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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
 Posted - 23 Jan 2023 : 22:50:22
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
Yes, Jas's wings did indeed change form when she crossed planes, although she is not from the Realms (from what i can tell, although no explicit origin is given to here or an explanation of on earth she is). So i didnt really see the point of documenting her since i am primarily focusing on realmslore.
Her parents were from the Realms, though she was born on Krynn. She grew up in the Realms, though, and believes she's from the Realms.
Jasmine was first introduced in the Forgotten Realms comic book published by DC/TSR. After the story arc she was in ended, she became part of the Spelljammer comic book published by DC/TSR |
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Seravin
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1288 Posts |
Posted - 23 Jan 2023 : 23:22:07
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"Bear, arms were like tree trunks. His chest, clad in scaled armor, could have served a small room as a wall. The long black braid hanging down his back bristled with silvered spikes. His thick beard framed a permanent scowl. One eye was covered with a steel eye patch, while the other eye, sheathed below a sullen brow. Secretly a Xvimlar traitor [3]"
This character, ugh. Now any of the people on this board who know me will also know that I LOVE Grubb/Novak with an unhealthy passion.
But when you write a character who is straight up outwardly evil looking/acting/named and then said evil character punches your loveable main character in the face for singing a song about Zhents and the possibility evil guy may be a Zhent.... then it turns out this character IS actually the evil Zhent spy he appears to be, you need to write a reason why people trust this obviously evil chararcter (I think they may have done actually) but AND ALSO A REASON THE PALADIN'S SPIDEY SENSE DOESN'T GO OFF AROUND YOU into the book.
Now I'm sure he had some sort of amulet of misdirection to explain why he didn't get detected and I guess Bear was just really stupid and bad at being a covert bad guy living with the good guys. But for eff sake you can't write a paladin character in a story that literally swoons and gets major headaches around evil as a plot point and then not explain why she couldn't detect an evil Bear spy person right in front of her for months/years on end.
Just one written line. That's all I needed. Someone to say like "oh I guess he was under some sort of protection from the paladin sense" and Holly to maybe feel bad about not detecting this very evil person who Randal trusted despite him being really bad at hiding how sinister he was around Joel.
I mean, Masquerades basically had the same plot point of an evil person who got away with it with a magic item that avoided Dragonbait's shen site. They explained it in great detail how the mask gave the baddie that ability. Why not just write it out? I expect more from these writers cause they're usually so amazingly great.
That said, I think this novel was a lot less interesting when they left the Realms. And yes Wooly - you're right its more Planescape than Spelljammer, despite the use of the ship to get to the outer plains. Sigil is clearly Planescape, which will always be a special setting due to the Torment game (arguably best RPG ever made)
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Edited by - Seravin on 25 Jan 2023 21:48:06 |
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Athreeren
Learned Scribe
144 Posts |
Posted - 24 Jan 2023 : 08:54:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
Also there is an interesting quote from the banelich about there being no priestesses of Bane in his day. A bit of a problem given the widespread nature of Bane's church and the general egalitarian nature of much of the realms. So this could point to the earlier origin of Banes church being in the south (Mourktar specifically) as the mulan seem to have a tendency to discriminate (females do not inherit house names in Mulhorand, athletic games are restricted in Chessenta, etc).
I wonder what "his day" was, since even six centuries earlier, in The Temptation of Elminster, when "Dasumia" pretends to be a worshipper of Bane who enacts her own rituals, Elminster finds nothing strange to it. So maybe the Banelich is indeed only aware of a fraction of the cult, or it is possible to climb in the hierarchy of the church as a woman without being a priestess. Is there an equivalent of nuns in the church of Bane? |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
Posted - 29 Jan 2023 : 12:42:58
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Tymora’s Luck (1368 DR)
Jeff Grubb, Kate Novak
Other Lore
we ask that no one speak the names of any of the gods this evening, since we would prefer that no notice is drawn to these proceedings. Ayryn will not remain focused on any one god for longer than a few minutes at a time. You should also understand that there may be occasions when she attempts to view a god and something or someone else entirely different will appear due to some misdirection spell that god may have placed on his or her person or realm. [prologue]
Chauntea stood in the midst of a recently ploughed field (in Halruaa). Insects and earthworms on the surface wriggled and scrambled to bury themselves beneath the dirt furrows before they were eaten by the flock of robins that bobbed along behind the goddess, chirping excitedly. Chauntea walked along the furrows, sprinkling tiny yellow seeds onto the ground from a green cloth pouch and nudging the dirt with her toes so that each seed was covered. She worked with the speed and grace of a practiced farmer. An unseen but undoubtedly bright sun glittered in the sheen of perspiration that covered her bare skin. Mud and dust covered her feet and ankles and even her calves. Her lips curled up in a tiny smile as she attended to her task. If she noticed she was being scried, she gave no indication. [prologue]
The last time I saw a new universe blossom," Lathander said sadly, "Tyche was my companion. We lay on the back of a space whale and watched for a full year as the crystal spheres grew larger and spread apart and the stars inside them flickered to life and brightened. [prologue]
"There he is," Beshaba whispered with an evil smile on her lips. The goddess was scrying on someone, just as they were scrying on her. "Doljust," Beshaba said, "it is time to pay for slighting me." The vision in Beshaba's pool seemed to move away so that the goddess, and those Sensates who spied upon her, could see more of Doljust and the landscape around him. Doljust was old, as evidenced by his grey hair and beard and wrinkled features, but he was by no means feeble. He rode straight and tall in the saddle of a prancing mare. A handsome pair of hunting hounds circled his mount, barking with excitement. He wore neither fancy armour nor noble velvets, but his clothing was well made and sturdy, and his mare was a fine-looking beast. Doljust began to dismount. Beshaba reached down and touched the surface of the pool. At that instant, Doljust's boot caught in his stirrup, and when he managed to free himself with his hands, he fell backward on his back. Doljust swore a common oath, not one that mentioned any god's name. One of the alu-fiends giggled; the other merely smiled. Beshaba was not yet amused. Doljust rose and brushed himself off. He followed his dogs to a cave entrance. At one side of the entrance lay the corpses of two children, mere toddlers. Doljust tossed his cloak over the bodies. Then he started a fire at the cave's entrance, drew his sword, and waited. The dogs paced behind their master. Soon, forced from its lair by the smoke, a were-bat came hurtling toward Doljust with an awful shriek. The creature was in its hybrid form, with the wings and head of a bat but the torso of a man. It raked at Doljust with the claws at the ends of its wings. The man raised his sword and swung. Beshaba touched the pool again. Goaded by the goddess's magic, one of Doljust's hounds forgot its training and leapt toward the were-bat's throat just as its master's sword came swinging downward. The blade sliced across the hound's ribs. The dog gave a horrible howl, which echoed about the audience. The were-bat flew clear of Doljust and landed on the mare's saddle. With a cackling laugh, it kicked the horse in the ribs. Doljust hollered, but the mare was frenzied with fear and galloped off into the darkness. There were tears in Doljust's eyes as he examined his injured and apparently dying hound. Beshaba touched the pool again. The other hound whimpered behind him. Doljust whirled about, slicing his sword into a small were-bat as it flew from the cave. The bat crashed to the ground, dealt a mortal wound. Then, before Doljust's eyes, it transformed to a small child, a little boy with curly golden hair. "Grandpa," the boy gasped with his last breath. Doljust's screams rang out through the sensorium. [prologue]
Milil began to sing "The Baker's Daughter," a love song about a silver dragon's love for a mortal woman. Next Milil sang "Pipeweed Dreams," a halfling drinking song. Milil sang "The Seven Sisters," a long ballad. Then he sang "Three Thayvian Roses," a bawdy festhall tune that brought a blush even to Montgomery's face. Finally he began, 'The Purple Dragons of Cormyr," another long ballad. "And now," Milil said, "I have a truly special treat. "The finale from the opera The Fall of Myth Drannor." [prologue]
Lathander had sent a deva, a creature of pure goodness made corporeal, to summon her. The deva had resembled a young man with milky white skin and silver hair and, of course, wings of shining white feathers. [1.1]
there were beings called proxies, mortals who understood their gods' purposes and desires and worked directly to achieve them [1.1]
Dawnbringer Aurora Brightday. A freckled redheaded woman surrounded by a radiant aura came out of a room in the back of the temple. She wore the red-hued robes of Lathander's clergy. Priestess in Lathander’s realm. Lathander’s proxy [1.1, 4.3]
Sirrion of the Flowing Flame. He is an ally of Lord Lathander's and a god of a people on a world in a sphere far from your own (Krynn). Lord Sirrion is building a machine to help with a magical spell so that Lord Lathander can right an ancient wrong. [1.1]
a small crystal sphere of the deepest blue. "Take up the sphere," the figure commanded, "and hold it between the rose and the coin." The servant drew out the sphere with a trembling hand and held it over the center of the altar of stone. On one side of the sphere, suspended magically in midair, was a white rose, still sparkling with crystals of ice from the Desertsmouth Mountains of Toril. On the other side, also held in the air by magic, was an old platinum coin stamped with the profile of an elven woman on one side and the sigil of the ancient and long since ruined kingdom of Myth Drannor on the other. The servant released the blue crystal sphere, and it hovered between the rose and the coin. The rose, the coin, the crystal sphere are all power keys of Tymora, Tyche, and Beshaba [2.1, 4.3]
Darkstalker transformation spell is a mage spell [2.1]
Finder was smitten with Lady Luck. [2.3]
Winnie, halfling priestess in Tymora’s home realms [2.2]
I don't dare approach Beshaba's realm. She would detect another power in an instant. For another god to enter her realm without invitation would be tantamount to a declaration of war. [2.3]
Selune will do what she can to avoid a war with another power," Finder replied. "It's a messy business. [2.3]
A fetch. It's an evil creature that dwells in the Abyss," the bard explained. "There's a creepy Turmish song about fetch that explains why Turmish law prohibits large mirrors. Fetch attack through portals that lead to mirrors in the Prime Material Plane, taking on the forms of their intended victims. Their attacks drain the life energy from their victims. Then the victim is dragged back to the Abyss, where he becomes another fetch. There's one thing that bothers me, though. Fetch are supposed to be invisible to all but their victims. [2.5]
if Iyachtu is using a god from an alien pantheon for some scheme against Tymora and Beshaba, he is violating the compact the powers of the Outer Planes have agreed upon. [3.1]
This flying carpet will keep your feet off the burning ground," the priestess of Tymora explained. "These rings," she added as she handed each of the four adventurers a silver ring, "are to help protect you from fire, should you get careless and fall off the flying carpet. The carpet's command word is "Airheart." Once it's off the ground, you need to tell it aloud which way to go, how fast, and horw high [3.1]
Selune tched. "If it weren't for Tymora's Luck," the goddess murmured, "that whole family would have died out years ago, even with my blessing. Present company included," she added, with a nod toward Finder. "I will look into it. Finder is busy helping Tymora's church." [3.1]
Finder handed each adventurer a tiny harp carved from wood, "If you snap the harp in half and say 'Fermata,' you'll be returned instantly to my realm. With the harps, all of you do not have to return together, but if one of you is seriously injured or captured, you can escape." [3.1]
"The Circle Song," a folk song about a boy who grows to be a man who woos and wins his true love, then has lots of children who all grow up to woo and win their true loves. [3.2]
Tied to the top of pole was an iron latticework sphere about as large as a man's head. A dark blue light seemed to glow within the sphere. "In the war between the tanar'ri and the baatezu, the sphere you see is called a magic killer. It negates all magic within thirty feet of it. If you were paying closer attention to the combat, you might have noticed that the hydroloths attempted to reach the sphere to destroy it, while the bulezau tried to prevent them from doing so. [3.3]
Hatemaster Perr, priest of Iyachtu Xvim in Sigil that tried to abduct Jas [3.3]
Tyrannar Neri, priest of Iyachtu Xvim in Gehenna (his home realm) [3.3]
Hatemaster Morr, priest of Iyachtu Xvim in Gehenna (his home realm) [3.3]
Ratagar Perivalious (an imp), former associate of the late Tyrannar Noxxe (slain by Beshaba) in Gehenna [3.6].
Smoke powder, do you know how dangerous that stuff is? It's been outlawed in fifteen cities in the Heartlands. [3.7]
"They're special requirements necessary for a wizard to cast magic in different planes," Kenda explained. "Spell keys vary greatly from plane to plane and spell to spell. Sometimes the wizard must perform a certain action, such as free a bird or sacrifice a goat or spit in the wind or sing a song. Other times the wizard need only possess a certain item, like a dagger or cat or a feather or some sort of gems tone." [4.3]
A power key allows a priest to siphon off some of his god's power," Finder explained. 'That's why they're kept secret, or made to be temporary, or made so they can only be used by one person. If they aren't, they can be used by the wrong person to drain a god's powers. [4.3]
Tyche was a great goddess. She should never have been destroyed. To this day, I blame myself for that tragedy. Had I not started the Dawn Cataclysm, Moander might never have corrupted Tyche, and she would yet live." "It's a little late to think of that now," Beshaba said accusingly. "You tried to claim power that was not yours. Only a fool would be surprised the other gods of Faerun chose to war against you. By the time the Dawn Cataclysm ended, your allies had suffered more losses than the enemies you hoped to contain in your bid for leadership. [4.4]
That was an unfortunate mistake on my part, Lady Beshaba," Sirrion said. "The priests of Xvim had stolen one of your power keys from your temple in Waterdeep. The minion I sent to purchase it said far more than he should have, and the priests of Xvim figured out the rest. Thus, soon after rumors of Tymora's weakness began to spread, Xvim, realizing you, too, must also be weakened, took advantage of the knowledge to attack you. Unfortunately for him I had not yet drained as much power from you as I had from Tymora. He fled from your wrath and is hiding in Baator." [4.4]
"What's going to happen to all the power you drain from us?" Tymora asked bitterly. "It's being transferred into the blue crystal sphere," Lathander said. "It was the last power key Tyche ever made. [4.4]
How do you sneak up on a god?" Jas asked. "Well, between maintaining the barrier around Selune's isle, shielding me from Selune's senses, keeping the dark region in his realm from prying eyes, and trying to put Tyche together again, he has a good deal on his mind," Finder said. "We'll have to seize any chance that comes our way and hope he's too distracted to notice." [4.5]
A power key," Finder repeated. "As I said before, in Beshaba's realm, your ability to cast priest spells will be greatly weakened. A power key will lessen that effect. It will also keep your spells from being twisted by the nature of the realm. [2.3]
"Beshaba's realm is the thirteenth layer of the Abyss," Selune explained. "Long ago the layer was flooded to prevent the baatezu from ever invading it again. Umberlee, the evil goddess of the sea, makes her realm in those waters. Towering over the waters is the Blood Tor, a massive rocky peak that some sages say rivals Mt. Olympus in size. Beshaba and her court live in a cavern complex within the mountain, somewhere near the pinnacle. I will make you a gateway in the mountainside. You will have to discover your own route into Beshaba's caverns. Many other evil things live on and within the Blood Tor. Take care to avoid as many of them as you can." [2.3]
"It is the custom of my lady (Tymora) to loan this sword to those who perform a mission for her," she explained to the winged woman. "It's a fine weapon, and it will bring you luck (Luckblade????)." [2.3]
"The fiends in the Abyss avoid tangling with the powers. If creatures there think you are one of Beshaba's minions, they will avoid you. [2.3]
Beshaba didn't seem pleased. She didn't trust any of the gods, and apparently she suspected Finder of some treachery. [4.1]
Assassins and saboteurs have begun to strike against Tymora's church, and Lady Selune and I have been hard pressed to keep her priests safe," Finder explained. [4.1]
scepter of the wizard Zorn. Who was imprisoned (long, long ago????) in the Blood Tor in Beshaba’s realm (was Zorn an enemy or follower of Beshaba????) [4.2]
Xvim was posing as Lord Sirrion the entire time [4.6]
The way Fizban explained it, gods from one world aren't supposed to let gods from another world harm each other, whether they're good or evil. It's against the rules. It could start a war between the gods from Krynn and the gods from Toril. If it really was Sirrion helping Lathander to drain the power from Tymora and Beshaba, or some other god from Krynn impersonating Sirrion, Fizban was going to have to step in and make him stop. But since it wasn't a god from Krynn, Fizban didn't have to get involved. He didn't want to get into an argument with Lathander if he could help it. That could start . . . [4.7]
Jas or Jasmine
Jasmine of Westgate [1.1]
gargoyle-like wings of patina-tinged copper or the black feathers on her face. She wore a new outfit, consisting of leggings and a jerkin of black leather that clung to her slender, well-muscled frame. A short sword in a scabbard and an azure cloak hung on the back of her chair. Her dark black hair was cropped close to her skull [1.1]
People in the Realms would mistake me for a succubus or an erinyes and run me out of town. Once there was this kid who thought I was a were-eagle and tried to get me to attack him so he would contract lycanthropy and become a were-eagle, too. One crazy lich tried to put me in his harem just because of my wings. [1.1]
The priests of the evil god Iyachtu Xvim had transformed Jas with a curse, trying to make her a dark stalker-a hunter they could use for their own foul purposes. Jas had managed to fight the transformation and retain part of her humanity, a testament to her willpower. If she were to kill someone, however, Jas would transform completely and forever into a creature of evil. [1.1]
My parents were adventurers, both paladins, like Holly. When I was just a girl, they were both murdered. They'd helped break up a ring of slavers, and in vengeance, the leader of the ring hired an assassin to kill them. A friend of my mother's fostered me. She was really nice, but I couldn't stand being in the city where my parents had lived. Everyone had known them and constantly reminded me about them. I loved my parents, but every time I remembered them, I remembered they were dead, and that just made me upset. So I ran away from Waterdeep. [2.1]
I took a job as a hired sword with an adventurer named Carter," Jas said, continuing her tale. "He was a professional troublemaker. If you wanted to ruin a person's reputation or bankrupt a merchant firm or turn brother against brother, Carter was the guy you hired. He was good at what he did, and he didn't work cheap. He taught me a lot and paid me a lot… It took a while, but slowly I began to realize Carter wasn't such a nice guy, and the things he did weren't either. Still, I couldn't bring myself to simply leave him. I was far from my home and friends. Carter often told me I couldn't survive without him, and I believed him. [2.1]
Jas pulled her feet up on the bed and hugged her knees. "Then one day," she said, "everything in my life changed. I was in the right place at the right time, I guess. I was keeping watch over an alley door for Carter, waiting for two priests to go through the door. While I'm hiding in this trash bin with a tiny peephole to look through, this thief runs into the alley and tosses a sack into the trash right on top of me. Then three other thieves come barreling into the alley. They corner the first thief and demand their share of the loot from Tymora's temple. The first thief tries to feed them some story about the heist not going off. In the meantime, I'm looking into the sack. The contents are worth a fortune. There's platinum coin and all this jewelry and a cape made of white feathers. Then I see there's something moving around among the feathers. It's about four inches long, slimy and writhing like a worm. Really ugly. Then I see there's this cracked eggshell. The slimy, writhing thing has just hatched, or maybe its shell broke when the thief tossed it into the trash. [2.1]
"Outside, the thieves are still arguing, and one of them stabs the first one and the first one stabs him back. The pair of them fall down, trying to hold their guts inside their bodies. One of the thieves is a mage. He turns and shoots five magic missiles in the back of the last thief. When he's all alone in the alley, he starts searching for the sack. I know its only a matter of minutes before he looks into the trash. I come spilling out of the trash bin with the sack in hand and take off down the alley, but the mage is fast. He teleports himself into my path and blocks my way out of the alley. He doesn't look human anymore. He's changed into a shadow man with horns and bat wings and fangs. I hold the sack up in front of me like a shield, so he doesn't dare risk using his magic on me. He says if I give him the egg, hell let me have the rest of the loot. [2.1]
"It wasn't that I was all fired up about protecting the egg thing. I'm not an idiot. I know I'm dead the moment this creature gets his hand on the egg thing. So I refuse his offer, and I draw my sword, still holding the sack in front of me like a shield. I don't really believe I can beat the shadow creature in a fight, but I'm not letting it kill me without one. Just then, two priests of Torm come into the alley. They're the two priests I was supposed to be watching out for when I was hiding in the trash. They see the shadow creature, and right away they start calling out to their god and casting bolts of light. "When the bolts of light hit him, the shadow creature howls like a dog someone stepped on and disappears. The two priests are all solicitous, making sure I'm all right. They're sure the shadow is some sort of sign, so instead of going into the building to which Carter had so carefully lured them, they go back to their temple to pray. I know Carter's going to be furious, so I'm not real eager to tell him about any of what just occurred. Instead, I go to the temple of Tymora to turn over the loot the thieves stole. [2.1]
"The priests at Tymora's temple go nuts with joy when I show up with the sack of loot. They say that Tymora must have guided my hand. I know Tymora didn't have anything to do with me hiding in that trash bin, but I keep my mouth shut. They hold this big party to celebrate the return of the loot, especially the hatchling. It's a baby faerie dragon they had sworn to keep safe. I'm still not keen to go back to Carter, so I stay for the party. There's this priestess at the party who takes me back into the temple to talk. There's something familiar about her, but I can't figure out what. The church wants to reward me. She challenges me to a game of cards… nothing complicated. Just a game of empress. If she wins, she'll choose my reward for me. If I win, I get to pick my reward. Anything I want. I agree. She shuffles. I cut. She deals." [2.1]
Jas hopped off the edge of the bed and paced over to the window. She looked out across the fields of Finder's realm for a few moments. Then she spun around and looked straight at Joel. "Well, I win the game, but figuring out what I want isn't so easy. What I really want is for my parents not to be dead, but that's not going to happen. I also want to leave Carter, but to do that I need something to make me independent. I don't ask for money. Money can be stolen, and when it's gone, it's gone. I need a skill I can use. Suddenly this pigeon flies through a window of the temple up to a nest near the ceiling, and I say, 'I want to be free like that bird. I want to be able to fly.' The priestess gives me this sad little smile like I'm a kid who just asked for cake for dinner. [2.1]
