What does "Ascendancy of the Last" mean to us?

Since the Chosen of Eilistraee is a religious oriented player group, naturally there is a place to have theological discussions. That is in-game religions; please leave real-world religion out of it. Debate the fine points of a certain dogma, how a church can enforce worship while staying true to its tenets or simply why one deity is better than another one is. All are free to talk about it here.

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Bhaern Quel
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Post by Bhaern Quel »

"The Orc King" had a prelude, I believe Argoth was referring to "The Ghost King" which was recently released. Something I have not read so can not date.

For reference https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=p ... /241950000 points to books in the series.
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Post by Argoth »

Yes, I got mixed up at one point myself. I've heard about the prologue in the Orc King and read more or less a general summary of the books (I'm still not contributing to WotC in any way, so there) and I've read something about the Ghost King. Yes, Caderly appears, the demon, the dragon, all true. It probably sucks any way. I was a big fan of Drizzt, but only throughout the first three books, his original trilogy. After that it got kinda lame. I've read the fourth book, and the seventh I believe and guess what? I didn't notice any difference. Drizzt still had his issues, his friends had their issues, the only thing different was the enemy they battled. And that's when I stopped being a fan of Drizzt and became a major fan of Liriel. Love that drow.

Unless I'm sure a book has direct reference to Eilistraee, I'm not contributing. And as far as I'm concerned, spoil away. I'm not going to read the book anyway.
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Post by Talwyn Aureliano »

I think WotC and the complete f*ck up that is the [cough, splutter, puke] redemption of the non tainted drow with the death of Eilistraee has really buggered up Salvatore's universe. Also in addition, the utter balls up in the way they dealt with the next 100 years with the death of Mystra and the nature of magic makes his job all that much harder to write his novels with a decent sense of continuity.

I liked the initial 3 books. The Icewind Dale trilogy was nothing spectacular in regards to fiction but the story and characters were entertaining. The prologue novels of Drizzt and the follow up 4 books after IWD were also good enough to keep me interested but after that, the story started to get cliche and hackneyed. So that's where I stopped. It no longer read like entertaining fantasy but more like a munchkin fanfic as characters who die get brought back and villians like Artemis just never die. :roll:

I understand that he's writing to a fan base but surely they must be getting a bit sick of it now?

Anyway, back to Drizzt.

I liked him as a character and understand the appeal to the "wannabe clones" who wanted to emmulate Drizzt in their RP. Imitation after all is a form of flattery and therefore the character of Drizzt has some resonance with people hence his popularity. Also the drow themselves become immencely popular. The idea of an underground dwelling bunch of dark/evil elves whose culture/religion is based on sadism and perversion is pure mana to most adolescents, especially teenage boys. I know, I used to be one 20 years ago ;)
So, what with the 4E changes wrought by WotC it now becomes so much harder to write good fiction in the Forgotten Realms Universe as its now such a bland and sanitised campaign setting that a majority of fans have indeed abandoned the setting and moved on to Pazio etc. By making D&D4E into a game like WoW and completely nerfing the magic, character system and history of the most popular campaign, only n00bs and pyschotic die hard fans now think the game is any good. This is concommitent for the D&D novels as well. Look at what Ed Greenwood is doing. He's writing his own novels about dark elves that are specifically not set in the FR universe. The poor guy has no choice but to smile and make the polite statements about WotC's arseraping of FR as no doubt they would kick him out as soon as he so much as makes the slightest complaint. He stays on to try to mitigate the damage done to his creation but as far as I'm concerned, it's too little, too late and shoveling sand against the incoming tide of raw sewage that WotC vomit up is more than an exercise in futility, its actually a bit pathetic.

I understand that everything has its time and all things must pass but in this case, D&D and FR were murdered most fouly by the management of WotC. Simple as that.

Back to Drizzt again.

I suspect that Salvatore will keep churning out the pulp for WotC as its a steady pay check and as a professional writer, its the money which talks loudest. Personally I think the character needs to be left alone for a number of years or even retired/killed off. No doubt this will please the wankers at WotC as they want the drow to be cardboard cut out villians with no substance.
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Argoth
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Post by Argoth »

People getting bored with Drizzt? Wouldn't count on it. I know one person that will continue to read novels about him, even if the author made a schematic and just changed names. And, dare I say, Salvatore is quite famous for that kind of writing. I've read some of his novels outside the FR setting, or WotC in general, and they are completely the same, sadly. Maybe a little more erotic at times. Still it was obvious he'd start writing like that with ALL the books he's written.

