Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

Elantris
Written by Brandon Sanderson
Published by Tor Fantasy
638 pages (paperback version)

Elantris is the first book written by Brandon Sanderson. In paperback at least, it's a weighty tome clocking in at over six hundred pages. Took me a little while to digest it.

The concept is a solid one. Elantris, the 'city of the gods', has fallen. Those who once did magic that could heal wounds and create light and energy for their people lost their abilities overnight and they were quickly slain.

This did not stop the 'gifting' of Elantris, where people outside the city would once become like those of Elantris, powerful and silvery skinned, but now, their bodies 'die' and they are cast into Elantris which is more akin to the city of Dis, a city of the damned.

The back cover brings us three main characters:

Raoden: He's the prince of the city outside Elantris proper. He works against his father's ways. In ma ways, Raoden is far too modern for the times he finds himself living in. One thing I appreciate about Raoden, is that he's an optimist. He's always searching for answers. He's always looking for the biggest reasons why. He's always trying to minimize violence and harm to others.

It's a refreshing chance of corse. In many tales, the hero is so grim, so gritty, that at times, I would love to see him killed off just so that someone more interesting can replace him. Being a bitter washed up old hero is played out.

Hrathen is a high priest of the country of Fjordell. He's been sent to Raoden's country of Arelon to convert the people. That didn't work out too well for the last country Hrathen converted. Turns out that when you turn the common folks against their rulers, a massacre when thousands, if not tens of thousands of people can happen.

I was pleasantly surprised by Hrathen several times. While he plays the 'villain' of the piece to a point, he's much more complex than merely a ranting religious figure that all the woes of humanity can be tied onto.

He's clever. He appreciates those who share this trait. He's not a devout fanatic and is even brought to the point where he has to consciously question his faith and how that faith interacts with the organized religion. In these things, Sanderson doesn't' paint any one character with too broad a brush save perhaps the actual zealots, but I found Hrathen very entertaining and interesting in his own right.

Sarene is another character born out of time. A tall woman whose height intimidates some, her willingness to wade deep into political matters that in Arelon at least, were only considered things for men to discuss.

She brings swordplay to the ladies of the court as a hobby to the women. She runs an alliance against the actual king of Arelon. She is a princess of Teod and now of Arelon and she is not to be ignored.

As a done in one novel, Sanderson brings the main body of the story to a close, but he leaves a lot of events open-ended. Looking at the book, I see there is now The Emperor's Soul, book 2 in the Elantris series.

When I get my reading queue a little more organized, it's one I'm going to have to check out. I enjoyed Mistborn. I found the ending of that series to be a neat switch on the whole 'one of prophecy bit' and I find that Elantris also does a good job of moving some of the troupes around.

Brandon's enjoyment of making magic systems with their own rules and rituals is clear in the series. His ability to work events and tie in different elements is solid. Stories from the start of the book come to have a greater impact towards the end. He's truly a believer of the whole gun from the first chapter getting used in later chapters.

If you're a fan of fantasy novels, especially high fantasy novels, Elantris is a solid read.

Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis: Home is where the Heart Is!

Fortune smiled on me! I managed to find a copy of Silver Pigs, the first book in the detective novels in Ancient Rome, for $1 off of the spinner rack at Half-Priced books.

This one is smaller than the second one I read, but the writing is still fantastic. Still reading it so this isn't a full on review of the book, but if you like a little humor and sarcasm in your first person mysteries, this is a solid novel.

No, rather, I wanted to quickly note that one of the things I enjoy about Lindsey's writing, is how Falco, the hero of the story, has a home and it's well, a slum. He frequently doesn't pay the rent and often makes an escape out of neighbors apartments of which he has an 'arrangement' with them.

The apartment itself though, does have a nice view of the neihborhood and can be advantageous when looking at the city as a whole.  Since it's in a bad part of town, this also lends some ambience to the character of Falco.

It's also where his family is and it allows him to mentor his nephew since his brother died in service to the Empire.

These touches provide more 'touches' if you will to the character of Falco.

In your own campaigns, where do the characters live when they're not in dungeons? Where do the characters go when they're not on the road? Do they have family and loved ones waiting for them in a prime city?

