The work contained on this page has been penned over time by the creator of the Forgotten Realms - Ed Greenwood, and kindly provided to us here at Candlekeep by The Hooded One on the Candlekeep Forum. The collection presented here is a digest version which has been collated by Scott Kujawa, presenting all Ed's responses and omitting other posters discussions which followed.

(Answers from Ed Greenwood)

Feb - Apr 2004

Febuary 17, 2004: Well, Ed's been busy writing these past few days, but I managed to hail him and get a reply:

Hi, Josh. To take things in no particular order:

I have some long-term plans for the Rangers Three but nothing definite. You'll probably see Sharantyr before the end of the Knights trilogy.

None of the Knights books are finished yet, but I can say the first one begins just before the Knights are actually formed, when Florin Falconhand agrees to undertake a certain task, and gets more than he bargained for.

You won't have to wait that long, however, to see some comedic scenes: Elminster's Daughter and the Waterdeep novel will both have their share (though my latest Aglirta book for TOR, The Silent House, is a little darker). I love doing them, and have to restrain myself (before editors restrain me :}) from going overboard in being arch. Realmsplay sessions in the home Realms campaign, thanks to the backgrounds, interests, and humours of my players, have never been far from an element of what the stage sometimes calls 'British farce.'

Which brings us to world building. I've designed or co-designed five major settings now (from a gamer's view, CASTLEMORN from Fast Forward Entertainment, Inc. will be the next to appear), and doing it more than once has hammered home one thing: for me, it always starts with some vividly-imagined scenes of places. Whether we're talking crumbling ruins or soaring castles or deep forest glades lit by glowing mists, these will be places that intrigue me, that I want to know more about. So, in my mind's eye, I walk around them, seeing and smelling and looking behind things.

And then I see people, characters that intrigue me. Why is this woman laughing, and why is there a sword sticking right through her that doesn't seem to bother her in the slightest? Why is yonder man acting so sly, and chuckling to himself all the time as if he knows something devilishly delightful that the rest of us don't? What are their secrets, and what are they up to? On a larger scale, what are the conflicts that dominate this land, or region, or world?

My original visions of places largely determine the overall landscape character of that part of the setting, of course (lush green forests, or seacoasts, or deserts, or mountains, or something weirder like floating, moving Roger Dean-style midair "islands" of rock). From that point, there are many ways to world-build, and the published Realms (just because areas have been bolted onto it by others besides myself, and many different folks have stirred their own characters and people into the mix) aren't necessarily the best example of how to do it. Your questions center on how I started, however, so let's go back there.

Picture a very young nerd (six and then seven) voraciously reading everything in his father's den full of books. The shelves in that den hold everything from cutting-edge physics and radar science (my father's academic pursuits) to lurid "naughty" paperbacks (or what passed for them in the 1930s and 40s). I'm the young reader, and find the fantasy stuff most to my taste. More than that, most of the authors are dead, and even those still alive at the time (such as Tolkien, Moorcock, Leiber, Zelazny, Pratchett, and Bellairs, just to name a few) either haven't yet published the works that will really make them shine, in my eyes, or aren't writing fast enough to feed my appetite for "What Happened Next?" to favourite characters. So I start to scribble my own sequels. Most of these, of course, are both horrible and unfinished little pastiches, but that hunger is the root from which the Realms grew.

Eventually, I hit upon the idea of doing what Fritz Leiber was doing with Fafhrd and the Mouser in the pages of FANTASTIC at the time (a magazine later merged with its sister sf publication AMAZING, which TSR acquired and published about two decades later): telling self-contained stories about his main characters that just happen to be episodes in the ongoing lives of these wandering heroes (occasionally featuring old friends or foes they've met before), and also just happen to be set in the same world, and add little details of that world, story by story, that a reader who knows about the other stories in the series can pounce on, and fit together with what's already known, and build into a deeper understanding of the world.

So I start to write stories all set along the same coast (what you now know as the Sword Coast of the Realms), that share the same background. Most of them star the same main character: the fat, wheezing, sly Mirt the Moneylender (take Shakespeare's Falstaff, and add a dash of Poul Anderson's Nicolas van Rijn and a handful of Glencannon), who's crafty as they come but too old and slow for great heroics. In some of the tales, he teams up with Durnan, a "thinking-man's Conan" (strong silent type who isn't a barbarian ignorant of the lands he's journeying through, but who, although sensitive, believes laws and authority are usually oppressive, and to be ignored whenever they get in the way).

The first Realms tale is "One Comes, Unheralded, to Zirta" (Zirta is a city now part of Scornubel), and in it we see Elminster and a lady or two who will later become famous (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint) as members of the Seven Sisters. This tale is written in 1967, and D&D isn't released until 1974 (1975 to me and most of the wider world), so my fiction writing in the Realms predates the game.

As a result, I was piling details up far more deeply than most published game settings ever acquire, long before there WAS a D&D game (can't do registered trademark symbols in this primitive e-mail, but please take it as written that they're here, okay?).

I so admired the release of AD&D (specifically the Players Handbook, which put a Vancian magic system into specific game terms, just as the Monster Manual had already quantified monster specifics) that I turned the Realms into a matching-the-game setting. Regular Realmsplay started in 1978, and longtime Realms fans will notice that the greatest detail in the published Realms is found in places (Waterdeep, Cormyr, the Dales) where longtime adventuring companies (Player Characters) were based.

My players were and are superb actors/roleplayers, and demanded a world that felt real. They always wanted to know what was inside that caravan wagon passing by, and why (which of course forces some world design decisions on the DM, because the cargoes obviously mean that Place X produces an excess of cloth, but needs metals, and Place Y needs that cloth, and so on). As a result, the Realms got literally days (uh, when I was going to school, which would be my "study time") of me puzzling out economics, trade routes, currents, prevailing winds, floods and droughts, mineral wealth locations, and so on. Again, others have worked in the Realms, so not all of this survives in a coherent manner, and of course it's never been set forth in a "Trading & Traders" or "Merchants & Money" product, because many gamers would avoid such a product in droves. :}

So that's the way I did it. DRAGON issue 54 contains my work-in-progress unfolding of a pantheon of gods, and a glance at that article will show you three things at work: like all D&D gamers at the time, I was trying to stay official, matching deities with what Gary Gygax had revealed of his (the Greyhawk setting); I wanted lots of gods (one aspect of the Realms that's thus far been neglected is the extent to which Jonthun the baker next door worships Chauntea for a good harvest, Tymora for good luck in the baking, Talos for good weather so the grain crops won't be ruined, and so on, all in the same day); and I wanted lots of small, evil cults so PCs would have lots of evil rituals to disrupt and maidens to rescue off of sinister altars. :} (Another element we haven't yet properly addressed in print is clergy: exactly what prayers do they prey, what do they wear, what are their taboos, aims in life, and what are the hidden agendas or personal pursuits of the controlling clergy; all of that. We know entirely too much about the gods, and not enough about their churches.)

And yes, Josh, it takes time. Oodles and oodles of time. More than 35 years for me, thus far; the Realms has become my life, taken me all over the world, and changed everything for me.

However, it doesn't have to start with the planet cooling. Most designers will run out of gas long before they get half the canvas filled in, if they start macro and then zero in. Start small, with a place that grabs you, and build outwards. When you get as far outwards as a cluster of adjacent lands, then step back and look at trade and wars and alliances and power groups. Depending on your purposes (writing a long line of novels or just getting together one night a week to run friends through the latest adventure that's caught your eye in the pages of DUNGEON, or something in between), that far may be as far as you need to go. Until, of course, your players start demanding all that detail; any good DM will spend about 4 hours of design time for every 1 hour of playing time.

I hope this starts to answer your questions. Just between you and me, I world-build because I love doing it. Anyone who's tried to make a living from writing will tell you straight that it isn't because of money, and I matured enough not to want adulation years ago. But to be in the middle of acting the part of a king and to look across the gaming table and see people excited to the point of tears by what the king is saying and doing to their characters, THAT's wonderful.

Thanks for asking!

Ed Greenwood

.And this is the Hooded One, signing off for now. And that last bit? That's why I love Ed, and will always try to defend him against idiots who say he copied Elminster from Gandalf or writes Elminster as his sexual-fulfillment alter ego or other such garbage. He's given such a glorious world to us all, and done it without any of the control-freak fighting that has so often marred the gaming industry (welcoming folks like Bob Salvatore and Elaine Cunningham and so many others to play in his sandbox, and behind the scenes pitching in with guidance and help on so many Realms game products).

And if you see him at GenCon, white beard wagging as he signs this or helps a lost gamer with directions or catches up with old friends, I hope you'll see him as I do, and think: What a man.

Your servant, the Hooded One

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Febuary 20, 2004: The Hooded One here, with an answer relayed from the Master himself (who just finished winching a neighbour's tractor up an ice-covered driveway, BTW; it seems Winterkeep is in the throes of an ice storm right now):

Although I have always done some reading for work (a good librarian has a duty to sample a wide cross-section of books, in my opinion: it doesn't matter if I don't like Danielle Steel books, I'd better know exactly what they're like, and the works of Nora Roberts, too, so as to be able to answer patron queries about them), I read voraciously, and always have.

The demands of my writing life have slowed me down somewhat from my carefree youth (when I was in school, three good-sized novels a day was about average, but now I'm lucky if I do a book a day), but I still read tons of stuff, and live in a house groaning under the weight of some 80,000 books. I buy a few thousand more titles a year. So, yes, I read for fun, but I do so seriously. :}

Aside from proofreading my own books and short stories so the errors are mine and not those of the publisher, some books I read in galley form because publishers ask me to "blurb" them (write those little quotes on the back covers that go something like this: "This is the best book I read this morning!"), and some I read in galleys because writer friends are asking for advice or opinions on how to fix something, or if I think they got this or that "right," and I'm not going to betray any confidences by telling you the books I'm reading right now, because all four of them are of that sort.

However, I can say that in the past week I've read the following:

Carrie Bebris: Pride & Prescience (a quick re-read because I'd already enjoyed it in galleys; a superb Jane Austen pastiche mystery)

Lois McMaster Bujold: Paladin of Souls (couldn't get to this when I received it due to workload, so it had to wait until now)

Robert Devereaux: Santa Steps Out (the only real 'oldie,' lent to me by a very kind friend because it's so pervertedly twisted)

Phil & Kaja Foglio: Girl Genius Book One: Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank (graphic novel; a re-read just for fun)

Guy Gavriel Kay: The Last Light Of The Sun (a very quick read because I'd already gone through it in galleys, not all that long after doing a panel with Guy at Worldcon)

Julian May: Conqueror's Moon

Patricia A. McKillip: Alphabet of Thorn

Ted Naifeh: Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things Volume 1 (graphic novel; came out a long time ago but I had some fun tracking it down)

Anne Perry: No Graves As Yet

Robert Silverberg, editor: Legends II (a re-read of the George R.R. Martin tale therein for reasons that I'm not at liberty to discuss)

Gene Wolfe: The Knight

. . . And six books I re-read after the Nebula Awards nominations were whittled down to a final ballot, for "sober consideration" voting purposes. Please note that this isn't a typical week, being as there are NO nonfiction books on the list, no gaming products, only two non-sf and fantasy books (the Bebris and the Perry), and far more than the usual percentage of re-reads.

So know you know what my brain is full of. I don't mind at all answering this question, but I confess I'm a little puzzled as to why you'd care. If you're looking for recommendations, all of the books listed above have their good points, and several are superb. But then, with a few exceptions, I believe one can enjoy and glean something useful from almost any book (although I'll admit that with limited time or funds most of us have to pass over most books we happen to see), and I do a lot of wincing when I read savage crit of this or that book (or worse, generalizations about this or that author) on the Internet or in magazines, or hear the same in libraries and bookstores. Remember to always apply Elminster's Rule: one reader's masterpiece is the next reader's complete waste of trees. :}

Ed

And there you have it. More wisdom from the currently ice-covered creator of the Realms himself. Your servant,
The Hooded One

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On Febuary 20, 2004 THO said: I can answer this one directly, without bothering Ed (snow load tore off one of his eavestroughs last night, and sent it crashing down.so of course, being Ed, he uncovered one of the lawn chairs buried in the snow, made hot chocolate, and went out to watch and see if the NEXT trough along would fall; he didn't want to miss the crash):

When TSR bought the Realms, the original agreement (which I know about because, as one of his players, I had to sign legal release forms for my characters) included two things that touch on your question: Ed was supposed to receive a copy of everything published about the Realms (by TSR, not necessarily those by outside licenses like computer games), and be consulted and fully informed about forthcoming Realms products (so he wouldn't contradict or spoil surprises or anything like that by saying the wrong thing in public out of ignorance).

