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hashimashadoo
Master of Realmslore

United Kingdom
1150 Posts

Posted - 13 Feb 2015 :  09:56:21  Show Profile  Visit hashimashadoo's Homepage Send hashimashadoo a Private Message
Lady THO, please relay my thanks to Ed in regard to his tale of Tiamat. That issue had been bothering me for a good long time. I had attempted to write something myself but my solution smacked of shoehorning. It's a wonder WotC doesn't consult with Ed more - he can come up with a solution to just about any story-related issue.

When life turns it's back on you...sneak attack for extra damage.

Head admin of the FR wiki:

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/
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Arian Dynas
Acolyte

USA
36 Posts

Posted - 13 Feb 2015 :  11:35:08  Show Profile Send Arian Dynas a Private Message
Speaking of Gods in several places...

I really, really, really, really hate the idea that all Material Planes are their own cosmologies (in particular I hate this whole "celestial tree business") and wanted to know, since 5th edition is taking a more 2nd Ed chic, and considering the huge number of mentions that settings heretofore left by the wayside are receiving lately, is Spelljammer going to get a comeback? Will Realmspace be a thing again? I sincerely hope it does, because the Prime Material is an infinite plane as far as I am concerned, and I need my Crystal Spheres.
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hashimashadoo
Master of Realmslore

United Kingdom
1150 Posts

Posted - 13 Feb 2015 :  12:12:01  Show Profile  Visit hashimashadoo's Homepage Send hashimashadoo a Private Message
Speljamming and Realmspace never went away, they just had barely anything written about them in official sources. There was a 3rd edition adventure set on an illithid nautiloid though. Spelljammer as a campaign setting won't be coming back in a significant way if current trends keep up. 4th edition only mentioned spelljammers as methods to travel to other planes, not other planets.

Unless there is a massive fan outcry, I don't see much development here.

When life turns it's back on you...sneak attack for extra damage.

Head admin of the FR wiki:

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/
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Arian Dynas
Acolyte

USA
36 Posts

Posted - 13 Feb 2015 :  12:16:37  Show Profile Send Arian Dynas a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by hashimashadoo

Speljamming and Realmspace never went away, they just had barely anything written about them in official sources. There was a 3rd edition adventure set on an illithid nautiloid though. Spelljammer as a campaign setting won't be coming back in a significant way if current trends keep up. 4th edition only mentioned spelljammers as methods to travel to other planes, not other planets.

Unless there is a massive fan outcry, I don't see much development here.



The former was the reason I was genuinely surprised to discover this whole "world tree" business a few weeks back. (Although it DOES make that whole Asmodeus ended the Blood War debacle a slightly less bitter pill to swallow.)

The latter makes me weep. Spelljammer was a suprelatively excellent way to tie all the various campaign settings together as far as I am concerned.
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Eli the Tanner
Learned Scribe

United Kingdom
149 Posts

Posted - 13 Feb 2015 :  14:08:08  Show Profile  Visit Eli the Tanner's Homepage Send Eli the Tanner a Private Message
Thank you Lady Hooded One and High Story-spinner Greenwood for those responses.
The forays and duties of Tiamat in Avernus have always intrigued me. I generally considered that she must have a lot going on in the lower planes, at least to keep her too busy to deal directly in Toril's affairs. Almost as busy as dearest Ed ;)

The little tidbit about Tiamat, Nergal and the Arcane Brotherhood is great. I love the broiling politics and power-games of the Nine Hells. I wonder what Ed's NDA skating will bring forth.
Many Thanks
-Eli the Tanner

Moderator of /r/Forgotten_Realms

Edited by - Eli the Tanner on 13 Feb 2015 14:08:32
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Hoondatha
Great Reader

USA
2449 Posts

Posted - 13 Feb 2015 :  18:42:06  Show Profile  Visit Hoondatha's Homepage Send Hoondatha a Private Message
Hello again, THO. Thanks as always for being our go-between; a number of the recent replies have been fascinating. But, as is often the case here, I'm going to meander off in a different direction.

I've always been fascinated and impressed by hand crafts. Book binding, pottery, carpentry, things like that. Recently I started thinking a bit about glass blowing. Partly, of course, because the process is just so beautiful. And after a bit of research, I come with a small host of questions.

