Join me as I review Hammer and Axe by Dan Parkinson, live! Share your thoughts on this second volume in the Dwarven Nations Trilogy, released on January 1, 1993. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/46sbdQS
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Misham, Paleswelt the 29th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of Hammer and Axe by Dan Parkinson. 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 year is the 40th Anniversary of Dragonlance, so join in on the celebration by submitting a video, piece of art or writing about Dragonlance to info@dlsaga.com. It will be added to the dlsaga.com/40th-anniversary celebration landing with all other contributors! This is my perspective only, and if you have any thoughts or disagree with mine, I invite you to share them in YouTube chat.
This novel starts out with a bang! First are three wizards looking for an area to build the Tower of High Sorcery. Megistal, Sigamon, and Tantas. One was replaced after having been killed in Xak Tsaroth by an agent of the High Overlord of Xak Tsaroth. Then you have the High Overlord of Xak Tsaroth looking to claim the treasures of Thorbardin for themselves. For some insane reason every human and dwarf in these novels thinks the dwarves have a mass of treasure under the mountain. With no evidence to the prospect other than their own innate greed. And finally a beast named Rage has been recently awoken, how we are not yet sure, and what it is is unclear as yet as well. But, it has ravaged three towns which drew out Damon Omenborn and the Roving Guard of Thorbardin to investigate.
Damon lost his wife and is still grieving, but one of the survivors of the most recently devastated town, Willow Summercloud seems to be his next girl if I am reading the situation correctly. Damon splits the group. As he goes to investigate the beasts possible lair, Mace Hammerstand takes some of the Roving Guard back to report to the Council of Thanes in Thorbardin, and Cale Greeneye takes some of the guard to hunt the beast passing through their territory. It’s a great set up, if pretty messy, but I am excited to see where it goes. And whoa did it ever go. The wizards are revealed to have inadvertently loosed the Wyvern called Rage, and as Damon finds the original cave of the beast they are assaulted by the magic users who believed them dead. In truth one of the dwarves died, and Damon and the other went after them. They met the wizards as they were burying their magic stone to form the Tower of High Sorcery as Damon killed one, and resisting their magic, then tied the other two up. He was nearly thrown from a cliff, but a Kender named Shillitec Medina Quickfoot riding a Raptor named Cawe picked up Willow and brought her to the wizards as the fight was ongoing, and they saved Damon’s life.
They gave the wizards an ultimatum to leave and left them tied up. One of them returned to the conclave and called the orders together to relay what happened. The other wizard followed the dwarves, curious about their resistance to magic. He discovered Quist Redfeather traveling south on behalf of the High Overlord, and stole his mount, then chased the dwarves. Quist eventually found the dwarves and told them he was also hunting the wizard. Inside Thorbardin the Thanes believed war was coming from the wizards so they are rushing to finish southgate and reinforce the original delving by the Daewar. They assigned a regent rather than a king in case war did break out and Willen Ironmaul, the Hylar Thane was voted in. He went to work reinforcing and building the army.
The wizards learned of the stolen stone and attack, sent the wizard back who was puking from the travel spell, which was hilarious, and we are introduced to the infighting from the wizards which was great. They discover the fortress of Thorbardin is massive and under the mountain and plan to take their stone back. The wyvern attacks another settlement and two regiments of dwarves go to attack it. The wyvern destroys the forces and hides in the old Daewar tunnel, replacing a gate after passing through it, so the dwarves don’t know he’s there. This is when Damon learns of the defeat from the communication drums. It is turning into a real crazy situation. The Wizards are going to hire mercenaries, Quist is going to try to get knowledge of Thorbardin but will probably temporarily team up with Damon, and I think the wizard Megistal will be friendly to them, curious about their resistance.
Megistal connected with Damon, Willow and Quist and as Quist wanted to kill him, Damon made a deal that they could study each other, the wizard tested the dwarves and the dwarves the wizard. The testing was an odd experience as the author straight up allowed a dwarf who hates magic and is resistant to it, to successfully cast a polymorph spell on the wizard and turned him into a horse. This is the most absurd part of this entire novel. It says the magic is in the words not the person, which invalidates everything wizards like Raistlin went through. And allows anyone who can say the magic words, complete ability to cast any magic they want. Completely ridiculous!
