#jarlaxle

[[ The content of this post is focused on Artemis Entreri and contains spoilers. Do not expand the Read More cut if you’d like to avoid spoilers.

The events of the novella take place after Relentless, which ends in 1488 DR. I would estimate that it transpires about a few months after the conclusion of Relentless. The following is a summarization of Artemis’ appearance in One-Eyed Jax:

- Artemis does not seem to have gone after Dahlia after the conclusion of the demon war in Relentless. It seems that his contemplations about going after her remained just that: contemplations.

- Artemis is either living in or spends most of his time in Luskan, working for Jarlaxle. Unlike Regis, Wulfgar and Drizzt, Jarlaxle didn’t have to go out of the way to fetch Artemis, thus implying that like Jarlaxle’s Bregan D’aerthe agents, Artemis lives nearby.

- Artemis is clearly a trusted go-to for Jarlaxle, but it’s unclear if Jarlaxle is paying him or what arrangement they have.

- Regis is sent to meet with Artemis as per Jarlaxle’s instructions. His friends don’t find this very safe, so they assign guards to accompany him. Artemis sends Regis’ guards, Pwent and Athrogate, onwards to the One-Eyed Jax tavern with the promise of beer, intercepting Regis and takes the halfling to the meeting with Jarlaxle.

- Regis chats with Artemis while the halfing has his second breakfast and reviews the notes for a role he’s supposed to play, but no insight is given into what he talks about with Artemis or what Artemis is doing while Regis is eating and reading.

- Artemis poses as an attendant during Regis’ high-stakes gambling, for the purpose of switching the fake ruby pendant for the real one. He does so with an impressive sleight of hand, in which he removes the fake pendant from around Regis’ neck and puts on the real one within a second, and with Regis only feeling a gentle pull on the back of his neck. Regis reflects that he thought himself an accomplished thief, but compared to Artemis, he was a bumbling novice.

- During the staged fight between Athrogate and Pwent, Artemis catches the target carrying damaged coins that were the sought after pieces of evidence. He eases the target to the floor while cutting open the man’s coinpurse, spilling the coins. Artemis retrieves a few pieces of the damaged coins, and while these are enough evidence for the rest of the cast, Artemis goes after the target and manages to coax more damaged coins from him. Artemis also gets the target to tell him that he’d been receiving a lot of suspicious items and wet items from the crew of the Narwhal as payment. Artemis uses leverage at Jarlaxle’s expense to do so, bribing the target with a full year of free drinks at the One-Eyed Jax.

- Artemis recognizes that the flag that Narwhal flies is that of Lantan, correcting a mistaken identification of Mintarn. Knowing the Lantanese nature of the vessel is what allows Jarlaxle to make key inferences.

- Artemis was aboard the Deudermont’s Revenge, Jarlaxle’s hunter schooner that went after the Narwhal.

- “Seemed to work well enough on you”, Artemis remarks of Drizzt when the ranger disparages smokepowder. Drizzt was shot by a smokepowder pistol, but despite the content of Artemis’ jab, “his voice revealed a great discontent, a sourness that was not usual for the grim man anymore.”

- Dahlia’s signature weapon, Kozah’s Needle, is found in the hold of the Narwhal, along with all the treasures from other ships sank by the Narwhal. Regis surmises that she was among those killed by the Narwhal.

- The text refers to the cast on Deudermont’s Revenge as, “the companions” and “the friends”. This includes Artemis.

- Artemis is included by implication in the characters on Deudermont’s Revenge cheering as Narwhal blows itself up. Artemis is also similarly included in the cast celebrating Regis and trading boasts about who would’ve killed more had the two ships’ crews engaged in hand to hand combat.

- Deudermont’s Revenge takes just Artemis to Mintarn. He alights from the ship before it fully pulls into the port. The crew talks about how he’s going on a “scouting mission”, but it’s revealed that Artemis found out who designed the smokepowder cannon on Narwhal. Bonnie Charlie, the captain of Deudermont’s Revenge, comments that she doesn’t think it’s accurate to describe Artemis’ mission as a scouting one, for he loved Dahlia once.

- Later, in a conversation between Jarlaxle and Drizzt, Jarlaxle reveals that Artemis returned earlier and that he’d found the one who designed the cannon. Drizzt asks if Artemis brought the designer back, and Jarlaxle responds, “Only the part of him that did the thinking”. Jarlaxle further reveals that Artemis told him to shoot it as the first shot out of the Lantanese cannon if he were to rebuilt it.