"I meant I wanted to be able to fly the way a mage does with a spell. I didn't mean I wanted giant wings sticking out of my back, but the next thing I know, I look like an overgrown pixie. I ask the priestess to take the wings back, but she says they'll serve as a reminder that I'm always flying away from my problems instead of dealing with them. When I learn to face my problems, she says, I'll be blessed with all the luck I need. Then she vanishes." Jas snapped her fingers. "Just like that. Gone. That's when I realize she wasn't a priestess. The reason she looked familiar is because she looked just like the statue of Tymora that's on the altar in front of me. Now I'm really angry, but I'm not so stupid that I'm going to fight with a goddess, so I just leave." [2.1]
Jas turned back to the window and was silent for some time. "Did you go back to Carter?" Joel asked curiously. Jas turned around again. "He didn't want me hanging around anymore," she said. "He liked to keep a low profile wherever he went, and I was much too noticeable. After telling me for months that I can't survive without him, he suddenly says I can take care of myself just fine. And I did." She spread her wings out, then let them drop back down. "So now you know why I avoid having anything to do with gods. If they decide to judge and sentence you, there's nothing you can do about it, and they can really make a mess of your life. Not that Finder hasn't been a decent guy," she added hastily. [2.1]
"Your parents were great favorites of mine," the goddess (Tymora) told Jas. "So passionate, so daring. It really irritated me to learn that their daughter was traveling with a weasel like Chaos Carter." [2.1]
"But you still ran from your grief," Tymora noted. "Saerloon wasn't far enough from Waterdeep, so you had to leave Realmspace and travel to other spheres." "I tried going home a couple times," Jas said. "Things just kept coming up." [2.1]
I've been away for ten years, but Toril is still my home. [2.3]
You are Rose and Michael's little girl, aren't you? [4.5]
"Your mother and father took a spelljammer to Krynn, and you were born there before they returned to Toril.[4.7]
Emilo Haversack
Kender from Krynn [1.1]
small man with pointed ears and a topknot of very long brown hair. Over his indigo homespun trousers and shirt, he wore a scarlet vest covered with pockets and an orange cloak over that. He was holding a crystal paperweight full of some dark liquid, in which floated a thousand glittering specks. [1.1]
Finder
The god nodded. "In my youth, you could always find a tree sprite in the Realms if you knew where to look… and were fool enough to do so. These days they are far more rare in the Realms. The ladies of the oaks wield one of the most powerful enchantments known to men. They like to use it on men they find to their liking. And here in Arborea, where passions tend to run strong, it's even easier for their enchantments to succeed. [1.4]
In the nation of Cormyr, where Finder had grown up, the building would have been referred to as simply a manor house. [1.4]
Rina, a petitioner (dead worshipper of Finder). a young woman. She wore a simple short-sleeved smock of pink covered with a thin film of white-gray dust and several black smudges. She had blue eyes and long, thick, light brown hair, which she wore pulled back in a blue ribbon. She was small and slender. Rina is one of the only two petitioners who have come to Fermata so far. She was a potter in Tilverton, working on uncovering the secrets of how the Kara-Tur make porcelain. Her skill went beyond mere craft, however. She created works of art from porcelain, encouraged by a speech Joel gave to some artists in a tavern once. She worked late at her master's shop every night to do her designs," Finder explained. "An enemy of her master's, intent on his murder, poured smoke powder into a chunk of coal that fired the shop's kiln. Rina was the only one in the shop when it exploded. [1.4]
The other petitioner was a painter named Springer who died of old age. The old man had gotten into an argument with an Iriaeban merchant over what should be painted in the merchant's hall. Springer had walked off the job and promptly offered his services at a cut rate to paint the hall of one of the merchant's rivals. The painted hall, and thus the rival, had become renowned throughout the region. [1.4]
The crystal, an artifact known as the finder's stone, could locate just about anything or anyone even slightly known to the bearer. Once upon a time it had also contained spells, like a wand. The spells could be cast by any member of Finder's family. Included in the spells were illusions of Finder singing any of the many songs he had composed in his life as a mortal man. Finder had cleaved the stone in two, however, to get at the shard of para-elemental ice within. He'd used the ice to destroy the evil god Moander, after which he claimed Meander's power and godhood for his own. Each half of the finder's stone still worked as a magical locator, but the stone no longer held any spells. [1.4]
Tyche
even before the fall of Myth Drannor, there was a great war between the gods of Toril over who would be their leader. It was known as the Dawn Cataclysm because it was started by Lathander when he decided that he should be that leader. Lathander is the god of beginnings," Joel added for Emilo's benefit. "Births, spring, and dawn are all his purview. Also called the Morninglord, he's a god of good. At the time of the Dawn Cataclysm, Lathander was favored with the love of Tyche, the goddess of all luck, good and bad, but Tyche wanted no part in the conflict Lathander had begun. She kissed Lathander with misfortune and left him to his war. [2.3]
"Tyche wandered about the Realms for some time. As she rested on a snow-capped mountain surveying the land all about her, a rosebud burst through the snow at her feet. The bud showed no sign of damage from the harsh setting in which it had grown. It was just on the verge of opening its petals and promised to be perfect in every way. Because of the circumstances of the rose's appearance, Tyche took it to be an overture of peace from Lathander. [2.3]
"The goddess of luck reached down to pluck the rose, but the stem wouldn't break. Tyche yanked harder, only to be rewarded by thorns in her fingers. She cursed the young blossom with bad luck, and the stem snapped right off. Annoyed that the gift had proved so difficult, Tyche decided to keep Lathander waiting a while longer. She continued wandering about the Realms, with the rose fastened in her hair above her ear. [2.3]
"The rose, however, was not an offering from Lathander but a trap set by Moander the Darkbringer, god of decay. The rose blossomed, and its pollen drifted into her ear, where it began to rot her from the inside out. Thus the Darkbringer hoped to gain for himself Tyche's power over luck. [2.3]
"When Tyche returned to her home in the outer planes, Selune, goddess of the moon, was there waiting to speak with her. Selune was instantly aware of the corruption eating away at her friend. Without a moment's hesitation-" [2.3]
"-she lashed out," said another voice, "with a bolt of purifying light that split Tyche down the center of her rotting core. All that was good and kind in Tyche coalesced into a single form and stepped out from Tyche's rotting corpse. That was Tymora. I brought her forth from the tragedy of Tyche's corruption, and she possessed power over good fortune." The speaker appeared to be an elderly matron with long, black hair streaked with silver. There was something extraordinarily regal about her. Joel was filled with a sense of awe. Although he realized her elderly appearance was probably a godly illusion, the bard was certain he was in the presence of someone far older than either Finder or Tymora, and far more powerful, With Winnie trailing along behind her, the speaker approached Finder. [2.3]
When Beshaba and Tymora were salvaged from the poisoned Tyche, perhaps they didn't really each possess a different kind of luck. Perhaps their very nature shaped the luck they had. Even were it within her power, the selfish and vengeful Beshaba would never grant anyone good luck, just as the kind and generous Tymora would never curse someone with misfortune. Now another power, was stealing both Beshaba's and Tymora's Luck. If an evil, selfish god had dominion over good luck, "good" luck would cease to exist. [3.1]
They leave their young in the Realms to forage for themselves. The young tend to live with goblins. The immature barghests eat people, preferably heroes. That's how they grow in strength. There was one terrorizing travelers around Daggerdale a year or so ago. I was with the party that hunted it down. According to Elminster, when they gain enough power, barghests return to Gehenna, but sometimes they return sooner, before they're ready, if they're fireballed in their canine form. I think that's what happened to this one. It's not as tall as most of them and its skin isn't quite all blue. That's how you tell when a barghest is mature. [3.2]
Waterdeep
Joshuan Havabuck-"Fast Joshy," as he was known on the street-squirmed in his chair, his furry halfling feet dangling a good foot off the floor. "Would that you were not seeing me, guv'nor," the halfling said, "but I appreciate your willingness to aid my situation." The halfling sighed, a sigh that ended in a shuddering sob. A moment later Havabuck pulled himself together and explained. "It's my core business, guv'nor. The ready money for all the others comes from a lottery I run in Dock Ward. A bet on the total daily tonnage that conies into Waterdeep, as reported by the dockmaster." "An honest man," said Mirt solemnly. The halfling nodded. "Incorruptible, and best of all, a man with a trustworthy demeanor. The lottery costs a gold lion a ticket, and it pays out a thousand gold lions. Normal take is ten thousand lions, so I get a tidy profit, which I can use to cover losses of other, less dependable operations." A lesser being might have taken the ten-thousand-gold-lion take and fled the city. Yet Havabuck was prepared to take on the obligation of paying out the ten million gold lions, not to mention the interest payments on the loan. Mirt suspected the halfling was prepared to pay any price to retain the honor of being a major crime lord of Waterdeep. [2.3]
You have enough armed guards to cart away the principal?" Mirt asked as the halfling signed the papers. Havabuck nodded. He was nothing if not efficient. It only took four hours to clear the one hundred thousand bags of gold from Mirt's treasury, since Havabuck had not thought it necessary to count the coin in each sack. Mirt's reputation was unimpeachable. Much later that evening, as Mirt sat calculating which gems, magical artifacts, and art pieces he would be selling to partially replenish his stock of coin, a masked figure appeared before him. Mirt was not startled. The mask was one of the helms worn by the members of the council who ruled the city. The council members kept their identities secret. [2.3]
'The Cassalanters have made two similar loans, one to Widow Silvermane for a similar lottery that she runs in the North Ward, the other to the Field of Triumph Race Track in Sea Ward. Over four hundred people placed bets averaging fifty gold lions on a horse named Song of the Wind before the track could post new odds. The horse ran as if Kesef the Chaos Hound was chasing him. Won three lengths ahead of the favorite. Then there's the good luck of a venture capital company called The Rock, which funded an adventuring group that took out two beholders and raided their lair. That's another million to be divided between the company's one hundred and sixty shareholders." [2.3]
Amn
“Yes. Remember a few years back when Amn invaded Maztica and brought back all that gold? A bushel of corn cost fifty gold there after the war. You said it was because there was more money circulating through their kingdom than actual goods that the money is supposed to represent." [2.3]
Cormyr
Amberlee Wyvernspur watched from an upper window as her two younger brothers joined the flock of cousins in the courtyard. They were up to some mischief, led, no doubt, by Aunt Julia's twin sons, Tavan and Toran Sudacar. Uncle Giogi's son, Gory, and Amberlee's brothers, Lumen and Ferrin, followed them like moths to the flame. As the oldest and most mature at nine years old, Amberlee generally made an effort to ignore her cousins' antics, but today the youngest cousins, Uncle Giogi's daughter, Olivia, and Aunt Julia's daughter, Heather, and even Amberlee's littlest brother, Pars, were part of the flock. Tavan and Toran were not responsible enough to keep the little ones safe. All the adults but Uncle Steele and their great-grandaunt, Aunt Dorath, had gone to a wedding at one of the nearby farms. Amberlee realized it would be up to her to find out what the older children were up to and discourage them from including Heather, Olivia, and Pars. [2.4]
Steele referred to his nieces and nephew as a pestilence of brats and barred them from his quarters completely. Whenever he had too much to drink, however, he showed a partiality to Heather, whom he mistook for his little sister Julia, although Julia was now a matron. At such times Heather was able to coax coins and candy from her uncle and was allowed to rummage through his old toys, which he still hoarded in chests beneath his bed. [2.4]
I heard Mother Lleddew tell Father last night that Tymora's power is leaking. Anyone who calls upon her gets scads of luck. [2.4]
Daramos Lauthyr, High Lord Priest of Tymora, surveyed the wreckage of a once-secret shrine to Beshaba. Hidden in an underground chamber beneath a stable beside a respectable inn, the shrine had been a mere hundred yards from the shining spires of the Lady's House, also known as the temple of Tymora and Arabel's most resplendent cathedral. Beshaba's worshipers must have laughed at their proximity as they hid here in Lady Luck's shadow. A week of heavy summer storms following hard after a season of steady spring rains had created a sinkhole over thirty feet across and twenty feet deep just beneath the stables. The secret shrine's earthen roof, insufficiently supported by wooden beams, had collapsed, as had the stable above, revealing the vipers' nest below. The worshipers had been crushed and smothered by dirt, slate rock, and lumber. The town guard, aided by Lauthyr's priests, were now sorting through the tangle of rubble and timbers to pull free the corpses of Beshaba's unfortunate followers. Apparently the collapse had occurred during a service to the Maid of Misfortune, for there were many human corpses. A dozen had been discovered in the top layer of the ruins, along with a those of half a dozen horses that had been quartered in the stable above. Among the bodies is one of the Marliir nobles. A lesser cousin," Sulwood explained. Lauthyr frowned for a moment. House Marliir was much favored in Arabel. The noble family wouldn't appreciate a priest implicating any member of their family in a scandal. With a more impassive expression, the High Lord Priest replied, "Such a pity that poor Marliir noble was in the stables when Tymora chose to weaken the supports of the temple below." Sulwood snorted contemptuously. Lauthyr's political machinations never ceased to annoy him. [2.5]
Lord Priest Doust Sulwood [2.5]
"Apparently the collapse of Beshaba's shrine changed the channel of one of the city's springs. The water is now pouring into the Lady's House." The High Lord Priest sighed with relief. "No doubt Lady Luck wished us to have a more convenient source of water," he informed the priestess. "But, High Lord," the priestess called down, "it's flooded out the scriptorium and the library. All our tomes and scrolls have been ruined." [2.5]
Only one Wyvernspur in each generation was capable of using the spur. [3.7]
Uncle Steele, a long time ago, tortured a kobold mother in or near the Wyvernspur Crypt. The kobold’s son lives and wants revenge. The kobolds worship Beshaba [3.7]
Joel
While traveling to Finder's temple in the Lost Vale, Joel had passed through Immersea in Cormyr and been welcomed into the home of Giogi Wyvernspur, a descendant of Finder's brother, Gerrin. [2.5]
Xvim
Xvim sent hydroloth to attack Beshaba, when she used her spells to defend her realms, Xvim started draining her power and bad luck went out of control. [2.5]
When Tymora used her spells to remove Xvim’s taint from Jas, Xvim started draining her power and good luck went out of control. [2]
Beshaba went to Gehenna to confront Xvim for stealing her power [2.5]
Know that you are part of the New Darkness that will spread throughout the multiverse. By your faith will Lord Xvim rule as the greatest tyrant in history, and his hatred will fill the void. [3.4]
The church of Xvim is known for its elaborate methods of torturing their sacrifices to death [3.7]
Xvim doesn't trust anyone or anything, but his priests preach that humans are the chosen people. [3.7]
Walinda
She wore a magical ring that protected her completely from the heat of Gehenna, yet she walked carefully along the crust of cooling rock. Nothing could protect her from the tons of liquid rock that would bury her should she make a misstep through the crust and tumble into the flow of lava. The ring was given to her personally by Beshaba [2.5]
she continued to reject Cyric. She had escaped the Banedeath-the campaign of destruction of the last of Bane's faithful in Zhentil Keep-but many of her friends had not. And she couldn't forget that Cyric had destroyed Zhentil Keep with his self-serving bungling. A decade ago, Cyric had been a mere mortal. She could never truly respect him or his clergy. [2.5]
Some might have seen Bane's son, Iyachtu Xvim, as a logical choice. One of Walinda's favorite paramours held a position of power in Iyachtu's church. But Bane was now her enemy and while Iyachtu had no love for his father, Walinda suspected the lesser god would prove just as deceitful and dishonorable. She had already been belittled and betrayed once by the priests of his church. She would not join them. [2.5]
She had considered offering her services to Shar, Mistress of the Night, but Shar's church was veiled in too much secrecy. Walinda didn't want to waste time negotiating the twisted power structure. She belonged in the top echelon of any hierarchy. She flirted briefly with the church of Loviatar, but the priests of the Maiden of Pain were too willing to accept suffering; indeed, it was one of the requirements of their faith. In Walinda's opinion, suffering was for peasants. [2.5]
In the end, she had chosen Beshaba. It was not a matter of settling for the least offensive of the evil gods. Walinda truly felt Beshaba suited all her needs, and she would suit Beshaba's. True, the Maiden of Misfortune was mad and capricious, but it was a madness born of spite, the sort of madness Walinda understood. The church's hierarchy was dominated by women, which would make her climb in rank more challenging, but also more certain. There would be no invisible wall blocking her progress to the seats of power. [2.5]
Walinda. He had no trouble recalling her admittedly attractive features. Joel suspected she was far older than he, but some magic kept her looking young. She had long, silky black hair and dark eyes. Blood-red tattoos decorated her high cheekbones. She wasn't particularly tall, but very slender and very graceful. [3.1]
Beshaba has imbued Walinda with her own power. by putting some of her power into Walinda, Beshaba has made Walinda a part of her. When Walinda said she was the goddess's proxy, she meant it in a very special way. Beshaba's desires are now her own. She has no choice any longer but to serve Beshaba as Beshaba would wish her to. [3.2]
Selgaunt
The Hulorn himself, the hereditary mayor of Selgaunt, stood there. Polly's eyes widened. Once upon a time the Hulorn's blue eyes and curly black hair and boyish charm had attracted more than his share of women. But that was twenty years ago. Now he was a plump middle-aged man of average height. He was still a man of power, however. [2.5]
The Eyes of the Sea Queen owned by the Hulorn of Selgaunt. There, on a white velvet pillow, shining softly like full moons, were two pearls the size of oranges. They were the largest ever discovered in the Realms. [2.5]
While the Hulorn was thus occupied, Polly dropped the pearls down her blouse and drew out a leather blackjack from the pocket of her apron. With a quick, practiced motion Polly slammed the blackjack into the back of the Hulorn's head. He went out like a light, sprawling at Polly's feet. With two pairs of long silk stockings pulled from another pocket, Polly bound and gagged the Hulorn. Then she took his keys from his pocket and retrieved her feather duster. Once she'd slipped from the exhibition hall, she locked the door behind her with the stolen key. After rebuttoning her blouse, she moved quite unhurriedly down the servant's staircase and hung her feather duster in the appropriate cabinet. Taking up a broom, she swept her way through the kitchen, brushing the dirt out the kitchen door. She left the broom by the door and made her way unhurriedly along the garden path, pulling weeds from the onion beds. No one seeing her would suspect she was anything but a parlor maid, kitchen maid, or gardener. Polly had a ship (pirate captain????) [2.5]
The ship rose and fell as a great swell passed beneath it. The swell grew as it approached the land. It caught the Selgaunt navy vessel chasing Polly's ship and carried it along on its crest. By the time it reached the city harbor, the swell had become a wall of water. The water crashed down on Selgaunt, smashing the dockside buildings and depositing the navy vessel, plus several others, in the city streets. The Selgaunt docks were carried back out to sea. Then she heard a roar behind her. A second tidal wave, even more monstrous than the first, caught her ship on its gigantic crest and swept it inland at a breathtaking pace. Once more Polly called on Beshaba to take her enemies, but there were no enemies left. The water slammed into the Sembian peninsula two miles south of Selgaunt and heaved Polly's vessel inland a hundred feet, dashing it against a cliff. The ship splintered like a child's toy, and its crew and owner were scattered across the beach below. Their corpses were found mingled with the vessel's rare cargo; the farmer who buried them was richly rewarded. [2.5]
Holly
Holly nodded. Her father, Joel recalled, had been a warrior from Zhakara who had settled in Daggerdale, far from his native land, after having fallen in love with Holly's mother. He'd died only a year ago, murdered by orc raiders along with his wife and in-laws. Holly still used the curved blade he'd brought with him from Zhakara. [3.3]
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
Posted - 29 Jan 2023 : 12:52:27
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Not really a realms novel, but somewhat entertaining despite it being based almost entirely in the planes.
The novel shows how easy it is to deceive a god or hide something from them. Gods can only see what is going on in the immediate vicinity of their priests or by focusing on some other place that is not the domain of another god (a place, a priest, etc). So if you dont draw attention to yourself then you almost certainly wont be noticed (avoid temples and priests). If you are going to go to one of the places that is the domain of a god (visit a temple or priest or sacred place or the home realm) then you either need to have a more powerful god hide you, or you need to hope that the other god is busy.
Some interesting bits about Tyche and Lathander. I'm not entirely certain that Lathander is good, his behaviour is more like Khelben - all about the greater good (to his mind) which makes him Neutral (with evil tendencies, because unlike Khelben, Lathander is blinded by his own selfish interests, he has none of the sense of duty of Khelben).
Power Keys, it doesnt explicitly say so, but i'm fairly certain (since they hold the power of a god and destroying them loses that power) they are artefacts. Which means that blue crystal sphere of Tyche's could be very interesting. The coin from Myth Drannor was Tymora's power key i presume, it would be nice to know the story behind it. The rose must be Beshaba's power key and i'm wondering if it is the very rose that tainted Tyche.
Zorn's sceptre in the Blood Tor - who was Zorn, must be noteworthy enough for Beshaba to remember him and keep his sceptre in the prison deliberately.
Nothing very realmsian in the whole novel, but lots of little interesting nuggets that saved my interest in it. |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Seravin
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1288 Posts |
Posted - 29 Jan 2023 : 21:59:06
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
Simbuls Gift is next, which is a good one apparently.
One of the best. Not to oversell it. But there's a LOT of lore up in that book to digest - for the Chosen, the elven pantheon, Aglarond, Yuirwood, and of course most of all Thay and the Zulkirs which is by far the most interesting lore of all to me. |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Seravin
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1288 Posts |
Posted - 30 Jan 2023 : 21:33:46
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| The author of Simbul's Gift, Lynn Abbey, just REALLY did her homework with the characters and setting. It's impressive on a level that few of these Realms authors get. If you pick up some of the 2nd edition sourcebooks on Thay or the Seven Sisters, everything in the book tracks. I love it when the editing is sharp in these books (which I say is down to the author as I don't think TSR/WotC really had the money or inclination to police the lore/cannon in 1997). |
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George Krashos
Master of Realmslore
Australia
6666 Posts |
Posted - 01 Feb 2023 : 12:56:59
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
Its implied the Yuirwood Pantheon were originally worshipped by the humans hunting in the Yuirwood before the wild elves arrived.
Which is why I created the Arthraen.
