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zuyx
Acolyte
9 Posts |
 Posted - 19 Aug 2010 : 05:09:30
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I finished Year of the Rogue Dragons a while ago, but never got around to making this post. Anyways...
I realize the story is supposed to be about dragon hunters, who are masters at killing them. But last I remember dragons are supposed to be these great unstoppable beasts. But yet in this series, and many others I've read as of late, they have all died quite easily. I forget the Avariel's name but he was just a fencing teacher yet still killed with ease.
Killing a dragon seem to be less of a great accomplishment at this point, then it once was.
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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 19 Aug 2010 : 05:34:36
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| I agree...and it is saddening to me that such powerful individuals as Sylune (a Chosen of Mystra) was killed by a Red Dragon; and yet others much less powerful than her are able to kill such dragons almost as if they are simply killing a kobold. |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 19 Aug 2010 : 08:56:23
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| I generally think the dragons became overpowered since 1ed., but I agree that it became way to easy in this series, although I should add that I only flipped through the two first books. Especially since the size and destructiveness of the dragons more resembled the versions of later editions anyway. Had they been very young dragons then OK, but this, as Dalor said, made them into canon fodder. |
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jornan
Learned Scribe
Canada
256 Posts |
Posted - 19 Aug 2010 : 12:57:38
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It has been many years since I read this series, but I didn't really have a problem with it. They were Dragon Hunters after all...and they weren't typical characters either (Dorn was a half-golem). Not to mention most of the Dragon killing took place during the Rage when Dragons weren't really thinking straight and acting normal. I thought the series was handled well. All Dragons being too powerful all the time would be boring. IT also depends on the type of dragon, age of the dragon, and individual dragon.
The Dragon that killed Azoun IV was handled well. So were the various Dragons in the Legend of Drizzt. The Dragons in the God Catcher were also pretty cool. Same with the Cale series.
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Kilvan
Senior Scribe
Canada
894 Posts |
Posted - 19 Aug 2010 : 14:12:09
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Funny you'd say that, as I'm currently reading Spellfire, and 2 Dracoliches and 1 Great Wyrm Black dragon just died in a few 'rounds' at the hand of the Knights of Myth Drannor (ahem.. and Elminster). While it was well written, it feels kinda odd, since the dragons I use in my D&D game are much smarter, stronger and wiser.
But then, its Ed, so he must be right, and I must be wrong (no sarcasm). |
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Richard Lee Byers
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
1814 Posts |
Posted - 19 Aug 2010 : 15:51:45
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If the dragons as defined by D&D really existed, guys armed with medieval weapons would be helpless against them. Even the existence of D&D-style magic wouldn't be enough to tilt the balance.
But D&D-based novels are supposed to reflect the game. And in the game, a team of powerful warriors, mages, and what have you can in fact slay a dragon. And a good thing, too, or I would hae ended up writing a very short trilogy. |
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Dennis
Great Reader
9933 Posts |
Posted - 21 Aug 2010 : 06:43:53
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I don't think killing dragons has become easy. I can cite a few who survived great battles, and who died but at the cost of the slayer's or some people's lives:
Furlinastis - survived encounters with 2 of Mask's Chosen (Riven and Cale); died not easily in Shadowrealm (Besides, what dragon could survive an onslaught of thousands of wraiths in the middle of a Shadowstorm?)
A Green in TW series (forgot his name) - survived a battle with a Netherese archwizard and a High Priest of Shar. Rivalen even had to use the power of Sakkors's mythallar to save his arse.
A Red in the novel Swordplay (forgot his name) - survived an encounter with a powerful lich.
I agree with jornan on the premise that some dragons in YoRD series were easily killed because of the Rage. Had they been acting clearly, some of them could have smitten Dorn and his companions. But then again, Richard would not have been able to write a trilogy.
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Every beginning has an end. |
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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 21 Aug 2010 : 17:57:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Richard Lee Byers
If the dragons as defined by D&D really existed, guys armed with medieval weapons would be helpless against them. Even the existence of D&D-style magic wouldn't be enough to tilt the balance.
But D&D-based novels are supposed to reflect the game. And in the game, a team of powerful warriors, mages, and what have you can in fact slay a dragon. And a good thing, too, or I would hae ended up writing a very short trilogy.
You are an excellent writer Richard, don't get me wrong...you are one of the best.
However, my reasoning comes from more of a game mechanics perspective I suppose. To me, the Forgotten Realms is a gaming setting...and rarely for me a novel setting. I'm a gamer, where many are readers of novels.
Strictly speaking, It is hard for me to reconcile the death of a 27th level wizard, Chosen of Mystra, to a single powerful dragon...but such dragons to be killed rather matter of factly by individuals that same wizard would be able to rather easily defeat.
I hope that makes more sense. |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4686 Posts |
Posted - 21 Aug 2010 : 18:19:51
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Killing Dragons is easy if you have a Dragon slaying blade and you find them sleeping.
