Early on, the main character encounters a fellow that the narrative goes to great pains to extablish is Baklunish. Name, dress, appearance, and so forth all support this. Later on, said character unexpectedly demonstrates his hitherto-unknown martial arts prowness and the main character marvels that he's undoubtedly a member of...get ready for it...the Scarlet Brotherhood.
Now, I'm not a huge Greyhawk expert. In fact, most of what I know about it is from the copy of the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer that I purchased last year. Still, even I recognize that the idea of a strongly ethnic Baklunish man being trained as a fighting monk by the militantly Suel supremicist Scarlet Brotherhood is ridiculous.
Has anyone else been irritated by continuity glitches of this sort.
I have a love/hate relationship with errors like these. On the one hand, they're good because you can get some players who research TOO much and know far too much about a setting and it's always good to have options that allow a curve-ball to be thrown into their world every so often. I always try and remember to tell players that whatever information you read on Greyhawk, is only what your character knows, not what actually IS. That way, I can change whatever the Hell I like and can manipulate the player experience of the world.
On the other hand, it's just ****ing annoying. I mean, you'd think they'd get writers with a thorough knowledge of the damn scenario, instead of hacks who've briefly gone through a thin supplement. Greyhawk is RIFE with that sort of treatment. It's half the reason why there are such bitter fueds and such immense divisivness amongst the fanbase, not to mention the shere amount of scorn any new product receives.
Take Gary Holian's paladin's article. It was totally dissed on here and yet he's like Mrs. Greyhawk (Erik being Mr. Greyhawk :D ). So even if you know your ****, you still get boiled alive by GH fans, which I believe is due to there being so many interpretations and ****-ups in the past. Now that there are so many holes, there is a potential for much more variation within canon writings and therefore much more potential for scorn and derision if you write for the setting.
This is also a big reason why WOTC don't publish material for the setting. Sure, there are heaps of fans, but which faction is the largest and which one are you aiming to please and is that faction big enough to make the whole effort worthwhile?
As a side note, I find it strange that novels like these are so popular and yet, when you count the reads of short stories at places like Canonfire, they're always pretty low compared to other, 'crunchier' stuff. I've entertained the notion of writing a Greyhawk novel many times but have always been put off by this very fact. Who'd really be interested? Of course, my writing could just suck which would explain the low read-counts :D
While Delgath makes a point about WOTC publishing of new Greyhawk materials. I firmly believe in good writing. Their are many good articles written on Canonfire and else where that I don't agree with. But because they are written well I don't mind seeing them. Much like books in print, something might not be my flavor but I can appreciate a well written piece of work.
Try David Gemmell he has a roleplaying style type feel to his writing. While their are better writers I find his work inspiring for my games. I have also mentioned this once before, the old Shadowrun novels are very well written. Even though the setting is in the future the novels give you a great feel of the enviroment. They also have the best betrayal of a dragon that I have seen in any novel.
Delgath I think your writing is good. Just don't get caught up in the unnecessary filler they put in most novels. Remember tell your story and don't look for ways to incorporate all unnecessary side treks that take the story away from it's true direction. Robert Jordan has great ideas for his novels but falls into this scenario far too often.
I think the best way to get into a novel mindset is start with a few short stories of your own. After a while you'll find you have a book. Heck some stories are created from the best roleplaying scenarios we have been through.
Ultimately you are the deciding factor in what's good for you.
One has to know how to write well, in order to know what good writing is...
Delglath, did you just pat yourself on the back then plug Cnonfire?
On the point of the novel....I have to agree with Delglath's assesment of the Baklunish Turuku. He could have been one of the Brotherhood's brainwashed slaves.
Thomas M. Reid was the author of The Temple of Elemental Evil novel.
The novel....taken as a translation of the module was IMO unsatisfactory. The author bypasses to very important areas of the module.
The first is the village of Nulb. It is there that our heros can potentially gain powerful allies in thier fight against evil. Not to mention have a secure place to fall back to when wounded.
The second are the elemental nodes.......I cannot imagine running or playing the module without visiting the nodes, yet the author does not even mention them in the novel.
ON THE UPSIDE:
The author uses good imagery in his descriptions of the locations. He successfully captured the oppressive feel of the Temple and surrounding grounds.
He also acurately depicts those encounter ares he does visit. Right down to the well kept farmhouse and outbuildings gaurded by a pair of dogs who bark at the protagonists approach.
All in all I would give Mr. Reid a single
for his effort. However, I would have liked to have seen more of the classic module explored in this book.Mr. Reid should have been commisioned to write a trilogy for the Temple of Elemental Evil. There was no way for him to condense T1-4 into a single novel. (And R.A. Salvatore should have been contracted to write it!) Regardless, a ToEE trilogy would have given Greyhawk a serious and meaningful series with a more diverse array of characters than are proffered in Mr. Kidd's Justicar books.
