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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1626 Posts |
 Posted - 19 May 2025 : 12:55:26
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On Malakuth Tabuirr's Vhaeraunite temple
Elliott! — 10/5/2025 7:09 AM
@Ed Greenwood Hi Ed! I hope you’re doing well #128578;
We have some info on where Eilistraeeans are grouping up on the surface; where might one find vhaeraunite outposts, communities? Or temples? One of vhaeraun’s expectations of his followers is to contribute to permanent drow settlements on the surface (mentioned in faiths and pantheons and I believe other places as well) so they gotta be out there, right?
Malakuth Tabuirr is mentioned to have funded one such vhaeraunite temple; is it in skullport, or somewhere else?
Thank you in advance for any guidance! You rock.
Ed Greenwood — 15/5/2025 3:26 AM
Thus far, Vhaeraunite temples in the World Above (the surface Realms) are secret, either “upper rooms” in the large houses of sponsors, in big cities, or in cellars. There are temples in Westgate, Waterdeep, Athkatla, Zazesspur, Selgaunt, Baldur’s Gate, Suldolphor, Ankhapur, and Tashluta, that I know of, and more shrines that may become temples if local support grows. Skullport has one of these very secret small shrines, nothing more yet; Malakuth Tabuirr’s temple is the one under the easternmost Bridge District in Athkatla. |
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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1626 Posts |
Posted - 19 May 2025 : 12:58:42
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On surveyors in the Realms
Reedhalloran Duskfellow — 15/5/2025 3:50 AM
Hi @Ed Greenwood, I have a Realms city planning question for you. I notice that most of the cities that we have maps for in the realms lack a grid planning system. But there are a few notable exceptions like Waterdeep that have a mix of long straight boulevards with windy side streets and alleys.
Are there surveyors in the realms? Do they use anything like the Roman boundary stones when figuring out street/plot alignment?
Ed Greenwood — 15/5/2025 4:06 AM
Heh. Hearken again to my frequent answer: it depends. MOST places, and all large cities, EVENTUALLY end up with official surveyors, sometimes tied to the local tax system. Boundary disputes end up demanding it. Once a settlements gets sewers, the boundary markers usually get tied to them, because surreptitiously moving a sewer a foot or so by night is...difficult. |
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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1626 Posts |
Posted - 19 May 2025 : 15:28:07
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On how diminutive humanoids appear intimidating
Joe Chang — 15/5/2025 9:31 AM
Hi @Ed Greenwood what do diminuative humanoids, like goblins and kobolds, try to do to seem more fearsome and intimidating in battle?
Ed Greenwood — 16/5/2025 7:19 AM
In the Realms, they mainly beat in unison on massed drums, and shriek together when charging. |
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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1626 Posts |
Posted - 22 May 2025 : 01:09:07
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On what liches have for social gatherings
Kim Kimera Kimes — 19/5/2025 6:04 PM
Hey @Ed Greenwood , a question for liches and similar undead, as they dont drink tea or coffee and cant consume cookies, what do they prefer to have for social gatherings?
Ed Greenwood — 20/5/2025 1:07 AM
The blood of the living. (That's the in-Realms answer, and widespread belief. A less-popular alternative is "The tears of their victims.") Almost all liches can consume everything you listed, they just receive no nourishment nor pleasure from it. So the real answer is: boiling or freezing-to-the-point-of-having-ice-shavings-in-it liquids, just to feel sensation lost when they ceased to "live."
Ed Greenwood — 20/5/2025 1:10 AM
Ghostly/insubstantial undead like to occupy the same space as warm living bodies, to leach warmth from them (again, to feel the sensation). |
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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1626 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2025 : 08:00:32
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On how Mystra and Azuth regained their status
Kim Kimera Kimes — 24/5/2025 7:13 PM
Hello @Ed Greenwood, in the Realmslore channel we were wondering how Mystra and Azuth regained their Greater and Lesser Deity status back so soon while they were absent for a hundred years. When this happened to Waukeen her church crumbled in 10 years despite Liira trying to prevent that. So what is up with the current power of the gods of magic?
Ed Greenwood — 25/5/2025 2:36 AM
Almost all magic across the Realms uses the Weave, or flows through the Weave (like the vast web of electrical wiring across, say, North America), and this rejuvenated Mystra directly, and Azuth "along for the ride" and doing better as mages who'd regained their confidence in their own spells/trust in the Weave cast more magics. Waukeen is not the "only" way to conduct transactions...and yes, there are other ways to make magic, but so many sentients on Toril have gotten so used to the ease and rapidity of the Weave that it's their daily default. That's what brought back Mystra and Azuth so solidly and rapidly. |
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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1626 Posts |
Posted - 28 May 2025 : 08:03:34
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On known black dragon names
kageura necromancer wizard — Yesterday at 2:53 AM
@Ed Greenwood Hi Ed! I saw your recent lore drops and wanted to sincerely thank you for providing such thorough and detailed information—truly appreciated. I did have one quick question:
Under the section titled “Known Black Dragon Names of the Realms”, are those meant to be the names of specific individual black dragons, or are they examples of names commonly used among black dragons in general?
