South Tuen Mun Government Secondary School
Chu Hiu Wai 6S(6)
English book report
Title: DragonLance (Chronicles + Legends)
Author: Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Publisher: TSR, Inc.
No. of page: 1931 (in total)
Brief introduction of core characters
Raislin:
He’s a magic user. He had a fragile body due to the torturing training in the Tower of High Sorcery. At early times of the story, he was a weak character. He needed the help of his twin, Caramon, even in daily lives. Nevertheless, he’d never respected his twins. He was fore-told that one day he needed to kill his brother.His fond in magic accounted for his dark nature,
Caramon
Raistlin’s brother. He’s a well-trained warrior. In the first half of the story, he still thought that he lived only for his twin. He played many roles in protecting Raist. At the end of Legends, he perceived that he and his twin were on separate paths.
Tas
As a kender, he was care-free. He loved making jokes and having adventures. Yet, throughout the journey, he experienced some internal changes: unlike other kenders, he became mature, capable of crying.
Tanis
A half-elven: who had an elven mother but human father. He bore both characteristics of humans and elves. His smartness and swiftness in thinking helped him develop leadership.
Brief Introduction of Story
Both Chronicles and Legends are content-oriented. The flow of scenes is swift. Tedious depictions of objects are rare. This makes the story always exciting and attractive.
There are various countries in the story’s world. No matter what races the countries are assigned by the author, we can still see some of the humans’ bad nature: ambition, aggression & selfishness.
In Chronicles, the story was mostly about the adventure of a company. They visited quite a lot of countries and cities. There were lots of fighting scenes in each place. The description of battles was in detail. Although the effect of magic was difficult to be described with words, readers can easily feel the scene. Also, the places traveled were geographically realistic: for example, coastal cities, mountainous villages, keeps or fortresses on valleys.
‘DragonLance’ itself played a tiny role in the story. To my great surprise , it can be manufactured artificially in large numbers!
In Legends, the theme is much more complicated. Since it involved the concept of time-traveling and ‘plane of existence’, it reveals further that the story is purely imaginary. Also, the number of main characters is reduced. It’s probably because some characters were killed in Chronicles. New character, Lady Crysannia, can be said to be a shadow of Goldmoon. Both of them are also clerics, strong in faith.
For the ending of Legends, it’s not pleasant to know that Raistlin, the most important character, finally met his death. And for Caramon, his nature changes throughout the story from a fellow of Tanis’s company to a drunk man in Solace, then redeems his spirit and becomes a hero.
For me, I think Caramon and Raistlin’s parts are most interesting. That’s why I mainly pick their relevant stories to the report.
Chronicles
At the beginning of the story, all main characters gathered in Solace, their old home. They were chatting casually with each other. Suddenly, a foreign couple who (Riverward and Goldmoon) were being searched by draconians sought help from the companions. Tanis agreed t help them and they fled together to a city nearby. The companions probably had never thought that next time they returned home would be years later. This was how the story started.
They fled to Xak Orath, an ancient city occupied by evil power. In the city, they learnt the news about the down-coming of evil power. When they looked back to Solace, they could see fire all over the beautiful city. The buildings and farmlands were destroyed in one night. Since they could not go back home, they visited the Elf Country, Silvanost. Regretfully, they were not welcome. Since the Elves needed to prepare themselves against draconians, they did not have extra-resources to protect this company. The companions thus planned to pass the Dark Forest and reached Taris, another beautiful city.
Then they entered the Dark Forest. Right after this, all companions fell into a virtual world. At that time, Raislin heard a voice and became very strong in power. He even killed a dragon in that virtual world with only his magic! (While in normal times he could only make a fire for warmth with his magic). All other companions died there (some were killed by virtual troops and some were eaten up by Dragon). Yet, after the death of the guarding dragon, all of them returned to reality. No one knew what had actually happened except Raislin.
Also, Raislin found a big dragon orb in an abandoned chest.He ordered Tas to keep it safely.
The voice Raslin heard was the same as that during his training in Tower of High Sorcery. The voice was from Fistentantilus, a very ancient and greatest archmage ever known. His body died in the Dwarf War, yet he still lived in the form of spirit.Later in Legend, it was told that Fis wanted to use Raistlin’s body to revive himself. It’s because Fist found great magic potential in Raist’s young body.
After reaching Taris, the companions saw the terror of war. Taris was one of the city ruined by evil army. For every city the evil invaded, the whole city was ruined and people were slaughtered. The remaining citizens would become the slaves of draconians. Most cities could not defend themselves, as the evil dragons were very capable of wars. Since they were able to fly, the ordinary land troops could not do damage on them. Also, their hard scale could shield all weapons with only one exception: the DragonLance.
(It was told that in the very ancient time of the world, a hero, Huma, rode on a good dragon and fought against other bad dragons with a DragonLance.)
In Taris, Tanis met Kitiera accidentally and followed her. He left the company and ‘joined’ the evil army.Tanis’s ex-lover, Kitiera, was a female warrior. Sometime later she served the Dark Queen and became a Dragon Highlord. She wanted to assimilate Tanis. She did this by recalling Tanis’s old memories. Tanis was once confused, but he realized that he could not betray his friends. Then the smart half-elf thought of a trick for Dark Queen: he acted as joining the evil army. Then at appropriate time, he would reveal himself. In this way, Tanis became a General guarding the Queen.
Escaping from the evil-occupied city, The company then visited an old Cave. Guided by a local primitive, they discovered Huma’s Tomb. Surprised to them, they also figured out the DragonLance, which Huma carried during war.
They brought this to Dargard Keep. There, a conference was held by the representatives of all races, including elves, human, kenders, dwarfs and gnomes. They were originally discussing the danger the world was facing. However, when the dragon orb was taken out, every race wanted to own it.
