Review: Nightwatch

Caution: Spoilers

Our next review is a romp through a pretty obscure bit of Greyhawkiana; the novel Nightwatch by Robin Wayne Bailey. Published in 1990, this was a one-off novel whose author was best known for his contributions to the ever-awesome "Thieves' World" series (which is a topic for a post unto itself).

The novel focuses on Garrett Starlen, a captain of the Night Watch of the city of Greyhawk, as he tries to unravel the mystery behind why all of the city's most powerful experts in divination are all killed in the space of a single evening. Soon things start to escalate, with ominous black birds filling the skies and more dead bodies piling up. It's very much a detective novel, with some nice plot twists, false leads, and the like. It ends up with an invasion of the city, which is fought off thanks in large part to Starlen's tricking the various factions into turning out all their followers armed to the teeth at the right moment. The whole thing takes place within the City of Greyhawk, except for a jaunt to the Mistmarsh.

The secondary characters are very well defined, and the whole thing is well-written, well-plotted, and well-paced, just as I would expect of a veteran author. I found myself actively looking forward to the next chapter as I was reading.

The timing of the novel is problematic. It is said to be fifty years since the Circle of Eight was last heard from, but there are some odd incongruities. It's implied, for instance, that mayor Neroff Gasgall has just died, which would make his time in office unbelievably long. Too, the Horned Society is a major force once again, but there are reasons to think that it now controls the Shield Lands.

While it's plain that Bailey took a lot of time to research the setting, it's also plain that his researches only went so far, as there are glaring factual errors that any editor should have caught. The names of the moons of Oerth are incorrect, for instance, and he continually mentions that Greyhawk's nickname is "Necropolis". There's also something subtly... wrong... about his descriptions of the city that I find it very difficult to put my finger on. Orcs and dwarves are "magical races"? It almost feels more like Sanctuary than Greyhawk. Still, these are minor things in what is otherwise a pretty good book.

There isn't much that can be used directly in an RPG campaign, owing to the future setting, but it could be mined for younger NPC versions of the characters, depending on when the campaign was set. The twelve swords known as the Pillars of Heaven could be a nice catalyst for a game, and the fact that the Hierarchs of the Horned Society will rise once more could provide fodder for plots as well.

All in all, a pretty nifty read, even if it is a future Greyhawk that's a quarter-plane of reality removed from the one we know. I give it four wizards out of five.

Read More

Review: The Tomb of Horrors

Caution: Spoilers (both of the novel and the module on which it is based)

Today we come to the last of the "Greyhawk Classics" novels, Keith Francis Strohm's The Tomb of Horrors, published in 2002. This is Mr. Strohm's first entry to the Greyhawk novel series, but it seems pretty obvious he's no newcomer to the setting itself.

The novel follows one Kaerion, a former paladin of Heironeous who fell from grace a decade ago when he was captured by the forces of Iuz in Dorakaa. Since then he hasn't been able to shed his holy sword, Galadorn, and has sunk into drink and despair at his shame. Gerwyth is his erstwhile elven companion.

The novel also follows one Durgoth, a priest of Tharizdun who has allied himself with the Scarlet Brotherhood in order to secure the release of his imprisoned deity. We get to see a lot of the bad guys on their own in this novel, which is something I always like, but not enough that every twist and turn of their scheme is revealed to the reader. The villains were very well handled, and I like the rivalries, jealousies, and different agendas of some of the characters.

Kaerion and Gerwyth are enlisted as guides by a group of Nyrondese nobles seeking to pillage the tomb of the long-dead wizard Acererak in order to use the loot to help bolster Nyrond's rebuilding after the recent wars (the novel is undated, but seems to take place in or around CY 591). Durgoth, on the other hand, has discovered, through some pretty vile but fascinating means, that a key to releasing Tharizdun can be found within the tomb. So Durgoth and his followers (agents from the Scarlet Brotherhood, the thieve's guild of Rel Mord, and a flesh golem) trail the Nyrondese party through the Rieuwood and the Vast Swamp, waiting until the good guys wear themselves out defeating all the tomb's traps and guardians before coming in to finish them off.

