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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
 Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 02:16:57
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Hello, all.
Oh, yes, Wooly. Lots. Usually classic comedies or farces, or Mae West-era vampish one-liners. As we say to visitors to our play sessions: Come prepared, or come to be scared.
Now to the business at hand. Ed answers Garen Thal about Meddling Mages:
As far as WotC is concerned, there is of course no “Meddling Mage Number Three,” because the three too-similar Old Bearded Crotchety Guys are taken care of. Of COURSE wizards still enthusiastically “meddle in the affairs of rulers and adventurers.” Even those mages who devote most of their time and attention to magical researches tend to want to control the surroundings immediately around their abodes, so they either erect a tower in the howling wilderness somewhere where they themselves are the ruler and defending army of their little holding, or they dictate to the nearby village and surrounding farms, usually in some sort of “I’ll protect you against the next orc horde or marauding hobgoblin warband if you agree to XYZ” manner.
The mages we all hear about, of course, are those who enjoy using their power to force or manipulate those around them, often as part of secretive power groups. I don’t think any one of these guys stands out as Meddling Mage Number Three in the ‘Old Bearded Crotchety Guy’ mold or public perception, if you discount rulers and thereby take Larloch and Szass Tam out of the running alongside those Seven Sisters who qualify. Mages like Maaril like to keep a low public profile because it keeps rulers from thinking they’re so dangerous that they Really Have To Be Dealt With, Right Now, and helps them to scare everyone else by keeping mysterious, so any rumors they spread about themselves have full reign to flourish.
I have a number of candidates in mind for Number Three, but I’m going to keep them secret for now until I see what I can get the Books folks at WotC to let me publish. Otherwise, one can always fall back on Halaster, the Srinshee, Malchor Harpell . . . and that doesn’t even look at Sembia, Silverymoon, Amn, or Tethyr’s mages!
Geez, Garen, you had to start him thinking along those lines, didn’t you! Let me remind you that I have a character who’s trying to stay ALIVE in Ed’s home campaign; this doesn’t help! 
love to all,
THO
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Garen Thal
Master of Realmslore
USA
1105 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 02:53:53
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quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
Geez, Garen, you had to start him thinking along those lines, didn’t you! Let me remind you that I have a character who’s trying to stay ALIVE in Ed’s home campaign; this doesn’t help!
Fear not, O Hooded Lady Mine; I shall be sure to make Ed include a lengthy memorial when the sad and fateful event passes. As it happens, in most cases I want Ed to be thinking along the lines of manipulative mages, meddling shadow-rulers and kingmakers, and the like, because that's the level of the Realms that is so very often skimmed over for the slaying and spellslinging and the returns of ancient, lurking evil. Like many (Ed included), I am quite familiar with the need of wizards to control when they cannot rule outright, because they're smart enough to believe they know better than everyone, and not always wise enough to realize when they don't--Vangerdahast is a prime example.
I, however, grow tired of knowing such things. I wanna see, demmit. |
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Dargoth
Great Reader
Australia
4607 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 05:43:29
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Speaking of Eds campaign
I know Ed said you guys are still playing 2ed but did any of you try and convert your characters to 3ed? If so would you be willing to share the stats? |
“I am the King of Rome, and above grammar”
Emperor Sigismund
"Its good to be the King!"
Mel Brooks |
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Gerath Hoan
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
152 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 13:05:46
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Hi Ed (and THO),
I was going through the old 2004 questions thread and i noticed reference to some mages that i hadn't heard of before, and whom i've been unable to locate in my Realms library. You mention that certain individuals from the early days of the Zhentarim are still around, using the names Hesperdan (the old man) and Eirhaun (the maimed wizard). Can i ask precisely what products these two are referenced in so i can find out more? And what "current clack" can you reveal about their present situation?
I'm still very intrigued by the idea that the 'real' Manshoon is out there somewhere and perhaps networking with his old wizard cronies from the earliest days of the Zhentarim, including Semmemon and perhaps these two interesting figures, amongst others.
Any help would be appreciated!
GH |
Knight of the Order of the Keen Eye - Granted by Ed Greenwood, 30th January 2005 |
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Elfinblade
Senior Scribe
Norway
377 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 15:33:42
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Mr. Greenwood.
Than you for your replies so far. I do appreciate you taking some precious moments of your time to dig into that infinite gooish pool of sweet sweet realmslore, and tranfer some of them to us, your loyal servants. :)
enough groveling.
a few new questions:
1. Coffee. Is this (IMO)excellent beverage available in many,if any, countries or cities in the realms? If so, Which region is the largest on export? How do they transport the coffee beans? What countries have the highest import on coffee?
2.Tea. The same as above if you please.
3.Concerning Wine, Beers, and spirits. I reckon these beverages are in abundance in the southern, middle and other temperate lands.
How Do they make/get their hands on these kinds of beverages in the northern lands, where winter is long, and summer is not nearly warm enough to grow grapes and other ingredients needed to make different sorts of wine?
I am from way north of the arctic circle myself, and i know there have been spirits and beer here for ages. made from potatoes, local berries, roots and such. Do you have any interesting ways to distill beer or spirits in the far northern reaches of the realms?
some specialities from, oh lets say silverymoon, Damara, Vaasa, or impiltur perhaps? Or other cold lands?
Later
-Stig- |
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Lameth
Learned Scribe
Germany
196 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 16:38:30
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| Hmmm there is a map in the FR Campaign-Setting on page 88-89 about trade routes and resources. And there is a coffee icon, but I can`t find the icon on the map....??? |
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Faraer
Great Reader
3308 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 17:02:21
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Something I read in an excellent book unrelated to fantasy worlds or RPGs:quote:
When I read books merely for information I skim or read only partially. They serve to expand my knowledge, since quantity will provide me with the greatest possible selection and influence my craftsmanship. But when I read books by authors I trust, I read every word, like the devout do the Bible. These authors deepen my knowledge, provide my work with quality and influence my art.
I see the 3E attitude of Frankenstein-monster pick & mix buffet, what can I extract for my campaign, how can I twist this bit to my purposes, and I think, sure, sometimes I want to read for tangential inspiration, but how incomparably more rewarding and worthwhile it is to really involve myself in the whole of what I'm reading; to try and understand its gestalt rather than cutting bits off to reappropriate. Look at Monte Cook's recent 'best of d20' competition in which he encourages submitters to point to a particularly good feat or prestige class. Nothing of lasting depth or worth will come from such localized, piecemeal thinking and creation.quote:
Originally posted by Elfinblade
beverages
Drinks, man, drinks. Real people don't talk about 'beverages. |
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Steven Schend
Forgotten Realms Designer & Author
USA
1715 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 21:02:05
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quote:
Originally posted by Faraer
Nothing of lasting depth or worth will come from such localized, piecemeal thinking and creation.
I'm inclined to agree on that point. After all, thinking back to heroes or villains you've read about in the Realms (or any fictional world for that matter), what do you remember more--the character or the classes/levels/stats/stuff?
THAT'S the reason why the Realms remains standing after 18 years, IMO.
Besides, once you notice that all the principals of the Realms have been statted at least three different ways, shouldn't that tell you that stats are not the heart of a character, nor are feats and prestige classes and spells the heart of a world? 
