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But I'm the kind of guy who spent some time thinking about how to replace the term arabesque in Legacy of Fire flavor text. I might just be too picky.
Samnell, please don't be offended, this IS NOT to offend, but to enlight; but at least in this particular example is NOT "too picky" but ignorance about the word arabesque, the word exist well beyond it was translated to english for the first time.
about Drizzt... I haven't read a thing about him so I can give an oppinion except that once I created a character called "Drizzt Duarte" just to jab a friend about his favorite character... one of those rabid fanboys :P ohh how he hated my rogue/cleric of trickery :D
beyond that... I admit I enjoyed quite much Clone Wars novelization by Salvatore... great sword battles... I still need to reclaim it from a friend's claws half a country away... I give it for lost
But I'm the kind of guy who spent some time thinking about how to replace the term arabesque in Legacy of Fire flavor text. I might just be too picky.Samnell, please don't be offended, this IS NOT to offend, but to enlight; but at least in this particular example is NOT "too picky" but ignorance about the word arabesque, the word exist well beyond it was translated to english for the first time.
I think I'm missing your point. I skimmed the article and so far as I can tell it's practically a summary of my reasoning not to use the term. It includes a reference to a real-world group that doesn't exist in Golarion. I don't mind that the artform exists, but that's not what I would call it in the flavor text since to me it sounds like a fantasy character holding forth about crime in Detroit or how he's having trouble with his webserver. It takes me out of the work.
I know it's not possible to root out every real-world reference (we'd run out of language really quick) but this sort of thing is especially grating to me. So I try to think up alternative terms.
Because that rat fink, stole my gimmick, you know the angsty misunderstood drow scout... He even mimmicked my name, his real name is Elvindorious Finklstien, and what about those stupid names he gave his swords, trying to copy the names of my twin blades of hurtiness "Sparkle" and "Icingcake". Puh-leez.
I still cant believe he named a sword Twinkle.What's wrong with Twinkle? If it fits with the description of how the sword catches the light, I don't see a problem with it. It's not that Drizzt has to give his swords super macho names to prove his manliness after all. At least it's not like that protagonist in another novel who after getting this great sword enchanted for him named it.... "Floyd".
Icingdeath at least makes sense given both the blade's powers and how he got it.
Its not that the name does not bask the sword in manliness. It just seems that it definitely bask it in nontoughness even though me knowing Drizzt is a skilled warrior and the sword is powerful refutes that notion. The sword does not have to be called cleaver of death, but twinkle, I can't really explain it.
You name your sword "Twinkle," you're just BEGGING for the bigger kids to beat you up and steal your lunch money.
Now "Graywand," there's a name! (or "Grayswandir," if you're trying to be sophisticated, and slip in an homage without too many people noticing) -- or "Blackwand," if you sacrifice whole villages to the Demon Goddess. "Lady Vivamus" is good if your nickname is 'Scar,' or "Durendal" if you're a Dane. "Stormbringer" is even OK, if you're a bit emo. "Shieldbreaker" is alright if you dislike guys named Doon. And "Irving" is of course the epitome of sword names.
But no one, and I mean no one, names a sword "Twinkle"... or puts ketchup on a hot dog.
Now "Graywand," there's a name! (or "Grayswandir," if you're trying to be sophisticated, and slip in an homage without too many people noticing) -- or "Blackwand," if you sacrifice whole villages to the Demon Goddess. "Lady Vivamus" is good if your nickname is 'Scar,' or "Durendal" if you're a Dane. "Stormbringer" is even OK, if you're a bit emo. "Shieldbreaker" is alright if you dislike guys named Doon. And "Irving" is of course the epitome of sword names.
And, let us not forget >Daubendiek<
A billion mad internet pointz, and a super grognard award, to anyone who caught all nine of those references.
I did not catch them all. But, I'm not a big nerd like you, so you win Mr. Gersen... you win.
I love Drizzt. I'll just say it. I read the books when I first started playing D&D and getting involved in the fantasy genre (after Tolkien of course). The Dark Elf Trilogy was really inspiring to my 14 year-old brain and I've read every novel since then.
