Spellfire Sporking Chapter One: At the Sign of the Rising Moon

[masterghandalf]

MG: Well, everyone, it’s time for us to begin our journey into Ed Greenwood’s Spellfire! Where heroes are OP, supposedly competent villains get mowed down in droves, and we have far, far too many subplots for the story’s own good! First off, let’s take a look at the covers for both editions, found in the TOC! Interestingly, they’re both takes on the same scene, and they both give a decent idea of some of the things that are waiting in the book – a female hero wielding some sort of weird magical energy, confronting an undead dragon in a cave while other people look on. The first edition cover is brighter and clearer, but something about the design and style makes it feel very eighties, in a dated, kind of cheesy way I can’t quite put my finger on. The second edition cover is darker and busier, which can make it harder to tell exactly what’s going on, but the art style is also crisper, sleeker and more modern. I think both covers are decent-to-good, for their respective eras, but probably prefer the second edition, if only because it’s more in line with the style of fantasy art I grew up with, and it’s the version of the cover on the book I actually have.

Moving on to the book itself, to help me along this journey, I’m going to be bringing on a couple of my own characters as guest sporkers. If you followed my sporking of Partially Kissed Hero on das_sporking, you’ve already met them; if not, allow me to introduce two of my OCs from an adaptation I’ve been working on (and sadly fallen behind on) of the Pathfinder RPG storyline Rise of the Runelords – Errezha the tiefling sorceress and Caelum the human swashbuckler! Pathfinder isn’t exactly D&D, but it’s pretty close, so they felt appropriate for this story.



*two figures materialize in the sporking chamber; a lean, severe-looking young woman in a long black coat and broad-brimmed hat, the shadow of which doesn’t entirely conceal her bright red skin and golden, catlike eyes, and a roguishly handsome young man in fighting leathers with a sword at his side.*

Errezha: *rolling her eyes* And so, once again, we find ourselves back here. I can hardly wait to see what horror you’ve dredged up for us to deal with this time.

Caelum: Well, at least it’s not Lionheart this time, right? *beat* Please tell me Lionheart didn’t go back and write more PKH while we weren’t looking.

MG: It’s not Lionheart, and it’s not PKH, thankfully. It’s a lot shorter, and not nearly as bad, albeit still… special… in its own way. And Errezha, I hate to say it, but things could be worse. I could’ve picked you two to do Fifth Sorceress with.

Errezha: …I have no idea what that is, and by your tone I don’t think I want to. Very well, let’s get this started, then.



MG: Well, to start with, unlike The Fifth Sorceress, Spellfire actually does have a map, showing some of the major locations in the novel. And it’s a pretty solid map; it only shows a very small sliver of the world (which raises some unfortunate warning signs for a book that’s supposed to “show us all the Realms” but we’ll get to that later), but it covers pretty much everywhere we’ll need to know going in. And speaking of, here we go! Note, the second edition comes with a foreword before Chapter One, but I’ll be saving it to discuss after we’ve finished the book, so we can take a look at some of Greenwood’s comments in light of the finished novel.

Chapter One: At the Sign of the Rising Moon

MG: And, like Fifth Sorceress, our chapter opens with an in-universe quote for an epigraph; unlike Fifth Sorceress, Greenwood does this for every chapter and, occasionally, they’re actually relevant! This one is attributed to one Seroun of Calimport (who I don’t believe appears or is mentioned anywhere else in any canonical Realms material) from his book Tales of Far Travels and reads: Neglect not small things, for all ruling and war and magecraft are naught but small things, one built upon another. Begin then with the small, and look close, and you will see it all. Huh; aside from the weird rhyme at the end, this reminds me of the quotes that start out several of Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera novels… which are not without problems of their own, but which I’d still rather be reading.

Errezha: Moving on, we are immediately introduced to our heroine at work. It was a good inn, but sometimes Shandril hated it – and this was one of those times. It would seem that she is presently washing dishes in the inn’s kitchen and has scalded her hands in hot water. Apparently, it’s a hot “Flamerule” day (I presume this is a month, probably in summer) and she’s soaked in sweat, and her tunic – which was once “Gorstag’s,” whoever that may be – is presently sticking indecently to her body, but the only person who will see her is “Korvan” who would slap and pinch no matter what she was wearing. *deep breath* We’re barely a paragraph into this book and we already have sexual harassment to deal with. This is going to be a very long sporking, isn’t it?