Over the years, this has sometimes been honoured very well . . . and sometimes not. WotC is far more secretive when dealing with non-employees, and I know that Ed buys his own copies of game products (not sure about novels), and often, because there are no local hobby shops anymore and he has to order through bookstores, waits a long time for them. I also know that a lot of WotC staffers and freelance authors working in the Realms keep in close touch with Ed, so I assume they are consulting with him about forthcoming Realms stuff.

The Hooded One

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Febuary 23, 2004: Josh, I e-sent your reply to Ed, and he remembers you and Jitters fondly. I'm sure you've seen the two-part result of this year's Spin A Yarn With Ed Greenwood seminar on the WotC website. Ed had these additional comments:

Regarding trade, it's important to note that any game product covering trade in the Realms or any properly detailed fantasy setting would be a snapshot, out of date the moment it's published, because a printed book is static, and (in daily detail if not in overall needs and flows) trade is constantly changing. Many fantasy fiction writers seize on the exciting "wheeling and dealing" of trade (the thirteen books by David and Leigh Eddings that include the character of Silk keep delving into his deceptions, swaps, arranged shortages, and so on).

About the gods: there IS a far more minimalist way to handle a pantheon of gods, if you don't want to go the "force good roleplaying by bewildering the PCs with so many altars that they have think before they charge in slaying, in case this particular altar is of a good god, and the unclad lady lying on it is willingly participating in some renew-the-land fertility ritual or other, NOT being sacrificed or oppressed" route. When CASTLEMORN comes out, glance at the gods I put in there. That way you'll have time to really detail the rituals, and you can still keep all of the other gods and angel-beings as the "forgotten" or "fallen" deities, with fanatical priests trying to revive cults whenever you need another mysterious altar in play. :}

As to the money thing: most real writers (as opposed to those folks who call grandly themselves "authors" and never seem to actually get around to publishing a book, or more than one book) have the itch to write. We'll do it no matter what. Just don't let the IRS ever hear you're doing it for no money it all, unless you slap the magic phrase "for charity" on the particular writing in question. I'm not scared of the Nazgul, I'm terrified of the taxman. ;}

Yes, one thanks or comment from a reader or a fan is worth a LOT. That's one of the reasons that unfair, hearsay, and over-personal criticism of writers should never be welcome anywhere on-line or in print. Many people seem to lack the self-control or basic reasoning that allows them to separate taking jabs from writing they don't like from taking a poke at the person who wrote it (to those of us who write game products or novels that have been heavily edited by others, this sometimes causes bitter hilarity, when some poster is trashing you for words you didn't even write).

And your thanks means a lot to me. I've been very ill (#$%@!! restaurant food) at GenCons, and done seminars when I'd much rather have been sitting on the pot in my hotel room or lying in bed groaning, and I know just how it feels to push yourself because you want to. It makes me feel humble to know you did that, just to see me, and pleased as blazes that you felt inspired. Isn't it amazing, how we can all get so much pleasure and excitement from something we're just imagining?

That's why I love D&D, and I love fantasy writing, and I have have a harem of (oops, wife!) ahem, the adulation of thousands, and kind publishing companies that occasionally toss a few pennies my way, and . . . hmm. I'll shut up now before I get myself in even MORE trouble.

And that's my Ed.

Proud to be one of his harem (we're JOKING folks, joking, got it?),
The Hooded One

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On Febuary 23, 2004 THO said: Oh, Malaug, you touched one of our collective sore points. Mr. Lowder has summarized the whole comedy of errors surrounding SPELLFIRE very well, so I won't go into it again here. Let's just say that editors (not Ed) did the final cutting of both the original and the newer version of Spellfire (which despite what it says on the cover, is SHORTER than the first published version). Over a third of the original book was dropped, and the easiest way to do that quickly was to remove an entire layer of villains throughout. This had many unfortunate consequences, but the two Ed hates the most are these:

1. With the Malaugrym impersonations and manipulations gone, the actions of the Zhentarim become foolish "Keystone Kops" farce, and not the struggles of dupes being pushed into things. How many times down the years have you heard criticism of the Zhents as being bumbling cardboard figures? Not in Ed's original.

2. With the Malaugrym impersonations and manipulations and a key Knights of Myth Drannor "war council" scene gone, the Knights (with the half-hearted exceptions of Torm and Rathan, and over the anger of Sharantyr) seem to heartlessly abandon Narm and Shandril part way through the book, and even more importantly, so do Elminster and The Simbul. In Ed's original, El and the Witch-Bitch (sorry, our players' name for her) ordered the Knights to get back to their neglected other tasks, knowing full well that Torm and Rathan would disobey, and El and The Simbul fought the Malaugrym continuously "over the heads of" the unwitting Narm and Shandril. This was a key part of Ed's intended message in the book: in the Realms, things are never quite as simple as they seem, and there are plots and surveillance and subplots behind everything and always on the go. Reading many TSR Realms books over the years, it's my personal opinion that they're aimed at a young male audience, and there's a deliberate editorial preference for simple, linear "lots of action" storytelling. Whether that's "better" or not than other styles and forms of stories is another debate, but I do know that it is at odds with what Ed was originally told by TSR, which was: "Show us your Realms. We're thinking a book a year at least, showcasing all of your main characters and power groups. Take us through those forests, down those alleys, into those magic user's towers. You've got a world here that's broader than deeper than any we've ever seen; show it to us!"

I KNOW those words were said, because I stood there at an early GenCon and listened to them (coming from Jim Ward and Mike Dobson). That was the GenCon where Ed and Jeff Grubb walked past each other, each wondering if the other was the other, because they'd talked on the phone for a year but never met face-to-face. :}

The 'why' of the SPELLFIRE debacle had a lot to do, I believe, with a change in personnel at the Book Department, and a different idea of what Ed's book should be than the above-quoted words. Which was fine, except that nobody got around to telling Ed this until it was all too late to fix EXCEPT by drastic editing and rewriting. If I recall correctly, one of Mr. Lowder's first tasks when hired by TSR was to rewrite Ed's character dialogue throughout the book.

However, over the years, Ed has slowly drifted to the view that trimming the Malaugrym may have been bad for SPELLFIRE, but was good for the Realms, because they are plane-hopping powerhouses (something like the royal family of Amber, in Roger Zelazny's classic Amber novels), and if fans had concentrated on them like they do the gods (Ed calls it "chasing the power"), we might never have had products like the Volo's Guides, grounded in the details of everyday life in the Realms.

So, yes, I wince almost as badly as Ed when I read the published version of SPELLFIRE (I got to read the original manuscript because Ed was also told, as he started writing it and we signed our release forms, "Make sure your players are happy with it"). But we've all moved on. As Ed put it, "I've got SO many other stories I want to tell. Shandril was invented for that novel, and this mania for 'signature characters' means I've never been able to do a Mirt novel, or a Simbul novel, or an Alustriel book, or--get the idea?"

Oh, yes, and one more thing: "Mr. Greenwood" is Ed's DAD. Ed is "Ed." :}

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Febuary 24, 2004: Well, Blueblade, I caught Ed chortling over a fantasy novel manuscript he just received to "blurb" (he said it was hilarious), and he e-hurled a reply to me, to pass on to you:

Physically, Castlemorn is designed to be easily integrated into any existing campaign that has some unexplored sea areas, because its core lands consist of a coast surrounded on three sides by impenetrable mountains, facing an arc of islands that outline a bay, with always-misty, treeacherous-with-shoals, islands, and monsters waters to the west and east.

All of which means you could easily put it "on the far side" of Toril. You could also do what I did in the 'home' Realms campaign, as outlined in the article I did in issue 37 of DRAGON: have it as one of many parallel Prime Material Planes linked by gates (3rd Edition: portals). This, by the way, is where the "Forgotten" part of "Forgotten Realms" came from: we people of real-world Earth have 'forgotten' the once-widely-used gates to Toril, which gave us our legends of vampires, dragons, et al.

The only real problem I foresee with integrating Castlemorn directly into the Realms (placing it on the globe rather than as a parallel plane) is reconciling one pantheon of gods with the other. The Castlemorn gods are far fewer in number, and have a 'back story' that's integral to the setting. I can see a ready solution, but I'm not at liberty to reveal it right now because it involves not-yet-revealed secrets about the deities of both worlds, and I'm only really free to talk about those of Castlemorn (and doing so now would ruin a lot of the fun of exploring that setting when it first sees print).

The forthcoming WotC setting Eberron does have more of an emphasis on exploration than the published Realms (since the demise of Maztica and the Hordelands as published "lines"), and if you want to keep portals out of it and 'do a Moorcock' (using his concept of a plane-shifting sailing ship, the Ship That Sails The Seas of Fate), you could easily have travel between the Realms and Castlemorn involve such a ship passing through Eberron. Or you could go the Spelljammer route, through the phlogiston from crystal sphere to crystal sphere. Or you could have fun with a Philip Jose Farmer-style World of Tiers battle between power groups for control of many portals (with PCs who stumble on a portal getting caught up in the fighting whether they want to or not).

Or you could just do surgery: unbolt the gods of Castlemorn and replace them with the Realms pantheon, or vice versa. It all comes down to the flavour you want for your campaign.

And seeing where The Hooded One is going to post this, I can't not mention one of the secrets of Candlekeep: that certain books in the inner chambers are themselves portals that operate only when opened and held by someone who reads aloud just the right words, in the right sequence.

Heh-heh. I hope that helps. As the old Realms saying regarding young folk 'seeing the Realms' puts it: "May your boots lead you to victory, this night and every night after."

Ed

Hmm, Ed's feeling poetic. The Waterdeep novel must be going well. :}

The Hooded One

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Febuary 26, 2004: 'Lo, all. See not only below, but the "Ask Ed Greenwood" thread in the FR Chat section of Candlekeep. More answers from Ed there.

Herewith, Kuje, a reply from Ed (Alaundo, might I suggest this get preserved for the archives? I don't think Ed's set this down in print anywhere else, before):

Oh, boy. Part of me hates to provide clear answers here because doing so restricts or ties down future WotC Realms authors. On the other hand, I stoutly maintain the fiction that everything we know of the Realms comes through Elminster (or, on rare occasions, Laeral), so this conceit (of the sometimes-deliberately-unreliable narrator) should be enough to "explain away" inconsistencies between what I say here and what you may someday read . . .

My take on things is this: Dornal has met all of his daughters except Qilue (sorry, can't do accent marks through this primitive e-mail [Hooded One note: Sorry, neither can I.]), because Mystra thought this might be too painful/mentally damaging to him, but she did carefully and covertly manipulate the other six of the Seven into meetings with him. Most of them know he's still alive but have been privately, one-on-one, been mind-told by Mystra not to go looking for him because doing so will doom him to torment and death at the hands of evil beings seeking to force Mystra to do certain things (which she will have to refuse), and because it will harm his delicate mental state.

Some of the six Sisters realized who Dornal must be, during or after their encounters, but kept this knowledge from him. The Simbul did once openly rescue him from destruction (with a spell cast from afar, accompanied by a verbal message: "Father, I honour you!") years after they met.

Dornal is bitter, but not as mentally fragile as all that, and is slowly "forgiving" Mystra (who went so far as to create a mortal avatar of herself whom he could physically punish and lash out at, to get back at her; he did so, and of course felt even worse). Mystra herself felt guilt over what happened to Dornal, and not only kept him alive far beyond his normal lifespan in an effort to bring him to "peace" before he died, but brought about these manipulated meetings (in each of which Dornal was made aware who his daughters were immediately after parting from them) in an attempt to heal his mental hurts.

In this, she largely succeeded, but Dornal is now suffering the same mental degeneration/utter exhaustion that most long-lived humans (such as Elminster and Khelben) do: the cumulative effects of repeatedly outliving friends, relations, and loved ones and seeing beloved places swept away or changed beyond recognition.

Dornal is still bitter over Mystra "using" him and his wife, and even feels bitterness about her obvious role in the manipulated meetings with the eldest six of the Seven, but knowing he has grandsons (some of whom he's met), the passage of time, and Mystra's clear sorrow and humbleness towards him have made these "old hurts" that are growing easier to live with. And there may even be some small satisfaction in knowing that he outlived the goddess that did this to him.

