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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1309 Posts |
 Posted - 27 Dec 2022 : 06:44:52
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Hello!
Have there been times when you played a video game, read a comic book or read a novel based on the Forgotten Realms IP and first experienced a character, a region, a monster, et cetera, there only to discover that their presence in the original official tabletop gaming supplement was much smaller than you had imagined? There may be a lone paragraph or even a single solitary sentence that indicates their existence. Were you - either as a DM or a player interested in pitching an idea to a DM - motivated or discouraged from expanding the meager canonical offering?
Conversely, have you heard of a seemingly obscure Forgotten Realms tidbit in passing only to discover that an abundance of official material on it exists despite the fact that it is otherwise underrepresented in later editions and/or related products?
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Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Earth names in the Realms are more common than you may think. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36821 Posts |
Posted - 27 Dec 2022 : 15:40:56
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My issue has been the opposite: finding a character I like that's only mentioned once or twice and then never again, or that only has a passing reference in the first place.
Conversely, though, I like it when you can find one tiny reference in Realmslore and build something you like onto it. When I did my Wooly's Warforged series, I built each of the three flavors on just one or two bits of Realmslore. There was some stuff drawn from elsewhere (Spelljammer canon for the elfbane golems and 3.x core material for the eidolar), but I had one thing in Realmslore that I was using as a seed for each of the three flavors of Realmsified warforged that I did.
Though it's still a work in progress, I also took one single line from the description of the process to create dracoliches -- the fact that it fails 10% of the time and kills the dragon -- and used that as a basis to build a group that works against the Cult of the Dragon, often trying to disrupt or destroy Cult cells from within. |
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Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
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I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen!  |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1309 Posts |
Posted - 28 Dec 2022 : 00:35:33
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As I played through Neverwinter Nights, I was drawn into the setting by a number of details that were - for the most part - given a short description in the TTRPG books. On the other hand, upon discovering the Phaerimm, my thoughts were "Huh, that's a freaky one-off monster. It looks like something out of the Aboriginal Australian Dreamtime."; in actuality, they are an intelligent spellcasting species tied to an ancient history.
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
When I did my Wooly's Warforged series, I built each of the three flavors on just one or two bits of Realmslore. There was some stuff drawn from elsewhere (Spelljammer canon for the elfbane golems and 3.x core material for the eidolar), but I had one thing in Realmslore that I was using as a seed for each of the three flavors of Realmsified warforged that I did.
There's a reference to the Warforged in The Forgotten Realms  ? Did they make an appearance in a (3.5e) Monster Manual? |
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Earth names in the Realms are more common than you may think. |
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bloodtide_the_red
Learned Scribe
USA
302 Posts |
Posted - 28 Dec 2022 : 02:07:38
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Not really. It seems more like, other then Ed and a small handful of others, that most content creators are clueless about the Realms. I guess someone gives them a "FR for Dummines" sheet of paper. Then they just make their random content then go back and change "big city" to "Waterdeep" and "drow guy" to "Drizzt".
Once in a while someone does a "forgotten corner", but most content stays in the same over done and over used people and places.
And a bit too often things are just made "kinda like old tyme Earth" with no care for Realmslore. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36821 Posts |
Posted - 28 Dec 2022 : 03:15:23
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quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
When I did my Wooly's Warforged series, I built each of the three flavors on just one or two bits of Realmslore. There was some stuff drawn from elsewhere (Spelljammer canon for the elfbane golems and 3.x core material for the eidolar), but I had one thing in Realmslore that I was using as a seed for each of the three flavors of Realmsified warforged that I did.
There's a reference to the Warforged in The Forgotten Realms ? Did they make an appearance in a (3.5e) Monster Manual?
No references in Realmslore that I'm aware of. My project was to make Realms versions of warforged, in small numbers, so that it could be an option for a player, but they wouldn't be all over the place. So I looked for existing bits of Realmslore to tie them to. The livegolems are the closest to the "stock" warforged of Eberron, and I tied them to the war between Raumathar and Narfell, because the Raumathar were a construct-happy bunch and I figured if anyone had invented something like warforged, it would be them. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen! |
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Zeromaru X
Great Reader
Colombia
2485 Posts |
Posted - 28 Dec 2022 : 07:56:34
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quote:
Originally posted by Azar
There's a reference to the Warforged in The Forgotten Realms ? Did they make an appearance in a (3.5e) Monster Manual?
