Tales of the Forever Road


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Tales of the Forever Road

 

A novella by Hal Robinson released December 7, 2005.

 

Setting

Set in pre-sundered Battal, on the eve of the celebration of Jubilee 10,000 (TSW) (so in the last days of year 9,999). An epic journey across kingdoms and dimensions, full of crossings (between worlds) and double crossings (between business associates) that all begins with the purchase of a ring (more of a barter really) and the rental of a hat.

 

Plot

The story consists of a primary narrative, with many overlapping subplots threaded throughout. The difficulty in describing the plot comes from that fact that each reader comes away from the book with a different idea of which plot was the primary narrative. Here is one interpretation.

 

The book is essentially the story of Tehone's Ring. Events are set in motion when Theoric the Eversnide becomes worried about the potential exploitation of said ring. Is is highly likely that he is aware that by setting these events in motion he is actually ensuring the exploitation of the ring, or at least ensuring that it will be used in a way other than what he expressly stated was its intended use at the beginning of the book, but I digress.

 

Theoric sends Chronosorcellor Delbrick Moneycoin back in time to watch over Tehone's Ring, which passes from character to character with the frequency of a common cold. Delbrick was instructed to ensure that the ring be in the possession of Ghithik the Thick, since he was supposed to "use it to avert certain disaster".. but (spoiler) he was to use it to avert certain disaster by being the conduit through which the ring is passed to all the other main characters.

 

The threads briefly tie together with the group intersecting at the home of Harmus the Geographer, whose living room has become a Vinkum cheese (Battal's equivalent of swiss) of planar gateways. From here the cast is scattered across dimensions. A few are transported from the Forever Road to Battal, but most are scattered across the Planes (the first promenent canon appearance of many of the planes listed in the ELotH: TES Player's Handbook).

 

By the end of the book, Tehone's Ring has been replaced with a clever duplicate, and Delbrick has spent the last third of the book obsessively tracking the owner of that ring. The tale ends with Ghithik the Thick (who had finally come back into possession of false copy of Tehone's Ring) doing exactly the wrong thing (I won't spoil it entirely for you) that would have resulted in the destruction of all realities. Very shortly after that Lasha Tyminov (who at that point actually possessed the true ring) unmakes the geographer's research (probably more to spite/flirt with Ghithik than anything else) and saves the day. The fate of the Moneycoin hat at the end of the book remains uncertain and definitely leaves the door open for a sequel.

 

A subplot that is a personal favorite of this author is the one involving the mysterious man named Armano, as he prepares a "practice run" of a ritual involving the Clockpace Comet, due to pass close by the Forever Road in its 1000 year cross planar orbit.

 

Characters

Zik

Tim of Tam

Lasha Tyminov

Prowish

Ghithik the Thick

Low Elemenstor Delbrick Moneycoin

Harmus the Geographer (comically misnamed)

Armano

 

Locations

The Forever Road

Forever Bazaar

The Smoos

Grothondogrim

Grotto of Woe

Various Planes of Battal (perhaps most notably: Eternal Storehouse, Gorth, Howling Fjords, Mechanopolis, and Time's Endye, although others like All Blue are visited briefly)

 

Organizations

The Brotherhood of the Second Prophecy

Chambre Pacificum

Moonlit Order

Ringlings

Cult of Absinth

 

Items

The Moneycoin hat

Parchment of Confession and Regret

Strip Scrip

Tehone's Ring

 

Comments

 

Just released on the seventh, it completely sold out before I could get my copy... Obviously it features The Forever Road, though.

 

Just finished reading this. What do you guys think of what they did with the second to last chapter? I don't want to give it away, but I thought it was totally cool. I would have liked more chapters done this way. I'll come back and fill in more when I get a change... -tim
Dammit, Amazon still hasn't delivered my copy yet. Dang it. I'm torn between reading the spoilers if anyone posts them, and holding tight until I can read it. ~patkelly
There's a huge backlog, something like 4 or 5 months at this point. I don't know who thought to surprise release it, but they were brilliant
I didn't get to the second to last chapter yet, but it should be interesting to see how they resolve the ownership of the ring and what to do about all of the problems that the ring assigned them to fix. I did like how all the characters managed to come into possession of the ring at some point. - Unguided
I'm more interested in how much of The Forever Road we get to see....
You get to see a whole lot of The Forever Road. Trust me. The second chapter has a long sequence where Zik goes from shop to shop in the Forever Bazaar, while he's testing the ring. -tim