Where are the current (1360's DR) centers of glass working? Where is the best sand? I've noticed there's a glazier in Shadowdale; where does he get his sand? Is his presence a fluke, or is it fairly common for small-but-crossroads places to have glass workers?

How much do the Big Four demihuman races work with glass? It seems very much an elf thing, only slightly less a gnome thing, and not at all a dwarf thing, but that's just stereotypes. Are there demihuman places, past or present, that were especially known for glassware?

And finally, in memory of all those great treasure tables you created for Dragon back in the day, if you were creating a couple pieces of non-magical glass treasure in the 1,000 gp or more range, what would they be?

Doggedly converting 3e back to what D&D should be...
Sigh... And now 4e as well.
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore

5056 Posts

Posted - 13 Feb 2015 :  23:14:08  Show Profile  Visit The Hooded One's Homepage Send The Hooded One a Private Message
Great questions, Hoondatha, and off they go to Ed.
From my notes, I can go this far (quoting Ed verbatim here; he was writing about the Dalelands, Cormyr, and Sembia, but the wording suggests he meant it to apply more widely):

In general, because of the fragility of glass, glass is blown just about everywhere that isn't arctic, so your "fairly common" supposition is correct (some local glass is just terrible, that's all: cloudy/full of inclusions and bubbles, fragile, thick and ugly).

However, we'll see what Ed has to add to that admittedly paltry lore.
love,
THO
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Irennan
Great Reader

Italy
3802 Posts

Posted - 14 Feb 2015 :  22:11:50  Show Profile Send Irennan a Private Message
Greetings Ed and THO.

Since today is Valentine's day, a thought crossed my mind. In Demihuman Deities it is said that ''Eilistraee is happiest when she looks on bards singing or composing, craftsmen at work, lovers, or acts of kindness'' (emphasis mine), so I was wondering if it would be reasonable for some of her followers to also worship her as a patroness of lovers, among the other things (I'm not suggesting that she has a love/lovers-related portfolio, simply that -due to her role- she is also sometimes revered as patroness of lovers).

The drow pantheon lacks such a deity probably because love is not an important part in Lolthites' life (and perhaps Vhaerunites' as well), it is taboo. However love is important to followers of Eilistraee and for the goddess herself, and IMO it's not a far fetched assumption that drow who leave their previous life behind could see in the Dark Dancer a protectress of such a feeling, which -as I see it- would play a huge role in helping the drow to change their perspective of the world and to find the happiness that they were denied.

It would also make thematically sense, not only because of Eilistraee's ideals, but also because of her role as mother-goddess of the drow people, deity of beauty and (according to Ed, AFAIK, correct me if that's wrong) also somewhat a goddess of female fertility (even if that aspect never made through TSR's censorship). Helping her children grow and flourish in a hostile world would definitely also include protecting and encouraging lovers, after all.

Thanks for your time.

Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things.

Edited by - Irennan on 14 Feb 2015 23:54:29
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Baltas
Senior Scribe

Poland
955 Posts

Posted - 15 Feb 2015 :  11:03:01  Show Profile Send Baltas a Private Message
Hello THO and Ed,

Ed, this had interested me for a time, how much did you create about Mulhorand, Unther and the Imaskari?. I heared that Mulhorand was originaly more like Stygia, and that Hoar/Assuran, was present in the Grey Box before Scott Bennie's Old Empires. Does this mean that Baelros(a fellow Southern god), had originaly a role in this region? And were the Imaskari(originaly known as the Raurin Empire), purely a creation of Scott Bennie(later developed into the Imaskari Empire by David "Zeb" Cook, and Eric L. Boyd), or did you create fundations for it?
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6350 Posts

Posted - 16 Feb 2015 :  10:09:13  Show Profile Send Gary Dallison a Private Message
Hi Ed/THO (and Garen Thal who i will be prodding as well),

This is a question from me and Jeremy Grenemyer regarding the purple dragon Thauglorimorgorus .

First and foremost among the questions for me is what is the current status of the purple dragon. I realise history records him as being killed but i am wondering if that is the entire story.

