Epic fantasy novel serial publication The Sundering features six authors , the return of legion beloved characters , wars , gods , and cataclysmal event that will remold the Forgotten Realms . We talked with two of those authors about finding their place within such a huge storey , and what makes a character stick .
The Sundering is a six - novel serial that will plant up the Forgotten Realms for whatever conformation that circumstance will take in the upcoming raw variation of Dungeons & Dragons . The first novel in the serial , R.A. Salvatore’sThe associate , was released originally this month ; the rest of the series will come out over the coming calendar month , including the third book , The Adversary by Erin M. Evans , and the fifth record , The Sentinel , by Troy Denning . At Gen Con , we interviewed both authors about their place within the heroic chronicle of the Sundering .
io9 : Could you describe your characters and where they remain firm at this detail , leave into the Sundering ?
Erin Evans : At the outset of the Sundering , Farideh — at the beginning of my script The Adversary — Farideh makes this decision seek to protect the citizenry she cares about . That gets her perpetrate into a horrible position . She ’s trying to count on out how to stop this thing that is bounteous than herself , and finding out all sorts of unusual secrets about her yesteryear .
Troy Denning : Well , I ’m writing book identification number five [ in the serial ] , The Sentinel , and one of the independent characters , the manlike lead if you will , is name Kendrick . He is a paladin who has been worshipping the dead god Helm for quite a while . It ’s leave alone him a piddling bit embittered . He ’s been serving on the Marsember Watch , and his part of the story concerns coming to actualise that his worship has go along Helm alive .
The female spark advance is a daughter of a luxurious duchess , Arietta Seasilver . And the story basically come to the two of them coming to realize what the true spot is , coming to appreciate the differences in their course of study , and acquire how to relate to each other over those differences . We have a couple of minor characters , one of them is from my novel Crucible : The Trial of Cyric the Mad . Malik returns 100 years afterward , after having been abandoned by Cyric to roll the planes , dead for the entire sentence .
io9 : There are unlike scale of phantasy — personal adventure versus a more cosmic weighing machine . Could you verbalise about the kinds of roles your characters play at those different scale ? Because the Sundering seems like a cosmic event , but it ’s being told at a personal level .
EE : There ’s Brobdingnagian thing happening , nations going to war , gods changing the mode they view their worshiper , or feel like they ’re go to be replaced . But the fib are about these people on the primer coat . So Farideh draws the attention of the god of sin , but I would say that news report is more about Farideh memorise to trust her ally and not feel like she has to do everything herself . That presence is there , that gamy - level thing , but you do n’t have Asmodeus blend in , “ Well , here ’s my cunning plan . ” I intend that a more relatable story is talking about people who could be like you if you were sucked into this fancy world . So big stories with the gods on the stage , they have their seat , but for me I do n’t find that as interesting to write , or as piquant to read .
TD : Of course having written Waterdeep , Crucible , a lot of the history I ’ve write have involve god do as individuals and explore their personality . So even when you ’re writing on that marvellous scale , you have to lend them down to something that a person can understand . Just as when you ’re writing Star Wars and you have to write an noncitizen , you have to encounter something human in that alien for the great unwashed to relate to .
But that being said , one of the thing that we talked about when we were exploring the ideas for The Sundering and uprise this , was that we did n’t require to have any scenes where the gods were directly in difference of opinion . I think in a couple of the books , at least in the first draft , avatars of the deity make small appearance .
electrical engineering : I think they ’re largely a piddling more inscrutable , than just feel like they ’re also characters .
TD : In other playscript [ in The Sundering serial ] the gods come along , but they ’re deal on a small exfoliation . And again I ’m talking about the drafts evidently .
io9 : How sequential are the books ? Do they all take to be show in gild to understand them ?
TD : It ’s important to realize we ’re doing two thing . We ’re tell a story on a grand scurf of the public , and to get the idea of what ’s happening on the luxurious scale , you have to read Holy Scripture one , two , three in order . Because what ’s go on in the world directly affects the characters . But then the account is how the characters lot with what ’s happening in the world .
