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Originally posted by Ed Greenwood, via THO
Hi again, fellow scribes. Ed makes reply this time to Jamallo Kreen’s query: “Aside from bards and courtiers, are there courtesans in the Realms who are not prostitutes, but who simply serve as professional entertainers, companions, and/or escorts? If so, who have been the famous ones in Realms history, the ones about whom poems have been written and songs sung? From our European history, although they undoubtedly prostituted themselves, Aspasia and Phryne spring to mind from Greece, and also Veronica Franco, The Honest Courtesan of Venice. Who would be their Realms counterparts?”
Ed speaks:


Yes, there are (and have been) many courtesans, on various official payrolls around the Realms (notably in Calimshan, Tethyr, Amn, Waterdeep [see my posts on Shyrrhr, earlier in this thread], Silverymoon, Iriaebor, Cormyr, and Alaghôn, just to name a few places off the top of my head), who are professional entertainers, companions, escorts, and/or hostesses to visitors “to court.” (And not prostitutes, at least until age robs them of their looks and effectiveness, and they lose their positions.) Most lordlings of small independent cities employ and highly value such persons, who may also serve as the commanders of their spies (and even their lovers). A handful are such skillful manipulators that the rulers serve them more than they serve the rulers.
The most effective of these courtesans keep low profiles, of course, becoming famous only as word of them spreads, and therefore the famous ones are all dead. They include the Veiled Dancer of Calimport (name forgotten, but immortalized in the anonymously-composed ballad of the same name, each verse of which ends with the improbable appearance of the dancer, silently dancing: across a battlefield, in a moonlit glade where lovers are trysting, on thin air outside a castle turret window hundreds of feet in the air, out from behind a throne where a king has just been slain, out of the door of a long-sealed crypt when it’s opened to put that dead king to rest, and so on), who flourished over four centuries ago; Tharlaskra of the Bells, who dwelt in Athkatla and chimed gently as she moved, due to the many tiny bells affixed via piercings to her skin (the focus of the ballad “She Rings Her Bells For Me” by the now-dead bard Muraevus “Merrysong” Ruroerlar); Dayatharra of Luskan, who was loved by many seacaptains of old, and is remembered in several ballads, including the famous “Sailing Back Home to Love” by the bard Breldur Arskitarr of Neverwinter; and Joysarra of Zazesspur, who is the “Lady of the Haunting Eyes” in the ballad of that name by the minstrel Ronsil Haeladtongue of Zazesspur.

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Originally posted by Ed Greenwood, via THO
Skeptic, the Lady Naneatha Lhaurilstar is one of four well-established courtesans of Waterdeep - - by which I mean the four senior (out of a dozen or so) professional hostesses paid by the Palace to give house room and companionship to visiting VIPS (trade envoys, wealthy investors, important merchants and sometimes priests, rulers and courtiers). All of these senior courtesans (Larissa Neathal is another; she’s detailed on page 70 of the Campaign Guide booklet in the CITY OF SPLENDORS boxed set) are styled “Lady of Waterdeep” and accorded personal arms (heraldic blazons) and status as if they were heads of noble Houses of Waterdeep. Their role often (but needn’t) involves sexually pleasing their guests; they function more as guides to the city, networking facilitators (escorting their guests to the right feasts, revels, and private dinners and meetings; and performing introductions), friendly companions, and sources of food, lodgings, coaches, laundry facilities, servants’ lodgings for their guests.
The intent is to foster friendships, so their guests will “think well” of Waterdeep, and confide in the courtesans, too (all of them of course being spies for the Palace, mind-protected by the Blackstaff’s spells - - and monitored from afar by duty apprentices of Blackstaff Tower, when ‘working’ - - to prevent their being subverted by hostile magic or mental powers of guests).

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Originally posted by redking
Memory is a big foggy, but he didn't have any issues with dating a hooker?

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Lucia was a distant cousin of the Tethyrian royal family

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Lucia for her part had never loved Inselm, and the only reason for their marriage was her chance to become a duchess of Tethyr and regain her lost status within the Knights' ranks.

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