Join me as I review The Lake of Death by Jean Rabe live! Share your thoughts on this final novel in The Age of Mortals series, released by Wizards of the Coast on October 1, 2004. You can pick up a copy here: https://amzn.to/4vN6S6p
About The Lake of Death
The latest title in a series based on characters from the best-selling War of Souls trilogy.
This title is the next in a series that explores the lives of key characters from Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman’s New York Times best-selling War of Souls trilogy. The Lake of Death describes events that directly overlap events during the War of Souls and is an unofficial sequel to Rabe’s Dhamon Saga trilogy. Author Jean Rabe is well known by both recent and long-term Dragonlance novel fans.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Bakukal, Fierswelt the 10th. My name is Adam and today I am going to give you my review of The Lake of Death by Jean Rabe. I would like to take a moment and thank the DLSaga members and Patreon patrons, and invite you to consider becoming a member or patron. You can even pick up Dragonlance media or get $10 by signing up to StartPlaying.Games 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.
Review
The story begins with Dhamon-Dragon fighting Bakali, and destroying them. He meets up with the wingless sivak draconian Ragh who is staying with him in his now dragon lair in Sables swamps. Apparently Sable has been sending out Dark Knight and Bakali troops to find and kill Dhamon-Dragon. Not wanting him staying in its territory. Dhamon-Dragon has been hoarding wealth. Ragh wants to leave but Dhamon refuses. He spends some time with a crystal ball, much to Ragh’s frustration, as he never communicated what he asks or learns from it. It’s not clear if it’s the same one from the trilogy or if it’s a new one.
Then we cut to the Kagonesti elf Feril from Dragons of a new Age trilogy. She helped Dhamon when he was a human and they kinda liked each other back then. Since then Dhamon has clearly changed, so the connection won’t be there anymore. She is spending her time getting her tattoos removed and hunting remnant Dark Knights in Qualinesti. She finishes with a squad as Dhamon-Dragon and Ragh approach. She doesn’t know who they are initially, but eventually sees something in the dragon’s eyes that is familiar.
They end up greeting one another and explaining Dhamon-Dragon’s current predicament. They left their lair to come here to Qualinesti to find her. Apparently he believes Feril can help him become human again. He tells her that he divined that something in the lake of Death, the Nalis-Aren that was once Qualinost, can help him become human again. Feral agrees to help and they travel to the lake. Feral is a skilled sorcerer so she dives into the lake breathing the water to search for some magic. She encounters ghosts that try to capture her, sees Beryl’s magically intact corpse, then finds a ghost named Obelia that helps her keep warm in the magically freezing water. He promises to help as he is clearly bored to death in the sunken Qualinost. He leads her to a dead sorcerer named Kalilname who studied dragons in life. He believes a scale turned him into a dragon, so a dragon overlords scale may be used to change him back.
Sable is content that Dhamon-Dragon is out of its swamp, and Dhamon and Ragh are impatiently waiting for Feril who has been gone for quite a long time. She heads off to take a scale from Beryl and is confronted with a whole host of cursed undead, the elves and dark knights who must protect Beryl and destroy any who would defile her. They begin attacking Feril who flees, finally arriving at the surface to an impatiently waiting Dhamon-dragon and Ragh.
Dhamon decides to go with Feril under the lake as her shadow and Ragn, unhappily waits up top. While they are below, Ragh is attacked by a goblin army led by the Dark Knight Commander Bedell who works for Sable. He went off to kill Dhamon himself to impress Sable, and captured and tortured Ragh until he revealed Dhamon’s location. Ragh Refuses. Feral confronts the ghosts about leading her into what appeared to be a trap and they apologize. They didn’t know how this happened, and they were compelled against their power. She doesn’t trust them anymore, but eventually agrees to search the ruins with them for components. Dhamon ends up leaving to the surface and is attacked by the goblins.
They use poison tipped weapons to bring him down, and Feril surfaces to help in the fight. Dhamon ends up succumbing to the poison and appears dead, as all of the goblins are killed between him and Feril’s magic. She is freaking out over him, not wanting him to be dead but not knowing what to do, until she realizes he is still alive and can be saved. Meanwhile the Dark Knight Commander plans to return the next day to collect a trophy to prove his defeat of Dhamon.