-- George Krashos |
"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Seravin
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1288 Posts |
Posted - 01 Feb 2023 : 21:25:32
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| Lauzoril was definitely the most well rounded villain - although I've got a soft spot for Aznar Thrull's paranoia and viciousness. Both are portrayed well imo. Didn't care for Mythrell'a - she was too cartoonish in this book for me. I wanted her to be the embodiment of illusion. |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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George Krashos
Master of Realmslore
Australia
6666 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2023 : 01:43:29
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I think the Elven ToT might pre-date the moon/gold elf presence on Toril. It would appear to be featured in Elaines "Evermeet" novel in terms of Araushnee's attempt to kill Corellon and head the pantheon.
-- George Krashos |
"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2023 : 11:35:37
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The Simbul’s Gift (1368 DR)
By Lynn Abbey
Simbul
The queen of Aglarond, called the Simbul and the witch-queen and many, many other, less complimentary names, is, in fact, Alassra Shentrantra, sixth of The Seven Chosen Sisters. The circumstances of her birth in Neverwinter in the Year of the Yearning are recorded elsewhere. Suffice to say, she was not yet two years of age when her mother, Elue Shundar, died and her father, Dornal, vanished from her life. The mage Elminster entrusted her to the Witches of Rashemen for her upbringing, telling the witches that Alassra was an orphan and without siblings. [prologue]
Alassra grew up believing the witches of Rashemen [prologue]
Alassra left Rashemen at the age of sixteen, leaving neither roots nor regrets. For decades she roamed Faerun in search of magic. She stopped wherever there was something to learn, and stayed only until she had mastered it. Deep in a bat-ridden cave, while she was searching for the living pearls of Mysotic (who was Mysotic????), Alassra Shentrantra discovered that though she was human and vulnerable to death, she did not age as other humans did-could not age as they did. [prologue]
With the pearls in her purse, Alassra returned to Rashemen, hoping to learn more about her origins. But the witches who had raised her were dead, their successors ignorant, and the Vremyonni seers trembled when she approached them in the Running Rocks. Never one to bear frustration lightly, even in her youth, Alassra took her curiosity to the Outer Planes, visiting places that no human before her had seen, much less survived. She gathered spells like apples. She became a master of magic, but she learned nothing about herself. [prologue]
Over the next four and a half centuries, the unaging Alassra Shentrantra lived three-score lives, most as a human woman, but sometimes as a man and sometimes within another race's skin. On occasion, she lived in obscurity, but many of her disguised lives are remembered in song and legend. By her own accounts, given to the monks here at Candlekeep during her rare visits, she enjoyed her notoriety and was pleased by the number and quality of her enemies. Beneath her disguise, she'd lost much of her humanity, replacing it with the dross of learning and magic. [prologue]
Then, when we and she least expected it, the Sixth-of-the-Seven fell in love. Not for the first time, of course. Alassra took and discarded lovers in all of her disguises, but it was different when Lailomun Zerad strode into her life. Lailomun was a mage, a candle mage compared to Alassra's firestorm. But it was danger, not magic that held them together and led Alassra Shentrantra to reveal herself for the first time, and completely, to another. Now Zerad was an initiate of a magic school (what magic school????) that forbade association, intimate or otherwise, with free-lance wizards such as Alassra Shentrantra. More specifically, Zerad's mentor was a woman who tolerated no rivals, intimate or otherwise. She owned her students outright and would sooner have destroyed a man than surrender him to another. The scent of danger surrounded them both during the two years they trysted in secret. Then, Lailomun's deceit was uncovered. The next time Alassra arrived at their bolt-hole, she found a rose-thorn branch (what magic school uses rose thorned branches????) waiting on her lover's pillow. She grieved-of that there is no doubt-but her grief was less than her need for vengeance. Alassra was not yet Chosen; she is the Sixth of the Seven, but she is the first with spellcraft. Beyond doubt, she could have crushed Lailomun's mentor. With a little care and planning, her spells could have destroyed his homeland. And, at that time, her conscience would have raised no objections to the loss of innocent lives. [prologue]
Mystra confronted Alassra in the planes where she gathered the reagents for her most cataclysmic spells. The confrontation lasted a month and in the end, the goddess prevailed. Alassra left the planes as one of the Chosen. She was as wroth as she'd been when she found the rose-thorn branch, but many times wiser. [prologue]
Not long after that fateful encounter in the planes, Alassra Shentrantra arrived in Aglarond, southwest of Rashemen, due west of Thay where dwell the Red Wizards, longtime enemies of Alassra's one-time guardians and not at all coincidentally-home to Lailomun's mentor. Without revealing her name-any of her names-the Sixth-of-the-Seven offered herself as an apprentice to Ilione, sister of Halacar, King of Aglarond at that time, though Ilione knew no magic that Alassra hadn't known for at least a century. [prologue]
As the years passed, Alassra buried her love for Lailomun and raised it up again in the simple folk of Aglarond. The vengeance Mystra had forbidden became the just defense of her new homeland. Time and time again, Alassra directed her fury into the land of Thay and against the corrupt Red Wizards who rule there. At Ilione's suggestion, King Halacar dubbed the nameless apprentice, the Simbul, a meaningless title, so far as I have been able to determine, but one well-respected in Aglarond where it became synonymous with a tall, silver-haired woman, with lightning eyes and a temper to match. Emboldened by his sister's fierce apprentice, King Halacar launched Aglarond's small army against the Red Wizards, but, for all her magic, the Simbul was not yet a warrior and certainly not a competent army commander. The Aglarondans barely avoided a rout. The people lost faith in their king; the king lost faith in his sister and the Simbul. For a year the very air of Aglarond was rank with anarchy and treason, until the king died, poisoned, it was said, and probably by Thayan hands-though no one looked hard for the culprits. Ilione succeeded her brother on Aglarond's Verdigris Throne. She restored order and righteousness throughout her kingdom, as is recorded in many other chronicles. She built Aglarond's first navy and rebuilt its army, but kept it home. Throughout Ilione's sixty-year reign, her apprentice, the Simbul, oversaw Aglarond's borders and-sometimes with the army's aid but more often alone-kept them secure from Thayan incursion. Before she died, Queen Ilione named the Simbul as her heir. By then, of course, the Aglarondans knew the Simbul was no ordinary human woman, no ordinary wizard. No noble family nor merchant faction was foolish enough to object to the Simbul's coronation in the Year of the Watching Cold. For seven years now, Alassra Shentrantra has ruled as the Simbul. She is at best respected, more generally feared, and only rarely loved by those around her. She keeps the Red Wizards out of Aglarond, and for that she commands her realm's undivided loyalty. [prologue]
My mother," she whispered. Elue Shundar had been a half-elf, the child of an elf and human pairing. Alassra and her sisters, of course, took after their human father. [1]
Alassra's already uncanny sensitivity to things magical. [2]
Time was-before Lailomun and Aglarond-when those eyes would have drawn Alassra Shentrantra like a magnet. For centuries, rogues had been her favorite companions. Her past was pleasantly littered with memories of men who took advantage of every opportunity that crossed-or simply neared-their twisted paths. Those had been the days-and nights-of fine adventuring. [2]
As a shapeshifter, the queen of Aglarond acknowledged no peer. She could transform herself into any living creature and assume inanimate shapes besides. She could become whatever her audience expected to see. No beauty or monstrosity was beyond her, nothing at all-except a glimpse of her face as nature had intended it. [2]
six hundred and two years old [2]
The Old Mage (Elminster) knew what day it was. He'd sent her a priceless gift: a pair of Mulhorandi scrolls, each more than three thousand years old [2]
Mystra had deliberately created Alassra and her sisters. First, the goddess had selected Dornal to be the father of her Chosen Ones, then she'd possessed Elue Shundar and married them together. They produced seven daughters in as many years. In the six centuries since then, the goddess had welcomed only thirteen grandchildren-and all but one of them were Alustriel's half-elf sons, the Aerasume. [2]
Alassra Shentrantra, the storm queen who'd face a basilisk with nerves of steel, had a phobic fear of being impolite to her still-unfamiliar family. [2]
Alustriel was five years older than Alassra; she remembered family traditions and kept them alive. After Lailomun and Mystra, it was Alustriel who told her the family history, including the exact date of her birth. [2]
He was wrong about the staff. It wasn't a weapon; she never took it into battle. The wood had a memory for places, though, and could take her almost anywhere she'd ever been. It was the easiest way in and out of her tower workroom. [2]
studied it by the light of a spell-dissolving lamp. Foul smells poisoned the air: blood pearl and dragon's wing foremost among them; not the Simbul's favorite reagents, [2]
Mystra's Chosen didn't need to sleep; their dreams were mostly daydreams, pale imitations of the real thing [2]
a woman who'd been nicknamed the storm queen long before she took possession of Aglarond's throne. [6]
Alassra's grimoires contained spells to lift a man's emotional burdens though a hundred years had passed since she'd cast even one of them. Magic couldn't salve a guilty conscience, not without leaving something much worse in its place. [6]
Alassra withdrew a delicate knife from a sheath strapped above her wrist. She kissed the blade once then squeezed it within her fist. The knife was a gift from her younger sister, Qilue Eresseae, who'd been born drow, not human, and who was Chosen by both Mystra and the drow goddess, Eilistraee. The elven metal with its swirling patterns was a marvel that never required sharpening. Its edge, however, was the least of its virtues. Awakened by a sister's kiss and a taste of her blood, the knife bestowed elven senses until the wound closed. Also provided proof against spells and proof against poison [6]
The Chosen weren't indestructible-Alassra's eldest sister had died defending Shadowdale from a maddened dragon only a few years ago. Sylune willingly sacrificed her life; she'd had the power to save herself. Her choice had saved hundreds, maybe thousands, of Shadowdale-men's lives when there was no other way to save them, and Sylune hadn't died an ordinary death: She'd become a spectral harper, learning to make new kinds of music. Even so, Alassra hadn't made peace with her sister's sacrifice. [6]
a gout of storm-tossed water that swerved between the trees. In other times, other places, Alassra had destroyed a stone fortress with a similar spell. [6]
The sheath held a plain dagger with a brass-studded hilt and a single-edged blade. A peddler had given it to her after she rescued his donkey from a muddy ravine. Short of the donkey, it was the man's most valuable possession, so she'd kept it, as she kept many things, until she found better homes for them. It could neutralize most poisons on contact and deflect simple spells; but the Simbul could neutralize any poison and her ability to deflect magic was second to none. It was Thayan made, called Kemzali, used to belong to Lauzoril who planted it with the Simbul. The Simbul gave it to Ebroin at Sulalk [6,22,23]
her most fragile mementoes, none of them magically useful-gifts from her sisters, a lock of her mother's hair, the thorn branch she'd taken from Lailomun's pillow. She'd learned the domestic cantrips for cleaning centuries ago, but simple magic never intrigued her. The storm queen had always been better at whipping up the weather than containing the dust that burst from an ancient tome. [10]
She'd never had a permanent home before Velprintalar. She'd cached her few possessions throughout Faerun in warded boxes, none of them larger than a seaman's chest. Her life had been the pursuit of knowledge and adventure, not things, not until she became a queen. [10]
Royalty acquired and accumulated. From her deathbed, Queen Ilione had warned her apprentice and heir: Clean out the past. Don't let it pull you under. Alassra had taken the words metaphorically, ignoring many of Aglarond's dearly held traditions as she established her reign, but Ilione had intended a more literal interpretation. [10]
I'm not my sister; I'm not Laeral. I can't go away and come back pretending to be my namesake. [10]
a little book of cantrips. She'd devised them centuries ago, the last time she'd been tempted to add a child to her life. [10]
A spell she'd devised and stored in a finger-sized wand had never failed to unmask a Red Wizard. [10]
resurrection-which the Simbul wasn't prepared to perform on the Sulalk knoll [10]
Nethreene! Alassra's name-the private name only her sisters, Elminster, and a very few others knew [10]
Her sisters didn't know about Lailomun; the family needed a few kept secrets. [13]
how, by the coruscating frosts of Talimesh (where is Talimesh????) [13]
As a wizard, Alassra was more skilled than any of her sisters. On a good day and with the wind at her back, she could sense things even the Old Mage missed. [13]
Alassra Shentrantra didn't like formal gatherings [17]
Dlaertha, Alustriel’s secret name [17]
Alassra’s grandmother - "Bethril," Alustriel answered in her sister's place, "Bethril Morningsong, daughter of Herran and Caethene. She was a Moon elf, like yourself and through Herran Morningsong she traced her lineage to Querryl and Thalleir, Elayna and-" [17]
Over the centuries, Alassra had absorbed a number of useful spells-some simple, some not. They'd become as much a part of her as her eyes or ears and when she disguised herself those spells were disguised as well. The ruse would never fool Elminster or another masterful wizard, but in the Yuirwood, among Cha'Tel'Quessir who couldn't cast more than three spells between them, her mind asked questions; her fingers perceived answers as natural as breath, as quick as a single beat of her heart. [21]
Lightning was her favorite death spell. When she cast it, the white-hot bolts were met and balanced by a counterthrust from deep within the soil. [24]
It was difficult for one wizard to judge the true might of another. Above a certain level of proficiency, all wizards were liars. The Simbul fostered notions that she was reckless-not entirely untrue-and careless with her wizardry, when in truth, she detested magical surprises and meticulously planned her spellcasting. The result, as she intended, was that her enemies both feared her and continually underestimated her. [26]
Alassra Shentrantra wasn't much of a dancer, either. Court dances with their pattern steps were worse than boring and the ecstatic dancing Rizcarn described asked too much of a wizard who enjoyed spontaneity only when she was in complete control of it. When Rizcarn proposed that she dance alone at the center of the circles while he led the Cha'Tel'Quessir in a vine dance among the inner stones she came within a heartbeat of heading straight back to Velprintalar. [27]
Alassra knew that mark and its variations. She'd seen it glowing on countless Red Wizards in the moments before they destroyed themselves utterly. Since coming to Aglarond, the Simbul had carefully researched the various spells of Lusaka Gur and found ways to foil them. Wisely, she'd made those foils a thoughtless part of her defenses [28]
She hadn't asked to be Chosen, might well have refused if she'd been given a choice-had refused when Mystra first confronted her after Lailomun's abduction. Mystra hadn't mentioned the Simbul when she suggested Aglarond might be a good place to heal. But goddesses weren't compelled to mention anything and sharing one of her Chosen wouldn't have been entirely unprecedented. Alassra's drow sister, Qilue, was high priestess of Eilistraee in addition to being one of Mystra's Chosen, but that had been arranged before Qilue's birth. If this sharing was also the result of a six-hundred-year-old bargain, Alassra was going to be angry beyond measure: the end didn't justify the means, not when it was her life in the balance. [28]
Rashemen
The witches, trusting Elminster, believed him [prologue]
the Vremyonni seers trembled when she approached them in the Running Rocks [prologue]
Rashemaar horsemen: They could break a horse in a morning. [2]
"Cold tea and crumpets!" the queen grumbled, resorting to the harmless curse the Rashemaar Witches had taught her a long time ago [2]
Yuirwood
Zandilar: a goddess, maybe, called into being in the Yuirwood a long time ago by humans who lived in crude lakeside huts and hunted with stone-tipped spears. The only depictions of her from that time show her either naked and dancing or running with animals-usually horses-while hunters throw spears. (Does this mean that there were two Zandilars?) When the Tel'Quessir came to Faerun, a tribe of the Sy-Tel'Quessir took the Yuirwood for their own. They were stronger and smarter than the humans; they had their own gods, who were stronger and smarter than gods like Zandilar. The humans disappeared from the Yuirwood after the Sy-Tel'Quessir arrived, but their Seldarine gods absorbed Zandilar and the other old human gods instead of driving them out. According to the Sy-Tel'Quessir, there was only one Zandilar and she was always dancing. They knew her as the goddess of physical passion and romance, and when they depicted her, they depicted her with a cat, not a horse, because cats are like that. Probably she was a popular goddess, but not an important one, and the other Tel'Quessir never adopted her or any of the other gods the Sy-Tel'Quessir worshiped in the Yuirwood. Once the Sy-Tel'Quessir were in the Yuirwood, nothing changed, for a very long time. Then the Yuirwood Sy-Tel'Quessir got careless and got tangled in wars with goblin-kind and the drow. They drew their gods into the wars with them, and even though they won the wars and kept the Yuirwood, they lost, too, because they and their gods had done bad things in order to win. So the Sy-Tel'Quessir of the Yuirwood began to forget things. They began to die. When humans came back to the Yuirwood, there weren't many Yuir elves left, and they'd forgotten most everything that had ever been important to them, including their gods. Other elves remembered the Seldarine, but only the Yuir elves had ever known about Zandilar, Relkath, Magnar and the other old human gods. Now, no one knows anything about Zandilar. The Candlekeep mentors say she's missing or that she's become a part of the forest. But they don't know. No one knows what's happened to her, why she vanished, or whether she could come back. I think she could come back, if the Cha'Tel'Quessir who live in the Yuirwood now wanted her and the other old gods, but maybe they shouldn't try too hard. Maybe Zandilar's been gone too long. Maybe she wouldn't be a goddess of passion and romance when she came back. [prologue]
the Cha'Tel'Quessir half-elves of the Yuirwood [1]
The Cha'Tel'Quessir weren't horse-folk. [1]
In the Yuirwood, the Cha'Tel'Quessir were hunters and, for their own sakes, they quenched the innate rapport they felt with wildlife. [1]
a twilight colt of the Yuirwood. [1]
Relkath was Lord of Trees, Godhead of the Yuirwood and buried so deep in time and memory that listening for his voice was like listening for the splash of a single raindrop during a summer storm. [1]
Zandilar, a slender apparition in silver and gold. Cloaked in dazzling light, the apparition had no sex nor race, but her laugh was feminine, as was her manner. She sat astride a twilight horse whose black legs disappeared in its shadow. Come dance with Zandilar in the Yuirwood, fine young man. Come when you're ready. I'll wait for you in the Sunglade!" Zandilar spoke the Cha'Tel'Quessir dialect with a lilting accent as if ordinary words were a magical melody. [1]
the Sunglade, Rizcarn had spoken of it in reverent tones: the oldest stone circle in the Yuirwood, older than the Cha'Tel'Quessir, built by the Yuir, the wild and full-blooded Sy-Tel'Quessir from whom Bro and all his scattered kin claimed descent. [1]
the rumor that some of the Cha'Tel'Quessir seek to arouse the powers of their distant ancestors [1]
Faerun was a colder, wetter place, stamped with great trees the likes of which-well, a few remain in the groves around your sister's Silverymoon, but of what remains of that primal forest, most of it is in your beloved Aglarond, deep in the Yuirwood." [1]
I know nothing about them, dear friend, except that they-the hunters (humans) and their gods-existed in that part of the primal Faerun forest that the Yuir elves would eventually claim for themselves. There those elves would erect two stone circles, one inside the other, one inscribed with Seldarine names and the other with names that are, as you, yourself said, at best, half-forgotten." "The Cha'Tel'Quessir? Say it outright, El: There are Cha'Tel'Quessir who've never reconciled to human rule in Aglarond. They wish to see every human man, woman, and child put in boats and sailed toward the sunset. They'd like to raise the ancient Yuir powers toward that aim, but they won't act on their wish, not while the zulkirs and tharchions of Thay lick their chops just across Aglarond's border." "If they've only got one wish, Alassra. I doubt that they do. Oh, maybe some of them, the Cha'Tel'Quessir are no more immune to short sight than the rest of us. [1]
She didn't worry too much about Red Wizards infiltrating the Yuirwood. Little as the wilder Cha'Tel'Quessir might love Aglarond's queen, they preferred her to anyone from Thay. A Red Wizard falling afoul of them might well wish he'd crossed the Simbul's path instead. [2]
Your gods' curse on you - the precise, formal oath of a deep forest Cha'Tel'Quessir [6]
Zandilar was mentioned only a handful of times in Elminster's vast library and not once in the Aglarondan archives. Alassra had checked every scroll and tome. All she knew for certain was that Zandilar was a Yuirwood goddess-possibly elven, possibly not-and that she hadn't been worshiped since the Cha'Tel'Quessir began to be born. [6]
the creature had the wit to perceive magic. For a moment she saw it striding manlike among the trees with a broad, powerful trunk, long, rooty fingers, and burning eyes. She couldn't yet give it a name, but it had roused a memory. Rashemaar witches, each with a masked face, crowded Alassra's thoughts. The forest is not ours, they reminded her. The forest was here before us and must be here when we are gone. The forest has had its own protector from the beginning. Woe betide us, if we fail to protect the forest. Every day, then and now, the witches left offerings for the Old Man, the forest's first and most powerful protector. Alassra's guardians had never seen the Old Man and prayed they never would, but they described him as a giant, both manlike and treelike. Aside from size-the creature before her was no giant-it and the Old Man seemed the same. According to the stories Alassra remembered, when the Old Man appeared, uprooting and shattering the trees he otherwise protected, the witches brewed special offerings of herbs and honey, then the eldest witch, the wisest and most revered of their never-large number, would take the offering into the forest, a journey from which she never returned. [6]
in the Yuirwood, where the forest's own magic dampened great spells [6]
the Cha'Tel'Quessir weren't one friendly family. A lone half-elf could find himself in a world of trouble if he hunted in the wrong part of the forest. Rizcarn had managed, but Rizcarn wasn't like other Cha'Tel'Quessir. Bro's father claimed to be Relkath's messenger and said that the tree god protected him-which made his death, falling out of a tree, all the more pointless. 
caves were few in the Yuirwood and any one large enough for a horse was likely to be occupied by something not interested in sharing with strangers. That left gullies, underbrush, and young trees with tall neighbors to draw the lightning away.
Butternut trees with their numerous, spreading branches were Relkath's favorite trees. Rizcarn never passed a butternut tree without carving Relkath's mark into its trunk. This tree was old, if Rizcarn had ever seen it, he would have marked it and Bro would know his father had passed this way. He found what he was looking for on the tree's southern flank.
one of his uncles told a tale of the seelie folk who'd haunt and torment a solitary Cha'Tel'Quessir until he went mad and killed himself.
