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This week by special listener request, Matt and Joe are delving into Icewind Dale -- perhaps literally, because it involves the iconic character Drizzt Do'Urden, the Drow Ranger. Icewind Dale began simply as a region in Dungeons and Dragons, and then became the title of a series of three novels penned by R. A. Salvatore, with the first published in 1988 and the last in 1990, and then a video game in 2000 set in the region. As such, there is a ton of lore to discuss, including its roots, which begin -- like almost every work in modern fantasy fiction -- back with Tolkien, and its use as a setting in D&D. Join us as we discuss one of the most beloved series in the D&D oeuvre.
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0:11
Hello and welcome to Lore Watch round table free form discussion about lore in your favorite media. I'm your host Joe
0:16
Perez, one of several lore focused folks from Blizzard watch and I've got my dungeon diving companion with me today,
0:22
Matt and Rossy. How you doing today Matt? I have been playing Paladin in Diablo 4 and I no longer wish to do
0:29
anything else with my life. This is pretty monumental. We'll probably talk about this on the main cast because this is Matt. I only play
0:36
barbarians. Rossy saying that he likes the Paladin. Oh god, it is it is amazing. Um, and
0:43
also uh there's little story bits. Uh we were talking about something else today, but I want to throw this little bit in
0:48
there. They've added tiny little bits in the dialogue that, you know, they they weren't there for other characters that
0:55
really talk about that whole concept of this is a paladin. Like this is not some, you know, barbarian who just
1:02
lumbered in or a druid returning home. This person is a paladin. They are not they are not the same. So
1:08
it it's kind of cool. Uh we will talk about at some point, but today is not No, instead we're going to be talking about something that has come in as a
1:14
request from multiple listeners. Uh and we do appreciate it. We do listen to you and this this mainly came from our
1:20
Patreon subscribers. Um, but just as a reminder, if there's questions you want us to cover or something you want us to
1:27
do as a topic for a show, you can go ahead and send those in to podcast at blizzardwatch.com. We ask that you
1:33
specify the show that it is for, as well as any special pronunciation of your name. Uh, you can also hit us up on our
1:38
Discord server, which is where these rather large mountain of requests came from for this one. Uh, we have the Q and
1:45
Podcast questions channel, which is open to everybody. Same rules apply as the email, but we have the Patreon Q and podcast questions channel. We tend to
1:51
look there first as a way of saying thank you to our Patreon subscribers for helping us keep the lights on. And for
1:58
better or worse, uh you wonderful folks at home wanted us to talk about well the
2:05
Icewindendale trilogy. Uh and for those of you that may not know what it is, uh the Icewindendale trilogy is something
2:11
that came out in the late '80s, 1988 I believe the first book was released. It's an epic fantasy novel by Ra
2:18
Salvatore, one of the most celebrated uh I would say fantasy D and D writers of
2:26
all time. Uh he's he's up there. Uh where they tell the tale Go ahead.
2:32
I was going to say unless your name is um Ed Greenwood. I forgot his name. Yeah. Unless your
2:37
name's Ed Greenwood, nobody has contributed more to the Forgotten Realms than like literally it Ra Salvatore
2:43
could do the old routine from the Simpsons. He could say, "Unless you're R Salvator, you're stealing my bit." Uh,
2:49
you know, it's it's it's kind of amazing that it all started with like this book series, which as far as I understand it,
2:56
they didn't necessarily know they were even going to get a trilogy out of this. No, they didn't. And we're going to talk
3:01
about that a little bit, I guess. Uh but like that that is a really good point to start with it and why I think these are
3:09
such celebrated novels and kind of very important novels in terms of Dungeons
3:14
and Dragons. Um this really sort of while there were D and D books before
3:20
this and after it or stories that took place in those universe. Um some of them are some of my favorites.
3:26
There's a really great one uh um the evolving but go ahead. Sorry. No, no,
3:32
you're you're good. I mean, we can talk about the stuff that like, you know, before this we had uh Oh, bloody heck, I
3:39
can't even remember. Wasn't the the writers of Kern were um after, wasn't it? Was late '90s. I'm not sure. I know that the the Dark
3:46
Sun ones were a little later 84 for Dragon Lance. Um
3:52
Dragon Lance. Oh, okay. Yeah, Dragon Lance came first. My bad. I thought you were saying Dark Sun for some reason. No. And then before that was uh what is
3:59
it? Norton's uh Quag Keep in 1978. Like there there were novels that existed
4:05
beforehand and some that were very epic. Um but nothing really mainstreamed D and
4:12
D storytelling or storytelling that had its base in Dn D quite like the
4:18
Icewindendale trilogy. And what Matt said about it really sort of influencing the
4:24
contribution or character of Forgotten Realms is kind of an understatement
4:29
almost. Um I don't I I don't think they expected, like Matt said, I don't think
4:34
they expected that this was going to be as big of a a thing as it was. So much
4:39
so that when they finished the original story, um the first two novels of the
4:45
original trilogy were not New York Times bestsellers. It was the last one of the trilogy that actually made it onto the
4:52
New York Times bestseller list, showing that folks beyond just D and D players were interested in these stories. Um,
4:59
and then from that spawned two more trilogies and and what came to be a
5:05
series of games modules uh in a world of just wonderful and terrible things of
5:14
Forgotten Realms. Um, I think too another another thing to point out here is that everything that
5:21
came after um that's directly set in Icewindendale or the area around it, the
5:28
10 towns, they were smart in that they didn't keep going back to the exact same well.
5:33
Yes. Uh the novel the novel trilogy that we're going to discuss involves a a specific group of characters. Those
5:39
characters do not appear in the Icewindale video games. No. And much to their benefit, uh, it's
5:46
much more that the 10 towns and Icewindale itself are character than these characters. As for Frost Maiden,
5:54
it came out 20 almost 30 years later. Mhm. So, it's it's not it it is very much a
6:02
continuation of the local, but not of the characters. And in a weird sort of
6:08
way, that really kind of explains why it's been so lasting. Um, the characters
6:14
have also continued. They've they've got multiple novels that they've appeared in. Drisit is ubiquitous.
6:20
Yeah. Let's let's let's talk about the characters that appear in in the this in this the the Wow. The trilogy. Words are
6:27
hard. Uh, let's introduce them before we talk about the individual stories. Uh, so you've already mentioned Drizz. Who
6:33
is Drizz? Drizz is a halfling thief. No, I'm kidding. I'm sorry. Uh the the book
6:38
Drizz is a is actually somewhat of a side character for the most of the first book. Uh he's not the real focus. The
6:46
focus is actually somebody else. But Drizz is a D ranger. Um sometimes it's
6:52
kind of hard to say for sure if he's just a ranger or if he's ranger something else. Um
6:57
like a rager blade singer type thing. He did a whole lot of magic that wasn't just drown magic. But
7:02
this was second edition was out when these books started coming. And third edition was the solid 10 years
7:09
away. So the the the rules that the games and stories, the novels were
7:16
adapting were pretty loose. Uh they they went with stuff, but Drizz
7:22
is basically he's that thing that I think we all like love and yet at the same time kind of
7:28
realize is a little cheesy. He's the He's the good one of a bad group.
