Elminster must die

[Judging__Eagle]

I honestly think it's about past due.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Product.aspx ... _250237200

Honestly, I don't give a damn about the book, but the title is spot on. I mean... srly... a self-insert gandalf clone is all the character is.

The description itself is sort of disappointing, since the character won't die in the story, but w/e I didn't expect any different.

[erik]

a self-insert gandalf clone is all the character is.

Now that's not really fair. Gandalf wasn't *that* bad.

[Silent Wayfarer]

Gandalf wasn't an author insert. Ed Greenwood was fairly disturbed in the head, if you consider the lengths to which he fantasized about Alustriel and Silverymoon and her sexual mores.

[Vnonymous]

What?

I know I'm going to regret it, but I want to hear more about this.

[Meikle641]

Yeah man, didn't you know? Elminster gets all the bitches, and they're usually much younger than him, or at least look young? I'm not too clear on that, but there is an uncomfortable amount of old-man sex as I understand it.

[Lago PARANOIA]

My heroic image of Elminster has been ruined!

But post some of the juicier excerpts! I'm just dying to hear!

[CatharzGodfoot]

There's also some hot lesbian romance if you ignore the fact that one of the women is actually a creepy old man.

But yeah, El Minister's death would be beautiful--if we didn't already know that it would only stick to him as hard as it stuck to Superman.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Is there even a point to killing off Elminster? Bruce Cordell changed it so that he was a regular ol' retired wizard rather than being Mystra's mealticket.

That would normally be the first and only thing Bruce wrote that's worth a damn, but by turning him into another vanilla NPC rather than keeping him a Mary Sue that deprives us of any pleasure his gory and agonizing death would have had.

Fuck you, Cordell. Even when you succeed you fail at life.

[Xur]

Is there even a point to killing off Elminster? Bruce Cordell changed it so that he was a regular ol' retired wizard rather than being Mystra's mealticket.

When did they do that? With 4E Forgotten Realms? (I only know 3.5 FR). And who is going to fuck with Mystra/her aspect from now on?

[erik]

4E did some rewrites of FR. Mystra dead. Land torn apart. Dragon born introduced. I don't know anyone who is really happy with it.

[Silent Wayfarer]

What?

I know I'm going to regret it, but I want to hear more about this.

By Ed Greenwood:

My concept of Alustriel as de facto ruler of Silverymoon has always been glossed over by TSR (and now WotC) for Code of Ethics/Code of Conduct reasons, because I see her as the Realms equivalent of ‘the Queen of Courtly Love,’ presiding over a Court that amuses itself (along with delighting in wit, new songs, new inventions or clever craftsmanship, and fashions) with dalliances, courtship, and lovemaking. Er, lots of lovemaking. :}

In the same way that real-world kings in some places and times enjoyed droit de signeur [French for: “As the King, I have the right to sleep with anyone” :}], Alustriel takes many lovers for short periods of time, and is one of those rare kind, understanding, warm people who has the knack of staying close, affectionate friends with former lovers, even in the presence of other ex-flames. In fact, it’s quite likely that any meeting of courtiers will contain a majority of folk who have visited the royal bed or baths at one time or another -- and most of them remain fiercely loyal to Alustriel and to her dream of Silverymoon. (In fact, some cynics, such as Torm of the Knights of Myth Drannor, believe she deliberately seduces political foes to transform them into personal friends.) The fact demonstrably remains that to attack Alustriel in Silverymoon will be to evoke immediate defense of her person by dozens of champions who will lay down their lives to protect hers, even knowing she’s the “Anointed of the Goddess” and may not really need their protection.