Cha'Tel'Quessir legend whispered of two seelie races, the mischievous ones who made folk act like fools and their dark cousins who'd hound a man to his death. He thought he'd encountered the mischievous race and didn't want to risk attracting the other one with a curse. [12]
Cha'Tel'Quessir elders always said that magic was different in the Yuirwood. [12]
A bear or something worse. Seelie weren't the worst that lived in the Yuirwood. There were wolf packs, panthers, and creatures every bit as magical as the seelie, but a hundred times larger and meaner. Bro didn't think the Simbul's knife would help him against a greenhag, if he met one. The danger was small. The Yuirwood recognized the Cha'Tel'Quessir as rightful guardians, and in turn the trees sheltered the Cha'Tel'Quessir from their enemies. [12]
The Old Mage thinks she's (Zandilar) one of the goddesses the old Yuir elves worshiped in addition to the Seldarine pantheon-or, maybe, before them. [13]
The Cha'Tel'Quessir don't know Zandilar; why would the elves of Evermeet? They'd lost contact with the Yuir elves long before the Cha'Tel'Quessir began." "The Yuir had lost contact with the Elven Court," Alustriel began, using a wise, patient tone guaranteed to set Alassra's teeth on edge. "Sister, if you know that the damn elven sages know something, then say so." Alustriel took a deep breath, drawing herself up to her full height, currently a finger's breadth above her sister. "The Yuir had become decadent. They were divided by petty wars and wracked by disease… by disease, 'Las. You know Tel'Quessir almost never become physically unwell unless their spirits are unwell first. They don't talk about it, but I'm certain they know more than they've said and far more than the Cha'Tel'Quessir." [13]
a mottled fungus called tree ears that grew in thick ridges along the trunk [15]
over there. That's where Zandilar danced with the hunters (on the far side of the River Umber. The stones rose haphazardly from the ground, no two the same height or angle, completely unlike the measured stone circles of the Yuirwood. Bro worried that they were no part of his heritage, until he stood close to one and studied its markings. He couldn't read the runes his elven ancestors carved on trees and stones alike, but he recognized them and was reassured. "Magnar." He touched one of the more common carvings. That last summer, when he'd followed his father through the forest, they'd carved Relkath's name into the trees, but they'd carved Magnar's name whenever they'd found a moss-covered boulder. "The stones remember. His trust vanished when they reached the center of the ancient stones. A large stone lay flat, its visible surface covered with swirling marks that weren't like any runes Bro had ever seen. When he stared at them, his body began to weave in rhythm with Rizcarn's music. He walked forward, toward the stone until he tripped and, aware that there was magic in the air, wrapped his hand firmly around the hilt of his knife. [15]
Zandilar, about whom I can learn very little, except that she was called 'the Dancer' and that there's a small stone bearing her name in the Sunglade inside a circle of larger, Seldarine stones." [17]
When the Yuir came to Abeir-toril they found men and women like no others. The forest had hidden them, like creatures caught on a island. They lived and worshiped alone, until the Tel'Quessir arrived. Relkath, Magnar, Zandilar! They were wild gods," he hissed across the circle. "Those who worshiped them were wild, too, or became wild. If they had tamed themselves… But that went against their nature. Another path had to be secured before the Tel'Quessir lost their way in the Yuirwood. The Moon elf blamed the forest, saying it was too old, too wild for the Tel'Quessir. "We were wrong to go there, more wrong to stay. The Yuirwood shaped the Yuir, not the other way around. We should have left it to those who were there when we came. [17]
"Zandilar, as my lady says, suffered as only gods can suffer: she was subsumed, vanquished, we think, along with all the gods and demigods the Yuir venerated. They all disappeared, extinguished like so many candles. The Tel'Quessir cannot find them. The Seldarine cannot find them. As for the Yuir, they were extinguished not long after they defeated the drow and drove them back; and the trolls and their other enemies-except for the humans. [17]
"It's been five hundred years since the last Yuir elf died." [17]
Zandilar the Traitor, corrupted by Vhaeraun." "Not a traitor," the old woman insisted. "Never a traitor! She escaped from Vhaeraun's pit and returned to the Yuirwood. Her faith was never challenged." "It should have been," Stiwelen shouted. "It should have been by the Tel'Quessir! We should have acted when we could." "They did," the old woman said in a whisper that commanded attention. "I was there. The drow and their allies were gone; the humans were coming. The Yuirwood could never be restored to what it had been; there was only the question of protecting what was left. The Yuir elves and their gods agreed: they gave up their essence to the forest, to keep its secrets. They agreed to be forgotten. [17]
"Concoct a tale suitable for our ears? They're afraid, Sister dear. They've (the elves) been afraid of the Yuirwood since they came to Abeir-toril, and they've never been more afraid than they are now." [17]
Trovar Halaern, a Cha’Tel’Quessir that the Simbul trusted (and who trusted her) [19]
Chayan." It was a fairly common name among the Cha'Tel'Quessir. "Of SilverBranch." "SilverBranch? I don't know that tree." (the half elves do not name themselves for villages, they name themselves for the trees they live in????) [19]
I'm Gren, of his tree. A female Cha’Tel’Quessir. Sister of Trovar Halaern [19]
If the seelie were a nuisance, their dark-spirited cousins, the unseelie, were a true menace, with venom on their blades and in their minds. They did their worst against Trovar Halaern, but the forester was deadly with his sword and the Yuirwood itself shielded him from their vicious, but minor, magic. The bear was not so fortunate. Though the dark seelie preferred to torment the sentient races, they'd stoop to animals if the victims were especially tempting: two bear cubs, midway through their first summer. Both had been shapeshifted and wounded; one appeared dead, the other, with a broken wing sprouted from its back, cried piteously. [19]
each darting seelie to the ground, killing it directly or stunning it but capturing one of the creatures appealed to her. No one knew where they hid between attacks; it wasn't anywhere that mortal men and women dwelt. Once they'd been rare in the Yuirwood, creatures of legend not experience. That had begun changing several years ago. At first the Simbul had believed the cause was delinquent magic left over from the Time of Troubles but now-with her meeting with the elven sages fresh in her mind-she suspected it had something to do with the Yuirwood's old, wild gods. A year ago, she'd offered all her foresters rings enchanted with spells meant specifically to counter the unseelie. Halaern had politely declined. He didn't like wizard magic, didn't like any magic unless it was rooted in his beloved Yuirwood. It had taken Alassra years to get him to wear a verdigrised circlet that worked with the forest's innate magic and-because she'd made it-allowed her to sense his well-being whether she was in Velprintalar or six paces to his left. [19]
a grotesque seelie with the wings of a bat, the lower body of a serpent, and the upper body of an orc [19]
Of all the men Alassra had met and loved in her long life, Trovar Halaern was one she'd never meant to love her in return. But he was younger than Ebroin when they first met, and she'd appeared very much as she appeared right now. [19]
"The MightyTree are three days' walking from here. They are a balanced kindred," by which the forester meant that the MightyTree elders steered the family in the middle current between their Yuirwood heritage and tolerance for those who dwelt outside the forest. [19]
In the darkest chambers of the deepest caves there are paintings on the walls. I've seen horses there, horses with spots, horses the color of twilight and other animals that are long gone from the Yuirwood. And I've heard that there are other caves where a maiden leads a horse that the hunters follow. [19]
If you'd asked me at Midsummer, I'd've said Rizcarn of GoldenMoss was dead these past seven years. Seems, though, that I've been wrong, that he was off prowling other forests. He's back, preaching Relkath's return, same as before. Always was a strange one. GoldenMoss hunters found him living wild." The Simbul raised an eyebrow. Tales of Cha'Tel'Quessir raised by the Yuirwood itself were rampant in the forest. Few, if any, were believable. "It's what they say and no one challenges them. Not MightyTree." "Not a balanced sort, this Rizcarn?" Halaern shook his head, searching for the right words. "Hardly. He trekked from one end of the Yuirwood to the other, carving Relkath's rune in tree bark. We thought him slightly mad, completely harmless. No one paid attention." "But they are now, now that he's come back.?" "He's called all Cha'Tel'Quessir to the Sunglade. I've kept a distance, my queen, but others are listening. I didn't take him seriously. He's not the first, my queen, to dance in the Sunglade. Nothing's happened there before, but if he's a Red Wizard in disguise… I will climb trees and look farther than I have. There are other ways. [19]
One tree-family, Deep Well, had run them off. That had been the first day, when it had only been him, Rizcarn, and an old man named Lanig whom Bro remembered vaguely from his boyhood. Elders listened to Rizcarn now that he had thirty Cha'Tel'Quessir walking with him-at least they pretended to. [20]
A man knelt beside him, Bro recognized him as the one who'd held his arm during the night and remembered his name, as well: Yongour [20]
Age wasn't supposed to be important between men and women in the Yuirwood [22]
They gathered like tree-family elders at Yongour's fire, sipping tea and gnawing chunks of yesterday's bread. [22]
When Cha'Tel'Quessir met, they exchanged personal names, but when the meeting was important-when a man met an elder for the first time-Cha'Tel'Quessir exchanged lineages until they found a common ancestor. Bro wracked his memory for the proper lineages [22]
Trovar Halaern, Eshtrelan's grandson. Her brother, Strael, went to MightyTree with Dassa." Dassa had died long before Bro was born. He counted the generations and degrees on his knuckles, the way he'd been taught. "My twice-great-uncle's sister's daughter. [22]
Relkath of the Infinite Branches." "The Old Man of the Yuirwood." [23]
The foresters had mastered the Yuirwood's magic before they came to her. Her circlets enhanced their power, but didn't create it. [26]
"I (Rizcarn) have already been chosen-I was chosen. I serve Relkath. I cannot serve Zandilar. She must have another. I wake the trees. I tell them to remember the past. That's how I serve Relkath. Relkath came to me. He told me Zandilar's horse was in the Yuirwood and that I should be its guide. He told me where to find the horse and where to find Zandilar. I found Ebroin, who was my son. Zandilar had chosen Ebroin, but he wouldn't go with her." [26]
the ridge that girdled the Sunglade like a mother's open arms. It had been years-decades-since Alassra's one and only visit to the Yuirwood's best known, most mysterious stone circle. She'd forgotten how small it was. The inner circle wasn't more than five paces across-scarcely enough for eleven Cha'Tel'Quessir, a goddess and a dancing horse. The Sunglade grew as they descended the ridge, a natural phenomenon of perspective and light from the setting sun. Rays struck mica crystals in the black granite stones and transformed them into giant jewels. Seeing the stones at sunset made it easy to understand why they were collectively called the Sunglade. Age and power hung in the air, not malicious, merely watching, waiting, as they had for centuries or millennia. [27]
The forester's healing talents were enhanced by the circlet she'd given him, but not derived from it. All the foresters practiced a form of simple druidry unique to the Yuirwood and effective within its bounds. [27]
Rizcarn - Your son is missing, taken, we think, by Red Wizards from Thay." She watched for Rizcarn's reaction. "A terrible thing. Yes. Such a man waited for me, a Red Wizard (Deaizul) from Thay. I killed him, but that wasn't enough. He became part of me. I turned to Relkath, but there was nothing Relkath could do, so I did what I was meant to do while Relkath found a way to free me." "Now, as we drew close to the Sunglade, Relkath overcame the Red Wizard's influence?" It was not an explanation the Simbul had considered. "I am myself again. I am here at the Sunglade with the Cha'Tel'Quessir. I have done Relkath's work and he has rewarded me. [27]
There were ten stones in the inner circle; one for each of them. Alassra read Relkath's name on one, Magnar and Elikarashae on two more, Zandilar's on a fourth, above the old Espruar rune for dancing. If she had a place, then Zandilar's stone was it and she started for it. The Simbul wasn't Zandilar. She wasn't a dancer. There were six other stones in the circle whose inscriptions had been eroded. She picked one of those stones, the northernmost stone. "That's the wrong stone!" Rizcarn shouted. On impulse, Alassra knelt before the stone. She traced what remained of its inscription. There were no legible marks. It was as if its god's name had been chiseled out before time had begun its work. [27]
Aglarond
Sulalk, village in Aglarond on the edge of the Yuirwood, a week away from Velprintalar. Near Mesring [1,5]
the royal city, Velprintalar. [1]
queen's tithes and her laws, which were, fortunately, rooted in common sense and easily obeyed [1]
the Simbul was the living emblem of an uneasy truce between the Cha’Tel’Quessir and the world outside [1]
razor-toothed bluefish. They schooled off the Fang this time of year (summer) [2]
Nethra was one of the port cities south of the Yuirwood. Like all the cities of Aglarond and Thay, Nethra had started out as a Mulhorandi outpost. The Nethrans fought for and won their independence as the Mulhorand Empire faded, but their freedom was a chancy thing, balanced between Thayan greed and the price of Aglarondan protection. These days Nethra paid a handsome tithe into the Velprintalar treasury, and Alassra paid a reward for any Red Wizard tokens taken within its territory. [2]
The Fangers were a different problem; they should know better-their parents and grandparents had formed the core of Halacar's defeated army. But their discontent was rooted in nostalgia for a time that had never been, and their ears were fertile ground for sedition. Alassra could, and would, keep a closer watch on the Fang. She had the resources: trusted men and women, and magic, too. [2]
The four men were strangers, travel-stained traders with gamblers' eyes. Town merchants sent such men into the countryside each summer to measure the coming harvest. The traders drove hard bargains and weren't beloved by the farmers, but they'd been part of Aglarondan life longer than the Simbul. They were Red Wizard agents in service to Mythrell’aa Zulkir of Illusion. They were killed by the Simbul when they tried to steal Ebroin’s colt. Arnoz was one of them [2,5,7]
Vur Bract, a youngish man with a bent for merchantry. He tended the enchanters' affairs, buying cheap and selling dear; he'd had a rewarding life ahead of him. A Red Wizard agent of Lauzoril located in Nethra, killed by another Red Wizard (who was then killed by Boesild) [2,3]
The oldest tales were the same way throughout the land: humans and Cha'Tel'Quessir together, defeating common enemies. Since the deaths of the Gray Sisters a century ago, when humans took the Verdigris Throne, the tales had diverged. In the Yuirwood, the Cha'Tel'Quessir were grateful for the Simbul's defense of the forest, but she could defeat whole armies on her own and, increasingly, the Cha'Tel'Quessir were inclined to let her. Let humanity fight its battles with human blood and magic, the tribal elders said; Cha'Tel'Quessir began and ended with the Yuirwood. [3]
Female red wizard agent in service to Neema Gaz (who serves Aznar Thrul) got into a fight with Vur Bract. She killed Vur, then Boesild of the Aerasume killed her [2,5]
Red Wizardry had been Aglarond's dread enemy for generations. There were few households that didn't memorialize someone slain by Thayan magic, fewer still with members who would openly consort with the enemy, and the Simbul's mirror knew them all. Alassra used Aglarond's traitors as bloodhounds, letting them flush out the Thayan plots and minions that penetrated her realm. They did very little that wasn't discreetly observed, by her or by her living accomplices, but it was possible that mistakes had been made. A traitor might have made a Thayan connection without her becoming aware of it, but that wouldn't account for Red Wizards waiting in Sulalk. [10]
When she'd accepted the crown and throne, the Simbul had assembled her court from the best men and women she could find. They served competently, loyally, and the Simbul replaced them with equally capable folk only when they died or retired. It was fair to say that Aglarond was a better ruled realm than it had been during any other reign; but it was also fair to say that it was ruled by gray-beards and crones. [10]
Aglarond had streams aplenty but only one river, the River Umber, flowing out of Thay to the Sea of Dlurg on the northern coast. [15]
Ebroin
Ebroin, Cha’Tel Quessir (Bro for short), lives in Sulalk, stepson of Adentir [1]
Mother is Shali a Cha’Tel’Quessir. [1]
Bro, who'd lived his first twelve years among his own kind, the Cha'Tel'Quessir half-elves of the Yuirwood [1]
Rizcarn, his Cha’Tel’Quessir father. Rizcarn had broken his neck falling out of a tree he'd climbed a thousand times. Shali had loved Rizcarn in a way Bro couldn't begin to imagine; she'd left the Yuirwood because she couldn't bear her memories and couldn't die, either-because she had a son she'd had to finish raising. In the five years since Rizcarn's death, Shali had become a stranger dressed in layers of woven cloth, a kerchief bound over hair and ears alike. She'd never go back to the trees; they both knew that, just as they both knew he would. The knowledge ached between them. [1]
Rizcarn's particulars: his deep, mottled, copper-green skin, raven hair, even darker eyes, and flashing, ivory teeth. His laughter, always faintly mocking, even at the last, when Rizcarn had balanced on the tree limb, chiding everyone for clumsiness a moment before he slipped and crashed headfirst onto the hard ground. [1]
Tay-Fay, his half-sister, was human. Four years old. Her true name was Taefaeli-Light-through-the-Leaves-a Cha'Tel'Quessir name, Little Leaf for short [1]
In the beginning, when Shali first came to Sulalk to keep house for another man, Bro had thought Adentir was a lack-wit. He knew better now: Dent was a simple man, simple in the way that good, honest men were often simple, simple in a way no son of Rizcarn Golden-Moss could imitate or defeat. [1]
He closed his eyes and opened his thoughts to Relkath Many-Branched, as Rizcarn had taught him to do. [1]
Ebroin of MightyTree [3]
That last summer before he died, Rizcarn had taken Bro on two of his shorter journeys. What little Bro knew about living free in the Yuirwood, he'd learned during those few days. Mostly he'd learned to carve runes into Relkath's trees. Remind the trees, Rizcarn said. Help the Yuirwood remember. If the forest forgets, we're all lost.
