The Illustrated Dragonlance Reread

[warty goblin]

Where's Tas in the picture ? I don't see him.

Because I wasn't paying attention and posted the cropped version. Here's a very tiny version of the entire painting

Wasn't that a fairly stupid thing for Pyros to do? I'm sure that the mechanism is probably going to do something. For all he knows that was the self-destruct for the dungeon! Shouldn't a creature as old and intelligent as Pyros been a bit more clever than simply breaking something which might prove important later?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Pyros is old and smart enough to know that practical considerations should never get in the way of a solid one-liner.

[Forum Explorer]

Pyros is old and smart enough to know that practical considerations should never get in the way of a solid one-liner.

I feel like it's more along the lines that Pyros knows it's something that will need to be repaired, but it's not something that he'll have to repair, so he doesn't care.

[bguy]

I feel like it's more along the lines that Pyros knows it's something that will need to be repaired, but it's not something that he'll have to repair, so he doesn't care.

Agreed. Pyros literally thinks the entire war is beneath him, so of course he's not going to care in the slightest about any damage he inflicts on some old dwarven fortress.

[Lord Torath]

He's going to have the Green Gemstone man, so Victory is Assured^TM. Who cares about a lousy dwarven fortress he can fly over anyway?

[warty goblin]

Oh hey, it's the penultimate full chapter of Autumn Twilight. How cool is that? Super cool, obviously, thanks to the super-cool comments from all you faithful readers.

14: Matafleur. The magic sword. White feathers

The dragon's lair - illuminated by Maritta's torch - is a large room, empty except for food, water, and the dragon. Flamestrike is simply enormous, far bigger than Khisanth, and stretches the full hundred foot span of the room. The very sight freezes the companions in their tracks for a moment, minds filled with terrible images of being incinerated.

Maritta however is entirely blase, and walks right up to the dragon. At closer inspection she is indeed something of a wreck; blind in one eye, teeth yellowed and broken, red scales faded and greyed, her hide criss-crossed by scars. Tanis finds himself feeling sorry for the beast, which, he reminds himself, could be a deadly mistake.

The dragon wakes up as Maritta approaches, and asks Maritta if it's breakfast already. She responds that they're taking the children out early today because it might rain, and the dragon can go back to sleep. But Matafleur (Flamestrike's true name) doesn't mind if the children are loud. Sturm hopes they won't have to fight Matafleur, she's just so grandmotherly. Tanis reminds him that, grandmotherly or not, she's still quite dangerous.

Speaking of grandmotherly, Matafleur assures Maritta that the children slept well, but one of them has a bit of the sniffles, and shouldn't get wet, before seeming to fall back asleep. Maritta beckons the companions forwards, and they start to move past the dragon when Tanis becomes aware of a strange humming buzz. It keeps getting louder as he continues, making Sturm stop and stare, and Matafleur shake her head in annoyance. Then Raistlin pulls Tanis' cloak aside, saying that it must be Tanis' sword: Wyrmslayer, the legendary blade of Kith-Kanan is reacting to the presence of the dragon. Tanis feels that it would have been nice if Raistlin had remembered this feature earlier; Sturm thinks it's awful convenient that Raistlin remembered it now.

Matafleur sniffs the air, and smells steel, and men. There are warriors in her lair. Tanis draws his sword as Maritta yells for him to not hurt the dragon. As Goldmoon and Riverwind fetch the children, Tanis faces off with Matafleur, the blade of Wyrmslayer now glowing a bright white. The light pierces Matafleur's good eye, the noise fills her head, and she recoils in pain.

Tanis realizes that, at least for the moment, they don't have to fight the dragon, and uses the shining sword to herd her back against the wall. Maritta takes the others through to the children's room. There's roughly a hundred of various ages, and Maritta gets them organized surprisingly easily; they're children of war and the swords and armed men (albeit dressed as women) instantly impress them with the gravity of the situation. Sturm tells them to follow Caramon out to the courtyard, where their mothers are waiting.

Everything is going smoothly until they reach Tanis, still holding Matafleur at bay with the sword. The children, obviously fond of their dragon, start crying and shouting at him - and one small boy even tries to rush Tanis, little fists raised. Goldmoon assures the children that Tanis won't harm the dragon if he can avoid it, and something in her voice gets the children back in line.

As the children call goodbye to Flamestrike, the dragon starts begging an unseen someone to fight her, to leave her children. Tanis realizes that she has fallen back into the terrible memory of the deaths of her children. By his side, Sturm asks if Tanis knows that the dragon will kill him as soon as the children are gone. Tanis does. Sturm says he will stay with Tanis, but Raistlin tells him to go, saying his sword is useless against such a foe. He will remain with Tanis. Tanis looks into Raistlin's strange eyes, and wonders if the mage is toying with him, making him ask himself if he mistrusts him. But Tanis still tells Sturm to go, and the knight reluctantly obeys.

Raistlin tells Tanis that there isn't much he can do against a dragon, but once he starts speaking, to run for it.

Tanis begins to give ground, as the dragon advances. Matafleur is no longer afraid, only wanting to kill those who have taken her children. She lunges forwards, but is suddenly plunged into pitch blackness. She panics for a moment, before hearing the words of a spell, and realizing that she hasn't been permanently blinded. At first she thinks to incinerate her enemies, but realizes she might hurt the children. As Tanis and Raistlin flee - Tanis half carrying the mage - they hear Matafleur sob "My children"

Out in the courtyard, the women and children are milling around, trying to find each other. Laurana, Tika and Flint are standing ready, Flint's axe sticking in the back of a draconian statue. As they move into the courtyard, they hear a great roar. Not Matafleur, but Pyros!

Flint, hearing the dragon begin to ascend from his lair, shakes his head. Tasslehoff is obviously somehow involved.


Tasslehoff, Sestun, and Fizban are falling down the chain shaft. Tas realizes he's about to die, and considers it a very interesting feeling. If only it would last longer. Below him, Fizban starts to cast a spell, getting as far as "pveatherf-" before hitting the floor with a crunch and a scream. Several seconds above him, Tas knows he'll be dead too, in a moment. Then he's surrounded by a snowstorm - of feathers! So many feathers that instead of crunching into the floor, he's gently caught in a giant pile of them.

