Join me as I review The Dargonesti by Paul Thompson and Tonya Cook, live! Share your thoughts on this third novel in the Dragonlance Lost Histories series, released on December 6, 2011 by Wizards of the Coast. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/3XE5dA0
About The Dargonesti
Transported to a mysterious island, an Elven princess encounters the mystical Dargonesti and their wondrous castle beneath the sea
During a vicious Elven war, a princess of Qualinost and an elite band of warriors sail forth to rescue their countrymen from the collapsing Ergoth Empire. Their journey goes awry when a strange mist engulfs Princess Vixa’s ship and transports them to a phantom island.
When the mist clears, Princess Vixa meets her captors: the fabled Dargonesti. No soul has encountered the Dargonesti or visited their city of pearl marble that rises from the sea floor—and lived to tell the tale. Princess Vixa and her companions meet this race of sea elves, experience a fantastical underwater world, face a foe counted among the legends of Krynn, and accept an impossible mission that will bring them back to the land they call home.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Kirinor, Fierswelt the 12th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of The Dargonesti by Paul Thompson and Tonya Cook. 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.
We begin with an interesting event that I would not have expected. Vixa Ambrodel, daughter to Lady Verhanna Kanan, and niece to the Speaker of the Sun, Silvaran, is a member of the Qualinesti military like her mother was before her. She is sent with a force to extricate their Ambassador to Ergoth, Quenavalen due to the war between Vinas Solamnus and the Emperor of Ergoth. This is the event that will create Solamnia as a nation. They are sailing by boat and after helping some locals from war profiteering brigands, they follow their lead to their elven kin only to approach a massive fog cloud. They sail into it with no other option, only to become lost and run aground. They split the group with Vixa and the captain and some soldiers going to the land to find a way off or around it, when they notice a couple of strange looking figures. They follow them into what appears to be a cave, only to be seemingly suffocated and pass out.
They wake and realize the land they ran into was a Kraken of some sort and they are inside of it. They attack it and realize they are far underwater as they are expelled into the ocean. The majority of them are saved by dolphins who somehow provide shells that allow the elves to breathe underwater. They travel to an underground city and find it populated by sea elves! They knew old children’s stories about sea elves, but they never believed them to be real.
They are met by Coryphene, the first servant of their divine queen. They are in the city of Urione, which is separate from Watermere. We eventually discover that Queen Uriona, the fourth daughter to the Speaker of the Moon had no prospects for rulership, so she studied magic, at the cost of her mind. She broke off with a contingent of other Dargonesti and formed this city based on visions she claimed to have received from their high gods. She believes she will unify all elves and rule them on land. When the group arrives at the city, they are split up with two of them going to the slave pens, and the other two, including Vixa, going to talk with Coryphene. He wants to know more about the Silvanesti and Qualinesti, but Vixa refuses to answer, realizing she is not among kin, but rather a prisoner.
Suddenly the city is attacked, and everyone is sent out to fight the Chilkit, crab-like monsters that eat the Dargonesti. Once they fight off the beasts, we realize the slaves are building a wall between the Chilkit and the Dargonesti for protection. The Queen has been using her Kraken to sink ships to collect slaves. After the battle Vixa is summoned to the Queen, who is forbidden to look at. Vixa, being a firebrand, tries to sneak a look and is nearly killed by the queen’s magic. I am doing my best not to think of the Gungan underwater city as I read this novel, but it is really difficult. I am also struck by how much worse these Dargonesti are than even the Silvanesti! The Queen reads Vixa’s mind while she is unconscious learning she is the blood of Kith–Kanan and a princess.
Vixa is visited by Naxo, the shapeshifting dolphin that saved her, and tells her the history of the Queen and the city, and shares his belief that she is mad, sick in the head. He plans on abandoning the city and the Queen, and will not share more information with Vixa. Then Coryphene returns to question Vixa more, but she again refuses to share information, and he sends her to the slave pits. She is reunited with her people as slaves and there are dwarves who create a gnomefire to cook fish. She plans on breaking out with it after watching a human attempt to escape but dies on the way due to decompression.
As the dejected prisoners return to their slave pen when the dwarf Gundabyr Ironbender hears the sound of tunneling. This could only be the Chilkit tunneling under the Dargonesti walls. The prisoners frantically build more Gnomefire and wait for the Chilkit to breach. They do shortly and many slaves die in the fight, as one of the Qualinesti warriors leaves to warn their captors. The prisoners have no air shells to swim to safety so they are trapped, and the tunnel is letting seawater into their air bubble prison. They fight the giant sea creatures with the gnomefire but are overwhelmed and forced to swim for the city.
They all swim aout with many drowning en route, even Vixa blacks out. Sha wakes on the surface of the ocean, helped by the Sea Brother Naxos. He offers to take her to shore and safety, but she cannot abandon her troops. He then offers her an opportunity to change, but there is no coming back from the change. She has no real choice and accepts it, as Naxos casts a spell to transform her into a shapechanger. This really bothered me. I understood the Dargonesti and Dimernesti as being altered by the Graygem into sea elves that can change into dolphins and sea otters respectively. This novel changes that saying that not all Dargonesti can change into dolphins, only the sea brothers, and there are few of them. This completely alters Dimernesti lore and function from every source I have ever read. It’s akin to making Balif an elf in one novel, and therefore must be an elf, when all other source material says he is a kender, including this novel! Why Dragonlance cannot be consistent in its lore is baffling to me.