7:33
The fun fun fact, he was actually an accident, too. Like, he was not originally a character
7:39
planned for this series in in in Salvador's storytelling. Um, but one of
7:45
the early versions of the book had a ter a character that was even more milktoast
7:50
than uh Drizz was at the time. Uh, and so his publishers like told him, "You
7:56
need to replace this character. Nobody's going to like this character." And so he came up with Drizz on the fly.
8:01
What's really funny is he actually split the character that he had originally in half because
8:07
one half becomes Drizz, the other half becomes an assassin named Artemis and Terry. And we're coming back to that
8:13
guy. But by breaking them in half, he made two much more interesting characters,
8:18
especially Artemis and Terry, who is fascinating. Um, but also I mean Drizz
8:23
is I I I I say mean things about Drizz sometimes because some to a certain
8:29
degree some of it isn't his fault. Um, the fact that every World of Warcraft character who rolled a a hunter like for
8:36
like a year straight was naming it some variation on Drizzit wasn't Drizz's fault. It was the fact that Drizz had
8:42
become by 2004 so ubiquitous that literally if you knew about Dn D you
8:50
knew who Drizz was. Uh much more so. And Jeff it just Joe
8:55
had mentioned earlier that the Krin books came out in ' 84. Nobody has name
9:00
recognition like Disit. No, nobody has name recognition as any of these characters comparatively to to
9:06
any other D and D book that's released. Yeah. Not even Elminster. He's probably the closest one really.
9:12
He's the closest one, but even he doesn't have quite uh the name recognition of these characters. So,
9:19
Drizz, your your dark elf ranger. He comes from the city of Menso Baronzan and he sort of like he is the you know
9:27
doesn't talk much keeps to himself grim character of the book but at the same
9:33
time he's kind of they they give him enough of a sense of humor that you
9:38
could actually believe he could get along with the other characters and be their friend which is useful. Uh I say
9:44
by the third book I feel like it's getting a little out of hand but in the first two it works pretty well. Um,
9:50
Drizz's friend uh is Bruinor Battlehammer is the dwarf character and
9:56
and he is central casting's idea of what a dwarf should be. And to be fair, to be fair, he moves
10:01
he's he's there as your typical dwarf, like your Tolkenesque dwarf, but he's also like central to moving the story
10:07
along because he is the glue that that ties all of the party together.
10:13
Yeah. And he's like strangely dadlike. Well, there's a reason for that.
10:18
Yeah. Well, he is essentially Yeah, he is essentially the foster father for two different characters. Uh,
10:25
and those characters are um Caddyy Brie, who is kind of the human is she human or
10:31
is she like she's human? She's uh she's the adopted human daughter of uh of King Bruno
10:37
Battlehammer. Yeah. And she's the the team rogue sort of uh although she's much more
10:42
interested in shooting people than stealing things. She's more of a fighter, but yeah. Eh, I I feel like they gave her Oh. Oh, you
10:49
know what? With Regis around, you're right. I will get I will say fighter in which we haven't talked about Regis. We'll get there. Yeah. Um but then there's Brunor
10:56
Battlehammer who not Bruno. Sorry. I said Bruno. uh Wolfgar, who is the son of a of a tribesman outside one of the
11:04
Usgart outside of the 10 tribes who when he was very young took part in a
11:10
raid on Icewindendale and Bruner knocked them out and when he woke up Bruner's
11:16
like, "Well, I could kill you, but I don't like murdering people who can't fight back. So, uh, I will give you a
11:23
chance to make up for what you did for serving me." He actually did more than that. saved him cuz if I remember correctly uh after
11:30
that raid the uh folks of the 10 towns were actually like were absolutely wonder
11:36
sumearily executing any barbarians that were not quite dead. So like he he chose to say like save uh Wolfgar.
11:43
Yeah. Basically even though at this time and this plot will come up later for 5 years in a day of service that I
11:48
remember that. Yeah. Yeah. But also in addition to that, the reason Bruno could do that was even
11:54
though he he was living in the Icewindendale area, he was king of a of
12:00
a dwarven empire that had fallen to ruin, but he was still king. He still had the tribe behind him.
12:06
Mhm. He and therefore when he said, you know, no, you're not going to kill that. He's still basically a child. They're like,
12:12
he's big enough to raid. He goes, he's only big enough to raid because he's a giant. They're all huge. He's still a
12:18
child. I'm not letting you murder him. I will, you know, I he will serve me for 5 years in a day and we'll see what
12:24
happened. And so Wolfgar basically, he's kind of interesting in that he is this
12:30
barbarian type character, but at the same time, in a lot of ways, he's almost he's
12:35
almost the main character of the stories in a lot of ways. Yeah. At least in these these these original trilogy. Yeah. And it's it's
12:42
funny because you get to see a lot of different aspects of Wolfgar. massive temper, extremely loyal. Once he decides
12:49
he's your friend, then that's it. Um, and at the same time, not a which
12:56
is really important because barbarian characters are often portrayed as kind of dumb. Uh, which is weird because Conan's the most famous barbarian in
13:03
fiction of all time and he was extremely intelligent. Uh, but most times people play them, you
13:09
know, big dumb guy. But Wolfgar was pretty smart. Um, he actually picked up things pretty quickly. He picks up a lot
13:15
of dwarven customs really which that comes into play later and we'll talk about that in I think a little bit. We we have one more
13:21
character that we really need to sort of introduce. So we should probably talk about Regis.
13:26
Gwen Hifar is this cat. No, I'm kidding. Regis uh is the actual rogue I mentioned
13:33
earlier. And Regis aka Rumble Belly. Yeah. Regis aka Rumble Belly aka Oh god,
13:40
he's back. Spider. Yeah. Um, Regis is sort of the he's like
13:46
the driving force of a lot of the misadventures these people get into in this in the first
13:52
What if Bilbo was a worse person? Yeah. What if Bilbo was almost doing it on purpose? Yeah.
13:58
Yeah. And so he's he is sort of why magical stuff is
14:04
happening. Uh but at the same time you have to point out that the beginning
14:10
part of the story when when when Wolfgar becomes a ward to Bruinor when the the
14:17
the Ugart and other barbarians are attacking it's Regis who saves the day
14:22
cuz no one's listening. No one is is going to follow and help unite together.
14:29
the 10 tribes are not the 10 towns are not going to unite to fight the uh the Oscars. And he reveals something that
14:36
becomes central to the entire book is that in addition to being very sneaky
14:41
and very persuasive, he has a magic gem he can use to hypnotize people,
14:47
which comes into play in the third book because the halflings gem, which as the title goes, which we'll talk about
14:52
later. Yeah. But even here, he uses it to convince the town's leadership to work
15:00
together. And if he didn't do that, they'd all be dead. So, is he a good person? No. But is he evil? Also, no.