Tears in his eyes, Tas realizes that Fizban must have been trying to cast Featherfall, but only got the feathers.

Overhead, the cogwheel starts to turn faster...


It's anarchy in the courtyard. Tanis, knowing they're screwed no matter what, tells everybody to get to the mines, where they can shelter from the dragon. He realizes it was a trap, Verminaard and Pyros are still there. But it's two hundred or more yards to the mines, with no cover. And the women and children are still sorting themselves out, so nobody's moving very fast.

Then Tanis realizes that the men have broken out of the mines, and are charging across the open courtyard towards them. This is definitely not the plan, and is going to result in hundreds of people scrambling around helplessly in the courtyard when the dragon arrives. Tanis asks Sturm where Eben's got to, but the last the knight saw of him, Eben was running for the mines for some reason - then they figure it out. Eben is the traitor.

Eben's only goal is to get the Green Gemstone Man for Pyros. He doesn't really like to think what the dragon will do to the rebelling slaves; Eben isn't so much evil as just determined to be on the winning side of things for a change. He's been a sellsword since his parents lost their fortune, and ended up in the employ of Verminaard and, more importantly, Pyros. Sent to Gateway before the dragon armies leveled the place, he "escaped" and set up his resistance group, before bumping into Gilthanas' first attempt to infiltrate Pax Tharkas by good luck. Then he got lucky again, and stumbled into the companions, including that cleric Verminaard is so obsessed with. Clearly the Dark Queen favors him, and hopefully she keeps favoring him, he'll need some divine luck to find the Green Gemstone Man. To spread a bit more chaos and give himself cover, he yells for the men to join their families in the courtyard. A few hundred gully dwarves, thinking this is fun, start running around and adding to the general confusion.

Eben finds... what was his name? Something strange and old fashioned... Berem in one of the prison cells. At the sound of his name, the man looks up, an expression of interest on his face for the first time in weeks. Berem is not deaf and mute, but is totally consumed by some inner purpose. Even so, he still finds the sound of his name comforting.

Eben decides his best bet is to get Berem out before the slaves are forced back into the mines by the dragon, and Tanis can find him. The only option is to get out of Pax Tharkas entirely, wait for things to die down, then bring Berem back. That requires convincing Berem to come with him. Eben assures Berem that he's a friend, and will get him out of the fighting. Berem gives him a strange looks, not the ageless stare of an elf, but the look of a man who has lived with terrible pain for endless years beyond counting. With a sign, Berem nods and follows Eben.


Verminaard is in a very bad mood now. He's armored, with a draconian scampering after him with his mace, Nightbringer, as he heads back to Pyros' lair. Verminaard insists that they not recall the army, that Pyros and the garrison will be more than enough to handle a few hundred slaves. He tells another draconian he won't be bothering with the dragon saddle, he'll be incinerating slaves, not fighting. The draconian commander says that his forces will be nowhere near enough to overcome 300 men and another 300 women.

Verminaard is unimpressed by this argument, and further irritated by a strange grinding noise from the walls of the fortress. This is of course the defense mechanism releasing, but he has no idea of this, so it's just another annoyance. Pyros returns the lair, and Verminaard mounts up. Although the two distrust each other, they work quite well together - better than either likes to admit - when it comes to this whole torching helpless lesser races thing.


Tanis regretfully tells Sturm that shouting for order is useless. Better to save his breath for fighting. Sturm responds that there isn't going to be any fighting, they'll just be killed by the dragon in the open. They're right next to the gates, in sight of freedom. But those gates are bound to open at any moment as the army comes back, and inside the walls is Verminaard and the dragon. Elistan is trying to restore order, but everybody is trying to find their loved ones.

Then Pyros flies up over the fortress, Verminaard on his back. The terrible dragonfear steals over the people, sheer terror rooting them in place, as Pyros lands on a tower. Sturm grabs Tanis' arm; he's spotted Eben running for the fortress gate, along with another man. With a yell, Sturm is after him, followed immediately by Caramon and Raistlin. Tanis follows, and catches up just as Sturm grabs Eben and throws him down. Sturm is about to kill Eben, when the other man grabs his arm.

Sturm stares in astonishment. The man's shirt has been ripped away in the flight. A fist sized green gem, shining with an unholy light, protrudes from his chest. This bizarre sight is enough to freeze the companions in their tracks; even Raistlin is brought up short by such strange magic.

Berem. Not mentioned by the text: Berem is totally shredded. Would have been hard to work in a bit about how Sturm was impressed by his abs though, given the scene.

Berem clutches his shirt to himself. Eben scrambles to his feet and flees, along with Berem. Sturm starts to follow, but Tanis reminds him of the others.

Then a length of wall over the main gates opens. Out of this come a great rain of enormous granite boulders. Eben and Berem are right underneath it. Eben screams and throws his arms over his head. Berem seems to just sigh before being crushed under the tons of falling stone.

Verminaard, now very angry, bellows that due to the slaves' defiance, he will kill them all. He will kill the men. He will kill the women. He will kill the children.

Pyros takes an enormous breath and dives. But his dive is brought up short as Matafleur erupts from her lair in a shower of broken stone, and throws herself at him. The old dragon is consumed by the memory of the knights with their terrible lances killing her children, children she had begged not to fight in the pointless, lost war. Hearing Verminaard's declaration that he would kill the children, she rushes to defend them, as she did once before, so long ago.

Pyros barely twists away from the attack, and suffers a long gash to his flank as Matafleur flies past. But he manages a strike of his own, cutting Matafleur's belly, a wound she doesn't even feel.

When Pyros rolled to evade Matafleur, he forgot he had a rider. Verminaard, without the dragon saddle's aid, simply falls off. It's not a long fall, and he is only dazed, not serious injured. As he stands, the slaves flee before him. But across the courtyard, he sees four who do not flee.


The sudden appearance of Matafleur, and Verminaard's fall, jolt the people in the courtyard back into action. They turn and start to flee to the south. The draconian garrison try to stop them, but the refugees of Solace and Gateway will never again allow themselves to be captured by such creatures, and fight back with rocks, sticks, fists, teeth.

