DUNGEONS & DRAGONS: Honor Among Thieves

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film starts in an icy wasteland. A carriage brings an orc-like creature to a prison. He meets his cellmates, the bard Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and the barbarian Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez). The orc attempts to make a pass at Holga, who responds by breaking his knees and smashing his face.

The following day, Edgin and Holga are brought before the Absolution Council to state their case for an appeal for their pardon. Edgin begins by telling his backstory to the Council to give context for why he and Holga are there. Years ago, he was a member of the Harpers Faction, a group of spies that fought against evil. Edgin was married to Zia (Georgia Landers) and had a daughter, Kira. Tragedy struck when a group of Red Wizards attacked Edgin’s home and killed Zia, leaving him a widowed father and turning his back on the Harpers. As he struggled to provide for himself and Kira, he met Holga, who was banished from her tribe for falling in love with an outsider. Despite trying to live honestly, Edgin and Holga resorted to thievery, and Holga became like a surrogate parent to Kira (Chloe Coleman).

Edgin and Holga later teamed up with rookie sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith) and the rogue Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) to steal from others. Things changed when they met a wizard named Sofina (Daisy Head). She requested their help to rob Korin’s Keep, a Harper stronghold filled with riches. While Edgin refused at first, Forge convinced him when he told Edgin that the Keep contains the Tablet of Reawakening, which he realized he can use to bring Zia back to life. The plan went sour when Sofina’s true intentions were revealed, and she used a time-freezing spell to trap Edgin and Holga. Edgin gave Forge the Tablet and asks him to look after Kira, while Simon also managed to get away.

Edgin finishes the story as he waits for a Council member named Jarnathan (Clayton Glover) to show up. Once he does, Edgin and Holga use Jarnathan (who is a bird creature) to break through the window and fly out (even though the Council approved their pardon). Now free, the two thieves resolve to relocate Forge so that Edgin may reclaim the Tablet and get Kira back. They go to a pub and find a flyer that reveals that Forge is now Lord of Neverwinter.

The duo travel to Neverwinter, which is preparing for the annual Highsun Games. They reunite with Kira, who is more excited to see Holga (who calls Kira “Bug”) than her own father, as she thinks Edgin abandoned her for selfish reasons. They all meet with Forge, who used the riches stolen from Korin’s Keep to make himself the Lord of Neverwinter. Forge also reveals that he has Sofina working with him as his advisor. Edgin then learns that Forge has been telling Kira that he was arrested for stealing riches and not because of the Tablet of Reawakening. When he and Holga attempt to get Forge, Sofina uses her magic to trap them. He has the two captured by his guards and set to be imprisoned, but Sofina tells the guards to execute them.

Holga fights off the guards to allow herself and Edgin to escape once again. They decide that they need to plan a heist to get Kira out of Forge’s castle, but they need a team. With the Highsun Games coming up, other lords from other kingdoms will bring their riches together to Forge’s vault, where the Tablet is, and they can use the riches to pay their team.

Edgin and Holga go looking for Simon, who is performing magic tricks for entertainment. He uses the tricks as a diversion while casting a spell to steal the audience’s gold and trinkets. The people go after him, so Simon uses the spells he knows to try and escape, nearly getting himself killed until he runs into Edgin and Holga. He is onboard with taking down Forge, but he reminds the two that the place will be heavily guarded. Simon then tells them of someone he knows who can help.

The three go to find Doric (Sophia Lillis), a young druid that Simon had tried to court, but Doric found him unappealing. They watch as a young woman is set to be executed by having her limbs pulled off by a horse, only the horse turns out to be Doric in disguise. She transforms into her Owl-Bear form and knocks the villains around before freeing the woman. Afterwards, the trio approaches Doric, who does not trust humans because her own family abandoned her for being a tiefling. She gives her own reasoning for wanting to take down Forge, since he had her people imprisoned or killed for questioning his rule, so she wants to fight for the other druids.

