The Gathering Dark: Ice Age Cycle Book I by Jeff Grub

Another victory form Half Priced Books, The Gathering Dark is a Magic the Gathering Novel that kicks off the Ice Age Cycle and is written by Jeff Grub. This falls firmly into what I call the 'popcorn' novels. Note I do not say this with disdain. I've read many of the Magic the Gathering novels and enjoyed quite a few of them. Another factor in this book's favor, is it's Jeff Grubb.

Jeff Grubb should be familiar to you if you've played 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons. Heck, he should be familiar to you if you've played second edition Dungeons and Dragons. I believe he had more than a hand in writing for DC Comics doing an official Dungeons and Dragons comic with a great cast and crew. One of his oldest books I remember reading, and I want to say it was in high school which puts it in the 'dark ages' is Azure Bonds, which is still available in kindle format but no in any dead tree edition.

I am surprised to note though, that many of the Magic the Gathering novels, are out of print, as are many of the Forgotten Realms novels. Good news though if you have 'new' copies of those books is that they are apparently selling for a small fortune, or at least the Magic the Gathering novels are. Sell 'em if you got 'em!

Anyway, The Gathering Dark was purchased for the princely sum of $1 from the spinner rack at Half Priced Books and I've owned it for several years. As time moves on though and I look at my various piles of books and miscellanea, I'm trying to work my way through it and knew that this was probably going to be a quick and enjoyable read as many of Jeff's books are.

And I was right.

This is more or less a coming of age story for Jodah, who at first appears to be little more than a hedge mage with a hedge mage master.  Like many such tales, it includes its share of loss, exploration, character growth, and an open ending that leads to the next book. Note that the material is fairly self contained and Jeff does a good job explaining how the colors of Magic work as well as how mana is pulled. It even reminds me a little of D&D spellcasting in terms of 'losing' memories until they can charge up again.

Among the cast of characters we have those who fall into potential mentors and betrayers, those who are friends and allies, and those who Jodah meets and moves past as his time in certain chapters of his life is blissfully short.

If you're looking for a quick read, The Gathering Dark is well told and while done in one, leads to other books in the series.

Below I'll be talking about some spoilers so if you'd rather have none of that, read no further.

1. Organizations: The Church of Tal is a religious organization that persecutes those who practice the arts of magic. This organization is large enough to have presence in many cities and villages and serves many functions including peace brokers and teachers. Its main use here though is to act as an antagonist to Jodah and the other mages around him. Organizations in your campaign setting should serve purpose. For example, the Conclave and the City of Shadows are both places where mages go and learn their craft, but each have far different methods about them. Jeff does a great job of noting that most 'mage schools' are 'cults of personalities' and are based and held together by one strong personality. In some ways it reminds me of martial arts in signature moves and things of that nature.

2. Character Drive: One of the things about Jodah is that he is not necessarily setting out to be a hero, but doesn't like not helping people, especially those in dire circumstances, when he has the ability to do something about it. In some role playing games, this knack or compulsion or drive might be something to resist and it's something the GM should use to help build the player's character and provide elements that are beyond the world of hack and slash so to speak.

3. Timing. This one is far more tricky. Jodah is sought after by his friend and mentor and also by the Church which wishes to kill him. As that is going on, he is in the middle of some very difficult issues of his own. Jeff Grubb manages to bring all these elements into play at one point in time and the impact of all the things hitting at once is greater than if they just happened one at a time. If you can arrange it so that things at least appear to flow organically the world will seem larger then just the portion that the players are directly involved in.

Magic the Gathering continues to have a ton of novels and resources dedicated to it and fans are fortunate in that some of them are good.

Magic the Gathering Nemesis: Masquerade Cycle Book II by Paul B. Thompson

Another quick read from the Half-Price dollar spinner rack.

I'll be jumping into spoilers right away. If you're looking for just an overall yeah or nay, I'd say yea. It's usually a fun read when you get to see what the villains are up to and the heroes aren't the 'main strays' of the series.

Anyway, the book is indeed about villains and fallen heroes. Two of the main villains, Ertai, and Crovax, were former heroes aboard the Weatherlight. Two of the others, Greven, and Volrath should be better known as villains since they've been around for a while. The new piece to the game Belbe, is added. This provides a nice range of characters who for the most part, have their own methods and abilities, but are eager to see who the new champion of the machine made plane of Rath will be.

In a role playing game, it can often times be difficult to play as the villains if its a standard game. In a setting like this though, where all of the characters and enemies are villains, it makes it a little easier. No matter which side you turn on, they probably deserve it. It can act as a guide to running a quick mini-campaign of sorts that sets up the background events.