Laurana is separated from the others in the confusion. Scared nearly witless, she falls back against the fortress wall. She sees a man in front of her fall, blood pouring between his hands as a draconian steps over him. Thinking it has an easy kill, the draconian lunges at Laurana, who stabs at it in blind panic. The draconian is not expecting any resistance, and Laurana's blade pierces scaly hide. She can feel it crunch through bone, then the draconian stiffens into stone and falls.

Filled with an icey detachment, Laurana waits a moment for it to crumble to dust, then retrieves her blade. Looking around, she can't see Tanis. He might be dead. She might be dead in minutes. The world appears sharpened; the stones, the leaves, everything is suddenly so clear. The southern breeze blows, disappating the storm clouds. Free of her terror, Laurana raises he sword, the blade shining in the bright morning sun.

Another Jeff Easley, which I'm not 100% sure shows this scene, but it's close enough. And there's definitely Laurana in there, kicking ass.

Commentary
So after a lot of set-up, things are really moving now, and the wait is pretty much totally worth it.

My personal favorite is definitely Matafleur. Dragonlance is generally relatively black and white about who is good and who is not. And then we get a super-maternal PTSD giant nominally evil dragon, which just doesn't fit. It's such a break from form that you really gotta sit up and take notice. Sure Knisanth and Pyros are extremely fun characters in a gloating villain sort of way, but that's sort of the sum total of it. Evil dragons being magnificently evil. But Matafleur is way out of left field, both fierce and pathetic. And right after we learned that good dragons might even exist, we have the image of the Knights of Solamnia - putatively the good guys - riding them and killing her children. It's decidedly uncomfortable.

Next up, the traitor plot is finally out in the open. To the surprise of somebody somewhere I'm sure, it's Eben. He gets a vaguely interesting bit of backstory, then takes a giant boulder shower. I mean you could almost feel bad for the guy, but for that whole collaborating with extremely evil genocidal worshippers of dark gods thing. Kinda a blot on the resume, that. RIP dude nobody ever cared about.

More importantly, we find out why Berem is called the Green Gemstone Man. He's got a green gemstone sticking out of his sternum, which is decidedly odd. But he seems to also be squashed totally flat, so does this even matter?

Fizban's final spell producing a giant cloud of feathers is really just about perfect. Pity about him also getting killed though, he was a lot of fun.

Lastly, we get Laurana's moment of self-actualization via the ancient character-building method of stabbing a lizardman to death. Sort of like college graduation, but a lot more meaningful. Kidding aside, this is some of the better prose in the book, and it's nice to see her break out of the whole lovelorn and scared thing. I'm all for it. It's also an interesting contrast with Tika's very similar scene a bit earlier. Tika of course basically goes slightly berserk and beats a draconian to death with a shield. Laurana's initial reaction is just as panicked, but her followup is a lot more collected. It's a nice differentiation between characters that are, otherwise at this point in the story, actually fairly similar.

Spoiler: Future Stuff

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We killed off three people in this chapter, but only one actually stays dead. Berem of course is also the Everman, and so he just comes back to life. Though I've always wondered about how this works, since he's also under a couple thousand pounds of rock, which seems like a very inconvenient location to reincarnate. '

Fizban is just a god slumming it, so he's fine. Hell, he even comes back, Fizbanier than ever.

Eben's just plain dead. Still don't care.

Laurana's transcendent moment has two clear references later on in the series. Firstly is of course the death of Sturm, which is described similarly in a lot of ways, right down to the role of the morning sun. That of course is a different sort of transcendence. Laurana vanquishes her fear, Sturm accepts the failure of the Knighthood, and, by extension, his entire life.

The second is Laurana's much later death in Qualinesti. Mostly of course because it's the close of her character arc, and again the transcendence of great fear. I haven't read that scene in years, but it's still one of my favorite death scenes in fantasy.

Raist-o-Meter:
Times Evil: 1
Times horrible to Caramon: 4
Times saved the party + 1: 5

Well, not so much the party as Tanis, but I'm still counting it. Not like anybody else had an actual plan. And saving a dude's life just to make him feel weird about mistrusting you is about the Raistlin is a coldhearted bastard powermove, even for Raistlin.

[Keltest]

Spoiler: Eben

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Actually, according to Dragons of the Highlord Skies, Eben "survives" too, losing both of his legs and a significant amount of body mass. Evidently he and Berem were only on the edge of the boulder shower, which is likely how Berem was able to reincarnate without just being buried some more.

[JadedDM]

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In the modules, Eben isn't supposed to die or betray the party at this point. That is supposed to happen later, in Thorbardin. But since they decided to skip over that whole part of the game in the books (at least until they finally fill in the gap decades later with Dragons of the Dwarven Depths), Eben betrays the party and dies here. Rather anti-climatically. And then that gets ret-conned, too.

[Forum Explorer]

Spoiler: Eben

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Actually, according to Dragons of the Highlord Skies, Eben "survives" too, losing both of his legs and a significant amount of body mass. Evidently he and Berem were only on the edge of the boulder shower, which is likely how Berem was able to reincarnate without just being buried some more.

Spoiler: Eben

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And nobody cares about him then either.

Anyways, I can't help but think Berem is basically a pot of petunias in this scene with his whole 'oh no, not again ' attitude he has going.

[bguy]

Another Jeff Easley, which I'm not 100% sure shows this scene, but it's close enough. And there's definitely Laurana in there, kicking ass.

Yeah, I've never been clear on what scene that picture represents.

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The presence of a flying citadel suggests it must be from Dragons of Spring Dawning or later. There were flying citadels present during the fighting in Neraka at the end of DoSD, but the scene doesn't otherwise really fit the novel's description of that battle since it has Laurana fighting outside whereas in the novel all her fighting in Neraka was done inside the temple. Given that we can see some volcanoes off in the distance, my best guess is this scene represents Laurana leading the Whitestone Army to liberate Sanction after the Blue Lady's War.