Carved beads slid along the leather. Four of them told his story: a son, recognized by his mother's MightyTree kin and his father's GoldenMoss folk, old enough to take part in the men's rituals, but-lacking a clear-stone bead-not yet a man. Bro's fifth and final bead, on the shadow side of GoldenMoss, was dark in the moonlight. His mother's father had given him that bead the day they buried Rizcarn, because the no-father bead had to come from a man, and no men from GoldenMoss had come to bury Rizcarn. [12]
"Shali's son?" the forester persisted. Bro nodded again. "Urell's daughter? And Laseli's? Sister of Mirran and Cresil?" [22]
Sulalk
Everyone in Sulalk was human (except for Bro and his mum) [1]
Gudnor's widow-sister has come to keep house for him, now that his wife's gone. She's got two daughters, dowered by their dead father and both unspoken for. [1]
Adentir, human stepfather of Ebroin [1]
Old Erom's stud-horse throws blacks and bays, regular as rain, but in all my days, Bro, I've never seen a twilight horse. [1]
Varnnet, a farmer's son a few years older than Ebroin. Ebroin had tangled with Varnnet a few times and never come out the victor. It would be worse if Varnnet thought there was a woman at stake. [1]
Sulalk was too small to have an inn or tavern. When folk gathered or strangers visited, they gathered and visited in the sacking room behind the mill. [2]
The village was a reeking, smoldering ruin. If any inhabitants had survived, they'd wisely departed for somewhere else, but it seemed likely, as the Simbul walked past charred cottages and swollen corpses, that Bro and his sister were the only Sulalkers left. [10]
Zandilar
A goddess, Zandilar the Dancer," the Old Mage corrected. "Once of the Sy-Tel'Quessir in the Yuirwood." The silver hair shimmered as Alassra nodded. "There's a stone in the Sunglade that bears her name-one of the smaller stones within the elven Seldarine circle. [1]
Zandilar the Fool, Zandilar the Traitor, Zandilar the Martyr. according to elves of Evermeet [17]
A maiden, not of the Sy-Tel'Quessir. She fell in love with the forest and it gave her one of the old names and accepted her as part of itself. Neither wizard, nor warrior, she was merely beautiful, and when the Yuirwood was attacked, she defended it with her beauty and rode to battle on a gray horse." Islywyn strode onto the quilt. He stood in front of the old woman, towering over her. "Zandilar rode straight to the drow temples. She defended the Yuirwood by consorting with the dark god, Vhaeraun!" [17]
Velprintalar
its busy harbor from an open window in the uppermost room of the highest tower of her copper-green palace. [2]
The kingdom had prospered during Alassra's rule. Her window overlooked a harbor where trade ships waited at anchor for a chance to tie up at sturdy wharves. [2]
She closed her eyes and deliberately ignored each lingering spell or potent artifact within the walls (of the palace) [2]
the place of honor in the chamber belonged not to the Simbul's eclectic library nor to the marble-topped worktable where she pursued her endless curiosity regarding all things magical, but a crystal dome as broad as her outstretched arms, half as high, and floating on a shallow, quicksilver pool. Although every Faerunian wizard worth his or her spellbook possessed a scrying artifact, the Simbul's mirror was the envy of those who knew it existed. The mirror was exquisitely attuned to Alassra's thoughts. Before her mind had fully framed a question, the quicksilver began to move, defying nature to slide upward, over the flawless crystal. [2]
In the five years since she had completed the spellcraft controlling her mirror, Alassra had learned how to interpret the bloodstain blotches. It had been worth the effort. For most of those years, Thay had been under a pall as dense as the magical fog that shrouded Aglarond's Yuirwood. The mirror had been the Simbul's most reliable source of information about the Red Wizards-other than the men and women who risked their lives spying in Thay on her behalf. The zulkirs, she thought, refining her interrogation. The lesser splotches began to fade. Szass Tam- One blotch swelled larger than the others. It didn't sharpen into the zulkir's features. The Simbul could pierce Thayan wards, but not without provoking an all-out war. [2]
Alassra's mirror wasn't treasured because it could track her known enemies. Its true worth lay in its unique ability to capture and reflect the unsuspected. Focused in Aglarond, the quicksilver shimmered gently with guilty fears and desperate pleas for royal intervention or justice. Focused on Thay, the crystal dome fairly bubbled with grudges and curses. [2]
Alassra reached for a gnarled staff. She spoke three simple words and a heartbeat later was standing in front of the Verdigris Throne. It was her usual way of answering a summons, but it never failed to leave her household retainers flat-footed and gaping. [2]
He was tall, hearty, and wondrously pale; one of the Aerasume, Alustriel's sons who'd dedicated their lives to their mother. He wore a red signet ring on the third finger of his left hand; that meant his name was Boesild, or possibly Tarthilmor. Alassra could do almost anything except keep the names of her sister's twelve sons straight. Perhaps if she'd known them better, she could have told them apart. But she hadn't known them or their mother until after she'd lost Lailomun, after Mystra confronted her with her heritage. He was Tarthilmor then; Alassra was nearly certain she'd been talking to Tarthilmor when she mentioned her appetite for razor-toothed bluefish. [2]
Lauzoril had enchanted both blade and studded-leather hilt with a variety of spells for the challenge of stabilizing so much magic in so small and mundane an object. He'd maneuvered it into Aglarond for the same reasons. The glimpses his enchantments provided of the Simbul's workroom-once a day, but never at the same time and never longer than the pause between two heartbeats-were scarcely the useful information a zulkir expected from his spies. She was seldom there and the knife had not become one of her favorites. The blade and hilt must be located in the Simbul’s workroom. No one except Gweltaz and Chazsinal knew what he'd accomplished or the pleasure he derived from the stolen moments of the Simbul's life. At times like this, Lauzoril wished he'd never told them-but they were his confidants. (had he killed the person or people involved in getting the blade to the Simbul????) [3]
In Alassra’s antechamber a gilded daybed that had once belonged to a queen of Chondath. [10]
the thorn branch. It was the first thing she had brought into the tower chamber after she became Aglarond's queen, setting it on a shelf where she could always see it. Where it could always see her… and the mirror. [10]
A score of times each summer, the palace had endured such storms (from the Inner Sea) and, mostly, ignored them because, for all their fury, summer storms changed little by their passage. [13]
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Gary Dallison
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Posted - 03 Feb 2023 : 11:37:45
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Thay
The rusty stain grew more complex: a seething sprawl of angry colors covering half the dome. By its shape and position-and the constant corroboration of the spies she ran within Thay-Alassra knew that the Zulkir of Necromancy still licked his wounds in the aftermath of a spectacular failure to ensnare the fiend, Eltab, in the Year of the Shield. That failure was somehow related to lifting the pall over Thay and, since it had had such far-reaching magical effects, was almost certainly causing chaos among the always-contentious Red Wizards. [2]
Of all her enemies, Szass Tam had been the most dangerous, and would be again when he resumed his place as first among the eight theoretically equal zulkirs of Thay. Unless one of the other seven, through accident or alliance, accomplished what Alassra herself had not: the destruction of the no-longer-human, no-longer-mortal, lich. [2]
Szass Tam was a cunning creature with ambitions that reached far beyond necromancy and Thay; he and Alassra were bound to be enemies. Mythrell'aa, in contrast, had no grand ambitions. Alassra could have overlooked her, as she overlooked countless others of evil disposition, so long as their paths did not directly cross. But now Alassra's enmity knew no limit: Mythrell'aa, Zulkir of Illusion, had been Lailomun's mentor. The rose-thorn branch, sealed in glass and laid in state on a nearby shelf, was Mythrell'aa's doing. Alassra's eyes widened when thoughts of Mythrell'aa roiled her mind. Her fingers twitched toward the slow-moving coils on the quicksilver surface of her mirror, as if by seizing them she could seize Mythrell'aa as well and wring the life from her as Mythrell'aa had wrung it from Lailomun. [2]
Aznar Thrul of Invocation-the mirror marked him with an ebony spider web-and the conjuror Nevron, a weeping smear who blamed himself for his misfortunes because he lacked the courage to blame Szass Tam or his ally, Aznar Thrul. [2]
Lauzoril. Zulkir of Enchantment, the only Thayan face her mirror ever revealed. She'd never met Lauzoril in person. For years, until the Thayan pall lifted, she'd known the Zulkir of Enchantment only by his mirror-signature: a green flame that flickered whenever she inquired who in Thay had been thinking ill thoughts about her. She'd slain no few of his minions and he'd slain a few of hers. Whenever she'd thought about the mage behind the signature she'd imagined a sour, ugly and ancient creature hiding within layers of magical deception, which was true enough for the zulkirs she had met face to face, but not for Lauzoril. He was young for a zulkir. Whatever else Alassra thought about the Red Wizards-and little of it was complimentary-she conceded that they trained their students thoroughly. It was a rare novice who donned a red robe before the age of twenty-five, after which there were usually several decades of grueling apprenticeship-such as Lailomun had been serving when she met him-before the wizard could start climbing through the treacherous hierarchy. It was generally safe to assume that all the zulkirs had to be older than they claimed to be: it should take more than a lifetime to murder one's way to the pinnacles of Thayan power. But Lauzoril revealed none of the signs of life-enhancing spellcraft. He appeared to be a man a few years short of his fiftieth birthday-an adolescent as Alassra measured lives. Remarkably, he'd been Zulkir of Enchantment for fifteen years. He was handsome, with frost-streaked blonde hair and rugged-rogue features as befitted a ruling enchanter, but enchantments had no effect on Alassra Shentrantra. It seemed quite likely that the face on the quicksilver surface was the zulkir's face as nature had shaped it. Did Lauzoril know about the Simbul's mirror? Did he know that she spied on him? The glint in his cold green eyes, staring straight at her, and the smile crinkling the corners of his mouth seemed to say that he knew and that he enjoyed the experience. But, suspicions notwithstanding, Alassra's considerable research since his face first appeared, said no, the Zulkir of Enchantment was simply a man who smiled frequently and inscrutably as he went about his business. One day she'd interrogate her mirror and there'd be no green-eyed man grinning back at her. After fifteen years, Enchantment was overdue for a new zulkir. It had happened before; save for the necromancer Szass Tam, zulkirs came and went frequently in Thay-and the very last thing Aglarond needed was another Szass Tam. [2]
Red Wizards carried such small silver disks as proof of their place in the hierarchies of their various disciplines and as means to summon protection from their superiors. [2]
Red Wizards rarely traveled alone; as Boesild pointed out, they didn't trust one another and the zulkirs trusted least of all. At best, Boesild had stumbled across a pair that had lost the little trust that held it together. At worst, he'd interrupted a skirmish between rival groups, [2]
blood pearl and dragon's wing foremost among them; not the Simbul's favorite reagents, but common enough in Thay. [2]
"The matter with Druxus Rhym is finished. He'll be watching his back too closely to make trouble for a while." Neither Chazsinal nor Gweltaz cared about Rhym. Alteration, like enchantment, was inferior magic in necromancers' eyes. But the Zulkir of Alteration had allied himself with Szass Tam: A strike against him was a strike against their enemy, and that they approved. [3]
The woman (the Simbul) slew Thayan wizards without provocation-witness what she'd done to Bract. [3]
A man hasn't left his mark on the world until he's got a son. [3]
Vur Bract's allegiance to Enchantment was well known," Lauzoril mused aloud. "The Nethrans proclaim their independence from Thay and Aglarond. Proclamations must be defended. They have obligations; I'll remind their councilors [3]
The god of death, traditional patron of Thazalhar and, since the demise of both Myrkul and Cyric, preferred deity of Enchantment's zulkir Lauzoril [3]
"Illusion has spies in Aglarond," the spy master said abruptly. "Mythrell'aa of the Serpent Tower." [5]
Publicly, Mythrell'aa claimed she was no one's enemy, that Illusion had no ambition, and she wished only to follow her own path. Privately, Aznar Thrul knew her proclamations were trash. She'd declared for Szass Tam after last year's Rashemen Gorge rout, then undeclared when Tam himself was defeated in the spring. He believed the first declaration, not the second. Thrul was certain Lady Illusion had made new promises to Szass Tam; he had more than one spy master reporting to him. He was almost certain the two were conspiring against him directly. [5]
Mythrell’aa’s spies, posing as grain traders. They have been on the roads since the spring mud dried, my lord, visiting village after village. They have paid handsomely for grain they do not want… There will be havoc, my lord, when the real traders arrive. Towns and cities will have to pay more, or face revolt. It is a clever ploy, my lord-one we might consider using-but from Mythrell'aa, it is pure chance. Her minions aren't looking for grain. We don't know what it might be, my lord, but we suspect they may have found it in a small village near Mesring. [5]
The Red Wizards weren't a subtle lot, a by-product, the Simbul assumed, of their reliance on slaves, goblin-folk, and undead minions to carry out their commands: their armies were fearsome, but as spies or slaves, orcs and zombies were absurd, and the Red Wizards knew it. Red Wizards were predictable, not foolish, and-little as she liked to admit it-they knew their magic. Their academies churned out competent, albeit unethical, wizards year after year. The handful she'd dispatched yesterday would never be missed. They were, in all likelihood, already replaced. [10]
Once they mastered middling spells, Red Wizards were on their own. Only the best-and some of the worst-remained directly bound to their zulkir. The rest worked for whomever would hire them. [10]
Thazalhar, the wild and empty easternmost province of Thay, was a place to be endured by the wizards, soldiers, and slaves compelled to serve there. It was a place ignored by the rest of Thay, and loved only by the very few who chose to live among its rolling hills. That small number included the Zulkir of Enchantment, twenty leagues away from home and riding hard along the old Mulhorand trunk road out of Pyarados on the west bank of the River Thazarim. [11]
Once, long before Lauzoril was born, all that would become Thay had been farmland where every valley was under plow and every ridge supported a flock of sheep. The farmers had been as poor as their land was rich. Everything they produced went to Mulhorand to please the god-emperor. In those days the Red Wizards were persecuted revolutionaries, firebrands for liberty in all its seductive guises. Driven from the Mulhorandi heartland, they fled north, past Thazalhar, to Delhumide, where they found themselves surrounded by unlikely, but stalwart, allies. Together, the wizards and farmers declared their independence from imperial laws and taxes… with predictable results. Mulhorand sent its armies north to destroy the rebels and replant their feet on the farmers' necks. Facing certain death or slavery if they lost, the wizards and farmers waged a desperate war for freedom that culminated on the rolling hills of Thazalhar. They won the battle of Thazalhar, but at tremendous cost. The Red Wizards fought with magic and minions from the elemental plains; the farmers fought with steel. Fighting was fierce-a score of Mulhorandi soldiers went down for every wizard or farmer who died. Mulhorand lost half of all its armies in that one battle; two-thirds of Thazalhar, women and children in addition to fighters, lay dead as well. Yet the land had suffered most. Scorched by spell-craft and soured with blood, Thazalhar's bountiful farms became blackened ruins where nothing grew or could be grown for generations. Even now, four centuries later, though Thazalhar was fertile again, it remained largely uninhabited. Each spring thaw raised a crop of grisly relics from their ancient graves. The boundary walls of Lord Tavai's estate were built from moldered bones and rusted armaments; they discouraged intruders. Visitors thought Thazalhar was haunted; residents knew. [11]
It was customary for Red Wizards to pay lip service to some god in Faerun's pantheon. [11]
Zulkirs could depose one another, but never usurp them. [14]
It is the Chairmaster himself, O Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir." That was a mild surprise. It was only this morning that Thrul had sent word to his chairkeeper that a Convocation was likely, and that only because he'd allowed two of Mythrell'aa's minions to escape the city, both of them carrying messages for Szass Tam asking the lich to call a Convocation of zulkirs. Even Szass Tam had to follow procedure for a Convocation. The Chairmaster shouldn't have arrived for another two or three days. [16]
The Chairmaster wore his own clothes: blood-colored linen gauze, suitable to the season, trimmed with gold threads, garnets, and star rubies-never let it be said that the zulkirs stinted their tithes to the Chairmaster. By his tattoos, the Chairmaster was an illusionist, but he owed nothing to Mythrell'aa, or to anyone else. When he extended his hand, a chair appeared on the balcony: a testament to his power and immunity by working magic in a zulkir's presence without triggering his wards. He sat down opposite Thrul and, having said he wouldn't dine, poured himself wine. Thrul would have loved to throw the insufferable lout over the balustrade, or, better yet, take him downstairs to the dungeons. He didn't dare. Not even Szass Tam could successfully challenge the Chairmaster, though rumor had it that the lich had tried a century ago. Supposedly the necromancer still bore a wound that wouldn't heal, though the laws of magic stated that the undead couldn't heal-it took magic to repair their torn flesh, magic any adolescent necromancer should have mastered, and Szass Tam was long past adolescence. Of course, by those same magical laws, Szass Tam couldn't exist either as a lich or as a man, so the rumor never died, and the Chairmaster's reputation as both survivor and wizard was enhanced. [16]
Lord Necromancy has called for a Convocation. There's a complaint against you, Lord Invocation. It is said that you trespass against Illusion, that you've set wards and guards around her tower-the truth of which I ascertained on my way here. These are serious charges, Lord Invocation, with serious penalties, as you must know. You must answer to your peers at a time, within the next month, and at a place, within Thay, of your choosing." [16]
Convocation was, after all, a long-honored compromise among zulkirs who needed, on occasion, to actually govern the realm they dominated and resolve their private disputes without inciting a civil war. Each zulkir, without exception, would have preferred to do away with compromise, but since Thay's independence from Mulhorand, no zulkir had come close to subjugating all his peers. None had come closer than Szass Tam had been a year ago, before some major conspiracy had collapsed and driven him into hiding. [16]
The current Chairmaster had been an illusionist before his elevation, years before Thrul or Mythrell'aa had begun to claw to the top of their respective specialties. Thrul's own grandfather, Nymor, Lord Illusion in that time, had branded him. Aznar Thrul had counted on the Chairmaster's memory playing in his favor when the right time came, but had Mythrell'aa beaten him? [16]
The last Chairmaster who betrayed his office still bathes in fire beneath Thaymount. [16]
Larloch, reputedly a sorcerer-king of ancient Netheril, had flourished and vanished millennia ago, leaving a legacy of artifacts that tempted many a young wizard to his or her doom. The legend of his eight chairs, magical voids from which no spell could be cast, into which no harm could come, had proved real enough. Seated in his or her chair, attuned not only to the appropriate wizardly discipline but to purely individual differences, a zulkir was both powerless and invulnerable. [16]
the chairkeepers, eight wizards whose sole task was guarding the particular chair placed in their possession, and the Chairmaster, who alone could order the chairs assembled for a Convocation. The Chairmaster also guaranteed the safe passage of the zulkirs as they came to sit and, later, depart. [16]
The House of Illusion in Tilbran [16]
The other zulkirs will pursue Mythrell'aa, because they are Red Wizards and they swarm whenever one of them has something the others don't. [17]
Lauzoril paced his locked bolt-hole deep within enchantment's Bezantur academy. His crimson robes of office, shimmering with enchantments and embroidered in gold, swirled around him. Dust vanished in the spell-induced breeze that kept the bolt-hole air cool and fresh. [18]
once an ally of Necromancy, always an ally of Necromancy. Mythrell'aa had stood with Szass Tam at the last Convocation. If she hadn't-if she'd clung to her neutrality-Necromancy wouldn't have had the weight to mortify Enchantment, Thrul, and Nevron of Conjuration for their parts in last year's futile attack at on the Rashemaar barbarians at Gauros Gorge. [18]
the Zulkir of Necromancy had stumbled badly. Since spring, his undead legions had fallen apart-literally-when he failed to maintain the spells that animated them. Blackhearts, turncoats, and renegades who'd relied on Necromancy to sustain their treacheries found themselves exposed to bitter, unforgiving winds. Summer had brought public executions, private assassinations, and cracks in the lich's armor. Lauzoril had exploited a few of those cracks himself; Enchantment was stronger than it had been. So were all the other schools. The zulkirs had spent a season realigning themselves, carefully and subtly, because no one had known the extent or nature of Szass Tam's wounds or when he might decide to reassert himself. [18]
Szass Tam. He was, undeniably, the mightiest zulkir in Thay's history, but he had to reassert himself soon, or sheer power wouldn't be enough. [18]
The safe-passage rules of Convocation hadn't been broken in the centuries since the Chairmaster's office was created [18]
Nevron of Conjuration and-Talona's painful mercy-Lallara Mediocros, Zulkir of Abjuration… Zulkir of Indulgence and Mindless Chatter would be more apt. Lauzoril sat between Mythrell'aa herself, a viper swathed in crimson, and Druxus Rhym, a man clearly in need of a good night's sleep. Rumor claimed that Enchantment was responsible for Rhym's haggard demeanor, that Lauzoril had snared one or more of Rhym's close associates in conspiracies. No one knew quite how many were involved, certainly not Druxus Rhym. Thrul wasn't shedding any tears for Lord Alteration; he'd lost as many to Rhym's poison as had Lauzoril and Nevron. He could wish, though, that his own revenge plots had worked quicker or been more successful, or that Nevron had been the one to spoil Rhym's sleep. The way things stood, Thrul would have to thank his ally, congratulate him for a job well done. [18]
Nevron… Lord Conjuration looked worse than Druxus Rhym. He hadn't been himself since Gauros. He'd lost an old apprentice in the battle there-his ladylove-and his nerve. Szass Tam's catastrophe hadn't restored Nevron's sharpness, and every move that Lauzoril made put another nail in his heart. Conjuration's days were numbered. Thay had no use for a broken zulkir. [18]
Yaphyll, Lady Divination. Two years ago, she'd been Thrul's third ally. Then Lallara had seduced her, and she had taken a walk down Necromancy's path. She was smiling now, at him and Lallara together. It would take more than a smile before Thrul would forgive her. [18]
Tam appeared on the sand, facing his chair, his back to his peers. He wore a red robe so dark it seemed black. It was covered with patterns that shifted and could have lured an unsuspecting mind toward madness, if Larloch's chairs had not negated the effect, or if there'd been an unsuspecting mind anywhere in the circle. [18]
"Love of Loviatar…" Lallara, naturally [18]
Szass Tam. His face was chalk white and constantly in motion, rotting and reforming itself. The zulkir's eyes were empty sockets seething with a luminous green vapor, and his neck had become a serpent whose head had replaced the tongue in his gaping mouth. [18]
Lord Invocation, you have trespassed against another zulkir. You have confined her and denied her the support and consultation of her school. By the Rule of Iphonos Cor, this is forbidden and must be undone. No zulkir can be denied the free access to her school-" [18]
Mythrell'aa contained her shock and anger. All spring, after Tam's humiliation and her own awkward retreat into Serpent Tower, she had secretly funneled support to her overlord: rare and precious reagents for spells whose purposes she did not want to know; living minions to replace the undead servants he'd lost when his schemes to enslave the tanar'ri lord, Eltab, came crashing down around him; gold and gems in great quantities, no questions asked. He was Szass Tam. He'd come back stronger than ever from other setbacks, worse setbacks. Mythrell'aa remembered; she was much older than she looked, but she couldn't remember a time when Szass Tam hadn't dominated Thay. [18]
"The Zulkir of Illusion should have left, also according to the Rule of Iphonos Cor that two zulkirs shall not establish permanent residence within the same city walls. Lady Illusion begged to remain in her Bezantur tower-" Mythrell'aa had not begged. Bezantur had been Illusion's home since the first zulkirs were named. There were other cities in the Priador, if Aznar Thrul insisted on being both zulkir and tharchion. [18]
But women had dominated Thay in the past, zulkirs from minor schools, also. [18]
Once or twice a year, the zulkirs curbed their rancor and rivalry long enough to govern their realm. The eight wizards were a formidable group on those rare occasions when they made common cause with one another. Any time the Simbul saw them together, she routinely doubled Aglarond's defenses. This year, in the aftermath of Szass Tam's failure to enslave the tanar'ri lord, Eltab-due, in large part, to adventurers she had recruited and supported-the Simbul firmly believed that Thay had no legions to launch at its neighbors. Her mirror probably reflected a formal realignment among the lesser zulkirs, but she couldn't take a chance with her realm's well-being. [18]
There were goblins, gnolls, and orcs aplenty in Thay. Lauzoril kept a few such slaves himself to do the meanest estate work. Elves, however, were rare, a few drow kept hidden in the cities. As a race-an inferior race-they'd sooner die than serve a Thayan master. The only elves his daughters had ever seen were painted in the picture books he brought home for their mother. Those painted elves were full-blooded; the youth to whom the Simbul had given Lauzoril's enchanted knife was neither human, nor elf. In Thay, such mongrels were not kept, not even for slavery. [23]
Of necessity, Red Wizards learned the more common goblin-kin languages. Lauzoril could speak fluently with his goblin slaves. Some wizards learned elvish, too; Lauzoril refused, on principle. He mispronounced the few words he did know, turning them, without second thought, into slurs. [23]
Red Wizards cribbed a sort of immortality with spells and potions. [23]
Generations ago, during Thay's struggle for independence, the transmuter, Lusaka Gur had developed a spell that made the Mulhorandi think twice before capturing a Red Wizard. To cast it was suicide, which, unsurprisingly, had made the spell difficult to perfect. Indeed, Gur's notes showed that in its early versions, he'd cast the spell on someone else: an enemy, a slave, another Red Wizard. Mythrell'aa possessed a true copy of Lusaka Gur's notes. And while she kept the final version of Gur's spell-lash memorized at all times, she'd found the early mark of Gur more useful. In either version, it was a complicated spell, far too complicated for Lailomun's addled memory, but he wouldn't have to cast it. He would merely bear its mark until she touched his mind with the triggering words. (causes a sphere – perhaps sphere of annihilation – to appear around the person bearing the mark and destroy everything) [26]
an assassination in Amruthar, a reminder to a local magistrate that the city's independence depended entirely on the city's willingness to do what it was told. [27]
In Thay, the art and craft stealth was the province of assassins and though a good many Red Wizards worked as assassins in the hard years after they left their academies [28]
The Thayan dialect, though heavily influenced by Mulhorandi, was intelligible everywhere in Faerun, and elven types invariably understood common human speech; the challenge was getting them to admit it before they died of stubbornness. [28]
Slaves danced in Thay, when they thought they could get away with it, making music on logs, bits of pottery and cast-off furniture, unless they'd been purchased for entertainment. Red Wizards never danced, even romantically inclined enchanters. [28]
Lusaka Gur who taught the Red Wizards how to die effectively [28]
even in Thay, a handshake was a gesture of trust. [28]
Other Lore
Where else but in Silverymoon could anyone grow snow-flowers, and who but Alustriel could grow them in high summer [2]
The laws of spellcraft were the same on both sides of the Yuirwood. No Red Wizard-including herself-could have held the Magic Circle if two people had broken it. It made what she'd seen earlier that much more remarkable, more ominous. The backlash was terrible [7]
Deaizul's final sight, a spell created by Red Wizard spy master Deaizul, allows you to see the final moments of someone’s life [9]
The mummy’s wrappings had loosened. Gweltaz's head flopped on his shoulder. Light seeped through gaps in his legs and torso. Repairs were needed, and soon, or the necromancer's spirit would slip into torpor and, eventually, ultimate death. [14]
an ancient grove where an oblong menhir rested atop a number of smaller stones (outside Everlund near the High Forest) [17]
Stiwelen, from Evermeet. One of the sages, a black-haired Moon elf with a fondness for knives, six of which could be seen sprouting from his sleeves, boots, and belt [17]
Islywyn, old, female elf sage from Evermeet [17]
There was an elven Time of Troubles?" she suggested, referring to the turbulent years, recently passed, when the gods of humanity had warred among themselves in mortal time and mortal form. The elves said nothing; Alassra took that for agreement. "And the Sunglade circles commemorate the Seldarine taming the old, wild powers of the Yuirwood? The old ones accepted the Tel'Quessir. The Seldarine accepted the old ones. The Yuirwood accepted the elves; they accepted the Yuirwood. It was all done. But it didn't last. Humans came to the land they named Aglarond, and the Yuir elves began their own Retreat." "Not a Retreat," Stiwelen said bitterly. "The Yuir elves couldn't Retreat. They'd bound themselves to the forest. They doomed themselves. They are part of the Yuirwood. They had accepted the forest; it had accepted them. There was no other way. They understood that. When the humans came into the Yuirwood, they accepted them, too, and the Cha'Tel'Quessir were born." "And the Cha'Tel'Quessir are doomed as well!" Stiwelen shouted, an unseemly sound that echoed around the menhir. He rose to his feet and stalked the perimeter of the glade. "This is what comes of leaving things half-done. Are we going to let our mistakes flourish or are we going to put a stop to them?" [17]
They are both right," the old woman whispered, as if the men couldn't hear her. "The Yuir were what we call Sy-Tel'Quessir, what you call wild elves. They held themselves apart from the coronals and the Court. They turned their backs on elegant cities, elegant philosophies. When the forest was threatened by humans, drow and their allies, the Yuir Sy-Tel'Quessir fought alone: They refused all offers of assistance. The choice was theirs: They made it; we honored it. The trolls, the drow, and the rest of the Underdark were repulsed. They had their victory, on their terms." "What of the humans? The Cha'Tel'Quessir say the humans fought beside the Yuir in the dark days, not against them," [17]
Lauzoril
In a silent crypt beneath an isolated estate of Thazalhar, two men, both of them necromancers, neither of them alive, awaited the arrival of a third. They waited patiently because patience was all they had, bound as they were in bandages and seated in ebony chairs that flickered with the turquoise light of unbreakable warding. The pair was also bound by ties of blood and ambition that went deeper than the misunderstandings that had led Gweltaz to slay Chazsinal who sat on his right.
