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manaeater
Acolyte
13 Posts |
 Posted - 22 Jan 2011 : 04:51:37
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By the way Ed i have another question conserning eilisstraeeans:
Can you describe a life of a child which was born in eilistraeean communitie, like what does he do in his younger years, when he is mature, do many of them go adventuring like other elves?
Thank you THO and Ed. |
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Snowblood
Senior Scribe
Australia
388 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jan 2011 : 15:21:24
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Lothen?????? ooh ohh a dream finally coming true????? Surely you aren't just teasing a poor old scribe?????? |
Aryvandaar, Ilythiir, Arnothoi, Orva, Sarphil, Anauria/Asram/Hlondath, Uvaeren, Braceldaur, Ilodhar, Lisenaar, Imaskar, Miyeritar, Orishaar, Shantel Othrieir, Keltormir, Eaerlann, Ammarindar, Siluvanede, Sharrven, Illefarn, Ardeep, Rystal Wood, Evereska are all available here for download:http://phasai.deviantart.com/gallery/
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Quale
Master of Realmslore
1757 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jan 2011 : 21:50:04
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Hi, another question
Did the Vunds leave any material culture, ruins, tombs? Are they related to the horsemen of Asbravn? Or to Talfir? |
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Alystra Illianniis
Great Reader
USA
3750 Posts |
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Chosen of Asmodeus
Master of Realmslore
1221 Posts |
Posted - 23 Jan 2011 : 09:20:54
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| Hrm. I've got a problem. Most of the questions I want to ask Ed at the moment are partaining to the Time of Troubles; specifically, how he would have handled it/what he would have done differently. However, as his game is actually just approaching the ToT and he's proxying these answers through a player in said game, I wouldn't want him to spill any spoilers. Oh well, I'll think of something. |
"Then I saw there was a way to Hell even from the gates of Heaven"
- John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress
Fatum Iustum Stultorum. Righteous is the destiny of fools.
The Roleplayer's Gazebo;
http://theroleplayersgazebo.yuku.com/directory#.Ub4hvvlJOAY |
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Kuje
Great Reader
USA
7915 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jan 2011 : 00:42:35
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Hi Ed, or THO.
Maybe I missed it, but in what year did Derlusk host that MageFair? Thanks. |
For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet and excite you... Books are full of the things that you don't get in real life - wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium |
Edited by - Kuje on 24 Jan 2011 00:43:10 |
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Markustay
Realms Explorer extraordinaire
USA
15724 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jan 2011 : 05:35:57
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Sorry to add to 'the clutter'...
quote:
Originally posted by Veritas
Richard Baker stating that Ao is being ignored would fall under the “Publisher fiat” blocking Ao. <major snippage>
Taking what THO posted just previous to your comment, which is taken directly from Ed, and comments by Ed MANY times in the past, AND adding-in some of my own musings (ALL based upon Ed's writings), the simple answer is... "who knows?"
Is Ao even real? was he ever? Was what the folk of Waterdeep experienced just a mass-illusion cast by some unknown power?
Do any of the gods exist? Obviously any of them can really be any other one. Even gods who 'hate' each other could be one god messing with mortals. Do the gods even stay the same? Was the Torm of 400 years ago the same as the one from 100 years ago?
All the gods could be illusions created by Ao, or Ao can be an illusion created by all the gods, or just one VERY powerful one, or he/she/it could simply be the embodiment of the 'laws of the universe' (much like the Living Tribunal from Marvel Comics).
We simply do not know what is 'real' and what is not, when it comes to the Divine. Gods lie, all the time, to their faithful and everyone else (including each other), and priests are the greatest liars of them all. Deities are a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.
Add to that the canon fact that Ao purposely 'messed with' mortals memories of the ToT (that's canon), so that everyone would forget about him and other details of the Avatar Crisis, and you can't separate fact from fiction. And its probably not the first time... or the last.