I will be the first to admit, however, that the appeal has waned over the years. Drizzt is simply too good now, so good that his only conflict comes from being so good all the time. I think a lot of this has to do with Salvatore's boredom with the character after 20+ years. You can see this especially in The Hunter's Blades Trilogy. It seemed like 90% of that novel was really about the dwarves and the rest of the Companions of the Hall (or is it Company?) while Drizzt was barely a footnote.
During those novels the Companions are fighting the entire army while Drizzt just wanders around and fights roaming bands of orcs, doing absolutely nothing to sway the battle one way or the other. There's a moment when I thought he might develop an interesting relationship with an elf companion but that didn't go anywhere.
Basically I feel the character needs a revival. In this case I think the 100 year shift in the timeline and the death of all the Companions could be a good thing. I want to see a wandering Drizzt like from the old days, meeting new friends and going on crazy adventures again. I also think some extended time with the surface elves would help whittle out some of that pent-up angst he's carrying. I'm really hoping to see the tip of this when The Ghost King comes out.
You name your sword "Twinkle," you're just BEGGING for the bigger kids to beat you up and steal your lunch money.
Now "Graywand," there's a name! (or "Grayswandir," if you're trying to be sophisticated, and slip in an homage without too many people noticing) -- or "Blackwand," if you sacrifice whole villages to the Demon Goddess. "Lady Vivamus" is good if your nickname is 'Scar,' or "Durendal" if you're a Dane. "Stormbringer" is even OK, if you're a bit emo. "Shieldbreaker" is alright if you dislike guys named Doon. And "Irving" is of course the epitome of sword names.
Missed Blackwand and Shieldbreaker. I recognized all the others. Especially Irving, the magic sword that's probably going to be inherited by... Irving.
Missed Blackwand and Shieldbreaker. I recognized all the others. Especially Irving, the magic sword that's probably going to be inherited by... Irving.
I have to admit that I cheated a bit. Blackwand is from Steven Brust's "Vlad Taltos" novels -- Steve is something of an acolyte of Roger Zelazny (he flat turned down an offer to write the Amber prequels, because "Roger said he didn't want anyone else writing Amber stories"), and he also loves Dumas and Robert B Parker and is insanely talented himself, so I had to give him a call out. Shieldbreaker is from Fred Saberhagen's "Swords" books.
And "ketchup on a hot dog" is of course a Dirty Harry reference, dating me more precisely than any amount of 1e trivia possibly could.
Hmmmm.... I think I got all of them except Irving. So I googled it. :P Sadly, the only thing that came up was some guy opening a chat thread somewhere about "legendary swords". His examples were Excalibur, "the sword wielded by Lion-O on Thundercats", Sting and Irving, which had seen in "a funny book" somewhere. So I still don't know where Irving comes from...
Oh, and as much as Drizzt sucks, Bruenor Battlehammer is far worse.
Hmmmm.... I think I got all of them except Irving.
Jack Chalker, "Dancing Gods" series. (His "Rings of the Master" and "Four Lords of the Diamond" were SciFi classics, and And The Devil Will Drag You Under is something of a Sci-Fi/Fantasy "must-read.") The "Dancing Gods" books, while a spoof on the fantasy genre, nevertheless approached being a great fantasy series themselves, much in the way that Trevanian's The Eiger Sanction became a classic espionage best-seller despite being a blatant spoof of James Bond (and it became another Clint Eastwood movie as well, bringing us full circle).
I have to admit that I cheated a bit. Blackwand is from Steven Brust's "Vlad Taltos" novels -- Steve is something of an acolyte of Roger Zelazny (he flat turned down an offer to write the Amber prequels, because "Roger said he didn't want anyone else writing Amber stories"), and he also loves Dumas and Robert B Parker and is insanely talented himself, so I had to give him a call out.
That explains it. Brust's books are on my To Read list when I can get hold of them at the same time as I have spare time.
Shieldbreaker is from Fred Saberhagen's "Swords" books.
Ah. I only ever got hold of the first two of those, and that particular sword didn't stick in memory. The ones I seem to remember were Townsaver, Dragonslayer, Woundhealer, and Sightblinder. They had the fun and unexpected ability to kill gods as well as mortals if memory serves.
Jack Chalker, "Dancing Gods" series.
To add more detail, one of the protagonists of the series was a trucker named Joe who got taken to a fantasy world to save it from a Great Evil. In his training he was rewarded for passing one of his trials with a magic sword. He named it Irving after the son who his ex-wife had taken after they divorced. He never expected to see him again. On a return trip to Earth Joe caught up with Irving the Son and brought him back to the other world. If Irving takes up a swordsman's path he's the one who'll probably inherit Irving the sword.