He remains a Watcher for the new Mystra, and even has some other "secret agent" duties for her (after all, a VERY experienced adventurer who really doesn't care what happens to himself can be quite useful for certain tasks). It will probably come as no surprise to you to hear me say: "I'd love to do a novel about Dornal Silverhand's doings in the Realms of today." It probably also wouldn't surprise you to hear that the long-suffering folks of WotC's Book Publishing division are almost certainly heartily weary of hearing me utter that sentence, with various characters attached to it. :}

If you met Dornal Silverhand in the present-day Realms, you'd be seeing a tall, gaunt, cavern-eyed man of grim manner and utterly silent movements, who seldom speaks. He sees all (even tiny details, glimpsed momentarily), forgets nothing, and can reason very quickly (interpreting what he sees). He carries an astonishing variety of concealed weapons, knows the back trails, ruins, nearby caves, and other "quick getaway" features of locales across the Sword Coast North and the Heartlands of the Faerun better than most beings, and is utterly fearless (not bold or reckless; he simply doesn't care what happens to himself).

He often tried to poison himself when it first became clear to him that Mystra wasn't going to allow him to suicide, and she kept him alive by magically neutralizing lethal dose (or even combination 'cocktail') after dose, with the result that he's now immune to all effects of most poisons, and suffers only minor harm from the known remainder.

Dornal's hobby, as a onetime noble, has been to learn and keep straight the genealogies and family histories of divers nobility and self-styled nobility of Waterdeep, Sembia, and Cormyr, plus their exiled offshoots; as a result, he can smilingly deflate a noble dandy by revealing that their great-grandfather took the name and titles of a dead battle-comrade, and so the dandy and his kin really don't deserve to be treated as nobles at all . . . or shock sworn enemies or lovers by revealing their true blood relationships to each other. He doesn't go around doing so, of course, but he's not above "taking care of" cruel or over-ambitious nobles by letting rivals or family members know some truths about skeletons in family closets.

His favourite daughters are Dove and Storm, the former because she's the closest to him in manner and (in his eyes) the least "tainted" by her own spellcasting, and the latter because he's watched Storm comfort folk, aid in childbirths, entertain with songs, and pitch in and help strangers fight fires, hunt down missing children, and the like, and has come to love and admire her as many folk in the Realms do. He also sees something of his own "don't care what happens to my own skin" thinking in her deeds and behaviour, yet admires the way she couples it with empathy for others, and complete lack of personal pride.

He once gave all of his clothing to shivering beggars on the road near Neverwinter and walked naked into a blizzard, hoping to die numbed and unaided (Mystra, of course, has other ideas), and was awed when he once witnessed Storm disrobed completely to give all of her clothing to freezing folk who'd been driven out of their (wooden) home by fire, and then lead them for miles to shelter (striding naked through the snow to her farmhouse). A sort of: "That's my girl!" admiration. (Storm's casual attitude regarding nudity should of course be well-known to Realms fans and detractors by now. :})

Sembia is a place where wealth and boredom have reached sufficient levels that young nobles and inheritors are doing all sorts of crazy things, just now, and magically-gifted individuals often manage to indulge themselves (and yet survive) long enough to develop some of their potential. Silverymoon has long been such a place, too, and Everlund increasingly so. As a result, Dornal has been spending a lot of time quietly and covertly observing magic-related activities in these three places, walking everywhere and working alone. He has acquired some minor magic items that aid in healing and in disguise, and "the new Mystra" (who seems to admire him) has been covertly recharging these items, 'beefing them up' on occasion, and even surprising Dornal (and sometimes, pursuers) with casting feather fall or teleport spells on him that he wasn't expecting, and isn't quite sure of the origins of. On the other hand, she doesn't watch over him closely, and he's spent some agony-filled days crawling with broken limbs and ribs, or lying almost bloodless, waiting for wounds to heal under the slow benison of his healing magics. Yet he seems to have found reasons, at least for now, to keep going and to serve the new Mystra as capably as he knows how.

Yes, Dornal is one of two or three dozen fascinating 'loose end' characters of the Realms who could be very 'deployable' in Realms fiction or campaign play (Elaith the Serpent is a perfect example of another 'loose end' character that an author [Elaine Cunningham, of course] picked up and used with spectacular success). I won't start listing and describing them, because I'm sure you could compile such a list just as well, and I DO have a novel to finish. Er, several novels to finish. Umm, more than several, even. As one editor told me not so long ago: "Just don't go and die on us, Ed . . . or we'll be forced to kill you!" :}

And there you have it, from the Master himself. Me, I'm just (ahem) His Master's Voice.

Hmmph. Well, I guess THAT advertised my age to everyone. Sigh.
The Hooded One

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Febuary 27, 2004: I tossed your queries and comments Ed's way, and here's his reply:

Hands taped to the keyboard whilst I slumber? Hmm, Thomas, don't suggest this to Jenny, okay? :}

Dargoth, I know of at least a dozen Netherese who are still active in the Realms of today, albeit some of them in greatly changed forms. Hint: a LOT of Netherese bound themselves into magic items (especially swords), to 'live on' telepathically. If your blade seems able to see what's around it without having visible eyes, hear thoughts of nearby creatures, and mend/heal itself in limited ways, it just might contain the sentience of a Netherese.

The pages of ELMINSTER: THE MAKING OF A MAGE and SHADOWS OF DOOM both contain Netherese survivors (one each), and I can reveal here that I know of at least two who reside quietly (pretending to be "just plain folks") in Waterdeep and Suzail, respectively. No, I'm not going to give names, because for a DM it's far more useful to have them as 'handy tools.'

The Waterdhavian one founded a successful mercantile family now regarded as noble, and then (having prepared for this with covert investments, coin caches, and property purchases) faked his own death, to reappear as a retired merchant, a role he's played several times since. Like Elminster, he meddles covertly in city politics and society, spreading rumors and 'turning' particular individuals to hold more cosmopolitan world-views (investing in other lands, and taking an interest in folk from those places). He does this because he very much wants to avoid Waterdhavian haughtiness from growing any greater than it is already.

The Suzailan one is a female who firmly believes that Netheril fell because of overweening pride and overarching mastery of magic. She enjoys life in Cormyr (when it isn't imperiled by war, of course), has hidden coins and gold in plenty for her needs, and covertly works to do two things: confuse and confound War Wizard investigations, and to make both War Wizards and others think that there are secret personal dangers involved in too much spellcasting, and in casting specific, over-powerful spells. She is VERY good at keeping hidden, spreading such rumors through the mouths of passing strangers by means of suggestion magics, and never doing anything openly herself. She's no enemy of the Crown; she just doesn't think allowing the War Wizards to reach the status of 'extremely effective secret police' is a good idea. She's dwelt in Suzail for almost forty years, and knows it will soon be time to "disappear" or be noticed as something other than the well-to-do widow she's pretending to be, but is tarrying because she enjoys the city and its folk so much (she perceives a rising danger in wealthy, ever-restless Sembia of sorcerers and wizards becoming overproud and reckless in their use of magic, but has such a distaste for what she's seen of Sembian society that she just doesn't want to go there, while also seeing that it would be a very good place to take a new face and name).

You can, of course, create many more Netherese, though I'd suggest that they all conceal their origins and that they NOT (or try not) to know of each other, rather than forming any sort of shadowy secret society or power group. That would be why, even for the two examples from my novels, clearly identified Netherese should be very scarce. After all, if Netheril is most remembered as a "land of awesome magic," then anyone identified as Netherese can expect wizards and sorcerers to launch surprise attacks, mind-invasions, and attempts to capture or financially control them, to get all the magic that's "surely" waiting in their minds, or in the case of items, hidden in places they know.

I believe there will be some sort of Waterdeep game product, and I believe I know who's writing it, but the tentative wording of this sentence should tell you straight off that I'm not sure, and that I'm certainly not the writer. We'll just have to wait and see. To play the old "if I was running the company" game: if I was head of Wizards, I would do a Waterdeep product. But then, I would do matching encyclopedia-sized sourcebooks and Volo's Guides for each and every city and realm, too. :}

Bookwyrm, you can call me whatever you'd like. One gamer I know of greets me as "Cuddles" (THAT'S fun in crowded airports), another as "Bum" and still another as "Monster" (shortened from "Scary Monster," which was her toddler daughter's quite logical name for the large, bearded, hairy and loudly clowning man towering over her). So I can handle a mere "Mister." It'll certainly prove less embarrassing than the lady in Denver who went down on her knees in an expensive restaurant to kiss my shoe and address me as "Lord Creator" . . . though that DID get us a very good table, as I recall. :}

Yes, I've always preferred that the Realms have many small-scale stories going on, everywhere one looks: that forges a feeling of life and realism better than anything else at all.

If a certain scene survives into print in the forthcoming Waterdeep book, you'll see a tiny joke about Elminster's infamy and being everywhere, and I've slipped other little digs at this into various Realms work (echoing LIFE OF BRIAN, my original Realms players have been known to react to impossible tales of Elminster's doing this and Elminster doing that, told to their PCs by NPCs they meet, with: "I'm Elminster!" "No, I'M Elminster, and my wife is too!"). The nature of striving for excitement and spectacle in fantasy novels leads inevitably to a focus on the high-and-mighty, royalty and nobility and courtiers holding power, that isn't a true reflection of the everyday Realms, in just the same way as Hollywood antics are far removed from the daily lives of most Americans. Of course some folk will never have heard of Elminster, and (Broken Telephone style) others will have heard things about him far removed from the truth. To very heavily paraphrase how Anna Russell and other comedy performers have described how folk songs are passed down to us: a singer gets a song from his grandfather, who can't remember most of it, is deaf, and can't sing in the first place. And he got it from his grandfather, who ALSO couldn't etc., etc.

THE ENDLESS CHANTS OF ALAUNDO concerns one young man's visit to Candlekeep, and how he was treated. It's where most of the original Realms boxed set information on Candlekeep's monks (the First Reader, et al) was drawn from, and I wrote it at least twenty years ago.

Even if it remains mislaid for some time, readers of ELMINSTER'S DAUGHTER will get to see another character visiting Candlekeep, which should at least give everyone some idea of how visitors are treated at the gates.

And so, as the years pass, I build in more colour, adding to the walls little stone by little stone...

To which I can only echo: Rock on, Ed. Rock on. (LOL Hope he won't clobber me for that one!) And that's the latest from THE Master of Realmslore (hey, he coined the word!) himself.

I remain your servant in all matters Faerunian,
The Hooded One

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Febuary 28, 2004: I just contacted Ed with your followup, Dargoth, and he was just arriving home after doing an author reading in Port Hope: the very funny Chapter 14 Cormyrean tax collector sequence from ELMINSTER IN HELL. Apparently a large audience of old folks now thinks he's the cat's pyjamas (ahem, figure of speech, people, figure of speech), and they want him to launch ELMINSTER'S DAUGHTER there.

Ed himself is awaiting the usual Terry Pratchett releases, Feast of Crows (of course), and Susanna Clarke's first novel, JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL, set for October 4th 04 worldwide release from Bloomsbury. The publisher is billing it (inevitably) as Harry Potter for adults, but Ed says from her short stories, this l-l-l-o-o-o-ng first novel from Clarke should be "very interesting."

Ed's reply follows:

I quite agree: the Netherese survivors won't get along at all well with the people of Shade. In fact, I'd venture to say that ALL surviving Netherese in Faerun would be wary at best, and actively hostile at worst, to the new "arrivals."

"Hiding from and otherwise ignoring" would probably be their initial reaction, and they'll quite rightly see attempts by the folk of Shade to find them as attempts to snatch their power. If that happens just once, word will get around, and the folk of Shade will then discover they've bitten off a lot more than they can ever hope to chew.

I'm not sure that many of the other modules (besides, of course, the Avatar trilogy) have been resolved. The Marco Volo trio, perhaps. We largely avoided detailing Daggerdale after its trilogy (and The Doom of Daggerdale stand-alone). From my point of view, modules are almost always a trove of setting details rather than a plot I'm going to follow closely, so to me they're never really resolved.

The reason I rarely write modules these days is twofold: I write 3.5e very slowly, and just hate wading through stat block after stat block (a problem when my writing time is at such a premium), and: I prefer to interweave subplots and mysteries, nowadays, rather than do linear dungeon-crawls, and there's rarely enough space (especially in DUNGEON) to do that sort of thing properly. Quickly, yes, but I find I need more space so as to leave a DM with lots of neat tools to re-use after the adventure is done. I did a short-short adventure in DUNGEON years back, but I doubt I'll have time to set down an adventure soon. I do write old-style 2nd Edition "dungeons" to run at conventions (often for charity), and have a bunch of those I could toss into print, but I have so many other things to do first (8 contracts lined up as we speak, and yet no money coming in :}).