During the journey, Kaerion falls in love with one of the Nyrondese nobles, a half-elven bard named Majandra, and that's a relationship that is handled quite skillfully. Needless to say, the plan doesn't quite go as expected for Durgoth and company, and Kaerion regains his paladinhood just in time to bring the evil cleric low, defeat the demi-lich, and save (most) of his companions. The defeat of Acererak himself is almost perfunctory, but I didn't find it at all bothersome, as it was obvious that it was Durgoth, rather than the demi-lich, who was the real protagonist of the novel.

I found the writing and characterization of this novel to be very well-done, and the pacing was excellent. This is another fine example of using a location-based adventure for purposes that go far beyond the original module; in this case, setting up the cross-purposes of the cleric of Tharizdun with the more mundane loot-the-tomb mission of the Nyrondese. There is some good detail about Rel Mord, the Rieuwood, and the Great Swamp that can be used in an RPG game, and even some new geographical details added in the map in the front. All in all, I enjoyed this novel tremendously, and only wish that Mr. Strohm had been tasked with bringing some of the other classic Greyhawk modules to life.

I rate it five wizards out of five.

Read More

Review: Keep on the Borderlands

Caution: Spoilers (both of the novel and the module on which it is based)

Next on our list of Greyhawk novels from the early 2000's is Ru Emerson's second title in the series; Keep on the Borderlands. I wasn't a huge fan of her first effort, but was determined to give this one a fair shake. Unfortunately, it's only marginally better than Against the Giants, and suffers from a unique problem as well.

As with the rest of the books in this series, the novel attempts to bring to life the classic D&D module Keep on the Borderlands. Beloved by many (indeed, many players name KotB as their favorite module of all time), the module has players exploring a system of caves stocked with various sorts of humanoids and other perils, very suitable for first-level adventurers, who return to the eponymous Keep to rest, heal, and restock their supplies.

The first half of the novel, on the other hand, is spent fighting bandits (two different bands of bandits? Three? The book is unclear), presumably merely to introduce the character of Blot (later renamed Flerys in a seeming attempt to deliberately confuse the reader), a young girl who had been living with the main group of bandits. The raids into the Caves of Chaos themselves seem almost perfunctory, taking a couple of pages to wipe out each band of humanoids, and then dispatching the priest of Chaos in similarly short order. The pacing is terrible, hearkening back to the earlier book.

That brings up one of the problems with the novel; we don't find out until almost the end that there was, apparently, a steady stream of chaos cultists passing by the Keep on their way to the caves. It's only mentioned in passing, just as the characters are heading into the final cave wherein lies... the temple of chaos. Despite the fact that this is actually highlighted on the back cover blurb of the book, it seems thrown in as an afterthought, when, if it had been mentioned earlier on, might have provided some much-needed narrative glue to hold the thing together. The ending, such as it is, comes abruptly and without any sort of fanfare. Ho-hum, the cleric we haven't seen for the first two-thirds of the novel casts a spell and kills the evil cleric. Done.

The characters are slightly better defined than in Against the Giants. Eddis and M'Baddah seem interesting enough that I wouldn't mind reading more about them, but the remainder of the party (including Emerson's seemingly favorite trope, the mysterious twins with the special bond, just as we saw in the first novel) is pretty forgettable. What makes it worse is that it's painfully obvious that the author is trying to make the rest of the characters stand out, but failing in the attempt.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in this addition to the line of Greyhawk novels is that it isn't a Greyhawk novel at all. Although it has the Greyhawk logo on the cover, there is absolutely nothing to tie the novel to the setting. It is as completely generic as the original module, and while that is one of the module's strengths, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of a Greyhawk fan looking for material to use in an RPG campaign based on the promise that the novel actually takes place there.

On the whole, a dull read with the same sort of pacing problems that plagued its predecessor, that adds nothing to the Greyhawk milieu. Completest fans of the original module may get something out of it, but it'll take some doing.

I rate it two wizards out of five.

Read More

Review: Queen of the Demonweb Pits

Caution: Spoilers (both of the novel and the module it's based on)

We come now to the final volume of Paul Kidd's Greyhawk trilogy, following up on White Plume Mountain and Descent into the Depths of the Earth; Queen of the Demonweb Pits. Published in 2001, this novel is a direct follow-up to the previous one, taking place almost immediately after the events of Descent into the Depths of the Earth.

