Murder in Lamut: Legends of the Riftwar Book II

Murder in Lamut
Legends of the Riftwar Book II
Written by Raymond E. Feist & Joel Rosenberg
$3.99 Kindle Edition
$6.34 Mass Market Paperback

I picked up my first Raymond E. Feist book from the SFBC, Magician by Raymond E. Feist, many decades ago. One of the fun things about the internet is you can google the image of the book you used to have.

I haven't kept pace with everything but I have bought a few of the old Midkemia Press gaming books like Carse and Tulan. Recently I even had bought a few more, Jonril and Heart of the Sunken Land.  Be sure to check out their website as they even have a few free PDF products.

I never played any of the Betrayal series, but I have friends who did back in the day and they loved it.

In short, Midkemia as a setting has received a lot of love.

In the Legends of the Riftwar series, Raymond E. Feist allows other others to join him in crafting stories set during that time period. In this volume, Joel Rosenberg, best known for his Guardians of the Flame series, to play in the city of Lamut.

The novel starts with three different introductions, one for each of the main characters. Durine, Kethol, and Pirojil, are mercenaries who have fought against the Tsurani invaders, the 'villains' of the Riftware series, as well as the 'bugs' in the mountains. Throw in goblins and other humans and what have you and you'll understand that these are seasoned men.

The characters are given small arcs to showcase their unique talents but as this isn't one of those mega-novels, their development arcs aren't lengthy or intensely detailed. At the end, the characters are much the same as they were at the start.

Durine is a huge ugly individual whose reknown for his strength and size.

Kethol is known for his wilderness lore. He is the closest we have to a 'breakthrough' character in that he starts to care about the job and the people involved.

Pirojil is the brains of the operation. He sees beyond people's everyday facades and it makes him the one best able to determine who may be a murderer in Lamut.

They are hired by the city's Swordmaster to protect one Baron Morray. As outsiders, as skilled outsiders, they are not involved in the many local factions and ongoing issues that the Kingdom itself is going through. Fans of the Riftwar series will enjoy the numerous references to other events in the series as seen from far away and will enjoy the 'guest' appearance of Fantus the drake.

Although some novels in the series are high magic on the order of gods and things older and worse than gods battling, Murder in Lamut is entirely down to earth. None of the main characters are magicians or magic users, and at this point in time, the series hadn't gone to the higher ends involving the magician's guild.

This makes it a good read for those who enjoy a little bit of gritty work in their series but take note when I say gritty, I don't mean the subgenre 'grimdark'. There are people working hard and the characters have an earthy feel to them, but one never reads the novel as if this was a work where anyone could die at any second and that life itself was but the stuff of stardust dreams.

It's been a long time since I've read any Raymond E. Feist work and even longer since I've read any Joel Rosenberg's work so I can't tell you who wrote which section, but I can tell you that it doesn't feel that it was written by two people. It's a smooth flowing book that a dedicated reader with enough time should be able to finish in a day.

Raymond E. Feist Kindle Daily Deal and Holiday Rambling

First off, I hope everyone had a few days off to catch their breath from the whirlwind that was 2013. My X-mas sucked, but last year's was worse so it's slowly moving into the win column for me. Huzza on that front.

I just finished watching the Wire season one and that was good television. I'll post some thoughts on that one later. Lots of great character moments.

I was pretty on in terms of Christmas presents. I bought my mom a Kitchen Aid with a few attachments. Ironically I'm the one whose using it more. She's had more than her fair share of drama this year, especially this December so it's not a bad thing brought on by laziness or anything of that nature, just life's continuing screw you Kushner thing going on.

My g/f I bought a digital camera, case, and memory card. She has tested it out and it works so she's happy.

Now the most important person in this, myself, was also much more wildly spoiled although some of the things I bought can be used and enjoyed by the family. For example, Zatoichi the complete series on blu-ray along with the Samurai trilogy can be enjoyed by everyone. The miniatures I bought on sale from Fanization, the Warstore, and Miniature Market on the other hand? Pure Kushner greed on that front.

Anyway, even though 2013 is almost over, a few companies are throwing some sales and other stuff out there. The initial inspiration for the post was that Raymod E. Feist has several books on sale in Kindle format over here:

While his work lacks the grim and gritty outlook, most of the time I'll amend, of things like George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones or Mark Lawrence's series on the Prince of Thorns or even Joe Abercrombie, I've found his work light enough to enjoy and with enough recurring themes and characters that it feels like watching an old television series that I enjoyed as a youth that still has enough interest in it for me to continue to enjoy it.

