Azure Bonds, the first book in the Finder’s Stone Trilogy, is a Forgotten Realms novel published in 1988 (the 2nd year the Forgotten Realms Books were introduced) by Jeff Grubb and Kate Novak. I give this book four out of five stars. I thought it was great! The book captures the essence of a really good Dungeons and Dragons Campaign it even starts in a Tavern. It’s loaded with mystery and action. My only reason for holding off the fifth star is because the final ending of the story is a little bit weird and drags on longer than it needs other wise the entire book is a really fun read.
Here’s a quick spoiler free summary. Alias is a female sword for hire. She wakes up with a weird magical tattoo and a mute lizard man sidekick. She has no memory or recollection of where they came from. She then sets out a on a quest to discover the origin of the strange markings on her arm. This leads us through an awesome adventure where she teams up with a Halfling Bard and a Mage she has to battle dragons and take on all kinds of other challenges. I highly recommend this book.
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Book Review: Azure Bonds
Posted by Sam Kressin in D&D
Darkwalker on Moonshae (Forgotten Realms-Moonshae Trilogy, Book 1)
Here’s a quick run down. The Moonshae isles are an archipelago located about 400 miles southwest off the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms. In this book an evil shape shifting beast of demonic origin called Kazgaroth takes on a human form to gain command of the Northmen a group of war loving roid raging men who want more than anything to raid and kill the Ffolk an agricultural monarchical society of pussies that live in the southern Moonshae islands. Thanks to Kazgaroth’s completely psychotic influence the Northmen wage war upon the Ffolk not just to fight it’s armies but kill all it’s people. Massive war breaks out between the Ffolk and the Northmen. Tristan an expert dog trainer who loves hunting and has a crush on his sister who although was raised by his father does not share a blood relationship to him has been judged by his dad as unworthy to rule the kingdom. Therefore throughout this adventure Tristan fights to prove his worth to his father and win the romantic affection of his sister while discovering some of his own talents and abilities.
I give this book an overall rating of three stars two for an awesome title and cover and one for having all the cool things I listed show up in it. Beyond that it was just ok.
Dungeon Master
Posted by Sam Kressin in Personal Journal
I bought this in 1989 when it first came out. The purchase was made for no reason other than the fact that the painting on the cover was one of the most bad ass things I’d ever laid my eyes on. I took it home and what I tried to read was way to complicated for my young brain and I knew the job of Dungeon Master was far beyond my current abilities. I thought that perhaps if I was studious and I worked really hard I could one day be worthy to bear such a title that people would refer to me with the utmost reverence as “Dungeon Master!” Unfortunately I could never figure this damn game out. So I consulted with an older smarter kid at church I knew he had a lot of knowledge in this territory and I inquired to see if perhaps he could groom in the ways of D&D. Instead he introduced me to different game titled MERC by Fantasy Games Unlimited. This game was awesome. It came in a box. You got a manual these sort of classified looking character creation sheets and It was super easy to understand. Sadly I rarely had the opportunity to play it with him much so I did what any kid going through puberty, that was still afraid of girls, and often ostracized by ones piers for still playing with GI Joe’s, watching cartoons and having a love of comic books and all other things awesome would do and I got my grandmother to play it with me. Unfortunately she didn’t want to kill anyone and in this game MERC stands for Mercenary and Killing is the whole point of it. So after playing several non-lethal versions of this game I knew I had to move on. Fortunately it was right at this time I found TMNT and other Strangeness. This published around 1985 this was an older game but it still checked out. This game is loaded with illustrations by Eastman and Laird it had really cool character sheets, you could have Weapons, Weapons Proficiencies, Special Abilities, Scholastic Skills, Combat Skills and everything was an animal mutated towards a human. I spent hours creating the most awesome characters imaginable and there really wasn’t any purpose in rolling dice because I would just re-roll the dice until I got good numbers anyway. Then I’d type my characters up and file them away. The book TMNT and Other Strangeness is only 112 pages and it’s mostly about character creation with not much to go on by way of stories or adventures and so after having created an army of the most bad ass mutant animal characters that could still be comprehended by a human mind I lost interest in role playing games and I never became a “Dungeon Master!”
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