The Company of Eight were created by Scott Haring for Empires of the Sands, updated once in print elsewhere, and I've never really had a "feel" for those characters, as people. I'd personally be more interested in low-level, starting-their-careers types, because I've already got veterans (the Company of Crazed Venturers, the Knights of Myth Drannor) with which I'm intimately familiar, if I want to take a look at "old, tested and true swords." Perhaps Scott will get the chance to revisit them, somewhere and somehow.

Oh, and regarding what it takes to get a signed copy of Cormyr: I could tell much (ahem) richer stories than that one. Oh, yes indeed. My wife didn't believe half of what used to go on, in the early bloom of popularity for the Realms . . . until the time I was propositioned at a con by a VERY beautiful lady, while standing with my wife on my arm. I gently pointed out that said attached glowering female was my wife, whereupon the ardent fan said brightly, "Oh, that's okay: the bed is plenty big enough for three." :}

Ahem, indeed. Thus endeth Ed's answer. And no, he's neither inventing nor exaggerating: I was at that con, too, and heard the whole thing. In fact, he's omitting mention of the lady's two giggling female friends, but . . . enough.

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Febuary 28, 2004: Ed saith: those minis look nice. How does the (very impressive) Vrock stand up? I always picture Bane as more the "dark, helmed, sinister" type (the Witch-King in the RETURN OF THE KING flick) than the buff slavemaster sort...but the mini is impressive. Must hunt some down at GenCon.

Re. the forgotten connections 'twixt Earth and Toril: I had (aside from moi and Elminster) various folk across Earth having "old family secrets" (and even cults) surrounding individual gates. TSR, of course, was so afraid of James Egbert-style lawsuits that all of this was firmly nixed, right away. Which was fine with me, because it kept the focus on detailing and presenting Toril.

Keep those questions coming; your interest and enthusiasm for the Realms is what fuels me to keep working away on it...

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Febuary 29, 2004: Kuje, I flipped this to Ed (who was hard at work writing), and when he came up for air at the end of a chapter, he pounded out this reply:

Qilue is a Chosen of Mystra with all the powers and special status other Chosen of the Mother Of All Magic possess.

Eilistraee wanted a "claim" on her, too, hence her Chosen of Eilistraee title. It means two things: she's as loyal to Eilistraee as to Mystra (in daily practise, as shown in SILVERFALL, more so), and Eilistraee foresees using her in some great task (i.e. a not-yet-revealed destiny).

Being as this is Candlekeep, I can do no more than point you to what a Harper PC (not one of the Knights) uncovered when asking a monk of Candlekeep to research Qilue's destiny. The monk was of course limited to finding prophecies and other written histories, and reported thus: one seer saw a dream wherein Qilue wielded a sword forged of her own blood, and was hailed by knights as "the Godslayer."

However, another seer (the monk declined to identify either of his sources, BTW) said "the dark one who serves two goddesses but leads the dance for only one shall be mother to a new race, and change the face of the Realms forever."

Either way, it seems Qilue's future bids fair to be interesting.

So saith Ed. Alaundo, you heard it here first. It seems Candlekeep holds some doggedly diligent or creative monks (or both).

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Febuary 29, 2004: Bookwyrm, I shunted your Jack Archer query to Ed, too, and his answer has just come floating back through the ether:

VERY nice, Bookwyrm. Great stuff. An approach to fantasy that you'll see something very close to in novel form from me in a year or two (new series, new publisher, must remain mysterious for now, I'm afraid). I also have a long-term project that may turn into yet ANOTHER series that's also very close to Jack Archer in another way (and yes, I enjoyed most of the earlier Stasheff Warlock novels very much).

So long as Jack Archer ventures into the Realms, of course, this must remain fanfic. Yet your prose is eminently publishable, so why not have him go also to a fantasy world of your own devising, and publish some Jack Archer novels?

Then you, too, can enjoy all the fame, adulation, crit, and heavy taxation. :}

Seriously, this is worthy "good fun read" stuff.

(More, please!)

Ed's words endeth. Wheee-oo. You've got him going now!

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March 1, 2004: Ed's reply begins with the inevitable:

Oh, a horse is a horse, of course, of course...

Ahem. Okay, I'll probably miss something here, and I'll leave out the usual website and DRAGON columns, reissues (the mass market paperback of THE DRAGON'S DOOM, for instance). But here we go...

THE SILENT HOUSE (fifth Aglirta novel, from TOR Books, hardcover)

CASTLEMORN Campaign Setting hardcover from Fast Forward Entertainment, Inc. (co-written)

SERPENT KINGDOMS Realms sourcebook from WotC (co-written)

"The Keeper of Secrets" story in REALMS OF DRAGONS Realms anthology from WotC

"The Fallen Star" story in CHILDREN OF THE RUNE Diamond Throne anthology from Malhavoc Press

"Stormsong" novelette in REALMS OF WONDER 1: SUMMONED BY DESTINY fantasy fiction anthology from FitzHenry& Whiteside/Trifolium

I'm sure I've missed something, but whatever it is will probably come as just as much a surprise to you as to me. :} Happy reading. I've turned in the first of the three Pentacon for-charity tales, but how (or if) those get published is entirely up to their new owners. I've turned in three short stories for the Castlemorn setting, and one of them, "The Night of Three Strangers," will be in the Campaign Setting rulebook. I don't think any of my top secret projects will result in any 2004 publications.

Oh, and folks, I wouldn't leap to TOO many conclusions re. Qilue and WotSQ, okay? Seers tend to be reliable only in hindsight. :}

So Ed saith. He also assures me there's absolutely no truth to the rumor that he wore diamond shoes to the Oscars. As he put it: "Diamond shoes with THAT gown? NEVER!" :}

I've forwarded the cosmology and Bookwyrm requests to him, and await his reply.

Ye Hooded One

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March 2, 2004: Here's the latest reply from the Bearded Thing himself:

Bookwyrm, I wish I could say something really useful. As it happens, no less than THREE of the "top secret" projects I'm working on right now concern magical travel between our real-world, present-day Earth and . . . somewhere else where magic works and things are vaguely medieval. :} As a longtime fantasy reader and collector, I'd direct you to check out Roger Zelazny's classic Amber works for descriptions of swordplay in which he simply used modern-day fencing terms (sixte, quarte, etc.). For a fencer, it helps, but I'm told that for a non-fencer, it was often an irritating brick wall of impenetrable gibberish.

Here's what I think you have to decide: is Jack going to be an expert fencer? Or learning as he goes? Would HE use modern fencing jargon? Unless he's an expert who mutters what he's doing aloud, I'd keep the terms to a minimum, and give the reader the fast-moving FEEL of the fight by describing how and where combatants are moving, and using general terms such as thrust (NOT stop-thrust), parry, hack, slash, and cut, but never over-describing (because it slows the action down too much). Keep the flow of narrative swirling as fast as the blades do, if at all possible.

You can have almost any sort of gate/portal linking Earth with wherever you want to take Jack, BUT: decide first whether you're ever going to want him to be able to get back, reliably, or move back and forth (and will foes or other modern-day-Earth characters be able to do the same?). In other words, is the gate or whatever it is going to work reliably, and are lots of folks going to either know about it or be able to figure it out or be able to accidentally stumble on it?

Like a game designer, decide what limitations you want first, and then design the specifics of the travel. One creature at a time? With or without gear? If no, they arrive the other side naked, right? (Repercussions?) If yes, how much gear, organic and/or non-organic, etc. makes the trip with them? Altered in any way? (The old fantasy fiction standby: magic items don't work on the Earth side of the gate, and/or firearms and other modern technology doesn't function properly on the other side.) How is the gate operated? Are those in transit vulnerable to spells, arrows, or hurled or swung weapons during their trip, while departing, or while arriving (i.e. can arrow be fired/bombs thrown/spells cast right through operating gate from one 'world' into the other?). Once you decide on something, follow through on ALL of the implications of that (longtime users of the gate would have to be idiots not to have experimented to determine gate/portal properties, and exploited them, perhaps to set up trade or message services, perhaps to set off alarms to tell them someone has used the gate or to awaken a gate guardian, and so on).

Between our Earth and the 'home' Realms, I had gates everywhere, most of them operating only a certain times (i.e. when struck by the rays of the full moon), but you may prefer something different.

This brings me inevitably to the cosmology question. The truth is, I'm not supposed to say anything about this, under the last few NDAs I signed, but I will utter this much: if the topic isn't fully and properly addressed by the end of this year's releases, I will ask permission to write something on it for the WotC website. Okay?

As for DRAGON, the Elminster's Guide series still hasn't quite finished, although its format was set three editors ago, and I think no longer matches what the current editorial team wants to do with the Realms in the magazine's pages. The current editor and I have agreed on the format and content of a new (irregular) Realms column. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get to work on it anytime soon, because there are all these novels (and other lucrative top secret projects) to get done first!

Rad, you can ask me any question. ANY question. Sometimes legal agreements (NDAs) or 'inside knowledge' will force me to dodge giving a full answer, but this isn't one of them.

And isn't hard to answer, actually: I have to work harder on all non-Realms work, because I can "think Realms" automatically, and only have to check the Realms work of other writers for consistency, and follow the guidelines (limitations in topic, scope, and length) of my Realms editors for that project. So everything unfolds, and I can put all my energies into the creation at hand.

However, in all non-Realms settings, I have to try to understand the setting (get myself to where I can "think Kalamar" or "think Diamond Throne" or whatever) so I don't make any blunders, and so that I don't drift into "really writing this for the Realms." I WANT my non-Realms work to be different. If you survey all of the published fiction writing I've done over the last thirty-five years or so, from horror to mystery to (yes!) romance, you can readily see that I can be a chameleon when I want to be. It's harder to move distinctively away from the Realms when doing most d20 design, because my roleplaying design interests (storytelling, colour detail, subplots, giving NPCs 'real lives,' building in mysteries and power groups with longterm schemes) don't really change no matter what I'm doing.

Josh, I'm afraid I have to agree with you that postings on message boards have tended to get harsher as the years pass. It's probably just following societal trends (in earlier generations, like mine, bad-mouthing someone was never something to be proud about, unlike the way in which some folks now talk about how they "dissed someone good" or suchlike). I think it is often used to trash an author one dislikes. Bob Salvatore and I chatted about this once: how wryly amusing (and inwardly hurtful) it is to have someone posting on Amazon or a board or newsgroup about how horrible your latest book is, when you KNOW they haven't read it because you haven't finished it yet, so there's no way they can have sneaked a peek at the manuscript. This happens all the time, BTW, not as isolated incidents. In my case, many folks who resented the Realms displacing Greyhawk have spent years attacking me, which somewhat bewilders me because I, too, am a Greyhawk fan and have always wanted a steady stream of Greyhawk products to come into my hands so I can enjoy Gary's rich (but frustratingly full of gaps to me, the consumer) world.

And I've said before (as have Mark Twain, Diogenes, and scores of others down the ages): it's the mark of an idiot, or someone being deliberately intellectually dishonest (knowingly twisting the truth) to equate what a CHARACTER says or does with what the CREATOR of that character believes or does. (College professors please take note. :}) Legions of folks regularly try to skewer me for being perverted, sexist, a bed-wetter, or whatever for writing some of the Seven Sisters and Elminster as rather lusty. In doing so they have to conveniently ignore all of the decidely straight-laced characters (Piergeiron, et al) I also put into the Realms. I created the "cast of thousands," people, and I know in our real world how angry people can get when someone publicly judges a race or country by looking at one individual ("See? And all Americans are like that!" or glance at Hitler and then judge all . . . get the idea?). So why is it valid to be so weak-minded or dishonest as to think anyone who writes about slavery must secretly BE a slaver? Geez, I guess all of these American historical writers must get up from the keyboard to go down to the cellar and get to whupping their slaves every night, right? And so on.

Josh, you have to write what you believe is "right" for the world you're creating. So long as it's self-consistent, you've done your job as a designer. As a real-world business person, you'd better decide before printing money flows that the world you've created has wide appeal (I could easily design a world in which everyone plays maggots gnawing through heaps of human excrement, but the boredom factor would limit appeal: Q: "What're you doing this round?" A: "Uh, still eating dung."). The moral tragedy you describe (the mistaken killing of the royal heir) is a perfect motivation for good roleplaying, intrigues, strife, and so on. So I'd say you have the right instincts -- go for it!

So saith Ed. I remain your messenger 'twixt him and the wider world, and am still: The Hooded One here.

And Bookwyrm, feel free to use my initials if it doesn't bother you. I've been called far worse, and for less valid reasons. :}

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March 2, 2004: Hi, SiriusBlack, I tossed your question to Ed, and he fired a reply RIGHT back:

Sometimes co-ordination between Books and Games has been superb, sometimes nonexistent. In the case of Serpent Kingdoms, it was closer to "superb" (draft information went back and forth), which is as it must be to make both lines 'fit' with each other. I hope (and believe) that both the sourcebook and the trilogy will prove to be 'solid keepers' to most Realms fans.

