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TBeholder
Great Reader
2394 Posts |
 Posted - 20 Nov 2021 : 08:19:27
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Ah, found it: on deities, names and namesakes.
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Between the rabid fanbase and WotC's antics in keeping them stirred up, I feel like that particular market was over-saturated a long time ago.
Let's count our blessings. They could cater to the shippers, like the Soy Wars team did. 
quote:
it makes for a much stronger desire to avoid the object of that hype. I'm still avoiding the movie Titanic, for example, because of that accursed song and all the people that said "Oh, I wasn't interested, either, but I went and saw it anyway and it was really good, so you should go see it!"
True, but maybe this calls for an approach from another angle.
It's reasonable to presume the scribes like messy and complicated contexts. Thus it may be more interesting to watch said movie immediately after (or maybe before) browsing the context where it exists: Encyclopedia Titanica and other related materials. Trying to "Borjes up" such works could be cool.
This elevates a movie from yet another over-advertised show of Hollywood's swan-song era to a historical meta-documentary on the whole mess of phenomena that didn't start or end with the sea vessel in question. In context of the whole Birkenhead LARP thing and discussion thereof, spins, re-spins, the insurance fraud hypothesis, etc. |
People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo. -Ed Whitchurch |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1301 Posts |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36782 Posts |
Posted - 20 Nov 2021 : 15:00:56
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quote:
Originally posted by TKU
Titanic was a decent enough movie IMO, but I'd have to echo some of the sentiments that it was nowhere near good enough to warrant the attention it got. It kinda got seized on and the snowball just got rolling on it though. A good example of how popularity doesn't automatically equate to quality IMO-although that association *does* get made quite a lot. Got plenty of memories of getting dragged to a lot of awful movies by my friends because it was the next big blockbuster or whatever.
Someone once tried to quote sales figures to me to prove the War of the Spider Queen books were good. I responded that if that was our only measure of quality, then the Twilight books were better than anything Realms-related.
Dude didn't have a response to that one! |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1301 Posts |
Posted - 20 Nov 2021 : 18:14:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by TKU
Titanic was a decent enough movie IMO, but I'd have to echo some of the sentiments that it was nowhere near good enough to warrant the attention it got. It kinda got seized on and the snowball just got rolling on it though. A good example of how popularity doesn't automatically equate to quality IMO-although that association *does* get made quite a lot. Got plenty of memories of getting dragged to a lot of awful movies by my friends because it was the next big blockbuster or whatever.
Someone once tried to quote sales figures to me to prove the War of the Spider Queen books were good. I responded that if that was our only measure of quality, then the Twilight books were better than anything Realms-related.
Is it your belief that the series was hampered by too many cooks or did you dislike the basic premise from the get-go?
quote:
Originally posted by see
Yeah, the greater goddess of night and dark should be pretty well-known to just about anyone. I mean, there's a night every single day most places; a placatory prayer to Shar for the dangerous things that go around in the dark to overlook you should be routine from almost everyone pretty much every day.
Makes me wonder...if the moon is out, would they make an additional prayer to Selune or would they skip the utterance towards Shar and instead focus solely on her beneficent sister? |
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Earth names in the Realms are more common than you may think. |
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Lord Karsus
Great Reader
USA
3738 Posts |
Posted - 20 Nov 2021 : 19:01:29
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quote:
Originally posted by Azar
Makes me wonder...if the moon is out, would they make an additional prayer to Selune or would they skip the utterance towards Shar and instead focus solely on her beneficent sister?
-That is a good point. I remember seeing an example in probably Faiths and Avatars mentioning that someone might give a quick prayer to Beshaba to keep bad luck away. Makes you wonder, wouldn't it be just as effective to say a prayer to Tymora to wish for good luck? I thought looking to real world examples of truly polytheistic religious systems where there were actual entities embodying or having power over directly polar concepts would be a good way to see examples, like classical Greek and Vedic, but honestly, a lot of that was beyond my understanding and I'm back at square one. |
(A Tri-Partite Arcanist Who Has Forgotten More Than Most Will Ever Know)
Elves of Faerūn
Vol I- The Elves of Faerūn
Vol. III- Spells of the Elves
Vol. VI- Mechanical Compendium |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36782 Posts |
Posted - 20 Nov 2021 : 22:47:54
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quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
Makes me wonder...if the moon is out, would they make an additional prayer to Selune or would they skip the utterance towards Shar and instead focus solely on her beneficent sister?