Evelyn, er, I mean The Justicar, is too serious, predicatble and banal, IMO. LOL, and Escalla's an irritating motormouth. The Justicar should have killed her on the boat in White Plume Mountain. And a talking badger and a sphinx as companions. Right...
know Paul Kidd the Escalla/Justicar author had the Queen of the Demonweb novel....perhaps thats the one you refer to.
Thomas M. Reid was the author of The Temple of Elemental Evil novel.
my mistake... for some reason I thought that they were by the same author.... I noticed that Against the Giants (by Ru Emmerson) wasn't all that big on setting consistancy either, although it was relativly faithful to the modules. My belief is that with the greyhawk line the editorial staff made a concious descision to let the writers tell thier stories with out having to worry to much about the setting.
Originally posted by cwslyclgh
of course if I am not mistaken in a different book the same author kills the GODDESS Lolth by drowning her in a portable hole full of holy water... so I am not sure anything like setting accuracy, or even the way things work in any D&D setting at all were a priority for the author.
ROFL!
Dear god, how that got printed is totally beyond me. And the bizarre thing is, is that it's actually VERY difficult to get published by WOTC due to their ****-retentive reviewing and selection process. You have to wonder, though, just who is doing the selecting, and just what drugs they're on :D
Other times, as in the case of the Scarlet Brotherhood training Baklunish monks, bah. Crappy, lazy writing, plain and simple. Sadly, research and fact checking have been severely lacking in a lot of post 1990 greyhawk material.
Has anyone else been irritated by continuity glitches of this sort.
>>>
Yes.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dungeon Magazine
This is not to say that every novel published by WOTC is horribly written. But their are few that I can stomach for long. Continuity is important to a story but if the story takes a turn from conventional canon their needs to be a reason explained within the story contents somewhere.
Some of the novels published by WOTC could of been written by five year olds whose only source of story telling can be pulled from Power Ranger adventures. Heck my eight year old son tells better stories than some of the authors whom were published by WOTC.
I think WOTC has to take a better approach to which novels should see publishling. Since your the editor in cheif for Dungeon magazine might I comment on the single best written adventure every published by your magazine. The name of the adventure was called Hopeful Dawn and was written by Gary Lai. This is the way an adventure should be written and while I have found other adventures that I like. Hopeful Dawn IMHO is the best to see print in any such issue so far.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dungeon Magazine
Originally posted by cwslyclgh
. . . the editorial staff . . .
I've read the Temple of Elemental Evil novel, and while I didn't think it was too bad overall, I'm not sure that an editor ever laid hands on it.
Another decent adventure was Mightier than the sword by Willie Walsh. This was a great adventure set around deductive reasoning as opposed to hack and slash. It is also a nice way of detailing how technology effects the world.
I must say I have picked and chosen a few adventures from recent issues of Dungeon but these older adventures IMO seemed to be of better quality than anything I have recently come across.
But I must admit I have more of the older ones to choose from. The only recent one that I can recall is Flood Season by James Jacobs. While it is not great I do like the them behind the adventure.
I liked that one, too. On the other hand, I think we've matched and exceeded the quality of that adventure in the 63 issues since then. Check out "Zenith Trajectory," from Dungeon #102. One of my recent favorites (although it's not Greyhawk).
Well I thought Cauldron was set in Greyhawk, somewhere in the Yatils. Even though it has the mother load of greyhawk deities it doesn't mention any specific location in greyhawk.
I viewed the adventure you suggested was better than Hopeful Dawn. I must disagree with your recommendation on Zenith's Trajectory. While the Cagewrights, carcerian sign and shackleborn are good story hooks. I felt like I was being forced to encounter every baddie the monster manual had to offer. The adventure starts out ok but becomes a bit too overbearing. Creatures like Dragons and both demonic and draconic figures should not be the norm in any adventure encounter unless your in a planescape setting. The Umberhulk encounter could of been utilized better and I find the seemingless unending streams of spell casting npc's to be something out of a Mystara setting.
If I were to rate the adventure I would give it a disappointing 3 out of five. It would of received a 2 but I felt the story elements involved was enough to propel it to a 3.
I do hope things will be better but at least it wasn't aweful.
Other Divine Powers
As an intermediate deity, Ehlonna automatically receives a die result of 20 on any check.
...I wonder what they where thinking when they wrote that?