How did everyone else do? Anything really good? Any good sales?

L is For Law

I AM THE LAW

Fifteen years in the academy


He was like no cadet they'd ever seen

A man so hard, his veins bleed ice

And when he speaks he never says it twice

They call him Judge, his last name is Dredd

So break the law, and you wind up dead

Truth and justice are what he's fighting for

Judge Dredd the man, he is the law

DROKK IT!



With gun and bike he rules the streets

And every perp he meets will taste defeat

Not even Death can overcome his might

Cause Dredd and Anderson, they won the fight

When the Sov's started the Apocalypse war

Mega-City was bombed to the floor

Dredd resisted, and the judges fought back

Crushed the Sov's with their counter-attack

DROKK IT!



Respect the badge - he earned it with his blood

Fear the gun - your sentence may be death because...

Chorus



I AM THE LAW!

And you won't fuck around no more - I AM THE LAW

I judge the rich, I judge the poor - I AM THE LAW

Commit a crime I'll lock the door - I AM THE LAW

Because in Mega-City... I AM THE LAW



In the cursed earth where mutants dwell

There is no law, just a living hell

Anarchy and chaos as the blood runs red

But this would change if it was up to Dredd

The book of law is the bible to him

And any crime committed is a sin

He keeps the peace with his law-giver

Judge, jury, and executioner

DROKK IT!



CRIME - The ultimate sin

Your iso-cube is waiting when he brings you in

LAW - It's what he stands for

Crime's his only enemy and he's going to war



CRIME - The ultimate sin

Your ISO-cube is waiting when he brings you in

LAW - It's what he stands for

Crime's his only enemy and he's going to war



Thank you Anthrax for that little bit of homage to Judge Dread.

In games, its often useful to know some of the basics of how the justice system works. In the 3.5 era, Atlas Games published Crime and Punishment. A nice hardcover the provided 3.5 mechanics for a variety of things that might come up in dealing with lawbreakers.

In books I'm reading at the moment, C. J. Sansom's Matthew Shardlake stars in five books. I've just received book 4, Revelation, from good old Amazon.com. Some of the things that make Matthew a good lawyer, the trust others put in him, his dodged determination to discover the truth of things, his innate curiosity,his relatively corrupt free methodology of handing issues, and his friendship with others who reinforce those good things about him, make him an individual that others seek out time and time again.

When I was a younger man, Bard Games, a company that produced the Atlantis Trilogy, had three handbooks for use with AD&D; The Complete Spellcaster, the Complete Alchemist, and the Compleat Adventurer. That last book had a class called the hunter, and under that, several variants including the bounty hunter.

This individual was one that had its own material including how much to charge, how to capture your prey, and other neat little bits. It wasn't necessarily the first time I had seen such a use, as one of the Best of Dragon magazines had a NPC version, but that Hunter version by Bard Games was neat.

And further in terms of hunting down the villains of a setting, the Clone Wars is filled with various Bounty Hunters. They make a quick way of throwing out a group of individuals that can toss a monkey wrench into things if a situation gets out of control.

The Law is something that most players in a hard core fantasy setting aren't necessarily going to worry about, but on the other hand, it's not something that needs to be the end if they are captured. For example, what about a campaign variant around the Dirty Dozen? Here the characters are captured and 'executed' and can either work for the state that captured them, or be sent to their death for real. It's a trick used by both Raymond Feist in his Demon War series, and also used in the Warhammer setting for the trilogy Blackhearts.

The Law should be something that even as its worst, can be turned into another adventure.

A is For Assassin

One the the things that makes a city an environment worth visiting over and over again, is the people. The people of a city can do more to bring it to life than many other common elements used to bring unique designs to dungeons and wilderness.

Along those lines, assassins are something that springs to mind when I think of cities. In terms of where such inspiration might have originated from, in my youth, Raymond Feist wrote of Nighthawks, a group of assassins that worked in the cities and that Jimmy the Hand had to help a young noble struggle against. Another older write, Frizt Leiber had the Slayers Brotherhood, a guild of assassins in Lankhimar.

