| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 31 Dec 2023 : 12:09:53
I figured it was time for a reintroduction. While I was at Wizards, I couldn't say much about what I was doing (FR or otherwise), but as of this month, I'm a free agent. I still can't speak about details of anything that hasn't been released yet, but I can do my best to answer lore questions about anything I've worked on that is already out. I also can't speak to the inner workings of Wizards, though I can confirm anything that's been said publicly. Standard disclaimer: I don't speak for Wizards of the Coast, everything I say in my opinion or belief, and nothing I say is canon.
Feel free to ask me about anything I've worked on, D&D or otherwise. Here is a non-exhaustive list of Forgotten Realms books, articles, and web features I've written or edited. Some of the works are not exclusively FR, but they all contain FR content. Caveat: I'm making no claim as to what is or isn't canon.
WRITER
D&D 3.5
-Dragons of Faerun, Web Enhancement, and 2 previews *
-Class Chronicles: 21 article web series *
D&D 4E
-Arcane Power
-Martial Power 2
-Open Grave
-Exemplars of Evil
-Online, Epic Insights: "Epic Binders"
-Dragon #380, Wizard Essentials: "Secrets of the Spiral Tower"
-Dragon #381, Channel Divinity: "Champions of Torm" (with Erik Scott de Bie) *
-Dragon #386, Bazaar of the Bizarre: "The Items of the Drizzt Saga" *
-Dragon #428 Bazaar of the Bizarre: "Treasures of the Far Realm"
-Dungeon #171: Eye of Justice (with Erik Scott de Bie) *
D&D 5E
-Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk *
EDITOR
D&D 5E
-Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants
-Keys from the Golden Vault $
-Prisoner 13 *$
-Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk *$
-Vecna: Eve of Ruin $
* after a title indicates a dedicated FR work.
$ lead editor |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 13 Jun 2024 : 18:01:42
quote:
Originally posted by Italian Archmage Karsus
They seem to agree that sand and brown are two different sorts of dragons, for what it's worth, so I'm not insane. Now whether I'm right, that's a different matter! Best keep looking...
EDIT: Best I keep looking, I mean, not that you keep looking. See ya, and thanks!
Just noting, this discussion made me look more closely at the sand dragon in Sandstorm and the brown dragon in old empires, 3e Monsters of Faerun, and FR adventure in Dungeon #40 Khamsa's folly. I'll note that thematically the two look immensely different.
The brown dragon is noted as having no wings and not able to fly. Its picture is pretty sleek looking, almost like it would "swim" through the sand. They're incredibly silent and spit acid. I take the 2e picture to be more canon, even though the 3e picture is "newer"... and that's entirely because the 3e picture shows stubby wings and BOTH editions descriptions say "no wings". In many ways this brown dragon reminds me more of a lung dragon in appearance, with how its spines down its back look, etc..
The sand dragon has "wings" along the length of their body, but their function is more for "shovelling" bits of sand on top of their bodies like a manta ray on the sea floor. In some ways they'd resemble stubby gold dragon wings, except that they go all the way up their necks to just below the head. They can fly, unlike the brown dragon, and their faces look like a mass of horns. Their breath weapon is "grit", so even that is different. Where the brown dragon reminds me of a lung dragon, these remind me of a gem dragon except for lack of psionics (which might be a good change in newer editions).
This makes me think that over in Anchorome I'd like to introduce the sand dragons as well. The place is full of deserts, so having blue, brown, and sand all competing makes for an interesting thing in my book. In this I'd probably stay away from having any metallics (i.e. Brass) that are normally found in deserts. In doing this, it opens options to treat these creatures kind of different... brown dragons may be viewed like duplicitous snakes (they are NE), whereas sand dragons may be more anti-social loners that consider humanoids like we view bugs with some ties to nature (they are CN), and blue dragons take a different evil role since they are more sky bound.