- Jarlaxle invites Drizzt to join him as he sets off to find Artemis for dinner for he suspects that Artemis would be in a bad mood.

My thoughts:

- Overall, the story harkens back to the earlier Drizzt books, where they’re not always savying/changing the world, and more concerned with local stuff. Those stories read more true to the setting and more like the stories told by the vast bulk of the other FR novels. In that regard, I found One-Eyed Jax more enjoyable than Drizzt versus the latest god-like thing.

- That said, it is more than a bit strange that Drizzt would concern himself with such a small-scale situation, especially when he’s got a baby, his first child at that, at home. Even if Catti-brie told him that it’s ok and that she can take care of things, if Drizzt were a good dad, shouldn’t he be realizing that being there for his child is the most important thing? For someone who goes on and on about how important love, family, friends and bonds are, his behavior is strange. It makes some degree of sense for him to be out there running around fighting stuff when the world is at stake, because in that case he’s fighting for there to be a world for his child to live in. However, Jarlaxle losing some money, even some people dying, is hardly enough justification for him to leave his baby, especially when Jarlaxle has tons of capable help at his disposal. In this sense, One-Eyed Jax is just pandering to the fanbois. 

- There’s a fair amount of review, and within those reviews, exultations of Drizzt and the Companions of the Hall. Unnecessary and ego-stroking, and while the recent novels have been like that, normalization in this sense is hardly a good thing.

- Killing Dahlia off-screen is beyond not cool, it’s bad, lazy writing. There’s a chance that Dahlia might not be dead, after all there is the whole, we didn’t see the body so she’s most likely still alive trope, but I wouldn’t put it past Bob to kill her off off-screen, not even in a main novel. Dahlia’s increasing unpopularity means that any space she takes up in a novel is space that could go towards getting Bob more money. I would hope that he doesn’t go this route, as it would be an even bigger sell-out, but he’s been selling out and there’s a note of finality to Dahlia’s disappearance. Although I wasn’t a fan of Dahlia and Artemis as a pairing, I’m dreading what Dahlia’s death means, I suspect that unfortunately Bob has plans for someone else to pair with Artemis. I’m betting that it’ll be Yvonnel II, which is rather unfortunate.

- It seems like Bob’s making a token effort to have Artemis retain some of his teeth, but the effort doesn’t feel genuine. Artemis’ sarcastic remark at Drizzt is immediately clarified to be something else, I’m not sure what Bob is getting at but I sincerely hope it isn’t making Artemis into a tsundere. While Artemis doesn’t have any compunction about killing someone he holds responsible for Dahlia’s death, Drizzt’s total lack of reaction to it is strange for a supposed hero of righteousness. It’s the same back when Narwhal blew itself up, only Regis is portrayed to feel remorse and guilt. It’s understandable that Jarlaxle and Artemis wouldn’t, as well they shouldn’t, and even Wulfgar to an extent. But Drizzt was cool with it as well.

- Jarlaxle destroys the plans for the smokepowder cannon rather than using it in his own ship, saying that power should be gained from years of study. This pleases Drizzt. Jarlaxle, the master of opportunities, who’d stop at nothing to gain an upper hand and claw a place for himself in the world, doing this just feels incredibly out of character. It feels like another instance of Salvatore bending his character the wrong way to convey a personal belief or to further elevate his golden boy.

- As far as the lore of the greater world is concerned, One-Eyed Jax does harken to some of the stuff that happens in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, the official module set roughly four years later. The novella makes references to Jarlaxle’s trip to Lantan to commission his manta ray-shaped submarine, the Scarlet Marpenoth. However, it also breaks the lore in a non-insignificant way, in fact upsetting the entire premise of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist in stating that Neverember’s embezzled wealth has been restored to its rightful owners. That embezzled wealth, exactly 500,000 gold dragons, is what the four “villains”, Jarlaxle included, are going after, that the players try to prevent the theft of.

- Mintarn is an island off the Sword Coast that’s pretty far south from Luskan, about as far south as Baldur’s Gate. Lantan is farther still, however it should’ve taken many tendays for Artemis to make the round trip. The way it’s presented made it sound like he was there and back in a few days’ time.

- I found it both really amusing and really irritating that Drizzt, who achieved the super duper monk ability of true transcendence, an ability that doesn’t even exist in 5e, can only catch a projectile but not throw it back. Even the disaster monk in my current D&D game, who regularly falls off the balcony while doing his morning exercises, can catch a projectile and throw it back in the same action. ]]