..and now a Lord Soth continuity speculation message!

[Dion of the Fraternity]

"Dragons of Highlord Skies," a new Dragonlance novel by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, is set to be released July 2007, and will detail Lord Soth's "unknown years" wandering Krynn. The time period of the novel roughly takes place between "Dragons of Winter Night" and "Dragons of Spring Dawning."

In other words, as many have speculated, it also takes place at a rough time period when Soth supposedly was wandering Ravenloft as the Black Rose.

Again, just speculation from fans in both the Dragonlance and Ravenloft spectrum.

[cure]

Happily time passes strange in the lands of Mists. An unaccounted for afternoon elsewhere might be a life time here.

It will be interesting to see what road the authors take . . .

[monty--]

Soth didn't enter until the end of the Dragonlance Legends. If you believe TSR anyway. Personally, I'm with Hickman. If the auther/creator says it's not canon, it's not canon.

[Algaris]

Who cares ? If you want Soth in Ravenloft, fine, if you don't that's fine too. Personally when I get around to running my campaign I'll have him there and even run the When Black Roses Bloom module too.

[Charney]

Again I say good riddance (sp?)! All of this rant about: Soth's in Ravenloft, no he's not, Hickman is stupid, no he's not, as gotten me on my nerves.

I'm personnaly glad that in 3.5 they've taken out all references to other worlds. I know that for some it's blashphemy but not for me. Now, in case the line was continued, we won't have the same problem as we had with Soth. And it won't get into continuity problems like with the Ennemy Within where it was hinted that the Vistani came from Forgotten Realms (Tristen having dealings with them before his curse took place).

Besides, I like Inza as darklord.

[Jester of the FoS]

It has NOTHING to do with Ravenloft.

It's one of the 'filling in the gaps' trilogy they're doing. The first (Dragons of Dwarven Depths) filled in the gap between Autumn Twilight and Winter Night, the next detailed a large gap in the middle of Winter Night.
And now this one fill in the void between Winter Night and Spring Dawning, a full 2 or 3 years before Soth is supposed to enter Ravenloft.

[Luke Fleeman]

Soth didn't enter until the end of the Dragonlance Legends. If you believe TSR anyway. Personally, I'm with Hickman. If the auther/creator says it's not canon, it's not canon.

That's not totally correct though. Really, whatever the company says is canon is canon. Hickman doesn't own any of this stuff, so sadly he has no say on what counts. Even though, in this case, the compant apparently agrees with him.

Anyways, I think it is pretty sad that the Weis/Hickman are so down on Soth being in RL. I don't know what their issue is but it seems unneccessary. They should just let it be, leave those years open, and back off. There is no need to feel those years in; it seems a little spiteful against RL.

[Jester of the FoS]

Its all about a character they created for a world they made being removed without their permission and put in a different setting.

[HuManBing]

Soth didn't enter until the end of the Dragonlance Legends. If you believe TSR anyway. Personally, I'm with Hickman. If the auther/creator says it's not canon, it's not canon.

I used to hold that view too, and then I unwisely took an English Literature degree.

Now, as you can probably imagine, my views have changed!

[Le Noir Faineant]

Soth didn't enter until the end of the Dragonlance Legends. If you believe TSR anyway. Personally, I'm with Hickman. If the auther/creator says it's not canon, it's not canon.

I used to hold that view too, and then I unwisely took an English Literature degree.

Now, as you can probably imagine, my views have changed!

"It's NOT what the author wants to tell us, it's what we want to be told!"

[Luke Fleeman]

Its all about a character they created for a world they made being removed without their permission and put in a different setting.

It is- but when you sell a setting or make a setting for someone else, it belongs to them. Does Gygax have any say over Greyhawk? No. I'm sure people respect his opinion, but he has no say.

The act of producing it for another company gives it up, and you lose "control" or "say" over what happens. They did that, and so they have no say in the chracter.

That doesn't mean they should not be heeded on their wishes; the fact of the matter is that something different happened, and they have to deal with it. Now that they are back in the company heavily and RL doesn't mean as much, they are taking the oppurtunity to retcon something. It is a little unneccessary, I think.

[Jester of the FoS]

That was my point.
Soth was moved, they didn't care but didn't approve. They came back to give the line a boost and the condition was that Soth was brought back (and he was). When asked they say he was never there; that's their opinion on the matter.

[Little Ole Me]

They took Soth back to Krynn and promptly killed him off in a rather lacklustre redemption angle. Sigh, it all feels like an act to flex the muscles on the authors' part to me. The whole "I can, therefore I do!" act, that is.

If I recall correctly, James Lowder did say in the Wizards board that Hickman and Weis were contacted when the decision was made to use Soth as a method to boost interest in Ravenloft. He was vague about whether the authors approved but he did say that Hickman and Weis were asked to proofread/check/approve Knight of the Black Rose and the authors turned down the offer. I think John Mangrum can correct me if I'm wrong since he had direct dealings with Mr Lowder during the Gazetteer IV production.

Didn't Hickman and Weis leave the then TSR on rather acrimonious terms? I recall reading how authors like PN Elrod went public with their dissatisfaction at how TSR treated their authors and Mr Lowder also very public in stating that he left TSR as an editor because of the way the book division treated their authors. I suspect that poor Lord Soth was a victim of Weis/Hickman trying to show WoTC that they never shouldn't messed with those authors in the first place.

I am not sure how I feel about the whole incident, honestly. I enjoyed Weis and Hickman's books until after the Death Gate Cycle when everything else they put out felt either very repetitive and similar to their earlier books or just plain terrible. The later Dragonlance/Raistlin books are pretty bad in my opinion and feel like cash-in efforts on a dying franchise. The latest Dragonlance/Soth book feels like another one of these cash-in efforts. The authors never did have any fantasy series as successful as their TSR ones, right?

[Mangrum]

I think John Mangrum can correct me if I'm wrong since he had direct dealings with Mr Lowder during the Gazetteer IV production.

Actually, as was revealed in an infamous thread over on the old WotC boards about three years ago, we comminicated only indirectly during the writing of Gaz IV, through the Dark Duo, and that amounted to a single e-mail I sent to the developers asking them to get Lowder's okay for significant changes I'd made to Inza.

I don't have any special info about the Weis-Hickman-Soth-Ravenloft quadrangle. All I know for sure is that returning Soth to DL was a requirement to lure them back to the WotC/TSR stable. Through the grapevine, I later heard rumors that in the original outlines, Soth was to have played a significant role in the War of Souls series. But, obviously, things can change in the process of writing a novel.

[Jester of the FoS]

From what I understand, the War of the Souls was originally to be an adventure series for the SAGA rules until the brought MW back and she co-wrote the 'novelization' that greatly, greatly differed from the base plan (in favour of reverting some of the changes and bringing the game to fit 3E).