The Dragonlance Saga has been pushed along through the novels from one age to the next. Let’s examine the reading order and core novels which progress and alter the River of Time. Buy the Classic Dragonlance Bundle: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/141690/classic-dragonlance-bundle?affiliate_id=50797
Transcript
Cold Open
These novels have driven the Dragonlance Saga forward, then back; rinse and repeat.
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today I am going to talk about the core novels which drove the Dragonlance Saga forward. 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. While I have what I consider the core novels noted in this video, if you believe I am wrong, or you want to introduce other novels, please leave a comment below!
Discussion
Part of what makes the Dragonlance Saga so wonderful is that it spans a massive era of five distinct ages, mixing game products and novels, all of which drive the story forward into some truly interesting areas. This was naturally informed by the different intellectual property owners wanting to make the most money and showcase their own versions of game products and eras of evolution in the Dragonlance and Dungeons and Dragons sandbox. This ended up creating a mess of inconsistent and contradictory storytelling beats which make a single consistent saga impossible to reconcile. But between TSR Inc. and Wizards of the Coast, they continuously brought back or were forced to allow back the original authors in Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, to steer the ship as it were into new and more consistent eras, even when they themselves are famous for contradicting their own characters and story beats with subsequent stories and novels.
This is all to say that what I am going to present as cannon and the intended reading order is not all inclusive and may not resonate with your experience and perspective. So please take this all as intended and focused on my take on the core Dragonlance Saga novels and timelines. I will not be going into the game products which I have showcased and discussed in previous videos. This also has spoilers for some of the core novels presented, so if you don’t want to know about events and alternate timelines, stop watching now.
When I think of the core Dragonlance Saga, I am reflecting on what was initially presented in Dragons of Autumn Twilight, from the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy. The Third Dragon War, in the Age of Dreams, foreword. Everything before that is a historical build up, and the Third Dragon War influences everything leading up to and through the War of the Lance, which is what the Dragonlance Chronicles and Lost Chronicles is all about. You see, in the Third Dragon War, Huma Feigaard, or Dragonbane, together with the Silver Dragon Heart, also known as Gwyneth, defeated Takhisis, the Queen of Darkness, banishing her to the Abyss. This led to the Age of Might and the Dark Queen plotting to reenter and rule Krynn for a thousand years. When the Kingpriest of Istar challenged the Gods, and all the true clerics were removed from Krynn, the Gods sent a mountain crashing into Istar, destroying the lord city and sundering the continent of Ansalon, moving the saga into the Age of Despair. Takhisis took the Temple and used its keystone to build a new temple in Neraka from which she plotted to conquer and reenter Krynn with her new Dragon Highlords and their Dragonarmies. And this is where we enter with the first novel, Dragons of Autumn Twilight.
The Chronicles tell how the heroes of the Lance stand up to and defeat the Dragonarmies with the Whitestone Council, temporarily ending Takhisis’ efforts. The Lost Chronicles fills in gaps between the events told in the original Chronicles, but again, since there was so much time between the two trilogies, it is important to note that the authors have presented events and character’s a bit inconsistently, so it’s up to the reader on whether they want to read them intermixed or separately. At the end of the War of the Lance, Raistlin Majere, has designs to challenge the Dark Queen and become a god himself. This is outlined in the Legends trilogy which acts as both a sequel and prequel trilogy to the Chronicles, as they travel back in time to the Age of Might, introducing Time Travel to the Saga, and a whole new timeline known as the Hourglass in the Sky timeline. In the Legends trilogy, Raistlin is successful in becoming a god, but destroys life in the process, so when Caramon Majere and Tasslehoff Burrfoot travel back to their own time, they find this deathscape and Caramon returns to Raistlin in the past to warn him of his success and outcome. Raistlin chooses to stop challenging the gods, and closes the Portal to the Abyss. Ostensibly sacrificing himself for his brother and a better world, though the character doesn’t see it that way.
