Join me as I review The Dawning of a New Age by Jean Rabe, live! Share your thoughts on this first volume in the Dragonlance: Dragons of a New Age series released on September 2, 1996 by Wizards of the Coast. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/3Im1IXF
About The Dawning of a New Age
The Summer of Chaos has ended. Ansalon’s nightmare has only just begun.
The gods have departed the world, heralding a new Age of Mortals. But before the dust of war can settle, vast shadows cover the land. Dragons have come to Ansalon, larger and more powerful than any ever seen, and they will wreak havoc on nations still trembling from war. As the lands themselves begin to change under the dire magic of the new dragon overlords, new heroes arise to lead the fight for freedom.
The first book in a rerelease of a key trilogy in the Dragonlance saga, this trilogy covers key events that take place between Dragons of Summer Flame and the bestsellingWar of Souls trilogy. Will all-new artwork and cover designs, these books tie in with The Dhamon Saga.
Review
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Misham, Deepkolt the 23rd. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of The Dawning of a New Age by Jean Rabe. 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 story starts during the Chaos War as a bit of a prelude. Palin is taking the spellbook of Magius from Raistlin and teleports to the Abyss. Then it switches to Khellendros who has been traveling portals to other planes of existence searching for Kitiara. He actually finds her in the Grey, so he returns to Krynn to locate a suitable body. He believes a draconian would do, when approached by one sharing the demands of Takhisis, that all dragons should join her in the Abyss to fight Chaos. Khellendros doesn’t care about Chaos and uses dark magic to empty the soul from the Draconian, making a vessel for Kitiara. It doesn’t work, and in despair, he cries. His tears mixed with the magic which created the first dragon Spawn.
Now that Khellendros has a body, he returns to the huldrefolk portal to enter the Grey, when he discovers its magic gone. The moons are also gone, replaced with a single pale moon. A huldrefolk named Fissure appears and tells him about Chaos, the gods and magic leaving. Khellendros is upset and plans to use the Portal to the Abyss in the Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas to enter the Abyss, then travel to the Grey to collect Kitiara. Palin has been having visions of Khellendros so he travels to Palanthus and warns a black robed sorcerer who must be Dalamar. Dalamar takes a staff that is described as the Staff of Magius and brings down the tower to stop Khellendros from accessing its power. This infuriates the blue dragon, who throws a tantrum, and leaves. He returns to his lair and produces more Spawn.
Malystryx finds her way to Krynn and begins consuming all creatures she finds. She accidentally eats a small black dragon thinking it is a lizard, and meets other dragons who tell her about the world of Krynn. She sets up a home and terrorizes the area as more dragons come to challenge her. She kills one and absorbs its power, then tells others, and the Dragon Purge begins. We jump through time twenty years and the dragon purge is ended and we are introduced to the various Dragon overlords. Then it cuts to thirty years after the Chaos War where Palin is holding the Last Conclave with the Master of the Tower and the Shadow Sorcerer. I remember being so curious about who these people were. It kept me tuned in and I even thought it was Raistlin who brought the tower down in Palanthus since they didn’t name the Sorcerer. This was a time of great mystery and excitement for some Dragonnlance fans.
Finally we are introduced to Blister Nimblefingers and Raph Tanglemop, two Kender who are visiting the Tomb of the Last Heroes in Solace. They meet Dhaman Grimwulf there who was granted a vision by Goldmoon, calling him to the Silver Stair on the Isle of Schallsea to the Citadel of light. They all travel together and meet Jasper Fireforge on the Windchaser, the boat that takes them there. Upon arrival an elderly Goldmoon gives a mission to Dhaman to take a piece of a True Dragonlance to meet with Palin Majere in the Northern Wastes, who has another portion of it. They will unite the Dragonlance, find the missing piece and strike back at the Dragon Overlords.
Malys summons Goblins, Hobgoblins and barbarian clans, demanding that they round up other humanoid races, treating them like cattle. When they have collected more than their clan numbers they need to return to her. At the same time, Jasper buys a ship calling it Flint’s Anvil and hires the crew from the Windchaser to take them to Palanthas. En route they hit bad weather while Raph, the young Kender with Blister is showing off, accidentally unties water barrels and is killed as they hit bad weather. They bury him at sea and hit the gale, trying their best to survive the wild waves before they arrive at Caergoth for supplies.