This can allow players the change to see how the other side lives and works and while it can be hard to keep the meta knowledge out of their hands, it can also be fun if they know what a struggle they've have in the upcoming events.

Mercadian Masques: Magic the Gathering

I may have mentioned before that I tend to hunt through the dollar spinner racks at Half Price Books on occasion. They tend to have a LOT of line fiction. I probably have ten or so books in the Magic series. Mind you it's usually not all of them or in the correct order but it's a shared fiction setting so how in depth and detailed can things be that I'll be like, "Oh noes! I iz lost! How will I ever catch up?"

Over at Amazon, I see that there is no current version in print. An odd thing considering how popular Magic still is. One of their regular hits as far as I understand things.

In terms of how the novel reads, it reads okay. When speaking of not worrying about where I'm at in the novels, it's a good thing because this one starts immediately after some previous major stuff happened in the other novels but that's okay. It provides enough background and detail that I sat back and enjoyed the read.

It's not going to compete with A Game of Thrones but it's not a bad shared world story. It has a few things going on that I truly hate but I suspect such things were well beyond the author's control. I'll be discussing some specifics below so if you need to avoid spoilers, read no further.

1. The MacGuffin. The book relies on gathering several MacGuffin's and does so by bringing the background of the setting heavily into focus. When getting ready to use such a plot device, decide ahead of time how much actual game time is going to be spent gathering these things. Is it a one shot deal? Is it a multiple game spanning quest? Is it a specific number? In D&D, there is already a long tradition through magic items such as the Rod of Seven Parts and other items that may be made up of multiple smaller items.

2. Kill Your Children. One of the villains here is killed twice in the last few chapters. The one time was enough but then to see the guy pull himself together after being almost cut in half and then get his ass handed to him again only to escape death again? This is one of the things I was betting that the author didn't have a lot of control over. Me? I would have rather seen the villain run away before the defining trouncing. It doesn't make the character more interesting. It doesn't define the villain more. It just makes the villains one of those, "Oh I guess we have to wait until that card set comes out for him to die." If the players beat the bad guy, hey, congrats to them. They've done their job. There are millions more when that guy game from. Heck, monster books are one of the most popular and consistent sellers for role playing games. What's Pathfinder up to know? Bestiary 4? And that's not counting the unique monsters per each adventure path and the little sourcebooks? Let that guy die. He's just not that cool.

3. Treachery! One of the things I did think well done was the use of a shapeshifter to try and drive a wedge between the heroes. It works when you don't see it coming and can work well. In one campaign I ran, I purloined an idea from a Dragonlance short story where a dragon shapechanges into a patron and hires "the best!" dragonslayers around only to lead them to their deaths. Worked well for my game when I used "Red Raven", a Red Sonja rip off in appearance that the players never bothered to check against until she used a breath weapon on the dwarf fighter and incinerated him leaving the others to flee for their lives after losing many resources.

4. Don't lie to the players. The Weatherlight is a flying ship that can travel the planes. It's a pretty powerful toy. It's broken in the very start of the novel and the characters spend the rest of the novel gathering the MacGuffin's to repair it. When they do so, the author goes on and on through hthe various heroes about how much more powerful the ship is. Only it turns out that it almost gets destroyed in its first outing. This is something that anime is famous for. For example, Dragonball Z is famous for the "Its Over 9000!!!" bit. It is something that seems to matter a lot until we get many episodes going on and on and Goku squeaks out a victory. If it was such a big deal, you'd think Goku would've just came over and whipped on those guys but that would make a boring episode. Don't overplay the character's power level.

This is especially true if you're playing with people who already know how the game works. You go up a level, the monsters go up a level. Sure, the scenery and stakes may get bigger, but unless the GM is kindly throwing some small fish your way, the math, outside of a terrible swing in most high level games, tends to stay the same. Don't beat them over the head with how awesome they are as chances are their going to have similar issues to the foes they face as they did in the past.

5. Myth weaving. One of the other good things the novel does, is bringing the storm of Ramos to live through different cultures and their mythology. Turns out all of the myths have some elements of true to them but are fundamentally flawed. Making your mythology like this allows you to move things about without having to completely rewrite them.

6. Multiple Settings. Another nifty thing about the setting is that there are multiple worlds and planes in play. We have Rath and the homeworld of the Magic setting itself alongside of this setting where the characters initially land and I'm sure many others in the setting. Providing several settings, as WoTC and others have done with Planescape and Spelljammer, allows the GM to switch up the menu without completely throwing out the core of the campaign.

Mercadian Masques is a good quick read and is the first book of another trilogy set in the Magic the Gathering settings.