Dragon Keeper Chronicles

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

The Dragon Keeper Chronicles is a Christian fantasy series concerning the life of the titular Dragon Keeper, Kale. The series is set in a world with several fantastic races, many of which fit fairly comfortably into certain stereotypes.

The series consists of Dragonspell, Dragonquest, Dragonknight, Dragonfire and Dragonlight. As you may have guessed, quite a lot of the characters are dragons.

A new series has begun that is set in the same world, but at a different place and time. This series follows the adventures of Tipper, a young Emerlindian girl. Two books have been published so far, The Vanishing Sculptor and Dragons of the Valley.

Tropes used in Dragon Keeper Chronicles include:
  • Babies Ever After
  • Bigger Bad: Pretender, aka Satan.
  • Call a Rabbit a Smeerp: A bizarre variation involving fantasy creatures. See Five Races below. Also, Grawligs are clearly ogres, with a hint of troll. Oh, and God is called Wulder and Satan is called Pretender.
  • Complete Monster: Risto. Burner Stox. Crim Cropper. Pretender, obviously.
  • Cool Old Guy: Fenworth and Libbretowit.
  • Deadpan Snarker: most dragons, especially Greer.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending
  • Eccentric Mentor: Fenworth
  • Eek! A Mouse!: Discussed briefly in book 3.
  • Exclusively Evil - The lower races all first appear to be this, but as the series goes on we see more and more sympathetic characters from these races. It's actually discussed several times, particularly in reference to a Bisonbeck who is working with the good guys.
  • Five-Man Band: doesn't quite fit, but for the first couple of books at least...
  • Five Races - There are at least elements of this trope present in the high races. O'rants ~ Humans, mariones ~ Dwarves, emerlindians ~ Elves, kimen ~ Fairies, doneels & tumanhofers ~ Gnomes/Hobbits. Although, the Doneels are sort of dog-people too. Also, not sure if this really fits, but the urohms are small (read: good) giants.
  • Gentle Giant: Bruntstetter. And pretty-much every other urohm.
  • Halfbreed: The Grawl.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: Bardon.
  • High Octane Nightmare Fuel
  • Humans by Any Other Name: There are only two noticeable differences between humans and o'rants - the gestation period and the fact o'rant sweat smells of citrus.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold - Holt Hoddack
  • Last-Minute Hookup - Dar/Suddenly-Adult!Toopka. Don't think about it. Just don't.
    • I thought it was justified. Wasn't it mentioned that the doneels have a really short childhood and adolescence compared to the other races?
    • Actually, doneels and emerlindians have an adolescence of 100 years, compared with 18-20 for o'rants, mariones etc.
  • Mad Scientist: Crim Cropper
  • Magic A Is Magic A
  • Mary Suetopia
    • Not quite, a big theme in the books is the lack of faith that is slowly crippling the kingdom (country? continent? peninsula? This troper isn't sure.)
      • Amara is a continent, but there are implications that similar problems are occuring outside Amara.
  • Mentor Occupational Hazard: Fenworth half-averts it, half plays it straight. While he does die, it's not in a battle, he just sort of... turns into a tree.
  • Nightmare Fuel: Quiss. Evil Fish People (well, squid-people) with bodies covered in tentacles, which are in turn covered in mouths. Every so often, they develop the ability to breathe air and walk, so they come out of the sea to feed on people. They feed by wrapping people in the tentacles and biting them with the mouths, which inject a poison that liquifies the flesh. They suck up the liquified flesh, leaving the victim as literally a bag of bones. When they overeat, the remains of their last meal oozes out of their skin. Oh, and Cropper and Stox found a way of making them constantly able to walk on land and constantly hungry, with the side effect that they are also constantly in agony.
  • The Obi-Wan: the good wizards all have elements of this.
  • Official Couple: Kale and Bardon, adult!Toopka and Dar
  • Older Than They Look: Toopka
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Not all breathe fire. Some of them can heal people. Some of them can sing. Some of them glow in the dark. Some of them make people impulsively laugh. Some of them are humanoid and talk.
  • Our Elves Are Different: Their skin, hair and eyes gradually darkens as they age and gain wisdom.
  • Parental Abandonment: Several characters are missing one or both parents (Kale, Bardon, Toopka), or have been estranged from them(Beal). A large chunk of the series is actually spent dealing with all of the various emotional issues and other things that arise because of this.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Dar starts off this way. Also Toopka. In fact, Doneels in general.
  • Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: "I never liked him, Thorp." The fact it's being said absent-mindedly to a bird just makes it more awesome.
  • The Reveal: Toopka is much older than she seems; she's been aged down.
  • Shipper on Deck: Toopka
  • Time Skip - Ye gods. The series covers twelve years. In five books. One year, then three years, then three years again, then five years...
  • Tsundere - O'rants are like this when pregnant. Either that or it's a family trait..
  • You Will Be Assimilated: Lord Ire, a being created by Pretender stealing a meech's body and 'absorbing' several others.
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