I say I hate WotC and wouldn't contribute to their cause in any way. As a consumer, yes, that's true. But I'd hide all that hatred in my pocket if I were asked to write a novel to one of the most popular, fixed worlds if it would get me a fat paycheck and some dedicated readers, or any readers at all that would want to have a look at any other works by me. It's a sad truth, I admit, thinking of it makes me feel like a whore, but I have to make a living. And I sympathize with Ed Greenwood on this one. His world, his beloved creation, and its been dealt with in such bad fashion.
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Post by Aylstra Illianniis »

Yeouch. I had no idea this was going to stir up such a fuss. On the subject of the book, I found it very good, in spite of what some might say. In fact, I like the entire Transitions trilogy so far, as it really shook up his status quo, and saw big changes in many of the characters. The biggest is Bruennor and now, apparently, Cattie-Brie and Regis. I'm not going into that one. Let's just say that Drizzt will have a lot of thinking/soul-searching/whatever to do in the future, if there are any more books at all. Wulfgar left, and it seems the drow ranger is hanging with a new bunch of folks, who are a bit less sterling in their morals. Jarlaxle, for one- which actually seems an interesting pairing to me. He just might bring Drizzt out of his current funk, and give him new reasons to do his thing, which might be a good thing.

I did not know about Greenwood, though I've heard rumors that he had jumped ship on WotC and the whole mess, but he has been little more than a creative consultant for years now, so I'm not really surprised. I would have thought he would have tried to buy back his rights to the world with all they've done to it, but I would imagine that's impossible now- it makes them too much money. Maybe he could sue for some breach of contract or something? Who knows.

I am a bit sad by the way the Realms are going, and unless it involves characters and areas I already enjoy, I don't expect to continue reading them much in the future. You guys are right- WotC HAS murdered the Realms most brutally.
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Post by Talwyn Aureliano »

:devil:

[quote:38agbh6b]Yeouch. I had no idea this was going to stir up such a fuss.[/quote:38agbh6b]

[wry smile] ;)

Well then, you mustn't have read back through this thread to learn the depths of hatred for WotC that burns like a smoldering glowing ember in the hearts and minds of the fans of Eilistraee & FR in general.

I can't even bring myself to post any more on Candlekeep.com as if I did, I'd no doubt let loose a crap-spray rant against WotC & get banhammered. Here though is safe enough to eviscerate and beat the living shite out of our favourite Pinata called WotC :devil:

In regards to Ed Greenwood buying back his rights to FR, it has been said that he would dearly love to but he couldn't afford it. He sold them off to TSR years ago and although he is still a "creative consultant", he has no control or real say as to what goes in his creation. He gave up that control when he signed on the dotted line and got a small cheque for his efforts. To be honest, I think he got screwed on the deal way back. Sure he must get some small royalty cheques but that's no compensation compared to the millions of dollars FR made for TSR & then later WotC. Gary Gygax also got shafted by TSR and he was the guy who created D&D in the first place! [and the drow for that matter]

Anyway, the moral of the story is this: if you have intellectual property like a good story/fantsy campaign world etc and you're tempted to sell the rights to said IP, then make sure you get a bloody good lawyer to draw up a contract that is in your favour and leaves you ultimate control over said IP. I know for certain that if my work is ever published, I will demand to retain control over it or I won't sign any papers.
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Bhaern Quel
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Post by Bhaern Quel »

Re: Ed Greenwood

While we have no idea how much he sold FR for, we do now that if Ed is not given a book contract a year the rights revert back to him.
The last few years it clearly was not an issue in that he wrote more then one book a year. There also is a clause though that he could be paid not to write a book and TSR contract would remain in force if Ed agreed to settlement offer.

The real deal is that Ed does not want ownership to revert to him at this time. This mostly is because sorting out royalties and having to hire staff to deal with it. A shared world is far more complicated then if Ed was the only author.

In some of the comments I have read, Ed indicated his continued association is driven to save as much as he can. He certainly could have walked away and be paid by WotC not to write one book a year.
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Post by Aylstra Illianniis »

Ah! Thank you, Bhaern, for sharing this enlightening bit of info. This explains SOO much.

Talwyn- Hey, where you been? Actually, I read through the entire thread some time back (in fact I've posted several times earlier in the discussion). What I meant was that I didn't think the hate ran quite so deep, or was still so close to the surface for everyone. I don't have anything against them in particular, except for fourth ed and what's going on in the Realms. Okay, scratch that- maybe I DO. Still, after reading the Transitions books, I have been liking them more than the ones that came before. I also enjoyed the ones that focused on Jarlaxle and Artemis. It was an interesting pairing.

I've never been over to Candlekeep, but I might go check it out, just to see what others have to say. I like to keep an open mind, and hope that things get better. I guess I'm kind of an optimist that way. :p
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Post by Talwyn Aureliano »

[quote="Aylstra Illianniis":dxr0uueu]

Talwyn- Hey, where you been?
[/quote:dxr0uueu]


:uh-huh:

[blinks]

unnhhh....

I thought I made it pretty clear....you know...by posting a notice that I was taking an extended vacation to Europe for 7 weeks.

Guess you must have missed that memo :# ;)
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Post by Talwyn Aureliano »

Just following up on your last post Lothir...


yes the hatred of WotC does run deep and the anger is indeed still just beneath the surface for many fans of D&D, FR and Eilistraee.

