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Originally posted by Landro

How does one become an archlich? Are the rituals any different than those used by regular liches, or does the future lich just suck up the evil and hope they don't get tainted too badly in the process?

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

I've always thought the deliberate embrace of undeath was a bit of an odd option for cheating death. One idea I've always preferred was for a mage to transfer his consciousness into a specially-prepared automaton. The end result (no longer worrying about death, aging, and other physical frailities) is the same, plus the automaton body would be more durable, nicer to look at, and wouldn't be physically rotting away. I know if I wanted to last a few more centuries, I'd choose an option where my fingers falling off wouldn't be a concern...

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Originally posted by The Hooded One

Hello again, all.
Markustay, what SORT (wink, giggle) of comment were you looking for, re. “Raw Ed”? After all these years, I can make SO many . . .
And yes, Ed did create archliches for LOST SHIPS (after obtaining design approval from the TSR designers of the day to include a “good lich” in the game, to support some good or at least benign to PCs liches that had appeared in fiction and game products).
As for this comment, from Wooly Rupert: “I've always thought the deliberate embrace of undeath was a bit of an odd option for cheating death. One idea I've always preferred was for a mage to transfer his consciousness into a specially-prepared automaton. The end result (no longer worrying about death, aging, and other physical frailities) is the same, plus the automaton body would be more durable, nicer to look at, and wouldn't be physically rotting away. I know if I wanted to last a few more centuries, I'd choose an option where my fingers falling off wouldn't be a concern...”
. . . Ed has a response, as follows:



I see nothing at all wrong with your reasoning, Wooly, and although Newt Ewell specifically asked me to add a brief “drow biomech” section to the original (2nd Ed) DROW OF THE UNDERDARK, the “official but secret” design directives of the time were to avoid all “android and robot” flavouring in AD&D® because TSR was planning a robot roleplaying game, PROTON FIRE. Longtime DRAGON® readers may recall that it was featured in the back pages of just one issue of the magazine, as a preview; the game was “killed” on the very brink of its release by TSR’s upper management. So, just like de-emphasizing psionics in the Realms because they were to be a cornerstone of Dark Sun®, we were told to avoid mechanical/robotic/android/bionic elements for the AD&D® game. THAT’S why the embrace of undeath rather than the “build your own new body.”
As for the alternative “clone or birth your own new body and then move into it” approach, THAT ran afoul of the internal Code of Ethics, TSR wanting to avoid further trouble with the religious Moral Majority stances of the day. For years - - as various Realms NPCs have aged - - I have flirted and toyed in my Realms fiction with exploring the ethical choices they make about how to prolong life (for those who wish to do so). I plan, editors willing, to do more of that in future fiction.



So saith Ed. Illuminating the design backrooms of the Realms and D&D® for us all.
love,
THO

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

It's kind of ironic that turning into some form of the walking dead was judged better to get by the Moral Majority than other methods of cheating death.

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

I found that Proton Fire preview, in Dragon 99. I also found the blurb in issue 101 saying it's being repackaged for Star Frontiers... I'm going to have to read that, in a bit.

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Even though I was specifically asking a question, I was hoping Ed would comment on that. As always, it proved enlightening!

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

[quote]Originally posted by The Hooded One


As for the alternative “clone or birth your own new body and then move into it” approach, THAT ran afoul of the internal Code of Ethics

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Hear, hear! Hearty echoings from me. Ed will provide lore to supplement George’s recent and superb Realmslore reply in this thread, but has some other replies to provide this time around, to an array of questions from a “novice Brazilian DM” named “Cad” (I believe) passed on to us all by Chosen of Moradin: “I´m creating an adventure based near Espar, in Cormyr, and need of some help to start with my players.
The place will be like a base for the group, the players give their character choices: a paladin of Tyr, son of a baron; a human barbarian; a sorcerer with draconic heritage that want to be a war wizard; a dwarf, priest of Moradin; a warrior of the cormyrean army; and a black earth genasi from Mulhorand(???).
Questions:
1. How can a player character enter to the War Wizards and to the Purple Dragon? (to the organizations, to the PrC is well documented).
2. There is the possibility of exist a Cormyrean barbarian? And what will be the more plausible option?
3. About the nobles, how is the organization of the Cormyrean nobility (titles, hierarchies, etc.)
4. How could I handle the "ordainment" of a paladin of Tyr
5. How could I handle a presence of a Mulhorand genasi, how the Cormyreans will interact with him?”
Ed replies:



For joining the War Wizards: the sorcerer will be required to register (give his name, place of origin, intended place of dwelling or route of travel within the realm, blood sample, and sigil if any) with the War Wizards, just as any arcane spellcaster is. If he expressly asks to join the Wizards of War, he’ll be told (by any War Wizard NPC) the polite equivalent of “Don’t call us; we’ll call you.” However, he will also be watched covertly and closely from that moment on (including by War Wizards using spells to spy on him and listen to his utterances, from afar). The War Wizards want all adventurer-wizards active in Cormyr to be bound by adventuring charter, or to leave the realm, or to serve the Crown, or to join their ranks, so unless the sorcerer is a “bad apple” (flouts the laws and behavioural norms of the kingdom often and casually), he will eventually be asked to join. Which will mean he ends up serving as a spy or open reporter on the deeds of his adventuring companions, and can be ordered (usually by a testy Vangerdahast or another senior gruff old Wizard of War, if your Realms campaign has the War Wizards run by someone else, such as Caladnei) to undertake all sorts of dangerous tasks (read: ways you the DM can drag the PCs into adventures) at any time. The actual joining will involve mind-reaming (an exhausting mind-meld spell in which a senior War Wizard who can easily mentally overpower the PC sorts through all of the PC’s memories and sees EVERYTHING, so let’s hope the PC doesn’t have too shady a past) and then the swearing of an oath. An example of a mind-reaming can be seen in my novel ELMINSTER’S DAUGHTER; the oath appears in my 2004 questions thread here at the Keep, I believe (Sage? Kuje? Wooly? Alaundo? where is it, exactly, please? :}).
For joining the Purple Dragons: the soldiery of Cormyr is always short of strength, these days, and simply volunteering at any garrison location is enough to get a PC “halfway in.” There’s an oath of loyalty (simplify it from the War Wizard one, with loyalty sworn to the ruling monarch; if your campaign is during the Steel Regency, the oath will specify serving Azoun V directly or “through the Regent, and none other”), the signing of a “bond” (simple contract, with pay specified; the PC will start as an “armsman” or trainee soldier, at 1 cp/day plus room and board; pay will increase to 1 sp/day for any sort of “combat duty,” and mounts and all gear are provided free of charge; pay will also increase as more training is mastered, and of course increases with rank; there are various notations over the three-and-ongoing years of this thread as to pay, rank, et al, plus the rank table given in POWER OF FAERUN), mind-reaming again (by a middling-level War Wizard), and then assignment to a trainee “patrol” at a garrison.
Please note: whereas PC adventurer War Wizards are typically “fairly free” to go adventuring, PC Purple Dragons are NOT. Being a soldier of the Crown means military duty, darned near all your waking hours, not racing off to delve into dungeons or pick fights with monsters or anyone else. Trainees are not going to be sent into danger or anywhere near any royalty or sensitive areas, unless the realm gets plunged suddenly into war.

No, there are no Cormyrean barbarians. Which doesn’t mean there can’t be a “barbarian” IN Cormyr. This would most likely be an unlettered, untutored “backwilds” human who’s wandered south from a subsistence-level family in the northernmost reaches of Thar or the Sword Coast North (Ice Mountains vicinity, or fled from a more westerly Uthgardt tribe thanks to a blood feud, oathbreaking, or other trouble; any human from the Sword Coast North is likely to have been displaced by strengthening orc activity). There’s also the slim possibility of having come from subsistence-level Nar or other human family from somewhere between the Great Dale and Sossal, but you’ll have to come up with “how the character got to Cormyr.” Myself, I’d use a gate/portal, but then you’ll have to decide if the character can find or use that gate again, or (preferably) if it’s been lost or destroyed.