Second, has Thauglor ever been involved with any tinkerings in the weave around Cormyr (like Embrurshaille in Thar). Sources indicate that the Obaskyr family are linked in some way to the weave and this may have been inherited (not in a genetic sense but perhaps through knowledge or manipulation) from the elves. Is this linkage and malleability of the weave in Cormyr in any way linked to Thauglor and have any other groups or peoples discovered and exploited this link (such as the Sword Heralds or Nalavaroth the Devil Dragon who Jeremy informs me could direct teleporting mages within Cormyr into her mouth).

Third, what is the legacy of Thauglor, does he have any children, does he survive in some fashion, where is his lair and has it been discovered yet, how did he shape Cormyr after its beginnings (when he allowed the realm to be settled) apart from the purple dragon imagery which i understand started with Prince/King Duar.

Basically any other nuggets of lore you have about the last of the dragon overlords would be brilliant.

Regards

dazzlerdal

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Jeremy Grenemyer
Great Reader

USA
2717 Posts

Posted - 16 Feb 2015 :  15:57:59  Show Profile Send Jeremy Grenemyer a Private Message
Oops! I meant to say she could redirect already teleporting wizards away from their destination directly into her maw.

Look for me and my content at EN World (user name: sanishiver).
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore

5056 Posts

Posted - 16 Feb 2015 :  17:38:28  Show Profile  Visit The Hooded One's Homepage Send The Hooded One a Private Message
Hello again, all.
dazzerdal, great questions, and off they've gone to Ed. Here is what little I can say:

"First and foremost among the questions for me is what is the current status of the purple dragon. I realise history records him as being killed but i am wondering if that is the entire story."
THO: So far as I understand, this is still NDA.

"Second, has Thauglor ever been involved with any tinkerings in the weave around Cormyr (like Embrurshaille in Thar)."
THO: Yes.

"Sources indicate that the Obarskyr family are linked in some way to the Weave and this may have been inherited (not in a genetic sense but perhaps through knowledge or manipulation) from the elves. Is this linkage and malleability of the Weave in Cormyr in any way linked to Thauglor and have any other groups or peoples discovered and exploited this link (such as the Sword Heralds or Nalavaroth the Devil Dragon who Jeremy informs me could direct teleporting mages within Cormyr into her mouth). [Jeremy: "Oops! I meant to say she could redirect already teleporting wizards away from their destination directly into her maw."]"
THO: BIG NDA here. Beyond hints Ed has given me in the past that several individual dragons know some secrets of the Weave, and exploit them, and that this is the source of much "dragon magic" that doesn't fit the casting of known arcane magic spells.

"Third, what is the legacy of Thauglor, does he have any children, does he survive in some fashion, where is his lair and has it been discovered yet, how did he shape Cormyr after its beginnings (when he allowed the realm to be settled) apart from the purple dragon imagery which i understand started with Prince/King Duar."
THO: NDAs, yes, but I do know Thauglor had children. How many and their fates and/or present dispositions, I don't know - - but I can tell you that in the home Realms campaign, years ago, we encountered a beautiful human woman who escaped us in dragonshape (and so was a weredragon or song dragon or something else able to shapechange into a dragon and back) who used the name "Tharaela Blood-Of-Thauglor." And I'm afraid that's ALL I know about her, except that we Knights saw her watching us, just for an instant, years later.
And of course that means that Ed, as our DM, probably isn't going to say much more about this mysterious Tharaela.
However, when it comes to spilling about Thauglorimorgorus (who of course Ed created and named, though Jeff Grubb first brought him to life onstage in fiction, in CORMYR: A Novel; that is, Jeff wrote the first draft of the Thauglor scenes), we'll see . . .
love,
THO
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore

5056 Posts

Posted - 16 Feb 2015 :  17:48:46  Show Profile  Visit The Hooded One's Homepage Send The Hooded One a Private Message
Hi again, fellow scribes!
I just got an e-mail from Ed that contained a partial answer for Hoondatha, about this question: "And finally, in memory of all those great treasure tables you created for Dragon back in the day, if you were creating a couple pieces of non-magical glass treasure in the 1,000 gp or more range, what would they be?"

