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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
 Posted - 15 Feb 2023 : 22:10:18
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Alastrarra Kiira
the lesser, often odd elven spells stored in the gem, which had evidently served the Alastrarran heir as a personal spellbook [3]
he knew how to change shape by calling on the powers of the gem (Alastrarra kiira) [3]
"You'd challenge the power of the elves? That is hardly… prudent, my lord." The moon elven face that spoke those words was calm inside its dragon helm, but the tone made them a sharp and biting warning. "And why not?" the man in gilded armor snarled, his eyes flashing in the shadow of his raised lion-head visor as his gauntlets tightened on the hilt of a sword that was longer than the elf he confronted. "Have elves stopped me yet?" (someone in House Alastrarra battled a human war captain????) [3]
El was laughing with an elven maiden in a mossy bower; then he was the elven maiden, or another one, dancing around a fire whose flames sparkled with swirling gems. Then somehow he was wearing fluted armor and riding a pegasus, swooping down through the trees to drive a lance through a snarling orc… its blood blossomed across his view, and then flickered and shifted, becoming the rose-red light of dawn, gleaming from the slender spires of a proud and beautiful castle… Then he was speaking an elder elven tongue, thick and stilted, in a court where the male elves knelt in silks before warrior-maidens clad in armor that glowed with strange magics, and he heard himself decreeing a war of extermination on humankind… His despairing cry seemed to bring back the memory of his name; he was Elminster of Athalantar, Chosen of the goddess, and he was riding through a whirling storm of images. Memories, they were, of the House of Alastrarra. Thinking of that name snatched him back down into the maelstrom of a thousand thousand years, of decrees, family sayings, and beloved places. The faces of a hundred beautiful elven maids-mothers, sisters, daughters, Alastrarrans all-smiled or shouted at him, their deep blue eyes swimming up to his like so many waiting pools… Elminster was swept into them and down, down, names and dates and drawn swords flashing like striking whips into his mind. The gem is the kiira of House Alastrarra, the lore and wisdom held by its heirs down the years. As I was, so Ornthalas of my blood is now. He waits in Cormanthor. Take the gem to him. [2]
The white hair all Alastrarran heirs had, or quickly acquired [3]
The kiira told him of spells that could combine live trees and shape their growth, though neither Iymbryl nor his forebears knew much of how such magics were worked, or who in the city today was capable of them. [4]
Western Heartlands
Algan, Drace, human bandits operating along the Skuldask Road in the Year of the Chosen (240 DR), weapons marked with the crudely scratched striking serpent symbol [1]
Skuldaskar (a forest or wood????) along the Skuldask Road in the Year of the Chosen (240 DR) [1]
The Berduskan Rapids (a stretch of river near Berdusk????) [1]
Elturel in 240 DR [1]
A signboard high on the cornerpost of what looked like a paddock, though it held only mud and trampled grass just now, read: "Be Welcome At The Herald's Horn." Underneath was a bad painting of an almost circular silver trumpet. Elminster smiled at it in relief and walked along the stockade, past several stone buildings that reeked of hops, and in through a gate that was overhung with someone's badly forged iron replica of the looped herald's horn. Along the Skuldask Road. A brewery and wayside inn, built by Drelden who runs it in 240 DR. [1]
a table of men who wore leather armor, and were strapped about with weapons. They all sported badges of a scarlet sword laid across a white shield; one of them saw Elminster looking at his and grunted, "We're the Red Blade, bound for the Calishar to find caravan-escort work. [1]
Karlmuth Hauntokh, was hairier, fatter, and more arrogant than the other. As the young prince of Athalantar watched and listened, he waxed eloquent about the "opportunities that be boilin' up right now- just boilin', I tell thee-for prospectors like meself- and Surgath here. the elves, see? They're moving away-no one knows where-jus' gone. They cleared out o' what they called Elanvae (the Reaching Woods????)… that's the woods what the River Reaching runs through, nor'east o' here… last winter. Now all that land's ours for the picking. Why, not a tenday back I found a bauble there-gold, and jools stuck in it, clear through-in a house that had fallen in! A sphere of shining gold, inset with sparkling gems. as old and as exquisite as any elven work Elminster had ever seen. It was probably worth a dozen Herald's Horns, or more. Much more, if that glow betokened magics that did more than merely adorn. El watched its inner light play on the ring the prospector (Karlmuth) wore-a ring that bore the scratched device of a serpent rising to strike. [1]
Naglarn, farmer near the Herald’s Horn [1]
Surgath Ilder, prospector in the area around Herald’s Horn. The prospector was holding a chased and fluted silver rod. One of its ends tapered into a wavering tongue like a stylized flame, and the other ended in a sky-blue gem as large as the gaping mouth of the nearest Red Blade adventurer. In between, a slender, almost lifelike dragon curled around the barrel of the scepter, its eyes two glowing gems. One was green, and one amber- and at the tip of its curling tail was yet another gem-stone, this one ale-brown in hue.
Elminster stared at it for some seconds before remembering to raise his tankard and cover the eagerness in his face. Something like that, now, if he had to duel with elven guards, would come in very handy indeed… It was elven work, had to be, that smooth and beautiful. What powers did it have, now? [1]
the private gardens of the mage-king Ilhundyl. [4]
Language
Ruukha – means hobgoblin (in elvish????) [2]
the shapeshifters men called alunsree, or dopplegangers… hmm, but wasn't "alunsree" an elven word? The elves must have faced such problems when humans were still grunting at each other in caves and mud huts. [4]
ardavanshee, the elders called them; or "restless young ones." [13]
Other Lore
Something rose like heavy smoke from the forest floor, something that hissed and whispered softly and unceasingly as it took shape. Something whose every movement was a menace that bespoke hunger. Something that suddenly grew solid, rearing upright as it slithered, and flailing the air before it with dozens of raking claws. A magekiller. [2]
This thing must be a magekiller, something he'd heard of long ago, in his days with the Brave Blades adventuring band. Magekillers were creations of magic, wrought by rare, suppressed spells. Their purpose was to slay wizards who only knew one way to do battle-hurl spells at things. [3]
Heldebran, last surviving apprentice to the Magelords of Athalantar. Followed Elminster and tried to kill him with a magekiller. Slain by the spirits of the Sacred Vale [3]
one of the mighty spells known as Mystra's unravelling, the single word of the spell and made the necessary flick of his cupped hand. The swift-flying sword shivered and fell apart in the air in front of him. Green radiance sputtered, tumbled away, and was gone as the blade became falling flakes of rust. Dust kissed Elminster's face as it rushed past… and then nothing at all. 
Mruster's Twist, a further modification of Jhalavan's Fond Return. It allowed a mage who could think fast to change spells that were being returned to their caster into different magics. Now if this Delmuth was just foolish enough to try to blast a certain annoying human to dust, and keep close to Elminster as he did it, so he didn't notice that the spreading furies of his spells were left over from their first strikes, and not their rebounds [9]
Elminster almost smiled as a memory flashed through his mind. In the library of a wizard's tomb lost in the High Forest there is a curious book that has no name. It is the diary of a nameless half-elven ranger of long ago, that tells of his thoughts and deeds, and the sorceress Myrjala had made Elminster read it to learn how elves regarded magic. On the subject of giving pleasure to elven maids, it mentioned using one's tongue gently on the palms of the hands and the tips of the ears. [10]
From time to time men hold something they call a magefair. like a House-gathering attended by many mages: humans, gnomes, halfbloods, and even elves from other lands than ours," the Coronal explained, "though I believe some scrolls and rare magical components do change hands. But the burden of my song is this: at the last magefair I saw, in my days as a far-wandering warrior, two human wizards engaged in a duel. The spells they hurled fell far short of our High Magic, 'tis true. But they would also have awed and shamed most sorcerers of Cormanthor [11]
Lady Aubaudameira Dree, or 'Alais, the new Herald, an elven lady who wore a helm and a mottled gray cloak. Formerly a mind controlled pawn of Glarald Starym [11]
Mlartlar was herald of Cormanthor (until he challenged the Coronal to a duel over the Opening). the office of herald has always been held by one of the senior families of the realm. [11]
Glarald Starym, approached to be Herald. He refused and attacked the Coronal, wounded deeply when his web of controlled pawns collapsed and Lady Aubaudameira Dree, or 'Alais attacked him. Currently hiding and recovering in Thurdan’s Tree[11]
forbidden enchantments from the tomb of Felaern Starym [11]
House Dree [11]
Thurdan's Tree at the southern edge of the realm. [11]
It is illegal to pry into the minds of people unless there is a threat to the Coronal or Cormanthor, etc [11]
Tlannatar Wrathtree, noble elf of Cormanthor [11]
Ylyndar Starscatter, noble elf of Cormanthor, one of the most wild-witted mages in all Cormanthor! He even believes in old Mythanthar's mythals! [11]
the glamer was: a ward field that would twist a teleport spell or any other translocational magic into ravaging fire inside the body of the teleport-spell caster. [11]
bladecall spell, calls up blades to appear and fly to wherever they are willed (requires miniature blades as a component) [20]
Vault of Ages
a cool, damp stone room whose ceiling arched low overhead. Luminous crystals were set in the places where the crisscrossing stone ribs of its vaults met, one with the next. The elf and the human stood in the brightest spot, a clear space at the center of the domed chamber. In four places around its circular arc the wall was pierced by ornate arches that gave onto long vaulted passages running-El peered down one, and then another-to other domed chambers. A narrow, winding path had been left clear down the center of each passage, but all of the rest of the space was crammed with treasure: a spreading sea of gold coins and bars and statuary, holding in its frozen waves ivory coffers that spilled pearls and rainbows of glittering gems. [6]
a dragon as tall as Elminster, carved from a single gigantic emerald, leaned amid the branches of a tree of solid sardonyx; its leaves were of electrum covered with tiny cut gems. [6]
a cut ruby as large as his head [6]
Named the Vault of Ages because of the one who dwells here, guarding it all. [6]
The Srinshee, the tiny, shrunken face of the oldest elf he'd ever seen. Her long silver-white hair brushed the tiles below her slippered feet-feet that trod air, inches above the smooth-worn paving stones underfoot-and her skin seemed draped over her bones… bones so petite and shapely that she looked exquisite rather than grotesque, despite the fact that except where her diaphanous gown intervened, El could almost see her skeleton. I am the councilor of Coronals, the secret wisdom at the heart of the realm. [6]
There are few of us as old as the Srinshee [6]
Oluevaera (the Srinshee’s given name or true name????) [6]
That passage," the Srinshee told him, "is vaulted with the bones of a deep-worm that rose up from gnawing in the deep places and came tunneling in here, hungry for treasure. They eat metal, you know." (the worm was slain by the Srinshee) [6]
The old sorceress (Srinshee) burst out laughing. "No, no, nothing like that… though with some of the maids I danced with, such could have befallen. In those days, we amused ourselves by peering at the doings of humans. When we saw someone interesting-a bold warrior, say, or a grasping mageling-we'd show ourselves to him by moonlight, and then lead him on a merry chase through the woods. Some of those chases ended in broken necks; some of us let ourselves be caught. I led Uthgrael through half the southern High Forest until he fell exhausted, at dawn. I did show myself to him once later, when he was wed, just to see his jaw drop."
a spill of octagonal coins stamped from some bluish metal Elminster had never seen before. [6]
She plucked up a tarnished silver bracelet, chased about with the body of a serpent. "Pay heed, Elminster. This is what you need me for: to make the choice the Coronal charged you to, and win your life. This arm ring is all Cormanthor has left of Princess Elvandaruil, lost in the waves of the Fallen Stars three thousand summers ago, when her flight spell failed. It washed up on Ambral Isle when Waterdeep was yet unborn." [6]
Elminster fished a gleaming piece of shell out of the heap beside him. It was pierced at all four corners, and from there fine chains led to silver medallions set with sea-horses picked out in emeralds, with amethyst eyes. "And this?" "The pectoral of Chathanglas Siltral, who styled himself Lord of the Rivers And Bays before the founding of your realm of Cormyr. He unwittingly took to wife a shapechanger, and the monstrous descendants of their offspring lurk yet, tentacled and deadly, in the waterways of Marsember and what humans call the Vast Swamp." [6]
"To the realm of my kin, and others of the People," the sorceress said calmly. "I (the Srinshee) am Oluevaera Estelda, the last of my line. Yet I rise above the family rivalries of House against House, and consider all Cormanthans my kin. It gives me a reason for having lived so long, and another to go on living, after those I first loved are gone." [6]
a breastplate out from yet another pile of coins. It was fashioned of a single piece of copper as thick as his thumb, and sculpted into a pair of fine female breasts with a snarling lion's jaws below them. [6]
The bust of the long-lost Queen Eldratha of the vanished elven realm of Larlotha was of solid marble, and as tall as the length of Elminster's arm. [6]
There was a crown that let its wearers appear as they had done when younger, and a glove that could resculpt the skin of battered or marred faces with its fingertips [6]
a flute that had belonged to the elven hero Erglareo of the Long Arrow [6]
A cloak that banishes blight from trees whose trunks it is wrapped around, or plants it is draped over, left to us by the elven mage Raeranthur [6]
A crystal through which one can see the course of waterflows through the realm, on the surface or underground; every handspan of their travel, clearly lit for your eye to see beaver dams, snags, and sources of foulness," the Srinshee told him, quickly, almost breathlessly, "crafted for the House of Clatharla, now fallen, by the [6]
A sword that cuts darkness, and the undead things called shadows-though I believe wraiths and ghosts also [6]
261 DR
Cormanthor
Nacacia, half elf female, mind slaved apprentice to the Masked Mage. She was a half-elf, brought into the tower as a bright-eyed waif one night, huddled in the arms of The Masked. Elminster suspected he'd raided the village where she lived. Bright and bubbly, possessed of a pranksome nature that The Masked harshly beat out of her with spanking spells and transformations into toads or earthworms, and a merry nature it seemed nothing he did could crush, Nacacia had swiftly grown into a beauty. She had auburn hair that flowed down to the backs of her knees in a thick fall, and a surprisingly muscular back and shoulders; from where he'd been standing in the web above her, El had admired the deep, curving line of her spine. Her large eyes, smile and cheekbones bore the classic beauty of her elven blood, and her waist was so slim as to seem almost toylike. Her master allowed her the black breeches and vest of a thief, and let her grow her hair long. He even taught her the spells to animate it so as to stroke him, when he took her into his chamber of nights and left Elminster floating furiously outside. [17,18]
Elminster, mind slaved apprentice to the Masked [17]
one of the sprawling country mansions made by elves. A house that lived, growing slowly larger as the centuries passed. This one had been standing for more than a thousand summers, by the looks of it, at the heart of a grove of old and mighty shadowtops, somewhere in the forest deeps. An old house; a proud house. Mythanthar was living there in secret, the Masked use Elminster to dispel its defences and sent drow to attack Mythanthar [18,19]
By decree of the Coronal, the lifequench spell is only to be used in direct defense of the realm or of an imperiled elven elder." It drains the life of a tree or living being and can be used to double the power of a spell or duplicate one [18,19]
Lady Aelieyeeva [19]
A lifequench spell is a potent thing, Starym, but no antimagic shell, however strengthened, can prevail against a spell shear. [19]
the floating Throne of the Coronal [19]
a seeming (like an illusion ????) [19]
Llombaerth Starym and many other Starym attacked the Coronal and Mythanthar, they summoned a great green dragon (from where????). All slain by the Coronal, Elminster, Nacacia, Srinshee and Mythanthar [19,20]
throne of the Coronal, floating serenely above the glowing Pool of Remembrance. [19]
All over the hall fresh spells flared. Elves who'd hated rivals for years took advantage of the fray to settle old scores. One elf so old that the skin of his ears was nearly transparent clubbed another of like age to the ground with a footstool. The falling elder's body spread its brains over the slippers of a haughty lady in a blue gown, who didn't even notice. She was too busy struggling against another proud lady in an amber dress. The two swayed back and forth, pulling hair, scratching, and spitting. There was blood on their nails as they slapped, kicked, and nailed at each other in panting fury. The lady in amber slashed open one cheek of the lady in blue; her foe responded by trying to throttle her. [20]
maroon breastplates bore the twin falling dragons of House Starym, blazoned in silver. [20]
the Fang of Cormanthor, is this Llombaerth Starym’s stormsword or Coronal Eltargrim’s blade????) [20]
Flardryn Starym [20]
Maeraddyth Starym," the broad-shouldered elf [20]
'You-all of us-"The warrior on his knees was suddenly aware that he knelt in the center of a ring of watching faces, and that tears were falling around him like raindrops in a storm. "-must put this dark day behind us. Never speak of it, save in the innermost rooms of this abode, when no servants are about. We must work to rebuild the family honor, pledge our fealty anew to the Coronal as soon as is safely possible, and swallow whatever punishments he deems fitting. If we are to pay wealth, or give up our young to the Coronal's raising, or see retainers who fought today put to death, so be it. We must distance our House from the actions of those Starym who have defied the Coronal's wishes. We must show shame, not proud defiance… or there may soon be no House Starym, to rise to greatness again." [20]
Uldreiyn Starym, senior archmage of the House, strode out from them and marched across the room, face set. Servants fled at the sight of his face, on the long walk through the halls to his own spell tower. When its door closed quietly behind them, he laid a hand on it and said the word that released the two ghost dragons from the splendid wyrms of the Starym arms emblazoned on the outer surface of the door. They prowled up and down the last little stretch of corridor all night, ready to keep even those of House Starym out, but no one came to try to win a way past them. Which was just as well, for ghost dragons are always hungry. [20]
Above them, the aged child-sorceress touched the floating Throne of Cormanthor, cast a spell, and then stood trembling, her eyes closed, as the great sound of the Calling rolled out through her. Light lanced from every part of her body. From where those beams touched its walls and ceiling and pillars, the whole vast chamber hummed into a great rising chord. It built to a soaring height, and then died away as slowly. When it was done, the leaders of all the Houses of Cormanthor stood before the throne, and lesser elves were crowding in the doors. [20]
Before dusk, this day, the promised Mythal shall be laid, stretching over all the city from the Northpost to Shammath's Pool. When it is deemed stable-which should befall by highsun on the morrow-the gates of the city shall be thrown open to folk of all races who embrace not evil. Envoys shall go out to the known kingdoms of men, and gnomes, and halflings-and yes, dwarves. Henceforth, though our realm shall remain Cormanthor, this city shall be known as Myth Drannor, in honor of the Mythal Mythanthar shall craft for us, and for Drannor, the first elf of Cormanthor known to have married a dwarven lass, long ago though that be." [20]
Lord Nelaer Mornmist, husband to Ithrythra Mornmist [Epilogue]
Nlaea, female elf, servant to House Tornglara [Epilogue]
An elven lady glided alone into the empty room, her jeweled slippers treading air above the bloodstained pave. The hems of her low-cut gown glittered with a breathtaking fall of gems, and on her breast diamonds sparkled in the shape of twin falling dragons. Only streaks of white and gray at her temples betrayed her age as she moved sinuously through the stillness, coming at last to where a small pile of ashes lay in the bright pool of moonlight. Lady Sharaera Starym raised her beautiful head to look at the moon riding high above, drew in a deep breath, looked down at what little was left of her Uldreiyn, and hissed fiercely, "The Mythal must fall, and Elminster must be destroyed!" [Epilogue]
Masked Mage
The Masked not only never removed his mask; he never slept. As far as El could tell, he had no friends or kin, and no Cormanthan ever called on him, for any reason. His days were spent Grafting magic, working magic, and teaching magic to his two apprentices. Sometimes he treated them almost as friends, though he never revealed anything about himself. At other times, they were clearly his slaves. Most of the time they worked as drudges, together. In fact, it seemed that the masked mage almost taunted his two apprentices with each other's company, thrusting them into messy, slippery jobs half-naked to help each other lift, sort, or clean. But whenever they reached for each other, even to give innocent aid or comfort, he struck out with punishments. These visitations of pain were many and varied, but the Master's favorite punishment for apprentices was to paralyze the bared body of the miscreant with spells and set acid leeches on it to feed. The slow, glistening creatures excreted a burning slime as they slid over skin, or bored almost lazily in. The Masked was always careful to use his spells in time to keep his apprentices alive, but Elminster could attest that there are few things in Faerun as painful as having a sluglike beast eating its way very slowly into your lungs, or stomach, or guts. Yet El had learned true respect for The Masked during twenty years of learning deep-woven, complex elven magics. The elf was a meticulous crafter of spells and a stylish caster, who left nothing to chance, always thought ahead, and seemed never to be surprised. He had an instinctive understanding of magic, and could modify, combine, or improvise spells with almost effortless ease and no hesitation. He also never forgot where he'd put anything, no matter how trivial, and always kept himself under iron control, never showing weariness, loneliness, or a need to confide in anyone. Even his losses of temper seemed almost planned and scripted. Moreover, after twenty years of intense contact, Elminster still did not know who the mage was. A male of one of the old, proud families, to be sure, and- judging by the views he evidently held-probably not among the eldest Cormanthans. The Masked spun and projected a false body for himself often, directing it in activities elsewhere with part of his mind, while he devoted some part of the rest to instructing Elminster. [17]
Really Llombaerth Starym in disguise, wears Andrathath's Mask [19]
Raising the Mythal
There was another stir in the crowded hall then, as a line of folk pushed through the assembled Cormanthans. The High Court Mage strode along at the head of this procession, and behind him walked Lord Aulauthar Orbryn, Lord Ondabrar Maendellyn, and a half-elven lord whose cloaked shoulders were surrounded by a whirling ring of glowing gemstones, whom the Srinshee identified in a whisper as "the sorcerer Arguth of Ambral Isle." Bringing up the rear was the High Lady of Art Alea Dahast, slim, smiling, and sharp-eyed. [Epilogue]
"Our last. Come on, Dathlue!" Looking surprised, the slender warrior stepped forth in her armor, unbuckling the slim long sword that swayed at her hip. Surrendering it to the guards, she slipped into the ring, kissed the Coronal full on the mouth, clapped the Srinshee on the arm, and then stood waiting. [Epilogue]
Beldroth, mage [Epilogue]
Lady Ahrendue Echorn. an ancient and wrinkled elven lady husked then, stepping out of the crowd with a slow hitch to her step, leaning on her cane [Epilogue]
an elf standing by a far pillar stepped forth and said, "The time for deception is done, I think." An instant later, his slim form rose a head taller, and grew bulkier around the shoulders. Many in the Court gasped. Another human-and this one hidden in their midst! Mentor, you are welcome within our ring. [Epilogue]
Within the ring, Mythanthar spread his hands again, eyes closed, and from his fingers thin beams of light forged out, silent and slow, to link with each person in the ring. He murmured something, and the watching Cormanthans gasped in awe and alarm as his body exploded into a roiling cloud of blood and bones. Elminster gasped, and almost moved from his place, but the Srinshee caught his eye with a stern look. He could tell from the tear that rolled down her cheek that she'd not known Mythanthar's spell required the sacrifice of his own life. The cloud that had been the old mage rose like smoke from a fire, and became white, then blinding. The white strands still linking it to the others in the ring glowed with fire of their own. White flames like tongues of snow soared up to the riven ceiling of the Chamber of the Court, as the bodies of all in the ring suddenly burst into white fire. The Cormanthans crowded into the hall gasped in unison. "What is it? Are they dying?" the Lady Duilya Even-dusk cried, wringing her hands. Her lord put his own hands on her shoulders in silent reassurance, as Beldroth leaned toward her and said, "Mythanthar is dead-or his body is. He will become our Mythal, when 'tis done." "What?" Elves were crowding forward on all sides to hear. Beldroth lifted his head and his voice to tell them all, "The others should live, though the spell is stealing something of the force of life from all of them now. They'll begin to weave special powers-one chosen by each-into it soon, and we'll start to hear a sort of drone, or singing." [Epilogue]
Uldreiyn Starym rode the mythal from his tower and used the opportunity to slay Lord Orbryn in a savage spell attack that burned the brain and innards of Lord Aulauthar Orbryn to ashes, leaving his body a mindless shell. Now he was part of the weave at last, part of the eager flow and growth of new powers. Orbryn had been crafting the part of the future Mythal that identified creatures by their races. Dragons were to be shut out, were they? Dopplegangers, of course, and orcs, too. Well, why not expand on Aulauthar's excellent work, and make the Mythal deadly to all non-pureblood elves? Deadly by, say, highsun tomorrow. Uldreiyn Starym is slain by Elminster using Mystra’s Unravelling, and his mythal work is undone [Epilogue]
Something crawled up his (Elminster’s) arm, then, and he snatched at it and held it up, bewildered. A scrap of something dusty, bloodstained, and moving-the mask (Andrathath’s Mask) that Llombaerth Starym had worn for so long. It tingled in his grasp, warm and somehow welcoming. (is Elminster the Masked????) [Epilogue]
Symrustar Auglamyr appears to help Elminster slay Uldreiyn, her body is smashed by his mantle and Elminster gives of his own life force to partially heal her, but she dies (sort of????) and goes to Mystra [Epilogue]
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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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Athreeren
Learned Scribe
144 Posts |
Posted - 19 Feb 2023 : 23:33:36
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
On to Realms of the Arcane now and Elaine Cunningham's novel is very interesting.