EE : What find to the villains in Paul ’s book [ Paul S. Kemp , author of The Godborn , the second Quran in the series ] make the situation that the villains are in in my book . You could just jump in there and go , “ Oh , okay , that ’s where they ’re at . ” But to totally understand what ’s going on you have to read them . And I believe Paul ’s book conduce off from what come about in Bob ’s Word [ R.A. Salvatore , source of The Companions , the first book of account in the serial ] . Bob ’s been make a great analogy , that it ’s like if you were reading a serial publication of books about World War II , and one book is plant in maybe a village in Austria , and then the next volume is the Battle of Britain , and then one ’s about the concentration camps . These are freestanding things , but as you read them you see how this whole big thing is playing out . So to see this big thing you have to look through all these petty window .
io9 : What is it about a character that makes it vex with you and say , “ I necessitate to write more stories about this mortal ” ?
electrical engineering : For me , I actually press to keep Farideh , because they were n’t certain if a tiefling character was going to have enough of a attraction . But then I started writing about her . It was one Word , and then they said , “ Okay , we desire to make this a serial . ” So from that one book I kind of pulled out things and created a big bow for her . I remember you require to compose about characters you ’re passionate about , and I ’m passionate about these character . I ’ve laid down the understructure , and you desire to follow through , you know ? proceed to shape that write up .
TD : My past in the Forgotten Realms has been a little bit different because … it always seemed that it involved a deal of different characters . In Waterdeep it was Midnight , and the next time I arrive back to the Avatar trilogy it was Cyric . So I ’ve jumped around a slew . To tell apart you the truth it ’s been fun because I ’ve been capable to search a set of different lineament . But you do miss that continuity . In Star Wars I ’ve written Han and Leia for 12 book . It ’s fun to see that eccentric develop and to figure out where they ’re go next , because every playscript has an electric arc for a character . And then the next book you have to have an arc , and it ca n’t be the same arc … you have to show how they ’ve grown .
Malik , however , is a complete exception to that rule . Because Malik is just … he ’s my Emperor Claudius . He ’s this small underestimated bozo who is a total insect , but hopefully loveable in his own way . And he was just so much fun to publish , to get in the head of this character who is wholly freakish and completely consecrate to all the awry thing , but in a very apprehensible way .
io9 : scientific discipline fiction and fantasy sort of get chunk together on book store shelves , but I cogitate there are some subtle deviation . What form of stories is illusion serious at notification ? What can you reveal with a phantasy story that another music genre is perchance not as good at ?
TD : To me , fantasy is a story that deals with man ’s relationship to his spirit . And by spirit I mean , down to the mythologic spirit , down to the Jungian collective , to archetypes . And science fiction is the story that care with human ’s relationship to his technology . salutary science fiction will advance a spiritual interrogation , but at long last the question unremarkably terminate up being , “ How does this technology wallop mankind ’s purport ? ” Versus in fantasy , it ’s a man seek to derive to terms with whatever engagement is corrode away at his spirit . That ’s the big difference to me . And if you involve me about quad opera I ’m whole lose .
EE : That ’s the thing , any answer you give , there ’s going to be elision . I did an interview where they said , define fancy in 25 tidings or less , and then scientific discipline fiction . And I conceive my reply for science fiction was , you take reality and extrapolate in an interesting direction . So there ’s always that international facet to it . And I reckon that ’s correct , you ’re interact with technology , the things that can impact the life story that you ’ve created . And then fantasy , you take the impalpable and make it tangible to show something . It ’s interior , so you may relate that to those sort of internal problems , by have those myth and apparitional questions , and legerdemain and things like that be a literal affair in the world .
io9 : You both have experience in play , a chronicle as a designer and certainly your ploughshare of playing D&D , so how does that inform your committal to writing , and how do you let in play criterion in the novel without it seeming “ game - atomic number 39 , ” so to speak ?