Thanks for the question; it reminded me of a quick follow-up I must do this evening... :}

Folks, even * I * am beginning to get excited about SK, and I helped write it! :}

...So saith Ed. Keep those queries coming. ;}

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March 3, 2004: I sent your message to Ed, who was up early helping a neighbour to get his tractor to start (dead battery), and he sent this reply:

Well, let me tease just this much: certain serpentine races like to work behind the scenes...in a LOT of places in the Realms. Certain game designers like to write far too much, and cramming stuff between the covers becomes a challenge. Gods tend to get short shrift when space becomes a problem.

There. That doesn't reveal TOO much, I think (there are rules about these things, I'm afraid).

Ed, darling, since when did you follow rules? :}

The Hooded One

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March 3, 2004: Okay, Ed just teased me about my following the rules comment, and added a question for all scribes of Candlekeep: what details of the Realms ("little lore" rather than huge topics) do you think have been thus far neglected in print? What would you like to see addressed (in novels, in game products, in website and magazine columns...anywhere and by anyone)?

Whoo. A biggie. I've already given him *my* shopping list. :}

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March 4, 2004: Okay, folks. Ed hath spoken once more:

Hello, all! Thy eager communications are ringing about the Greenwood. :}

Rad, I have to be careful what I say about cities, but let me go this far: I wasn't picturing a Realms sourcebook when I answered you. (Gads, I'm having to pick words as carefully as a politician! Or rather, far more carefully than SOME politicians. :})

However, on a happier note, I'm clear to give you information on Firefall Vale. I'll leave it until last.

Border Kingdoms: Me, too. I'll suggest it again, along with Volo's Guides, and when Volo gets shot down (as usual), perhaps Border Kingdoms will still be standing. Perhaps.

Vaasa and Damara aren't part of my original Realms, and I'm probably not the guy to do justice to them, but you've got me thinking. :}

Old Empires, yes, deserve a sourcebook. Time will tell. As for the duergar kingdom, I believe I'll be stepping on toes if I try to detail anything there.

Kuje and Bookwyrm, I'm in enthusiastic agreement about rituals, ceremonies, and all of that. Unfortunately, time and again that's been shelved (in the early days because of the "bad satanic press" argument, and latterly because of "too limited appeal/sales"), so I'll have to find some other way of getting such information to Realms fans. As I've said many a time before, I care little about the doings of the gods themselves (aside from the Time of Troubles, almost all divine doings happen offstage anyway, and mortals have no way to be certain of the truth of anything they're told about them), but very much about what their priesthoods DO on a daily basis in the Realms, from the "we don't wear pink, and we pray this way" level up to the "our creed is this, but secretly we strive to do that." I will suggest this project, but it won't be for the first time. That's why I asked for "little lore," because I have no way of bringing about "big lore" except by pestering people, and that route loses effectiveness fast.

Faraer, you're right on, as usual, and all of your topics will go on my "list of suggestions for approval" for the next raft of Realmslore columns. As you know, those are written way in advance, so we may all be noticeably older before you see any of them, but rest assured, I have heard and agree.

Bookwyrm, I see medical knowledge as varying widely across the Realms, but being highest among demi-humans, because tending humans has been one longterm way of being accepted in human-dominated communities. Herb lore is predominant, coupled with "potions" (herbal concoctions, not magic) effective in dealing with minor diseases, allergic reactions, and shock. The organs of all humanoid races are known, plus the general functioning of the body (hence what shock is, and how to treat it), how blood 'works,' and the importance of cleanliness for wounds (though most folks in the Realms have what we modern real-world types would consider bad personal hygiene and BAD teeth, though persons desiring to make a good impression who can't get a chance to bathe properly will work scented oils into their hair and rub scented oils on their bodies to change their strong odour into something less unpleasant).

In the Realms, almost everyone understands that ill or wounded people need rest, to be covered by a blanket or at least kept out of full sun, that moving or rough handling will do greater harm, and that people should be given much to drink (even in cases where we moderns would say, "No, not even if complaining of thirst should Thrudd be given water or something stronger, because he's hurt inside!"). Stretchers and slings are commonly used, and where a stretcher can't be found, injured who must be carried are usually lashed to felled treetrunks and borne along between the shoulders of two strong carriers.

Scarring is common, because cauterization is well-known. Herbal painkillers (usually liquids that are "brewed" and drunk, but also liquids drizzled into wounds) are widely known and used, especially before someone is "sewn up," and there are herbs known in the Realms but not present in the real-world, including fleshwort (yes, I know we have several plants by that folk name, but I'm postulating a new and different plant) that can be sewn into an internal wound, and slowly absorbed by the body as raw material to build new tissue, blood vessels, and cartilage, bloodstaunch (which thickens blood very quickly upon direct contact, and so can be applied to open wounds to slow or stop bleeding), and bloodpurge (works to neutralize poisons).

Splinting is common, many beings are expert at neatly sewing flesh, and yes, body piercings (especially among goblinkin) and the importance of using flame or alcohol (not together!) to prevent infections related to said piercings are commonplace. (Note that it is not currently the fashion anywhere in the Heartlands to make use of facial piercings except in the nostrils and earlobes.)

Herb lore was another of the things strictly vetoed in the early days of the Realms (along with poisons, my terms of venery article, and my "Dragon Soup" article on using monster byproducts in human Realms cookery; the first two for "we don't want lawsuits if kids try these" reasons despite my promise to use entirely fictional herbs and poisons, the terms of venery because it was "unnecessary fluff," and the last one for the "some of these creatures are intelligent, so your article is in very bad taste"). More recently, the gnome vocabulary and heraldry Volo's articles suffered the same fate, but as they're owned by WotC, I can't put them into print without permission.

Dargoth, your list is all "big lore," and thus beyond my unaided powers ("Hah! The Realms imperilled again! Stand back, gentles -- only my unaided powers can save us now!"), but I'll see what I can do re. Tethyamar, okay?

Which brings us at last to Firefall. Thanks to STORMLIGHT, you know where in easternmost Cormyr Firefall Vale is, in the district of Northtrees March, hard against the Thunder Peaks and the northern edge of Hullack Forest, and that it has traditionally been ruled by Lord Summerstar from his castle at its western end, Firefall Keep.

In the early days of Cormyr, Glothgam Summerstar (the founder of House Summerstar and its first Lord) used the magical Sword of Summer Winds to slay and drive away red dragons after they attacked Glothgam's encampment with a mighty spell that turned the waters of the Brook to flame (giving the Vale its name), and so claimed the valley as his own.

I'm going to pull some SPOILERS here, though they shouldn't really ruin your enjoyment (or if you hate it, lack of same :}) of STORMLIGHT if you just read on. (By the way, if anyone reading this wants the true measure of Storm's character, read pages 114 through 121, and page 192, of the novel.)

Generations later, Glothgam's descendant Rauvor was the Lord of Firefall Vale. After Lord Rauvor Summerstar's death, of a wasting fever decades before the events of STORMLIGHT, his bride became the Dowager Lady Pheirauze Summerstar, and -- as an haughty, imperious and coldly beautiful noblewoman widely known (though not to her face) as "Dowager Lady Daggertongue"-- outlived her son (Pyramus) and her grandson, being in her sixties at the time of STORMLIGHT. She became romantically involved with no less than three generations of the Illance noble family (one after another, not all at once!) but never remarried. Pheirauze was very intelligent, very strong-willed, and very used to getting her own way in everything: spreading and using her personal influence to govern others is what she does.

Rauvor had one brother, Hergrest, who predeceased him. Hergrest married a quiet, strong-willed sorceress, Harper, and adventurer, Maerla Downhand, but it was a true (though childless) love-match, and she survived him only by four summers.

Lord Pyramus Summerstar was the eldest of five sons of Rauvor and Pheirauze. Eldest to youngest, the brothers of Pyramus were the mage Orm Hlannan Summerstar, the warriors Darandar and Brezm, and the womanizer and rogue Lord Erlandar Summerstar (the only one still alive when STORMLIGHT begins). After birthing sons, Pheirauze gave Rauvor three daughters: Dalestra, Margort and Nalanna, and the latter two (both 'maiden aunts') are still alive at the time of STORMLIGHT.

Pyramus wed the timid and mostly silent Zarova Battlestar (of House Battlestar of West Shore not far along the coast west from Suzail, who became the second Dowager Lady Summerstar, and -- like Pheiauze --outlived both Pyramus and Athlan). Lord Pyramus married Zarova only after his secret marriage to Princess Sulesta (daughter of King Rhigaerd) was annulled by mutual agreement (and furious pressure from the War Wizards to undo the match and never to speak of it) after their love cooled. Thanks to War Wizard precautions, Pyramus did not sire any children with Sulesta.

Lord Pyramus was succeeded by his son Lord Athlan Summerstar (a Harper), who perishes in the first few pages of STORMLIGHT, leaving his stunningly beautiful, wanton younger sister Shayna as heir. Their cousin is the womanizing fop Sir Thalance Summerstar, the bastard son of Baelangar Harth (a local forester -- ranger -- of common birth), and Lady Dalestra Summerstar. Baelangar was killed by wolves whilst defending his lady when they were caught in a fierce winter storm while travelling overland during a very hard winter, a decade before STORMLIGHT. As STORMLIGHT begins, Shayna, Thalance, Erlandar, Zarova, Pheirauze, and two daughters of Darandar not named in the novel but present at the feasts, Myara and Calaumdra, are still alive and dwelling in the Keep.

Firefall Vale is the long, lushly green valley (prone to spring flooding) carved by Turnwyrm Brook on its descent from the Thunder Peaks to join the River Immerflow. It runs for some five miles east to west, being about a mile wide at its midpoint and much narrower at both ends. At its eastern end, the Vale hooks to the southeast, and ends at the Cascades, a series of falls that brings the Brook down into it from a higher, narrower 'upper Vale' that runs for another two miles southeast back into the mountains.

Vale folk keep many small flocks of sheep and goats are kept in the upper Vale and in the many small, nameless valleys around the Vale itself. The Vale is bordered and surrounded by knife-sharp rocky ridges, and there are rumored to be 'ghost dragons' lurking in the nearby peaks, one of which is Mount Glendaborr.

The nearest neighboring noble holdings are Hawkhar to the northwest (high rolling hills where fine horses are bred and reared for sale) held by House Indesm, and Galdyn's Gorge, south along the Immerflow (known for its gorge-side caverns where mushrooms are grown, gems mined, and vralo, a VERY strong-flavored mushroom wine, is made), home of House Yellander. (Vralo, pronounced "vrAL-oh," is an amber-hued drink made by adding fermented mushroom essence, the juice produced when certain smoky-tasting small, brown, and wrinkled cavern mushrooms are crushed, to an undistinguised sour white wine made locally from grapes and known to most as "horsepiss." It's very much an acquired taste, but many Vale folk seem to have done the necessary acquiring.)

Firefall Keep is a much smaller small stone fortress since the events of STORMLIGHT. Its formerly predominant Haunted Tower, Twilight Turret, Hall of Honor, and Gargoyle Stair are all gone, leaving it much changed.

Today, the oldest and tallest part of the castle is the West Front of three original towers (Darkwind, Nalvor's, and Scorchedshields), with their tall, north-south linking wall. Darkwind, the northernmost of the three, is linked by a battlement running east to the North Room (a semi-circular dining hall raised atop the rebuilt kitchens and pantries). From the North Room, the outer walls run southeast to a new, smaller tower, Ladytower, where the walls turn south for a short run to the matching new tower of Braceguilt.

Ladytower is the living quarters of the current Lord and Lady Summerstar, and Braceguilt contains guest apartments (with the quarters of the seneschal and guards at ground level, beneath them).

The original gate between Nalvor's and Scorchedshields opens west onto the end of the coach road linking Firefall with the rest of Cormyr, as it always did, and a second gate, between Ladytower and Braceguilt, now opens east into the rest of the Vale.

A modest battlement wall runs east from Scorchedshields to a large, misshapen new tower known as the Armory. From there the wall turns northeast for a short run to Braceguilt, completing the outside edge of the Keep and enclosing a large courtyard now largely given over to gardens. The stables and granary cellars run along the inside of this south wall, and there are known to be underground passages beneath the courtyard and the ring of battlement walls linking all of the Keep towers to each other and to the (original) Summerstars crypt and dungeons.

