As I rambled about in a previous post, I am tryimg to get my filthy hands on The Avatar Trilogy. Since it is out of print, it is not an easy task, or perhaps I should say that I didn’t expect it to be easy, but so far it has been pretty straight forward.
I have gotten confirmation that all three books are on their way. Two of them are shipped from Germany and one from the US, so it will probably be a while before I see any of them. With a little luck, the arrival will coincide with me finishing the Icewind Dale Trilogy.
22. April: Shadowdale just arrived. Happy days.
27. April: Tantrass just arrived and it seems like Waterdeep is stuck in customs
I am almost done with my current book Angels of Attack, so it is time to start thinking about the next book. I have been looking to read some fantasy, but most of them are out of print and the next Dragonlance novel is still a couple og months away.
Thankfully I realized that I have The Icewind Dale trilogy, and I have only read it once in my life. So, staying true to my new found interest in the Forgotten Realms, I have now found my next book.
If I remember correctly, this was the first trilogy written my R.A Salvatore featuring Drizzt, so it might make sense to follow up with the Dark Elf trilogy. See, I am planning ahead.
A few years back, I started collecting Dragonlance books. Well, I started collecting the books I didn’t already have. I managed to get a couple of trilogies, which was quite the project, but nonetheless a successful one.
Now that I am dipping my toes in the Forgotten Realms, I have been trying to get a hold of some the novels, including the Avatar Trilogy. Of course Wizards of the Coast has stopped publishing books, so I have no way of getting my filthy hands on actual books. Kindle and Audible versions are available, but I am old school, and I like to actually read an old fashioned book.
It is unfortunate that WotC cannot come up with a viable business model for the book segement, however, it seems that their narrow focus on gaming material for Forgotten Realms has paid off for them, at least for the past couple of years. Considering the firing rounds in December, it appears that the company is facing some serious challenges.
My search continues, so hopefully I will be able to expand my collection with some Forgotten Realms novels.
I visited my local RPG pusher yesterday, and stumbled across an older Forgotten Realms core book, probably from the D&D 3.5 days. It was insanely expensive, but I must admit that I was really tempted. I know very little about the Forgotten Realms Lore, and none of the books are available anywhere, be it gaming books or novels. As it is, I might have a line on some of the core books, hopefully a little cheaper than the one I was drooling over yeaterday.
So, I have been thinking of doing a bit of DMing in my group, just to spice things up a bit. And since we are playing in the Forgetten Realms, I have delved into my collection of old school adventures, and have found three that are either set in the Realms, or can be easily adapted to it.
I have no real experience with the Forgotten Realms as a DM since we mostly played Dragonlance or Greyhawk in my younger and happier days, but I find it a bit refreshing to try a new setting, even a setting that gets a lot of heat from various online gamers. Personally, I try not to think in terms of good and bad, it’s just different. And to be honest, I don’t think the Forgotten Realms setting is half bad. Sure there a lot of overpowered characters, but one can always reimagine them if need be. Or ignore them all together. It’s not that different from other settings. Imagine playing Dragonlance with Raistlin Majere running around hurling magical spells at everything and everyone.
I am looking to run the following adventures: To find a King, Baltron’s Beacon and Under Illefarn. These will be part of a greater narrative that has been built up over the last couple of years of campaigning.
Will this endeavor ever come to fruition? I doubt it. All the D&D projects I have started over the past 20 years have fizzled out even before I got going, and this will undoubtedly not be any different. However, as my lack of intelligence is evident, I will give it another shot.
In less than two weeks I will be starting my summer vacation. True to form, I have been looking for reading material, and like last year, I found a trilogy I haven’t read before.
This time I could not find a Dragonlance series, so I went with Forgotten Realms and the three Drizzt stories Archmage, Maestro and Hero. I haven’t read all the books preceding this series, and I have already identified a whole bunch of gaps in my knowledge.
That being said, I am sure this will be a good read. Who doesn’t like Drows and demons?
Tonight is game night baby. And to make everything just a little bit better, my Paladin has reached level 6, which means I get to roll for more hit points as well getting some more powers. If i remember correctly I don’t get any spells, but I’m there’s other stuff that will make up for it.
In this group we play in the Forgotten Realms setting. So, no Dragonlance here either. However, that is pretty nice, since I don’t know world as well and therefore everything is new and exciting. Fractions, gods etc. are more or less unknown to me so I get to experience a lot of things for the first time. Not bad at all.
The Forgotten Realms books I have ever read, besides the Drizz’t books, is the Avatar Trilogy, which I read 26 years ago, right after I graduated high school. That means heavy partying, so I was very hung over when I actually sat down to read. If memory serves, I didn’t even read them in the correct order. Much like the Chronicles and Legends, the Danish version of the Avatar Trilogy is split into six books, and the public library didn’t always have the next one available.
Back in the day, Forgotten Realms got some flag from some people in the Dragonlance community, most likely because there were more product releases. But in this day and age, I think most people are just happy that we still get new D&D material of high quality.
