Books: Queen of the Demonweb Pits

Queen of the Demonweb Pits
by Paul Kidd
Published 2001
Part 3 of the Justicar Trilogy

The final book of this trilogy is just as good as the previous two.  The first book, White Plume Mountain, introduced us to the Justicar and Escalla.  The second book, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, gave us Escalla's background story and had her face her past.  So naturally, this third book does the same for the Justicar.

Unfortunately, his origin story is fairly mundane.  While Drizzt's beginnings took an entire trilogy to tell, the Justicar's backstory doesn't even make up a quarter of this novel.  That's too bad, because I like these characters a lot more than anyone in Salvatore's novels.

This book also gives more screen time to Henry and Enid.  Henry has taken a level in badass, having trained with the Justicar between novels.  Enid was always a monster, but she never got to do much fighting in the previous books.  Even Polk gets a couple of chances to be a hero in this one, though he's still mostly there for unfunny comic relief.

It's interesting how the gods are represented.  I don't know if this is true of Greyhawk, or just this author's interpretation of it, but the gods in this book are basically just really tough mortals.  Lolth reminds me a lot of the Queen of Hearts in Tim Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland: she has a huge ego, is very demanding, and a bit whiny.  Her marilith secretary, Morag, reminds me of Kif from Futurama.  There are a lot of funny interactions between the two.

The story itself is epic level.  I don't know what levels the characters would have been in the previous books, but in this one they're traveling to other planes to directly challenge gods.  It seems like an especially huge jump for Henry, who was extremely green when he was introduced in the second book.

Again, the series is written in a modern style that might annoy a lot of serious readers, but I enjoyed the lightheartedness.  The author sneaked in a lot of movie quotes and other little geek jokes.  If the nearly fourth wall humor bothers you, just think of it as an aspect of Escalla's fairy magic.  She comes from a race that specializes in planar travel, so it's no surprise they pick up language from all over the multiverse, including the real world.

I'm sorry to see the end of this trilogy, and I wish the characters had appeared in more books.  If you're looking for some D&D books for some light reading, you could do a lot worse than this trilogy.

Books: Descent into the Depths of the Earth

Descent into the Depths of the Earth
by Paul Kidd
Published 2000
Part 2 of the Justicar Trilogy

The previous book in this series, White Plume Mountain, had one of the most "gamey" plots I could imagine for a D&D module.  The dungeon is very obviously set up like a stereotypical RPG dungeon.  Some fantasy stories (or gaming modules) have flimsy explanations as to why such a large variety of creatures have an ecosystem in the villain's catacombs, but WPM actually makes these dungeon tropes part of the plot.  Upon entering the dungeon, our heroes are greeted with a message along the lines of, "Come explore this dungeon, fight its monsters, avoid its traps, and discover its treasures."  It's as if they were advertising a live action video game. 

At the end of the book they find out the reason for all this.  (Spoiler Alert)  The dungeon's owner needs souls for a ritual, but only the best of the best souls will do.  By using the dungeon's traps and monsters to weed out the not-quite-epic adventurers, the villain can make sure that only the strongest souls reach the heart of the dungeon.  It's a simple plot, and the author could easily have churned out a few generic heroes and just followed the module.  Instead, he created what are now two of my favorite characters, and gave them a decent plot leading them to the dungeon's entrance.  Considering the genre, I thought it was above and beyond the call of duty, and I ate it up with a spoon.

The second book of the trilogy, Descent into The Depths of the Earth, feels much less like a module.  Keep in mind that I haven't played any of these modules, so I have no idea how closely the books follow their plots.  The first half of the book - Actually, let me interrupt myself here.  Now that I've read five or six of these Greyhawk Classics, I've noticed a pattern.  Apparently it's boring to simply add lots of flavor text to a module and call it a novel.  So most of these books spend the first half introducing the characters and setting up their motivations for entering the Lair of Unspeakable Doom.  One thing I've noticed looking through my past reviews, is that I'm always surprised that the heroes don't reach the dungeon until the final third of the book.  I should know better by now.

