title: Reluctant Goddess: Kleopatra And the Stolen Throne
author: Dharma Windham
description: Dharma Windham, a self-taught scholar of Hellenistic and Egyptian Magic and Religion, lives with a life partner and a cat on the beach in Southern California.
zlib_text: ![](Images/image00222.jpeg)
  
    
  
  **The Cataclysm**
  
    
  
  ![](Images/image00216.jpeg)
  
    
  
  ( Dragonlance - Tales, Book 5 )
  
    
  
   _ **Edited by**_  
   _ **Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman**_
  
   **Introduction**
  
  ![](Images/image00218.jpeg)
  
    
  
  The world was forged upon three pillars: good, evil, neutrality. In order to
  progress, a balance between the three must be maintained. But there came a
  time in Krynn when the balance tilted. Believing himself to be the equal to
  the gods in knowledge and in wisdom, the Kingpriest of Istar sought the gods
  in arrogance and pride and demanded that they do his bidding.
  
  Having viewed with sorrow the tilting of the scales of balance, resulting in
  hatred, prejudice, race divided against race, the gods determined to restore
  the balance of the world. They cast a fiery mountain upon Ansalon, then
  withdrew their power, hoping those intelligent races who dwelt upon Krynn
  would once again find their faith—in the gods, in themselves, and in each
  other.
  
  This catast