Dragonlance D&D Game Blog

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 elv...

On Death of Pain This issue begins what would be the last TSR/DC Dragonlance arc. For the final 2 issues we have a new team, with writer Paul Kupperberg (brother of Alan Kupperberg who provided art for issues 29 ) and artist Grant Miehm. The story starts off with Riva and friends--we're back to the "Riva on Taladas" setting that had be the basis for about the last year's worth of stories, not counting issues 30-32--looking for shelter after a run-in with a minotaur patrol from the League of Minotaurs. Their companion, Griffin, is greatly hurt, and Riva sets off by herself to find help. In a nearby village, covered in the aftermath of a minotaur attack (seemingly separate from the attack that wounded Griffin). Riva comes across an old woman named Tykel who is a priestess of the cult of Mislaxa (the name for Mishakal the goddess of healing on Taladas) and who is willing to help her and her friends. After starting to tend to Griffin, Tykel begins to tell the stor...

This story begins a few moments after the last issue . Lord Silvercrown has just claimed the Sword of the Kinslayer for his own, as the evil force from within the cave emerges, and is revealed to be a white dragon. As the dragon lays waste to Lord Silvercrown's men, the dragon is also silently communicating with Lord Silvercrown, instructing him to kill his son, Maric. Riva struggles with her father as Maric makes his escape. The dragon then instructs Lord Silvercrown to slay his daughter. Riva runs away, her father close on her heals. While on the run, she falls down a snow covered shaft and finds herself in one of the mountains caves. Here she stumbles across Theolin who reveals a terrible find, deep in the cave are dozens of dragon eggs. Theolin reveals a magical device, a Horn of Blasting, that he will use to bring the mountain down upon all the hatchlings. At first Riva dismisses the idea, claiming that creatures aren't born evil, and that it could be a glorious si...

This story begins a few days after the last issue . Once again, we start with a nice little paragraph from Astinus recapping previous events and setting the stage for this issue. The wolf-clan dwarves are disposing the bodies of the dead neidar (hill dwarves) in a ritual fashion. Wolfthane stops the clan shaman's ritual short, not caring about his "mumbo-jumbo" and fearing the shaman's horn might cause an avalanche. Meanwhile, the surviving neidar, including Theolin are camped nearby, huddled around a small campfire and saddened that they must wait for another day to honor their dead. Elsewhere Riva tells Stonehelm a story from her childhood. One day as a little girl, playing in the courtyard of Castle Silvercrown, Riva came upon a clutch of eggs. As she reached out to touch one, the mother goose, trying to protect her children, let loose a wild attack upon the little girl. She cowered in fear until her father chased away the goose and pulled Riva to him. She ...

After last month's slight departure to the realm of Spelljammer, we return to the regular ongoing Dragonlance comic. This issue finds us back in time, just after the War of the Lance, when Riva was still on Ansalon and not yet a knight of Solamnia. The story opens with a splash page and text (from Astinus , no less) that sets the time frame for the story. This is a pretty good idea since for the last 8 issues (since issue 22 ), we've been following her adventures in Taladas several years after the War of the Lance. The story opens in northern Solamnia, during winter. A group of neidar (aka hill dwarves) are in route to Castle Silvercrown with a cache of weapons that they will sell to feed the village for the winter. Along with the neidar is Andvari Stonehelm, a hylar (mountain dwarf) mercenary they've hired as their peaceful community finds itself under assault by unknown forces that always strike under cover of night. On the trail, springing out of hiding are a barb...

Exile on Taladas We take a slight break from the regular Dragonlance comic reviews to take a look at this interesting little gem I recently uncovered. While I was an avid reader of the Dragonlance comics, I also dabbled in some of the other TSR/DC comics of the day. I read the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons comic for at least the first year, and the Forgotten Realms comic through it's entire run. Some of the other titles, like Spelljammer and Gammarauders, I only read a handful of issues before moving on. So I was very surprised recently when I learned that this issue guest-starred Riva Silvercrown, the only ongoing character in the Dragonlance book. If you're not familiar with the Spelljammer setting and concepts, check out the wikipediia page for some reference information. The story starts off with a spelljamming ship crash landing on the Krynn continent of Taladas. Riva and Ktarrh see the burning ship from the skies and investigate. On the ground, a lone human...

