| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Trace_Coburn |
Posted - 26 Jun 2006 : 15:19:40
Being that my FR novel collection is so desperately thin, I'd like a little help from those more fortunate. Could anyone give me a rough idea of when in 1372DR
- Maerimydra was first attacked by its invaders, and when it actually fell to them?
- The siege of Evereska started and was (finally) resolved?
Dates accurate to the first/last half of the month should be fine - I don't want to put anyone too far out of their way. This is more in the way of clarifying a detail for a certain project. [waves to Alaundo and Wooly Rupert!] |
| 17 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Gelcur |
Posted - 07 Jul 2006 : 23:19:25
I have to agree i would be nice to have events documented to the exact date but I can see how that is unrealistic. I would be happy to have just the season or month things happen in I can put the rest together on my own for the most part.
I think a lot of people run in the past this way they can run their players through major events and they are never out of canon material to use. |
| The Sage |
Posted - 07 Jul 2006 : 10:52:44
quote:
Originally posted by Arkhaedun
Year of the Flatulent Sage, eh?
Are we sure that one was translated properly? 
I'm not so sure I do either. You don't want to know about some of the things I ate during my holiday...
|
| The Sage |
Posted - 07 Jul 2006 : 10:52:03
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by tauster
conclusion: I think that exact dates (I don't need it down to the second, but sometimes I'd like to have the time of day) with date, month and year should be included in every event of importance. It shouldn't be that hard for wizards to do it- after all they surely have something like a "master-timeline" of the realms somewhere in their office.
[beggin in WotC's direction]
Please give us all dates up to the last publication and a "timeline-web enhancement" for every new novel/adventure/sourcebook! 
In their defense... The "modern" events, the stuff that's happened since the Realms was first published by TSR, does have exact dates. You may have to scour relevant sourcebooks for it, but pretty much everything that's happened since then has happened on a specific date.
As for "pre-modern" stuff... While having exact dates would be nice, it's of very little utility. And Ed may have exact dates for some of those items, but I would expect that a lot of it was "hey, we should have this happen in this particular year!" And 99% of the time, that's all you need. Unless your campaign is set in the past, there's no need to know that it was the 5th of Marpenoth in the Year of the Flatulent Sage that an orc horde was inadvertently destroyed by a dragon with indigestion. You might need to know that that happened 200 years ago, but I don't think you'd need to know that it was 203 years, 4 months, 1 tenday, 6 days, 4 hours, 38 minutes, and 12 seconds ago (give or take a month).
And keep in mind that time-keeping isn't terribly exact for most of the Realms. As Ed has stated, most people would use references like "it was about a tenday after Greengrass" instead of "it was the 9th of Mirtul".
And here's a little from Ed on time keeping in the Realms -
"Time in the Realms is NEVER measured in “hours” or “minutes.” Short-term waits can be measured in “breaths” but in cities, temples, and monasteries, the equivalent of hours are so many “bells” (yes, a bell is rung) or “candles” (which do visibly burn down) from or to a measurable event, such as dawn/daybreak, dusk/nightfall, or noon (in the Realms, noon is “highsun”). Example: The tumult began three bells before nightfall.
“Midnight” is permissible usage, and “deepnight” is its ‘more Realmsian’ synonym.
When timing is important, Realms writers should work a reference to how many bells are struck in a day (“It was the task of Brother Blackhands to strike half of the twelve bells between dusk and dawn, with Sister Elphrana tolling the bells between—and another pair of the Devout handled the twelve bells of the bright hours.”) into the narrative to make it clear that a “bell” IS “an hour.”
In Tashluta and the Tashalar, Tharsult, and in some ports nearby, a “bell” (an hour) is called a “darmeth,” with the plural (hours) being “darmar.” As in: “It’ll be at least three darmar before he gets back.” or: “But that could take DARMAR, hrast it!” This usage seems to be spreading south.
In like manner, days in the realms are never referred to as “Monday,” “Tuesday,” or any real-world ‘weekday’ name. Most folk in the Realms refer to a particular day as thus far from “the first of Mirtul” or “the last of Eleint” or one of the annual festival days, or if they must be precise, will say something like “the first day of the first tenday of Ches.” If they were writing this date or speaking of it formally, it would become “1st Ches.”
Where we would say “a moment or two,” most humans in the Realms say “a breath or two”—and what we would call a minute is “a goodly breath or three.”
Dwarves tend to call the same span of time (actually, anything up to about three minutes) “but a little while,” whereas a halfling would call the same span of time “a long song.” To a halfling, a minute is “a tune,” and 10 minutes is “three long songs.” Most halflings tend to speak of longer time periods, within a day, in terms of how much the sun has progressed."
