DragonLance Saga DragonLance Saga

Join me as I unbox The Cataclysm edited by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Released on June 30, 1992 by TSR Inc. This is the second volume in the Dragonlance Tales II series. You can buy The Cataclysm here: https://amzn.to/3VY2iTL 









https://youtu.be/rqHC-fqZMmE









About The Cataclysm







A continent is sundered . . .







The Kingpriest's arrogance brings the wrath of the gods upon Krynn. The result is the Cataclysm -- chaos and anarchy, despair and villainy . . . and inspiring heroism.







Mark Anthony, Nancy Varian Berberick, Todd Fahnestock, Richard A. Knaak, Roger E. Moore, Douglas Niles, Nick O'Donohoe, Dan Parkinson, Paul B. Thompson and Tony R. Carter, and Michael and Teri Williams contribute untold stories to this indespensable collection. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman enhance this lineup with an original novella and verse dedicated to the accursed Lord Soth.

He was inadvertently a key to the Queen of Darkness' success in entering Krynn. Let's learn more about Berem Everman. Buy the War of the Lance sourcebook: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/3164/war-of-the-lance-3-5?affiliate_id=50797 









https://youtu.be/RiXQ6C1NYzQ









Transcript







Cold Open







His immortality is a curse from the Dark Queen herself.







Intro







Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about Berem Everman. I would like to take a moment and thank the DLSaga members, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. I am referencing the Annotated Chronicles, and the War of the Lance sourcebook for this information. If I leave anything out or misspeak, please leave a comment below!







Discussion







The tale of Berem Everman changes depending on if you just read the novels, or if you play the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragon modules. The backstory is the same, but at what points the heroes first meet him is certainly different. In the Chronicles, the innfellows first meet Berem Everman in Pax Tharkas, but in the modules it isn’t until they are within Thorbardin’s prison cells in DL4 Dragons of Desolation. He then doesn’t reappear until DL10 Dragons of Dreams, not entirely unlike the Chronicles. Even what he has to do with the conclusion of the modules differs from the Chronicles version, as there are multiple endings that may involve him more or less. Even reaching the foundation stone isn’t necessary to the conclusion of his tale. This is all to say, that your experience with this intriguing character may differ from others, and his story may end quite differently. But let’s not start at the end, let’s start at the beginning. 







Berem’s physical appearance changes rapidly depending on when you encounter him. He is perpetually a fifth level Ranger, also known as a hunter. He is a middle aged human man who appears to be mute and terrified of the Dragonarmies, which let’s be honest, makes him just as regular as every other citizen on Ansalon. He is known to have long dirty hair, and at times a large beard which covers his chest. And this is where Berem becomes someone of significance. Embedded in his chest is a mysterious dull gray stone the size of a fist. It cannot be removed, period. And when Berem is wounded, or dies, the gem begins to glow green before he regenerates back to full health, and continues his attempt to escape and evade anyone who would ever want to capture him.







Berem Everman is, in truth, nearly four hundred years old, but he spent the last fifty years prior to the Innfellows meeting him in Thorbardin under the imprisonment of the Daergar. While Berem may wish to be part of a group for safety or companionship, he is in fact hunted, and chooses anonymity and isolation whenever possible, trying to blend into the background of any society. This is because he is guarding two secrets. The first, is that he is in fact immortal. He cannot be killed, though he has died many times. Imagine what that will do to a person. You have spent nearly four hundred years running, hiding, being tortured and dying, only to have it happen all over again if you are once more captured. How could a human mind process that torment? The effects seem to be apparent in his mannerisms and behavior. 







The second secret Berem carries is the green gemstone embedded in his breast. The gem itself seems to be less interesting than the story behind it,

Join us as we continue our @Dungeons & Dragons liveplay of Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen with this part twenty-eight! You can buy Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen here: https://amzn.to/3V73n8C









https://youtube.com/live/1jWy9skEzsg









Time Stamps:









* 0:00 Intro







* 2:00 Chapter 7: Siege of Kalaman - Day of Dread







* 47:02 Chapter 7: Siege of Kalaman - Night of Terror







* 2:31:56 Break Begins







* 2:38:19 Chapter 7: Siege of Kalaman - Night of Terror Continues







* 3:51:21 Outro









Cast of Characters









* Bromly Savisty | Lvl 10 | Human | Cleric / Sorcerer / Divine Soul







* Aamela Panderson | Lvl 10 | Kender | Bard / Barbarian / College of Lore / Path of Wild Magic