MG: Well, it’s only a minor plot element at best, and at least we’re not supposed to like Korvan when we meet him, which is better than what some fics that have been featured at Das_Sporking can say. And if that isn’t a horribly low bar to clear… Anyway, this whole setup is a bit weird, for several reasons. First off, Greenwood is completely inconsistent about whether Shandril is an overworked, neglected Cinderella or happily adopted (Gorstag, we’ll soon see, is both the inn’s proprietor and Shandril’s guardian). We get a very negative first impression of her life at the inn, but later in the book (and the series) Shandril will be pining about going back there and waxing nostalgic and… yeah. As for Gorstag himself, I think the book wants us to see him positively, but the overall vibe he ends up giving off is that he tries to be a good father but kind of sucks at it (for one thing, it’ll turn out he’s completely oblivious to the fact that his cook is harassing his adopted daughter…)

Caelum: Well, Shandril will admit that Korvan is a good cook, albeit one that was fat and stank and had hot and sticky hands, so I guess it’s at least convenient that we can tell who the bad guy is because he’s gross and ugly? She’s heard he used to be a cook at the royal court at Cormyr (wherever that is…) but got banished on pain of death for some reason. Shandril wonders if he harassed one of the Cormyrean princesses and that’s why, but honestly, if you grope royalty and get away with just being banished (where you can keep doing it to other people…) it seems to me like you got off easy.

Errezha: We wouldn’t stand for it where I’m from, I can tell you that. Say what you will about Cheliax, but Queen Abrogail’s justice is swift, and usually painful. At least when the target is someone who isn’t useful to Her Infernal Majestrix, of course… Moving on, Shandril fantasizes about getting Korvan drunk and hauling him over the border into Cormyr and seeing what happens and if the King himself will appear to pass sentence on the spot but ends up deciding that it will never happen, and she’s trapped here. It’s explained that although Shandril is sixteen, she’s never been anywhere but the inn, not even to other parts of the town of Highmoon – excuse me? What, exactly, are these people doing with her that she can’t even leave the building? This is sounding less like adoption and more like slavery. At least Mother let me visit other parts of Egorian than our townhouse, if only to run her errands!

MG: Yeah, Greenwood is really laying on the “Cinderella Shandril” schtick thickly in this chapter, I guess to make us sympathize with her? Even though it’s completely unnecessary and feels really weird in hindsight when it turns out hey, Shandril actually liked working at the inn after all? Was “innkeeper’s adopted daughter runs away from home to join an adventuring company” (spoiler: which she does) not an interesting enough hook without making it sound like she’s literally never left the building she grew up in? Especially since, other flaws aside, we’re clearly not meant to see Gorstag as abusive or a bad parent? I just feel like Greenwood couldn’t make up his mind on what he wanted to do with this situation and ended up trying to split the difference and not managing it.

Caelum: Well, Shandril does go on to clarify she doesn’t mind most of the work, just having to deal with Korvan and the fact that she feels the rest of the staff aren’t pulling their weight. And we’re told that more than anything… Shandril wanted to please Gorstag. Apparently, he’s a retired adventurer who’d been swinging his axe in important wars (we’re not told what those are, but I’m kind of curious…) before settling down to open his inn. We’re told he’s quiet and kind and bought Shandril a nice dress for feast days (over Korvan’s objections, because he’s just terrible, apparently)… and, well, if you’re really so nice, why don’t you let your ward leave the inn, huh? He also gave Shandril her last name, Shessair, because years ago some of the serving girls had been teasing her about not having one. Apparently, it was her birth parents’ name, but he won’t tell her anything more, and I’ve got to wonder why he didn’t call her that to begin with and save her the embarrassment of not having a family name? Is this one of those stories where the orphan turns out to have a mysterious and important past they can’t know about because it’s important or something?