And a little more -
"And I may just take you up on that offer of running calculations! I must admit that in running the Realms, I’ve just used the “mental map” comparison of the continental United States silhouette Jeff Grubb put into the Old Gray Box versus the Sword Coast Heartlands, and applied the (politically distorted) time zone differential, because I “know without thinking” how many hours “behind” TSR in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and WotC in Renton, Washington, were from me in Ontario, Canada, and most of the portal jumps or teleports in the ‘home’ Realms have either been relatively short (from point to point within the Dales or within Cormyr, for instance), or between Cormyr or the Dales and Waterdeep or its immediate environs (often atop Maiden’s Tomb Tor)."
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| sleyvas |
Posted - 06 Jul 2006 : 22:30:00
Also keep this in mind. Having every day explicitly detailed leaves open holes for people to find flaws. The following is just a quick example that comes to mind, but you can extrapolate some more believable stuff. For instance novel X happens during which on the 5th of Mirtul the goddess Shar has some epic encounter because of some heroes, as a result all darkness spells on Faerun fail for a day. Then in novel Y on the 5th of Mirtul a drow casts darkness to get away from the enemy.
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
| Arkhaedun |
Posted - 29 Jun 2006 : 18:42:46
Year of the Flatulent Sage, eh?
Are we sure that one was translated properly? |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 29 Jun 2006 : 17:35:51
quote:
Originally posted by tauster
conclusion: I think that exact dates (I don't need it down to the second, but sometimes I'd like to have the time of day) with date, month and year should be included in every event of importance. It shouldn't be that hard for wizards to do it- after all they surely have something like a "master-timeline" of the realms somewhere in their office.
[beggin in WotC's direction]
Please give us all dates up to the last publication and a "timeline-web enhancement" for every new novel/adventure/sourcebook!
In their defense... The "modern" events, the stuff that's happened since the Realms was first published by TSR, does have exact dates. You may have to scour relevant sourcebooks for it, but pretty much everything that's happened since then has happened on a specific date.
As for "pre-modern" stuff... While having exact dates would be nice, it's of very little utility. And Ed may have exact dates for some of those items, but I would expect that a lot of it was "hey, we should have this happen in this particular year!" And 99% of the time, that's all you need. Unless your campaign is set in the past, there's no need to know that it was the 5th of Marpenoth in the Year of the Flatulent Sage that an orc horde was inadvertently destroyed by a dragon with indigestion. You might need to know that that happened 200 years ago, but I don't think you'd need to know that it was 203 years, 4 months, 1 tenday, 6 days, 4 hours, 38 minutes, and 12 seconds ago (give or take a month).
And keep in mind that time-keeping isn't terribly exact for most of the Realms. As Ed has stated, most people would use references like "it was about a tenday after Greengrass" instead of "it was the 9th of Mirtul". |
| Kuje |
Posted - 29 Jun 2006 : 17:13:48
Tauster,
Oh, no doubt and I agree with you, which is what I was trying to say but that hasn't always been the case and a lot of the events don't have month/day/year details like that. :) |
| Trace_Coburn |
Posted - 29 Jun 2006 : 15:10:00
quote:
Originally posted by TobyKikami
Seeing as the Player's Guide and City of the Spider Queen aren't currently listed in your signature... You don't mind possible spoilers, do you? If so, skip the rest of this post. Keep in mind I haven't read Return of the Archwizards yet, so I'm just going off the sourcebook in that case.
But from the sourcebook... the siege of Evereska appears to have started in late Nightal of 1371. On the 21st of Eleasias in the following year, "the phaerimms are driven out of the city," presumably ending the siege. But again, I've not read the corresponding series so I could be off there.
Lolth fell silent on the 28th of Eleasias, 1372. Maerimydra came under attack some twenty-five days later, as extrapolated through the adventure timeline, though arrangements for this were going on for some time between the Silence starting and the attack. They don't give a specific date for a "fall" on the timeline, but it's implied it happened pretty quickly. At the time of the adventure, sixty days after the start of the Silence, there's conflict between the army from outside and the followers of Kiaransalee who took up residence in Castle Maerimydra.
Hope this is of some help.
'Some' help? 
Dude, where do you want me to raise the statue in your honour!?  That is precisely what I was hoping for! Thank you, thank you, and for a third time thank you!
(BTW, I appreciate the concern and warning about spoilers  , but I'd already been afflicted with general-level details like those by the Grand History and in a number of RL references elsewhere, including the Wizards web-site.  I might have pitched a fit if you'd gone into detailed chapter-by-chapter recountings of the novels, but what you actually gave? No big deal.  )
@ tauster:
Lemme hear an AMEN!
|
| tauster |
Posted - 29 Jun 2006 : 11:46:40
quote:
Originally posted by Kuje
Well,
A lot of the in game events don't have more then just the year listed. People in FR, usually, don't keep track of: this event happened on this day of this month of this year. They just keep track, unless they are sages or scribes or others, of the year. And of course, not everyone uses the Dale Reconing roll of years either.
