Join me as I review The Gates of Thorbardin by Dan Parkinson, live! Share your thoughts on this second novel in the Dragonlance Heroes II series, released on September 26, 1990 by TSR Inc. You can buy a copy here: https://amzn.to/484BkN4
About The Gates of Thorbardin
Magic and peril run rampant beneath the earth in this Dragonlance Heroes novel about Krynn’s forgotten dwarven heroes
Legends tell that beneath the mountain fortress of Skullcap lie the remains of the dark wizard Fistandantilus and the path to the gates of the ancient dwarven kingdom of Thorbardin. Buried somewhere along that perilous path is the magical helm of Grallen, son of King Duncan, tragic hero of the Dwarfgate War. Finding Grallen’s helm, it is prophesied, will herald the return of a united Thorbardin—but it will also open the gates of the realm to fresh horror and chaos.
Now, one exiled dwarf’s dreams of the fabled helm will lead him on an adventure to glory. Or will it lead to his ultimate doom?
Review
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Bakukal, Frostkolt the 8th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of The Gates of Thorbardin by Dan Parkinson. 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 are immediately introduced to the plot in an interesting way. Apparently a mountain dwarf named Chane Feldstone is having recurring dreams about finding the Helm of Grallen, though he doesn’t know what or where it is. Only that he must find it. He tells the female dwarf he’s into named Jillian about it and she believes him, and tells her father, Slag Firestoke. Slag does not want Chestal anywhere near his daughter, as he wants her to marry up in class, not down. So he pretends to help Chane but the troops he sent with him end up beating him and stealing his clothing and gear. Setup complete. Chane is seeking out a helm he’s dreamed of and no one likes him.
Then we are introduced to his resourcefulness as he lured a mountain cat into a cave to kill it. While he is butchering it a kender named Chestal Thicketsway wanders in and hangs around to eat the cat meat with Chane. Chess tells him that he is on his way to Wakeep valley and Chane is headed that way as well. It presents it as a mysterious place that wizards won’t even approach. We know Chane needs to get to Skullcap, so I wonder how he will arrive. In any case, they find a talking bird and as they follow it more cats arrive hunting them.
As Chane and Chess flee the cats, they come across ancient gnome machinery from the assault on Gargath’s keep, and Chane decides to make a hammer and sword while Chess explores. Chess comes across an unactivated spell from the Dwarfgate Wars and names it Zap. A red robed wizard named Glenshadow the Wanderer approached Chane, somehow knowing his destiny, and guides him to an Irda. Chess meets up with them and the Irda explains that two gems held the greygem. The Spellbinder which is still affecting the valley, the reason Zap hasn’t gone off yet, and Pathfinder which is in the Helm of Grallen, kin to the last King of thorbardin Duncan. She also tells Chane that he is a descendant of Grallen! It is his destiny to use the helm to hide the northgate of Thorbardin, which has been abandoned since the Dwarfgate Wars.
Meanwhile Jillian is not content to let Chane wander and when she finds out that her father screwed him over, she beats up one of the ruffians who abandoned him and makes him draw her a map to his last known location. Then she travels off to the trade town outside Thorbardin called Barter. At the same time, a human trader named Wingover and an elf named Garon Wendesthalas are separately traveling to Barter as well. Wingover comes across Garon as goblins are waiting in ambush and he helps him defeat them. They capture the last goblin to question it as goblins are not supposed to be this far south, and the goblin says it works for Darkmoor, his commander before a spell kills it.
Nuitari eclipses Lunitari and Solinari and is seen as a sign that danger is coming to Krynn. This is a couple hundred years after the Cataclysm, so there should be another hundred and fifty before the War of the Lance, but they are already saying highlords roam the land amassing armies, and Darkmoor is working for Verminaard, or is implied to be, and so I am not a hundred percent sure of the exact timeline this book is set in.
The human and elf head to Barter as they come across a Gnome named Bobbin, pulling a flying machine. He enlists their aid to get it flying and they meet with the master trader Rogar Goldbuckle. Rogar enlists Wingover to help Jillian find Chase and they all help Bobbin fly his glider which he is unable to get to land. Then the next morning they head out to find Chase reluctantly. They come across the commander Darkmoore and goblin army and leave as Garon stays back to kill any strangling goblins, and they come across a hungry Bobbin still flying in the currents of the Khalkists.
Chane, Chess and Glenshadow with Pathfinder are now off to find the Helm of Grallen as Chess is tormented by Zap constantly complaining about not being able to go off. Garon takes out a significant portion of the goblin force, but is ultimately caught and tortured, hamstrung and put into slavery. Kolanda Darkmoor, the goblin commander, is trying to hold this valley between Pax Tharkas and Thorbardin for the coming force. Glenshadow the wizard leaves Chane and Chess to get away from Spellbinder and communicate with the Towers of High Sorcery. Apparently, he is here helping because the remnants of a renegade wizard is still around, and he needs to destroy it so it can’t help this goblin force.
He ultimately meets back up with Chane and Chess who continue through the frozen warriors and head toward Skullcap. En route they come across a mass migration between plainspeople and Niedar dwarves from the goblin incursion, and Chane and Chess face off against an ogre which they narrowly defeat, burying it under rubble. They group up with the refugees for safety for the night. Meanwhile Chess wanders away and is picked up by Bobbin in his soarwagon. They fly off to Wingover and Jillian and report where Chane is. Chess leaves with the group as the gnome flies off. I had initially liked the gnome and his invention but they describe it acting like a helicopter more than a glider, which it is. Either the author doesn’t know the difference or it’s situationally convenient to have it hover but not be able to land, which again is asinine and devoid of creativity, on the author’s part. Go all in on a concept and have fun with it, but don’t use convenience to wave away logic.