MG: Well… sort of. There is a reason Gorstag won’t tell Shandril about her parents, but while it gets hyped up a bit the revelation, when we get it, ends up not amounting to much and it really just feels like he was overreacting. But we’ll get to that at the end of the book. Well, despite her bout of fond feelings towards Gorstag, Shandril goes back to thinking of the Rising Moon as her cage and furiously finishes doing the dishes, which gives her time to run off to her bedroom, a loft she shares with someone called Lureene save for nights when she had a man and Shandril was banished to the cellar for her own safety – wait, ‘safety?’ What is Lureene doing with her one-night stands, anyway? I mean, I get why Shandril doesn’t want to stick around for her roommate having sex, but “safety” just seems a weird way to put it. Unless the men in question would themselves be an active danger to Shandril, in which case ugh, ugh, ugh. In any case, with her work done for now, Shandril can grab a nicer dress to change into and go down to the common room to watch the crowd for the evening. That done, we get a description of the common room, which is warm and cozy and decorated with pictures of heroic deeds and Gorstag’s old battle-axe, which he can apparently still wield one-handed if need-be, hanging over the bar. And then, once again, we’re told that it was a good inn, plain but cozy… yet to Shandril it seemed more and more like a prison. Well, maybe if Gorstag let you actually go visit the rest of the town…

Errezha: Well, Shandril listens to the guests talk, and apparently, she most enjoys the stories old veterans tell of their past adventures, and then briefly wishes she were a man, strong enough to wear coat-of-plate and swing a blade, to send foes staggering back with the force of her blows! Girl, you are aware that women can be warriors, mercenaries and adventurers, aren’t you? I happen to know some. You might say I am one myself, though my skills lie more with spells than blades. Do broaden your horizons.

MG: And it’s not like the Realms has any shortage of female adventurers, several of whom we’ll meet before the end of this book and two in this very chapter. And this is the only time Shandril ever wishes to be a man, so it’s not like gender envy is a common feature of her thought and I have no idea why Greenwood decided to throw it in here. After listening for a while, she then goes out to the inn garden to fetch water and vegetables for Korvan to use in cooking. On the way back in, she runs into both Korvan and Gorstag; before Korvan can criticize her, Gorstag jumps in to compliment her good work and tell her she’ll make a fine innkeeper herself one day, leading the cook to storm off in a huff. That done, Shandril goes back out into the yard to promise to herself that someday she will see the world outside the Rising Moon.

Caelum: Well, it turns out that a company of adventurers have arrived and are staying at the Rising Moon tonight, the Company of the Bright Spear – hey, they have a cool name. *looks over at Errezha* We need a cool name, don’t you think? Defenders of Varisia? Sandpoint Goblinslayers? Caelum’s Champions?

Errezha: *flatly* No.

Caelum: *muttering* You’re no fun. Well, Shandril comes back in and, with Gorstag off to see to the guests, Korvan slaps her and yells at her to move that shapely little behind and for Iomedae’s sake I really, really hate this guy and have absolutely no idea how Gorstag apparently hasn’t noticed how he treats Shandril - it’s not like he’s subtle about it. Shandril mutters to herself that someday she’ll be free of this and goes off to spy on the people in the common room again, and for the first time notices that there are two women adventurers there who are Beautiful. Tall, slim, and free to do as they please. She goes on to describe their gear and confidence and how they were what she longed to be but for some reason keeps going back to their soft beauty… no red-faced oxen these and, uh, I’m starting to think Shandril has a bit of a crush. Does she swing that way? In any case, Korvan finds her and yells at her to get back to work, and finally something snaps and she vows to get away from the inn tonight. That was fast!

MG: Immediately after, we get a scene change and meet our secondary protagonist and Shandril’s actual love interest, Narm Tamaraith. Yes, the guy’s name is Narm. And, well, Ed Greenwood had no way of knowing in 1987, but in TVTropes parlance narm refers to something that’s supposed to be serious but ends up comical instead through poor writing/acting/what have you, and so in hindsight a character named that is pretty, well, narm-y. Poor guy. Anyway, Narm happens to be an apprentice wizard and he and his master, Marimmar, are currently approaching the Rising Moon while Marimmar berates Narm and tells him not to say anything about where they’re going and to not even mention Myth Drannor. Which, for the record, is a famous (and monster-infested) ruined elven city where he wants to go to hunt for treasure.

Caelum: And… oh, gods… apparently Marimmar actually calls himself “the Mage Most Magnificent.” Are…are we actually supposed to take this guy seriously?

