He goes about gathering the power to smite his foes by learning the ways of all the basic D&D character classes, one after another - fighter, thief, cleric, mage - building a character sheet so messy it must make the gods themselves quail. He accumulates power and friends more by impressing people with his morals and strength of character than by being preternaturally good at things. Fortunately, the “Chosen One” arc is fairly underplayed - he’s a promising piece of raw material, but doesn’t have any particular destiny or any outlandish specialness apart from some minor psionic abilities.

In the grand tradition of every JRPG ever, his home village is destroyed and he has to seek revenge on the perpetrators, training tirelessly so that someday he’ll be strong enough to avenge his family. PlotĮlminster starts off as a twelve-year-old boy with special powers who, in the grand tradition of Joseph Campbell-inspired narratives, learns that he’s actually a prince disguised as a shepherd boy. Young Elminster prays to Tyche rather than Tymora for luck, but that’s about it. There’s a lot of antiquated diction about, but not significantly more than in Greenwood’s usual prose. You’d think that things would be different somehow - customs, language, social mores, that sort of thing - but it seems like human society hasn’t changed at all between the 200s and the 1300s DR.

This book starts in 212 DR, over a millennium before the time of the rest of the Realms novels. I was, however, looking forward to reading a novel set so far back in Faerûn’s past, particularly one written by the author who set down the world’s history in the first place. But to my surprise I got… well, I certainly wouldn’t call it a good novel, but at least it’s an interesting hot mess, bad in a variety of ways that I didn’t expect but that I can write a bunch of words about. And the fact that Greenwood’s last novel bored me to tears certainly didn’t improve my mood. The past couple decades have seen no shortage of “Chosen One discovers his divine destiny” narratives in popular culture, and god damn am I ever sick of them by now. Well, no longer! Here’s a full novel telling the Old Sage’s story from his childhood to the point where he becomes a Chosen of Mystra.įull disclosure: I went into this novel expecting to be intensely annoyed by it. He’s been a supporting character in nine books thus far, but we’ve seen very little from his point of view and know nothing about his backstory. A staple of the Realms since Greenwood’s earliest pre-D&D fiction, he’s an ancient, immortal wizard who seems to know just about everything and pop up almost everywhere, dispensing wisdom and helping out heroes.

Next to Drizzt Do’Urden, Elminster is the second most recognizable character from the Forgotten Realms.

The making of a mage