Join me as I review Spectre of the Black Rose by James Lowder and Voronica Whitney-Robinson, live! Share your thoughts on this sequel to Knight of the Black Rose, the novel about Lord Soth in the Ravenloft campaign setting. This is the twentieth book in the Ravenloft The Covenant series. You can pick up Spectre of the Black Rose here: https://amzn.to/3oEOQ70
About Spectre of the Black Rose
This chilling sequel to Knight of the Black Rose reunites readers with the iconic Dragonlance-turned-Ravenloft villain, Lord Soth
Factions vie for control of Sithicus as Lord Soth—darklord and former knight from the Dragonlance world—fights to keep his reign from crumbling. Even as he struggles to defeat his enemies, rumor reaches him that the White Rose haunts the land. Has Kitiara finally returned to Soth, or is this another spectre from the death knight’s tragic past?
Dark, atmospheric, and featuring one of the most beloved Dungeons & Dragons villains, Spectre of the Black Rose is another stunning work of Gothic horror about the masters and monsters of the Ravenloft dark fantasy setting.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. It is Misham, Gildember 14th, my name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of Spectre of the Black Rose. 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 my collaborator patrons, the Heroes of the Lance, and invite you to consider becoming a patron or member of this channel by visiting the links 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.
The novel opens with Gesmas Malaturno traveling to Sithicus on behalf of his master Malocchio Aderre. He is a spy who gathers information, and Aderre wants to know the history of Lord Soth. He has been traveling in Sithicus, speaking to elves, humans, and even paid off a Vistana to gather information. He then starts heading toward the mists to leave as Azrael, Lord Soth’s senechal appears before him. Panicked, as Azrael’s reputation precedes him, Gesmas tries to escape, but alas, Azrael is too quick, and Lord Soth’s undead Knights aid in preventing his escape. He is taken before Soth who has been in a statuary state on his throne for years. As his memory fades, Sithicus grows more and more dangerous, with sickness and plagues spreading, wars being fought and scheming by all of its denizens.
Soth revives at Gesmas’ arrival and asks what he is doing in Sithicus. Gesmas tells the truth that he is a spy for Lord Aderre, and Soth asks him to tell him the tales he has gathered in his domain. He tells many takes with lies or half truths, and Lord Soth confirms truths to him, retelling portions. Lord Soth realises he has been derelict in his ruling of Sithicus and demands Gesmas to be sent to the mines to work off his debt with other prisoners. On the way to the mines, the wagon is attacked, and The Bloody Cobbler murders him.
We cut to a shop where the Vistani led by an aging Magda is trading carpet for salt and Azrael walks in preceded by Lord Soth. Soth wants to know who Gesmas got his tale from, and Magda denies it was her. That elves and humans across his domain have been spreading tales. The truth is that a member of her tribe sold the knowledge, and Magda outcasts him for it later. Azrael is assigned to find out who the White Rose is, who is also sharing intimate details of Soth’s life and commands Magda to ally with him against Lord Aderre. She agrees and Azrael returns to the Lake of Sounds where he can eavesdrop on the citizens of the domain.
Magda and Lord Soth arrive at a stone bridge to meet with Malocchio Aderre and his ogre guards. One of the half-elf twins also with Aderre begins reading the statement and Soth tells him to stop. He doesn’t and Soth kills him. Aderre says he will do the same to Magda as he wants to destroy her and the Vistana, but Soth refuses. They eventually do battle, Aderre sending his ogres and Soth calls his banshees. When Soth has defeated all, Magda is wounded and they part ways after Aderre leaves. Magda returns to her camp, and they are attacked by shadows from the salt chest Azrael left her back in Ambrose’s shop. Magda dies before Lord Soth after he appeared too late to rescue her and she releases her grandmother’s curse on him, keeping him in Ravenloft, and makes Soth swear an oath to protect her kin. He agrees and knows Azrael set this up. Soth orders him to kill the White Rose’s associates.
Azrael is enjoying the mist telling him about his domain once he rids it of Soth, until Lord Soth appears. He nearly kills Azrael before Azrael tells him that Magda was in league with the White Rose, and that she was acting against him. Soth fires him, and delays his execution till he can find the truth. It flashes back to Ambrose’s shop where a hooded elf enters, followed by Azrael’s henchmen. They rough the place up and find the elf. They are then attacked and Helain, who is sick from the domain’s illnesses, freaks out and jumps through a window running away. Her would-be fiance Ganelon chases after her into a tunnel and is chased out of it by insect creatures who all run from the Bloody Cobbler, standing right behind Ganelon. He tells Ganelon that Helain is safe, or will be and that he can find her on a hill after Lord Soth arrives. Soth tries to kill the Bloody Cobbler who knows a lot of Soth’s past, but his magic goes through him. He taunts Soth, then disappears.
Ganelon, still hunting for Helain now runs into the outcast vistani who ignores him and continues, driven by the call of the Whispering Beast. He takes shelter in a cave, and the Vistana come up on him, trapping him and questioning him about how to find the Beast. They torture Ganelon until he is rescued, through the shadows by the Whispering Beast himself. We switch to Azrael who is forming an army of the remaining citizens, and collecting large sums of money from the mine, which is guarded by his protectors. It is clear that Azrael is plotting something that is not in line with Lord Soth’s demands.
