A fun and important episode of the animated series, The Treasure of Tardos actually gives us the first hint to a more complex plot underlying the story we’ve been following for the last 15 episodes, and hints at a more involved storyline to come. But that comes right at the end of the episode, so let’s look at how it starts first.

There is a danger to the world and Dungeon Master asks the heroes to go fight a monster called the Demodragon, a new monster which D&D fans might recognize as a kind of mix between the Demogorgon and Tiamat, with the lower body of an animal, tentacles and two heads like Demogorgon (although it has hooves); but two heads which are dragon-like, a red one which spits fire and a blue one which spits ice. This monster is being controlled by Venger and aims both to attack the city of Tardos and retrieve the party’s magical weapons.

When the Demodragon captures the party’s magical weapons the control that Venger had over it is dissipated and the monster goes rogue. This leads to a temporary alliance between the party and Venger to defeat the Demodragon. After all is done we get the revelation right at the end of the episode from a teary eyed Dungeon Master speaking to the screen that Venger’s downfall into evil is actually the DMs fault. Fade to black, episode end. Talk about a cliffhanger!