Disks of Mishakal

With two distinct origins, the Disks of Mishakal are among the most divisive artifacts in Dragonlance, due to their inspiration from one of the author's religious myths. Let’s learn more about the Disks of Mishakal. Buy War of the Lance: https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/3164/war-of-the-lance-3-5?affiliate_id=50797

https://youtu.be/XauKXYyfT4M

Transcript

Cold Open

Their fictional origins began before Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

Intro

Welcome to another DragonLance Saga episode. My name is Adam and today we are going to talk about the Disks of Mishakal. I would like to take a moment and thank the members of this channel, and invite you to consider becoming a member by visiting the link in the description below. You can even pick up Dragonlance gaming materials using my affiliate links. I am referencing the Chronicles and Kingpriest trilogies as well as Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home, War of the Lance, and Holy Orders of the Stars sourcebooks for this information. If I leave anything out or misspeak, please leave a comment below!

Discussion

The Disks of Mishakal were taken right out of Tracy Hickman’s religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or Mormons. This was stated directly by him in the Annotated Chronicles and Legends. Having grown up in a Mormon household, I was very familiar with the origin story of that particular religion, and while I do not find it any more ridiculous than any other origin myth from the myriad of Abrahamic faiths and other religions of the world, I do find it interesting that it would then be then ported into yet another fictional mythology: Dragonlance. 

Like any origin story there will inevitably be variations on details or beliefs, but the Disks of Mishakal, or Parapas Mishakas in the Istarian churches tongue, has two very different origin stories. One from the novel Sacred Fire by Chris Pierson from The Kingpriest trilogy published in 2003, and one from the War of the Lance sourcebook by Sovereign Press printed in 2004. So which is correct? This is a common situation in Dragonlance. Conflicting information about the same events. It seems the authors refuse to acknowledge each other which only makes us fans confused, argue and choose whichever resonates more with us individually. It seems the more I try to find some semblance of canon in Dragonlance the more I am prevented by the very authors that even conflict with their own versions of history and events.

So if we accept that there is not a unified sense of history, we have to take each account into consideration, so let’s start with the more ancient of origin myths of the Disks, the one that is officially a single year older… ancient by social media and news cycle norms anyway. From Sacred Fire, the Disks were ancient in the time of Huma Dragonbane in the Age of Dreams in the Time of Knights, and that was a thousand years before the Kingpriest of Istar went looking for them, and over three hundred and fifty years before the War of the Lance. It is said that the goddess Mishakal herself penned the disks and gifted them to humans to inspire them to break out of their bonds of slavery by the ogres. They learned reading and writing from the Disks, and even this tale is shrouded in suspicion for accuracy. 

The Disks were believed to have been lost in the Second Dragonwar, captured in the Battle of Gods’ Tears. They remained lost after the war ended until a villain and knave named Dario discovered a hidden tomb at the back of an abandoned goblin cave.