The blood was between fathers and sons. It reached beyond the crypt to a third living man whose footfalls echoed outside. The ambition, cherished by all three, was nothing less than the destruction of Szass Tam, Zulkir of Necromancy. A century ago, when Gweltaz had been an aspiring necromancer, he'd caught the zulkir's undead eye. For a while, he'd been Szass Tam's favorite. In the time-honored tradition of Thayan treachery, Gweltaz had coveted Tam's place atop the necromancers' hierarchy. He plotted against his mentor. His plots failed, spectacularly. Gweltaz paid for that failure with his mortal life and a final lesson: Tam, who understood tradition without respecting it, did not teach any pupil, however favored, enough to threaten his own position. Chazsinal, by then a novice necromancer himself, had rescued Gweltaz's charred bones from a demon-guarded midden on the heights of Thaymount. For the next ten years Chazsinal abandoned his own studies to collect the rare unguents necessary to restore his father to a semblance of life. He cast the spells successfully, at no small risk to himself. Then, heeding Gweltaz's demands for filial loyalty, he surrendered what little remained of his own ambitions to his father's need for revenge. Seven times, they'd risked everything in schemes to bring Tam down, and seven times they'd failed so miserably, so early, and so completely that the zulkir never became aware of their plots. Gweltaz came to believe that his son was a half-wit, a fool incapable of executing the simplest plan. Badgered by his father, Chazsinal came to believe the same thing. Succumbing to vice and debauchery, he sired a son on a green-eyed Eltabbaran slave and, watching the infant take its first wobbly steps, suffered a chilling revelation: Chazsinal was proud of the part he'd played in creating a new human life. He loved his son, as he understood loving, as Gweltaz had, perhaps, loved him so many years ago. But-with an honesty uncommon in the back alleys of Eltabbar-Chazsinal realized paternal pride, even paternal love, would doom the boy as surely as it had doomed him. No man or woman of Thay, no Red Wizard worth his robes, would ever teach a child enough to threaten his own place in the treacherous world. This would be especially damning for little Lauzoril because, with his father and grandfather in hiding and cut off from all other necromancers, he'd have no other teachers: He'd learn less than Chazsinal knew, which was less than Gweltaz knew, which everyone knew wasn't enough. [3]
So before his son was weaned, Chazsinal took Lauzoril from his mother and placed him with the Eltabbaran enchanters, where, the boy's innate charm along with a sackful of gold secured him a place on the student roster. Then Chazsinal worked his best magic on his own memory to convince himself that his son was dead. Chazsinal's best was never good enough. Gweltaz saw through his son's deception. He struck swiftly and precisely; Chazsinal's flesh began to putrefy between one breath and the next. Gweltaz regretted his rage immediately, but once done, the magic could not be undone and the best that Gweltaz could do was clutch his son's spirit to his undead heart. They remained together, out of sight and forgotten, caught in the crack between life and death, aware of Lauzoril's progress through the enchanters' ranks and aware of Szass Tam as their great enemy's influence grew to unprecedented heights. Convinced that Tam would move against them the moment he became aware of their continued existence, they denied themselves every opportunity to contact Lauzoril. Then, some thirty years after Chazsinal died, Lauzoril found them. Their son and grandson had become a zulkir, albeit of enchantment, a discipline opposed to necromancy and, in their considered opinion, decidedly inferior as well. They restrained their prejudice when Lauzoril transferred Gweltaz's fragile remains to the Thazalhar estate and, more importantly, saw his father restored with the same spells that preserved Gweltaz. Lauzoril even took up their cause against Szass Tam. But there was no controlling the Zulkir of Enchantment, not as Gweltaz had controlled Chazsinal. [3]
Lauzoril considered Chazsinal, who was not as useful to any scheme but who had-for whatever reason-delivered Lauzoril to the enchanters. Lauzoril had only to look at Chazsinal to see the fate he had avoided: A man could stand against Gweltaz, who was almost as good as he thought he was, but a boy in leading strings would have been broken utterly. By that measure, Lauzoril owed Chazsinal everything, but everything else about Chazsinal grated on his nerves. He paid his debt with spite and contempt. [3]
Every man needed a confidant who revelled in his triumphs and commiserated his defeats. For a zulkir, true confidants were rarer than dragon's blood, more precious than a golem's tears. The Zulkir of Enchantment had two of them. [3]
Lauzoril allowed himself a smile. Last month, Rhym had begun a war against Lauzoril's faction within the zulkirs. It was an undeclared war, as most were in Thay. No one was supposed to know who'd poisoned the fish at a very private banquet, least of all the zulkirs of Enchantment, Invocation, and Conjuration, each of whom had lost a handful of reliable aides that night. Lauzoril hadn't consulted with Lord Thrul of Invocation or Lord Nevron of Conjuration. Disguised as a cook-a very charming and persuasive cook-he'd started with the pot slaves and worked his way up to Druxus Rhym. Then he'd plotted his revenge. His plan was simple: a few false clues planted in fertile ground throughout Thay, a few rumors whispered in suspicious ears, and Rhym imagined himself the victim of conspiracy and rebellion within his own school. By last night, six ranking transmuters were known dead, another score had disappeared. No one suspected Enchantment's role in the purge. Lauzoril gained no glory for his schemes, but he'd taken no risk, either and that was the way he liked to play the zulkirs' game. Don't waste your own strength, that was the supreme lesson he'd learned from his predecessor: [3]
other women didn't tempt Lauzoril. He had a wife, the granddaughter of his predecessor, and while he was not compelled to be faithful to her, he'd made ordinary promises that he'd found surprisingly easy to keep. [3]
He had children, as well: two of them, but not the sons Gweltaz deemed necessary. His daughters were beautiful, especially the younger one, and wise, especially the elder. He kept them safe in Thazalhar where desolation and the ghosts of slaughtered armies reinforced his enchantments. They were innocent, both of them ignorant of all magic and of the life their father led when he was not with them. He brought them gifts whenever he returned and told them stories about a world that didn't exist. Their joy when they welcomed him kept him sane. [3]
Mimuay and Nyasia, Lauzoril’s daughters [3]
What Lauzoril knew of strategy and tactics could be written on the back of a woman's hand, but he had a golden tongue. No gnolls and goblins, undead or unclever, for the Zulkir of Enchantment-the man could raise a human host and hold it together with words alone. He'd proved that last year in Gauros Gorge where he'd extracted his human legions safely from a battlefield rout and gained an undeserved reputation for martial genius. His popularity with the common folk-rare for a zulkir-made him useful… for now. [5]
The zulkir leaned into the gallop of his favorite mount, a stallion carved from green and black marble and brought to life by the twelfth Zulkir of Enchantment a hundred years ago. The stallion was inexhaustible and unfazed by whatever magic a zulkir or his enemies cast across its path. Whether the road curved or straightened, turned glassy black or shimmering silver, the stone horse took everything in stride. [11]
The Tyraturos garret where he'd spent the previous evening trading rumors and favors over dinner with a disgruntled diviner. The dinner was at the diviner's request. His zulkir, Yaphyll, a woman who'd been allied with Lauzoril and Aznar Thrul until last year, was apparently ready to change sides again. The diviner offered a gift: a token of Yaphyll's restored good faith: a true copy-or so the diviner claimed-of a spell that would reveal not only the properties of an enchanted object, but the precise spells that had enchanted it. A useful thing, if it were a true copy, and, even if it was, insufficient proof that Yaphyll could be trusted. [11]
No one knew precisely where enchantment's zulkir made his home, and that was not about to change today. To the best of his considerable ability, Lauzoril had erected an impenetrable wall between his life as zulkir and the Thazalhar estate where an undistinguished Lord Tavai dwelt in obscurity. With the arsenal of enchantment to draw upon in addition to his own personality, he kept his children, slaves, and domestic retainers ignorant of his public life. His Red Wizard peers assumed that he spent his private hours in pursuits best left unimagined. [11]
In his youth, Lauzoril had divided his infrequent prayers equally between Beshaba, Maid of Misfortune, and her sister, Lady Luck. The strategy served him well until he became Zulkir of Enchantment-more importantly, until he took possession of his predecessor's Thazalhar estate. Then Lauzoril's view of life and death began to change. Though he'd publicly continued his dual devotions, the private man sought a worship more appropriate to the scarred land he'd come to love. In those days, The Reaper had been the deity most often seen, most often invoked in Thazalhar, but Lauzoril never warmed to him, perhaps because Myrkul was his father and grandfather's god-of-choice. Bhaal and Moander had appealed even less to his romantic temperament. Recently Kelemvor had appeared as the new Lord of the Dead. Lord Tavai approved of the new god's notion that death was the natural end of life. He began performing his private rituals in Kelemvor's honor. [11]
The knife awakened at his touch and challenged his right to dominate it. Lauzoril met the challenge and quenched its rebellion. The knife's spirit, Shazzelurt, spoke directly to his mind. Nothing, Master. Nothing magical. Nothing lost. As old as the ore from which it had been forged, Shazzelurt was not easily deceived. Lauzoril heeded its warnings, but sometimes disregarded its assurances. [11]
Lauzoril considered the gnomes and goblin-kin he kept as slaves. [11]
Wenne, his wife, the grand daughter of the Zulkir of Enchantment [11]
Mimuay had found her gift: skeins of jewel-toned silk from the Kara-Turan jungles and a coil of gold wire drawn finer than a single strand of the silk. His eldest daughter was an embroiderer, an enchanter with threads of silk and precious metals. Wenne had taught her; embroidery was the only magic Wenne understood. Lauzoril had hoped-even prayed-that embroidery would be enough for Mimuay. [11]
Lauzoril killed Wenne’s grandfather in a duel two years before Mimuay was born (15 years ago????). Since that night I have been the Zulkir of Enchantment. [11]
Lauzoril hadn't meant to be cruel, not to his daughter nor to the child-woman he found locked away here on the Thazalhar estate, surrounded by tapestries and storybooks. Wenne believed she was a princess and he… he was the image of the prince she'd been promised. For a year the young zulkir indulged her fantasies; after that, it was too late. [11]
Everyone on Lord Tavai's estate was well-fed, comfortably housed, and acutely aware of both their isolation and the less merciful conditions that prevailed elsewhere in Thay. Lauzoril insisted that mercy played no part in his decisions. Enchantment, he told himself, was a subtle art, and food was always less costly than magic. But he could never quite forget the mother he'd never known and hadn't found. He bought green-eyed slaves wherever he found them, questioned them about their kin, then sent them on to Thazalhar. [14]
Within the crypt, Chazsinal's ebony chair lay on its side, Chazsinal still bound to its seat. Gweltaz's chair hovered above the floor. Gweltaz himself was a translucent apparition beside it, in full Red Wizard robes, tattoos, and rage. [14]
His grasp of both wizardry and politics had improved since he'd gone searching for the father whose name he'd discovered in his predecessor's archives. At the beginning, Gweltaz's timely warnings about plots a young zulkir never sensed had kept Lauzoril alive when none of his peers believed he would survive a year. Even now, his grandfather's insight into the realm of the dead and undead was an asset no enchanter could acquire for himself. [14]
A message from his chancellor of Enchantment in Bezantur. [14]
the oldest scar of all: the swirling tattoo her grandfather had placed above his heart. [14]
He (Aznar Thrul) despises you, the spy master had said. He thinks you rely on luck and charisma. You were supposed to die last year in the Gorge of Gauros-a battle accident, a Rashemaar arrow from a Bezantur bow. He will never forgive you for surviving. After Szass Tam, you're next. He's picked your successor, when we have negotiated, I will share it with you. [18]
For years he'd been subject to fits of melancholy-the enchanter temperament, some called it; [23]
The zulkir had offered assistance: he carried various elixirs and had bribed the rudiments of healing from a dissolute priestess of Myrkul before the death god died [28]
Lord Tavai-Lauzoril [28]
Bezantur
The tide was out and a stiff wind, running ahead of a sea storm, swept over the harbor mud, absorbing scents of life and death. On land, smoke from countless ovens gave the wind texture, while sun-baked streets and fermenting middens added their offerings to the season known in Bezantur as Reeking Heat (in Eleasias). Those who could flee the city had left a month ago; those who could not-the poor and the powerful-endured. A perverse few claimed preference for air with a life of its own, but most suffered the stifling, pungent breezes with little grace. Perfumers did better trade than food sellers as everyone created a private aura, using one favored scent against a myriad of others. In the end, stale perfume became the worst stench of all. [5]
The state room of the Black Citadel at Bezantur's heart [5]
Aznar Thrul, Zulkir of Invocation and Tharchion of the Priador-the newest Thayan province of which ancient Bezantur had become the capital [5]
A decade into his tharchionate and Thrul's laudatory murals were reduced to obscure blotches, and the ceiling was a greasy stain where swarms of insects made their homes. [5]
the citadel's legion of slaves. Never mind that the slaves were equally unclothed or that most of them were undead: They had eyes, they stared, and there was always the chance that they might recognize or remember. [5]
the blue-tattooed wizard announced. A ragged kilt hung around his waist, a mark of the favor of Aznar Thrul [5]
Lady Illusion (Mythrell’aa) had dwelt in Bezantur longer than him, but hadn't had the wit to leave when he claimed it. She'd locked herself in her obsidian tower and sealed the place with enough magic to make a god hesitate before knocking on her door.
For the first time in over a month, a cool breeze had freshened over Bezantur Harbor. It cleansed the city, awakening it from stagnant dreams. In Bezantur's one thousand fabled temples, priests and acolytes invoked their deities with prayers for High Harvest, the season that followed Reeking Heat. [16]
The Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir had plans for the evening: a visit to the citadel dungeons, which he hadn't visited during the Heat, to savor a torture session without sharing it. Afterward, he planned a midnight visit to the locked chamber where Bezantur's former tharchion awaited his pleasure. Awaited was, perhaps, too strong a word. Mari Agneh scarcely comprehended that she was alive. Thrul had bound his predecessor in a web of spells that left her worse than dead. She, who had once sent armies against him, had become a painted doll, sating his whims and those of his other guests. The pleasure was always his, never hers. [16]
Sahuagin Tavern in Bezantur [27]
Aznar Thrul
Thrul's nature, infinitely adaptable in politics and deceit, did not allow him to admit an error in ordinary housekeeping. By his order, the cauldrons were kept full and cindering; the fans never stopped swaying. He surrounded himself with the most priceless perfume of all: crisp air invoked from a distant mountaintop. Clothed in heavy velvet, the Zulkir sat on his throne while sweating petitioners paraded before him. [5]
Life was dangerous for a Thayan zulkir who accumulated enemies as the ceiling above him accumulated flies, doubly dangerous for a zulkir who was also a territorial tharchion. Death threats were routine; some were serious. Thrul took no unnecessary chances: when petitioners came to the state room, they entered it naked. [5]
Thrul's own thoughts were duly protected by his robe, which was constructed of spells and velvet. No one, not even the great Szass Tam himself, could probe his mind while he wore it. [5]
Aznar Thrul was not a patient man. He'd have foregone these bribe-heavy occasions entirely were it not useful, even in Thay, for a tharchion to hear the complaints of common folk at least once a season-or twice, in Reeking Heat. [5]
Mythrell'aa wasn't useful, not at all. Thrul wanted her dead-if he could be certain death wouldn't simply make her even more dangerous. [5]
Thrul wondered, Had he made the greatest mistake of his life when he trusted this woman? Should he slay her on the spot and eliminate the possibility? By design, they kept secrets from each other. Thrul had other spies, other spy masters; that was one of his secrets. What were hers? She wasn't supposed to spy within Thay, especially within Bezantur, but she'd be a fool if she didn't. She'd be a fool if she didn't have eyes and ears within Serpent Tower-if she hadn't at least tried to place a spy there. Thrul's gods knew, Thrul himself had tried often enough. Was his spy master luckier? more skilled? Or a traitor? Did he dare trust her? Did he dare not? [5]
The zulkir shook his head and prepared a lie. "We have invested so much in this web. I would be grieved if Mythrell'aa had compromised it before it had truly begun to function." "It is not compromised, my lord. Not at all. The woman we lost was in Nethra. She cannot be traced to us; that is the beauty of what we have created. And she's already been replaced. Mythrell'aa's web is in Aglarond proper, disguised as grain traders." [5]
I warned her when I took the Priador tharchionate that her time was up. Two zulkirs cannot live in the same city. She swore no interest in politics and broke her oath last winter. She thought Szass Tam had me on the rocks, but he's the one who foundered in the spring. He's not the lich he was! I'll tighten the noose; you watch who runs where, and then we'll call everyone in to account." [9]
For a month, Aznar Thrul had lived the boring life of an ascetic, cut off from the diversions of the flesh. However much he cherished the power that went with his dual titles, there were times when the zulkir and tharchion yearned for the simpler days of his youth, when life was all potential, little responsibility, and every night belonged to him alone. [16]
Thrul removed a gnarled amber rod from the sleeve of his velvet robe. Holding it precisely between his thumb and index finger, he passed it carefully over each dish on the table, each plate, knife, fork, and spoon. He touched the rim of three crystal goblets, the ewers of wine, nectar, and water as well. There were no sparks, no foul emanations; the food was pure enough for a zulkir and tharchion to eat. [16]
By allies Thrul meant Nevron of Conjuration and Lauzoril. [16]
your private chamber behind the Sahuagin Tavern [27]
Neema Gaz
Neema Gaz, she was a tall human, slender but at least a decade past her prime. Sinuous tattoos in shades of blue and green wound from her scalp to her toes; weathered wrinkles cut across the tattoos, especially where she'd singed away her hair years earlier. Her breasts, visible beneath a loose gown of bleached gauze, had begun to wither-hardly the sort of companion Thrul chose when companionship was on his mind. Aznar Thrul’s spymaster [5]
Of unquestioned Mulan stock [5]
Deaizul was in Aglarond. Deaizul had been the man who'd tracked Mythrell'aa's spies to the little village, the man who'd told her what he'd found and summoned up the necessary assistance before he'd sent the message, the man who'd taught her everything he knew about spycraft and how to keep the upper hand with men like Aznar Thrul. She removed the carnelian brooch-Deaizul's last gift and the token through which she'd claimed a place in Thrul's inmost circle-from the inner folds of her rags and set it on the table beside the coins. Deaizul had lost his nerve during the Salamander Wars. Her mentor worked alone now or he didn't work at all. He'd left the village after he sent the message. The village, he'd said, had given him a missing piece to another mystery, set deep in the Yuirwood: gods in search of worshipers, would-be worshipers in search of gods. Deaizul had a plan, he'd said, to bring the worshipers and the gods together-for the greater glory of Thay. He'd have to become someone else for awhile, but he'd done that a hundred times before. Deaizul could live another man's life for a week, a month, or a year, and his own wife would never suspect. When he was done, he said he'd come back to Thay and the zulkirs would be like mud on his feet. Just don't count on him for anything until then. Deaizul in disguise often forgot who Deaizul was or who in Bezantur worried about him each night. [5]
Thrul's spy master had discarded her disguise and, wearing a gown as sheer as any she wore in the zulkir's presence, worked her craft in a windowless bolt-hole. The gown was her own-that made all the difference in the world. The glass eggs in the chest in front of her had been devised by her mentor, Deaizul, when he was in his prime. They belonged to her now, and if that made them less reliable, then she was doomed and Aznar Thrul with her. The two-score eggs, blown from the finest glass a zulkir's gold could buy and sealed with a dollop of lead, sat in padded compartments in a shallow, wooden chest. Each was about the size of the spy master's nose and empty except for strands of hair-eyelashes, mostly-fingernail parings, and a powder composed of blood pearls, dragon wing, and bits of human skin. When the spy master sprinkled alegar over an egg and held it in the light of a particular lamp, the powder rose like mist. When she added of yellow gossypol to the alegar, the mist became a face and the egg became a short-lived conduit between the spy master and her spy. Or it did, while the spy lived. The egg the spy master held was inert, as had been the previous three. The four represented those Deaizul had sent after Mythrell'aa's minions in the Aglarondan village. It wasn't hard to imagine what had happened to them; it wasn't pleasant either.