Ed saith:
I would probably go for blown glass altar lamps of designs specific for any faith, or the small locket-like reliquaries used to enclose the hair or nails of saints (who are rare in the Realms, remember; we're basically talking the faith of Ilmater here, though with more secrecy the churches of Loviatar, Lurue, and Sharess, too).
Yet the altar lamps - - either beautifully-shaped glass chimneys for candles, or transparent glass oil lamps that use wicks - - would be by far the more numerous and likely pieces. "Genuine" ones, that is, meaning those blown under the supervision of, and with the blessing of, priests, or by priests themselves, and marked to denote that, not "knockoffs" made to look like the real thing by someone else. (They would be a little more than a tenth the price of the genuines.)

And there you have it. Ed's on the job, as usual . . .
love,
THO
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Hoondatha
Great Reader

USA
2449 Posts

Posted - 16 Feb 2015 :  20:28:06  Show Profile  Visit Hoondatha's Homepage Send Hoondatha a Private Message
Wonderful! Thank you both.

Doggedly converting 3e back to what D&D should be...
Sigh... And now 4e as well.
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader

United Kingdom
6350 Posts

Posted - 16 Feb 2015 :  20:35:39  Show Profile Send Gary Dallison a Private Message
Excellent stuff thank you (apart from the NDAs of course).

I'm wondering if Thauglor's giving up of his kingdom wasn't deliberate and his death could have been deliberate as well - on his part I mean (although maybe he hadn't expected It to happen just then and in that manner thanks to the Dracorage)

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Caladan Brood
Senior Scribe

Norway
410 Posts

Posted - 16 Feb 2015 :  21:01:16  Show Profile  Visit Caladan Brood's Homepage Send Caladan Brood a Private Message
Hello, a superbly quick question to sate my curiosity (and hopefully others):

Is/was Ed Greenwood in any way involved with the upcoming PC game "Sword Coast Legends"?
(Link: https://swordcoast.com/)

Thanks! :)
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore

5056 Posts

Posted - 17 Feb 2015 :  14:55:05  Show Profile  Visit The Hooded One's Homepage Send The Hooded One a Private Message
Hi again, all.

Caladan Brood, an answer to your question is almost certainly going to be NDA. For what it's worth, I would suspect Ed isn't and hasn't been involved, but I must stress that that's just my guess.

dazzerdal, you may well be on to something, re. Thauglor. (Ahem, hint, hint...)

And in regards to your second question (the one I answered with a bald "yes" because I've no idea until Ed and I talk how much I can share, let's just say that several of the Royal Magicians of Cormyr have come to believe that the dragons worked covertly with the Weave before both elves and humans were "allowed" to come into the area that is now Cormyr, possiby as something of an experiment. (The ability of certain dragons to work with the Weave akin to the way the veteran Chosen of Mystra do is one of the great unexplored areas of Realmslore - - and every time I nudge Ed to provide more, he smilingly directs me to his next novel, and his next, and his . . .
love to all,
THO
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TBeholder
Great Reader

2377 Posts

Posted - 17 Feb 2015 :  19:24:38  Show Profile Send TBeholder a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One


Yet the altar lamps - - either beautifully-shaped glass chimneys for candles, or transparent glass oil lamps that use wicks - - would be by far the more numerous and likely pieces

Thanks! That's a fun tidbit of lore...

Speaking of lamps, could you please share something about old good driftglobes/glowing globes?
The available lore is fairly abundant, but patchy: there are mentions of globes bound to the owner for remote control or autonomous; inert, levitating or flying (follow-the-owner or programmed); with various degrees of brightness control; of a fixed color, at least typically. And there's Nchaser's Glowing Globe creating a non-motile bound version.
Beyond this, however... what even sizes they are?
Also, these things seems to be a subject of tinkering by many generations of wizards - what extra effects (whether defensive or utility) are known?