-That is a good point. I remember seeing an example in probably Faiths and Avatars mentioning that someone might give a quick prayer to Beshaba to keep bad luck away. Makes you wonder, wouldn't it be just as effective to say a prayer to Tymora to wish for good luck? I thought looking to real world examples of truly polytheistic religious systems where there were actual entities embodying or having power over directly polar concepts would be a good way to see examples, like classical Greek and Vedic, but honestly, a lot of that was beyond my understanding and I'm back at square one.
Maybe it's a case of trying specifically to ward away bad luck -- not necessarily to have good luck, but just not to have bad luck. Like a friendly bit of gambling -- you may not want to waste Tymora's blessing on winning a handful of gold pieces, but at the same time, you don't want to go home empty-handed. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36782 Posts |
Posted - 20 Nov 2021 : 22:53:05
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quote:
Originally posted by Azar
Is it your belief that the series was hampered by too many cooks or did you dislike the basic premise from the get-go?
Yes.
The premise was horribly flawed: a group of drow that can't get along for even a few days goes on a journey to another city to figure out why their goddess -- who is in her divine realm and not in that other city -- has fallen silent, whilst said goddess literally eats herself and somehow comes out more powerful for it.
Among the numerous other issues I had, the "too many cooks" thing was a major one. Characters were changing from book to book -- most particularly the draegloth who was practically servile to one of the priestesses in one book and openly contemptuous of her in the next. I think a good editorial pass could have smoothed out some of this, but I don't think that WotC even did that much.
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
Makes me wonder...if the moon is out, would they make an additional prayer to Selune or would they skip the utterance towards Shar and instead focus solely on her beneficent sister?
It would depend. If the person benefits from the moonlight, of course they're going to thank Selūne for it. |
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Edited by - Wooly Rupert on 20 Nov 2021 22:58:39 |
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LordofBones
Master of Realmslore
1489 Posts |
Posted - 21 Nov 2021 : 02:33:41
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by see
Yeah, the greater goddess of night and dark should be pretty well-known to just about anyone. I mean, there's a night every single day most places; a placatory prayer to Shar for the dangerous things that go around in the dark to overlook you should be routine from almost everyone pretty much every day.
On Lolth, I much prefer the Realms status quo as of Ed Greenwood's October 1981 Dragon article "Down-to-earth Divinity", where pretty much nobody on the surface knows anything about drow/dark elves, but they do have a nodding acquaintance with Lolth, since she's the goddess of spiders, and there are plenty of spiders around. You probably want to send her a prayer of placation when you squish one by accident, but you're definitely going to look at someone who makes regular devotions to Lolth as a really odd duck.
The insane popularity of Lord Ginsu ended that idea.
To be honest, the idea of a gleefully maniacal barbarian who's effectively a walking ginsu knife working his way through Drizz't's adventures is kind of entertaining. |
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TBeholder
Great Reader
2394 Posts |
Posted - 21 Nov 2021 : 05:41:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Someone once tried to quote sales figures to me to prove the War of the Spider Queen books were good. I responded that if that was our only measure of quality, then the Twilight books were better than anything Realms-related.
Dude didn't have a response to that one!
Indeed. "...to become THAT popular, it NEEDS to be bad." (Mainstream shonens are bad by default, by kukuruyo - search for the title if interested, but know it may be NSFW, and the rest of his site is much more so)
Though the sinking of unsinkable Star Wars after being acquired by Disney (the infamous "I literally watched Solo solo", toys, empty parks...) may be a sign of the "pre-packaged hype is all you need" business model dying at last, and then "drool, squee and hype" subtype will at very least shrink a lot.
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Among the numerous other issues I had, the "too many cooks" thing was a major one. Characters were changing from book to book
Yup. It had fun moments (like Pharaun's speech to the "dead mollusc"), but it's like no one ever tried to coordinate beyond giving each writer one-paragraph blurb and general "where they all are" snapshot for the points when one book ends and another starts.
Back to... uh... Lord Ginsu, it's not that the series did damage beyond salvageable. The drow and those who interact with them (or fear and half-expect to, like surface elves) may know about Lolth more than the rest, and be jumpy for it, while other may or may not even know the name. That's no big deal.