So when you say it was 'publisher fiat', bear in mind that what Rich Baker said was happening (RW) is PRECISELY what Ao wanted to happen post-ToT. |
"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me" --- Dudley Field Malone
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Edited by - Markustay on 24 Jan 2011 15:32:41 |
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Veraka
Acolyte
USA
4 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jan 2011 : 06:28:05
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Hey Ed or THO,
I feel like another rock on top of mountain of requests, but I'm super curious about this:
If an aasimar and an fey'ri were to procreate, what would ya say would be the honest outcome for a child, seeing as the bloodlines are in direct conflict there?
Also, what would be the odds of that couple having twins for their first birth? |
In war, Justice; In peace, Hope; In death, Sacrifice |
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Alystra Illianniis
Great Reader
USA
3750 Posts |
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Snowblood
Senior Scribe
Australia
388 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jan 2011 : 13:14:57
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Dear Ed, Using the very broadest of brush strokes...how would you describe Aryvandaar in the years before the rise of the Vyshaan empire?
PS.....Did I read THO correctly that you 'will' be shedding some light on Lothen????
Cheers |
Aryvandaar, Ilythiir, Arnothoi, Orva, Sarphil, Anauria/Asram/Hlondath, Uvaeren, Braceldaur, Ilodhar, Lisenaar, Imaskar, Miyeritar, Orishaar, Shantel Othrieir, Keltormir, Eaerlann, Ammarindar, Siluvanede, Sharrven, Illefarn, Ardeep, Rystal Wood, Evereska are all available here for download:http://phasai.deviantart.com/gallery/
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Alystra Illianniis
Great Reader
USA
3750 Posts |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jan 2011 : 21:10:11
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Hi again, all. As promised, Ed makes reply to Alystra Illianniis about Lothen, the City of Silver Spires (I know this will interest Snowblood, Penknight, Hoondatha, and others, too). I've split Ed's reply into three posts to make sure they "post" properly, so without further ado, here's Ed:
Lothen, City of Silver Spires, circa 1370 DR, Part 1
The city is small, barely a quarter of a mile across at its widest point. Picture, on a broad hilltop in deep woods, a cluster of tall, thin stone towers with flaring bases (familiar with a Staunton-pattern chess set? look at a bishop, with its base sweeping up to a ring surmounted with a stylized mitre—yes? Okay, replace the mitre with a tall, slowly-tapering-thinner cylinder (like a candle), topped with a conical point (roof) and flagstaff, not crenellated battlements around a flat roof . . . and you have the “look” of Lothen’s towers, which are studded irregularly [that is, at various heights, some of them on the interior spiral stairs, not just at each floor, and adjacent towers seldom have floors at the same height as each other] with tall, narrow windows up and down the length of their upper “rises” [the soaring cylinder above the ring, and yes, the towers have the rings like the chess pieces; several Amnians who’ve seen the towers of Lothen have described them as “a lot of giant candlesticks, with fresh candles in them”]).
A few of these towers were built without internal stairs, but rather had a central open shaft and an “elevator” akin to a Tenser’s floating disc that rose up and down the shaft; of these, only two discs still function, and one unreliably; most have been replaced by pulley-cage elevators enspelled with feather fall for safety reasons.
None of the towers have external doors above ground level; rather, their uppermost cellars “let out” into “the ways” of the city (its network of streets, wagonyards, and stables), which rise to the surface in seven “gatehouses.”
The gatehouses are defensible stone structures sharing a uniform architecture: a circular stone-roofed “house” that covers the ramp up from the ways, and has a broad, flexible log portcullis resembling a real-world “roll-up-into-the-ceiling” garage door, moved by ropes and pulleys (and that can be locked in the down position with wooden crossbeams dropped into sockets at the bottom and midway up, on the inside of the door, that the door is then latched to with swiveling “hands” of stout wood that pivot down from the inside the door to clamp onto the beams, trapping them between hand and door.
Around each gatehouse are stone walls planted with thorn-vines and “strangling vines” (carnivorous vines that clutch at creatures who get too close) along their outsides only; viewed from directly above, they take the shape of elongated ovals (like many real-world pharmaceutical capsules), with the long axis holding the “road approaching the gatehouse.”