15:08
He's just he's just extremely self-motivated. And the whole reason he's up here in the cold is that he did
15:15
something that made him have to run away from where he was originally from, which I believe is Calluman.
15:20
Uh, I believe that is the name of it. Callum. I cannot remember it off the top of my head, but it count something. Uh,
15:27
I will I will say to to put it in D and D terms for those of you listeners that play, uh, Rigus is essentially the open
15:34
embodiment of chaotic neutral. Uh, yes, very much so. Wolfgar is your chaotic good. Uh,
15:40
because of course he is. Uh, Bruno is also chaotic good. Katy Bree is neutral good. Uh, and then you have Drizz Darden
15:47
who is also chaotic good. These are like there's a reason why we make a joke when we talk about alignments in Dn D that
15:55
everybody falls into the chaotic good category and I blame this this book series mainly for it. It certainly pays
16:02
plays a role in the fact that this is like sort of in a weird sort of way it when you if you've seen the uh the more
16:08
recent not the most recent but the the9s versions of the Mummy films you kind of get the same sense that Rick and Eevee
16:15
are both willing to to break all sorts of rules. Mhm. Um, and of course, Jonathan,
16:21
and Jonathan is just straight up, what what's in it for me, baby? But at the same time, they they're all friends with each other. They're loyal
16:27
to each other. This is a very similar group in that they do these things
16:32
partially, you know, for for noble reasons, but mostly because, hey, we live here. Um, or you took something
16:38
from me or, you know, and then when one of them gets that happening to them, the rest of them will will come together.
16:45
Um, even even Regis, although sometimes he will just run and save his own neck, but but oftentimes he will come back and
16:52
sort of be be the rogue with the heart of gold for long enough for them to pull through. But it, oddly enough, this whole
16:59
backstory is just the opening of the book. Yeah. This is barely even there. And it's this
17:04
you're like, "Wow, this could have been the whole book. what what you know the the the thing about it is the as an
17:11
early D and D novel one of the things that it does that I think is really important that I I will say that I think
17:16
got lost to time is it was very much how
17:21
traditional D and D parties met before the like trope of you meet in a tavern
17:28
uh that became a like a trope for for whatever reason but before that most
17:33
campaigns most uh whenever red books or red boxes or things that would uh be the
17:40
equivalent of campaign books or settings, uh you started with something similar to this where your characters
17:48
kind of already knew each other in some way. Uh and then like you had a backstory that tied you all together.
17:54
This was that little backstory. This was the events that sort of tied the party together. Um, you know, it was it was
18:01
that that glue moment and it became it became an important thing that was
18:07
repeated throughout most of the D&D novels. Um, and I'm not going to like
18:14
include most of the Drizz books in there because Drizz has appeared in I think 17 or 18 novels uh at this point. He's been
18:20
around. Um, but when you talk look at stuff like, you know, the the Dragon
18:26
Lance series and you look at uh the any of the the the I think Black Company
18:31
books or anything from, you know, Ed Greenwood or any of those others, which Ed Greenwood is the creator of Forgotten
18:36
R. I feel that's also an important little tidbit here. Absolutely. um they all start with something that that ties
18:42
these folks together whether it's events or uh things that happen around them like the the case with Wolffgar and uh
18:50
Bruno like that being a thing that ties those two characters together is very
18:55
much what would happen in a D and D game and I think this is why it resonated so
19:00
well with people who played the game at that point which was they were seeing
19:07
their type of storytelling being published with these characters and establishing that this is how like
19:15
events occur. This is how stories unravel. Uh it was Yeah, it kind of does have a similar sensation to that bit where you start
19:22
off playing and you you do like one or two shot adventures that are like just you know go dare do this sort of thing.
19:30
uh maybe prepare for something bad at the end. And then as it broadens out, by the end of the book, you've basically
19:36
seen them go and confront a force of like we still don't even really know exactly what the thing was.
19:43
Um the crystal shard is of the book's title, it's never entirely clear if it's
19:49
a god, if it's a demon of some sort or a devil. Uh is it a magical artifact? It's
19:54
like a s. We know it's a sapient crystal, but we don't know how it got there or what made it. We know that like
20:02
lots of people have wanted to use it, including some pretty bad people that are going to be coming up. Um,
20:09
basically, we should talk a little bit about Car Cassell. Uh, because Carassell is essentially the simultaneously the
20:15
villain of the book and also the most pitiable character in the book. um in that he is a pretty much
20:21
he is a he wanted to be a wizard and he is barely adequate at it and it should be noted that he was an
20:28
apprentice of Morai the red a red wizard which at the time is incredibly bad if you've seen the D and
20:34
D movie red wizards are bad red wizards of the are the worst people imaginable um they they're so bad that
20:40
the arch lies Tom who lives amongst them and is one of them is only moderately
20:46
the worst like there's worse ones than him and He is again a lich who who is quite quite quite quite experienced in
20:53
necromancy and doing bad things with it. Um but Cassell, you know, his his mentor
20:59
basically is like just die. You're useless to me. I I don't I can do I need someone who can actually do things. and
21:07
the when when left to die in the spine of the world mountains which is this enormous ridge of mountains I believe to
21:12
the north of Icewindendale and the others members of the 10 towns uh it's like practically impassible it's
21:19
one of the reasons the barbarians don't come down very often because it's real hard to get through these mountains left
21:24
to die there Cassell is pretty much doomed until he essentially trips over
21:30
this this crystal shard uh which again his name is Christina I can't never say this Is it crocinabon?
21:38
I believe Shinabibon. Yep. Yeah. It's kind of like Cinnabon but
21:43
even more evil. Um the crystal shard does all sorts of weird stuff. It's basically like it's a wishing rock
21:50
almost kind of. Yeah. Like it infuses him with a lot of great power. It is while it is a sentient uh a sentient thing. Um it
21:58
gives him a lot of power and allows him to do things like uh amass a rather large army. And stop me if you've heard
22:05
this one before. U an army of goblins uh with orcs and ogres and giants uh that
22:11
are at his beck and call and which he uses to build a large tower. Sound familiar?
22:18
Little little there. Doesn't he use the uh like he actually the tower is a it's a it's a replica of
22:25
Crescendaban just enormous. Correct. Yes. It's like a gigantic version of Kinabon. They have to build it, but he uses
22:31
Christian's power to shape it into the thing it becomes. Um, and it also allows him to have a it
22:37
sorry, it also allows him to have a uh a partnership, I guess we'll put it because it's it's tenuous at best with
22:44
uh two, which is a bor. Um, uh, think really really scary.
