Join me as I review Flint the King by Mary Kirchoff and Douglas Niles, live! Share your thoughts on this second novel in the Dragonlance Preludes II series, released on July 21, 1990 by TSR Inc. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/3UvI4jA
About Flint the King
First launched over a decade ago, the Preludes series has continued to prove popular with Dragonlance fans. This re-release of Flint the King showcases a new look that is also reflected in the other recovers of this series. The title features cover art from lead Dragonlance saga artist Matt Stawicki.
Before the War of the Lance
The peaceful life of Flint Fireforge is disturbed when he is forced to leave Solace and return to his dwarven homeland to investigate his brother’s murder. As he delves into the mystery, unexpected allies and unseen enemies join the fight of truth against treachery.
Flint soon discovers that to bring his brother’s killer to justice, he must either die or become king. He’s not sure which choice might be worse.
Review
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Bakukal, Bakukal the 16th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of Flint the King by Mary Kirchoff and Douglas Niles. 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. This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
The first third of this novel is pure Dragonlance gold! Flint is tired and weary of doing nothing in Solace now that his young friends left on their quest a month ago. He is annoyed by the Seekers who have started infiltrating the town and even has a bit of a scuffle with a few. Then as he is buying provisions, a dwarf named Hanak enters and strikes up a conversation, telling Flint about Thiewar Dwarves passing through Hillhome. This strikes Flint as odd, as there is a generations long feud between the Mountain and Hill dwarves, and Hillhome is a hill dwarf community, Flint’s home! This begins to gnaw at him, so he decides to leave Solace for Hillhome and discover the truth himself.
On the road he comes across a group of Derro, or Thiewar dwarves leading a wagon. They tell him to prove he is not a spy or they’ll kill him. This ignites even more curiosity from Flint. He ends up beating them in a fight and they leave, but now there is another curious piece to the puzzle. They HAD to come through Hillhome from Thorbardin, but all the gates to Thorbardin are destroyed or closed, so where did these Thiewar come from? And why would they care about a spy? Flint arrives home and doesn’t recognize Hillhome at all. It’s grown massively since he was there, and he doesnt recognize anyone. He enters a familiar bar and the human Moldoon still owns it. They strike up a conversation and it turns out that the mayor of Hillhome has an arrangement with the Thiewar. They would pay to pass through town, and pay more than market share for services and supplies. The hill dwarves saw it as a massive profitable opportunity and agreed.
Meanwhile the advisor to Thane Realgar, the Thiewar clan in Thorbardin named Pitrick is visiting Sanction delivering weapons to a highlord. The Highlord demands double the supplies for double the money and Pitrik is more than happy to comply. He is fueling the Dragonarmy with dwarven weapons and getting rich off it. This gives their clan more power in Thorbardin. It wonderfully sets up the connection we know they have before the War openly breaks out in Abanasinia, and the connective tissue is wonderful to see woven naturally into the story. So Patrick returns to Thorbardin telling Reagar, and demands a group of the Thanes personal guards to guard their secret entrance to Thorbardin, as a hill dwarf, Flint’s brother Aylmar, discovered the secret about the weapons, and was killed for it.
Back at Hillhome, Flint learns about Aylmar’s death and it’s been blamed on a heart attack. The town idiot said he witnessed it and a spell was cast that killed him. He believes Flint is the ghost of Aylmar who came back to torment him. Flint meets the family and feels little connection to them. They are all celebrating the new town wealth, ignoring the generational feud with the mountain dwarves. Flint’s nephew, Aylmar’s son, Basalt is drinking a ton to hide his feelings about his fathers death and his guilt as they fought the day it happened. Flint ends up investigating the wagons and kills a Thiewar, but left his boots behind. His younger brother Tybalt is a constable and threatens to reveal Flint as the killer, but Flint leaves to look for the secret entrance to Thorbardin to prove that the Thiewar are being deceitful to everyone, mountain and hill dwarf.
Basalt follows him to apologize for his behavior and they fight a troll together, then Flint sneaks into Thorbardin behind a Thiewar wagon and is trapped. Flint is taken to Pitrick who asks for a Gully Dwarf to be rounded up and for them to meet at the monster pit. The gully dwarf is thrown in as a show of force to Flint, and they ask what he is doing there. Flint tells them that he knows what they are trading and that all of Hillhome knows about it, which is a lie. Patrick is furious then Flint attacks him, but is pulled away by the guards. Patrick tells the guards to throw him into the pit and Perian intervenes. She is then also thrown into the pit where the two try to evade a Carrion Crawler. As they run down the tunnel, they are saved by Gully Dwarves who tell them that they are now in Mudhole.
Now saved from the Beast pit, they are offered food, and do their best to communicate that they want to leave, but the Gully dwarves believe they have fulfilled a prophecy, and want them as their king and queen. They tie up Flint who will not stop trying to leave, and Perian just stands watching with a slight smile on her face. Flint eventually resigned to his fate and accepted the role of king, giving his word not to flee. Perian was made queen and they send the gully dwarves out to gather supplies in new areas Perian designated.