It was at this point that I realized, I completely forgot the details of this story from when I read it on release. Jean Rabe gets a lot of flack from Dragonlance fans over this trilogy, but I honestly think it is more because of TSR’s decision to not allow Weis and Hickman to finish their Summer Flame story line and develop the SAGA System game which propelled Dragonlance into the Fifth Age for years. Rabe’s writing is not bad at worst and pretty damn good at best. She has developed the characters with just enough backstory to make their motivations believable, outline a world that is brand new to every Dragonlance fan, and carry forward legacy characters with respect. This is a solid first book in the, at the time, new trilogy.
They picked up supplies and set sail again to Palanthas, but this stretch, which took a couple weeks, proved to be even more harrowing. They actually came across Frost who was hunting in the open sea, and nearly capsized their boat, if the Dragon Overlord wasn’t drawn off by a giant octopus. I will spare you all my absolute adoration for octopuses, octopi? And just say, they have more brains than we do, stop eating them! This allowed the group to dock at Palanthas and gather more supplies to travel to the Northern Wastes to meet with Palin.
Palin is conferring with the Master of the Tower and the Shadow Sorcerer over the Dragon Overlords. The Shadow Sorcerer goes to spy on Malys, while the Master of the Tower and Palin head to the Northern Waste to wait for the heroes. The heroes come across villages decimated by the Blue Spawn and three of them try to capture the heroes, who sumerilly kill two of them and capture the third, shrinking it down and putting it in a magical sack. Khellendros can see through his creations’ eyes however and spies on the heroes for the rest of the novel.
The heroes arrive and meet Palin who gives the second of three pieces of the Dragonlance to them, and at the same time an ogre raiding party is raiding the docks of Palanthas for slaves so that Khellendros can turn them into spawn. They capture the remaining heroes who were left watching the ship. Palin and the other heroes return to Palanthas to discover the missing companions and immediately leave to rescue them. They do in fact rescue them by killing many of the Ogres and letting the surviving prisoners go. One was Fissure the huldrefolk working with Khellendros who reported back to the overlord. Just after Malys magically appeared to the blue dragon, furious over the spawn. Khellendros placated her by telling her how to create them, and sent his blue dragon lieutenant to make Palin pay for rescuing the dragon’s humans.
Gale, the blue dragon, flies to Palanthas as the companions have returned and collected the last piece of the Dragonlance from none other than Tika and Caramon Majere. Then Gale attacked the heroes ship. The dragon nearly killed the half-ogre Groller, and killed the captain’s love, Shaon. Dhaman calls out to Gale and admits to having once been a Knight of Takhisis and Gale was his mount. Gale leaves and Dhaman gives chase. He tracks her to the mountains and fights her, and the other heroes mourn the dead, and share their fury over Dhaman’s past, blaming him for Shaol’s death. Palin talks sense into everyone, and Rig, Feral and Palin go after Dhaman.
They watch him kill the dragon who was holding back because they were once brothers in arms, and they both plunged to their apparent deaths into a lake. The heroes return to Palanthas heavy with sorrow and loss. This is exactly what Dragonlance is about. Characters that grow to love one another, and how they sacrifice themselves for the greater good. We got great character development, moral quandary, love, action and adventure, and world building that was incredibly important to the era. How anyone could read this novel and not come away thinking it wasn’t great is beyond me.
It must be because of the Fifth Age and not the actual story itself. If you love Dragonlance, and are open to ages outside the War of the Lance era, you should do yourself a favor and read this novel. I don’t know if it’s because so much has happened in Dragonlance since it was released, but I think I liked this infinitely more now, than I did when it was originally released.
Outro
But that’s it for my review of The Dawning of a New Age by Jean Rabe. Did you enjoy this introduction of the Fifth Age? Are the Dragon Overlords too brutal for Dragonlance? 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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