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Elfinblade
beverages
Drinks, man, drinks. Real people don't talk about 'beverages.
As for another earlier comment on beers and wines et al, try and find the long-out-of-print Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue (is it available as a download?). I wrote a whole section on the Beers of the Realms (including Elminster's Choice, a cheap beer so bad only Elminster would enjoy it and its labels written like runes and it reads as ELMINSTER'S CHOKE  ). I believe Julia Martin had a hand in the Wines section along with me and Ed.
Steven
Who thinks despite what he said above really ought to get around to fleshing out that Halaster's Spellbook idea he's been kicking around his head for 10-odd years.... |
For current projects and general natter, see www.steveneschend.com
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Edited by - Steven Schend on 10 Feb 2005 21:07:52 |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4688 Posts |
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Garen Thal
Master of Realmslore
USA
1105 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 21:20:11
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quote:
Originally posted by Steven Schend
As for another earlier comment on beers and wines et al, try and find the long-out-of-print Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue (is it available as a download?). I wrote a whole section on the Beers of the Realms (including Elminster's Choice, a cheap beer so bad only Elminster would enjoy it and its labels written like runes and it reads as ELMINSTER'S CHOKE ).
Ahh, Steven, you neglect to mention Elminster imparted the following wisdom in Volo's Guide to Cormyr:
"I've forgiven the impudent wretch who was so bold as to borrow my good name for his second-rate ale. Eighty years as a stone toadstool is enough, I think. He sees things my way now and even lends a hand with things better not spoken of, but don't make the mistake of believing I prefer this stuff. Never serve it to me unless (a foolish tactic, to be sure) you mean to insult me." |
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Dargoth
Great Reader
Australia
4607 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 22:05:27
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quote:
Originally posted by Steven Schend
[brI wrote a whole section on the Beers of the Realms (including Elminster's Choice, a cheap beer so bad.........
What you mean some one invented Guiness?
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“I am the King of Rome, and above grammar”
Emperor Sigismund
"Its good to be the King!"
Mel Brooks |
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Foxhelm
Senior Scribe
Canada
592 Posts |
Posted - 10 Feb 2005 : 23:24:51
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Hello, I was just asking some questions that I am curious about and hope that you have some time to comment on them. Thank you in advance for your time.
1)Could I have more information about the chapel of Finder Wyvernspur in Waterdeep. Perhaps comman activities, relations with the people and powers of the city and any relationship with the Bard collage in the city? Will some of this be showing up in the Waterdeep accessory?
2) Is the priesthood of Finder mainly human and saurial or have there be others attracted to it? (Cause I was thinking about the possible attraction of the church to half-elves and planetouched (like tieflings that might like to emulate the changes reflected in Finder's godhood).
Thanks.
HVulpes |
Ed Greenwood! The Solution... and Cause of all the Realms Problems! |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 11 Feb 2005 : 00:50:04
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Hello, all. Herewith, Ed of the Greenwood makes reply to the tireless questor Dargoth:
Sorry, Dargoth, but Valigan Thirdborn is Eric’s baby. Try asking him in the Questions to Eric L Boyd thread here in the Chamber of Sages, because I’m interested in knowing, too. :}
You asked earlier about Zhentarim (and Church of Bane) ranks and details, and I delayed replying in hopes that NDA prohibitions would be lifted, but they haven’t been. So, for now: No Comment, I’m afraid.
Regarding the Witch-Lords, I’m afraid I can’t say a single useful word about them at the present time. No indeedy. Not without screwing up something that will hopefully turn out to be lovely. You have read CORMYR: A NOVEL, right? And gleaned the tiny bit about the Witch-Lords therein?
As for your Chaond and Zenythri question, I’d say they’ve entered Faerûn in far smaller numbers over a much longer period of time, are widely scattered (hence, no regions specified for them), and have either ‘blended in’ with (Zenythri) or avoided (Chaond) other creatures of Faerûn and kept a lower profile than have most Aasimars and Tieflings. There’s no other plausible explanation as to why “no one’s noticed them until now” in Realmslore.
And yes, I’d say they’ve had small, individual ‘impacts’ on unfolding events in Faerûn - - as individuals rather than as an identified, noticed group, working to either build up rulers and authority or shatter law and its enforcement, according to their natures. I’d say this has gone on for less than a century, so sages haven’t yet ‘noticed’ them much in historical terms (as groups, that is, as opposed to individuals).
If I was looking for groups of chaonds, I’d look in the Rat Hills, in Southbank Scornubel (the former Zirta), and in the broken lands near the Far Forest. Scattered individuals can be found in many lawless, wilderland places.
If I was looking for zenythris, I’d go to Everlund and to the Dragon Coast countryside around Starmantle, as well as peering into the ranks of domestic staff in monasteries dedicated to Helm, Torm, and other lawful deities. Again, scattered individuals can be found far more widely.
So saith Ed. It’s fascinating to note that quiet, keep-to-themselves women with bluish hair have been in Ed’s “background crowd descriptions” since the earliest days of the Realms. And the Company of the Crazed Venturers met a “hulking, frog-like man” in the Rat Hills back in 1979! I wonder who Ed was channeling?
Were chaond and zenythri entirely Ed Bonny creations, and if so, were they ‘imagined’ right at the time the MM2 was being written?
Spooky . . . 
One last thing, Dargoth: nope, none of us have ever bothered to recast our characters into 3rd edition stats. For one thing, our games are increasingly about roleplaying, plain and simple, not ‘rules.’ After all, if all players trust the DM enough, there’s really no need for a lot of dicerolling and pointing out passages in rulebooks: it just doesn’t matter what edition of D&D or even what game system is being used.
love to all,
THO
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 11 Feb 2005 : 01:03:39
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quote:
Originally posted by Steven Schend
I wrote a whole section on the Beers of the Realms (including Elminster's Choice, a cheap beer so bad only Elminster would enjoy it and its labels written like runes and it reads as ELMINSTER'S CHOKE ). I believe Julia Martin had a hand in the Wines section along with me and Ed.
You wrote that? Wowsers... That section caught my eye one eve, when I was rolling up a new character... I'd rolled exceedingly well for gold, but because my character was a minotaur, a lot of normal stuff to spend money on just didn't work for him. I started flipping thru my Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog, and as soon as I saw that section, my character became a lover of beer. He always kept several hand-kegs in stock, and even named his horses after various beers. Once he nearly caught on fire because he was more intent on washing away the taste of the gelatinous cube, and didn't pay attention to how close its flaming remains were... 
quote:
Originally posted by Steven Schend
Steven
Who thinks despite what he said above really ought to get around to fleshing out that Halaster's Spellbook idea he's been kicking around his head for 10-odd years....
Ooh, that sounds good... Maybe you could hook up with SKR, and the two of you could collaborate on it for the WotC site? |
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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Foxhelm
Senior Scribe
Canada
592 Posts |
Posted - 11 Feb 2005 : 02:11:55
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Just remembered some extra questions that I was curious about.
1)Is Finder Wyvernspur, as a god, known to the people of Cormyr? If so, what are their thoughts on him or the idea that a person from one of the noble families of that country has risen to godhood? And what about the Wyvernspur family? If Finder considered well by them or less favoured?