So, as usual, the first half of this book is character development and plot.  The Justicar, Escalla, Polk, Cinders, and Enid get lost on their way to Hommlet, and end up pawns in fairy politics.  It turns out that Escalla's dubious boasts of royalty in the first book are actually true, and her parents try to force her into a kingdom-uniting arranged marriage.  When she tries to escape this fate, she finds herself falsely accused of murder.  The gang has to flee the fairy court and solve the crime while on the run.  The trail eventually leads them into the Underdark, and that's where the adventure really begins.  There's a lot of action as it gets closer to the climax, but it never reminds me of the way a D&D module is laid out.  I kept wondering what the actual module is like.

I like that there's actual character development in this book.  Escalla and Polk both mature a lot, and the Justicar actually shows a sense of humor now and then.  I haven't seen much of that in the Greyhawk books so far.  But then, most of the these books are one-offs with characters you never get to read about again.  I wish more Greyhawk books had been able to reuse and develop their characters.

You know how when the Justice League would fight a villain that Superman could easily beat, Superman would happen to be off on some deep space mission at the time?  Well, there's a bit of "Holding Back the Phlebotinum" with Enid the sphinx.  It's like the author didn't know what to do with her, so he kept finding excuses to leave her behind while the gang had adventures.  I hope she gets more screen time in the third book.

In Enid's place, the book adds two new party members.  Private Henry is a rookie soldier, who doesn't show a lot of personality in the book.  Hopefully he shines more in the next book, but so far he's practically an NPC.  Benelux is a sentient sword with a personality like C3-P0.  The sword even has a gold blade, which strengthens the 3P0 connection in my mind.  Henry was okay (if bland so far), but I'm not yet sold on Benelux.  Once again, the Justicar seems like the straight man for a party of comedians, and I'm not sure another comic relief character was the best addition.

Classic Lolth

The drow feature heavily in this book, especially in the second half.  Having read most of the Drizzt books, I mostly knew what to expect from the species.  However, these Greyhawk drow don't seem to be quite the badasses I'm used to from Salvatore's Forgotten Realms novels.  One tiny thing that bugged me was the appearance of Lolth.  The book describes her using the older appearance, back when she was just a spider with a drow's head.  Maybe it's because I got into 4e's lore first, but I've always thought classic Lolth to be very goofy looking.  Heck, she even made an appearance in that "Stupid Monsters" page.  Picturing the scene as described in the book made me laugh at times that were supposed to be scary.  The later, drider-like version of Lolth is much cooler.  But this book came out well before that design; it's not like I expect the author to predict the future. 

Bottom line:  Great book, just as good as the one before it.  It's got a fairy-heavy plot that will probably turn some people off, but as a fairy-lover I was quite happy.  I'm already sad that there's only one more book with these characters. Coming up next: Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

Books: White Plume Mountain

White Plume Mountain
by Paul Kidd
Published 1999
Part 1 of the Justicar Trilogy

When I started reading these D&D books, I wasn't expecting good writing.  I knew that these were basically just assignments that D&D's marketing department tossed out to different authors, in the hopes of cashing in on another form of D&D merchandise.  I've only been buying them because they're cheap now, and I've only been reading them to feed my appetite between game sessions.  Some of the books have been better than others, but none of them have really exceeded my expectations.

Until now.  This is the first D&D book I've actually looked forward to reading each day.  I'll find myself at work looking at the clock, waiting for my lunch break so I can read more.  I'm not saying this is quality literature, not in the classic sense or even in the modern/popular sense.  You're not going to set down a Dean Koontz novel to pick up this one.  But within the specific genre of gaming-based spin-off fiction, this is probably the best book I've read.  I would definitely put down a Drizzt novel to read this one.