Set in CY 583, we are back with the faerie princess Escalla, the brooding ranger the Justicar, Enid the sphinx, Cinders the sentient hell hound pelt, Polk (now a badger, having been reincarnated by a druid), talking magic sword Benelux, and Henry, a young warrior that the group picked up on their adventures.

The plot revolves around the demon queen Lolth's desire for revenge following her reversal in the Vault of the Drow in the previous adventure. Following his previous pattern, Kidd doesn't provide us with a recital of how a group of PCs might approach the published module; rather, he uses the module as the basis for an entirely new plot, demonstrating yet again the versatility of the old "location based" modules for a game master with imagination. We see the giant steam-driven spider-palace and the titular Demonweb Pits itself, but now in the context of Lolth's invasion of the Flanaess as she gates in a demonic army to sweep through Furyondy.

While the army is ravaging the countryside, our heroes travel to the Abyss to confront and ultimately defeat Lolth on her home ground, while at the same time both Escalla and the Justicar are tracked by a pair of enemies with grudges, brought into the action by Lolth specifically to enact her revenge. Needless to say, the second-stringers are dealt with and Lolth herself is eventually destroyed by falling into a portable hole filled with holy water. All is well, and the Justicar and Escalla are wed, but not after freeing Enid from the afterlife (!) which involves a confrontation with the Egyptian God Thoth (!!).

I've got to say that, although this book was very well done, I simply didn't enjoy it as much as I did the previous two. The sharp edged repartee between the Justicar and Escalla was missing, now that their romance has blossomed, and the change in the dynamics within the group was definitely felt. The novel feels a bit... softer... than the other two. This feeling is not helped by the fact that Lolth, as presented here, seems almost ditzy, and only her indentured handmaiden Morag (a Type V Demon) seems able to keep her focused on anything. (The "overly efficient and lawful demon assistant" is a character that also comes up in Gygax's Gord the Rogue books, as we shall see, in the character of Vuron.)

The final chapter, in which the characters actually infiltrate the afterlife and make a fool out of the God Thoth, seems tacked on, especially since it hand-waves an apparently arduous adventure among the outer planes to find the water from the river Mnemos to restore Enid's memory after being in the river Lethe. Why both with this, when a simple raise dead spell could solve the problem? It feels like Kidd was told to pad out the book so it went past 300 pages.

This book also creates some canon issues. Lolth is dead as of CY 583? There was a major demonic invasion in Furyondy and nobody seems to have noticed? The best sorts of novels are ones that don't describe enormous changes in the setting, especially changes which are contradicted (or not corroborated) by other sources.

Despite my enthusiasm for Kidd as a writer, and for these characters specifically, these faults must bring down my rating for this particular outing, which is unfortunate. I give it three wizards out of five.

Read More

Review: The Temple of Elemental Evil

Caution: Spoilers (both of the novel and the modules it's based on).

Today's bit of Greyhawkiana is the novel The Temple of Elemental Evil, by Thomas M. Reid. Mr. Reid is probably much better known for his novels set in the Forgotten Realms, but this novel, published in 2001, is his first written for TSR before he moved on to the FR.

This novel hews pretty closely to the original classic adventure module written by Gary Gygax and Frank Mentzer and published by TSR. A party of adventurers is summoned to the village of Hommlet by the powers-that-be to explore the happenings at the supposedly-abandoned nearby Elemental Temple. The village is attacked by brigands before the expedition can begin, but they soon make their way to the Moat House. I thought that their being attacked by the famous giant frogs near the entrance to the Moat House was a nice touch, and the use of some Temple spies first encountered in Hommlet, who then later pose as fellow explorers of the Moat House was pretty well done.

Lareth, I thought, was under-utilized. Having failed to keep the Moat House safe from the intruders, he hies himself back to the Temple, only to be tortured and maimed by the high priest thereof, Hedrack. Now no longer "the beautiful", Lareth is sent to destroy the intruders with an army of humanoids and a giant, but is himself slain and somehow rises as a shadowy spider-like apparition. Reid takes the casual mention of a connection between Lareth and the demonness Lolth and runs with it, building a whole sub-plot of machinations between Iuz/Zuggtmoy and Lolth, which I found somewhat unnecessary. In the end, Elmo is dead, Zuggtmoy left imprisoned, the Temple itself leveled, and Prince Thrommel freed and off to Chendl to marry the fair Jolene.

