Shadows of Doom: Prologue

[masterghandalf]

MG: Well, everyone, the time has come to officially begin our journey through the first volume of Ed Greenwood’s Shadow of the Avatar trilogy, Shadows of Doom! In which we shall see Greenwood try to take on one of the most iconic storylines in the Forgotten Realms, the Time of Troubles… and for some reason spend a whole first book on things that mostly aren’t actually related to the Time of Troubles! Yay! Doesn’t that just sound so exciting?

To start off with, we’re going to take a look at the cover – a brief look, which is all it deserves. IMO, this cover absolutely sucks; it’s just got Elminster (in his standard 2e design, where he looked more like Red Gandalf than anything; I think I’ve mentioned that later editions would redesign him somewhat, still keeping the general “classic wizard” aesthetic while trying to make him less of an obvious Gandalf clone) striking a melodramatic pose against a blurry blue background. Boring. The two subsequent covers in this trilogy follow the same general style… and the sad thing is, they might actually be worse. At least I can recognize Elminster here!

We do not have a map for this book, though it does mostly take place in and around the Dales with a few peeks at Zhentil Keep, in other words, the same general places as Spellfire. Which means that after a brief detour into a mildly interesting (if also profoundly obnoxious) setting with Elminster in Myth Drannor, we’re back to one of the most generic regions in the Forgotten Realms, and we’ll be staying there for most of the trilogy. Seriously, I’ve said it before, but while Ed Greenwood’s reputation for worldbuilding is earned in general… you’d never know it from reading his fiction. Now, in a rare case for Greenwood, this book also doesn’t have in-universe quotes as epigraphs for individual chapters. It does, however, open with two in-universe quotes. The first is from Elminster himself. It is the doom of men that they never know quite enough wisdom until it is too late. Okay, that one’s fair enough, Elminster… though based on some of your previous actions, I think you might benefit from paying more attention to it yourself! The other is from Elminster’s scribe, Lhaeo (who you might remember as the guy from Spellfire who’s secretly a prince and pretends to be a stereotypical gay guy even though he’s straight, because that makes people underestimate him or something… thankfully, Greenwood quickly decided to quietly drop that plot point). Hearken now to a tale of the Realms, ye jaded lords, ladies, and gentles. Oh, it is a grand tale, to be sure. It has murder, and magic, and lovemaking—and, as usual, you’ll misunderstand every word of it. Be not angry, mind; the fault’s not with you, or me. Life’s like that, you see. Hmmm… feeling a little defensive about your work’s reception are we, Greenwood? At least that’s what it sounds like to me… And also rather overselling this book’s (and frankly, this whole trilogy’s) content, but… you’ll see what I mean.

After that, we’ll move on to the prologue proper. Or at least, I’m calling it a prologue for lack of another label, since, in fact, it’s not actuall labelled as anything at all. Actually, it’s not even included as an option in the kindle edition’s table of contents! But it’s there nonetheless, so we’re going to spork it. I am going to use some co-sporkers for this book, but we’ll hold off on introducing them until next time. The, uh, prologue is basically a big infodump on Mystra, the Chosen, and Elminster, and not part of the story proper, so I think it’ll be easiest to just handle it myself. With that out of the way, onward!

Prologue

And so, we open with the statement that There is a slim, dark and dusty tome few have ever read.… which sounds appropriately ominous! It lies hidden beneath a rune-graven flagstone under the circular table in the innermost chamber of Candle-keep. This tome is called The Book of Mysteries, and it sets forth all that the writer—whose name, of course, has been forgotten—knew of the nature and powers of Mystra, the goddess of magic. *rolling their eyes* And, of course, the book is about Mystra. And the book about Mystra gets hidden in the most secure vault of Candlekeep, even though Mystra isn’t even Candlekeep’s patron deity (that’d be Oghma, god of knowledge). Because don’t you know Mystra is just. That. Awesome. *rolls their eyes again* As mistress of magic, her power is far greater than that of the other gods of Toril. Yet, to mortals at least, it seems not so. Therein lies the secret. And of course, we have to get more of Greenwood shilling his favorite deity. And sure, Mystra is powerful – she’s a greater deity, after all. But she’s far from the only greater deity out there, and by definition they all control a broad aspect of reality on a conceptual level. Sure, “magic” is a fundamental piece of Toril’s makeup on a conceptual level – but is it more fundamental than, say, death? Or war? Or darkness? Or the physical substance of the planet itself? Because there are gods for all of those things, some of them much, much older than Mystra! IIRC, Faiths and Pantheons, the 3e sourcebook on Toril’s deities, heavily implied that Chauntea was the most powerful of the gods (not counting Ao the Overgod, who isn’t really a god so much as he is to the gods as the gods are to mortals)… and considering she’s the goddess off, again, the whole planet and is worshipped across Toril as the deity of agriculture and fertility… that makes sense.