Damon goes into Thorbardin and Willow follows him. She is clearly attracted to him and waiting for him to notice her. She is a very attractive dwarf and when Tara, Damon’s mother sees her, she helps her clean up and presents her to Damon again, this time he noticed, and so did everyone else. Willow is staying in Thorbardin, which is bringing in all the dwarves in anticipation of attack from the wizards and their mercenaries who have begun to gather. The Kender Shill entered Thorbardin and found her way to Willow and together they explored the underground kingdom.
Willen came up with the idea from Quill to use some explosive liquid to seal off the old citadel and back entrance to Thorbardin which Rage was hiding in, unbeknownst to anyone. They sealed off the mountain pass but also nearly destroyed the surrounding area, but it was successful, however it drove Rage the Wyvern further into the tunnel, into Thorbardin, pissed off and looking for revenge. Willow and Shill notice Rage’s mist through the gate inside the kingdom when war drums called everyone to battle. We didn’t pick up with Willow until after the battle, but apparently she tried to tell everyone she could about the mist and no one paid her any mind, so she decided to take care of it herself.
The battle was primarily based in illusion. Of the one massive force that was real, three others were duplicated from it, but the dwarves eventually figured it out and worked through it, taking out the wizards as best they could, which made the humans easier to destroy. The dwarves eventually confronted the humans about their pay, revealing they were paid in stones that had magic making them appear as currency, this was the last proverbial stone, and most of the humans ended up fleeing. My biggest complaint about this book is that it drops in the Scions as a reference, but never tells you anything about them. You have to read the Dwarves of Krynn boxed set to know who and what they were. So when the wizards are referencing them, it makes zero sense. That alone isn’t odd with many of these novels, just making things up.
My biggest complaint is Damon’s ability to use magic. How can you be a race which detests magic so much that you are magically resistant to it, and then simply cast spells with a single word? Or complete other’s spells with a word? It makes zero sense! In any case we see Damon facing off against the most powerful wizard Kistilan and almost dies. Megistal, the wizard who was turned into a horse by Damon and was gifted to Quist, were both imprisoned for some reason, and the horse suddenly sprouted wings! They say it was able to cast a spell to manifest wings, but unless this horse is Mr. Ed, and even then I don’t see it happening, I can’t rationalize the nonsense. So the pegasus takes Quist flying to the battlefield and as Damon is dying from elemental chaos magic, the horse speaks to him in his mind telling him to reverse the spell and he will help him. So Damon does it, which frees Megistal who battles Kistilan.
Ultimately Damon nearly strangles Kistilan to death who fades into smoke and escapes. The war ends, but seven mages teleported into Thorbardin and three are immediately killed by defenders. The dwarves flee the entry and seal it off as they use a newly developed weapon, steam, to kill the remaining human wizards. I actually really liked this use of the magma tunnels and the effect. Now with the war over, we pick up with Willow who finds Rage, battles it solo, and buries her axe in its neck, then runs away screaming for everyone to flee as well. She travels through Thorbardin till she gets to a gate and ultimately traps its head in the gate. Then Damon arrives, shows his love for her, and appreciation, and they just leave it in the gate. It is never spoken of again! So, presumably, it’s a permanent fixture now…
Then we cut back to Quist who is a prisoner yet again, and lost all his gear to gambling with Daewar guards. Willen gives him a horse that Damon owed him, and new Dwarven forged gear, in addition to his old gear that was bought back. Then he is set free outside where other humans are, with his family! It turns out the High Overlord of Xak Tsaroth was overthrown off camera, and now the dwarves want to trade with the city. Talk about dropping a massive storybeat at the beginning of the novel and actively forgetting about it till the very end. You could completely remove Quist and Xak Tsaroth from the novel and lose nothing. For that point, you could remove the Stone of Threes and have the same non effect. The wizards could just have a territorial justification for invading or wanting their treasures, or any other reason, because the gem is eaten by worms in the end. A total non story macguffin.
Ultimately this is not as good of a novel as the first, and there are so many lore breaking moments and story beats that I can’t in good conscience recommend it to anyone. If you love dwarves, read it, but there is no real historical value to the tale, and no real movement in the story from beginning to end, other than Damon getting married to Willow at the end, which will lead to a King in Thorbardin.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of Hammer and Axe by Dan Parkinson. What did you think of Damon using magic? What about the dropped story beat of the High Overlord of Xak Tsaroth? And finally, what ever happened to Rage and Kistilan? Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or leave a 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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