Join me as I review The Radiant Dragon by Elaine Cunningham, live! Share your thoughts on this fourth novel in Spelljammer’s The Cloakmaster Cycle. You can pick up The Radiant Dragon here: https://www.amazon.com/Radiant-Dragon-Spelljammer-Novels-Cloakmaster/dp/1560763469/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1EI5IA6T44VOJ&keywords=the+radiant+dragon&qid=1654536313&sprefix=the+radiant+dragon%2Caps%2C114&sr=8-1
About The Radiant Dragon
Teldin Moore searches for the great ship Spelljammer. A radiant dragon who also possesses a key to the sought-after ship needs Teldin’s help to take control. But someone in Teldin’s inner circle is pulling all parties toward a major battle.
Review
Intro
Welcome to another DragonLance Saga review episode. It is Palast, Holmswelth the 13th, my name is Adam and today I am going to give you my Spoiler review of The Radiant Dragon by Elaine Cunningham. 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 open with Teldin Moore on a planet called Garden visiting a tavern. A Beholder comes in and two Dracon’s make a joke at its expense. Some female Aperusa Gypsy pulls Teldin to a table and when the Beholder takes offense and disintegrates some of the customers, everyone flees. The two Dracon and King Rozloom, a Aperusa Gypsy follow Teldin to his ship, the Valkyrie, and ask for transport. Teldin and his crew agree to take the Dracon’s to their ship, and take Razloom as their cook.
The Dracons were working under mental control from an Illithid named Netarza who wants to bring Teldin to her leader. The dracons realize they were used and turn against the illithid. Teldins crew comes aboard and rescues them, and Teldin meets Estress, the illithid captain of the Probe from the second book. He is not working with Netarza and wants to keep the cloak out of his species hands. Teldin reluctantly believes him as he helps fight his way off the ship. The ships are joined by an elven vessel captained by Vallus Leafblower, who convinced his grand admiral to allow him to try and enlist Teldin’s help in the second inhuman war between the scro and the elves.
All the while the Scro are decimating the elven armies and enlisting the goblins against them. This is turning into a massive, galaxy wide battle and it has already drawn me in for its strangeness and political machinations, to say nothing of the action. Vallus allows Teldin to bring the Dracon, half-elf, illithid, gnome and aperusa aboard his spelljammer, and heal from the battle. The Illithid’s ship destroyed Teldin’s. It took days for Teldin to fully heal, during which time he learned the truth of Estriss’ intentions behind the cloak and medallion that Teldin carries. He begins to trust him again, as the Dracon’s swear fealty to Teldin as their new Kaba. The Half Elf/Bionoid Hecate Kir makes a friendship with Teldin as well, and everyone is amazed at Rozloom’s ability to seduce even the elves aboard Vallus’ ship.
They are headed to Evermeet to discuss the Spelljammer and cloak with the Moon Elves there. It turns out the Broken Sphere is thought to be the origin of all life in the universe and all spheres expand from it. Though no one has ever seen it and actually believe it to be a myth. Teldin is instructed on how to use the medallion and cloak together, and seed from the Spelljammers perspective. He sees the Radiant Dragon, and is briefly in its mind. They decide that may be the key to locating the Spelljammer and when he is strong again, he will try to find clues to the location. Ironically the radiant dragon is looking for Teldin and turns into a moon elf to join the crew. She enscorcels the crew as they change their course to a new planet based on Teldin’s scrying. Vallus is freaked out by the moon elf as she bears the name of an ancient elf hero, and that is not something elves do.
Meanwhile an Arcane and Lakshu are hunting for the radiant dragon as it killed her Reigar master and ship. They land on Teldin’s ship, gifted by Vallus, and demand the dragon. At this point Teldin proves to be an idiot. He glimpsed the dragon when he first met the moon elf, but even now can’t put it together, though he has in the past. I don’t know why this author is making him more stupid than past novels. But it’s frustrating. The lakshu mysteriously dies and Estriss the illithid mysteriously vanishes, but no time or thought goes to that as the arcane is also gone so Teldin assumes the illithid abandoned ship, which again, makes no sense!
