my question is how canon is the book?
i had heard from someone that athas.org completely ignored it,if so why.
as im still reading it (should be done by friday) please be conservative with spoilers
ashy
So there are contradictions with "canon", but a lot of people have said they like it enough to try and crowbar in various bits of RaFoaDK into their games.
Someone might want to come up with a full list of conflicts (or post a link to it, if it's already been done).
Must get around to reading this book, at some point...
Originally posted by AthasianDirge
This discussion has been had many times, and if I remember correctly, .
interesting i did at least five different searches for this topic or something like it and was unable to find anything on this board...
so far i really like it...not like the way i enjoyed some of the other chronicles of athas books, or the guilty plesasure i took in the tribe of one series (which in my mind was great but didnt fit well in athas) it seems much more like the pentad.
the only saving grace ive found from completely discounting the canon value of the book though so far is that it is supposed to take place in Free Year 15 at the very earliest. Since nothing else has quite gotten there (ignoring recent dragon. dungeon magazine rubbish) im not seeing a conflict yet.
by the way AthasianDirge, when you say "everyting else is flavor" does that include the fiction in the varius game products?
thanks for the swift response guys...ill let you know what i think of the whole book when i finish it.
ashy
The short version is this: the book is not canon for the reason sited above (TSR was on the decline and Lynn Abbey did not have access to information she needed). While Abbey's "Rise" is arguably the best-written book of the DS books, it should probably not be considered as canon.
"RaFoaDK"
Or the variant "Rofadik" :D
Originally posted by ashramry
interesting i did at least five different searches for this topic or something like it and was unable to find anything on this board...
Well, don't worry about it man, I just posted about Defilers and raising them via quicker XP gains.. which apparently shows up every 3 months and even made the DS FAQ. So, it's no biggy.
so far i really like it...not like the way i enjoyed some of the other chronicles of athas books, or the guilty plesasure i took in the tribe of one series (which in my mind was great but didnt fit well in athas) it seems much more like the pentad.
This is a great book. I love it.
by the way AthasianDirge, when you say "everyting else is flavor" does that include the fiction in the varius game products?
Well, the fiction in the game products wasn't really world changing, so I doubt that. But the only published Novels that are official canon are the Prism Pentad.
Originally posted by AthasianDirge
But the only published Novels that are official canon are the Prism Pentad.
Actually, IIRC, the only real, official, 100% canon book is the Wanderer's Journal, from the first Boxed Set. Novels, even the Prism Pentad, tend to be of questionable nature in parts, as are many of the game books. Dark Sun is riddled with Inconsitancies, of which Dawnstealer here on this forum was posting threads on each we found for discussion, and as an effort to have some sort of consensus as to what's a good way to sort of "iron out" the inconsistancies. The threads stopped, as the number of inconsistancies faded. Some are so blatantly incorrect (like the Tribe of One's description of Kank-riding Elves) that they didn't even make it to discussion.
These inconsistancies lead to people having to decide for themselves as to what Dark Sun is all about. Unfortunately, different people see various solutions to these inconsistancies, which can result in some radically different perceptions of Dark Sun, and when those of us who post ideas/additions to Dark Sun have such different views, our material can actually end up being unsuable even between each other, because the changes are too diverse.
Look for the "Inconsistancy" threads here on this forum to get a feel for some of them. And if you have some that you'd like to add for discussion, simply add it to the thread which Dawnstealer was using to gather the list of Inconsistancies through.
Originally posted by xlorepdarkhelm
Actually, IIRC, the only real, official, 100% canon book is the Wanderer's Journal, from the first Boxed Set.
ok now that is disingenuous. i mean the orginal Wanderer's Journal itself had some contradictory and questionable material.
The fact is that there is so much info that Darksun that some people consider noncanon that there is very little standard or criteria to judge what is and isnt canon anymore.
ive seen this happen with other settings, notibly greyhawk.
i have a thought to say that many of the non canon things in other products, should merely be explained away rather than discounted or dismissed. Some simple retcons could fix many of the problems with the tribe of one series for instance. Perhaps one tribe of elves does ride kanks etc.
anyone else have any other ideas?
thanks xlorepdarkhelm btw for the inconsistency thread
ashy
thanks xlorepdarkhelm btw for the inconsistency thread
Heh. Your welcome.
i just finished it.
