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Archmagexin
Acolyte
3 Posts |
 Posted - 23 Jul 2010 : 05:55:29
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Let me get this straight, the amazing forgotten realm novel (deep sarcasm) about Baldur's Gate is CANON? O_O
I just saw a book in the store first detailing history of the realm to the spell plague (forgot what the book was), the death of Mystra was a big annoyance (How the heck she fell to Cyric..and what should my Drow wizard worship now?? grr)
But they said that Abel whats-his-face-is-Canon?
The same author who went through the entire BG cast like a drunk sailor? With no understanding of the plot or people??
Ok...I need to chill out. But this is demeaning.
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Sian
Senior Scribe
Denmark
596 Posts |
Posted - 23 Jul 2010 : 06:16:34
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Baldur's Gate Games aren't Canon (hard for a multiple choice game to be)...
but the books made about it are |
what happened to the queen? she's much more hysterical than usual
She's a women, it happens once a month |
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Dracons
Learned Scribe
USA
299 Posts |
Posted - 23 Jul 2010 : 07:46:16
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What he said. Novels are canon. Games typically aren't.
As for your drow wizard? Don't have to worship anyone. Divine get their powers in 4th without needing to worship anyone.
Also: No weave. Turns out it was just a myth that weave was used for arcane. Big hoax. Now wizards cast it because they are the wizard. |
I love PMs! Please send me a message. Even if its Hi. |
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Ashe Ravenheart
Great Reader
USA
3240 Posts |
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Erik Scott de Bie
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
4598 Posts |
Posted - 23 Jul 2010 : 15:18:32
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This post is not meaning to be argumentative, only informative, offering a couple clarifying notes and a defense for my man Phil here:
1) Baldur's Gate game/novels: As I'm given to understand (because I wasn't even on the company radar at the time), when Phil started writing, there really was no BG game--only plans, so he couldn't play through it and come to know the characters as we all got to. (Like for instance, knowing Phil as I do, I suspect there's NO WAY he would purposefully not include Viconia in his novel. She's just too awesome.)
By the time that sort of immersive experience became available to him (too late in the process to do much about it), the game had taken an entirely different direction from what he'd initially been told. Cities were quite different, themes were very different, plots were completely different, and characters were radically different. Hence, it's no wonder the books don't match the game--it's just bad timing, which is something that happens when you're doing a novelization of a game or movie (which as anyone in that industry knows can change a LOT during development). Phil took a major bullet on that one.
For instance (non-FR related), when Bob Salvatore did the Attack of the Clones novelization, he just had the script to go from, so he completely missed the huge epic battle between the droids/clone troopers/jedi/etc./etc. that happens for basically the last quarter of the movie. It wasn't until he sat down to watch it, months after the book was turned in, that he realized that it was even there, much less how significant it would be.
Don't judge Phil's work based on these two novels, but rather on his work since (Annihilation in the WotSQ and then the Watercourse trilogy, also his adept editing of such great works as Paul Kemp's Erevis Cale/Twilight War series, the ongoing Drizzt series, and so on and so forth).
To clarify the mechanical/canonical issues you raise:
2. The Weave still existed up to 1385--that's all canonical and valid. Mystra in 1e-3e *is* the Weave, so when she dies, the Weave unravels. All that power doesn't just vanish, however, and over the next decades, wizards in the Realms learn how to tap into it directly. Now, there's no middle-man (er, middle-woman) regulating who takes what power.
3) 4e Divine characters get "invested" with divine energy that allows them to work their magic, in theory in the absence of a deity. The different classes can be closer or further from a deity, however--invokers (basically favored souls) are the closest to their deities, followed by clerics/paladins (who generally follow a deity fairly closely), followed by avengers (who may break entirely free from a church and serve no one in particular). But all divine characters *were once*, at least, in the service (or took part in the investiture ritual) of a deity.
4) Non-divine classes have no guidelines as regards worshipping deities. I believe the current incarnation of the Realms (4e FRCG) is non-specific as regards patron deities and implications on the afterlife, but I for one assume that it's still the way it always was, and every person in the Realms has a patron deity, even if not particularly religious (except those who actively eschew the gods).
For your drow wizard, I would recommend Corellon or Oghma or possibly no one--this would also give you a great opportunity to come up with how your drow dealt with the loss of his deity over the last century and came to embrace a new one (or none at all). Alternately, maybe your drow is one of the adventurers who continues to worship Mystra even in her absence, actively seeking ways to resurrect her (I for one have thought up about a dozen).
