Join me as I review Draconian Measures by Margaret Weis & Don Perrin, live! Share your thoughts on this second and final novel in The Chaos War Series. You can pick up Draconian Measures here: https://amzn.to/3LYGOyS
About Draconian Measures
The regiment of draconian engineers featured in The Doom Brigade seek a safe haven for their precious cargo of young draconians. All they have to do is stay alive. Surely that shouldn’t be too hard.
But Commander Kang puzzles over a sinister mystery. Why are some of his men vanishing? Kang will have to use draconian measures to defeat his foes and save his race. They’d better be enough — the fate of his entire race hangs in the balance.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. It is Misham, Brookgreen the 3rd, my name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of Draconian Measures by Margaret Weis & Don Perrin. I will be spoiling the story, so if you don’t want to know it, stop watching now! I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this YouTube 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 link. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
We open with a brief recap of the last novel, and Kang’s regiment traveling across the plains of Dust before starting to turn north toward the Khur Mountains. They started getting attacked by Goblins. Between the goblins and winter, it caused them to delay for a year! With only around one hundred and fifty miles till they reached their destination, and having come over two hundred so far, the delay was bothersome to say the least. The goblins’ attacks became more and more deadly, and though the draconians repelled them with every assault, they did lose some of their own in every skirmish.
Kang set up an ambush to end the attacks for good, but the rout ended as a faint by the goblins, luring the draconians into a trap. The goblins were disciplined and being led by hobgoblins, their larger cousins. The Hobgoblin general was chasing a bounty from an unknown entity, and the hobgoblin army was too much for the regiment to handle. Kang began to turn their series of skirmishes into a retreat up to a hilltop when a couple of the female draconians saw metal glinting in the canyon below. The females are being protected even though after a year they are fully grown. They are not listened to and are treated as children. This is a problem I witnessed growing up. I spent my informative years in a small town filled with religious zealots and hunters and all I saw were women treated like possessions and ostensibly slaves. This never sat right with me as my mother and sisters were independent and strong. They were taught not to rely on men, but to be their own person, an idea that was foreign to the community, and certainly to the regiment in the story.
Fonrar and Thesik, two female draconians, went to investigate the flashes they saw and it turned out to be other draconians! They fawned over Thesik, who is an Aurak, and they sent the ninth and third draconian infantry to help Kang. They arrived just in time, as Kang and Slith were facing the end against the hobgoblin general and his bodyguards, and the hobgoblin army sounded the retreat as the new draconian troops flooded their flank. They were introduced to the commanders, Prokel and Yakanoh, and they all marched to their fortress if that is what it could be called. They are told that this army is led by the Aurak, General Maranta, who Slith had an uncomfortable run in early in the War of the Lance, and the fort housed the Third infantry, Ninth Infantry, Fourteenth Infantry, Third Artillery, and Belkrad’s Reconnaissance Squadron. Thousands of draconians in total.
The fortress is a ramshackle however and is falling apart. The females are being kept away from the new draconians as they actually smell different, but they don’t know they are females yet. Kang isn’t even sure if he’s ready to share that information as he heads off to meet the General. He meets General Maranta who is held up in his fort inside the fort, mirroring the confusing twists and turns of the Temple of Leurkhis. The General is haughty and asks why the Aurak isn’t in charge. Kang told him about the eggs and the female draconians. The other officers didn’t believe it but the general who was part of the first brood confirmed the story visibly upset that he wasn’t chosen by takhisis to find them, choking it up to the right place at the right time.
Kang is trying to stress that they are only here temporarily until the goblin problem is solved, but the problem is getting bigger by the minute. Apparently they are calling all goblins into one disciplined unit to destroy all draconians. Thousands are massing to assault the fort. Kang agrees to help reinforce the fort and build a barracks for his soldiers, in addition to joining guard duty rotation. Two of his soldiers come up missing and the general claims they were deserters scared about the goblin threat. Kang isn’t buying it, but can’t find evidence to the contrary. Plus draconians have deserted recently from other units.
The females begin to train themselves since Kang won’t and they play a prank on the general accidentally, dumping a barrel of water on him as he enters their room. The General asked the Aurak, Thesik, about magic and that they shared the same dragon as a parent. Then he seemed to calm to the joke and left, seemingly impressed. Kang learns there is a Dark Knight fort to the North and asks the general to send for aid against the Goblins. The general initially refuses then sends Kang. The females stole a requisition for twenty swords and the General is furious but can’t find them after searching. This is setting itself up for the General to be holding a secret that means doom for Kang or his control of his troops.