Now with the Whispering Beast, Helain is trapped by his power. This formerly beautiful elf, now a disgusting creature, is in absolute control of the mad people in this vale, and he tortures Ganelon with his power over Helain. They are joined by the White Rose who offers Ganelon an opportunity to get his love back, if he helps them collect Roses from another domain. This will be difficult and dangerous, but ultimately Ganelon accepts the offer. Back at the Vistana camp, the new Raunie refuses to move the camp, and they are immediately attacked by a force of Ogres outfitted to appear as being sent by Malocchio Aderre. When Izla finally calls Lord Soth to her aid, he destroys the remaining force, and discovers they were paid with coins from his realm. He believes this is a diversion and orders Izla to return to Nedragaard keep with him. She asks him to protect her remaining tribe as they follow and Lord Soth raises the dead ogres. When the survivors finally follow, the bloody Cobbler comes and raises the fallen Vistana. This is all believed to be in preparation for a massive assault on Nedragaard keep the following day.
Ganelon travels into Malocchio Aderre domain and enters the garden only to discover the roses are corpse roses and after instructing the mad servants through the Whispering beasts ear he was given, they began pulling the roses off without touching the thorns. One of the mad reacted to a rat and it awoke the corpse roses who began assaulting the mad people. The survivors fled over the garden wall only to run into Aderre himself. He demanded to know what was going on and Ganelon admitted everything. Adhere trusted him due to his behavior and the leg brace that the Bloody Cobbler gave him from Aderre’s spy Gesmas Malaturno. Adhere let the mad people return the roses to the White Rose in return for Ganelon’s promise to kill Azrael, who he just discovered betrayed him, by buying off Aderre’s ogre force which was meant as a threatening not attacking force. Ganelon agreed.
Azrael captured the Bloody Cobbler and tortured him. Lord Soth witnesses three armies meet on the battlefield. The Ogres, Elves and Farmers. The elves and farmers of Sithicus were meant to destroy the Ogres under the command of Azrael, who is absent. Instead Lord Soth learned the full scope of Azraels betrayal as the three armies met and joined forces to assault the Nedragaard keep. Izla confirmed Azrael’s treasury and desire to perform a ritual giving him the power of shadows and control over SIthicus. Lord Soth left to kill Azrael. As he is fighting his way through the wards, he is informed about Izla’s treasury by his banshees. Izla erected a ward around Nedragaard keep, forcing out the undead and inviting the army within. Vengeance burned like an inferno inside Lord Soth And he immediately left to destroy Izla.
Ganelon watched lord soth go, met and freed the Bloody Cobbler who confirmed Helain is free, due to his help, and returned to the chapel to kill Azrael. He is met by his old friends, now corrupted by salt shadows and they hold him as Azrael begins the ritual. All shadows are summoned within him, but the poison Ganelon was able to place infected Azrael, who suddenly realizes the darkness that was whispering to him, was actually Izla, who is now betraying him too! She is trying to take control over Sithicus and used Azrael as a pawn from the start.
Lord Soth arrives at the keep, fights his way through the ward and his minions begin slaughtering the armies. He confronts Izla, ready to murder her with death magic and the White Rose, The Whispering Beast and the Bloody Cobbler stop him. They reveal themselves as Isolde, and Lord Soth’s two dead sons. I like how they merged the two Soth histories from Knight of the Black Rose and Lord Soth novels here. The Beast was his son from his first marriage, twisted as is Soth’s honor, and the Cobbler is his son who was burned up in the collapse of Dargaard Keep. Soth refuses to believe them, and Izla is forced out to face her own destiny at the hands of the giant she mutilated, that the Bloody Cobbler repaired with the skin of the Vistana undead he raised, and her surviving Vistani brothers. She leaps to her apparent death in the great chasm that surrounds Nedragaard keep before they can exact their revenge.
The white rose acknowledges that Lord Soth had forgotten so much of his past, as his memory returns elements of his old life as well. The three moons of Krynn, Nedragaard Keep became more faithful to Dargaard keep and the mountain of shadows from Azrael’s ritual backlash, fell upon the land, returning the shadows to the people. With Soth’s memory returned, he is also returned to Krynn to be tormented nightly.
Sithicus becomes a twisted land of darkness without the Lord to command it. Azrael roams the hills, now driven mad. Izla is trapped in the chasm surrounding the now destroyed Nedragard keep Her betrayed giant and Vistana travel around it waiting to exact their revenge. Ganelon roams the land helping others, terrified at being reunited with Helain as it will mean his death due to Izla’s curse.
This was a great story of the conflict between the domains and it’s residents, lords and powers. It ended up all being the result of multiple forces pushing and pulling each other with evil or vengeful intents and it proved that Lord Soth was far too powerful to remain in Ravenloft. His return heralded a return of complete evil to Krynn and it brought a smile to my little black heart.
I enjoyed the novel a lot! Again, it merged the two conflicting tales of Soth’s backstory that were told, and brought my favorite villain back to Dragonlance. It didn’t ever resolve Kitiara’s soul’s situation, which is a dangling thread out there, but I suppose at this point, everything Ravenloft for Lord Soth has been officially reneged.
If you are a fan of Ravenloft, Dragonlance or Lord Soth, I highly recommend this novel.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of Spectre of the Black Rose by James Lowder and Voronica Whitney-Robinson. Have you read the novel? What did you think of Lord Soth in Ravenloft? Do you enjoy the reviews I am putting out there? Feel free to email me at info@dragonlance-saga.com or comment below.
I would like to once again invite you to consider becoming a patron or member of this channel, and you can pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate link, all of which are in the description below.
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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