Along the tops of the walls are set ballistae that can fire down into the interior of the oval, out into the forest around, or “along” the oval to menace the approach when the outer gates are open.
So the gatehouse “proper” (the entrance to the underground “ways”) is at the inside end of the oval, and the outer gates (formerly pairs of “swing outwards” elaborate enspelled lattices of structure entwined with growing plants, but now merely pairs of stout wooden vertical-log doors that swing outwards, rolling on wooden wheels; like the gatehouse doors, they can be braced with massive inner treetrunk crossbeams if the city is under attack).
Viewed from the air, Lothen covers an area the shape of a closed-in (that is, no holes) numeral eight (or if you prefer, a large oval that overlaps a smaller oval, the smaller oval directly northeast of the larger one). There are seven gatehouses, six spaced evenly around the arc of the larger oval, and one at the “head” or midpoint (away from the larger oval) of the smaller oval.
Above ground, Lothen is unwalled and a riot of food-garden plants, many of them gigantic vines that have been trained up lines affixed to windows in the towers, down which young and nimble inhabitants clamber to harvest vegetables, seeds, and herbs.
Not all of Lothen’s “spires” are of the same height or radius. Twelve “great towers” are about ninety feet across and taller than the rest, but another thirty-two towers are much smaller and shorter—and two additional great towers and six smaller ones lie in ruins, blasted and fallen (in long-ago spellbattle, elves fighting elves) long ago to leave their exposed stone “roots” (which were shunned by elven inhabitants and have become thickly overgrown).
The towers of Lothen are all of “silvery stone” for the same reason the surviving ones remain sturdy to this today: they were built of quarried stone blocks that were fused together by spells that provided great heat and pressure, and at the same time allowed elven spell-artificers to sculpt and smooth the stone, to form solid one-piece but intricate masses of stone (think “vitreous” or “glass,” but not transparent glass). Some tower windows have sheets of “clarified” and even in some cases tinted mica fused into place across the window openings, but most were fitted with translucent plant membranes (like giant, see-through leaves), made to grow over window-openings and open only when gently and properly manipulated (and braced with wooden hoop-and-stick assemblies, when it’s desired that they stay open). These membranes usually remain closed, permitting air currents to pass through them, but absorbing moisture (so it never “rains in”). In winter, when the membranes curl up and wither (new ones will grow in spring) interior shutters are slid into channels around a window, rather like a sliding real-world chalkboard is slid into guide-channels that support and hold it in place, to cover the windows (these may be of wood, slate, or sheets of spell-fused stone).
So saith Ed. Whose lore will continue momentarily, with Part 2.
Enjoy!
love,
THO
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jan 2011 : 21:13:21
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Hi again, everyone. Lothen lore continueth, as follows:
Lothen, City of Silver Spires, circa 1370 DR, Part 2
Below ground, Lothen is a labyrinth of broad, sweeping stone-lined tunnels (walls and floors made of smooth blocks of fitted stone holding up shaped “overarch” blocks that form a ceiling, everything unmortared to let water seep freely through) that form “the ways” of the city (about forty to sixty feet below grade). The “ways” go around the “roots” of towers, not under or through them.
Doors in the walls of the “ways”, defended and enspelled in various ways (and it’s rare for such a door to not have, at the very least, an inner “lip” that makes it impossible a door can be forced inwards without destroying the door, and a “chime” doorbell/alarm that signals elsewhere whenever a door is moved into or out of its frame [i.e. opened]), open into the subterranean entrance halls of the city towers, or into storage chambers (daenen, or pantries/larders) that slope downwards. Most of these doors are small (wide enough for two elves to pass through at once, hip to hip), and most of them open out of alcoves in the walls of the ways that were built as stopping-places for wagons, or out of “wagonyards” (side-caverns opening off the ways, in which wagons are stored, parked, and worked on).