In her quarters, Sofina speaks to her master, the lich Szass Tam (Ian Thanmore). He entrusts her with their ultimate plan, which Sofina hopes to use Forge in succeeding with their ultimate goal. Afterward, Sofina joins Forge as he meets with other lords to discuss plans for the Highsun Games, but Sofina detects the presence of Doric, who has shapeshifted into a fly to spy on Forge’s meeting. Forge’s guards go after her, but she manages to change shape to whatever works for her so she can escape and return to the rest of the team. Doric reports to them that Forge’s vault is protected by the Arcane Seal of Mordenkainen, which Simon does not think he is strong enough to break through, unless he were to possess the Helmet of Disjunction, which is said to have gone missing ages ago. However, Holga says she knows where the Helmet may be because her people fought the Cult of the Dragon, so they may know where it went. The only problem is they’re all dead.

The group stops at the home of Holga’s ex-husband Marlamin (Bradley Cooper) so that she may collect some items she needs. While Marlamin has moved on (to another barbarian woman), he wishes Holga well despite their differences.

The team arrives at a graveyard full of bodies that fought in the Evermoors long ago. With Simon’s magic, the bodies are only able to stay alive for up to five questions asked to them. They have to go through multiple corpses to find out where the Helmet of Disjunction went since many of the warriors died passing it onto one another. The last corpse they speak to tells them that the Helmet was passed on to a Thayan (where the Red Wizards come from) named Xenk Yendar (Rege-Jean Page), who promised to keep it safe. Edgin doesn’t trust Thayans since they killed Zia, but Simon and Doric have heard of Xenk’s stories as a paladin, and even Holga is able to back up the stories of his heroics.

The team shows up to witness some of Xenk’s heroics when he rescues a tiger child from a sea creature that swallowed it. They meet with him after to ask him to help take down Forge. He brings them together to explain the history of the Red Wizards – Szass Tam planned to raise an undead army by enslaving the people of the land. Xenk ponders as to what Forge would gain if he is working with the Red Wizards. Xenk only agrees to join the team when Edgin agrees to distribute Forge’s wealth among the people of Neverwinter.

On their way to the Helmet, Xenk talks about how he witnessed the unholy power of Szass Tam and how it corrupted good people to be slaves to evil, which is why he moved away from the way of the Red Wizards and used his skills for good. Xenk just managed to escape the Red Wizards’ spell, which is why he bears a mark on his forehead. He brings the others down a hole called The Orifice where the Helmet is located in an underground city. They must cross a chasm, but Simon accidentally triggers a mechanism that causes the bridge to collapse. Luckily, Holga is carrying what she thought was a cane, but Simon finds that it is called a Hither-Thither Staff, which opens portals and allows them to make it safely across the chasm.

Once the group reaches the Helmet, they are confronted by Thayans. Xenk fights them, but since they are undead, they don’t stay down. As they run, they are found by the (very fat) dragon Themberchaud, who chases them after devouring the Thayans. Edgin is nearly eaten until Xenk stabs the dragon in the head. Unfortunately, it doesn’t die and traps the heroes in a cavern that begins filling with water. Edgin comes up with a plan for Holga to provoke Themberchaud before Simon uses a spell to blast a hole in the cavern and allow them to swim to the surface.

After making it to the shore, Xenk bids the others farewell as he returns home. Simon attempts to take control of the Helmet, finding himself meeting his ancestor, Elminster Aumar, who doubts Simon’s capabilities and doesn’t allow him to attune with it. Simon keeps trying for hours but continues to get rejected. The team’s morale is brought down, and Simon and Doric plan to leave, but Edgin does his best to keep their spirits up. However, he admits to them that it’s his fault that Zia died because he stole gold from the Red Wizards, which is why they went after him. With Holga’s encouragement, the team comes up with a new plan to break into Forge’s vault by using the Staff to make their way inside.

The team uses a portrait to open one portal as a carriage of Forge’s treasures makes its way into Neverwinter for the start of the Highsun Games. While they manage to sneak in, the entrance to the portal gets blocked when the portrait falls facedown on the floor. Edgin encourages them to proceed by improvising. Simon uses a brief illusion of Edgin playing a song to distract the guards, but it starts to go wrong when Simon gets his foot stuck. Once inside, Holga fights more guards while Simon tries once more to attune with the Helmet. Elminster confronts him again and attempts to reject him once more, but Simon punches him, and this allows him to attune with the Helmet. He uses his newfound magic capabilities to help fight the guards.

Simon and Holga find the vault, but it is empty, making the team realize Forge moved his riches somewhere else. They, plus Doric, get incapacitated and captured. Edgin is tricked by Sofina posing as Kira. When Forge comes in, he plans to have them all locked up, but Edgin suggests that Forge allow them to compete in the Games, to which Sofina agrees but for the possibility that they will die there.

