Join me as I review Betrayal by Jean Rabe live! Share your thoughts on this second novel in The Dhamon Saga, released by Wizards of the Coast on April 1, 2002. You can pick up a copy here: https://amzn.to/3S8KGFe
About Betrayal
How much is an act of betrayal worth?
Worth the price of a soul?
Dhamon Grimwulf and his band of mercenaries greedily eye a long-forgotten treasure concealed beneath a grassy plain. Legends promise riches too numerous to count, wealth too grand to be believed. But in a shifting world of secrets and deception, such fortune comes at a high price, higher even than the searing agony Dhamon suffers under the curse of a dragon’s scale.
High enough to cost Dhamon his life.
The paperback version of the sequel to Downfall, the first book of the Dhamon Saga. Betrayal continues the adventures of characters featured in the USA Today bestselling Dragons of a New Age trilogy.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Bakukal, Holmswelth the 19th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of Betrayal by Jean Rabe. 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 or get $10 by signing up to StartPlaying.Games 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.
Review
The story opens with the young Girl who is working with Sable. Her name is Nura Bint-Drax, and I believe she is a Spawn, but it’s not confirmed yet. She is telling Sable that she believes Dhaman is the one, whatever that means, and that she will continue testing him until he dies, or is confirmed as being the one. I do wonder what that is supposed to imply, and what Sable’s machinations are, as we haven’t heard anything about her other than having a zoo of odd creatures. Then we pick up with Fiona and Rig as they are actively cursing Dhaman. Apparently they abandoned him and Maldred at the end of the last novel and have been wandering, looking for her brother ever since. While it hasn’t been too long, they are hungry and clearly in a dangerous part of the swamp. THey come across some draconians in a cave and do a bit of blind fighting. I am always pleased when this happens and it feels realistic, meaning, having no idea where creatures are or where to swing your sword. I have tried to emulate this in a TTRPG, but it never works out right.
Then we find Dhaman and Maldred in a brothel with five women ready to please them, but they insist on waiting until nightfall for some insane reason. If I can impart any wisdom here. Between consenting adults, never let embarrassment or shame get in the way of a good time. Everyone has parts of themselves they are not happy with but if someone is consenting to be with you, they clearly don’t care as much as you do. Give in to the moment, and have some fun. Life is too short not to. Anyway, these five women end up being much worse than presented. However before we get to that bit, we have a flashback to get to. The women are force feeding them drug spiked spiced rum in anticipation of nightfall, and the men are telling tales of their heroics in the interim. After the last novel, Dhaman and Maldred returned to Donnag, Mal’s father and chieftain of Blode. Mal completely threatens his life and nearly kills him with his son watching. Dhaman is convinced the sword Wyrmsbane is a fake as he wants to find a cure from this scale in his leg and the sword gives him visions instead.
Then with further threats of murder and theft, they consent to take a magical map. It seems to lead them to treasure when they focus on it. They take a bunch of jewels as well then leave to the brothel. The women reveal they are in fact thieves, in addition to being prostitutes, and go to kill them after knocking them out. And suddenly Rikali the half elf Dhaman knocked up, storms in with her new husband Varek. They want to take the treasure from the thief prostitutes but they fight back, nearly killing Varek and abducting Rikali. These are clearly polymorphed or shape changing creatures, not women. Varek ends up joining with Dhaman and Maldred to travel and rescue Rikali from Spawn in the town of Polagnar, a spawn village.
They track it down with the magical map and Dhaman goes into the village to kill as many spawn as he can before the others enter to rescue Rikali. He kills a dozen before getting caught. Spawn are supposed to be incredibly tough, tougher than draconians, yet Dhaman mows them down like grass. Maldred even noted that there are smaller scales spreading on Dhaman in addition to the large black one, so there is definitely a form of transformation taking place over Dhaman giving him the increased strength. Otherwise, it is simply too much. He dominates everyone he comes to blows with.
The rest of the group is rounded up as Nura Bint-Drax enters to fanatical loyalty of her spawn and other humanoid followers. She begins turning the group into abominations and others into spawn, something only Dragon Overlords should be able to do, but somehow, she can as well. The group starts to break out and they end up defeating Nura momentarily driving her off and killing the abomination hybrids before they were completely turned. They rescue a sivak with no wings named Ragh who refused to work for Nura and tells them that she is in fact a naga with power granted to her by Sable.
