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Christopher_Rowe
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
879 Posts |
 Posted - 24 Sep 2008 : 17:00:48
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Can anyone think of a canon reference that establishes the age of Artemis Entreri at any particular point along the timeline? If one exists, it would almost certainly be in one of Bob Salvatore's novels.
I'm trying to date the short story "The Third Level" for my Calimshan all-edition lore source roundup (still looking for help! especially with magazine articles!), and in that story, Entreri is fourteen years old.
To save myself some typing, I'll quote myself:
"Whoever wrote the suggested reading order for the The Legend of Drizzt and The Sellswords over at the Forgotten Realms: The Library website placed it between the end of Sojourn and the beginning of The Crystal Shard, which would date it between 1347 and 1351 DR--a nicely narrow target."
Entreri's Forgotten Realms Wiki entry gives his "Age in 1374 DR" as "mid-forties."
Assuming that the mid-forties cover the ages 43 to 47, that would give a range for his birth year of 1327 to 1331, and so dating the story to 1341 to 1345. Which, of course, doesn't match up with the Forgotten Realms: The Library dates.
Oh, why can't my non-canon sources reconcile themselves to one another? 
It would be awesome if Entreri was somewhere referred to as "the Adder," or was even compared to one in a non yclept kinda way, because one of my proposed birth years, 1328, was the Year of the Adder, and I figure he's a Realms-shaking enough kind of dude to warrant a prophetic mention of some kind. (1327 through 1331 were, if you're curious, the Years of the Blue Flame[!], the Adder, the Lost Helm, the Marching Moon, and the Leaping Dolphins).
I guess I should be satisfied that either (non-canon) source establishes the short story's position on my Calimshan timeline, but once I started trying to hunt it down, well, y'all know how it is if anybody does.
So, to end as I began: can anyone think of a canon reference that establishes the age of Artemis Entreri at any particular point along the timeline?
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My Realms novel, Sandstorm, is now available for ordering. |
Edited by - Christopher_Rowe on 24 Sep 2008 17:02:15
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Stout Heart
Learned Scribe
USA
118 Posts |
Posted - 24 Sep 2008 : 17:31:22
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Aliases King Artemis the First[1]
Home Calimport
Gender Male
Race Calishite (partial Shade)
Age in 1374 DR Mid-forties
Class
3.5 ed. rules
Rogue 4
Ranger 1
Fighter 12
Assassin 1
Alignment Lawful evil
Road of the Patriarch is your best bet I would get a page number for you but I'm bed ridden from surgery sorry. |
Edited by - Stout Heart on 24 Sep 2008 17:31:52 |
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Erik Scott de Bie
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
4598 Posts |
Posted - 24 Sep 2008 : 17:54:55
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I don't have an actual canonical answer, but . . .
quote:
Originally posted by Christopher_Rowe
"Whoever wrote the suggested reading order for the The Legend of Drizzt and The Sellswords over at the Forgotten Realms: The Library website placed it between the end of Sojourn and the beginning of The Crystal Shard, which would date it between 1347 and 1351 DR--a nicely narrow target."
An excellent strategy, but it seems to me that a suggested reading order is not necessarily the same as chronological dating (though it's hardly "blind" dating). Homeland thru Sojourn covers a LOT of time, and "The Third Level" could have taken place during any of those periods. If it were to take place during Exile, for instance, you wouldn't break up reading a trilogy just to get some chronological stuff right.
I'm not saying it's necessarily contemporary with any of the books in the DET--I'm just saying that we don't really have a solid date. It gives us, if anything, a "rough" concept (ahem, "rough" dating) of when the story would take place, say . . . around the 1340s/50s.
Thus, one might as well go with the "1328 Adder" theory (which I myself particularly like), putting "The Third Level" at 1342 and Artemis in the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 the current year) as being 46 . . . dead-on mid-40s.
Cheers
P.S. As for the moniker, Artemis *is* kind of an "adder," after all, whether he's actually called that or not. This assumes one gives credence to the whole "roll of years prophecy" thing, which is *clearly* all bunk. Now if you'll excuse me . . .
Zzt! [goes outside, zapped by lightning storm(s)]
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Erik Scott de Bie
'Tis easier to destroy than to create.
Author of a number of Realms novels (GHOSTWALKER, DEPTHS OF MADNESS, and the SHADOWBANE series), contributor to the NEVERWINTER CAMPAIGN GUIDE and SHADOWFELL: GLOOMWROUGHT AND BEYOND, Twitch DM of the Dungeon Scrawlers, currently playing "The Westgate Irregulars" |
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Christopher_Rowe
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
879 Posts |
Posted - 24 Sep 2008 : 18:42:58
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Thanks for that, Erik (and Stout Heart, plus an extra get-well-soon to you).
