Join me as I review Lord Toede by Jeff Grubb, live! Share your thoughts on this fifth volume in the Dragonlance: Villains series. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/3jCc3Gn
About Lord Toede
Fewmaster Toede, a vain, pompous, and unreliable slavemaster and Dragon Highlord, becomes an unwitting hero as he walks a narrow and perilous path among competing evil forces that would make him their pawn.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Misham, Newkolt the 12th, my name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of Lord Toede by Jeff Grub. 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 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 thing that stood out to me are the sheer amount of errors in this book. There are quote marks where there shouldn’t be any and none where there should be. It’s not a great first impression, but I am enjoying the tale. It begins in the Abyss as all great stories do. Er rather all great stories that feature Toede, anyway. Takhisis’ Abbot of Misrule and Castellan of the Condemned, two Abishai, are discussing nobility after a Paladin enters the Abyss and is fought off by Judith, the Keeper of the Peace. They wonder why Good enters Evil’s home and tries to slay it incessantly, but Evil never enters good’s home. I believe they are referring to the plane of existence, not a monster’s lair. In any case, they make a wager, that anyone could be noble, or not, and choose Toede to prove or disprove the point.
Toede suddenly wakes from sleep, believing it to be the moment following his death, though he doesn’t recall actually dying. It is in fact six months later, a point that he learns from Groag, a hobgoblin that used to work with him when he was Highlord Toede, in charge of Flotsam. Toede finds Groag as a slave of Kender, the very Kender that led him and his men to their demise at the hand of a dragon no less! And Toede is quickly captured himself. He goes by the name of Mr. Underhill, a humorous nod to another epic fantasy series. The Kender in charge of the pair is Kronin Thistlenott’s daughter, Taywin, though Toede only hears part of her name as he is constantly scheming and thinking. I am enjoying the constant escapes into Toede’s mind and Groag’s for that matter. Though the story has some humorous moments, it’s not as overtly funny as I had expected it to be.
They make a break for it while they are out picking berries. They attack the guard and make Taywin slip as she is crossing a river on a wet log, only to rescue her and fall in themselves, after having grabbed the key around her neck with Toede’s mouth. They find themselves at a waterfall and Toede reveals the key in his mouth. Now on to reclaim his former glory.
Flotsam is being run by Toede’s former soldier, an Aurak Draconian named Gildentongue, who has made up a religion based around Toede’s former amphidragon mount, Hopsloth. He is the Holy Water Profit, which Gildentongue uses to keep the people in line. He has actually cleaned up Flotsam a bit in the aftermath of the War of the Lance, but no Hobgoblins are allowed into town. So they sneak in under hay in a wagon. Once inside, they witness Gildentongue’s enforcement technique of disbelievers as a former cook is beaten to death in the street. They go to an inn to try to figure out how to reclaim power, when Toede announces himself and the falsity of this new religion. He is attacked by a priest and the fight is joined. Groag and Toede fought off the supposed priest and the barkeep gave Toede healing potions to recover, in addition to a disguise.
Toede hatches a plan to kill Gildentongue. He bluffs his way into his old manor, and sends a runner to have Gildentongue meet an old friend. The Draconian immediately guesses who it is, and walks into a horror story styled ambush. Ultimately Groag is left in a burning heap from the exploding Aurak, and Toade confronts Hopsloth the Amphidragon who reveals that he was the one who sent the assassin after him, and promptly eats him. As the demons in the Abyss are discussing their wager and life they find Toede dead again, and this time argue that they were not specific enough. Toede thought he was going to be made a nobleman, so they sent him back to life again, but this time told him to be noble.
Toede, not wanting to revisit Flotsam, turns away and is lost in a swamp where he discovers a Gnoll named Charka drowning. Toede saves the Gnoll, who then feeds Toede and leaves to exact revenge on those who put him there. Toade continues out of the swamp only to come across archeologists of the Irda and none other than Groag cooking for them. He reveals that he was saved by them as they wanted to meet with Gildentongue. Groag offered to help them, so he has been their cook since. Toede is not sure he trusts these scholars, but goes with Groag to return to Flotsam to get more food supplies. On the way, with Groag refusing to steal the scholar’s money, Toede steals Groags horse only to be attacked by Charka the Gnoll with other gnolls.