Most daenen and other storage chambers are accessed from tower entrance halls, not directly from the ways, and there are also secret passages leading down from towers into family vaults (almost always “treasure safe-storage,” not burial, though tales of undead lurking in some of them argue that tombs were hidden in at least a handful of these “secret ways”) and occasionally to deeper chambers that are either natural caverns (usually maintained as water-collection cisterns, their walls carpeted in carefully-tended plants that absorb “taints” [waterborne pollutants and poisons]) or secret meeting-places (like the “forgotten conjuring chambers” used by House Dlardrageth).
Lothen was built where it is because of “sweetwater” (pure, clean water) filtering up into some natural caverns here in the form of a “seeping spring” that made for lush plant growth and provided ample drinking and agricultural water.
Sanitation in Lothen consists of “throne” toilets that have a woven (think wicker, but with living, still-flexible broadleaf rushes, not dried and hardened fibers) basket of harlmusk beneath. “Harlmusk” is a plant that looks like a thick ground-lichen rising into eruptions that look like irregularly-planted Brussels sprouts, and it feeds on the excrement of humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, orcs, and most omnivorous mammals. So the smells and disease of raw sewage is unknown in Lothen; when a harlmusk threatens to outgrow its basket, the basket is simply carted off into the forest and dumped, some of the harlmusk and a little forest loam being put back into the bottom of the basket (or a new basket, if the living-rush-weave is too worn or “open” to hold weight any longer), and put back under a throne.
As a result of years upon years of this practice, the forest around Lothen is lush indeed, attracting many birds and small furry forest creatures, and the elven inhabitants got very good at “gardening” the forest, with many trails, encouraging the most daily useful (and valuable) edible plants and herbal-source plants to grow amid their towers, and hardier and less often used plants farther away.
As a result, edible woodland animals have always been plentiful around Lothen - - and as a result, foraging orcs, hobgoblins, and marauding monsters (such as owlbears) have been frequent visitors, so the young of the city were led by veterans on frequent patrols (often traveling largely aloft, along networks of tree-boughs, for the local elves could “garden” trees like anything else, and so, over time, shape such networks as desired) to drive away or eliminate such dangers.
However, Lothen was a city of scholars, who largely turned their back on overt and devout worship of the elven gods (the “temples” of Lothen are “groves” in the gardens amid the towers, little open spaces with altars that are walled and roofed by elf-reshaped living trees) and sought instead to understand and tame all life and natural forces through experiment and research (what we would term botany, zoology, climatology, alchemy, and the study of magic). The acquisition of knowledge, practical and otherwise, consumed the days and attention of the elders of this city, not defense or conquest of territory or military readiness.
It was largely abandoned in the end because someone (intentionally or more likely inadvertently, not knowing the properties of what they were dabbling in) unleashed two local “scourges” (plague-like diseases of minor power, that exhausted themselves before even reaching the boundaries of Lothen). One consumed paper, including the plant weaves many Siluvanedenn were experimenting with. The other ate away, or “twisted,” dweomers: that is, the substance and effects of already-cast magic (either “permanent” operating enchantments, or “hanging” magics that were awaiting future triggers to go into effect). The Lothren elves could find no escape from these scourges, nor solutions: paper records melted away with horrifying speed, and their spells (excepting only those that took immediate, non-lasting effect when cast, like battle magics) started to fail, fade away, or do unintended things. So eventually they all fled, save for a handful of the younger ones who had little personal use for either magic or paper.
When orcs next came marauding (on a regular forage raid, in strength and well-armed because bands of orcs that ventured into the vicinity of Lothen so often vanished), that handful didn’t last long.
So saith Ed, whose lore will wrap up in Part 3 (yes, I'm sure you'll have followup questions; I already asked if "harlmusk" has a strong aroma that led it to the "musk" part of its name, and it has, apparently something like scorched oregano [[ yes, Ed's learning to cook :} ]] ), very soon . . .
love to all,
THO
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jan 2011 : 21:18:08
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Hello again, everyone. Herewith, Part 3, as promised:
Lothen, City of Silver Spires, circa 1370 DR, Part 3
Discovering a city that was theirs for the taking, with abundant food animals, the orcs decided to stay rather than pillaging and moving on. Some of the band went “home” to fetch the rest of their tribe (the Tanglethorns), and the subsequent disappearance of this tribe from its usual haunts didn’t go unnoticed by their traditional foes, the neighboring Sharpspikes, who sent scouts after them.