For obvious moral reasons, published Realmslore glides over all this ‘free love’ stuff (gakk! orgies! Nonononono!) without saying much (though if you read the words of Silverymmon-related Realmslore I’ve written, nothing contradicts it). If you’re portraying Alustriel correctly in play, she loves to laugh (except when to do so would be cruel to others), gives hugs, caresses, and kisses freely, has no personal dignity (nude? Me? Yes, so? Yes, I heard him comment on the shape and taste of my breasts -- that’s why I was thanking him) but a LOT of personal grace and charm, and never forgets details about people (so if meeting a knight she bedded one night eight years ago, she’ll recall the name of his ailing mother and her ailment, the name of his new bride, and any ‘touchy triggers’ any of them might have). Most folk who meet her can’t remain jealous of her or angry at her for long.

The original Mystra seemed to encourage Alustriel to have children (why? Hoho! SO many mysteries, waved before you!), because she conceived every nine months and a day or two, giving Faerun a succession of healthy males in a series of easy births (and being little constricted or uncomfortable while pregnant, because rather than acquiring a ballooning belly, the High Lady always put on weight all over, and retained her poise, balance, and activities). Yes, she’s given birth to females, and no, I’m not going to say ANYTHING more about that for future schemes reasons. :} The new Mystra may have other ideas, because (as far as Elminster knows -- and he doesn’t hesitate to ask her, straight out) Alustriel isn’t pregnant right now, and shows no signs of becoming so.

For details of her current consort, see the quartet of Realmslore columns appearing on the WotC website right now.

“Aerasume” is a surname, and all of the tall, strapping lads who bear it share the same father, who remains Alustriel’s lover on nights when she needs comforting, but these days is often away from Silverymoon on explorative expeditions into the wilderlands. As I said: with very few exceptions, Alustriel remains on good terms with her former lovers, and manages somehow to keep them comfortable with each other (I guess it’s like being members of a club one very much enjoys being part of). So they all get along well together. At long-ago GenCons I often ran Realms play sessions in which PCs were sent with an urgent message to Alustriel [a stranger to them by all but reputation] through a secret portal that admitted them to the Palace but removed all metal -- weapons and, er, BELT BUCKLES -- and all enchanted materials [items and garments vanished, spells operating on the bodies of the PCs just melted away] in doing so. Stumbling over their own falling clothing but under imperative, overriding orders to get to Alustriel right away (and bearing a pass that would let them do so), the racing PCs were directed to a certain chamber, and burst into it to discover that it was taken up by a vast, shallow bath filled with warm rosewater and naked people making love. SOMEwhere in all of that sliding flesh was Alustriel. Their mission: find her.

I loved watching players’ faces, right at that moment.

[Judging__Eagle]

it's not the most terribad stuff ever... but it's obviously full of someone's fantasies.

and... seriously a :} emote? what the fuck? what is that? a moustache? seriously? a moustache smiley? I've got a biker walrus and muttonchops and I wouldn't use emotes, let alone beard-emotes, in what is supposed to be a written article. Emotes are for trivial conversations, IMs, friendly e-mails, sometimes in a forum post. Not in an article where you're trying to explain that your sex fantasy fueled character idea has a shred of credibility.

In any case, Elminster... like almost every other FR npc is too ridiculous to have been created with the D&D system. FR should get re-treaded in a non-D&D system to have it begin to make a lick of sense.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I... have trouble that one could sex that many people and not catch the herpes have a minge like a wizard's sleeve not have huge issues with jealousy-fueled fighting.

I understand people who grew up in a "free love" sort of mindset aren't as jealous as those of us who weren't so lucky, but you get enough people there and someone's going to get pissy.

[erik]

I think :} is because he has a big ole beard.

[K]

Greenwood is a dirty old man.

That being said, someone has to be the most powerful Wizard in a setting, and that character can't die because a good character never dies in heroic fantasy. He just gets imprisoned in Hell or reincarnated or some other damned thing.

So I don't have a problem with Elminster. Yes, he is a self-insertion character, but at least half the established characters in every setting are too, so I don't see the difference if that character is Elminster, Raistlin, or Mordenkainen...

[CatharzGodfoot]

Raistlynn and Mordenkainyn aren't FR characters.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Raistlin and Mordenkainen actively hijack the metaplot however. Elminster is just there to look awesome and wave his big dick. Your mileage may vary on which of them is worse.

