Join me as I review The Dying Kingdom by Stephen D. Sullivan, live! Share your thoughts on this second novel in The New Adventures series. You can pick up The Dying Kingdom here: https://smile.amazon.com/Temple-Dragonslayer-Dragonlance-Adventures-Vol/dp/0786933216/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1662137717&sr=8-1
About The Dying Kingdom
The second title in an all-new Dragonlance series for young listeners! The Dying Kingdom continues a new series of Dragonlance adventures written specifically for listeners ages 10 and up. Sized to fit the young listener market, the series features a new band of young companions who band together for friendship and excitement during the golden age of the Dragonlance world.
Origins award-winning author Stephen D. Sullivan has just finished the novelization for the motion picture Thunderbirds. Over the past four years, Steve has published more than a dozen books (including ghost-writing for a well-known juvenile detective series), plus anthologies, comics, and short stories. His previous Dragonlance novel was The Dragon Isles.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Misham, Reapember the 15th, my name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of The Dying Kingdom by Stephen D. Sullivan. 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 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.
We pick up where we left off. The companions are traveling to Arngrim with the map Sindri discovered to seek the aid of the wizards therein, known as The Scarlet Brethren, to assist in getting Nearra’s memory back. Maddoc is still using Oddvar and the three goblins to do his bidding, though now, it is to follow the companions at a distance, and when they are near Arngrim, Oddvar is to enter the city first and garner cooperation from the Scarlet Brethren to test the companions. The weather in the mountains is terrible, it is raining and completely foggy.
They come across a broken down home where Catriona is attacked by what seems to be a metal lion-man. After nearly being killed before her friends come to rescue her, they discover the lion man is actually Prince Alric Arngrim who was searching for a group of bandits called Kokar’s Band, who are believed to be deserters from a regiment of the Dark Queen’s Dragonarmies. The bandits regularly attack the city Kingdom of Arngrim, and Alric lost many of his companions in this latest mission. They stay the night to join Alric on his return home in the morning. In the morning they are attacked by Kokar’s band, and Nearra is nearly killed, and the group is nearly defeated before they rout the bandits. Alric chases after them, and the companions stay together, checking on Nearra.
Catriona chases after Alric when they see Nearra is going to be fine, and he is picking off the stragglers of the bandits. He is clearly attracted to Catriona, but she has a horrible sense of self and little to no self confidence, so she refutes every compliment given. They all arrive at the city of Arngrim as Oddvar is leaving the Scarlet Brethren with their agreement to test the children in an effort to seemingly return Arngrim to its former glory in some way. The companions arrive at the castle and Alric introduces them all to his mother Queen Valaria Arngrim. She says that the King has retired for the night already and that the party is welcome to stay for having assisted Alric with the bandits. The companions ask about the Scarlet Brotherhood, but the Queen says the wizards are off on their own business and she doesn’t know when they will return.
They are welcomed to sleep the night in adjoining rooms and discuss it in the morning. The party sleeps in well into evening and awaken after Nearra has a nightmare. She has a constant pounding headache. Also everytime Catriona sees Alric, she feels taken by him, and he seems to be charmed by her as well. They meet the King, Conar Arngrim at supper who confirms they do not know when the Scarlet Brethren will return but that the companions are welcome to stay until then. That night, Nearra has another sleepwalking nightmare, and she is seeing glimpses of the woman inside her. Davyn helps her back to bed and sees someone learning in the shadows, he finds Elidor robbing the castle and blackmails Davyn with the knowledge of him working with Oddvar. Though he doesn’t know the full extent of Davyn’s connection to Maddoc, Davyn is silenced by the threat. As Alric talks with his parents he insists one of the party have The Lionheart, though what that is exactly is a mystery, the text alludes to it helping either restore Arngrim to its former glory or lift a curse.
The next morning Arngrim offers to take Catriona on a horse ride of the country, as Elidor and Sindir separately wander the town around the castle. Davyn and Nearra stay in the castle, as Nearra still is suffering from the headache. Elidor tries to sell the items he stole to a merchant and the statue ends up being the merchant’s missing sister’s possession. They beat him up, ready to murder him over it, as his sister is missing as are many other people in town. They infer the town is cursed and the King and Queen do not leave the castle to talk with the people. He is saved by Sindri who helps defeat the merchants and they run off. Alric and Catriona have a romantic picnic in a spring like glade as Alric hits on her directly. She tells him about her past cowardice and he shakes the notion away. She is relieved he is still interested in her, as she has been fantasizing about being a princess here in Arngrim. Alric tells her of the past glory of Arngrim, and how since the War of the Lance, they have lived in shadow and fog. But the kingdom used to be like this lively glade. He yearns to restore the kingdom.