With this idea in mind, I could see the sand dragons maybe as "in tune" with the "great spirit of the desert" known as Ma'We "the Salt Woman" (source City of gold... all we know of here is that she's Ma'We "Salt Woman"). Maybe even we can lay creation of these dragons IN TORIL on this spirit, possibly as a corruption of some other kind of dragon. It could be fun to develop a story around this.
|
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 13 Jun 2024 : 05:05:57
quote:
Originally posted by Italian Archmage Karsus
It's just I'm a volunteer at the wiki, and it leads me to some oddly pedantic rabbit holes sometimes.
I don't think it's pedantic. If folks don't research, clarify, and record these things, they'll be lost. This setting means a lot to a lot of people, so the details matter. |
| Italian Archmage Karsus |
Posted - 10 Jun 2024 : 13:19:23
It's just I'm a volunteer at the wiki, and it leads me to some oddly pedantic rabbit holes sometimes. |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 10 Jun 2024 : 10:18:50
quote:
Originally posted by Italian Archmage Karsus
They seem to agree that sand and brown are two different sorts of dragons, for what it's worth, so I'm not insane. Now whether I'm right, that's a different matter! Best keep looking...
EDIT: Best I keep looking, I mean, not that you keep looking. See ya, and thanks!
Are you working on something with brown dragons in it? Or just personal interest? |
| Italian Archmage Karsus |
Posted - 28 May 2024 : 20:50:06
They seem to agree that sand and brown are two different sorts of dragons, for what it's worth, so I'm not insane. Now whether I'm right, that's a different matter! Best keep looking...
EDIT: Best I keep looking, I mean, not that you keep looking. See ya, and thanks! |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 22 May 2024 : 13:59:28
Here's some info that probably only makes this more complicated: https://www.enworld.org/threads/all-the-different-dragon-species-of-the-same-name.349656/ |
| Italian Archmage Karsus |
Posted - 21 May 2024 : 19:18:13
I see, thanks! However, all those other examples you mention, save for the one you wrote in Class Chronicles, are the Sandstorm sand dragon (later brown), while the one you did was a brown dragon (or sand).
Their names are too close, I was wondering if they were meant to be the same critter, being replaced, or if they were just named carelessly. I'll keep searching - thanks for the tip on Class Chronicles, I can't believe I missed it! |
| sleyvas |
Posted - 21 May 2024 : 15:19:34
quote:
Originally posted by Eytan C Bernstein
quote:
Originally posted by Italian Archmage Karsus
This one is a question: in Dragons of Faerun, there is a Brown Dragon (MoF) known as Slavin'kraht'Magaal; she appears to be the last dragon of its kind to be used in any product. I'm trying to check if brown dragons and the sand dragons introduced in Sandstorm were intended to be one and the same. The Sandstorm dragon was introduced in 2005, a year prior, and became the core dragon in 4e, taking on the name of "brown dragon".
Would you happen to recall if there was any particular reason for the abandonment of the previous brown dragon, and the usage of the sand dragon as the brown dragon since, whether lore or editorial?
Ah yes, Slavin'krath'magaal. Definitely on my list of top ten names I've created for D&D. She was created for Dragons of Faerun, not Monsters of Faerun, the latter of which was for 3e, though brown dragons are in Monsters of Faerun as well.
Brown dragons did appear in other places:
- In the "Class Chronicles: Warmages and Favored Souls (2007)," Slavin'krath'magaal is mentioned as having a daughter, Braeden, who is a half-brown dragon and the favored soul of Tiamat. There's quite a bit more detail in that article.
- In Dungeon 160 (4e, 2008), brown dragons appear in an adventure written by Ari Marmell called "The Sand King's Daughter" (sometimes Tomb of the Sand King's Daughter), specifically one called Urum-Shar.
- In the Draconomicon for 4e (2008), brown dragons are covered, though I don't have that book, so I'm not sure what's in it.
- In "Wandering Stones," (2008) a story by Bruce Cordell in the Realms of the Dead FR anthology, there is a brown dragon named Thovantareth.
- Ed wrote a tweet (2019) that said, " ... The Scalyfang Marauder that terrorized Saelmur and Ankhapur in the mid-1300s DR, raiding out of the Thornwood, was almost certainly the lone, ‘mule’ (sterile) offspring of a brown dragon mating with a green dragon.