For me, it was how they ended up pretty much trashing a perfectly good campaign world in order to justify their release and reboot of D&D in the form of 4E. Simply put, there was absolutely no need to do this if they wanted to release a new game system.

They really dropped the ball here.

Almost everyone was happy with the 3.5 system, it worked and was/ still is popular as evidenced by those who've switched to Pathfinder. Those meatheads in WotC did the amazingly stupid thing of trashing a successful product when what they should have done was release 4E as a new form of D&D and called it D&D lite or something like that while keeping 3.5 and FR as they were. By following this path, they'd have picked up the n00b's who like the WoW style of 4E but at the same time, not alienate and piss off a significant portion of their customer base. Its mind blowingly stupifying to see how short sighted and stupid their 4E changes etc were, especially when it handed to Pathfinder a huge number of disaffected players. That's not a good business model, driving your customers away towards your competition. It's the equivilant of wanting a new hairstyle and setting your head on fire to get it. :uh-huh:

As a professional who has worked in both government and private industry, I just look at what they did and shake my head in disbelief. I'd love to do some research, to gather data etc, on how well D&D 4E is going for WotC and also how well Pathfinder is doing as well as find posts and articles by fans who are dis-satisfied with the changes and prepare a report to send to the board of directors of Hasbro, their parent corporation. It would show that the current management at WotC are a pack of incompetent jokes who couldn't organise an orgy in a brothel and need to be fired before they ruin D&D any further.

However, I don't have enough free time and want to focus my time on working on my novel instead so its unlikely that I'll ever compile such a report. I'm hoping though that the sales figures and customer dis-satisfaction with WotC will eventually filter thru to senior management at Hasbro & they will see that one of their companies is being run by idiots.
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Argoth
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Post by Argoth »

They could have at least released a Beta test version of 4th ed to research if it works, instead of hiring some guys to play it in secret and publish the whole deal. The Dragon magazine has posted a little something in their subs guidelines that they will not accept nor publish material referring to previous editions almost in the same moment.
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Post by Aylstra Illianniis »

Heh, Yeah. I guess when you said vacation, I didn't realize it was quite that long. Wow, must be nice, Tal. You've got to post some pics of your vaca, so we can all see how it went! (BTW, you mentioned a novel- mind if I ask what it's about? I've been busy with my own writing, so I'm naturally curious about my fellow word-smiths.)

And yes, Argoth, I have seen that submissions post, too, and was rather disappointed. I have to say that now that they are all 4th ed-y I am having a hard time finding anything useful for my games unless I dig through the archives sections, or just rip maps and such that don't require any change in rules. Mostly, I've been pulling up art for use in games and stories. At least that has remained decent.
By the Dark Maiden''s grace do we meet. May she guide and protect us.

"Where Science ends, Magic begins." -Spiral, Uncanny X-Men #491

A link to my tales, including my Marvel hero!:
http://mickeys-tavern.com/index.php?showforum=188
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Post by Talwyn Aureliano »

[quote="Aylstra Illianniis":22yu34mc]Heh, Yeah. I guess when you said vacation, I didn't realize it was quite that long. Wow, must be nice, Tal. You've got to post some pics of your vaca, so we can all see how it went!.[/quote:22yu34mc]



:? :uh-huh:

Alystra/Lothir...

that you had to ask for me to post pics means the scales have not yet fallen from your eyes :)

Let me take you gently by the hand and lead you into the light.

[The music swells in the background as Talwyn brings Alystra into the beautiful dawning light]

[i:22yu34mc]And by divine grace, you who are lost will now be found,
who was blind but now can see [/i:22yu34mc] :angel:

[url=http://www.eilistraee.com//forums/viewt ... 8:22yu34mc]VACATION PICTURES[/url:22yu34mc]

[url=http://www.eilistraee.com//forums/viewt ... 5:22yu34mc]1ST RAW DRAFT CHAPTERS OF MY NOVEL[/url:22yu34mc]


[youtube:22yu34mc]lQlzITtxAMA[/youtube:22yu34mc]

:angel:

[img:22yu34mc]http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/m ... -apr26.jpg[/img:22yu34mc]

[the drow and the human stand side by side, bathed in the radiant glorious light and finally Alystra can finally see = a very moving and heartfelt moment indeed ;) ]
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Argoth
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Post by Argoth »

Um, Tal, if you're thinking of publishing that novel of yours, won't you have legal issues once you've put a fragment on the forums?

Self-edit: Ok, now I saw the disclaimer at the beginning. ;)
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Post by Aylstra Illianniis »

Haha! I didn't know those threads were there- I've been over on the RP forums mostly. Thanks for the updates!
By the Dark Maiden''s grace do we meet. May she guide and protect us.

"Where Science ends, Magic begins." -Spiral, Uncanny X-Men #491

A link to my tales, including my Marvel hero!:
http://mickeys-tavern.com/index.php?showforum=188
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