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Originally posted by MuadDib

Over the years, there's been a slew of 'Who's the most Powerful' threads. And in almost everyone Larloch is mentioned. Now who would have ever guessed a genuine request for realmslore would come out of such a thread

Basically the sum total of my knowledge on him is that he was/is a lich, and in 2e there was a spell - Larloch's Minor Drain - that was named after him.

Anyone else know anything interesting about him?

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"I too would like to know what Larloch’s up to -- not because I think he’s planning to overthrow realms or reach out and slaughter me if I visit the Realms, but because his ‘slowly, softly, quietly’ intrigues and manipulations to steady gain more and more magic and knowledge about individuals in the Realms who have magic he hasn’t yet acquired (or are experimenting with new castings or magic item craftings) fascinates me. Whereas Elminster and the other Chosen are tirelessly disseminating magical lore in the service of Mystra, but trying to steer who gets what to avoid reckless tyrants blowing up the entire Realms, Larloch is the silent, patient sponge who long ago gained enough stuff to shatter Faerun, but just goes on quietly grabbing more.
No, I don’t think adventurers often get far enough to really pester him, given all the liches he can throw at them as defenders. I see him as viewing adventurers as the equivalent of television: a parade of entertainment laid on for his amusement, too much ‘the same’ from day to day to be really enthralling, but worth a glance and a laugh now and then."

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Hello, all. As promised, Ed attempts a reply about Larloch to Elf_Friend and the various posters who’ve been sparring on the Realms-list about this same character:


Ah, yes, Larloch. You’ll get to see him (briefly) in my story in REALMS OF THE ELVES, and that appearance will show that as Faraer asked, he can be whimsical, and he knows both boredom and a personal code of honour.
It was never my intention to use Larloch to humble PCs (brute force doesn’t humble anyone - - only the ability to awe players does), but - - as with the gods - - he can of course be used that way.
It was my intention, as I was turning the Realms from a purely fictional setting to a 1978-version AD&D game setting, to make it as realistic as possible. One of the necessities in doing that, and in giving PCs challenges, is to have entities around (gods, demigods and divine servants, heads of churches, temporal rulers, established high-level adventurers, and so on) who are stronger than the PCs. This not only gives them future foes and “standards” to measure themselves against and aspire to surpassing, it makes the world seem ongoing rather than newly-created around the PCs as an artificial obstacle course.
Larloch is one of those VERY powerful NPCs. An undead who’s been chasing and accumulating power for so long that he’s beyond possibly being challenged by most (for example) human kings or even archmages. An entity who’s conquered and ruled kingdoms, both openly and through dupes, so often and for so long that he’s quite bored with doing so, and has moved on to manipulating and steering events for his own entertainment (somewhat in the same way that Elminster manipulates and steers, though for different ends). A being so powerful in magic must inevitably “come to an agreement” with at least Mystra and Azuth, and so his doings and ultimate fate are in some manner bound up with theirs: to destroy Mystra may be to doom or destroy Larloch.
As a storytelling and roleplaying DM, I’ve always been rather puzzled by players who see EVERYthing powerful as a target they MUST destroy (hence the constant demand for avatar statistics, and the constant cries of, “I MUST kill Elminster! I’ve gotta smash Larloch!” or gloating boasts of, “I did it! I tore Elminster apart in my campaign!”
Fine, if that turns your crank. But if that’s ALL that turns your crank, what are you going to do for kicks tomorrow?
You’ve just killed Elminster, and Larloch the day before, and you tore apart Szass Tam and Manshoon before that, and laid waste to Shade and Thay and personally ate the last Phaerimm the tenday previous . . . now what? Is that the only way you can enjoy D&D?
My players are living proof of how much satisfaction one can get by sparring with foes for (literally) years, and ending up in grudging mutual respect (with the PCs inwardly gleeful because they’ve manipulated the foe into doing something they wanted him to do without him realizing it . . . and so have demonstrated for themselves that they’ve moved beyond “my blade swung faster, and I drew more blood and so beat you” adventuring, into being truly worthy of significance in Faerûn, because they have now managed to accomplish things WITHOUT brute force.
To quote from my November 2004 reply on this same topic:

In the same way as too many PC dragonslayings depend upon the dragon being played as a dumb brute, it’s highly unlikely that any PC party will have the sheer power to take down Larloch - - and in any war of attrition against his many, many liches and modified powerful undead minions (forty blazing bones over here, a demi-lich over there, various hulking gigantic undead concoted of many battle dead yonder,deceptions galore ("That wasn't Larloch, that was your KING enspelled to look like Larloch! NOW you're in trouble!"), traps that release disease, poisoned this, poisoned that [like, ahem, the PCs’ drinking water] etc. etc.), a party of PCs would have to be stupid indeed not to figure out that destroying Larloch just isn’t worth the effort.
Like most gods in most situations, Larloch doesn’t NEED to stand and fight when it’s not to his advantage. Like gods, he doesn’t need to sleep, and most PCs do. So he’ll just have his minions harry them until they're stumbling-exhausted, and then throw MORE minions at them. Larloch isn’t insane or stupid enough to need to show up in person to gloat; subtly controlling things from afar is what he DOES, and enjoys. So PCs can expect to find themselves attacked by civil authorities in whatever realm they’re in, and then brigands, and then a few guilds, never being allowed to sleep without yet another undead attack - - and even zombies and skeletons can wear you down when they come in waves, dozens daily, for day after night after month.
And if the PCs DO win their ways through all the liches to Larloch, “he” will almost certainly be just another lich (loaded with explosive spells) set up as a decoy, with dozens of hidden liches waiting to pounce on any surviving PCs who ‘celebrate’ after they take Larloch down. As the REAL Larloch watches (magical scrying) from afar.
Myself, as DM, I’d be wondering: “Such a glorious game, so many opportunities laid out before your PCs to devote your time to, and THIS fixation is the best you can come up with? Are you SURE you’re adventurers?”

And as my lovely Lady Hooded added at that time:

I take the view that if a DM tells you that a city your PCs are visiting is surrounded by a ring of hills, it requires a lot of PC insanity to try to destroy the hills “just because they’re there.” Consider Larloch a hill, part of the furniture of the Realms Ed has presented to you, not a target. Sounds like the very worst sort of power-gaming to me, and although we all need an outlet to just SMASH something once in a while, I’d hesitate to call this approach “roleplaying.”

However, to deal specifically with some of the queries raised about Larloch here and on the Realms-list (and if a Candlekeep scribe would be kind enough to repost this entire reply over there, I’d be grateful): I have NEVER postulated Larloch as a being who “cannot be destroyed.” I have suggested that PC attempts to down him reveal stooge-lich after stooge-lich (so that a PC who wants to talk to Larloch and manages to pique his curiosity enough to get an audience could indeed chat, and if they entertained Larloch enough could gain courteous, useful answers from him - - though to a good DM this would be a great chance to roleplay a “difficult” conversation that leaves the PCs involved quaking in their boots, throughout - - but a PC who thought they could dupe Larloch into a party ambush by trying to talk with him would discover that they’d destroyed not the real Larloch, but merely one of his many, many servitor liches, whom he was speaking through).
Of course any DM can do anything he or she wants in their own Realms campaign. If taking out Larloch entertains your players and they attempt it, fine. I’ve created an undead that should (like the old Rod of Seven Parts) give them several stages of victories and hard fights before they truly emerge victorious.
What I HAVE done from the beginning is strongly suggest that any DM trying to be “true to the Realms” show PCs the consequences of everything they do. If you try to take out Larloch, this is what else will happen: here’s whom (and what) he keeps in check, or how many liches have now been freed to race all over Faerûn trying to do what they for so long have been prevented from doing . . . and so on. “The interconnectedness of all things” holds sway in the Realms as it does in our real world. If you want to take out Larloch, do you really understand what you’re setting in motion? Are all the unfolding consequences what you really want to have happen?
Any DM is free to alter the Realms as they see fit before players unleash their characters into it, and is also free to let the players topple as many powerful Realms NPCs as they want to. The farther you get from the published Realms, the more ongoing adaptation work a DM is letting himself in for, but doing so isn’t going to upset me. If someone gloatingly tells me at a convention that their character killed Elminster and ate him or bedded all of the Seven Sisters at once and then killed them it’s not going to upset me. (Thought it is, as several gamers have discovered, going to make me puzzled enough to ask them WHY they did such things.)
As Faraer correctly pointed out here (back in November 2004): “The Realms has always worked on the principle that NPCs can do whatever the DM needs them to do, not what the books say, this being a storytelling game rather than a referencing game.” So DMs should feel free to change NPCs to their hearts’ content.
As for Elf_Friend’s question about Larloch’s rivals, this just makes me sigh. The problem with gamers wanting to take down powerful NPCs (and published Realms sourcebooks providing ultra-detailed stats for said NPCs) is that too often the Hammer Problem arises (the old saying: “To a man with a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.”). We all rush past trying to understand the aims, motives, and essential character of an NPC to get to the crunch details of how we can best him in combat.
Let’s look at Elf_Friend’s multipart question in detail (and please note, Elf_Friend, that these are perfectly legitimate queries that don’t upset me in the slightest; glad you asked):
“I’m wanting your thoughts regarding who his rivals are that might still be alive, or undead.”
Answer: I’m not sure Larloch has any direct rivals. For centuries he’s worked at “fading away behind the scenes,” so only legend tells us he’s still around, or what he might be up to. Is he trying to attain godhood? Immortality? Freedom from the machinations of gods? Some mysterious magical goal or goals?
A DM must decide such things in order to conclude whether or not Larloch has any rivals. If you mean: beings of roughly the same power, who COULD be worthy opponents if they came into conflict with Larloch, then all sorts of possibilities arise, from Hesperdan and Iyraclea to Shaaan and dozens more not yet given prominence in the published Realms, to say nothing of the more obvious Khelben, The Simbul, and so on. The DM had better decide what all of them want, and are striving for, too.