I found this book to be... workmanlike. The writing was decent, the characters presented well enough that I could differentiate them from one another (unlike Against the Giants on both counts), but the whole seemed rather a bit lacking in verve. I would have liked to see a lot more of the iconic NPCs from the module; we get our share of Elmo, but Burne and Rufus are on the sidelines, Jaroo is mentioned but never seen, Otis and Y'Dey are absent, etc. Too, I find it difficult to place this novel in the context of Greyhawk canon; the events vis-a-vis the Temple are fairly straightforward, but the very end of the novel mentions a brewing civil war in Veluna that I don't recall happening in other sources.

There's not a lot here that can be added to a campaign; aside from the adventurers themselves, there are no new NPCs of note, no background or plot to pillage for a campaign, and no new ways to utilize the existing module (unlike what we saw with White Plume Mountain or Descent into the Depths of the Earth). Still, it gives a good idea of what a "typical" campaign focused on the Temple would look like, so in that respect it would be a good read for a DM planning on running such a campaign.

I give it three wizards out of five.

Read More

Review: Descent into the Depths of the Earth

Caution: Spoilers (both of the novel and the modules it's based on).

Today's foray into somewhat obscure Greyhawkiana is a direct sequel to the last post in the series. Paul Kidd's Descent into the Depths of the Earth is the second in his trilogy of novels set in Greyhawk featuring the Justicar and his companions. Published in 2000, the novel picks up only a few weeks or so after the previous novel, White Plume Mountain, ends.

In this novel, Kidd takes the same approach with the original source material (the adventure modules D1-D3; Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, and Vault of the Drow) and uses them as the backdrop against which he tells an original story. I find this a terrific way to showcase the versatility of the adventure modules themselves, demonstrating that they don't only have to be used as the follow-up to the Giants novels, and that adventurers can have all sorts of motives for hitting the tunnels and caverns of Oerth's underdark.

In this case, the Justicar, his sentient hell hound pelt Cinders, faerie Escalla and Polk the drover have a double mission. First, to clear the name of Escalla, who is suspected of murdering a faerie prince she was to marry (against her will) and also to track down and rescue a village full of innocents who have been captured in a raid and taken underground. The two plots interweave nicely, and the mystery of who is behind the murder/frame-up is handled well.

The novel has more depth to it (pardon the pun). Where the first in the series was more light-hearted and sacrificed some complexity in the name of introducing the characters and establishing their relationships, this novel is definitely more layered in its narrative. There's a lot going on, between the politics of the Seelie Court, the various plots that involve the drow and their demon queen, and the budding romantic relationship between the Justicar and Escalla, and Kidd handles it all adroitly.

That's not to say there's not humor, which is one of the things I like most about his books in this series. For fans of the Greyhawk setting itself, there's a lot of new material that can be directly adapted for one's own campaign with the Seelie Court and its various clans and factions, and the description of the party's movements through the underdark is a model of how a group of player characters should approach the place.

This is quite an enjoyable read and I'd recommend it to anyone, especially if they enjoyed White Plume Mountain. I find myself very much looking forward to the final book in the Justicar trilogy.

I give it four wizards out of five.

Read More

Review: White Plume Mountain

Caution: Spoilers (both of the novel and the modules it's based on).

Today I'm going to take you through another piece of Greyhawkiana that not everyone is familiar with; the novel White Plume Mountain by Paul Kidd. Published in 1999 to coincide with the release of the adventure module Return to White Plume Mountain, this is the second in the series of "Greyhawk Classics" novels and is better by far than its predecessor Against the Giants.

Although this novel is based on the original module of the same name, it doesn't make the mistake of simply being a recounting of the plot thereof. Indeed, it even references the events of the module as having taken place in past history (this novel takes place in CY 588) and shifts the action to the County of Urnst, which is teeming with Tenha refugees after Iuz destroyed the Duchy in the recent wars. We see the enchanted weapons Wave, Whelm, and Blackrazor, but they are now found in Trigol, and two of them are given some more interesting backstories than merely "powerful magic weapons in someone's collection." Wave, we find out, is sacred to Geshtai, goddess of rivers, and Whelm is sacred to Bleredd, god of metal, mining, and smiths.