They all continue toward the location of treasure going across all sorts of areas. It almost feels like the Odyssey of Gilthanas, except it doesn’t do a very good job of describing the areas, their significance or where they actually are in context. They start in a town where there is a massive Legion of Steel presence forming up to face a growing Dark Knight force and are putting up wanted posters along the way of Dhaman and his group. Then they end up in a screaming valley where creatures called Galeb Duhr are just tormenting all who enter. Then they end up in a massive jungle area that opens to a jungle and mud slide where they find a hole into a Goonies style cavern with a bunch of pirate ships. This is their destination.
They all enter and start looking through the ships and Dhaman finds a journal of a pirate captain that is magical and takes us to the described places in our mind. He plans to use that to give to the healer to fix his scales. That is the other part, the scales are spreading across his body, and he tries to cut them off, but they come back. It’s been spreading for some time, and he doesn’t know why. They continue searching the ships and discover one that is filled with wealth and treasure. They continue further and enter a chamber filled with Wraiths. They seem to be acting as the spirits in the War of Souls, stealing magic, and not life. They focus on weapons then Maldred, taking his magic, leaving him drained but alive. Varek was not so fortunate. After the assault of the Wraiths, he was so badly wounded he had to have his leg amputated. This infuriated Rikali who blamed Dhaman.
They left with as much treasure as they could carry only to see an army of the Legion of Steel waiting for them, led by the three whores who stole their gear earlier. They took some of the loot as reward and left. Maldred, Dhaman, Ragh, Rikali and Varek were taken into custody and sentenced to hang. Rikali told them all she knew about Maldred and Dhaman and it got her released with Varek. They were given a little of the loot and set free. Maldred, and Dhaman were set to be hanged in the morning but rescued by Ragh who killed a guard, assumed his form and freed them, lighting the town on fire. They all escaped into the swamp and continued to find the healer with nearly none of their equipment or possessions.
They arrive at the supposed town of the healer and it is occupied by Spawn, and is another of the settlements run by Nura Bint-Drax. Naturally, why wouldn’t it be? So they split up to find the healer and Ragh and Dhaman find her. She is crazy but she relents to help, and takes them into her dungeons far beneath the earth. She begins to heal Dhaman who has passed out and tells Ragh that he will be her payment, her new slave. He cuts off her head as she is casting the spell, and tells Dhaman she couldn’t heal him and flees when he wakes. They escape through the tunnels and conveniently come across Rig and Fiona from the very beginning of the novel. Apparently they were captured by the spawn. He frees them and some of the other prisoners and races to the surface killing spawn along the way, then releases a bunch of the creatures taken by the Span, including two manticores. They fly away but Rig is killed before they leave and Fiona goes mad due to his loss.
The story ends revealing Maldred is working with Sable, testing Dhaman like Nura Bint-Drax, and Sable asks if he will serve her. THey both confirm that he will return to save maldred and he will do what she wants. Then the story ends. Out of nowhere Maldred is working with Sable too? That seems like a really shit story twist with one novel to go. I hope it pays it off. The coincidental absence of Fiona and Rig only to reappear at the end and have Rig die adds nothing to the story and if removed entirely, nothing would change, so I have no idea why it was included either. Rikali and Varek didn’t add anything to the tale and yet I can’t help but feel they will be reappearing once again in the next novel too. Just another pointless character set that will not have any impact on the story.
I hope I am wrong, because I know Jean Rabe is a good storyteller, I am just not enjoying her novels as much as her short stories. Fingers crossed the final novel in this trilogy is worth it. If you read the first novel, you might as well continue on with reading this one, but if you didn’t read it, avoid this. It will only frustrate you.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of Betrayal by Jean Rabe. What do you think of Maldred being in league with Sable? Do you think Dhaman will become his good honorable self again? And finally, could he have been cured if Ragh didn’t slay Mad Maab? Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or leave a comment below.
Thank you Creator Patrons Aaron Hardy & D. Robert Handy, Producer Patron David Galindo, Developer Patrons Chris Androu & Sam Ruiz, and all of the YouTube Members! I would also like to take a moment and remind you to subscribe to this YouTube channel, ring the bell to get notified about upcoming videos and click the like button. This all goes to help other Dragonlance fans learn about this channel and its content.
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).