Back to Elf_Friend: “To what expense would he spare to get rid of them [the rivals] and/or get them under his control?”
Again, this presupposes that Larloch is a sort of gunslinger with spells, ready to blast or control any adversary that challenges him. He isn’t. Neither are Szass Tam, Manshoon, or Elminster. Proof? Well, if any of them were, most of Faerûn would be hill after plateau after mountain range of blackened, blasted, smouldering ash, not bustling, vigorous kingdoms.
Larloch delights in gaining new magic, developing or creating new magic, and in manipulating mortals (on whims, for his own entertainment and occasionally to reassure himself that he CAN still manipulate them with such skill) without them noticing, without any onlooker seeing his hand at work, and so on. So like Elminster, he doesn’t want to “get them under his control,” but he DOES want to be able to manipulate them at will, into doing the things he wants, without all the bother of ruling them or showing up to give them orders and threaten or bribe or cajole them: that’s the sort of crass stuff he did centuries ago, and has outgrown. Why get rid of a potential rival when the rival’s very power makes him useful to you? As a weapon or tool you can use to shape someone else? Or have that someone else destroy for you, while you sit and watch the fun (a la the Addams Family, and their model trains sent into headlong trainwrecks) you’ve brought about by your own deft manipulations? (“So she hates him, and he hates her? Let’s see if I can have them bedding each other within a tenday, and married before month-end, in a union that will last for decades!”)

Back to Elf_Friend again: “What could a high level character do for him to sit up and take notice?”
Ahem: any adventurer who’s reached “high level” has ALREADY come to Larloch’s notice, and is being watched (from time to time) by Larloch’s spies (most of whom, if they’re not undead, are unwitting spies). Any expressed desire to contact Larloch, best or destroy Larloch, or work with Larloch will cause him to notice. Please note, from all I’ve said above: “notice” does NOT mean send legions of undead to destroy the ‘impudent’ PC, or show up personally in a rage to destroy said PC and thereby step into the players’ elaborately-arranged trap. It means Larloch watches the PC more closely, and tries to manipulate them in small, subtle ways to see what happens.
And THAT preceding sentence of mine should give a good DM gleeful fun to fill years of rich Realms-campaign roleplaying.



So saith Ed. Who wants to reiterate that none of this online discussion upsets him, but does want some things set straight before readers entirely get the wrong ideas about Ed’s own intentions and views.
Always remember, folks, that Ed created the Realms first and foremost for himself, before there even was a D&D game.
As he told Gary Gygax once: “Well, it seemed a lot more fun than relabelling the squares around the board on a MONOPOLY game, and even more fun than drawing a fantasy map for DIPLOMACY that had more fords and inland seas and fiddly bits.”
So there you have it (she said, bracing herself for the flood of responses). Guess this torpedoes my “Larloch In Love” novel proposal . . .
love to all,
THO

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Originally posted by CrennenFaerieBane

I know that some PCS would be drawn to destroying Larloch, but as a GM, you should put the fear of the Gods in them for doing such. If Ed does have him as some such 46th level character - 2e or 3e, that is one bad mamma jamma... And even if those players are on the spree of killing Chosen and other said powerful dudes and dudettes, I think Larloch should be put in another category all together.

C-Fb

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Heck, I'd give Larloch good odds against Velsharoon.

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Originally posted by Belthor

I realize that you find all types of people playing these games. It's actually one of the things that make me want to keep playing. The different personality types make it interesting almost every time. This being said, I still can't figure out why it is that people would want to go up against someone like Larloch. I get excited to live to be sixth level most times. We've all done silly things in games and taken on things or monsters we had no business taking on and we've all gotten lucky, but it goes beyond luck to want to think about going aginst any 46 level character; NPC or not. Maybe it's just the newbie in me. I appreciate Ed being willing to let us know his views on the matter. As I gain more experience as a gamer, I look forward to running campaigns of my own. This kind of info is really helpful.

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Mystra (Midnight's predecessor as the goddess) is said to have allowed Larloch to acquire powers approaching those of "old Netheril" in return for 'leaking' spells to persistent adventurers he or his minions might come into contact with, but this may be no more than rumour spread by the Zhents or Red Wizards or Dragon Cultists, designed to lure adventurers into Larloch-weakening forays...

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Originally posted by Slime Lord

Larloch is kind of against Mystra and Azunth isn't he? I mean, he litteraly hoards magic and keeps it all for him self, which goes against Mystra.

I've always thought there has had to of been some sort of agree ment between Mystra and/or Azunth with Larloch, the powers that he has must be kept under check, so he has to be in some sort of forced-agreement to allow him to continue to create spells, hoard magic, etc. while not killing Faerun...

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