Charon's Claw is a novel set in the Forgotten Realms campaign world by R. A. Salvatore released on August 7, 2012.[1] This is the third book in the Neverwinter Saga and follows the adventure of Drizzt Do'Urden and Dahlia. The resurrected Artemis Entreri also joins the team. This story is set days after the events of Neverwinter and brings back returning characters while introducing new ones.
The story begins in the year 1463 DR with a meeting of the Xorlarrin House of Menzoberranzan. Ravel, the second boy and spellspinner of the house, proposes a plan to take Gauntlgrym as their own and establish a new drow city with them as the rulers. Matron Mother Zeerith Xorlarrin approves an expedition to Gauntlgrym led by Ravel. The rest of the party consists of Brach'Thal, a mage of diminished power since the Spellplague and Ravel's older brother and father; Jaerth, the house weapon master; and Saribel and Berellip, priestess sisters of Ravel. Nearly 100 mercenaries are hired, consisting mostly of houseless rogue drows, a drider named Yerrininae and his twenty warriors, and a host of goblin slaves. Tiago Baenre is also sent by Matron Mother Triel Baenre to ensure the journey goes according to her wishes, and is accompanied by Gol'fanin, a master drow blacksmith.
Drizzt and Dahlia begin their journey back to Neverwinter. Close by, Effron spies on them unnoticed and prepares the Shadovar mercenaries of Cavus Dun for an ambush on the two with the desired result being Drizzt's death and Dahlia's capture. The force consists of Jermander, leader and swordsman; Ratsis, spider tamer; Parbid and Afafrenfere, warrior monks and friends; Amber Gristle O' Maul ("Ambergris"), a dwarven priestess; Bol, a large tiefling warrior; Horrible, a silent female warrior; and Shifter, a powerful Shadovar mage.
The struggle for power in Neverwinter continues, with Herzgo Alegni declaring himself ruler, despite opposition by Jelvus Grinch and the citizens of Neverwinter. Arunika, the succubus, and her partner Brother Anthus strive to find a way to weaken Herzgo's rule while waiting for the eventual return of the Aboleth Sovereignty. Arunika goes to the site of the Dread Ring to find the lich Valindra Shadowmatle and instead finds her imp familiar Invidoo and a zombie Sylora bent in half unable to walk. Invidoo wants his freedom from service and Arunika will grant it to him if he can find a replacement for himself who is familiar with Drizzt.
Artemis Entreri, still susceptible to the control of Charon's Claw, decides to seek out Drizzt and Dahlia in hopes of the three of them defeating Alegni and freeing himself of the sword's servitude. The Cavus Dun mercenary force ambushes Drizzt and Dahlia, and during an extended battle, Entreri arrives and saves Dahlia from a snare set by Ratsis' spiders. Bol, Parbid, Horrible, and Jermander are killed during the fight, and Shifter and Ratsis flee. In the confusion Ambergris knocks out Afafrenfere and carries him off, and the two of them return to Neverwinter together.
Drizzt, Dahlia, and Artemis join forces and travel to Neverwinter together. Dahlia and Artemis begin to share a common bond because of the pain they have shared at the hands of Herzgo, a bond that Drizzt does not share.
In the Underdark, a power struggle begins to develop between the priestesses, Ravel, and Tiago as to whom is in charge. Eventually they reach Gauntlgrym and defeat the dwarf ghosts guarding the city. Tiago then puts his support behind Ravel, giving him the upper hand over his two priestess sisters. Ravel and the rest begin the process of clearing out the city and reactivating the forge of Gauntlygrym. Brach'Thal, though greatly diminished in power, is instrumental in this as he is a master of controlling elementals.
Drizzt, Dahlia, and Entreri sneak into Neverwinter through the sewers. Herzgo confronts the three companions on the Herzgo Alegni Bridge, having learned of their presence from Invidoo's imp replacement. The companions win the ensuing battle, and when Herzgo tries to escape through a shadow gate, he is tackled by Guenhwyvar. They both go through the gate to the Shadowfell, where Guenhwyvar is held captive by Draygo Quick. Draygo charges Herzgo with retrieving Charon's Claw, making it clear that failure is not an option.
Ambergris and Glorfathel (an elf mage agent of Draygo Quick) watch as the battle ends, and the Shadovar are quickly outmatched by their opposition. Glorfathel decides that the battle is lost, and enables the retreat of the rest of the Shadovar to the Shadowfell. Ambergris stays behind and approaches the companions, offering to heal their wounds, and points Drizzt towards Arunika, who informs him that Guenhwyvar is no longer connected to the onyx figurine.