The result was a nasty little summer-long war for control of Lothen, that ended when Horned Lord orcs, led by orc druids of Malar, showed up in force to take the city from the other two (by-then-battleworn) tribes. House Dlardrageth welcomed all of this as cover for their own activities and a deterrent to anyone else showing up to contest the silver spires, who might discover them, and as entertainment.
However, elves of Eaerlann were horrified to discover what had happened to Lothen, and some of them launched a raid of their own, hurling many spells at the orcs. Most of those magics went awry, causing the elves to retreat in consternation, deeming the city “cursed” or “tainted” (and therefore “lost” for the time being to some mysterious evil greater than “a few grunting orcs”). Yet the elven spells took a fearsome toll on the orcs, reducing the Tanglethorns to a few dozen and the Sharpspikes to even fewer, shattering their tribal pride and reducing them to lurking, skulking hand-to-maw survivors. The Horned Lord orcs were more numerous, so more of them survived, ninety-odd in all. However, with many elders and war-leaders among the dead, they fell deeper under the sway of their druids of Malar, who instituted “purity hunts” of “disloyal” Horned Lord orcs to cement their own power. These hunts have made the druids feared and hated (but instantly obeyed), and reduced the Horned Lord orcs to around seventy - - even before a power struggle among the druids pitted Horned Lord orc against Horned Lord orc, in a vicious war that’s still going on and has brought their numbers down to around forty.
Human druids of Mielikki and Silvanus concerned with the western High Forest saw a chance to weaken, drive out, or even eliminate the orcs, and “raised the forest against them,” sending in all manner of wild woodland beasts (including many of what most humans deem “monsters”) to overrun Lothen.
The orcs fought (and ate) as orcs do, withstanding the onslaught but taking heavy losses—so that by the time the spring of 1370 DR begins, only a few dozen of them (in all, including all three tribes) survive, at about the subsistence/roaming foraging bands level. They have fortified nothing, improved nothing, and are now too few to transform the towers and ruins much even if they wanted to; even starting forest fires won’t do much in damp, misty Lothen, with so much stone (and some fauna that will react to fire by seeking to extinguish the fire, as opposed to fleeing).
All of which leaves Lothen lush, full of abundant wildlife (and I do mean WILD life), and ripe for the taking.
As Hoondatha has said in another thread: easy to take, not so easy to hold (not only will another horde eventually come Lothen’s way, there are orcs - - and others - - who know that “Lothen’s a battleground” right now, and some of them listen to wild rumors and think it must be a battleground because there’s something valuable there to find.
Which of course, if you DM anything like I DM, there is. :}
Lots of valuables, in fact, even if all of them might not SEEM valuable, at first glance, or might (rightly) seem just the first part of something greater that must be found and pieced together, piece by piece (like the Rod of Seven Parts), to make something greater.
So, happy adventuring! ;}
Ed
So saith Ed, and there you have it: Lothen, in a nutshell, for your adventuring and lore-enjoying pleasure. :}
I love it when Ed erupts with substantial Realmslore. (Speaking of which, he's delivered all of 2011's "Eye On The Realms" columns to Wizards, and the first one has gone up on the WotC website. Ed tells me at least three of them will have "certain scribes dancing with delight." Woo-hoo!
love to all,
THO |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jan 2011 : 21:26:27
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Oh, and Daviot: Ed wants you to know he hasn't forgotten the Sorndrakes, and "Will Get To That. Soon."
love,
THO |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jan 2011 : 21:34:15
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. . . and I've something fragmentary for Alystra Illianniis, too!