A Chosen falling to a alert Dragon clearly is possible when the Dragon is alert and usng both all defenses and offensive options.
A first level character (depending on rule set) had the possibility of killing a sleeping Dragon (though odds were low of success). |
"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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coach
Senior Scribe
USA
479 Posts |
Posted - 21 Aug 2010 : 19:51:33
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in my game they are about immortal and the PCs know it
the game WAS named after them |
Bloodstone Lands Sage |
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Richard Lee Byers
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
1814 Posts |
Posted - 21 Aug 2010 : 20:39:03
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Dalor Darden: I see what you're saying, but my perspective (and you and everyone else should please feel free to skip this if you've read it when I said it before) is that the Forgotten Realms is ultimately neither a gaming setting nor a novel setting. It's a kind of dream, a glorious world of the imagination Ed created and allowed the rest of us to share. Now, when a novelist goes to tell a story about it, he looks at it through one lens, the lens that allows him to create effective fiction. When a game designer or DM looks at it, he looks at it through a different lens, the lens that allows him to create a satisfying gaming scenario.
I know that I previously said that I try to write books that capture the flavor of the game, and I stick by that. But even so, if I tried to create fiction using the gamer's lens with all its various rules and conventions, the results would look weird and stupid. That's because real people don;t have levels, hit points, armor classes, and what have you. These are abstractions the game uses to turn the fluid complexity of something like a sword fight into something we can model with numbers and dice, and that's great. But there's no reason to incorporate the abstractions into a novel or short story.
And conversely, no one running a game would want to use the fiction writer's lens. It wouldn't provide the balance and structure a game needs.
Does that make any sense? |
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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 21 Aug 2010 : 22:57:51
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Aye, it makes sense; from how you describe it.
However, for me, it makes sense the way I describe it. 
I fully understand that writing is wholly different from playing...I do.
I suppose I should have said earlier that from a gamers standpoint it is often hard to reconcile with an writer's standpoint. 
Keep up the great writing though! But if ever you are sitting at my gaming table...beware some angry dragons!  |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
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Foxhelm
Senior Scribe
Canada
592 Posts |
Posted - 21 Aug 2010 : 23:08:39
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Also take into account they were Dragon "Slayers". It is likely in game terms they took out Feats and Prestage Classes which were full of Dragon killing bonuses, equipped with dragon proof or dragon blasting gear, and so forth.
Plus Dragons are going crazy....
So they have bonuses at this point. |
Ed Greenwood! The Solution... and Cause of all the Realms Problems! |
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Larloch
Acolyte
Spain
24 Posts |
Posted - 21 Aug 2010 : 23:35:16
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For me the most important thing that makes the dragons look like an esasy prey is the Rage. It makes them act foolish, without the typical cunning, inteligence and wisdom you could expect from a dragon. That's a big difference between a normal dragon and a crazed dragon. No use of magic, no traps, just a crazed beast charging.
Another point is that the Rage makes them so homicidal that forget to drink, eat o stay healthy. So, the dragons are in pretty bad shape. I remember a scene from Evermeet where the dragons, afectted by the Rage flied during days to attack the island. So, we can excepct to see dragons that don't plan and attack in a foolish way in a very bad shape.
That's a huge disadvantage for them. Even with they natural might, they are very reduced and are mucho more easy prey for a group of people that make they life killing them. It gives them a very big improvement in their possibilities. Of course, apart from they own powers, tactics and specific equipment for the task. |
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Aginor37
Acolyte
20 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2010 : 03:09:56
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| Also, I would hardly consider Sylune's "death" by dragon to be an example of a"death of a 27th level wizard, Chosen of Mystra, to a single powerful dragon". Granted I am only familiar with it through various novels, but unless I am mistaken there were multiple dragons and she broke her Staff of the Magi, triggering all of it's magic and destroying both her and her opponents bodies before they could ravage Shadowdale as she fought it conventionally. |
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The Red Walker
Great Reader
USA
3563 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2010 : 03:18:11
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quote:
Originally posted by Aginor37
Also, I would hardly consider Sylune's "death" by dragon to be an example of a"death of a 27th level wizard, Chosen of Mystra, to a single powerful dragon". Granted I am only familiar with it through various novels, but unless I am mistaken there were multiple dragons and she broke her Staff of the Magi, triggering all of it's magic and destroying both her and her opponents bodies before they could ravage Shadowdale as she fought it conventionally.
Yes, I remember something along the lines of her fighting a flight of dragons. |
A little nonsense now and then, relished by the wisest men - Willy Wonka
"We need men who can dream of things that never were." -
John F. Kennedy, speech in Dublin, Ireland, June 28, 1963
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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2010 : 06:52:21
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| Going by the first release of the FR setting, it was a single dragon...I suppose novels trump earlier writings. |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
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Jorkens
Great Reader
Norway
2950 Posts |
Posted - 23 Aug 2010 : 09:29:51
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I prefer the heretical old lore trumps newer, but that has northing to do with canon of course.