2) Has there ever been a realms character that some one else has created that you really wished that you had created?
3)What do you like to do in your down time? Do you like to read, watch TV or movies, or play video games?
Thanks again. |
Ed Greenwood! The Solution... and Cause of all the Realms Problems! |
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Sanishiver
Senior Scribe
USA
476 Posts |
Posted - 11 Feb 2005 : 07:19:56
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quote:
Originally posted by Faraer
Look at Monte Cook's recent 'best of d20' competition in which he encourages submitters to point to a particularly good feat or prestige class. Nothing of lasting depth or worth will come from such localized, piecemeal thinking and creation.
Every time I find a Feat, Core Class, Spell, PrC or Skill in a d20 book that could possibly do an exceptionally good job of translating a part of the flavor of Faerûn into mechanics, I use it. The reason I do this is because it allows me another avenue as a DM to "show" my players a little more of Fearûn.
Couple this with both good old fashioned story telling and roleplaying, and you end up with a fusion of rules and story that is just as likely to provide the same sort of gaming experience as those whose campaigns achieve ‘apotheosis beyond the rules’ can experience.
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Edited by - Alaundo on 12 Feb 2005 10:08:17 |
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Faraer
Great Reader
3308 Posts |
Posted - 11 Feb 2005 : 17:45:15
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I may have rubbed you the wrong way on the wizards.com boards, Sanishiver, but here either I expressed myself badly or you're responding to something I didn't say.
You know that I prefer less density of rules than WotC books have, but that's not my point here. I'm saying that a lot of d20 books are written less to work as a whole than for their parts to be 'used' piecemeal, and here is a respected guy deliberately encouraging people to look at books in that way. I do not mean 'Monte is bad' -- obviously evaluation time is also one of his concerns, and individual parts of books can be worthwhile on their own. I don't mean to single out rules: isolating a single place writeup or short adventure in an RPG book would have an equivalent effect. Things are more than the sum of their parts. Don't miss the wood for the trees. I thought the context made my meaning clear, but maybe not. |
Edited by - Alaundo on 12 Feb 2005 10:08:38 |
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 11 Feb 2005 : 23:59:08
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| I think I know what Faraer is trying to say, though in truth I tend to be rather neutral about the rules, myself. There are aspects of both 3E rules and 2E rules that I like. Steven Schend's comment more or less sums up my thoughts: I remember the character more than I remember what their stats were, or what their skills and feats were. |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."
--Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 12 Feb 2005 : 00:53:20
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Hello, all. Housekeeping time again, wherein your faithful servant the Lady Hooded tries to deal with some of the ‘easier’ (it saith here!) questions posted here.
First, for Athenon: Ed was a trifle disappointed that the Q&A with Elminster vanished from last year’s GenCon Indy roster, too. It’s too early yet to know if he'll get to do it this year, but he’ll certainly be asking.
Second, to Borch: Ed is ‘hung up’ on trying to find a Realmslore source for Lathtarl’s Lantern that’s stopping him cold on this oldest of outstanding Realmslore queries. As for Cloak Wood, he’ll be getting to it soon, but I direct your attention in the meantime to Page 81 of the 2004 Candlekeep Questions for Ed thread, and the Raetheless Ed described there for Jerryd (as part of a multipart reply that continued into the first few pages of the 2005 thread), which is immediately south of Cloak Wood and mentions some monsters therein.
Third: to David Lázaro: Ed will get to your festivities question when he can (it might take as long as a tenday), but warns that he can’t, for NDA reasons, answer your ‘druids nigh Neverwinter’ question at all. Sorry.
Fourth: Mareka, Ed makes reply to your request for an exact definition of “Creator Race” herewith:
Hi, Mareka! Please forgive me if this answer sounds both exhaustive and simple. I’m not trying to treat you like an idiot, I’m trying to cover all bases properly, because you ask about a definition that people tend to leap past a little too quickly, in their eagerness to plunge into debate.
Well, when we speak of “Creator Races,” we’re like sages of Faerun: we’re applying our own artificial category long after the fact to creatures and their activities in the dim past, and there’s room for lots of debate and dispute about what critters qualify and what they did. The lovely Lady Hooded tells me there’s an entire thread here at Candlekeep devoted to discussion of this topic [[THO note: “Creator Races” in the Sages of Realmslore section]], and these days the list usually shakes down to five races: the sarrukh (detailed in SERPENT KINGDOMS), the fey, the batrachi (an ampihibious race agreed by most sages to have evolved into locathath in the sea and dopplegangers on land), the aearee (an avian race), and humans.
There’s been much debate about whether dragons are a Creator Race, or ‘came from elsewhere’ and were modified by the sarrukh into the wyrms we know today, and so on. (For an example of how fuzzy and therefore difficult this field of discourse can be, consult the “leShay” thread here at Candlekeep [[THO note: in the General Chat]].)
Which brings us to the two major parts of what MOST people mean when they speak of Creator Races: the races of creatures who were ‘around at the beginning’ (i.e. native to Toril), and that dominated (affecting other races, perhaps even deliberately, as the sarrukh are depicted as doing in SERPENT KINGDOMS). All races evolve over time (or stagnate and dwindle), so the Creator Races, as others, have altered over the ‘Long March’ of history.
However, no mortal of Faerun, and certainly no mortal in our real world, can be certain of the events and conditions befalling on Toril long, long ago. As various faiths give wildly different descriptions of “the Beginning of All Things,” including some clergies who worship deities clearly recent arrivals in the Realms, it’s clear that no deity can be trusted as a source (or if one does, that trust is by definition “faith,” dealing with matters that can’t be proven one way or another).
So none of us are really sure who the Creator Races are, but we generally mean “those critters as held sway at the beginning of Toril’s history,” and we think of them as native (as opposed to creatures who definitely ‘arrived’ from other planes and worlds). However, we can’t be sure they’re native: they could just be the first races to rush through portals or rifts as the planet Toril cooled sufficiently for life to survive. We just don’t know.
However, if we can win past most of the argument about who is and who isn’t a Creator Race, the term becomes a useful placeholder for ‘the most senior dominant life-forms,’ who had societies established on Faerun as, one after another, everybody else arrived.
Just to confuse things still further, it’s clear that many humans and fey, to name just two of these so-called “Creator Races,” DID come to the Realms from other places far more recently than ‘the rest of’ the fey and humans who were here earlier.
At one end of such Creator Race and ‘Dawn of Time’ discussions, we reach the futility of arguing “My god was here first!” / “No, MINE was!” (a debate that really has no practical real-world application in the present-day Realms), but at the other end, it can help Dungeon Masters flesh out and understand a clear arc of history that enables them to detail dungeons, magic items, old legends, and ‘lost survivors from long ago, entombed in stasis’ to make a great campaign that some of them hope won’t be contradicted by later revelations about “who was here first.”
In the original, ‘home’ Realms campaign (still going today, whenever the Lady Hooded and I can drag enough of the rest of our merrie band together), I’ve always been as deliberately fuzzy as I can about such things, because I’m always roleplaying NPCs the PCs have to consult about such matters (and really, what does it matter if a sarrukh ‘made’ black dragons, or black dragons evolved on their own, or black dragons flew through a planar rift some day, if that genesis happened a thousand thousand THOUSAND years ago?).