22:50
Yeah, bors are are not exactly uh friendly folks. Um,
22:55
well, I mean, if you've seen, again, we we mentioned Lord of the Rings before, Wish Miles again. You've seen this the scene in the mine, it's that that
23:02
gigantic thing is avail that's that's pretty much how they're portrayed in Dn D as well. Yeah. I think I think they're called
23:08
like Tari or like uh I think that's like the the most dominant race of demons
23:14
from the from the abyss. Yeah. Like that's Air2 is fun by the way. Air2 is
23:20
fun, but Air2 Air2 wants Crunch Shinaban, wants the power of it, but because Akar Kessle has it, uh, he's
23:28
able to essentially look Air2 eye to eye for at least a while. Yeah. And that part of the thing is
23:35
while this is all going on, uh, the only person who doesn't seem to understand that this is happening is Kessle
23:40
himself. Uh, Creset is infiltrating his mind. It's not as simple as just grabbing control of him. It's just
23:47
warping him. It's making him more greedy, more selfish, more controlobsessed, more power- hungry
23:54
because it has things it wants and none of them are sticking around in the frozen waste of the north, uh,
24:01
conquering a bunch of of little towns. That this is not up to, you know,
24:07
standards, but it's up to Cassell's, by the way. Uh, because I I don't know why, but talking about this, it like
24:13
teleported this into my brain. I remember that the tower was named Cricelle Tyth. Yeah, that that is that's
24:19
right. You are correct. I I don't know why, but that just teleported into my brain right then. Sorry. I had We were talking about the we were
24:25
talking about the uh JKR, you know, the the Tolken Yeah. inspirations, and that's a big one.
24:31
So, you get you get all this you get all this happening. Um there's there's the
24:37
training montage of of young Wolffgar who becomes he goes from being an indentured servant to practically
24:42
Wolffegar's kid. Well, yeah. in in in Wolf in uh Wolfgar Bruno asks uh Drizz specifically to
24:49
train him on at the the time of his servitude being end coming to an end. Um
24:55
and there is a defining moment because I think this is where uh I this is a stereotypical D&D moment but is very
25:02
well I think well received is Wolffgar takes on the task of killing Icing
25:09
Death. Uh, Ingaloo. Wow. Sorry. Ingaloistilian.
25:15
Uh, a gigantic frost uh or white dragon. Uh, that that's his task. That is his um
25:24
his last thing in order to essentially be free of servitude. Um, and he's able
25:29
to do it, but he's also able to do it with the help of Drizz, who uses his D
25:35
magic and his stealth to to help Wolgar essentially survive. and Harry the dragon until the dragon is um and which
25:41
is also where Drizz gets one of his iconic uh sabers from or scimitar uh icing death as so named after the dragon
25:49
itself uh which gives him the ability to become flameroof. This is the birth or the the original like first thing of
25:55
Drizz becoming just this weird overpowered character uh that will come
26:01
back later on throughout the series. Uh yeah, it's it's but at the same time it is also pretty
26:07
familiar if you've ever been playing D and D and you killed a big monster and there's a treasure loot and there's one
26:12
thing that just you we all know who that's for. Mhm. Uh you know, nobody else in this group
26:18
was going to use a scimitar, maybe Catty Bree, but she much prefers bows and arrows. Yeah. So yeah, it was it was definitely going
26:24
to be that. Um so then you get the typical um Akar Cassel decides to go
26:30
conquer the 10 towns and this time there's you know Regis is not able to
26:35
get them all together and hypnotize them into doing his bidding. So um th this
26:40
leads to the group basically coming up with their own defense plan. One of them is that Wolfgar has to take the dragon
26:48
head. Uh I think it's his head. Maybe it's his just his horns. I'm not sure. It's the horns. Um okay. Thank you. and he challenges
26:55
the the guy who was king of his people to a fight and kills him. Um kills the
27:03
guy Heftag Hefag the the elk or something like that. Yeah, he kills him. Um takes the takes
27:10
over uh you know he becomes the king of that tribe and meanwhile Drizz is you
27:18
know knows about demons cuz he's a D. Well, yeah. Specifically, they call it out. This is where like Menzoazon gets
27:25
like fleshed out a little bit because they talk about like Drizz's time as a male drow in Menso,
27:31
which is not a good time. Uh, you are essentially either fodder or a slave.
27:38
Um, but he remembers a lot of the demonic uh interweavingings
27:44
that that people were like would do there. uh which is how he's able to recognize two uh and then is able to
27:52
essentially at this point summon Air2 challenge two uh and then with his uh
27:59
panther companion uh Gwenvar uh and the you know now scimitar icing death
28:05
conveniently allowing him to dispel flames of magic nature that an air might actually summoned uh banishes it back to
28:12
the abyss for 100 years. Yep. And then from there, you basically have the big everyone, you know, they
28:19
now have the new army of barbarians. They've got the original army of dwarves and the people of the 10 towns. Uh
28:25
they've managed to somewhat unite them all together to basically, for lack of a better word, perform a holding action,
28:31
like just keep the goblins and other creatures occupied. They keep the main they keep the evil
28:37
army occupied while the main party lays siege internally to Cresell Tier. Yeah. And um they finally get to him,
28:45
but uh I think the Drizz gets there first because he's real sneaky. Uh but then he gets, you know, Akar
28:52
Castle is not impressed. Basically puts him in a giant cage of magic light because light is not something that D
28:58
loved to be exposed to at this point in time. Um we've we've seen it come and go in terms of how bad it is. In the book,
29:04
it's pretty bad. And finally, Wolffgar leading the barbarians comes in along
29:11
with Regis. And uh Regis basically gets Regis has been held prisoner in the
29:16
tower for this whole time. Um because you know, Akar Castle's like, you know, I don't want the guy with hypnotic gem
29:22
messing with my stuff. And Brunar and Caddyy and Wolgar come in and they're
29:29
finally like fighting him directly. He teleports himself to I think it's I
29:36
don't remember. It's some kind of gigantic mound. Uh Kelvin's Karen. Thank you. I'm really bad on names
29:41
today. I apologize everybody. I'm I'm remembering stuff that I have forgotten because like we're it's it's jogging the memory because I haven't
29:46
read these books in ages. Yeah. But when they they start they start brawling, they end up teleporting
29:52
to this top of this mountain. And then at this part, the magic stone, like the
30:00
crystal shard, it essentially has been trying to kill Castle off this whole
30:05
time cuz like on the one hand, I like having someone to manipulate, but on the other hand, this guy's a So, it
30:11
finally decides to like overheat and melt enough snow to disabilize the snow
30:16
cap so that Kessle is killed in an avalanche. Um, the Crescendabon is
30:22
buried there. it can't get to the light of the sun, which is, oddly enough, it's power sword. Um, it it's like, well, I
30:28
can't control the orcs anymore. And they get away. The orcs leave and the people of
30:34
the people of the 10 towns are like, okay, we've essentially gotten away with everything. except that Bruno got really
30:41
messed up like and doing his fathery tanky thing where he's like, "I can't let them hurt my my son and I can't let
30:47
them hurt my daughter and I can't think too hard about the fact that my son and daughter aren't actually related and and are smooching." um he gets himself
30:55
really badly hurt and as a result of this he gets from Drizz a promise that
31:02
he'll help go to Mithril Hall which is the place where Bruinor and his people
31:09
originally came from. Yeah. His his ancestral hall where he is king or will be king I guess would be the best way.