I personally prefer Elminster. As in, I would prefer to be punched in the nuts by Mike Tyson than punched in the nuts by Superman. Dragonlance was readable, even exciting unless Raistlin rubbed his smelly antihero dick all over the pages. He is honestly one of the worst characters in fiction and I reserve a special hatred for him. I hate him more than Anakin Skywalker, Mandy, and Black Hat Guy combined. I hate Raistlin even more than Souzuke Aizen.

That said, I really dislike masturbatory self-inserts on principle even though my only exposure with Elminster has been Baldur's Gate and the Forgotten Realms sourcebooks. I would rather have my DM physically masturbate at the table than have to put up with mental masturbation.

[Silent Wayfarer]

How bad are Raistlin and Mordenkainen? I came into D&D at the tail end of AD&D, with Baldur's Gate, and I don't know too much about Greyhawk and shit.

[FatR]

Raistlin is pretty bad. While hating Elminster is trendy, and he certainly was a better character before he started banging every hot magical chick in the setting and gain levels uncontrollably, he's not really actively disruptive to ongoing setting plots and to your game, unless your GM is a dick anyway, in which case the problem lies not in Elminster.

Raistlin, IIRC, was supposed to be a pregen character for DL adventure cycle that covered the same space as the first novel trilogy. This doubles the problem which lies in the fact, that, he, even putting aside his evil ambitions, is a total dick and one of the worst examples on how to roleplay dark and troubled characters ever. I'm willing to bet that in most real games a character like this will end up stabbed in the face or, at best, ditched by the unanimous agreement of the rest of the party. Instead, the rest of the party pretty much ignores his imressively obvious intent to go into outright villainy at the first real opportunity and equallly imressive asshattery. His dumbass brother, whom he betrayed at a drop of a hat in the backstory is willing to be his manslave, and the rest basically shut up and quietly tolerate his disruptive behavior.

My memories on follow-up novels are blissfully vague, but I remember, that authors basically made Raistlin better than all of the gods combined, including allowing him to completely dodge all consequences of his deal with the devil-equivalent. And made him secretly noble and willing to suffer eternal torment instead of destroying the world (though he apparently escaped from that too later). And shit.

[souran]

How bad are Raistlin and Mordenkainen? I came into D&D at the tail end of AD&D, with Baldur's Gate, and I don't know too much about Greyhawk and shit.

Riastlin is the "bad" character in the good party only its dragonlance so nobody never calls him on his obvious dickitude.

Serioulsy the good guys never fucking figure out that Raistlin basically agrees with the bad guys....always.

Its sort of like a heroic party made up of captain america, indiana jones, Dr. Savagge , and .... Charles Lindburg only they never do anything when he stands around and goes "You know what, hitler isn't all that bad."

After the initial novels most of the time a Raistlin story is about how he tries to be the Vecna of DL only instead of actually be defeated by heroes or something his somewhat "simple" brother shows up and convinces him that maybe instead of destroying the universe, or becomming a god, or whatever it is he is up to this week he should look into his heart and do exactly the opposite.

This usually requires he get stupid ass punished for his "missdeeds" and so he is sucked into hell or whatever. After which he usually only shows up to be a creepy obi-wan kenobi ghost type character only, or more aptly, imagine that Vader died in episode 4 and instead of obi-wan vader's ghost appeared to Luke in the next two movies to mock him when he failed and to give him strangely out of character hart warming advice....


As for Mordenkind: He only sucks becuase apprently OWNS a copy of the D&D phb and has figured out that you could exploit the alignment system to your own benefit.

Not only is Mord a Gandalf Clone but imagine if Gandalf had argued that you needed to destroy Gondor just as much as you needed to Destroy Mordor because without Mordor Gondor's goodness would go unchecked....


