Test of the Twins (1986)
Test of the Twins is a 1986 fiction book written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
Two brothers, two paths, one converging end. Raistlin steps through the Portal into the Abyss to confront Takhisis on her own plane, the last and largest gamble of his life. Caramon and the kender Tasslehoff, thrown loose across time by the collision of their magics, glimpse what the world becomes if the archmage wins. The final Legends volume brings the twins' lifelong bond to its reckoning, weighing ambition against love without softening either. Weis and Hickman close their most personal Dragonlance story on the two people it was always about, and the choice only they can make.
Quick answers
What is Test of the Twins about?
Two brothers, two paths, one converging end. Raistlin steps through the Portal into the Abyss to confront Takhisis on her own plane, the last and largest gamble of his life. Caramon and the kender Tasslehoff, thrown loose across time by the collision of their magics, glimpse what the world becomes if the archmage wins. The final Legends volume brings the twins' lifelong bond to its reckoning, weighing ambition against love without softening either. Weis and Hickman close their most personal Dragonlance story on the two people it was always about, and the choice only they can make.
When was Test of the Twins published?
Test of the Twins was published in 1986.
Who made Test of the Twins?
Test of the Twins was written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
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Test of the Twins in our writing
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A few thoughts on Test of the Twins
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt earns a place here for its own hard, love-versus-duty choices and a bond that shapes the ending. Planescape: Torment again fits the reckoning-with-a-life theme. For screen, the brother-against-brother tragedy at the core echoes through the doomed siblings of Better Call Saul.
The rest of the Dragonlance war saga
Test of the Twins closes the Legends trilogy Weis and Hickman built inside Dragonlance, and the earlier Chronicles books plus the tie-in game Champions of Krynn share that same continent, that same war between gods and mortals, and the same dragon-riding cast. Read the full arc from the War of the Lance through the twins' story to see how this world got here.
Ambition that costs a family everything
Raistlin's climb toward godhood costs Caramon the brother he loves, and these stories carry that same weight. Better Call Saul, Game of Thrones, and A Game of Thrones all watch ambition curdle a family from the inside, while Excalibur turns blood loyalty into its own dark magic, the same trade Weis and Hickman force on the twins.
D&D-rooted games about the price of mastery
Test of the Twins turns a portal into the Abyss into a story about what mastery costs, and Planescape: Torment asks a similar question about a soul that keeps losing itself. The Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games share the ruleset and the moral weight, letting you make Raistlin's kind of bargain yourself.
More TSR-era tie-in fantasy from the same shelf
Weis and Hickman wrote Test of the Twins for the same TSR shelf that produced Salvatore's Icewind Dale trilogy and the Dark Elf prequels. Streams of Silver, The Crystal Shard, and The Halfling's Gem share Dragonlance's era and publisher, following a different corner of the same tabletop-built multiverse with its own found family at the center.