Imo, it's not that the PC's have to know an exact date; it's the DM who should know it. Example: when I am planning a campaign centered around the RotA (I hated the novels, btw) or War of the Spider Queen, I absolutely feel that I should have the exact dates of all key events available- just like the ones the timeline on page 170 of the Players Guide gives me. After all, I have to present those events to my players.
This applies to all "canon dates": they are not important for players, but the DM HAS to know them- else nobody would be able to play in a Faerun that resembles canon anymore. It's like the world itself (which is, after all, portrayed by the DM) doen't know when things happen...
conclusion: I think that exact dates (I don't need it down to the second, but sometimes I'd like to have the time of day) with date, month and year should be included in every event of importance. It shouldn't be that hard for wizards to do it- after all they surely have something like a "master-timeline" of the realms somewhere in their office.
[beggin in WotC's direction]
Please give us all dates up to the last publication and a "timeline-web enhancement" for every new novel/adventure/sourcebook! |
| TobyKikami |
Posted - 29 Jun 2006 : 05:14:38
Seeing as the Player's Guide and City of the Spider Queen aren't currently listed in your signature... You don't mind possible spoilers, do you? If so, skip the rest of this post. Keep in mind I haven't read Return of the Archwizards yet, so I'm just going off the sourcebook in that case.
But from the sourcebook... the siege of Evereska appears to have started in late Nightal of 1371. On the 21st of Eleasias in the following year, "the phaerimms are driven out of the city," presumably ending the siege. But again, I've not read the corresponding series so I could be off there.
Lolth fell silent on the 28th of Eleasias, 1372. Maerimydra came under attack some twenty-five days later, as extrapolated through the adventure timeline, though arrangements for this were going on for some time between the Silence starting and the attack. They don't give a specific date for a "fall" on the timeline, but it's implied it happened pretty quickly. At the time of the adventure, sixty days after the start of the Silence, there's conflict between the army from outside and the followers of Kiaransalee who took up residence in Castle Maerimydra.
Hope this is of some help.
|
| Kuje |
Posted - 28 Jun 2006 : 18:06:15
If they were self-evident and understandable, then I wouldn't have said what I said. :) How can we be anal about such things, as fans, when the info doesn't exist in printed material? |
| Trace_Coburn |
Posted - 28 Jun 2006 : 12:14:06
quote:
Originally posted by Kuje
Well,
A lot of the in game events don't have more then just the year listed. People in FR, usually, don't keep track of: this event happened on this day of this month of this year. They just keep track, unless they are sages or scribes or others, of the year. And of course, not everyone uses the Dale Reckoning roll of years either.
I gathered as much, Kuje.  Please look above once more:
quote:
Originally posted by Trace_Coburn
the Grand History is great at telling us what happened in each year, but with only a handful of exceptions, it provides no exact dates of when for those events occurred within the year (for various reasons, most of them self-evident and understandable).
I guess I was hoping that someone amongst us out-of-character types might be a bit more... well, anal about such things. Never thought I'd be disappointed to find folks weren't as uptight as I thought....
|
| Kuje |
Posted - 27 Jun 2006 : 16:15:03
Well,
A lot of the in game events don't have more then just the year listed. People in FR, usually, don't keep track of: this event happened on this day of this month of this year. They just keep track, unless they are sages or scribes or others, of the year. And of course, not everyone uses the Dale Reconing roll of years either. |
| Trace_Coburn |
Posted - 27 Jun 2006 : 14:51:02
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Have you checked A Grand History of the Realms?
'Twas frustration with that very document which prompted the query, WR - the Grand History is great at telling us what happened in each year, but with only a handful of exceptions, it provides no exact dates of when for those events occurred within the year (for various reasons, most of them self-evident and understandable). 
However, after locating an on-line excerpt from The Sorcerer, I think I can place things a little better now - sadly, I find my own reference pushed back a little further than I'd like, but oh, well....  |
| Wandering_mage |
Posted - 27 Jun 2006 : 00:15:27
I would definitely pursue both suggestions. I just printed off A Grand History of the Realms and read through it too. I also just read through the Player's Guide to Faerun and the very back chapters had some good info on the Invasion of Evereska/re-emergence of the Shadovar. |
| Kuje |
Posted - 26 Jun 2006 : 21:36:06
The Player's Guide could help also. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 26 Jun 2006 : 18:15:07
Have you checked A Grand History of the Realms? |
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