Join me as I review Rebels and Tyrants edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman live! Share your thoughts on this final Tales of the Fifth Age anthology, released by Wizards of the Coast on April 1, 2000. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/4ryRLMz
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Kirinor, Darkember the 26th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of Rebels and Tyrants edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. I would like to take a moment and thank the DLSaga members and Patreon patrons, and invite you to consider becoming a member or patron. You can even pick up Dragonlance media using my affiliate links. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
This is a tale about a Solamnic Knight racing to free his beloved from the grip of a Green Dragon. He keeps flashing to her face and memory as he charges toward the dragon. The encounter is brief, and the knight plunges his sword into the dragon’s heart as the dragon closes its mouth around him. He mutters the Oath and hears his wife tell him that she loves Ulrick, the knights. It’s a quick story, gets right to the point, but it offers nothing other than the faith this knight has on facing seemingly insurmountable odds for honor. I am left feeling nothing about him, the woman the dragon had, or the dragon.
This is the story of Lord Vifrad, a Knight of Takhisis who is summoned to Lord Livskil’s audience in Qualinesti. Apparently some elves who were to hand over their treasures fled the forest./ Vifrad was assigned to find them and bring them and their wares back. He left, and found the elves fleeing with mercenaries who turned on them. The knights fought off the mercenaries and chained the qualinesti to their oars. They began to return when another ship started pelting them with Gnomish Fire, basically greek oil I believe. They were forced to surrender to this ship, and it ended up being the lioness, who now is qualinesti not kagonesti I guess. She took the elves and rewarded the knights with their lives for saving the elves. Then she gave a flag with a lion on it and the words freedom’s pride beneath, wrapped around a cannon ball. I assume this story is connected to another story I have yet to read. For when Vitrad returns it to his Lord Livskil and reiterated what happened, he is assigned to hunt down and capture the lioness. It was an okay story, I wish there was more character to the characters. They all felt like cutouts of bad guys rather than individuals.
This was a fun story about clan Trenak, minotaurs who on Sargas’ Night, ended up betraying one another and killing each other. Sargas was so upset by their actions and dishonor, he cursed them to repeat the act every year on Sargas’ Night. They were tormented for a thousand years, until the chaos war, and one night Sargas didn’t return. They slowly learned that he wouldn’t return and were led by the grandson Vras in recognizing why they all turned against one another, his mother killed his father for having an affair, and that made fighting inevitable. They all realised they didn’t have to repeat this act, and began enjoying themselves, learning to accept that which they cannot control, and broke the cycle of violence. It was a fun story, and boy are they going to get a surprise when Takhisis starts commanding the dead, and Sargas eventually returns!
This is an interesting story about two thieves who begin the story by killing a mountain dwarf and robbing him. They return to an inn to split the goods, and one of them, Risha, is wearing a bracelet from their robbery. The other Grako begins to distribute the loot but Risha seems disinterested, acting very strange. Then he leaves and Grakop decides to test him, thinking he is going to try to kill him and take it all. But Risha really is disinterested and this change in behavior is worrying Grako. Then the next morning Risha is gone, and Grakjo goes after him, certain he is being swindled somehow. He finds Risha talking to an old wizard, and Grako demands to hold the bracelet, Risha refuses and a struggle ends in Risha’s death. Grako dons the bracelet and its power begins to work, making him whole. Meaning, a whole thoughtful and respectable person. He planned on killing the mage, but instead thinks he will let him go. This is interesting to me because we never really discuss what makes a thief or murderer a thief or murderer. It’s really because there is something broken in them, something that they either never had or lost, a semblance of humanity. This bracelet restores that, and it’s a crazy interesting item to consider dro[[ping into a campaign and seeing it play out.
This was a story about glory, and the seeking of it even when you are past your prime. Sir Dammerman is a Solamnic Knight who teaches the younger generations. The young knights grow restless and ask about glory and riches. The knights end up sharing some loot acquired in battle against ogres. Dammerman sees a chest and instantly, as if in a dream only he experiences, a stick man appears offering him glory in battle against Abraxis, a renown Dark Knight warrior. At first he refuses, then through cajoling, he relents and says that he is interested. He is shown an hourglass with sand the color of the Abyss. He is presented with a bargain, the chance to find glory against Abraxis before the sand drains. He accepts the bargain and wins in battles, making him seem a true hero with endless energy and strength. His knights cheer his anime and he has glory. Finally it comes time to face off against Abraxas and he is defeated. Stick man appears and tells him that he tricked him into taking his soul, and he will fight in the abyss for eternity never knowing rest now. He will also offer it to his son, as he has offered it to many knights before Dammerman. As he was dying in defeat he tells his son not to make bargains for glory, and dies. It’s a long winded story that I enjoyed, though I wish they would have named the Stick Man. It addresses our innate capacity vs our desires, and in fantasy there is always a price to be paid if we are to exceed our ability.
