Shadowdale
and the Known Planes
26th level MU
CG, None
Human
Male
The exact age of the sage
Elminster is unknown and his year of birth unrecorded.
It is suspected he learned his magical
arts at the feet of Arkhon the Old, who died in Waterdeep
over 500 years ago, and was in Myth Drannor
near that magical
realm's final days.
The Sage currently makes his abode in the
tiny farm community of Shadowdale, living
in a two-story house overlooking a fishpond with his aide and scribe, Lhaeo.
Elminster may be the most knowledgeable
and well-informed individual in the realms, though this may be only his
opinion, it is often voiced in his discussions.
His areas of specialization are the Realms
and its people, ecology of various creatures, magical items and their histories,
and the known planes of existence.
Elminster no longer tutors nor works for
hire, save in the most pressing cases.
Many of his former students && allies include some of the most powerful good individuals in the Realms, including the Lords of Waterdeep, the Simbul, ruler of Aglarond, the group known as the Harpers, and many powerful wizards and sorcerers.
NAME: Elminster
SEX: M
RACE: Human <Saint>
AGE:
ALIGNMENT: CG
CLASS: Magic-user
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PLATINUM:
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James M: 10. A number of gamers of a certain temperament seem to have developed a particular dislike for your sage of Shadowdale, Elminster, which I've always found a bit odd, given my memories of his early appearances in your Dragon articles. What do you make of this reaction?
Ed Greenwood: Years ago, I was somewhat hurt by it, being as I never wanted Elminster to be anything more than the “old storyteller” figure, the mouthpiece in a DRAGON article that let me say “There’s talk around the village of trolls being seen in yon ruins” as opposed to the omniscient author style that in those days would have forced me to say: “There are two trolls in Room A and one lurking behind the coffin in Room B, and their hit points are . . .”
In play, he did much the same thing; he was the mind-wandering, irritatingly whimsical old man who could OCCASIONALLY be of help to PCs, or who would come wandering along to save their behinds almost by accident in a dungeon when they’d gotten near death and knew no way out - - but who would become VERY irritating, very fast, if they started to rely on him to do anything for them.
It was TSR who wanted me to portray Elminster at GenCon (after an early seminar in which I’d demonstrated how I played quite a few Realms NPCs, voices and mannerisms and all), and it was TSR who wanted me to write novels about him (left to my own devices, I would NEVER have used him as a main character, only as a sort of briefly-seen, often-absent Tom Bombadil-like supporting character). Instead, he’s become the “signature character” that my book editors always demand I write about (just as Bob Salvatore is always asked for more Drizzt books), presumably because there’s a silent majority of book-buyers who LIKE to read more about him.
The gamers who say he always gets the girl and therefore must be my Mary Sue/Bobby Sue character are entirely missing the point; I created almost ALL of the major Realms NPCs, of all ages and races and genders, and when I did so was a skinny young nerd without a beard. :}
Left to my druthers, I would never have had Elminster at center stage, so the accusation that he upstages Player Characters would not have arisen (and never has, in my “home” campaign). He was certainly over-exposed in Realms products, for a long time more or less by company directive (I poked fun at that in one of my books, in a narrative where El doesn’t appear at all, EXCEPT when a character grumbles that he always shows up to save the day or at least take all the credit for doing so, and on cue, I had a portrait on the wall change its face to Elminster’s and wink at the reader, unnoticed by any of the characters in the story).
I think a lot of the anti-Elminster stuff started (long ago) because Greyhawk fans and Dragonlance fans saw the Realms as “replacing” their worlds, and wanted to attack its main characters. As a greedy gamer who wanted ALL the settings supported (I was a fan of both those settings) and who saw far more of what went on inside the company than most “just plain gamers” out there, I never saw the Realms that way at all, and understood far more about sales and how THEY influenced what got published than the fans who wanted to fight setting-versus-setting wars.
These days, I often encounter very young gamers who sneer at Elminster without ever having read a word of one of my novels about him - - which means their dislike of him is an opinion they’ve picked up from older gamers and adopted so as to be “one of the gang” or “cool.”
I would quite cheerfully never write another word about Elminster, if I could still go on writing about the Realms. On the other hand, ELMINSTER IN HELL is the one Realms novel (of them ALL, not just mine) where senior sf writers I respect greatly have made a point of telling me how much they liked it; one of them even said, “You almost committed literature, there!”), and in my recent novels - - the new one that’ll appear in 2010, in particular, entitled ELMINSTER MUST DIE! - - I’ve been using him to explore what it means to get old and feeble and nigh-powerless, and face death or falling from prominence or both.
On the other hand, I’ve had Realms writing assignments I liked less than writing about Elminster - - like writing about Volo!
- Interview with Ed Greenwood
(Grognardia)
3) The first FR story was written in 1967
by Ed, One Comes, Unheralded to Zirta. It involved Eliminster, Mirt, Waterdeep,
and magical crossdressing. Ed was eight years old at the time.
- Realms
and Remembrance, by Jeff Grubb
Reduce - Reuse - Recycle