Community

How well do you know your FR Authors? Every Monday you can expect an update to the author roundtable, featuring many of our best Forgotten Realms authors’ answers to the world’s most important questions, right here on this blog. Submissions for new questions welcome through private message.

READER: What’s your weapon of choice?

Elaine Cunningham (co-author of The City of Splendors): A quarterstaff. There’s less splatter involved, which means fewer pesky bloodstains to scrub out of my tunics. (Friend Elaine)

Ed Greenwood (author of The Sword Never Sleeps): The brain. As in, outwitting foes. However, if my answer has to be a physical weapon…back when I had knees that worked, I did a fair amount of fencing, both sport and SCA fighting (as well as judo, aikido, and other fashionable ways of maiming oneself at the time), and for me, the sensual tops among weapons is a finely-made, beautifully-balanced longsword. Kiss the gleam, kiss the gleam…

Paul S. Kemp (author of Shadowrealm): Rapier-like wit. Barring that, a hammer. And all I see are nails, baby. (Friend Paul)

Jak Koke (author of The Edge of Chaos): Dagger for close fighting. Crossbow for distance. (Friend Jak)

Erin Evans (author of The God Catcher): I’m going to say . . . glaive. For reasons I can’t go into just now. But you’ll like it too in Winter 2011. (Friend Erin)

Richard Lee Byers (author of Unholy): Smallsword. It’s the sword most like a modern epee, which means the fencing moves I use every week might actually work. (Friend Richard)

Philip Athans (author of A Reader’s Guide to R.A. Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt): In D&D, the mighty scimitar. In real life, my rapier wit! (Friend Philip)

Erik Scott de Bie (author of Downshadow): Staff of Ruin, the better with which to cast Apocalypse from the Sky. Pwned! (Friend Erik)

Jaleigh Johnson (author of Mistshore): Sad puppy dog eyes. Results guaranteed. (Friend Jaleigh)

Richard Baker (author of Avenger): Bastard sword. I need the +3 proficiency bonus, and I love me that big fat d10 for damage. If you’re talking about me and not my character, then I’ll settle for the M14 7.62mm rifle or a good 12-gauge pump-action shotgun. (Friend Richard)

Rosemary Jones (author of City of the Dead): The one that suits the character. I play a selkie warrier in a current game and she carries a pair of harpoons: payback time whale hunters! (Friend Rosemary)

Bruce R. Cordell (author of City of Torment): When it comes to fighting bad guys, you can't beat eye beams. I mean, targeting is a snap. You shoot what you look at. Although, unlike some I could mention, I'd like the ability to turn off my eye beams when I'm done smearing the bad guy into the next panel, please. (Friend Bruce)

James P. Davis (author of Circle of Skulls): Super-sharp, full tang, black-steel wakizashi with a chord-wrapped handle or, as it’s known around the house, the “Chunk of Steel”. For practical purposes it’s like the king of all machetes when my wife and I go camping. At home, well, let’s just say carving the turkey at Thanksgiving is an event not to be missed . . . don’t stand too close . . . (Friend James)

Mark Sehestedt (author of The Fall of Highwatch): Christopher Walken. His humor and crazy are a lethal combination. And what dance moves!

Seriously though, as a writer of “adventure fiction,” I always give serious consideration to my characters’ weapons. I do not simply hand the resident warrior a sword or the token bearded warrior an axe. Cliché. I try to make the weapon inherent to both the character and the setting.

For example, in Frostfell, one of the heroes carries an iron rod attached to a braided leather cord—a weapon he can use as both club and flail. I didn’t want to give the story’s resident warrior a sword, because swordsmanship requires years of training and finesse. This character was born a slave, brought up by “barbarians,” and nothing in his character suggested finesse. A sword would’ve been silly. But smashing bones with an iron rod had a cool brutality to it that seemed to fit the character. And since the book was set mostly in the Endless Waste (an area based heavily on Mongolia), I also gave him a bow. But again, since this area isn’t exactly covered in forest, I figured that fine wood would be hard to come by, so I specifically wrote that he carried a horn bow.

In The Fall of Highwatch, many of the resident warriors are not only knights, but knights who ride flying mounts. So again, swords as their primary weapons didn’t make much sense—unless they were knights sworn to slay all swallows and sparrows. So I gave them bows. But since this is D&D, they are enchanted bows, the true nature of which won’t come out till the next book—and since the next book is titled Hand of the Hunter, what weapon could possibly be more suited to a hunter than a bow? (My editor nixed the sniper rifle—“This isn’t Gamma World, you twit!”)

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