Things like this, these little touches of the bakers and sellers on the street, are reasons why I enjoy city sourcebooks like Waterdeep and the City State of the Invincible Overlord. When you can get the characters to invest in the city, to enjoy the city, to miss the view, to miss specific people, to wonder what's happening there right now, you've got them.

Make your cities interesting and the players will return to them. Make the players invest in them, and the players will fight to save them, even if they are saving the city from itself.

Kingdom of Shadow by Richard A. Knaak

One of the things that prevents me from busting out with a Kindle or other e-reader, is the prices of the books. Some of them range from $7.99 to $9.99 or higher. To me, that's just a stupid pricing point that says, "Not for you."

There are benefits to the e-reader. Instant accessibility, accessibility to material out of print, and perhaps to me, most importantly, no physical book. There are huge drawbacks though. Is that technology going to be around for one, among others.

When I can go into Half-Priced books and wander through the dollar spinner rack and pick up a novel by one of several New York Times best sellers, like Richard A. Knaak, I'm not buying a Kindle to pay $7.99 for the same book. But that's just me.

Anyway, Kingdom of Shadow would make a pretty good D&D module with a few adjustments. There will be no directly call outs below, but expect spoilers. You have been warned.

The main characters are hunting down a jungle ruin that is empty, it's real presence only felt on the world once every X amount of years. The players are there just in time to view the city emerge into the world and manage to make it into the city and begin to interact with the ghosts and shades of this city, seeking to learn its mysteries.

The biggest problem in terms of the book, are a few, in terms of riffing ideas from it. One, while the book isn't short, the difference between game play and reading is huge. A story that takes four hundred pages, especially if it's a fairly straight forward tale like this, in terms of gaming, might be a night or two. Maybe three if you really padded it out.

Next, the core characters are stupid. Well, I shouldnt' say that. The author makes them stupid. It's not that they are unbelievably stupid mind you. I've spoken before of internal character conflict. Of putting something the players want in front of the characters and seeing how they react. However, its done here so ham fistedly, any players who did indeed fall for the lure wouldn't be able to overcome the lure as the fictional characters do.

Positive aspects?

The book keeps things moving.

The book keeps playing with base assumptions. This allows the players to hunt down the 'real' information and try and push aside numerous red herrings.

The book provides some nice snippets of world view through interaction with the characters. By talking about how the world sees necromancers, how they've developed their abilities in response to this, etc..., it allows a snippet of the setting to shine through.

The action is fast and flowing. One of the thing I dislike about some books, even by writers I really enjoy, is that hundreds of pages can move by with detailed backgrounds and side plots and other bits moving back and forth. Here, the combat is fast and furious ranging from natives of the jungle like 'tentacle beasts' and gargoyles, to various denizens of the undead world itself.

Kingdom of Shadow is a quick read that can be the foundation for a ruin exploration for GMs looking to snag some quick encounters and ideas.

C is For Castle

When I was a younger man, I enjoyed some of the Eyewitness books, like Castle, that DK Publishing put out. Another one of my favorites was Castle by David Macaulay, along with Pyramid and Cathedral.

Such books wouldn't provide immense depth or detail, but they did have some nice illustrations along with a look at how long it took to raise a castle, and the types of people that were involved not only in the building of the castle, but in its maintenance long after the castle was build.

I throw C for Castle into my mix of urban adventure ideas, not because a castle is a city, although a large one may have enough staff and people visiting it to make it a suburb of its own, but because castles, designed for defense in and of themselves, would often have people start creating their own dwellings next to and around the castle. Walls could be then put up around their 'old town' sections and leave some of the newer construction outside the protection until eventually walls would either be build to encompass those sections, or there would be no need for the walls as the land itself was tame.

Many fantasy cities also have their castles named right after them, the most  famous of these probably being Castle Greyhawk, Castle Blackmoor, Castle Wasterdeep and I seem to remember the Castle in the City State of the Invicible Overlord as well.

When looking at a fantasy city, the age and original location of the city may provide you with the details you need to design the castles that might have started the whole thing off as well as a host of people that are needed to run the castle ranging from the kitchen staff and armory, but to the jesters and court nobels as well.

Agincourt: The Fall of Soissons

Soiossons is a town in France that the youngbowman Hook finds himself fighting to defend against the French in France.

