Rich Burlew

This is the book in which the epic story becomes really epic. Haley's character development alone makes this five stars, the war is almost a sideshow to it, in my eyes.

If you are a fan of OOTS, don't miss this book. The origin stories of Redcloak and Xykon are the best D&D character backgrounds that I know of. This beats the pants off the first prequel book.

This penultimate volume of OOTS is a lot of fun and has a bit of everything: split narrative lines among different groups, flashbacks, foreshadowing, self-referential jokes, author commentary, and all the silliness we've come to expect from these comics. I am glad that one particular plot point got resolved in this book, though, because—while important to the main plot—it was one of my least favorite things. (Also, the resolution for it was very nicely done.)

Highly amusing set of 5 prequels focused on the citizens of Azure City. It was good to revisit some favorite secondary characters in these stories.

Contains the short graphic novels "That's the Spirit", "Scruff and Tumble", "Spoiler Alert","Pier Pressure", and "How the Paladin Got His Scar".