Welcome to Dragonmount!! So happy you're here and cannot wait to see your journey!

It’s a mix of both. The Dark One was always bound, but able to touch the world. The Forsaken, however, were out and about until Lews Theron and his boys trapped them in.

Welcome to the 2024 Dragonmount x JordanCon Quest! Join Dragonmount on a quest to interact with the amazing community at JordanCon, which comes together each year to celebrate The Wheel of Time and other sci-fi/fantasy works. Here's how it's going to work! Complete any quests from the list below by following the instructions and posting the photos to your social media account using the hashtag #DragonmountQuest. Write the number of each completed quest in any box on the BINGO card on the back of your JordanCon program. Get BINGO by placing any 5 completed quest numbers in a row (horizontal, vertical, or diagonal). When you've made a BINGO, search out a member of Dragonmount to confirm and authorize your win. Important note: All photos must be taken with consent. Please do not interrupt or disrupt panels or conversations to take photos. To be eligible to win BINGO all social media posts must be on a public profile using the hashtag #DragonmountQuest (so Dragonmount can authenticate and repost). Selfie with a Dragonmount staffer Screenshot of your Dragonmount.com profile Selfie with someone in Aes Sedai cosplay Screenshot of you following Dragonmount on Twitch with the alert bell Post in the JordanCon 2024 chat on the Dragonmount Discord Photo of someone reading a book at JordanCon Photo of a Dragonmount ribbon on your badge Selfie with an Author Guest and their book Screenshot of your favorite video from Dragonmount's YouTube Channel Photo of your Con Suite meal Photo of a non-Wheel of Time cosplay Screenshot of your favorite blog post on Dragonmount.com Photo at a panel Selfie with a Dealer Repost your favorite Dragonmount TikTok and comment on it that you reposted it Screenshot of you following Dragonmount on Instagram Screenshot of the bookstore on Dragonmount where you can buy ebooks published by Tor Publishing Group Post a video of yourself declaring <something> "From the slopes of Dragonmount!" A photo of the Dragonmount logo somewhere at JordanCon Selfie with a group of nerds Dragonmount dance party! Find our dance party thread on our social media and post a pic/video of you dancing or a dancing gif Photo of a purchase made from the Dealers Hall Selfie with a piece of art you've purchased Screenshot of you following Dragonmount on TikTok Selfie at the JordanCon dance party Selfie at the JordanCon store Photo of your best Wheel of Time inspired pose Photo of anything that isn't directly related to The Wheel of TIme but makes you THINK of The Wheel of Time Screenshot of you following Dragonmount on YouTube with the alert bell Photo of an awesome Charity Auction item The first five people with a straight line BINGO will win one of the following prizes: a signed hardcover Origins of the Wheel of Time OR Books 1-4 of the Stormlight Archive. With book five, Wind and Truth, coming out this December, now is the perfect time to catch up on the series! Anyone else with a completed BINGO will be entered for a chance to win any remaining copies as well as a variety of other amazing prizes from the Tor Publishing Group warehouse. Special thanks to the incredible team over at Tor Publishing Group for sponsoring these amazing prizes. Stay tuned for Brandon Sanderson's Wind and Truth, which releases on December 6th, 2024. View full news item

When Amazon asks if you want to talk to four cast members from The Wheel of Time on Prime Video, you drop everything and reschedule your day to make ten minutes for each one available. Now that the SAG-AFTRA strike has ended, the media is finally able to communicate with the cast, and it’s been so wonderful. I know how excited the actors have all been to talk with the fans as well! We were lucky enough to gather together questions to ask Ayoola Smart (Aviendha), Kate Fleetwood (Liandrin Guirale), Marcus Rutherford ( Perrin Aybara), and Dónal Finn (Mat Cauthon). These interviews will make you want to rewatch all the episodes of Season One and Season Two of The Wheel of Time on Prime Video…I know they did for me. Dónal Finn was so charming and clearly excited to be a part of The Wheel of Time. Here’s a snippet of our interview with him. Dragonmount: So as most folks know, productions often do not film in sequence. And you came into Season Two as new to the cast and the crew, but your character had a lot of previous rapport. What was your first day on set like? Did they throw you right into battle scenes or did you get to vibe with Kate Fleetwood hanging out in your cell? Dónal Finn: I feel really, really lucky about my first days on set because, for me it was chronological and like, that's a bit of a blessing because like you said, it's not always that. But the first scenes that I shot on set were the first scenes where you are introduced to Mat, and that's in the cell in the White Tower, and it was with Kate. And then with Kae (Alexander, who plays Min). But I think