* Arizyre the lowly | Lvl 10 | Human | Rogue / Arcane Trickster







* Arjan Ghaleson | Lvl 10 | Human | Fighter / Battlemaster







* Holgr | Lvl 10 | Gnome | Monk / Way of the Drunken Master









Game Setup







Last time on Shadow of the Dragon Queen: Returned from out of time, Arjan arrives to warn the heroes about Lord Soth assaulting the Alliance forces and turning them into undead to fight in his army. The heroes rallied and returned across the Northern Wastes to support them, and held off the Death Knights army. Then they returned to Kalaman by ship from Dread Wolf Cove. After weeks in the Northern wastes, it is finally behind them, but what they see as they enter Kalaman’s bay shocked them. The Red Dragonarmy has surrounded the city of Kalaman, leaving it in worse shape than when they left. As the heroes debrief Marshal Nestra Vendri, Lord Bakaris Uth Estide seems to be as difficult as ever. They estimate that they have a week before Lord Soth’s flying citadel reaches Kalaman, so the heroes have begun making plans of infiltration in order to bring it down.







About Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen







Enlist in the War of the Lance 







Takhisis the Dragon Queen has returned to the world of Krynn. Across the land, her armies of fanatical draconians wage a brutal war of conquest. As the Dragon Armies march on the unprepared nation of Solamnia, only the defenders of the city of Kalaman stand in their way. But the Dragon Armies want more than just to crush their foes. An ancient evil in the Dragon Queen’s service seeks a magical weapon that could dominate Krynn for all time. 







Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen is a tale of conflict and defiance set during the legendary War of the Lance.

Join me as I review The Reign of Istar by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Michael Williams, & Richard A. Knaak, live! Share your thoughts on this first volume in the Tales II Trilogy, released on March 17, 1992 by TSR Inc. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/4caFULS 









https://youtube.com/live/Xb2BQVl153g









About The Reign of Istar







Before the Cataclysm . . .







A kender becomes a Solamnic Knight (almost).







An ogre emerges as an unlikely savior of the dwarven race.







And gladiators compete in the bloodsport of Istar.







Together with a novella by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, these and more short stories, penned by Richard A. Knaak, Michael Williams, and others of the original Dragonlance Saga creative team -- tell wondrous tales of Krynn in the legendary time of the Kingpriest.







Review







Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Misham, Holmswelth the 13th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of The Reign of Istar by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Michael Williams, & Richard A. Knaak. I would like to take a moment and thank the DLSaga members, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. This year is the 40th Anniversary of Dragonlance, so join in on the celebration by submitting a video, piece of art or writing about Dragonlance to info@dlsaga.com. It will be added to the dlsaga.com/40th-anniversary celebration landing with all other contributors! This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.







Six Songs for the Temple of Istar by Michael Williams







This short poem is supposed to have been the only record of the great Silvanesti Bard Astralas writing about visions of impending doom from Istar, but what it’s really about is a bard being summoned by the Thon Thalas on a ship which leads him to Istar and proposed a warning to Istar. It’s a poem that uses style over substance, which arguably is what all poetry is, but does not project any actual doom, just the promise of a lesson to be learned.







Colors of Belief by Richard A. Knaak







This was a great short story! It starts with a Knight of Solamnia visiting Istar for the first time, and getting a first hand dose of just how corrupt it has become. He meets an old bartender friend who leaves when he mentions Paladine, then an inquisitor named Brother Gaurim passive aggressively mocks him, and stages an intervention to arrest him. The Knight came upon two men who ended up being guards beating a defenseless man. The knight stepped in and was arrested after defeating them, then immediately sentenced to the arena.







The knight refused to fight, so the ‘cleric’ Gaurim had an innocent half-elf murdered. Rather than let innocents die for him, he agreed to fight, and his opponent said he would get him out of the arena as they were fighting the next day. The elf cut himself, then healed it, proving he was a cleric, so the knight trusted him. They fought and the knight was killed, then resurrected outside Istar. The elf turned out to be an acolyte of Sargonnas and was trying to maintain balance in Istar in his own way. This story did a great way of subverting expectations and showcasing how truly evil Istar had become near the end. 







Kender Stew by Nick O’Donohoe

The One God with Mina as her prophet conquered Krynn, until her identity was revealed. Let’s learn more about the War of Souls. Buy the Age of Mortals sourcebook: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/557/age-of-mortals-3-5?affiliate_id=50797 









https://youtu.be/xUjr9EUu00Q









Transcript







Cold Open







The One God would bring hope and then despair to Krynn.







Intro







Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about The War of Souls. I would like to take a moment and thank the DLSaga members, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. I am referencing the War of Souls trilogy, the Dragonlance Campaign Setting and Age of Mortals sourcebooks for this information. If I leave anything out or misspeak, please leave a comment below!







