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Mareka
Learned Scribe
Canada
125 Posts |
 Posted - 01 Feb 2005 : 22:49:31
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quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
[Most of these Prime Material Planes (from which various of the “creator races” hail) are similar to Toril in that they are vaguely-medieval-level carbon-based and copious-water environments very like Toril, and one can breathe the air and drink the water if one is a resident of one plane, and steps (via gate/portal or spell) from one to the other.
Dear Ed of Greenwood (via Lady Hooded);
What is the definition exactly of "Creater Race"? What makes a creature qualify for that designation? I always thought they evolved on Toril, but it seems I am mistaken. I'm thinking they are responsible for "creating" many of the other races, but is there any more to it than that?
Thanks so much for answering our questions. This scroll is such a wealth of Realmslore!!
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Edited by - Mareka on 02 Feb 2005 21:02:52 |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 02 Feb 2005 : 00:01:04
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Hello, all. Herewith, Ed answers simontrinity about Syluné:
Ah, what a LOVELY question. These are the sorts of things I love to answer. Thanks, simontrinity!
Okay: When the spectral, post-demise Syluné is inhabiting a body, she can eat and drink but doesn’t feel hunger or thirst.
In fact, she can feel but not feel. This is her great tragedy. In other words, she can’t feel pain from purely physical sources, or feel ill, or feel sexual pleasure. She can dimly feel sensations (“The fingers of this body are in contact with something hot” or “I can feel a hard surface with these fingers”) but isn’t ‘in tune’ with the body and feeling everything that happens to it. She DOES have to eat and drink to keep the body alive, though she can just ‘drift out of it’ to let it fall into a non-breathing torpor (which means its metabolic processes slow down greatly, and it need not eat, drink, or eliminate for long periods of time). The body can then be submerged or smothered without drowning or suffocating, and so on.
When Syluné is in a body and it’s severely wounded (limbs being severed, for instance), she doesn’t suffer shock. Nor is the body as quickly affected by poisonous gases or the like as a normal living woman would be: in other words, Syluné can force the body to try to accomplish things(go on functioning as best possible) in situations where a normal body would have collapsed from pain or a blow to the head or whatever.
Syluné has been in situations where “her” bodies have been tortured, burned, or even systematically dismembered, where she’s gone on talking and acting as calmly and normally as possible. She can dimly feel unpleasant sensations, but not debilitating pain.
Many spells, of course, DO cause her spectral self pain, as do certain changes in the Weave, so blasting a Syluné-body with certain spells WOULD cause her to scream, shake in agony, and so on.
As for romance still interesting her: of course. Although she can see and communicate with the Chosen and many others via the Weave, she’s terribly lonely and she can no longer truly be ‘held’ (hugged and comforted). She’s forever ‘a little bit detached, a little bit apart.’
To have someone care about HER, personally, and want to be near her or share experiences with her or converse with her, would mean a lot to her. Unless the particular person repelled her or she knew overtures were being made for deceitful purposes (I’m really a Zhent agent who wants this silver fire, and don’t truly give an owl’s hoot about this weird old witch at all), she would very much want to have a relationship.
Knowing how fragile life is, she wouldn’t necessarily want to faithfully love just one person, either, for fear of having nothing when they inevitably eventually died - - though she’s always been acutely sensitive to the feelings of others, and would conduct herself in such a manner as to minimize any hurt and jealousy felt by someone who wanted her to be “theirs alone.”
If things progressed to actual lovemaking, Syluné can no longer enjoy full physical bodily sensations - - but that doesn’t mean she can’t control a body expertly, so as to give a partner great pleasure. Also, when in such intimate contact, she can reach out with her mind and give pleasure (or induce pain, or launch well-nigh-irresistable thought-probes) right into the mind of a lover. Silver fire can even be used to burn out the brain and life of someone at such close range - - but such would never happen with Syluné accidently, in ‘the throes of passion,’ because she can no longer feel acutely enough to be caught in such throes. This also, of course, makes her tireless in lovemaking. Her body might get weary, or raw, but she doesn’t feel that strongly enough for such sensations to govern her.
She can walk or run for hours without getting winded or footsore enough to collapse (dehydration, bloodloss, hypothermia and so on will lead to eventual collapse, of course, and attempting anything the body isn’t strong enough to accomplish will result in failure and perhaps even joint failure of the body).
Which brings us to my advice to a would-be suitor: yes, love her. Be aware that if your connection to the Witch of Shadowdale becomes commonly known (and word gets to, for example, Zhent ears) you will be placing yourself in great danger.
But she’s worth it.
Even before her death, she was one of the most caring and perceptive people in all Faerûn, and she desperately wants someone to love and cherish her now, and will return such feelings fiercely. If you’re scared, tell her so. And if you’re in the sack with her and start feeling chafed or getting chest pains, TELL her so. She can call on the Weave to do much, and you’ll barely notice she’s not quite ‘alive’ as other people are. (For one thing, she can hear EVERYTHING, because she’s relying on far more than the ears of her body.)
You will also earn the respect of the other Chosen of Mystra, and the deep gratitude of both Azuth and Mystra herself. Which can’t hurt in an emergency, when you cry out a desperate prayer.
(If your DM wishes, this may even become the start of a different sort of campaign, in which you might be offered some limited magical powers in return for becoming a servant of Mystra; not a Chosen, but some of the other sorts of servants described in SECRETS OF THE MAGISTER.)
Properly roleplayed, a romance with Syluné would be a fascinating thing, involving at the outset some very subtle testing on her part (she’s a superb actress) to learn the true depths of your character’s inner character. Followed by great intimacy, as she tries to banish her loneliness by being with you.
Whew. So saith Ed. There’s not much I can add to that. (Sniff.)
love to all,
THO
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Athenon
Acolyte
USA
43 Posts |
Posted - 02 Feb 2005 : 06:01:32
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Hooded Lady,
I have another question for Ed as I come out of my lurking in the deep shadows. I hated that the Q&A with Elminster/Ed of the Greenwood was absent from the line up of WotC events at last year's Gen Con. Does Ed have any idea if he'll get to do that this year?
Thanks! |
Will Maranto
Representing the Realms in the Wilds of Northern Louisiana |
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RevJest
Learned Scribe
USA
115 Posts |
Posted - 02 Feb 2005 : 06:12:46
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quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
Hello, all. Herewith, Ed answers simontrinity about Syluné:
Ah, what a LOVELY question. These are the sorts of things I love to answer. Thanks, simontrinity!
And thank you for such an interesting and through reply, Ed!
quote:
(If your DM wishes, this may even become the start of a different sort of campaign, in which you might be offered some limited magical powers in return for becoming a servant of Mystra; not a Chosen, but some of the other sorts of servants described in SECRETS OF THE MAGISTER.)
Just a note to readers at Candlekeep:
Since Ed mentioned "Secrets of the Magister", I decided to get a copy and check it out.
"Secrets of the Magister" is *packed* with the sort of lore Ed struggles with editors to get in to Realms books and suppliments. The sort of lore we all ask him questions about on this forum. Even if you don't game, and just enjoy reading the various novels, "Secrets" is definitely worth picking up. Tons o' interesting reading!
- S
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"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Edited by - RevJest on 02 Feb 2005 11:24:43 |
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Octa
Learned Scribe
USA
138 Posts |
Posted - 02 Feb 2005 : 20:24:40
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Ed, I was thinking about this in the context of moonstars, storm, khelben and the eastern harpers but am going to turn it into a general question-
It would seem to me that while the chosen can be totally selfless, and united behind each other in 'save the world' type situations, that in more ordinary dealings with one another there might be alot of disagreement (show me siblings who get along). Specifically in the way they deal with mere mortals.
Khelben and the Simbul seem like they would be much more cavalier in their attitudes to 'sending some fool to their death'
Whereas strom would be more 'You sent my agent where, to do what, they are going to die there, how could you'
Because of this they might even want to keep their networks of informants totally seperate.
Also could you go into some stories of sibling rivalry between the sisters.
p.s. Maybe I just missed this because I haven't read silverfall yet, and don't own the seven sisters 2ed book.
thanks for any illumination you could provide.... |
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Blueblade
Senior Scribe
USA
804 Posts |
Posted - 02 Feb 2005 : 21:41:44
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Octa, have you read this?