The idea of establishing a reading order actually doesn't have to do with trying to track a (mostly honored in the breach) internal chronological consistency in the stories and novels. I'm actually trying to track what different writers and designers have presented about a place, Calimshan, and was trying to determine where the story might fall in relationship to the city's descriptions in any material at all, fiction of gaming.
And yeah, I like the Year of the Adder thing too!
Cheers,
Christopher |
My Realms novel, Sandstorm, is now available for ordering. |
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The Red Walker
Great Reader
USA
3567 Posts |
Posted - 24 Sep 2008 : 18:54:56
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I thought it was currently 1479(or thereabouts) , making Arty to be about 151 years old. |
A little nonsense now and then, relished by the wisest men - Willy Wonka
"We need men who can dream of things that never were." -
John F. Kennedy, speech in Dublin, Ireland, June 28, 1963
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 24 Sep 2008 : 19:23:58
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quote:
Originally posted by Christopher_Rowe
And yeah, I like the Year of the Adder thing too!
My only reservation with the "Year of the Adder" thing is the fact that vague words can be interpreted to mean whatever the perceiver wants them to mean (confirmation bias comes into play). |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."
--Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
Edited by - Rinonalyrna Fathomlin on 24 Sep 2008 19:24:38 |
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 24 Sep 2008 : 19:28:46
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quote:
Originally posted by Christopher_Rowe
Thanks for that, Erik (and Stout Heart, plus an extra get-well-soon to you).
Indeed, Stout Heart, get well! |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."
--Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
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Stout Heart
Learned Scribe
USA
118 Posts |
Posted - 24 Sep 2008 : 22:12:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
quote:
Originally posted by Christopher_Rowe
Thanks for that, Erik (and Stout Heart, plus an extra get-well-soon to you).
Indeed, Stout Heart, get well!
thank you much guys. |
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BEAST
Master of Realmslore
USA
1714 Posts |
Posted - 09 Oct 2008 : 08:40:43
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quote:
Originally posted by Christopher_Rowe
Can anyone think of a canon reference that establishes the age of Artemis Entreri at any particular point along the timeline? If one exists, it would almost certainly be in one of Bob Salvatore's novels.
Servant of the Shard says that AE has "seen four decades of life" (P2:C15), and "Empty Joys" says that he has "four decades of life behind him"; whereas Promise of the Witch-King tells us that he has seen "more than four decades of life" (italics mine; P1:C2). I interpret that as him being exactly 40 years old in SOTS, and 41 in POTWK.
Initially, WOTC dated SOTS in the year 1366 DR. The book has a problematic chronological placement, because of several conflicting time clues in various passages. These clues point to anywhere from 1365 through 1367 DR.
At any rate, the short story "That Curious Sword" is officially dated in the text in 1367 DR, and it takes place "a couple of months" after the destruction of the Shard, as described at the end of SOTS (P3:C25). Since we are told that the dangerous duo went to destroy the Shard when "[s]ummer was on the wane" (SOTS, P3:C21), that would appear to give a corrected date for SOTS of Summer 1367 DR, with "TCSw" in Autumn 1367 DR.
So Entreri's birthday would tentatively seem to be 40 years prior, around the year 1327 DR.
To try to get it a little more precise, the short story "The Third Level" suggests that AE's birthday occurred right before the rainy season:
quote:
Artemis didn't remember his exact birthdate, just that there had been a brief period right before the even briefer season of rain, when times in his house were not so terrible. ("TTL")
And the sourcebook Empires of the Sands indicates that the rainy season in the desert region of Calimshan is winter and early spring:
quote:
What little rain Calimshan gets comes in the winter and early spring. There is no "wet season" here, just a time of year where showers are more likely. (EOTS, "Calimshan": "Geography and Climate": p.52)
This could help us to determine a birth season for AE with a little more precision. If he is 40 in summer of 1367, then he would turn 41 in autumn of 1367. Therefore, he was probably born in late autumn or early winter, at the end of the year 1326 DR, the Year of the Striking Hawk.
(It's not as cool as "Adder", but hey, it still works!)
quote:
I'm trying to date the short story "The Third Level" for my Calimshan all-edition lore source roundup (still looking for help! especially with magazine articles!), and in that story, Entreri is fourteen years old.
born c. Autumn 1326 DR + 14 years => "TTL" = late 1340 or 1341 DR.
The story takes place over the course of several months, with no mention of it raining. Therefore, it would appear that the short story occurs in the year 1341 DR, the Year of the Gate.
That would seem to mean that "TTL" takes place some time during the novel Sojourn, which according to my own personal calculations took place in the years Autumn 1339 - Spring 1346 DR.
Big, Big Caveat:
However...