Apart from just blatantly yoinking the name of a Finnish goddess for ease of use.
oh and they didn't simply yank the name of a finnish goddess for easy use... until 3e Meilikki of the FR and Meilikki of the finnish pantheon were the same goddess. (so they didn't yank the name, they yanked the whole goddess, the same is true of Ohgma--celtic, Silvanus--roman/celtic, Loviatar--finnish, and Tyr--Norse)
FWIW, I rather liked the WotC GH novel Tomb of Horrors by Keith Strohm
I did also.
--Erik Mona
Originally posted by cwslyclgh
of course if I am not mistaken in a different book the same author kills the GODDESS Lolth by drowning her in a portable hole full of holy water...
NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo..........
...
...
...
Couldnt you put a big red SPOILER warning on the title of your reply???
Thankyou, cwslyclgh.
*throws the book away*
*start reading keep on the borderlands*
Silence, please.
Originally posted by airwalkrr
Unfortunately, the D&D books I have read seem to be of really low-quality. Therefore, I've never picked up a Greyhawk novel. I've been tempted, but then I always tell myself that if FR gets the most attention from WotC and even those books are horrible, why should I expect GH novels to be any different.
airwalkrr---
If you're in a used bookstore, it's worth your effort to try to find Gygax's first two Gord novels published by TSR: Saga of Old City and Artifact of Evil. They and his later sequels are rich with GH background/ and lore.
If you also saw Strohm's ToH, I'd recommend you pick that up. I've also heard good things about Nightwatch by Robin Bailey, but haven't found a copy yet.
Originally posted by chatdemon
Sometimes, like in the case of the errors that turned Reynard Yargrove (Grand Druid of the Dreadwood) into a female, these errors lead to some interesting developments. I think female Druids are a lot cooler than male Druids for some reason, so I liked that change, and accepted it.
Actually....while I could be mistaken....I believe Reynard Yargrove WAS a female Druid...at least according to character write up in WG6 Isle of the Ape.
Actually....while I could be mistaken....I believe Reynard Yargrove WAS a female Druid...at least according to character write up in WG6 Isle of the Ape.
IIRC that was the error... she was originaly supposed to be a male character (thus name) who was changed to female durring editing of the module to make for a more gender balanced party, or something like that.
Couldnt you put a big red SPOILER warning on the title of your reply???
nope, I am a fervent believer that once a book or a movie has been out for >2 years its fair game...
nope, I am a fervent believer that once a book or a movie has been out for >2 years its fair game...
You are all heart
- Argon-
Sorry to write i am completely agree with you...
I cannot read Tsr/Wotc novels, maybe i missed good ones, but the bad ones.... hum, i cannot forget them. ;(
BUT forgotten realms players may liked.. no, iam kidding.
Even them cannot like.
;)
Wesley, you are right about the ending of Queen of the Demonweb Pits. It was laughable that Escalla tossed her portale hole on the ground in front of Lolth, and the Spider Queen is just simply melted on her home plane. I rolled my eyes for days just thinking about how bland and anticlimatic that was.
Mr. Reid should have been commisioned to write a trilogy for the Temple of Elemental Evil. There was no way for him to condense T1-4 into a single novel. (And R.A. Salvatore should have been contracted to write it!) Regardless, a ToEE trilogy would have given Greyhawk a serious and meaningful series with a more diverse array of characters than are proffered in Mr. Kidd's Justicar books.
Evelyn, er, I mean The Justicar, is too serious, predicatble and banal, IMO. LOL, and Escalla's an irritating motormouth. The Justicar should have killed her on the boat in White Plume Mountain. And a talking badger and a sphinx as companions. Right...
Hmm.
I'm actually looking into starting a new game, and one of the potential players wants to play a half-fairy character whose parents are based on Justicar and Escalla. So I threw the name into Google to see if I could pull up stats on either one (just for background, basically) and I pulled up this discussion instead ... sorry if I'm reanimating an undead thread here, but it seems that opinion is strongly against the three Justicar books as being thoroughly enjoyable.
I actually rather did enjoy them, and have read them through several times since. While I must confess I have not played through, or even sighted, the module(s) the novels were based on, I found the stories themselves entirely readable and well-written. They don't read like a list of the magic items available to the standard fantasy party ("And then Alaric the Bold pulled out his Sword of Giant-Slaying, while Doric the Dwarf hefted his Two-Handed Axe of Minotaur Disembowelling..") and what items the characters do get hold of are clearly explained in the context of the story.
If an 'irritating motormouth' and a strong-but-silent type like Justicar (heaven forfend he be competent at something other than talking) make a party unbelievable or even unendurable, then I wonder what sort of PCs make up your gaming groups? Chatty, friendly but bland fighters? Female characters who do nothing but agree with everyone, and cook dinner as well?