Ka'Narlist refers to the Leviathan of the Earthmother, which of course he could never have known about as he died long before. Just adds more to my thought that the Evermeet novel was part of an alternate timeline that was destroyed when they created Evermeet and it went back in time and prevented Ka'Narlist and Atornash and Shalarion from ever existing (because the land they occupied was now deep in the sea when the continents split apart).
Also the wemic's "children" could be the origin of the Catlords, i will have to check and see if they have gold eyes.
I am frankly amazed at how well informed the wemic is about a tale that occurred so long ago (as, unless that wemic is the source of Danilo for the chapter of Evermeet on Ka'Narlist, we can assume that he is a real character, one who is probably not even well known to drow). So some errors like when the Earthmother created the Leviathan in the Moonshae can be excused. |
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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 - 20 Feb 2023 : 10:36:56
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
On to Realms of the Arcane now and Elaine Cunningham's novel is very interesting.
Ka'Narlist refers to the Leviathan of the Earthmother, which of course he could never have known about as he died long before. Just adds more to my thought that the Evermeet novel was part of an alternate timeline that was destroyed when they created Evermeet and it went back in time and prevented Ka'Narlist and Atornash and Shalarion from ever existing (because the land they occupied was now deep in the sea when the continents split apart).
Also the wemic's "children" could be the origin of the Catlords, i will have to check and see if they have gold eyes.
How could have never known about the Leviathan? Dragon #362 "Grand History of the Realms: The Moonshaes" merely states that in -11,000 DR the Leviathan arrives to defend the seas and shores of the Moonshaes. It doesn't say that he was created then ... he just came to her summons and may very well have been a fixture of the seas in the time of Atornash.
-- George Krashos |
"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus |
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Athreeren
Learned Scribe
144 Posts |
Posted - 20 Feb 2023 : 16:13:18
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quote:
Originally posted by George Krashos
How could have never known about the Leviathan? Dragon #362 "Grand History of the Realms: The Moonshaes" merely states that in -11,000 DR the Leviathan arrives to defend the seas and shores of the Moonshaes. It doesn't say that he was created then ... he just came to her summons and may very well have been a fixture of the seas in the time of Atornash.
-- George Krashos
True, I had assumed that it was explicitly stated that the Earthmother had created it, but all that is said in The First Moonwell is that "Her favorite of these sea creatures was one who had been nourished at her breast from time immemorial, feeding upon the kelp and plankton that gathered to her warm emissions, slumbering for decades at a time in her embrace." The story doesn't say where it was before then, how long it had lived before coming to her lands (or oceanic floor), or even how big it was. |
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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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Karthak
Seeker
63 Posts |
Posted - 23 Feb 2023 : 22:49:48
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| Does the Kingdom of Barze have any resemblance to this kingdom mentioned in the story? it's near the moonsea and technically is a netherese survivor state even if it's short lived. |
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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 - 24 Feb 2023 : 09:24:18
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b]Realms of the Arcane
Prologue
By Wes Nicholson
Wes enjoyed living at Candlekeep. He was serving a year's probation before becoming a novice monk, and as a result, was one of the keep's most junior inhabitants. He and his fellow probationers got the jobs no one else wanted. Slight, a shade over five-and-a-half feet tall, and rather plain in appearance, Wes turned nary a head. Like many eighteen year olds, he was gangly and all out of proportion. His eyes had a deep sparkle, but the rest of his face didn't match them, and his hair was as brown and tangled as a scullery mop.
Brother Frederick-Wes's personal bane.
You want to be a novice monk? Never! There hasn't been a less likely candidate since Jeffrey, almost two centuries ago. And you know what happened to him!
The story of hapless Jeffrey had been used countless times to frighten Wes and the other probationers. Jeffrey was a novice who was so incompetent that he got lost in the library and never found his way out. Nor had anyone ever discovered his remains. He got lost… or snatched, by someone-or something.
Probationer Wes
The reading room in the north corner of the library hasn't been used for a while
Wishing You Many More (Unknown)
By David Cook
Perfect and Absolute Magister of Corsk, Fannol Pavish. on my way to Corsk near the border. Was at the Academy with Torreb. I'm off to Governor Hamid's court (at Corsk), where I'll be the provincial magister. after the Academy I studied for the ministerial exam and managed to place right over all the minor posts and start directly at the Learned rank. Well, it sounds like bragging, but what it really means is that I was assigned to something dreadfully dull and safe-assistant under secretary to the privy council's secretary of arcanum. I spent half my days in musty scrolls, reading arcane lore, and the other half explaining what I'd learned to puddle-wits. You were adamant about not entering politics behind your esteemed father and were set upon being an adventurer. I suppose now that you may have earned your position on your own merits, a political career holds more interest. Minister Pavish must be proud of his son. As always arrogant and false-you said once he made women glad they were not men- but now it is clear it was only the mask for a darker immorality.
Greetings Grand Conjurer Torreb, put down some dragon that was raiding farms in the mountains in Chessenta. Wife, Lady Marriana. Of course she is as beautiful and graceful as when we both courted her. I am still jealous. Roams from place to place, has stayed at Tyn’s Rock Inn before. Marriana will not abide my rudeness. There is no doubt for me that you were framed at the Academy. I suspected it then, but I am certain of it now. Whoever stole the Theurge's spellbook went to great pains to cast the blame on you. No doubt the perpetrator (Pavish was the perpetrator) was jealous of your success-a frontier lad besting the sons of the noblest wizard clans in the empire-and maybe even a little afraid. Unable to match you fairly, they resorted to tricks and deceit to bring about your fall.
Chowwarth, at the Academy with Pavish and Torreb.
Alchemiologicia, at the Academy
Timrik, at the Academy, he was the gnome one rank back, studying to be an artificer. Now lives in Luthcheq
cracked like the Academy's old librarian, Avarle, clucking around my dusty shelves
the Arcanum's libraries
that epic, the Duel of Tromdarl and Greenwinter-the one Master Feurgond droned on about in Philosophic Lore? Well, I actually found some letters that I'm sure are the great artificer Greenwinter's very own. They are full of references to what I'm guessing was his last researched creation. You know the tale-in jealousy, Greenwinter binds his spirit to a mighty rod of godly fire and uses it to destroy his rival, Tomdarl. The whole thing ends with Greenwinter and his rod going off and never being seen again, which is the only proper way for a story like that to end. I'm sure if I can get all the pieces put together, I'll be able to find the artifact of the tale. Imagine the fuss there'd be if someone registered that in the imperial arcanum! Unfortunately, Greenwinter came from the mountains, and there certainly aren't any mountains around Corsk. From the clues I've gathered, I'm certain he hailed from your territory. What I was wondering was if you'd ever heard of something called the "snake-bound pattern." It is an important clue to finding the device-a map maybe. I haven't any information what it really looks like. in the Duel of Tromdarl and Greenwinter it all comes to an end when Greenwinter triggers his master creation and destroys Tromdarl with it. Every apprentice worth his salt knows that much, and that's what Master Feurgond taught. What apprentices don't realize is there's a final canto to the work, one that gets lopped off in a fair number of readings. Master Feurgond laid out the scroll one time after lecture. It's a lament from Greenwinter's consort, crying for his absence-something about how a storm of fire and thunder carried him and his artifact away, much more than just wandering off into history. The master said it was only an allegory-and a bad one at that-for Greenwinter's victory and the later disappearance of the artifact, but I am not so sure. I think each time the staff is used, it vanishes-which is why Greenwinter enchanted the snake-bound pattern to find it again.
Tyn's Rock. The landlord is a honest fellow
fire sparkle dust
The dragon slain by Torreb, an old brute with a considerable hoard. The locals called him Silverskin because they kept finding bits of old coins around his kills. It turned out he'd lain on his treasure so long it had embedded right into his skin.
Governor Hamid, is an overbearing ass. He really thinks he'll reach the imperial court someday, maybe even rise to a ministerial post. Of course, he hasn't a whit of talent or cleverness and relies on me for everything. Of late, he has gotten it into his head that if he can produce some wondrously powerful spell or magical gimcrack, it will buy him entry into the inner circle, as he calls it.
Marriana's father, Minister Dalton, at the privy council chambers (in Corsk????). Imagine my surprise to learn he disowned her upon your marriage. To think that she had to suffer such a price!
Pine Shadow Wood, (near Corsk????)
Tilvum (near Corsk????)
Silverpeak Mountains in Chessenta, where Greenwinter came from.
Glade Temple, Silverpeak Mountains. Garrel, priest of Our Mother, Chauntea, in the village of Morpeth-by-the-Stream. Watchful Brother of the Earth, Garrel of the Glade Temple.
Yard-Mas, the son of Vard-Ren the Shepherd.
Your husband, the wizard Torreb, is dead. Mas and his father Vard-Ren are both honest men and would not tell this tale if it were not true. This is how it happened. Mas had been hired by your husband as a guide to a cave in a valley north of here. It is an evil place the villagers shun, so Mas agreed to point out its mouth but go no farther. Do not blame him for this. It took courage to guide your husband that far. He waited at a safe distance for your husband to come back. At the cave, another man emerged. He was carrying a staff that Mas swears glowed with green flame. The two argued at the entrance. Then the second man pointed his staff at your husband and the green fire wrapped around him. I will not tell you all Mas says, but the fire burned your husband to ash. This morning I persuaded some men to go to the cave, and I think the story is true. There was a great scorched patch in front of it. The ground was still hot after a full day, and the stone underfoot was as smooth as melted wax. The remains were utterly destroyed. I am greatly sorry to tell you this. There is one thing Mas adds that I do not understand. He says that after the other man did this thing, the staff started to glow brighter, and the other man seemed surprised. Finally, Mas had to shield his eyes from the light. It was as bright as the sun, he says, and then he heard a cry. When the light finally faded, the man and the staff were both gone. No one in the valley has seen this man come or go, but I believe Mas. I know he is an honest man.
Secrets of Blood, Spirits of the Sea (Unknown)
By Elaine Cunningham
Shonasso Kin Taree, second O (or "grandson," as you two-legged folk reckon kinship) of the great Kanjir, and I am loreteller of the wemic tribe Taree.
Ka'Narlist was archmage of Atorrnash, a once-mighty city whose secrets have slept for centuries in the deep jungles of a faraway land-secrets that are whispered still beneath a hundred seas. The dark elf's lair was a great fortress of black stone that stood high and proud atop a seaside cliff. From his keep, Ka'Narlist could look out over the Bay of the Banshee, a vast spear of seawater that thrust deep into southern Faerun. Far below his castle, the sea thundered and sang and shrieked-mournful, ceaseless music that darkened the wizard's thoughts by day and haunted his reverie by night. Put away your maps, elf. That bay is long gone- lost when the One Land was sundered and scattered by best-forgotten magic. Do not be surprised that I know of such things. Our legends are as ancient as your own, and more honest.
The Ilythiiri, the dark elves of the south, were fierce, warlike people who plundered and conquered and enslaved a thousand tribes. Not even their fair-skinned elven kindred were safe from their raids! Ka'Narlist had earned his wealth in such raids, and he'd also brought back as spoils of war slaves from many lands to labor in his keep, and to feed his pride. One of these captives was Mbugua, a shaman of the wemic. Of him we will speak again.
Ka'Narlist possessed enormous wealth, magical spells beyond the comprehension of your mightiest mages, and the fearful respect of his tribe. Even so, as he gazed out over the watery realm that no dark elf could truly claim to rule, he came to think of his honors as insufficient: mighty stones, yes, but stones that would be worn down into sand by the pounding sea that is time.
Since Ka'Narlist was a scholar, he knew the legends that spoke of entire races brought into being to serve the purposes of their makers. If Gruumsh One-Eye had his ores and the Earth Mother her leviathan, Ka'Narlist reasoned, why could not a wizard of his stature fashion a race of his own?
Ka'Narlist wanted control of the sea depths. After much thought, he decided to create a seagoing people, a fierce race driven to brutally conquer their watery domain-in Ka'Narlist's name, of course. So that his "children" could never rise against him, he decided not to gift them with magical powers. Speed, stealth, voracious hunger, and treacherous cunning would be their weapons.
Many times had proud Mbugua sought his freedom; many times had he woken on his pallet with a pounding head-and dim memories of the horrible rituals that had restored his maimed body. Once, only once, had he managed to deal a mortal blow, and thus had escaped Ka'Narlist into death. But the wizard's dreadful god, Ghaunadaur, had wrested the wemic from his afterlife and brought him back to this wretched captivity.
kodingobolds. They were nasty, odorous, rat-tailed creatures-ugly things with four-footed, doglike bodies that were topped with scrawny humanoid torsos and sly, bug-eyed faces. Gray of skin and of soul, they seemed to possess neither conscience nor ambition. Kodingobolds lived solely on whatever they could steal. They were cowards who fought only if they greatly outmassed and outnumbered their prey. And they had a particularly fondness for the flesh of young wemics. In years past, many an adventurous and wandering wemic cub had fallen prey to the disorderly packs of kodingobolds that had ranged the savannah. Mbugua's own tribe had nearly exterminated the murderous, thieving little creatures,
It was the blood, Ka'Narlist claimed-the secrets of life were in the blood. Mbugua was a shaman, and his people and his magic said otherwise, but what words could argue against the wizard's terrible success? Ka'Narlist had used his wemic slave's blood as an ingredient in some dark magic; the eventual result was the birth of two new creatures-a tawny beast who boasted Mbugua's proud black mane and powerful four-footed body, and a humanlike infant with a wemic's dusky golden skin and catlike eyes.
the near-human lad became but one of many such servants laboring in the wizard's household, Ka'Narlist captured or purchased rare creatures to study. The dark wizard searched for the blood secrets that made each race unique-indeed, the secrets of life itself. You have made many other kobolds, and you have released enough dingo-creatures into the hills to endanger your tribe's flocks and herds,"
Among his people, children were treasured by the entire tribe, and the arrival of each healthy cub was an occasion for feasting and merriment.
What Ka'Narlist proposed to do was unthinkable: the dark elf intended to create horrific children from his own blood, children that would be slaves at best, at worse coldly discarded if they did not fulfill the promise offered by Ka'Narlist's "reasonable assurances of success."
You wish to sing the creature's spirit away first, I take it?" "If my master permits it," Mbugua said in a stiff voice. Among his people, a shaman owned the respect of his tribe
A horde of goblin slaves busily scrubbed the intricate mosaic floor. This might have been a common enough sight, but for the rare streak of whimsy that prompted Ka'Narlist to breed goblins with gaily colored hides: sunny yellow, topaz blue, bright clear pink.
the black pearl that lay in his hand, vibrating with a silent song that only a shaman could hear. The gem was a magical weapon-a device created by Ka'Narlist that could swallow the magic of his enemies. Ka'Narlist kept a heaping basket of these hungry gems in his arsenal. The wemic had stolen two of them, and had adapted the fearful devices to his own, even more fearful purposes. Within his hand, within the pearl, was the trapped spirit of the kodingobold.
Satarah. I named you for my own mother. I tried to teach you the ways of the pride. Satarah was one of the "children" created from his blood, and as such he owed her the love that was any child's due. But it was difficult It was difficult even to look upon her. Satarah was beautiful-not even the wemic could deny that-but she was not one of the lion-folk. She had two long legs rather than four, shapely human feet rather than paws, and a slender, curvy body that would be the envy of any human or elven woman who set eyes upon her. Even Satarah's face was more elfish than wemish, with delicate features and no hint of the blunt cat nose that so often appeared on the children begotten of Mbugua's stolen blood. The few lingering hints of her wemic heritage only served to make her appear more exotic: her silky black hair was as thick and abundant as Mbugua's mane, her skin had a golden, sun-dusted hue, and her large, almond-shaped eyes were a catlike shade of amber. Yes, she was very beautiful, and nearly ripe for mating. Neither fact would long escape her master's attention.
"Soon he will beget his first blood-child," Mbugua concluded. "I want my blood to mingle with Ka'Narlist's in that monster's body. I would bind the creature to me with the blood-bonds of the wemic clan, and turn him against the wizard. This is not something I do lightly, and for it, I will need your help. Your blood." Satarah regarded him narrowly, hearing his reasoning but suspecting it. "Why not use your own?" "Is Ka'Narlist such a fool, that he would not notice if his creature was born with four legs and fur?" Mbugua retorted. "No, you carry the blood of the wemic clan, but your outward form is more like that of an elf. It is still a risk, but a smaller one." He dared not tell her the second half of his plan-his determination to imbue the creature with Ka'Narlist's own rapacious spirit, with the wizard's driving ambition for conquest. Mbugua's fondest, darkest hope was that the creature would set its sights upon Ka'Narlist's impressive wealth, and devise a way to own it. It would not be the first time that a son ousted his father, nor would it be the last. Yet the creature would not have Ka'Narlist's magic, and could in turn be overthrown. Mbugua dared not tell Satarah any of this, for fear that the wizard might somehow get it from her. He would tell her what he could, and pray that she was daughter enough to understand.
The sea elf tensed as yet another massive contraction rippled across her rounded belly. Her body arched, her mouth opened in a shriek of pure anguish. Mbugua reached into the water and caught the babe as it slipped from her body. At once, the wemic knew that he had succeeded in shaping Ka'Narlist's magical begetting. The infant was not at all what the wizard had intended. It was a boy-child, perfectly formed, and utterly sea-elven, from his softly pointed ears to the fine webbing between the fingers of his tiny, flailing fists. But Mbugua's shaman senses, finely tuned to the new life in his hands, felt the blood-bonds of his own clan tying him to the child. The wemic shaman continued to sing, this time a song of welcome, as he tended the child and the exhausted sea elf who had birthed it.
At last, success!" the wizard exulted. But Mbugua could only stare at the horror in his hands. The infant was hideous, monstrous. It was also strong: already it could lift its head, and it struck out purposefully at the wemic with tiny claws that etched lines of blood along Mbugua's hands and wrists. Through his daze, Mbugua noted that the darting movements of those hands and the quick turns of the head upon that too-strong neck predicted a raptor-swift strike. Although elflike in such matters as number and placement of limbs, the creature was covered with dark green scales. Small black fins sprouted from its head and body. The head lacked both hair and ears, and the face was dominated by a pair of enormous black eyes and a long slit of mouth. It had yet to draw breath and cry; Mbugua found himself hoping it never would. When the sea is mine to command, you may boast that you witnessed the birth of the sahuagin race!"
The years passed, and the vast walled pools and the water-filled dungeons on Ka'Narlist's estate soon teemed with sahuagin. Even Mbugua had to admit that they were amazing creatures. They reached maturity within a year, and, unlike most of the wizard's other creations, they could reproduce. This they did with astonishing fecundity. After three years, Ka'Narlist ceased to magically breed the sahuagin, leaving them to their own devices. Within ten years, Ka'Narlist had a tribe. The sahuagin learned nearly as quickly as they bred. They could swim from the moment of their birth and could walk in their second moon of life. As soon as they could grasp a weapon, they were taught to fight on land and in the water. Within twenty years, Ka'Narlist had an army. The years passed, and the vast walled pools and the water-filled dungeons on Ka'Narlist's estate soon teemed with sahuagin.
Even Mbugua had to admit that they were amazing creatures. They reached maturity within a year, and, unlike most of the wizard's other creations, they could reproduce. This they did with astonishing fecundity. After three years, Ka'Narlist ceased to magically breed the sahuagin, leaving them to their own devices. Within ten years, Ka'Narlist had a tribe.
The sahuagin learned nearly as quickly as they bred. They could swim from the moment of their birth and could walk in their second moon of life. As soon as they could grasp a weapon, they were taught to fight on land and in the water. Within twenty years, Ka'Narlist had an army.
The wizard smiled benevolently and extended his hands. Black pearls dripped from them and rained into the grasping claws of his dark children. "You know what these are, and have been trained in their use. For each sea elf you slay, you will return one of these pearls-with the elf's magic captured inside. Magic is meant only for the gods. Regard the death of each blasphemous sea elf as an act of worship, and the pearls as proof of your loyalty to me! For have I not given you life, a kingdom to rule, and weapons with which to conquer it?"
the courtesan Xorniba
The wizard held up one of the black pearls. "The magic of the sea-elven wizards is nearly as potent as my own! Think upon this: what will I become when I possess a hundred of these? A thousand? When the stolen magic of a thousand thousand sea elves is woven into a single net of magic and power?" Again Ka'Narlist paused for an exultant smile. "With power such as that, the gods will come to me. Do not doubt: I will become a god indeed."
Once, many years ago, the dark god Ghaunadaur had done Ka'Narlist's bidding and wrested the wemic from his afterlife. The shaman had sensed then the strange partnership forming between wizard and god.
At the edge of the shore, Mbugua roared out the signal that would bring the his sea-elven son from the waves. Malenti, the shaman had named him, after a legendary wemic fighter. So far, Malenti showed every promise of living up to his name. He had learned all that Mbugua had to teach him, and with astonishing speed: all the fighting styles known to the wemic, all the tactics taught to the sahuagin, even the ambush strategies perfected by the now-extinct kodingobolds. To accomplish what he must, Malenti would need them all!
And thus it was, for many years to come. The sahuagin hordes returned to Ka'Narlist's keep with the dark of each moon, as they were pledged to do. But they brought with them not piles of dark pearls, but tales of fierce battles and ambush, and of a mighty sea-elven leader who had raised the sea folk against them. Malenti, he was called. Malenti, the Sahuagin Scourge.
