The heroes of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Forgotten Realms lines were part of the same adventure in “Jammers,” but they never actually crossed paths. The 1990 Forgotten Realms Annual changes that, as the crew of the Realms Master drops anchor in Waterdeep and runs headlong into the adventures who live at Selûne’s Smile.
Continue reading “Comics & Quests: Waterdhavian Nights”
Our last adventure ended rather abruptly with Jasmine’s kidnapping. The resolution to that story doesn’t happen in the pages of the Forgotten Realms comics, though. Instead, DC tried to introduce a new line of D&D comics, bringing in the brand-new Spelljammer setting.
Released early in 2nd edition AD&D, Spelljammer served as a way to connect other settings. By using a magical form of space travel, characters could leave the Forgotten Realms to journey to Oerth, Krynn, or one of the many other settings that came out as 2nd edition got rolling. For the comic stories, this meant a chance to tie the two existing Forgotten Realms-based lines in with a new cast of characters, creating a grand crossover.
Quite honestly, I’m surprised that Hasbro hasn’t tried to duplicate this effort in the modern day. In an era where every major corporation sees its creative properties as content to iterate upon and where shared universes are all the rage, the many worlds if D&D offer a potential goldmine.
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t give Hasbro any ideas…
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In “Triangles,” the Realms Master added a new member of their crew in Jasmine…and I complained that she and Ishi were reduced to one-note romantic interests for Agrivar. But that was only her first story, so where are we now?
Well, the next tale, “Undead Love,” presents a lich seeking a bride…and selecting Jasmine as his wife-to-be. So it seems that the creative team has a very particular direction for this character.
Continue reading “Comics & Quests: Undead Love”
After a couple issues focused on providing some backstory for the crew, “Triangles” kicks off a longer story for the crew of the Realms Master and brings a new member into the adventuring party. True to this arc’s name, it also establishes a love triangle that puts the character of Ishi Barasume to the test.
I complained previously when “Spell Games” did Vajra dirty by running through a checklist of “strong female character” tropes that were already tired by 1990. Ishi is this title’s strong female character, and she also provides east Asian representation, since her homeland of Kara-Tur is a hodgepodge of legends and stereotypes taken from our real world. Is Ishi bound for the same tone-deaf treatment that Vajra got, or does “Triangles” offer something better? Read on and judge for yourself.
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The 1990s were rife with heavy-handed anti-drug messages. Many of them rang false because they didn’t connect with kids or simply went too over-the-top in their presentation. The message of “don’t do drugs” even landed in the pages of the Forgotten Realms comic, but I feel it’s more effective here than in many ad campaigns.
Perhaps it’s because the Forgotten Realms is already filled with over-the-top situations, or perhaps it’s because the story focuses on an addict’s perspective, but “Head Cheeese” works pretty well as an exploration of addiction and recovery. Don’t let the goofy title fool you–this is a pretty serious story that has a lot of heart.
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Following some epic adventures in “The Hand of Vaprak” and “The Dragonreach Saga,” the Forgotten Realms comic series pivoted toward some more personal stories. After all, we had seen the crew of the Realms Master in action, but aside from Agrivar, whose struggles we were familiar with from his previous adventures in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons title, we didn’t know much about the unusual crew.
First up for examination: Captain Dwalimor Omen. We know he’s hunting artifacts throughout the Realms, but why?
Continue reading “Comics & Quests: The Morning After”
It tooks all the way until “Phases of the Moon” for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comic to deliver my favorite storyline, but the Forgotten Realms line did it in its second story. That said, while I enjoy “The Dragonreach Saga” for its main story, the real thing that gets me to latch onto this tale as something wonderful comes in its B-plot.
Let’s dive into a tale of dragons, villainy, and…mid-wifery?
Continue reading “Comics & Quests: The Dragonreach Saga”
Tabletop RPGs can tell many different stories. The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comic book presented a group of adventurers who took the tried and true track of living at an inn and facing whatever perils came through the city of Waterdeep. But the Forgotten Realms is a huge place, and not all adventurers stick to one locale. About a year after that first Realms-based comic hit store shelves, a second title emerged. Labeled Forgotten Realms, it followed a new group of adventurers who ranged quite a bit farther than the city of Waterdeep.
Continue reading “Comics & Quests: The Hand of Vaprak”
The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons comic series lasted for 36 issues and one annual, but I would argue that the main story of the series ends with issue #22, which concludes the “Phases of the Moon” story. Not that the comic shouldn’t have continued after that–as we will see, there are certainly some more fun stories to tell–but after this story all the plot hooks that appeared back in “The Gathering” get largely wrapped up.
The actual storytelling in “Phases of the Moon” is messy and has a few plot holes that go unexplained. Nonetheless, it’s probably my favorite story in this series because it deals with my favorite character of the bunch: the innkeeper Luna.
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Dungeons & Dragons uses an abstract combat system, and many role-playing games afterward used said abstraction as a model. While the game has at times become a more tactical system over the years, certain elements of the combat engine have remained constant. Most notably, hit points and armor class have remained largely the same since the game’s inception.
True, the number of hit points a character has have gone up and AC has gone from a high-to-low to low-to-high number, but the core concept remains: roll a d20, beat a target number, and subtract damage from a target’s hit points. It’s simple, it’s fast, and it has worked for decades.
It’s also one element of the game that drives those wishing for a more realistic system nuts.
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Babbling Brooks 