It got really silly only when she wound up as the default placeholder villain. That is, dropped into any half-baked plot not obviously related to any of her interests. With SpiderWeb Demonweave as the epilogue.
Likewise for Shar, used the same way in the era of ShadowShadowShadow. |
People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo. -Ed Whitchurch |
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TKU
Learned Scribe
USA
158 Posts |
Posted - 21 Nov 2021 : 21:47:39
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Yes.
The premise was horribly flawed: a group of drow that can't get along for even a few days goes on a journey to another city to figure out why their goddess -- who is in her divine realm and not in that other city -- has fallen silent, whilst said goddess literally eats herself and somehow comes out more powerful for it.
Among the numerous other issues I had, the "too many cooks" thing was a major one. Characters were changing from book to book -- most particularly the draegloth who was practically servile to one of the priestesses in one book and openly contemptuous of her in the next. I think a good editorial pass could have smoothed out some of this, but I don't think that WotC even did that much.
'Too many cooks' summarizes many of my feelings of the shortcomings of that series as well. I really enjoyed Ryld & Pharaun's relationship while they ran around being detectives, and the Quenthel vs Gromph stuff was pretty engaging as well. But after the first novel It kinda felt like nobody knew what to do with them. Ryld just kinda became irrelevant in a party full of non-magical fighting types, Pharaun's friction with Quenthel quickly lost its charm, and the unresolved conflict with Ryld was just left...unresolved. Quenthel lost all of the devious cunning that made her fun and was just hot-headed and stupid.
The fact that even more characters were added to the list of protagonists didn't help either. Some characters ended up having really poor or nonexistent arcs.
I think a lot of it ended up being rushed too. Like you said, editors could probably have smoothed a lot of it over, but I think when you have a six-book series like that with six different authors it's an invitation for problems to develop.
The other big problem though, I think was the overarching plot as a whole. The end result of the whole saga was that Lolth moved out of her old house and moves into a new, slightly sandier apartment. Oh, and merging with the most insufferable character of the cast as well could wear her face I guess. A six book series so I could come to despise characters I had started out loving, watch interesting alternatives to Menzo wiped off the map, sit through half-hearted detours to Myth Dranor, Anauroch desert etc, read extraneous fight scenes, so Lolth could engage in some auto-cannibalism and renovate the demonweb pits.
Fewer writers (one preferably), smaller cast, less focus on the goings-on in Menzo after the group's departure (seriously, the whole siege of Menzoberranzan could have been cut out and put in its own book) and generally a less 'epic' scope and interference by Wotc to the story would have served it better, IMO. |
Edited by - TKU on 21 Nov 2021 21:50:08 |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1301 Posts |
Posted - 22 Nov 2021 : 21:33:38
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quote:
Originally posted by TKU
But to get back to the original topic, It looks to me like the big takeaway is that context matters a lot. Someone like Shadowheart may or may not even be particularly obvious followers of a deity depending on a number of factors-I mentioned the ambiguity of some symbolism previously. And certain groups/places might be more inclined to have strong opinions about or even know much about certain deities, their followers, or the religious practices associated with them. Maybe some locals or the clergy of a deity opposed to Shar might petition to get someone like Shadowheart thrown out of a city if she's recognized for what she is, but otherwise might just be 'watched' by the guard and/or other parties, possibly asked to answer a few questions about their business in the city, etc. But not necessarily jailed on sight like a cleric of Bhaal or Cyric etc.
I wonder if - on a large enough scale - there is a "self-correcting mechanism"; those who are observed not praying to a particular god to ward off catastrophe/invite success may either be approached by a stranger (benevolent or timid in their superstition, your pick) or advised by a comrade. Your thoughts? |
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Earth names in the Realms are more common than you may think. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36782 Posts |
Posted - 22 Nov 2021 : 21:57:17
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quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by TKU
But to get back to the original topic, It looks to me like the big takeaway is that context matters a lot. Someone like Shadowheart may or may not even be particularly obvious followers of a deity depending on a number of factors-I mentioned the ambiguity of some symbolism previously. And certain groups/places might be more inclined to have strong opinions about or even know much about certain deities, their followers, or the religious practices associated with them. Maybe some locals or the clergy of a deity opposed to Shar might petition to get someone like Shadowheart thrown out of a city if she's recognized for what she is, but otherwise might just be 'watched' by the guard and/or other parties, possibly asked to answer a few questions about their business in the city, etc. But not necessarily jailed on sight like a cleric of Bhaal or Cyric etc.