It's not necessary to pass through the Keep to enter and leave the Vale: a wide wooden bridge arches over Turnwyrm Brook just west of the castle, and carries the main cart-road over to the south bank of the Brook and along it east into the Vale proper. For most of the length of the Vale, cart-tracks run along both banks of the Brook, and are linked by cross-bridges at Dunstone Farm, Marthtree, and Bottomstones (at the base of the Cascades). Only agile hikers can ascend beyond Bottomstones, but there are rope-anchors (huge rings hammered into the rocks) to allow heavy goods to be raised or lowered from one Vale to another. At least one person took a cart up into the upper Vale in this manner, but carts can't pass freely from one Vale to another except in a spectacularly crashing descent.

After the events of STORMLIGHT, the war wizard Sir Broglan Sarmyn wed Lady Shayna Summerstar, and was created Lord Summerstar in his own right. Broglan and Shayna have three children. In order of birth, they are Ileira (daughter, now four years of age), Storm (daughter, now two, and yes, named for Storm Silverhand, a naming that some say caused Lady Margort Summerstar to die of mortification), and Rauvoril (son, just approaching his first birthday).

The battles in STORMLIGHT took a heavy toll; the only other Summerstars still living are Thalance and Erlandar. Thalance spends most of his time in Suzail these days, making friends and seducing ladies with energy enough to have some chance at catching up to the exploits and reputation of his Uncle Erlandar, who has settled into being the Lord Warden (captain of the guard and police) of the Vale, and slowed his seductions to one or two per season.

Broglan and Shayna are a happy couple, and their kindnesses and sharings of food and shelter in winter have made them much loved by the several hundred folk who call the Vale home. They are widely regarded as "good" and "just" by the locals, whose loyalty is strong-and bolstered by the fact that Cormyr often seems to reach out with cordial interest to Firefall Vale. Part of that is due to Ergluth Rowanmantle, still Boldshield of Northtrees March, part to Broglan's rank as a War Wizard, and part to Storm Silverhand's deeds in STORMLIGHT.

Harpers and War Wizards are now most welcome in Firefall Keep, and the place has become something of a retirement destination for folk of Cormyr whose colourful pasts or careers lead them to seek seclusion. These retirees have considerable coin to invest, and are sponsoring the transport of the goods of local artisans who craft pretty (and inexpensive) jewelry by cutting and polishing tiny sections of certain local stones and stringing them into bracelets, pectorals, and necklaces to markets in Arabel and Suzail, where these affordable adornments are gaining great popularity among the merchant classes.

The Vale proper has many spreading blueleaf trees (and in the upper Vale, even a few weirwoods), but is dominated by small farm fields bounded by rubble-stone walls. Most Vale farmers dwell in single-story cottages built of fieldstone where two or more field-walls meet, and roofed in wooden shingles or slates, sealed with pitch. The homes have storage cellars beneath, because long, harsh winters force prudent folk to preserve and store a lot of food and drink. Bitter-root beer and goat cheeses thickly sealed in wax are staples of such larders, and mint and "rock fur" (lichen) jellies are popular homemade condiments.

Vale farms produce local food crops (radishes, cabbages, apples, nuts, and potatoes), chickens, and hogs. The morning and evening mists coupled with bright hours of sunlight have always made this tiny area a verdant, prosperous slice of paradise, and young sons of the Vale seeking work have always been able to find it as foresters working the verges of the Hullack, or in Purple Dragon service, just as daughters have traditionally traveled to larger cities in Suzail and sought service in the households of nobles, proudly proclaiming their Summerstar training. Storm visits the Vale seldom, usually arriving by night and teleport, to a room in the Keep that's been set aside for her. When upset, Lord Broglan has been known to go alone to this room to think or pray-and it's a measure of the deep love between Shayna and Broglan, and her regard for Storm, that this has never caused friction between them (indeed, certain Keep folk say that on the occasion of a great fight between the Lord and Lady, and when Rauvoril's birth turned difficult, the two magically called to the Bard of Shadowdale for aid, and she came).

This is not to say that all is sweetness and light in Firefall. Fell beasts have begun to prowl out of the Hullack Forest, and there are rumors that some folk among the wealthy arrivals who've built mansions along the coach road just west of the Keep are engaged in illicit practises and trade. Rumors have a tendency to paint darker portraits than truth, but local whispers include suspicions of agents and trade in drugs and poisons involving Zhentarim, Red Wizards, and a wide variety of Sembian interests who lack all respect for Cormyrean law. The whispers inevitably continue on to speak of all manner of plots against the Crown, trading (smuggling and slaving) cabals among various nobles, and so on -- and there's even talk that the Harpers are hiding something (or someone) very important in the Vale.

"Well, now," as Elminster would say. With a chuckle. "Well, now . . ."

End of Edspeak. Hi, all. The Hooded One here.

Checking my own extensive Realms notes, I'm certain that this is the first time Ed has revealed any of this (beyond the opening summary of STORMLIGHT's contents) in print, so . . . another scroll for Candlekeep, I guess, Alaundo. Whee.

By the way, Rad: thank you very much for asking this question. It prompted me to get out my copy of STORMLIGHT and re-read it. Nude wood-chopping scene and all, it's VERY well-written, and I'd almost forgotten that. I had remembered that Storm was the Marchioness Immerdusk, so my mind isn't going completely. :} Ed did tell me that he's going to be VERY busy "taming Waterdeep" for the rest of March, folks, so his replies may drop off somewhat. However, I'm sure I can wheedle answers out of him if your questions are interesting enough. I do good wheedle. :}

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On March 5, THO said: I can answer that one without Ed (I hope). Lord Uldonner Erendin (I MIGHT have the spelling wrong, but I don't think so) is a gruff retired successful warrior now dabbling at becoming a wizard. His tall, beautiful warrior daughter, Nlatha [again, sp] is a much better mage. Hawkhill is a tiny, rural 'border barony' on the very edge of northeastern Amn, up in the mountains. Basically, to cut down on smuggling, slaving, and brigandry, the least populated fringes of Amn are populated with a string of small, "no one has ever heard of them" baronies, usually consisting of a single keep given for free to a successful adventurer-type. He gets to keep all taxes he raises and a share of monies on goods sold by 'his people' (usually in return to paying for the transport of their goods into the rest of Amn), and he's supposed to keep the peace, mainly by killing outlaws and prowling monsters. Some of the bodyguards for each 'border baron' are usually spies for Amnian authorities, to make sure no border baron is 'on the take' and allowing smugglers and outlaws to operate under his protection.

The Baron of Hawkhill is a buffoon and a lecher, but is also just and brave. His daughter (whom all the males in the barony swoon over) mothers him (his wife is long dead) and is the REAL power in Hawkhill. Ed has used this setting in "Spellstorm" and a bunch of other adventures he's run at conventions, down the years, including "Thraldigar's Tower," "Mousehole," and "Lord Levraunt's Left Nostril."

Your obedient source of arcane Realmslore,
The Hooded One

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On March 5, 2004 THO said: zeathiel, Ed recently wrote a long, exhaustive list of Khelben and Laeral's Blackstaff Tower apprentices for use in two WotC novels, but I'm afraid they'll have to stay "off limits" until those novels are published (in case the authors make changes). Elminster's 'new Lhaeo' is an upcoming Realmslore WotC website column topic, and the same column is currently running a series on Alustriel's consort (not an apprentice, but offers access to the High Lady for your PCs if they run into him). I'll fire your request off to Ed, and see what happens. Considering how many of the 'Mages Mighty' are being used by Realms fiction authors and his dislike of screwing up forthcoming novels with contradictions, he may avoid answering about some of the listed NPCs, but.we'll see. :}

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March 6, 2004: Missed, Dargoth? Never! Ed speaks:

Kameron, no coverage of the Adder Swamp city in Serpent Kingdoms, as I recall, but I do vaguely remember 2nd Edition coverage of it. I'll have to check my notes, and with Eric (who created much Realmslore when at work on POWERS AND PANTHEONS and sourcebooks of that ilk). Hmmm . . . you've got me looking forward to your novel . . . :}

Hi, Dargoth. Well, here's the best I can do right now, re. answers to these:

1. I've created extensive lists of drinkables, recipes, and suchlike for inns, but always avoided doing direct real-world equivalents, especially for "mixed drinks" or "cocktails." However, you will find many notations in my published writings along the lines of 'firewine tastes somewhat like a cross between RealWorldA and RealWorldB.' To help you with this specific query, however, here are the general guidelines: in the warmer climes (ending, as one goes northwards, at about Amn), drinks may sometimes be blended for taste reasons (or mixed with fresh fruit juices), but are almost never deliberately made stronger by combining one alcoholic drinkable with another.

However, from Westgate northwards, and Beregost northwards on the Sword Coast, most inns and taverns serve fortified drinkables. These are of two sorts: the booze that 'the house' adulterates habitually and 'everybody knows about,' and mixed drinks that are done on the spot, at the request of a patron or upon a patron accepting a clear offer of "warming" a drink.

The first sort of "warmed" drinks include zzar and what's called "deep ale" or "fire ale" (beer to which a grain-based spirit has been added). These may be watered to make them go farther if the taste is harsh (and of course to save the establishment some coins), and also often fortified with distilled spirits (usually potato-based, in other words close to what we'd call vodka: essentially clear, colorless, and tasteless).

The second sort of "warmed" drinks only approach the elaborate recipes of our real-world cocktails in places like Waterdeep, Silverymoon, Luskan, Neverwinter, Sembia, Westgate, and the coastal ports of the Dragonreach. Usually they're simple "warm your wine by stirring in a little throatslake, goodsir?" concoctions ("throatslake" being the generic term for a distilled spirit such as gin, bourbon, vodka, whiskey, et al). If the throatslake has a strong taste that clashes with the wine, the result can be, well, horrible. :}

Years back, one of my players spent a gaming weekend at our cottage serving us all various cocktails and giving them Realms names, so I can give you here what I can remember of her admittedly short list (of course, you'd have to rename all the ingredients to make them fit the Realms, too, and I've never bothered):

Angel's Kiss: Tansar's Dance
Buck's Fizz: Marthoun's Flagon
Cherry Sling: Dragondown
Daiquiri: Ladydagger
Gimlet: Bright Blade
Margarita (Strawberry): Wyvernblood
Mint Julep: Sea Ward Slake
Pina Colada: Snowfire
Port and Starboard: Nightfire
Rickey (Gin): Lightning Bolt
Rob Roy: Battle Banner
Rusty Nail: Merchants' Tears
Rum Eggnog: Harbour Foam
Stone Fence: Stag At Bay
Tequila Sunrise: Caravan Lantern

I accept NO responsibility for what happens if these are used in play sessions. * My * players are more than crazed enough without alcoholic aid.

2. Storm's longtime consort and adventuring companion, Maxan Maxer, died in the Year of the Broken Blade in Dloemen, a ruined, long-uninhabited city north of Escalant (that is now, with the magic of the demons gone, flooded by the waters of the Umber Marshes). At the time, the marilith Araunrhee was using it as a base, and from it commanding a sizeable force of tanar'ri to raid the surrounding lands. Her servitors were allowed to devour all animals they found, but were under orders to seize all humans and bring them to a "temple" at the heart of Dloemen. There the marilith sacrificed them in a ritual designed to gain their life-force for her own, so she could increase her personal powers and rise to dominance over all mariliths. Araunrhee had been performing the ritual for some years with apparent success; it's not known if she was manipulated into this (or given knowledge of the ritual by) a deity or a more powerful demon. Maxer fought his way to Araunrhee and wounded her gravely, whereupon she beheaded him and then teleported herself away-taking his body and head with her.

The destruction of Araunrhee's tanar'ri force, temple, and magically-charged altar led to destructive "spell storms" in southern Thay for more than a year, as the violently-released magic surged across the land like ripples in water.

A SPOILER for STORMLIGHT follows: Maxer returned to Storm, alive and whole, at the end of the novel, and from then until now, has remained her consort.

However, Maxer gained a magical means of invisibility when escaping from Araunrhee (during a pitched battle between Araunrhee and a balor, Olorkroth). He grew so comfortable using invisibility as he made his way back to the Realms and his lady that he uses it still, preferring to hide from most folk of Shadowdale and observe. In this way he can spy for Storm, guard her farm when she's away, fetch and carry for her -- and have her to himself when she has privacy and leisure (which is seldom). As a result, very few people in Shadowdale know of his return, though (thanks to the doings of Sylune, Maxer, and some Harpers) word has spread that her farm is "haunted." Maxer is a sensitive, understanding, and kind man who foresees and anticipates very well. In the 2nd Edition shorthand Jeff Grubb and I devised for FRA, he's a CG hm Bard of unknown levels (7+); if twisting that into 3rd Edition terms, he should have fighter- and thief-related prestige classes involving agility, juggling, and/or entertaining. He should not be confused with either the beholder Manxam, or the Cormyrean wizard Maxer.

