Tasslehoff Burrfoot (often called Tas) is a fictional character of the kender race from the Dragonlance series of novels, written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. He was born in Kendermore. His parents are unknown and he has few known relatives. He has a sister, and also claims (like many other kender) to have an Uncle Trapspringer. He has three uncles, by the names of Remo Lockpick, Bertie, and Wilfre. He also has a cousin, Latchlifter Furrfoot.
Publication history
Dragon magazine published a series of stories introducing members of the Heroes of the Lance, to preview Dragonlance; "A Stone's Throw Away" in Dragon #85 (May 1984) was the second of these, and is a story about Tasslehoff.
Early life
Tasslehoff developed a passion for maps early on. He collected them and posted them all over the walls of his room. However, when he drew maps, his short patience led him to draw them inaccurately and make up names for certain places on Ansalon. While he often stole things, he always claimed he wasn't a thief, often saying he was just borrowing the objects in question. This is a behaviour typical to kender, who as a species steadfastly, and with some indignation, maintain they do not steal, but "find" things that "just happen" to have been left out, or fallen into their pouches.
He traveled to Solace and found a ring dropped by a thief, which he dubbed "Tas's Ring of Teleportation". With this ring, he traveled all across Krynn, ending up at Magus's Tower where he aided Demogorgon in an attempt to stop Magus from using demons. When he departed, he left Magus in the care of the Prince of Demons.
During Tas's travels outside of Solace, he encountered Tanis Half-Elven and Flint Fireforge. He asked to be their friends; they declined. Tas, upon leaving Solace, acquired a bracelet that Flint made for Selena Sonluanaau. This bracelet saved Tas from a spider, and a merchant as well. When Tanis and Flint came to collect the bracelet Tas no longer had it. Selena arrived and charged them with finding the bracelet. They set off immediately, but were waylaid by satyrs, who made them stop, dance, and drink while the satyrs played music for a whole day. Upon arriving in Tantallon, Flint and Tanis were captured by the local Lord. Selena and Tas took a polymorph potion that turned them into birds to get into the castle, then they became mice to retrieve the bracelet. They freed Tanis and Flint, the bracelet was returned to Selena, and Tas left with Flint and Tanis.
Tasslehoff then joined the remaining Companions and they began adventuring. Flint nearly drowned at one point, and Tas helped to get him ashore. When Tas was on a quest for a special herb that Raistlin needed, along with Sturm and Caramon, he was captured by minotaurs.
Tasslehoff also appeared in the Legends Trilogy as a character to retrieve Caramon from his drunken stupor.
Back to Kendermore
When the companions separated, Tas had no intention of leaving his friends but a bounty hunter (who was a beautiful dwarven woman, and was later killed by the half-orc Denzil) came to arrest him and bring him back to Kendermore. She did this because he had to marry a kender named Damaris Metwinger (who was the mayor's daughter). His journey to Kendermore was forced upon him, by saying that his Uncle Trapspringer was arrested until Tas will come and marry. On the way Tas was kidnapped by two Gnomes, whose Life-Quest was to stuff one of every creature alive. He was rescued by a Woolly Mammoth he released (this later prompted endless stories he told to the other Heroes of the Lance, whether they wanted to hear them or not). He was then kidnapped by a half-orc named Denzil, who needed a map of Tas' to find a treasure located in The Ruins. The Ruins were the remnants of a city lost during the time of the Cataclysm, located just outside the kender city, Kendermore. When Tas reached The Ruins, he was captured by a friendly ogre. The ogre's lair was underneath one of the abandoned Towers of High Sorcery. In the Tower of High Sorcery he entered a dimension. The dimension where his Uncle Trapspringer and Damaris were on that anything and everything was edible. They escaped, along with the other kender caught there. Takhisis, finding an open portal, tried to enter the world, but they closed the portal before she could enter. In revenge, she asked her son, Nuitari, the god of dark magic, to cause natural disasters on Kendermore. When Tas and the rest of the kenders saved from the alternate dimension arrived in Kendermore, it was burning. However, thanks to Tas' leadership, they extinguished the fire. At the end Damaris decided to marry Trapspringer, thus freeing Tas from his obligation.
War of the Lance
Tasslehoff helps his companions on many occasions during the war, However, the device had been broken earlier. Since he did not want to die, he fled with the device, which was later fixed by the gnome Conundrum. He traveled through several various times throughout history before he returned to the war of souls. Shortly after, he helped Gerard, Odila, and Mirror to free the metallic dragons from their prison. After this he agreed to go back in time and get stepped on by Chaos, as he was supposed to, thus returning to his normal time-stream. As he was leaving, he reminded Gerard that the lock on his tomb (which he had picklocked), was broken and needed repair.