Re. your musical instruments, from Ed's notes I have mention of:
The haraun ("Hah-RAWN"), a svirfneblin-sized horn played (rarely) by some deep gnomes, made by slow-firing clay through which a treated rope has been wound (folded back and forth upon itself), to create a many-chambered (when the rope burns away), lot-of-lung-wind-needed "horn" that produces a deep, multi-toned (when several are blown together, to form chords) sound. Used for alarms, war-rousings, and sometimes for triumphal or recognition-beckoning tunes.
So there you have all I have on this; Ed will furnish a "proper reply" in the fullness of time, of course. 
love,
THO |
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Alystra Illianniis
Great Reader
USA
3750 Posts |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jan 2011 : 00:00:34
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Exactly.  
Alystra, I should have worded my haraun lore more carefully. By "svirfneblin-sized" Ed didn't mean "small enough to be easily toted around and played by your average deep gnome." He meant "as big as your average deep gnome" (so they aren't portable or marching instruments, but usually stationary ones).
love,
THO |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31701 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jan 2011 : 00:47:46
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quote:
Originally posted by Alystra Illianniis
Ah, sorry to add to the pile, but.... Are there any particular musical intruments or styles of music/prticular songs and musicians of note in the Underdark? I'm looking for anything "bardic" in Underdark cultures- drow, duergar, deep gnomes in particular. Thanks again!
Actually, I'd like to add to this, if I may, Ed o' the Greenwood.
Interestingly, I've been thinking a little about this myself of late. And I was curious as to how drow, or any Underdark musician I suppose, would relate to the changes and styles of music upon the surface? Let's say a drow or duergar musician left their gloomy Underdark realms for the surface. How do you see that that drow or duergar adjusting to the new instruments and new musical styles he or she would be introduced to?
I only ask, because I've been slowly working on musical trends for both the Underdark and the surface lands. But I'm curious about how a musician from one or the other, would musically acclimate to a new environment. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium -- Volume IX now available (Oct 2007)
"So Saith Ed" -- the collected Candlekeep replies of Ed Greenwood
Zhoth'ilam Folio -- The Electronic Misadventures of a Rambling Sage |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jan 2011 : 01:30:58
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Heh. Sage, here's Ed himself with a swift PARTIAL reply:
Hi, Sage. The first thing I think an Underdark musician would be struck by is the lack of reverberation and resonance in the Great Above because in most places there's sky and moving air around, not a rock envelope of walls, floor, and ceiling (plus, in underdark lakes, a water surface to 'bounce' sound off of, for great distances). Echoes are far fewer/short range/nonexistent, in many places, as is delayed bounceback.
All of which would mean instruments would perform differently, rock-tapping would be a tiny dull thing as opposed to something that might in some places carry for miles, and so on.
A small enclosed room and a small corner of a cavern might not be that different, but move out of the room to the outdoors, and your stringed or blown music-making device loses a lot of volume and bass thunder, as well as actually changing in timbre.
All of which is probably gosh-darned obvious to you, but those are my immediate thoughts, as I whirl from one project to another and glance at THO's latest e-mails in between. Bitterly cold here today, transmission frozen and wouldn't go into gear for the first few minutes, when I started the car up to (urrgh) go and pay bills. I've finished this year's crop of Eye columns and am plunging back into another juicy project . . .
Ed
So saith Ed. Who has thus far written and delivered about 240,000 words of to-be-published stuff to various waiting editors since New Year's Day (now THAT's NaNoWriMo, folks!)