Yes, there are a few warforged NPCs in 5e-related games, such as Idle Champions of the Realms. |
Instead of seeking change, you prefer a void, merciless abyss of a world... |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11882 Posts |
Posted - 28 Dec 2022 : 18:19:11
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
When I did my Wooly's Warforged series, I built each of the three flavors on just one or two bits of Realmslore. There was some stuff drawn from elsewhere (Spelljammer canon for the elfbane golems and 3.x core material for the eidolar), but I had one thing in Realmslore that I was using as a seed for each of the three flavors of Realmsified warforged that I did.
There's a reference to the Warforged in The Forgotten Realms ? Did they make an appearance in a (3.5e) Monster Manual?
No references in Realmslore that I'm aware of. My project was to make Realms versions of warforged, in small numbers, so that it could be an option for a player, but they wouldn't be all over the place. So I looked for existing bits of Realmslore to tie them to. The livegolems are the closest to the "stock" warforged of Eberron, and I tied them to the war between Raumathar and Narfell, because the Raumathar were a construct-happy bunch and I figured if anyone had invented something like warforged, it would be them.
Ironically, where Raumathar stood there are also "living spells" called "Spell Wards" in an area that would appear to be "smoke stacks buried in the ground". This is all from before Eberron was released... but I'd very much think it works to say "something very similar happened here too". |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Scots Dragon
Seeker
United Kingdom
89 Posts |
Posted - 28 Dec 2022 : 22:52:24
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quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
Ironically, where Raumathar stood there are also "living spells" called "Spell Wards" in an area that would appear to be "smoke stacks buried in the ground". This is all from before Eberron was released... but I'd very much think it works to say "something very similar happened here too".
You could also argue that Baelnorns are a prototype of Eberron's ideas around the Deathless. Quite a bit of Eberron's 'originality' can be found in the more obscure and neglected corners of the Forgotten Realms, which is entirely ignored because Wizards of the Coast thinks only the upper-corner of the Faerūn map exists. |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11882 Posts |
Posted - 28 Dec 2022 : 23:31:13
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quote:
Originally posted by Scots Dragon
quote:
Originally posted by sleyvas
Ironically, where Raumathar stood there are also "living spells" called "Spell Wards" in an area that would appear to be "smoke stacks buried in the ground". This is all from before Eberron was released... but I'd very much think it works to say "something very similar happened here too".
You could also argue that Baelnorns are a prototype of Eberron's ideas around the Deathless. Quite a bit of Eberron's 'originality' can be found in the more obscure and neglected corners of the Forgotten Realms, which is entirely ignored because Wizards of the Coast thinks only the upper-corner of the Faerūn map exists.
Yep, that's exactly what I thought when I read the deathless for the first time. The one thing I found pretty original was the idea of the other continent whose rulers are acting as hosts for beings from the nightmare realms.... but even that somewhat reminds me of stargate's goa'uld... and the godkings of Mulhorand (though that's only a vague similarity). |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 29 Dec 2022 : 02:02:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
... the description of the process to create dracoliches -- the fact that it fails 10% of the time and kills the dragon -- and used that as a basis to build a group that works against the Cult of the Dragon, often trying to disrupt or destroy Cult cells from within.
What happens to the soul/spirit/animus of the would-be lich which perished in the process?
Is it forever trapped within the "phylactery" object? Is it destroyed eternally? Rendered apart, dissolved into fragments, torn between planes of existence, taken to be tormented or enslaved or consumed by some fiendish predator?
Can it become a ghost? Can it be resurrected or returned through wish magics? Is it lost even beyond the abilities of deities to restore or retrieve?
Can an external agency - in possession of the "phylactery" object - complete the liching process? Or pervert it into some other transformation?
I imagine liches are well aware of the liching process. And they might position themselves to take advantage of vulnerable lich candidates. Even the "unwilling" dracoliches of the Cult. |
[/Ayrik] |
Edited by - Ayrik on 29 Dec 2022 02:07:31 |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36821 Posts |
Posted - 29 Dec 2022 : 06:04:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
... the description of the process to create dracoliches -- the fact that it fails 10% of the time and kills the dragon -- and used that as a basis to build a group that works against the Cult of the Dragon, often trying to disrupt or destroy Cult cells from within.