31:14
That's that's basically the the story. I mean, we bloss out of this, but that's the the first book, The Crystal Shard.
31:21
And the patterns are set uh in this one, but there's also a lot of stuff that's
31:27
just there because nobody had any idea what would land. Like, for lack of a better word, I feel like Regis and
31:33
Bruin, Regis and Bruinor barely get any characterization. um which is when you get into the second
31:39
book which is the the uh streams of silver uh where they are going for the
31:45
myith hall those characters get much more fleshed out including like Reges gets this is where you find out his
31:51
backstory and his uh sort of why he wants to he's so eager to go with the
31:57
party. It's not that he's grateful uh that they rescued him from from Tyth.
32:03
that he's running from Artemis and Terry uh who is sent by Pasha Puk of Kumsham
32:08
to get back the ruby that Ry has stolen. Uh because again it he's a thief. He's
32:14
your your stereotypical halfling rogue at this point. Uh or halfling Yeah. One thing that they that
32:21
them thiefes do is is get people mad because they stole stuff from him. Yeah. And that's really a big part of this.
32:28
Um, but then it also goes into the backstory of, you know, uh, Bruno and
32:35
and the dwarves and why they lost my Rahal. Um, and they get they take a more
32:41
central role and it goes into more in the relationship between
32:46
uh, Katie Brie and Wolffgar and how that blossoms. Uh, it it starts to become
32:53
sort of like that second campaign, right? Um, I we I want to I don't want to we're
32:59
we're going to run out of time if we just recap all of them. So, I kind of want to just go through real quickly
33:05
this and the next one and then kind of talk about how these set the stage because they are important books,
33:10
right? Mhm. Um the basically this one Yeah, this one the second one silver is your big uh I want
33:18
to say if you want to think of it as the middle arc and if you were if you use a D and D campaign to model it, the first
33:25
book is basically levels one to five. You start getting strong, you start getting magic goodies, you start, you
33:32
know, you hold up and by the end there's an actual real serious looming threat that you you manage to defeat. streams
33:39
of silver is basically five to 10. Uh you're strong now and you can finally go up after that business that you wanted
33:45
to deal with, but at the same time there's more character stuff. Caddyy Brie gets a whole arc where Artemis and
33:52
Terry, you know, goes up against her. And it's kind of interesting that in this book, initially she she ends up
33:58
showing fear and tells him what he wants to know, but then she's like, "No, I can't believe I did that." and has an
34:06
arc where she basically is turns herself into the warrior that she needs to be in future books. So, that's cool. And it
34:14
comes up again later, much later, a different book series even. Uh, but but she does have an arc against Terry and
34:20
Terry is Drizz's dark reflection, which is ironic because he is of the two, he is the the paler by a lot. But the two
34:27
of them are very similar in a lot of ways, even though they're also very different in a lot of ways. This happens to a lot. reminded me sometimes I talk
34:33
about Jarl Axel. Uh but in this book that's the the Anterry originally is
34:40
just coming to kill Regis if at all possible and get the gem back. That's all he's there for. Uh he doesn't become
34:46
Drizz's enemy until the end of the book because of what happens in the book. But
34:51
basically other than that the story is going to Myithil Hall fighting the giant shadow dragon whose name I am not going
34:58
to be able to remember. Shimmergloom. Um Shimmergloom. Thank you. and he was in charge of
35:03
dealing with the fact Yeah. and also dealing with the fact that there's a lot of prejudice towards
35:10
D that Drizz has to deal with and they the rest of the group has to deal with because Drizz's with them.
35:17
So you see that like in Silver Moon this bit. Um but Catty Bree I think her her
35:24
story is the most outright just a it's a the hero's journey type thing. Yeah. She goes from call youth to actual
35:31
seasoned warrior. Yeah. Because I that that's really one of the the the things like she she steps up at the end of the book, right? So,
35:37
uh, she is the one that winds up making plans, uh, to like work with, uh, the dwarves
35:45
of Citadel Adbar, work with the, uh, barbarians of Wolffgar's tribe, uh, to
35:52
make a like an actual battle plan to retake Mithil Hall, which has been
35:57
overrun by Dwar under the the command of Shimmergloom. Um, like she's the one
36:04
that is the rallying force. She's the one that takes command and she is very much in this moment a dwarf general uh
36:11
in applying all of the things that her adopted father had taught her. And
36:16
that's where the story of the book closes out um with them her setting that
36:22
story in motion. Uh but then also Drizz and Wolffgar beginning their chase uh to
36:28
rescue Regis from Anti uh which then leads us into the third and final book
36:33
of the original trilogy uh the halfling's gem. So yeah, and one thing I should mention is
36:39
the book ends where you think it's going to end. Uh although and Terry steals Regis, but Clan Battlehammer reclaims
36:45
the hall. Bruinor is now officially king. It's pretty obvious that while he is officially king, Catty is the one
36:52
doing all the work uh in terms of like getting everything set up. Like she's making all the arrangements because she
36:58
serves both as a liaison to the barbarians that serve Wolffgar and the dwarves that serve Bruinor. But she's
37:05
the one actually giving both groups orders because Drizz and Wolgar have left. They are
37:10
straight up they're trying to go chase Regis down. Although I at book two you are left
37:15
thinking that Bruno is dead. I I should point that out. Yes, that's true. That's true. It's the beginning of book three where
37:22
you find out that he is not dead. Um but yeah, like it's and book three is sort
37:27
of like it the main the main crux of it is this chase. It's this uh and Terry
37:34
playing a game of cat and mouse with Drizz and Wolffgar. um and taking him to Calport
37:41
uh where Rigus is being held captive but also Drizz's partner Gwenavar uh the
37:47
panther I think she's a panther I can never remember she is a panther she is a black panther because she's a a statue of figurine of
37:54
wondous power which means that she doesn't always there but she can be summoned for like a
38:00
certain amount of time uh every so often. Yeah. So he doesn't have her with her constantly but she's always with him
38:06
like her presence. Yeah. And it's there's a lot of culminating moments here. Um it's I'm
38:13
trying to think how to phrase this because there's there's so much that happen. Um but it it it ends where you
38:18
think it would end here as they each character has like sort of their massive arc. Uh with all the heroes arriving in
38:24
Calport, they storm into Pasha Puk's palace. Uh they find a pack of were rats
38:30
which wear wolves in D and D second edition were extraordinarily rare but
38:35
there were other lyanthropes. There were actually a lot of other lyanthropes like were rats um and they were awful and uh
38:43
this was no exception. Yeah, were rats are terrifyingly awful in D and D. Uh, and these were rats were
38:49
read were led by uh, if I remember correctly, uh, Racider, which I remember looking at it and going, "Wow, they just
38:55
couldn't think of a name for this one." Um, I thought it was a reference to the great mouse detective to be of something
39:01
wrong with you. I also thought it was too. Um, but then you have Bruter, Brunor, Katy Bree, and
39:07
Wolgar showing up to fight the horde of were rats while uh, Drizz finally gets to duel Artemis and Terry, which is sort
39:13
of like this heroic moment. Uh they duel in the sewers of the streets of Calport. Uh but the duel is left unfinished when
39:19
Anterry, mortally wounded, uh in an effort to escape, calls to everyone that Drizz, who had been hiding his
39:25
appearance uh with a magical uh mask uh that he had acquired earlier, is
39:31
actually a D. Um which then starts to freak everybody out. This goes back to what Matt was talking about with that
39:36
whole dealing with the prejudice of of being a D. Uh, and then basically they
39:42
the rest of the party has to drop what they're doing to rescue Drizz from the very frightened and very angry crowd of
39:48
people. Um, it cuz mind keep in mind too um, Drow aren't hated just because people don't
39:55
like the color of their skin. Drow are hated because they worship LOL. Actively actively uh, kidnap people,
40:02
women, children. Uh, experiment on sacrifice the spider monsters like
40:08
Yeah. Yeah. use them for dark magic is it is not an unfounded hate. Um and Drizz is
40:13
not like the other drown. I'm air quoting that. Uh but the vast majority of them are. Um this all culminates with
40:19
them breaking into the throne room of uh where uh Puke imprisons Drizz and his friends uh and Tardus with the help of
40:26
uh the Taros scoop, I believe is what it is. Uh it was an artifact. You remember it was like a big Yeah. big ringy thing.
