Realms of the Dragons

Realms of the Dragons, edited by Philip Athans, is the ninth anthology of stories from the Forgotten Realms. All the short stories relate in some way to the horrific Year of Rogue Dragons.

"Raging dragons threaten to destroy civilization on Faerûn, but that hasn't always been the case. There have been times when humans and dragons have worked together to preserve life and combat evil.

Of course, that doesn't happen very often. Most of the time, they just try to kill each other and steal as much treasure as they can in the process.

This collection of all new stories by Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood; New York Times best-selling authors Elaine Cunningham, Richard Baker, Lisa Smedman, and R. A. Salvatore; The Year of Rogue Dragons author Richard Lee Byers; and many more, bring the myriad sides of the dragons of Faerûn to life.

The Year of Rogue Dragons has only just begun, but the history of that powerful race of enchanted creatures is long, frightening, and beautiful indeed."

Soulbound
By Paul S. Kemp

Kemp writes of the First Demarch of the Hall of Shadows, Avnon Des the Seer who arose from his meditation one day in Year of the False Hopes, -646 DR to find himself, his temple and its inhabitants moved from Elgrin Fau, the City of Silver, to the Shadow Plane by Kesson Rel, the first Chosen of the Shadow God. Avnon and his fellow demarchs had marked him as a heretic for drinking from the Chalice and transforming into a creature of shadow, and so Kesson had sought revenge by bringing the temple to the Shadow Plane and soul binding a shadow dragon, Furlinastis, into his service. He orders the dragon to bring one of the priests before him every day and kill them, since Kesson's oaths prevent him from killing the demarchs himself.

Avnon sought to decipher his god's will, as there is no way for them to escape that particular stretch of the Shadow Plane or combat the dragon, and found that the Shadow God wished to determine whose faith was strongest and would not aid them. The next time the dragon came to collect a priest, Avnon tells him that if he wishes to free himself of Kesson, he must collect him next. Furlinastis returns to Kesson and tricks him into doing as Avnon suggested. Unbeknownst to Kesson, Avnon has killed the other priests with their permission and assimilated their souls. Avnon binds the dragon to an oath of cooperation; that in the future, when the First and the Second Chosen of the Shadow God pursue Kesson, he would aid them. After Furlinastis kills Avnon the souls he collected fly into the dragon and defeat Kesson’s soul, freeing the dragon. Kesson, however, manages to flee.

First Flight
By Edward Bolme

Bolme describes the story of Serreg, an archwizard under Lady Polaris in Delia, who studied a blight which seemed to hit all the land the floating city passes above. After deducting that the blight is a magical spell coming from under the earth, Serreg goes to investigate, but is no match for the phaerimm he finds there. While fleeing for his life, his prayers are heard by Targus, who grants him a dagger of polymorphing, with which he slays the phaerimm, polymorphing randomly several times. Finally, he polymorphed into a dragon, and with his superior intellect understood that each time he used the dagger it would polymorph him into something random. As a dragon, he was now unconcerned with mortal matters such as the plague, so he tore the dagger (which was morphed into a claw) from his body and used it as a start of his treasure stash.

Gorlist's Dragon
By Elaine Cunningham

The Keeper of Secrets
By Ed Greenwood

The Topaz Dragon
By Jess Lebow

Wickless in the Nether
By R. A. Salvatore

In the short story, Salvatore describes the first encounter between Artemis Entreri and Jarlaxle and the famed dragon sisters Tazmikella and Ilnezhara of Heliogabalus, Damara in Year of the Banner, 1368 DR. This event is referred to in Road of the Patriarch, when Entreri reminds Jarlaxle that the dragons sisters played them for fools. In the story, Tazmikella, appearing as a plain shopkeeper, tells of how an item of great sentimental value is in the possession of Ilnezhara. Tazmikella hires Entreri and Jarlaxle to steal this item, but soon they find out their foe's power is beyond their comprehension when they find out she is an ancient and powerful copper dragon. Ilnezhara then commands the two to go and kill Tazmikella for her in return for allowing them to live. After this encounter, they journey to kill Tazmikella and find out not only is Tazmikella Ilnezhara's sister, but also a copper dragon of great power. Jarlaxle and Entreri agree to work for the two dragon sisters.

Serpestrillvyth
By Richard Baker

Waylaid
By Thomas M. Reid

Standard Delving Procedure
By Lisa Smedman

An Icy Heart
By Voronica Whitney-Robinson

Penitential Rites
By Keith Francis Strohm

How Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth
By Dave Gross

Beer with a Fat Dragon
By Don Bassingthwaite

The Prisoner of Hulburg
By Richard Lee Byers