Charka is ready to kill the researchers and Toede for being in a sacred place, when Toede makes up a lie about the Researchers being powerful magicians, as Charka demands proof. Toede leaves to bring proof, as they hold Groag hostage, who is convinced Toede will abandon him, which Toede initially tries to do, then lets fate decide. It turns out fate made him go back to the camp and warn the scholars. He discovers that the etchings of the Irda on the stone are actually pornographic fantasies, and one researcher is beside himself because of it. Toede tells him that he can get them all out of this predicament and takes a magical ball that sheds light. He tricks Charka with it and the Gnolls, now afraid of the powerful magics, bring the researchers food as a peace offering.
Toede leaves camp and has a vision of an ancient Irda temple that was buried. He wakes the next day and takes a scholar with him. They discover the temple and Toede falls through the floor. The Scholar leaves for help and Groag shows up, who tells Toede bad things happen whenever Toede is involved and abandons him there after seeing a blue skinned apparition telling him to leave. Toede, furious, searched the bowels of the temple and discovered it was constructed to hold an abyssal spawn. Basically a massive demonic, sentient steamroller that has been trapped here since the Age of Dreams. He needs to kill a thousand creatures before he can return to the Abyss and is woefully short by a few hundred.
Toede offers him more lives if he helps him kill a large frog (he means his amphidragon Hopsloth). The demon named Juggernaut agrees, and they escape the temple, kill the researchers and gnolls attacking them, then head off to Flotsam where they kill hundreds of people and eventually Hopsloth and Toede. The demons in the Abyss make yet another bet and Toede is once again, three times a charm?, resurrected. The more time I spend in Toede’s head and the more time I spend with the various demons, I am growing to truly love this novel and the characters. It’s not laugh out loud funny, though it has its moments, but it is laugh to yourself funny. I am truly enjoying it.
Toede is resurrected a year after his second death and goes to a cave in a hill rather than the directions he died last, but is discovered by Kender who has been looking for him. He learns that Kronin has apparently changed his mind about Toede due to his daughter, Taywin’s insistence, and the supposed writings that Toede has been ascribed to. The smutty Irda erotica that the scholars uncovered in the ruins, was attributed to Toede as an allegory about classism in Governing, and as Groag took the governance of Flotsam, the Kender, Gnolls, Undead and Scholars all rebelled against his rule.
The necromancer, Bob, communicated that he will aid the rebellion against Groag, and install Toede as leader if he gets all the fallen corpses to reanimate. The Kender want to install Toede so they can go back into the city. The Gnolls want to install Toede so they have access to learn at the library and enter the city, so Toede who did not write the poems that the scholars published under his name agreed to lead the assault. He was warned on the eve of battle by a small sprite from the Abyss that in fact, everyone was planning on double crossing Toede. So Toede, knowing the repercussions, went out of his way to ensure his survival while simultaneously getting revenge on Groag for abandoning him at the temple, and taking his throne in Flotsam.
The battle took place, and it was chaos. Gnolls, Kender and the Undead were all fighting the militia Flotsam raised and an Undead Whale unbeached itself even! Toede was almost assassinated, but it hit his horse, so he went charging into battle when it looked like they would fail, reinvigorating his troops. He fought his way to the throne room, where Groag has a trap laid, but Toede didn’t fall for it, and instead Groag was ready to give up his throne as he hasn’t been enjoying it or doing a good job when Judith, the leader in the Abyss suddenly appeared.
She began asking who Toede was and if he was noble, in which all the leaders of the parties swore to his nobility. The two demons who set this whole charade up were punished, and when Toede willfully stepped down to stop Judith from killing everyone, she granted him his nobility, installing him as lord of Flotsam. The Juggernaut went after the two demons and Bob the necromancer who turned on everyone, and it all ended with Toede giving his resume to Judith for when he finally dies, hoping to get a leadership position at least middle management in the Abyss. This made Takhisis smile.
This was a fantastic novel and a perfect example of how you can add over the top humor and happenstance in Dragonlance while still truly feeling like Dragonlance. It was funny, exciting and kept me interested infinitely more than I expected. If you like Lord Toede or Dragonlance or ever find yourself rooting for evil, this is a must read for you!
Outro
But that’s it for my review of Lord Toede by Jeff Grubb. What do you think about the novel? Do you have a favorite part? You can 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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