It is presented as a humorous artifact yet it has stats built out for it. Let’s learn more about the Kender Spoon of Turning. Buy Holy Order of the Stars: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/3239/Holy-Orders-of-the-Stars-35e?affiliate_id=50797
Transcript
Cold Open
Is it Dalamar’s delicately designed dinnerware or an unbelievable undead usurping utensil?
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about the Kender Spoon of Turning. 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 Dragons of Summer Flame, Dragon Magazine #421 and Holy Orders of the Stars sourcebook for this information. If I leave anything out or misspeak, please leave a comment below!
Discussion
We are familiar with the colorful characters of Dragonlance making extraordinary claims about mundane items. The first I was introduced to was in Dragons of Autumn Twilight when the companions were searching through Xak Tsaroth and they ran across an Ahgar Dwarf named Bupu. Bupu led the companions to a secret door which she claimed to have opened with her magical dead rat which she promptly presented to Raistlin. The irony here is that it was Tasslehoff Burrfoot who dispelled the claim about the dead rat being magical as he witnessed Bupu unknowingly step on a hidden floor lock which opened the secret door, not the magic rat. The ironic part of all this is that it is Tasslehoff Burrfoot in Dragons of Summer Flame who makes a similar claim about a mundane item having extraordinary abilities. This time in the form of a spoon.
You see, when Tas met Usha and told Jenna that she was Raistlin’s daughter, Dalamar brought them both to the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas. It was there that Dalamar offered them both a meal as he and Jenna talked. Tasslehoff couldn’t help but admire the quite remarkable silver spoons, each having been marked with intricate designs that Tas guessed were elven. Each was marked with Dalamar’s initials, he speculated. He slipped one in his pouches, unknowingly of course because Kender are not thieves. When Dalamar and Jenna returned, Dalamar noted the missing spoon and retrieved it. It must have been fortunate that Tas had found it on the floor after all. Knowing he had to get to the bottom of Usha’s parentage, and not wanting to let a purported thief and Kender alone in his tower, he summoned a tower specter to guard the two who were also locked in the room.
In any situation a tower specter will be sufficient to stop anyone from moving about the tower. It even prevented Dalamar from entering his Shalafi’s room after he was the tower’s master! So what could possibly stand up against the specter? How could a Thief and a Kender pose any credible challenge to the tower specter’s authority? Well, as Usha and Tas slept deep in the enchantment Dalamar cast over them, Tasslehoff’s hands were busy, well, handling. He unknowingly pocketed a silver spoon. When the enchantment wore off, and the two woke, they naturally decided to leave the room, a lock wouldn’t pose any significant threat to the pair. However they were not expecting the Spectre. After retreating from the Spectre they were forced to come up with another plan.
Tasslehoff, being a Kender, just knew he must have something in his pouches that would aid them in their liberation from the room and ultimately the tower. So he fished through his pouches and drew out a silver spoon. Elated he immediately recognised it as The Kender Spoon of Turning! Despite Usha’s insistence that it looked identical to the spoons they supped with the previous night, even pointing out the strawberry jam on it from the meal, Tas assured her that he would know The Kender Spoon of Turning anywhere. After all, his uncle Trapspringer carried one with him all the time. He even had a saying: ‘Most undead are more afraid of you than you are of them. They just ask to be left alone, to haunt and howl and rattle their chains. But occasionally you’ll run into one who wants to suck out your liver. That’s when you need the Kender Spoon of Turning.’ Tas insisted that the red mark wasn’t strawberry jam, but rather blood. He described how it should be used like this: You must present it boldly. Hold it up in front of the specter or the skeletal warrior or whatever sort of ghoul you might chance to encounter. And then you say, in a very firm tone, so that there’s no misunderstanding, ‘Leave.’ Or maybe ‘Begone.’ He wasn’t quite sure which.
I will admit that this all sounded like a Kender tale, but they did in fact get out of the Tower of High Sorcery, so who knows, right? The Kender Spoon of Turning would make continued appearances throughout the novel Dragons of Summer Flame, taking the role of the Dead Rat joke from Dragons of Autumn Twilight. Tas claims against all evidence to the contrary that it is in fact a holy relic, given to his Uncle Trapspringer by Mishakal herself. Or was it Reorx? He forgets. The spoon would be such an impactful device that at the end, when the defeated Chaos and Tas was killed by him, the spoon was left behind and discovered by Usha and Palin.
That should be the end of it right? Well, not quite. You see, fans love a good Kender tale, and the Kender Spoon of Turning would make an appearance in not one but two official sources as a minor artifact in Holy Orders of the Stars Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition sourcebook, and as a holy symbol in Dragon magazine #421 for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. And though the properties differ slightly the lore behind it is clear. Religious sages tend to agree that the gift was handed down directly from the god Branchala who had a fondness for Kender. Branchala knew that the Kender would never lose the artifact, and that it would stay in perpetual circulation among the Kender. The holy relic appears as a silver piece of fine dinnerware, with a persistent red spot. The ignorant may claim it to be strawberry jam, but those in the know recognise otherworldly ghost guts when they see it. This is proven when the guts reappear after being licked off, repeatedly! The powers of this artifact allow a Kender and only a Kender to turn undead as if they were a powerful cleric, and are even immune from death while holding it!
We now know that just as Chaos was about to crush Tasslehoff Burrfoot, he used the Device of Time Journeying to travel into the future to say goodbye to his friends. We know the misadventures that follow from the War of Souls trilogy, but the Kender Spoon of Turning was rumored to have been left in the future. But if that is so, how was it that Usha and Palin discovered it after Tas’ return to his present and ultimate death?
My friends, I have a theory. Suppose that Uncle Trapspringer did in fact have the Kender Spoon of Turning that Branchala created and gifted the race. Suppose that Tas inherited it from his uncle, and further suppose that the Kender Spoon of turning was with Tas when he and Usha were trapped in the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas by Dalamar the Master of the Tower. If all that is possible, then the silver spoon that Tas handled from Dalamar’s table was just a silver spoon with strawberry jam on it and not the Kender Spoon of Turning that Tas would then go on to use and lose in the future. In a campaign which deals with time travel, is it beyond the realm of possibility that Tasslehoff Burrfoot a Kender w ho is known to find items regularly, could possibly have two silver spoons, one a holy relic stained with ghosts blood and another an intricately designed elven silver spoon with strawberry jam on it? I will leave it for the Aesthetics to ponder.
Outro
But that is all the time I have to talk about the Kender Spoon of Turning. What do you think of the artifact? Was it in fact magical or just Dalamar’s dinnerware? Does belief in the power of an item lend any credence to its abilities? 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:
“This spoon is not ordinary!” the kender continued. “It’s a holy relic, given to my Uncle Trapspringer by Mishakal herself. Or was it Reorx? I forget. Anyway, it works. You saw it work.”
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