As for any decisions regarding brown dragons or sand dragons, I'm afraid I don't have any information on that. I was a freelancer for Wizards between 2005-2013, so I was never involved in those sorts of lore decisions.
Just to note, old empires was where they were introduced originally I think.
Non-canonically, I introduced brown dragons into the deserts of Maztica/Anchorome with my DM's Guild product "The Influence of the Amber Dragons of Anchorome on the North". In that product I used amber dragons, a few brown dragons, green dragons, and a moonstone dragon. That being said, I did NOT create monster stats for browns as they weren't the focus of the product.
[url]https://www.dmsguild.com/product/384365/The-Influence-of-the-Amber-Dragons-of-Anchorome-on-the-North[/ur;] |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 21 May 2024 : 06:42:17
quote:
Originally posted by Italian Archmage Karsus
This one is a question: in Dragons of Faerun, there is a Brown Dragon (MoF) known as Slavin'kraht'Magaal; she appears to be the last dragon of its kind to be used in any product. I'm trying to check if brown dragons and the sand dragons introduced in Sandstorm were intended to be one and the same. The Sandstorm dragon was introduced in 2005, a year prior, and became the core dragon in 4e, taking on the name of "brown dragon".
Would you happen to recall if there was any particular reason for the abandonment of the previous brown dragon, and the usage of the sand dragon as the brown dragon since, whether lore or editorial?
Ah yes, Slavin'krath'magaal. Definitely on my list of top ten names I've created for D&D. She was created for Dragons of Faerun, not Monsters of Faerun, the latter of which was for 3e, though brown dragons are in Monsters of Faerun as well.
Brown dragons did appear in other places:
- In the "Class Chronicles: Warmages and Favored Souls (2007)," Slavin'krath'magaal is mentioned as having a daughter, Braeden, who is a half-brown dragon and the favored soul of Tiamat. There's quite a bit more detail in that article.
- In Dungeon 160 (4e, 2008), brown dragons appear in an adventure written by Ari Marmell called "The Sand King's Daughter" (sometimes Tomb of the Sand King's Daughter), specifically one called Urum-Shar.
- In the Draconomicon for 4e (2008), brown dragons are covered, though I don't have that book, so I'm not sure what's in it.
- In "Wandering Stones," (2008) a story by Bruce Cordell in the Realms of the Dead FR anthology, there is a brown dragon named Thovantareth.
- Ed wrote a tweet (2019) that said, " ... The Scalyfang Marauder that terrorized Saelmur and Ankhapur in the mid-1300s DR, raiding out of the Thornwood, was almost certainly the lone, ‘mule’ (sterile) offspring of a brown dragon mating with a green dragon.
As for any decisions regarding brown dragons or sand dragons, I'm afraid I don't have any information on that. I was a freelancer for Wizards between 2005-2013, so I was never involved in those sorts of lore decisions. |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 21 May 2024 : 06:03:53
quote:
Originally posted by Italian Archmage Karsus
Mr. Bernstein, this is more of a comment than a question, but I wanted you to know that one of your Realms characters, Maerwûn Venedel, appears to have taken the Obscure Personal Truename feat sometime between June 20 2008 and December 21 2008.
https://web.archive.org/web/20081221151035/http://www.wizards.com:80/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070801
The archived versions of the Class Chronicles article for Truenamers, after July 2008, have the circumflex accents replaced by illegible "û" codes; the print versions, curiously, replace the circumflex accent (far as I can tell, for this entry alone) with the hungarumlaut, rendering her as Maerw#369;n. The PDF still renders correctly, hilariously enough, but they are zipped, requiring an extra step to read.
Thought you might get a kick out of it! XD
EDIT: Posting this after lovingly copypasting the characters has caused them to display incorrectly. While I was editing to note this, I see them replaced by a combination of chinese characters and strange octothorpe-headed strings. The font has also become bizarrely stretched-out and monospaced. So I'm assuming she took Personal Truename Backlash too, heh.