Seriously, the "great wizards" of Greyhawk are all neutral because of the "need for balance" and "we need evil becasue evil gets things done." You know what evil gets done? It gets the trains to the camps to run on time thats what it gets done!

Anyway, Mords problem is that he exists to wank about D&D alignment. Which means you will hate him as much as you hate D&D alignment.

[Fuchs]

For (cameo) appearances of "powerful movers and shakers" I prefer to use former PCs from past campaigns. Even if those might act like some of those famous or infamous published NPCs my players usually don't take offense at seeing their own former PCs in game again.

[Aharon]

I guess your like and dislike for these characters is also influenced by the age you are when you first come into contact with said characters (as well as critical thinking skills, and your readiness to apply them to nonconsequential parts of your life like recreational activities). My first contact with D&D happened when I was 12 years old, and while I understand above criticism and rationally have to admit that much of it is true, I still like Raistlin and Elminster. The power they have and how awesome they are appealed to me when I was that age, and despite playing campaigns where both of them were involved, I cherish the memory although the DMs sometimes used said characters to railroad us or watch their awesomeness.

[Lago PARANOIA]

You know, like Anakin and Sasuke, one of the worst things about Raistlin is that he could've been pretty badass if whoever played him wasn't such an egotistical dick and the setting designer didn't have such a hard-on for magic-users.

His introduction is pretty cool in a cheesy 80's 'we have just discovered antiheroes!' kind of way and I thought that his relationship with his brother was interesting. At first. However, I thought that they were setting him up for a heroic sacrifice or at least being redeemed by the power of love and friendship. Yeah, I know it's cheesy but I like cheesy stories. But no, he pretty much uses everyone and gets everything he wants and hijacks the actual exciting plot to make it about his issues.

To make things significantly worse after the end of the first trilogy Hickman and Weis must have had their cherries popped by an uber-magician and completely fell in love with them. Yeah, magic and magicians (including a significantly less annoying Elminster-like character) played a significant part in the original trilogy, but most of the plot revolved around the heroics and feats of ordinary people or mildly badass people. But after that rat-bastard Raistlin completely succeeds in taking over the plot it becomes a story about how cool and awesome people with magic are and wouldn't you like to suck their dicks? I mean, a lot of the punch from the plot came from the 'anyone can die' mentality where people can lose their lives in sudden and unexpected ways, but how can you be assed to care about these people when the plot revolves the exploits of uber-magicians?

I simply cannot believe that this jackass is the most popular character in this fiction. As bad as Elminster and Mordenkainen are, at least the people in their fanbases don't think they're cool and sweet and rockadelic and totally whom they want to represent their fandom. It makes me think that Dragonlance fans are either 13-year olds, insane, a bunch of fools, or a bunch of wannabe Mary Sues.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Never liked Raistlin at all. Thought Caramon was a dolt (and plus, the guy in my first D&D campaign played a fighter called Caramon and he used to bully my wizard character in-game nonstop, which the DM encouraged. It took 3 games before I left and started my own game).

Never thought Tas/Kenders were that bad, but I can imagine that a lot of people use them as excuses to be dicks to the party, and I can understand why people might not like them.

Really, take out Raistlin/Caramon, and the Dragonlance books are fairly tolerable. Hell, even make Raistlin a character with at least some redeeming qualities and maybe it wouldn't be too bad.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I actually kind of liked Tasselhoff. I didn't see the character as all that disruptive in the original trilogy except for the random stealing from Sturm thing. I mean, in actual tabletop that's really bad behavior because it can lead to a game-ending fight but in a written story where people can control the reactions of their characters a compulsively kleptomaniac character isn't too bad.

I liked Caramon at first, but that's because that I thought that he was going to redeem himself to be less of a dolt at the same time as Raistlin through brotherly love. It is kind of sad at the lengths he went for Raistlin only to be left a lonely, broken shell of a man at his betrayal. A better story would... ah, forget it.

I can see why people would hate the gully dwarf thing though. Good Lord. I'm really glad that the comic adaptation went out of its way to sanitize that.