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/fr/silverfallcp
It's fiction by Ed showing the Seven Sisters behaving like, well, bitchy real-life sisters. Also I remember at least the first and the 2003 offering of his Spin A Yarn stories on the WotC website have shown us a little of the Seven interacting like real people (irritated, sarcastic with each other, disagreeing, etc.) |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 01:04:26
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Hi, George! I never thought much about how the hin got from Luiren to the Easting Reach, but via Shandaular is just fine with me, so Let It Be So.
I didn’t envisage this happening for any very sinister reason, more like ‘internal family bickering’ among the halflings arising out of increasing overcrowding in Luiren at that time (‘breadbasket’ food-growing conditions coupled with a preferred rural lifestyle and a time of peace, prosperity, and unbridled breeding leading to too many kids for the surroundings to comfortably support, halfling resistance to ‘leaving the land’ to cluster in cities, hence wanting their own farms, hence having to go and find some new real estate to have them - - so let’s go FAR away and start new lives, and not end up being ‘little colonies being told what to do by those who were unkind to us’ or leave overmuch temptation to just sneak back home if things get hard in the New Place).
Once the halflings got to the Easting Reach, and discovered how darned much colder a spot they’d chosen, they were forced by the climate into different crop plantings and extensive use of root cellars for dwelling as well as food storage (hence, fixed-location settlements).
Yes, some of the Narfelli were unfriendly to say the least, but the halflings’ skill at growing too-rare edibles and in crafting small, useful devices (buckles, fastenings, tinder boxes, et al) made them highly prized by the Narfelli. You can capture a halfling, and you can torture and threaten him - - but mistreating him DOESN’T force him to make the goodies you want him to produce for you, so any Narfelli who did want to enslave the hin soon learned that it was futile. Nomadic Narfelli in hard winters had to depend on hin for food, and if halflings refused to yield food to raiders but gave it freely to those who come peaceably, the Narfelli learned how to treat halflings - - or died.
Work for you?
A pleasure to chat with one of THE top Lore Lords of the Realms, as always. Glad you liked the Vangey revelations; I still want to write more of his story in future Realms fiction pieces. Sorry I missed you on my Oz tour in 1984 (I got as close as a convention in Melbourne, with ‘Uncle’ Wes Nicholson as my host and driver and companion to wife and self for five weeks). The gods alone know when I’ll ever have the time and money to get out your way again, so I’ll just have to start working hard on getting WotC to bring you to GenCon Indy some year as a guest. Perhaps if you wrote a blockbuster Realms novel . . .
Wooo! YES! Yes! Let’s see this happen!
love to all,
THO
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David Lázaro
Acolyte
Spain
37 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 01:40:42
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Well met.
This thread is getting more interesting every day. I love relaxing and reading it every day before I go to bed.
Now, I've got two questions. Well, I'd only ask one but since the first one is about Silverymoon maybe it doesn't get answered in a long time.
First, what festivities are celebrated in Silverymoon? I'm more interested in the ones that take place in or around Midsummer and Shieldmeet.
And also, what can be disclosed about the customs of the druids leaving near the Neverwinter wood?
Thanks beforehand Ed and Lady Hooded One, bearer of the caress. |
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Jerryd
Acolyte
USA
33 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 07:58:35
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I'm back, with more about Vangey, the War Wizards, and other sundry topics!
{Start of part 1 of 4}
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Hi, Jerryd. You think you’re being misinterpreted? Fair enough. I think in many places in your last reply you’re misinterpreting ME, so let’s get to it. As before, I’ll run through your post in order.
This may be a case of us being, to quote George Bernard Shaw, "separated by a common language!"
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
[Snipped several paragraphs about 'micromanaging', 'standing orders' and 'rules of engagement'.]
In summary, what you're trying to say is that the War Wizards operate BOTH with standing orders AND with Vangey's micromanaging. 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". As a matter of intellectual principle I always try to avoid "grayish messes" whenever possible - I have a strong predilection for conceptual clarity and blacks/whites.
I know that grayness is present in reality, but I believe that it is always the product of misunderstanding, error, or insufficient information and never inherent, that one should never deliberately engender it or revel in it, and that one should always quash it whenever possible. The characters in the Realms will experience grayness within the world (and should to maintain verisimilitude), but I firmly believe that those writing at the DM and player level ought to keep it within the in-game level and never inflict it on DMs or players in the game rules or lore presented to them. I'm a firm believer of presenting game lore as "this is how it objectively and really is, but people in the world think something else." So if I write up that something is micromanaged, I mean that there are few to no significant "standing orders", and if I write up that something is in general highly organized with pre-defined plans and orders out the wazoo, it's not going to be in general micromanaged to a significant degree (at least not without portraying how that micromanagement is highly detrimental to the pre-defined plans and orders in place and destructive to the general good workings of the institution).
And in those snipped paragraphs, you again say I'm thinking in modern terms when I use 'standing orders' and 'rules of engagements'. 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. More on this below.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
I’ve never said this was an attractive feature of being a War Wizard, or that it arose out of anything more than the same deep-seated mistrust of the competency of others that so bedevils Khelben Blackstaff: Vangerdahast and Khelben are both paranoid, and (with a few exceptions, such as Laspeera and Caladnei in the first case and Laeral and to a lesser extent all of the other Chosen of Mystra in the second) they don’t trust anyone to do a task as well as they can, or even fully and properly at all.
Hmmm, that brings to mind another question. The relationship between Elminster and Vangerdahast has been fairly well covered in lore, but 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?
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You post: [I plainly and simply don't think it's possible for micromanangement and initiative to easily and comfortably coexist in any period.]
Agreed. Vangey was attempting tactics neither easy nor comfortable, either for him or for the War Wizards under him. Ultimately (as he grew older, slower, and with ever-more things on his plate and filling his mind) doomed to failure - - but for many years he refused to accept that. Just like a lot of real people in the real world.
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.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You post: [Given that roughly Renaissance-equivalent with a continuous 1300 year history, I find that a 2 for Cormyr would be patently unbelievable - it would shatter my suspension of disbelief.]
I disagree with your value of 2 out of 10, but I think you’re also making a great mistake here: the “continuous 1300 year history” bit. Read Cormyr: A Novel, and reflect on Luthax and other incidents in which War Wizards WERE traitors. As has been said before, Vangey completely overhauled the War Wizards, changing what they’d been before his arrival. So we’re really only speaking of the War Wizards under his aegis, which is more a matter of decades than centuries. (Much later in your post you conceded this, citing Vangey’s command over the War Wizards as lasting 64 years - - but you conveniently don’t mention that here.)
(More on the 2 out of 10 later)
Well, I didn't mention it here because I thought you would get the difference in context I was trying to get across in the two different places. It is true that the current manner in which the War Wizards work was started by Vangerdahast 64 years ago, but that still does not contradict the fact that 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. That's 13 centuries of development and progress Cormyr has had, and I think we have both agreed in the past that the longer a history of development you have the more organization you get. That is why I think that in general, the various institutions of Cormyr would be most believable if they had a degree of organization that is greater than what you'd find in a typical medieval or renaissance kingdom that in real history had only a few hundred years of continuous existence as political entities. That degree of organization should also be less than the 20th-century real world because the modern real world requires its higher technological base to support the higher degree of organization. (Magic could serve in the place of some of this, but is quite limited because it's not nearly as ubiquitous as our modern technology is).
From what you said 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. For one thing, the prior history of the War Wizards almost has to affect how Vangey did his reorganization if for no other reason than providing an example to Vangey of how he didn't want it to work - in effect his reorganization would be a reaction against the past institution of the war wizards. Even the prior War Wizards aside, though, there is the more fundamental matter of that 1300-year continuous history. That length of history implies a well-developed organization in Cormyrean society and governance, one that would be culturally ingrained in every Cormyrean from birth as how things should work. (And I believe Vangey is a native Cormyrean, from statements that the Eveningstar area was his playground as a boy.) 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 — and startlingly so given how he is otherwise portrayed. 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.