Cheers |
Erik Scott de Bie
'Tis easier to destroy than to create.
Author of a number of Realms novels (GHOSTWALKER, DEPTHS OF MADNESS, and the SHADOWBANE series), contributor to the NEVERWINTER CAMPAIGN GUIDE and SHADOWFELL: GLOOMWROUGHT AND BEYOND, Twitch DM of the Dungeon Scrawlers, currently playing "The Westgate Irregulars" |
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Archmagexin
Acolyte
3 Posts |
Posted - 23 Jul 2010 : 16:22:01
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Well, I suppose. But then my Drow is the kind that most resemble the sarcastic, I am in for my loot type..so he probably worship a toad if the thing give him a scroll of fireball X_X The GM annoy me so much by denying even the most basic evocation that does AOE damage...heck, I am level 11 and still got no AOE of any kind so even the most basic horde is dangerous.
Anyway...
then why did Phil's books were released AFTER the game? And even the book was labeled "Novelization of best selling game" which end up trying to capitalize the game? And they applied to all three cases...surely by Book two they ought realized wait a sec...this is not gonna be a good brand name.
Go read Amazon.com to see the absolutely horrible review the books got...I personally read the first book with growing horror with each page, and second book I frankly flip through it and gaged when it made Simon Haverian and drunk with a row boat...and somehow Imoen had the first forgotten realm Lesbian sex.
Now...I am all for some girl-on-girl action now and then, but after all the bloody mess the book inflicted on the game, it was just pretty much the final straw as if the author tried to distract us with some cheap plot.
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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 23 Jul 2010 : 18:31:37
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The work was nearly done before the game was released...he had written most of the book already and had to meet his deadline.
As Erik said...bad timing from the industry; not really bad writing by the author. Phil just got the bad wrap and "took the bullet" as Erik said. |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
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Erik Scott de Bie
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
4598 Posts |
Posted - 23 Jul 2010 : 21:43:10
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What Dalor said! 
As an author, I can well visualize what it would be like to be trapped in that situation: suddenly, there's a huge shift in the story/plot/characters right from under you, and you have a weekend to rewrite everything. It just can't be done.
And Imoen is hardly the first example of girl-on-girl action in the Realms, but it's certainly the first fairly *overt* reference to it.
Cheers,
Erik
(who freely inserts girl-on-girl action in *his* Realms novels without the slightest pause) |
Erik Scott de Bie
'Tis easier to destroy than to create.
Author of a number of Realms novels (GHOSTWALKER, DEPTHS OF MADNESS, and the SHADOWBANE series), contributor to the NEVERWINTER CAMPAIGN GUIDE and SHADOWFELL: GLOOMWROUGHT AND BEYOND, Twitch DM of the Dungeon Scrawlers, currently playing "The Westgate Irregulars" |
Edited by - Erik Scott de Bie on 23 Jul 2010 21:43:42 |
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Hawkins
Great Reader
USA
2131 Posts |
Posted - 23 Jul 2010 : 22:02:04
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Wait, I am not sure I follow. Is the complaint that it was bad writing because it does not follow the game's storyline, or just that it is bad writing (which has always been my complaint). And I read the book before I played the game.
Also, is the defense that because the story of the game changed while he was writing the book, it caused the book to be an example of bad writing? |
Errant d20 Designer - My Blog (last updated January 06, 2016)
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sfdragon
Great Reader
2285 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jul 2010 : 05:30:48
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Ummm not quite so on the games.
they carried the FR logo, they are canon. but because novel came with same name, the novel carries more weight.
the nwn plague was mentioned in the ghotr, and there was no novel, the only issue with hotu was its ending was hard to canonize.... permo death of big worthless M and all.
but thats another game
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why is being a wizard like being a drow? both are likely to find a dagger in the back from a rival or one looking to further his own goals, fame and power
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31701 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jul 2010 : 07:24:30
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| Undrentide was marked on one of the maps in Grand History. And the Wailing Death is canon now, given it's reference in Grand History also, under the 1372 DR entry. I don't recall there being an entry for Hordes of the Underdark. And I remember Brian suggesting that may be due to the ending of the expansion being difficult to canonise. |
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