The Tyranny of Ghosts_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [0]
“Word of Traitors is without a doubt the best Eberron novel to date … The story just keeps getting better and better. I’m eagerly awaiting the third novel.”
—Dungeon’s Master.com
Bassingthwaite skillfully balances the high adventure common to the DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS novels with some tender and believable character moments. The grief over a lost sword-brother is given equal weight to intense battles, as is Ashi’s frustration at the regimentation of her life amongst the Dragonmarked House of Deneith. My favourite touch however, was that rarity of rarities, a non-human culture that felt true without borrowing slavishly from an existing or ancient people of our own world.
—Chadwick Ginther, writing for McNallyRobinson.com
LOOK ON SHATTERED MUUT AND BE HUMBLED.
The top of the inscription lay toward the dais. Anyone kneeling before the lord of Suud Anshaar would have had no choice but to read the words. “The fallen nobles,” said Ekhaas. “He was reminding the fallen nobles of what they’d lost.” She scrambled past the words to rake at the remaining rubble. Her breath came fast. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears.
Purple byeshk flashed under moonlight. Ekhaas got down on her knees, stretched out her arm, and used it to sweep away the last fragments of stone.
Her heart fell. She sat back, her ears folding flat.
Set into the stone were three toothed metal disks. Three shaari’mal forged from byeshk. She looked up at Geth and Tenquis. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What are these?”
Geth picked up Wrath and brought it close to the embedded disks. “These are what I was feeling,” he said. “These were forged from the same byeshk as the sword and the rod.”
LEGACY OF DHAKAAN
BY DON BASSINGTHWAITE
A new kingdom rises—and threatens to collapse—as Lhesh Haruuc, ruler of the goblin nation, unites his disparate peoples under the powers of the Rod of Kings. But when the artifact’s charisma proves dangerous, it’s down to a band of unlikely heroes to save the nation of goblins.
The Doom of Kings
Word of Traitors
The Tyranny of Ghosts
THORN OF BRELAND
BY KEITH BAKER
An agent of the Dark Lanterns, Thorn serves her country in the cold wars of the Five Nations. But during her missions, strange memories and powers are surfacing within Thorn: the memories and powers of an ancient, deadly dragon.
The Queen of Stone
The Son of Khyber
The Fading Dream
(October 2010)
THE DRACONIC PROPHECIES
BY JAMES WYATT
A once-proud hero fallen to disgrace and madness must learn to wield extraordinary powers to save those he loves, and to keep the world from sliding back into decades of warfare.
Storm Dragon
Dragon Forge
Dragon War
Raat shi anaa.
“The story continues.”
—Traditional opening to hobgoblin legends.
EVENTS OF WORD OF TRAITORS
As the body of Lhesh Haruuc Shaarat’kor—slain by the traitor Chetiin—was placed in the royal tomb, Geth and his allies faced a dilemma. Although Geth held the throne and the Rod of Kings in trust, a new lhesh would soon be chosen. Any heir, on grasping the rod, would be caught by its curse—memories of the ancient Empire of Dhakaan that sought to make the lhesh into a tyrant and gave the would-be emperor the power of irresistible command.
Yet Geth—immune to both the rod’s curse and its power because of his connection to its sibling artifact, the Sword of Heroes—could not simply steal the rod either. Haruuc had made the rod a symbol of the lhesh’s sovereignty, and without that symbol, the new lhesh’s position would be weakened. With the rod, the new lhesh would lead Darguun into a war with neighboring nations and their allies that it could not win; without it, Darguun would crumble into civil war. In either case, Haruuc’s dream of a homeland for his people would be lost.
An answer presented itself with the return to Rhukaan Draal of the cunning gnome scholar, Midian Mit Davandi. Midian proposed that they have a false rod created and present it to the new lhesh. The false rod would remain as the symbol of authority and unity that Haruuc had initially intended,