Dragonlance Comics (Issue 34) - On Death of Pain - The Legend of the Blackgem (Part 2)

-

On Death of Pain - Part 2

This issue picks up just after the end of #33. It starts with the healer giving us an update on Griffin, who was gravely wounded, and needed the care of the healer Tykel. While Griffin is responding well to the herbs that the healer is using, Skrum and Riva ask her to continue with the story of Miisia and the Blackgem.

After a little dialog from Tykel (catching us up on the events of issue 33), we jump into the story with Lord Bylarr simultaneously threatening and trying to inspire his troops to press on. Lord Bylarr also dumps a lot of backstory on us explaining that while he has the Blackgem, he wants to destroy Marsval Solarzz, and that he needs to bring the gem to the same location Marsval was intending to go anyway. Seems to active the power, you also need to bring it to the one place were it can be destroyed (wow, that's an original idea).

Marsval and Miisia travel through a snow covered mountain where they encounter some tribal elves. The elves are escorting one of their aged clan leaders to a ceremonial place to die.

Guess where that place just so happens to be.

Miisia touches the old elf, seemingly healing him of the sickness that has been ravaging his body. This act earns Marsval and Miisia the friendship of the elves, who agree to allow these two to accompany them to the same place they were already headed.

Along the pathway they encounter a manifestation of the evil of the mountain, brandish their weapons, and walk on through. Finally they arrive at what the elves referrer to as The Temple of the Masters of Light and Dark, a place dedicated to the balance of power between good and evil, but long since corrupted to the side of darkness.

Luckily Lord Bylarr arrives just in time to confront his enemy and reveal that the Blackgem is a kind of key to tapping into the power of the Temple, depending on the intentions of the bearer of the gem.

Lord Bylarr uses the gem to call forth a sentient stone elemental and through the elemental then enchants all his cohorts to attack the elves and Marsval. Miisia, who is not caught up in the fight makes her way to the stone creature and then attempts to heal it of the evil infused within. This caused a chain reaction purging the elemental of it's evil taint. The temple then attempted to re-infused the elemental by drawing on the evil within Lord Bylarr, which Miisia purged as well and which also ended up killing Lord Bylarr.

The sentient elemental, now cleaned of the evil that was within is willing to grant Miisia a reward for her service. Here, instead of asking to be free of the healing "curse" as she had seen it, not realizes that her "gift" is what saved the day here, and throughout all of Taladas.

Back in the present, as Griffin starts to awaken, Tykel comments on the power of destiny while looking at Riva. The female knight wonders if the old healer knows about her secret mission on behalf of Paladine and if she might some day be as lucky or sure as Miisia.

The End.

Commentary

So here, after 34 issues, we come to the finale of the TSR/DC Dragonlance comics run, and what a mess it is. As much as I liked the first part of this story, this issue was such a let down.

The story here just seemed too contrived. The same place Marsval was heading to secure the gem's safety is the same place Lord Bylarr needs to go to unleash it's power. Along the way Miisia runs into some elves that quickly join up with them. Encounter the "manifestations of evil" was almost pointless. And speaking of pointless, Marsval literally doesn't do a single thing in this issue other than carry Miisia from point A to point B and make a speech about needing to try and stop Lord Bylarr, without actually knowing how they are going to do that. Oh, and in the final battle, Marsval runs into the fighting fray weaponless. Everyone else has a sword, or spear, but Marsval only has clenched fists.

On top of the mess of plot that is actually shown, there are a truckload of plot holes that can't be overlooked, including the most obvious--if Miisia healed Kyyy (the dying elf, and not a keyboard typo), why do the elves continue to take him to where he is to die? (because the story needed cannon fodder for the final battle) I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

The art doesn't fare much better. The "manifestations of evil" encountered along the way look silly, like something out of a child's drawing. Here would have been a good place to have a combat with shadows or any number of D&D creatures, rather than another scene of the party moving through the mountain. Likewise, the stone elemental, doesn't look like anything I've ever seen, and in fact both the evil and cleansed versions come off more like a superhero villain than any D&D creature.

Postscript

This would turn out to be the last original Dragonlance comic for some time. From what I had read, TSR ended it's license with DC with the plan to launch their own comic book division and continue many of the DC books, including the Forgotten Realms books and this one, in house. Internal issues at TSR lead to this idea being abandoned, which was a real shame for the FR books, which were far superior to the Dragonlance effort, which I feel never had a strong idea of what it wanted to be, and then never had a strong D&D fantasy-based writer like the FR book had in Jeff Grubb.

The Dragonlance comic was a great idea, but one that was never executed to it's full potential.

Popular posts from this blog

Character Sheet for New Players / Kid Players

-
Image
This sheet is great for a simple game where you've already decided to drop skills and feats out of the game (certainly doable in 5e). There is a small corner with a few helpful hints, but the white text on light purple background might be hard to read when printed. I was recently asked by a friend if I knew of any versions of the Character Sheet for D&D 5e geared toward kids. Seems he's teaching his children the game, and I applaud him for creating the next generation of D&D gamers. I've also been thinking of starting to teach my son, and maybe a few other kids the game, so I began looking around for alternate versions of the classic 5e Character Sheet that could be used with new players or kid players. I found a few that all seem to have some merit, so let me present my findings and you can decide for yourself. Some small, simplified sheets (not just for kids): The first is this nice simple sheet . The sheet has some color coding. It's a great she
Read more

A Different Keep on the Borderlands - Part 3

-
Image
After defeating the hobgoblins and draconian and securing their location (see part 2 for more details), the party took time to rest and heal from their wounds. With guards stationed on the roof, the night passed without incident. The early morning, however, was not as quiet. From the roof, the lookout could see several hobgoblins coming over to their tower, while a few others left the keep by way of the breach in the back wall. With the hobgoblins making their way over, inside the party made their preparations: * Hunter (the half-elven ranger) and Arterion (the elven mage) took secure positions on the roof with bow and arrow. * Meanwhile, Theodonis (the kender), Greybear (the druid), and Bergin (the minotaur cleric) took positions on the first floor, ready to strike should the tower door fall. From the roof, Hunter was able to kill one of the hobgoblins before they entered the tower. Once inside Theo, Bergin, and Greybear engaged the hobgoblins in melee combat. After a few minutes of
Read more

DM Tools: Graph Paper (The Right Tool for the Right Job)

-
Image
No other component of rpgs, from the earliest versions of Dungeons and Dragons to the latest Pathfinder or 13th Age releases, is more iconic or necessary to the game than The Map. The Map helps new and experienced DMs quickly describe a dungeon, lay out a town, or, in some cases, set up a temporal flowchart of actions and events. And the chief tool for setting any of these up is graph paper. Now graph paper is readily available in office supply stores and most retail stores. At 4 squares per inch, a single 8.5" x 11" sheet of typical graph paper yields 34 x 44 squares, which at 5ft per square (the de facto scale of modern maps) ends up being over 37,000 square feet of area to map. For most maps, this should be more than enough area, but what if you need something else? Maybe you want more area for a larger map, or to detail a major city, or what if you're like me, and you want extra area around the map to add all sorts of notes and legends? Then you might want to ch
Read more