Throughout history, as long as there have been gods, and people of Toril to worship them, the essential power of Mystra has been held not only by the goddess herself, but by a self-willed, loyal demigod—Azuth, who was the greatest archmage of his day—and a handful of mortals. Uh, okay – no. We’ve been over this before, but Mystra was not the first goddess of magic – Mystryl was. Mystra was born, as Mystryl’s daughter/reincarnation, after Mystryl died, but she’s not the same entity. And while both Mystra and Mystryl have had Chosen, Mystryl never had Azuth – he’s younger than Mystra! I don’t believe she had an equivalent of him, either, so this has hardly been the arrangement for “as long as there have been gods!” And I’ll note that this is really playing into the idea that Chosen are something unique and special that Mystra has because she’s just so powerful and awesome, which was an idea of Greenwood’s that basically every other writer in the setting ignored, going with the idea instead that any god can create Chosen, so long as they’re willing to spare the power.

And, speaking of… These mortals cannot wield what they hold of Mystra’s power, but they can withhold it, even from the goddess herself This self-will, and the mortals’ often widespread travels, keep Mystra from ruling all of Realmspace and prevent any other being from doing so through her. So… yeah. Mystra is just so awesome that she has to have Chosen to keep her from becoming so powerful she’d just naturally conquer all of Toril! Sorry, Ed, not buying it. Also *glances at the FRWiki article on Chosen of Mystra and the laundry-list of superpowers being a Chosen of Mystra grants, and the article on Chosen more generally that establishes that all Chosen, regardless of deity, are considered equivalent in power to demigods* Chosen can’t wield the power they hold? Uh-huh, right. The text goes on to explain that Chosen can return their power to Mystra when they wish but can’t be coerced into giving it up, and also that the power automatically returns to Mystra when they die. Down the ages, many beings have shared this mystery. For their own protection, they have not heralded the power they hold, yet it leaves its mark upon them. Okay, I’ll give you Khelben – most people are aware he’s an old, powerful mage but have no idea just how old and powerful, and iirc he usually pretends to be one of his own descendants to keep people from connecting the dots and realizing that a bunch of powerful mages from the Sword Coast region over the centuries have all been the same guy. But Elminster and the Seven Sisters? LOL, no. They’re all very powerful, very famous, and never really try to hide their connection to Mystra. Nice try, Ed.

They cannot be located or affected by magic that spies upon the mind or tames the will. If not slain, they live many hundreds of years, resisting disease, poison, and the ravages of time. Their eyes tend toward blue, and their hair to silver. They attain something of the grace, wildness, wildness, and humor of Mystra herself. And, being mortal, they suffer far more—and learn more wisdom in the wielding of magic—than even Mystra herself. Some, tired or sick of their burden of power, have willingly sought death. Others find death unlooked for, at the end of a searching spell or a flashing blade. Uh, weren’t we just told that the Chosen can give their power back to Mystra whenever they want to? Doesn’t sound like much of a choice, if so many of them would take death instead… Also, I feel like the bit about their appearance mostly covers the Sisters, who in addition to being Chosen are Mystra’s daughters (sort of; one of these days, I think we’re going to have to talk about the truly bizarre set of circumstances around the Seven Sisters’ conception, including why six of them are human but the youngest is a drow… but that’s for another time). The prologue continues that the Magister always holds a portion of Mystra’s power (remember, we met the Magister of Elminster’s youth back in Making of a Mage, and we’ll meet the current Magister in this book… but prepare to be underwhelmed) and that the Chosen in general tend to be powerful archmages, and it goes on to list Elminster, Khelben, and the Sisters as Chosen. A handful of people, plus one demigod, hold something of Mystra’s power. The goddess herself holds as much power as all of their combined burden, or so is the usual ordering of things. What, then, befalls when Mystra falls? Well, we’re about to find out… but seriously, Greenwood, the Time of Troubles was about a lot more than Mystra! She didn’t start it, nor did she finish it – hells, the original incarnation of Mystra (the one we’ve just wasted a lot of words talking about) didn’t even survive it!

