She lived a life devoted to her god, and suffered greatly through her own innocence and ignorance before finally finding her purpose. Let’s learn more about Crysania Tarinius. Buy Legends of the Twins: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/3252/Legends-of-the-Twins-35?affiliate_id=50797
Transcript
Cold Open
She is so much more than a tool for Raistlin…
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about Crysania Tarinius. I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this channel, 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 Legends trilogy, The Art of the Dragonlance Saga, Dragonlance Adventures, and Legends of the Twins sourcebooks and dragonlance.fandom.com for this information. If I leave anything out or misspeak, please leave a comment below!
Discussion
The first visual depiction of Crysania was by Clyde Caldwell for the cover of the 1987 Legends calendar. Margaret Weis comments “In every way, Crysania is Raistlin’s opposite. He is fire, she is ice. When we first see her, she is colorless, marblelike. Her hair is black, her skin is white her eyes gray.” Ultimately it is impossible to separate the story of Crysania from that of Raistlin, as it was his divine ambitions that pulled her into his schemes. But to say her part in Raistlin’s story was all there was to Crysania is to ignore her own character growth. Some may say that Crysania was able to be pulled into Raistlin’s schemes simply because she was primed from birth to play that role, but there was life after Raistlin for Crysania. A life devoted to her god, and eventually to understanding and accepting true love, in spite of the mad chaos of the events of the world, happening all around her.
Crysania Tarinius was born in three hundred and twenty-eight Alt Cataclius. The Tarinius family was of noble lineage, so Crysania was born into that wealth and spoiled by it. As a young lady she was betrothed to a young nobleman, but Crysania did not love him, and broke off the engagement. Her parents suffered an untimely death leaving Crysania as the sole heir. This could easily have defined her for the rest of her days, living in quiet luxury, but Crysania knew there was more out there for her. She knew that she had a greater purpose, and when she met Elistan, the first Cleric of Paladine, after the War of the Lance, seeking comfort for her loss, she finally realized her destiny. In fact, Crysania was one of Elistans first converts to this new, old religion. She was quickly swept up in her desire to see Paladine’s will done on Krynn, so she left her home and wealth, dedicating her life to her faith.
Crysania’s childhood would echo in her young adulthood, and to be fair she rose to Revered Daughter of Paladine remarkably quickly, but the echoes of having everything given to her as a child mixed with the excitement of her new faith in the gods of light, made her arrogant, ambitious and power hungry, infinitely more than she would ever be able to recognize in herself until years later. Her drive would push her to want to lead the church in Elistan’s absence, but fate seemed to have different plans as she was called to the Library of Palanthas and met Raistlin Majere. Crysania was fascinated and troubled by Raistlin all at once. She found him exciting and dangerous, and she was unconsciously attracted to the power he wielded. With everything else in her life coming easily, she believed she could take this dark and evil man, and bring him into the divine light of her god. What blinded her was that he too wanted to stand before the gods, just in a different capacity.
It was Crysania’s pride and ambition that blinded her to Raistlin’s true nature, and which led her to her death by Lord Soth. When Crysania went in search of the Tower of High Sorcery in Wayreth to turn Raistlin, Kitiara Uth Matar sent Lord Soth to stop her brother’s schemes, leading to Lord Soth killing her, and Paladine taking her soul under his protection. It was Caramon Majere and Tasslehoff Burrfoot that ultimately presented Crysania’s body to Par-Salien and he sent her back in time to be resurrected by a true cleric in the days before the Cataclysm and allow Caramon to stop Raistlin by murdering him. Tas was an unintended traveler and arguably the only reason Raistlin was able to change time and successfully enter the Abyss.
Crysania would be resurrected by the Kingpriest in Istar before the Cataclysm, much to Raistlin’s plans, and join him as he traveled to Zhakar to defeat evil in the form of the Queen of Darkness. Crysania ignored every single warning because again, she was prideful and believed she could do it. She became enamored with Raistlin more and more, and became blind to her own faults, refusing to see the plain truth in front of her. Once Raistlin abandons her to her fate in the Abyss, after she had fought beside him and protected him, physically blinded, she was finally able to see the truth. That she allowed herself to be used by evil, for evil. When Caramon rescued her she finally realized that love is not a weakness of mankinds, but rather its greatest asset, Chrysania is reborn in her blindness with clarity of purpose. She finally learned compassion, humility and tolerance and became a worthy successor to Elistan after the Blue Lady’s War in three hundred and fifty-seven AC at the age of twenty nine.
Crysania rebuilt the Temple of Paladine and saw a future where White Robed mages would work in tandem with the White Robes Priests, inviting a man named Valin to the temple. This would be the second act of growth for Crysania, as her history up until now taught her what it meant to be a true priest, the Chaos War would teach her what it means to love another individual. As the gods’ connection to their followers began to wane, Crysania would reach out to Dalama for aid. Dalamar would send her after the Dragonstones, and Valin would profess his love to Crysania. She refused it and journeyed to find the stones. Valin made a pact with Dalamar who transformed him into a white tiger named Tandar. Crysania would come to rely on the tiger, having deep empathy with him and being psychologically connected, their emotional connection grew.
When Crysania and Tandar finally collected the stones and arrived at Godshome she was tempted by Takhiss as the Chaos War was raging. She refused the Dark Queen and was approached by Fizban who told her that the gods were forced to leave Krynn in order to protect it, and everything Crysania had gone through, every belief she held was ultimately for nothing. She was no longer a priestess of Paladine, and in the absence of her own identity she returned to simply being a woman who loved a man. Once she admitted it, the geas on Valin was lifted and he returned to his human form. Crysania went from loving her god, to realizing that love was empty without a mortal connection to ground it. Her love of Valin was absolute.
In the Age of Mortals, Crysania would study at the Citadel of Light to learn the powers of the heart and continue in her life’s work of helping others. She would officiate Lord Gunthar Uth Wistan’s funeral and operate as a Citadel Advisor, visiting the Temple of Paladine from time to time. Crysania went from being a spoiled girl, to an ambitious young woman, to a priestess devoted to her god, to a woman who learned how to love. Her journey is one of pain through experience, taking what life gave her, mistakes made and doing her best to learn, grow and be a better version of herself. This is an ideal that I believe every one of us should take to heart. Our growth doesn’t end due to one tragic moment, or one goal achieved. As long as we are breathing we should express our love of those individuals we choose to connect to, and an appreciation for the world we live in and the time we have to live in it. We are not defined by a given moment, but rather on the whole of our journey, and Crysania exemplifies this through hers.
Outro
But that is all I have to say about Crysania Tarinius. Do you enjoy her journey of passion and love? Was she too one dimensional for you in the Legends trilogy? And finally, do you have a greater appreciation for her after knowing her greater story? 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:
We don’t see that the darkness has a purpose—though we may not understand it—so, in our terror, we end up burning down the house.
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