Since dragon orbs were made by elite wizards in all robes: White(Good), Red(Neutral) and Black(Evil), the orbs possessed great magic power. The 3 robes wizard co-operated once and only once when producing these orbs, so as to preserve the magic materials so that knowledge could be inherited even after their deaths. As for this, no ordinary person could get control of the orb. The orb’s mysterious property became amazing to everyone.
To prevent internal conflicts, Tas swept the orb onto floor. Chaos arose when the orb shattered. In the meantime, Tas’s warrior friend shot out and protected him. Having no choice, the conference ended and all races left, leaving the Knights of Solamnia.Knight of Solamnia regarded their honour as their lives. The ‘Code and Measures’ were what they stuck to; they’d never violate these rules. For example, they must not bring dishonour to the knights, must not be merciful to enemies and they have special courtesy for ladies, etc.
That night, there was news which said that the keep was surrounded by evil army. The support lines were cut due to severe weather. To make the matter worse, there were conflicts among the three streams of knights. The denatured knights wanted to rise to power. They wanted to gain ranking by defeating the enemy.
In a few days, DragonLance was manufactured in large number, so that every knight could carry one. Then, the war began as the shortage of food became a very serious problem.
In the first day of war, some impulsive knights rushed out for a charge. They were trapped by the evil Kitiera. While the draconians were apparently retreating, toxic smog was emitted. Together with the sudden assault of evil dragons, the whole plain was covered by corpses of knights.
At night, hunger and injury killed many more knights inside the keep. Yet, Tas, who loved adventures as being a kender, slipped into the secret pathway in the keep. Going inside the inner room, he discovered a slot for inserting the dragon orb. While he was regretting for breaking the orb, he amazingly found an exactly same orb beneath some dry woods. He gathered some knights for security and then inserted the dragon orb into the slot, instantly some strange things happened.
The evil dragons were attracted into the pathway and blocked by the walls of the room. Only the dragons’ heads were blocked in the small holes on the wall. The knights inside immediately stabbed the dragon head one by one.
While Tas and other knights are preparing for the dragon-slaughter trap, there was a tragic story. A faithful knight, Sturm, attempted to offer Tas more time and fought against Kitiera on his own. Although he was very skilled in swordsmanship, Kitiera was swifter as she rode on her Dragon, Skie. With great brave and honour, Sturm was able to injure Skie, but then he was pierced through his heart by Kitiera. That is the sacrifice of the most honorable knight.
The War of Dargard keep ended. The companions regrouped again in a city nearby. Then, they were about to move to the evil’s headquarter to erase the dark power completely.
After some more journeys, the companions (without Sturm) made the way into the evil’s headquarter. While the heroes finally rushed into the Dark Queen’s conference room, they surprisingly found Tanis. All of a sudden, Tanis revealed himself and this brought confusion to the evil creatures. With Raist’s magic and Caramon’s sword, the Dark Queen was finally driven to her plane of existence.
At the ending, Raist left the companion. The others went back to Solace and rebuilt their home city. Peace fell onto the continent for some time since then.
Yet, this was just a pause of the story.
Legends
The story of Legend started 5 years after the end of Chronicles.
Although the Dark Queen was sealed in her plane of existence, there was another peril of the world.
Raslin wanted to be a God himself. After 5 years of further studies, he had a series of plans to achieve this foul goal.
He was able to cast a time-traveling magic after years of trials and experiments. He knew that Fist did the same attempt as he was planning. Yet, Fist failed and died because he did not have a cleric going along with him.
To become a God, he needed to open the portal to the Abyss (which means ‘world after death’) and defeat the Dark Queen. However, the entrance of portal must be activated by a purely evil mage and a purely good cleric. In order to be able to fight the Dark Queen, Raist must kill Fist and receive all his arts and knowledge in magic.
Therefore, he returned to many years ago, before the Cataclysm.
Cataclysm was a disaster in which most of the world was destroyed. Cities were ruined, hills rose from sea floor and original sea dried. It’s due to humans’ arrogance of themselves. They no longer worshipped the Gods and deviated from the words of Gods. Therefore, the three Gods together initiated this Cataclysm as punishment.
There, he first challenged Fist. Fist’s original plan was to occupy Raist’s body. That’s why he saved Raist in many perils during Chronicles. Much to Fist’s surprise, Raist visited him by himself. In the Tower of High Sorcery, the two mages fought a dreadful war. By a careless mistake when casting magic, Raist was able to stroke through Fist. Raist absorbed everything inside Fist and became the most powerful archmage.
In the original time plane, Caramon was in deep sorrow even after 5 years. He knew that Raist was already on the wrong road, but he was not able to correct him. As Raist told him, ‘You are no longer of any use to me, brother’, Caramon felt that he had lost himself. He was confused with his relationship between him and his twins. Loss in spirit made him a drunk man everyday.
Lady Crysannia, a new main character in Legends, was a faithful cleric of Paladine, the God of Good. She knew that Paladine wanted her to stop Raist from his insane act.
In consequence, Par-Salian, the highest white-robed wizard, set up a time-traveling device, which possessed the same function as Raist’s time spell. Crysannia sought help in Solace. Since Caramon’s wife wanted him to return his spirit, she forced him to protect Crysannia along the journey. Feeling worried, Tas also joined the new company. This started another adventure.
Although Caramon was once strong and well-built, he had gained lots of weight in the 5-year laziness. Along the journey to Par-Salian Tower, Caramon was just a burden to Tas and Crysannia.
With Par-Salian’s help, the 3 traveled to the past, the time plane which Raist went. At the instant of their arrival, they were immediately caught as thieves, since their costumes were strange to people at that time.
Caramon and Tas were jailed and bought as slaves later; Crysannia was released since she was a lady.