the blessing was, you know, there were scenes that were all happening in one room. And in that case, like I admired her from afar, like as a someone who goes to the theater a lot in London. And so we and our brilliant director of that block, specifically Tom Napper, said, why don't we, you know, find a space within our studios and maybe just rehearse these scenes? And so we got to kind of imagine them and play the scenes as though, it was as though it was like for a theater. And like, that made me feel really relaxed because I was very familiar with that experience. And so it did put me at great ease. And I think there was, even though I didn't know Kate before those days, even the fact that I kind of like was such a huge admirer of the work that I'd seen her do and because she's so, so lovely and that quality that she has and Liandrin is like she can just turn on and then switch it off when they say cause. And so you can have great, great fun with her like on set that always puts us at ease. And Tom is also such a legend and was so accommodating to all of my questions and ideas for the character. Yeah, my…first days on set were like, really, really blissful. Even though, like with this, what's going on for the character in those scenes is not bliss. DM: This season almost has four different versions of Mat. You have the regular Mat, you have Mat from the Accepted test, you have the Mat high on the Ishy Tea and then Mat after blowing the Horn. How did your preparation for each of those scenes change? DF: I feel like there's a, you know, that there's like one Mat that gets just like, pushed into these different situations. So there's kind of a, there's a healthy kind of core understanding of the character. And then you just kind of go, he was in, you know, he's being pushed into this circumstance. He's been pushed into the challenges facing today with a different kind of approaches. I think all of them were, I think they all evolved like different things. You know, I'm, but I think, you know, Mat, blowing the horn, that felt like there was maybe two things about that that needed specific like time and effort, as in like there's the fight, there's the kind of, there's the language, there's the Old Tongue. And then, similarly as well, with Mat drinking Ishameal’s tea. It’s kind of getting into the skin of like or what would that be like. What is, what is it like in our, you know, relative worlds and, and what would that be like physically? What would that do to the body and with all their emotions as well, you know? In the second kind of chapters of Mat that you described, like they're still really challenging and emotional and you know you don't get some of those things for free. And so you're always trying to find a way to imagine, like, what is it like. In my own experience and what's helped me feel that way as well, and I might be, it might be music or might be, you know, it might be if he's in a good mood, it might be just like making sure I'm having like a really nice time on set or enjoying, you know, having fun with the people behind the camera. And just being present to be hopefully being playful with, with the other actor. DM: The stunt team at Jordan Studios said that you jumped all in for fighting lessons once you were cast. And they hinted at something I know fans have been desperate to see on screen that might be happening in Season Three. Obviously, you can't give anything away, but is there a particular skill or trick that you worked really hard for that you can share? DF: The guys are unbelievable, particularly Andre, who is kind of the, the guy who has taught me from the start. It's like the karate kid you know, like kind of watching him and learning. I kind of get a buzz every time they go….”so we're going to teach you this.” He might be talking to me, and he'd be spinning the stuff around. And I'd say, well, what did you just do there? And he'd say, “That? Yeah. It's just like, we've got the stuff in your hand, Twirl it over here, and then you spin it, as you put it, behind your back, and then you pull it over here.” And I kind of go, yeah I don't know how to do that. What's that? And then so he'll kind of like, you know, I get a buzz off of learning at all on like, you know, but he, he is so good that I just stand back and watch him and kind of wait for him to do something cool and then say, okay, I don't know how to do that, show me how to do that. So I kind of feel sometimes that the tricks are kind of like, you know, a footballer because you go, God, that's like so impressive, but in a battle sense, in the sense of like actually being in a battle, that's like super impractical, you know? Like, well, how do you have the time to spin it round like your back, you know? So I think, you know, that speaks to Mat’s character as well, because I think he enjoys being good at this and kind of the flourish of it, you know? I feel so lucky that, you know, practical experience and journey with the show is that I'm learning how to do this, you know? So, sorry. I don't have a specific move. For the full transcripts with the full conversation for this and the other interviews, sign up on our Patreon! View full news item