When they are put out in the coliseum, Doric mentions to the team that she saw the guards moving the riches to a boat, meaning that Forge is just trying to steal riches from the others attending the Games. The event starts, with the team competing alongside others as they are put through a treacherous maze filled with creatures and traps (like the infamous gelatinous cube). While the other players are not very lucky, Doric comes up with a plan to allow her and her friends to teleport out of there.

The heroes makes it to the dock where they find the boat with Forge’s riches and the riches stolen by him. He brings Kira as he tries to make her think Edgin is going to run away again, but after Edgin explains himself, Forge shows his true colors to Kira by holding a knife to her throat so that the heroes may step back from the riches. Holga throws a potato at his face, causing him to let Kira go. She joins her father and his friends as they hop on the boat and steal the riches, with Simon using a spell to cause a wave of water to hit Forge. Kira forgives Edgin as they reconcile.

Just as they are setting sail, the heroes witness a dark cloud forming in the sky as Sofina is setting her plan into motion, which is to use a Thayan horn (the one that Edgin and Holga got arrested for stealing) to enslave all the attendees of the Games as part of the Red Wizard army. The team makes their way back to Neverwinter to put a stop to Sofina. While she succeeds in getting the members of the Neverwinter council, the heroes return, and Simon uses the Staff to make a portal from the boat to the hot air balloon, causing all the riches from the boat to spill out into the streets and causing the people to run out of the coliseum, foiling Sofina’s plan.

The Red Wizard catches the heroes and battles them, using her spell to get a large stone dragon to attack them. While she uses other traps and trick, the team bombards Sofina with attacks before she seems to stop them using the same time-freezing spell she used against them before. She gloats about her victory until it turns out SHE was the one tricked, because Kira used a medallion that causes her to become invisible so that they can strap a magic-suppressing cuff on her as Simon countered her spell. Doric turns into her Owl-Bear form to thrash Sofina around before hurling her into a wall that crumbles and finally crushes her. While the team celebrates their victory, they find that Holga was mortally wounded in the fight, and she dies. Kira weeps over her, and Edgin realizes Holga was the closest thing Kira had to a mom growing up, so he decides to use the Tablet of Reawakening to revive Holga. The team joins the citizens to celebrate the end of the games and their forming of a new family. Meanwhile, Forge tries to run for it but is captured by Xenk.

Later on, Lord Neverember (Richard Croxford) reawakens since Sofina is gone, and he awards the heroes medals for saving Neverwinter. Forge is imprisoned and tries to make an appeal for his pardon by telling his own tragic backstory, but the Council doesn’t care for it. He finds Jarnathan and attempts to fly out again, but the Council made sure to move the meeting to a room with no windows, so Forge just charges into a wall.

Midway through the credits, the last corpse that the team left alive asks for anyone to ask him questions so he can go back to being dead.

Edgin (a bard), Holga (a barbarian), Simon (a sorcerer), and Doric (a druid) team up to bring down Forge Fitzwilliam, who double-crossed his teammates and used stolen riches to make himself Lord of Neverwinter and is keeping Edgin's daughter Kira in his custody by making her think her father abandoned her for selfish reasons. In addition, Forge is working with Sofina, a Red Wizard who plans to turn the citizens of Neverwinter into undead slaves for her master, the lich Szass Tam.

With help from a Paladin named Xenk, the heroes find a magic helmet and a staff that allows them to break into Forge's castle. They get captured and are put in the Highsun Games to avoid execution. While they escape and begin to make off with Forge's riches (more of which were stolen from the Games' attendees), Forge threatens Kira for them to give up, but they rescue her and steal Forge's treasures. When they see Sofina setting her plan in motion, the heroes return to Neverwinter to fight her. They save the citizens by using the staff to spill Forge's riches into the town for the people, and they battle Sofina before tricking her into wearing a magic-suppressing cuff that allows them to defeat her when Doric turns into an Owl-Bear to thrash the Red Wizard around before throwing her into a wall that crumbles and crushes her. Holga is mortally wounded in the fight, so Edgin uses the Tablet of Reawakening (which he had planned to use to resurrect his wife Zia) to save her.

The heroes are rewarded for saving Neverwinter, while Xenk captures Forge and has him imprisoned.