People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo. -Ed Whitchurch
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore

5056 Posts

Posted - 17 Feb 2015 :  21:52:28  Show Profile  Visit The Hooded One's Homepage Send The Hooded One a Private Message
Ah! Very good questions, TBeholder; off they go to Ed. Yes, there are lots of variants, because it's something wealthy people are always happy to pay a local provider for (some temples sell them as a steady source of income, and it's a "safe" source of income for many mages, who enchant pebbles to glow and levitate, glass spheres [which being fragile can get broken, so a buyer then has to purchase a replacement = more money for the wizard selling them). Most that I've heard Ed describe vary from the size of a small human head to about twice that size, but I recall a really large, impressive ovoid one that a noble had hanging in midair in a soaring-ceilinged hall.
More when Ed can provide...
love,
THO
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore

5056 Posts

Posted - 18 Feb 2015 :  03:55:38  Show Profile  Visit The Hooded One's Homepage Send The Hooded One a Private Message
And hello again, all.
Re. this, from Jeremy Grenemyer: "I was also wondering if any of the undead in the Haunted Wing have been successfully quelled, or at least subdued, by song alone?"

Ed just sent me an e-mail that included this answer for you:

Yes. Several of the "sad queens" (sad-eyed gliding court ladies, not actually queens or princesses, but the public gave them this nickname nonetheless) seem comforted by skilled harping of the style popular several centuries back, and will smile and nod and withdraw. And there are at least two minstrels among the ghosts, who can be driven away in rage by bad playing, or playing certain loud and uptempo modern dances. Legend holds that playing just the right tune will make one of them your friend, guide, and nightly confidant (if, ahem, you consider that a reward), but no one seems to have yet hit upon just what that "right tune" is.

So saith Ed. Intriguing me greatly, as it sheds light on some events in the home Realms campaign from YEARS ago. Gods, what a mind the man has . . .
love,
THO
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Jeremy Grenemyer
Great Reader

USA
2717 Posts

Posted - 18 Feb 2015 :  05:36:13  Show Profile Send Jeremy Grenemyer a Private Message
Glad to have helped give your mind a tickle, THO. :)

Thanks Ed! The idea of ghosts being effected by song is a fun one to think about.

Look for me and my content at EN World (user name: sanishiver).
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore

5056 Posts

Posted - 19 Feb 2015 :  17:12:37  Show Profile  Visit The Hooded One's Homepage Send The Hooded One a Private Message
Jeremy, I don’t know if you’ve ever run across it, but that idea is dealt with in a brief but very effective scene in Christopher Stasheff’s classic fantasy novel THE WARLOCK IN SPITE OF HIMSELF.

And I didn’t just show up to chat about other folks’ fantasy novels, I came to post a response to John Lynch, who asked (back on Feb 6th): “I started re-reading Elminster's Forgotten Realms again and saw the mention of broadsheets. I was wondering when (where?) did they first appear and how has their use over the years changed (increased? decreased?).”

Ed saith:
When and where they first appeared in lost to faulty memories (“the mists of time”), but despite some recent claims to the contrary, it was NOT in Kara-Tur, where the very concept of “written rumors, gossip, and dissemination of reports about events” didn’t fit with society.
Among humans, written news/entertainment that could be purchased by just anyone in the general public (and from the start, there was a strong element of both sensational fiction and cryptic “personals” in such publications) first arose in Calimshan sometime in the 100s DR and was immediately and viciously stamped out by the pashas, though peddlers and other traveling (and “shady”) merchants continued to make broadsheets as wrappings for goods they sold, and distributed these around the Lake of Steam sporadically for the next three hundred years or so (and from then on, publications of independent, extremely-low circulation broadsheets, with “print runs” of sixty copies or less, have been a feature of the Border Kingdoms).
Although this sort of sporadic and localized publication, most often as a handbill advertising a fair or other event, with the back surface used for brief news reports, jokes, lyrics, and almanac-like musings on future weather, popped up here and there along the Heartlands trade routes and especially the Sword Coast, with Scornubel being the location of perennial “printing services” in the form of swift hand-copying scribes who literally wrote multiple duplicates in a sort of assembly line on various rag papers throughout the 400s to 1200s DR, “modern” broadsheets began in earnest in the 1320s DR, in Waterdeep.
They were a brief fad, then dwindled under guild pressure - - until the late 1340s DR, when some guilds saw them as an advertising and image-buffing public relations boon, and stopped trying to hamper and sabotage broadsheet makers. Public “cryers for hire” in the streets became broadsheet-selling “broadcryers” overnight, and the popularity took off, becoming all-pervasive by the end of the 1350s DR. Although the Spellplague and wars and other disasters have temporarily made publications falter, broadsheets have been popular in Waterdeep ever since, and to a much smaller extent have appeared regularly (independents with small print runs, often published by iconoclasts who publicly feud with rival broadsheet-makers) in Neverwinter and Baldur’s Gate.