I had viewed Vangey and his reorganization in a more conventional sense that would be well-informed by the long past history of the War Wizards and the culturally-ingrained sense of organization/order he was born and raised with, yet still very different from how the Draxius-through-Salember instititution worked. Similar degree of organization, but different in actual detail. You obviously disagree and go more for a complete and revolutionary slate-wiping.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
I see it as the way every ‘exclusive club’ sort of organization, from belonging to a street gang to belonging to a golf course, ‘trains’ new members as to the pecking order, “the way things are done around here,” and so on. The specific means of this training, because we’re dealing in the main with brilliant, independent, and often egocentric minds (the sort of person who can cast arcane spells, and has been shaped by having some experience in doing so), often consists of ‘breaking’ (humiliating, so as to shatter personal notions of superiority) the new members. After all, Vangey wants loyal War Wizards, not six hundred haughty “I know better” loose cannons.
You've said before that war wizards know what to do and will act without having to wait for Vangey's word, but now here you say that Vangey 'breaks' these same independent minds because he doesn't want any loose cannons. There is some middle ground between breaking independent people from being loose cannons and 'breaking' them of having any initiative at all because "loose cannon" generally refers to out-of-control recklessness, but it's a shaky middle ground at best. If your 'breaking' methodology is severe enough to insure that none of them are "loose cannons" you're also breaking most of them of any real initiative at all, even the desirable kind. On the other hand, if your 'breaking' methodology is light enough to allow most of them to retain enough independence and initiative to be useful, then you guarantee that at least a few of them are going to retain their "loose cannon" inclinations. The "humiliating, so as to SHATTER personal notions of superiority" part seems to me extreme enough be on the severe end of the 'breaking' methodology, which speaks against your earlier assertion that the war wizards do act on their own initiative when needed.
Here's another quote from Cormyr: A Novel, from p.284, during that Huldyl-Kurthryn-chess scene. "One war wizard, an earnest young man from the Wyvernwater shores called Galados, had even confronted Old Thunderspells about it last night — and had not been seen since." Unless I missed something, Galados' fate was never revealed afterward. There are two reasonable ways his disappearance could be interpreted. One would be that Vangerdahast saw Galados as earnest, sincere, and well meaning, and sprirted him off into hiding so that he wouldn't blow Vangey's machinations. The second would be that Vangerdahast is intolerant of anyone calling him into question and simply eliminated Galados despite that his intentions were sincerely for the welfare of Cormyr. There are two reason why the second is more likely than the first: (a) if Vangey just spirited Galados away to keep him from interfering, why do whe see nothing of his return, just to show that he was still alive and that Vangey didn't do something vile to a earnest and loyal war wizard; (b) if Galados was truly sincere and spoke up out of his conscientious loyalty, why didn't Vangey use his loyalty be explaining what was up giving him a part in the machinations - it would have been a nice touch to have a mention of Galados at the climactic scene as helping out. That we see no revelation of Galados' fate only lends credence to the second explanation of his disappearance - that Vangey eliminated an earnest and loyal war wizard who just happened to have the guts to question his boss. If Vangey is the sort who will eliminate anyone who questions him - even those who are truly loyal to Cormyr - then we are clearly and unambiguously in the territory of him wanting only yes-men as war wizards who have no independence or initiative at all and this would speak strongly against your prior assertion that war wizards will act with independence and initiative and don't need Vangey's say-so to act. I know that if a co-worker of mine was disappeared simply for speaking up to the boss it'd sure chill any initiative I had!
It may be that you did mention Galados' fate and that bit was subject to the editorial scalpel, but 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.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You post: [What also may be connected to the humility aspect is that in Stormlight on pp.31-32 you indicate that war wizards are prone to playing pranks on one another, and within the context of the cite Sir Broglan has to specifically tell his team "no pranks" and to concentrate on the mission.]
Correct, though the team seen in STORMLIGHT contains no true novices. Pranks are one of the ways some brilliant minds stave off boredom when forced (by loyalty to orders) to do distasteful or dull things.
I've heard a lot of people say that smarter someone is the more prone they are to pranks, but I've never really bought into that. I will agree with a more general statement - that smarter people may require more entertainment and diversion - but pranks or other minor malicious acts are nothing but immature and juvenile no matter how smart the prankster is. It's no excuse. While I suppose a wizard might be just as prone to immaturity as any other human being (there being no direct relationship between intelligence and maturity), it doesn't help any vision of professionalism on the part of the War Wizards if this sort of thing is rampant. I can think of two reasons why such immaturity might be tolerated: they are either (a) it is allowed to keep individual war wizards sharp and on guard or (b) intended to serve that purpose of breaking or humiliating war wizards. My initial gut reaction is that Vangey shouldn't tolerate flagrant immaturity among his war wizards unless it serves one of those specific purposes, but then I recalled that he tolerates a great variety of legal and moral lapses so long as those lapses don't hurt Cormyr or affect the performance of duty, so I guess we're left with possible rampant immaturity.
And you mention that the war wizards, besides being brilliant and egocentric, are independent. How can Vangey, who wants to micromanage everything, tolerate such independence? A true micromanager would try to break them of that independence - break them to his will. 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.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
True. And being intelligent people with minds trained to memorize lots of information perfectly (such as spells, on a daily basis), they have NO problem remembering “on this mission or task, Rundreth gives me orders and I’m in charge of Zethna and Darsheene, but for the matter of the stolen jewels, Zethna’s in charge of us all.” These aren’t grunts, remember. They are trained “rememberers.”
*I* have no problems remembering such things on a daily basis, in real life, when I’m working with some freelancers and staffers (WotC or other publishers) on Project X in a certain hierarchical array, and working with many of the same people on Project Y in a different hierarchical array. I often, in fact, juggle six to eight creative projects at once, AND at the same time serve on a library board and a local ratepayers’ association, AND participate in SFWA and several other professional organizations and clubs, AND have a “day job” with shifting sub-hierarchies on a task-by-task basis. And if I can do it, a ‘common garden’ War Wizard (whom I envisage as far smarter than I am, though some may be more naive or less experienced) certainly could. Vangey far more so, of course.
You have a point here, as long as we keep clear that intelligence and this "memory juggling act" aren't necessarily the same thing because I can think of two counterexamples: people who are highly intelligent but don't multi-process well (i.e. they have one-track minds that can only focus on one thing at a time), and idiot savants of the sort who can memorize phone books. I suppose what you're trying to say here is that to be a good wizard you have to be in the rare category of people who are both highly intelligent and multi-processors, and that given both requirements a wizard would have no trouble keeping straight the chaotic "this morning on project A I'm Bob's boss but this afternoon when we switch off to project B Bob is my boss." The highly-intelligent one-track-mind people would be good sages or academic types but not-so-good war wizards. Is that it?
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.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Some of the early War Wizard training includes “live” versions of Kim’s Game, involving spell-transmitted “movies” (animated images) rather than a table full of small inanimate objects, and practise in observing and remembering many small details in those images. THIS is part of what p283 of Cormyr: A Novel refers to (of course many a mage looks back on such exercises as boring and humiliating, just as most of us recall elements of our early schooling as silly, vindictive, boring, and so on).
Learn something new every day! Would you believe that I had never heard that game called "Kim's Game" before? I knew of the game and I understood what game you were talking about from the context, but I had never heard it called "Kim's Game" before. I had always just thought of it as "that memory game". And that would indeed be humiliating if a real wizard were required to partake of it. That sort of game I would expect to be routine for a teenaged apprentice who is in his years of learning to become a wizard - i.e. someone who is not yet even a 1st-level wizard. This sort of 0th-level apprentice would never be a member of the War Wizards anyway. The novice war wizards you spoke of before would still be full wizards - i.e. wizards of 1st to 4th level - who should be will past that sort of thing. A person couldn't even become a "novice" war wizard unless he was already a fully functional wizard (i.e. at least 1st-level) in D&D game terms. For a full wizard who is capable of casting 1st-level spells, this sort of game would most certainly be EXACTLY the sort of "joe-job" that you said it didn't sound much like to you.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You then post: [But what happens if the leader gets killed? Is Vangey going to specify an order of succession for the entire group? Or will the one appointed leader specify one at the start of the mission?]
In general, standing orders applied: the local expert was in charge ‘on the ground,’ unless Vangey specified a hierarchy of command (and yes, he usually did, complete with private details like “If Jaressa takes the wand, make sure you XYZ” or “If Thammadar shows the slightest sign of wanting to turn back or delay, make very sure you ABC”).