When Amazon asks if you want to talk to four cast members from The Wheel of Time on Prime Video, you drop everything and reschedule your day to make ten minutes for each one available. Now that the SAG-AFTRA strike has ended, the media is finally able to communicate with the cast, and it’s been so wonderful. I know how excited the actors have all been to talk with the fans as well! We were lucky enough to gather together questions to ask Ayoola Smart (Aviendha), Kate Fleetwood (Liandrin Guirale), Marcus Rutherford ( Perrin Aybara), and Dónal Finn (Mat Cauthon). These interviews will make you want to rewatch all the episodes of Season One and Season Two of The Wheel of Time on Prime Video…I know they did for me. Kate Fleetwood was just as amazing as the first time we were lucky enough to interview her. Here is a snippet from our interview with her. Dragonmount: Last year, when we spoke, you let us know how much fun you have with your castmates off-set and how much you just love to play. Did that continue with Season Two and the just-wrapped Season Three, and how did you add in all of the new cast members into that playtime? Kate Fleetwood: We always have a really nice time. We did karaoke and I mean, the boys and girls of a certain age are really good at going like waterskiing, things like that. But I don't do any of that. And I've got bad knees, and I like to get to that… but yeah, it is. And we’vehad so many new cast members, and again we've had loads this season as well and they're all international and that's, that's always the brilliant thing about Wheel of Time is that it's so broad. The breadth of people and the kind of people you get to play with is just brilliant. And I'm so looking forward to meeting some of the new characters this season. It’s just brilliant but we were still suffering a lot of COVID restrictions in Season Two, you know, and that was really tough because we couldn't see each other at all. You know, we were still eating little boxes in our rooms and not allowed to see or touch anybody. Here is just as a little bit of trivia on the scene where I'm within the way gate with the horses and the girls. When we were blocking that scene, our director took her mask off. And it's the first time I'd ever seen her face in three months. It was still really tough on everybody, you know? And we were being like, shut down a lot and having to stop. And so it was actually, it was tough enough to shoot that. And I think people sort of forget that we were still, we were still in a kind of COVID world while you're making something because of so many precautions. So it has been lovely this year. You know, we've been able to sit in tents together and eat and things like that on set and just like not have to just be shut away all the time. That, that's just been great. DM: Season One Liandrin’s chemistry with Moiraine was fantastic, and I think the, the amazing chemistry between Liandrin and Mat this season is really off the charts. You have chemistry with like inanimate objects, with just your presence. Is there something special that you do that allows for this incredible connection on screen, or is that just kind of your amazingness? KF: "It's just my amazingness.” No, haha… I think, I think I’m really, really touced thatyou say that. It's a really kind compliment. I mean, it's really genuine. I'm really genuinely touched by that. Thank you. DM: It's, it's so true. Like, it doesn't matter any time you're on screen. Just, I'm always just so excited to see how you're interacting with anything. I mean, with the horses, with, you know, I got that little look you did before you went through the gates after releasing Nyn like, I just think it's about being so present. KF: The thing I think I try and do, which might be the answer is, I don't know if it is the answer because I think it's quite hard for me to answer this. But when I think about playing, I'm always looking for the playfulness. It is always an opportunity to play everything, you know, like you say, you know, whether it's a cushion or a place or how you unlock a door, you know, every gesture or every motion or inflection in your voice you are as an actor. You've got, the words and the story and you've got your body and your voice and, you know, and that is your tool and that is your instrument, you know? And so you're looking for tone. And this is probably going to sound really pretentious, but you're always looking to how do you play this, and you play this instrument in this situation. And that can just be, you know, the look with a glance with it. But you embody and you, I mean, I just spend hours and hours on the set and I spend a lot of time prepping scenes. I just do a lot of work on it. It's like anything, you know, you just got to do, got to do it to work on it. You can't just turn up one night. I like to play at home, you know, I'll move the furniture back and, you know, and I'll play it, I'll play it, play it, and then something will just go *bing*. And then of course, you play with the