However, in general, most people do mean ‘native to Toril and here first, but more important than plankton or ants or creeping lichen’ when they use the term ‘Creator Race.’
Whew. Thank you, Professor Greenwood. (Actually Professor Greenwood is Ed’s dad - - oops, I suppose that should be “Professor Emeritus Greenwood,” these days.) I’d say that is very much THAT.
love to all,
THO
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 13 Feb 2005 : 02:19:25
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Hello, all. Ed makes reply to Gerath Hoan:
Hi, Gerath. Hesperdan and Eirhaun both appear in HAND OF FIRE, the third and last book in the Shandril’s Saga trilogy, which should see print in mass market paperback form this April, I believe. Both of them also appear in my short story “How Wisdom Came To The Maimed Wizard,” which was published on the WotC website and will PROBABLY appear in THE BEST OF THE REALMS BOOK II: THE STORIES OF ED GREENWOOD, a WotC mass market paperback to be published in July (if recent history is any guide, it might actually show up in bookstores during the last week of June), ISBN 0-7869-3760-2 (or if you prefer the new thirteen digit ISBNs, 978-0-7869-3760-8). Once you read that latter story, you’ll be able to guess why I can’t say more about their present situation just now.
And yes, I’d certainly say that one of the early Manshoons (even when there “was only one,” his ‘cloning around’ was such that he’d died several times over, so none of those we know now are even close to the original) is still lurking, and working with certain powerful Zhentarim wizards to bring about Fzoul’s eventual downfall (and most of the rest of the priests, so the wizards end up ‘on top’ again), only VERY subtly this time, so that once Fzoul and his fellow priests notice something is wrong, the slow process will have reached the ‘inevitable’ stage. We’ll all just have to see if they ever succeed. :}
Mmm-hmmm. So saith Ed, indeed.
love to all,
THO
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Borch
Acolyte
Germany
21 Posts |
Posted - 13 Feb 2005 : 10:20:05
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Thanks for bringing me up to date.
I'm looking forward to the answer to my queries as I still am quite interested in lore on the Cloak Wood and Lathtarl's. I already know about the Raetheless and was quite surprised at how interersting the islands and the Cloak Bay are yet there's nothing on the forest itself.
Well, here I'm waiting patiently for what ever there may come.
Meanwhile, perhaps a smaller querry for Ed:
I read one of his answers on street names in Baldur's Gate. It started out with a descriprion of street starting point at a fortress that is called Stormkeep.
Now, forgive me if have missed anything, but just what is Stormkeep?
Thanks and happy gaming all.
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Sprich aus der Ferne,
heimliche Welt,
die sich so selten
zu mir gesellt |
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Gerath Hoan
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
152 Posts |
Posted - 13 Feb 2005 : 10:50:48
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| Thanks for that Ed and THO... i'm going to work my way through the full Shandril Saga in the coming months as each new edition comes out. |
Knight of the Order of the Keen Eye - Granted by Ed Greenwood, 30th January 2005 |
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Verghityax
Learned Scribe
131 Posts |
Posted - 13 Feb 2005 : 15:54:35
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I have a request to all of You. Please, before You consider it rubbish, just read it.
Wouldn't it all be a lot easier for Lady Hooded One and all the other scribes if we knew which queries were already answered and which weren't? For example, when Your request in answered, edit it by putting a note in the end of it (by using a colour or maybe capital letters). What say ye? |
Edited by - Verghityax on 13 Feb 2005 15:55:40 |
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Mareka
Learned Scribe
Canada
125 Posts |
Posted - 13 Feb 2005 : 23:21:47
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| Thanks for clearing up my confusion, Ed and THO. That answer was much more indepth than I expected. Much appreciated! |
Edited by - Mareka on 13 Feb 2005 23:23:17 |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 14 Feb 2005 : 04:37:40
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Hello, all. Settle back in your seats as Ed goes another round with Jerryd (split into parts as before, due to post size limits):
Hi, Jerryd. Okay, here we go. :}
As before, I’ll go through your post in order, responding where I see need. And as before, most of my comments apply to Vangey before the events that occurred at the end of ELMINSTER’S DAUGHTER. As you read this (and by “you” I mean Jerry, Alaundo, and every scribe whose eyes fall upon these posts) PLEASE understand that I’m not angry, and I don’t mean to be rude or stir up any animosity. I’m just pulling no punches so that my views will be as clear as I can make them.
You posted: “In summary, what you're trying to say is that the War Wizards operate BOTH with standing orders AND with Vangey's micromanaging.”
Correct.
You continue: “That's what I was trying to take issue with, because I don't think it's possible to really and truly do both: the more you have of one, the NECESSARILY less you have of the other. If you're trying to shoot for some middle ground, what you end up with is a grayish mess that is neither truly "standing orders" nor truly "micromanaging."”
Of course you can do both. All modern armies do just that: they operate on standing orders modified by micromanaging. Micromanaging is precisely what officers DO (there’s no difference between Vangey barking an order or a Marine Corps sergeant barking an order: both are micromanaging, by definition).
As for ‘the more of one, the less of the other,’ agreed, and yes, you do end up with a grayish mess.
That grayish mess is the key to the success of the Realms over the years, what makes it seem more real than some other fantasy settings, and gives it more room for ‘life’ (choices for players and DMs and PCs). You grant that point, but want it only to occur in-game, and disagree that game lore intended for DMs or players should reflect it.
Here (although I understand and fully sympathize with your view; who doesn’t want to get all the insider information, and be able to trust every word?) I fundamentally disagree, and the Realms has reflected my viewpoint (that things are NEVER as clear-cut, simple, and black-and-white as we would wish them to be) since before there was a D&D game. If things are absolutes, clean and clear and simple (in a fantasy roleplaying setting only, not in historical battle simulations or board games), there’s very little room left for adventure and PC strivings, and less thrill of discovery for players. The example I’ve given many, many times over the years at GenCon and in DRAGON is the difference between “There are six orcs in the ruined keep, and their hit points are . . .” versus “Elminster says there’re persistent local rumors of orcs lurking around the old ruined keep.” The former is a useful but boringly lifeless dungeon key description that tells players precisely what they’ll be facing if they get to read the adventure and the DM doesn’t do a lot of revising, and the latter is an idea-sparking suggestion that players can’t rely on the DM sticking to, precisely. One kills adventure and the other fosters it.
This plays into my comments to you about standing orders and rules of engagement being modern terms. You posted: “Well, the specific phrases are undeniably modern, but I truly believe the concepts underlying the phraseology goes as far back as people have organized themselves and are not strictly modern concepts.”