Sorry, no Serpent cult or Bane involvement in his demise -- and sorry, I can't (yet) provide more information as to how he got his head back and regained life. Heh-heh; pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

3. I'm glad you like the skeletons adventure in the original, award-winning LORDS OF DARKNESS. So did I, but I'm afraid I had no hand in writing it. I wrote the lich adventure and all of the "framing chapters" of that book (the spells, the wardings and antidotes, the alternative draining rules, and so on).

As to the Barrowfields, however, there I can be of (minor) help. The FRCS, Volo's Guide To the Dalelands (the most extensive entry: you don't need the other two if you have this one), and The Dalelands 2nd Edition accessory all mention the Barrowfields, but let's recap: about thirty miles east of Peldan's Helm is a large, grassy glen (in this case, a broad stream valley or basin whose stream has 'gone under,' leaving no visible surface water) in which "a dozen or more" old mounds stand. Mists from the River Ashaba often cling to them, and (of course) they're said to be haunted.

There are actually sixteen grass-covered mounds, each about two hundred feet long and rising about twenty feet from the surrounding earth with fairly gentle side-slopes and more abrupt end-slopes. They all run in the same north-south direction, parallel to each other, like glacial drumlins.

If adventurers visit the barrows by day, they'll be aware of nothing more than an unpleasant feeling of being watched. If they try 'prying magics,' or sleep near the barrows, their minds will be invaded by disturbing visions of silently menacing robed watchers -- who if confronted will prove to be wraiths with skull-heads that melt away when revealed.

If any of the barrows (all of which lack visible doors, though many have grassed-over pits in their sides from early diggings) are dug into or blasted open, skeletons will be revealed (in 3rd Edition, "Human Warrior Skeleton" undead, about ten percent having odd magical abilities such as: split into two intact skeletons if touched by a spell; able to blink about to attack, able to deliver various touch-attack magics, and so on). These will all attack fearlessly and tirelessly, pursuing all living creatures to the edge of the glen or until destroyed. "Slain" skeletons will crumble into dust. If you introduce a Shade necromancer, of course, these skeletons would become perfectly obedient troops under the necromancer's command.

The main 'monsters' of the barrows are wraith-like undead Netherese who are linked to specific magic items (mainly wands and scepters) buried in the barrows -- if the items are carried off, the wraiths (which can't be turned) go with them. If a wraith is destroyed, it vanishes back into the magic item, only to emerge some days later and attack again. (Adventurers can wield the item and call on its powers, but don't gain any measure of control over the wraiths linked to it.) Items with wraiths "inside" them become more difficult to destroy, but breaking such an item releases the wraiths in a VERY powerful, item-is-ground-zero explosion of withering unlife. In 3rd Edition terms, I'd make these dread wraiths, except that their 'spawn' rise instantly as controlled zombies, not wraithlike creatures, they aren't harmed in any way by sunlight, and they can't be turned, rebuked, commanded, or bolstered (they can be 'destroyed' in battle, but not disrupted -- except by breaking the item they're linked to, which destroys them in the explosion I referred to earlier).

Hidden in the heart of some of the barrows are whatever variants of powerful liches you want to introduce into your campaign. In the 'home' Realms campaign, one of the inadvertently-freed inhabitants of the Barrowfields was a "flying skull" type of lich that lurked unseen, as much as possible, observing the living and manipulating individuals (often wizards of low level) by means of silently-cast spells into doing things it wanted done or even becoming thralls who served it for years. This entity became a long-term behind-the-scenes foe of the Knights just because they were present in the Dales as do-gooders, and it wanted to expand its influence across the Dales, ruler by ruler, without hindrance.

There is a 'dungeon' of sorts linking two of the barrows (a single-level labyrinth of burial chambers and passages), but as the Knights were never foolish enough to delve that far, my notes on it are safely packed up and lost in the infamous Basement Boxes. So have fun putting whatever you want down there. An ancient portal to somewhere interesting in Faerun would be fun.

If you have access to the EPIC LEVEL HANDBOOK, a Worm That Walks can 'stand in' for the unique undead mage I had lurking near the Barrowfields in the 'home' Realms campaign. This fell creature, Halamorthaun, came to be in the battles that laid waste to Cormanthyr (though it lay dormant and unnoticed for centuries) and during the present day lurks near the barrows, observing who visits and revealing itself in attacks only on those it judges weak and isolated enough to destroy without being seen by others.

Heh-heh. Enjoy. :}

So endeth the words of Ed.

The Hooded One here, with just one additional comment: "My players are more than crazed enough without alcoholic aid" is putting it mildly. He may recall my once dissolving chocolates into the whiskey after the Bailey's ran out. :} None of us are drinkers these days, I hasten to inform the world, but we were younger then, and Ed's cottage sessions tended to be in very hot weather, and two of us DID work in breweries one year, and had our own microbrewery the next year. Their "best bitters" was about 12 percent alcohol, I believe (none of your 'water in a can' American light stuff). In fact, I remember the windowsill of the gaming cottage displaying a neat row of about twenty 1-litre plastic empties after a long, hard day of gaming. :}

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On March 6, THO said: Why, yes, SiriusBlack, I cannot lie to thee. :}

Waterdeep IS one of those two novels . . . but the list was REALLY needed for the other one.

Your mysterious servant,
The Hooded One
[exit, winking]

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March 6, 2004: Ed speaks once more:

zeathiel, that's one BIG request. :}

And, yes, I'm going to slice it down to something a lot smaller. First off, The Hooded One is correct: Khelben is off-limits right now (and of necessity, Laeral with him).

I'm going to chop things down still farther. All of the Mages Mighty you list have been around for centuries, if not longer. They have collectively acquired thousands of apprentices who are now ex-apprentices (Vangerdahast being one of Elminster's, for instance), some of them friendly towards their former tutors, and some of them decidedly hostile. However, the thrust of your query implies access to the ear or cachet of the Mage Mighty without the actual presence, on-stage in play, of said Grande Fromage, so I'm going to sweep my hands and clear those thousands of ex-apprentices off the table. (Ah, 'tis GOOD to be King!)

So that leaves us with current apprentices of Mages Mighty, and me still staring at a roster list that tops a hundred individuals, and at a calendar that indicates very clearly when my next novel is due (and, for that matter, the one after that). So something(s) else must give.

Let's dump Elminster, because the Realmslore column is going to eventually get around to the current impostor who wears Lhaeo's face in Shadowdale, and because the Old Mage tends to keep other apprentices in a somewhat unorthodox fashion: he leaves them residing wherever they are and 'drops in on them,' often unexpectedly, to teach a single spell or aid them in solving or practicing something, dispenses some (manipulative) information to them, and vanishes again. Such apprentices are hardly going to provide access to Old El himself, nor dare to impart much gossip about him or words he's said to them. All of the Seven enjoy such relationships with various longtime apprentices (and Harpers who've never formally entered into an apprenticeship arrangement, too), and I'm going to exclude all of them, too.

If I sound slippery here, well: yup. I'm acutely aware of the danger of damaging other writer's as-yet-unpublished Realms projects, and revealing too much for the comfort of various Dungeon Masters (who may well have created their own apprentice NPCs, and strung plots thereto). So I'm also going to categorically state that any apprentices I mention aren't the ONLY current apprentices of the Mage Mighty in question (and also quietly drop some of the other Mages Mighty, such as Halaster, because of other writers' projects).

Furthermore, my postings via The Hooded One are already wordy enough, so forget 3.5e stat blocks: I see nothing wrong with my old 2ndEd FRA shorthand ("NG hm W16" being a neutral good human male wizard of sixteenth level). You don't even need that much for the four apprentices of the Simbul (see page 111 of UNAPPROACHABLE EAST and a few scenes in ELMINSTER IN HELL for their speech and characters).

So I'm down to Alustriel (see how unadroit that was? :}), which by happy chance was your particular interest. Now, Alustriel is in the habit of teaching all sorts of folks in Silverymoon who've pleased her a spell or two (in the casual manner referred to above), and (with Taern and various members of the Spellguard or even Laeral) "testing" both Spellguard members and mysterious visitors to the city to determine their loyalties and characters, often with "a spell new to them" as a lure. However, among all her former-and-not-yet-quite-ex apprentices in the Marches, she does have three hitherto-unrevealed current apprentices:

Jemmethra Halatorn: NG hf Sor4/W6, a petite, plain-looking young woman who has disconcertingly large and bright blue eyes (and a poker face), speaks softly and sparingly, habitually dresses in unadorned dusty gray cloaks, gowns, jerkins, and breeches (she has black velvet for formal wear), and always walks or trots (some servants would say "scuttles") about quietly (preferring to go barefoot indoors whenever etiquette doesn't forbid it). Jemmethra came to Silverymoon from mistreatment as a 'house servant' (unofficial slave) in the household of a High Captain of Luskan. Her magical abilities both thrill and terrify her, and she fled to Silverymoon -- alone, afoot, and overland -- because she heard it was "a city of wizards and minstrels and laughter." Encountering Alustriel in the streets at night by chance, she boldly asked the High Lady for apprenticeship without quite knowing who Alustriel was -- and to the astonishment of most Silvaeren, Alustriel accepted her to gave her living quarters in the Palace. Jemmethra has come to worship Alustriel, and often (zealously) serves her as an errand- and message-runner, spy, and fetch-and-carry servant. She has access to Alustriel at any time of day or night, and in any circumstances except private moots with other Chosen. However, Taern is as suspicious of Jemmethra as he is of anyone who can get close to Alustriel, and Jemmethra's mind is magically probed twice or thrice daily by various Spellguard 'on duty' mages. Thus far, no one has tried to impersonate Jemmethra, and her loyalties have proven stainless.

Narandar Torstin: LG hm W10, a tall, broad-shouldered, amiable-looking young man cursed with a "misshapen potato" of a nose and long, luxuriously-flowing blond hair that he dyed silver in a successful attempt to attract Alustriel's notice (but which now crumbles and breaks under the dye, so he has shoulder-length, brittle piebald-looking locks). He's a trifle hesitant of speech and manner, and has just a touch of haughty pride, and came to Silverymoon on a caravan from Amn six seasons ago seeking someone who could teach him wizardry. The son of a merchant who'd stolen a dozen spellbooks years before, Narandar sought audience with Alustriel because he didn't know who the tomes belonged to, and wanted to study from them -- but also didn't want to break any Silvaeren laws or be accused or attacked as a thief (a Zhentarim mage launched several magical attacks on the caravan to get at a trade rival, but Narandar thought the spells were aimed at him, and were the work of a mage trying to recover a spellbook). The High Lady examined both Narandar's mind and his books, and decided his best fate would be to stand as her apprentice, if he desired to. He very much desired to, and has served her as a confidant, personal envoy, and dresser ever since (he not only helps to select clothing for Alustriel, he orders garments made, pays for them and picks them up, and sees to her clothes-cleaning -- seeing nothing at all undignified in this).

In return, she's stood at his side through several weepingly unsuccessful attempts to find a 'lady love' in Silverymoon, and through some spectacularly embarrassing spellcasting humiliations (such as the time he tried to adorn Alustriel's garments with a handful of gems at a revel, and succeeded only in melting away the garments of everyone in the room), and they've become good friends. Narandar is the only person in the Palace who daily dares to joke with Alustriel and speak to her with the casual rudeness and blunt criticism of a street friend -- but he worships her, and she knows it.

Zelauma Telthornstars: CG half-e f W9, a free-spirited, always-laughing imp of a bouncy lass with large, liquid blue-green eyes, lush figure and features. She sees the safety and beauty of Silverymoon as a cradle of mirth and 'human nature' amusement, and intrigues as fascinating entertainments. The most recent of Alustriel's apprentices, Zelauma was orphaned when a disease carried off her mother (orc blades had reaped her human father years before), and found her own way overland from their wilderland steading to the only place she knew of that had an abundance of food, warmth, and folk: Silverymoon. There she indulged her love of climbing things to scale buildings and peer in windows, watching Silvaeren private life and considering it one great passing parade of entertainment. Sleeping on rooftops and occasionally hiring herself out as a roof-tile replacer and painter (thanks to her fearless and nimble climbing skills), Zelauma was noticed by a Spellguard mage long before her coins ran out and she'd have been forced to either steal or starve.

