Prisoners of Pax Tharkas is the first book in the Super Endless Quest series, meant for slightly more advanced readers than the main series with its inclusion of statistics and dice-rolling.
The player controls Bern Vallenshield, a ranger in the world of Krynn, whose village is raided by Draconian warriors and taken to the fortress of Pax Tharkas. Its plot is notable for happening on the outskirts of the early Dragonlance novels.
Prisoners of Pax Tharkas provides examples of:
- Cool Sword: Fireborn, Bern's sword of "volcanic steel". You can also find the tomb where the legendary Wyrmslayer rests, but can't actually take it, since that would mess up Dragonlance continuity (the in-story reason being that it's right to respect other people's cultures and let them decide what to do with the remnants of their past).
- Failure Is the Only Option: The player has to be defeated and taken prisoner to experience most of the plot. Succeeding in fighting off the Draconians, which would be the player's understandable instinct, leads to very short playthroughs.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: If Bern finds himself confronted by the evil cleric Verminaard, the book teases the player with the option of fighting, but they're already screwed no matter what if he faces them.
- Interspecies Romance: Bern, a human ranger, finds himself irresistibly drawn to the exotic beauty of the elven mage Essa.