40:32
Yeah, it was an artifact straight from the D and D second edition books. um if I remember correctly, that would be
40:38
basically be able to send people to essentially one of the layers of hell. Um and this is where Regus has his big
40:44
heroic moment. Uh he takes the one that controls the portal uh to break them out essentially. Uh and that's where and
40:51
Katy Bree winds up find falling unconscious. Um like a whole bunch of like weird stuff happens. Drizz uh sends
40:59
uh basically rescues Katy Brie uh by fighting against a horde of demons. Uh
41:05
and then in the end, Pashauk dies by uh Gwennavar who gets freed from his
41:10
clutches and command. Um everybody gets united once again. Uh the soldiers in the surrounding dwarven kingdom, the
41:16
dwar the barbarian tribes and the human cities reclaim Mithil Hall. Uh and everything turns out well. Uh but of
41:24
course at this point, Antar is not dead. uh because he escaped in the big uh
41:30
kurfuffle that happens uh and it plants his vengeance on Drizz uh which is
41:35
yeah he doesn't like having he he had a job and whilst he did the job in that he got Regis to um Kumshan he does not like
41:43
the idea that he can be bulked uh so now it's a personal thing now it's you hurt my reputation uh and you actually stood
41:51
up to me in a fight neither of those are things I can forgive so I will be coming back to kill you later. Um, but first I
41:59
want to ruin your life to be fair, you know. So that's that's how the book essentially ends. It's like it sets up
42:06
the the next, you know, next appearances of Drizz in various other books. Um,
42:11
what's really messed up though is that each of these books, especially the first two, you don't feel like the third
42:17
book actually ever has to happen. Like the next book always feels like it might not you might never hear or see for
42:23
these capability. definitely is a case where I don't think they knew what they had. Uh Joe, you mentioned that that this one
42:29
it was the third one that made the best seller list. Yeah. Which is a big deal because I think only before that only only the uh Dragon
42:36
Lance books had done that for the D and D brand if I'm not not mistaken. I think so. It's been it's been a while.
42:43
Um but like it was very rare for anything extremely fantasy related uh to
42:50
make it to the New York Times bestseller list. Uh so it was kind of a huge deal when the third book of this uh
42:58
essentially got onto there, but it it did a lot more because uh it opened the
43:03
doorway for a lot of people. And one of the criticisms that was levied against
43:09
this, and I think it's not unfounded, is that the Icewindendale trilogy borrows
43:14
fairly heavily from Tolken-esque lore and a lot of Tolken-esque storytelling and a lot of the story beats that happen
43:20
in in The Fellowship of the Ring. um there are a lot of crossovers, there are a lot of of weird uh similar moments,
43:28
but that also is very endemic of D and D at the time, right? It's very much the
43:33
people who were playing D and During that time frame were very much fans of of Tolken, at least in some capacity. Uh
43:40
it is very rare for somebody who was playing Dungeons and Dragons to not have read any of the Tolken books or not be
43:46
aware of Tolken's contribution to modern fantasy at the time. And even if they
43:51
weren't, even if somehow someone playing didn't, the people who created the game absolutely did and they meant it.
43:57
Yeah. 100%. And go like the the idea of the third book hitting the New York
44:02
Times bestsellers list did something important in the 80s that I remember uh
44:10
barely. I was still like a young child uh or no, it was 1990 uh when the last
44:15
book was I think published. Um, it opened up a doorway for people that had
44:21
potentially never read or been interested in fantasy before to see this
44:26
novel show up on the New York Times bestseller list because at the time frame when something hit the bestseller
44:32
list, it was also front and center in every bookstore, right? Every chain bookstore, every
44:39
major bookstore had an entire section at the very front of the store with the New York Times bestsellers. And people would
44:46
oftentimes pick up those books because they were very front and center. And the internet didn't really exist like it
44:52
does today. You couldn't just look up a bunch of reviews. You couldn't just, you know, go and and read samples online
44:59
uh and like watch a YouTube video that that explained to you why you should or should not like this this book. Instead,
45:06
you were greeted by this and in a space that was dominated by like spy thrillers
45:11
and war novels and um science fiction novels which were were relatively
45:18
popular at the time. Um maybe not so much as it is today but very still very popular especially at the end of the the
45:24
80s moving into the '9s. um these fantasy novels became front and center and it also started doing
45:31
something very important which was it also introduced people to tangential fantasy stories. So let's say you didn't
45:39
know that Tolken existed. This was often put on tables or in the same facing of
45:45
these these places with the fellowship uh trilogy as well as the Hobbit. So, if
45:51
you picked this up because you saw it on the New York Times bestsellers list and you liked it, you'd go back and you pick
45:57
those up potentially. Again, keep in mind this is all happening in a world where the internet did not really exist.
46:04
Um, it became very important to sort of the '9s, I want to say, takeover of
46:11
fantasy because not only did the ice the Icewindendale trilogy books happen, but the writers of Crin, the the Dragon
46:17
Lance uh novels uh happened. Um, and those were very important like court
46:23
intrigue and adventure novels that dealt with a lot of high fantasy concepts. Go ahead, Matt.