Hi there. That's really funny. I can't recall what was happening around the time that article was written. Something might have been scrambled when the manuscript was imported into whatever program they used to manage the Wizards website at the time. |
| Italian Archmage Karsus |
Posted - 19 May 2024 : 15:26:24
This one is a question: in Dragons of Faerun, there is a Brown Dragon (MoF) known as Slavin'kraht'Magaal; she appears to be the last dragon of its kind to be used in any product. I'm trying to check if brown dragons and the sand dragons introduced in Sandstorm were intended to be one and the same. The Sandstorm dragon was introduced in 2005, a year prior, and became the core dragon in 4e, taking on the name of "brown dragon".
Would you happen to recall if there was any particular reason for the abandonment of the previous brown dragon, and the usage of the sand dragon as the brown dragon since, whether lore or editorial? |
| Italian Archmage Karsus |
Posted - 14 May 2024 : 04:08:56
Mr. Bernstein, this is more of a comment than a question, but I wanted you to know that one of your Realms characters, Maerwûn Venedel, appears to have taken the Obscure Personal Truename feat sometime between June 20 2008 and December 21 2008.
https://web.archive.org/web/20081221151035/http://www.wizards.com:80/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070801
The archived versions of the Class Chronicles article for Truenamers, after July 2008, have the circumflex accents replaced by illegible "û" codes; the print versions, curiously, replace the circumflex accent (far as I can tell, for this entry alone) with the hungarumlaut, rendering her as Maerw#369;n. The PDF still renders correctly, hilariously enough, but they are zipped, requiring an extra step to read.
Thought you might get a kick out of it! XD
EDIT: Posting this after lovingly copypasting the characters has caused them to display incorrectly. While I was editing to note this, I see them replaced by a combination of chinese characters and strange octothorpe-headed strings. The font has also become bizarrely stretched-out and monospaced. So I'm assuming she took Personal Truename Backlash too, heh. |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 25 Jan 2024 : 17:43:05
quote:
Originally posted by Alaundo
Well met
I think it was more if you wanted to reinstate your old account (and post count) rather than the thread. Happy to assist here if required.
Yeah. That would be great, thanks! |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 25 Jan 2024 : 17:37:58
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Eytan C Bernstein
quote:
Originally posted by Alaundo
Well met
Welcome back, Eytan. Your existing account is EytanBernstein. If the "forgot password" link isn't working for you, let me know and i'll get this reset by other means if you wish to use your old account (currently at a 704 post count).
It's probably fine to continue with this thread. Could we just rename it It could be "Eytan Bernstein, part 2."
Done. I believe you should be able to rename your own threads without assistance.
Great. Thank you! |
| Alaundo |
Posted - 19 Jan 2024 : 09:25:02
Well met
I think it was more if you wanted to reinstate your old account (and post count) rather than the thread. Happy to assist here if required. |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 19 Jan 2024 : 01:41:31
quote:
Originally posted by Eytan C Bernstein
quote:
Originally posted by Alaundo
Well met
Welcome back, Eytan. Your existing account is EytanBernstein. If the "forgot password" link isn't working for you, let me know and i'll get this reset by other means if you wish to use your old account (currently at a 704 post count).
It's probably fine to continue with this thread. Could we just rename it It could be "Eytan Bernstein, part 2."
Done. I believe you should be able to rename your own threads without assistance. |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 14 Jan 2024 : 13:16:15
quote:
Originally posted by Alaundo
Well met
Welcome back, Eytan. Your existing account is EytanBernstein. If the "forgot password" link isn't working for you, let me know and i'll get this reset by other means if you wish to use your old account (currently at a 704 post count).
It's probably fine to continue with this thread. Could we just rename it It could be "Eytan Bernstein, part 2." |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 14 Jan 2024 : 13:08:26
quote:
Originally posted by Italian Archmage Karsus
Simply out of curiosity, were you planning on anything more for Zceryll, the vestige and alienist creator of the Bone Scepter of Zceryll? What about her Black Blood Kaleidoscope, and the Rod of Taupanga?
