Time to create some polemics...

Why can't Dragonlance evolve? I love the classic trilogy and setting, but why do we need to be stuck forever in the War of the Lance? I understand that it's the most popular period due to the novels, but even with the novels evolving to the age of mortals, war of souls and etc, it seems we are stuck with the War of the Lance.

The last attempt to advance the settings seems to have occurred in the 3.5 modules with the age of mortals campaign. The latest 5e adventure returned to the War of the Lance, and even the latest novels, the dragons of fate, preferred to return to this period rather than advance past the war of souls and Mina.

Now we have an announcement for a new DL book, but guess what? War of the lance again. But hey, at least we get to be the drafonarmies this time!

Anyway, sorry for the long rant, but I love DL and I think it deserves more than to be stuck in just this one period. Let the river of time flow, not be contained!

I just finished reading Dragons of Winter Night for the first time and wanted to organize my thoughts, like I did earlier with Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

I was really confused when I started this book, because it felt like I had accidentally skipped a book about them getting the Hammer. I did have to look it up, but apparently, they only wrote that book 20 years later? And then I got the same feeling later about Ice Wall, and there was yet another skip. I know in these scenarios it’s almost always best to read in publishing order, but it feels really weird still.

Main Party

• Tanis: There’s more scenes of Tanis’s doubts in this book, which fleshes him out a little, although overall I think he’s still kind of generic. I found it kind of funny that when he was arrested early in the book, he realized he loved Laurana, but near the end he was already considering joining Kitiara in conquering the world.
• Laurana: She really grew on me in this book, especially in the last third, and has become probably my favorite character. If anything, she seems like the secondary main character now. I thought her shooting the enemy commander during parlay was a nice character moment in particular. However, I think there’s one big issue in that without showing the adventures of the Hammer and Ice Wall, Laurana’s development of turning from a scared girl to a battle-hardened warrior seemed to happen overnight. Tanis falling for her also seemed to just be told instead of shown.
• Raistlin: The little scene where he mentioned actually having been happy performing for the past month was really touching. I still hate him as a person, but he’s probably my second favorite character right now. I expect the prophecy Caramon mentioned about how he would save the world will come true. I’m locking in my guess that he’ll have a Darth Vader-style plot where he joins the evil dragons for power, but then at the last minute his conscience kicks in and he betrays them out of love for his brother.
• Caramon: Caramon still feels like he’s in the background compared to Raistlin. I do feel kind of bad for him given his speech to Tika about having to put Raistlin first.
• Sturm: Sturm was a much better character in this book than in the first one, probably because this focused a lot more on his conflicts with the knights. Sturm’s death was pretty cool, but I feel bad he didn’t get to see the Tomb of Huma. The starjewel at the end implies that Sturm might still be alive? However, I’m assuming Raistlin’s prophecy that they won’t all meet again is true, so maybe it’s just supposed to be his spirit.
• Flint: Flint continues to be a dwarf. I really don’t have anything to say about him. The seasickness part was a little funny, I guess.
• Tasslehoff: Tasslehoff continues to be an annoying kleptomaniac. In this book he claimed that kender are communal and don’t have a strong sense of ownership, but that doesn’t explain why he regularly lies about things like saying that Gunthar’s silverware had his own name engraved on it. The scene of him destroying the dragonorb was cool, though, especially his resignation to being executed for it.
• Goldmoon: The first book made me think she was going to be the secondary main character, with her special magic staff and unique cleric powers, but wow, she did nothing in this book. At one point she sang and converted a few people, but even that was a tiny subplot. Did she even use her cleric abilities in this book, outside of the dream?
• Riverwind: He was also almost completely irrelevant, except for being a little involved in the fight at the inn. I think the second most important thing he did in this book was play the flute while Goldmoon sang, if that says anything.

Side Characters

• Fizban: I said in my last post that I was sure Fizban was coming back alive, and here he is. I also said in my last review that I don’t like his character archetype, and I still don’t. Given that he seems to be on the side of Good, it feels like him not telling the party things is just being mysterious for the sake of being mysterious. At least Mordenkainen has the excuse of being stupidly Neutral.
• Elistan: I think he was another character who was hurt by skipping the Hammer and Ice Wall, e.g., Laurana saying he’s extremely wise but him not really doing anything onpage. I didn’t even realize he had stayed behind with the Qualinesti until much later, because he was never relevant regardless.
• Silvara: Wow, the silver-haired woman whose name is Silvara, is a silver dragon. I won’t say I predicted it ahead of time, but the name is almost insultingly dumb in retrospect. I’m still not really clear on exactly why she isn’t allowed to intervene: I’m guessing it’s some ancient pact, but it feels like the evil dragons would have broken that already.
• Gilthanas: Gilthanas is more likable in this book, fortunately. I thought his romance with Silvara was absurdly fast, though. He was already talking about having children with her a few days after meeting her for the first time.
• Alhana: I likewise found her relationship with Sturm to happen incredibly fast. Sturm seemed to have fallen in love with her solely because of her looks, given that they basically talked for maybe ten minutes and she wasn’t particularly pleasant during that time anyway.