Coincidentally, many kender claim to have an Uncle Tas during the Fifth Age.
Personality
Tas, like all kender of the Dragonlance series, could be compared to a 5-year-old child; he is utterly irresponsible in any task that is not of the utmost importance, and often takes things that do not belong to him, which to a kender is "borrowing" and not stealing. Kender do not consider themselves to be thieves, and can become quite indignant when accused of stealing. They believe in sharing all that they have, and a common custom between two kender is to dump the entire contents of their pouches and exchange things. To kender, a family heirloom is something that has been in their possession for more than three weeks.
Kender also have a trait called "Taunting", by insulting their opponents to the point of enraging them to killing intent, and thus lowering their accuracy in attacking but increasing their strength as a result. This is especially shown during Chronicles Book 2: Dragons of Winter Night when the companions were tied up and escorted to the mayor and while walking the street under the jeering of the crowd, Tas, as the master of taunting, managed to enrage the crowd into a riot and managed to be saved by the knights on covert mission in the chaos.
Like all kender, Tas hated being bored, and on the occasion that he was, he was known to begin talking about meaningless things to anyone who would listen.
Like all kender, Tas is completely without fear for himself. However, Tas is different from other kender in that he does know fear, not for himself, but for the people that he cares about. He is even immune to dragonfear, except that caused by the great dragons of the fourth age, but the Shoikan Grove's piercing aura of fear managed to break through and affect him, though he did not recognize the feeling. The Death Knight, Lord Soth, gave him the same feeling. He is also fiercely loyal to his friends, has enough sense (largely thanks to lecturing from Tanis Half-Elven) to avoid overly dangerous situations, and above all, has a conscience in the form of Flint Fireforge's voice.
Displays of this fear can be found in the books:
<BR>Chronicles Trilogy<BR>
Dragons of Autumn Twilight<BR>
Dragons of Winter Night<BR>
Dragons of Spring Dawning<BR>
Dragons of Summer Flame
<BR>War of Souls Trilogy<BR>
Dragons of a Fallen Sun<BR>
Dragons of a Lost Star<BR>
Dragons of a Vanished Moon
Appearance
Tasslehoff is often described as resembling a twelve-year-old child; he is of that general height and build. His face has many wrinkles that appear whenever he smiles, which is often. His clothes are always described as colorful, comfortable, and utterly unmatching. His most famous article of clothing was his fur-lined vest, worn through much of the War of Lance. Like all of his race, he carries a good number of pouches, which he never takes off, except just prior to his death at the hands of Chaos, so that he could run faster. See Chaos War. Also like all of his race, he has a ludicrously large topknot, which is to a kender what a beard is to a dwarf. His hair is brown as are his eyes. He also embodies the statement in many of the novels, the two most dangerous things in all of Krynn is to hear a Kender say "oops" and "I'm bored.".
Other media
Video games
Tasslehoff appears as one of the player characters in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of the Lance.
Tasslehoff also appears as a player character in Dragons of Flame, where one reviewer describes him as "a rather fat mamma with ginormous ears".
Miniature figures
Tasslehoff was included in Ral Partha's Dragonlance Heroes boxed figures set of lead miniatures. A reviewer for Dragon magazine felt that Ral Partha successfully matched their figures to the descriptions of the characters in the novels, and described his figure: "Tasslehoff stands at the ready, with a sling in his left hand and a rock in his right. He is clothed in simple pants and buckle boots, and is wearing a sleeveless fur coat. His face has a look of foreboding. His hair is pulled back into a topknot that flows down his back. He is also carrying water containers and provisions on his belt."
Dragonlance movie
Jason Marsden voiced Tasslehoff in the animated movie Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight. The 2002 winner of the American Library Association's Alex Award Mel Odom reviewed the film and described Tasslehoff as "a kleptomaniac".
Reception
Jason Heller, of The A.V. Club, notes that Tasslehoff, "the group's token member of the hobbit-like kender race, winds up being a source of real pathos after a rocky start as a kleptomaniac punchline."
Lauren Davis of io9 describes Tasslehoff as "endlessly resourceful and his tendency to steal any small object in sight proves more useful than annoying. Plus, his cheerful demeanor is often a welcome ray of light in the books' darker moments, though his gradual journey to maturity is one of the series' most satisfying arcs—and the reason he becomes such a heroic figure in later volumes."
In the Io9 series revisiting older Dungeons & Dragons novels, Rob Bricken commented that "A kender, a race particular to the Dragonlance setting that are hobbit-sized but not interested in creature comforts and Elevensies. Instead, they're innately curious, playful to the occasional point of meanness, and generally so happy-go-lucky they genuinely don't feel fear. They're also uniformly kleptomaniacs."