Vixa a new Qualinesti shapechanger returns to Urione to discover the Chilkit have attacked the city and have it surrounded. She meets with Coryphene and learns that all but one of her warriors is still alive. She tells him that she can have Gundabyr make Gnomefire to kill the Chilkit,a dn they immediately approve of the plan, offering their freedom after the battle. They work in earnest to make as much gnomefire as possible and march against the Chilkit together. The battle is hard fought and even when the Chilkit are fleeing, the elves press to exterminate them all. This kills many more elves, but the madness in the Dargonesti is too strong. The battle ends and the Queen demands the slaves and Vixa murdered. This bothers Coryphene as he gave his word, but his love for his queen is too strong to deny.
During the battle Naxos tried to stop Coryphene and was branded a traitor, feeling with a speaker in his back. As Coryphene is rounding up and killing the prisoners, Vixa searches for Naxs, finding him in a cave. He asks for a potion from a temple, knowing it will turn him into a zombie, but at least he will live and the pain will be gone. Vixa returns toe the city but is captured and detained by spell. Coryphene refuses to kill her but plans on imprisoning her till the Dargonesti take Silvanost. They are gathering their forces now, and are marching out soon. The other Sea Brothers pretended to ally themselves with the mad queen, but wait till Vixa can lead them to Naxos.
Gundabyr searches and finds Vixa, setting her free and they gather the potion and flee to Naxos as the sea brothers follow. The sea brothers refuse to let their leader turn into a zombie and bring him a healer. They all flee as the army marches on the seafloor to Silvanesti. Vixa and Gundabyr arrive on land only to be captured by Silvanesti warriors patrolling the shore. THey take her to Thronbec fortress and no one believes her story about the invading force or the existence of the Dimernesti. They send scouts to the shore to see if there is any truth, but they return with nothing. The pair tries to prove their story by Vixa turning into a dolphin, but she can’t do it in freshwater, and is thrown into the fortress dungeon.
They are let out as the nearby town and the fortress are under siege by the Dimernesti. The town is burning by Gnomefire, and the fortress is holding, nearly refusing until the last moment to warn Silvanost of the invasion. The former prisoners are now fighting their first captors with their second captors. I definitely understand why the Silvanesti refuse to believe this random elf and dwarf, as they have no proof of who they are or their story, but you would think as soon as the invasion started, the Silvanseti would send word to Silvanost. There should be no question about that. All of these elven nations are completely insane!
The fortress falls as the Dargonesti summon the Kraken, which pulls down its walls. Very few escape, including Gundabyr and Vixa. They regroup and notice the Dargonesti don’t press their advantage, they are staying out of the sun, only fighting at night. The survivors flee to Silvanost and are brought to the Speaker of the Stars, Elendar, the fourth son of the former speaker Sithas. Quickly Vixa notices that the Speaker is at odds with the other elves, and he is very unconventional in his mannerisms. It turns out that he was never meant to be the Speaker, but to serve as regent till his youngest brother is of age. None of his heirs will rule.
Vixa tells him of everything she experienced, and the rulers of the clans and houses call her a spy and blame her for the fortress. The Speaker takes her side and has dinner with Vixa, his cousin and Gundabyr, hearing more in private. Then the Dargonesti attack. The Silvanesti are not prepared for the tactics and manner in which the Dargonesti are assaulting and their sheer numbers. The Speaker calls for the citizens to come defend their nation, but that could take a week. What transpires is a wonderful series of attacks and counter attacks told brilliantly by the authors. This would truly make for a wonderful season of a series.
The Dargonesti cannot bring their Kraken in the Thon Thalas river, so it is up to the Gnomefyre and numbers. As the Silvanesti are defeated, Vixa is given the sword of Balif and fights to defend her Silvanesti brethren. The Speaker has his clerics draw the water out of the river, hurting the Dargonesti who are weary and beaten in many battles. Then Uriona summons her evil priests and they summon the fog which disorients and pacifies those caught within it. Vixa in an act of desperation with twenty soldiers crosses the lines in the fog and hunts down the priests, slaughtering them all, but the Dargonesti surround and begin exterminating her troops.
When all is lost, the reinforcements finally arrive and the Dargonesti are routed. In the most insane aspect of this novel, the Speaker decides to imprison Coryphene for life and marry Uriona! It makes zero sense to anyone, but Vixa knows there is nothing she can do to change his mind. She tells Coryphene who beside himself leaps from his tower to his death. Then she takes a griffon back to Thorbardin to drop off Gundabyr and return home to Qualinesti.
It turns out the Ambassador which started this whole adventure in motion arrived a few weeks before Vixa, and she was given command of the Wildrunners. A command that she eventually gave her next in command to go to the sea, as it was calling to her. For all we know she spent the remainder of her life in the open ocean, as Uriona turned the heads of the houses against the Speaker and made the Silvanesti even more Zenophobic than they already were. I guess she was right about ruling the elves.
This was a fantastic novel that dragged a bit in the first third, but really won me over in the final third. I desperately wish I could pay to have this made into a film or series. The whole elven nation trilogy, Kagonesti and Dargonesti novels are great! If you like Dragonlance History, elves or massive battles and political drama, definitely read this novel.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Dargonesti by Paul Thompson and Tonya Cook. Did you like the presentation of the Dargonesti under Urionas command? Should the novel have been named differently for its focus on just one small group of Dargonesti? And finally, will we ever get to see Dragonlance on the big screen? You can email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
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