Salvatore has a few writings ticks that really drive me up the wallOh, here's another thing that irks me about the books. All his Drizzt books (and it hasn't carried over to his Corona books, so it's at least partly bad copy editing at WotC) have the same two misuses of words: "grizzly" for "grisly" and "compliment" for "complement."
That's bad editing, arguably.
That's bad editing, arguably.Salvatore has a few writings ticks that really drive me up the wallOh, here's another thing that irks me about the books. All his Drizzt books (and it hasn't carried over to his Corona books, so it's at least partly bad copy editing at WotC) have the same two misuses of words: "grizzly" for "grisly" and "compliment" for "complement."
Overreliance on spellcheckers maybe.
On the same lines, in one sci-fi book I read by Anne McCaffrey, all references to Deimos, the moon of Mars, apparently got spellcheck 'corrected' to Demos, a placename in a David Eddings book released by the same publisher about the same time.
I think I'm missing your point. I skimmed the article and so far as I can tell it's practically a summary of my reasoning not to use the term. It includes a reference to a real-world group that doesn't exist in Golarion. I don't mind that the artform exists, but that's not what I would call it in the flavor text since to me it sounds like a fantasy character holding forth about crime in Detroit or how he's having trouble with his webserver. It takes me out of the work.
I know it's not possible to root out every real-world reference (we'd run out of language really quick) but this sort of thing is especially grating to me. So I try to think up alternative terms.
yes, i understand that... still your examples are a bit off... if we were talking about science fiction, your examples would be right... the fact is that there is no other WORD to describe the feeling, the geometric forms, the escense... and its a EASY form for the players and GM totake this images and references without having to reinvent it again...
Mairkurion... not every writer is an Oxford teacher in languages :P for god's sake, the man invented 2 languages! and had tons of paper to describe, he wrote as much as he wanted... in LoF they were under a wordcount inventing a new word or describing what "arabesque" tells you with a single word its imposible and innecesary
but they were talking about Drizzt Duarte... i think
The remainder, for people tired of Googling:
(and before that, from the Chanson de Roland, of course).
That's bad editing, arguably.Salvatore has a few writings ticks that really drive me up the wallOh, here's another thing that irks me about the books. All his Drizzt books (and it hasn't carried over to his Corona books, so it's at least partly bad copy editing at WotC) have the same two misuses of words: "grizzly" for "grisly" and "compliment" for "complement."
One instance is bad editing. The same two mistakes appearing over the course of twenty-odd years speaks poorly of both editors and author. (If editors made dumb mistakes that made me cringe in something that bore my name, I'd make darn sure they didn't do it again in the next book.)
Besides, Salavatore lost all pretense to geek cred with me in (I think) The Woods Out Back when he (and/or his editors) didn't know how to spell Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Oh, and as much as Drizzt sucks, Bruenor Battlehammer is far worse.
I disagree. I think dwarves are the only characters Salvatore can write that don't end up making me hate them. They may be stereotypes, but they don't have the never-ending interior monologue and emo tendencies that make all the rest of his characters slowly morph into unbearable narcissistic bores.
Homeland was better than I expected. But after reading the Elric books as a kid, I lost interest in Drizzt when he started internally monologuing about being all alone on his outcast state (while spurning the advances of various hot chicks throwing themselves at him).
I don't really hate Drizzt as much as I hate the comedy relief Svirfneblin with hammer-hands. Ugh.
True story; Rob Salvatore is local (or was, haven't seen him in awhile), and I met him once at a comic shop. He showed me some stuff he'd written (a scene where some Drow priestesses summon up a Glabrezu for ritual naughtiness). I had *no clue* who he was, and my big editorial comment was that he'd spelled Lolth wrong.
Remembering that, I cringe, to this day.
Check out the entry for Catti-brie in your 2nd edition Hall of Heroes, if you've got one. It's *supposedly* written by Salvatore, but the grammar is painful. This is what passes for a sentence; "Stubbornly, and without fear."