Kang left for the Dark Knights fortress and once there asks for reinforcements and tells them about the Knights of Solamnia arming the goblins. Group Commander Zek tells Kang that he will send Second and Third Wings in the morning to their aid. They stay the night and Huzzad sneaks into Kangs room and tells him that the Dark Knights are the ones paying off the Goblins as the dwarves sold the information about the female Draconian eggs to them, and now they fear their potential might. Huzzad tells them how to leave in the morning to avoid the assasination patrol. In the morning they leave and overhear Huzzad being detained by the Dark Knights as a traitor for having told Kang the information. She fights them off but is hit with a rock, and the draconians go to her aid, and carry her to their fortress.
Once there, Kang relays the story of the Dark Knights to General Maranta who isn’t worried as five hundred draconians arrived from the Khalkist Mountains while Kang was gone. However something is wrong with these draconians. They are more zombie-like in their demeanor. Slith doesn’t trust them. The women take care of Huzzad who helps correct training mistakes and argues with Kang over the female draconians right to train and have authority over themselves. They are no longer children, and they deserve to take their own destinies in their own hands. Kang respects the message after some time, and agrees they should train.
With the coming assault, Kang decides to make a false dragon to fly over the goblins and drop bombs on them. They draw up plans and present them to the general who wants nothing to do with it. It is clear he doesn’t want Kang there, but also wants their expertise when it’s convenient. They begin building the Drunken Dragon and Cactus Keg Bombs. Slith takes a new drac to get supplies with him and ends up confronting the Queen’s Own, the generals guards. They end up following him, killing the drac and now Slith is missing. Kang is furious and nearly kills the General when he appears and mocks his troops. The female regiment goes after Slith with Kang and the rest of the regiment readies the dragon and supports the other regiments as the goblin invasion has begun.
In the General’s bunker, the female platoon subdues the guards, and leads them into an antechamber deep in the fort within a fort. There is a hidden room where General Maranda is using Drakart’s Heart to steal the life essence of one draconian to create a hundred slave draconians. This is where the reinforcements had come from and why they are so dim witted and not draconian like. Appalled, Kang sees them bring Slith out next and he leaps forward to stop them. Battle breaks out and the General flees back to his room where he casts darkness and Kang follows in, now blind. He is captured and before he is the next victim, Thesik, the female Aurak casts burning hands on the General and he goes up in flames, dying. Freaked out about the coming death blast, Kang orders everyone out. The general explodes, but the fort within a fort stays up. They flee the fort and find Huzzad guarding the entrance from four of the Queen’s Own draconians attacking her. She ends up taking a bolt to the chest and falls dying. The female draconians who saw her as a sister, break into a rage and decimate the Queen’s Own. Kang, heartbroken to lose a truly good friend is hurt, but knows the war is still ongoing and their future is at stake.
He erupts from the fort to find the armies battling and heads to the ramparts to see the damage and the oncoming army. He releases the Drunken Dragon and Thesik casts a gold dragon illusion on it, the goblin hoard freaks out, running away. The hobgoblins see through the illusion and as it floats over the Hobgoblin General, who laughs at it. Kang sees the fuse to explode the kegs is out, and takes out Drakart’s Heart, which he took from the General’s room before he died, and breaks it, absorbing the magic within to cast a spell that ignites the Drunken Dragon and explodes it right over the hobgoblin command. The army is routed and Kang leads the remaining regiments out the front door to mop up the enemy. His hand is blown apart and he only notices it now that the war is over.
The draconians clean up and the next morning Kang promotes Slith to commander. Kang is retiring to lead his people as a civilian to Teyr. The other draconian regiments join them and the future of the Draconian race is secured. This was such a fantastic novel. Not only was I absorbed in the militaristic setting, but the characters were fleshed out just enough for you to care and want them to succeed or be killed. The setting of the world didn’t have the impact that the first novel had, but it made up for it in environment and experience. Huzzad was my favorite Dark Knight and her loss hit me harder than I expected. They ended up honoring her and taking her ashes with them, so she will be remembered as a hero.
This series treats Draconians as the good guys, all the while they are praying to Takhisis or revering her memory. They are evil creatures, but as my favorite scene from The Color Purple shows, as the preachers daughter is leading the ‘sinners who drink and dance’ rather than go to church, in a procession to her fathers chapel, singing hymns the whole way and says, “see father, even sinners have soul.” These draconians have soul! And I really enjoyed this novel. Thank you to every one of you who recommended it, I wouldn’t have read it without you.
If you are a fan of Dragonlance, the Fifth Age, Draconians, or the authors, I highly recommend this novel to you.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of Draconian Measures by Margaret Weis & Don Perrin. What do you think about Draconians changing from a mindless monster to heartwarming characters? What did you think about this novel? Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
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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).
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