You mean Vangy makes a practice of appointing Thammadar as commander of a team but then gives Jaressa further instructions behind Thammadar's back and without his knowledge?!?! Personally, I can't think of much that would be more destructive of morale, discipline, trust, and teamwork than that. If Vangey does that regularly and most war wizards knew he did that, it'd be a miracle if any war wizard trusted any other war wizard or was able to work effective with any other. That sort of thing would directly undermine the authority of the appointed leader and make any kind of effective teamwork - or any trusting relationship between war wizards, for that matter - next to impossible! That's exactly the sort of thing that leads to the Keystone Kops situation that I want to avoid, where every war wizard spends as much time looking over his shoulder at the other war wizards (wondering if he can trust them and what their secret orders are) as he does concentrating on the mission they all have.
When you assemble a team and give them a mission to accomplish, everyone has to be on the same page for that mission to be effectively carried out and having Vangey give individual team members secret agendas throws that out the window. It's good fodder for spy thrillers in which the team has one or more traitors or people with different agendas, but it's lousy for believably portraying any sort of team working together to get a mission done (which is what the vast majority of war wizard teams should be, I think). You'd be right to say that such a traditional spy thriller plot (team members having secret orders, different agendas, and lacking trust in other team members) is good for roleplaying or novel writing, but in the context of portraying an effective and efficient organization that sort of team has to be the exceptional minority. If all the teams worked like that it goes from being a spy thriller to the Keystone Kops.
{End of part 1 of 4}
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Jerryd
Acolyte
USA
33 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 08:00:29
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{Start of part 2 of 4}
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You seem to view the War Wizards as an aggressive schoolyard bunch who’ll be paralyzed with “But I’M the best!”/“No, I’M the best” arguments at the drop of a hat. Loyalty to the War Wizards is a highly prized and encouraged value among War Wizards, remember? Instinctively they’ll initially defer to senior-in-experience fellow War Wizards, breaking away only if they think the seniors are deranged, foolish, or dangerously wrong. Two or more seniors will consult and work together, not bicker.
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. I proposed having a system of levels of relative authority to serve as the form of control, but you instead countered that breaking and humiliating them - and keeping them on their toes with Vangey's unpredictable whim and micromanagement - was your preferred form of control. We've deeply discussed the relative merits of those two approaches elsewhere.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You post: [What if the situation is time critical and they don't have time to select a leader or wait for orders - they just need a leader to act NOW?]
In THOSE sort of situations a group of War Wizards doesn’t need a leader to act NOW, they ALL need to ‘act now,’ and would do so. Simply put, they don’t have a mania for hierarchy. They know what they have to do (in general), and at least one of them would usually have recently had a “just checking in” visit from Vangey to fine-tune their directives.
True, they all need to 'act now', but my point is that they all would be more effective as a team if they were coordinated by a designated leader than they would be as just a bunch of individuals each knowing what they have to do.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You cry out that you’re being misunderstood in not trying to portray the War Wizards as modern American military, but you keep going back to “but they HAVE to have this command structure, even if you won’t let me name them” thinking that is very much like the modern American military.
Sigh. No, like *any* well-organized institution throughout history. The modern American military (or any modern military, for that matter) doesn't have a monopoly on hierarchical command structure. The ancient Romans were just as strong on hierarchy. The Romans might not have had the same fine-grained system of twenty-plus ranks, but the concept of hierarchy was just as strong with the Romans as it is now with any modern military or government institution. 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. The ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu also wrote of such hierarchies (for armies, of course; he certainly didn't write anything about organizations of wizards). I will reiterate that I am NOT stuck in "modern American military" thinking because the underlying principles of which I have written are NOT solely modern concepts - they are timeless and have existed for as long as human beings have organized themselves above the tribal level.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
I suggest reading THE LAST DITCH (a study of the hastily-assembled World War II resistance in England for the German invasion that never came) for a look at alternatives (in which small fellowships of local men set aside the centuries-old English class system AND civilian/military divide AND existing military ranks, to work together). Simply put, the War Wizards DON’T have to have such a rigid relative rank command structure. They’re closer to ‘not-secret-to-anyone’ secret police than they are military forces.
That does sound like an interesting book, if not exactly the most appropriate source of inspiration for an organization like the War Wizards in my opinion. Historically speaking, though, nearly all secret police organizations have had command structures that were just as hierarchical and rigid as any military force. About the *only* place you can historically find a lack of command structure such as you depict is in resistance and partisan groups or groups that operate beyond law or authority.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You post: [If they don't have a way for leadership to quickly transition to the next man, the entire mission is placed at risk.]
“The entire mission is placed at risk” is the sort of talk I hear from the War College and NORAD guys all the time, NATO generals, and instructors at RMC up here in Canada, Sandhurst, and at West Point: modern military thinking and phraseology.
Well of course I use modern phraseology to communicate my ideas in a conversational setting like this - that's the way I learned to express the ideas. Don't confuse modern phraseology with modern thinking, though. The way I phrase it may be modern, but I truly believe that the idea behind the phrase is a timeless one that people involved in martial pursuits have understood for as long as people have organized themselves into civilizations. Ancient Romans or medieval Europeans may have phrased it differently, but those who were experienced in such things they surely understood the idea behind the words and factored it into their thinking.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Let me drive home the point more bluntly: the War Wizards aren’t grunts, and they’re not enlisted military of any sort.
I never said they were. In terms of general social class and prestige (not command authority), I would think of all war wizards as at least analogous to commissioned officers.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
They are elite Cormyreans living in Cormyr (and for the most part born and raised in Cormyr). They KNOW generally what they must do, and they share a common love of country and knowledge of country (they operate ‘at home,’ not in other lands). They also know how to ‘check in’ with fellow War Wizards: I “knew” by face and first name every last student at a school I attended in my youth, that had a student population of 800, so it’s no stretch at all to imagine a bewildered War Wizard recognizing a fellow War Wizard, racing over to him, and hissing, “THIS just happened! What d’you think we should do?” (Note that “we” rather than “I”).
You're much more of a people person than I, then. My graduating class in high school was about 750, and I could match names and faces to a few score at most. I knew maybe a few more names than that, but couldn't pin faces to them. In my professional life, I've worked for large companies in the past and never could pin faces and names to more than a handful of people outside those I regularly worked with.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You still seem to be thinking of vast numbers of people serving in various units thrown together for operational reasons (modern “combined arms”), or at least to be trying to pigeonhole these wizards into a chain of command that’s really only necessary in such situations. I’ve seen NATO tape of villagers fighting raiders from the next village in the Balkans, and there was NO rank or chain of command operating on either side, but strangely enough they managed to kill each other anyway, fighting with use of ‘cover’ and covering fire and sub-objectives and even strategic withdrawals quite effectively. Real war is never orderly, as literally hundreds of generals and survivors have said in various ways down the ages.
Real war is never orderly in practice, but that's the very reason why every noteworthy military organization in history has taken on an excess of order and organization: it's an attempt to offset that inherent chaos and at least make it manageable. War isn't orderly, but no sane person likes or revels in chaos and "all other things being equal" (that caveat again), the side that conducts itself most orderly and most in control will win.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You add: [The irrefutable truth of any sort of deadly conflict is that all other things being equal, one group that is a team led and coordinated by a leader will beat a group of leaderless and undirected individuals every time. This irrefutable truth . . .] . . .ain’t anything of the sort. Tell that to the legions wiped out by Boadicea’s uprising, the British troops slaughtered in the Mutiny, many police and military units exterminated by mobs in the disintegrating Soviet Union (I’ve seen tapes of downtown street fighting in Russian cities wherein completely leaderless and disorganized grannies with handbags took out entire units of heavily body-armored soldiers with machine guns because they were too enraged to be afraid any longer, and outnumbered the troops about seventy to one), and so on and et cetera. Of course you’ll have to raise them from the dead to do your telling. :}
None of your examples do anything to dispute the truth I stated, because in every one of those cases all other things were not equal. Note that I did say that *all other things being equal* superior organization and leadership wins.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
MOST strategists agree that in MOST conflicts, three to one odds will prevail, unless disparities in weaponry, ‘reach,’ intelligence (of enemy locations and terrain) are significant. Leadership is one factor among many.