I'm surprised that no-one's related the well-known story that RA Salvatore was going to kill off Drizzt in the drow attack on Mithril* Hall in SIEGE OF DARKNESS but TSR threw a major strop and told him that they'd take the character off him and give him to another writer if he did that. That's why there was a long (well, 2-3 years) pause between SIEGE OF DARKNESS and PASSAGE TO DAWN before Salvatore reluctantly came back to write more adventures of Drizzt.
It is clear that from the very lacklustre PASSAGE TO DAWN onwards his heart wasn't really in it and he was only interested in the money. The first nine, however, still work as younger-oriented, readable action/adventure fiction. Not high art, but fast-paced popcorn fun. That has its place in the reading world.
Plus, if you really hate Drizzt you can kill him in the face in BALDUR'S GATE (if you fiddle with one of the .ini files to switch off his invulnerabiliy) and loot his gear, which is sweet.
* No, retconning it to 'Mithral' many years later doesn't mean you suddenly haven't nicked it from Tolkien ;-)
I'm surprised that no-one's related the well-known story that RA Salvatore was going to kill off Drizzt in the drow attack on Mithril* Hall in SIEGE OF DARKNESS but TSR threw a major strop and told him that they'd take the character off him and give him to another writer if he did that.
Sounds like what happens with many authors. Ian Fleming got so sick of Bond that he *did* kill him off in From Russia With Love, only to be harangued into bringing him back. Arthur Conan Doyle apparently also was tired of Holmes when he killed him off, but retconned his death because of fan outcry.
And then there's the opposite, authors who drag their original best-selling character into unrelated novels like Linus' security blanket...
yes, i understand that... still your examples are a bit off... if we were talking about science fiction, your examples would be right... the fact is that there is no other WORD to describe the feeling, the geometric forms, the escense... and its a EASY form for the players and GM totake this images and references without having to reinvent it again...
I don't expect Paizo to create new terms for every real world artform they incorporate into the setting. It's not a complaint against the company at all. (Other things I hate about fantasy worlds: the global (or near to it) Common tongue, all coins are identical, etc) They certainly have better things to do with their word counts than pop out a glossary of ten or twelve words every AP installment.
But since they're writing, editing, balancing and doing all that other stuff that I would be doing were I not using their adventures, I do have the luxury of doing that on command. I can't get everything, but I try to get very obvious ones like arabesque. I figure my players will figure it out on their own, ask, or go "ooooh, exotic!". :)
Oh, and as much as Drizzt sucks, Bruenor Battlehammer is far worse.I disagree. I think dwarves are the only characters Salvatore can write that don't end up making me hate them. They may be stereotypes, but they don't have the never-ending interior monologue and emo tendencies that make all the rest of his characters slowly morph into unbearable narcissistic bores.
Maybe. Pound for pound, Driz'zt is more annoying than Bruenor. But I can just skip Driz'zt's philosophy sub-chapters (if you want to call them that) and zoom ahead to the next bloodbath. RAS is even helpful enough to italicise them, so you're forewarned that lame tripe is coming up. Bruenor, on the other hand, is nought but bad accents and boredom - and he is hard to avoid.
Salvatore has a few writings ticks that really drive me up the wallOh, here's another thing that irks me about the books. All his Drizzt books (and it hasn't carried over to his Corona books, so it's at least partly bad copy editing at WotC) have the same two misuses of words: "grizzly" for "grisly" and "compliment" for "complement."That's really awful. I think I either forgot or didn't get to the point where he was doing that. I had in mind more characters we are supposed to take seriously but are named things like (real example) Pasha Pook. I can understand a certain amount of real world borrowings and the like, and some people just plain aren't good at names, but that just screams an author going "ha-ha, ho-ho, I'm funny!".
But I'm the kind of guy who spent some time thinking about how to replace the term arabesque in Legacy of Fire flavor text. I might just be too picky.
I have to ask, what exactly is wrong with the name Pasha Pook. Pook is certainly a real world surname and there is nothing inherently silly about Pasha that I can see. The Combination is slightly forced, but by the standards of names which start with the same letters it practically rolls of the tongue.
Is it some obscure historicial joke that i am missing?
I have to ask, what exactly is wrong with the name Pasha Pook. Pook is certainly a real world surname and there is nothing inherently silly about Pasha that I can see. The Combination is slightly forced, but by the standards of names which start with the same letters it practically rolls of the tongue.
