The world's most dangerous teenager.
The Shandril's Saga trilogy by Ed Greenwood covers the adventures of Shandril Shessair. It is part of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. The second book was originally part of the loosely-connected Harpers series, but as the story of Shandril Shessair became more fleshed out and the books became more popular they were joined together as a separate series.
Shandril of Highmoon is a young orphan girl working as a kitchen lass when she discovers she possesses the eldritch power called Spellfire. This automatically makes her one of the biggest threats to the forces of evil (or good) in the world and sends veritable armies after her.
- Spellfire (August 1988)
- Crown of Fire (April 1994)
- Hand of Fire (September 2002)
These books contain the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Shandril mows down entire armies of evil doers. She's not alone either.
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Adorkable: Narm is a clumsy and socially awkward wizard apprentice who also happens to be quite handsome, brave and kind-hearted. No wonder Shandril quickly falls for him. - All for Nothing: The trilogy ends with Shandril being Driven to Suicide and all the effort to protect her for naught.
- Battle Aura: The Spellfire usually manifests itself as a silver flame surrounding the user.
- Body Backup Drive: Manshoon makes ample use of this as an alternative to lichdom.
- Big Bad: Manshoon serves as the closest thing the trilogy has to a central antagonist, though he is only part of a Big Bad Ensemble, as Shandril is pursued by many villains from various factions and with various agendans.
- Big Good: Elminster serves as Shandril's mentor and biggest advocate, though he is hardly alone.
- Bullying a Dragon: The bad guys successfully turn a scared teenager into someone who wants to exterminate them all.
- Clothing Damage: Shandril frequently incinerates her own clothing during particularly intense battles. This is something of a Running Gag.
- Conveniently an Orphan: Shandril's parents were killed by the Cult of the Dragon.
- Dangerous 16th Birthday: Shandril's spellfire powers come to her when she hits this.
- Deconstruction: Ed Greenwood says it himself:"Just for fun, I wanted to blow holes in fantasy cliches. Let's see a heroine save the hero. Show a swaggering band of heroes do something wrecklessly stupid and (for once) get killed off as a result. Ever notice villains get attacked while asleep or in their homes but not heroes? Well, I wanted to fix that. Ever notice how heroes stride or gallop across a continent on scant sleep, never having to relieve themselves? I wrote scenes of blundering exhaustion and embarrassed searches for concealing bushes. I also included wizards hurling mighty spells and missing their targets and grand charges that ended in spetacular pratfalls."
- Despair Event Horizon: Shandril crosses this when she thinks she's accidentally killed Narm. It results in her being Driven to Suicide.
- Developing Doomed Characters: The Company of the Bright Spear exists solely to illustrate how dangerous an adventuring life is.
- Disc-One Nuke: Spellfire renders the most powerful and dangerous beings in the realm to be trivially easy to slaughter: dracoliches, beholders, and armies of mooks.
- Downer Ending: Shandril is driven to a thoroughly unnecessary suicide after she thinks she's killed her love interest. He almost follows her before her ghost reveals itself and that they will be together forever. Still, it is one of the saddest endings in all of D&D fiction.
- Driven to Suicide: Shandril is this after months of sleeplessness, believing she killed Narm, and losing her child.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: There is, simply put, no way to replicate what Shandril does in the books with D&D rules at the time. Which is the point. She is an in-universe Gamebreaker and Disc-One Nuke.
- Hope Spot: Shandril and Narm hope to make it to Evermeet where they will finally be safe. They never make it.
- Hand Blast: Spellfire gives the user the ability to convert raw magic energy into devastating blasts from the hands.
- I Just Want to Be Badass: Shandril originally wishes to be an adventurer and Jumped at the Call. She quickly changes her mind.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Trauma and the deaths of her friends gradually drives Shandril to this.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Shandril's ghost tells Narm to find another woman and remarry. Life is too long to live entirely in mourning.
- It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Being the weilder of Spellfire causes Lots of troubles and suffering for Shandril.
- Killed Off for Real: Gorstag, the Company of the Bright Spear, Delg Hammerhand, and Shandril herself.
- La Résistance: The Harpers serve as this to the Zhentarim that don't rule the region but certainly exert a powerful control.
- Parental Substitute: Gorstag raised Shandril after her parents were killed. But not very well and treated her as a servant.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Shandril can utterly break AD&D Second Edition rules to slaughter things well above her weight class. These include a dracolich.
- Power Incontinence: Eventually, Shandril's Spellfire powers go out of control and seemingly kill her beloved Narm, which leads her to commit suicide.
- Protective Charm: Shandril is given a magical amulet that will prevent enemies from learning her location. Unfortunately she destroys it when she uses her spellfire ability.
- Remember the New Guy?: Despite being apparently one of the most powerful and feared leaders of the Zhentarim and a long-standing Friendly Enemy with Elminster who was there all along, Hesperdan goes completely unmentioned until he emerges as a prominent antagonist in the last book.
- Standard Power Up Pose: The cover of the Ed Greenwood's Crown of Fire shows the main character Shandril Shessair using the title ability.
- Stern Chase: Essentially what all three books consist of. Shandril, once identified by the forces of evil, is constantly on the run from the people trying to hunt her down.
- Unfortunate Names: Narm is named...Narm.
- Villain Decay: The Zhentarim and the Cult of the Dragon come off as incredibly incompetent as well as unable to defeat a sixteen year old girl, no matter how powerful. This is due to
Executive Meddling according to Ed Greenwood. - We Have Reserves: The Zhentarim and the Cult of the Dragon send wave after wave of their minions after Shandril.
- Zerg Rush: Seemingly the only tactics the bad guys use, sending wave after wave of Cannon Fodder to be annihilated by Shandril's powers.