We then proceed years into the future after Legends to the children of the Heroes of the Lance with The Second Generation anthology. This sets up the new antagonists and heroes who will precede in the Saga and experience the next major world event in the Chaos War which leads to the Second Cataclysm and the Age of Mortals, or Fifth Age Timeline. This is outlined in what was to be referred to as the fourth Chronicles novel titled Dragons of Summer Flame. This ends with the Gods leaving Krynn with Chaos in order to save the world. It defines the new age as the Age of Mortals where arcane and divine magic is nonexistent and the mortals of Krynn discover new magic through the Power of the Heart and Wild Sorcery. The trilogy that presents this era is the Dragons of a New Age trilogy by Jean Rabe. It propels the saga into the Fifth Age with Dragon Overlords dominating all of Ansalon. The trilogy deals with new heroes coming together to try to defeat the Dragon Overlords, of which only a few are eventually destroyed.
It was initially presented as the only timeline, until Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman were brought back again and wrote their War of Souls trilogy. This trilogy shows that the original timeline was hijacked by Takhisis in her never ending bid to rule Krynn. She stole the world and moved it to an unknown location in Space. This is how the Dragon Overlords discovered it, and Takhisis would leverage a girl named Mina, and use her as her prophet and voice on Ansalon as the Dark Queen rebuilt her strength. This story was told through Tasslehoff Burrfoot using the Device of Time Journeying, seeing the real future, and this new future, and trying to stop it. While the timeline was never officially corrected in the War of Souls, it did solve the Dragon Overlord and loss of the Gods problem by having Mina kill the majority of remaining Overlords, and having Takhisis killed, with Paladine stepping down as a god in order to maintain balance, a concept that is integral to the saga.
This brought Dragonlance back to a more familiar place with the gods and traditional magic, and a world where the mortals were trying to cope with the changed landscape and fallout of the war. Mina’s story would be pushed into the future in Margaret Weis’ Dark Disciple trilogy, ending with Mina being revealed as a neutral god. And that is where the saga ended for a decade until Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman returned again, and won a lawsuit against Wizards of the Coast to present their now Classic Dragonlance Destinies trilogy. This trilogy deals with the heroine Destina Rosethorn who loses her father in the War of the Lance and travels back in time with the Graygem (and subsequently Chaos) to save him, but instead inadvertently changes the future into a new Chaos timeline, where the Queen of Darkness won the Third Dragon War. While this new timeline isn’t fully fleshed out, it altered the events at the beginning of the saga with Dragon of Autumn Twilight and in the end, removed Chaos from the world entirely. It seemingly prevented Chaos from intervening with the Dragons of Summer Flame setup of the Knights of Takhisis invading Ansalon. Without Chaos, there is no Chaos War, and subsequently, no Age of Mortals timeline. This returns the timeline as far as we know, to the original timeline Tasslehoff Burrfoot spoke about in the War of Souls trilogy.
While I see the Dragonlance Saga being framed by the Third Dragon War and the Dark Disciple Trilogy, there are some novels that enrich those eras with much needed context. First is The Legend of Huma by Richard A. Knaak. It tells the story of Huma Dragonbane and Heart defeating the Queen of Darkness. However that version of the story is much different than Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s told in the new Destinies trilogy. There is also the major event of the fall of Istar and the Cataclysm as told through Chris Pierson’s Kingpriest Trilogy. This trilogy tells of the rise of the last Kingpriest and his downfall. It beautifully contextualizes the saga and frames the end of the Age of Might with the beginning of the Age of Despair, where the majority of the Saga occurs.
There is also a new trilogy being written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman called Legacies with the first novel titled War Wizard. It deals with Huma Feigaard and Magius’ early adventures. Margaret Weis has also alluded to writing a novel about Alice Ranniker, a key artificer in their Destinies trilogy who aids in the heroes traveling back in time and containing the Graygem. So it seems the Dragonlance Saga is going to continue to move into the foreseeable future, much to the fan’s delight. There are also hundreds of other Dragonlance novels that are spread out throughout the entire timeline with some being better than others, but they don’t drive the primary saga forward like the aforementioned novels. Perhaps I will address some of these in future episodes.
Outro
But that is all the time I have to talk about the core Dragonlance Saga novels. What do you think of the timelines and stories? Would you prefer there never to be time travel? And finally, do you have a favorite timeline? Leave a comment below.
I would 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. Thank you for watching, this has been Adam with DragonLance Saga and until next time, remember:
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