Villains

• Kitiara: I said in my previous post that I thought there was a 50% chance of her being captured by a major villain and a 50% chance of her being a major villain, which turned out to be the right one. I don’t understand why she threw the dragonlance back to Laurana at the end; even if she doesn’t know there are good dragons, returning your enemy’s ultimate weapon specially designed to kill your most powerful forces seems incredibly stupid, if not actual treason against the Dark Queen, to the point where it’s making me wonder if she’s secretly undermining the dragonarmies. That could explain her not catching the party while fleeing from Tarsis, despite having faster fliers. If she’s actually just as outwardly evil as the story indicates otherwise, it seems hard to explain how Tanis even fell in love with her in the first place. I don’t know if I actually believe my theory, but I’ll be a little disappointed if the answer to her returning the dragonlance is just “overconfidence”.
• Derek: I actually liked his subplot about trying to gain power and gradually going crazy, even if it seemed to happen a little too fast. He was a pretty interesting character, and I liked that he was genuinely brave and competent despite his flaws.
• Hederick: I expected him to be more relevant, given his awesome scene in the first book of sticking his hand into a fire, but all he did in this book was whine at a meeting. The subplot about the Seekers seems to have been dropped entirely.

Miscellaneous

• Wyrmslayer: I was wondering during the battle near the end why Sturm and Laurana never mentioned using Wyrmslayer. I had to check back earlier in the book, and apparently she just left it in the chest in her dad’s room? I’m assuming Tanis will get Wyrmslayer back in the last book, but it’s just weird to me that Laurana didn’t think it was important to grab the sword literally called Wyrmslayer, handed in person to Tanis by an ancient undead elvish king. She has two hands, and Silvara could also grab it, but then I thought, oh, maybe it’s because Silvara didn’t want her to take it because it could hurt dragons like her, but then I realized, shouldn’t it have started buzzing because of Silvara’s presence, just like it had earlier with Matafleur?
• Is every single female character in this series beautiful? Goldmoon, Laurana, Alhana, Silvara, Kitiara. Tika seems implied to be the least of the lot, but even then Tanis called her one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen. On the contrary, only Caramon, Eben, and Bakaris seemed to be described as particularly handsome men.
• The dream was pretty confusing. I don’t understand why the rest of the party who weren’t present also saw it. Sturm was connected to Alhana, I guess, but why would that affect anyone else?
• I liked the little subplot about the already racist Qualinesti having to deal with the even more racist Silvanesti.
• The gnomes were incredibly random comic relief. They weren’t even plot relevant like gully dwarves were; they didn’t even figure out anything about the dragonorb.
• The battle near the end was probably my favorite part. I found the emphasis on food and logistics to be unique compared to most fictional battles. I’m still a little unclear on exactly how big the dragonarmy is, though. This seems implied to be a significant part of their forces, but 100 knights held back the army for an entire day?

Overall, I definitely enjoyed it, especially the last third. I’d say it’s better than Dragons of Autumn Twilight, and probably the best D&D book I’ve read (although I admit I haven’t read that many). I’ll definitely see if the third book improves on it.

I was surprised, amused and heartened to stumble across this at the local supermarket…

Hopefully a new generation of fans incoming!

I found this cool Dragonlance book of the month club, but it's only available in the UK? Anyone have any info if this is something we could get in the US also? I'd love to sign up for something like this.

This random thought popped up.

In the fourth age, Knights of the Rose were considered the highest / most prestigious order above Crown and Sword.

In the Rise of Solmonia trilogy, the hierarchy changed where each branch were supposedly equal but has slightly different priorities or approach the Oath and Measure differently.

I never read the RoS novels but I recall there were quite a bit of pushback from the old Dragonlance forums (or maybe in alt.fan.dragonlance) regarding this change.

Was there an in-world explanation of the change, or was it never mentioned and it was just "that's the way it's always been."

I understand the change affects previous canon. Not having read the books or the quality of how they're written, in general, I like the idea of the 3 branches being equal (if that was in fact what happened) rather than Knights of the Rose being the target for aspiring knights.

On page 106 of Night, when Raistlin gets his black robes in Silvanesti. The deal he makes with Fistandantilus has Raist say these words "i accept this, with the understanding that the future can be changed. What must we do?"

I believe this is where he nails Raistlin down the pathway of "resurrection" by any means. Which is also why i believe they already had Legends planned out or possibly even started

As i posted before, I am doing a read through in a specific order (below). But Dwarven Depths reminded me how sleepy reading makes me. So i came up with a plan. I am going to drink monsters that are the same primary color as the cover of the book I'm currently reading.

Highlord Skies is also Blue but there are other blue can flavors.