There had to be a connection between that gray horse and the gods-brewing mystery that had lured Deaizul into the Yuirwood, a connection that now involved the witch-queen herself. Deaizul wasn't a particularly potent wizard, no match for the witch-queen. The spy master feared that he might need help and had hoped that the Mighty Tharchion, Mightier Zulkir of the Priador would agree to provide that help. [9]
Mythrell’aa
Mythrell'aa Vianul, Zulkir of Illusion, mistress of Serpent Tower [7]
Mythrell'aa had a true advantage over her Thayan peers (when spying on the Simbul): an older name (the others do not know her original name), a private quarrel, and a thorn stem, the last token of an ill-fated love, which Alassra Shentrantra had unexpectedly preserved in her most private chamber. [7]
Intrigue was a dangerous game and a game she hadn't played until recently. Mythrell'aa's life had been simpler before the Salamander War, before Zulkir Aznar Thrul established himself as Tharchion Aznar Thrul here in Bezantur. Before all that, Mythrell'aa had maintained cozy relationships with Bezantur's tharchions. She handled the magic and kept herself amused; they handled the intrigue. Thrul had changed all that. He had no need of her spell-casting talents and treated her like a child. No, worse than a child, he'd treated her like a slave, expecting her-who'd been a zulkir before he was born-to cater to his whims. So she'd turned to Szass Tam and he'd taught her… for a price. But not even Szass Tam knew about Alassra Shentrantra: he hadn't asked; she hadn't told. It was the first lesson he'd taught her, and she'd learned it well. Someday Mythrell'aa imagined she'd reveal what she knew about the witch-queen of Aglarond. Until then, Mythrell'aa kept her secret to herself. Countless Red Wizards moldered in lonely graves because they'd underestimated the witch-queen's power. Illusion's zulkir wouldn't be among them. [7]
Lailomun (Mythrell’aa’s one time lover) started when she called his name. He reached for the open window, encountered the wards and fell back, nursing his numbed hands. He hadn't changed since Mythrell'aa surprised him that night, decades past, in the trysting room Alassra Shentrantra prepared for them. His handsome face remained unmarked by time, except for a small bluish scar above his right brow, where Mythrell'aa's vengeance burrowed through his skull. She hadn't changed him, not the way zulkirs usually changed the annoyances of their lives. Lailomun knew himself and recognized her: His thoughts, a mixture of hate and horror, were poetry written in wide eyes, flared nostrils and quivering lips. He said nothing. Lailomun hadn't spoken since Mythrell'aa brought him back to Serpent Tower, but that was his decision, an act of futile willfulness that delighted the zulkir each time she roused him. What are you thinking, Lailomun? What plan have you hatched? Nothing will come of it, my pet. You can't remember anything from one hour to the next. I've had you here for more than a hundred years and I'll have you for another hundred before I'll let you die. There's nothing you can do, my pet, nothing. [7]
"Vazurmu," Mythrell'aa called the name of an illusionist of no small talent and a woman bound to her in death as well as life. "I summon you." [7]
The village where her minions were supposed to ambush Alassra Shentrantra was near the Yuirwood and the Yuirwood interfered with Red Wizard magic. Mythrell'aa despised Aglarond's great forest almost as much as she despised Aglarond's queen. When the Red Wizards finally conquered that wretched realm, she'd personally cast the conflagration spells to burn all those thrice-damned trees to the ground. [7]
Earlier this summer, she'd asked to meet with him (Szass Tam) -to see him with her own eyes that were immune to all illusion, enchantment and disguise. They met at an inn near Eltab, unheralded, unnoticed. The lich had seemed himself and properly grateful for the sacrifices she'd made on his behalf. He'd given her a black jewel with the power to kill. Mythrell'aa wore it now, beneath her robes, between her breasts. It was useless against the already dead. [18]
Tharchions had only as much authority as the zulkirs allowed them. Mythrell'aa, herself, had ruled the Tharch of Bezantur through Mari Agneh (her long time friend and companion) before the Salamander War. [18]
Yuirwood Pantheon
The Simbul eased Alassra's worries. "Like you, Queen Ilione's mother was Cha'Tel'Quessir. She remembered her heritage when you first came to her brother's court; she remembered the Simbul."
Alassra shook her head in contradiction. "Nobody knew. It was just a word-not even a name. The stone has been defaced since before the first Cha'Tel'Quessir were born." She thought about the other vacant Sunglade stones and the bits of legend the elven sages had revealed in Everlund. "The Yuir gods: Relkath, Zandilar, Magnar… you were adopted by the Seldarine, absorbed by them, and then forgotten?"
The shadow light dimmed slightly. "It wasn't supposed to happen that way. Our race-our mortal kindred-was besieged. The bonds between us were doomed. Our realm was doomed. We had chosen another path and it led nowhere… it led here. The Tel'Quessir came from elsewhere. They weren't besieged, but they needed a place in Abeir-toril. Our heritage passed to the Sy-Tel'Quessir, who swore to cherish, nurture and protect it."
"But they couldn't do that for something they were afraid of. I met with elven sages at Everlund. If you know all about me, you know what they said."
"Fierce," the Simbul replied. "Fierce and reckless: that is what Ilione saw and why she gave you my name. I had not had a presence for so long… My moment had been forgotten before the Yuir passed into the wood."
"So, that's what I am-a wild and reckless presence in Aglarond. Rizcarn is Relkath's magpie in the Yuirwood. Are there others?"
"Magnar hopes for a strong man. Zandilar wanted a child-and a dancer."
Alassra thought of the carnage she'd escaped. "She didn't get what she wanted, did she?"
"She has more than most of us. There's always a place for Zandilar. Her moment cannot be forgotten; her power will always be remembered. You have not asked, Alassra Shentrantra, what the Simbul is. When were we not forgotten, why were we remembered?"
"I'm not so sure I want to know."
"When the Tel'Quessir came, they asked me to choose between Labelas Enoreth, the Seldarine power of time and philosophy, and Erevan Ilesere, their power of change-"
Powers, moments, and presence, Alassra thought, but not gods. The Simbul spoke of Mystra as a goddess, but she had not applied the word to herself.
"I became the power of balance allied to Labelas Enoreth-"
"But you're not balance. I'm not balance. I've been hearing that all my life."
The shadows rippled with laughter like the breaking of fine glass bells and the light brightened again. "I am the edge, Alassra Shentrantra. When the hunter facing the charging beast has to decide whether to throw his spear, whether to dodge, and the moment to do either, I am that moment. I was. When the hunted comes to two paths and, knowing neither, must still choose between them, I am that moment of choice. I am the edge of the cliff, the bending branch, the moment when you must jump. When you decide, without knowing why, without knowing anything at all, at that moment I am with you."
"I think I understand the problem. The Tel'Quessir aren't like that at all-well, maybe the drow. You'd have done better with humans."
"We began with humans, when humans were young and the gods you know had yet to be imagined, and we bargained futilely and to our detriment with the drow."
"Now you have the Cha'Tel'Quessir who are looking for gods, not moments. Gods who will make them a mighty people." [28] |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2023 : 11:48:25
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Well that novel was awesome, easily one of the best realms novels i have read so far.
The amount of new information in it regarding Thay and Aglarond is astounding, on a par with Elaine or Ed in terms of quality and volume of lore.
The whole Yuirwood think is really interesting, really interesting. Perhaps a little confusing, but that is perhaps because it involves time travel.
A few questions without answers at the moment.
The Yuirwood pantheon was first worshipped by humans. Then the elves came and subjugated them. Then the elves left / died out and so the remaining Yuirwood pantheon died (sort of).
Somewhere during this, the Yuirwood / humans got involved with the drow, possible before the elves arrived. The drow appear to later have attacked the elves.
The Yuirwood pantheon vanished for millennia, forgotten by almost everyone. They didnt die, they appear to have deliberately entered a place where they could hide and survive, like in stasis.
At some point recently the pantheon awoke and started becoming more active. It could be that the catalyst for this event was Queen Ilione giving the Simbul her name. Speaking a god's name aloud gives it power, it may be that by giving the Simbul her new name a century ago caused the goddess to awaken.
Then Relkath awoke and spoke to Rizcarn (who started carving the names in trees until he died (an accident or a rival power interfering).
Then Zandilar awakens and creates the horse etc.
Now the key to the whole ceremony appears to have been Zandilar. THe SImbul (goddess) says that Zandilar will always be part of the forest, as though she is different from the other Yuirwood Pantheon, this is also supported in other things that mention Zandilar had dealings with the drow and may have been the first to fight them. She is clearly special in the Yuirwood and the Pantheon.
Elven Time of Troubles was also another interesting point.
Thay itself has a whole new level of intricacy just from this novel alone. There are at least 3 historical figures i never knew about that had a huge impact on Thay's history. The Chairmaster and convocation is important and i dont think i've ever seen it mentioned before.
Lots to consider, lots of possibilities. |
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Demzer
Senior Scribe
877 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2023 : 14:18:08
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
Now the key to the whole ceremony appears to have been Zandilar. THe SImbul (goddess) says that Zandilar will always be part of the forest, as though she is different from the other Yuirwood Pantheon, this is also supported in other things that mention Zandilar had dealings with the drow and may have been the first to fight them. She is clearly special in the Yuirwood and the Pantheon.
Just guessing, but this could be because Zandilar is the only "definitely alive (after a fashion)" member of the pantheon as she merged with Sharess (as recounted in Powers & Pantheons).
Sharess is kind of a peculiar deity by herself as she has subsumed other minor powers but each time adapted and changed her own essence to harmonise and synergise with the subsumed power portfolio, interests and outlook.
So I totally buy the fact that Sharess might still keep a gentle and caring eye on the Yuirwood, being the only "surviving" deity of the old pantheon. |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Seravin
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1288 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2023 : 16:26:11
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Phew glad you liked the book. I thought I may have oversold it, but it's one of those novels that just feels so tightly written in terms of getting the characters/setting/lore right I wish to god all the Realms novels were this well researched and executed from the lore side. Even if I hate Bro as a character and feel his sections draggggged.
That is a LOT of lore.
Best bits for me:
Everything to do with the Simbul and Alustriel - most especially their meeting with the Elven Sages
The Meeting of the Zulkirs and the Chairs that render them both helpless and invulnerable at the same time
The manifestation of the Yuirwood into an avatar (of Relkath?) that battles the Simbul and she is not able to get the upperhand
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Edited by - Seravin on 03 Feb 2023 16:30:39 |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Seravin
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1288 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2023 : 21:37:40
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| Yes, Lauzoril was definitely well written and felt like a real person. He could have had his own novel from Lynn, you could tell she really liked the character. |
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George Krashos
Master of Realmslore
Australia
6666 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2023 : 02:50:10
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
The Chairmaster and convocation is important and i dont think i've ever seen it mentioned before.
And here I thought you'd read my Zuilkirs of Thay article at the DMs Guild ... 
-- George Krashos |
"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus |
Edited by - George Krashos on 04 Feb 2023 02:51:00 |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
Posted - 15 Feb 2023 : 22:02:16
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Elminster in Myth Drannor (240 DR to 261 DR)
Ed Greenwood
Books
It was a time of mounting strife in the fair realm of Cormanthor, when the lords and ladies of the oldest, proudest houses felt a threat to their glittering pride. A threat thrust forward by the very throne above them; a threat from their most darkling youthful nightmares. The Stinking Beast That Comes In The Night, the Hairy Lurker who waits his best chance to slay, despoil, violate, and pillage. The monster whose grasp clutches at more realms with each passing day: the terror known as Man.
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights: An Informal But True History of Cormanthor published in The Year of the Harp [Prologue]
Nothing is recorded of the journey of Elminster from his native Athalantar across half a world of wild forests to the fabled elven realm of Cormanthor, and it can only be assumed to have been uneventful.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty published circa The Year of the Staff [1]
The passing of the Mage of Many Gems might have doomed the House of Alastrarra, had it not been for the sacrifice of a passing human. Many elves of the realm soon wished the man in question had sacrificed everything instead. Others point out that in more than one sense-he did.
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights: An Informal But True History of Cormanthor published in The Year of the Harp [2]
It is rare for any man to make many foes, and strive against them, only to find a victory so clear and mighty that he vanquishes them forever, and is shut of them cleanly, at a single stroke. Indeed, one may say that such clarity of resolution is found only in the tales of minstrels. In the endlessly unfolding tapestry that is real life in Faerun, the gods plague folk with far more loose ends-and all too many of these prove as deadly as the decisive battles that preceded them.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty published circa The Year of the Staff [3]
More than one ballad of our People tells of Elminster Aumar of Athalantar gawking at the splendors of beautiful Cormanthor upon his first sight of them, and how he was so breathtaken that he spent an entire day just walking the streets, drinking in the glories of the Cormanthor that was. Sometimes 'tis a pity that ballads lie a lot.
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights: An Informal But True History of Cormanthor published in The Year of the Harp [4]
And so it befell that Elminster of Athalantar found the elven family he had so inadvertently joined and did that which he was sworn to do. Like many who fulfill an unusual and dangerous duty, he received scant thanks for it. Had it not been for the grace of Mystra, he might easily have died in the Coronal's garden that night.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty published circa The Year of the Staff [5]
Beneath the fair city of Cormanthor, in some hidden place, lies the Vault of Ages, sacred storehouse of the lore of our People. 'Let Mythal rise and Myth Drannor fall,' says one ballad, 'and still the Vault remembreth all.' Some say the Vault lies there yet, unplundered and as splendid as before, though few now know the way to it. Some say 'tis the Srinshee's tomb. Some say she has become a terrible mad thing of clawing magics, and has made the Vault her lair. And there are even some who admit that they do not know.
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights: An Informal But True History of Cormanthor published in The Year of the Harp [6]
When Elminster first saw it, Cormanthor was a city of haughty pretence, intrigue, strife, and decadence. A place, in fact, very like the proudest human cities of today.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty published circa The Year of the Staff [7]
The elves of Cormanthor have always been known for their calm, measured responses to perceived threats. They often consider for half a day or more before going out and killing them.
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights: An Informal But True History of Cormanthor published in The Year of the Harp
Few who've witnessed a spell battle forget the very old saying among humans: "When mages duel, honest folk should seek hiding places far away." Though mantles and arae-myths make elven wizardly duels more a matter of anticipation and slowly unfolding complexity than human struggles, 'tis still a good idea to be at a safe distance when sorcerers make war. Out of the realm, for instance.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty published circa The Year of the Staff [9]
The love of an elf is a deep and precious thing. Misused or spurned, it can be deadly. Realms have fallen and been sundered for love, and proud elder houses swept away. Some have said that an elf is the force of his or her love, and all else just flesh and dross. It is certain that elves can love humans, and humans love elves-but in such meetings of the heart, sorrow is never far away.
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights: An Informal But True History of Cormanthor published in The Year of the Harp [10]
There is no beast more dangerous to hunt than a man forewarned-save one: a human mage forewarned.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty published circa The Year of the Staff [11]
The most dangerous moment in the hunt is when the stag turns, at bay, to trade his life for as many hunters as he can. Elven magic customarily turns such moments into mere glimpses of magnificent futility. But what would such moments be, I wonder, if the stag had strong magic, too?
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights: An Informal But True History of Cormanthor published in The Year of the Harp [12]
For a time, Elminster became as a ghost, and wandered unheard and unseen through the very heart of Cormanthor. The elves regarded him not, and he learned much thereby… not that he had much of a life left in which to make use of what he gained.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty published circa The Year of the Staff [13]
Elves today still say "As splendid as the Coronal's Court itself" when describing luxury or work of exquisite beauty, and the memory of that splendor, now taken from us, will never die. The Court of the Coronal was known for its decorum. Even scions of the mightiest houses were known to pause in admiration and awe at the glittering panoply it presented to the eye; and temper their words and deeds with the most courtly graces; and from the Throne of Cormanthor, floating above them, went out the gravest and most noble judgments of that age.
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights: An Informal But True History of Cormanthor published in The Year of the Harp [14]
It came to pass that Elminster was slain by the elves, or nearly so, and by the grace of Mystra drifted about Cormanthor in the shape of a ghost or phantom, powerless and unseen-akin, some have said, to the lot of scullery maids in service to a highborn lady. Like such wenches, woe would likely befall the last prince of Athalantar if he were to come to the notice of the mighty. The master sorcerers of the elves were powerful in those days, and faster to make war and cast forth reckless magics. They saw the world around them, and all humans in it, as rebellious playthings to be tamed often, swiftly, and harshly. Among certain of the elven, that thinking has changed but little to this day.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faeriinian Archmages Mighty published circa The Year of the Staff [15]
The People looked upon Elminster Aumar, and saw, but did not understand what they saw. He was the first gust of the new wind sent by Mystra. And Cormanthor was like an old and mighty wall, that stands against such winds of change for century upon century, until even its builders forget that it was built, and was ever anything else but an unyielding barrier. There will come a day for such a wall when it will topple, and be changed by the unseen, unsolid winds. It always does.
That day came for the proud realm when the Coronal named the human Elminster Aumar a knight of Cormanthor-but the wall knew not that it had been shattered, and waited for its tumbling stones to crash to earth before it would deign to notice. That fall, when it came, would be the laying of the My thai. But the stones of the wall, being elven stones, lingered in the air for an astonishingly long while…
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights: An Informal But True History of Cormanthor published in The Year of the Harp [16]
For some years Elminster served the elf known only as The Masked as apprentice. Despite the cruel nature of the high sorcerer, and the spell chains that bound the human in servitude, a respect grew between master and man. It was respect that ignored the differences between them, and the betrayal and battle that both knew lay ahead.
Antarn the Sage from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty published circa The Year of the Staff [17]
There comes a day at last when even the most patient and exacting of scheming traitors grows impatient, and breaks forth into open treachery. Henceforth, he must deal with the world as it is, reacting around him, and not as he sees or desires it to be in his plots and dreams. This is the point at which many treacheries go awry.
The sorcerer known as The Masked was, however, no ordinary traitor-if one may think of an "ordinary traitor." The historian of Cormanthor, reaching back far enough, can do so, finding many ordinary treacheries, but this was not one of them. This was the stuff of which wailing doom-ballads are made.
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights: An Informal But True History of Cormanthor published in The Year of the Harp [18]
Among the tales and accounts of men, the Court of Cormanthor is portrayed as a glittering, gigantic hall of enchanted wonders, in which richly robed elves drifted quietly to and fro in the ultimate hauteur and decorum. It was so, most of the time, but a certain day in the Year of Soaring Stars was a decidedly noticeable-and notable-exception.
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty published circa The Year of the Staff [19]
And so it was that a spellstorm was unleashed in the Court of Cormanthor that day. A true spellstorm is a fearful thing, one of the most terrible dooms one can behold, even if one lives to remember it. Yet some among our People hold far more hatred and fear in their hearts for what happened after the spellstorm blew apart.
Shalheira Talandren, High Elven Bard of Summerstar
from Silver Blades And Summer Nights: An Informal But True History of Cormanthor published in The Year of the Harp [20]
The Mythal that rose over the city of Cormanthor was not the most powerful ever spun, but elves still judge it the most important. With love, and out of strife, it was wrought, and was given many rich and strange powers by the many who wove it. Elves still sing of them, and vow their names will live forever, despite the fall of Myth Drannor: the Coronal Eltargrim Irithyl; the Lady Herald Aubaudameira Dree, known to minstrels as 'Alais;' the human armathor Elminster, Chosen of Mystra; the Lady Oluevaera Estelda, the legendary Srinshee; the human mage known only as Mentor; the half-elven Arguth of Ambral Isle; High Court Mage Lord Earynspieir Ongluth; the Lords Aulauthar Orbryn and Ondabrar Maendellyn; and the Ladies Ahrendue Echorn, Dathlue Mistwinter, known to bards as 'Lady Steel,' and High Lady Alea Dahast. These were not all. Many of Cormanthor joined in the Song that day, and by the grace of Corellon, Sehanine, and Mystra some of their wants and skills found mysterious ways into the Mythal. Some did not, for treachery never died in Cormanthor, whether it was called Myth Drannor or not…
Antarn the Sage
from The High History of Faerunian Archmages Mighty published circa The Year of the Staff [Epilogue]
At the time of the laying of the Mythal, some of the elves of Cormanthor thought opening their realm to other races was a mistake. I'm sure some still do.
There was some small dispute and bother at the time, as there is at the birthing of any new thing that is not a living babe, but nothing that minstrels or sages need be overly concerned about. A matter of a few swords, a handful of spells, and some hasty words, followed by a party. In short, it was very like most of what human heroes are wont to call "adventures."
Elminster the Sage
from a speech to an assembly of Harpers in Twilight Hall, Berdusk, The Year of the Harp [Epilogue]
Cormanthor
The Fitting End of the Human King Halthor; such parodies of the low and grasping ways of the Hairy Ones were amusing at first, but very 'one note,' and above all elves of Cormanthor hated to be bored-or at least, to admit their boredom. [Prologue]
The Ereladden (Elven House????) (should it be Erladden????) [Prologue]
ruby-hued Erladden vintages. [Prologue]
Erladden Towers [prologue]
the shorter spikes of crystal galauntra whose domes covered figurines sculpted of choice cheese, roasted nuts, or sugarstars. [prologue]
Cormyth (elves of Cormanthor????]
Ildilyntra Starym, the Great Lady of the Starym (matriarch). Once beloved of Eltargrim (before he was Coronal????). flawless white skin, the figure so perfect that it still took his breath away. Her blue tresses were almost black, as always, and Ildilyntra still wore them unbound, falling at her heels to the ground. She was barefoot, the spells of her girdle keeping both hair and feet inches above the dirt of the ground. She wore the full, formal gown of her house, the twin falling dragons of the Starym arms bold in glittering gems upon her stomach, their sculpted wings cupping her breasts in a toothed surround of gold.