By all reports, Malenti had amassed an enormous army of sea folk. Surely the army was gathered at shore's edge even now, awaiting only Malenti's command to strike. Time and again had the sea elves overcome the sahuagin fighters: the wemic was confident that they would do so again, and that, at long last, Ka'Narlist's brutal reign of magic and misery would end.
Malenti said coldly. He deftly pulled the net of magic over his head and brandished it. "These are the pearls I claimed from your servants over the years, as well as many hundreds more that I gathered myself. I am sahuagin," he said again, his eyes daring those assembled before him to dispute that fact. "I hate the sea elves as much as any of you. But they trusted me, and they died all the more easily for it." The elflike sahuagin lifted the web of pearls high. "This is my tribute to the great Ka'Narlist, the first tribute of many! Release me to the sea, and I will continue to slay sea elves for as long as I live." He shook the halberd so that the black pearls glistened.
Malenti cut him off with an upraised hand. "I want one thing more: the life of the wemic who betrayed you. Oh, I do not wish merely to slay him! As the proud Mbugua has taught me, it is the spirit that whispers the secrets of life! Imprison his in one of these pearls, and I will wear it until the day I die. And forever after, let his spirit roar his songs and his stories out over the waves, that what has been done in this place will be remembered for as long as people listen to the voices of the sea!" With a heavy heart, Mbugua heard his sentence proclaimed by his blood-son, and confirmed by the dark elf whom he had hoped to overthrow. As Ka'Narlist chanted words of magic and the treacherous Malenti drew his dagger across Mbugua's throat, the wemic prayed with silent fervor that someone, someday, would understand that a wemic's voice was trapped amid the sounds of the waves and the winds, and would find a way to sing his spirit away to its final rest.
Thus did the sahuagin come into being. And thus it was, from that day to this, that the sahuagin from time to time bear young that resemble sea elves in all things but their rapacious nature. These are called "malenti," after their forefather. Sometimes such young are reared and trained to live among the sea elves as sahuagin spies; more commonly they are slain at birth. The sahuagin have learned that this is prudent-the malenti are considered dangerous even by their vicious kindred, for in them, the spirit of Ka'Narlist lives on.
Bread Storm Rising (Unknown)
By Tom Dupree
Wiglaf Evertongue, more than a year since I left Calimport, apprentice mage to Master Fenzig.
Master Fenzig, mage's wizened face. Lives in Schamedar.
Sasha. Taller than Wiglaf by two full hands, the blonde, tanned warrior filled the doorway of the magician's studio as fully as she filled the most pleasant dreams of almost every man who looked upon her. A battle-beaten broadsword draped her magnificent frame and crossed luxurious thighs below the line of her brown leather skirt, toward long, lithe, athletic legs that looked as if they were equally able to pirouette or to kick in the face of an enemy. Amazon warrior in service to Master Fenzig. She had been part of a confidence team under Fenzig's secret instruction, which last year had imparted Wiglaf's first lesson: magical power was the result of study and labor, not a jackpot won instantly. He had fallen for it like a stone and made a fool of himself in front of crowds of people, and Sasha meant to make sure the lesson was well learned. Wiglaf flattered himself that Sasha thought him cute, for her stream of torment was never meanspirited, even though she pursued it with relish. Yet, despite her taunts, somehow Sasha's delightful smile always wound up producing its twin on Wiglaf's own face.
Natives of Calimport tended to be simple, good people who believed in an honest day's work: the smiths, cobblers, farmers, and other crafts-people who provided the common sundries and services that so many took for granted. Chief among those who took things for granted was the ruling pasha of the lands of Calimshan, a rotund, sedentary fop who was that rare creation, the ultimate consumer. The pasha never ventured outside his sequestered palace, rather doing his will through hundreds of tiresome bureaucrats and servants. The city-states of his kingdom were constantly squabbling with each other, but out of sight is out of mind, and the great man was always in residence, alternating between legendary periods of sloth and debauchery. So, as in many seaport communities, of the total population on any given day, true working-class natives were relatively few. The bulk of the inhabitants of Calimport, and the lifeblood of the town's commerce, were sailors, both merchant and navy. Most were outside mercenaries flying the flag of Calimshan for money, many setting foot on dry land for the first time in months-and a bitter few annoyed because fortune had tied them to what they considered a pathetic backwater when they could be enjoying the many temptations of the bustling city of Waterdeep, far to the north on the Sword Coast.
the children's rhyme went, "Calimshan was Calimshan when 'deepie was a pup, and Calimshan will be Calimshan when 'deepie's time is up."
Though fully gregarious with each other, when it came to strangers, the natives preferred listening to talking. The seafaring transients, along with a constant influx of route merchants who pitched their commercial tents in a very popular common area outside the city, brought frequent news from Waterdeep, Shadowdale, and the rest of the Western Realms. And though Calimporters might not boast the cosmopolitan sophistication of the "so-called City of Splendors," and though they were overwhelmingly human, the sight of elves, gnomes, halflings, even the occasional half-ore swab, was so common in town as to go unnoticed. In truth, Calimport itself was far more exotic than its visitors. Fashion and architecture were a mishmash of traditional Heartlands work and the splendor of the southern lands of djinn and efreet. Topknots and pointed cupolas were as unremarkable here as jerkins and brick chimneys.
Ariel Evertongue, short, middle-aged woman. Wiglaf’s mother, lives in Calimport.
Sheets to the Wind, tavern or inn in Calimport.
Angrod Swordthumper, A burly, black-bearded man, mammoth hands. He stood easily as tall as Sasha-no, as he approached, even taller. he was huge: the kind of big-boned girth that is produced by heredity but maintained by heavy manual labor. Neighbours with the Evertongues, father was a blacksmith, he continued the family business.
Sheets to the Wind was the kind of place where everybody knew each other's name. The wooden tables and benches, the knife-marked serving counter, the warm brick hearth, all looked like they'd been there for centuries-as did, if truth be told, more than a few of the customers. Behind the bar was Garadel: proprietress, den mother, teetotaler, and vocal journalist to the neighborhood for ages. And when she saw Wiglaf, the gray-haired but still sprightly woman knew a fabulous piece of news had just walked in the door.
Thorin Evertongue, A tall, slim, distinguished-looking man in a white apron. Wiglaf’s father. Runs a bakery, one of the oldest continuing establishments in Calimport.
The shoreline was pocked with blowholes, caves, and grottoes carved by the relentless pounding of the Shining Sea,
"It's written in Thorass. Auld Common tongue." Wiglaf bent in concentration. "Nobody uses it anymore. There's no telling how old this is, Sasha. Centuries, maybe."
"There must have been a Year of Famine, long ago, who knows? And then a very powerful magic-user- maybe a whole bunch of them-made this." He held up the lump and turned it in his hand. "So stupid, it's right there in front of me. Dough. This is starter dough! It makes the bread of wonder!" He grabbed the jar. "And this has to be magical sourdough starter-to make even more dough!" "It is written perfectly plainly in Thorass," Fenzig hissed. "One sprinkled pinch is sufficient to make the oversized loaves that ended that famine of antiquity.
In Luiren, they discovered a sealed flask of ale from ancient times that turned out to be just fine. And so was the recipe they found along with it. Inns are serving Oldest Ancient Stout there today.
The Ovens of Evertongue employed three full-time bakers; two apprentices who evaluated, procured, cataloged, stored, and measured the constant flow of foodstuffs; and, lowest in the pecking order, an ovenboy whose never-ending job was to keep the floors and counters as tidy as business would allow, and the used implements recycling back into the process all clean and shiny. Wiglaf himself had served a few terms as ovenboy, a miserable duty that nevertheless befell anyone who wished to rise in the hierarchy. Even the shop's cat, Piewacket, considered herself in a supervisory position. Piewacket the cat, Sam Brownstone, Thorin's veteran baker.
the honorable Has'san Hars'plittar, a mousy, balding little man carrying a worn ledger before him like a tome of holy writ. His brilliant red raiment was offset by an ornate, nearly shield-sized golden pendant hanging from his neck, which may have been at least partially responsible for a perpetually stooped posture. the tax collector. Underassistant domestic economic redistribution specialist," the little man remonstrated, "for the west-northwest semi-urban trade zone, city of Calimport, kingdom of Calimshan, in service to the Mightiest of Mighties, His Majestic Royal Benevolence."
under footnote eleven, subsection double-T, paragraph thirty-four, of His Unutterable Awesomeness's five hundred twenty-fifth royal decree, historical artifacts are subject to a special levy.
"Don't worry, son," the baker said, looking around. "This place has never looked so clean before. And Fenzig has shown me exactly how to use that jar of starter, so I should make up for the lost business in no time. In fact, this could turn out to be my most profitable season ever. And I owe that to you, son."
When Even Sky Cities Fall (-339 DR)
By J Robert King
Josiah was a mage, as were all the green-robed griffon riders of Tith Tilendrothael. Only a mage could be mind-bonded to a griffon. Josiah had been mind-bonded to Peregrin for eleven of the man's twenty-five years. He rode with the balance and grace of experience. His long black hair lashed in the wind.
Through Josiah's eyes, the mind-bonded griffon saw the rest of the cavalry-four hundred bird-lions and their riders
Tith Tilendrothael was barely visible through a dark valley, its ivory towers and golden streets glittering in sunshine.
The Lhaodagms
Never in the three hundred years of animosity between the two floating cities had they approached this close-within five miles. Only griffons and other aerial units had ever engaged each other. As with any other Netherese enclave, Lhaoda and Tith Tilendrothael kept their citizens safely out of battle. Though fully fitted with rams and spikes and grappling equipment, enclaves preferred to float serenely above their conflicts-safe and aloof.
Fletching, Evensong, Glazreth, and the rest of the cavalry (griffon names????)
Lhaoda might be half size of Tith Tilendrothael
Though once splendid-with white spires, onion-shaped domes, red-tiled roofs, flying archways, ornamental gardens, and streets cobbled with something that looked like silver brick-the city had been 'sieged and sacked by the very storm that cloaked it. Fires stood in pillars across the skyline. Winds had felled many trees. Sudden changes in pitch and yaw tumbled anything not secured with rope or magic. Waters flooded the streets and sluiced whichever way the city tipped. Citizens ran pell mell from ruin to ruin and were swept away on the ravaging tides.
Our fliers wouldn't have slain the levitation council (on the enclave????), Josiah thought. That's against all the treaties. There hasn't been such a massacre since…
"The storm caught us," she said simply. "We've been adrift for three days. Couldn't rise. Couldn't steer." "Adrift? What do you mean? Your levitation council was still alive. Why didn't you call for help?" "It would have been the same as calling for plunder."
The Phaerimm?" echoed Josiah. "The Ones Below? They're just myths. And even if they were real, how could they bring down a flying city?"
The Grotto of Dreams (Unknown)
By Mark Anthony
Muragh Brilstagg. I was a priest at the time, a disciple of Lathandar, god of the dawn. Lived near Gillar in a hovel in Dock Ward.
Gillar, he lived just down the street from my hovel, in the Dock Ward of Waterdeep. Gillar was a wizard, and as evil as they come. black-robed, pale-faced, and scowling, lived in a tower.
The Sign of the Bent Nail was a rough and unsavoury tavern. Muragh got stabbed by a very large man with small eyes, and died.
It was at that moment I finally realized the truth of Gillar's odd words, and the implication of the spell he had cast upon me. No, not spell, but curse. Even though I was dead, my spirit had not been allowed to fly from my body. I would never see dawn in the garden of my god. Instead I was doomed to dwell, conscious, in the lifeless husk of my mortal body. Forever. I would have cried then, but dead men can't shed tears.
"Help!" I called out. "Please! Somebody help me!" Little did I know it, but that was the beginning of my journey into Undermountain. Before long, a drunken soldier heard my call for aid. Unfortunately, soldiers are a notoriously superstitious lot, and he mistook me for the ghost of someone he had killed in war, come back to torment him. He hacked my head from my body and tossed it into Waterdeep Harbor.
Just a skull at that point, I drifted in the brine for a while and soon lost the last bits of my flesh to the local eels. Then the merpeople who live in the harbor found me and kindly took me to a duty-wizard of the Water-deep Watch, one Thandalon Holmeir. Thandalon was a nice enough fellow, and he set me to keeping watch over his spell library. Only, soon after, thieves broke in, and instead of stealing Thandalon's spellbooks, they stole me, then fled into the deepest sewers beneath Waterdeep. I never saw the thing that got them. It was big, and dark, and didn't rise fully from the foul water, but it sucked each of them under and crunched them to bits. In turn, the current swept me away. I tumbled down a drain, and fell deeper and deeper until finally I found myself here, in these endless tunnels far beneath Mount Waterdeep. Undermountain. Maze of the Mad Wizard.
Aliree. She was a half-elf, that much I saw right away. The fine cheekbones, the tilted brown eyes, the ever-so-slightly pointed ears were all giveaways. Clad in a patched tunic, she sat on the stone floor of a shadowy chamber, her back to the wall. I had fallen into her lap, and it occurred to me then that I couldn't have imagined a better place to crash land.
Aliree was born a full blooded human. "All my life, I didn't belong. I always felt so ungainly, so dull, so mundane. Then one day I saw the riding party of an elf prince on the road to Waterdeep-all of them were so graceful, so bright, so joyous. I thought if only I could be more like them, then surely I would be happy. So after that I spent all my days studying magic. I pored over musty books and moldering scrolls until finally, one day, in a forgotten codex in the library of Waterdeep, I found the right spell and cast it on myself." The spell did make me partially elven, enough to pass for a half-elf, just as I had hoped. But the spell was a complicated one. Even a master wizard would have had difficulty casting it, and I was little more than a dabbler." She pressed her eyes shut. "After a month or so, the pain began. It's been getting worse ever since. That's why I came here."
The Grotto of Dreams. I had heard those words before. Anyone who knocked around Undermountain long enough had. Stories told of a cave deep in the ground where once the goddess Lliira, Our Lady of Joy, slept for a time, and dreamt. It was said that the stones of the grotto still recalled the power of Lliira's dreams, and that anyone who found the cave and entered would know the joy of his or her greatest dream. Even if the power of the cave would work, I would never be able to leave, for it is said that once one leaves, the dream of joy ends, and one can never again reenter the grotto.
Aliree’s grandfather was a priest of Lliira years ago, in the city of Elturel. In a waking dream, sent by the goddess, he drew this map of tunnels that led to the grotto. Only he had no idea where in Faerun the tunnels were located, and he died without ever finding out. Ever since I was a child, I carried this map with me. It was just an heirloom, a reminder of my grandfather. Then, just a few days ago, I overheard some men in a tavern, a place called the Yawning Portal. The men were talking about a cave beneath the city." She locked her clear eyes on my empty sockets. "A cave where dreams came true."
The problem with Undermountain was that nothing was ever where it was supposed to be. Tunnels that were there one day had a nasty habit of vanishing the next. In the meantime, entirely new passageways had appeared out of solid rock. I had never managed to glimpse the mechanism by which the corridors were rearranged. Perhaps they did it of their own accord.
Hall of Many Pillars.
Hall of Mirrors
Hall of a Hundred Candles
The Hall of Sleeping Kings.
In the Grotto of Dreams Muragh became alive again and Aliree chose to die.
The Grotto of Dreams - It was a garden. Warm sunlight filtered down through a canopy of fluttering green. From somewhere not far away came the bright sound of water. Birdsong and thistledown drifted on the air. For a time, I was motionless, entranced by the beauty of the place. Then all at once, memory rushed back to me. I turned around.
Muragh chose to leave the grotto an became a skull once more.
A Narrowed Gaze (Unknown)
By Monte Cook
The Dark Eye of Gavinaas. A talisman. The Eye's own emerald light. It still did not know how it had come to this little chamber, though this was the third time it had awakened since it had found itself here.
Obviously, the mage Gavinaas was dead, for he would never have given up the Eye willingly; but the talisman had no way of telling how long ago such a thing had happened, or even how long it had been since it had last opened. Its power might have lain dormant for years.
Tiuren landed his griffon mount in the outer courtyard of the Royal Palace of Vantir. There was no time for the stables today. The message he had received yesterday from King Kohath, his lifelong friend, had said to come quickly-a terrible emergency held the palace in its grip. Rarely did the king summon the bard from his travels, and only when in dire need.
Tiuren, Vantir's most renowned bard.
Beanth, the keeper of the court. The matronly woman was worthy of great respect for her loyalty to the king and her ceaseless labor in managing the palace.
It's the queen." Beanth seemed barely able to speak. "She's… been cursed.
A message came, two days ago," she began in hushed tones, leaning close. "No one knows who it came from, but some sort of tiny, winged creature with reddish skin and horrible teeth delivered it. The fiend handed the king a scroll and then disappeared. The scroll said a curse had been laid upon the queen," Beanth whispered, eyes wide, "and that she would waste away and die if Kohath did not step down from his throne and put a wizard in his place forever-more. The queen has already fallen ill. Yesterday, terrible lesions appeared on her body. The court physicians, unable to help, say that she's steadily getting worse." Her eyes closed tightly. "They say shell die within the next few days.
King Kohath had been one of the staunchest opponents of unbridled sorcery in these days when magic flowed like water. Beanth herself owed her life to the king. A decade prior, he had driven off a powerful group of Netherese wizards seeking to conquer tiny Vantir, and Beanth's village would have been the first to fall.
Together, the bard and the warrior-king had seen cities crumble and mountains rise up from lowland plains. Noble men had been brought low before them, and babes had spoken to them with strange words of wisdom.
Level-headed Tiuren, sometimes called the Rhymer of Reason, was the perfect companion of Kohath, a warrior of boundless passions. They were brain and brawn in perfect harmony. The pair had explored the surrounding lands together, keeping the realm safe from evil at every turn. Yet after all these years, Tiuren had never seen his friend in such anguish.
Is there nothing Darius or the other wizards can do
Queen Diccona, but he had heard the whispers in the court-dreadful descriptions of her dry flesh slowly peeling from her bones.
King Kohath. The massive warrior. Always the man of action, the king was more comfortable moving than standing still. Gray encroached on his bushy black beard and temples, and wrinkles now outnumbered battle scars.
Passions were the lifeblood of this man. His love, his hate, his loyalty- these things knew no limits. They were not bound by circumstance, logic, ego, or even the value Kohath would put on his own life. The king loved the land of Vantir like none before him-but he loved his wife more.
Tiuren had never understood what Kohath saw in Diccona.
Count Darius waiting at the bottom of the stair, before the open doors of the hall. The thin, angular wizard had arrayed himself in great fineries of velvet and lace. His face was stony, but something in his eyes betrayed his excitement at the events about to unfold.
Tiuren was tolerated at court only due to his friendship with Kohath.
I, Kohath, renounce the throne of Vantir." "I claim before all present, mortals before me and immortals all around me, that I and my line are unfit to rule a kingdom such as this." "Only a true sovereign of wizardry, one who understands the higher worlds, can claim mastery of this great land. My last act as king is to name Darius, great in the ways of sorcery, as my successor.''
Gracefully, Kohath stood and drew out the scepter of office.
Count Darius took hold of the queen around her hips and pulled her to him, kissing her deeply.
A knife blade, cold and metallic in the light from the nearby window, rose above Diccona's head, a slender arm carrying it down toward the hunched form of the former king. It went in with the speed and smoothness of sorcery. Diccona sank the long blade up to its hilt into Kohath's lower neck.
Count-King Darius stood behind him, a curved blade in his hand, his skin crackling with amber lightning of magical origins.
Diccona boasted. Her long black hair whipped about her face as she grew excited at their victory. "The old fool did it to himself, really. I married him for power. He married me for love. Now I am with Darius, who will bring Vantir to new heights with his wizardry. I have more power than ever, and Kohath is dead." She paused to glance back at her husband's body.
"With the growing magical might of the larger, more powerful kingdoms like Netheril, Asram, and Anauria, how long could we have survived without a wizard on the throne?" Darius said, stepping closer, clenching the knife more firmly. "This land needs me. Diccona needs me. Neither needs a foolish old sword-swinger blinded by emotions."
The Dark Eye marvelled at the incredible ease with which love could be manipulated, twisted into hate. And such hate. As it watched the events unfolding in the palace above, it realized that no mortal it had ever known had burned with such passionate malice. The Eye suddenly concluded that a mortal's emotions had much greater power than it had ever dreamt. The intensity of the feeling was perfect for its purposes. This Kohath was perfect. The fact that he was dead made him even better. After observing Kohath's emotional transformation, the Eye began magically working upon his physical transformation. Soon, the Dark Eye would have a new tool.
The skeletal figure of a man, still dripping with the remains of his flesh and blood, stood. His jaw mouthed horrible but unintelligible words. Kohath.
Tiuren and Kohath had slain Gavinaas long ago, when the evil Anaurian wizard had threatened tiny Vantir's northern reaches with a conjured army of misshapen monsters. They had locked the wizard's talisman away in a deep vault below the palace. Now it was here. The object flew into Kohath's outstretched hand, which grasped it so tightly Tiuren could hear a crushing sound. Only then did his mind register that the piercing whine had stopped. Kohath's skull turned its black, empty sockets toward him for the first time. "No," Kohath rasped in a voice that seemed to originate from somewhere far, far away, "the Dark Eye of Kohath."
"So, my dear," Kohath said, his hideous skull glaring at the queen. "You wanted magical power. You wanted a wizard as a king and as a lover. Let me now show you power." With that, he released his grip upon the Dark Eye, which floated slowly up to his brow, attaching itself as a ghastly third eye.
Kohath's slaying wrath was indiscriminate. The dead king's quest for vengeance knew no bounds. The shaking of the earth continued, and fire burst forth from the numerous fissures opening all around Tiuren. He could do nothing-he couldn't even see anyone for him to help escape. Realizing that there was no time to reach the stables (if indeed they still stood), he ran for the opening in the wall, thunderous crashes and the roar of spurting molten rock behind him. Fire from within Faerun itself was consuming the fortress. Across the rolling hills, Tiuren ran until he could no longer hear the rumbling or feel the vibration of the ground and the unnatural scorching heat on his back. In the distance, only a reddish, hellish glow marked the palace. He collapsed from exhaustion.
Weeks later, Tiuren stood at the edge of what was once-beautiful Vantir. Nothing in his experience could have prepared him for the sight of his homeland smouldering like a charnel pit. The stench of death pervaded the air. Smoke filled the sky, dragging the whole realm into an unending night. After he had destroyed the palace and surrounding city, Kohath had systematically razed the nearby towns and villages. The smoke that choked the sun rose from burning homes, trees, crops, livestock, and even people. All that had been Vantir now burned. Of the inhabitants of the dead land, precious few had escaped. Kohath had, intentionally and methodically, slain his own kingdom.
Deep within the dark land of death, on the site of the old palace of Vantir, Kohath used sorcery and undead slaves to build a new fortress. This fortress was made from the bones and flesh of the fallen citizens of Vantir. In this subterranean castle, the former king had begun to call himself Kohath the Eternal.
The Whispering Crown (902 DR)[/b]
By Ed Greenwood
Dusklake and Grand Thentor had been at war for only a day now-but the battle between Aerindel and Rammast, Lord of Grand Thentor, had begun when they were both children. He had wanted her to be his slave and plaything for more than a dozen years-and Rammast was not a man accustomed to waiting long for anything.