I wonder if - on a large enough scale - there is a "self-correcting mechanism"; those who are observed not praying to a particular god to ward off catastrophe/invite success may either be approached by a stranger (benevolent or timid in their superstition, your pick) or advised by a comrade. Your thoughts?
I think it'd be like in the real world: some religious people try to lead you to their religion by example, some try to gently persuade, and some are in your face about it. A lot of other religious folks, though, just go their own way. While they may discuss religion if asked, they'll otherwise stay quiet on the topic.
In the Realms, where proof of divine existence is undeniable and everyone believes in all of the gods (even if they only pay attention to a handful), I think that most people will fall into the latter category. If it's a life-or-death thing, they may counsel praying to the appropriate powers, but aside from that, most non-priests will likely let each person do their own thing. |
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CorellonsDevout
Great Reader
USA
2708 Posts |
Posted - 25 Nov 2021 : 21:43:30
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| It's already been said and the discussion has veered a bit, but to the original question; yes. While your "average joe" may not know all the gods, they will certainly know the "main" ones. Gods are a big and real force in FR, and a deity like Shar, who is in opposition to Selune and an old deity, would be a well known name. |
Sweet water and light laughter |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1301 Posts |
Posted - 05 Dec 2021 : 23:05:39
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by TKU
But to get back to the original topic, It looks to me like the big takeaway is that context matters a lot. Someone like Shadowheart may or may not even be particularly obvious followers of a deity depending on a number of factors-I mentioned the ambiguity of some symbolism previously. And certain groups/places might be more inclined to have strong opinions about or even know much about certain deities, their followers, or the religious practices associated with them. Maybe some locals or the clergy of a deity opposed to Shar might petition to get someone like Shadowheart thrown out of a city if she's recognized for what she is, but otherwise might just be 'watched' by the guard and/or other parties, possibly asked to answer a few questions about their business in the city, etc. But not necessarily jailed on sight like a cleric of Bhaal or Cyric etc.
I wonder if - on a large enough scale - there is a "self-correcting mechanism"; those who are observed not praying to a particular god to ward off catastrophe/invite success may either be approached by a stranger (benevolent or timid in their superstition, your pick) or advised by a comrade. Your thoughts?
I think it'd be like in the real world: some religious people try to lead you to their religion by example, some try to gently persuade, and some are in your face about it. A lot of other religious folks, though, just go their own way. While they may discuss religion if asked, they'll otherwise stay quiet on the topic.
In the Realms, where proof of divine existence is undeniable and everyone believes in all of the gods (even if they only pay attention to a handful), I think that most people will fall into the latter category. If it's a life-or-death thing, they may counsel praying to the appropriate powers, but aside from that, most non-priests will likely let each person do their own thing.
How much do you play up this everyday factor in your games (or played it up, past tense) and how much reciprocity do/did you expect from your players?
quote:
Originally posted by CorellonsDevout
It's already been said and the discussion has veered a bit, but to the original question; yes. While your "average joe" may not know all the gods, they will certainly know the "main" ones. Gods are a big and real force in FR, and a deity like Shar, who is in opposition to Selune and an old deity, would be a well known name.
Given the presence of racial pantheons, are you a firm believer of "When in Rome..." or would someone continue to display (minor) reverence to gods of their race/species only? |
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Earth names in the Realms are more common than you may think. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36782 Posts |
Posted - 06 Dec 2021 : 02:04:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Azar
How much do you play up this everyday factor in your games (or played it up, past tense) and how much reciprocity do/did you expect from your players?
I've never DM'ed, and I avoid playing characters that have any kind of clerical thing going on... So most of my characters will do the occasional gesture towards their patron deity, and that's about it.
My current character (in a 2E game!) is a dwarven fighter. He doesn't talk about religion, but he proudly wears Moradin's holy symbol, he's taken time to pray for fallen allies, and every time he's had to get on a ship, he's flipped a gold coin over the side to placate Umberlee. |
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Does the average layman know of Shar?