Thinking her a thief but not wanting to blast her without proof, the mage reported Zelauma to Taern -- and Alustriel happened to arrive, overhear, and take an interest. Finding Zelauma watching revel through a window from atop an ornamental spire some seventy feet above the street, the High Lady greeted her cordially, they talked, and a few minutes later descended magically together, with Zelauma now Alustriel's apprentice.

She's still an impish (but gentle, not cruel) prankster, and loves to climb (especially when restless or upset), but she's also rapidly becoming a mage of skill, and (to put it bluntly) is hopelessly in love with Alustriel. She's aware that she's third in rank among the High Lady's apprentices and quite content to remain so -- but fully intends, decades from now, to still be serving Alustriel when everyone else has departed or turned away.

And there you have it. I'm revising my own Silverymoon notes right now.

The Hooded One

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March 6, 2004: Oh, almost forgot. Ed told me the queries re. Athalantar and other "vanished Realms" are off-limits for now because of forthcoming products (and that after certain products see print, he'll be happy to provide more lore if they haven't). Do you have the DRAGON issue that deals with Athalantar?

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On March 7, 2004 THO said: Narad Bladesinger, that's a question Ed can't answer. Vaasa, Damara (a country name also used by fantasy author Robin McKinley) and Bloodstone Pass were all added by TSR to Ed's Realms (as was the name "Galena Mountains," after a retreat the TSR execs went to, I'm told). They rolled back Ed's glacier to put them there.

Maybe Mike Dobson, who was the creative head honcho of TSR at the time, knows who came up with the name. I asked Ed, and he confirmed that the first he knew about it was when products started coming out with those names and places in them. His Assassin's Run module from DRAGON was put into a Bloodstone module, and was a complete astonishment to him, as I recall. :}

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On March 7, 2004 THO said: Now, now, down boy! No hood, no top -- hey, we're all old friends, and it gets HOT in that cottage. I WAS wearing my bikini briefs.

Blueblade, I will say this: in just my skin, I'm easier on your eyes than Ed is. But then again I will NEVER have a Santa beard. :}

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March 7, 2004: Ed writes: Yes, Damian & Liz,

I did keep the 1st edition bards. From a game design standpoint they "progress" in levels too quickly, but that doesn't matter a whit in a 'roleplaying over rules' campaign of the sort I run, and every rules choice is done by votes. My characters took one look at the "you can use 1st Ed characters alongside 2nd Ed" TSR text and said, "Right-o! So we pick and choose what we like of the new, right?"

So, of course, we did. :}

Play never took us to a bardic school ("directly onstage" as it were), but I did locate a few, Jeff Grubb and I discussed this briefly, and Steve Schend pinpointed them all. I'm deep in Waterdeep now and don't know if I dare call Steven (our phone calls tend to last for literally hours, which just please our phone companies very much) right now, but perhaps you can hail him on the REALMS-list and he can dredge up the complete list. I must confess I've forgotten, other than there was a bardic academy of some sort in Silverymoon.

The Hooded One (who thanks you for not asking about hoods and bikinis and drinks. :} )

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March 7, 2004: Here respondeth Ed:

Well, Blueblade, let's see. You won't see the first of the Knights trilogy until 2006, I believe, and the plan is that they be published once a year after that. However, the outline for the first book has been approved, so I can tell you a very small amount about it.

As things stand right now, with the book unwritten, the narrative should begin in upland Cormyr, looking over Florin Falconhand's shoulder, as events unfold that will lead to the formation of the adventuring band that will later become known as the Knights of Myth Drannor, and the granting of their royal charter.

If you have access to the old FR7 HALL OF HEROES tome, you know a little about the early history of the Knights, and who the major surviving Knights are. A glance at that book should also tell you that I haven't a hope in the Nine Hells of covering even a twentieth of the Knights' adventures (assuming you wanted to read endless "and then they did this, and then they did that" accounts) in three books, even if every volume was allowed to be longer than the three LOTR tomes (which they're not) and even if I was in Tolkien's league as a writer (which I'm not). So you are NOT going to see anything approaching a comprehensive chronological novel covering the careers of the Knights. As you know, I like to 'pull in' the focus of the story to follow individual characters, rather than doing the DeMille-style "rock the Realms" grand catastrophes, so you can guess at the storytelling style.

Hard news about the content, and which Realms NPCs are going to appear? Nope, sorry, not yet. If the head of Book Publishing reads this and implores me to Spill All, okay, but I won't be expecting his call. We have several other projects to take care of first.

On the other hand, it's early enough along yet that if there's something you're dying to see in the Knights trilogy, post it here. That goes for everyone, of course, and there's no guarantee I'll follow any of the suggestions. As I said, the outline for the first book is firm, and I know what ground I want to cover in the trilogy. But I DO listen. After all, I do this for you folks. (My grandparents wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer, and make millions more than the Realms has ever made me. One judge who presided over a mock trial and saw me perform said I was the best trial lawyer she'd ever seen in all of her years on the bench. And I hated every moment of it, and would much rather be spinning tales of the Realms for all of you.)

Right now, it's back to a certain tense confrontation in a room somewhere in Waterdeep, where an angry Master Stoneworker is tongue-lashing young nobles...

So endeth the words of Ed. In May, BTW, he'll be doing the ELMINSTER'S DAUGHTER book tour (mainly in Ontario, Canada, I believe). So if any of you want books signed, and a chance to chat with the Bearded One himself . . . I hear that the store in Cobourg even plans to have an open bar. :}

Yours as ever,
The (full dressed, SORRY there, Blueblade :}) Hooded One

(P.S. Please Alaundo and everyone, don't jump down Blueblade's throat. I'm having fun flirting, and don't mind what he or any of you ask me.)

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March 8, 2004: Hello, Elfinblade. I passed your post on to Ed, and his reply has come back: 1. Halaster has been around for a LONG time, and for almost all of that time he's been an enigma. Steven Schend and I pretty well agreed that he was only insane as long as he was in Undermountain, and it seems that 'the new' Mystra has freed him from the worst magical effects of its thrall, returning him to sanity. She did NOT make him a Chosen, but instead made a 'separate peace' with him, giving him the status of a free-willed agent (from time to time she'll ask him to do something for her, with new spells or augmented powers as his reward or price, but she will do absolutely nothing to coerce him into service, nor look upon him unfavorably if he refuses).

Whether he'll become a threat to the wider Realms, or a 'good guy,' depends on him. Right at the moment, I personally have no plans for a Halaster novel, but it wouldn't surprise me if the good folks at WotC are pondering this topic for some scribe's pen. He is a perfect main character for a pull-out-the-stops spellhurling novel, after all. :}

2. SPOILER ALERT! "STORMLIGHT" NOVEL SPOILER ALERT!

Yes, I do think the return of Bane would make an excellent novel, and it's something some fans have been clamouring for, lo these passing years. Unfortunately, I don't decide what novels get written, so I can't 'make it so.' I DID hint for years that Bane had survived within his son Xvim, and even wrote a novel (STORMLIGHT, published back in 1996) that featured an attempt by an avatar of Bane to re-ascend to godhood, but I personally prefer 'smaller stories' about individual mortals who don't have great personal power, and don't get involved with the gods. Looking back over the Realms novels I've published, you can see that my personal preferences don't have all that much to do with what gets published. :}

3. I am not now, and have never been, an employee of either TSR or WotC (freelancer, yes, consultant, yes, but not on staff, various magazine editor titles notwithstanding), so although the original Realms agreement means I'm SUPPOSED to be kept fully informed about all forthcoming Realms products, licenses, and plans, in practise it doesn't always reliably happen. I do work with the Realms book team whenever and however possible, on the understanding, of course, that I keep silent about what I know.

I can confirm, because it's already been revealed by WotC, that the Year of Rogue Dragons will be marked by a trilogy of dragon-related novels by Richard Lee Byers, an anthology of Realms short stories entitled Realms of Dragons, and that dragons will appear in ELMINSTER'S DAUGHTER. If you look back over the Roll of Years and the 'real years' in which the Realms has been published, you'll readily see that the year names I devised so long ago (the decades surrounding 'Year Zero' for the Old Gray Box are all on my original yearname-roster) have inspired all sorts of Realms-shaking fun. In fact, we've done GenCon seminars at which panels of Realms experts speculated about what an upcoming year name might mean, in terms of Realms events. So, keep pondering those year names...

Wishlist entreaties duly noted. I'll see what I can do through the Realmslore column and other channels, but it will take some time before you see anything, for two reasons: I must make sure I'm not blundering through secret WotC product plans that are already under way, and I have a year or so 'lead time' (between handing in a finished manuscript and seeing it published) on the web columns, novels, and game products.

And there you have it. Ed sinks once back into the flowing scenes of Waterdeep, and I return to happily reading my way through all the fantasy novels he's recommended. Peace reigns over Winterkeep as the snow gently falls, and in the time I've typed this, Ed has probably finished another chapter to send to Elaine, so I'll get out of his e-way. Mustn't hold up the grand parade of Realms delights for us all!

Ye Hooded One (Yes, Blueblade, before you ask: yes . . . :})

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March 9, 2004: Hello, all. The Hooded One here with Ed's latest replies (and no, Damian & Liz, I've met a lot of Clyde's models at GenCon, or seen their photos on the Virtual Gencon pages, over the years, but never modeled for any painter . . . though Ed did say the sight of me going down to skinny-dip [swim nude] in the bay in the soft light of early morning inspired him greatly :} but enough about detaching the retinae of aging gamers).

Ed speaks:

SiriusBlack, fishing will get you nowhere with me. Save it for The Hooded One. [who tells me Candlekeep has an array of smilies, but probably lacks one for the leer I'm inserting right here]. Yes, I do know what the next scene will be, and no, I'm not going to tell you. :}

However, as a consolation prize, I'll sneak you a sentence (just one) from a story I wrote recently (well, okay, just for you, TWO sentences):

The bruising strength of his grip made her gasp, and even as she twisted furiously away, cursing her silks for their lack of handy daggers, she knew she'd been dangerously -- possibly fatally -- wrong about him.

A moment later, her fingers found what they'd been straining for . . . and a moment after that, he knew it too.

There. THAT ought to keep you going until this next answer: yes, there have been plenty of Waterdeep adventures where nobles haven't been in trouble. You just haven't seen any in print, yet. :}

And yes, I was offered jobs at TSR on several occasions. Unfortunately, game designer positions aren't very well paid (game company presidents and shareholders occasionally hit the big time and get very rich, but the "creatives" share in the riches less often), and my poorly-paid Canadian library job, with its barely-adequate medical and dental insurance coverage laid atop the government-funded medicare system, managed somehow to dwarf the salary and benefits I would have received by moving across the border -- abandoning family, friends, and fully-paid-for house. (I continue to wait patiently for the USA to provide medicare for ALL of its citizens, and no, before everyone jumps down my throat, doing so ISN'T socialism, it's something called "civilization.") None of which means I didn't LOVE to drop down to Lake Geneva and volunteer my time and writings, every year at GenCon time (and of course at the con, too). The TSR brass even checked with me one year about when I was going to arrive in town, so (I surmised later) they could show me off, hard at work in a cubicle, when they gave execs from another company "the tour" -- because that's what they did. :}

I've assisted behind the scenes on many, many Realms products down the years that don't have my name on them, and WotC did make me a consultant for a couple of years (to continue doing just that). Unfortunately, as the money dried up, I became, and am now, just another starving writer (I'm not joking: if you want to make money, becoming an electrician or a plumber is a really good idea, with doctor and lawyer waiting as alternatives for those of us with patience and money enough to jump over more hurdles first).

I do live by a personal code of ethics, so NDAs and "gentlemens' agreements" mean something, which I'm afraid in this case means, Sirius, I can tell you nothing about draconic impacts in ELMINSTER'S DAUGHTER, nor speculate on just how elfkin might rise. :}

For the same reason, Dargoth, I can't comment on empires, lost or otherwise, in the context of your query.

Ah, it wounds me deeply, being so coy.

To your other questions, Dargoth:

1. If any of the Bane Liches are still left, they'll be completely insane. I'd treat them as megalomaniacal local lords or "robber baron" types, dominating tiny communities or outlaw bands in the wilderlands. Either that, or skulking around the sewers of Waterdeep or similar hideaways. Anywhere else, and their unstable "conquer all" tendencies will have led them into battle and eventual destruction long since. The problem with the Bane Liches is that their need to be tyrants far oustrips any prudence or power they possess.

2. Shandaril is still around, but has learned the virtues of disguises and keeping hidden. So is her workbook, but I personally have no idea where it is. Ask a DM. [evil grin]

3. In the original Realms campaign, Iyachtu Xvim was Bane's mortal son born in Faerun of