The news of her brother's death lay like a heavy cloak over the household-but it rested most heavily on the Lady Aerindel. She could not quite believe she'd never hear his bright laughter echoing in this high hall again, or feel his strong arms lift her by her slim waist and whirl her high into the air. But the news had been blunt and clear enough. Dabras was dead by dragonfire, the grim old warriors had said, proffering his half-melted sword hilt and their own scorched wounds as proof. And that made her ruler of Dusklake.
Though a small realm, Dusklake had once been widely known-and feared-for the man then its master: the mage Thabras Stormstaff. Thabras was Aerindel's faintly smiling, sad-eyed father. He was the mightiest of a long line of famous heads of House Summertyn, from Orbrar the Old, the grandfather that Aerindel had never known, to Asklas and Ornthorn and others in the early days, known only in legends. A small but proud hold, oldest of all the Esmeltaran, Dusklake was nestled in the rolling woodlands between Lake Esmel and the Cloud Peaks. And it was hers, now.
Aerindel looked grimly out through a window that was seven times her height, at the lake the land was named for. Its waters were dark and placid, at the end of a bright, cool summer day. The Green Fields to the north were still a sheet of golden light, but westward, the purple peaks of the Ridge rose like a dark wall, bringing an early nightfall down on her hall.
Dusklake was small but verdant, perhaps the fairest of all the Esmeltaran. Rammast wanted it more even than he wanted her.
Dabras went off to the distant Dales, as he had, hunting dragons
it was the Year of the Queen's Tears.
darkly handsome, cruel Rammast Lord of Grand Thentor
In the pale, slim, so often silent days of her youth, he'd been the first man to look upon her with hunger in his eyes. Later, he had been the first to see that though she'd inherited the rings and staff and spellbooks of the mighty Thabras, her magic was no more than a feeble, faltering echo of his… and that Dusklake, secure for so long behind his might, had far fewer hardened warriors to ride to its defense than other neighboring holds could muster.
Hulduth Hold
Aerindel hadn't heard anything of Rammast's own dabblings in magic since he'd inherited Grand Thentor-beyond a few rumors of summoned beasts running amok and hired hedge-wizard tutors disappearing mysteriously.
Rammast Tarangar
all of us in the Esmeltaran talk about
the bones of the Duskan warrior
the Stormstaff flashed into life-and lightning lashed forth like great tentacles to encircle the Thentan intruder, and drag him up into the air.
As her father had once said to an excited Dabras, looking down from the wind-lashed top of Mount Glimmerdown at a battle in the pass below, "It's all over now, but the praying."
The family crypt. There was the long, slender casket of Haerindra, the mother she'd never known. Beyond it, the high-canopied tomb of Orbrar, and to the right, the great black coffin of her father.
The altar of Mystra.
this crown. She remembered seeing her father wearing it once or twice, when she was young. Aerindel frowned. It was no part of the regalia of Dusklake, and had disappeared before his death. So far as she knew, it had never been in the coffin of Thabras.
her father's voice-and Elminster, she dimly remembered, had been his tutor, and the wizard he'd loved and trusted most.
the Great Water that lay west of the Esmeltaran, beyond the Cloud Peaks.
she was seeing a woman she did not know rising up out of a furious battle. Bolts of flame burst from the crown and felled screaming warriors, hurling many through the air like broken dolls. She watched a severed arm whirl away by itself. The crown said, "With me, you can do this." The scene changed, and she was seeing a bearded man standing grimly in a dungeon cell. The crown on his brow flashed with sudden white storm-fire, and the stones before him cracked and melted, flowing aside as the busy lightning cut a man-high tunnel into them. "And this," the crown whispered. The scene changed again. She was wearing the crown, this time, and a hydra was rearing up above her, on a sun-dappled forest path somewhere, snapping its jaws horribly. The crown quivered, and suddenly the hydra was shrinking and twisting, flailing its long necks vainly, as it hardened into a gnarled, triple-trunked tree. "And this," the whisper came again, "among many more powers… if you have the courage to wield them."
the bloody-taloned golden eagle banner of Grand Thentor
Dusking! They were in Dusking, at the other end of her realm-already invading Dusklake, to put her folk to the sword
the muddy road through Dusking
A magic that would have twisted her into a toad-thing plucked at her limbs; the crown told her what it was, shattered it, and sent a withering ray at the Lord of Grand Thentor.
A vision unfolded suddenly in her mind; his vision. She saw a great company of armed warriors, harnesses creaking as they filed through a narrow way in the mountains. Gods above! She was seeing the main army of Grand Thentor invading the other end of Dusklake, hard by her castle-through the narrow, perilous Glimmerdown Pass!
the windswept top of Mount Glimmerdown. Across empty air was the sister peak to the one she stood on, High Glimmerdown; the moonlight showed her its ragged edge.
A red rain seemed to burst inside her head, and she was suddenly lying on her face on hard rock, as the roar of falling rock rose up around her, amid ragged screams from below. The Lady of Dusklake clung to her own name, gasping in a sudden sea of confusion. Who was she? Where was she? She seemed to be drifting in mists, and folk wearing her crown were there too; she glimpsed them from time to time. All of them had sad faces, and looked weary and wasted. They grew older and more shriveled as she watched, wasting away…
The crown fed on its wearers, somehow. Aerindel held that thought for a time, but her wits seemed to wander again and again, memory showing her boulders bouncing and rolling down the side of High Glimmerdown, and she could not think of the next thing.
He'd be in his tower right now. Tarangar Tower, highest turret of the frowning stone fortress of Thentarnagard, at the very heart of Grand Thentor…
the steep roofs of Thentor-town spread out below her down narrow, lamplit cobbled streets
"This thing can come to pass," the voice of the crown seemed to whisper in the ear, "but it is a very great thing. Doing it will consume a life." "The life of a being who can wield magic," the crown whispered. "A being you have touched while wearing me." "A deliberate sacrifice, then," the Lady of Dusklake said wearily. "Or a murder." "If I can get no other essence," the crown told her, "I will claim the life-force of the one who wears me." "So if I force you to bring down the tower," Aerindel said, 'Tarangar Tower will fall-but I'll wither and die here, on this mountaintop." "The tower may survive if it bears strong enough protective magics," the crown replied. "I must feed soon in any case, or shatter."
It tingled, but did not budge. No matter how hard she clawed and tugged at it, it seemed attached to her head. The Whispering Crown would not come off.
I trained him in the ways of magic, and made him what he became." "And so, I suppose, am responsible for his doom. I am called Elminster.
"Aerindel," Elminster cried, sounding almost in anguish, "fight against it! Obey not the crown! Tis a thing that twists its wearers to evil if allowed to command! Ye must order it, not let it enthrall ye!"
"Go away, wizard!" she snarled, eyes like twin flames. "You've meddled more than enough! I need the crown to defend my land and… myself. Rammast shall get neither, if you'll just stand aside and let me use what Mystra sent me! It was her gift to me!" "Mystra gives gifts that carry choices," Elminster told her quietly, his eyes on hers. The crown glimmered on the rocks behind him. "Each one is a test. No sword is deadly until a hand wields it."
So long as ye know that the glow upon yonder circlet now means it must drink the life-force of the first magic-using being to don it, or crumble away.
"Yesss," its whispering voice was hissing as she raised it past her face. But then another voice burst from it, desperate and alone, echoing in strident despair. "Elminster, aid me!" Her father's cry was louder than before. Aerindel stared at the crown, hearing it snarl angrily. Under those angry growls the cries of others came faintly to her ears. Those who died wearing it. Its other victims.
he had her likeness fixed in an evermirror spell, and could alter the shape of some hired wench or other to take her place. Even if word got out, there'd be none to stand against him ere Dusklake joined Grand Thentor, and he looked to richer lands to the west, like Marbrin and Drimmath. Why, he could be ruling an empire in four winters'
Elminster pointed down again. Something gleamed amid skeletal dust, far below. Aerindel saw it only for an instant before the lightning of a spell that no mortal had cast erupted along the cliff across from where they stood, and sent a huge fall of stones rolling down to bury the Whispering Crown (in Glimmerdown Pass)
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Gary Dallison
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Posted - 24 Feb 2023 : 09:28:54
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The Lady and the Shadow (-390 DR)
By Philip Athans
The blast of fire singed Shadow's eyebrows, and the naga screamed in agony. The ball of orange flame was gone as fast as Shadow had conjured it, and smoke poured off the creature that was its target. The naga's rough, spiky hide was already black, and now it smelted scorched.
Shadow's blood went cold. He hadn't been prepared for another assassination attempt today. It was a bad time.
The blue-silver blade seemed to scream through the air, but Shadow knew he hadn't actually thrown it that hard. It crossed the span of his bedchamber faster than a crossbow bolt and sank into the naga's tough black hide with a wet cracking sound. When the naga screamed, the poison welled out of its mouth in a nauseating gurgle and drenched the thing's still-smoking body with the deadly liquid. It screamed again, louder this time. The knife was buried to its golden hilt, about halfway down the thing's twelve-foot body. "Turn!" Shadow shouted, and something made the naga look down. The knife twisted in the tight wound, and a quiver of pain and surprise ruffled through the naga's body.
Shadow considered his possible escape routes. The secret door he had installed in his bedchamber three years ago, when everyone was having them installed in their bedchambers, was on the other side of the naga. He could turn invisible, but the thing could still spray the room with poison, and Shadow would be just as dead as if he'd lit himself with faerie fire. He couldn't teleport, and if he jumped out the window it would be a mile straight down off the side of Karsus enclave to the fields below.
"Shadow?" asked a woman who had come from nowhere to stand behind the twitching naga corpse. Her voice was the true opposite of the naga's, rich and lyrical. She was standing almost against the far wall. The secret door hung open behind her, apparently not a secret anymore. In her hand was a rapier with a blade so long and thin it drooped when she held it still and whistled through the air like a whip at her slightest twitch.
The sound of the whip-rapier shrieking through the air stopped him, and he was actually alive just long enough to feel his head hit the floor after mouthing the word "Damn" on the way down.
Moments before and hundreds of miles away, the archwizard Grenway stood before a giant glass tank filled with a thick green semi-liquid that was moving with a life of its own.
"Very nicely," the old man muttered to himself, turning in the cluttered laboratory and shuffling slowly to the great palantir that had been a gift from his third wife, just before he'd had her killed. "Coming along nicely." He had only to think the name of the would-be assassin he'd sent after Shadow, and he could see everything she saw. The information he'd given her, about the tunnel that led under the wall, below Karsus's private gardens, then into the complex of rooms and laboratories inhabited by his foe, was so far proving to be quite correct.
She pulled the sack through her belt, and shook it open. Her employer told her it was waterproof; the bloody head wouldn't soak through. He promised her she could even walk the streets of Karsus enclave without attracting attention. Of course, she didn't intend to stay in Karsus that long. She wanted to get back to loulaum, deliver her package, and be done with it all before her damnable conscience started whispering in her ear again. Profitable as it may be, she hated working for archwizards. She hated how insignificant they made her feel.
Someone was standing behind him, in the shadows of the dimly lit corridor. There was something familiar about the outline, but it was eclipsed in her mind by the presence of the man she'd just decapitated, whole and hearty, dressed in his signature black silks. She resisted the temptation to glance back at the head on the floor to be sure it was still there. It was. "Damn," the archwizard breathed, "those things are a pain to replace--"
The room he brought her to was pure Karsus enclave. This insane city was full of buildings with floors on the walls and bridges where people walked on the top and bottom at the same time. Anyone not actually from there was always dizzy. "Down" seemed to be whatever the bottoms of your feet were touching.
"Usually when I (Shadow) catch an assassin alive, I send him into the demiplane of imprisonment."
"I knew you were coming, of course," he said, turning away from her now to walk gingerly over to one of the huge pillars. "I have at least as many spies in Grenway's employ as he has in mine. Still, I must admit you are quite good. That simulacrum has… had successfully fended off seventeen major assassination attempts. Bravo."
"Anyway, I made up a simulacrum of you. Or, well, had one made at any rate. This way I can leave you imprisoned for a few years and use the simulacrum's link with you to pull you back out. Well, if the last few components are finished by then."
"Actually, it could take twenty, thirty years. Honestly, it's not a high priority in my research right now. I'm still rather captivated by the demiplane of shadow, as you may have guessed. But perfecting a simulacrum-link with the prime material… home, as it were… is rather vital to that endeavor as well. Your having destroyed my own simulacrum will mean I'll have to stick around here until I get a new one together.
Her eyes met the eyes of her simulacrum, also lying flat on its back. As she slipped into black unconsciousness, she couldn't help noticing how green her double's eyes looked. She didn't remember their being that green.
"If I hadn't had a link to your simulacrum, the shadows would be feeding on us by now."
The maid came back in, and there was something wrong. The look on her face made Alashar stand, her knees threatening to give way again but holding firm after a split second. There was a ripping, crunching sound, and the maid's body shook. Something big was in the hallway behind her, filling the door with an amorphous black silhouette. Something thick and green and covered in the girl's thin running blood burst through the maid's chest. Blood exploded out of her mouth, and Alashar couldn't help screaming as the maid was ripped apart in front of her. The only way she knew it was covered with hundreds of tentacles was that every time her flashing, shrieking whip-rapier met any resistance, one of the thick, twitching things ended up squirming at her feet. She was aware of its blood, too, hot and yellow-green, sticky and everywhere. The creature was at least twice her size, a wall of writhing green tentacles and dozens of gaping, fang-lined mouths, themselves full of smaller tentacles.
Alashar, his paid assassin, his unwitting decoy, had done her job well. She had infiltrated Shadow's inner sanctum, foiled some still unknown rival's own assassination attempt by killing the naga, destroyed the damnable simulacrum that had confused his informants in Karsus for so long, and even seemed to have built some sort of strange bond with the archwizard. She and her victim had become partners of a sort now, and she seemed strangely determined not to let Shadow out of her sight. Since her sight was also Grenway's, things were working well. The mutant that he'd sent as the real assassin had no ability to think for itself. It had to be guided, and so he had sent Alashar in first. Grenway coughed out a chuckle at the thought that Alashar probably still expected to kill Shadow and collect Grenway's price.
her joints were popping from the cold weakness of the shadow world.
the Palantir
Alashar and Shadow killed Grenway.
Shadows of the Past (unknown)
By Brian M Thomsen
Nymara Scheiron, but you can call me 'Kitten.
Lothar, He brought you back here himself, undressed you, and nursed you back to health, only leaving long enough to tend important business. Even then, he left me to watch over you."
Waterdeep, the Dock Ward, Lothar's crib.
"And you are Kitten, Lothar's-" "Friend," she interrupted, "and sometime business associate."
Lothar doesn't say anything. He can't. Years back, his tongue was cut out after a particularly ugly argument with a particularly ugly brute.
Murph?" "Let's just say he's a broker of talents," she replied, hastening her step. "Hurry! He doesn't like to be kept waiting."
"It is an exceptional fighter of uncommon training. Despite a certain hardness to its features and its bearing, its breeding and body show few signs of the devastations of poverty or abuse. Fast reflexes, keen senses, good instincts. If I was a bit more confident, I would say it was either a royal assassin or a master thief. Oddly, though, it avoids lethality in its moves. It doesn't kill unless it has to." "That mark on its hand. It's a brand, all right, but not of the slave variety. It wasn't burned in. It's of magical origin. Perhaps a marking of some secret society. I wouldn't worry about it if I was it."
Murph only brokers the best, has his office in a boarded-up facade that had once been a tavern.
It, A client of mine desires a certain manuscript that is currently sitting on a desk at the offices of Tyme Waterdeep, Ltd. It is in a traveling folder in the top office overlooking the street, and the publisher returns this evening. Fetch it discreetly. An emissary of mine will take it off your hands later. You will be well compensated should you succeed. Murph. P.S. The traveling folder should have the monogram VG on it. Let me reiterate, discretion is desired.
The offices of Tyme Water-deep, Ltd. Faerun's most powerful publishing firm.
Picking up the missive, I saw that it was unaddressed. I tore it open. Surprisingly, it was not a letter, but rather a page that had been extracted from some arcane volume. The paper was old and brittle, and featured text in several different languages or codes. My eyes were immediately drawn to an illustration that showed a circle of cowled figures around a prisoner in a set of stocks. The caption below it read: In rare instances of mercy, the Lords of Waterdeep would accept indenturement in exchange for clemency for someone accused of crimes against the lords or the City of Splendors. The accused would have his identity wiped clean, returning him to a state of innocence prior to his commission of said crimes. In exchange for various services provided to the lords, the accused would be granted clues to his past. These services always were of a sensitive nature, for which the lords desired plausible deniability, and often resulted in the death of the accused, upon which time the accused would be pardoned of all crimes and receive a proper burial. Such men are known as Lord's Men. A different ink bore the message First Payment. As I finished reading the page, it and the envelope burst into flames, leaving nary a whiff of smoke.
Tertius and the Artefact (Unknown)
By Jeff Grubb
the Nauseous Otyugh in Scornubel. It was a little before three bells, and Tertius Wands, yours truly, was blissfully asleep in my quarters at the Otyugh, third floor stateroom with an odorous view of the stables. The Otyugh is one of the new establishments that have popped up after the last Volo's Guide. As a result of Volo's work in popularizing certain locations to travelers, those locations have ceased to be popular to natives, necessitating new inns, dives, and hangouts for adventurers to hang out in. Ampi had at one time suggested that it would be advantageous to follow Volo around, opening new inns in his wake, as the ones he talks about are soon filled to the bursting with warriors and wizards carrying his dratted little tomes.
Dragon's Breath Beer
Maskar Wands. I had a magical artifact, a remnant of powerful Netheril, which has been stolen from me." I know who took it-a thief named the Raven, who is heading your way (to Scornubel). I want you to get it back. The device looks like three glass spheres, one set floating within the next. Find the Tripartite Orb of Hangrist
Tertius Wands. Let me make this quite clear: I lack the least bit of magical ability, which makes me an exception in the Wands family, overladened by all manner of conjurers, sorcerers, prestidigitators, and other assorted spell-casters. However, I get by with a genie, attached to a ring I found years ago in a Waterdhavian sewer. But that's a tale for another time. Ampratines wafted into view like a phantasmal castle suddenly appearing in the desert. The djinn by their nature are a clever race, and Ampi is the cleverest of the lot, with more brain cells per cubic inch than any other creature on Faerun. Ampi was dressed as normal, in long blue robes that set off his crimson skin. His black topknot of hair was immaculately greased and mannered, protruding through an azure skullcap like the tail of a championship horse. His solemn mouth was framed by an equally well-mannered beard and mustache.
The Nauseous Otyugh, by the way, is a bit ramshackle, a former general store put out of business by Aurora and her catalog. The second floor was set back from the first, creating a wide porch, suitable for the major Scornubel sports of drinking oneself into oblivion and watching others do the same on the street below.
"Caspar Millibuck, at yer servants," the halfling continued. "Well, I'm huntin' the Raven meself, and I figgered that one like ye, with such powerful god-voices, could help one like me, bein' small and short and all, and we could both nab the thief together." what did the Raven steal from you?" "Gold, sire," said the halfling quickly, "all the gold in me orph'nage." "Orphanage?" I shook my head. "I thought you said it was stolen from your family?" "Indeed, sire," the halfling bobbed his head up and down rapidly. "Ever'body in my family's an orphan. We're very unlucky." Really the Raven.
"The Raven's no man, but a doppleganger, and can change shape at whim. I think I know where to find him, but ye have to be ready to move, and move quick, when I call. Will ye be helpin' me? For the other orphans, at least?"
"The Tripartite Orb is an artifact of Netheril," said the genie, putting his hands behind his back like a schoolboy reciting his lessons. "Netheril was a kingdom of wizards that fell thousands of years ago, before the founding of Cormyr or Waterdeep. The least of these wizards, it is said, was more powerful than the mightiest mages of the Realms" The Tripartite Orb was apparently a most potent weapon in that kingdom, for it had the ability to kill all magic within its immediate surroundings. No fireball would explode in its proximity, no summoning would be effective, no ward would protect, and no magical weapon would gain its weal. You can see why this would be effective in a kingdom of wizards." most of its history in Netheril consists of mages hiding it in inaccessible places while other mages hired warriors to wrest it from those hiding spots. So it went through most of Netherese history, until the kingdom's fall. It remained hidden until a dozen years ago, when a group of adventurers found it in Anauroch. Your granduncle realized the danger of such a magic-destroying artifact immediately, and acquired it and locked it in his lowest dungeon." The device appears as a set of three crystal globes, one floating within the next, which are made of iridescent crystal, such that they resemble soap bubbles, I am told. As with all artifacts, it is indestructible by most normal means, so your granduncle put it under lock and key in a safe location. And from that safe location, it was stolen two weeks ago by a thief called the Raven, who is apparently heading down the Trade Way to Scornubel.
the Jaded Unicorn, a place that had the unfortunate fate of gaining notice in the aforementioned Volo's Guide. As a result, the place was filled with newcomers, travelers, hardened mercenaries, and dewy-eyed would-be adventurers. As the Unicorn had a bad reputation (according to Volo), the traditional garb was heavy cloaks with the hoods pulled up. It looked like a convention of spectres, wraiths, and grim reapers.
Demarast, young woman, golden hair that pooled on her shoulders like spilt ale. She looked as if she had elfin blood in her. Her ears were slightly pointed, and her chin tapered to a soft, rounded end. Former partner of the Raven (she double crossed him and stole the Tripartite Orb).
The Tripartite Orb Maskar obtained was a fake and stolen by the Raven etc. The real one is still out there somewhere.
Epilogue
By Wes Nicholson
The young man's name was Niles, and Jeffrey recalled tales of Niles's being the probationer who had mysteriously disappeared more than a hundred fifty years before.
Niles had read the story of a young probationer, Edmund, who was considered lazy and worthless. He had served in the library two hundred years prior to Niles's time.
Niles had been a probationer just after a time of great change. The library had acquired a huge collection from the king of Cormyr. Cormyr had been at war for almost four years, and had emerged victorious after one of its wizards found the key to ending the war in the library. A huge collection, part of the spoils of war, had been given to the library by the grateful monarch. There hadn't been room to house the new collection, and two new wings had quickly been built to accommodate it. All this had happened during the two hundred years from the time of Niles until that of Edmund, the last probationer to go missing.
Wes put the book down again, and took a few deep breaths. The library had been here a lot longer than he had believed, if this story were true. And Wes wasn't even close to the middle of the book yet. He figured that was where the first probationer's story would be, and he hoped the stories would all reach their climaxes in the second half. He was up to five hundred years. The library could be closer to two thousand years old rather than one thousand, as most people believed.
Robar had gone missing two hundred fifty years before Edmund, in a time when the library's expansion had been quite slow. Only a few new volumes were added to the collection each year, and building wasn't a rushed affair. The large rooms in the south wing, and the ornate figures on the south wall, were added then.
Robar had followed Troyan, who had been missing for over four centuries. In Troyan's time, the library's great hall had been built. The original hall was now the accommodation area. Troyan had come to this room and picked up a very flimsy tome with no binding. He had been the one who had taken the book and bound it before he read what was in it.
