Review — ‘Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks’ #2 Continues To Bring Mindful Messaging To Tabletop Tales

Welcome to the table,

We are back at the table as we pick up Dungeons & Dragons: The Fallbacks #2 from Dark Horse Comics. Let’s get into it.

When we last left off, The Fallbacks had survived an encounter in a tomb with the aid of some Kobold. As the blended forces left the tomb, the Fallbacks encountered the village of Loudwater’s chosen enforcers, a party known as First Guard of Loudwater, who already has history with The Fallbacks, and a white dragon attacked them all before heading off to Loudwater to pillage and loot to its heart’s content.

A white dragon was an unexpected development, and while they are typically the most impulsive and least powerful of the chromatic dragons, any dragon is more than a match for most sentient humanoids, making this development a real danger for the City of Grottos.

Angrilyne, the leader of the First Guard of Loudwater. blames The Fallbacks and teleports away, leaving the party to bolster themselves and rush off towards Loudwater to try and help where they can.

When The Fallbacks arrive, the First Guard of Loudwater has engaged the white dragon, and The Fallbacks start to pitch in and save those they can as fire and ice begin to lash at Loudwater.

The guards of Loudwater use totalitarian might to keep the citizens of the city fleeing from destruction from entering the safety of the castle. This continues to showcase how the team of author Greg Pak, with pencils by Wilton Santos, inks by Edvan Alves, colors by Raúl Angulo, and letters by Nate Piekos, can really drive home a counter-culture theme even in this well-loved fantasy setting. The people meant to guard the population clearly are more interested in protecting things than they are in lives, something that feels all too familiar in this day and age.

The Fallbacks deploy a portable bastion or hut or an extradimensional space, depending on what edition you are familiar with, that presents in the form of a small token that looks like a tavern that, once activated, springs into life as a full-size tavern that the townsfolk can flee into for shelter, as the government meant to protect them is doing nothing to aid the cause.

Once the dragon leaves, and the Fallbacks have fed those who sheltered within their transportable tavern, the citizentry returns to the streets to assess the damage. The white dragon attack was extensive, and in the midst of grieving the losses, the First Guard of Loudwater reappears with the Lady of Loudwater and expects a warm welcome.

Anyone with any sense, of course, can imagine that the good folk of Loudwater couldn’t care less about this appearance of a privileged royal in the wake of all the wreckage.

The plot pivots slightly, and the Lady of Loudwater touts a tournament of champions, a contest of champions that will see the winners cleared of any past transgressions, something that would work in The Fallbacks favor.

So we go from small moments in the streets to a colosseum in the round where adventuring parties, including The Fallbacks and the First Guard of Loudwater, are competing for titles and prizes. The First Guard of Loudwater wins the day, but in a twist of events, the Lady of Loudwater awards a “silver prize” to The Fallbacks telling them they have won the right to serve her.

I’ve been playing and running Dungeons & Dragons games all my life, and somewhere in my bones, I feel like the white dragon and the Lady of Loudwater are the same, if not at the very least in league in some way.

The issue ends with a quote from the good-hearted fighter from The Fallbacks: “Do you want to try to live up to someone else’s standards by actually serving as a glorified guard for a pompous lady?”

This perfectly illustrated how Pak has been able to root the perspective of the underrepresented in this story. Way to often it’s dark, brooding heroes and cursed witches fawning over monstrous lovers and tortured secret kings. What Pak and the team have done with The Fallbacks is craft a story that allows their “everyman” appeal to really bubble to the surface and serve heroic fantasy as more than just might makes right, and honor and glory above all else. This is a deeply layered story about people and what it actually means to help others and be a hero, and it’s being told in a way that there is very little pomp or circumstance, just an actual consideration for the power in privilege and what comes when you speak truth to power.

Until next time, the issue also includes the stars and game mechanics for the White Dragon (Glazhael the Cloudcaller) in the back of the comic. This is something we need to be doing all the time!