other characters because you can't. But I'm always searching for other ways of telling story, and I think this really brilliant experience as a young actress, I was really lucky enough to play in the chorus, in a Western version of Medea with Fiona Shaw. She is in Harry Potter and Killing Eve and a lot of people would know her. I learned it from her that you got to be brave, you got to be playful, and you just got to keep true and you got to try things. You’ve got to experiment and play. I don’t know if it pays off but… DM: It definitely, it pays off. When you were filming Season One, did you know things that were going to be revealed in Season Two specifically, like your son? KF: No, no, no. But that’s the other thing that goes toward this playfulness is that you have to keep completely open. Of course I have to structure my performance because we, shoot a lot of time, not chronologically. So you do have to have some, constant awareness of, you know, the arc of everything. But it's part of the fun of playing is not knowing. And you have to be, you have to be open to that as an actor. You got to be open to change. You got to keep things moving and changing and shifting.You have to be always fluid-thinking because anything can happen. Lots of things happen in Season Three... yeah… they sat me down and were like, “This is what we are planning for you in Season Three.” I was, whoaa! Ok… DM: You have had some of the best wigs, intricate braid work and all of that. We're wondering which wig is your favorite and do you name them? KF: I don't (name them), it’s just sort of the great thing about the wigs, it gives you sort of this massive facelift, you know, because it's like they're suddenly like, *eeeee ahh.* No, but the wigs on the show…. I wish everybody could just go into those departments, the hair and makeup department. And the costume department and every department, actually. But when you go into that wig room, in the studio, that all lined up, you know, it's like what Davina and her team have done with the way the braiding is amazing. It's incredible. And they have people just doing it around the clock. You can walk in and then they'll go, we're just going to try a new wig on today and, they’ll just have four beautiful wigs. And then you try each one on and then you have to have your photograph taken and everyone decides which one's best and it’s a long process to choose to make. But yeah, I've got some pretty good wigs in Season Three, just saying. For the full transcripts with the full conversation for this and the other interviews, sign up on our Patreon! View full news item

When Amazon asks if you want to talk to four cast members from The Wheel of Time on Prime Video, you drop everything and reschedule your day to make ten minutes for each one available. Now that the SAG-AFTRA strike has ended, the media is finally able to communicate with the cast, and it’s been so wonderful. I know how excited the actors have all been to talk with the fans as well! We were lucky enough to gather together questions to ask Ayoola Smart (Aviendha), Kate Fleetwood (Liandrin Guirale), Marcus Rutherford ( Perrin Aybara), and Dónal Finn (Mat Cauthon). These interviews will make you want to rewatch all the episodes of Season One and Season Two of The Wheel of Time on Prime Video…I know they did for me. Marcus Rutherford has such a soothing presence and was wonderful to take some time to talk to us! Here is a snippet of our interview with him. Dragonmount: You have had the opportunity to befriend some of the bestest boys and goodest girls, specifically the Best Supporting Actress Nom of our hearts, Ka Lupinka. How have those friendships strengthened and grown during S2 and do you have any stories about them that you can share? Marcus Rutherford: Yeah. It was amazing, man. I had a very kind of brief encounter in Season One, but I didn't really get to kind of work with the animals. And then Season Two… You kind of forget this is a real animal, man. It's like a real animal, look, it wants to do its own things. It's kind of like when you work with your horse and stuff, you can’t cheat it. The animal needs to want to kind of stay near you and work with you and listen to you and all those kind of things. It was insane. I think with that Czech wolf dog, they are sort of like a half breed, so it's not particularly easy to get them to like, you know, there was one scene for me that was really important. Where the makeup and effects built like this sort of “deer carcass,” that the wolves are kind of like eating and they (production) kind of just needed Hopper to stay next to me. It wasn't like on a lead or anything. She just had to sit there. And when you see all, these are the dogs eating, their natural instincts you think would be to follow. It was kind of like a scene that I could tell everyone was like (thinking), this is going to go wrong. We just put a load of meat in front of a dog, and its friends were eating… and yeah, it just stayed there instead for the whole scene. It was a really beautiful scene with Elyas and it was just one of those moments that was