Lastly, we get Laurana's moment of self-actualization via the ancient character-building method of stabbing a lizardman to death. Sort of like college graduation, but a lot more meaningful. Kidding aside, this is some of the better prose in the book, and it's nice to see her break out of the whole lovelorn and scared thing. I'm all for it. It's also an interesting contrast with Tika's very similar scene a bit earlier. Tika of course basically goes slightly berserk and beats a draconian to death with a shield. Laurana's initial reaction is just as panicked, but her followup is a lot more collected. It's a nice differentiation between characters that are, otherwise at this point in the story, actually fairly similar.

Awesome scene. Such a great character moment.

Spoiler: Eben

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And nobody cares about him then either.

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Well as contrived as Eben's survival was it was worth it just for the scene where he tells Kitiara to her face that Laurana is more beautiful than her.

[pendell]

Evil dragons being magnificently evil. But Matafleur is way out of left field, both fierce and pathetic.

Hands down. Matafleur rocks. And I think this is the first step we've seen from the black-n-white morality of Dragonlance, to a world where reptilians are judged not by the color of their scales but by the content of their character.

And right after we learned that good dragons might even exist, we have the image of the Knights of Solamnia - putatively the good guys - riding them and killing her children. It's decidedly uncomfortable.

If I'm reading this correctly, Matafleur begged her children not to fight in a lost war, but they went anyway and were killed.

So this isn't a massacre of infants if that's what you're imagining. Remember how old Matafleur is. Her "children" were of age to fight -- possibly young adult or even adult at that stage. They were expected to join the dragonarmies, and did. So she's a gold star mom with who knows how many now-dead young veterans. It's the sadness of a fifty year old mother morning the loss of her sons at ages 22 and 23 in some out of the way corner of the world, not a woman morning her infant or her grade-school child.

None of which makes the sadness any less intent for her mind you, but it wasn't massacre. It was war.

And war ALWAYS does this to people, which is why it's such a terrible thing.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Jan Mattys]

Anyways, I can't help but think Berem is basically a pot of petunias in this scene with his whole 'oh no, not again ' attitude he has going.

Thanks for the laugh

[warty goblin]

Yeah, I've never been clear on what scene that picture represents.

I think it's sort of just generic Dragonlance war. It's the cover of some edition of Autumn Twilight, though not one I've ever seen in the flesh. It also serves as the cover of this obscure bit of Dragonlance themed heavy metal, bringing the total number of Dragonlance themed albums I know of to three.

Truly the painting is a mystery. An awesome mystery.

Hands down. Matafleur rocks. And I think this is the first step we've seen from the black-n-white morality of Dragonlance, to a world where reptilians are judged not by the color of their scales but by the content of their character.



If I'm reading this correctly, Matafleur begged her children not to fight in a lost war, but they went anyway and were killed.

So this isn't a massacre of infants if that's what you're imagining. Remember how old Matafleur is. Her "children" were of age to fight -- possibly young adult or even adult at that stage. They were expected to join the dragonarmies, and did. So she's a gold star mom with who knows how many now-dead young veterans. It's the sadness of a fifty year old mother morning the loss of her sons at ages 22 and 23 in some out of the way corner of the world, not a woman morning her infant or her grade-school child.

None of which makes the sadness any less intent for her mind you, but it wasn't massacre. It was war.

And war ALWAYS does this to people, which is why it's such a terrible thing.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Quite. It's just a bit odd, since to date the series has been pretty much totally happy with very black and white speciesism.


Short chapter today, then we'll finish up with the epilogue bit and some overall thoughts Thursday or Friday. Then this weekend we can get started on Winter's Night.

15: The Dragon Highlord. Matafleur's children

Verminaard eyes the approaching quartet, and recognizes them fairly quickly. A mongrel half-elf trying to pretend to be human, a knight with his head stuck in the glorious past, a sickly yet apparently powerful mage, and his lunkheaded brother. Verminaard finds he relishes the idea of hand to hand combat after so long directing his army from the back of a dragon. Speaking of dragons, he looks up to see if Ember will be of any assistance, but the big dragon is being hard pressed by Matafleur, who makes up for in cunning what she lacks in physical power. Fire and blood are raining from the sky as they swirl around each other.

With a shrug, Verminaard gets ready to fight. He's armed with both his mace and the power of the Dark Queen; as the magic-user reminds his companions. The combatants don't say anything, the four simply spread out, hoping to flank their enemy. There's no rage, this is simply a fight to the death.

Verminaard initially does very well. He casts a spell on Raistlin that incapacitates him with terrible pain, then blinds Caramon and thwacks him over the head, dropping him like a ton of bricks. He parries Tanis' rush, then throws him down, and strikes Sturm with an iron needle that seems to make his body too heavy to move. Still prone, Tanis feels a terrible weight pressing down on him as Verminaard raises his mace in a parody of the Knight's salute, preparing to kill Sturm.

Then a woman's hand seizes Verminaard by the wrist, and he feels in it a power of light that matches his own evil. His will falters, the prayers to the Dark Queen flicker.

Then the Dark Queen perceives another god, clad in shining armor and standing in opposition to her. Unprepared to fight her rival, sensing for the first time a chance of defeat, she flees, leaving Verminaard alone.

The spell leaves Sturm's body, and he rushes forwards as Verminaard raises his mace to strike down Goldmoon. Riverwind gets there first, intercepting the blow aimed for Goldmoon's head with his arm. Verminaard uses the same blinding spell on him as he did on Caramon, but Riverwind was prepared for this, and simply shifts his sword to his unbroken hand, and thrusts at the sound of Verminaard. The blow turns off Verminaard's armor, jarring the sword from Riverwind's hand.

Then Verminaard realizes that his Queen has deserted him, and feels the first inkling of despair. Too late, he realizes that as intimidating as it is, the Highlord's mask blocks his peripheral vision. Backing up, trying to keep all his foes in view, he nearly gets the mask off, then screams in pain as Tanis' sword stabs into his back. Then Sturm's two handed sword pierces into his front. He feels one more thrust, then blackness.

High above, Matafleur is dying of her wounds. But Pyros is right in front of her, trapped against the side of the mountain. Now is her chance to save her children.