love,
THO |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31701 Posts |
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Snowblood
Senior Scribe
Australia
388 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jan 2011 : 03:41:54
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| Awe......sigh............ |
Aryvandaar, Ilythiir, Arnothoi, Orva, Sarphil, Anauria/Asram/Hlondath, Uvaeren, Braceldaur, Ilodhar, Lisenaar, Imaskar, Miyeritar, Orishaar, Shantel Othrieir, Keltormir, Eaerlann, Ammarindar, Siluvanede, Sharrven, Illefarn, Ardeep, Rystal Wood, Evereska are all available here for download:http://phasai.deviantart.com/gallery/
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Alystra Illianniis
Great Reader
USA
3750 Posts |
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Chosen of Asmodeus
Master of Realmslore
1221 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jan 2011 : 06:22:12
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| I was wondering if Ed had any specifics regarding the conditions of the treaty between Many-Arrows and the Silver Marches, and what actions by either party would directly warrent a declaration of war? Specifically, how Luruar would react towards Many-Arrows either approaching the People of the Black Blood in Moonwood/Glimmerwood as allies, and how they would react should Many-Arrows seek to expand to the west towards the coast. |
"Then I saw there was a way to Hell even from the gates of Heaven"
- John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress
Fatum Iustum Stultorum. Righteous is the destiny of fools.
The Roleplayer's Gazebo;
http://theroleplayersgazebo.yuku.com/directory#.Ub4hvvlJOAY |
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Snowblood
Senior Scribe
Australia
388 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jan 2011 : 09:43:32
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| oh well I got the figure 8 bit right....the rest wellll....some major retooling required.....sigh!!! |
Aryvandaar, Ilythiir, Arnothoi, Orva, Sarphil, Anauria/Asram/Hlondath, Uvaeren, Braceldaur, Ilodhar, Lisenaar, Imaskar, Miyeritar, Orishaar, Shantel Othrieir, Keltormir, Eaerlann, Ammarindar, Siluvanede, Sharrven, Illefarn, Ardeep, Rystal Wood, Evereska are all available here for download:http://phasai.deviantart.com/gallery/
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Ergdusch
Master of Realmslore
Germany
1720 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jan 2011 : 16:17:06
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Hello Ed and THO,
I'd like to pick up an answer by Ed from Dec. 18th on shrines in Suzail. I was wondering what the shrines in Arabel might look like. Are those listed in the source book 'Cormyr' also "upstairs" or "downcellar" in buildings that have other uses [shops, usually] on their ground floors.
I imagined them to be more representative/prominent than just an upstairs or downcellar room, esp. those on Thalonders Ride, that being the shrines to Chauntea, Helm, Denier and Tempus.
Are there any further shrines in Arabel not listed in the book or shown on the Arabel map?
And while we are at it, has this chapel to Chauntea ever been build outside of Arabel?
Thank you for your answer,
Ergdusch |
"Das Gras weht im Wind, wenn der Wind weht." |
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arry
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
317 Posts |
Posted - 25 Jan 2011 : 18:13:03
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| A rather morbid series of questions I'm afraid. In Cormyr what crimes are capital and what is the usual method of execution? Are the executions public and what is the common attitude to them? Are they seen as entertainment as used to the case in the UK at least? |
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Eldacar
Senior Scribe
438 Posts |
Posted - 26 Jan 2011 : 07:30:26
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I have a couple of questions related to both Cormyrean royal families and, I suppose, "reality" as a whole. Specifically, the extermination/destruction type of event.
Has the royal family of Cormyr (or other persons of authority, though I would expect such an order would have to come from the very top) ever seen it as a necessity to, for lack of a better term, exterminate a noble house of any kind? Does such precedent exist?
There is of course the Cormaeril issue, but there are still living scions of the family at least up to a year or two after the incident itself, still active in Cormyr at that. Presumably, this means that if it was decided upon at some point in the future, the noble family itself could be "resurrected" by the Crown (possibly/probably through the War Wizards, as I imagine Vangey would keep an eye on such individuals) tracking down the requisite heirs and returning them.
However, is there such a situation when even this hasn't been enough, and the entire family, down to the last infant child, the last aging elder, even the last in-law or bastard scion has had to be killed? If so, how would it be done? Would the War Wizards be used as executioners leading Purple Dragons as backup (i.e. delivering the justice of the Crown), or would it be quietly outsourced to the, ahem, elements of society who excel at that sort of work?