Simultaneously the Scro general Grimnosh learns of Teldin and the cloak from his spymaster K’tide, and they send a squad of bionoids to capture Teldin and kill the elves. See, in the first inhuman war, the elves created the bionoids to defeat the goblins and strand them on the world of Armistice. Vallus’ ancestor was the hero of that war. So the bionoids find them, attack and destroy the primary helm, so Teldin takes over and for some strange reason Hectar knows the other bionoids, I guess they all know each other, but it’s probably still rude to ask them if they do. Hectar is now apparently killed in the battle, and Vallus demands Teldin release control as Teldin is trying to land on, drumroll please, Armistice which is right next to them. How inconvenient and coincidental.
The radiant dragon in moon elf form stops Vallus from stopping Teldin, and then makes Teldin sleep and lands the ship. They land and begin repairing their ship. Armistice is being watched by a cloaked elven ship that plans on intercepting them once they take to the air again. A search party leaves the boat and discovers a cavern with the prime Witchlight Marauder, that was supposedly put there by the elves in hibernation to kill all of the planet. The orcs keep it under control through constant priestly spells. They also see an incredible amount of Spelljammers that have been scrapped together. This is a dangerous revelation. If the scro and ice orcs get together, and they control the witchlight marauders, the elves are in terrible danger. They return to the Trumpeter under repairs.
Hecate has been abducted by the bionoids, and it turns out they are all the same clan, clan Vir. K’tide is using them against the scro general, and plans on dropping a witchlight marauder on the elven secret headquarters of Lionheart. He has been using a spy aboard the Trumpeter to gather the info and now offers Hecate the offer of providing the information for his life. Hecate cannot abide by the decision and ends up finding a way of crashing the ship on Armistice, killing his clan and hopefully K’tide.
Teldin sees the crash and goes to investigate, only to find Hecate barely alive. He brings him back aboard, and K’tide sneaks aboard. They finish repairs and leave the land, as the ice orgs are also leaving. The elven cloaked ship tries to engage it but they drop a tertiary witchlight marauder team and it devastates the crew. The Scro move in to attack, as K’tide is revealed and killed by Teldin. Rozloom is revealed to be k’tide’s spy, and the radiant dragon presents her true form to teldin. Telling him that they can be partners to the Spelljammer. She knows where it is but doesnt want to be confined to it. Teldin nearly agrees but cannot leave the elves to die at the hands of the scro and ice orcs. The radiant dragon pearl tries to charm Teldin and fails, then decides to take control of the situation herself and destroy the scro. She crushes the main ship, which unleashes a secondary witchlight marauder that attacks her and grievously wounds her. They both plummet down to armistice. The Scro board the Trumpeter and are fought off, then the rest of the armada attacks.
Teldin knows they cannot withstand or escape the assault, so he turns into a radiant dragon and destroys all of the ships attacking, then carries the Trumpeter on his dragon back to Radole. After afew days he wakes from the effort to have heard Rozloom invade Armistice and kill the orc priests containing the prime Witchlight marauder, which immediately destroys everyone. Not knowing the result of the invasion, teldin tells Vallus that he is leaving and Vallus knows Teldin can turn into a radiant dragon and cannot do anything to harm him, so he wishes him luck and will tell the elven armada to leave him be.
Teldin leaves to his cabin and looks through the spelljammer to discover its origin, and that is the end. Because each book is written by a different author it seems really pieced together. Teldin is always alone after every book, it seems, and each book has the orcs and elves trying to take the cloak or vye for his favor, and it never works. At this point, I would love the last two novels to feel more in harmony and truly wrap up this story.
I am not sure it is worth reading the first 3 to get to this book, but I did devour this book pretty quickly and enjoyed it for what it was. I thought Pearl the radiant dragon was killed way too easily, IF she is dead, and Estriss’ vanishing made me wonder why he was brought into the story at all. But if you love spelljammer you should definitely read this novel.
Outro
And that’s it for my review of The Radiant Dragon by Elaine Cunningham. What do you think about the Spelljammer campaign world? Does the inclusion of Dragonlance races keep you interested in the novel? You can email me at info@dlsaga.com or comment below.
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