just so sweet, and I kind of needed the connection there, and you don't really want to have to think about, “Is the dog wandering off or is it not calling for the owner off camera or whatever?” And she just stayed there and she just looked at me at the little moment as a little look where he says, like his mate died too, and all this kind of stuff. And I think there were a lot of moments with that dog where I was just like, “You've made this really easy for me,” which is just like, really special, really special. It could have been, you know, it could've been really tricky. And she, um, she really trusted me. And I think, I think the owner, an animal handler named Maria was amazing. She (Maria) was just like, she (Ka Lupinka) doesn't really connect with people that easy. And it was special. And I think, you know, I think Rafe was kind of torn between like sort of big sort of visual effects kind of animals or like, you know, real animals. And of course you can get a bigger scale with some of those kind of things. But I think for an actual human connection, you just can't like you can with a real animal. I've had so many messages with people talking about their own animals. And I just, I just, I think that's the connection that it needed for, for the show. It needed to be a real bond, a real creature, a real thing in camera that people could connect with and understand with their own dogs when they sort of look at them after the episodes. DM: Season Two's journey for Perrin has ultimately been the battle between the Way of the Leaf and his desire to protect others. How did you prepare for a role that relied on so much internal struggle in such a visual medium? MR: Yeah, it's tricky because in the books you have these POVs that can get, especially for a character like Perrin, you get so in-depth with what he's thinking and everything, and then to translate that into a show with just 8 episodes…. is hard, man. It's really hard. And I think what was good about Season Two is he kind of gets thrown into a lot of positions that are quite challenging for him. You see it with… when he's with the Sheinarans or he's with Aviendha he's kind of like… There are kind of those lovely conversations that he's had with Ila and the Tuatha’an in Season One. You can kind of see that still surfacing. But it's becoming apparent he can't avoid violence at war, and it's kind of surrounding him and something that might be within him as well. But this idea that you can kind of just like turn away from it is becoming quite a difficult road to take. So I think with the introduction of the Seanchan and that kind of very, you know, horrible, horrific kind of culture in a way, in the terms of how they use violence and stuff. I think what was lovely about Season Two is that, for a character that isn't really saying everything that's going on his mind, you can kind of see him going through it. Being put in these situations that are hard for him and traumatic. That dichotomy between violence and being a pacifist in a way is still kind of put to a test really. It's not just a conversation around some wagons that you had in… Season One. He's getting dragged, but he's getting dragged around (literally)... I think that happens a lot in Season Two. DM: What scene from Season Two were you most excited for the audience to see? MR: I think…. in general or…? DM: Either way! However you answer the question is the perfect answer. MR: Um, I mean, ok. I remember (when I was) reading the book, I remember saying to somebody… to Maddie (Madeleine Madden), you know, I remember reading that book and actually feeling quite sick, reading it, like the way it is described is horrific. It's, it's really, really hard. I remember saying, like, you've got some hard stuff coming man. I've seen this one shot of her where she's sort of like crying. And I don’t know why, but I'm just like, I think it's beautiful. But I think in terms of the stuff, the scenes I loved, I really loved when he [Perrin] meets Aviendha. I think you needed to kind of isolate him away from the group a bit in order for him to grow. Like I said, you don't really have a lot of time, and we have to squeeze a lot into those episodes, and they do such a good job. And I think when you've got a lot of big characters who, you know, who’ve got their shoulders back, they're quite confident. I think they’ll naturally, you kind of speak and Perrin, he's probably thinking in the corner a little bit. So I think I'm putting him by himself and getting to meet someone who has such contrasting ideas and philosophies around violence, warfare, and fighting, I think, I think was lovely and I think Ayoola (Smart) was incredible. And I think that scene where he releases her from the cage, and they fight together, and even that little scene afterwards where he can't really gauge her humor like at the campfire or whatever… I think, I think that was a really nice part. DM: I know from speaking with the stunt team at Jordan Studios that you and the rest of the cast have worked to do as much of the stunts and fighting as you can yourself. How is your training, in