Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Producer Explains Xenk's Connection to Szass Tam (Exclusive)

The producer of the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie explained why Xenk is so old and what his connection is to Red Wizards leader Szass Tam. ComicBook.com spoke with Jeremy Latcham, the producer of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, to dive into some of the details about the hit movie. During the interview, ComicBook.com asked Latcham to explain the exact nature of the "connection" between Xenk the paladin (played by Regé-Jean Page) and the Red Wizards of Thay. While the movie showed a young Xenk escaping from Szass Tam's ritual of beckoning death, the exact effects the spell had on him was left unclear. Some had speculated that Xenk's connection might have ties to Tam's rise as a lich, an undead wizard who houses his soul in an object in order to maintain immortality, while others wondered if Xenk's long life was a feature of being a paladin.

"We just wanted to have a kid that could represent that all Thayans weren't bad," Latcham said when asked about Xenk's backstory.. "I think it's one of the things that the lore does sometimes is they just say, 'This race is bad.' And we didn't love that concept that all the Thayans are bad. So we liked the idea of having Xenk as almost a half-Thayan. We wanted him to be half-dead, which is not really a thing in the lore. And so we  wondered how do we skirt around this and say he escaped the procedure, but not fully untouched? And he's got Thayan in him, and he's been through part of this beckoning death spell. But he survived it. That's why he's got the sigil burned into his forehead, but he was not possessed entirely by the spell." 

Latcham also noted that Xenk's backstory helped develop some instant tension between him and Chris Pine's Edgin. "We really wanted it to be the case that Edgin did not like the guy," Latcham said. "And we're like, who does Edgin hate? He hates Thayans, he hates Harpers. So what if we have a guy who's like half-Thayan or half been through this terrible procedure as the same Red Wizard people that killed his wife, and he's also working with the Harpers, and he's also ridiculously handsome, and he's also ridiculously noble, and he's also ridiculously moral and right and righteous? Just pile up on the guy, so that Edgin just really does not like him. And we thought that'd be a fun way to kick off their relationship." 

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is out in theaters now. The full interview with Latcham will be posted later this weekend.