Nice to see the wiki is working, but I'd like to point out how biased it is. When faced with conflicting canon, the author(s) put their own personal preferences first and made an entry for Serten the cleric, only mentioning the canon references to an archmage named Serten in literally the last sentence. Fans, including some members of this forum, do this A LOT and then these wiki and fanon works get incorporated into future developments.
Now in the particular case of Serten, we've learned things about the original character, the publication history and can safely say Mobley, Brown, Sargent, and the PHB spell are "wrong," but the canon from Ivid and WGR1 still stands!
Hasbro has yet to stand up and shoot down Sargent's archmage. And, frankly, two people named Serten is more interesting and logical. No 16th-level wizard is going to spend 6-10 weeks in a laboratory and thousands of gold to craft a new, extremely high-level spell to give their bumbling friend a little extra protection who is already a powerful cleric with perfectly good saving throws and incredibly good luck.
Sargent talked about the archmage Serten in the past tense, effectively "killing" that personage.
Sargent wrote "whether this ring truly belonged to that legendary archmage, who can say?" The only thing past tense is belonged, indicating that if Serten ever owned the ring, he doesn't anymore. Which is obvious, because Prince Lakaster currently owns it. The word "legendary" might imply Serten lived in the distant past, or simply that he is very well known. It might also (and might not) imply that he's fictitious, and only exists in legends.
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Nice to see the wiki is working, but I'd like to point out how biased it is. When faced with conflicting canon, the author(s) put their own personal preferences first and made an entry for Serten the cleric, only mentioning the canon references to an archmage named Serten in literally the last sentence. Fans, including some members of this forum, do this A LOT and then these wiki and fanon works get incorporated into future developments.
I'm responsible for the sentence in question. The original Wikipedia article on Serten simply read "Note: Some sources refer to Serten as a wizard" and left it at that, without mentioning which sources those were or considering the possibility that there were two different Sertens. I expanded it to read "Although Serten was clearly labeled a cleric in The Rogues Gallery and the Living Greyhawk Journal #0, the existence of the Spell Immunity spell, his purported authorship of a wizardly spellbook, and a rumor in Greyhawk Ruins all point to the existence of a wizard called Serten. Ivid the Undying refers to Serten as a 'legendary archmage.'"
If I have a bias, it's toward my pet theory (mentioned above) that the cleric Serten has an older relative, "Serten the Elder," who developed the eighth-level spell. But while Greyhawk's corpus doesn't contradict this theory, neither does it support it, so I just listed what we know: that Greyhawk Ruins lists Serten as a rumored member of the Ring of Five, that Dragon #82 lists Serten as an author of a spellbook called Arcane Resistance of Dwarves and Halflings, and that Ivid the Undying refers to Serten as a "legendary archmage."
The wiki article doesn't claim that any of that canon doesn't still "stand," but simply notes the disparity and leaves it to you to draw conclusions. If you think it should be phrased differently, by all means, create an account and edit it yourself.
I suppose that betrays something of a bias in favor of a character with a full stat block and elaborate canon background over a character we know almost nothing about, but this seems sensible to me.
One possible interpretation is that Serten is a single character that we have contradictory information about. Another possible interpretation is that Serten is two separate characters. Without official confirmation either way, I didn't feel like Serten the Mage deserved their own separate wiki article; if you feel differently, I wouldn't object if you edited the wiki yourself and gave them one.
Another possible interpretation is that "Serten the mage" doesn't exist. Greyhawk Ruins calls him (or her; if Serten the Mage is a separate character we don't know anything about their race or gender) a rumor and Ivid the Undying calls them a legend, leaving only the spell name, the ring that Sargent himself suggested might not actually be Serten's creation, and the spellbook from Dragon #82 as things that definitely exist. "Legendary" could simply mean that Serten was a mage of considerable renown, or it might mean that Serten was only legendary, as in our King Arthur or Robin Hood, with any historical kernel dubious at best. Spells or books attributed to Serten might be pseudonymous. That's not my preferred theory, but I don't feel comfortable dismissing the possibility entirely.
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Hasbro has yet to stand up and shoot down Sargent's archmage.
Which is why the wiki article doesn't do so either. I didn't feel comfortable with going so far as writing in the first sentence "Serten is a name shared by a cleric and an archmage in the World of Greyhawk fantasy setting," because I'm not sure that's accurate, but I did think it was important to note that some of the elements (the ring, the spellbook, and the spell) attributed to Serten are likely to be linked to a separate character.
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And, frankly, two people named Serten is more interesting and logical.
That might be true, but a wiki article isn't really the place to make value judgments like that, unless you're no longer talking about the wiki article.
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No 16th-level wizard is going to spend 6-10 weeks in a laboratory and thousands of gold to craft a new, extremely high-level spell to give their bumbling friend a little extra protection who is already a powerful cleric with perfectly good saving throws and incredibly good luck.
The wiki article never makes any claims about Serten's motivations in creating the spell, if indeed Serten was the spell's creator, so I suspect you've abruptly changed the subject from "the wiki doesn't emphasize Serten the wizard enough" to a diatribe against my post further up in this thread. A wizard can, of course, have more than one motivation for creating a spell—a spell that's useful for protecting a foolish young ally or relative (who ultimately does die in battle) can also have many other uses. No one suggested the spell was intended to be used on one cleric and no one else.
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