Review: Watchers at the Living Gate by Paul Park

 Watchers at the Living Gate is a short story by Paul Park found in Untold Adventures, an anthology with tales from multiple D&D settings. Lord of the Darkways and Dreaming of Waterdeep are also in this anthology while also simultaneously in Dragon Magazine. There is also one more short story set in the Forgotten Realms not found elsewhere bringing the total to four. I'm not reviewing the anthology as a whole because only about half of the stories are in the Realms.

Paul Park has written one more Realms story, and that is a standalone novel that takes place in the Moonshaes, The Rose of Sarifal. I have yet to read it. I thought reading Watchers at the Living Gate would give me a good taste of the author's writing style.

The story follows Haggar, a half-orc druid, as he discovers an eladrin woman in the ruins of Cendriane. This adventure takes us into the feywild, where eladrin go against the undead of the vampiric Lord Kannoth. It’s a very interesting dynamic our characters have, a mix of cruelness and almost chivalrously medieval attitudes.

explorers in the ruins of Cendriane by Eric Belisle

By some odd pact Haggar and the eladrin Astriana help each other with certain tasks, most pertinently, Haggar helps Astriana to close a gate to the Far Realm in the fomorian lands of the feydark. This story was fun and I really wish I could see what comes of the characters after this, with their unique situation and relationship. Paul Park has an interesting style, and I’m interested in reading his one Realms novel eventually. Watchers at the Living Gate is Good.

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