Seeing his chance to end this fight, Pyros breathes a great gout of flame into Matafleur's face, melting her eyes and flesh. But too late he realizes that he has no room to maneuver out of her way. The ancient dragon crashes into him, throwing both of them against the mountainside, splitting stone and spewing flame.

Many years later, the death of Matafleur will become legend. People claim that at the last, they heard a fading dragon's voice on the wind. "My children..."

There isn't a painting of this scene, but here's two dragons fighting. Just imagine that the silver one is red. And very old. And blind. And flying into the other dragon. And completely different. How is there not a painting of this scene???

Commentary

This is a very short, very straightforwards chapter. It's the big boss fight at the end of the adventure.

So naturally the heroes do terribly. Until Goldmoon shows up and distracts both Verminaard and his unpleasant goddess, the companions are getting totally bodied. Which is sort of reasonable, since they have no experience fighting evil clerics, so he's got a whole bag of tricks they know nothing about. Also because they lose a lot of fights, though this is still less humiliating than getting run off by an overgrown gastropod.

Also props to Riverwind here. I mean he doesn't actually manage to hurt Verminaard, but he's the only person who actually fights halfway effectively. Props to Goldmoon too, for showing a non-healbot reason to keep a cleric along. Somebody's gotta break the concentration of the evil cleric after all.

And of course the chapter ends with Matafleur's suicidal crash into Pyros. This is hands down the most epic fantasy thing in the novel, and I love it. Firstly because it's climatic, and actually set up pretty well over the previous chapters. You can't just throw dragons crashing together in mortal combat in willy-nilly, you've gotta build up to that over the narrative, otherwise it just feels cheap. Secondly because, oddly enough, it's something basically entirely outside of the companions' actions or control. It's awfully easy for fantasy to collapse into a sort of protagonist solipsism, where only the heroes ever actually do anything of note, or have an internal life that's of any relevance. Thirdly because it fits quite well with the thematic background of Dragonlance. The commentary argues that this is evil turning on itself, but at this point there's not really anything evil about Matafleur. She's just a sad, broken relic of an ancient war, determined to save her children. You could argue that, narratively speaking, she's basically redeemed at this point. Probably doesn't work with the dragon alignment system, but whatever.


There's another interesting annotation in this chapter, which reveals that Verminaard is literally named after vermin. I haven't read the Verminaard book, but it seems safe to say he probably had a bad childhood. Quite apart from clearly having a terrible father, junior high must have been rough.

Of course there's a Verminaard book. This one isn't even surprising.

Spoiler: Future stuff

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The god that Takhisis sees is of course Paladine, aka the recently late Fizban. This suggests that perhaps Paladine was slumming it as a senile wizard because it let him act with the world without detection, allowing Tahkisis to believe that she alone had returned to the world.

Well, that and being Fizban seems like a lot of fun. Let's not forget that.

[Forum Explorer]

I absolutely love all the dragons and draconians in the series. And I love how

Spoiler: War of Souls spoilers

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They eventually join the 'good races' once they realize that the Dark Queen only does things that benefit her and she considers them all nothing more than the most expendable of minions.

[JadedDM]

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In the modules, Verminaard, like Eben, does not die here. He lives on to chase after the party, and is eventually killed in Thorbardin. But again, like with Eben, they killed him off here since that part of the story does not get adapted for a few more decades. When they did get around to adapting it, they found a clever way to get around his death. They had a shapeshifting aurak take his place, pretending to be him, if I remember correctly.

Also, that's got to be the most epic description of a Dispel Magic spell I've ever known.

[Talakeal]

Spoiler

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In the modules, Verminaard, like Eben, does not die here. He lives on to chase after the party, and is eventually killed in Thorbardin. But again, like with Eben, they killed him off here since that part of the story does not get adapted for a few more decades. When they did get around to adapting it, they found a clever way to get around his death. They had a shapeshifting aurak take his place, pretending to be him, if I remember correctly.

Also, that's got to be the most epic description of a Dispel Magic spell I've ever known.

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Oh, he survives Thorbardin to.

[Rodin]

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Oh, he survives Thorbardin to.

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So, he's this universe's Boba Fett? A guy with virtually no screentime who is nonetheless inexplicably popular and keeps getting resurrected to have more adventures?

[Jan Mattys]

What level is Verminaard in the book during the fight?

And what level are our heroes supposed to be?
In short, in d&d terms, is such a fight a balanced one, a hard one, or a trivial one?
Action economy should be definitely against Verminaard, at least. Can his levels compensate?

[JadedDM]

By 1E rules:

Verminaard is a level 8 cleric. He has the following spells memorized: Curse, Cure Light Wounds (x2), Detect Good, Cause Fear, Hold Person, Chant, Augury, Snake Charm, Spiritual Hammer, Animate Dead, Cause Disease, Prayer, Cause Serious Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds. He wears plate mail +2 and carries a magic mace called Nightbringer (+3, and blinds anyone it hits if they fail a save vs. spell for 20-120 minutes; will also permanently blind any Good aligned person who tries to pick it up by the hilt and fails a save vs. spell with a -2 penalty).

Tanis is a level 6 fighter.

Caramon is a level 7 fighter.

Raistlin is a level 4 magic user.

Sturm is a level 7 fighter.

Goldmoon is a level 6 cleric.

Riverwind is a level 6 ranger.

[Liquor Box]

By 1E rules:

Verminaard is a level 8 cleric. He has the following spells memorized: Curse, Cure Light Wounds (x2), Detect Good, Cause Fear, Hold Person, Chant, Augury, Snake Charm, Spiritual Hammer, Animate Dead, Cause Disease, Prayer, Cause Serious Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds. He wears plate mail +2 and carries a magic mace called Nightbringer (+3, and blinds anyone it hits if they fail a save vs. spell for 20-120 minutes; will also permanently blind any Good aligned person who tries to pick it up by the hilt and fails a save vs. spell with a -2 penalty).

Tanis is a level 6 fighter.

Caramon is a level 7 fighter.

Raistlin is a level 4 magic user.

Sturm is a level 7 fighter.

Goldmoon is a level 6 cleric.

Riverwind is a level 6 ranger.

I think the book scenario envisaged the fight goign a round or two before Goldmoon or Riverwind joined in.