MG: Well, Marimmar is a blowhard, but yeah, this is our introduction to one of Greenwood’s sillier writerly quirks – a tendency to give his characters (or have them give themselves) ridiculous and pompous nicknames that we are, generally speaking, indeed supposed to take seriously. If we ever get to Hand of Fire, we’ll see that one of its main antagonists is a hired assassin who literally calls himself “the Dark Blade of Doom” and yes, we’re supposed to treat the guy as a serious threat and find the name impressive rather than overwrought and silly. Speaking of narm… Apparently, Greenwood thinks this is terribly clever. It isn’t. And, in this case, Narm (the character) does admit that Marimmar is a genuinely skilled wizard, albeit fairly insufferable company. Still, he’s happy to reach the inn and wonders if there might be pretty girls in there. Foreshadowing!

Errezha: We then have another scene change, back to Shandril as she finishes her latest round of chores and sneaks back to the common room. She wants to learn more about the women adventurers but gets distracted by noticing the newly-arrived Marimmar - an imperious man in fine grey robes, ugh, he reminds me of some of Mother’s friends already – and Narm, who she finds handsome. Then, suddenly, Narm looks up and his and Shandril’s eyes meet across the room and by the Prince, I hope we’re not going to have some sort of sappy love-at-first-sight drivel; my tolerance for such waned long ago. Well, Narm winks at her and suddenly Shandril is all a flutter about how this complete stranger apparently regards her as an equal and gah, girl, you don’t even know the boy! You don’t even know his name! Well, once again she’s distracted as Korvan yells at her to come back to the kitchen to chop vegetables.

Caelum: And so, we get another scene change, back to Narm, who’s thinking about the girl he saw until Marimmar snaps at him for drinking too much and letting his attention wander. Er, I don’t think that was the drink, O Mage Most Magnificent. Anyway, Marimmar makes him pull out his notes and start reviewing how to cast spells under various circumstances – in the dark, lacking components, while drunk (is there any information in there about spells that can get you out of embarrassing situations while you’re naked? Asking for a friend…) – but Narm’s mind keeps wandering back to Shandril. Then we get yet another scene change, as one of the visiting adventurers has spilled his food and Shandril is sent in to clean it up. She takes the opportunity to study the Bright Spear people up close; their leader is named Burlane, and next to him is a real dwarf called Delg. What, did Shandril not believe dwarves were real, or something? I’m kind of offended on my friend Harann’s behalf! Or did she just think Delg was a short guy wearing a fake beard before she got a good look at him? Apparently, Delg has a jeweled dagger sheathed in his boot, and Shandril reaches for it… oh, this is going to end well…

Errezha: However it ends it will have to wait, as one of the locals, a veteran named Ghondarrath, starts talking about the ruined City of Beauty, Myth Drannor and the treasures to be had there. It would seem the city is only a week or so away, but elves try to keep outsiders away from the ruins, and the city itself is guarded by devils – and worse! Curious; in my experience, devils prefer living cities over ruins in the middle of nowhere. It gives them more opportunity to do their work. Suddenly he’s interrupted – it seems one of the Bright Spear adventurers tried to pick his pocket, and Ghondarrath caught him at it. Shandril watches, having already grabbed Delg’s knife without him noticing but too fascinated to make a break for it. Predictably a fight breaks out as the thief tries to stab Ghondarrath and Ghondarrath slams him onto the table so hard it kills him. Which in turn nearly leads to a brawl between the Bright Spear and the local veterans until the two women adventurers jump between them, swords drawn. The older of the two, who has silver hair despite otherwise looking like she’s in her thirties, threatens to kill everyone on both sides if they don’t put their weapons away – hmm, I fail to see how this is any better – and her companion backs her up, saying that it was the thief’s fault and he’s already paid for it. And then Gorstag himself jumps in and tells everyone to put their weapons away in his house, and begrudgingly, everyone does so.

Caelum: So, silver-haired lady apologizes to Ghondarrath for jumping into the middle of his fight like that, but apparently she thought there were too many of the Bright Spear and he’d have gotten himself killed if he tried to take them on; he thanks her and asks her name, which turns out to be Storm Silverhand, a bard of Shadowdale and her friend is Sharantyr, a ranger, also of Shadowdale. And then Gorstag, to settle everyone down, passes out a round of wine on the house – and then suddenly even though there wasn’t a scene change we’re back in Narm’s head as Marimmar compliments him for not getting involved, while Narm himself just wonders where Shandril went. I think somebody has caught a certain other somebody’s eye…

MG: Jumping in, for the record, Storm and Sharantyr are both pretty big-name Realms NPCs, especially Storm, and they’re merely the first example of Greenwood’s pet characters popping up and stealing the spotlight (and it will get much worse later in the book). But I’ll have more to say on both of them later on, when they have bigger roles, and more of aforesaid pet characters start intruding on things.