Reading through all the layers of this twisted story, to the middle of the book, Wes discovered that the first probationer to disappear had been Bairn. He had been taken in by the monks when the library was being established, well over a thousand years ago. The monks had been discussing ways of protecting the library from the dangers of fire, vermin, and ignorant or selfish nobles who would not wish the works to be shared with any who had need of them.
There had been no solution settled on until one night Bairn had a dream in which a messenger from the gods visited him. The messenger told him the library needed a guardian entity, and that entity could only come from the life-force of one who truly believed in what the library stood for, and what it could mean to future generations. Bairn had wondered why he was the one chosen to receive this vision. Surely such an important message should have gone to Alaundo the Seer or one of the monks.
A tenday later, Alaundo made a prophecy that a young man would give himself to the library, to be a part of it forevermore, and that this man would be followed in the years to come by many more. These men would protect the library from all the forces of darkness and evil.
Recognizing the similarities to his dream, Bairn sought an audience with the seer, expecting to be beaten for his insolence. He was surprised when he got his audience the very next day.
The seer and the orphan met for many hours, while both of them had other duties that needed their attention. When the meeting was over, Alaundo left Bairn in his private chambers and instructed the monks that none could enter until the seer returned. When he did return and granted audiences to those he had ignored while he met with Bairn, many asked where the young man was. Alaundo just smiled and did not answer.
In those days, there had been few works in the collection, and the library was small in comparison to today, so Bairn had been able to carry out his task for almost six hundred years before he felt the need to choose a successor.
Now, in the second half of this history of Candlekeep, Wes began to read what happened to each of the following guardians, and how they had been chosen. Troyan had been the first of the probationers to be sent to the reading room, and there hadn't been as many volumes in the hidden chamber then. The shelves were all there, and the table and chair. The book was only a few pages back then, and Troyan had found nothing in it to trouble him. He had read about Bairn's disappearance, and had hoped to make a name for himself as the man who solved that mystery. When Bairn had appeared and offered him the guardianship, Troyan had learned that the table and chair had been Bairn's, and had been placed in the room by the abbot after Bairn came to him one night in a dream.
Troyan also learned that the guardian entity could see into the hearts and minds of all those who lived and worked within the library's walls, and so it could always choose the right person to take over as guardian.
Robar had learned that the guardian could not be harmed by any magic then known, and mundane items could not affect it in any way. Magical energy could be used to restore the entity's energies, but the guardian could not use those energies in any offensive manner. Its powers were those of defense only, but with those powers, it could defend the library against any attack. Spell energies were absorbed by the entity, and all forms of mundane weapons, from swords and arrows to ballista bolts, were deflected long before they reached the library walls. Neither could any army lay siege to the library, as the entity had the ability to extend its powers for almost a mile in any direction, and no army had the numbers to lay siege from so far away.
Edmund, in his turn, had learned from the guardian that it could also protect the library from less obvious threats, such as insects, mildew, vermin, and even the normal aging of the volumes. He had been curious about the other volumes in the hidden room, and had learned that each abbot and one of the senior monks was aware of the room's existence and could place volumes they deemed worthy into this room. Only a few select scholars were ever permitted access to the room, and only the chosen guardian was allowed in here alone.
Edmund had decided to help out scholars in the library who couldn't quite find the work they wanted. In his time as guardian, he began pushing works partly out of their shelves to attract attention to them. It always turned out that these works were just what a visiting scholar was looking for, or else they had been placed on the wrong shelf and needed to be moved. Edmund never pushed the works out too far; he didn't want to attract attention. Most of the monks believed that one of the gods of knowledge was responsible for pointing the way to the tomes that turned up just when they were needed.
Niles's curiosity had turned to the source of the light in this room. He had wondered why none of the others had noticed it earlier. His questions had revealed to those who were to follow that the guardian provided the light as another of its benevolent powers, but only when the chosen successor was in or near the room. The earlier guardians hadn't thought much about this as their minds had followed other paths.
When Jeffrey's turn had come, he wanted to know if the abbots ever felt a twinge of guilt about sending a young man to what amounted to his death. The entity had answered him by explaining that while those who made up the entity weren't alive in the sense that they had no corporeal existence, they most certainly were not dead either. The guardianship was something that was offered and accepted; it could not be forced on anyone. The entity was not an undead thing with some parody of life. Rather, it was a life-force of a different nature. It had claimed to dwell on a higher plane of existence.
Wes wondered how long it would be before the guardian appeared and spoke to him. Would it find him worthy? What would he do if it did? What would he do if it didn't find him worthy? Perhaps now would be a good time to leave this room and get back to what he was supposed to be doing. Wes put the book down on the table and hurried toward the door.
I am the entity of the Candlekeep library. I was not the first, nor will I be the last, to bear that honor and responsibility. The library is more than stone and mortar, more than the works held within its strong walls. It is a symbol for the future. It holds the hopes of generations to come, and each generation, those hopes grow stronger as more and more works are added to the collection."
"The library is, as I said, more than the buildings and works held within them. But buildings do not last forever, and parchment and vellum suffer the privations of age and vermin. Have you never wondered why the monks spend so little time maintaining the old buildings and instead devote more time to expanding the library? Have you never wondered why so few tomes are in poor repair, despite the use they get?"
"It is my job to guard the library from all forms of attack, be it a siege by a selfish lord who wants to hoard the knowledge in here, or a silverfish looking for a place to lay her eggs. I protect the library against all this, and more. But such protection comes at a cost. I do not have limitless power. As you rightly stated, I am not a god. I could perhaps live forever in this form, if I did not take my responsibilities seriously, but my life is tied to the library, and if the library falls, I will cease to be."
"So, you need my life-force to replace the power you have used in protecting the library?"
"That's almost right. If you agree to become the new guardian, it is your mind that will be in control here, not mine. Niles, and all the others, are still here as a part of me. But it is me, Jeffrey, who has control. I will relinquish that to you in turn, when the time comes."
"When my energies are low, it is time. I visit the abbot in his dreams and inform him it is time to choose a successor. Sometimes I chat with the abbot in the dream, and we discuss who it will be. Sometimes, the choice is clear."
Several times the chosen one has not been willing to make the necessary sacrifice. One even went on to become abbot a few centuries ago."
Tell me about those who refused."
"I will tell you of only two. The first was Jamel, and he was an early choice, made when we were not so sure about what qualities were needed to be worthy of this task. He came to this room and was approached by one of our aspects. The meeting did not go well. Jamel was too headstrong and set in his own ways to be able to do what was right for the library. At the end of the meeting, even though he had been chosen, he was not offered the guardianship. He returned to the monks and told them what had happened, but they thought him mad, and banished him from the library forever." Wes looked frightened. "And the other?" "His name was Rasalas, and he was a difficult choice. While he was worthy of the task, he also had much to contribute in the mortal world. He was offered the guardianship when he came to this room, but declined to take it. Rasalas returned to the monks but kept silent about what had happened until the abbot called him to an audience. He never revealed his meeting with us to anyone except the abbot, and he worked diligently at the library until he became the abbot. His time here was one of the richest scholastic periods since the library was established." |
Forgotten Realms Alternate Dimensions Candlekeep Archive
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Demzer
Senior Scribe
877 Posts |
Posted - 24 Feb 2023 : 13:31:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
So i finished Secrets of Blood the short story and it gave a good origin story for Malenti.
I didnt quite get why sea elves do not have magic.
I get that Malenti slew hundreds of sea elf magic users (presumably high mages, because Ka-Narlist said the sea elf mages rivalled himself in power), but that does not necessarily mean that all sea elves for future generations would be devoid of magic.
My reasoning for this is that magic is not genetic, it appears seemingly at random in all populations, with greater exposure to magical fields increasing the appearance of the Art among populations (see the Annasherion in Ravens Bluff and Mythallars in Netheril).
So while Malenti's purge would have eliminated magic use for a generation or two, and stunted its growth for a while, eventually magic use would have recovered over the 20000+ year period since Ka-Narlist was eliminated.
Add to that the fact that sea elves have influx populations of transformed elves from other subraces which would reintroduce magic use among the sea elves and it seems very unlikely for the purge to be the cause of a lack of magic use.
I wonder if Malenti did not breed with the sea elves and introduced his own un-magic talent into the population because Ka-Narlist imbued him with a complete lack of magical talent somehow.
Late to the reply, but consider that even having a bit of the Gift is mostly useless without spellbooks to study and someone more advanced in the Art tutoring you. So even if the Gift of magic use was present in generations after the purge, it might have gone completely wasted because of the lack of opportunities for it to grow. |
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TBeholder
Great Reader
2428 Posts |
Posted - 25 Feb 2023 : 00:33:00
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
If i read it right, it seems that Elminster became the Masked.
The novel only says that Andrathath's Mask offered its service to him. But he could turn it down or pass to some other worthy candidate.
quote:
Cormanthyr
Andrathath's mask is famous in the City of Brotherhood as the everpresent headgear of the Masked, one of the fabled
Seven Wizards of Myth Drannor. The previous elf to claim the title of the Masked was Lord Speaker Lhombaerth Starym
[and we know how that ended] After a short time in the possession of the human armathor Elminster Aumar, the mask was given
in secret to an elf (or half-elf) female of some mystery; she has since adopted the title of the Masked
- p.154
If the new Masked was among The Six Kissing Sisters Mages of the Court, this would be noticed, thus most likely either Nacacia or someone not otherwise known.
quote:
The Starym really were evil as they come, blighted by their own pride and xenophobia. They did the unthinkable and worked with drow.
Well, Lhombaerth (who had a habit of working alone except pawns and jumped ahead of the elders) worked with drow. Maybe.
He could also set them up without direct cooperation, by feeding some spy a false trail. He was definitely sneaky and bold enough to play this kind of games.
More bold than sneaky, but the prospective pawn would be someone expendable, overeager to score points for his faction and inclined to underestimate the degenerate surface elves.
Also, not entirely "unthinkable". Cormanthyr kicked the drow out of Twisted Tower only when the other drow helped (DR -331). |
People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo. -Ed Whitchurch |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
Posted - 27 Feb 2023 : 21:30:41
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Mortal Consequences (c.-700 DR)
By Clayton Emery
Other Lore
crysmal elemental. a crystalline structure towering over her, reaching with diamond claws. The giant insect tilted to one side like a malformed scorpion. Its body was indistinct, a moving column of jewels. Blue dots like multi-faceted eyes fixed her with sapphire brilliance: for a second, the greedy archwizard wondered if they really were sapphires. Then triple jagged, glittering claws snapped. [16]
She shrieked as something warm and wet slithered down her back. It tingled and burned as it touched her skin, and for a second she feared the black ooze. Then tentacles slimed her neck. Grasping, screaming, she caught the slippery pod in both hands and yanked. The thing clung to her skin. She glimpsed it, a bright golden color, and instantly knew it. A laraken, a swamp parasite that fed on magical energy. And Polaris was charged with magic like a mythallar engine! Sight of the parasite blotted out as a squirming tentacle covered her eyes. A tentacle tip bored into her ear like a slimy tongue. Another slid down her shorn gown, and oozed between her breasts to fasten on the skin over her heart. The thing would suck her dry of magic and life like a golden leech. they don't mate, but reproduce themselves when they find plentiful magic. You'll serve nicely. The laraken will open a cavity in your body, plant an egg, and wait while it hatches. It will keep you alive while the offspring grows inside you, feeding off you. Slowly. Over months, or years. [16]
Sysquemalyn
Centuries ago, the black gulguthhydra hydra had been captured by the pit fiend Prinquis, and rooted in this corridor by magic. Over decades, it had scraped the walls clean, caught the occasional rat or bat or lesser imp, growing a tiny bit at a time, reaching a little further with tooth and tentacle. [2]
Ages ago, it seemed, the casura's many dead creatures had been an unholy army: imps, ghouls, ghasts, blind giants, barbed fiends, things without names. Together they'd battled the enemies of Prinquis, arch-fiend of these pits. Until treachery brought down the balor of the Abyss, ancient, deadly enemies who'd descended with joy and crackling whips to slay everything moving in this vast throne room. And the flint monster had been one of those enemies. And still was. [3]
My enemy, she sealed us in. But not all. Sloppy work, sloppy. I shall be free, outside, at last. Free to wreak vengeance. To kill… [3]
A skull: dark as flint, no hair, no ears, no eyelids, no lips, no nose, a block of stone poorly hacked into the shape of a human head. A thin neck of stone glistened wetly, then a wide-shouldered frame that canted to one side as if made misshapen. Prominent ribs and a pinched waist, bony pelvis without genitals, matchstick legs. Arms were two different lengths, but both sported long, black claws harder than diamonds. Feet were splayed lumps. [4]
Yes, death to all that oppose me! Death to all that live! But death to Sunbright and all the rest first! [4]
"No pity," cooed the monster. "Only pain. I'd fashioned a pocket of hell to punish my enemies. You, among others, for you betrayed me. But Polaris, she who'll die most exquisitely, turned the tables on me. She stripped me of skin, remember that? Peeled me like a chicken so I'd feel the punishments with every nerve end. Then she hurled me into my own private hell for a year, that I might suffer for my disobedience. And how long ago was that, dear 'Mas?"
"Wh-What?" the mage stuttered. He couldn't look away, hypnotized like a bird before a serpent. "Uh, it was a-a year-"
"It wasn't!" the monster shrieked. The banshee wail stabbed into Candlemas's brain. "A year passed! And another! And a third! Years longer than my sentence, when every day, every minute was a seething torment of agony! Polaris forgot me!" "I escaped! I grew this hide you see. I formed a whole skin from the rock walls that were my prison. I clad myself in stone, unpierceable, unstoppable. I became this hideous creature to escape the world of fiends, to enter the world of men, to get my revenge!" [10]
Far away, in a cave high in a mountaintop, the flinty Sysquemalyn touched the black glistening top of the scrying table. From this stronghold, out of reach of anyone without magic at his disposal, she smoothed the surface and spied on the world. And occasionally stepped into it disguised as the One King. Using that legend, she chuckled, was brilliance on her part. As with all messiahs, the One King's death had mattered little, for rumors circulated that one day he'd return to lead his people to greater heights. Of course, Sysquemalyn knew the original king had been a fake; a lich, a long-dead wizard with dreams of glory. Eventually, as always with such petty despots, the "One King" was exposed and killed, and his army fell apart. Sysquemalyn herself had served in the king's court as a vagabond bard or freebooter named Ruellana. She forgot the details. She'd been keeping an eye on Sunbright, tweaking odds to win her bet with Candlemas. But she knew the One King's ways, had heard his insipid speeches, and remembered that he'd scared the hell out of the Neth. Memories of his short reign lived on, for scrying in nooks and crannies of forgotten lands, the monster-mage had often seen the faded red hand on the worn tunics of bandits, orcs, and other misfits. So… employing a quick disguise, a flowery speech, many promises, a fistful of weapons, and threats of death, almost overnight Sysquemalyn had rejuvenated an army and aimed it like a fire arrow at her enemies. Even now, scores of bloodthirsty villains attacked outposts of the empire, especially the fields and orchards that fed Ioulaum and Specie, where Lady Polaris had homes, and the pastures and forests of Castle Delia, her country manor. Now she'd unleashed orcs upon the Rengarth Barbarians, whom she'd seen trekking across the prairie, bound for Sanguine Mountain, which would soon live up to its name. [12]
By donning the guise of the One King, she'd stirred up hordes of orcs and other villains, wounded the Netherese Empire sorely, butchered thousands of innocents, and lured Lady Polaris to a horrible quasi-life. But she needed the One King no longer [18]
Sunbright
Sunbright Steelshanks, barbarian, grabbed his much-smaller companion Knucklebones, part-elven thief [1]
he left his tribe, the Rengarth Barbarians of the tundra. How his father, Sevenhaunt, a great shaman, had died suddenly, mysteriously wasting away. How Owldark, the new shaman, dreamed a vision that showed Sunbright the ruin of his people, and so demanded his death. How his mother, Monkberry, warned her only child to take his father's sword and flee. How he'd fled to the "lowlands," as barbarians called all territories south, for no single individual could survive on the tundra. And of his adventures to hell and to the future, where he met Knucklebones, then returned. How he'd conquered death. How in a few years, the boy had grown to a man, then a warrior, and finally a shaman. [1]
the warhammer tucked into his belt. The long head bore a parrot's beak and crushing face, a tool for war, more a dwarf's weapon than a man's. "I've carried this a long time, with a pledge," he said. "I told Dorlas's brethren in Dalekeva that I would one day return the hammer to his kinfolk. I could return it now. [2]
Harvester's pommel and stabbed straight. The long sword was unlike any other seen in the Rengarth tribe, won by his father decades ago in the southlands. The blade curved slightly from the pommel, then widened so the nose was fatter than the shank. Yet metal had been cut from the tip's back to form a wicked barbed hook. Thus the sword could stab, chop, or tear on the back draw. [2]
"The only one of your gods that makes sense to me is Kozah the Destroyer, lord of storm and wildfire and rage. Or Vaprak the Destroyer, god of ogres. [6]
a shaggy head. The man wore his hair like Sunbright's, shaved at the temples, with the distinctive roach and horsetail of the Rengarth. "Rattlewater! He's a cousin, many removed! Who else is there?" Slowly the image widened, until Sunbright saw Rattlewater talking to Leafrebel, his wife. The two argued, it was clear: the man stabbing the air angrily, the woman shaking her head, tight-lipped. Behind them Sunbright saw a reindeer hide painted with a raven, totem of his clan. The picture widened further, and he saw other folks sitting around the common house fire. He recognized Forestvictory, and thought he saw Archloft. The picture lit up as the fire itself was revealed. A copper pot of cornmeal bubbled at its side [6]
As promised, the same scene appeared, the common house, but time had lapsed, and the dim room was empty except for an elderly couple who huddled by the fire and gazed into smoky depths. "Iceborn and Tulipgrace! Oh, Mother Reindeer guide me! I need to see more!" [7]
"This sigil," Sunbright mused, "brings back memories. The red hand is-or was-the blazon of the One King. A messiah king from the east, they said, who'd bring peace and prosperity, promote goodwill among the speaking races. We once met a party of orcs who invited us to tea! Their starry-eyed leader rambled all night of how wonderful the world would be once the One King ruled it. But when I was hauled before the king I, uh, lost my temper and tried to swipe his head off. I only dented his skin. He was a lich in disguise, an undead lord with big plans. "And?" Knucklebones said. "Did you kill him, for Mystryl's sake?" "Hunh? Oh, no. A red dragon tore down the wall and crisped him. Weren't even ashes left. I thought the king's crusade would die out, but later I met fools flocking to his banner. They wouldn't believe he was dead. And here's an orc with the symbol fresh-painted. And they carry steel weapons, and ride ahorse. Odd behavior for orcs…" [13]
A long-fingered hand clamped atop Sunbright's head. Flexing claws like broken glass dug in, punctured his shaven temples and scalp. Sunbright felt blood start, and his skull ached. Yet something, he sensed, kept his skull from collapsing. An elf had tied a bead to his horsetail thong, he recalled. Did that protect him? [20]
"Drigor's doing. I gave him my sword, Harvester of Blood, you see, and he cut it up, reforged it into twenty-odd horse bits." A chorus of protests welled, barbarians stunned at the news. That legendary sword, a sword of kings, chopped into scrap metal? Sunbright cut off the protests by jingling the steel bit. "We needed steel for our new way of life, so I gave up my enchanted sword. I hope some enchantment lingers in these new tools. Harvester of Blood has become many Harvesters of Horses! Now, who wants one?" [21]
Rengarth
One. The Angardts dwell on the plains below Redguard Lake, near the Far Horns Forest, but we split from them ages ago. They adopted magic, taboo to my people. The feud ran bloody and long, and finally they retreated south. Were I to approach, I'd be skinned alive. Funny, considering how I've learned to use magic. [4]
From the Earthmother, and the land itself. A little magic is acceptable, such as healing and blessing weapons and homes and crops, but were I to conjure a storm, say, many would take it amiss. I could be stoned to death, or buried alive, or staked out and sacrificed. Still, my father could call the spirits of the dead, even elementals. My grandfather could shapeshift to mimic Brother Seal and Grandfather Walrus… but I ramble. [4]
His people had never camped near towns before [7]
"The Channel Mountains! The last we call the Anchor! [7]
"I don't know if you've been north, but the tundra is dying. Or sleeping. We don't know which. Perhaps it's some cycle that runs centuries, beyond the memory of our tribe. Howsoever, the Earthmother could no longer sustain us. The reindeer were scrawny, calves dropped stillborn, salmon ran thin…" She went on, listing small disasters that Sunbright already knew. Finally she came to,"… We knew we couldn't remain, so we moved south, to the edge of the tundra. But immediately the cycle of our lives was broken, and we felt uprooted. With nothing to hunt or gather, we were bereft of work, lacking any way to make a living. "Owldark did not help. He recounted dream after dream, led us hither and yon along the southern shore, aimlessly. We were not welcome in the villages of south-men, so many mouths to feed and nothing to trade, and their harvests have been poor. "Blown by the winds, whipped from place to place, we finally stopped here, where Owldark commanded. His next dream would lead us on, but food ran low. Our reindeer could not walk many miles over stone and sand, so were eaten. With nothing to feed the dogs, we had to eat them, and carry our belongings on our backs. After a while, the strongest men and women went to Scourge, seeking work. They found a few jobs, the vilest chores southmen refused: shoveling fish too rotted to salt, breaking up old ships for firewood, wrestling and knife-fighting for sport. The townsfolk hate us, hate everyone, and mocked our barbarous accents and superstitions. "Yet we've survived so far: no children have died of hunger. Yet none are born either, for our women's wombs shrivel, like our spirits. And so have we languished for too long." She laid her hand on the rim of a redware bowl as she said, "Even the water is brackish, half salt, not fit for cattle."
"The council argued with Owldark, and each other," she told him. "Some thought we must remain. The gods drove us from the tundra, they said: our own faults and sins brought it on. So we must linger in hell on earth as punishment. Others urge we go elsewhere, but cannot agree. Even our ancestral summer lands lie empty and fallow. Others would have us return to the tundra to die, like lemmings in the sea, or whales on the beach. Others brood over wine fetched in the village. Some wandered and didn't return, we know not whence. Destroyed in spirit, some women married town men and no longer visit. Some youngsters have joined the emperor's ranks as soldiers and been sent far away. Perhaps that is right, for nothing lies here for anyone." "Owldark tried. Despite the pains in his head, he trekked the wastes, fasting, scourging himself with thorns, beseeching the gods for an answer. Any answer. Then he didn't return, and the hunters searched. They found his bones in a ravine. Wolves had eaten him, probably after he fell. So we lost our homelands and traditions and work, and now we have no shaman to guide us."
The broad, craggy features of Blinddrum, his old sword instructor. Blinddrum was a huge man, taller even than Sunbright
Sunbright recognized Thornwing, the other sword instructor, and his cousin Rattlewater; and Leafrebel, Forestvictory, Archloft, Rightdove, Goodbell, Mightylaugh, Magichunger, and Starrabbit.
"You asked what tradition I could invoke that would make them listen. Killing the council fire was one. Yet I'm still banished-unless I have promised a duel to satisfy an insult. It's the only way I can remain with the tribe.