[pendell]

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So, he's this universe's Boba Fett? A guy with virtually no screentime who is nonetheless inexplicably popular and keeps getting resurrected to have more adventures?

Not really. It's just that we're skipping a fair number of the adventures in the modules and that means some of the timeline has been sped up.

Meanwhile, the statement that Matafleur attacking Pyros is "evil turning on itself" is absurd. A mother fighting to defend her children is a neutral act at worst. Matafleur loves and cares for someone beside herself. Though she doesn't know it, she's adopted these children as her own.

Is her love selfish? Perhaps it's like Tiffany's selfishness in Pratchett's Wee Free Men:

“All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!

I have a duty!”

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Keltest]

Not really. It's just that we're skipping a fair number of the adventures in the modules and that means some of the timeline has been sped up.

Meanwhile, the statement that Matafleur attacking Pyros is "evil turning on itself" is absurd. A mother fighting to defend her children is a neutral act at worst. Matafleur loves and cares for someone beside herself. Though she doesn't know it, she's adopted these children as her own.

Is her love selfish? Perhaps it's like Tiffany's selfishness in Pratchett's Wee Free Men:



Respectfully,

Brian P.

I believe the point being made is that evil is fundamentally unable to understand or care how their own desires and goals conflict with those of the people around them. Matafleur was clearly insane, but she was still perfectly willing to place her own goals and desires over those of her commander (she is nominally in a military structure, so this matters) and her goddess, and did so without a second thought. Evil cant work together because as soon as you have two or more people who want conflicting things, they'll fight over it and weaken both of them.

[pendell]

I believe the point being made is that evil is fundamentally unable to understand or care how their own desires and goals conflict with those of the people around them. Matafleur was clearly insane, but she was still perfectly willing to place her own goals and desires over those of her commander (she is nominally in a military structure, so this matters) and her goddess, and did so without a second thought. Evil cant work together because as soon as you have two or more people who want conflicting things, they'll fight over it and weaken both of them.

She's a mother defending her children. Even in a real-world military, if an officer came into a subordinate's living quarters and threatened to murder her children, or unrelated innocents under her care, I don't think she would be liable under UCMJ if she defended them, even to the point of lethal force if that was what it took to stop the attacker, as it was in this case. Murder is an unlawful act, and a subordinate is neither required to obey an unlawful order nor to stand idly by while an unlawful act is committed, especially if that act is being committed against innocents who cannot defend themselves.

The armies of darkness no doubt have different rules, but they are evil rules. Doing good is a punishable offense in their army. Example: Taking prisoners and showing mercy was punishable by death in the last few chapters. But disobeying an evil law cannot itself be an evil act, I think.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Keltest]

She's a mother defending her children. Even in a real-world military, if an officer came into a subordinate's living quarters and threatened to murder her children, or unrelated innocents under her care, I don't think she would be liable under UCMJ if she defended them, even to the point of lethal force if that was what it took to stop the attacker, as it was in this case. Murder is an unlawful act, and a subordinate is neither required to obey an unlawful order nor to stand idly by while an unlawful act is committed, especially if that act is being committed against innocents who cannot defend themselves.

The armies of darkness no doubt have different rules, but they are evil rules. Doing good is a punishable offense in their army. Example: Taking prisoners and showing mercy was punishable by death in the last few chapters. But disobeying an evil law cannot itself be an evil act, I think.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

That's the point. Evil turns on itself because by its nature evil beings are constantly putting other evil beings in a position where they either have to lose something they want/care about or fight. Matafleur didn't turn on Verminaard out of some moral outrage over the general killing of children, she did it because (she thought) they were her children.

[bguy]

The armies of darkness no doubt have different rules, but they are evil rules. Doing good is a punishable offense in their army. Example: Taking prisoners and showing mercy was punishable by death in the last few chapters. But disobeying an evil law cannot itself be an evil act, I think.

Well it rathers depends on why you are disobeying the evil law. To take the example from earlier in DoAT where some hobgoblins were executed for sparing Que-Shu prisoners, we don't really know why those hobgoblins tried to spare those prisoners. If they did it not out of compassion but simply because they thought it was stupid to kill prisoners that they could keep as slaves for their own pleasure/profit then that would still be an evil act even if it was disobeying an evil law.

That said I fully agree with you that Matafleur rising up to defend the children doesn't work at all as an example of "evil turning on itself." Evil turning upon itself is supposed to represent how evil's greedy, self-serving nature is inherently self-defeating, and Matafleur is clearly not acting out of greed or selfishness here since she is putting her own life at great risk to protect others.

[pendell]

Agreed, bguy. The example doesn't work at all.

I wonder if there are any follow-on stories about Matafleur's children? What happened to them afterwards? Did they, in future generations, gather to pay respect to the memory of the "mother" who gave her life for them?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Rodin]

Agreed, bguy. The example doesn't work at all.

I wonder if there are any follow-on stories about Matafleur's children? What happened to them afterwards? Did they, in future generations, gather to pay respect to the memory of the "mother" who gave her life for them?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Honestly, both that story and a "Tragedy of Matafleur" going more in-depth about how she lost her children the first time sound a heck of a lot better than a Lord Toede book. But nooooooo.....

[pendell]

Honestly, both that story and a "Tragedy of Matafleur" going more in-depth about how she lost her children the first time sound a heck of a lot better than a Lord Toede book. But nooooooo.....

BLASPEHMY! How dare you speak evil of the greatest, most insighful, sexiest character in the Chronicles! All hail Lord Toede!

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

[Rodin]

BLASPEHMY! How dare you speak evil of the greatest, most insighful, sexiest character in the Chronicles! All hail Lord Toede!

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

Great, now I've got the Hypnotoad sound stuck in my ALL HAIL THE HYPNOTOOOEEEEEDDDDEEEEE.

[TripleD]

Regarding “evil turning on itself”, I think it’s less that Matafleur’s actions were somehow evil, but rather that the source of all her pain came from the evil she had allied with.

There didn’t have to be a dragon war. Her children didn’t have to die. But they did anyway.

When she finally fights Pyros, it’s the unleashing of all the centuries of pain these beings have caused her. The people that were supposed to be her allies.

