Join me as I review Downfall by Jean Rabe live! Share your thoughts on this first novel in The Dhamon Saga, released by Wizards of the Coast on March 1, 2001. You can pick up a copy here: https://amzn.to/4dKAxqz
About Downfall
How far can a hero fall?
Far enough to lose his soul?
Dhamon Grimwulf, once a Hero of the Heart, has sunk into a bitter life of crime and squalor. Now, as the great dragon overlords of the Fifth Age coldly plot to strengthen their rule and to destroy their enemies, he must somehow find the will to redeem himself. But perhaps it is too late.
Downfall marks the return of Dhamon and other characters from author Jean Rabe’s bestselling Dragons of a New Age trilogy.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Bakukal, Holmswelth the 5th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of Downfall 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 begins with Dhamon in a hospital in Ironspike, run by the legion of Steel. He is there to rob the place, but obviously no one knows it. His old companions Rig and Fiona found him there and were stunned to have seen him but went about their own way. When night fell, Dhamon snuck around stealing loot and fled. He was seen by a patient and the guards were called. Dhamon is accompanied by other thieves Rikali, his half-elf lover, Fetch, a kobold thief magic-user, and a brute of a man named Maldred. They fight their way out of the town, burning down a stable and stealing horses to avoid the legion. Rig and Fiona inadvertently helped them flee, but then set to tracking them.
Dhamon and team seem to want to buy a sword but need a lot of money for it. This is yet to be explained. So they leave Khur into the Khalkists to the Vale of Chaos where the Valley of Chrystal is. They plan to take a bunch of the gems there and buy the sword with it. But the valley is guarded by ogres and dwarves. They are hunted and run off by dwarves, which wound them severely, and even with what they stole, they aren’t sure they have enough. This is really confusing, as there is no indication what type of sword or why Dhamon wants it, but his companions are willing to go along anyway.
Then Rig and Fiona catch up with them and try to find out why Dhamon is so different from who they remember. He tells them a story about after the Dawning of a New Age trilogy, he was with a company who was hunting dragons in Qualinesti. They were ambushed and nearly all of his company was killed. Dhamon ran off and eventually found a tavern. He tried to drink the memory away when one of the company found him there and tried to take him into custody. A massive fight took place, killing many elves, and Dhamon ran off, eventually meeting up with his current companions. He has no interest in fighting dragons, or being a hero, content to be a thief. His companions are shocked but even more shocking, they want to join him!
This first third is odd. It is clearly setting up a redemption arc for Dhamon, but I am not sure I want one. He was a great hero in the previous trilogy, but it is far more fascinating to see a hero change and devolve. Where does he go from here, and why does he need so much money for a sword? I am interested in learning. It is a bit difficult to read as I am not sure the structure of the story is resonating with me, but I am still here for it. Well with the second third now over, I can report the sword is an interesting mcguffin. It is Tanis Half-Elven’s sword. Now, I believe they are referring to the one he was given in Kith kanan’s tomb, but they mentioned something about treasure finding, so I am a bit confused.
Fiona wants to join them so that they will help her raise money to pay the ransom for her brother from Onyxablet, the black dragon overlord. What is interesting is that Rig, her fiance, doesn’t want to join. But he does reluctantly. The bandits don’t want them to join in general but Maldrad has the hots for Fiona and plans to steal her away from Rig. So they join up. They all travel to Blode and plan to meet with the chieftain there to get the sword, but first they have to heal up. They meet an ogre healer who is expensive but does the job. When they meet the chieftain, he tells them that he will sell the sword, and help with the ransome IF they go take care of some wolves that are killing a town’s goats in his territory in the Khalkists.
Everyone agrees and heads out together, only to discover it’s not wolves, but rather, giants. THey head into the mountains searching for them and find a cave. There they find rock trolls and eventually destroy them, finding evidence that they are the goat killers. However, they also find tunnels heading deeper into the earth, and figure they should make sure there are no more trolls before returning for their treasure. They split up, leaving Fetch behind to watch the cave. Rig, Rikali, and Dhamon go down one tunnel, Maldred and Fiona go down another. They each travel hours into the earth, this is clearly some version of a Kal-Thax, an ancient dwarven home. They find evidence of effigies of Reorx and dwarves in relief.
Bored up top, Fetch burns one of the four pillars with his magic, and ends up burning them all in the frenzy of dancing around it. THis weakens the support to the cavern roof and before it collapses he runs down Dhamon’s tunnel. The cavern collapses and this forces everyone to continue down. Simultaneously there is a constant supernatural rain that is flooding the rivers in the mountain, and this breaks through the cavern walls threatening to drown everyone. They follow the river down and Fiona and Maldred find their way out, but the others find an ancient black magic scrying pond. They decide to have Fetch use it to see where they are, where Fiona is, where Aven, Fiona’s brother is being held by Sable, and who is responsible for the rain.