They all group together at the refugee camp and plan to head to Skullcap for Grallen’s Helm. This is all to destroy a hidden entrance to Thorbardin, not North Gate, so my earlier understanding was wrong. They are discussing how to get across the goblin infested plains when Jillian wanders off into a cave, is taken by an ogre, then runs from him and kills him. The ogre Chane buried finds the cut up ogre and plans with the goblins to ambush the heroes. That night the goblins come, and the heroes narrowly avoid them, though some are hit with bolts, and then flood waters come. The waters don’t do much other than allow them to continue running. Kolanda is trying to position her army between the heroes and Skullcap, convinced they will head there.
Bobbin is unable to land still, and won’t until the end of the novel, and a dragon from the eastern mountains near Sanction arrives, confronting Bobbin, but his soarwagon is so erratic the dragon is unable to destroy it, and as part of the goblin army is sneaking up to the refugees who went to the frozen army for weapons, the dragon burns the ground, melting the army which stops warring with each other and kills the goblin force. This is when the novel takes a turn for the worse. Why would the frozen dwarves defrost immediately, then immediately stop fighting each other and kill the goblins, but ignore the refugees? Weren’t they frozen in combat with each other, so when defrosted, they would still be in combat? It’s so illogical, and yes, I realize I am talking about a fictional story here.
The dragon gives up trying to kill Bobbin when it releases the gnome can’t land, and just goes to a rondevu with Kolanda Darkmoor She tells him that she has everything in order, controlling the valley for the coming highlord, and the dragon remains dubious after seeing the goblin force spread so thinly. She insists then leaves, returning to her force in the plains of death. The irda returns to drop off food and drink for the heroes, then leaves, and Chess tries to rig a pole to give food to the gnome, but nearly falls over the cliff. They eventually get him back and the gnome now has the pole dangling from the soarwagon as it stops hovering, yea, that’s the language the author uses, and flies away.
The heroes move to the bridge which allows them to travel to the plains of death, and Wingover convinces Chane to stay where he is and he will go get the helmet. It turns out that the helmet isn’t even in Skullcap, but rather under some rubble at the base of a hill! What!? What about the module that places it in Skullcap? What about the story Dragons of the Dwarven Depths which places it there also? Forget all of that. And it doesn’t matter much anyway because the wizard Glenshadow already found it when Wingover arrives but is frozen in place as he picked the gem Spellbinder out of it and it froze him in place like it did the Greygem. Wingover takes it off him and puts it back in the helm and they head back to the bridge.
Kolanda is communicating to the dead wizard Caliban through a thong of leather she keeps in her shirt, and it sees Glenshadow. She wants him to help her kill them so in order to give him complete access to her heart for power, like Fistandantilus or something, she rips her shirt open so her breasts are hanging out and the leather is dangling between them… Seriously. Now I am not a prude and I don’t kink shame. Whatever two or more consenting adults do between themselves is fine with me. But this is the most ridiculous turn of events ever. What, the thong needs to see outside her shirt to find the wizard? It was already against her skin in her shirt, so her tits have to be swaying to and fro for the dead wizard to do his work? You can tell a man with the sensibilities of a boy wrote this.
She leads her army, bare breasted, to the bridge and has them attack the heroes, who do their best to defend the bridge, hoping Wingover gets back soon. The gnome flies by and the kender shoots a glass ball that holds Zap, Fistandantilus’ unexploded spell on it, to try to dislodge the spear, putting it far enough away from the Pathfinder gem to go off. As it starts to build its power, the ogre from earlier attacks Chane, and Chane defeats him. As Kolanda is ready to take the helmet away from Wingover, Garon the elf who was captured finds a bow and arrow and kills Kolanda and Cathan with one shot through her bare chest, which stops the dead wizard from attacking Glenshadow, and Zap goes off in a massive storm as Chane takes the helmet from Wingover, and Jillian into the hidden passage they conveniently found in the chaos, and Zap seals the tunnel for them.
But that’s not all! Wingover, Chess, and the gnome survive the blast. Glenshadow is not mentioned in the novel again so who knows if he survived, and Chane and Jillian are famous in Thorbardin with the helmet. This is such a ridiculously convenient and hollow ending that I wonder what happened in the writing of the novel. The first four-fifths of the novel were great but it seemed like the author realized he had to wrap it all up in fifty pages and just shit the bed on the rest of the novel. The dwarves now have the Helm of Grallen and the two god gems, Spellbinder and Pathwarden, which are never mentioned again. The helm ends up back in Skullcap for the Heroes of the Lance to find it and the players in the module, which leads them to the Southgate of Thorbardin. And no one ever thought about this novel again.
I remember enjoying it as a kid, but I must not have thought about it too much. I am sorely disappointed in this ending and because it is so bad, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to anyone. This breaks a lot in the saga and for no reason. It never even pays off the cover art as Chane didn’t actually find the helmet, a human wizard did, then handed it off to a human ranger, who handed it off to Chane. Why did the wizard even need Chane? His whole presence was pointless. He didn’t do anything in the story, at all.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Gates of Thorbardin by Dan Parkinson. What do you think about Verminaard being alive? Did it confuse you when you first read it if you didn’t know about the modules? And finally did these heroes ever find the Hammer of Kharas? 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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