Quite possibly true, though neither of us have any way of knowing for sure (certain Roman legion records are the ONLY reliable and fairly complete historical documents that provide real-world data for us to go on, almost everything else being clearly written by those with a stake in flattering or vilifying a war leader, ruler, or general, whilst describing military activities ‘after the fact’). However, you miss my point. My point was that the very act of using those modern terms tends to channel and colour the thinking of persons using them (viz the old saw: “To a man with a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail”). There’s a danger of unconsciously using what you understand about modern (for example) Orders of the Day or debriefings and applying it to, say, the ancient Romans without keeping in mind that their situations were FAR different (most of the later Roman Empire battles were fought with ‘Roman’ forces largely made up of auxiliaries who didn’t even share a language with any legions they may have been fighting alongside, and both the soldiers of the legions and the auxiliaries were illiterate, or had rudimentary reading and writing skills on the legion side only. So there was often lousy battlefield communications and discipline.) It’s all too easy to use real-world examples and unconsciously apply modern-day mindsets. THAT was my point.
We then turn to: “I've seen next to nothing about how Vangey gets on with Khelben. Do they get along well, given they have similar outlooks? Do they dislike each other because they are too much alike? Or do they generally not have any interaction at all?”
They generally don’t have much interaction at all. Khelben is too busy to put in personal appearances where he doesn’t have to, and he regards Cormyr as a stable kingdom under the constant scrutiny of Harpers he trusts, most of whom report to certain of the Seven (such as Storm) whom he might not always agree with in methods and aims, but whose ‘hearts he knows are in the right place.’
Yes, they are VERY much alike in operating style. To the extent that Khelben thinks about Vangey, he considers him right-headed (and to be supported, as far preferable to any alternatives for Cormyr) but foolish in that his reach far outstretches his grasp. In other words, Vangerdahast is a fool for trying to do a too-large job in a way that even a Chosen would have difficulties managing, when he has nowhere near the skills and powers of a Chosen.
That’s one of the reasons various Harpers have covertly ‘helped’ Vangey, down the years, by frustrating treason-plotting nobles, rendering the sort of aid Storm does in STORMLIGHT, and so on. And, that, in turn, is one of the reasons Vangey’s entire house of cards didn’t come crashing down: too many people desperately wanted him to succeed, and go on succeeding, because they didn’t want a Zhent-subverted extension of Sembia flooding through what used to be Cormyr (followed by Sembia rolling up and swallowing the Dales, one after another, and then - - after the inevitable bloody war - - serving Westgate the same way, before the inevitable collapse of Sembia into civil war between various ‘merchant barons’).
So saith Ed. End of Part One, and all that. BTW, Jerryd, in Ed’s example of the “six orcs in the ruined keep.” above, remember that when Ed started presenting the Realms in print there was no Internet, no d20 field and VERY few regularly-published magazines that consistently dealt with fantasy roleplaying games. So darn near EVERYBODY (players and DMs alike) who could get “The Dragon” read it, every month, and there was no way to communicate lore to a DM that his or her players couldn’t also get to read.
love,
THO
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 14 Feb 2005 : 04:40:21
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Hello again. Part Two of Ed responding to Jerryd:
You then posted, about the inevitable failure of what Vangey was trying to do: “Sure, lots of people refuse to accept reality, but for 64 years? That's a bit long for Vangey to refuse to accept it, isn't it? Reality normally starts slapping people around who evade it far sooner than that. Reality's a bitch that way. I think that is a big part of my problem, that you're portraying him as taking so long to get around to realizing that. He should have started having rude wake-up calls far sooner than 64 years. To have evaded the truth for so long speaks very negatively to both Vangey's intelligence and wisdom. Someone with a modicum of both should have realized it far sooner.”
I disagree strongly. You seem here to be discarding the entire realm of Cormyr, as portrayed in print thus far (a portrayal that’s very probably the very same thing that has made you a self-professed Cormyr fan). One of the more shining places to live in the Realms - - thanks in large part, in recent years, to Vangey.
The point is that Vangey was succeeding (albeit often with the covert aid I referred to earlier in my post [[note from THO: Part One, above]]) for most of that time, so reality WASN’T ‘slapping him around’ all that much. He was taking Cormyr to new heights, making it a strong and respected realm, and reshaping it continuously in fine detail to be closer and closer to what he wanted.
You proceed from your own conclusion that micromanagers MUST ultimately fail (which I agreed to) to a subsequent conclusion that Vangey being a micromanager should have failed faster than he did (your own personal opinion, supported by nothing so far as I can see), and therefore conclude he must have been deluding himself about his own lack of failure, and therefore conclude that his intelligence and wisdom are sadly lacking. I see this as a chain built on thin air of your own assumptions.
First: Vangey wasn’t unaware of some of the meddling going on (the ‘covert aid’). As previously alluded to, it’s one of the reasons behind his break with Elminster. Secondly, Vangey’s a VERY shrewd judge of people, one of the reasons he succeeded as long as he did (he could correctly anticipate the reactions or ‘buttons’ of most folk he had to deal with, and so manipulate them), and he could see how effective he was being in reshaping the realm: VERY effective. So reality was caressing him, not slapping him, for most of that time. He was getting results, so why not continue? And why not think he was the ‘right man, at the right time, doing the right thing’?
You go on to post: “Cormyr has a 13 centuries of history behind it, and the War Wizards probably only a handful of centuries less than that (from no later than Draxius' reign up to Salember's regency), that should inform and affect how the War Wizards institution currently works.”
It SHOULD, but as Garen Thal and I have already pointed out to you, it doesn’t, because the War Wizards were (and had to be) entirely remade by Vangey. If we accept your argument here, then the ‘little cabals of fiercely independent mages, all doing just what they liked in the name of defending Cormyr’ that Vangey inherited are the War Wizards we should have today, NOT the organized, hierarchical War Wizards you envisage.
So even accepting your logic (“it seems you want us to consider the War Wizards under Vangey's own command as an isolated thing completely separate from the prior history of the War Wizards, as if Vangey completely wiped the slate clean and started over totally from scratch without any referece to historical precedent at all. I'm not sure that would even be possible.”), we’d have a bunch of vigilantes (and, inevitably, some bad apples) rampaging around the realm until they were all slain - - and we’d probably have a Cormyr today in which public mood would be fiercely against all wizards, and nobles able to covertly hire outlander mages would have succeeded in coups or independence attempts for lack of a Vangerdahast or any War Wizards AT ALL.
Part way through this argument, you posted: “And I believe Vangey is a native Cormyrean, from statements that the Eveningstar area was his playground as a boy.”
Correct. However, I disagree that “The relatively higher degree of organization/hierarchy/order as how things should and do work implied by that unbroken 1300 year history should have been nearly indelibly ingrained into Vangey's psyche and should have affected how he approached his reorganization. For him to so completely discard that culturally-ingrained sense of organization and hierarchy in his revamping of the War Wizards in 1306 would be nothing less than completely revolutionary.”
Ahem. Jerry, WHAT “culturally-ingrained sense of organization?” Again, you begin with an assumption and then use it to justify subsequent conclusions. The only thing ingrained in almost all native-reared Cormyreans are the seasons, obeying Purple Dragons and royal law, and the natural and societal ‘rules’ of farming (I say ‘almost all’ because some of the urban-dwellers have local city feuds and customs in place of understanding details of farming).
You also seem to conveniently forget what Jeff and I wrote in CORMYR: A NOVEL (arguably the only reliable and comprehensive ‘original source’ that can be quoted in any discussion of the history of Cormyr, except for, ahem, ME), which shows us, again and again, how the role of the monarch and his royal wizard and the War Wizards have CHANGED, time and time again and usually forcibly, down the years. Do you recall my ‘Cormyte Bold’ ballad? The whole point of that was a defiant commoner saying ‘no matter what changes go on at Court, I’m still here and I’m still the heart of Cormyr!’