In more modern viewings, although still fairly old, one of the most popular assassins has to come from manga in the form of Lone Wolf and Cub. A series nearly thirty books long with many a tragic tale woven along the way.

Even Dungeons and Dragons fiction doesn't escape the long appeal of the assassin with one of the most popular (and loved to be hated by the internets) characters, Drizzt, having a rival, Artemis. The latter even carrying several novels of his own.

Assassins can make for clever foes or for nameless thugs. They can be used to showcase how seriously an enemy is taking the players, such as in the Paizo setting where Red Mantis Assassins may be hunting your party, as happens in at least one adventure path, or in older material such the Scarlet Brotherhood is known to use them such as in Expedition to the Keep on the Borderlands and other resources.

My own recent exposure to assassins and the tie in to Appendix N, where I try to keep what I'm reading, watching, and doing in terms of how it effects my gaming, would be Golgo 13, or at least the 12 episodes in one variation of it available for viewing from Netflix.

The problem with Golgo 13 though, is he's boring. He is set up as such a perfect sniper and killer that even when one of the other characters comes in and points out method after method of how the sniper must fail and cannot succeed or how the other character is some type of rival sniper and how he has laid out all of his plans, Golgo breezes through them.

This to me can be entertaining at times seeing the ultimate professional, but there is no build up or testing of the character's skill. There is no moment where the viewer is worried about the fate of Golgo. He's just so good that you might as well read the summary of the series and figure, "Yeah, this character's plan isn't going to work and Golgo will kill the target."

So that reminds me to keep things at least interesting for the characters. Keep them guessing at the very least. Try to have some sort of build up where

Jimmy the Hand by Raymond E. Feist and S.M. Stirling

Below I'll be talking about Jimmy the Hand, Legendso f the Riftware Book III. It's not going to include any quotes and is more of a review/rant with a few thoughts on gaming at the end of it, so beware of spoilers if you're not inclined to know more.

The book has a great villain. A noble whose motivation is to save the love of his life, his wife who 'died' during childbirth. There was a visitor to the noble that night though, a powerful wizard, who was able to keep the wife alive in a state between life and death and uses the life force energy of children to keep her in that state between life and death.

While the noble considers himself to have the most noble of intentions, it gets back to the motivation of things. When the players have an idea of what motivates the villains of the game, they may have a greater understanding and appreciation of them. In some instances, they may even be able to provide alternative solutions.

For players, there are a few things to ponder. For example, when Jimmy the Hand meets Coe, its obvious the two are on a different playing level than those around them. In looking at it game wise, they'd be the PCs. To keep things simple, thankfully the author has both of them expalin their motivations to each other quickly and the two become allies. In some instances, with the right GM and the right group, having all sorts of inter party conflict, secrets, alliances, backstabbing and other bits can be entertaining.

In others, when doing dungeon crawls are more casual game play, the players may want to focus on the killing of bad guys and not each other and coming out right up front and in character putting their motivations out there for all to see can work wonders for the moving of the game forward.

In terms of the book itself, its not my favorite of the series. When I read the old Raymond E. Feist books, I'm generally in the mood for what I call popcorn but of a certain flavor. To me, taking Jimmy the Hand out of Kronodor, while going into the details of his 14 year old sex life with various whores, is not getting what Jimmy the Hand is about. Especially when your not doing anything interesting with the character. As the title character, Jimmy doesn't actually DO much except explore Land's End, get sea sick, learn he doesn't ride horses well, and meets a few rubes.

This is something that may be tied into S.M. Stirling's hand. It's not that S.M. Stirling is a bad writer as I've blogged of several of that authors books. It's that when co-writing, there may be a difference of style that is perceptible to the reader.

In terms of multiple GMs running a campaign, in some instances, it just doesn't work. In my experience, I've seen it work best when GMs are running in the same setting and perhaps have some splashes of 'crossover' material. The power levels need to be similiar, the default styles need to be similiar. The default assumptions need to be similiar. For a good example, I look to comics; JLA/Avenger. Sure, the default styles of the core comic companies have similiariest but there are general differences as well but in the greater scheme of the setting, they're not that different. Hawkeye even jokes that the JLA is the Squadron Supreme which considering the Squadron's own origins as homage characters for the JLA, is entertaining.

When thinking of letting another GM run a game you've run, set the boundries at the start of the bit to avoid heartache later on down the road.