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The Underdogs of Rubian

The book is properly titled The Underdogs of Rubian: The History of the Four Underdogs as Told to Princess Crystalcrown by the Court Historian of the Crystal Court.

About the publication

Published in 1998, there was a desire by US publishers to both tie-in to the popularity of the import ElamenSTAR show, having just completed its second season in Japan, and to "prime the pump" for the soon to be released Wizbits series. Unfortunately, the ultimate direction that the Japanese series would take, and the creative decisions for the American series were still largely unknowns even within the bowels of Realmworlds Publishing. This combined with the desire to not alienate the few fans of the Elemenstor Radio Dramas, left authors Tracy White and Leslie Hackstein with a tricky set of specifications to comply with when penning this novel. What resulted was perhaps the most successfully avant garde ElemenstorLance novel to date.

The Story

Interestingly, the story is not a narrative of the actions of the characters who would be the basis of The Wizbits Cartoon. In fact, the characters themselves barely appear in the Novel at all. Instead it is in the style of a historical exploration of the people that impacted or were personally impacted by the Four Underdogs. Accounts of early teachers, prominent contemporary Elemenstors, early influential instructors at the Cerulean Citadel and the like provide an interesting story of who these four characters were and what they did without directly referencing them at all. Intermixed throughout were also tails of the pedigree of historical artifacts held by the Crystal Court that were possessions of the Underdogs. A tuba, a sword, a pole boat, and other such collected objects are examined for their properties and their role in history.

The novel is successful in both being relavent to the topic of the underdogs, while at the same time being so close to the outer fringes as to not introduce anything controversial that might be construed as hard evidence of conflicting with any timeline presented for these characters. As a result, this tale is considered canon or at least credible backstory in almost all versions of the Wizbits tale.

The novel is the primary source of backstory for characters such as Aklom Reklats, Professor Swiftbranch and Razumifa Bulinma as well as Myrtle Breakwind's Gnarled Land Squid.

Interestingly, this history of the underdogs compiled in the year 39,990 TE makes almost no mention of MooMaa or the groups conflict of him. Some fans suspect that this in and of itself was an intentional plot point within the narrative meant to be meaningful to hardcore fans. The possible meanings are of course still hotly debated.