I am well aware of the 3-1 odds rule, but that is a rule of thumb about what force is necessary to more or less insure victory. I agree that leadership is only one factor among many, but again I would like to point out that I did say "all other things being equal."
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
I agree that superior leadership OFTEN prevails if forces are fairly equal, but just who are these “leaderless and undirected individuals” you refer to? Certainly not the War Wizards, who have standing orders and rules of engagement and VERY frequent direct orders from the Commander-in-Chief himself coming out their ears. Remember also that the War Wizards essentially police Cormyr; they don’t invade other countries.
They don't have to invade other countries. I was always under the impression that the War Wizards still faced nearly constant conflict with a variety of hostile agents inside Cormyr — scheming nobles, orcs and goblins in various frontier regions, Zhents, Dragon cultists, Red Wizards, etc. I always thought that the War Wizards were constantly busy warding off this threat and that even without going outside of Cormyr.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
They’re almost always operating on familiar ground, among folk they know a lot about, and NOT in large setpiece conventional warfare situations. You make it sound as if kids at a summer camp sent on a scavenger hunt would fail if they didn’t have a strict chain of command, uniforms, and orders being barked back and forth constantly.
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.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You post: [Not having ANY way of handling continuity of leadership in the face of casualties just plainly and simply isn't believable for any group that knows it will face possibly mortal challenges.]
Oh? The vast majority of D&D adventuring groups of Player Characters DON’T establish a strict or formal chain of command. They may set up ‘marching orders’ of characters to determine who gets squashed by this or that trap or attack, and group dynamics or a brief “You’ve got the highest-level priest? Okay, then our paladins follow” discussion usually establishes “who’s in charge most of the time” - - but they rarely establish a formal pecking order, from top to bottom, because they don’t want to and don’t need to. And task groups of War Wizards are rarely larger than PC adventuring groups.
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, but my group has always established - sometimes explicitly and sometimes by default - who is the leader of the group and who will lead if the leader falls. 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.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You then post: [Having no standard measure of authority outside of Vangey's own whim for a group of 600 full war wizards is also not very believable to me; I don't think that any insititution so constituted could endure as an effective force.] and [Not having ANY method for maintaining continuity of leadership in the face of casualties in the War Wizards also exceeds my threshold of believability.]
My own conception of the War Wizards (as, ahem, the guy who created them), is that you sell them insultingly short: you’re thinking of them as incompetents, whatever your claims to the contrary, if you can type the above two sentences.
I disagree. I draw a distinction - I think a very valid one - between individual competence and institutional competence and it is the latter that I am addressing here. Just because every individual in an institution is highly competent as an individual does not at all imply that the institution is competent as a whole. You can gather the hundred most competent people in the world together and give them some common mission to accomplish that is within their field of competency, but unless they find some way to effectively organize themselves and coordinate their actions so they're not wasting time or resources by duplicating effort or getting in each other's way the group as a whole will almost assuredly be a farcical laughing stock despite each individual's highest competence.
Institutional competence is most assuredly not the mere sum of the competence of the individuals within that institution, and the fact that every individual within the institition may be highly competent does not by itself carry over at all to the competence of the institution as a whole. The sum of individual competencies is a necessary, but by itself completely and utterly INsufficient, precondition to institutional competence. If you disagree with this then we're just going to have to agree to disagree. 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.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Fair enough, but I believe that’s ignoring the counterbalancing nature of Purple Dragons; courtiers at the Royal Court tirelessly making rules, recording events, and therefore observing events; loyal nobles who fulfill their duties; and yeoman crofters who know not just their own place but everyone else’s, and expect folk to behave . . . in the ‘normal way of things’ in the realm of Cormyr. You see, I’m a fan of Cormyr, too, and I happen to think the whole realm survives because those farmers, shepherds, crofters, woodcutters, and craftfolk want it to: they’re the foundation on which the Forest Kingdom stands. The War Wizards are Vangey’s ace up his sleeve, that “everyone knows about” and so are as effective as a deterrent as they are in operational fact.
I don't think the "counterbalancing nature" works here. 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. There is no principle of "conservation of organization" or "balance of organization" in play here. 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, but if you assume it for the moment (just for this moment of the conversation) that it's true then the degree of organization needed for the war wizards is completely independent of the degree of organization exhibited by the Purple Dragons, the Royal Court, or any other Cormyrean institution. The War Wizards must either have sufficient organization of its own to be effective or fail to be effective. As an institution with its own distinct role (using magic to protect and defend Cormyr), it must be effective or not on its own merits, and cannot lean on the organization of other institutions. Our debate here is about the degree of organization the War Wizards need to be effective, and we can of course disagree about that, but it's invalid to say that just because the Purple Dragons are organized the War Wizards don't need to be nearly as much.
I certainly agree that the farmers, shepherds, crofters, et. al. are the foundation on which Cormyr stands, and Cormyr would collapse without that foundation. However, to carry the analogy further, while a foundation supports the metaphorical House of Cormyr it isn't the house itself. A foundation does absolutely nothing to prevent others from coming along and burning the house down. In a non-magical world the Purple Dragons and Blue Dragons would be sufficient to keep this from happening (providing they are kept effective, of course). 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. Each individual war wizard might be a highly competent wizard, but that's not good enough - the War Wizards institution as a whole must be *institutionally* effective as well in order to provide the magical protection and oversight Cormyr needs. If the War Wizards are not *institutionally* effective, then they fail to be any sort of credible deterrent.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Your words above also equate competence with having a strict chain of command, rather than placing competence on the shoulders of individual War Wizards (where I prefer to place it; these are, after all, WIZARDS).
Again, this touches on the difference between individual and institutional competence. I may be misinterpreting you, but you seem to be saying that having the individual war wizards be competent necessarily and automatically means that the institution as a whole will be competent. I would reiterate that this just isn't so in and of itself. A sufficient degree of organization is a requirement for competence at the institutional level. It's that simple. Our disagreement seems to be over what degree qualifies as "sufficient."
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Vangerdahast doesn’t want to be top dog, he wants things done his way (there’s a difference). Was General Patton trying to be President or thinking he really WAS president? No. He just wanted to do things his way (often disobeying direct orders from above in the process).
Simply put, Vangey doesn’t want to be king and doesn’t think he has the right to be king. He does, however, want Cormyr to be like this and that and the other (various details that he sees or that occur to him), and is continually fine-tuning ‘the way of things’ in the realm to make it better, or rather closer to what he sees as best.
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.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You then posted that this view of Vangey [doesn't fit with prior portrayals of Vangey and the War Wizards. What I got from past published portrayals of Vangey is that he was personally loyal to and served first Cormyr and second the Obarskyrs, and in all logic I would have expected him to have the same expectations of all his War Wizards.]
That was the outward face he presented, yes. See my answer to Dargoth for more about Vangey’s character. You’re correct that Vangerdahast DOES have those expectations of all of his War Wizards. He certainly doesn’t want any of them thinking they’re “better than” or have any business mind-controlling, any Obarskyr. He does, however, think HE must - - for the good of the realm, not for his own personal advancement.
He has rules for others that he doesn't follow himself. So in short, whatever his motives are, another of Vangey's failings is that he's a hypocrite. The list of his failings continues to grow.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You post: [My impression from published works was that Vangey might have had private thoughts that he would be the best ruler of Cormyr that he kept those thoughts private and served his country and king in that order.]
Correct. Only Filfaeril and Laspeera saw him as he really was, before the events of ELMINSTER’S DAUGHTER (though Alusair and Alaphondar, to name just two, had strong suspicions). Note what I’m agreeing to, here: 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.
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.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You post: [I suppose you might say that Vangey sees himself AS Cormyr - as in "what's good for me is good for Cormyr" or to paraphrase Judge Dredd "I *AM* Cormyr!" - but that also seems to me to be self-serving in the former and near psychotic in the latter.]
Correct. This is how Vangey rationalized going about things in a ruthless, scheming way and gathering ever more power to himself: he saw himself as the realm.
I just had this horrid vision of an overweight Sylvester Stallone in brown robes saying "I *AM* Cormyr!" Not an image I wanted in my head, but there's no reason I should have to suffer it alone! 