................................................
ok my initial thought is: yes it is likely the best DS book written, well developed characters, involving story, interesting look at the world. all in all good writing.
but
it seems that the whole thing lost any semblance of what is called 'scope" in writing within the last 3 chapters.
prior to that although there were some contradictions, some conflicts with established canon, and some places where i think Lynn Abbey just got it downright wrong.
most of those could be explained away or easily amended.
the kalak not being a champion but being a dragon on his own right who spurned Rajaat (unlike dregoth) and tricked wyan and sacha into granting spells to his templars idea could partially be fixed by what NytCrawlr said in this article : http://www.crimsonsun.org/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=176
but even that has its failings...like why inenek (lalali-puy) is said to be the champion of killing Ogres in the novel.
or
Hamanu being able to grant spells before the betrayal of rajaat
(both of these could be explained away in said article (hamanu was unique and thought others could do as he did, hamanu always believed that she was "ogre naught" etc) but NytCrawlr really should try to find the flaws of using the novel as a refernce when it seems to contradict his point and elegant argument)
as for the wyan, sacha casting the spells thing once again that could be Hamanus ignorance that Borys HAD gifted Kalak with the power to grant spells.
as i mentioned above, about the last 3 chapters of the novel become inexcusibly and theatrically bad.
i dont buy that the excuse that TSR was going under and LA didnt recieve the support she needed for the project, the book was released in March of 1996 which means it would have gone through editorial process in novemeber of '95. and TSR didnt start having real problems until May of '96.
I would say that either the last 3 chapters need an even re-write or the book needs to be chalked up as an "in game story" much like strahds diarys in I, Strahd and its sequal for Ravenloft, or the dragonlord of Mystara for Mystara. The former had inconsistncies with canon but they were mostly ignored b/c of the first person perspective and the belief that they were simply propaganda or self deception. The problems doing that with this book, is that it seems to display virtually everybody in a bad light and the parts i most want to change are not in first person.
Sadira is much more a ***** than she was in the pentad, none of the other champions are that admirable. So it could only be a story told to glorify Hamanu.,.but then why on earth would he allow some of the things that were said about him to be written?
ok that my rant...its late for me, if anyone else has ideas here i would love to hear them.
oh one last thing has anyone know where the name Pennarin was in a 1st or 2nd ed product? i know ive seen it before....
ashy
Originally posted by ashramry
oh one last thing has anyone know where the name Pennarin was in a 1st or 2nd ed product? i know ive seen it before....
The champion Pennarin comes from RaFoaDK and nowhere else. If its been used as someone else's name in a product, I'm clueless as to where...
Originally posted by xlorepdarkhelm
FYI - Lynn Abbey herself has responded and explained why there are so many contradictions in Rise & Fall; the main one is that TSR, in it's dying days, decided that novelists and game designers shouldn't be able to communicate with each other. Even when they are dealing with the same world. Just look at the "Dawning of a New Age" trilogy for Dragonlance, and you'll see even more inconsistancies between that and the "regular" Dragonlance. Every game world suffered from this ineptitude.
unfortunately there were very few inconsistencies in that series, and it is considered canon. even dragonlance 5th age was in line with what was written there. only recent books by weis and hickman have ignored many of the changes done to the world because in their words. "its not what we wanted" and they 'didnt like working in a world with a continuity editor to watch for mistakes like they made b/c it limited them'
at least LA has owned up to the inconsistncies. but she had, at that time been involved with the darksun project for (at my count) two prior novels, and one short story in the black flames adventure. and the revised campaign setting had been released to the public for over a year. no i dont see a real excuse there other than writer error or poor research. The end of RaFoaDK almost makes me think that she had more planned (sequals? or other oneshots frorm other kings perspectives?) but got jilted by TSR at the last minute.
ashy
Originally posted by ashramry
unfortunately there were very few inconsistencies in that series, and it is considered canon. even dragonlance 5th age was in line with what was written there. only recent books by weis and hickman have ignored many of the changes done to the world because in their words. "its not what we wanted" and they 'didnt like working in a world with a continuity editor to watch for mistakes like they made b/c it limited them'
Without going into too much detail, the entire "Dawning of a new Age" trilogy is riddled with flaws, much like any of Jean Rabe's books for Dragonlance (not that I don't like those books), including entire passages of Palin Majere's memories of growing up with his Uncle Raistlin teaching him magic, both real and street performer tricks. I'm sorry, but raistlin was gone long before Palin was born. There are many more as well. It is all stemming from the same problem Lynn Abbey had - TSR wouldn't let the novelists have direct communication with each other, or with the game designers. It's really pronounced with Dark sun, where there are many different discrepencies throughout several books.
at least LA has owned up to the inconsistncies. but she had, at that time been involved with the darksun project for (at my count) two prior novels, and one short story in the black flames adventure. and the revised campaign setting had been released to the public for over a year. no i dont see a real excuse there other than writer error or poor research. The end of RaFoaDK almost makes me think that she had more planned (sequals? or other oneshots frorm other kings perspectives?) but got jilted by TSR at the last minute.
ashy
She wrote stories, but, IIRC, wasn't allowed communication to the other people who were working on Dark sun directly, and wasn't given nearly enough information. TSR wasn't handling things very well, which is one of the myriad of reasons they don't exist any more, and WotC now owns D&D.