Obsessed with having Perian as his servant, Patrick used a wish to resurrect her from what he believed was death from the Carrion Crawler, and to be placed as his servant. The wish spell went off, and he grew older, (a little AD&D mechanics here) but she didn’t appear. He was confused, then began to think that perhaps she wasn’t dead, when a guard brought a gully dwarf looking for some smoke weed from his personal stash. Pitrick knew Perian had the same addiction to the weed, so he levitated down the beast pit and saw the gully dwarf hole. The Carrion Crawler attacked him, and he flew up sending magic missiles into the wall, and the Carrion Crawler into Mudhole.
As the Aghar and their king and queen were setting up for a feast, the Aghar began a sport called Agharpult, where they launched themselves at the wall, and stream. This gave Flint an idea. He has already sent gully dwarves to deliver a message to his nephew that he hopes returned to hillhome after waiting for him outside Thorbardin. But if they needed to fight, perhaps these Aghar could help. Then the Carrion Crawler entered the room. Chaos ensued as the Aghar attacked it and then Pitrick flew in and tried to abduct Perian. Flint cut off two of his fingers, including a magic ring, and Pitrick fled for his life as the Aghar defeated the beast.
Basalt left the entrance Flint disappeared into when Thiewar came out of it in masses. He ran away running into another Thiewar group who beat him then let him go thinking he would be hunted by them. When he arrived back at Hillhome he got in an argument with a Thiewar who attacked him, the barkeep got in the way and was killed. Then Basalt was abducted by the gully Dwarves Flint sent and brought to Mudhole. Flint was stunned and annoyed until he was told the ring he removed from Pitrick’s finger was a teleportation ring, so he told Basalt to go back home, tell everyone the truth about Pitrick and the weapons smuggling, and to get ready for a coming war from the Thiewar, because of his big mouth.
Now Pitrick is gathering the troops readying to march to Hillhome and destroy it, and Flint is reading the Aghar for battle training them and searching for weapons. Perian gives Flint an ax which turns out to be an ax he lost years before. It was originally a gift from his now dead brother, and the Tharkin Axe somehow found it way back into his hands. He was speechless and gave Perian a leaf necklace he carved, and then they made love. It was a great moment as Flint has been refusing to acknowledge his feelings for her because she’s a mountain dwarf and he’s a hill dwarf. The animosity runs deep, but he finally let his guard down and got some. Good for them!
They march off toward Hillhome as Basalt is convincing the town of the deceit. They all prepare defenses as Basalt and a group travel after the last shipment to steal their weapons. They assault them, and get the weapons as the Thiewar march toward Hillhome. A massive early winter blizzard hits as they are traveling, some of the gully dwarves go missing and Flint and Perian realize they will never catch the Thiewar. That is, until the missing Aghar attack them then flee to the lake. The other Aghar led by Flint give the two mile chase, and eventually catch up, with the lake bank breaking and everyone is dumped in. The Aghar doggy paddle to shore and the armed Thiewar sink like rocks, dropping the Thiewar force to a third.
I am really enjoying the cultural explanation of the Aghar dwarves and really want to run a one-off adventure with them as the player’s characters. The rest of the Thiewar army proceed to Hillhome, stopping in the dark to search for their now missing regiment. Flint and his Aghar army slipped past them and entered Hillhome. They helped fortify and build up defenses, planning the defense of the army which is imminent. This is a great way to end the novel, with a truly epic battle that pitched from one side to the other. Patrick was fervent about killing everyone even though the military commanders were wary to continue assaulting as the Agharpults, Sludge Bombers and Creeping Wedgies were more effective against them than anticipated.
The magic used by the Thiewar allowed entry into Hillhome as the Niedar retreated to the brewery. Patrick entered with his soldiers and saw Perian collecting dwarves for the Brewery and used magic to control her. The magic waned and she attacked him with a knife then tried to flee. Pitrick then hit her with a lightning bolt and she staggered to Flin in the Brewery and died in his arms. Talk about a beautiful and emotional scene. Flint was in love, despite his racial hatred, and now she died. I really appreciated the shock the writers allowed Flint to have in that moment. The Thiewar now bombard the brewery and ultimately Flint, enraged, opens the door and attacks them with the Tharkan Axe. It absorbs a spell Pitrick cast at him, and they go toes. Pitrick is incredibly skilled at fighting and the battle goes back and forth until finally Flint buried the Tharkan Axe in Pitrick’s chest, breaking his amulet of Takhsis.
Shadowy forms of Reorx and Takhisis battle above Hillhome as an earthquake ravages the town. Many are killed in the earthquake, and the Thiewar flee back to Thorbardin. When it is over, the ghost forms vanish, and many Neidar leave Hillhome after graves have been dug and filled. Everyone felt loss, and the Fireforge’s stayed. It ends with a nice epilogue where the Dragon Highlord in Sanction is disappointed about the missing Thiwar weapons shipments, but his army is ready, and he is anxious to use it.
This was a great Dragonlance novel filled with action and adventure, love and sorrow, all with a hefty side of humor. It felt like it had real stakes and treated the characters with respect, even the Aghar. In the end, Flint was usurped as king by another Aghar dwarf, but he didn’t mind. I do wish we would have seen Flint’s perspective change in the other novels, as he clearly grew affection for these Aghar and it would be nice to see a lasting impact of his experiences. I would highly recommend this to Dragonlance fans, dwarf fans and anyone who loves a good fantasy novel.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of Flint the King by Paul B. Thompson and Tonya R. Carter. What did you think of the battle of Hillhome? Did you enjoy the Aghar dwarves? And finally, what did you think of the connection to the Dragonarmies? Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
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