Her thighs, revealed through the waist-high slits in the gown as she came, were girt in the black-and-gold spirals of a mantle of honor. The ends of the mantle drew together to support the intricately carved dragontooth scabbard of her honor blade, bobbing like a small lamp, wrapped in the deep, solemn red glow of its awakened power. The Ring of the Watchful Wyvern gleamed upon her hand.
snarled words of sarcastic fire or cold, biting venom for which she was famous throughout Cormanthor
Flecks of gold had always surfaced in her dark eyes when she was moved to strong emotion.
High Lady of the Starym [prologue]
The Starym held themselves to be the eldest and most pure of the families of the One True Realm-and were certainly the proudest. [prologue]
my senior kin, and many other families and folk of Cormanthor besides-I can name the principals if you wish, Lord, but be assured they are neither few nor easily discredited as youths or touch-headed-think that this notion of Opening the realm will doom us all, if it is ever made reality. If you follow your mad dreams of amending the law of Cormanthor to all non-elves into the realm, our long friendship must end. [prologue]
the distant Heartpool singing in response. [prologue]
the Living Seat (throne of Cormanthor????) [prologue]
the dream of peace between men and elves and dwarves can at last be upon us! Maeral's dream, fulfilled at last! [prologue]
blood dragon. It was the most deadly spell of the elder Houses, a revenge magic that took the life of its awakener. The Doom of the Purebloods, some called it. The dragon towered above him, dark, wet, and terrible in the night, as silent as a breeze and as deadly as a rain of enchanted venom. Living flesh would melt before it, twisting, withering, and shriveling into grey rot and tangled bones and sinew. [prologue]
the fabled Towers of Song. The elves suffered no human to see their great city and live [2]
Iymbryl Alastrarra, Heir of the House Alastrarra, the Mage of Many Gems, leader of the White Raven Patrol, a tall elf who wore a shoulder mantle adorned with rows of oval, gem-adorned pendants that flashed and sparkled as he dodged. A mage. Ambushed by hobgoblins on the western borders of Cormanthor, rescued by Elminster but died anyway. Beloved of Ayaeqlarune (already dead). His body turned into dust and left only a black gem (Elminster put it to his forehead) [2]
House Alastrarra [2]
only braggarts displayed House lore-gems openly-a simple calling on the stone would hide it; and now that he wore Iymbryl's shape, the memories in the gem still awaited him, but no longer overwhelmed. [3]
its soaring spires, the fluted balconies of homes built in the hearts of living trees, the ornate, free-floating lanterns that drifted about the city, and the bridges that soared from tree to tree, crisscrossing the air. Those spans were arched, and some of them curved as they went. None of them had side railings. [3]
The Coronal, the gem showed him-someone chosen rather than born to the office. An 'old wise one' and chief judge in all disputes, it seemed, who held sway not only over Cormanthor the city, but its entire deep woods realm. The office carried magical powers, and the current Coronal was one Eltargrim Irithyl-old and overly kindly, in Iymbryl's view, though the Alastrarran heir knew that some of the older, prouder families held far poorer views of their ruler. [3]
Those proud old Houses, in particular the Starym and Echorn, held much of the real power in Cormanthor, and considered themselves the embodiment and guardians of "true" elven character. [3]
Elaethan and Norlorn, elf spirits of the Sacred Vale [3]
elven knights in the sky. Splendid they were, in fluted armor that gleamed purple, blue, and emerald as they swooped past in the saddles of flying unicorns whose hides were blue, and who had no wings nor reins to guide them. [3]
the Watchful and Vigilant (patrol Cormanthor) [4]
the querph tree behind him, plucking some of the succulent sapphire-hued berries. [4]
a mansion cloaked in dark pines ("broody affectations," according to the maids of some rival houses, Iymbryl knew), whose tall, narrow windows were masterpieces of sculpted and dyed glass, girt with enchantments that periodically spun ghostly images of minstrelry, dancing unicorns, and rearing stags across the moss-carpeted chambers within. Those casements were the work of Althidon Alastrarra, gone to Sehanine some two centuries and more, and there were no finer in all Cormanthor. The grounds of House Alastrarra had no walls, but its hedges and plantings spun themselves out to form a continuous barrier along paths marked by irndar trees that bore the falcon sigil of the House. After dusk, these living blazons glowed blue, clear to the eye-there were many such across the proud city [4]
Amid the tree castles were lesser mansions of spired stone and what looked like blown, sculpted glass. However it seemed by the hanging gardens that sprawled over such edifices that elves could not bear to live unless growing plants or trees shared the same space with them. [4]
costumes that seemed to be no more than coyly cloaking clouds of lace and baubles drifting around elven forms. These latter were called driftrobes, the kiira let him know, as El tried not to stare at the slender bodies revealed by their circling movements. Driftrobes emitted a constant song of chimings whose descending runs sounded like many tiny, skillfully struck bells falling down the same staircase. [4]
many benches and floating highseats that flanked the mossy ways [4]
the falcon sigil of Alastrarra. [4]
Yalanilue, servant at Alastrarra House, sometime lover of Iymbryl [4]
Riluaneth, a cousin taken in by the Alastrarras after his parents died, and a source of trouble ever since. Resentful and with a cruel streak that was seldom far from governing him, Ril had delighted in teasing and occasionally tormenting the two young Alastrarran brothers, Iymbryl and Ornthalas. a handsome, almost burly elf who must be accounted a muscle-bound giant among Cormanthans. Slain by Elminster. No doubt his gambling, dark schemes, or philandering had earned him his fate. [4]
A bloodfire spell, to burn away a burly troublemaker to nothing [4]
Namyriitha, matriarch of House Alastrarra. The plum-hued gown she wore displayed every tall, curvaceous inch of Namyriitha Alastrarra from time to time, as portions of it flowed like smoke to wreath this part of her or that part of her in glistening rainbow droplets, and left other parts bare. An expert eye could tell she had no longer been young for many centuries, but few eyes bothered to practice any expertise when faced with such smooth-flowing beauty. Mother of Iymbryl, Filauril, and Melarue [4]
Filauril Alastrarra. slim and exquisitely beautiful, blue-black hair tumbling freely about her. Sister of Iymbryl [4]
Melarue Alastrarra. a tall, angry-eyed elven maiden. Sister of Iymbryl [4]
Naeryndam Alastrarra. An old elf stood there, clad in the cape and robes usually affected by human archwizards. The falcon device of the house was worked into the sash he wore, repeated many times, yet El knew this was no servant. Rings gleamed on his ancient fingers, and he bore a short wooden scepter in his hands, its sides carved with spiral grooves. Uncle of Ornthalas, Iymbryl, Melarue, Filauril. Brother of Namyriitha. Eldest living Alastrarran [4,5]
Sheedra mother of young Nanthleene of House Alastrarr (is Sheedra sister to Iymbryl, etc or cousin????) [5]
House Alastrarra, ye of the blood of Thurruvyn (was he the first member or most famous or was Thurruvyn the father of Iymbryl, Melarue, Filauril, etc????) [5]
Naeryndam Alastrarra drawing a sword seemingly out of the empty air. Magic winked and chased itself up and down that rune-marked blade. my blade will cloud thy sight, even as it binds thee to accompany me. (is it a moon blade????) [5]
A watchnorn, something rose out of the ground at their very feet-spectral, and graceful, and yet deadly in appearance. Blue-white it glowed, all sleek nude curves and long flowing hair, but its eyes were two dark holes against the stars as it said in their minds, Who comes? I was in life Braerindra of the House of Calauth, last of my House. The forest grows through roofless chambers that once were fair, and scatter the bones and dust that were my kin, while I am here, far distant. A watchnorn, now. Cormanthans term us "ghosts," and fear us, and keep away. Hence our guardianships here be lonely, and bid fair to remain so. (House Calauth vanished long ago, were they from another far off elven realm????) [5]
Earynspieir, an elf cloaked in power (high mage????) a court mage in the Coronal’s Garden [5]
an armathor-in human words, a knighthood, with citizenship-in Cormanthor. [6]
Coronal Eltargrim, I did in my time down some orcs-""And a hundred thousand men or so, and a dragon or two [6]
Ithrythra Mornmist (reigning lady of House Mornmist), Alaglossa Tornglara, Duilya Evendusk, Phuingara Lhoril, Cilivren Doedance, the quietest and most polite of them all. All noble elven ladies that gather to gossip [7]
A legendary oval mirror taller than she was. As she stared into its depths and saw just a hint of swirling things there, she recalled that some Cormanth ladies whispered that this mirror sometimes served the Tornglaras as a portal into dark and dirty streets in the cities of men. The Tornglara lords went to do business that Cormanthor frowned upon, trading with humans. The Tornglara ladies, now… She clucked her lips at those thoughts and set them firmly aside. Fashions were what Alaglossa Tornglara went seeking; fashions, and no more. [7]
Satyrdance Pool in the private gardens behind the many-towered mansion that was House Tornglara [7]
famous Tornglara vintages [7]
House Mornmist, the hand lyre is its symbol [7]
the First Houses might call a Hunt, for the first time in centuries, and they'll force old Eltargrim into stag shape and hunt him down [7]
tripleshroom sherry [7]
Ihimbraskar Evendusk, Lord of House Evendusk, married to Duilya. An oafish drunkard [7]
The Dlardrageth." "What happened to them?" "They courted incubi and succubi, seeking to breed a stronger race. Few survived such dealings, fewer still the birthings that followed, and all elven peoples turned against them. The few survivors were walled in here by our strongest spells, until the end of their days." The Srinshee dusted her hand across a pillar thoughtfully, uncovering a relief carving of a leering face. "Some of those spells still linger, though daring young Cormanthan lords broke in more than a thousand years ago to despoil this castle of the riches of House Dlardrageth. They found little of value, and took away what they did find. They also took back word of the ghosts that linger here. [7]
Sylmae asked coldly. She looked around the circle of solemn faces that hovered above the balefire; her own and the other five sorceresses (Sylmae Auglamyr, Holone Auglamyr, Ajhalanda, Yathlanae) who'd accompanied the Coronal to the Vault of Ages after the High Court Mages, Earynspieir and Ilimitar, had refused to do so. [7]
The spine of the old Houses-those who despise and stand against the Coronal, and lady sorceresses, and anything that is new these past three thousand years-are the Starym, of course, and Houses Echorn and Waelvor. The path they cleave, the old Houses and all of the timid new ones will follow. They are the tide: slow, mighty, and predictable. "and yet the tide aren't those we must watch. They are the powerful newer proud ones, the rich Houses, led by Maendellyn and Nlossae. There is a third group," Sylmae said, "who bear the closest watching of all. They are a group only in my speaking of them; in Cormanthor they hew their own roads, and walk to differing stars. The reckless upstarts, some term them; they are the Houses who will try anything, merely for the joy of being part of something new. They are Auglamyr and Ealoeth, and lesser families such as the Falanae and Uirthur. [7]
proud lords of any House but those I've named last would tolerate, if they knew about it. She-elves are only for dancing, bedecking with gems, and begetting young on, know you not?" "Cooking," Ajhalanda said. "You forgot cooking." [7]
Amaranthae Auglamyr, cousin to Symrustar Auglamyr, hates fish. Her cousin wore a rather less revealing gown of dark blue, though one side of it was parted to above her waist to display a fine webwork of golden chains flowing down her bare, almost brown flank. She had flowing honey-blonde hair, startlingly brown eyes, and a far kinder smile than her blue-haired companion, as well as the most tanned skin and lush curves of any elf Elminster had ever seen. But her cousin outshone her beauty as a sun outblazes a night star. [8,10]
Lord Auglamyr was not known for his gentle temper. "A thundercloud of towering pride, sweeping all before it" was the way one senior lady of the court had once described him, and her words had been overgentle. Father of Symrustar
Symrustar Auglamyr her utterly amoral ruthlessness. Amaranthae was very careful to remain supportive and helpful to her ambitious cousin at all times, for she had no doubt that Symrustar Auglamyr would betray her in a twinkling instant, best friends notwithstanding, if Amaranthae ever got in her way in even the smallest degree. Auglamyr heiress. fine shoulders and the long, smoothly curving lines of her body in its silk robe. A striking eyes and face, even among the beauties of the court. No wonder so many elven lords straightened their ears at the sight of her. The woman who led was stunning even among all the elven maids El had seen since his arrival in the city. Hair that was almost royal blue flowed freely over her shoulders and down her back, only to be gathered in a silken sash that rode low on her right hip, as the tail of a horse is gathered to keep it from trailing along the ground. Her eyes were a bright, almost electric blue, flashing promises to Elminster under dark and archly raised eyebrows as she swept nearer. A black, unadorned ribbon encircled her throat, and her lips were full and slightly pouting; she ran her tongue openly over them as she surveyed the man standing beside the elven mage. The front of her crimson gown was cut away to show the design of a many-headed dragon worked in gems glued to her flat belly, slim waist, and cleavage; frozen flames of fine wire cupped and displayed her high breasts, and gold dust clung to the coyly-displayed tip of one of her ears. She was achingly beautiful-and knew it. [8, 10]
westernmost shadowtop of Auglamyr House
Lord Heir Most High Elandorr Waelvor. Attempts to court Symrustar and is regularly and rudely rebuffed
turnback amulets I gave them (given or created by Symrustar????). What matter if they must draw blood to work?
Lord Kuskyn Waelvor, father of Elandorr
dawnberry cordial
Esmel and Vraelen, the names of stars
Lesser Flith, a starmap where the gems corresponding to stars glow when the name of the star is invoked
Delmuth Echorn, has enchanted bracers, his gloves, with their long, talonlike metal points, stretched like a great and supple cat of the jungles. Intends to kill Elminster. Heir of House Echorn. Slain by Elminster who reflected his own spell back at him and tore his skull out of his body.
Taeglyn (servant or member of House Echorn????)
Castle Echorn, has a domed chamber with an almost complete Lesser Flith (starmap) covering the domed ceiling
Neldor Echorn, uncle of Delmuth Echorn, eldest living elf of the blood of Echorn
gloomhunter spider
Galan Goadulphyn, elf, was carefully arranging small heaps of glass beads on his cloak, spread out atop the stump of a shadowtop that had fallen when Cormanthor was young. Only he knew that they represented the loans paid out to a certain phantom mushroom-growing concern by several too many proud Houses of the realm. Galan was trying to work out how to pay off some of the stiffer-lipped House keymasters by borrowing more from others. Knocked off a cliff by Delmuth Echorn’s skull but he survived. Galan the Gallant, a warrior [8,12]
Athtar Nlossae, elf in black leathers, comrade of Galan Goadulphyn. Slain by Delmuth Echorn’s skull
bitterroot ale
a rocky height amid the Cormanthan forest leaped into her mind. Druindar's Rock, a place none but a Cormanthan was likely to choose for a moot or spell duel (why????).
a long, wavy-bladed boar sword that flickered and glowed green, That blade was a treasure of my House (House Echorn)! It was old when humans first learned to speak! Destroyed by Elminster using Mystra’s Unravelling [9]
Mystra restored Srinshee’s youth [9]
High Court Mage Ilimitar, former pupil of the Srinshee 6 centuries ago. Aided Delmuth Echorn in attacking Elminster. He had been controlled or seduced by Symrustar Auglamyr into attacking the Srinshee because she dare not [9,10]
the Overmantle of Halgondas, from the Vault of Ages, merges two mantles together. [9]
Ilimitar cast the spell she'd once forbid him utterly to use; the one that summoned the Hungry Worm. The worm materialized coiled about one of her arms, but it slithered straight for her belly, and began burrowing into the cracked and blackened flesh immediately. The worm was largely done, now. It never touched the limbs or head when it had a body to feast upon [9]
Ilimitar-who had just simultaneously received every spell and magical discharge he'd poured into her. She still hated that spell. It was as cruel as the long ago elven mage who'd devised it-almost as bad as Halgondas and his Overmantle. Moreover, its caster had to feel the pain of all that was done to them-and Ilimitar had been so enthusiastic in his attempted destruction that the pain would have driven most mages mad. But not this one. Not the old Srinshee. [9]
And his slender fingers shaped a casting El did not know. Force flickered, visible only in its settling outline; it seemed to be the same invisible evocation that human mages wove into what were called walls of force. Delmuth saw El watching intently, and looked up, gloating, as the last radiances shaped an invisible sword, floating before Delmuth with its point toward Elminster. "Behold a spell you cannot send back at me," the elf lord chuckled, leaning low over it. "We call it a 'deadly seeking blade'-and all of elven blood are immune to it!" He snapped his fingers and broke into open, rolling laughter as the blade leapt forward. [9]
The 'call bones' spell had been developed by Napraeleon Echorn seven-or was it eight? he'd never paid all that much attention to his tutors-centuries ago, as a way of reducing giant stags to cartloads of ready meat. It could summon a particular assembly of bones to its caster, so that they tore their way right out of the victim's body. If the caster chose to receive the skull, the victim could not hope but die. Though Delmuth couldn't come up with a use, just this moment, for a blood-dripping human skull, there'd be plenty of time to think of one… [9]
Lord Qildor of House Rewen, young, handsome elven male [10]
Lady Aurae of House Shaeremae, breathtakingly beautiful, gossamer-gowned elven maiden [10]
My honor is brightened," he said, recalling a phrase of ancient elven courtesy from the memories in the kiira. [10]
Ivran Selorn, elf noble [10]
Uldreiyn Starym, burly senior archmage of the Starym family ran a weary hand through his thinning white hair, one of the mightiest sorcerers in all Faerun [11]
the Hallows (a garden), contains the Narnpool [11]
If common or easily crafted spells could fell the ghostly remnants of House Dlardrageth, of course, they'd have all been destroyed long ago, and some ambitious fledgling House would be dwelling in this castle now. There was little chance any of the young elves here today had the power to destroy a Dlardrageth ghost. [12]
Let me tell you the heirs you've slain, oh most mighty of armathors: Waelvor, and a bloody harvest by the pool: Yeschant, Amarthen, Ibryiil, Gwaelon, Tassarion, Ortaure, Bellas [12]
swordpoint spell
Rotheloe Tyrneladhelu, noble elf of Cormanthor [12]
Revered Lord, used to refer to the Coronal [12]
Selgauth Cathdeiryn, noble elf mage [12]
It was two days' steady travel through the trees to the waymoot of Assamboryl, and a day beyond that to Six Thorns. Thankfully few folk dwelt hereabouts, because of the stirges. [12]
A mushroom float rose up from behind a ferny bank on his left. His nose twitched. It was piled high with fresh limecaps, their mottled brown stems oozing the white sap that meant they'd just been harvested. [12]
Gems were tricky; too many of them, in Cormanthor, bore tracing spells, or even enchantments that could burst forth to do harm when commanded to do so from a safe distance. No, the coins were safer by far. [12]
slaughtered like lajauva birds in spring [12]
glass of rubythrymm [12]
Naertho (male), Jhalass (female, young, pretty), and Rubrae (female, young, pretty) servants to House Evendusk [12]
It was the Cormanthan custom for elven ladies of means to have a pod-shaped, walk-in portable closet, something like the canopy surrounding a sedan chair. In this closet their jewels were hung or kept in little drawers individually carved to fit into the flowing wooden walls. Gem bowers were equipped with little hanging mirrors, tiny glass light-globes that shone when tapped with a forefinger, and little seats. They also contained powerful enchantments to keep out the wandering fingers of those overwhelmed by the beauty of the gems contained therein; enchantments that in theory could be tuned to keep out all except their lady owner. These "veilings" were so strong that they glowed a rich blue, quite visible to the eye, as they crawled and ebbed around their bowers in A close-clinging sphere of magic. They were strong enough, El recalled dimly from the Srinshee's comments, to hurl intruders across a room, or stand immobile against the charge of the strongest warrior-even a charge preceded by a spear, or augmented by a second or third warrior, racing shoulder to shoulder. [13]
Lord Maendellyn, Lord Yeschant, Lord Tassarion, Lord Ortaure, Lord Bellas, (all names of noble Houses????) all plotting with House Starym to overthrow the Coronal [13]
Llombaerth Starym, Lord Speaker of his House [13]
House Yridnae [13]
Leayonadas, one of the heirs slain by Elminster [13]
The Six Kissing Sisters. The six sorceresses that defend the Coronal (Sylmae Auglamyr, Holone Auglamyr, Ajhalanda, Yathlanae, Bhuraelea and Mladris) are all noble daughters. (They can teleport anywhere in Cormanthor????) [13,15]
Castle Maendellyn [13]
Lord Droth, Lord Bowharp, Lord Paeral (noble Houses), Lord Unicorn the most handsome male gold elf Elminster had ever seen (is that his really his name????), Lord Adorellan, Lord Siirist, support the Coronal [13]
the glassy-smooth floor of the vast Chamber of the Court, inside is the Pool [14]
Lord Haladavar; Lord Urddusk; Lord Malgath, three old elven lords [14]
Stormswords, purple lightnings of its own playing up and down its blade. [14,20]
Srinshee carries the Staff of Sundering [14]
Mythanthar, an aged elf in dark, plain robes. I would remind Cormanthans of the 'spell fields' I tried to develop from mantles, for use by our war captains, three thousand years agone. Our need passed, and I turned to other things, but I know now what direction to work in, where I was ignorant before. In elder days, our magic weavers could easily alter how magic worked in a given area. I shall craft a spell that does the same, and give Cormanthor its mantle. From end to end of this fair city there shall be a 'mythal.' Give me three seasons to get started, and I shall then be able to give thee a count of how many more I shall need. [14]
one of the buttons set deep in one arm of the Throne of Cormanthor. There was a blinding brilliance as the Coronal's lightshock wave took effect [14]
Emmyth' or 'Mythanthar' or even 'Lord lydril (all names associated with Mythanthar – is his name Emmythanthar Iydril of the noble House Iydril????) [15]
Srinshee, Queen of Spells [15]
Starfall Turret resembled a long, grassy barrow-hill, pierced along one side with windows, and rising at its north end into a squat, rough-walled stone tower. Its yard was an overgrown tangle of stumps, fallen trees, and forest shrubs and creepers. In the dusk, they looked like a dark chaos of giants' fingers stabbing the darkening sky. glowing wards that surrounded the rather ramshackle tower of Mythanthar the mage. [15]
Haemir Waelvor, attacked Mythanthar, defeated by Elminster [15]
Spheres like the one El was floating in seemed to be the form in which elven mages combined magics to work together upon a single target or focus. [16] |
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Novel Lore