This is less “evil turning on itself” as two criminals stealing from each other, and more in the sense that the way you treat others, even the people who believe the same things as you, will come back to bite you (literally in this case).

[warty goblin]

I suppose an alternative way to look at Matafleur's sacrifice as evil turning on itself is that she didn't do the turning. Rather, Verminaard's declaration that he would destroy the children is what puts the two in conflict, and burning children to death is certainly evil. Until he did that however, Matafleur was apparently utterly unbothered by his campaign of slavery and murder.


Right, let's finish the book! Sorry I didn't get this done last night; for some reason I was simply flat out exhausted.

The Wedding

It's the last day of autumn, a south wind is blowing.

It took a long time for the dragonarmies to retake Pax Tharkas from its gully dwarf defenders, under the command of Sestun. With the main gates blocked, the gully dwarves could simply stand on top of the walls throwing things at the draconians - rocks, rats, other gully dwarves...

Now the refugees have fled into the mountains, into a sheltered valley, difficult for a large force to attack and with caves to shelter people from dragons. There's game in the woods and clear streams. The people have a chance to rest, mourn. And celebrate a wedding.

On the last day of autumn, Riverwind and Goldmoon are married. Elistan, who is officiating, asked them about the traditional Que-Shu marriage ceremony, but they reply that their people are dead. This wedding will be theirs, something new, instead of clinging to the past.

After consulting the Disks of Mishakal, Elistan asks Goldmoon and Riverwind to write their vows. They decide to keep one part of the traditional Que-Shu ceremony; they must make the gifts they exchange themselves, and the first to see it must be the beloved.

As the sun sets, Elistan stands on top of a small hill. From the east side Laurana and Tika approach, bearing torches. They are followed by Goldmoon, her silver-gold hair flowing down her back, crowned in autumn leaves. Tika starts to find this whole idea of getting married a lot less scary and a lot more exciting. Laurana is beautiful enough to make people fall silent as she passes.

They reach Elistan on top of the hill, and wait for the groom. He approaches, led by Tanis and Sturm, also crowned with autumn leaves, joy shining from his eyes. He is followed by Tas, Flint, Caramon and Raistlin - carrying the lit Staff of Magius instead of a torch. After delivering Riverwind, the men join the women. Caramon takes Tika's hand.

Eilistan isn't certain how to begin; Goldmoon and Riverwind's past is so dark, and the future may well be more of the same. Finally he leans close, and whispers to them that although the past is dark, and the future will be worse, their love will be a torch that guides them through, just as their love guided them to the true gods.

Elistan joins their left hands, saying the left hand is the hand of heart, and through their joining the couple may become something more. May Paladine - greatest of the gods - receive this love, and bless it and grant them peace, if any peace now exists. In the silence husbands and wives, friends and children all draw closer together, feeling somehow comforted.

Then Goldmoon and Riverwind exchange vows, which are quite nice bits of poetry. Goldmoon presents Riverwind with a ring made from her hair and her mother's jewelry, melted down and reworked by Flint. Riverwind gives Goldmoon a ring carved from a fallen branch of a vallenwood he carried from Solace. Seeing it, she is reminded of the dark night they first came to Solace, and begins to cry.

Elistan gives a rather long speech of the sort you only hear at weddings, and the two put their rings on the others' fingers. Riverwind starts to kneel, as would be traditional in the Que-Shu, but Goldmoon tells him to rise. Riverwind asks if that is a command, she says it is the last command of Chieftain's Daughter. Then they embrace and kiss, as the sun falls behind the mountain.

Then the celebration begins. Finally allowed to make noise again, children run around, while men open casks of wine and ale they salvaged from Pax Tharkas, and women bring in great plates of food. Caramon clears himself a large space, and sets to work immediately on a vast plate of venison. Flint attempts to steal a piece, and gets a tankard of ale dumped over his head.

To the side, Tanis and Sturm talk for a while. Tanis keeps looking at Laurana, who is talking to Elistan, thinking how much she's changed since following them, and trying to tell himself he liked the change. But she sure does seem to find Elistan interesting...

Sturm interrupts Tanis' thoughts, touching his arm and pointing. Tanis sees a man, sitting alone and eating listlessly. Seeming to sense the half-elf's gaze, he raises his eyes. The shock makes Tanis drop his fork. He exclaims that this is impossible, they saw him die with Eben. Sturm says that he too recognized the man, but wanted to check with Tanis in case he was going mad. They are about to go talk with the man, but when they look back, he's gone.

The silver and red moons are rising, and married couples begin to dance in a great circle. Unmarried couples dance outside that, while the children, still thrilled at getting to stay up past bedtime, run around in the dark. Tanis stands on the outskirts watching. Laurana is dancing with Gilthanas, Sturm and Elistan are talking about trying to reach the city of Tarsis the beautiful. Tika is dancing with Flint, having grown tired of watching Caramon eat.

Tanis realizes that he feels like talking to Raistlin, somehow finding the cynical mage more appealing company than all his celebrating friends. Unbeknownst to him, he is followed by Tas, who wants to finally find out what these two talk about.

Raistlin is huddled under a tree, wrapped in his cloak and coughing softly, staring out into the lands beyond the mountains. For a moment something about his profile reminds Tanis of Kitiara, adding to his unsettled feeling. Tanis asks what Raistlin sees, but Raistlin sees what he always sees; death, destruction and war. The constellations have not returned to the heavens, the Queen of Darkness has not been defeated.

Tanis says that they won a battle, but Raistlin shakes his head. Tanis asks if he sees any hope. "Hope" Raistlin responds, "is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled in front of the draft horse." Annoyed, Tanis asks if they should just give up, but Raistlin says they should continue, but with clear eyes. There will be more dragons, many more, and they have no Huma, no Dragonlance to fight them. The two sit silently, looking out into the night.

Tas slinks off, feeling very down at the idea of there being no hope, and at the realization that Tanis believes it. Ever since Fizban's demise, the kender has been thinking about the adventure differently, as something important, which people will die to accomplish. This makes him wonder why he is involved; but maybe he already gave the answer to Fizban. He's there to do small things that somehow end up being important.