And there you have it! Ed’s potted history of broadsheets!
Enjoy!
love,
THO

Edited by - The Hooded One on 19 Feb 2015 17:13:01
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Aldrick
Senior Scribe

909 Posts

Posted - 19 Feb 2015 :  18:12:28  Show Profile Send Aldrick a Private Message
Hello Ed and THO! I hope life is treating you both well.

I have been going back over the various deity information given over the years, both here on Candlekeep and in source books (and most recently Elminster's Forgotten Realms), but I still feel that some things are left unclear as it relates to canon.

When we talk about deities, it is frequently from a general birds eye view. This makes sense, because it allows us to generalize, but I think something that keeps getting lost in translation is what it is like to be a local NPC priest of a temple or a shrine. We are not talking about adventurers here, but just local people doing their day job.

So, this is somewhat of a broad question: What is life like for the average priest in the Realms? Not someone extraordinary or special, just the average priest of the average faith.

Some specific questions to help narrow the focus of such a broad question.

Does the priest even receive divine powers? Is divine spellcasting reserved only for an elite few special individuals within a faith, or does every single priest of the faith have the ability to work divine magic the moment they take their oaths?

How immersed is the average priest in local politics? This has been touched on in the past, and the answer here seems to be 'as deep as one can get' -- however is this overt involvement? Or is it considered a social taboo for a priest to go poking his nose into affairs outside the purview of his faith? How much sway does the average priest hold with those in power and the common people?

What about internal temple and cult politics? Are the average priests drawn into these disputes, or are they reserved for those of high ranking office? What are some examples of common disputes that might be had?

How much does a cult vary from location to location? We have a very broad overview of the faiths of the Realms, but are they all sort of cookie cutter? Or are there regional (and even local) differences depending on where you are--for example, is the cult of Sune the same in Tethyr as it is in Aglarond?

Finally, how common are schisms and heresies within the cults? These things obviously happen, but how common are they? What is the general reason for the deity basically not showing up and saying, "Yeah, that guy over there is totally nuts. Don't listen to him. This is what I want you to do." It is sort of assumed that deities generally only communicate with dream visions and minor manifestations (such as a holy glow around an altar or something). However, on the other hand we have plenty of examples of deities being directly involved in the Realms in a tangible way--how does all of this square?

The last question to me is the most important. I struggle to understand how the average priest would view someone like Elminster. At best the average priest has had one dream vision, and that was likely calling him to serve in the faith. That's it. Meanwhile, he could be in the presence of a man (assuming he is aware of it, of course) who has had numerous intimate dealings with the goddess and has even felt the touch of her direct divine intervention. Though Elminster might be disdainfully scornful of it, how does the average priest of Mystra not venerate him as some type of saint? How does the priest not bow and grovel before someone who has had such personal attention from Mystra?

I realize this is a lot to ask! However, it feels like there is this huge gap of knowledge missing from the Realms. For me, it is important to understand what it is like for the local priest, because that sort of colors the larger faith as a whole.
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Blueblade
Senior Scribe

USA
804 Posts

Posted - 19 Feb 2015 :  23:13:34  Show Profile  Visit Blueblade's Homepage Send Blueblade a Private Message
Not to be flippant here, but Aldrick, I would wager good money that the answers to some of your above questions are going to include "it depends" (as in, it does vary from faith to faith, place to place, and over time).
But those are great questions. I look forward to the answers we get.
BB
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore

5056 Posts

Posted - 19 Feb 2015 :  23:23:34  Show Profile  Visit The Hooded One's Homepage Send The Hooded One a Private Message
Hi again, all. Aldrick, these are great questions. They are also all actually topics Ed has discussed at length in panels and seminars at GenCons (especially back when the Realms, as its own product line, was young), but of course, if you weren’t there, you missed out on, say, four hours at a stretch of Ed explaining exactly how to play a lowly non-adventuring PC priest at a village shrine, or a cloistered high-level NPC priest (“monk” but not the character class) at a monastery, and so on.
The reason more of this has never been spelled out in print products is the publisher wanting to avoid more real-world controversy from the Christian religious right, and so preferring to leave a lot of what we might call “mundane daily religious detail” out of published products.
Your queries have gone off to Ed, and although (I know I sound like a broken record here, endlessly repeating the same little phrase) he’s VERY busy right now, I know he’ll get to answering them when he can. Possibly a few at a time.
love,
THO
P.S. And I won't take you up on that wager, Blueblade, because I KNOW you're right.
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Eli the Tanner
Learned Scribe