Sunbright tilted his sword down, raised his voice so all could hear, and said, "This is a formal duel, not a brawl. We needs pray so Amaunator, Keeper of Law, will oversee the fight and maintain fairness. Otherwise Shar, the Shadowy Seductress, might cast a veil over one of us; or Tyche, Lady Doom, might, on some whim, visit one with luck. To pray before a duel has always been a tradition amongst our people, has it not? Or has everyone forgotten that?" Folk muttered. Some frowned at the interruption, but old Iceborn, blind and seeing only in his mind, quavered, "He speaks aright! It was always thus!" Sunbright twirled a circle, raised his arms, and called out, "Rengarth, pray with me! Keeper of the Sun, please hear us! Send us truth, send us light, send us wisdom as we see these men battle for what is just! We praise thy name!" The crowd echoed, "Praise Amaunator!" [9]
Why not just execute him? Who would wear the wolf masks? Did they even have a wolf mask now? [9]
only the council can change the rules of a duel. True?" [9]
it's tradition in our tribe to steal wives and husbands, for we're forbidden to marry within the tribe. My own mother was stolen from the Angardt in a raid. Father said he picked the female who fought back the wildest, then just hung on. He showed me scars she gave him, bite marks that never went away. He lacked an earlobe that my mother spat out. Mostly we marry other barbarians, but some have dark hair. Note you Archloft has brown hair? He was kidnapped off a trail by a raiding party and married to Jambow." [9]
Thornwing waited. The woman was tall and rail-thin, bony across the shoulders and breast, with arms and legs of wire and gristle. A fighter, she wore the traditional haircut, shaved temples, roach of hair tugged back in a horsetail. She saluted with her sword. [9]
"A straight steel blade with a down-curved pommel ending in two lobes. Was that not forged in Remembrance, near Sunrest Mountain and the Glorifier? Yet in the past the Rengarth used only iron or bronze blades made at home. Is this some new tradition you introduced?" Thornwing shrugged, and said, "We needed a stronger blade to teach swordsmanship in Scourge, so traded our old swords for this new one. Some new things are good, though it is well to recall old traditions." [9]
Magichunger, a broad-shouldered man with scruffy red hair and beard [9]
Clan "White Bears” [9]
Without a word, Blinddrum took the sword, slashed his palm, and clasped Thornwing's. Forestvictory rose, laid flesh to sword, and clasped. Her lover, Starrabbit, followed. Then Archloft and Mightylaugh, and Goodbell, who carried her sleepy children forward, slit their fingers, and clutched them to her bosom. So many people joined they clasped in a mob. Rightdove joined. Old Iceborn was helped up and joined, though he had to slash his withered hands three times to draw blood. Then Tulipgrace. Rattlewater, Leafrebel, and many others, but not all. [10]
The shaman smoothed dirt, moved tiny stones, and said, "The fire must be laid just so, with the lines matching the compass and the tip pointing to the Sled, our northernmost star. Shamans are fussy. Ask my mother, who lived with one." [10]
"I must be alone for the ceremony. There are prayers to Jannath and Amaunator and such. And the fire must be lit at noon, and if the first spark doesn't take I need to wait another day. [10]
Sunbright knew this scene from his childhood, for once a year the tundra barbarians crossed the Narrow Sea and met their southern cousins to fish and fight and joke and carouse and flirt. But of these southern folk, the clans of Tortoise and Saber-Tooth and Hellbender, he saw no sign. No one in the tribe knew where they were, another link to the past gone missing. [11]
More shouting went on outside where the walls of the common house had been removed. Anyone who'd killed an enemy or born a child could speak in council, and over three hundred barbarians gathered every night. Someone snatched the speaking stick from Magichunger and thrust it into Sunbright's hands. [11]
Forestvictory's. The woman, big all over with forearms like hams [11]
"You're our best fighter, after Blinddrum and Thornwing, and by tradition neither of them can be war chief. [11]
"As war chief," he grumbled, "I lead the fighters in skirmishes? And when attacked, everyone must do as I say until the enemy is beaten off?" [11]
"Barbarians hold grudges forever, Knucklebones. From before birth even, for we're born into feuds going back to the day New Man rose from the ice. [11]
Watercourse, the eastern boundary of the Rengarth's ancestral lands. [12]
the Victory Dance [12]
By day the tribe sprawled over a mile of grasslands, some four hundred thirty people and a handful of noisy dogs. Their woven baskets of cooking goods and blankets and tools were small, dragged by rawhide shoulder straps on travois, long sticks that striped the grass behind. The poplar poles acted as ridge poles for tents every evening. Rengarth Barbarians usually traveled with much bigger travois hauled by half-wild reindeer, but now they had none. In town they had captured brutish, garbage-eating dogs that they were beating into submission, or eating the untractable ones. Still, even in near-poverty, most of the tribe was glad to be moving again-doing something, anything, instead of rotting. [12]
Hunters armed with longbows and daubed with yellow mud crept far ahead of the tribe. When they could, they downed wily pronghorn antelope, skinny mule deer, and shaggy wild horses. The meat was tough and stringy, with hardly any fat so vitally needed, though the barbarians ate everything except the ears and hooves. Still, meat was scarce, and everyone hungered all the time. [12]
"Children are assigned to clans on their second birthday. They're picked randomly so the families are mixed up, so no family is pitted against another in a feud. It gives the children something to cling to as they grow, another circle besides parents and brothers and sisters. We have, let's see, eight clans: Raven, Elk, Griffon, White Bear, Beluga, Snow Tiger, Thunderbeast, and Gray Wolf. You draw wisdom and strength from your totem animal. In dire straits, I've been visited by ravens with advice." [12]
"How does one become a member of the tribe?" "Marry a member. Be born to it. Ask to join. Or just come in and stay. Some wander in and never leave. After a time, we accept them. Or you can be captured." "Wife-stealing must make you unpopular with neighbors." "What else can we do? We're a small tribe, and most related by blood. You can't marry a cousin, it's taboo. The elders would disallow it. So, if you need a wife, or husband, the best way is to hunt a stranger." lie in wait by the side of a road or visit a town or marketplace, pick out someone you fancy, follow them home, stuff them in a hide sack, and carry them off. They're homesick for a while, but get over it eventually. [12]
newcomers get clan animals? Totems?" " From their partners'," said Sunbright. "Or they can pick another. Which will you choose? The night owl? The sewer rat? How about the porcupine [12]
Sunbright related the old familiar tales. How White Bear Lost His Tail. Why the Sky Burns Gold. How Dima and Nunki Tricked the Frost Giants. How Solenska Won the Heart of Ega. Yellow firelight reflected from the faces of young and old attending stories funny and sad, romantic and courageous. Sunbright was glad, for those tales were more than entertainment. They taught truth and friendship and honor and love. The stories, more than anything else, formed the history of this proud northern race. Without them, the tribe would just be a collection of strangers. Gradually, other storytellers arose to fill the starry sky with wonder. Forestvictory, so capable a trail chief, related Why Whales Live in the Sea. Crabbranch, quiet and shy, stammered through The One-Eyed King and his Wife. Old Iceborn, blind and half deaf, dredged from memory an ancient tale even he'd forgotten, a rousing saga of barbarians warring over The Magic Spring. Even Magichunger caught the fever, and hemmed and hawed through The Two Brothers. [12]
"Where are they?" hollered Strongsea. "Who are they?" shrilled Kindbloom. [13]
Firstfortune stamped to a halt, aimed her bow, and shot. [13]
Crabbranch and Kindbloom and Strongsea [13]
Blackblossom [13]
"Riding's a soft southern custom, for sissies. Barbarians walk. We only harness reindeer, and we ain't got none." "We kayak," put in Crabbranch. "This hide would make a fine boat." [13]
"I've never heard of orcs on the prairie, and suddenly they're thick as fleas," Sunbright mused. "Iceborn and Tulipgrace only recall it once, ages ago, when drought burned the highlands. [13]
Days ago, Forestvictory had declared her task as trail chief ended with the trail, so Goodbell was appointed camp chief. Now the young woman, with twins slung on her back and a third swelling her belly, directed the laying out of wigwams and slit trenches for latrines, the packing with sticks and mud for a small dam to widen an errant stream, the digging of fire pits, and other tasks. [13]
a tall barbarian named Wreathhonor [13]
Lightrobin [13]
Kingfeather was killed [14]
It was Archloft, Nightchild's blanket partner. "We need his body." [14]
"The Rengarth always bring out their dead!" shrilled Forestvictory. "Always!" "You must go back for him!" yelled another. "And who made Sunbright war chief if Magichunger falls? A shaman is never war chief! It's not allowed!" called a fourth. [14]
Yet their shouts died as Rightdove pointed to the blue-white gleam on Magichunger's leg. "Witchlight!" Rightdove gasped. "Did you do this, Sunbright?" [14]
Peacefinger, a small red-haired woman [15]
Darkname [15]
how many have fallen to the Shadow Folk (elves????) [15]
peaker after speaker took the talking stick and heaped the tribe's woes at Sunbright's feet. [15]
"Whoever has slain an enemy or born a child may speak in council. There is no custom against an outsider speaking. Long ago, when Heatherhill was chief, a man from the city came-" [15]
"She draws blood in council! It is forbidden!" shouted an onlooker. "Mightylaugh tore the stick away! That is forbidden by our most ancient laws!" countered another. [15]
Strongsea, who resembled his long-dead father, Farmyouth. [17]
A boy and a girl, Greatreeve and Meadowbear [18]
Graysky [18]
"By the Wild Fire, I'd forgotten that! [18]
For hours the young shaman concentrated, especially on his ancestors, shamans all, who stretched through history to before there was a tribe called Rengarth. He vied to pull ancestors from the depths of time. Past Sevenhaunt, his father. Past Shortdawn, his grandfather. Past Waterfly, his great-grandmother. Past Crystalfair, mother of Waterfly. And other shamans such as brain-crazed Owldark and crusty old Deertree, many more, until in his half-dream Sunbright was crowded by shamans so thick he could smell fur and musk and sweat and hair. They all possessed powers. Sevenhaunt could talk with the dead. Waterfly could fly the polar night. Shortdawn could fashion walls with his mind: walls of ice, fog, light, or noises of beasts. Crystalfair could shapeshift to swim with seals or run with wolves. Deertree could wear horns of wisdom granted by Mother Reindeer. May I have a power? asked Sunbright in his mind. Just a little. To save Knucklebones, whom I love. It seems a small thing to ask. Any power would help. Sunbright prayed to his ancestors for the power of the Thunderbeast, that his skin might boil and curdle and harden, and his footfalls crash like thunder. Or the wind wings of Sky Pony. Or the ferocity of Red Tiger, or the quickness of Gray Wolf, or the mad fury of Blue Bear. Even the roar of the Black Lion would aid him. [20]
The tundra never did heal, for the empire lands, drained of life by the alien Phaerimm and exhausted by the greed of the archwizards, declined slowly like a forest of dying redwoods. After the End of the End, the last vestiges of the Netherese Empire were swallowed by sand to become Anauroch, the Great Desert. The Narrow Sea dried year by year, eventually disappearing, so the High Ice and Sunbright's tundra receded into a rocky wasteland. With the tundra died the Rengarth Barbarians' way of life, but under the guidance of Sunbright and Knucklebones, and their descendants, the Rengarth lived on, though they eventually changed into- But that's another story… [Epilogue]
Knucklebones
"I've seen forty summers, stripling!" [9]
Her father Eaerlanni, most ancient of the Shadow Folk… A sad folk, beaten and blaming themselves, given to wandering… But, but But also Moon Elf, also Illefarni! The signs are jumbled, many streams flowing to one river, and the river running backward. Blood creating blood, and flowing through time [18]
it turns out you are Greenwillow." "What?" she breathed. The thief's mouth hung open, her single eye stared. "Reincarnated…" Sunbright fought sleep to relate the vital news, "You were born in the future, three hundred years from now, but all things return to their roots. Brookdweller read your past lives. A recent one was Greenwillow. That's why you called me country mouse. It's why I confused you and Greenwillow in dreams. It's why we were attracted in the first place, because I was hunting Greenwillow. Fate brought us together, but I ignored you to find Greenwillow, when you were both by my side all the time…" [21]
"My father, Marshwind. My mother, Pinemagic. My sisters Gracewealth, Butterfly, Earthstork, and my brother, Fullshrub." From the Star Mounts in the High Forest [21]
Tundra
Where the land begins to fall again. A shallow rill feeds a frozen stream that drops off a low cliff at a rookery into an arm of the Narrow Sea. My people ice fish at this time of year, then pack the sledges and search for reindeer before spring. [1]
Oh, no. Summer's a sea of mud. Bog so thick and gooey it jerks your boots off. No, in summer you're a prisoner of the land, and have to camp by the sea and stay put. In winter you can hitch up dog or reindeer sleds, or strap on snowshoes or skis, and go wherever you want. No, this is the finest time of year!" [1]
Snow Lurkers? No, not many. There's not much for them to eat. And when they do catch something, reindeer mostly, though sometimes polar bears, they curl up and digest for months. My people kill them when they can. I should have been more alert, should have seen its track. [1]
Arctic ants. The ants are cold-blooded, but storing food underground in their burrows makes heat and wisps of steam. Ants often burrow near lurkers to pick up scraps of food, and they swarm over the beast's hide after lice. They help each other survive. Everything up here works together. [1]
down that rill we'll find my tribe. They've wintered here for centuries, pulling the whitefish through the ice and salting them down [1]
Sunbright and Knucklebones searched from the Channel Mountains in the east, north past the fork at Two Rivers, then westward along the edge of the High Ice, where even polar bears didn't go. [2]
Sunbright patiently explained that his people always followed this route, for as the snow retreated, the reindeer came after, cropping the soft moss of the tundra, until the herd reached the High Ice and turned westward. Yet there was no evidence of any tribe. Disturbingly, Sunbright noted the reindeer herd was thinner, the animals gaunt. The moss was thin, and the tiny purple blossoms he remembered from his youth were sparse. The land is weak," he told Knucklebones. "Even the deer's bones are flimsy. All these skulls of infant reindeer means they're stillborn, which means their mothers are sickly. The life of the land is being sapped somehow. [2]
The tundra is a hard country, but a fragile one, though it seems contradictory," he told her. "It only supports a few beasts and birds, so they rely on one another to survive. Reindeer eat the moss and leave droppings. Birds pick out seeds and bugs that live in the droppings. The birds in turn carry the seeds far and wide. That spreads the moss, keeps muddy spots from growing barren. The new growth attracts musk oxen, who churn the soil with their hooves and leave more manure, and so on, in a closed circle. If one part is removed, the circle falls apart. If the weather grows too warm, as happened once, lungworm sprout in the musk oxen. Too many worms kill the calves. Then the soil isn't turned over, barren spots spread, water erodes the wallows so the earth is scarred, the moss grows thinner, the reindeer starve [2]
Netheril
Knucklebones dropped, unable to close for fear of being sheared herself. She could only pray to Shar, the God of Thieves, the Greater Power of the Gray Waste [1]
high cliffs topped by the Cold Forest and the icy mountains of the Dementia Range in the distance. Skirting the Bay of Ascore, Sunbright sought work in Sepulcher and Arctic Rim. He found it easily, for the towns were starved for meat. Even townsfolk saw that the once vast herds had thinned, and few would enter the trackless bogs for food. [2]
They'd rented a small cabin along the water, in sight of the Barren Mountains. Sunbright found this ironic, for there he'd begun his adventures, years ago. [2]
Embarking on a small caravel with lateen sails, they were ferried down the Narrow Sea, past Vandal Station, past Northreach, past Frostypaw and Coldfoot, and through the Channel Lock. At Harborage the two asked after the Rengarth Barbarians, but received only blank looks. All summer Sunbright had asked everyone he met, travelers and locals alike, for the whereabouts of his tribe, but none knew. As far as the northwestern reaches of the empire were concerned, the Rengarth had vanished, and their ancestral lands stood empty. Wondering, and growing more fearful all the time, Sunbright had decided to sail into the eastern arm of the Narrow Sea and inquire there. But even at the crossroads of Harborage, they found no trace. [2]
Delmar was Sunbright's height but broad as an ox across the shoulders. He had dark skin, dark, curly hair and a beard to his chest, a tight blue shirt hacked off at the shoulders, and woolen breeches above rawhide boots. His arms and fists were hard as oak stumps from a lifetime of hauling baggage and wrangling horses, and he knew how to brawl [4]
Aselli, caravan mistress, travelling to Quagmire. Delmar works for her. [4]
Asking in Quagmire, she'd found a tavern, then a boatmaster with a shipment of grain bound for Ioulaum. There were many shipments as the city stocked up for winter before drifting south. The tipsy boatmaster had agreed, after haggling over the "fare," to pack them in a hollow behind sacks of rye. [5]
There are maps of all the enclaves in the libraries. [5]
They rotate enclaves at varying speeds. The Netherese consider it lucky to view the dawn, so nobles favor the eastern side to build their homes. So the western side is less prosperous, and houses are smaller. The paint fades at a different angle and rate. There are signs in a city, same as a forest." [5]
Enclaves are mostly hollow, to save weight so the mythallar doesn't have to work so hard. When they build one, they drill all sorts of tunnels in odd shapes. Some have uses right away, like sewers or grain storage or water pipes. Others are for future expansion, or just a whim." [5]
Are thieves captured often?" "And robbed by the guards, yes. Usually they're forced into labor gangs on the ground. Unless you hurt or kill a guard. Then they fly you home." "Home where?" "Earthmother. They pitch you off the island to 'fly' to earth." [5]
"Catching thieves gives the guards work. What would you have them do, arrest mages? Besides, many rogues are only part-time. Otherwise they toil at the docks, or black boots, or dig graves. Which lets them pilfer leather, cut purses, and loot the dead. Besides, when I pay half my 'winnings' to the guild, the guild pays half to the authorities." [5]
"Do they erect statues to the god of thieves in the enclaves?" "They try," They erect statues to Shar with big purple agates for eyes, but thieves steal the eyes, leaving her blind. It's a funny tribute." [6]
Knucklebones just stared. In the distance winked the Narrow Sea, a silver so bright it shone white. At its shore, and surrounding the toe of the last Channel Mountain, the peak called the Anchor, lay the villainous town whose name had become Scourge. Punished by hard winds off the sea, the town saw any steel mysteriously rust away within weeks. Since industry could not prosper, the town had fished until the fish thinned out. Good people left, the desolate stayed. Them, and plagues of rust monsters. The idle population turned to thieving and infighting, until Scourge gained its name as a place to avoid.
