Riverwind

Goldmoon and Riverwind. Illustration by Keith Parkinson.

Riverwind (also known as Riverwind of the Que Shu tribe or Riverwind of the Que Shu) is a fictional character from the Dragonlance series of role playing games and novels, created by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, published by TSR, Inc. and later by Wizards of the Coast.

Riverwind made his first public apparition in the first novel of the original Chronicles Trilogy, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, in 1984. However, the character's proper creation was during a tabletop role-playing game session where Tracy and Laura Hickman, Margaret Weis and Terry Phillips, between others, developed the basic storyline of Dragonlance.

Throughout the years, Riverwind became a well known character and, in 14 years, authors made him protagonist in two novels, Riverwind the Plainsman (1990) and Spirit of the Wind (1998).

Introduction

Template:Spoilerabout Patrick Lucien Price, author of the "Bertrem's essay on numerology" section, published in Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home (1987), describes Riverwind as a character that demands change, seeks variety and new opportunities to develop himself. He is also a natural leader of men, a generous, impressionable, a humanitarian.

Few facts are described about Riverwind, a shepherd living just outside the village of Que Shu, a barbarian settlement in Ansalon, in the fictional world of Krynn.

Laura Hickman and Kate Novak detail, in the short story "Heart of Goldmoon" published in the Love and War (1987) recompilation, Riverwind's faith in the ancient gods and especially in Mishakal, goddess of healing, although the common belief in the tribe was that the high priestesses's ancestors become gods. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman give a reason in the short story "True Knight", published in The Cataclysm (1992) recompilation, as Riverwind's is not a native from the Que Shu tribe, but instead his ancestors, Michael, a cleric of Mishakal, and Nikol, daughter of a knight, travelled to the plains shortly after the Cataclysm, the event in which the gods threw a fiery mountain to punish Krynn arrogance, and kept practicing their religion.

File:Riverwind the Plainsman cover.jpg

Riverwind fighting a lizard man while holding the Blue Crystal Staff.

In "Heart of Goldmoon" Hickman and Novak also inform about the travel to the Hall of the Sleeping Spirits, in which Riverwind acts as a bodyguard to Goldmoon, protecting her life when Hollow-sky, the other bodyguard travelling with them, tried to force her to marry her. Declaring their mutual love, the story ends with Riverwind affirming his intention to request a Courting quest, which would give him the right to marry Goldmoon.

Paul B. Thompson and Tonya C. Cook give details of the Courting quest in Riverwind the Plainsman (1990), in which Riverwind, needing to find a proof that the ancient gods existed, travels to Xak Tsaroth and retrieves the Blue Crystal Staff, a holy relic blessed by Mishakal herself, guarded by Khisanth, the black dragon. Although the novel ends with the delivery of the staff, in Dragons of Autumn Twilight (1984) Goldmoon explains that the tribe tried to stone him when he could not explain how the staff could probe the existence of the old gods. However, when the stoning was going to take place, Goldmoon embraced him, and both vanished from the tribe.

Development through the series

Chronicles trilogy

Template:Spoilerabout As in the "Heart of Goldmoon" short story, Riverwind is given the role of Goldmoon's protector in Dragons of Autumn Twilight (1984). Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman kept his involvement at a minimun, only approaching Goldmoon to give him a serious demeanor. It is only after Sturm Brightblade—Squire of the Knights of Solamnia and one of the members of a group of friends who met them in Solace—feels his honour has been insulted that Riverwind's behaviour is modified, becoming somewhat friendlier.

Understandably, it is in battle sequences where the authors give him more protagonism, effectively drawing on his past as a trained warrior. It is in one of those sequences, against the black dragon Khisanth in Xak Tsaroth, where Riverwind is mortally wounded by the dragon acid breath. However, Goldmoon, after a meeting with the soul of her mother and Mishakal, goddess of healing, is able to restore his burnt body.

It is at the end of the first book, when Riverwind marries Goldmoon just outside Pax Tharkas after defeating Lord Verminaard, that Riverwind receives attention from the authors.

Weis and Hickman continued diminishing the protagonism of Riverwind in Dragons of Winter Night (1985). In the second half of Dragons of Spring Dawning (1985), the authors reveal that Goldmoon is pregnant, and the couple decides to stay in Kalaman, ending their participation in the Chronicles Trilogy.

Legends trilogy

Template:Spoilerabout As the Legends trilogy, written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman in 1986, focuses on the twins Caramon and Raistlin Majere, Riverwind's appearance is small. In Time of the Twins (1986) Riverwind visits Caramon and Tika Majere at the Inn of the Last Home to refuse to escort Lady Crysania to the Tower of High Sorcery of Wayreth and to inform that his son, Wanderer, is already three years old, and about the birth of his twin daughters, Moonsong and Brightdawn.

By wearing the Mantle of the Chieftain, the authors point that he has been named Chieftain of the Que Shu and a number of other tribes like the Que Teh and Que Kiri, and that he was successful to bring peace to them.

Chaos War series

Template:Spoilerabout There are no books treating the attacks of the Chaos armies to the abanasinian tribes. Chris Pierson's novel, Spirit of the Wind (1998), informs that the Knights of Takhisis, knights under the service of Takhisis, goddess of evil, invaded the area bringing brutes, barbarians from northern isles, forcing some tribes to join the Que Shu village to repel the attack, while others separated and left for the mountains. He also hints that at least shadow wights, creatures that possess souls, vanishing them from the world of Krynn, including their memories, attacked the tribe, as Moonsong and Brightdawn explain that their brother, Wanderer, has a three years old son, but nobody, not even Wanderer himself, remembers his mother.

Age of Mortals series

Template:Spoilerabout In Spirit of the Wind (1998), Chris Pierson covers the last weeks of Riverwind's life. Afflicted by a terminal illness that had been the cause of his father's death, and without Mishakal, who left Krynn after the Chaos War, to give clerical powers to Goldmoon to heal him, he travels to the Inn of the Last Home to inform Caramon and Tika about it.

The novel continues explaining that a couple of kenders arrive requesting Caramon's help to stop Malystryx, the red dragon overlord, from destroying their home, Kendermore. Riverwind decides to help them, and is involved in the defense of the city. With the imminent invasion of the dragon and the ogre armies supporting her, Riverwind and Brightdawn travel to Blood Watch, where Malystryx's Peak was situated and her only egg was laid. Brightdawn dies on her way to the lair while fighting the nest's guardian, Yovanna, but Riverwind is able to crack the egg open and slay the embryo within it, forcing Malystryx to go back to the lair and slay him. With Riverwind's sacrifice, the kenders were able to flee safely to Hylo, as Malystryx was too depressed to chase them.

See also

• Goldmoon
• Deities of Dragonlance
• War of the Lance

References

Citations

External links

• Riverwind information at Dragonlance Nexus