You post that “Such a revolutionary out-of-the-box approach seems out of character for Vangey. He might be brilliant and innovative in his Art, but he strikes me as relatively conventional and orderly (as befitting his Lawful alignment) in his overall worldview and not a revolutionary in any sense of the word.”
Darned right. Vangey wants stability and peace in the realm. He wants laws and adherence to them and confidence and prosperity. So he sets about ordering things in Cormyr the way he wants them to be, with the War Wizards deliberately as his ‘ace in the hole’ right-hand men and women to use in situations to quell opposition, where laws and rights and customs will get in the way of establishing the rule and order he wants to establish. There’s nothing “revolutionary” in that. (One can even argue that in running the War Wizards as his own private fiefdom, Vangerdahast is merely following the tradition established by Luthax!)
Or is any real-world country that has a ‘Secret Service’ or any sort of intelligence-gathering organization being “revolutionary”? In what sense of the four or so meanings I know for this word are you using ‘revolutionary,’ here?
And with that question from Ed, I end Part Two.
love,
THO
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 14 Feb 2005 : 04:43:22
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Hello. Herewith, Part Three of Ed’s reply to Jerryd:
I’m going to skip over your counter-arguments about breaking and loose cannons and initative, because I see continuing this particular side-debate as futile. You’re stating contentions about my earlier counter-arguments that if applied to real-world modern American military, for instance, would lead to a conclusion that no American military personnel can ever exhibit any initiative at all, because of their indoctrination (boot camp, basic training, call it what you will). I’m afraid I see the state we’ve reached here as argument for the sake of argument more than anything else.
Your quotation about Galados (ALL SCRIBES: WARNING: SPOILER FOR CORMYR: A NOVEL IN THIS PARAGRAPH ONLY) quite properly draws and examines two very reasonable conclusions, but is the truth is indeed that it was written (Galados was reassigned to get him out of the way, matching your first conclusion [although the characters onstage obviously jumped to the second conclusion, and Machiavelli-like, Vangey didn’t disabuse them of it]), and got chopped in the editing. In the original text I wrote, Galados is sent to do some snooping on the other Bleths, to see how isolated our bad guy is or if all his kin are in on the plot, and does come racing in to help in that big battle at the end; the entire ‘investigating the Bleths’ subplot got dropped for lack of space.
I fully agree that “as published his fate is definitely a loose end that should be tied up and the way in which it is tied up will further reveal Vangey's character.”
I’ll pass over your comments on pranks (most of which seem to me to be seated in your ignoring the word “some” in my passage: “Pranks are one of the ways some brilliant minds stave off boredom”), and move to this posting of yours: “Perhaps you've known more micromanaging people in positions of authority than I, but I've never met a single micromanager who wouldn't actively try to quash the independence of those under him, or try to get rid of those he cound't break. That's part of why I'm having so much trouble believing in your portrayal of a meddlesome micromanager who still allows a significant amount of independence and initiative from those under him.”
I’m guessing most of your experience of micromanagers have been in military or corporate settings (where there’s a hierarchy and codified authority). I’ve also worked with micromanagers in libraries (where accountability was less and incompetence sharply higher) and in creative situations (filmmaking, computer games, television work, et cetera) where the micromanager might fight like blazes to establish authority over his creatives, but didn’t dare try to get rid of those whose independence he couldn’t reign in, because unless he could isolate a lone creative as a ‘troublemaker’ before shoving them out, it would backfire on him eventually - - and usually backfire on him right away, because he desperately needed all of those independent creatives firing on all cylinders or the whole project would fail entirely or be done too late (and he, the micromanager, WOULD be blamed). [For “he” substitute “she” in the above few lines, in many instances.]
I see the War Wizards as closer to creative game designers or actors or brilliant camera-men than they are to office drones or enlisted military, and Vangey as closer to the micromanager in the second situation (who knows his underlings are there because of their skills [spellcasting] and are intrinsically valuable), than he is to the first sort of micromanager, who tends to think of underlings as replaceable and hence expendable if they give him any trouble.
You go on to post, about multitasking and War Wizards having task-based authority: “The highly-intelligent one-track-mind people would be good sages or academic types but not-so-good war wizards. Is that it?”
Yes.
And then you add: “At any rate, this flipping-back-and-forth structure of authority (I'm his boss, then he's my boss, then I'm his boss again) is not something I'm at all comfortable with, and not something I'd associate with any "lawfully aligned" person or institution.”
I’m sorry if you’re not comfortable with it, because it’s now the rule in many large multinational corporations, rather than the exception (it may be just a fad, but that’s neither here nor there in the present context). It’s an alternative method of organization to the strict hierarchy, just as the so-called “Japanese management” style and the Native American (North American Aboriginal, if you will) “consensus” governing and sentencing customs are alternatives to rank hierarchies. The point is, these alternatives work, exist in the real world, and in some cases have worked and existed for centuries; they’re just as valid as a rank hierarchy.
You seem to see a rank hierarchy as the only sort of organization the War Wizards can have, not just to be effective, but to avoid collapsing, and I disagree.
The next part of your post astonished me. The ‘table game’ of ancient India and Persia has in most of the last century, in the Western world, been called “Kim’s game” after the classic Rudyard Kipling novel KIM, wherein it’s one of the training methods through which the eponymous character Kim is trained as a spy. It’s been used in Sandhurst British officer training exercises (and of course in the Canadian offshoots, such as RMC) for decades, and also at West Point. I suppose the mindset that went with American independence from England caused it to be shorn of its British name. Variants of it are still used today (usually not with a table and little objects, but by officers-in-training being walked through a house, factory, night battlefield, or other setting, and debriefed afterwards on details of what they saw and heard).
The instructors obviously hold the same view as I do, in disagreeing with you: it’s not a humiliating time-waster, but a way of training the mind to handle and hold more things at once. Such as my task-based varying War Wizard hierarchies (For Task A, Wizard One takes orders from Wizard Two, but in the team handling Task B, the same Wizard Two is subservient to Wizard One), as aforementioned. The very sort of thing (ahem) you say you find accepting or working with difficult.
You then post some very weak assertions that giving members of a mission team different orders inevitably leads to a “Keystone Kops situation” that I still disagree with, after we’ve been over this ground three times, and will continue to disagree with. (To use a real-world example, it was the prevalent custom in World War II for members of Allied commando teams to have different orders, kept secret from other members. For one thing, if one member of a team was captured and tortured, he COULDN’T give away much about what other members may have fled or headed to, and what their specific objectives might be. So your ‘every mission will be a laughing-stock joke failure assertion’ fails.)
I say again, Jerry: from my point of view it seems you see a rank-based hierarchy as The Only Way for any organization to be effective, and anything else is doomed to inefficiency and failure. That’s your opinion, not necessarily fact.
I, as the creator of Cormyr and Vangerdahast and the War Wizards, am patiently telling you how and what the War Wizards are, and you’re refusing to accept my descriptions of any of them.
