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Eleanor Clark's Baldur's Gate

maerduinmaerduin Member Posts: 21
edited December 2013 in General Discussion (Spoiler Warning!)
Before the Baldur's Gate novelization, before the Baldur's Gate games, before D&D, there was...Baldur's Gate, the novel. It was written by Eleanor Clark and published in 1970, according to WorldCat (http://www.worldcat.org/title/baldurs-gate/oclc/000078749).

There was a first edition of it displayed in a used bookstore I used to go to when I first played BG1, and I always thought the coincidence funny -- but with a lack of curiosity I now find shameful (or maybe it was fear; the bookstore owner always seemed cranky) I never skimmed it.

Anyone heard of it? Anyone read it? Anyone know of the connection, if any, between the two names? Wikipedia tells me Clark went to Vassar with Mary McCarthy and Elizabeth Bishop (both of whom are great) and was married to Robert Penn Warren.

The single Amazon review is not favorable.

Comments

  • ShinShin Member Posts: 2,344
    https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/eleanor-clark-6/baldurs-gate/

    Apparently Baldur is an aged sculptor with a drinking problem in that novel. 8)
  • nanonano Member Posts: 1,632
    Interesting coincidence! I looked at the review and apparently it's about a sculptor named Baldur and has nothing to do with fantasy. I wonder, though... where did the devs get the name from? It'd be a strange source but maybe someone thought the title sounded cool and co-opted it for the city.
  • ShinShin Member Posts: 2,344
    edited December 2013
    The concept of Baldur's Gate wasn't thought up by the game developers, but was a part of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. And the name in this case of course comes from the explorer Balduran.

    Edit: If you meant the Forgotten Realms developers, well.. who knows.
  • GamingFreakGamingFreak Member Posts: 639
    Indeed. Balduran is briefly mentioned in history in-game, iirc, but you can find his enchanted equipment and use it for yourself. And boy oh boy that shield is soooo great. Totally fair and balanced and not trivializing a certain annoying enemy. Nope. Totally fine.
  • LadyRhianLadyRhian Member Posts: 14,694
    @Shin You mean Ed Greenwood? He's the one and only original developer of the Realms. :)
  • ShinShin Member Posts: 2,344
    @LadyRhian Aye I know he created the setting, but afaik many other people contributed with detailing and populating it - just guessed that more than one person were involved with the Baldur's Gate setting.
  • DurenasDurenas Member Posts: 508
    Baldur is a god in norse mythology. That's probably where they got the name from.
  • CalmarCalmar Member Posts: 688
    Ed Greenwood is a librarian. It could be possible he came across that book at one point and might have unconsciously, or as an insider gag, used it to name the city.
    AFAIK, from a developement point of view, the Heartlands and the North around Waterdeep are the centres of the Forgotten Realms; maybe there was a simply time when Mr. Greenwood was fleshing out the other regions, had to name dozend of cities and just picked words that came to mind and sounded nice?
  • TvrtkoSvrdlarTvrtkoSvrdlar Member Posts: 353
    @GamingFreak: Beholders themselves are cheesy. Nothing wrong with fighting cheese with cheese :P
  • scriverscriver Member Posts: 2,072
    Even if in-setting the city is named after Balduran, I fell fairly certain in my assumption that for Greenwood, the name of the city came first and Balduran was thought up later when fleshing out the lore. This of course us based on the presumption that every person works just like I do in their creation procedure ;)

    As for where Ed got the name from... I believe he regularly answer questions about the Forgotten Realms on some site (that Candlekeep one maybe?). We could try to ask him there.
  • ShinShin Member Posts: 2,344
    @scriver Aye, that seems possible, or even likely. If, that is, it was Greenwood personally who came up with Baldur's Gate.
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