I would love to do that. Unfortunately, I don't own the rights to that content. Anything I (and any other freelancer or employee) has written for WotC belongs to them. If I ever do freelance design work for them, who knows? |
| Alaundo |
Posted - 08 Jan 2024 : 10:44:38
Well met
Welcome back, Eytan. Your existing account is EytanBernstein. If the "forgot password" link isn't working for you, let me know and i'll get this reset by other means if you wish to use your old account (currently at a 704 post count). |
| Wooly Rupert |
Posted - 08 Jan 2024 : 02:44:11
quote:
Originally posted by Eytan C Bernstein
quote:
Originally posted by Kentinal
quote:
Originally posted by ElfBane
If Eytan was here before, why is he at 1 post?
Odds are forgot login for this site?
Yep. Couldn't get it to work. How do I get in touch with the admins?
I'll ping Big Al on your behalf. |
| Italian Archmage Karsus |
Posted - 06 Jan 2024 : 16:11:29
Simply out of curiosity, were you planning on anything more for Zceryll, the vestige and alienist creator of the Bone Scepter of Zceryll? What about her Black Blood Kaleidoscope, and the Rod of Taupanga? |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 06 Jan 2024 : 11:03:49
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
Glory of the Giants question
Curious... were you involved in the giant divine lore for this? I read through it with a "don't overly research it... just enjoy it" view and liked the spins that I saw, especially the use of Diancastra along with the story of Bigby being reincarnated into a gnome body.
I was was an editor on this, but I wasn’t the lead. My only contribution to the giabt lore was suggesting that we integrate the three giant goddesses more fully into giant society. The team recognized that in previous giant lore, the goddesses had been somewhat relegated to the sidelines. We couldn't re-engineer the ordning, so the design folks added lines here and there to bolster their influence and importance. I think it was an elegant solution.
The Diancastra and Bigby content was all the design folks' efforts. The choice of Diancastra was another way to create more gender parity. |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 06 Jan 2024 : 10:45:16
quote:
Originally posted by TomCosta
Welcome Eytan!
Thank you!@ |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 06 Jan 2024 : 00:55:22
quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
Yes, welcome Eytan. Good to have you walking these halls once again.
-- George Krashos
Thanks! It's good to be back! And thank you everyone for the welcome. |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 06 Jan 2024 : 00:50:54
quote:
Originally posted by Kentinal
quote:
Originally posted by ElfBane
If Eytan was here before, why is he at 1 post?
Odds are forgot login for this site?
Yep. Couldn't get it to work. How do I get in touch with the admins? |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 06 Jan 2024 : 00:45:59
quote:
Originally posted by Brimstone
Welcome back to these Hallowed Halls of Realmslore! That Acolyte Title needs to be changed!
Yes. I thought I had replied to my own thread rather than creating a new one. If someone could give me a hand with recovering my old account, that would be great. I'm not sure if there's a way to merge this thread with that one. Or maybe we could just rename this one "Eytan Bernstein [II]"? |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 06 Jan 2024 : 00:43:59
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Welcome back, Eytan!
Without launching a round of complaining about WotC, allow me to say I sympathize with you and your unexpected return to free agent status. The same thing happened to me, this year, and it drew much vacuum.
Thanks. I'm sorry you went through that. Don't hold back on anything or anyone on my account, though I can't participate for obvious reasons. |
| ElfBane |
Posted - 05 Jan 2024 : 22:55:08
quote:
Originally posted by Eytan C Bernstein
quote:
Originally posted by Kentinal
quote:
Originally posted by ElfBane
If Eytan was here before, why is he at 1 post?
Odds are forgot login for this site?
I did indeed. If someone who can do so could help me regain access to it, I'll post through that account from now on.
You would have to ask the Admins. I suspect that you will have to prove you are the same as the orinial Eytan. I don't know how rigorous this process may be. |
| Eytan C Bernstein |
Posted - 05 Jan 2024 : 19:06:03
quote:
Originally posted by Kentinal
quote:
Originally posted by ElfBane
If Eytan was here before, why is he at 1 post?
Odds are forgot login for this site?
I did indeed. If someone who can do so could help me regain access to it, I'll post through that account from now on. |
| TomCosta |
Posted - 03 Jan 2024 : 19:12:14
Welcome Eytan! |
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