{End of part 2 of 4}
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Jerryd
Acolyte
USA
33 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 08:02:13
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{Start of part 3 of 4}
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
The bright side of his ‘rule’ is that he brought years of peace, stability, and prosperity to Cormyr, made Azoun loved by a majority of commoners in Cormyr, and devoted his own (Vangey’s) time to making Cormyr ever better. So he never cavorted with young lasses or took gold or pursued strange hobbies: he became obsessed with the good of the realm, which he saw as ‘doing things his way.’ Whenever ‘his way’ didn’t bring about the best for the realm, he changed what he did to make Cormyr better.
The kingdom of Cormyr certainly is portrayed as a nice place, although I suppose one could say the usual things about whether the end justifies the means here... but that's a philosophical issue that goes beyond my focus on the war wizards.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You then posted: [The way I had envisioned it was that a number of war wizards are generally assigned to a regiment (unless the regiment has a specific mission or on campaign, the assignment is for a period of some months and wizards rotate in and out) to provide magical support (and to spy on the regiment and report its activities to Vangey/Caladnei).]
Yes and no. Vangey sends War Wizards to accompany Purple Dragon units, individual War Wizards generally serving for a tenday or two at most, and rotating in and out as he (Vangey) sees fit, but these mages are NOT “assigned” in the modern military sense of that word: they are NOT subject to the orders of the commander of the military force UNLESS Vangey tells them they are. Note that in cases of real war (invasion from Sembia, DotD battles, any forays into the Stonelands) he WOULD usually do so, with the War Wizards themselves informing the military commander of this (and of the limitations on it). Remember, it’s rare for Purple Dragons OR War Wizards to take to the field for any other reason than “defense of the realm.” (Patrols into Tunland, the Stonelands, to Tilver’s Gap, and so on are of course considered to be defending the realm.)
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. That may fit with his micromanaging style, but it's an inefficient, cumbersome and unwieldy way to run things. Did the man have no sense at all for all those years that he was juggling far too many details for him to possibly handle, before his recent realization that he was failing? Was he truly that stupendously blind for that many years?
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Yes, the War Wizards do ‘spy’ on the unit and what befalls it for Vangey. Yes, they may APPEAR or decide to take orders from almost anyone in the heat of a fray (because they are, after all, working to defend Cormyr, the same objective as held by most nobles and Purple Dragons and yeoman farmers they might be fighting alongside), but they don’t have to take such orders from anyone outside the War Wizards except individuals designated in their orders from Vangey, the Obarskyrs, and the persons you’ll learn about in the Best of Eddie book.
I have a feeling that I'll be doing yet another rewrite after that book comes out. Oh, well.
You've said before that the members of the war wizards were not loose cannons from the perspective of Vangey and their own organization, however it does sound to me like they would definitely be regarded as loose cannons by any Purple Dragon officer whose patrol they happened to be tagging along with. From a viewpoint of a commanding officer in the field, I sure as hell wouldn't want anyone anywhere near me or my men who was not under my authority, because people who are right next to me but free to do what they want because they have orders or agendas different from mine are more than likely going to get my men killed needlessly. I can't imagine any such field commander being anything but resentful of such tagalongs out of his control. That resent will be reflected with the typical disdain spellcasters have for "swordbrains", of course, so the working relationship is going to be poor and any situation requiring them to support each other will have the potential for disaster. It's a hell of a way to run an army!
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
So, to your post: [If there's an army of multiple regiments in the field, the oversword or battlemaster leading the army can yank the regimental wizards up to his level. The constal leading that regiment has the power to assign them to specific subordinate units within the regiment (e.g. to accompany a patrol) or keep them all at the regimental level as the situation warrants. The constal or the officer leading the subordinate unit has the authority to give them general orders], my answer must be a flat NO. The officers you cite in your example have that authority only if the War Wizard in question (acting on instructions from Vangey) gives it to them. They have no authority whatsoever that’s automatically tied to the Purple Dragon (or Blue Dragon, or Court) rank they hold.
True, there would have to be some sort of specific order (from Vangey or a senior war wizard) placing a war wizard under the command of a Purple Dragon officer - I never said there is any automatic or implicit authority of army officers over war wizards - but whenever war wizards get attached to Purple Dragon units I would expect that specific order from Vangey to be a matter of course, a given, the way things are normally done. I would expect instances in which war wizards are attached to a Purple Dragon units yet not placed under command of the commanding officer of that unit for the duration of the mission to be quite rare and exceptional. If that sort of order from Vangey is not the norm for this situation (as you seem to be suggesting) then for reasons I cited above that's going to lead to a poor working relationship between Purple Dragons and War Wizards.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Having made your decision that War Wizards are assigned to military units, you ‘support’ it by posting: [That said, though, it is still undeniable that some war wizards ARE assigned to conventional military units to provide support.]
Not so!
You post: [Numerous times in published lore war wizards are shown with an army in the field or accompanying a routine patrol.]
Correct. Accompanying and fighting alongside, yes. Often taking orders from because they’ve been ordered to by Vangey, yes. “Assigned” into the chain of command so military commanders can bark orders at them merely because of the rank held by that military commander, NO.
Of course not so military officers can order them around just for the sake of ordering them around no. And the "taking orders from because they've been ordered to by Vangey" is something I would expect to be not just "often" but the standard practice for nearly all attachments of war wizards to Purple Dragon units, as I mention above. Situations where a war wizard is assigned to a Purple Dragon unit without being tasked to support that unit at the direction of the commanding officer should be quite rare and exceptional. Note here that I'm referring to the actual attachment of war wizards to the Purple Dragons and not a mere "travelling companion" sort of accompanying - i.e. not a "I want you to go to Arabel, and it just happens that there's a Purple Dragon patrol heading there tomorrow too, so you might as well go with them for safety in numbers, and oh, by the way, while you're at it let me know what they do on the way." sort of thing. In this "travelling companion" sort of situation of course the war wizards wouldn't be under the command of the patrol leader.
In regard to those specific attachments to the army that I'm speaking of, other than the hidden mission of spying on the army and reporting what they find to Vangey think about why the war wizards would be assigned to an army unit in the first place - the ostensible or "public" reason. That reason is to provide magical support: to assist the army in moving through terrain, to communicate with others far away like senior commanders or Azoun (via teleport or sending spells), to use illusion or transformation spells to hide or modify battlefield terrain, to counter enemy spellcasters, to use offensive spells against enemy forces. In short, to provide what in modern terms would be signals, engineering, and artillery support. Now, imagine how things work work on a battlefield if these functions were not under the authority of the commanding officer. What would happen if signalmen could decide on their own what messages to send, or engineers could say "I have something better to do than helping you build a quick defensive fortification" or artillerymen could say "it better suits me to pulverize this hill over here rather than the one you're taking fire from." That would be an intolerable outrage in any battlefield situation. I phrased those examples in modern terms, but the exact same sorts of issues arise for war wizards supporting the Purple Dragons.
Now, it might well be the case that a war wizard would often agree to help the Purple Dragon officer anyway, because they're both on the same side and they both want to protect and defend Cormyr. The problem is that such agreement, while it might occur often, won't *always* occur. Even if they both agree that the Purple Dragons should get magical help, the commander and the war wizard might adamantly disagree about the form that help should take. There is also the possibility that the war wizard might have secret orders given him by Vangey which prevent him from giving the Purple Dragons the support they want. This is a recipe for defeat and disaster. From a tactcal point of view, it's far better for there to be a unified command - one man giving the orders for how the battle will be conducted and not having to consult with people outside his authority.
Is any Purple Dragon field commander going to want what he views as magical support he needs be independent of his authority? Is he going to be content to merely hope that their orders and agendas will coincide with his, merely hope that they will agree to use a wall of fire to protect an exposed flank or fireball a mass of tuskers when he needs it? Does this field commander have to live in dread of the moment where the war wizards that tagged along with him suddenly go off on some "important mission for Vangerdahast" exactly when he needs their help the most. Personally, if I were a field commander I wouldn't want anyone with me that I couldn't depend on when I needed them. If I were that field commander, I'd tell those war wizards "Look, if you can't guarantee me up front that you're going to help me when I need it and how I need it, then just take a hike and head off on your true mission right now. I don't want you around." The surest way for that field commander to have the help he needs when he needs it is for it to be standard practice for specific orders to be given to the attached war wizards to place them under the authority of the field commander.