Is it some obscure historicial joke that i am missing?
The title doesn't bother me. The combination is something I'd expect out of a marginally clever seven year old. Pook alone I would have avoided because even if it's a real world name, and I'd never heard that until now, it sounds like something a toddler did in the corner.
I'm not in love with using real-world surnames in fantasy products anyway, if it can be avoided. Jones the evil overlord is just not going to work.
Ian Fleming got so sick of Bond that he *did* kill him off in From Russia With Love, only to be harangued into bringing him back. Arthur Conan Doyle apparently also was tired of Holmes when he killed him off, but retconned his death because of fan outcry.
Rambo died at the end of the novel "First Blood." The author, David Morrell, agreed to write a second book because he'd foolishly sold the rights, and figured, "Well, if someone's going to bring him back despite my intentions, it ought to be me."
That was my one nit to pick, I could never figure out why Anderson gave Holger (Ogier) Roland's sword when Ogier had a perfectly good sword of his own (Cortana).
Just looked it up in my 1993 reprint, and it's "Cortana" throughout there. So either both of our memories are playing tricks, or else Anderson fixed that (the way he altered quite a bit of The Broken Sword for the 1988 reprint -- which is a pale shadow of the 1954 original).
That was my one nit to pick, I could never figure out why Anderson gave Holger (Ogier) Roland's sword when Ogier had a perfectly good sword of his own (Cortana).Just looked it up in my 1993 reprint, and it's "Cortana" throughout there. So either both of our memories are playing tricks, or else Anderson fixed that (the way he altered quite a bit of The Broken Sword for the 1988 reprint -- which is a pale shadow of the 1954 original).
My copy was a first printing (lost with all of my D&D stuff when I went on "vacation"), so I think maybe my mind IS playing tricks on me. I wish I had it still, it would tell us if there were any later edition shenannigans going on...
Rewinding a few posts, 'Pasha' was a real Ottoman Empire rank. I agree it's not the most original thing to nick it, but you can perhaps blame Ed Greenwood more for the worldbuilding of Calimshan for that than Salvatore. Although the name could have perhaps been a bit more elegant.
OT, but I still have the 2E Menzoberranzan box set, which is pretty cool, although I haven't run it as an adventure (in fact, I don't think I've opened it more than four times; I should check what it's worth on eBay).
Something else that is funny about Drizzt is that he is quite easy to upstage. Salvatore did this himself with Artemis Entreri, who has ended up being as popular as Drizzt (although he's quite dull now as well: the number of times he's had to team up with his arch-nemesis Drizzt to take down some greater foe is ridiculous).
We also can't forget BG, where a possibly partially mentally retarded guy with a curious hamster fixation is ten times more badass than Drizzt could possibly be. Mind you, if he'd gone on to appear in another 37 games of increasing mediocrity, maybe he'd also have gone down the drains. Overexposure, I suspect, is the root of Drizzt's mixed popularity issues. If they'd kept it to the nine or fewer books I suggested earlier, he'd be regarded a lot more fondly today by more people. Same with Boba Fett if his sole appearances had been in ESB and RotJ and that's it.
Rewinding a few posts, 'Pasha' was a real Ottoman Empire rank. I agree it's not the most original thing to nick it, but you can perhaps blame Ed Greenwood more for the worldbuilding of Calimshan for that than Salvatore. Although the name could have perhaps been a bit more elegant.
OT, but I still have the 2E Menzoberranzan box set, which is pretty cool, although I haven't run it as an adventure (in fact, I don't think I've opened it more than four times; I should check what it's worth on eBay).
I don't remember the exact amount, but my wife tried to get me one for my b-day and said "it was too much" if that helps.
Apparently (going by the dozen or so copies on eBay UK) I'd get about £35 for it, or about twice what I paid for it twelve years ago. Which would be more impressive until you factor in inflation, in which case it's value hasn't really improved at all.
I'd probably be better off waiting a few decades. Or running a campaign with it and getting some value out of it :-)
the way he altered quite a bit of The Broken Sword for the 1988 reprint -- which is a pale shadow of the 1954 originalHang on, Salvatore edited an edition of THE BROKEN SWORD?
Isn't that a bit like getting Michael Bay to handle a new edit of CITIZEN KANE?
I always thought that Citzen Kane needed a few more jive-talking robots.