particular, different from the others because of your use of an axe versus a sword or a shield? MR: What's really interesting with Perrin, in particular, is he's not really fighting to kill, or like I said (before), he’s still in this mode of like kind of defending himself and others and being thrust into these positions, whereas you kind of see some of the other characters, like Aviendha, she's just having fun. She’ll just go ham. So I think that was quite interesting. You kind of have to have a fighting technique that isn't particularly kind of like a bravado or showing your skill or your kind of like, a hunger for kind of violence in a way. It's kind of something that, it's really interesting, and I’ll talk too much, but it's really interesting seeing it develop, you know, going forward and all that kind of stuff and how it all changes. But I think it takes a lot to kind of show off his strength, but also his kind of resistance as well. For the full transcripts with the full conversation for this and the other interviews, sign up on our Patreon! View full news item

When Amazon asks if you want to talk to four cast members from The Wheel of Time on Prime Video, you drop everything and reschedule your day to make ten minutes for each one available. Now that the SAG-AFTRA strike has ended, the media is finally able to communicate with the cast, and it’s been so wonderful. I know how excited the actors have all been to talk with the fans as well! We were lucky enough to gather together questions to ask Ayoola Smart (Aviendha), Kate Fleetwood (Liandrin Guirale), Marcus Rutherford ( Perrin Aybara), and Dónal Finn (Mat Cauthon). These interviews will make you want to rewatch all the episodes of Season One and Season Two of The Wheel of Time on Prime Video…I know they did for me. Ayoola was an absolute delight and so wonderful to talk to. Here is a snippet of our interview with her. Dragonmount: It’s been pretty universally renowned that we are all in love with your portrayal of Aviendha. I know that our community specifically would love to know how you discovered The Wheel of Time and were exposed to Aviendha. Ayoola Smart: Kind of twofold, I didn't know a lot about like her specifically before the audition process happened. But both of my older sisters are huge fans of the books, so I had grown up with The Wheel of Time in my house kind of my whole life pretty much—the world of it and kind of the ideas around it. And she [Aviendha] is both of my sisters’ favorite female character in the books. So that was really exciting and I was able to immediately call them and be like I need information! Like now! And through the kind of audition process I think when I, when the first sides came through she was labeled as like Annabelle and the kind of character description was like ‘a highly skilled warrior with a dry sense of humor. And you need to feel like she could kill you with her bare hands.’ And that was immediately something. I was like yeah I want, I want to do that. That sounds great. Her journey in the books in season two, it's really the starting point of such a huge journey that she'll go on over time. So it was really exciting to be able to play a character that starts from such a strong place and starts with such a strong kind of history, characteristics, and skill sets. DM: Along with Ragga Ragnars (Bain) and Maja Simonsen (Chiad), you are what we call the ‘ABC Maidens.’ You already have such strong on-screen chemistry. What was it like on set with them? Do you guys use Maiden hand talk to have private conversations? AS: Yes, we definitely did. Over filming we we got to a really nice fluid point with that where we could have these kind of silly little giggly chats about things also because, you know, as we continue, our vocabulary is expanding as more words get put in. So with what we had as it grew, particularly when we would get a new word, and we'd be like, we can do this now, and we’ve had a lot of fun with that. We spend a lot of time together outside of shooting and luckily we all did just click really well, which was nice. And so the kind of, kind of playfulness between us was very natural and it was just there and we spent a lot of time together which has helped. DM: What inspired that absolutely amazing laugh in the campfire with Marcus? AS: A combination of things, I think like, it’s the writers and it is Naomi, my dialect coach, and I kind of spoke about that, it is that humor that the Aiel have that's kind of, can catch you off guard and isn't necessarily funny to everyone but they find it amusing… just where that hits I think and just kind of the situations and we're able to play with that and bring that in. Also, Aviendha is kind of a little bit more cheeky than some of the other Aiel that we will encounter and kind of her humor is very much part of who she is. Just kind of playing around with that, and it just, it just came out and felt right. ----- For the full transcripts with the full conversation for this and the other interviews, sign up on our Patreon! View full news item

Welcome to Dragonmount! So happy you’re here!