Jannath the Golden Goddess [10]
a wispy lesser mage named Jacinta [10]
Candlemas huffed to a halt. Two hundred and fifteen years old, he was still in his prime, but long hours and good food had slowed him down. Dressed in a plain brown smock and rope sandals, pudgy and bald with a bushy black beard, an observer would never know Candlemas was a leading mentalist of his time. In fact, hardly anyone in the Netherese Empire, archwizard or lowest peasant, knew where Candlemas was, or what he'd been attempting. And after three long years- [10]
He'd chanted to Mystryl, Mother of Magic; and Jannath, Grain Goddess, She Who Shapes All. He'd invoked spells by the dozen: Prug's plant control, Anglin's wall, Fahren's glitterdust, Shan's web. [10]
Valdick's forcecage before sizzling chain lightning, some variant of Volhm's chaining [10]
Even Undine's door, with no idea of his destination, would be enough. [10]
the weird, twisted sounds of Quantoul's selfmorph. The change was instant. An observer wouldn't have known if Candlemas truly changed, or merely swapped himself with some other-worldly horror. For the thing that suddenly hung in air was a purple granite cone taller than Sysquemalyn. Its bottom was hollow and ringed with savage teeth. Tentacles dangled and flapped. Two blind eyes like milky pearls started from its side. [10]
All that remained to mark Candlemas's life and work was the blight-curing spell, quietly percolating at the edges of the valley, quietly dispelling the poisonous rust, then passing over the hill and jumping to other fields. And on and on, to the horizon and beyond. [10]
Sanguine Mountain, so called because it bled red rust from a deep crevice in the rainy season. [11]
Once, high up in the sky, they spotted a floating city like a man-of-war jellyfish on the clouds. Knucklebones guessed it was Sanctuary. The next morning it drifted south. Sunbright recalled there were pockets in the north so drained of magic that the enclaves could not overpass them, lest they fall. Such was the greed and waste of the Neth. [12]
Orcs avoided the prairie, preferring to strike from forest and scrub with plenty of cover and ways to retreat. [13]
Everywhere on the outskirts of the Netherese Empire, fire and sword and steel reigned supreme. Zenith was attacked by pirates swarming from the Marsh of Simplicity and sacked, the gates breached and torn down, the marketplace and city hall burned. Near Earsome, orcs massacred religious pilgrims and heaved their bodies into Kraal Brook until the rapids overflowed their banks. The muscular mining community of Bandor Village was overrun by bandits that burned scaffolds and sluices and hoppers, but worse, introduced a throat-rotting plague that claimed four thousand lives. Angardt Barbarians took revenge on Thiefsward, long suspected of cheating them, and crucified the city elders and dozens more on the high wooden gates. Kobolds and goblins dragged ballistae and catapults and siege towers from Blister and laid siege to Frothwater. The noise awoke a jacinth dragon, rarest of beasts, that swooped upon the remnants of both armies. Trolls rose from the ground near Coniferia and burned their own forests, so smoke blackened the sky for days and ash smothered winter crops. Even Seventon, birthplace of the Empire of Netheril, was overrun by orcs of the Eastern Forest. More than the people, the land suffered. Already strained by the life-drain of the Phaerimm, the fields of the empire felt the axe, the torch, the scythe, and the spade. Rampaging armies burned ripe grain, chopped down orchards, slashed vineyards, slaughtered cattle and hogs and fowl. Half the harvest was lost. Food shortages became so acute even the highborn Neth looked up from their gaming tables and decided to take action. What they saw were not petty raids, but concerted action by many scattered factions of humans and monsters. Most wore the bloody red hand of the One King. The empire roused their army: young, battle-hardened, scarred veterans under officers with twenty or more years' experience, fitted with the finest armor and honed steel. But the empire had grown complacent in decades past, had cut back the army to save money, and the current forces were stretched to the limit. Sometimes they conquered, sometimes they were overwhelmed. Yet the raids increased, and in the wake of marauders flowed other horrors: wyverns, tanar'ri, plagues, elementals, dragon-kin, swarms of magebane and kalin, and more. Then, a call for truce. Messengers of the One King, unarmed and carrying a banner with a bright red hand, approached Ioulaum, oldest of cities, and delivered a dispatch. The One King would meet a negotiator for the empire atop Widowmaker Mountain at the next new moon. But the king insisted on choosing the envoy. He would address only the strongest, most brilliant, most capable archwizard of the entire empire. Lady Polaris. [16]
For this occasion, each boat was painted black and white, the ambassador's colors, and black banners marked by an ornate white P [16]
repeated shift spell [16]
an anti-shifting sphere such as protected floating enclaves. [16]
We journeyed to Zenith for the Festival of the Harvest Moon [17]
Hilel, the leader of this horse-trading humans of Low Netheril [17]
Diota, Hilel's wounded wife [17]
swing around Vandal Station and follow the Bay of Ascore to the Waterbourne River. But in winter, that'll be frozen. [17]
Hilel's oldest son, a brawny young man named Micah [18]
Iron Mountains
A storm rushing over the Iron Mountains pelted them with snow (Iron Mountains south of Netheril possibly south of the Barren Mountains????) [2]
shaggy beasts like upright cattle. Horns jutted from the sides of their heads, and from some dangled tiny bells on leather thongs that jingled. These cow-beings possessed the bleached skulls along the trail, then. Their long hands bore blunt, black nails, and all carried curved wooden staves. Surprised by her rush, a yak-man shrank back to aim the end of his staff. Knucklebones gave him no chance. Doubling her fist of brass knuckledusters, she slammed the yak-man hard on the nose. [2]
I seek the Sons of Baltar. I have-something to give Drigor. [3]
We own little here in the Iron Mountains, we Sons of Baltar. Scanty food, iron used up, little coal to burn. So, for generations now, our children are our resource. We train our sons and daughters to war, and send them into the world of men to fight as soldiers and bodyguards. Many never return to this, our ancestral home. [3]
Drigor, son of Yasur [3]
We conserve food and fighters because of yak-men. What you saw yesterday was another scout party. The yak-men covet our mountains. They push in from the east, and we are busy killing them. This takes food, and we have barely enough to feed ourselves.[3]
The elk and goats did not climb as high this autumn, and even the high-dwelling chamois have moved to lower meadows to scratch moss. Scouts tell us the lichen and gorse is thin on the highest peaks, and not recovering from their graze. [3]
yak-men press in from the east, outside the empire. I wonder if they too find their land can't support them. [3]
Deep in the Iron Mountains, Drigor and Cholena, his sometimes wife [6]
Ayaz died for nothing? And Ridon and Nodin [6]
"We must defend our homeland," Cholena chided. "The Sons of Baltar have inhabited these mountains for centuries. It's-" "Aye, centuries," Drigor interrupted, "but not forever, not since the first dwarf sprang from a glacier by the breath of Igashum. I've lived here all my life, three centuries, but my father, Yasur, came from the Rampant Mountains, which tall men call Gods' Legion. [6]
Cappi and Pullor and Oredola, young dwarves [6]
Cholena slain by the flint demon. Cholena, who'd given him a son years ago [6]
we once saved you from yak-men in White Owl Pass. [15]
Ioulaum
Elkan's must be an ironmongery, selling pothooks and bricklayer's hods, in the Street of Blue Cobbles on the west side. Knock twice, then once, then twice, and say Kibbe sent you." (thieves’ guild entrance) [5]
a virtual village at the bottom. In a catacomb bored from stone ran tunnels and passageways and balconies filled with smoky taverns, shops, a smith, a washroom with hot and cold water, niches with beds, and a common room where three dozen roisterers cheered a wrestling match among two women and a man. The air reeked of sweat and ale and smoke and ham and soap and drain water, and rang to the sound of hammers, laughter, jokes, creaking bellows, laundry slapping, and children splashing one another. [5]
A mage named Bly can scry what we need. She lives in the Street of the Faithful Protector on the east side. [5]
City guards in polished lobstertail helmets and yellow tunics emblazoned with I for Ioulaum carried silver-tipped maces and I-shaped shields with gasglobe lanterns bolted to the upper bar. [5]
Senon, lives in the catacombs with the thieves, fat man, secretly a spy for the city guards [6]
The legends recalled Ioulaum was sheared from one of the Unholy Mounts, Redsnow or Bloody Hill, where an orcish army was wiped out. This is that cavern. [6]
The Street of the Faithful Protector sported a statue of Tyche where it branched from a roundabout. The goddess-more capricious than faithful, Sunbright knew-was tall and willowy with a clinging gown. The statue was etched from some iridescent metal, or else enspelled, so dawn light scintillated across the surface like a rainbow. One outthrust arm of the goddess arched down the street as if to point their way. [6]
The door of Bly the Seer [6]
Bly was so old her white skin was like parchment etched with unreadable writing. Drawn-back hair was white, and her face was painted on. She wore a quilted gown of silver and blue that failed to hide a rail-thin figure. Sunbright reflected that, if these archwizards could sustain life for centuries, Bly must be near the limit. Killed by the fiend [6,7]
"Anyone with sense does," Bly replied. "That's why I need flyers. A team. I've had a standing wager with Lady Fayina for months now-we contest ownership of a building on the north side-but we've been unable to secure flyers. Too many have been killed, and the new ones are incompetent. She's hired two airboaters from Buoyance and challenged me. And-Lady of Luck-in walk you two daring freebooters! Surely Tyche favors me, and all who adorn her street!" [7]
Thirty thousand crowns wouldn't buy that spell [7]
Lord Kyle [7]
Lord and Lady Greatas [7]
Dementia Range
Like many Icebeast Orcs, he was tall, almost six feet, with long limbs and hands that could break bones. With the approach of winter, gray hair thickened on his hide like a mountain pony's. [12]
Toch, chief of a troop of icebeast orcs in the Dementia Range. Once served in the One King’s army [12]
Kab, orc in Toch’s troop [12]
The land was difficult to cross, either naked rock or stunted cedars and heather and gorse, impossible tangles that forced the orcs to game trails or open spaces. The troop had done well raiding around Ascore and Sepulcher and Cantus. Too well. Men and dwarves banded together to root the orcs from the forest, even sending hated war dogs. Toch's troop retreated to the foothills of the Dementia, but found little game. Goats were swift and bouncy, remorhaz and condors inedible, wolves and mammoths wary, humans nonexistent, and cave trolls considered orcs slave-fodder. So, after a frustrating summer in the north, Toch led his band out of the mountains, but the southern forests were infested with elves, and the prairie too open. Now where? West, into unknown lands? Or perhaps he should reduce the force, kill the older orcs and women, dry their meat, and whip the able fighters across the prairie to fat lands in the far south. They had to go somewhere, always roving as orcs had for centuries, wandering over the next hill, scrounging what they could. [12]
On a mount behind Toch stood the One King. The king was human, but his skin had a yellow cast that denoted orcish blood, orcs always believed. The man was tall, black-haired and bearded, with a long, solemn face that was as cold and pitiless as a corpse's. He wore silvery robes with a splayed hand red as blood, and a silver crown studded with gems black as coal. The Hornet, people in Tinnainen had called him, like a black-yellow insect in man's form. [12]
Barren Mountains
Cormanthyran Elves of the High Forest. Greenwillow's people! (wrong, cannot be Cormyth) [13]
"Are you real, Drigor, or a dream? I left you half a world away. On the other side of the empire." [15]
Oredola and Hachne of the Sons of Baltar [18]
Drigor had built a forge near an iron deposit at the foot of Sanguine Mountain.[18]
Cappi and Pullor journeyed to the distant Iron Mountains to tell the Sons of Baltar of the promise in the Barren Mountains. Through his message-bearers, Drigor hoped the entire tribe would relocate. The dwarves shook hands, were wished good luck, and stepped off on their thousand mile journey. [18]
Erig [19]
Far Forest
Wild black hair banded with headbands, smooth faces without war paint, boiled black armor and green shirts, and small slippers. Ornate swords swung at their hips. At their back hung quivers of black arrows and short, curved bows. The elves looked at one another. The middle one said, "We need you to negotiate a truce with your people. Orcs swarm into our forest from north and east, more every day, vast hordes. We cannot fight barbarians and orcs too. You must tell them-" [15]
three elven archers named Gladejoy, Deerspirit, and Lionmoon [17]
The elven contingent was a vision from a dream. Thirty of them were led by a tall elven woman with cascading white hair. They were mostly dressed alike, in soft green shirts and fine boots and armor, with some differences in rank. The leader, Pleasantwalk, wore no boiled breastplate, instead a pair of black epaulets on a harness, gem-studded black gloves, and a black helmet adorned with black leaves. She sat on a throne of blond wood ornately carved with birds and animals, worn smooth by ages of monarchs. The throne had been toted through the forest on the shoulders of courtiers, who were armed with curved black bows and sheaves of slim, black arrows. Sunbright had not spoken to this elven queen (if such she was), but only to Tamechild, her chancellor, who conveyed the shaman's messages to the queen only twelve feet away. [17]
the Moon Elves of the Far Forest, [17]
That Moon Elves, the Sons of Baltar, and the Rengarth Barbarians forget grudges, and declare peace! That the dwarves fortify the Barren Mountains. That the Moon Elves guard the Far Forest. And the Rengarth guard the prairie-" Sunbright plowed on, "Yes, yes, yes! True! And since the prairie can't support so many, the Moon Elves generously offer us the fringe of the forest for a depth of two leagues. From the grasslands, into the forest for six miles, to a river called the Delimbiyr. An escort will show you this boundary. A six-mile band, free, to use as we wish. In return, you must promise to guard the prairie from outside attack, and keep faith with elves and dwarves, and work together for the good of all. So elves may call on barbarians if needed, and humans might retreat to the dwarven mountains in an attack, or into the elven forest. "In short," Sunbright droned to a mesmerized audience, "you will swear-by blood oath-to harm neither elf nor dwarf, but aid all to keep out the orcs and other villains. In short, we build an alliance of people secure on their own turf-prairie, forest, and mountain-with secure borders. A mighty triangle that can withstand any force, from any direction!" Sunbright let his words die in the air, then shouted, "Children of the Rengarth, do you agree?" [17]
the elf said. "I am Starvalley. [18]
An elf named Blessedseed guided him and Knucklebones through the forest. A good thing, for these woods were enchanted and Sunbright knew he'd lose his way alone. [19]
He'd seen many forests, but this one was magical. Even in winter the oaks and birches and maples seemed alive, not dormant, glowing and vibrant with health. The sun shone brighter through their branches, as if through ice crystals, yet the earth felt warm to the touch, for snow never lingered long. Despite a chill, the air possessed a sweet tang, as in maple-sugaring season, and deer and foxes and even shaggy wood-bisons watched them pass, showing neither fear nor interest. How could that be? Sunbright wondered, when the elves killed game like anyone else? [19]
Brookdweller, ancient elven priestess [19]
"This is elven truesteel. Magic steel such as only elves make, such as I've seen only thrice in my many years. They fetched it from the forest. For you." Dully, Sunbright croaked, "And what do I do with it?" "Not you. Me and my helpers," the dwarf said. He stood only breast-high to the crowd, but was clearly in command. "With luck, and help from these pointy-eared blokes, we'll weld this strip to Harvester of Blood's edge. With our mumbling, and their enchantments, you'll gain a sword that'll cut anything-anything. A magic sword from a legend. A sword such as no dwarf or elf could ever create alone, but together…" [19]
From the darkness, elves approached Sunbright to surround him. They said nothing, but touched him in a dozen places with tiny things Sunbright supposed were charms or talismans. Slim elven fingers tucked a four-leaf clover into his sleeve. An elven woman tied a bead to the rawhide binding his hair. A young lad stooped and fastened a silver heart to an iron ring on his boot. A woman pinned a striped feather to his bosom. Other charms were laid on him. Finally old Brookdweller shuffled forward on twisted feet. Raising a withered fern, she brushed Sunbright from head to toe, back and front, even signaling to raise his arms to brush underneath, all the while she crooned a song like a lark's trill. Brushing his hands, she and the other elves drew back. [20] |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
Posted - 27 Feb 2023 : 21:47:25
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I actually thought Mortal Consequences was the best of the Netheril trilogy, probably because it had the most lore in it, especially of the Rengarth Barbarians.
Yes it was a bit tropey and stereotypical, but i got more of a sense of the world from this novel.
Some unusual bits - Shar as a god of thieves in Netheril, this must have changed over time and with the merging of pantheons.
It would appear the Rengarth worship the Netherese gods in -700 DR, kind of makes sense after millennia of trading and living alongside them.
It also looks like the Rengarth are now only one or two groups by -700 DR, with all the clans living in a single unit (and a more southerly almost agrarian cousin group south of the Narrow Sea). This probably happened as Netheril grew and swallowed up the ancestral lands. I'm theorising that after a rebellion or two the Rengarth were annexed into a smaller area until only a few hundred remained and then that group wandered the tundra mostly which Netheril didnt want.
Lots of lore about possible ancestor worship, and even an erroneous mention of the Uthgardt totems Black Lion, Blue Bear, Sky Pony, etc. But it reinforces the idea that originally the Rengarth worshipped special animals they encountered, as well as animals that they believe their relatives reincarnate into (Brother Seal, Grandfather Walrus).
Not too happy that Harvester of Blood got melted down, but i'm fairly certain a dwarven smith would not destroy a weapon fit for a king and the best thing he'd made in his life, so its entirely possible he hid the weapon and melted down some top quality metal instead.
Interesting that Candlemas supposedly solved the lifedrain spell with a few potions and herbs and spells mixed together. If it was that easy and took only 3 years, surely someone else would have done so. His death seemed to end that possibility but even if not, the phaerimm could have adapted their lifedrain spells to counter it over the next few centuries.
Double Diamond Saga next |
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Edited by - Gary Dallison on 27 Feb 2023 21:51:25 |
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Athreeren
Learned Scribe
144 Posts |
Posted - 28 Feb 2023 : 06:13:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
I actually thought Mortal Consequences was the best of the Netheril trilogy, probably because it had the most lore in it, especially of the Rengarth Barbarians.
Yes it was a bit tropey and stereotypical, but i got more of a sense of the world from this novel.
Some unusual bits - Shar as a god of thieves in Netheril, this must have changed over time and with the merging of pantheons.
It would appear the Rengarth worship the Netherese gods in -700 DR, kind of makes sense after millennia of trading and living alongside them.
It also looks like the Rengarth are now only one or two groups by -700 DR, with all the clans living in a single unit (and a more southerly almost agrarian cousin group south of the Narrow Sea). This probably happened as Netheril grew and swallowed up the ancestral lands. I'm theorising that after a rebellion or two the Rengarth were annexed into a smaller area until only a few hundred remained and then that group wandered the tundra mostly which Netheril didnt want.
Lots of lore about possible ancestor worship, and even an erroneous mention of the Uthgardt totems Black Lion, Blue Bear, Sky Pony, etc. But it reinforces the idea that originally the Rengarth worshipped special animals they encountered, as well as animals that they believe their relatives reincarnate into (Brother Seal, Grandfather Walrus).
Not too happy that Harvester of Blood got melted down, but i'm fairly certain a dwarven smith would not destroy a weapon fit for a king and the best thing he'd made in his life, so its entirely possible he hid the weapon and melted down some top quality metal instead.
Interesting that Candlemas supposedly solved the lifedrain spell with a few potions and herbs and spells mixed together. If it was that easy and took only 3 years, surely someone else would have done so. His death seemed to end that possibility but even if not, the phaerimm could have adapted their lifedrain spells to counter it over the next few centuries.
Double Diamond Saga next
Shar being the goddess of thieves reminded me of what Ed once said about Shar and Selune creating the world being divine PR. Are there references to how powerful Shar's cult actually was in Netheril?
I don't think there was a map in this book. Is it possible that Candlemass simply reversed the life drain locally, and saved a place that is now at the border of Anauroch?
It's weird how this series says that Greenwillow and Knucklebones are respectively a half-elf and a human with elven blood, but the narrative constantly treats them as an elf and a half-elf. I believe there was a controversy (diegetically and extradiegetically) on whether half-elves also reincarnate, but doesn't this novel answer it? There was nothing really particular to the circumstances behind Greenwillow's death, except for the fact it happened in the Nine Hells; so we should generalise her case, shouldn't we? Also, there's no reason to think that if Brookdweller was able to determine the origins of a soul, it shouldn't be hard to do it for any half-elf and finally settle that question. |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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TBeholder
Great Reader
2428 Posts |
Posted - 28 Feb 2023 : 07:53:53
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
Ka'Narlist refers to the Leviathan of the Earthmother, which of course he could never have known about as he died long before.
quote:
Originally posted by Athreeren
I am frankly amazed at how well informed the wemic is about a tale that occurred so long ago (as, unless that wemic is the source of Danilo for the chapter of Evermeet on Ka'Narlist, we can assume that he is a real character, one who is probably not even well known to drow). So some errors like when the Earthmother created the Leviathan in the Moonshae can be excused.
"It's a myth, I tell you!" 
Story contamination happens. In this case, possibly both before the wemic and after, by implicit narrator(s). Likely mixed Ka'Narlist with Akhlaur, among the other things. |
People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo. -Ed Whitchurch |
Edited by - TBeholder on 28 Feb 2023 07:55:13 |
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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Athreeren
Learned Scribe
144 Posts |
Posted - 28 Feb 2023 : 21:56:08
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
I have always been of the opinion that myths and legends even in FR, should not be taken literally. However, i fear we are in the minority in that regard and most everyone else still believes Mystra (or Mystryl) created the Weave
As opposed to? Because I believe that is a point Ed keeps hammering, that Mystra IS the weave. Unless you mean that she took over the original creator (but even then, it would be necessary to justify that Mystra is not that original creator, same as she is Midnight and Mystryl)? I agree to not take things literally, but when it comes from Ed with such constance, I would need good reasons to question that fact. |
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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 - 04 Mar 2023 : 10:17:26
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The Abduction (1377 DR maybe 1371 DR)
By Robert J King
Piergieron Paladinson
Shaleen, love of Piergieron Paladinson, now dead. Her hair was the auburn of an autumn evening. Her teeth had the gleam of pearls. [prelude]
Dreadnought, Piergieron’s white stallion [prelude]
Piergeiron. He drew his ornamental long sword. Halcyon [1]
Eidola, Piergieron’s new fiancée (looks like Shaleen). Attacked by doppelgangers which was slain by Piergieron [1]
Some Waterdhavians thought her a bad match for Piergeiron. Some even felt the Open Lord should be removed from office due to his lack of judgment. After all, the bedchamber is more persuasive than the council chamber. By marrying Piergetron, this mystery woman could wield untold power over the city. There were whispers of a price laid on her head. [2]
Waterdeep
Laskar Nesher, a fat nobleman with an illicit logging empire. The brown waistcoat he wore was just snug enough to make him look like a bratwurst, and his jowls were red from chafing on his lapels. A slender consort clung to his side. She was half his age, one fifth his bulk, and twice as quick with coin. Behind them trudged a teenaged boy who oozed boredom and fashionable disaffection. Master and Friend Laskar Nesher. and Heir Kastonoph Nesher. I have certain... information about the Lady Eidola—about her past... information she desperately wants to keep from her husband” "Don’t think of it as blackmail. I'm not asking her for money—just for the assurance of work. There's going to be lots of wood needed for bridges and corduroy roads once this trade pact is finished, and I want us to supply that wood." [1,3]
Stelar, escort of Laskar Nesher, openly squandering his father's money—Noph's own inheritance the woman was perceptive, shrewd, scandalously fun, and at five years his elder, an honest beauty. [1]
The marriage of Piergeiron Paladinson, Open Lord of Waterdeep, and Eidola of Neverwinter, Descendant of Boarskyr. The wedding will take place the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Days of Eleint, this Year of the Haunting. The feasting will begin at nightfall, the masked ball thereafter, as stomachs allow, and the nuptials at the stroke of midnight on the Eighteenth. Sandrew the Wise, Savant of Oghma at the Font of Knowledge, and Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun, High Mage of Waterdeep, will officiate. [1]
the Neshers—lumber money of the most vulgar kind. Piergeiron noted the conspicuous absence of their ever-prodigal son, Noph, the most pleasant member of an unpleasant crew. [1]
The much-touted trade route to Kara-Tur—now there was some money to be followedNoph's father had said that final approval of the route depended on Eidola. The last holdouts against the pact were kin of Eidola, and they would sign only after she had married the Open Lord. If the marriage were prevented, the pact would not be complete. Then, the nobles and guilds would retain the economic dynasties they had worked so hard to build. That's where the money led, to the nobles and guilds. [2]
Terrance Decamber—undersecretary to the Master Mariner's Guild. white, hair-lipped visage with blond curls and a hawkish nose. Plotting against Piergeiron with others, slain by Piergeiron [2]
Captain Rulathon, Piergeiron's second in-command of the city watch. This black mustachioed warrior His expertise at subtle reconnaissance was matched only by his knowledge of the folk of Waterdeep. Few impostors could sneak past him. [3]
Captain Jheldan"Stormrunner" Boaldegg, First Mariner of the Master Mariners' Guild. The white-bearded sea dog blinked in consideration, his scarred red face looking for all the world like a hunk of granite. At last, he let go the blue pipe smoke he'd held in his lungs [3]
The Eye of Ao. The ancient panel of stained glass hung high in the wall above the chancel. The huge eye was a splendid piece of craftsmanship, backlit by a loft of flickering candles. The eye was luminous, alive. Even its pupil glinted with capricious light. Its pupil? The Eye of Ao was supposed to have an empty pupil. The hole symbolized the place of dark mysteries through which all mortals flew after death. (located wherever Eidola and Piergeiron were getting married – temple of Oghma perhaps) [4]
Crying Room (in the temple of Oghma perhaps????) [4]
Khelben's laboratories and watched the slow dripping of the mage's Kara-Turian water clock [7]
"A Bloodforge. It was a Bloodforge that created that army." "It's an artifact of great antiquity, a device that can form armies out of min air." "Each candle was a Bloodforge?" asked Piergeiron. The mage shook his head in consideration. "No, but each was linked to a Bloodforge somehow. They allowed the forged warriors to gate into the palace and back out again." He cleared his throat. "As far as I know, the only place where Bloodforges are found is the Utter East." The mage nodded. "The candles confirm it. They were an engagement present sent to Eidola from an unknown benefactor, who suggested their use in the wedding. Though the giver is unknown, the crate in which the candles came is stamped with border seals that stretch from Waterdeep all the way down to the Utter East." [7]
Three plots working against Piergeiron and Eidola. The Mariner’s Guild wanted to assassinate Eidola and foil the trade route to Kara-Tur. Doppelgangers wanted something (unknown). Someone from the Utter East used a Blood Forge (reason unknown) [7]
Kastonoph
Kastonoph—or Noph as he was known to all but his father [1]
he hated Stelar for openly squandering his father's money—Noph's own inheritance the woman was perceptive, shrewd, scandalously fun, and at five years his elder, an honest beauty. Noph knew she was trying to get rid of him [1]
Noph saw it all. He saw the maidservant flinch as the young wizard cast a spell, saw Eidola and Piergeiron follow the shapeshifter and battle it, saw the two guards form their hands into claws and drag the body to the nearest jakes. And there was more. much more. Peering past the half-closed door, Noph saw the guards fully transform into crablike things. Their eyes rose on stalks above their horny skulls and their bodies became hard and bristly. With their pinchers, they quickly shredded the body. They ate what they could—muscle and gristle and brain. The rest, they fed down the jakes, into the infamous sewers of Waterdeep. [2]
Other Lore
Maztican cigars [2]
the Boarskyrs. The two red-faced and burly brothers, Becil and Bullaid, had inherited title and lands from a great-great-great-great grandfather Boarskyr—the man who'd built the first Boarskyr bridge. Each succeeding generation that descended from this extraordinary man, though, had lost another "great" Becil and Bullard were the inevitable result. They could not be truthfully called good, let alone great. The brothers had not inherited their ancestor's enterprising spirit or even his common sense. Uneducated and mired in penury, Becil and Billiard could use the opportunity and money the trade route would bring them. Unfortunately, they liked their backward backwater and wanted to keep it as it was. Perhaps it was the only place they truly fit in. [3]
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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TBeholder
Great Reader
2428 Posts |
Posted - 04 Mar 2023 : 13:37:44
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quote:
Originally posted by Gary Dallison
As for half elves and elves and Knucklebones and Greenwillow. Didnt know elves couldnt reincarnate. If they have souls i see no reason why they cannot, perhaps it is more a personal choice than a limitation.