The nobility of Cormyr are a large and complicated topic that I haven’t even begun to address properly in print. Pre-Spellplague, there may be as many as 120 noble families, if you count all of the exile, banished, possibly-extinct ones. There are generally about forty wealthy and influential noble families in Cormyr, with a dozen or so really powerful ones that a PC “son of a baron” can’t possibly be from. Most of them are called “lord” or “lady” in general daily parlance; there aren’t enough “barons” in Cormyr for a PC to easily be from a Cormyrean family and still be the “son of a baron.” I’d suggest that the PC either be from the Cormaeril family (recently lost noble status and most wealth and lands, though individuals are still allowed to serve the Crown as soldiers, earn ranks and titles, and remain as citizens, perhaps becoming ennobled in the future in their own right rather than because of their blood) or an exiled family (again, is the son of a baron but that now means nothing except suspicion in Cormyr), or hales from the nobility of Chessenta or perhaps Tethyr. As a DM, consider carefully what advantages you are handing the PC if they can call on noble privileges, wealth, and connections whenever they feel the need.

As for the ordainment of a paladin of Tyr, there are two elements here: the “Trueing” (the official ceremony or ritual in which a paladin is “sanctified” to “ride forth as an arm of Tyr,” dispensing justice, fighting injustice, and generally being a paladin in the name of the god, able to call upon and even command the support of His church), and the “Testing” that leads up to this ceremony: the Great Task that anyone desiring to become a paladin must successfully complete in order to be granted paladinhood.
I would suggest that a PC paladin begin play by having to carry out this Task with the aid of a “band of companions” (the rest of the PCs) so as to force him or her to become part of a team rather than being the loner he/she has hitherto been, and that this Task be some sort of dangerous adventuring mission in Cormyr, perhaps recovering a holy relic stolen from a temple of Tyr by someone wealthy and powerful in Cormyr (a senior courtier, a noble, or a wealthy and powerful merchant in one of the three cities; in other words, a major and tricky task). If the PC fails, there may be severe social consequences for all of the PCs in Cormyr, but the Church of Tyr understands that daring and danger holds forth the possibility of failure, and will merely assign another Task. HOW the PC paladin carries out the task is of utmost importance: he/she must try their utmost not to break any laws, and not to create any injustice by their deeds and words or through what they failed to say or do. Simple for me to outline, but can be VERY hard for a player to guide their character through, without missteps, in the hands of a good DM.

Cormyr is a tolerant, “crossroads” trading land; citizens of all of its three cities and all waystop communities along its central and eastern roads are used to seeing all manner of “strange outlanders.” Unless they look very like a known or legendary “dangerous monster” (for most Cormyreans, known monsters include carrion crawlers, doppelgangers in their “native” form or seen during shapeshifting, and goblins; legendary perils include drow, illithids, and dragons), the treatment a particular “outlander” receives depends on how he or she behaves. A black earth genasi from Mulhorand would be ridiculed if trying to make a living as, say, a lap dancer in a high-end city festhall or club, an attendant arranging tiny fragile ceramics or jewelry pieces in a crowded shop, or perhaps a fashion model, but would otherwise generally be treated as “just another trader” or laborer (“Ho, touch of giant blood in that one, I’d say!”). On the other hand, a black earth genasi from Mulhorand who set up a bone altar and prayed to orc gods would get attacked, pronto. If the player handles the PC according to what RACES OF FAERUN says about the attitude and demeanor of most earth genasi, the character should be accepted readily by Cormyreans (though they may glance at him or her twice, or stare with interest, just because the character is a tad “different” and therefore interesting).



So saith Ed, who remains frantically busy, and begs your patience as he continues to make Realmslore replies when he can. Keep those questions (and rants and hellos and everything else, too) coming.
love to all,
THO

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Originally posted by Na-Gang

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Originally posted by Jamallo Kreen

Isn't there an Arch-Lich template in some 3.obsolete book?

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It's in Monsters of Faerun p.90 under "Lich, Good."

It's a very abbreviated template, but says they have the same abilities as a normal lich, plus turn undead, animate dead, walk on water, and turning immunity.

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Originally posted by createvmind

Hello All,


This breeding between the quaggoth and orcs of the North that is mentioned in the Drow of the Underdark book would produce what exactly by your estimation? This offshoot would hold it's loyalty to which race if either?

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Originally posted by The Hooded One
Afetbinttuzani, Ed structured "The Cormyte's Boast" after a famous (and very old) English folksong known as "The Vicar of Braye," and its tune can therefore be used to sing the Boast to.

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