Feral finds Ragh and heals him, then heals Dhamon and decides to go under one last time to get the supplies needed to turn him back. As she goes, the ghost Obelia convinces her to bring it out of the lake to search for his sister Elelage, after he helps locate another Dragon Overlords Scale. Apparently the commander just fled, because we never hear from him again. A bit of a missed opportunity. There is a throwaway line later about how Sable punished him for failing, but he was right there next to the party… What happened?
They all discover dragonscales all over, and end up going to look for one in the Kharolis mountains. Since Sable is closest they figure they should find one of its scales. So they set out. We cut to Sable who has mentioned that they will find and kill Dhamon-dragon themself, rather than continue relying on failures, or losing more of their minions. They use the tunnels under the Kharolis and use their magic to locate the group. They cause a massive earthquake, burying and nearly killing Ragh before Dhamon uncovers him, and flies away with Feril and Ragh.
Sable bursts through the surface to grab them, but it is too late. It is now furious to have missed them. This is clearly leading up to a confrontation, but I will not be okay if Dhamon-dragon defeats a Dragon Overlord. He is a new polymorphed dragon, and the overlords are unimaginably powerful. It shouldn’t be anywhere near a close fight if it breaks out. The final third of this is perhaps the worst for me. They come across a group of dwarves on the mountain and share their fire. They all stopped excavating due to the earthquakes. It turns out they were excavating pools of dragon metal, three of them in the mountain. Where they came from is not important, just that they are there and ready to be sold for a fortune.
Feral goes into the tunnel to look for the scale and is followed by one of the dwarves. She arrives at the scale to find it broken. Then another massive earthquake hits. Ragh entered the mine to find Feril before the quake and was followed by a dwarf who tried to kill him after he discovered the dragonmetal. The earthquake hits and the dwarf is killed and Ragh takes his form. He leaves the tunnel to see Feril exit and Dhamon has been Ragh’s shadow the whole time. The remaining dwarves attack them after discovering Ragh in the dwarf form, and Dhamon-dragon appears, frightening off the aggressive dwarf. One old female dwarf nicknamed needle stays and asks to go with them. They agree for some reason.
They decide the next logical place to go would be Sables swamp, so they head on in. As Feril and Dhamon go to talk alone, Needle drugs Ragh and runs off with their possessions. Ragh gets his companions and they give chase. It turns out the dwarves were working for Sable, having a scale on their chest. They leave the dwarf and reclaim their items. Then they continue on to find a massive lake and dragon totem of Sable’s. Feral then turns on the group, revealing she has had a scale on her chest since the cave in and has lured them to Sable. Then Sable appears. Her and Dhamon go off and fight. Now, this should not be a challenge for Sable at all. But for some insane reason, it is.
Feral destroys the magic items given to her in the Lake of Death and Ragh sees Obelia appear and offer to help, entering Feril’s body. Ragh collects a scale from Sable and completes a spell, breaking the scale on Feril, releasing her. The spell doesn’t turn Dhamon into a human, apparently it made him powerful enough to stand up to Sable. They fight in a massive battle, but eventually Dhamon kills Sable and dies himself. This final act of sacrifice is said to have been known to Dhamon but then that begs the question, if Dhamon knew he was going to dye, why did he bring Ragh and Feril in here? What if he failed, then they would be tortured and killed by Sable. Feril reveals that she loved Dhamon, but never told him. Ragh claims he always knew and never stopped thinking of her. But I just read a whole trilogy where she wasn’t mentioned once!
I get they needed to kill Sable, and this was the best way they could’ve done it, but you could have had Dhamon-dragon’s claws dipped in Dragonmetal to explain how he could stand up to a dragon overlord. Or have the magic weaken Sable through her scale, or something. Absent that, it just didn’t work for me. If you read the Dhamon trilogy, you might as well read this to learn about the ending. And the first two acts were good. But the final act just fell flat for me. I like that there is now another lake of Death in Sable’s realm, and that the Dragon overlord is dead, I just wish it had more teeth to the story.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Lake of Death by Jean Rabe. What do you think of Dhamon-dragon defeating Sable? Do you think this new lake of death will trap spirits in it like the one in Qualinesti? And finally, what od you think will come of Ragh? Feel free to email me at info@dlsaga.com or leave a 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).