46:29
I also remember the uh Ravenloft novels were pretty big at the time. Yeah. And a lot of people that you'd
46:34
later on see writing like lore for the vampire books cut their teeth on the
46:40
Ravenloft novels um at least three times to the point where much much later after
46:46
2000 Whitewolf actually paid Wizards of the Coast for a licensing fee so they
46:52
could make their own Raven, you know, Raven Loft book. Mhm. Uh the straight up the circle came
46:59
around again. So yeah, there's that that period of expansion in a real in a very
47:04
real way. Uh the the crystal shard and it's the two other books in the Icewind
47:10
Dale series was kind of like the standard bearer for this. It was like it
47:15
it was pretty it was really approachable. Unlike a lot of the other books set in the Forgotten Realms, it
47:22
didn't really require you to know much of anything about the Forgotten Realms. Like you just kind of had to know this
47:28
these fishing villages lived in the north and bad stuff keeps happening. Yeah. And and and we should have like
47:34
the Forgotten Realms being the campaign setting from what is it like 87 to like
47:39
2000 somewhere in that range. That was like the setting. Maybe even maybe even a little before that, but it was definitely by the time
47:45
these books came out, it was absolutely the the main thing. Yeah. it it was created by Ed Greenwood
47:51
and and this is where some of the importance also filters into it because these books play a key point in sort of coalesing this. Um I think in the60s Ed
47:59
Greenwood really started putting this setting together. Um and it was a series of magazine articles originally that
48:05
were released uh first and then the first real game product was in 1987
48:11
before this series of novels was released and before other ones set in Forgotten Realms were released. Uh,
48:17
Forgotten Realms included a bunch of uh, like these stories helped shape what the
48:22
Forgotten Realms would become in like including the island chains, making the Icewindendale uh, setting like a place
48:29
that you could actually go and dealing outside of just the normal sword coast. And the success of the the Icewindendale
48:36
trilogy sort of allowed them to flesh out these stories is where you get to the uh, the Desert Lands cuz even the
48:43
novels talk about the Desert Lands a little bit. Um it it familiarizes people
48:48
with the concept of the and the red wizards. Um, it brings you introduction to Meno Barberon and the Underdark in
48:56
general, which while players may have known about it, even in D and D second edition terms, the Underdark was this uh
49:03
umbraesque, this this ethereal, very dangerous place that if you wound
49:09
up going to, you either had to be an extremely powerful uh adventurer to survive, or it was some place that you
49:16
went expecting that you were not coming back. Uh, this gave it more life. it wasn't just a series of tunnels anymore.
49:22
Uh, and it really started solidifying that the the Forgotten Realms was a a
49:28
cohesive place. And these stories and these characters you'll see pop up
49:34
repeatedly throughout the entire history of not just the novels and not just the game publication, but also with the
49:42
video games that were released in set inside of the D&D setting. um like Pool
49:48
of Radiance makes makes uh reference to him. Eye of the Beholder makes reference to him. Icewind Dale had its own game in
49:54
2000 as well as Neverwinter Knights. Balders's Gate, a game that I know many of you have played cuz you've played
50:00
Balders's Gate 3. But Balders's Gate 1 and two wouldn't exist without these
50:07
novels and without the Forgotten Realms being solidified as like the D&D
50:12
campaign place. Um, these were incredibly important to it. These were also very informative or or I shouldn't
50:19
say informative, very formative books for a lot of young writers that would then grow up to pen other like novels
50:27
set inside of this. But it made it did a lot to legitimize gaming as a mainstream
50:34
thing. And Matt and I uh Matt more than I lived through what we call the satanic
50:42
panic. Uh, I was still very young at that point. Um, and I wasn't exactly a fossil. I I was a
50:48
teenager. You were a teenager, but you were you you have more of a I was still like a
50:53
child. Yeah. I've got a straight up I've got a quick story I can tell about it actually cuz
50:58
they um used to have like a a there was a man who created trackcts. Uh we called
51:05
him Chick tracks because his name was Jack Jack. At least he said he was. We're not going to go into whole detail about that, but there was a group of of
51:11
concerned parents that would bring them to school and pass them out to the kids
51:17
and try to uh get, you know, the school board and so forth to, you know, ban Dn
51:23
D from schools, which wasn't really hard. They didn't have to do because there weren't enough of us who wanted to
51:28
play it to make it a real problem. But I remember as I'm leaving school and I at the time I was I was a very slight
51:36
child. I was very skinny. very often someone would call me uh you know her or she or girl because I I seriously if you
51:43
see me now you would have no idea that I ever looked like this. Um but at the time I was like 13 14 I was often
51:49
confused for a girl. Very long hair very very skinny. Some a woman comes to me and goes you know excuse me little girl and I'm you know already this puts a
51:56
spike up me because you know teenage boy doesn't want to be called little girl. Um, she starts explaining to me how bad
52:03
this Dungeons and Dragons stuff is. And she shows me the tract and I'm reading through it and I go, "Man, there's no
52:10
way you can use the spells in in the players handbook like this. I don't have any back guano. Do you have any back
52:16
guano? Where am I going to get back guano?" And like there's a five minute thing of me driving this poor woman into
52:22
like paroxes of horror saying glass rods. I don't where do I even find one? The hardware store? Do I buy a dowel?
52:28
what am I looking for? Before her um other compatriots came and rescued her from the outraged
52:35
girl quotes um that was just would was very mad that these were inaccurate trackcts. Uh so that's my Jack Chick
52:43
story. But yes, it was all over the place. There were they made movies about it. Yeah.
52:48
Like Mazes and Monsters. It just was everywhere. The the reason I bring it up is is not necessarily just to uh
52:54
highlight that yes, this was dangerous or or that people were were feeling this way. It was more it started to
53:00
legitimize it, right? It started to push this into the hands of people that had
53:06
dismissed it as by buying into the Chick track or by buying into the propaganda
53:11
about it where these are somebody told you about it. Yeah. someone tells you that it it it was
53:17
definitely a time before people could just grab it and because it was hard to find these books. It was
53:22
they weren't they weren't like in you know Walden Books didn't carry them until much later. Uh you you basically had to go to a hobby store and hope that
53:30
they carried them or could get them delivered or what have you or you had to order them from the back of a Dragon or Dungeon magazine because
53:37
they were doing direct mail order at the time. Yeah. But but if you got Dragon or Dungeon magazine already, had access to
53:44
it, then you probably already knew where to get it. It It's one of those things. But uh but Joe's completely right about
53:50
the legitimization. These books made it so that people were reading these things. Like they would read it not knowing that
53:56
it was a D and D book, right? Like is it wasn't presented as it was a Dungeons and Dragons book. It was presented as,
54:02
you know, a TSR publication, but they didn't know who TSR was. and it was Forgotten Realms, this big logo at the
54:09
top. Uh, but like they just thought that that was like an overarching like title
54:15
for it. Like Forgotten Realms was the book series and this was a subtitle within that book series, right? So they
54:21
would read this and then they'd come back to it and be like, "Well, this isn't" and then they they would
54:27
eventually get to the the part where it would talk about like at the back of the books, it would talk about ordering the
54:32
D and D like Forgotten Realms campaign setting or what book was coming out next
54:38
or what box set was coming out next because that was the thing that they would do is they would advertise in the actual publication at the end of it and
54:44
they would see this and they be like, I just read a Dungeons and Dragons book. This isn't about summoning demons at
54:49
all. And it would open that up to him and and sort of like helped pave a wave
54:56
of of normalization for this and it started to make it more acceptable for
55:02
an older generation for to look at the younger generation that was playing this game. Like I will literally like Matt
55:08
had his story about the Chick tracks. I remember being in grade school and in
55:14
wanting to read this book and the librarian at the school at the time like
55:19
was very staunchly against Dungeons and Dragons. She was very much on this this
55:25
is like the devil's worshiping type stuff, but she didn't know this was D and D. And then when I I asked them to
55:32
order it in for me, cuz you could do that at the time through public schools, uh they got it in. She would read
55:38
whatever books were special ordered. She didn't know until she got to the end that it was a Dungeons and Dragons book.