EE : That ’s the kiss of death , right-hand ? Like , “ I hear the dice roll … ” I think you want to bewitch the life of what it ’s like to wreak a tabletop game . There ’s always something happen , whether an fundamental interaction or armed combat , or whatever . It is sort of pace a little quicker . When it come to things like piece or maneuvers , I think it ’s nice sometimes to go and find the ones you could apply in a narrative way that make gumption , but then there ’s a lot of them where you go , “ I ’m just not gon na worry about it . ” Tieflings have a power called Infernal Wrath where if someone hits them then they get surplus hit item , and I ’m like , this is … . I do n’t even want to think how to make that voice right .
And then there ’s times where it is dead okay to cheat because you achieve something adept . Farideh has something that in my precis I call “ shammer brumous step ” , because a warlock with a fae pact has a power where they can teleport a short length , and I think they get concealment when they do it . And I fancy that and I ’m like this is a great power for a warlock like her … So I pluck the description a piffling scrap so that it made sense come from the hells where she does get her power . But if you were an infernal warlock [ in the game ] you ca n’t habituate that power , and you could n’t apply it as much as she does . That would expose the game . But for the tantrum and for the story that made sense .
TD : For me , I guess it happen two way . One , any time you indite phantasy you have to build the rules of magic , you have to build the rules of what the characters are capable of . And that poppycock has already been build with D&D. So as long as you ’re respecting that , you ’re starting on a solid foundation . And then , the other part is , as long as I bug out with that fundament and then I plunge myself into the exceptional world , once I ’m into the Forgotten Realms , I endeavor to do things that make sense in that world and the style it was construct . I reckon that through the combination of those two thing you generally arrive at a book that ’s based on a gambling surroundings without being a book about gambling . Nobody wants to read about their D&D adventure . It ’s been try , people have done it and usually they have n’t sold very well .
EE : There are morphologic differences . Your adventure just kind of goes off in crazy ways , and you have a goofy aside that make sense to your gaming chemical group , and to seek to cram that into a book , it ’s just a formless mess . It kind of decease the other way too , when the novels are informing the game they have to be more pliant . This is why I ’m a terrible diabetes mellitus , because I ’m just like , “ No , I want you guys to do this , this is the skilful option . So no you ca n’t bluff out the guards , that has a challenge evaluation of 30 because I said so ! ” [ with much yelling and pound of the table ]
io9 : What are the joys and frustrations of writing in a share universe as self-aggrandizing and as old as the Forgotten Realms ?
EE : Probably the nice thing about the Realms is that it ’s so gravid . If you want to do something and it does n’t work here , somewhere there ’s a place where it probably ferment . It ’s decent having those boundaries that you brush up against , they kind of inhale you . It bounce you in a direction that kind of shapes the news report . lt can be really frustrating when the floor you have to tell … and we ’ve both been in this situation … when you ’re in a place where there ’s just a lot of lore and a lot of item and a lot entropy that ’s already been plant , for you to aggrandise and like about , because you do n’t want to go in and just go , “ Oh none of that because I need it to be like this , right ? ” You ca n’t always run away from the complications .
TD : The joy is that there is so much reference material to draw on . I think of as a writer , if you ’re writing a new humankind , you have to invent all that stuff yourself . It ’s relinquish because you’re able to just sort of unleash your subconscious and just say all right , go to town . But at the same time you ’re opening up one somebody ’s subconscious . And the joy of working in a place like the Forgotten Realms is , we have how many people ’s subconscious now ? Hundreds of peoples ’ subconsciouses have just been poured into this thing . And you could take out on all of that . And it really truly does make it jubilant . One of the thing I know about work on a team of writers is that we get together in the brainstorming , and the ideas build upon other theme . And what emerges is always better than the best that any one of us could do . And that ’s the real pleasure .
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