It was created as an adventure hook to allow healing in a non healing world, but it became a symbol of love & devotion and wrath & fury. Let’s learn more about the Blue Crystal Staff. Buy War of the Lance: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/3164/War-of-the-Lance-35?affiliate_id=50797

https://youtu.be/gJRLQvmMqSM

Transcript

Cold Open

It is an artifact that can heal or harm, discovered and delivered in faith and love.

Intro

Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about the Blue Crystal Staff. 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 link. I am referencing DL1 Dragons of Despair, Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home, and the War of the Lance sourcebook for this information. If I leave anything out or misspeak, please leave a comment below.

Discussion

This major artifact is believed to return to the world in a great time of need. It’s wielder if Lawful Good is guided and protected by its creator, Mishakal, the goddess of healing and restoration. This artifact is known as the Crystal of Mishakal or the Blue Crystal Staff. It first appeared in the Age of Dreams, though no specific details survived the ages, it was surrounded by the performances of miracles its wielder performed with it. Though this age of antiquity was ripe with legend, the Blue Crystal Staff stood out. However by the end of the Age of Dreams, the staff vanished into myth. It would be seen ages later after the cataclysm in the Temple of Mishakal being held by the statue of Mishakal. 

To truly understand the purpose of this device, we need to contextualize Krynn in the Age of Despair. Mortals believed the Gods to have abandoned them more than three hundred years before. This meant that there was no Divine healing present on all of Krynn. Disease and pestilence had wracked the planet, and the evil goddess Takhisis the Queen of Darkness was finally realizing her long laid plans of entering the world and dominating its inhabitants with the aid of her Dragonarmies. Dragons themselves were seen as children's stories, with legends of a hero named Huma having banished the Queen of Darkness and her dragons millenia before. Though the gods and dragons were very much still in the world, mortals' disbelief and rage at them and their supporters left a vacuum and primed the world for the abject denial of anyone claiming to believe in the old gods. But the Gods of Good had to balance the scales left tipped by the Dark Queen.

The Discs of Mishakal and the Blue Crystal Staff were the answer, but mortals had to discover them on their own, not be forced by the gods. This is the greatest difference between good and evil in Dragonlance. The gods of good allow man to decide their own fate, while the gods of evil try to manipulate mortals to their own ends. Thus though the Blue Crystal Staff may have been in the world since the Age of Dreams, it would not be rediscovered until the Age of Despair where a young man named Riverwind from the Que-Shu tribe in the plains of Abanasinia, who believed in the old gods, like his fathers before him, would dare to attempt to win the affections of his Chieftains daughter Goldmoon. This tribe worshiped their ancestors as gods, so in an attempt to ridicule and rid themselves of this heretic, he was sent on a quest to prove himself. The object of his quest was proof of the gods he worshiped.