55:45
She actually when I got my hands on it, she was like, "This wasn't what I thought it was." And she's like, "You
55:52
guys don't do anything bad. Like, you just pretend to be adventurers that go
55:58
around saving the world." Like, "Yeah, that's that's what we want to do." And she's like, "So there's nothing like
56:04
you're not casting spells or doing anything like it's literally you're pretending to be a dwarf or an elf or or
56:10
a barbarian." Yep. That's pretty much it. Blew her mind. Absolutely blew her
56:15
mind. Uh but also caused her to drop this concept of it being something that
56:21
was purely demonic. And in my case, my mother was already kind
56:27
of into it just cuz she liked tweaking people off. But she sat down and read one of them. I think it was the the uh
56:32
players handbook and she was like, "This is just math. It's just math. I can't even believe you like this. You
56:38
hate doing math." I'm like, "Well, I hate doing math for no reason. I'm fine with it when I have a reason to do it."
56:43
So, yeah, in a lot of ways, these books were the reason people felt safe to talk
56:51
openly about the fact that they like D and D. And then from these books spawned an entire I don't want to say an entire
56:58
machine, but it really is like we talked about earlier about Drizz appearing in 17 novels. Um, but then you also have
57:05
other stuff like RA Salvatore went on to create entire worlds. Uh, Matt, one of Matt's favorite video games, the entire
57:13
like world bible for it was created by RA Salvatore. Kingdoms of would not have
57:19
existed if RA Salvatore did not have successful novels in the8s. Yep. And you
57:24
know, straight up, those are some of my favorite. That's my favorite video game. Not my favorite, but it's certainly up
57:29
there. If I was making a list, it would always be in the top four. Yeah, it is. It is. It cannot be overstated how
57:37
important these novels were, but nobody knew how important they would become.
57:42
And again, they're not they're not the greatest literature that's ever been written. And yes, there are certain
57:48
things that are derivative in them as are many things. But yeah, but at the same time, they do have
57:53
a sense of that tongue being in the cheek. They do. The book knows what it's doing. It it's not there's nothing about this book that
58:00
is ignorant of the fact that Tolken is everywhere. Uh it's like the old statement if you
58:06
write about if you write about write literature in the south um you're going to always have the you know you know
58:13
you're going to always have Falner in the background. He is the mountain and you everyone writes around him. Tolken
58:18
is to this book that Tolken is the giant crystal shard sticking up and everybody
58:25
everything is reflected from it and it just it knows it and it's fine with it. Um at least if nothing else it's it's
58:32
more concise. Uh you know and I don't know I I have a soft spot for these books. I think they
58:37
are they're not great literature. They're not even always well written. But I I came on upon them at a time when
58:45
getting reading material was pretty hard for a lot of reasons and I managed to sneak these ones in through the the
58:50
blockade and I enjoyed them. Yeah. And and the same thing, right?
58:55
like and I will say that while Dragon Lance existed before it um with uh the
59:01
Hickman's uh and it was definitely you know it it was one of the first things
59:06
to ever be published under the Dungeons and Dragons novel um banner. It was a
59:12
hard slog and people it never made it to the New York Times bestseller at least not until much later. Um, so this
59:20
breaking that barrier, this becoming so easily digestible let people go back and
59:25
read those and maybe find Regulance for the first time. Um, and then it also pushed forward because in the '9s and
59:32
and late '8s, Mad Max was very popular, at least here if for me in my youth, I
59:38
remember it being very popular and Dark Sun was something that also existed and had books published for it, which we
59:44
haven't talked about. Um, but that wouldn't have had a chance to flourish
59:50
had this novel not sort of like crashed through that barrier and made it normal.
59:57
We wouldn't have had D and D third edition. We wouldn't have D and D fifth edition. Critical role potentially may
1:00:03
not have existed if this novel didn't break that barrier. This this the the the like the set of writings. if Ed
1:00:11
Greenwood's world and and the writing of Ari Salvatore didn't help begin that process of normalization bringing it to
1:00:18
a mainstream out of the basement and into the light out of Menso Barazon and into the day the surface world so to
1:00:24
speak um we wouldn't have the rich tapestry of fantasy that we have now a
1:00:30
lot of other games may not have existed because Dungeons and Dragons may have at one point and and I don't know I'm not
1:00:39
saying this hyperbolically cuz I don't know the numbers, but without it becoming mainstream, there was a very
1:00:44
real chance of it sort of fading away to nothingness or obscurity
1:00:51
more so than it already was because again, it was it was relegated to hushed rooms and basement and dark, you know,
1:00:57
like embarrassment almost because people were hiding it because they didn't want to be beaten up.
1:01:02
They didn't want to be they didn't want to be called demon summoners or or or evildoers or Satan worshippers. And
1:01:09
also, I mean, we talked before at other places about how most uh tabletop role
1:01:15
playing games come from wargaming. Wargaming is not something that is
1:01:21
widely spread out. It is not something everybody does. It's a whalesoriented
1:01:26
hobby. Even Yeah. Yeah. even the old school stuff is I have the money to buy all these
1:01:32
miniatures of Napoleonic figures and paint them to so I can do my battle of
1:01:38
Leipzig again. Uh so going from that to
1:01:43
where Dn D is now, I mean there's so many choke points where without the
1:01:48
popularity of stuff like uh the the the Icewind Dale trilogy, you just don't
1:01:54
even have D and D anymore. Mhm. like D and D. I mean, thanks to um
1:02:01
somebody thinking that Buck Rogers in the 21st century was the the IP to go
1:02:06
all in on because she was descended from the guy who wrote it, uh TSR folded. And
1:02:13
if that hadn't happened, if there hadn't been enough interest in them to to have Wizards of the Coast come along and buy
1:02:19
them out with their Magic the Gathering money, that would have been it. There wouldn't have be been D and D. Would there have been other games? Sure. But
1:02:25
there wouldn't be D and D. Yeah. And in a real very real way, books like this made it possible for the hobby to
1:02:32
survive. With that, folks, I think that's a good way for us to end this episode. I do want to thank you for joining us. And as
1:02:38
a reminder, uh, Blizzard is made possible due to your generous contributions at patreon.com/bizzardwatch.
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1:03:03
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1:03:10
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1:03:27
actually asking for an episode about the Icewendale trilogy. Um, so we love it when you do that. We will do
1:03:33
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We'll see you next week.
#Books & Literature
#Roleplaying Games