United Kingdom
149 Posts

Posted - 20 Feb 2015 :  00:37:54  Show Profile  Visit Eli the Tanner's Homepage Send Eli the Tanner a Private Message
Those seminars sound great. Does Ed have any plans to visit the UK at some point? I know some very homely pubs that Ed might appreciate...between conventions

Moderator of /r/Forgotten_Realms
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Aldrick
Senior Scribe

909 Posts

Posted - 20 Feb 2015 :  07:47:20  Show Profile Send Aldrick a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Blueblade

Not to be flippant here, but Aldrick, I would wager good money that the answers to some of your above questions are going to include "it depends" (as in, it does vary from faith to faith, place to place, and over time).
But those are great questions. I look forward to the answers we get.
BB


Yeah, I know. I was just looking for a very general overview ("of the average priest"), as discussing each faith would require an entire source book. I also started out with one question, realized it was too broad, and then tried to narrow it--only to end up with a ton of questions instead of one.

quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One

Hi again, all. Aldrick, these are great questions. They are also all actually topics Ed has discussed at length in panels and seminars at GenCons (especially back when the Realms, as its own product line, was young), but of course, if you weren’t there, you missed out on, say, four hours at a stretch of Ed explaining exactly how to play a lowly non-adventuring PC priest at a village shrine, or a cloistered high-level NPC priest (“monk” but not the character class) at a monastery, and so on.
The reason more of this has never been spelled out in print products is the publisher wanting to avoid more real-world controversy from the Christian religious right, and so preferring to leave a lot of what we might call “mundane daily religious detail” out of published products.
Your queries have gone off to Ed, and although (I know I sound like a broken record here, endlessly repeating the same little phrase) he’s VERY busy right now, I know he’ll get to answering them when he can. Possibly a few at a time.
love,
THO
P.S. And I won't take you up on that wager, Blueblade, because I KNOW you're right.


Gah! If only we had YouTube and stuff like that back then. Imagine all the awesome lore we are missing. So sad.

Oh well. Thanks THO. Hopefully, Ed can find the time to share some of it again.
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Jeremy Grenemyer
Great Reader

USA
2717 Posts

Posted - 20 Feb 2015 :  09:15:32  Show Profile Send Jeremy Grenemyer a Private Message
Thank you THO for the recommendation. And great question JohnLynch on broadsheets. That's another topic I wish I had an extra set of days to dive into.

Look for me and my content at EN World (user name: sanishiver).
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Fellfire
Master of Realmslore

1965 Posts

Posted - 21 Feb 2015 :  14:28:30  Show Profile Send Fellfire a Private Message
Greetings, Lady THO. In ESdB and TomCosta's most excellent write up of Fox-at-Twilight, bladechimers (elfy swashbucklers) are mentioned as being a word/concept straight from Ed. Can you, or can he tell me more of this group? Notable individuals, other sources where they may have been mentioned, defining abilities (ed.-neutral) or reasons for their decline? That sorta thing. As always, thanks for your time.

Misanthorpe

Love is a lie. Only hate endures. Light is blinding. Only in darkness do we see clearly.

"Oh, you think darkness is your ally? You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but.. blinding. The shadows betray you because they belong to me." - Bane The Dark Knight Rises

Green Dragonscale Dice Bag by Crystalsidyll - check it out

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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore

5056 Posts

Posted - 21 Feb 2015 :  22:16:42  Show Profile  Visit The Hooded One's Homepage Send The Hooded One a Private Message
I don't think they've ever been mentioned in official Realms products, although Ed (speaking as NPCs, when DMing us) has mentioned them at least twice over the years. Which isn't a lot, and my characters have never knowingly encountered one.
So, off to Ed, in hopes of shared enlightenment . . .
love,
THO
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