I get the imm[ression that this kingdom of Arngrim is much older than the cataclysm even, and that it is cursed, somehow the Scarlet Brethren are responsible or are benefiting from it. Then suddenly a manticore attacks them and as it kills some of the guards and servants, none of them shed blood. This leads me to believe they are all constructs and not people, that the entire castle is a lie and magically maintained somehow. Catriona pursues the manticore and Alric is stuck in the chest with one of its spikes. The rest of the companions enjoy the evening meal as they worry about Catriona and Alric. They had not returned yet and it was late. They all retired for the evening.
Davin was woken by Nearra screaming. Every night she stays here, the emergence of Asvoria the ancient Sorceress seems to peek out through dreams and visions. At this point, Nearra is confident she has been to this castle before and even possibly is from here. She and Davyn investigate the library, but all books are pre cataclysm and none show the recent history of the King and Queen. This reinforces my earlier speculation. I believe Asvoria has something to do with this kingdom’s curse. Nearra finds a book on ancient history with illustrations and sees Asvoria, claiming that it is her! This is the same face Nearra saw in the mirror. Davyn is terrified of what it means and is convinced Maddoc is behind everything somehow.
Elidor and Sindri sneak out to investigate the castle at night and see the scarlet brethren turning down a corridor. As they follow, the brethren reveal there is nothing in the guards armor but mist. As they try to sneak past, the armor comes alive. The Scarlet Brethren are talking with Oddvar as the King enters. They claim that Catriona has the Lionheart, though what that means is unclear thus far. She is the key to lifting the curse on the castle. This confirms my suspicions, and Oddvar says the other kids can be killed. The King doesn’t trust Oddvar or Maddoc so he insists they live. He is interested in pursuing Catriona though. He orders the companions to be captured. As Elidor and Sindri try to evade the guards, they fall into a cavern and slide down to the bottom of a ravine. The guards catch them there.
Catriona arrives after getting lost returning to the castle with Alric, near death. She turns him over to the Queen, who arrives late at night and asks if she wants to save her son. Catriona agrees as she is in love with Alric. The Queen embraces Catriona and Catriona feels her icy death like embrace, and passes out. Davyn and Nearra run to the catacombs, being led by Nearra’s memories, which of course were Asvoria’s. They come across the guards capturing Elidore and Sindri, and as the guards come out to capture them, Nearra falls into the emergence a bit, and Asvoria grants her magical power from within. She reaches out with lightning and destroys many of the guards before the King and Queen are summoned by her sheer power. They drain Nearra as Catriona was drained and take her, but Davyn was hiding after having fallen into the pit.
Catriona wakes to see Alric now in ghost form telling her that he will not have her killed as his parents plan. He reveals the truth of Arngrim, that it was a kingdom before the Cataclysm and Asvoria came to study from the Scarlet Brethren. After she took all she wanted from them, they tried to stop her and she cursed them all to live eternally as shadow. The bitter irony is that they don’t realize they have Asvoria in Nearra and are planning on killing her to remove the curse, since Alric won’t allow them to Kill Catriona. They are simply looking for someone with strong enough life force to return them to their mortal form as Alric was, then the newly formed Scarlet Brotherhood can remove the curse. Oddvar tried to dissuade the King and Queen from killing Neara rather than Catriona, but they feel he is messing with their plans and throw him out.
The other companions are taken to the cells where Catriona is, and they all break out as Nearra is taken to the spell chamber and prepped for the ritual. Davyn finds Nearra and leaves to find the companions as they are entering the catacombs after breaking out and fighting the automaton guards. They all go to free Nearra together and nearly die, but Alric turns sides as he loves Catriona and fights against his parents. Catriona takes magical blasts from the king and queen as she tries to save Alric, and Nearra is removed from the magical web containing her. The Scarlet Brethren are slowly being killed by the companions and Alric and the spell goes wild. The companions flee the chamber and Arngrim as the spell begins dragging the kingdom into a black hole like magical swell. It vanishes and Sindri gives Catriona Alric’s necklace that he ‘found’.
In the end, they didn’t restore Nearra’s memory, Arngrim was destroyed and they moved into the Vingard mountains with no plan other than to stay together.
This was a much more entertaining story than the last book. It truly feels like a home game of D&D and I truly enjoyed it. The characters still have their flaws, but they are growing. Davyn still hasn’t admitted to being Maddoc’s son, but he is actively working against his father. The emergence hasn’t happened completely, though the return of Asvoria to Arngrim did bring it closer to happening. The battle scenes are really well written, as were the first books’, and in the end, though it doesn’t feel like any Dragonlance game world I played or read about, I am enjoying it and would recommend it if you are a young reader or a Dragonlance completionist.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Dying Kingdom by Stephen D. Sullivan. What do you think about the first of The New Adventures novels? Did you have a favorite part of the novel? 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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