What happens to the soul/spirit/animus of the would-be lich which perished in the process?
Is it forever trapped within the "phylactery" object? Is it destroyed eternally? Rendered apart, dissolved into fragments, torn between planes of existence, taken to be tormented or enslaved or consumed by some fiendish predator?
Can it become a ghost? Can it be resurrected or returned through wish magics? Is it lost even beyond the abilities of deities to restore or retrieve?
Can an external agency - in possession of the "phylactery" object - complete the liching process? Or pervert it into some other transformation?
I imagine liches are well aware of the liching process. And they might position themselves to take advantage of vulnerable lich candidates. Even the "unwilling" dracoliches of the Cult.
From the description of the process in Cult of the Dragon (and in other sources describing dracoliches): a roll of 41-50 gives a result of "Potion does not work. The dragon dies. A full wish is required to restore the dragon to life. A wish to transform the dragon into a dracolich results in another roll on this table."
I would imagine the Cult doesn't mention this to prospective dracoliches, and that if such a failure happens, there's a serious effort to cover it up. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen! |
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Outlaw Pope
Acolyte
43 Posts |
Posted - 29 Dec 2022 : 06:45:30
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
No references in Realmslore that I'm aware of. My project was to make Realms versions of warforged, in small numbers, so that it could be an option for a player, but they wouldn't be all over the place. So I looked for existing bits of Realmslore to tie them to. The livegolems are the closest to the "stock" warforged of Eberron, and I tied them to the war between Raumathar and Narfell, because the Raumathar were a construct-happy bunch and I figured if anyone had invented something like warforged, it would be them.
I made them a forgotten thing, much rarer than say in Eb and tied them to the Gnomish kingdom of Oelerhode in what is now the Border Kingdoms. They created them with the insight of Gond/Nebelun to try to fight off the orc hordes that destroyed the realm but never successful got them.
Left abandoned in forgotten grottos, millenia later, some have started mysteriously waking up with intelligence. I left their sentience to be mysterious and likely the act of Gond or one of the Gnomish gods. They speak Gnim, have an inherent (gn)owledge of Gnomish gods, and (gn)owledge of orcish anatomy as well as an inherent hostility to them.
Whole idea is to somewhat walk the Eberron path (Gnomish creations) but make them less a war crime and sentient robot issue at large and more a forgotten thing that may not have even been truly sentient if not for MYSTERIOUS EVENTS.
I also thought about tying them to the Church of Gond at large as an alternative being Gondsmen who have inherited the spirit of their creators since they're like familiars. |
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bloodtide_the_red
Learned Scribe
USA
302 Posts |
Posted - 29 Dec 2022 : 18:45:18
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quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
What happens to the soul/spirit/animus of the would-be lich which perished in the process?
Is it forever trapped within the "phylactery" object? Is it destroyed eternally? Rendered apart, dissolved into fragments, torn between planes of existence, taken to be tormented or enslaved or consumed by some fiendish predator?
Can it become a ghost? Can it be resurrected or returned through wish magics? Is it lost even beyond the abilities of deities to restore or retrieve?
Ed Greenwood has the Realms full of such things. You can find plenty of people trapped(or hiding) in objects.
Ed loves "disembodied non undead unknown spirits" and you can find them in most things he has written. Once in a while he will stat them out, like when Selyne suddenly became a Harper Ghost, but mostly he just leaves them "unknown". |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11882 Posts |
Posted - 29 Dec 2022 : 22:37:36
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Just to note for those talking about warforged... the big thing is that they're living, not that they're sentient. If one wanted say intelligent constructs there are many instances of such in the realms from before warforged (i.e. sentient helmed horrors, nimblewrights, etc...). So, the one thing about the warforged is that they have a soul, which means A) they are of interest to deities because they can worship them and empower their realms after death and B) they can be raised/resurrected and healed and C) they are of interest to other beings because they can be sacrificed.
Now the interesting question when it comes to that is can they tell that they have a soul? I mean.... I can't tell that I have one. Can someone create a construct and pass it as a warforged? Are sentient constructs like helmed horrors envious of them? What is the source of this soul? Going back to some discussions we've had previously... could the source of these souls be a deepspawn? Could the machine that makes warforged be a living one containing a deepspawn? |
Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
Edited by - sleyvas on 29 Dec 2022 22:41:22 |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
7989 Posts |
Posted - 30 Dec 2022 : 09:09:15
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Plenty of magical items from the DMG are "sentient".
