In light of a recent Pulp Fantasy Library entry, I thought readers might enjoy this write-up of Clark Ashton Smith's sorcerer, Maal Dweb. The description originally appeared in the "Giants in the Earth" column appearing in issue #30 of Dragon (October 1979), written by Lawrence Schick and Tom Moldvay (though I suspect, given his love of Smith, that Moldvay was likely the author of this particular character).
Interesting! I’ve not seen % on INT before - where did that come from?
ReplyDeleteIt's unique to the "Giants in the Earth" series from Dragon and was introduced as a way of distinguishing between so many characters who have 18 in one or more abilities. At 18 (96) INT, Maal Dweb is thus one of the cleverest characters to appear in the series.
DeleteMan, this one write-up could inspire a lot of game sessions!
ReplyDeleteIn a Spelljammer campaign our characters encountered Maal Dweb. He was effectively surfing the phlogiston, riding on a wave of the stuff. He landed on our deck and announced himself, and that he required a place to renew his Art. Most of us were sufficiently impressed that we agreed - we were on a quest, but were convinced that he had nothing to do with that. One player insisted that he was here to steal our Maguffin, and could not be convinced otherwise, but he was outvoted.
ReplyDeleteAfter resting for spells the archmage departed, to our relief. Afterwards our DM jokingly described how a battle against him would've gone: "Give me your declarations everybody. OK, you're all dead, now roll for initiative.: :)
Even Smith's writing can't salvage the unfortunate choice of name for this character. As you'd expect, every other 13-year old kid I knew who read this article immediately dubbed him Mal Dweeb, making it quite impossible to take him seriously thereafter. To this day I can't help but smile when his name comes up, and CAS's best efforts to impress his vast power on readers only come across as absurdly overwrought nonsense when faced with the scorn of a bunch of barely-teenaged boys from my childhood.
ReplyDeleteI actually laughed out loud, well, chuckled out loud, chol, when I read that.
DeleteFantastic piece of artwork by DCS.
ReplyDelete