With Drizzt having retrieved Charon's Claw after the battle, the companions decide to head to Gauntlgrym, as the primordial is their best chance to destroy the sword. Upon entering Gauntlgrym, the Shifter approaches Drizzt and offers to give back Guenhwyvar in exchange for Charon's Claw, an offer that is refused by Drizzt.
Glorfathel, Ambergris and Afafrenfere enter Gauntlgrym in pursuit of Drizzt, and the Shadovar teleport in to the city to intercept the three companions as well. A fight ensues, but is interrupted as they are ambushed by Ravel's drow force. The three are captured by the drow, but Entreri is able to convince the drow that they are agents of Bregen D'aerthe, and the drow decide to let them go. All the drow except for Brach'thal (who has allied with the primordial) retreat to the lower levels as the battle between the primordial elementals, the Shadovar, and the three companions intensifies. This interrupts Gol'fanin's ongoing work on a sword and shield of great magical power for Tiago.
Herzgo prepares to confront the three companions and sends Ambergris, Afafrenfere, Glorfathel, and Effron to stop them from escaping. Ambergris betrays the others by throwing Glorfathel into the lava pit, stunning Afafrenfere with magic, and attacking Effron. Meanwhile, Dhalia and Entreri engage Herzgo's remaining forces, allowing Drizzt to slip by, confront and kill Brach'Thal, and get to the primordial pit.
As the battle has become lost, Herzgo tells Effron to retreat and is about to do so himself when Drizzt wills Charon's Claw to call to Herzgo with a vision of the sword being thrown into the maw of the primordial, begging for him to save it. This distraction provides an opening for Dahlia to launch an attack on Herzgo, killing him.
Dahlia continues to brutalize the dead body of Herzgo when Effron calls out in anguish to his dead father, revealing Effron, Herzgo, and Dahlia's true relationship for the first time. With nothing left standing in their way, Drizzt throws Charon's Claw into the pit, expecting this action to kill Artemis Entreri as well. The sword is destroyed but Artemis lives, for reasons none of the companions understand.
In the Shadowfell, Effron begins to plot his revenge on Dahlia, with Draygo Quick's blessing. Afafrenfere attempts to attack Drizzt but Ambergris stops him and then places a geas on him so that he cannot ever attack Drizzt, earning Drizzt's trust (she later reveals the geas to be a fake). Tiago, realizing that all the opposition has left Gauntlgrym, urges Gol'fanin to return to the forge and complete his work on the sword and shield.
In the throne room, Pwent returns to life as an undead vampire. Invidoo's replacement imp is revealed to be Druzil, servant of Errtu, whose hundred years of banishment are almost over and is plotting his revenge on Drizzt. Back in the forge room Gol'fanin reveals to Tiago that the drow he thought was an agent of Bregen D'aerthe was actually Drizzt Do'Urden. He points out that the sword and shield he is forging will give him the power to become house weapon master, but the head of Drizzt would make him a legend.
The book entered the USA Today Top 150 on August 16, 2012, and was on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list for 1 week, with #55 as its best week.[3]
Related Research Articles
Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories. Several years later, Greenwood brought the setting to publication for the D&D game as a series of magazine articles, and the first Realms game products were released in 1987. Role-playing game products have been produced for the setting ever since, as have various licensed products including novels, role-playing video game adaptations, comic books, and an upcoming film.
Drizzt Do'Urden is a fictional character appearing in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Drizzt was created by author R. A. Salvatore as a supporting character in the Icewind Dale Trilogy. Salvatore created him on a whim when his publisher needed him to replace one of the characters in an early version of the first book, The Crystal Shard. Drizzt has since become a popular heroic character of the Forgotten Realms setting, and has been featured as the main character of a long series of books, starting chronologically with The Dark Elf Trilogy. As an atypical drow, Drizzt has forsaken both the evil ways of his people and their home in the Underdark, in the drow city of Menzoberranzan.
Menzoberranzan, the "City of Spiders", is a fictional city-state in the world of the Forgotten Realms, a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. The city is located in the Upper Northdark, about two miles below the Surbrin Vale, between the Moonwood and the Frost Hills. It is famed as the birthplace of Drizzt Do'Urden, the protagonist of several series of best-selling novels by noted fantasy author R. A. Salvatore. Menzoberranzan has been developed into a video game and a tabletop RPG setting. Menzoberranzan has been described as "a perfect unjust state" and compared to Glaucon's vision of a state that is held together only by the fear of retribution.