This was a silly story about a human named Klaus who was piloting a gnomish flying machine toward Sancrist when he crashed. He was saved by gnomes who brought him to Mount Nevermind, and introduced him to famous gnome inventors. THey explained the machine was a bee juice extractor not a flying machine and they were perplexed on how a human could have repaired a crashed Bee Juice extractor in Solamnia. Pyrothraxus heard through the grape vine that a Solamnic was in Mount Nevermind and insisted it must be aspy, and that the gnomes should turn him over. They decided to make improvements to the bee juice extractor and fly Klous home instead. Pyrothraxus left the mountain and started chasing them when the gnomes decided to dump the honey to increase their speed. It fell into Pyrothraxus’ mouth and when he breathed fire, it exploded in his face, sending them crashing into Solamnia, where they found another human inventor who said he may be able to fix the fBee Juice Extractor when a fully bandaged up Klous came in insisting he should not repair the ship, clearly traumatized both physically and emotionally by the experience. And that was it. It was the best case of a gnome story, short, silly, and done.
What!? This story was crazy. So two gully dwarves, Glug and Blurd are in a deep deep dark dark place when they hear singing and commotion. They investigate to see dwarves mining and talking about unionizing. They decide the dwarves are looking for treasure and they think they can lead the dwarves, but they don’t want to be seen in case they are mean. So they use their stick which makes them invisible, but it doesn’t, and they start helping the men by throwing gems at them. The dwarves see the Aghar but don’t want to engage with them, so they pretend they can’t see them, only pick up the ems. Then one time the Aghar directs them to the treasures cave, and the dwarves all go to it, only to be consumed by a stone dragon or sorts. The Aghar thank their pet treasure for getting rid of the dwarves. That was the story, the gully dwarves were working with the dragon to lure the dwarves to their deaths, it made a whole new view of the symbiotic nature of gully dwarves with the denizens of the deep, and recontextualized the whole story from the beginning. It was a lot of fun.
What an unexpected story. This begins with a pair of kobolds who are fishing. They say that they took the magic fishing pole from some gully dwarves they killed, consuming one of them. Then three bugbears came upon them, and killed some of them, but the bugbears also wanted to fish. Next came an ettin who attacked the bugbears and killed them, then began fishing as well. Finally a brown spider climbed onto the ettin and bit it, poisoning the ettin, which died and sank beneath the river. The fishing pole floated down stream, then turned around and came back upstream. The whole story is about one creature consuming another all the while each were the catch of the pole’s itself. It’s a very odd, quick little tale that subverted all expectations.
What a beautiful story. Usha Majere is needing someone to escort a homely woman named Eline to a to-be husband in Haven. A handful of elves and a mage named Maddoc accepted the task. Usha gave Maddoc a charm to give to the husband. Maddoc looked at this homely girl and reflected how ugly she was, she should feel lucky to have any husband. As they began to travel, they were set upon by brigands. The elves and brigands were all killed, and Maddoc was swept away by the White Rush river. He was awakened by Eline, and they realised they were safe, they began preparing to continue the trip to Haven, when they saw a Qualinesty man and woman enter a boat with their baby, and arrows reach them from the shore. THey were fleeing for their lives, but went under the water. Maddoc and Eline ran to the river as the mother tried to pass off her baby. Before they could get to it, they were swept away, and so they hid from the archers on the other shore. They eventually left and Eline was sobbing as if the baby were her own. It was relayed that Eline was marrying the old man so he would fund her fathers efforts at saving others from the Dragon overlords and Dark Knights. Then Maddoc looked at the necklace and was overcome by love for this homely girl because he finally saw her inner beauty. They made love that night, and the next morning Eline was distant and demanded Maddoc take her to Haven. He didn’t want to, he wanted her, but she insisted it was the only way to help others, which is all she cared about. While this made Maddoc love her more, he relented and delivered Eline. He left and began returning to Usha in Solace. It was such a beautiful story that is so similar to a ton of 80’s films I watched as a kid. In the end Maddoc was the lost cause, not the girl, for he only saw outward beauty until Eline.
This was a touching story about two brothers, Elium and Oleth, who were out hunting and chased by a Taylor. Once the creature passed them, they raced back home to find their family gone. They asked the neighbors and a slave came and took many of the villagers. The brothers chased down the wagon and attacked the hunchback wagon driver, let out their family and neighbors, but their father was dead. Many of the family members were hurt. The older brother nearly killed the hunchback wagon driver but Oleth talked him down from it. They left, only to have the hunchback catch up and attack them, revealing himself as a Dragonspawn of Onysablet. He killed Elium, the older brother, and Oleth wrestled the spawn, throwing him off the wagon over a bridge and it smashed on the rocks below. Then he collected his brother’s body and set it on the seat next to him. It is just a brutal tale of two brothers trying to do right in a cruel dystopian world. I enjoyed it.
