Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Another day, another Harper book that I read once and then never came back to. Which seems appropriate, as a lot of these featured characters who, after they rode off into the sunset, were never seen again (save for perhaps in the Heroes Lorebook supplement).
Honestly, the character that sticks out in my mind from this book best is Krote, and that's largely because it's extremely rare to see a gnoll hero in any of these books. The only other one that comes to mind is Orvago, from The Silver Stair, and that's a Dragonlance novel (which is also rather dubious, since I'm not sure that gnolls are supposed to exist on Krynn, the same way that orcs don't). Of course, it's also notable that Krote worships Gorellik, the actual gnoll deity who's largely been displaced by the demon lord Yeenoghu among gnolls, so good on the author for doing his homework there.
Beyond that, I seem to recall that Vreesar was actually a gelugon (i.e. an ice devil, as in a devil from the Nine Hells, and a high-ranking one at that), which makes his threat level a little more credible than being just some ice paraelemental. Even so, this was the sort of issue that made the Realms feel a bit overpowered compared to a lot of other settings; "there's a planar rift opening, and hostile creatures are coming through. Let's send a mid-ranking character or two to deal with it." Clearly, Harper command has more important stuff to focus on, right?
Honestly, the character that sticks out in my mind from this book best is Krote, and that's largely because it's extremely rare to see a gnoll hero in any of these books. The only other one that comes to mind is Orvago, from The Silver Stair, and that's a Dragonlance novel (which is also rather dubious, since I'm not sure that gnolls are supposed to exist on Krynn, the same way that orcs don't). Of course, it's also notable that Krote worships Gorellik, the actual gnoll deity who's largely been displaced by the demon lord Yeenoghu among gnolls, so good on the author for doing his homework there.
Beyond that, I seem to recall that Vreesar was actually a gelugon (i.e. an ice devil, as in a devil from the Nine Hells, and a high-ranking one at that), which makes his threat level a little more credible than being just some ice paraelemental. Even so, this was the sort of issue that made the Realms feel a bit overpowered compared to a lot of other settings; "there's a planar rift opening, and hostile creatures are coming through. Let's send a mid-ranking character or two to deal with it." Clearly, Harper command has more important stuff to focus on, right?