Annotated 40-16
E-Merl gets to save Syr’Nj’s life in this chapter, just as Sundar did. That’s not enough to remove the “almost got the whole party killed” stink from his shoes (and there’ll be some consequences of that), but it does make his arc a bit more nuanced. If Syr’Nj had thought of the blinding strategy a little earlier, while E-Merl was still running up to help her, then he might’ve been blinded himself and have to be carried off the battlefield…but even we had our limits in terms of how mean we wanted to be to the guy.
Ulak did not need much encouragement to go “running to the hills” after the sky elves showed up.
I’m getting a real “early Guilded Age” vibe off this whole adventure. Feels like we’re back to basics. Maybe it’s the fact that our heroes are just fighting to survive, without any immediate political responsibilities, which hasn’t been the case since…maybe the flooding prison incident? Aside from E-Merl’s lingering guilt, their personal arcs are resolved or on hold, too.
When DnD (and AoS) started getting more gadgetry, I can say I did not like it.
And I still dislike those aspects.
But then I do like medieval or older themes in my space-fiction, so…
One might argue I should be more lax with my dislike of gadgetry. And they would be wrong. I still don’t have to like or tolerate them, but that shouldn’t stop you from liking them. :D
Honestly, the more recent trend of ‘medieval fantasy but looks like sci-fi because magic everything’ bugs me more only because it’s like they couldn’t pic a genre. If it’s a medieval like time period, don’t have the king address the masses via giant ‘magical’ teleprompter. Just tells me you can’t imagine it a world before television.
They’re just taking the Clarke truism to the fullest.
But, traditionally, you can mix High Fantasy with High Sci-Fi.
Like, look at Mystara, with the (SPOILERWARNING) Ancient Astronaut Power Core.
Perfectly fine.
Alien blasters and lightning bolts? Perfectly OK.
But add a concurrent steam-powered civilization and we get some trouble.
Not that the right sort of writing doesn’t fix it… but it is defo a problem to be overcome.
[Angry Artificer Noises]
Now I’m curious how Syr’Nj’s goggles work. Is it magitech, or just sliding lens filters? (The dark rims in the first panel seem to suggest the latter, but I can’t figure out where the filters would fit when retracted.)
We’d always treated it as sliding lens filters and just not worried too much about where the lenses came from (so perhaps THAT part’s magitech?)