Although the plot of the novel eventually takes the characters to the famed mountain, what I like about it is that they spend as much time along the borders of Urnst, or in the city of Trigol, as they do inside the mountain itself. That gives a lot of opportunity not only to explore the characters and build up their relationships, but also to define some of the setting itself, especially in places that haven't gotten a lot of attention, such as Trigol. There's also some interesting background on the political situation with the refugees in Urnst and the temple rivalries they've brought with them.

Even once we do get into the mountain itself, it's not a straight retread of either White Plume Mountain or Return to White Plume Mountain. There are certainly similarities, but things are subtly different to account for the intervening years, and the real villain's plot is subtly different from those in the adventure modules. I liked that; if one was using this as source material, there are some neat ideas and alternatives to be had.

What I really like about this book, though, are the characters. The novel's main character, a ranger called The Justicar, is certainly memorable, and would make a great NPC for a game. The same goes for his companions Cinder (a sentient hell hound pelt), Escalla (a perky and quirky faerie/pixie sorceress), and Polk, a kindly but annoying old wagon drover who is bound and determined to teach The Justicar what "real" adventurers are like.

There's no small amount of humor to be found, but the novel as a whole is serious. With some very memorable characters and nice background that fleshes out aspects of the Flanaess that we've never seen before, I am very pleased indeed with this entry into the Greyhawk novel arena.

I give it four wizards out of five.

Read More

Review: Against the Giants

Caution: Spoilers (both of the novel and the modules it's based on).

I thought I'd take a tour through some of the lesser-known works of Greyhawkiana, starting with some of the Greyhawk Classics novels of the late 1990's and early 2000's. The first I'm going to cover is Against the Giants by Ru Emerson, published in 1999. The novel was originally released in conjunction with the compilation module Against the Giants, which itself was a compilation of modules Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl, and Hall of the Fire Giant King, with additional material.

The novel itself cleaves very closely to the plot of the original Giants modules. Hill giants are ravaging villages in western Keoland and southern Sterich, and a band of brave adventurers is sent off to stop them and discover what is behind the raids. It takes place in CY 585.

There are several problems with the novel, both from a Greyhawkian perspective and a literary one. First and foremost, the characters are completely forgettable. There's a paladin, a barbarian, a fighter, a magic-user, and a pair of half-elven rangers, but at times it was very difficult to figure out which character was talking, because there was almost nothing to distinguish them. The only halfway-interesting character in the party is killed almost right off the bat, but his death has no discernible impact on the others. The stock "awed farm boy who was trained by his warrior father and survived the massacre of his home village" seems unchanged by his adventures.

The plot lingers on the first of the three giant strongholds, where various prisoners are released, some of whom join the party. However, the attention given to the Steading seems to come at the expense of the other two, as almost no time is spent on the frost giant stronghold, and the foray into the fire giant hall is rushed to the point of feeling almost perfunctory. In fact, the characters even go out of their way to say that the glacial rift of the frost giants is only a means to get to the real destination; the fire giants' hall.

One big reason for the unseemly haste is the fact that the party's mage conveniently was a slave of Eclavdra (the drow ultimately behind the raids) and knows the layout of both the rift and the fire giants' hall. If he had been selected for the mission because of his knowledge, it might not be so bad (although still way too convenient), but the fact that it seems to come as much of a surprise to him to see Eclavdra's signature on a scroll strains one's credulity. He knows of the teleporting devices that allow quick movement between the strongholds, and becomes the deus ex machina for any knowledge the party needs to hasten along to the end of the book.

A bigger problem structurally lies with the fact that the novel ends with the destruction of the drow priestess Eclavdra (in a very blasé presentation that compares poorly with the ones we will see in other places) and a couple of her henchmen. There is no final confrontation in the drow city, just a quick and easy death for the villain and voila! Mission accomplished. This obviously raises some canon problems; not her death, which is actually dealt with as a possibility in the adventure modules, but the fact that there isn't anything beyond the single drow priestess pulling King Snurre's strings.

On the whole this is a very forgettable book. Other than adding a few place-names and possible NPCs (none of whom seem particularly compelling), it reads like an account of a game run through the modules that featured a player who had already read them and knew exactly where to go.

I rate it two wizards out of five.

Read More