Eilistraee, also referred to as "The Dark Maiden", is a fictional deity in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. In the game world, she is a goddess in the drow pantheon, and her portfolios are song, dance, swordwork, hunting, moonlight and beauty.
Promise of the Witch-King is book 2 of the Forgotten Realms trilogy The Sellswords. Book 1 was originally part of the Drizzt line of novels and has now been re-released with some short stories making up for the gap in time.
Streams of Silver is a fantasy novel by American writer R. A. Salvatore. It is the second book in his The Icewind Dale Trilogy.
The Halfling's Gem is a fantasy novel by American writer by R. A. Salvatore, the third book in The Icewind Dale Trilogy.
Passage to Dawn is a 1996 fantasy novel by American writer R. A. Salvatore. It is the fourth and final book of his Legacy of the Drow series.
Servant of the Shard was originally the third book in R.A. Salvatore's Paths of Darkness book series. It was also made the first book of the trilogy The Sellswords. In this novel, Artemis Entreri acquires Charon's Claw.
The Legacy is a 1992 fantasy novel by American writer R. A. Salvatore. It is the first book in his series Legacy of the Drow.
The Legend of Drizzt is a series of fantasy novels by R. A. Salvatore that began in 1988, and consists of 38 books as of August 9, 2022. They are based in the Forgotten Realms setting in the dimension of Abeir-Toril on the continent Faerûn in the popular D&D universe currently published/owned by Wizards of the Coast. It combines the series The Dark Elf Trilogy, The Icewind Dale Trilogy, Legacy of the Drow, Paths of Darkness, The Hunter's Blades Trilogy, and other sets into an abridged compilation. Drizzt Do'Urden is the main character of most of the books.
The Orc King is a fantasy novel by American writer R. A. Salvatore, the first book in the Transitions series.
The Ghost King is the third book in the Transitions series, written by R. A. Salvatore.
Wulfgar, son of Beornegar, is the barbarian hero of Icewind Dale in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, and one of the Companions of the Hall along with Drizzt Do'Urden, Catti-brie, Regis the halfling, and Bruenor Battlehammer. He is the creation of R.A. Salvatore.
Elves, a word from Germanic mythology, are frequently featured in fantasy fiction. In modern fiction, particularly because of the influence from J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, elves are modeled mostly after his original description: tall, human-like creatures of otherworldly beauty, with Kings and Queens. Along with this development, Dark elves are often modeled as a more sinister counterpart to the High elves, like the Drow or the Trow, which are the fairy-like dark creatures of Orcadian and Shetland folklore. The dark elves (Dökkálfar) or black elves (Svartálfar) are presented in Germanic mythology as dwarves and gray ones.
Gauntlgrym is a fantasy novel by American writer R. A. Salvatore set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting; it is the first book in the Neverwinter Saga. Released in October 2010, it follows the continued adventures of drow elf renegade, Drizzt Do'Urden. This story is set 24 years after the end of Transitions: The Ghost King.
Neverwinter is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Cryptic Studios for Microsoft Windows in 2013, Xbox One in 2015, and PlayStation 4 in 2016. Based on the fictional Forgotten Realms city of Neverwinter from Dungeons & Dragons, Neverwinter is a standalone game and not part of the previous Neverwinter Nights series.
Neverwinter is a fantasy novel by American author R. A. Salvatore. Released in October 2011, it is set in the Forgotten Realms campaign world. It is the second book in the Neverwinter Saga. It follows the continued adventures of drow elf renegade Drizzt Do'Urden. This story is set days after the events of Gauntlgrym and brings back both familiar and unfamiliar characters.
Neverwinter Saga is a saga written in the Forgotten Realms campaign world, a popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing setting, by fantasy and science fiction author R.A. Salvatore. The tetralogy begins with Gauntlgrym which is set twenty-four years after the events of The Ghost King. Gauntlgrym is also the twentieth book concerning one of Salvatore's famous characters, Drizzt Do'Urden. The saga contains Gauntlgrym, Neverwinter, Charon's Claw, and The Last Threshold. This tetralogy is preceded by The Transitions Series.
The Last Threshold is a novel by R. A. Salvatore set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, and is the fourth book in the Neverwinter Saga. It was released on March 5, 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