A Sort of Homecoming This issue starts off with Riva and her friends still on board the ship of Captain Antara. They are (once again) in the middle of a shard storm and trying to get into a harbor cave, but the magic password Captain Antara knew no longer seems to work. To avoid slamming into the heavy doors at the mouth of the cave, the tiger elves Sulia and Maraghiz work their magic to pry the door open. Once inside they are meet by the local council, including Aris (whom Antara seems to know), and Krey, a mage recently appointed to the council. We quickly see that Krey is a brash youth rigidly following his people's traditions. Just then, from outside the cave (and just as the raging storm has passed), the local harvest fields are besieged by a swarm of horax (huge bug-like creatures). Riva and her friends spring into action along side other glass folk in an attempt to keep the horax from destroying their food supply. During the fight, Krey unleashes a fire spell that ...

Eron's Keep It's been a while since my last comic review, so you might want to take a moment and read the synopsis for part one of this arc before continuing. This issue opens with a cleric, Bishop Trandemere, talking with his god, Hith about a silver dragon hatching ground, and the hope that they can get to the eggs before Erestem or Paladine. Meanwhile, Riva awakens in a cave, having a nightmare about the recent storm (see last issue ) and finds that everyone is safe and accounted for, including her dragon. Ktarrh tells Riva that he was summoned to this location, the silver dragon hatching ground, to convince his brethren to hide their eggs in more than one location for the safety of the silver dragon species. Riva then asks the same question I had been wondering, how they survived the shardstorm (again, last issue). Ktarrh mentions that they were brought here by Eron, someone Ktarrh wants her to meet. Elsewhere the rest of the crew works on repairing the ship while Griffin ...

The Gathering As the little narrator box let's us know in the first panel of the first page, the group is in hills near the glass seas. While everyone else sleeps, Riva's dragon, Ktarrah, keeps watch over the group. It seems Riva is having another nightmare (her last one was all the way back in issue 3 ), this one about Ktarrah being attacked by a bunch of different dragons. She wakes up and runs out of her tent to see the dragon screeching and flying away into the night. The next day the party books passage on Glass Sea boat (the Glass Sea looks like a frozen river, or one made of crystal and the boat is equiped with blades to ride on top). Just before they leave port, Skrum sees a minotaur crewmember and immediately draws a weapon thinking it's a member of League of Minotaurs. Before any fighting starts, Maraghiz tells everyone to stand down; that he senses no evil from the minotaur, and Mezamere the gnome calms down his minotaur friend. One that's sorted out the ship...

Death in the Burning Sea This issue starts off with each of the party members riding a different dragon, while Riva and Maraghiz lament about how they should have foreseen Erestem's influence on Skrum through the ring. They then arrive at a location near a lava flow where Skrum commands the dragons to drop off the party members off in a nearby valley. Once Skrum dismounts, all the dragons fly away. He tells everyone that he has brought them here to meet the goddess. Rising up from the pool, a gigantic lava-form of Erestem appears. She taunts Riva about their previous meeting (in issue #3 ). Meanwhile, Sulai casts an ice storm spell on Erestem. Skurm laughs at the elf mage's attempt, saying that "a little hail won't extinguish Erestem's flame!" What Skurm didn't realize was that Sulai's real intention of the spell was not to harm the goddess, but to use the mixture of flame and ice to create enough steam for the party to escape unseen. Under cover of th...

Ring of Evil This issue starts out with General Axantheas holding a meeting. Around the table are humanoids of different races and genders (including a traag draconian and a hobgoblin). Behind the general is a statue of Erestem (aka Takhisis). The mintour proclaims this small group to be the greatest champions of evil on Taladas, each representing one of the Erestem's five heads. There is infighting within the group, and Axantheas even kills one of the other "heads", believing him to be a spy for the rival nation of Thenol. Elsewhere, Riva starts the morning in prayer to Paladine. Afterward the rest of the party convince her that the best way to stop the general and Esterem, is to reveal their plot to the emperor of the League of Minotaurs. Later they unleash an attack on the emperor's entourage in an attempt to get a private audience with the leader. After fighting the emperor's minions, he steps out of his carriage in full battle gear. As he listens to the party...

Winging it! This issue starts off with Riva, Griffin, and Skrum arriving as prisoners in Kristophan, the capital city of the League of Minotaurs. On the outskirts of the city, Tyche, one of the minotaur soldiers loyal to the traitorous General Axantheas, kills a human soldier to frame the prisoners who Tyche intends to kill as "they were trying to escape". Riva reaches for the dead solders polearm and uses it to knock Tyche to the ground and allowing them to make a real escape. As they run down streets and through buildings, Skrum reveals that he still has the real dragonring, and what he had previously handed over to the soldiers was an old bracelet he had. Skrum uses the ring to summon a dragon. Unknown to Skrum, a red dragon appears attacking the chasing soldiers and allowing the three to escape. At first Riva hesitates, not wanting to ally herself with such an evil creature until league soldiers are right on her. As soon as the dragon takes flight, Riva forces Skrum to la...

