R.A. Salvatore's War of the Spider Queen: Dissolution, Insurrection, Condemnation

For Ann

Welcome to Faerûn, a land of magic and intrigue, brutal violence and divine compassion, where gods have ascended and died, and mighty heroes have risen to fight terrifying monsters. Here, millennia of warfare and conquest have shaped dozens of unique cultures, raised and leveled shining kingdoms and tyrannical empires alike, and left long forgotten, horror-infested ruins in their wake.

A LAND OF MAGIC

When the goddess of magic was murdered, a magical plague of blue fire— the Spellplague—swept across the face of Faerûn, killing some, mutilating many, and imbuing a rare few with amazing supernatural abilities. The Spellplague forever changed the nature of magic itself, and seeded the land with hidden wonders and bloodcurdling monstrosities.

A LAND OF DARKNESS

The threats Faerûn faces are legion. Armies of undead mass in Thay under the brilliant but mad lich king Szass Tam. Treacherous dark elves plot in the Underdark in the service of their cruel and fickle goddess, Lolth. The Abolethic Sovereignty, a terrifying hive of inhuman slave masters, floats above the Sea of Fallen Stars, spreading chaos and destruction. And the Empire of Netheril, armed with magic of unimaginable power, prowls Faerûn in flying fortresses, sowing discord to their own incalculable ends.

A LAND OF HEROES

But Faerûn is not without hope. Heroes have emerged to fight the growing tide of darkness. Battle-scarred rangers bring their notched blades to bear against marauding hordes of orcs. Lowly street rats match wits with demons for the fate of cities. Inscrutable tiefling warlocks unite with fierce elf warriors to rain fire and steel upon monstrous enemies. And valiant servants of merciful gods forever struggle against the darkness.

I can’t believe that it’s been a decade since Phil Athans first approached me to work on a huge, six-book series to redefine the race of drow in the Forgotten Realms. I remember that first phone call as if it was just last week. Most of all, I remember flatly refusing.

My work in the Realms is almost entirely character centered. I rarely get involved with the “meta” stories of this massive world, preferring to let others handle the squabbles between the gods, city-destroying invasions and other cataclysmic events. And for several reasons, including my recognition that it’s not my world, and not least of which being that I don’t actually work at Wizards of the Coast. I’m not in the offices, or sitting around the tables when the coordinators are trying to decide where to go with the big picture of this shared gaming world, so it’s better, I think, if the books needed as a result of those meetings are handled by people more fully in the loop.

I’ll write my personal tales in towns off to the side of the movers and shakers—quite happily, I might add.

So Phil didn’t like my answer, which meant he was going to call again . . . and again . . . and again. Phil had been my editor long enough by this time for me to know that he can be as stubborn as a mule.

He wore me down. I wouldn’t write the books—I simply hadn’t the time—but would I help outline the story and edit the books? Phil knew that he had me when he dangled the largest carrot of all before me: the notion that my involvement in the series would allow several other authors to get much-deserved exposure.

How could I say no to that?

Soon after, I found myself flying across the country for a story summit. As I said, this was the brainchild of Phil Athans, so he led the meeting, describing for us the arc of the story. I sat there with Rich Baker, James Wyatt, Richard Lee Byers, Thomas Reid and a few others (popping in and out) as Phil presented his grand idea to us. Then came the fun part. As an author, I don’t get to participate in round-table creative brainstorming meetings very often (this was before I joined up with Curt Schilling and Todd McFarlane in the video game/IP development company, 38 Studios). To put it succinctly, I had a blast. Rich Baker and I really went at each other, upping the ante, challenging each other—it was more like a poker game between us than anything else. Richard Lee Byers, who had been tasked with the first book pushed us all to start identifying the characters we would utilize— not the actual characters, like Pharaun, but the archetypes we would need to carry this grand scheme through to fruition. We wouldn’t go further than that, of course—we wouldn’t hamstring the authors by putting too much flesh on the bones. What’s the point of hiring talented authors like the six we assembled if we weren’t going to let them be talented?

I think everyone around that table, particularly the four—Richard, Thomas, Rich, and Phil—who would actually be writing books, understood the scope of what we were doing and the problems that each would face; from the earliest books, leaving enough room for those following to grow the story—to the later ones, tying up all the myriad loose ends and character conflicts. I knew we were crazy.

But sometimes crazy is what makes all of this so much fun.

My job thereafter was to serve as one of the editors, mostly dealing with the implications of our actions to the dark elves. I planned on going back to Menzoberranzan, after all (still do), and I needed to protect my turf! Three things stand out to me as thoroughly enjoyable:

First, I got to watch each of the authors zero in on a character, either one of the original cast or a new and wonderfully unexpected addition, to make them into their own. I saw it right off the bat with Richard Lee Byers and Pharaun, and it continued with each successive book. I could hear the voice of one character for each, above all others, as this fictional creation truly came alive.

Second, I got to edit Phil. I got to edit my editor! How can an author not like turning the tables like that? I wrote up reams of really nasty notes, cleared it with Peter Archer, and then sent Phil what has to be the most brutal edit he had ever received. And of course, most of the complaints were nonsensical. Peter backed me up and we had Phil sweating before letting him in on the joke.

The third item came at the end of the series. We lost our last author. He had too many irons in his fire and simply couldn’t come on board as expected. So now we had three books out, the fourth off to the printer and Phil busily writing the fifth. We were in a bind. On Phil’s suggestion, we brought in Paul Kemp. I was familiar with Paul’s work, but he was still pretty green at that time, and jumping in at the last minute to finish off a complex, six-book series (with the previous five penned by five different authors!) is what we in the business call a [expletive] nightmare. Paul was just young enough, just hungry enough, or just crazy enough to say yes. Or maybe it was something else: Maybe he was just confident enough in his abilities to charge in.

Confident
and
crazy—there’s no doubt in my mind that crazy played a role.

Whatever the reason, it worked.

Like I said, crazy is what makes all of this so much fun.

R.A. Salvatore July 18, 2011

It was a flicker of clarity in the foggy realm of shadowy chaos, where nothing was quite what it seemed, and everything was inevitably more treacherous and dangerous. But this, the crystalline glimmer of a single silken strand, shone brightly, caught her eye, and showed her all that it was and all that would soon be, and all that she was and all that she would soon be.

The glimmer of light in the dark Abyss promised renewal and greater glory and made that promise all the sweeter with its hints of danger, mortal danger for a creature immortal by nature. That, too, was the allure, was, in truth, the greatest joy of the growth. The mother of chaos was fear, not evil, and the enjoyment of chaos was the continual fear of the unknown, the shifting foundation of everything, the knowledge that every twist and turn could lead to disaster.

It was something the drow had never come to fully understand and appreciate, and she preferred that ignorance. To the drow, the chaos was a means for personal gain; there were no straight ladders in the tumult of drow life for one to climb. But the beauty was not the ascent, she knew, if they did not. The beauty was the moment, every moment, of living in the swirl of the unknown, the whirlpool of true chaos.

So this, then, was a movement forward, but within that movement, it was a gamble, a risk that could launch the chaos of her world to greater heights and surprises. She wished she could remain more fully conscious to witness it all, to bask in it all.

But no matter. Even within, she would feel the pleasure of their fear, the hunger of their ambition.