This rather leaves us at an impasse. Except, of course, that WotC will be publishing some short stories this year and a novel next year, from my pen, that will continue to unfold details of the War Wizards as I see them.
Frankly, I’m baffled by your inability to see or accept the War Wizards as I’ve described them to you. They’re a fictional organization made up of fictional characters in a setting I created, that none of us (because our real world lacks the sort of “incantation-boom” magic postulated in the game) can ever really experience. I HAVE experienced organizations akin to what I’ve been telling you the War Wizards under Vangey are - - real-world organizations that have quite efficiently and effectively fulfilled goals and carried out tasks, whereas you (from your posted comments) have not.
I’ve never lived in a totalitarian state, communist society, or theocracy, either, but I can envisage the details of real-world examples that have been described to me, and have readily managed to convince myself that they really do exist or did exist. Why is it so hard for you to do the same?
And as with Part Two, I’m going to break at a question from Ed, and end Part Three here.
love to all,
THO
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 14 Feb 2005 : 04:49:18
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Hello, all. Continuing Ed’s response to Jerryd, with (ta-dah) Part Four:
You post: “Well, you did say that the war wizards were brilliant, independent and egotistical and without some form of control that sort of aggressive schoolyard behavior is what one would generally expect from a group of such individuals.”
Really? Perhaps if the individuals in question were young, immature school kids, yes. Otherwise, no, I would NOT generally expect it. Again, I’ve had experience with librarians, large university academe situations, and brilliant entertainment-industry creatives - - and all of them (whilst covertly fighting amongst themselves quite a bit) adhered to generally-accepted rules of their professions and situations. Haven’t you been exposed to the sort of backbiting that often dominates college-level professors and instructors? They follow rules, and yet furiously and often tirelessly wage war for influence over each other (undermining authority). Moreover, they often (in, to just pluck examples out of my memories, faculty task groups, university-level task forces and focus groups, fundraising groups, and steering committees) have task-based authority that varies for each individual according to the task (fictional example: Dr. Blob is my department head, but we serve together on the Faculty Standards committee, of which I am chair and he the most junior member). This happens ALL the time and is quite widespread. It’s been going on for centuries, if one includes the English universities, and on the North American continent for as long as Canada and the United States have had universities; it’s not some fancy of mine.
To me, our entire debate about how the War Wizards are organized feels as if you are from a society that drives cars and I’m explaining to you that once upon a time, before widespread roads, lots of travel across this land was by canoe or raft, along rivers - - and you, because of your familiarity with cars, refuse to believe that canoes or rafts can exist or ever did exist.
This is borne out, in my view, by my contention that you’re continually cleaving to a command structure akin to the modern American military, and your posted response: “Sigh. No, like *any* well-organized institution throughout history.”
I guess (and yes, it’s only my guess) that viewpoint goes along with your preference for no gray, only clear-cut black and white: you see history in such terms, too. You are either refusing to see that there are alternatives to a rank hierarchy among well-organized institutions throughout history, or defining “well-organized” so as to exclude any type of organization except strict rank hierarchy.
You went on to post parallels between the modern American military and the ancient Roman (military, I presume), and said this: “You could claim just as easily and validly - perhaps moreso - that I'm being anachronistic by trying to model Cormyr's defense institutions on ancient Rome rather than a medieval model.”
You are? This truly astonishes me, because NOTHING in Cormyr’s military as officially published anywhere thus far closely resembles the wide variety of historical Roman military structures. Not battlefield tactics, not armament, not reporting customs or provisioning, not combined arms - - nothing. I groaned my way through in-depth military studies of Roman legions in two grades of high school and again in university (and had an uncle who was a world authority on such things, and used to cheerfully pick holes in what I was taught; on one memorable visit, he even set up a sandtable wargame to show me how things went at a particular battle, in defiance of what my prof had said on the subject), and believe me, I was trying to avoid all parallels and even echoes!
You then post: “Historically speaking, though, nearly all secret police organizations have had command structures that were just as hierarchical and rigid as any military force.”
Ahem, who taught you this? We have no reliable way of knowing enough details about the older historical secret police organizations to say so, one way or the other - - and of the twentieth century ones, rigid hierarchical command structures have been the on-paper exception rather than the daily reality. The dominant tendency in all of them has been for ‘strong men’ to set up personally-loyal internal groups and fight for influence and authority against others within the organization, so even when there’s a formal hierarchy, the organization doesn’t work that way ‘on the ground.’ This is something I’ve studied extensively, heard much about while growing up (my dad was a high muckety-muck in both NATO and NORAD), and have friends actively engaged in, and your sentence above just plain Ain’t True.
So saith Ed. Here I can chime in, thanks to my own professional background: Ed’s right about the secret police organizations. Really. So endeth Parte Ye Fourthe.
love,
THO
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 14 Feb 2005 : 05:13:03
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Hello again, all. Part Five of Ed’s response to Jerryd:
I’m now going to skip over a lot of rehashing of points we’ve argued about before, to these posted words of yours, about the War Wizards: “True, they don't normally gather to fight large set-piece battles. Leadership is just as necessary at the tactical scale as the strategic, though. To return to Kentinal's police investigation analogy, just ask any SWAT team how they'd fare without a leader or method of coordinating a plan.”
I don’t have to, because this is another straw man. I’ve never said a War Wizard task group (or a SWAT team, for that matter) have no leader nor plan. I was disputing the need for a hierarchy beyond leader and second-in-command, in such a small number of trained individuals (usually seven or less): if both the leader and the second go down, it’s every man for himself and back to the standing orders, which are almost always: SOMEONE has to get out alive, to report back to Vangey what’s happened.
I drew a comparison with most D&D groups (players not wanting a hierarchy beyond much more than the top two leader types), and you responded that it didn’t match yours, saying: “My experience with D&D adventuring groups must be highly atypical, then, if what you say of the vast majority is true. Part of that might be that almost all of the different campaigns/settings I've played in have been with the same set of players . . .”
Aha. Almost assuredly so. Whereas I’m speaking of a great variety of players, all over the world at conventions from England to Sweden to Australia, over more than two decades now - - even in GenCon competitive tournament situations where establishing a strict hierarchy might have been of great benefit to the players involved.
Even then, you go on to post: “I do think a second-in-command and third-in-command should be specified, but probably not the entire group lineup all the way down to 6th-in-charge or more because once the top three people are down the entire mission is usually so irretrievably screwed anyway that the only thing left to do is to break off and get out.”
EXACTLY my point (for the War Wizards). We agree here.
You then post a valid distinction between individual and institutional competence, but set up yet another straw man: “When I say that a War Wizards institution lacking any organization would be incompetent, it is just flat-out wrong and invalid to draw from that the conclusion that I'm calling any individual war wizard incompetent.”
I wasn’t drawing that conclusion, because we haven’t been talking about the War Wizards “lacking any organization.” We’ve been talking about the War Wizards and you’ve been refusing to accept anything but a strict rank hierarchy as “organization.”