Errezha: Now we do get a scene change, as the Company of the Bright Spear stay up late drinking and then head up to their room, seeming strangely unaffected by the fact that their friend was literally killed in front of them early that evening courtesy of his own sloppiness in robbing the wrong person. Perhaps they didn’t like him that much after all? And the fact that nobody else seems to much care that a man was just killed earlier makes me think that the Rising Moon is the sort of dive where lethal violence is a semi-regular occurrence, which I’m reasonably sure is not what Greenwood was going for. In any case, we now learn the names of the remaining members – Rymel the bard, Ferostel the fighter, and Thail the wizard. All of whom are men, which doesn’t give me especially fond feelings towards this company and its hiring practices. Delg, apparently, has realized he’s missing his dagger and is still stewing over it. When they reach the room, however, it turns out that Burlane’s spear – as in the Bright Spear for which the company is named – is missing from where they’d seemingly stowed it earlier. As is all of the rest of their gear! Including a royal charter, which they have for some reason.

MG: Early Realms fiction had a bad case of the “adventurer being treated as a reputable profession in its own right” trope that sometimes plagues bad D&D tie-ins (and sometimes other sword and sorcery, though I’ll note that even Conan, the iconic sword and sorcery hero, was usually a mercenary, a bandit, a pirate, and eventually a king, not just a generic “adventurer”) that can’t come up with an actual reason for its heroes to be, well, adventuring – to the point that, in Cormyr and neighboring lands, adventuring companies had to actually get royal licenses to be able to legally operate. For the record.

Errezha: Well, at that moment, the mystery is answered as someone knocks on the door – when it opens, Shandril sticks her head in, with the Bright Spear in one hand and the charter in the other. The only explanation she gives? I understand you need a thief. And thus, our chapter ends with our heroine having just needlessly antagonized five grown men who nearly started a very violent, implied to have been potentially lethal, bar fight. And somehow, I have a feeling this is the sort of story where that won’t be a lethally foolish act.

MG: It won’t be; as we’ll see next chapter, Shandril’s impromptu job audition actually does work… somehow. And so, we spend our first chapter with our heroine being miserable, sharing Meaningful Looks with a guy she’s never met before, and trying to join a group of people she knows nothing about and has no idea where they’re going or what they’ll do when they get there because she’s just that desperate to get away from home. Yay. Next time, Shandril gets a new job, leaves on an adventure, and more important Realms characters start crawling out of the woodwork, including the one nigh-universally considered to be Ed Greenwood’s very own self-insert Gary Stu. We’ll see you there! Also thought I’d include some of the official art for the major Realms characters when they appear. Here is Storm:

Comments

[epistler]

Mein Gott, just one chapter in and this book already sounds dire.

I actually read the Drizzt books! Well, the first three. They were good brainless fun. I reckon it doesn't matter so much if your book is silly and cliched as long as it's fun to read. Which was a major problem with the Cycle: it was stupid and cliched, but it also wasn't any fun. It was just dull and pretentious.

[masterghandalf]

Mein Gott, just one chapter in and this book already sounds dire.


Oh, we haven't seen anything yet!

I actually read the Drizzt books! Well, the first three. They were good brainless fun. I reckon it doesn't matter so much if your book is silly and cliched as long as it's fun to read. Which was a major problem with the Cycle: it was stupid and cliched, but it also wasn't any fun. It was just dull and pretentious.


RA Salvatore is a great example of what I tend to think of as "popcorn fantasy" - not a lot of depth or substance, but good at spinning an entertaining yarn. Greenwood, on the other hand... struggles with that. And re Inheritance, even just refreshing my memories with Mara_Dienne's commentaries, I keep coming up with so many ways to take the same basic ideas, but execute them so much better (the wasted potential of the Ra'zac alone...)

[epistler]

It's amazing how easily some writers seem to forget that a novel must first and foremost be entertaining. That's what a novel is for. If it's not entertaining, then you haven't done your job.