Discussion







The backstory to the War of Souls is convoluted at best, as the Fifth Age was created by TSR in order to revitalize a dying IP in Dragonlance. At the time they asked Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman to write a story about the loss of Magic through the Chaos War, and then summarily kicked them back out of the project after Dragons of Summer Flame. When the Fifth Age was released and began floundering, Wizards of the Coast, the new owners of Dungeons & Dragons called back Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman to correct course and they completely ignored all of the story beats that the Fifth Age team were working on and brought it back to their own wheelhouse. You see, in the original Fifth Age creators' plans, Mina had a different trajectory and the gods were truly gone, but the original Dragonlance authors decided to bring back the gods… eventually. And it was all through a reimagining of the end of the Chaos War, a reframing of the Fifth Age and the reintroduction of the old gods… again. What’s that proverb? Everything old is new again. 







So while Mina was first introduced as a poor child and lone survivor who was caught in a storm and washed up on the shore of Shallsea, a fisherman brought her to the Citadel of Light. She quickly became the surrogate child of Goldmoon who would regale the child with stories of the old gods, and how she and her friends brought them back to the world. This last story beat would be picked up by the authors, and reframed. Now, to get the newly reimagined version, Mina would be a god of light who was born in the Age of Starbirth. Paladine, Mishakal and Majere knew this would upset the balance, so Paladine appealed to Majere to hide her away. Majere took the fledgeling god and put her into a deep slumber underneath the ocean. 







Cut to the end of the Age of Despair and the Chaos War. While the original ending was Paladine telling Palin Majere that the gods had to abandon Krynn, and with them magic would fade. This was the beginning of the Age of Mortals, and if there was magic to be discovered, they would have to find it themselves. The reimagined version was that when Chaos was threatening to destroy Krynn, Takhisis decided to make the biggest gamble she had ever considered. In the chaos of the conflict, pun intended, Takhisis stole the world away the moment Chaos or Ionthas was defeated. She posed as Paladine to Palin, saying the same thing, and then, weakened from stealing the world away from Chaos and her fellow gods, she retreated to the depths of the Abyss to regain her energy.







She maintained a small shadow of herself in the form of a reimagined Shadow Sorcerer,

The Dragon Isles are made up of eight individual self-sustaining islands, if you could only locate them. Buy the Tales of the Lance boxed Set: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/16961/tales-of-the-lance-2e?affiliate_id=50797 









https://youtu.be/o0fcB-WFEVY









Transcript







Cold Open







You should count yourself lucky if you can even locate them.







Intro







Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about the Dragon Isles in the War of the Lance Era. I would like to take a moment and thank the DLSaga members, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. I am referencing The Atlas of the Dragonlance World, Tales of the Lance Boxed Set, and the War of the Lance sourcebook for this information. If I leave anything out or misspeak, please leave a comment below!







Discussion







The Dragon Isles are shrouded in mystery in this War of the Lance Era. There are sailors who claim to know exactly where they are located, and the individual islands that make up the Dragon Isles, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone who could actually deliver you to their shores. The name itself is also a bit of a misnomer, as only one of the islands is solely populated by Dragons. These eight islands are located approximately eighty miles north of the Cape of Nordmaar. The islands are individually named, from southwest to northeast as Tayol, Winged Majesty, Berann, Heart, Jaentarth, Misty Isle, Mind and Alarl. 







Indeed even the creation and geological structure of the islands are unknown. Some believe they were created through prehistoric volcanic activity, being composed of shafts and shards of pumice and obsidian. But just as many so-called experts insist they contain various outcroppings of limestone and sandstone, which points to more sedimentary origins. This could be a result of the Cataclysm helping shape some of the isles or simply one more unsolvable mystery surrounding these mysterious isles. Each island averages about ten miles in diameter, each also contains every terrain from lush plains to high mountains. Each island is a beautiful and idyllic world unto itself. 







As previously mentioned, locating these isles is near impossible. A captain may see the island out to sea, only to still be closing in on it by nightfall. Even the shape and size is said to change upon observation. Some sailors who have tried to find them will swear that they are in fact low lying clouds, and not islands at all. Others protest that they are nothing more than phantasmal visions not unlike mirages in the desert. In truth they are surrounded by a magical veil which shields them from view. Those few who would know the truth, claim that these islands are home to gold, bronze, and copper dragons in addition to huldrefolk, kyrie, Irda and shadowpeople. Only a true dragon can sense the call of the Dragon Isles and intentionally discover them.







As the Dragon Isles lay within the tropical equator of Krynn, they stay warm year round. The extreme hot season lasts from Rannmont to H’rarmont, with a scant two months for a warm season. During the long summers, the air is steamy and the skies a fierce blue. The waves lap gently upon the pristine white sands of the isles. This seemingly ideal climate is disrupted by monthly storms which unleash torrential rain and furious waves in the sea. The storms may last for days, tormenting the shores. These storms help feed the vegetation of the islands,