You continue this straw man throughout the next part of the post (stating my point about the various organizations in Cormyrean society counterbalancing each other is irrelevant) by posting these passages: “Just because one or two institutions are highly organized and hierarchized does not at all mean that a third institution can still be effective while being disorganized.”
and: “Now, you may dispute my contention that any large institution of several hundred members (like the War Wizards) needs to be organized in order to be effective,”
and: “The War Wizards must either have sufficient organization of its own to be effective or fail to be effective.”
Again, you are only accepting a rank hierarchy as being “organized,” and calling my alternative “disorganized.” I entirely agree with the your contention in the second passage I’ve quoted above, and also with your entire third passage - - but I DON’T agree that the War Wizards are disorganized. Nor do I disagree with this: “In the magical world of Faerûn, though, we need an effective force of wizards in addition to the conventional military to protect the metaphorical House of Cormyr from being looted or burned down, and that is the role the War Wizards play. It has been my contention all along that no institution comprising several hundred individuals can be effective *as an institution* without a reasonable degree of organization regardless of whatever the individual competencies of the members might be.”
Again, I reject your judgement that if the War Wizards don’t have set ranks (with clearly-defined powers, in a rigid hierarchy) they’re not “organized,” and can’t possibly be “effective.”
You went on to post: “If the War Wizards are not *institutionally* effective, then they fail to be any sort of credible deterrent.”
I have to agree with Blueblade’s post here. I can think of many, many real-world examples where the fearsome reputations established by, or built up around, individuals or groups (sometimes even mythical groups) have proved to be a very effective deterrent to all sorts of people. If you’re speaking in the sense of “the War Wizards have to have a track record of effectiveness in order to sufficiently impress Sembia and other potential foes of Cormyr who can muster military might into not attacking Cormyr,” I partially agree. Partially in that I’d amend my sentence to replace ‘track record’ with ‘reputation.’ Yet they DO have a recent-decades reputation for effectiveness, thanks to Vangerdahast’s successes. Of course, you’re unwilling to accept those successes, and therefore must conclude that the ‘Keystone Kops War Wizards’ must be a laughing-stock around the Realms - - but strangely enough, there’s no trace of that in published Realmslore. Therefore the War Wizards AREN’T Keystone Kops, and therefore Vangey must have enjoyed considerable success. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
. . . And a good five-cent woman is a-- Ahem. Enough mangling of old sayings. The above text was Ed, and this down here is THO, signing off Part Five (for post size limitation reasons).
love to all!
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 14 Feb 2005 : 05:15:32
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Hello, again. THO here with Part Six of Ed’s response to Jerryd:
You then post an opinion about Vangerdahast (“He may not want the crown or the title, but when he is putting what his personal vision of Cormyr first (even above the vision of Azoun), he is taking kingship upon himself de facto if not de jure. Personally, I would say that he DOES think he's effectively king if he takes on that executive power, even if he doesn't want the crown or title or the notoriety that goes with them. Saying that he doesn't want to be top dog rings hollow when you say he's taken upon himself the effective power of the top dog.”) that tells me your have a far different understanding of power, and of personal ethical wrestlings over it, than I do. Why does it ring so hollow, exactly? Have you never heard of the Reluctant Ruler archetype? Of the American political axiom that “The best presidents are the men who DON’T want the job”?
You went on to conclude that Vangey is a hypocrite. Correct.
However, you then seemed to ignore the essential part of my earlier reply to you: “I’m NOT saying Vangey saw himself as a rightful ruler of Cormyr in any sense. He saw himself as the man best suited to rule, and tried to make Azoun IV better and better suited to rule, and at the same time worked to ensure that Azoun made the “right” decisions and gave the “right” decrees. “Right” in this case being what Vangey saw as right, of course. Vangerdahast saw himself as the TRUE ruler but not the RIGHTFUL ruler. In other words, it was his daily job to rule Cormyr from behind the scenes, and not get caught at it.” to conclude: “This is confirmation that Vangey thinks of himself as the king de facto but not de jure - he readily enough assumes the power, just eschews the title, paraphenalia and acclaim.”
Read my words again. You seem to want to paint Vangey as a Great Villain because he dared to think of himself as the right man for the realm. I’m trying to point out that he saw Azoun IV as incompetent, but almost competent, and that it was his (Vangey’s) job to build him into a superb king while running the realm in the meantime, and that he neither deserved nor wanted the trappings of power. Because for him it wasn’t about being ‘top dog,’ it was about being the best dog on the spot to do the job that had to be done. I’m not saying Vangey’s performance was any more noble than a gangland boss, but his motives certainly were. Thus his essential tragedy: does the end justify the means?
By your statements, clearly not. That’s fine, and a perfectly valid view. For my purposes, I want to leave that judgement open to all Realms fans, to reach their personal conclusion.
In your post, having thus judged Vangey, you dismiss the matter (and my depiction of Cormyr as a fairly nice place to live) as outside the scope of your focus on the War Wizards, a contention I also disagree with. You can’t have it both ways. I’m telling you how Vangey (largely through use of the War Wizards as his ‘many reaching arms’) made Cormyr the bright shining place we both love, and you’re dismissing that whole subject because it doesn’t fit your ‘the War Wizards must be ineffective if portrayed your way, Ed’ argument.
You then post: “It sounds to me in effect that, rather than attaching war wizards to regiments then let the regimental commander handle the details of mounting patrols and notifying the war wizards attached to the regiment (as I proposed), that Vangey himself would have to personally keep track of the patrol schedules of every garrison around the realm and personally attach war wizards to specific patrols as he desired.”
Unfortunately for the argument you go on to make, you’ve got it wrong here (and I can’t for the life of me look at my words, that you directly quoted in reference to this comment, and see how you can honestly draw the conclusion you did). Except that you seem to be refusing to allow War Wizards any initiative or judgement of their own, AND refusing to accept that they can have standing orders as well as Vangey’s subsequent micromanagement, and so posit this situation where they stand like lifeless, immobile robots unless someone (Vangey or any “regimental commander”) is giving them orders.
Let’s look at an ‘attachment’ of a War Wizard. Tharantal, a senior War Wizard, comes to young Ravinthar at High Horn and says, “No spellhurling practise for you this day. Orders from the Old Man: you’re to get to Immersea forthwith, find a lionar hight Ondabran Thale, and stick with him. Take no orders from any Purple Dragons, and when they ask why the gods you’re there, just say ‘Vangerdahast,’ and smile. Watch for anyone slipping off from barracks, or trying to bury or hide anything - - and report back to me after nightfall. Pay no attention to high-ranking Dragons - - stick with Thale, no matter what. If he goes running off into the forest, so do you.”
I fail to see how any of this overstresses Vangey, who’s using Tharantal as his go-between. You can be sure that if Ravinthar sees a great danger to the realm (a flight of dragons, say) he’ll report in just as fast as possible - - not only are there standing orders to that effect, but he’s got a brain of his own, and loves Cormyr just as much as the next man.
So why, exactly, do you have such a hard time accepting this view of things?
Another question from Ed, and a good one, I think. *I* understand it quite readily, Jerry, and as someone with a considerable background in intelligence, think it rings true (or rather, as true as any imaginary fantasy kingdom can). So I’m going to echo Ed here: why can’t you?
Anyway, so endeth Part Six. Stay tuned, all for Seven!
love to all,
THO
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Questions for Ed Greenwood (2005)
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