Re: What is the Fifth Age?

FIFTH AGE / WAR OF SOULS SPOILERS

Craig J. Ries wrote:

 >> The Fifth  Age brand and all of its characteristic features--I need
not
 >> recount them here--are gone.
 >
 > Sorry, but I have to disagree that it's as simple as that. Ogre Titans
 > are getting a trilogy, for one.

Ogre Titans were nonexistent before a module in the WAR OF SOULS series 
entitled RISE OF THE TITANS. Tracy Hickman came up with the concept.

C'mon, give me another one. Seriously. Malys? Sable? Frost? Beryl? The 
Shadow Sorcerer? Absence of the gods? Absence of High Sorcery? The Academy

of Sorcery? The Silvanesti ****eld? A non-D&D game system? Centaurs as a 
core race?

All gone/done/resolved/destroyed/ended. What's left?

Afflicted Kender? Thinker Gnomes? The Legion of Steel? The Herald? The 
Master of the Tower? Mystics??

I suppose they're theoretically still around, but really, out of sight and

out of mind. Sorcery may still be around, but only because it's currently
a 
D&D core class, and even so it's almost always passed over in favor of the

good old White/Red/Black Robe Wearing, Test Taking, Tower Dwelling, Moon 
Wor****ping Wizards.

Everyone seems to think that there's supposed to be a big Wizards vs 
Sorcerers showdown going on, but nobody is really excited about seeing it 
really happen. Well, there was the one Niles book, where the Wizards 
solidly trounced the Sorcerers, apparently for good and all. It's like the

ultimate 4th Age vs 5th Age showdown, really, and you can clearly see who
won.

I certainly wouldn't say that the Fifth Age hasn't left its mark. Cam's
two 
modules, at least, seem to follow up a lot of Fifth Age threads, even if
it 
does just end up killing off most of the last remaining dragon lords.
After 
all... what's the good of dragons if not to kill them?

Though now we're left with the dubious situation of both Dragon Gods being

gone, AND all of the Dragon Overlords being gone. Hmm. Have ANY
Dragonlance 
books been about Dragons, lately??

And please don't answer that question literally. It's a rhetorical 
question. Sheesh. Regards.

--Falconer