The story stars a brooding ranger called "The Justicar".  His personality is very similar to Batman - He's very focused on his mission, he cares little for luxury, and he has almost no sense of humor.  He has a shaven head, and looks a little like Vin Diesel on the book cover.  He wields an enchanted black-bladed sword, and wears a sentient telepathic fire-breathing hellhound pelt named Cinders.  Again like Batman, the Justicar is less of a party joiner and more of a one-man army.  I'm not really into the whole "brooding anti-hero" archetype, but a lot of D&D players love that sort of character.  Despite my own aversions, I think the Justicar is every bit as interesting as Drizzt, and I do wish this series had experienced the success of Salvatore's novels.

Eventually the Justicar teams up with Escalla, a shapeshifting fairy with an excess of personality.  She constantly cracks anachronistic jokes, many of which almost break the fourth wall.  She acts a lot like Lidda in The Savage Caves, but Escalla is written so much better.  Some readers might find her annoying, especially when her lack of seriousness puts lives in danger.  That kind of character can be risky to write, as you don't want to risk having a Jar Jar on your hands.  I never thought she crossed that line, but maybe I'm a little biased, since I've always wanted to play a pixie.  As an extreme introvert, I don't know if I'd have the energy to pull it off.  I have played similar characters in NeverWinter Nights, though.

The Justicar and Escalla mix together about as well as you would think, making it feel like a cop buddy-film.  "He's an obsessed loner.  She's a perky pixie.  They fight crime!"   They remind me of Spike and Chester from Loony Tunes.  Also along for the ride is Polk, an annoying NPC who provides more comic relief.  I found Polk to be a completely unneccessary addition to the story, since we already have plenty of humor with Escalla and the fire-obsessed Cinders.  By surrounding the one serious character with all these jesters, the Justicar becomes the embodiment of the "Only Sane Man" trope.  It's like having Wolverine team up with Snarf, Orko, and Scrappy Doo.  But as much as I disapproved of Polk's presence, he didn't drag things down too much.

And really, the humor was one of the things I liked most about the book.  There were some groaners (there'a "pixie stick" pun that made my eyes roll), but there were also a lot of great moments that hung a lampshade on D&D's most prominent tropes.  There were jokes about the standard adventuring gear, particularly the ten-foot pole.  It made fun of outfits adventurers (especially female characters) wear.  There was even a subtle joke about staying "in character".  Granted, I'd heard a lot of these jokes before (Escalla makes a "Did I say three wishes?" joke ripped straight from the Far Side), but it was still a lot of fun reading them in a novel.

And of course, Escalla makes fun of the Justicar's name.  I wish I knew how Justicar was meant to be pronounced.  It could be just-uh-car, or jus-tiss-er, or even just-aye-sir.  The character named himself, and he makes it clear that he meant the name to mean "one who delivers justice."  Therefore I'm inclined to go with justice-er, even though justicer is already a real (differently spelled) word.  There's a Justicar in Mass Effect 2, where it's pronounced just-a-car.  The fact that he insists on being called "THE Justicar" (because it's a self-imposed title) only makes it more cumbersome.  I'll admit that does add to his Batman-esque cool factor, but it also makes some of the sentences a bit cumbersome to read.  Eventually they do start calling him "Jus" for short, which makes things a bit easier.

So, let's talk party balance.  The Justicar, Cinders, and Escalla make a neat trio.  It's the kind of party you wouldn't see much in a real D&D game due to balance issues.  All the characters fill multiple combat roles, so it's the kind of party that pretty much breaks the overly-structured Fourth Edition.  If this is the kind of party we typically saw in older editions, it really makes me want to try them out sometime.  Would Cinders even be considered a party member (played by a separate player) or just equipment?  I'm guessing the latter, since there are sentient swords and the like in D&D.  But he's a developed-enough character that I think it would be neat to play something like him in a game.  A character who can't walk, is worn by another PC, but can still help out the party through skill checks and his breath weapon.  Sure, he won't be the next great action hero, but it would still make for some interesting sessions. 

This is part one of a trilogy, and I'll be starting on the second book ("Descent Into The Depths Of The Earth") soon.  If the rest of the books are even half as good as this one, I'm sure I'll enjoy them.