Doing so drains the life from Fetch who dies, and Dhamon and Rikali leave him and Rig in the river before rig witnesses fetch’s death and leaves himself. This is brutal because it is an entirely different version of Dhamon, and I am not buying the justification for his change. He faced Dragon overlords, but one dragon killing a handful of elves twisted him into an unrecognizable person? It just doesn’t make sense. Also at this point with a final third of the story left we need to figure out who this young girl making it rain uncontrollably is, find out how to get the sword and treasure from the chieftain who led them to their deaths, and see the outcome of Rig and Maldred’s fight over Fiona. I just don’t think there will be resolution to any of the story beats.
The final third of the novel feels very off. Every character mistrusts each other and refuses to acknowledge it. Even to go so far as to abandon characters with huge implications. Maldred and Fiona make it back to Blode. Dhaman and Rikali get out of the cave and on shore, but Rickali slips and falls, nearly drowning, hitting her head, knocking herself out and breaking her arm. Rig exits the cave and tends to her, and Dhamon checks to see if she is breathing and abandons them both. Not caring about her, even saying she would understand. This is the version of Dhamon that Rig acknowledges from here on out, callous, selfish, and uncaring. Rikali even mentions that she is pregnant, inferring it is Dhamon’s but she swears Rig to secrecy, and he keeps the secret! It blows my mind.
But it gets worse, Dhamon meets the chieftain and takes all sorts of gems and jewelry for Rikali, as if he cares for her, but he just abandoned her one scene past! Then he demands Tanis Half-Elven’s sword after being told that the chieftain was using them and Fiona, and will continue to use them to free ogres from a mine controlled by Sable. Dhamon doesn’t care at all. These are friends of his that he fought beside for months, and he is just dismissive of them being used and deceived. He even knows that Maldred is using a charm spell to split up Fiona and Rig and use her, but he doesn’t care. I just don’t understand what we have been presented as how Dhamon becomes this character.
Anyway, he is given a fake sword, and he whips the shit out of the massive ogre chieftain with Maldred standing by and watching. This is more of an issue when you discover at the end that Maldred is the chieftain’s son and an ogre magi in disguise, having lied to Dhamon about who he is. But he just lets it all happen. He gets the actual sword and apparently wyrmsbane had a new power to lead people to their true desires… sometimes. Awfully convenient, but okay. It just never manifested before apparently. It leads Dhamon to the most precious object in the chieftains hoard and he gives it to Maldred. So Maldred is working with the chieftain to collect the enslaved ogres from the mines with Fiona They are pretending to help her get her brother, but they have no intention of doing so.
Dhamon leaves them all and finds Rikali in the healer’s hut. He pays for her and the healer and leaves until the sword tells him that the secret to getting rid of the scale embedded in his leg is in the swamp, so he returns and joins the party again. They all leave, abandoning Rikali, who is no longer an important part of the story, and they head into the swamp. They battle sorcery and beasts, losing many of the party, and Fiona waxes and wanes on being with the group and whether her brother is alive or not and whether that matters or not. She is easily swayed by Maldred even after Rig tells her they are going in the wrong direction. Then they all admit to not going to save her brother but to instead save enslaved ogres and Fiona is on board!
They enter the mines and fight their way saving all sorts of races of people from the dragonspawn of Sable. Fiona may have even killed the draconian she was supposed to have contacted about her brother, but can’t tell due to the charm Maldred cast on her. Then the girl from the vision appears and beats everyone down.
The narrative is so wild and crazy as to be unbelievable that anyone would go along with anything. The group should not be sticking together at all, and yet, we still have pages to go, so they do. The young girl who is apparently a powerful sorceress for Sable and reveals Maldred is the ogre mage he is, and drumroll, no one seems to care. Dhamon accepts it immediately, and apparently even after Fiona is freed of her charm seems to not strike out at him. Rig refuses to follow them rather plans on going after the girl, as is Dhamon and the story just ends as abruptly as you can imagine.
Look, I think the story is interesting, but it isn’t earned. There is no believable justification for Dhamon’s 180 degree turn in character. There is no reason why any of them would be working together as they are all antagonistic to each other. It is like a mean girl adventure party at a home game. I just don’t understand it. While I will read the rest of the trilogy just to unravel the story, hoping it ends up making more sense, I am not hopeful that it will. I think Jean Rabe is best at short stories. As she extends a story to novel length or trilogy length, it begins to unravel, and fast.
If you are really invested in this era of Dragonlance, there is no real reason to read this novel. If you are really invested in Dhamon, there is no reason to read this novel, as it isn’t the character you know. So unless you are just a Dragonlance masochistic completionist like me, I would suggest skipping it altogether.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of Downfall by Jean Rabe. What do you think of Dhamon’s character being so different? Do you believe the party would stay together after so much deceit? And finally, are you looking forward to the next novel in the trilogy? Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or leave a comment below.
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