Thanks again for all the incredible work you share with us. sincerly Owen Stacey
Ed Greenwood — 25/5/2025 11:14 AM
It's my pleasure! Okay, those are all names of specific black dragons currently alive and flourishing in the Realms (circa 1500 DR). They are ALSO "popular" black dragon given names, BUT...among that sub-race, it's the custom not to use a name a dragon is currently enjoying until it comes to the great-grandsons and daughters of the current "elder generation" of wyrms. In other words, little confusion arises because few dragons alive at the same time will be bearing the same names (and when they do, nicknames like "The Flying Terror" will often be appended). |
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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1626 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jun 2025 : 02:12:37
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On the connection of the black obelisks with the Far Realm
cuddlypooface — 30/5/2025 8:15 PM
@Ed Greenwood Well met Ed from #127988;#917607;#917602;#917623;#917612;#917619;#917631; ! Can you outline any connections between the Black Obelisks in many of the forgotten realm's histories and their connections to the Far Realm? In Dungeon of the Mad Mage, the couatl that emerged had their memories wiped 'due to the far realm's influence' but i'm unsure if the obelisk was used to bind the couatl to the far realm or the obelisk itself was of far realm influence directly... Any help and i'd be eternally grateful!
Ed Greenwood — 31/5/2025 3:53 AM
The Black Obelisks are still hidden behind several NDAs in terms of me doing lore revelations about them, but let me say this much: I wrote them into the Realms before D&D existed, and Bruce Cordell (who created the Far Realms) was born. What I can't discuss is what connection, if any, some of the obelisks may or may not now have to the Far Realms. |
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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1626 Posts |
Posted - 04 Jun 2025 : 03:27:21
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Ed reading the Realms novels
Jenzar El — 30/5/2025 10:19 PM
@Ed Greenwood As the obvious creator of this world and obviously a fan of the novel line Im curious, out of the almost 300 realms novels that were printed how many of them have you been able to read.
Ed Greenwood — 31/5/2025 3:57 AM
All of them. In a handful of cases, draft versions (all of the Ed Greenwood Presents) or even the raw MS (the Crystal Shard is one of those) was sent to me for a lore-edit during the readying-for-publication process. In other cases (most of Bob Salvatore's novels) he and I talked about raw ideas he might want to use in future books, but I didn't see any prose until the ARC was ready to go out. Yet one way or another, I've read them all (and that includes "junior movie novelizations"). |
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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1626 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jun 2025 : 04:09:57
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On the building of the sewers in Castle Ward and Sea Ward
Reedhalloran Duskfellow — 16/5/2025 7:48 AM
Thanks Ed for answering this. Can I ask specifically about Waterdeep then? The sewer maps I've seen indicate that is a HOT mess so I'm guessing the straight roads of some of the wards (especially Castle Ward) can't be associated with that. Do you have any civil engineering history lore for Waterdeep you could drop? I've studied a bit of environmental design and learned to read the history of cities via street map topography...the fact that Castle Ward and Sea Ward have so many straight streets makes me think that those were laid down at a later date. Was that due to fire and rebuilding? Some magical mishap (Aghairon got tired of cowpaths and made all the streets straight)? or is there another explanation?
Ed Greenwood — 6/6/2025 3:42 AM
Sea Ward was laid out as an expansion, more recently than Castle Ward and everything east and south of it (as was North Ward, displacing paddocks and caravan camping-grounds and a growing shanty city of brothels and bartering shops and bodyguard-hiring businesses.
Castle Ward was redesigned after urban clearances in the wake of disastrous fires racing through slums; a labyrinth of too-narrow-for-wagons alleys and streets was eliminated in the process (all pre-Ahghairon).
The city sewers began as an alternative to the increasingly backed-up (sorry) system of nightsoil wagons inching in constant streams into and out of vity gates, and started from springs rising to the surface in the northeastern part of the cityplateau and the City of the Dead, being routed to flush out freshly-dug sewer channels after passing through existing pumphouses that filled drinking-water cisterns (city buildings also get greywater, for washing dishes and clothes and bathing, from rooftop cisterns; even when it doesn’t rain, shore fogs condense and very slowly fill them). These sewers ran down into Dock Ward, where tides backwashed the lower sewers, and then washed them out as each tide receded. The system worked, and since then it’s been expanded steadily with the growing city above it, the Warrens “happening” from workers’ workshop and materials storage caverns/cellars. (And no, surface street layout had very little to do with the sewers except for locating access and ventilation shafts.) |
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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1626 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jun 2025 : 04:14:36
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On developing the Moonsea
Black Rabbit — 16/5/2025 9:57 PM
To Saer @Ed Greenwood , I was curious about the backstory about the development of the Moonsea. Besides yourself, who were the other creators that contributed to its initial lore? Of the cities of the Moonsea, what were the first to be created and concepted? Also, specifically for the city of Phlan, was its history initially developed specifically for the SSI Pools of Radiance game or did it predate that game?
Ed Greenwood — 6/6/2025 3:44 AM
I created the Moonsea, but Vaasa and Damara were added from Bob’s novels, the Galena Mountains name but not the range of peaks (mine) added by TSR from the name of a resort where TSR execs went on “retreats,” and yes, Phlan’s history was developed specifically for the SSI Pools of Radiance game, not by me. |
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questing gm
Master of Realmslore
Malaysia
1626 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jun 2025 : 05:05:43
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On any surviving Selkirks
Joe Chang — 20/5/2025 8:40 AM
Hi @Ed Greenwood The house of Selkirk was one of the most important families of Sembia during the 1370's. The members we know about (Overmaster Kendrik, his sons Miklos and Kavin, Countess Mirateba) all perished in the early days of the Shadovar invasion. Have the Selkirks survived to the present day? They did not appear in your Patreon discussion of Sembian nobles of 1499.
Ed Greenwood — 6/6/2025 10:31 AM
Video coming on this, in the fullness of time! |
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Ed Greenwood from Greenwood's Grotto
