By Glenn Dean, Staff Reviewer

Available at individually Amazon.com for $6.99.

Initiative Round
The Avatar Trilogy is a FORGOTTEN REALMS ® novel series published by Wizards of the Coast that comprises the novels Shadowdale by Scott Ciencin (335 pp), Tantras by Scott Ciencin (338 pp), and Waterdeep by Troy Denning (341 pp). Originally published in 1989 under the pseudonym Richard Awlinson, the novels were re-released in 2003 in updated paperback with new covers and artwork featuring the names of the actual authors. Two later books (originally published in 1993) expand the original trilogy into the five-volume Avatar Series; this review is of the first three volumes which comprise the original Avatar Trilogy. The novels individually retail for $6.99 each.

The Avatar Trilogy was originally written as TSR was transitioning the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game from its first edition to its second edition rules set. The number of rules changes required some "correction" of established game worlds, and the novel series (with its accompanying adventures) was designed in part to explain the changes to the Forgotten Realms setting necessitated by the move to 2d Edition. The result is the original "Realms-shattering event": the Time of Troubles. The Avatar Trilogy follows a party of four adventurers through those tumultuous times when gods walked the Realms in human form and could be hurt and die just like mortals.

As Shadowdale begins, the overgod, Ao, has discovered that the Tablets of Fate, which record the duties of the gods, have been stolen. Ao accuses the gods of Faerun of being lax in their duties, and exiles them from the heavens until the Tablets of Fate are returned. The result is a continent-wide catastrophe as the meteoric forms of the gods are cast to earth to take up mortal avatars, disrupting magic and the abilities of the gods to provide for their worshippers through clerical magic. Various forces immediately move to take advantage of the chaos.

Into this chaos ride four adventurers: Kelemvor, a fighter hiding an ancient family curse; Cyric, a thief whose childhood in Zhentil Keep has forever left him scarred and cynical; Adon, foppish priest of the goddess of beauty; and Midnight, a mage who awakes with a strange symbol of Mystra, goddess of magic, adhered to her skin. The group soon bands together to rescue Mystra from her imprisonment by the avatar of Bane, god of strife. Mystra attempts to return to the planes, to bargain knowledge of the thieves of the Tablets of Fate for her freedom. Instead, she is destroyed, causing Faerun's magic to go wild, and the adventurers are sent with Mystra's final knowledge to Shadowdale, where they might find a sage who can make some sense of it - but not before Bane and his minions will attempt to crush Shadowdale in their own attempt to seize the power to return to the heavens.

Tantras begins after the battle of Shadowdale, in which our heroes have acquitted themselves well, but Midnight and Adon have been accused of causing the death of the sage Elminster. Cyric assists Midnight and Adon in escaping Shadowdale, and the three run for the city of Tantras, where it is rumored one of the Tablets of Fate is hidden. They are pursued not only by Kelemvor, who is charged with extracting Shadowdale's justice, but also by Zhentilar assassins - Bane has decided to retrieve the Tablet of Fate, and destroy the remnants of Mystra's magic that Midnight appears to be carrying. The climax in the city of Tantras will see not only the recovery of a Tablet of Fate, but a massive battle that results in the destruction of gods.

The trilogy concludes in Waterdeep Midnight, Kelemvor, and Adon travel across the Realms to the City of Splendors, seeking the last Tablet of Fate, and encountering a wide range of magical and mundane obstacles along the way. Pursued by Cyric and Zhentilar troops, the three will be forced to venture into the Land of the Dead, where the forces of Myrkul, god of the dead, will be unleashed on an unsuspecting Waterdeep. Before all is over there will be more death and destruction; deities will fall, and new powers will take their places in Faerun's pantheon.

The Avatar Trilogy is a fast-paced, magic heavy romp across the landscape of the Forgotten Realms. Gods and mortals are both major and minor characters, contending in battles both magical and mundane. In the course of the story, the entire tapestry that is the Forgotten Realms is unraveled and re-woven into a slightly different form.

Critical Hit
The Avatar Trilogy showcases some of the best elements of Forgotten Realms fiction. There are a host of locations that will be familiar to Realms fans, steeped in their own lore. Magic abounds - wild and unpredictable in many cases, and always powerful and awe-inspiring. Gods walk the earth as larger-than-life heroes, contending with mortals who are themselves almost godlike in power. Many popular Realms personalities make an appearance - Elminster, Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun, Fzoul Chembryl, Semmemon, and the like, not to mention the gods themselves.

Each of the primary mortal characters faces his or her own personal challenges as well as those presented by the main plot, and each undertakes a unique personal journey. The characters are not merely black and white caricatures; they have individual depth and motivations, and each grows or is changed forever in the course of the adventures.

Realms fans will find this series worth reading if only to place the current (post 3rd Edition D&D) version of the Forgotten Realms into context. The format of this series defined much of the later work in the Realms, introducing not only long-lasting characters, relationships, and events, but establishing the "Realms-shattering events" that seem to pervade much of the later major Realms fiction.

Critical Fumble
Unfortunately, the Avatar Trilogy also contains some of the worst elements of Forgotten Realms fiction. The plot is filled with holes and nonsensical events, built as it was to explain changes to game rules based on mechanical or business decisions rather than storytelling motives. Since the assassin character class was removed for 2d edition AD&D, for example, all of the assassins in Faerun are suddenly killed off by a brief action of the gods Bane and Myrkul, with minimal justification - but at the same time, these same two gods can't locate four mortal adventurers, and Bane is quite easily fooled by some of the worst-written story doubletalk by one of the mortal characters. Random events designed to illustrate the chaos in the Realms seem to be just that - random - and don't add much of anything to the story except to allow the authors to pull off any sort of event without need for justification.

While there is the attempt to fully flesh out characters and their motivations, much of it falls flat - the four main characters aren't particularly likeable or easy to identify with, despite their travails. Their personal journeys lead to some rather abrupt character changes that aren't particularly well justified - Cyric, for example, seems to change from a flawed but well-intended character to a power-hungry schemer with a few turns of the page. Less effort on wildly improbable events, and more on character justification, would serve these novels well.

The series also suffers from the Realmsian plot device I like to think of as deus ex Elminster, in which a certain super-powerful mage pops in, solves a problem for the characters, and then pops back out, allowing the plot to move forward. It may be a trademark of the Forgotten Realms, but it's one that wasn't particularly innovative even when the books were originally written.

Coup de Grace
The Avatar Trilogy isn't the best written work of gaming fiction - or even Forgotten Realms fiction, for that matter. In the scheme of fantasy fiction as a whole, it's eminently forgettable. If you're not a Realms fan, this isn't the place I'd recommend starting to read Realms fiction. If you are a Realms fan, on the other hand - particularly if you're a gamer who plays in the Realms - these books are worth the time to read if only to put the Time of Troubles and it's impact on the rest of Forgotten Realms gaming products and fiction into perspective. If nothing else, it'll teach you about how not to make changes in your game world.

The Critic's Grade: C