There used to be rules about how many "sentient" magical items a PC could carry. Each one had a "intelligence" score, a "personality" score, an "ego" score.
So are talking swords deserving of all the respect and considerations given to other "races"/"species"? |
[/Ayrik] |
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sleyvas
Skilled Spell Strategist
USA
11882 Posts |
Posted - 30 Dec 2022 : 14:24:40
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quote:
Originally posted by Ayrik
Plenty of magical items from the DMG are "sentient".
There used to be rules about how many "sentient" magical items a PC could carry. Each one had a "intelligence" score, a "personality" score, an "ego" score.
So are talking swords deserving of all the respect and considerations given to other "races"/"species"?
Sorry for the temporary detailment.... but this is something that really has been interesting me for the last few years...
You just somewhat nailed something that I didn't intend, but I've found myself exploring over the last few years (ever since I decided that my PC turned NPC, Sleyvas, would live on past the spellplague era by being turned into an artifact that can shapeshift between spellbook, weapon, and wheel of spells deck). I made him "friends" with his daughter-in-law's intelligent weapon, a sai named Lorey Hisstory who acts like a stuffy sage/historian/bad poet. His daughter-in-law meanwhile was turned into a weaveghost, and the three of them have been doing work (that they don't fully understand) for the gods of magic between Abeir and Toril for the last century. A lot of their work involves finding adventurers to accomplish certain goals and aiding/guiding them if necessary.
Meanwhile, as I was writing up stuff for DM's Guild, I found myself playing with a lot of ideas revolving around "living constructs"... in the form of a new form of Magen that I called Faeros Magen that seems to somehow restore the "souls" of long dead spellcasters in a created body, minus their memories and skills (which between you and the DM, you would slowly "recover" your memories of say being a mage from Netheril as a way to explore your character and make a story). I was also exploring the idea that Thayans may have added intelligence into their grand helms for the spelljamming vessels called Quads of Thay (giving it even more of a "star trek" feel, but one in which the "computer" has a definite personality).
In short, I have to say in the past, most intelligent magic items I had used in the past were of the vague intelligence kind, but exploring the concept of things like sentient helmed horrors, etc... can get interesting because they aren't driven by many of the same things that mortal beings that need to eat, drink, breed, build living quarters, etc.... have to do.
SIDENOTE: I was surprised when Star Trek Prodigy came out and they essentially had the "ship" interacting with the crew via a hologram intelligence because of the aforementioned Quad/Grand Helm idea and my comparisons I'd been making. Then in the past two months, I started playing star trek fleet command only to find that "Scotty" had created an AI that guides you in that game. Similarly, I had developed the idea of Sleyvas becoming a magic spellbook only a few months before I saw something about living spellbooks being developed for Deep Magic by Kobold Press (it was after this that I developed that he would be a shapeshifting one). I have really come to be amazed as I age at how many times I develop ideas and see other people developing something very similar in another medium, when we had no contact that I'm aware of. It really bears to home how so many people discount things like Columbus for his vision and say that lots of people at that time thought the same thing.
.... returning you to your previous scheduled discussion...
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Alavairthae, may your skill prevail
Phillip aka Sleyvas |
Edited by - sleyvas on 30 Dec 2022 15:09:22 |
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Azar
Master of Realmslore
1309 Posts |
Posted - 31 Dec 2022 : 02:25:05
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If the Warforged provide buoyancy to your watercraft, all the more power to you guys; to me, they're a touch too industrial ("magitek", to borrow a Final Fantasy VI term) for regions outside of Lantan or other similar pockets of unusual technological expertise. Personally, I'd rather have "awakened" Caryatid Columns or lesser Golems fulfilling a comparable yet more solidly-mystical role. Those would mesh better with my version of The Realms.
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X
quote:
Originally posted by Azar
There's a reference to the Warforged in The Forgotten Realms ? Did they make an appearance in a (3.5e) Monster Manual?
Yes, there are a few warforged NPCs in 5e-related games, such as Idle Champions of the Realms.
That is unfortunate. |
Stand with anybody that stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Earth names in the Realms are more common than you may think. |
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Realms lore prominence: belief versus reality?