When it falls, Hook eludes capture but has a prime vantage point to see how a captured city fares when it does not openly surrender.

Rape, pillage, burning, looting, and mutilation of the enemy troops.

There are no neutral sides in war. Or at least, that's what I took from this historical event. Your fellow countrymen may love you compared to their feelings against another country, but stand against them in war time and suffer the ravages that only the army can bring.

Something similiar happened in Bernard's other book, Sharpe's Escape when the town Sharpe is in comes under occuptation.

Depending on where the players are in such a situation, and what level they are, players have lots of options avilable to them. There may be some who take full advantage of the situation in the most morbid ways, but in a standard 'adventuring' group, smart adventurers should use this opportunity to seek out rare and potent items that they may need. In some instances, the players themselves may have set up the whole sacking of the city merely in order to move through it unmolested by the local laws, guilds, and other obsticles that may have stood in their way.

Higher level players that wind up on the losing side may have a better fate than the arhcers in Soissons though. One of the benefits of being an adventurer is often an amount of wealth that defies the standard station of such a character. On the other hand, some adventurers are so because they could afford all the tutoring and equipment necessary for such efforts.  In these instances, the players may be held hostage. Their captors may treat them fair or terrible but chances are their equipment and prized possessions will be stripped from them.

In such cases, it depends heavily on the players attitudes and opinions of such events. Those players who despise such incidents are probably better off dead and making new characters, perhaps even characters designed to save the others from their fate. Those that 'go' with the flow so to speak, may find themselves with some contacts among the enemy or with a new personal nemesis. Use the events of the game to influence future events of the game, like a series of dominos.

The fall of Soissons showcases brutality and for many, could be seen as a rallying point. In your own campaign, don't forget to include the horrific events that showcase the penalty for failure as well as the stakes when swords are drawn.

The City of Sherlock Holmes

I'm one of those people who is often late to the party when it comes to movies. I have little patience for crowds of the ignorance most often found in crowds. Still, I manage to get out and see a movie or three when the mood strikes me and the movie's already been out for several weeks.

In this case, it was Sherlock Holmes.

One thing that struck me about the city in which Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law are running about, is that it has many elements of a city I try to incorporate in the background, but often forget to. For example, the ending of the movie reaches its showdown in a massive structure still under construction.

Cities should be constantly evolving. Different stylings of buildings, ranging from their age to waves of migration should be visible. People should always be seen in the background doing 'great works' ranging from bridges, road work, temples, statues, and castles, to more mundane building or even repair after successfully repelling, or at least surviving an attack. Keeping the city in a state of evolution may seem odd, that it will propel the city into some odd future too soon, but the real trick, especially in settings taking place in ancient times, is that things took time. Castles and chruches could take years to complete.

The other thing that struck me was the various cultures to be found. When Sherlock is doing his brawling among the Irish for example, or when his nemesis of this movie uses French and Chineese muscle to work his will. A city should be home to many cultures, even if all of them don't get along or share the spotlight. The potential for conflict is one of the things that can drive adventurers forward.

In the dreaded 'real' world for exmaple, many Muslims rioted in France. Cars were set afire. This was no third world that was happening in. That was France. In a fantasy setting, if the players are in with the local militia and powers, would they be willing to attack those who were out venting their rage at the unjustice social system? Would they be willing to shed blood to bring peace to the city?

Would others be willing to force such conflicts in order to hide their own activities? Nothing like a mob starting a riot in order to acheive other, more subtle goals that need a little diversion.

Lastly, when thinking about cities, remember how huge they are. In this movie, the set up for the sequel is in play throughout it, but to me, it felt fairly organic if a little pushed. The infamous Professor, never even seen in the light so to speak, set up as a major power player without coming to the front of the game. When using the city, always have multiple potentials in the air. This doesn't necessarily mean that the players should be hunting down each and every clue, but by providing the players with some hints about other inhabitants of the city that could prove of worth later on down the road, when those individuals are introduced, you've already laid the ground work and it's not just bringing in another character from stage right.

Keep the cities thriving with the people who live in them. Keep those nationalities and ancient rivalries in mind and let the players know that they are not the only inhabitants of the city.