Somehow though he had never contemplated the idea that it may not end up mattering. That his friends could die, and the dragons still win. Maybe though they have to keep trying, keep hoping. Maybe that's the important thing, in the end.

Something small and white falls gently from the sky, and lands on Tas' nose. A single white chicken feather.

Personally I'm a fan of any deity that communicates through chicken-based supernatural phenomena.

Song of Huma
This is a very long lyric poem giving the backstory of Huma. Parts of it are really good! Parts of it are just there! Key point is that there's a dragon war on, Huma follows a white stag, and falls in love with a women who is not a woman, but a dragon. Paladine gives them a choice, live happily ever after, in which case the dragons will win. Or Paladine will give him the power to drive back the dragons, even though it will destroy them. Huma and his dragon love choose the second option, are given the Dragonlance. They come to the Solamnics defending the High Clerist's Tower, where Huma, riding the silver dragon, fights with the Dark Queen and banishes her from the world, though both die in the fight. When the smoke clears their bodies have vanished.

Huma + Silver dragon, from the cover of the Legend of Huma. Art by Duane O. Myers

Commentary
Apparently the word from management was that this book had to end with an actual ending, in case it flopped and there wouldn't be another one. Fortunately for all of us, it didn't flop.

Important notes from this chapter. Berem is apparently not dead, so that's weird. Tanis is the sort of person who is miserable at friends' weddings, which is roughly as surprising as the sun rising in the east. If Tanis was the weather, the forecast would be cloudy with a 80% chance of brooding.

We get Raistlin's exegesis of his philosophy. I often this mocked as teenaged edgelord stuff, but I don't think that's entirely fair. Discarding the - to him - false comfort of hope is less about being edgy, and more a matter of honesty. If one clings to hope, one will fail to confront the unfortunate reality of the enemy having a horde of dragons. Tanis, being a guy with all the feelz, obviously finds the lack of hope as more akin to despair than to facing reality dispassionately, but doesn't really have any grounds to disagree with Raistlin's analysis.

Tas chooses instead to emphasize hoping as an important choice in itself. And maybe he has the right answer after all, at least if heavenly chicken feathers are to be believed.

Oh, and there's a marriage. It's actually a pretty good marriage scene, and does a good job of capturing the feeling of an outdoor party, where you can always go sulk in the dark if you want. On the other hand, having done event catering for weddings for years, I've achieved a state of hopeless cynicism about any wedding in which I'm not personally at least a groomsman. Once you obtain groomsman status, you need to take it seriously, otherwise the bride's mother will probably wind up shanking you behind the alter and burying you in an unmarked grave.


So that wraps up Dragons of Autumn Twilight.
Overall I think this book is better than it has any right to be, what with being based on a batch of D&D modules and written by a pair of first time authors. It certainly has its rough patches - the traitor subplot just eats pages for no good reason - and is definitely silly in parts. However the silliness is pretty clearly deliberate, and there's a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for the project that just bleeds from every page. It's clearly a story that the authors want to tell, not because it's Important or Serious, but because they think it's a good, enjoyable story and they want you to enjoy it as much as they do. Maybe that's the best reason to tell a story.

And it must be said that, as cliche as the setting appears, the actual narrative they choose to tell is really weird. It's unusual enough for a fantasy story to be quite so focused on gods, particularly when the punchline isn't that the gods are actually hyper-advanced aliens or super-powerful sorcerers and if their edicts clash with your 20th/21st century secular value system, you're just gonna have to go kill 'em. Here the gods are, in fact, gods, and you've gotta deal with this basic fact of existence. It's unique, and further it's a story that fantasy in particular is uniquely well situated to explore.

Also weird; just how frequently the heroes get their asses kicked. It's not even the thing where they get their asses kicked until the end of the third act, when they finally understand themselves, overcome their emotional issues and channel this into punching the villain. Indeed given the amount of emotional baggage the party schleps around, actually resolving any of it seems to be of pretty much zero importance to the world at large, which I find an immense relief. There's something deeply solipsistic about stories where sure, thousands of people get killed but what really matters is that Bob resolved his daddy issues, and this was what let him finally win in the end. In this book the heroes don't resolve squat, emotional turmoil-wise, but do sort of partially win in the end. And on the way they get captured, run away, or get the crap beaten out of them pretty much on the regular for the whole book. I really like this, because it lends things an air of general believability; sure they're handy with swords and things, but eight or ten schmucks with swords do not win wars. Absent divine intervention - there's that god thing again - they can't kill a dragon or even the enemy general.

Right, dragons. This book has excellent dragons, and the dragons are always central to any situation they're involved in, with their own motivations and plans. I've never really been a fan of the fantasy trope where humans and dragons psychically bond into a partnership where 100% of the focus ends up on the human *coughPerncoughEregoncough*. This just reduces the dragon to a sidekick or a glorified horse, when dragons are clearly way cooler than the human component. And to its infinite credit, Dragonlance fully embraces this at every level. Khisanth is the sole antagonist of note in Xak Tsaroth, she don't need no human rider. Sure Verminaard is a dark cleric in command of armies, but he's still too far down the totem pole to be told the real plan, that's reserved for Pyros.

Also cool, draconians. Aesthetically they work really well, and the whole thing where they do weird stuff when they die is just pure cool. In fact let's give a general shoutout to the joys of fantasy just going for cool stuff, which Dragonlance certainly does. Elves are cool, let's have elves. Dwarves are fun, we should have dwarves. Kleptomaniac psycho hobbits? Yep. Lyric poetry as backstory? Hey, worked for Tolkien. Ima out myself as hopelessly out of touch with the current fantasy zeitgeist, but I love this stuff. Browsing the fantasy shelf in the bookstore anymore, it seems like there are two books: 1) Oppression, but with wizards, and 2) Romance, but with werewolves. And there might be one really cool fantasy idea in a book, but it's nowhere near the feast that something like this throws at us. There's a real pleasure in the amount of stuff in Dragonlance that's just there because it's cool.


Lastly, I want to thank everybody for reading and commenting. This has been an enormous amount of fun. And now we get to start the weirdest, longest, and best novel of the Chronicles: Dragons of Winter Night