Landfall The issue starts with Riva and Fizban on a boat out in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of a storm. It seems Riva is on this boat as part of a mission from the knighthood for her to prove her obedience to the order. Fizban also has a mission for Riva, instructing her to bring her love of goodness, justice, and mercy to the continent of Taladas, a continent of Krynn that hasn't known those virtues for centuries. Before her boat crashes into the rocky shoreline, Fizban teleports the warrior and her magical dragonlance onto the dry plains of this new land. Nearby, Riva sees two people on horseback (a man and gnome) being chased by a huge group of warriors. The two are so desperate to evade the chasing legion, they push their horses to leap over a huge chasm. On the other side of the chasm, they are confronted by a one-handed minotaur named Axantheas riding atop a blue dragon. The minotaur focuses on trying to kill Griffin, the human warrior, while Skrum rides his horse...

This issue contains two stories, one featuring Myrella and the other with Riva Silvercrown. Sadly, the two tales are separate, so Riva and Myrella never actually meet. The Sorceress' Apprentice This short tale is any early adventure of Myrella before her first appearance in issue 5 . The would-be mage is in a forest with another mage, Jenque, planning to assault the nearby castle of Borgys, who is also a mage. It seems that Borgys is in possession of the staff of Ethys, and plans to use the magic item to raise an army of undead and conquer the local province. Jenque can't enter the castle as the old mage has cast a protection spell around his stronghold. Jenque asks Myrella to sneak in and destroy the amulet Borgys wears. The amulet is a component of the protection spell that keeps her at bay. Myrella is at first nervous, but knows she needs to prove herself if she wants Jenque to accept her as an apprentice. With only a few basic spells, Myrella enters the castle. Coming acro...

A Winter's Knight This issue starts off with Riva, Darial, and Shaya meeting with Palin Majere at the Castle of the Dawn. She delivers the secret to the draconians undoing (as revealed last issue ), which turns out to be a magic scroll created by Takhisis. It was created in case the draconians became too power to keep under control. Palin casts the spell, which summons all draconians within a 200 mile area to travel to this location. The closer they get, the weaker they get, making them easy to defeat. This should effectively end their control on the area. Afterward, Riva talks about another great victory that happened here, Wistan Dawnbringer's final battle with the black robed wizard Ravenna... Wistan's tale picks up with him and two knights, Collum and Hagen, heading toward Ravenna's base over snow covered lands. Along the way they are confronted by a group of thanoi (commonly called walrus men). While the thanoi are usually in the coldest climates, the three year wi...

Season of the Witch This issue starts with Riva and companions reaching her destination. This turns out to be an empty mesa, but Riva doesn't seem bothered with this. Instead she uses the time to continue telling more tales of Wistan Dawnbringer. Wistan's tale picks up three years after his adventure in the Silvanesti lands . During that time, lands important to the Knights of Solomnia have been plunged into an eternal winter. The knights recently learned that this was the work of the black-robed wizard Ravenna and now march on her lair. As they approach a particularly steep hill, Alben, Lord Sigmun's son, goes on foot to scout ahead. Just over the rise, the young knight is attacked engulfed in the freezing breath of a white dragon. The other knights quickly attack and drive away the dragon, but it's too late to save the young knight. Meanwhile as they gather fire wood, Shaya and Riva talk about the pain Lord Sigmun must have felt over sending his own son to his death. ...

Mission of Mercy This issue opens up with Darial and Shaya riding a cart into town when they are stopped by a group of draconian guards. The guards are wondering why they are arriving into town so late at night. Darial makes up a story that Shaya is sick and needs a healer. The draconains, finished tormenting the travelers, sends them on their way. A little while later, in the house of the town healer, Riva receives a foul smelling potion. In moments, the poison is purged from her body and the knight is up and about. The healer warns that Riva still needs time to heal and takes the three of them through a secret passage into a room, hidden from draconian guards. While sharing a feast, Darial asks how Riva became a night. There's a one page montage of moments from the first arc of the comic: Lord Soth, Riva fighting Takhisis, fighting with Kitiara, Riva in an embrace with Vandar, and kneeing in front of Vandar's body. Rather than tell her story, she continues talking about Winst...