I've been in games with stranger, and less personable, characters than these. I'd welcome either of them, or the naive-but-learning Henry, or even Enid the friendly sphinx, into a game (and I know someone who would play the sphinx too, just for the fun of it :D) - given a good enough backstory.A major part of the enjoyment of these books, for me at least, comes from the expert and subtle lampooning of the whole 'dungeon-crawling' concept. Escalla is all in favour of it; especially the 'financial reward for acts of homicide' bit. Polk pushes it even farther, telling Justicar how to act 'heroic' (ie, suicidal) while entirely ignoring the fact that Jus is keeping them alive just fine through his own devices. We have a sentient hell-hound pelt and a prim and prissy magical sword, both kibitzing from the sidelines. Characters screw up and get hurt. They have minor side-adventures. They chat about irrelevant topics, or heap friendly abuse on each other. It's all fun.
And then we have the 'death of Lolth' problem.
Well, it's not really a problem. As I understand things, Paul Kidd was intended to write Lolth's demise. It's alluded to, in passing, in other books (though not the actual means). It's a PORTABLE HOLE full of mystically endowed holy water - not just run-of-the-mill blessed-by-a-priest water, but stuff that'll burn the flesh off your bones if you're the wrong alignment. The base pool is strong enough that it'll suck you dry just from touching it. Lolth didn't drown. She burned to death. She was already injured, she couldn't fly (the physical laws of her plane - written by her - forbade flight) and she wasn't paying attention. She was hurt badly enough to retreat, for crying out loud. For a goddess, and an arrogant one at that, that has to mean serious injury! As far as she knew, all her opposition was behind her; she ran around a corner and the ground wasn't there anymore (Escalla is good at illusions...). Instant full-body third-degree burns. Exeunt Lolth.
A banal ending? I don't know. There'd been a climactic battle. Everyone had had their best shot at her. She had teleported away, and was going to escape. She had used the vampire pool on the good guys - using it to kill her was only justice.
I don't know about you guys, but I enjoyed the hell out of those books, and I'll be reading them again. Especially the third one.
Now, I'm not a huge Greyhawk expert. In fact, most of what I know about it is from the copy of the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer that I purchased last year. Still, even I recognize that the idea of a strongly ethnic Baklunish man being trained as a fighting monk by the militantly Suel supremacist Scarlet Brotherhood is ridiculous.
The Temple of Elemental Evil was released six months after the Greyhawk Gazetteer with the D&D Gazetteer two months before that, and given the length of time it takes to write and edit books, the novel was likely well into production before the Gaz ever saw the light of day.
The author would likely have to rely on a couple 2nd Edition sources at best. And I doubt he's going to be as thorough as the fans and willing to read through four or five books of mostly crunch for a game he might not even play.
There's a HELL of a lot of information to absorb, especially if the author might be a die-hard DragonLance who had never previously even heard of Greyhawk.
In one of the original sourcebooks (Fate of Istus), the background of the Scarlet Brotherhood included a gateway to Kara Tur opening up and depositing a large number of people who look like Bakluni into the area.
I know many disagree with that and I don't particularly use it in my own campaign, but that might be what the writer of Temple of Elemental Evil used as a reference.
This place houses a strange pair—a hulking fighter, Kobort by name, and his associate, a small and thin fellow called Turuko, a Bakluni from unknown parts.
So, no, the old (1e) module didn't specify that Turuko was a SB spy but it did depict him as a monk. I suppose the novel's author just made the following reasoning: "monks belong in SB / Turuko = monk / conclusion: Turuko works for to the SB".
I am not saying this is a valid excuse, just that I can understand the faulty logic behind it.
Poor math in NPC stats really bugs me, because it corrupts the integrity of the game system. If an NPC -- oh, say, Verbane from Dungeon 117 -- has a base atk +7, Weapon Finesse, Martial Weapon (rapier), Dex 16, and a +1 flaming burst rapier, his full atk should be +11/+6, not +10/+5. It seems nit-picky, I know, but 1 point can make all the difference. Once a few inconsistencies like that occur, I feel obligated to double-check every stat block published in Dungeon. What a drag.
So, no, the old (1e) module didn't specify that Turuko was a SB spy but it did depict him as a monk. I suppose the novel's author just made the following reasoning: "monks belong in SB / Turuko = monk / conclusion: Turuko works for to the SB".
I am not saying this is a valid excuse, just that I can understand the faulty logic behind it.
It's also worth noting that the book never says that he's part of the Scarlet Brotherhood. The main character concludes that he's part of the Brotherhood.
The main character who had never been out of his home town before that adventure. Not the most worldly and reliable source.
I guess the player made an erroneous assumption based on metagame knowledge and his DM decided not to correct him.