations. -- moe.RON Let's talk | done 22:35, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Existence of those articles be what they may I don't feel that in universe dates are the best way to be doing this. Like I said, it may be best to use paragraph formats and perhaps occasionally reference an in universe date. DoomsDay349 00:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough; I still don't think the format should really change to something that really violates WP:FICTION due to a more explicit WP:OR or summary. Right now, there is little WP:POV/OR since the books, especially the roleplaying supplements, give the actual years and details, which can be sourced. Just trim out the trivial additions. -- moe.RON Let's talk | done 01:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Very true that a paragraph format could be tedious and encourage OR and actually delve into plot summary even more. Upon seeing the fact that there are other existent timeliness that use in universe dating systems...well, I think I can deal with it. But what we definitely need is a footnote at the end of each statement. Using the game supplements, preferably. DoomsDay349 01:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tolandruth

Is there any reason that this character (relating to Ackal Ergot) isn't included in the timeline? Having 3 books written mainly about him, I'd think he would be important enough to be included.Darkness Productions (talk) 01:16, 1 April 2008 (UTC)