It was the eve of the Time of Troubles. Magic had not yet gone wild across the Realms. The gods had not yet been cast down in the Fall. The chaos of spilled blood, lawless strife, monsters unleashed, and avatars roaming Faerûn was yet to come. Well, that sets the stage well enough, though in terms of just how the Time of Troubles is going to begin, this trilogy is a little… confused. More on that in a minute. The prologue continues to explain how all the gods were summoned together, including Mystra (the original Avatar Trilogy shows this scene in full). Unlike most of the gods, however, Mystra’s pride was born of wisdom, of being part of many bindings and most releases of power in Faerûn, down thousands upon thousands of years. In the beginning, Ao the Overgod arranged the division of Mystra’s power so that she could not easily be overthrown or used as an almighty weapon against the other gods—and so she could never rule over all and would not be tempted to try. So, okay. In my opinion, Mystra does not come off very well in the Avatar Trilogy – she basically seems to be the primary example of one of the series’ core themes, how even the “good” gods have let themselves become arrogant, high-handed and out of touch with mortals. Hells, her hubris literally gets her killed partway through the first book, forcing the passing of power to her successor, Midnight (who would become the version of Mystra most fans know and would probably think of first). I don’t know for sure, but I strongly suspect that Greenwood didn’t like that portrayal, and the Shadow of the Avatar trilogy was partially Greenwood’s fix-fic for it, and that’s going to lead to some… issues down the line. This is our first taste of it.

The prologue goes on to explain that the investing of her power into her Chosen gave Mystra an idea, so in her foresight she invested a pendant with part of her divine essence and kept an eye out for talented young mages who might bear it. Perhaps she knew she was choosing her successor. Perhaps she hoped only to gain an advantage over other gods in the Realms. It is doubtful that even the Lady of Magic could have foreseen clearly enough, or acted swiftly enough, to shape the pendant and choose the youngling Midnight as its recipient in the very short time between Ao’s denunciation of the gods and the Fall. The prologue explains that some, including Azuth and Elminster (the people closest to Mystra, so we’re probably supposed to take this as the truth) believe that Ao secretly arranged for this to happen, knowing it was too dangerous for the world to be without a goddess of magic for long. On the one hand… there’s something to that, since while during the Time of Troubles the Weave slowly unraveled, with pretty disastrous results, it never went quite as apocalyptically haywire as it did during the Fall of Netheril or the Spellplague, two other times the goddess of magic died… something must have been holding it in check, a little. On the other hand, this just feels like more shilling of how awesome Mystra is – because all the gods have some degree of foresight, and some of them definitely foresaw the Time of Troubles. Bhaal did, and his preparations for the event of his death would form the backstory of the entire Baldur’s Gate rpg saga – and Bhaal wasn’t a very powerful, or, frankly, very intelligent god (the Avatar Trilogy even depicts him as largely subordinate to his co-conspirators, Bane and Myrkul, both of whom also had contingencies for the event of their deaths). If he could foresee his fate and plan accordingly without Ao’s personal intervention, so could Mystra.

The prologue goes on to explain how Mystra had only a short time to act between Ao pronouncing his judgment on the gods and getting cast down to Toril, so she had to get the pendant to Midnight and invest enough of her power into someone to serve as an adequate backup without killing them on the spot, which is apparently easier said than done. A lone mortal must carry the greater share of the god’s divine energy without being destroyed or driven wild, until Mystra could reclaim her power. It was the fate, or luck, of some mortal to do this—involuntarily and without any preparation. As luck or fate had it, this was the occasion of Elminster’s Doom. The Overgod spoke. Mystra acted. The Fall came upon all the gods, and a certain doom upon Elminster. Our tale begins then, before mortals know of the Fall, in a place unshaken by the great storms that swept much of the Realms during that time. Elminster and Midnight have not yet met in the Stonelands, and the world has not yet been changed forever. And so, we have our stage set. Though I’ll note, Elminster and Midnight meeting in the Stonelands happens in the Avatar Trilogy. Greenwood is actually going to retcon this and have them meet earlier, in a different place and context… and since Elminster knows she’s going to be the next Mystra, it ends up kind of skeevy, alas. But we’ll get to that in Cloak of Shadows, this trilogy’s second book.

As the Overgod Ao is reputed to have said, “Forever seems a shorter and shorter time, these days.” Before the Change that everyone alive in Faerûn at the time remembers, when new stars appeared in the sky and new gods and goddesses rose up while others fell, a profound change came upon the fleeting forever of one man. I mean, Ao is vastly the eldest being in existence in the Realms, predating even Shar, the next eldest, by a fair amount, so I really doubt the events from the Time of Troubles to the Sundering (a bit over a century in-universe) are much more than a blip to him, albeit an annoyingly eventful one. One man a little (he will not say how little) over a thousand years old. This is the tale of Elminster’s Doom—and of the heroes it created. Well, let’s see. Elminster was born in 212 DR. The Time of Troubles happened in 1358 DR. Elminster is 1146 years old at this time – that was easy! As for Elminster’s Doom… we’ll find out what that phrase means at the end of this book and prepare to be disappointed. And with that statement, our maybe-prologue is at an end! Next time, we begin the book proper, as Mystra has a job for Elminster, and certain other wizards take notice. We’ll see you then!