This is set 5 years after the Chaos War. The dwarves who now call themselves the twice born, after having forgotten all of the dead in Thorbardin, are reclaiming the kingdom, and cleaning it up. However there are still random shadow wights roaming its halls. There is also a rumor that if you capture a shadow wight, it can tell you about the dead, those who were wiped from memory. We start with Morovik and Shard, two dwarves who have found each other, as they repopulated the kingdom and have started connecting on a romantic level. Shard however is obsessed with her past, as she cannot recall any of it. In fact, only the etchings of buildings are left to tell of who was lost in the war. She believes she is of the ironsmelt clan, but has no proof, as that entire clan has been wiped from memory. Then she overhears of a shadow wight in deep tunnels from a bartender friend, and plans to go find and trap it so she can learn who she is. Morovik is trying to talk her out of it due to its inherent danger and wants to leave Thorbardin with her and start a whole new life as Morovik and Shard. But she cannot move past her, well past. She leaves and he goes with her as he loves her and wants to protect her. They find the shadow wight and discover that there are two! They engage in battle, and she accidentally kills the one she is fighting. Then Morovik is wounded and close to dying from a wound. She tells the shadow wight she will kill it if it doesn’t tell her who she is. It says that it can tell her, if she watched her lover die. All she has to do is nothing, and she will know her past. But that is more than she can do. Content, finally, with who she is rather than who she was, she kills the shadow wight, and saves Morovik’s life. It’s a beautiful story about love conquering all. And the notion that your past is less important than who you are now, and where you move into the future. It again, reminds me of the film the Iron Giant and that wonderful phrase, you are who you choose to be.
This was an interesting story about the evolution of Ogres in the Fifth Age. The Knights of Solamnia under Rose Night Lord Cornwell decided to train the ogres to defend against the Knights of Takhisis, a sort of ‘enemy of my enemy is my friend’ situation. The ogres are led by their Chieftain Geyver, a half elf, half ogre. The Solamnics don’t trust the ogres but they continue to struggle to train them. Then it is noted that Dark Knights are in the area, the chieftain leads the knights to them, and they defeat them in battle, but one knight flees and they have to stop him, lest he tell others that the Knights of Solamnia are training ogres. This must be kept secret. When they give chase and catch him, the Dark Knight relays that they fight without honor and have killed their men, this leads Cornwell to realise Geyver has been double dealing and killing without the honor they were trained. Then the Dark Knight’s main force surrounds them as they try to flee. Suddenly, ogres hidden in the mountains above trigger massive rock slides defeating many of the Dark Knights, and they mop up the rest.Geyver tells the Knights that they have learned all they can from the Knights, but ogre tactics clearly win out against the Dark Knights. He lets them leave with their lives. This is a great story about the necessity of breaking conventions to live in the troubled fifth age of Krynn, and the lengths organizations will go to defeat their enemies.
This final story is one I have read and reviewed on this channel before. Ulin Majere is frustrated at his progress in learning and mastering magic. In fact, all magic has begun to fail, even the wild sorcery. But this is affecting everyone, even the Dragon Overlords. Ulin is interested in a sorceress Lucy who thinks she will leave the Academy of Sorcery to go teach elsewhere, when word comes of an impending attack on Solace. Most of the town gathers together as they create a militia to confront the Dark Knight and Dragon Overlord forces coming from Qualinesti. Berylinthranox is slowly losing her magic and has set up this diversion so that she can have her forces assault the Academy to steal its magical artifacts. Ulin has created what he calls Thunder Powder, it’s just black powder, and when they learn of the coming forces, they build aton of it, setting it up to explode if the dragon’s forces reach the artifact room. As the forces invade, Ulin and Lucy try to ignite the powder to no avail, and flee before being captured. Simultaneously, the militia learns of the feint and Palin flees to the Academy. Then the draconian forces break open the door and it ignites the powder completely destroying the Academy in jets of flame. As the dragons flee wounded, they see Palin standing in shock at his beloved academy in ruins and capture him, bringing him to Beryl. This leaves Ulin scarred and swears of ever using the Thunder powder again. This was fun to revisit and reflect on how Palin was caught and how the Academy was destroyed, as this assets up the War of Souls wonderfully.
Look, the collection wasn’t the best, but it had some entertaining stories, and it just reinforces my love of reading rather than listening to these stories. The narrators do their best but frankly, it’s never as good as it sounds in my own head. If you are a Dragonlance fan, definitely tread the collection. If you want a bit of a prequel of the War of Souls, it would also be worth a read. But if you are just a casual fan, I think you could skip this collection without missing out.
And that’s it for my review of Rebels and Tyrants edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. What did you think of the anthology? Did you connect with any of these stories? And finally, would you ever play a one shot facing off against the Shadow Wights? Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or leave a comment below.
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This channel is all about celebrating the wonderful world of the Dragonlance Saga, and I hope you will join me in the celebration. Thank you for watching, this has been Adam with DragonLance Saga and until next time Slàinte mhath (slan-ge-var).