It's an accepted way for the gods to resolve various contradictions, conflicts, etc over a soul's designation. Which makes sense. Why make a redundant mechanism for obtaining the same sort of output (and then most likely argue and haggle about its details eleven forevers before it can be accepted by the entire pantheon), when you can just... press "retry" button and wait a little?
Before creation of the Wall this probably was even more common.
quote:
I also dont see why Sunbright and the old priestess couldnt be wrong. The priestess never explicitly said she was reincarnated, Sunbright might just have believed what he wanted to after misunderstanding her (i can't imagine the elves spoke great Low Netherese).
Always on the table. |
People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
Posted - 05 Mar 2023 : 12:27:18
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The Paladins (1377 DR maybe 1371 DR)
By James M Ward
Other Lore
The Utter East is tied into this somehow," he grumbled. "The bloodforges that created Lady Eidola's kidnappers came from there, but when I scry the Utter East, the crystal ball goes dark." As Khelben glared at the lightless seeing crystal resting on its onyx pedestal, an ancient spell designed to pierce magical fog, crafted by the great Drawmij of Oerth, popped into his head [prologue]
Although he appeared to be a man of about forty winters, Miltiades was 1,000 years old. Khelben's friend Elminster had once spoken of this knight, who died in the service of Tyr, was raised as a skeleton to quest for centuries, and was at last rewarded with mortality and love. [1]
Tyr loathes the injustice of personal attacks for political gain, and we shall be his tools on Faerun [1]
he fastest route to the Utter East?" "A dimensional gate, of course." "It's in Undermountain." Khelben continued. "I've searched my records on Halaster's complex and found a map that purports to be a fragment of the eastern side of the third level." you'll find the gate. It's marked by a pair of mammoth tusks, rising out of a pyramid. "When you find the gate, you must activate it. Stand before it and say, 'Open in the name of the past and present Lords of Waterdeep.' The gate in Undermountain is the only known portal to the Utter East. But that blind spot is the only place in the Utter East that could hide Lady Eidola from my magic. [1]
Piergeiron
Khelben reached down and drew a chain from around Piergeiron's neck. Upon it hung a sphere of clear crystal. I suspect this will come in very handy now," he said, removing the gem and slipping it into his robe. The wizard reached into his robe. This time he drew forth the crystal pendant he'd taken from the Open Lord. "I made this for Aleena's father. The closer you get to the Lady Eidola, the brighter it glows. Piegeiron wanted it to light his lady's way. I found the sentiment rather romantic, so I indulged him." [1]
Waterdeep
Merchant’s Guild. Laskar Nesher is a member [prologue]
Khelben in his private council chamber, walled from its circular floor to its domed ceiling with overcrowded bookstacks. He sat at the apex of a large, triangular table of thick mahogany. The table's glossy surface swirled with curls of thick burgundy inlays flaring to crimson here and there and then dimming, as though fireflies crawled beneath the veneer. The inlays' enchantment rendered all languages into a tongue easily understood by those around the table. To Khelben's trained ears, lies spoken over the design resonated like tin. [1]
Aleena Paladinstar, a wizardess of the first rank and our lord Piergeiron’s daughter [1]
Abyss
General Raachaak (balor) inhaled deeply and flexed his bony wings while the trace of a grin played across his toothy maw. The towering tanar'ri fiend crossed his muscular arms and tucked jagged claws under massive biceps, against his bare, crimson torso. A serpentine whip of manifold tails, studded with whetted shards of obsidian, coiled and hung from his belt of baatezu hide. Faintly glowing steam curled along his leathery red, oily skin, enveloping the pointed-eared balor in a miasma of evil. The sixty-fifth level of the Abyss. [1]
General Raachaak. There, in an ancient city newly resettled, the primes have unearthed a most delightful contrivance, one that conjures countless warriors out of thin air! When I acquire the dark of this device, this bloodforge, I'll raise an army large enough to overrun stinking Baator in a single roll of the Sisyphus Stone!" [1]
the primes have warded the city of the bloodforge against all tanar'ri. That's why I've summoned you." General Raachaak glared at the servile creatures (vrock) before him. "Shaakat, Rejik, Morbaat, obey or die as larvae in a swarm of ravenous chasme!" he bellowed into their sinister brains. "See the city and its place on that world as I picture it in my mind, and go! Discover a way into that city and return to me with the answer! A portal to Toril awaits on the third strand of Lolth's Web, on the next layer! Now go!" [1]
Paladins
Able, paladin travelled with Kern and Militiades to Waterdeep. a warrior-cleric with iron-black hair, deep chocolate eyes, and a clean-shaven jaw that remained shadowed despite the daily razor. "He's revered in Phlan for both his puissant skill with the warhammer and his great clerical war magic." The massive fighter in sturdy banded armor bowed gravely, eyes focused on the floor, and said nothing. But Aleena detected within him a great sadness, that of someone who has begun to question the precepts by which he has lived all his life, and who now feels himself adrift in a hostile world. [2]
Jacob, paladin travelled with Kern and Militiades to Waterdeep. continued Miltiades. "He has often quested in the Western Heartlands and, I understand, has occasionally gone monster hunting with Lord Paladinson." "And Piegeiron slays dragons with the best of 'em!" said Jacob, capturing and kissing the wizard's slender hand with a wink and a grin. "It's good to see you again, Aleena, and it's great to serve Tyr, Piegeiron, and these two paladins of legend, all at the same time!" Aleena grinned down at the charming, curly-haired blond. I see you're still carrying that two-handed sword," she observed. "Aye," said Miltiades sourly. "And not a warhammer, though that is the true weapon of the followers of Tyr. I will say, though," he conceded, "Jacob has demonstrated nimble adroitness with the blade in a joust. Both Kern and I have challenged Jacob to spar. Not only has he acquitted himself well in swordsmanship, but he often quotes Tyr's proverbs between blows." [2]
Trandon, paladin travelled with Kern and Militiades to Waterdeep. a leather-clad fighter of some fifty winters stepped forward. His long silver-streaked hair was tied behind him, and he leaned upon a fat, ashen quarterstaff. "I'm not bad with a staff, myself," Aleena told him as they shook hands. "I would prefer to wield the warhammer as befits a warrior of Tyr," the man answered. "But I've seen many battles and haven't always emerged unscathed." Tran-don held up his right arm. "A close encounter with a vampire permanently drained the vitality from this arm, normal as it might appear to you, and left me unable to lift and wield the weapon of my faith." "I've a magical ointment that I think could heal you," volunteered Aleena. "Nay, Lady Paladinstar," said Miltiades. "I have called upon Tyr himself to heal Trandon, but his arm remains too weak to swing a hammer. There is no cure." Trandon nodded sadly. "Tyr's will be done." "Trandon has spent many years wandering Cormyr, recruiting servants for Tyr," said Kern. "He is highly trusted by the Hammers of Tyr, a prestigious order of paladins." "I'm not one of the Hammers," added Trandon hastily. "I'm not even a paladin, although I do follow Tyr's way. I was merely asked to represent the Hammers' good wishes to Lord and Lady Paladinson, as they are forever busy serving almighty Tyr." [2]
Harloon, paladin travelled with Kern and Militiades to Waterdeep. introducing the last of the Phlaness group. "He is but nineteen years of age, yet he has already seen more than his share of dungeons and dragons." "True enough, your Ladyship," said the tall, dark young man. "I've been a sellsword since I was nigh fourteen." "Until you found Tyr?" "You could say that, I guess. A few months ago, a complete stranger saved my life and lost hers in the bargain. I wanted to know who she was, but she died before I could ask her, and the only mark she carried was the scales of Tyr on her warhammer." Harloon looked at Kern and smiled. "I met Kern in Phlan, learned about Tyr, and decided I wanted to become a paladin." "And I never met a more persistent student," said Kern drily. Much to the merciless amusement of his beloved elvish wife, Listle, Harloon followed the paladin around like a puppy dog. [2]
Miltiades gazed into a jeweled hand mirror, from which his beauteous wife Evaine looked back. His stern features melted and all his lines of concern smoothed away, making him appear almost as youthful as the boy. He was more than a thousand years old, but his soul-swelling love for his spellcasting wife made time a toy that he carelessly tossed aside whenever he saw her. [2]
"Ah, sorry," said Kern, stepping down from the pedestal. "I was afraid this might happen. You see, my mother's a powerful sorceress in her own right, and that had an effect on me. Most times, magic spells don't work on me. My mother says I'm anti-magical." [2]
Perhaps, when this quest was completed, he would receive an invitation from the Knights of Holy Judgment, or better yet, the Knights of the Holy Sword! That latter group of Tyr's paladins wielded blades, just like him. [3]
Harloon slain by an ettin [4]
Able slain by bar-igura [5]
Utter East
A twelve-foot stone wall surrounded the city where the bloodforge was hidden, but a thousand barriers could not bar the way of tanar'ri, were they not magically enhanced with powerful wards-as this wall was. The magnitude of its impregnability surprised the vrocks. Shaakat and Rejik circled above the habitation, carefully avoiding the invisible border, for no magic or might would allow them to enter. To the humans below, the vrocks appeared to be common vultures circling some unfortunate, fallen beast outside the city walls. [2]
Skullport
In the distance beyond the gently weaving masts, the travelers could see uncountable caves riddling the ocean-carved walls, right up to the ceiling, several hundred feet above. An immense tangle of rickety catwalks strung between them sparkled with thousands of dim yellow torches and lanterns. Glowing lichen crawled along the cavern walls, illuminating the vast open space overhead, and little orbs of bright light streaked through it. "Look at the will o' wisps!" said Harloon. "There must be hundreds of them. Do they try to lead beings to their deaths?" "That and more," Aleena warned. [3]
Hundreds of skulls boiled to the surface and surrounded the boat, just out of arm's reach. Their eyeless sockets trained upon the heroes, stared balefully, and their whispering voices spoke in unison. " 'Tis forbidden to interfere with the watchers in the waters," came the chilling tones. "Now thou shalt perform a service or pay with thy lives. Each must lend aid to a zombie of Skullport before leaving." "You don't understand the nature of this port. If the skulls make a demand, you must obey or shadow monsters make you obey.""But even if you beat them, more appear, and they keep on coming. Sooner or later, they'll get to you.” [3]
Undermountain
Shaakat and Rejik cackled at their own ingenuity. The power required to beckon and command so many denizens of their cruel, chaotic native plane would have required weeks of exhausting work, but in Undermountain thanks to the power of a magical mirror they had found, they only needed to perform a summoning once for each type, lowly mane and sturdy bar-lgura. The floor-length glass lay embedded within the stone wall of a rough cavern, not far from the gate to the Utter East. [4]
A hulking, brutish creature, with reddish-brown fur covering most of its body and gray flaps of skin along the sides of its face stood with its knuckles resting on the floor, looking into a mirror. It grinned wickedly into the glass, baring its long fangs, and lifted one forehand to flex its six digits in a grotesque wave at itself. Noph choked back a gasp. The mirror began to glow brilliantly, and the beast covered its eyes with a hairy paw. A low hum swelled, followed by the shrill snap of lightning sparks. Before the boy's amazed eyes, a red-furred, six-toed foot stepped from the mirror's smooth surface. A second later a duplicate monster fully emerged, paused a moment while it checked its footing, and then drew itself up before the other. The new arrival snarled and raised its hackles at its twin, and they began to slowly circle one another. [5]`
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
United Kingdom
6361 Posts |
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PattPlays
Senior Scribe
469 Posts |
Posted - 07 Mar 2023 : 01:37:00
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quote:
quote:
I also dont see why Sunbright and the old priestess couldnt be wrong. The priestess never explicitly said she was reincarnated, Sunbright might just have believed what he wanted to after misunderstanding her (i can't imagine the elves spoke great Low Netherese).
Always on the table.
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Gary Dallison
Great Reader
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6361 Posts |
Posted - 07 Mar 2023 : 16:30:16
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The Mercenaries (1377 DR, maybe 1371 DR)
By Ed Greenwood
Tharkar
Tharkar. The city was a place of tight shutters and few torches, nestled in the mountains where Ulgarth and Parsanic meet and together run down into rocky, treacherous seas. [1]
The infamous Tavern of the Masques was crowded to the very walls this night, for it was the favorite refuge of the lawless wolves of the sea who called Tharkar their home port. Had a sober man been outside in the damp, dark night to raise a lantern and peer at the signboard above the main doors, he'd have seen the words Donder's Dancing Masques on a swirling banner carved beneath four linked black masques-but he'd have found no one in all Tharkar who still remembered Donder. The Masques was where nearly everyone in town came to drink and wench and boast and squabble-or they cowered well clear of it, especially on nights when ships without lamps or charter-papers came in. [1]
the Daggers (city watch). Daggers of Tharkar were infamous for their brutality even in Konigheim. If a pirate port was to have any law at all-and if it lacked such temperance, neither Ulgarth nor the Free Cities would long have tolerated its existence-its Watch must be meaner and deadlier than a tavernful of drunken pirates. [1,2]
"A few more runs of lumber and cart-wheels down to Doegan, and they won't need to hire our holds any more! It's foolishness, I tell you! Next, the only honest work we'll be able to find'll be building roads-and once there're no honest coasters left, they'll be free to hunt down all afloat as pirates!" [1]
"Nay, there'll be war before then. That's what wagons mean-war, not cutting us out o' trade. You think Doegan, say, and Konigheim trust each other enough to build good roads betwixt n' between, [1]
Rulgor, drunken pirate at the Tavern of the Masques [1]
Charms of golden wire were wound into the small, jutting beard that curled from the point of his chin, and they bobbed as he sneered. [1]
Orim Redbeard's Black Dragon (pirate ship) at anchor out by the Jaws. And none of his crew here, tonight? Well, that's because a select few of 'em are skulking about us now. Hunting the last of Ralingor's crew-before those last few hunt them." [1]
Blackfingers Ralingor, for all his fabled stormy temper, was one of the most popular-and feared-pirates plying the Utter Coast. His deeds were legends, and he seemed one of the everpresent forces of life in Faerun-not something that could or should be swept away overnight. The seaman with the sarcastic voice looked around, and then without further delay said flatly, "Orim Red-beard chased the Kissing Shark of Blackfingers Ralingor aground near Tenteeth Point six nights back." [1]
Bladed weapons were banned in the Masques, what with all the anger and rivalries and ready drink-and by the looks of things, these two pirates were going to demonstrate why. [1]
The lammers, club wielding door guards at the Masques [1]
The Ankle Bells was perhaps the most crowded establishment in Tharkar after the Masques. Brothel. Most of the seven Sharkers had visited the Ankle Bells before, and knew about the false door to misdirect hurrying Daggers, and another door that was held up only by twine, ready to crash down on anyone who tried to wrench it open. All of Tharkar knew that skilled actors could be hired there, equipped with enchanted masques that mirrored the features of folk when bid to do so, to provide a harried patron of the Bells with a night's alibi. The she-pirate Sharessa had even worked at the Bells for a season, and-if she'd wanted to once more awaken memories that all too often burned in her dreams like black flames-could have told the others about the bed-canopy that crushed unwanted occupants, and the trip step on the back stairs____________________But even her eyes widened at the password the fat man gave to the drunk slumped atop the refuse-heap-the one that called forth a dozen half-dressed "patrons" to enact an instant brawl that blocked the street behind them. She'd have sworn not more than a dozen ship captains in all Faerun knew that word-and certainly not this little stranger. [2]
Belmer. Rented a cellar beneath the Ankle Bells. fat man that saves the Sharkers in the Masques and then hires them to help me find-and slay-a certain someone… who's not a ruler or lord of particular fame or power. Her name is Eidola, and I'll not divulge my reasons for desiring her demise. I need your aid twice over: I don't want to be on the scene to be recognized when she disappears-and I need you to capture her first. My hand must be the one to slay, after I am sure that the captive is the one I seek. I've been fooled about such things before. She is in Doegan [2]
Evil-smelling remnants of offerings to Umberlee-drowned rats and squirrels, floating in the seaweed-decorated bowls consecrated to the goddess-stood on plinths here and there, their presence guarding the building above against flooding and collapse. [2]
Jargoons were poor mens' rubies, but worth a hundred true gold each even in a bad market; a respected and successful pirate might give his crew two or three each for a year's pay. Pirates could work five decades or more and not see more than one or two rubies to call their own. Gems were the currency of choice in Tharkar because false coins were so plentiful that prices were often given in both "true coin" and "fool's coin" amounts. [2]
the Lord of Tharkar [2]
"Contracts," the beautiful she-pirate explained to the youth beside her. "Binding us both. To be registered with the Lord of Tharkar, I presume?" Belmer inclined his head. "Four copies of each writ-for you, for me, for the Lord, and for a Pirates' Witness of your choosing. The payments already lie in one of his vaults, spell-locked to me." This was standard; six of the seven Sharkers had signed writs with Blackfingers-so much safely hidden but worthless paper now. [2]
"This is the Morning Bird, a caravel from somewhere upriver in Ulgarth, by the looks of her." captained by a miserable cringing-guts "His name is Jander Turbalt, and if he's from Tharkar-port as he claims, I've never seen him before. Behner's already had to tell him to be quiet or his promised gold'll be fed into his slit-open belly coin by coin!" [3]
tales about the lost treasure of Blackfingers. [3]
Tharkarans [3]
Pirate vessel is The Black Dragon; or 'Blackfinger's Bane,' as I heard them calling it back in Tharkar. [7]
Other Lore
The tale-teller glared down the room with the one eye he had left, made the whirlpool sign of the sea goddess [1]
There was a glassy rattle ahead and the faintest of mauve-hued glows, as someone-Rings-unhooded an Ulgarthan glowworm in ajar. [3]
Yulchass powder (purple colour), made from a berry found deep in the jungles of Chult, keeps folk awake and alert a day or so longer than usual- and they don't go under from the stolen sleep, after." Belgin nodded. "And the price is loose-tongued honesty." Nobody is yet immune to its effects, I've heard quite a few folk in Thay have tried to become so, by consuming much of the powder for years. They've all failed." [5,6]
Utter East
Kissing Shark, a pirate ship in the Utter East [prologue]
Skelder's Rocks, wrecks ships [prologue]
Redbeard, pirate in the Great Sea [prologue]
Their leader seemed to be a big, heavily muscled Konigheimer… probably an escaped slave. He had the usual temper of such folk; just now, he was snarling something into his drink [1]
Tenteeth Point [1]
Doegan [2]
Ulgarth [1]
Free Cities [1]
Konigheim [1]
Parsanic [1]
he Five Kingdoms the way they are-all double-dealing merchants, and nasty feuds wherever idiots aren't hurling armies!" "Or fleets," [5]
The Doegan Dogs were pirates-freebooters sponsored and chartered by the self-styled Emperor of Doegan to hunt down the ships of Ulgarth, Parsanic, Konigheim, and anyone else who came within reach… while the Emperor's Imperial Fleet kept busy in the south, fighting the pirates of the fabled Golden Lands (and, some said, other lands for Doegan to conquer). The Dogs made sailing dangerous anywhere south of the Free Cities, but then, they kept all the kingdoms from rising in enough strength to wipe out the folk of Tharkar and other "honest" pirates, too. [5]
Port Halovar [5]
the Utter Coast [5]
A renegade royal-blood from Doegan [5]
An agent of Ulgarth, sent to stir things up in proud and increasingly dangerous Doegan [5]
he can't be a slaver out of Konigheim, raiding up and down the Coast," Brindra put in. "They don't hire outlanders for suchlike." [5]
the Emperor-Mages of Doegan [5]
A giant of a man lumbered forward to plant one booted foot on the low rail of The Black Dragon. His leather-armored shoulders were as broad as those of two normal men standing together, his arms were as gnarled and stout as old oak trees, and the flame was the sun dancing on his shoulder-length, glossy red hair, and even longer beard. His lazily confident moves and stance left no doubt that he was master of that ship and all aboard it. "Redbeard!" Kurthe snarled, sudden fire in his eyes. The fat pirate captain grinned, showing teeth that had been filed into points-teeth that had eaten disobedient crewmen, Coast legends whispered-and ran a lazy hand through his belt-length, fiery flowing beard. "Aye, Orim Redbeard
Ralingor and his navigator Drethil
Eldrinpar
The Sharkers
Surviving crew of the Kissing Shark [1]
Kurthe Lornar. Their leader seemed to be a big, heavily muscled Konigheimer… probably an escaped slave (true). He had the usual temper of such folk; just now, he was snarling something into his drink. Known as Longshanks. "Kurthe swore some Dogs burned his ship (slave ship????) in Port Halovar [1,2,3,5]
Belgin Dree." The moon-faced sharper in the fine vest and breeches nodded and smiled. a moon-faced Edenvaler who had the hands and habits of a gambler clung to the other. "I never wanted to go to sea," Belgin told them, his voice low. "I just ran out of cities that my neck was safe in." [1,2,5]
"Nargin Olnblade." The dwarf sketched a bow, his rings jingling, and corrected, "Rings, please. If ye call for 'Nargin,' ye may find me looking around for someone else." The bald dwarf had a nose and ears bedecked with rows of dangling earrings; the fat man tagged him as the whimsical wit of the group. nimble tongue of the Olnblades [1,2,5]
Ingrar Welven. There was the usual green youth hungry for fortune and adventure, [1,2]
Brindra Arrose. and the two women-one a battered barrel of a wench who could probably out-muscle many men in a brawl [1,2]
Sharessa Stagwood." The beautiful she-pirate gave him a polite smile, and he asked, "Are you the one they call 'the Shadow". the other as beautiful as a high court lady, with flawless skin, large and striking blue eyes, brows that were even more arresting, and a long, silky fall of black hair to match. The watcher looked away quickly before she felt the sudden weight of his gaze. Then he glanced back and saw the empty dagger-sheaths on her forearms, and the war-harness riding on her slim hips. Neither of them had heard her enter the cabin; no doubt she was barefoot again, flitting about in the velvet silence that had earned the Shadow her nickname. Kurthe's familiar arm went around her hip. His fingers lingered, as they always did, on the little ridge there, that marked the top of the old sword-scar that ran down across her belly like a restless white snake. [1,2,3,5]
"Jolloth Burbuck." The hairy, battle-scarred veteran lifted his teeth in a wry grin and said in his gravelly voice, "Call me Anvil. Everyone does." [2]
That's not funny," Sharessa told him. "I liked Ralingor," she added, almost in a whisper, after a moment- and then wondered why she'd admitted that aloud. She never wanted anyone to know about the nights she'd crept into his cabin, so late that even Destra and his other wenches were snoring. [5]
Ralingor's wealth? He was always laughing and drinking cellars-full of good wine, and spending coins by the fistful… but where had he kept it hidden, and how much could any man have left, after pouring it away by night and day the way Blackfingers had? [5]
Kurthe, slain by Belmer
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Forgotten Realms Alternate Dimensions Candlekeep Archive
Forgotten Realms Alternate Dimensions: Issue 1
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Novel Lore