I cant remember having heard that it was more than one dragon either, from what I remember most of the attacks only mention one or at most two dragons attaching the various locations. Has this been changed in later sources.
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Aginor37
Acolyte
20 Posts |
Posted - 24 Aug 2010 : 08:27:28
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Actually I was (very likely) mistaken, it was one dragon. The reason I thought it was more than one is because of the description of the event I most recently read, from the Finder's Stone trilogy, where Alias meets Elminster at the ruins of Sylune's hut. It said that there was a flight of dragons and they attacked Shadowdale, but Sylune broke her staff to kill one.
I will have to dig through my novels some more, as I feel like one of them described the event as her sacrificing herself to defend Shadowdale from a group of dragons, as opposed to just one. |
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Darsson Spellmaker
Seeker
56 Posts |
Posted - 17 Sep 2010 : 05:46:45
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| Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land reveals that Sylune actually fought 3 or 4 red and black great wyrm dragons, and that the last dragon faced her when she had exhausted all of her spells, magic items, spell-like abilities, and silver fire. Hence, her last resort with the staff of the magi. So I'd say putting down 3 great wyrms isn't too shabby for a Chosen. ;) |
"Know, O mages, that there is learning, and there is wisdom, and they are very far from being the same thing."--Azuth the High One, Utterances from the Altar: Collected Verbal Manifestations of the Divine and Most Holy Lord of Spells (holy chapbook, assembled by anonymous priests of Azuth circa 1358 DR)
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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 17 Sep 2010 : 15:39:02
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quote:
Originally posted by Darsson Spellmaker
Shadowdale: The Scouring of the Land reveals that Sylune actually fought 3 or 4 red and black great wyrm dragons, and that the last dragon faced her when she had exhausted all of her spells, magic items, spell-like abilities, and silver fire. Hence, her last resort with the staff of the magi. So I'd say putting down 3 great wyrms isn't too shabby for a Chosen. ;)
Ahhh...the mighty Ret-Con pen has made another stroke...
Not sure why so many Great Wyrm dragons would be interested in Shadowdale...oh well. |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
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Erik Scott de Bie
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
4598 Posts |
Posted - 17 Sep 2010 : 16:14:09
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We should also keep in mind that the Sylune event happened *long ago*, and just because it says a certain a thing in one source doesn't mean that's correct. As Ed himself attests, the sourcebooks--being a collection of hearsay, oral histories, campfire tales, and wildly inaccurate speculation, not to mention printing errors--should all be taken with a grain of salt. I mean, you'd be as well off taking VOLO at face value.
Suffice it to say, we don't really know *exactly* what went down with Sylune and the great staff-breaking: not how powerful the dragon(s) was/were, nor how many there were, nor why they were there, nor whether they had magical augmentations, nor under what circumstances the battle was fought, nor whether Sylune had had to defend herself against many other foes, nor whether she'd had her Chosen of Mystra-brand Wheaties that morning.
(As Ed puts it in Elminster Must Die, everything always seems to happen all at once, right when your defenders are stretched at their thinnest to defend as many fronts as they can.)
With Sylune, I think the key here is to focus on the concept of an epic sacrifice--too much analysis runs the risk of belittling that.
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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Dalor Darden
Great Reader
USA
4211 Posts |
Posted - 17 Sep 2010 : 16:27:19
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| Very insightful Erik...I agree...I should rarely talk as often as I do...I end up hopping about on one foot with the other lodged squarely betwixt my jaws. |
The Old Grey Box and AD&D for me! |
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IngoDjan
Learned Scribe
Brazil
146 Posts |
Posted - 17 Sep 2010 : 17:12:19
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| I know this is for the best of the history, but... C'MON!!!!! |
Ingo Djan
DUNGEON MASTER AO OF THE DIAMONDS!"I see the future repeat the past. It all is a museum of great news. The Time do not stop." |
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Dennis
Great Reader
9933 Posts |
Posted - 17 Sep 2010 : 23:19:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Erik Scott de Bie
We should also keep in mind that the Sylune event happened *long ago*, and just because it says a certain a thing in one source doesn't mean that's correct. As Ed himself attests, the sourcebooks--being a collection of hearsay, oral histories, campfire tales, and wildly inaccurate speculation, not to mention printing errors--should all be taken with a grain of salt. I mean, you'd be as well off taking VOLO at face value.
Suffice it to say, we don't really know *exactly* what went down with Sylune and the great staff-breaking: not how powerful the dragon(s) was/were, nor how many there were, nor why they were there, nor whether they had magical augmentations, nor under what circumstances the battle was fought, nor whether Sylune had had to defend herself against many other foes, nor whether she'd had her Chosen of Mystra-brand Wheaties that morning.
But I suppose there should be something that can tell us what is, than what could be. Isn't that the purpose of the canon?!
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Every beginning has an end. |
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Anyone Notice How Easy Dragons Die?