​Dragons of Autumn Twilight in its entirety

​Dragons of the Dwarven Depths

​Dragons of Winter Night up until the end of book 1 <---

​Dragons of the Highlord Skies

​Dragons of Winter Night book 2

​Dragons of Spring Dawning up until the ship goes down in the Maelstrom

​Dragons of the Hourglass Mage

​Finish Spring Dawning

Currently re-reading Tales (on vol. 2) after so many years. I first read Chronicles when I was 14 back in 1991. I'm in the process of re-collecting the books up to maybe 1993 but I look forward to newer ones as I never really read past that point.

Why wouldn’t Raist’s hands be gold here? He traveled back in time?

So I’m just about done Legends I have less than 150 pages remaining of War of the Twins. I’ve been enjoying reading the 40th anniversary prints that have all 3 in them. Are there anymore being made of different Dragonlance series? I just don’t want to spend a crazy amount on the older books and I’m very much a physical reader

I just wanted to draw him, hope you like it!

I apologize if this has been posted before, but I could not find the entire reference. Does anyone out there remember a joke made by Don Perrin about comparing Lord Soth to a potted plant? Was there a short story out there somewhere about it? Maybe published in Dragon Magazine? I am old enough to remember the potted plant had something to do with it but not the joke itself. I typed the question into AI but it could not find the entire story (not surprised).

Two decades ago when I was young, I would go to the library once or twice a week with my mom. Mostly I was interested in Spider-Men and Fantastic Four comics, maybe Star Wars books occasionally. But whoever stocked that section of the library was clearly a cool person. Every volume of Sandman and Hellboy and Love and Rockets was back there. Berserk and all the works of Clamp and early volumes of jojo's bizarre adventures were back there. And tucked in a corner was a spinner rack with dozens of Dragonlance novels. I've always been fascinated in the series since then, I remember looking through a bunch of them and reading the back covers. but for whatever reason, I felt I wasn't ready to read them yet. Well now with my friend saying he's crafting a new dnd campaign for us and i should think about what kind of character I want to be, I thought it was time to give the series a try. And now I've just finished book one and I had a great time, happy I finally started.

Anyway some of my thoughts on the book:

They really throw a lot of characters at you in the beginning, those first two or three chapters were scary to me as someone who often is scared I'm going to miss important information. But by the time they were meeting with the centaurs, I think they'd explained enough about the characters' relationships that I had a handle on them and how they interacted with each other.

At first I really did not enjoy how the combat was written, but it absolutely got better over the course of the book, and by the end getting to see the final fight from Verminaard's point of view was really fun, plus with the two dragons fighting above them, it made that section a highlight of the book for me.

The book hammers home multiple times that the two oldest friends in the group are Tanis and Flint and that they have one of the strongest bonds. But whenever Tanis has to talk through something, he never goes to Flint. He always picks Caramon or Sturm. And Flint is usually just treated as comic relief. I hope to see that change at least a little in later books, I wanted to actually see their friendship. I've seen there is an entire book about how they met, maybe I'll check that out?

I've seen people online refer to Raistlin as a full-on villain. He certainly seems to be headed that way just in book one. I'm interested to see how that manifests, I assume in the second trilogy. Or maybe what people have said is overblown, I don't know.

I was straight up just reading Fizban as if he was Tom Baker Doctor Who, and was cracking up imaging Tom Baker reading all those lines. I hope he continues to show up throughout the books.

If anybody was wondering, Tasslehoff is the character I'm most gravitating towards for my dnd character inspiration. He's not annoying at all like some people online seem to think, just an all around fun character. I'm thinking about reading the wanderlust book just to learn more about him and the Kender in general.

I guess the last thing I want to ask is, knowing from reading a few posts on here that there were years of no books and cliffhangers that never really get wrapped up, I'd want to know if there's any fan made novels that wrap up plotlines, like the elven exiles or anything else. I know for star wars, there's dozens of fan made novels wrapping things up after Disney took over and canceled everything, so I thought maybe there's something similar for dragonlance.

I lost the majority of my collection to black mold a little over 10 years ago. Only 4 books survived. 2 of which are the paperback ones here. I got the last 2 of the hard covers in the mail today. Looking forward to reading them all. I don't remember how far I got as a teen, but I know I loved em. Fits the shelf really nicely too!

I'm re-reading Chronicles in the paperback omnibus edition, and there are several places where the text says "hauberks" when they clearly mean halberds. It is driving me nuts. Was this error in the original paperbacks, as well? Did it get corrected in any newer editions, or are editors actually that dumb that they don't know the difference between a hauberk and halberd?

I'm running the sotdq and as part of one player's backstory I wanted to add an old vampire in the mix.

I didn't remember much vampires from reading the books but figured since there is a kender vampire in the adventure there had to be something.

Now that I foreshadowed some and dropped some hints I wanted to flesh it out. I started looking for info about vampires in Dragonlance and there isn't really anything much. 2 really minor characters in Dragonlance wiki, some passing mention about kender vampire village in ravenloft.

Is that really all there is? Or there are some books that have more prominent vampire characters? Or am I left with just vibing the lore?