And don't tell me this is "modern American" thinking. Army commanders have undoutbtedly felt this way about their supporting people for as long as there have been armies. I'm sure the legate commanding a Roman legion felt exactly the way I'm describing about those attached to support his legion.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
(snipped paragraphs about the War Wizards and High Horn)
All right, so High Horn is just a secluded training ground, "Siberia" banishment location, and safe house for the War Wizards. It might have been easier if you had ever given some hint of this in published lore. Without your words here, I would never have thought of it this way. What I've seen mentioned of the War Wizards and High Horn in published lore all shouted out "garrison!" to me.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
However, you continue with the military thinking you protest you don’t intend to use, by posting: [Published Realmslore thus incontrovertibly supports the idea that SOME war wizards (although certainly not all of them, nor the entire institution as a whole) are given military duties, thus it is reasonable to speak of that portion of war wizards in somewhat more military terms.]
No, published Realmslore DOESN’T “incontrovertibly” support such a view, except to someone who chooses to only see things as supporting such a view.
Sorry, Jerry, I’m not trying to be rude here, but you seem bewildered and disbelieving that War Wizards can function at all without a strict rank hierarchy, and I’m increasingly disbelieving that you persist in seeing them only in this way.
I’m left shaking my head, which is why I said at the outset that we’ll probably just have to agree to disagree.
I'm not trying to be rude either, but I have to disagree with you here. Published Realmslore has depicted war wizards providing direct support to the Purple Dragons on the field of battle. There is no possible or reasonable way this can be interpreted as anything other than functioning in a military role. It's that simple.
I won't deny that the War Wizards do also serve in non-military roles, and the majority of their duties may be non-military in nature. To say that the War Wizards do not fulfill any military function at all would be exactly analogous to saying that real-world combat engineers or artillerymen do not fulfill any military function, and that would be completely wrong. Further, in your latest series of four posts you say "Remember, it’s rare for Purple Dragons OR War Wizards to take to the field for any other reason than “defense of the realm.”" "Defense of the realm" is unquestionably a military role, so when you say that the War Wizards do take to the field for that reason your own words are putting them in that military role on those occasions.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You went on to post that you’d never met a real-life leadership type who attempted both paranoid micromanagement and ‘buddy buddy’ behaviour. Fair enough; I have, and as he posted here, so has Ulrik Wolfsbane. I agree that the two sorts you cite: [The paranoid micromanagers I've met have all been the "I don't care if you like me, I'm not here to be liked. I'm here to be in charge so do what I say" type, and the "buddy buddy" types have all been "you know your job and don't need me to tell you how to do every little thing, so just let me know if you need help" type.] are probably more common than the guy who tries to do both, but the guy who tries to do both is by no means rare. I sure wish he was!
You go on to post: [The point stands, that he can't succeed at both.]
Correct.
All right, you admit he can't succeed at both...
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
However, you then post: [No one under him except the most gullible or naive are going to be fooled by the "buddy buddy" act of a known paranoid micromanager] and here I must disagree again. Vangey DOES help his War Wizards personally, act as their father confessor, praise them when he sees they need it, buy them drinks or companionship, give them introductions to people they’re smitten by, and so on. Unpredictably, and from time to time, not often. So it’s not just a “buddy buddy” ACT for him, and they know that.
...but then you turn around and portray him as succeeding at both.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Does this behaviour leave most War Wizards confused? You bet.
They're not the only ones!
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Does this behaviour leave most War Wizards confused? You bet. Not knowing which way the Old Man will jump next? Indubitably! Thinking him crazy? Certainly. But they DON’T think him so crazy or incompetent as to be dangerous to the realm or themselves enough to force his removal. On the contrary, he’s the guy they “know” carries the whole dang realm on his shoulders, who’s uncovered traitors’ plots and Sembian swindles time and time again, who’s faced down nobles, and whisked War Wizards to the rescue of distraught farmers and to search for missing children and to pretend to be Tanalasta’s smitten suitors at a revel so she can delay pushy nobles who wanted to be her suitor, and so on (duties that were fun or that they took pride in having accomplished). The War Wizards trust Vangerdahast for the same reason many nobles and courtiers grudgingly do: because he gets results.
I'll grant that Vangey has done many things to protect Cormyr, whatever his other faults are (and those faults are legion). However, you've just portrayed him as being an extremely poor leader here. Engendering confusion, uncertainty and doubts about his sanity among his underlings are qualities that are mutually exclusive with good leadership. These are things you do wish to engender among your enemies, but most certainly not among your own people. A leader who leaves those under him confused about him is a poor leader. A leader who leaves those under him uncertain about him is a poor leader. A leader who leaves those under him thinking him crazy is a poor leader.
Any leader whose own underlings are confused or uncertain about him or who think him crazy is a leader who *IS* dangerous to the mission he has been tasked to accomplish (whether he admits it or not or realizes it or not) and who *OUGHT* to be removed from his position of leadership. Thankfully, Vangey finally realized this and stepped down. The thing I can't get over is that he lasted as long as he did with his severely flawed methodology.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
I agree with you here, and felt the same way. I’ve been trying to show the differences in the “three most-onstage crotchety old controlling wizards of the Realms” (in descending order: Elminster, Khelben, and Vangerdahast) for some years (in part because several TSR designers wanted to butcher at least two of three for no better reason than “they’re too much alike!”). So they couldn’t all stay “gruff old coots who always have something up their sleeves, are always right, and have hearts of gold and loins of ‘ahem.’”
I understand the need to differentiate the three. I just wish it hadn't been done by making Vangey just as much a villain as a "good guy". That he had good ends does not excuse his villainous means.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
This meant that I had to show Realms readers the next layer of depth to Vangerdahast that I’d normally keep just for the DM (and as you said in your earlier post, you want to Reveal All and write that layer). I agreed to do this because the Knights in the ‘home’ Realms campaign had by this time learned all about Vangey’s innermost secrets for themselves (by a process that’s another l-o-o-o-n-g tale, for another time).
Hence what you’re reading here at Candlekeep.
You mean that the Knights in your home campaign discovered that Vangey dipped into the mind of Azoun, so the secret spread beyond Filfaeril and Laspeera?
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
I agree with you: yes, this is where Vangey ‘went over the line.’ Yes, it makes him much less of a nice or heroic guy (building into him the first flaw beyond rudeness and perhaps ruthlessness). And yet, he does something heroic, or at least noble, by realizing he went over the line and is no longer fit to run things, and doing the best thing for Cormyr: finding his own successor and ensuring an orderly transition of power. For Cormyr.
Rather than clinging to power to reward himself, or deluding himself that doing so is best for Cormyr.
Well, he did spend many years deluding himself, so his 'heroism' is very belated. He was very slow on the uptake to have his moment of self-honesty. It's miraculous that he lasted as long as he did. Reality should have smacked him up side the head with it long before now.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
So he turned the War Wizards into extensions of his will, as much as possible, to give himself reinforcements in governing Cormyr - - precisely as a counter to the Purple Dragons, any agents hired or developed by traitor nobles, and so on.
A counter to foreign agents or traitor nobles I can see. But specifically a counter to the Purple Dragons? I believe you've mentioned this in a message on the REALMS-L list as well, and this is dangerous for Cormyr. The War Wizards and Purple Dragons are two institutions who are jointly tasked with the overall defense and protection of Cormyr - they have the same grand strategic goal even if their methods and specialties are very different. While there's nothing wrong with a little friendly rivalry akin to the real-life interservice rivalries, specifically pitting one against the other as some kind of "counter" is very dangerous and counterproductive, not to mention wasteful of resources, because it pits them against each other to a certain extent and reduces the trust and willingness to work with each other against common threats. It's not unbelievable, though, because there are real-life analogs: e.g. the KGB vs the Red Army. It's just that Cormyr would be much better served by a War Wizards and Purple Dragons that cooperated and worked well together, and never rose above the level of friendly rivalry.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You post: [then your ordered list of factors would instantly turn the entire institution of War Wizards from the realm's protector to the realm's greatest enemy as the war wizards would put loyalty to Vangey first (if they all lived up to Vangey's loyalty priorities).]
