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Originally posted by Shadowsoul

Well I can tell you there is no one Irish accent but several dialects. For such a small country we have many different dialects. Also we don't sound like they have us portrayed in Hollywood movies.

It's really hard to put a particular dialect on an area in the Realms.

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Originally posted by combatmedic

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Originally posted by Shadowsoul

Well I can tell you there is no one Irish accent but several dialects. For such a small country we have many different dialects. Also we don't sound like they have us portrayed in Hollywood movies.

It's really hard to put a particular dialect on an area in the Realms.

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Yeah, even my ear could pick out some differences in the accent range on the island. Belfast sounded different from Castlemaine, for sure.

No one talked like a phony movie Irishman, although I wonder if maybe that affected accent is a stage exaggeration of the way people in Kerry speak. Not sure.


But Hollywood flicks and also TV shows have also been known to mess up several native North American accents and dialects all the time. A generic and quite phony "Southern accent. " And it is not just the accent, but also diction, idiom, etc. Stuff that no one from the region would ever really say, like the use of " y'all" in the singular. Little or no distinction between the Upper and Deep South.

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Originally posted by combatmedic

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Originally posted by Shadowsoul

Well I can tell you there is no one Irish accent but several dialects. For such a small country we have many different dialects. Also we don't sound like they have us portrayed in Hollywood movies.

It's really hard to put a particular dialect on an area in the Realms.

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Yeah, even my ear could pick out some differences in the accent range on the island. Belfast sounded different from Castlemaine, for sure.

No one talked like a phony movie Irishman, although I wonder if maybe that affected accent is a stage exaggeration of the way people in Kerry speak. Not sure.


But Hollywood flicks and also TV shows have also been known to mess up several native North American accents and dialects all the time. A generic and quite phony "Southern accent. " And it is not just the accent, but also diction, idiom, etc. Stuff that no one from the region would ever really say, like the use of " y'all" in the singular. Little or no distinction between the Upper and Deep South.

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Everyone can receive VERY basic instruction in tasks from local guilds (along the lines of “don’t do this, or you’ll blow yourself up/cut yourself; instead, call in the guild!”), in local lore from local courtiers/civic scribes (“that property belongs to Lhannath the miller, from the old dead felsul down to the creek; formerly it belonged to the weaver Rustragus, and before that - - I have all the dates here”), and from priests of almost all faiths about who the gods are, what their portfolios and beliefs are, where their temples and current civic projects are, and so on (with emphasis on the beneficial importance of their own faith, of course, but with very little “lying” propaganda; in the polytheistic Realms, it’s considered a sin by all to deceive about any faith).
There are “high” sages (researchers, too expensive for most folk below the wealthy merchant or guild level, and often consulted by rulers and nobles) and “low” sages (neighborhood shopkeepers who dispense small-scale information from their acquired knowledge and personal libraries; the former sort of learning tends to be very good, and the latter repeats any errors that might be in their books; most commoners hire low sages to tutor their children, on specific matters, building on what they can get for free from priests). The high sages are the ones who debate with each other, write chapbooks, and sponsor adventurers to recover lost books (or pay well for books brought to them “on spec”).
Much common knowledge is built up locally from gossip, rants and facts in chapbooks, and from talking with peddlers and caravans stopping in town overnight; minstrels and caravan workers make many coins carrying or delivering messages, and telling “the news” (sometimes colorful invented stories). That’s why caravans are so socially important in waystop settlements like Shadowdale.
Bards, heralds, and various faiths (particularly monastic orders) set up organized schools, but the vast majority of these are in large cities (e.g. Waterdeep and Silverymoon), and of these urban schools, the majority are “academies” (which function as what we could call “finishing schools” - - that is, although they impart lore, their primary purpose is to teach etiquette, deportment, an accent, fashion do’s and don’ts, a world-view, and so on, so as to aid in social climbing or success).
Private tutors are much used among the nobility, who often want to have their young disciplined without doing such distasteful work personally, AND want all the results of a good academy [see above] without “the rabble” knowing their little Launsarra went to Madame Theorla’s Peerless Academy of Social Quality [if Launsarra does turn up at such a place, it either means her family is too impoverished to hire a good tutor, or more likely Launsarra beats and terrorizes tutors, or even poisons them or pushes them off balconies, when her temper gets the better of her].
You are quite correct as to the origins of most tutors (add old impoverished nobles from elsewhere, plus retired military officers, to the list for weapons-training and discipline).
Yes, the larger guilds often establish tutors in more than just the “hands on” work of the guild, but these tend to be for guild members only, and not made known to the wider public at all. Some guilds “grow” this arm of their staff into private investigators (because they want to know what rival guilds are up to, courtiers are planning or thinking about them, and so on), and said staff often hire adventurers “of discretion” to handle the more dangerous eavesdropping, kidnapping, spying, and thieving assignments involved.
Lastly, the level of common education varies greatly from place to place, depending on the attitudes of rulers. In general, the trading places (such as Amn, Sembia, and Waterdeep) want a literate populace who can do basic math; it cuts down on cheating, unrest, and theft, and provides more customers hungry for “wonders from afar” and with coin enough to buy such things. Commoners in places with militias (such as Cormyr) are trained and drilled in local geography, map-reading, discipline and taking orders, the local chain of command/how to access local lords and their staff to report or demand things, how to read and write, how to draw way-symbols and interpret them, and so on. Purple Dragons get posted all over the realm, and so have a wider world-view and pick up all sorts of local lore, such as the brands used by local horse-breeders, where specific sorts of caravan-goods come from, and so on; as so many folk everywhere have done military or militia service, this gives most of the population a shared grounding in lore.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal
Now I had always assumed these wild talents were best approximated to the spell like abilities of 3rd edition, but what if they could be developed with work and exploration. You would end up with the sorcerer class.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

I've been thinking about point 3.

The whole sorcerer thing with innately casting spells that come from a bloodline was always a bit weird to me, surely only so much power can be stored in someone's blood (that was 3.5 explanation I believe).

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