The text of the short story "Wickless in the Nether" officially dates that short story in the year 1368 DR. The narrative mentions a torrential downpour. POTWK begins with the Vaasan wilderness full of mud in the summer, and continues through the autumn. This would seem to indicate that "WITN" takes place in spring of 1368, and POTWK in summer through autumn of 1368 DR. By my calculations, Entreri would seem to be 41 years old in "WITN" and most of POTWK.
But I have not been able to rectify the time clues in Road of the Patriarch with the above information. The narrative implies that ROTP occurs in the late autumn and early winter for a matter of "many nights" (Prelude) or "only a few months" (P1:C1) after events in POTWK (i.e., late 1368 DR). But the references to the Bloodstone Lands epic characters seems to indicate that twelve years (P1:C2) have gone by since the fall of Zhengyi (1359 DR).
1359 DR + 12 years => ROTP = 1371 DR!!!
ROTP says that Entreri was twelve years old when he left Memnon (P3:C23), and that it has been thirty years since (Pre. & P3:C24). This would seem to make him 42 years old in late 1371 DR. That would indicate a birthday of 1329 DR. This contradicts the previous body of information by a difference of three years.
ROTP's time clues seem to be anomalous, and I would venture to guess that this resulted in part because of a desire by some to bring RAS's stories closer to the current time period of the FRCS at the time.
Nevertheless, ultimately, with all things considered, I lean toward a birthday for Artemis Entreri of late autumn, 1326 DR, the Year of the Striking Hawk.
EDIT: 1. Major editing, including title and chapter citations for documentary evidence.
2. Added link. |
"'You don't know my history,' he said dryly."
--Drizzt Do'Urden (The Pirate King, Part 1: Chapter 2)
<"Comprehensive Chronology of R.A. Salvatore Forgotten Realms Works"> |
Edited by - BEAST on 22 Oct 2008 08:51:49 |
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Ardashir
Senior Scribe
USA
544 Posts |
Posted - 09 Oct 2008 : 15:58:08
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quote:
Originally posted by The Red Walker
I thought it was currently 1479(or thereabouts), making Arty to be about 151 years old.
But that's young for a vampire! Hey, it'd be one way to keep him around and still stabbing people...
More seriously, the character is getting on in years, isn't he? Part of me now wants to see Salvatore doing a story about a retired and of grandfatherly-age Entreri looking back over his career (and probably running an assassin's school/guild somewhere -- I really don't see him spending all his days at the local tavern, bragging about his great career). |
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Zanan
Senior Scribe
Germany
942 Posts |
Posted - 22 Oct 2008 : 10:36:43
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Chronology and all ... Artemis appears in the Villains' Lorebook, though they do not give any age. What they do is this:
quote:
Artemis eventually found Regis in the Icewind Dale area known as Ten-Towns in 1351 DR. He was spotted by the halfling, however, who again fled.
quote:
In 1357, "Regis" reappeared at Mithral Hall, now the heroes#146; home. Actually, Artemis was using a magical mask (functioning as a hat of disguise) to appear as the halfling. Artemis had captured the real Regis and hidden him deep in the bowels of Mithral Hall.
Villains' Lorebook, p.11
Sources included up to Starless Night. At that time, I assumed him to be in his mid-thirties.
Unless I am mistaken, he's become some sort of shade and thus, as an "outsider" ages slower if at all. YOu see, someone needs to challenge Drizzt even now.  |
Cave quid dicis, quando et cui!
Gæð a wyrd swa hio scel!
In memory of Alura Durshavin.
Visit my "Homepage" to find A Guide to the Drow NPCs of Faerûn, Drow and non-Drow PrC and much more. |
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The Red Walker
Great Reader
USA
3567 Posts |
Posted - 22 Oct 2008 : 13:17:29
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quote:
Originally posted by Ardashir
quote:
Originally posted by The Red Walker
I thought it was currently 1479(or thereabouts), making Arty to be about 151 years old.
But that's young for a vampire! Hey, it'd be one way to keep him around and still stabbing people...
More seriously, the character is getting on in years, isn't he? Part of me now wants to see Salvatore doing a story about a retired and of grandfatherly-age Entreri looking back over his career (and probably running an assassin's school/guild somewhere -- I really don't see him spending all his days at the local tavern, bragging about his great career).
I'm not sure that since he absorbed that shade through his dagger that he will ever look "grandfatherly" |
A little nonsense now and then, relished by the wisest men - Willy Wonka
"We need men who can dream of things that never were." -
John F. Kennedy, speech in Dublin, Ireland, June 28, 1963
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 23 Oct 2008 : 23:01:10
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quote:
Originally posted by Zanan
Unless I am mistaken, he's become some sort of shade and thus, as an "outsider" ages slower if at all. YOu see, someone needs to challenge Drizzt even now.
Heh. On the other hand, though, we've never been given more than vague bits about the nature of the change Artemis underwent. |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."
--Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
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How old is Artemis Entreri?