As a tangent question, does this sort of thing ever happen with areas of Cormyr (as in, the need to destroy everything inside a certain area) and/or other nations as well? The Drow obviously engage in it, for one, though they usually "adopt" children of the destroyed house rather than completely exterminating it.
Additionally on the "destroy an entire area" point, I have a few other questions regarding planar breaches and the way to close them (and I apologise if they sound a bit metaphysical at times). I am briefly reminded of a scene in one of the Feist novels, where because of a potential incursion from another plane of reality it becomes necessary to effectively level an entire area of mountainside right down into the ground, just to erase any presence of that reality and keep it from returning. When such things happen in Faerun, what is the common response?
In Elminster in Hell, there were two such occurrences that I recall, one of which was Elminster having to sew up the rift that was allowing planar leakage, and the other was when Mystra appeared in Avernus and yet her presence caused rifts to open into Torilian space (which she had to seal behind her as she left), likely a result of her employing her power in a place where there would be a conflict (and I think I still have a few questions on the pile about how regular silver fire would react in such a state, and whether the presence of Chosen on another plane can cause similar - though likely much smaller in scale - problems given time). Elminster's thoughts as he was closing the first rift seemed to imply that such breaches do occur from time to time, but not often. Is there some sort of particular requirement for them to form beyond the employment of powerful magic that presumably rends and twists the Weave into funky wrongness? Can they just "happen" at random or do certain conditions have to be met? Or can something done many hundreds (or thousands) of years ago have a residual effect (like many deaths happening in a single spot leaving a kind of magical "echo", or vast exchanges of magical force creating a twisted snarl of Weave energy that persists until/unless somebody comes along and manages to untwist it) on the place in the present?
In relation to the Far Realm in particular, there were the questions on the Wands family and the attention they have drawn from that plane (or "place"), yet with their presence being alien to reality, does this make these "beings" easier to sense? Or less easy? Do they leave a trail, like a footprint or a smudge that could develop into a full-blown breach given time just from some sort of "weight" that they have? The presence of a divinity seems to by its very nature imbue some sort of "energy" (likely divine energy) into the area around it, so can this happen on a smaller scale?
Lastly, when such a breach is healed, is it (or the area) more susceptible to being broken open again? Sort of like a wound that you've slapped a band-aid on has already had the chance of being "infected" and thus could cause more trouble in the future, unless a kind of sterilisation is applied (like eradicating whatever caused the breach).
I've recently been on a bit of a binge in regards to the nuts and bolts of how this stuff works in the Realms, and haven't yet found the answers I'm looking for in the sourcebooks/novels I have. Any answers you could give (to either the metaphysical or the more down-to-earth Cormyrean stuff) would be much appreciated. |
"The Wild Mages I have met exhibit a startling disregard for common sense, and are often meddling with powers far beyond their own control." ~Volo
"Not unlike a certain travelogue author with whom I am unfortunately acquainted." ~Elminster |
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Snowblood
Senior Scribe
Australia
388 Posts |
Posted - 26 Jan 2011 : 09:15:42
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Dear Ed can you think of any reason why the elves cast a King Killer Shield over the Serpent Hills? If you do know a reason would you be able (legally) to share it with us?  |
Aryvandaar, Ilythiir, Arnothoi, Orva, Sarphil, Anauria/Asram/Hlondath, Uvaeren, Braceldaur, Ilodhar, Lisenaar, Imaskar, Miyeritar, Orishaar, Shantel Othrieir, Keltormir, Eaerlann, Ammarindar, Siluvanede, Sharrven, Illefarn, Ardeep, Rystal Wood, Evereska are all available here for download:http://phasai.deviantart.com/gallery/
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Edited by - Snowblood on 26 Jan 2011 09:21:25 |
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Hoondatha
Great Reader
USA
2449 Posts |
Posted - 26 Jan 2011 : 13:52:57
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| Alystra: I think the haraun is probably more like their version of an alpenhorn. |
Doggedly converting 3e back to what D&D should be...
Sigh... And now 4e as well. |
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Questions for Ed Greenwood (2011)
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