Correct, IF they all lived up to Vangey's loyalty priorities. However, they won’t. THEY don’t know about these priorities, remember? What I listed were Vangey’s personal mental factors in judging particular War Wizards, and there’s NO way he would have let anyone but Laspeera (and later Caladnei) even see a hint of them.
If Vangey acted on those hidden priorities enough, say in getting rid of this war wizard or shoving that war wizard off to the "Siberia" exile of High Horn or not giving the other war wizard some task he is otherwise obviously and eminently suited for, wouldn't the brilliant war wizards you described before eventually figure it out?
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
So no need to gag. All you have to do is try to see the War Wizards differently than you’re seeing them. Again, this loyalty to Vangey you’re seeing is misplaced: you are still thinking of a strict military rank hierarchy (“gotta obey the general!”) rather than a band of wizards (“all for one and one for all!”), each of whom thinks Vangey watches over them personally as they all tackle the necessary tasks of defending Cormyr together.
Can you see what I’m getting at, finally? Or are we going to have to go through all of this again? :}
All for one and one for all, hmm? So the War Wizards are in effect the "600 Musketeers," except that they obey the scheming Cardinal Richelieu figure of Vangerdahast rather than work against the great schemer?
{End of part 3 of 4}
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Jerryd
Acolyte
USA
33 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 08:04:40
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{Start of part 4 of 4}
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
And here we’re at the crux of the matter. I reject your ranking system, and I’m afraid I can’t do anything about what you personally find believable (other than try to educate you with more and more details of Realmslore, in hopes that belief comes with enlightenment).
Well, getting more Realmslore is what we're all here for!
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Your ranking system is based on your equating an internal order based on a hierarchy of ranks with efficiency and effectiveness. You keep saying you aren’t trying to make the War Wizards a military unit, and yet you keep judging or treating them as if they are.
Well, I'm not treating them as a military unit in the same way as I'm treating the Purple Dragons because they do have many non-military functions. I have never attributed to the War Wizards uniforms, specific rank titles, or a unit structure like a conventional army. However, in general concept they are tasked with (among other things) defending Cormyr from various threats using their magic, and national defense of any sort is a military role even if the agency fulfilling it isn't a true military unit. And just look at the title you gave them - *WAR* Wizards - war is definitely a military role. You have depicted the war wizards as IN PART fulfilling a military role simply by putting them on battlefields with the regular Army, if nothing else - if the War Wizards were completely nonmilitary then they had no place on the battlefield at all. All that aside, many real-life "secret police" organizations (that the War Wizards are roughly analogous to) took on certain military trappings even if they were not inherently military organizations. I tried my best to eschew any purely military trappings and apperances while still giving them an internal structure that is suited to fulfilling what is definitely in part a military (or at least paramilitary) role.
Given the very name of the War Wizards and the fact that they have been depicted them as fighting on battlefields in support of the army, is it so surprising that I think they do have some at least paramilitary aspects and that I think it's a serious mistake to cast them as completely and totally nonmilitary?
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You post: [I am convinced that organization is the time-immemorial and eternal method for people to get things done efficiently and effectively, and that while the degree of organization needed depends on the size of the institution and the number/complexity of tasks it's given the necessity of organization in principle is constant for all times.]
It might astonish you to learn that I don’t disagree with the above sentence.
What I do disagree with is your unilateral decision that a hierarchy of stable-through-all-situations ranks is the only means by which any group can be effectively organized.
The only means? No. The best and most effective means? Yes, in my opinion, particularly in any situation involving conflict. You could say that the War Wizards simply don't have the optimal organization and could be quite a bit better than they currently are (and may evolve into that with Caladnei in charge), but the "Cormyr fanboy" in me has to be dragged kicking and screaming to that! 
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Let me shift analogies here to a modern sports team. As a Canadian, I’m going to choose hockey, one of our two national sports (the other, lacrosse, fits equally well here): a contest between two teams whose coaches, on the professional level, are constantly “juggling lines.” That is, shifting which players are on the ice playing together into different combinations (so that Hank may play left wing on one shift, but be told to play center for the next one), AND trying to match those different combinations against specific players or combinations of players on the opposing team. NFL football and major league baseball coaches do the same thing when it comes to trying to arrange matchups against specific opposing players, but in those sports, with the skill specializations that have come to dominate the modern versions of the games (‘special teams’ in football), it’s rarer to shift your own players from position to position (task to task) during a particular game - - though it DOES happen.
Vangerdahast is like a hockey coach, juggling his players (the War Wizards) continuously to deal with (what he sees as) the foes of Cormyr.
And if you dismiss every last hockey team as therefore necessarily “unorganized” or “chaotic” or “doomed to be ineffective,” I think I’ll SCREAM. :}
I'm not a hockey fan and I don't know much about the sport (I'm not much of a sports fan in general, but if I had to pick one favorite it would be baseball), but it certainly seems rather chaotic from the legendary, possibly apocryphal, number of melees they get into on the ice! Of course, seems like in recent times such behavior is somewhat on the rise in all sports, not to mention the behavior of the fans after many championship games. But that's another issue entirely.
Anyway, I do get your meaning about shifting things around to deal with particular threats. In baseball, this generally only happens in the contest between pitcher and batter. A fresh pitcher might be brought out to deal with a strong left-handed batter, or a player good at bunting might pinch-hit if a bunt is needed. This method works well for a team of a score or less people, and it still has a clear leader - the coach. I don't think this method scales well at all up to an organization 600+ strong.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Just to adopt your 1-10 scale of organization for a moment, I’d rate the War Wizards as usually hovering around a 7. After all, they are among the most versatile and well-rounded people in all Faerûn, and CERTAINLY the most well-rounded group of wizards on Toril.
When (rarely, I’ll admit) their communications are really “clicking,” they go up to probably around 8.5. YOU may see them as down around 2, but I sure don’t - - but again, I’m not measuring them against a military chain of command, or expecting them to have one.
A 7 to an 8.5?!?! You're not using the same scale I am. Remember, I defined a 1 as no organization at all and a 10 as equivalent to the modern American military or government. A 10 would constitute a hierarchy of twenty-plus ranks or pay grades, a whole bureaucracy of departments, agencies, bureaus and offices with people dedicated to keeping the bureaucracy going for its own sake as much as accomplishing the purpose the organization was made for, and a never-ending flow of paperwork and succession of meetings within the administrative apparatus. The War Wizards you have described both in published lore and in more detail here doesn't get anywhere close to a 7 or 8.5 unless you're using an exponential or asymptotic curve that really takes off in terms of absolute organization only after a 9 on the scale. What you've described in published lore and here on this board would rate a 3 at the absolute maximum using any scale that is approximately linear, but I personally stand by my rating of 2 for what you've described. I think my writeup of the conventional military of Cormyr rates around a 4-5 on this scale - as I think is entirely appropriate for Cormyr - and as I said before I was originally shooting for a 3-5 for the War Wizards. Now... well, I'll see what I can do with the additional info you've given.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You then posted what I see as a deliberate misunderstanding of my refutation of your insistence that a strict hierarchy must have a chain of command by dismissing my historical examples as not germane to my fictional creations. Frankly, I’d be surprised if they were. :}
One, if there was any misunderstanding on my part, it was not deliberate or intentional. I think we just have distinctly different views on what is believable or even possible, and that probably colors how we interpret things. Two, if they're not germane, as you readily admit they are not, then they can hardly be an effective refutation. They can't be an effective refutation unless they are germane, relevant or reasonably analogous.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
At the resistance cell level, Jerry, the answer is: whoever asserts themselves under fire. They were generally only five to seven guys, who’d agreed what they’d do if this or that went wrong before they crept out to try something - - and if you served in a military where that few personnel were either shocked into immobility or plunged into a furious argument over who commands the moment their sergeant or platoon commander went down, that WOULD be a military with utter lack of training or esprit de corps.
The US military of all branches have a well-defined rank system and do a great deal of training to prevent such things, but that's beside the point of what we're discussing.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
Remember, it’s rare to find to a ‘task group’ of War Wizards of much larger size than that five to seven number.
I'll keep that in mind for my rewrite.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
It doesn’t really matter, in an emergency, because any senior war wizard who bursts in bringing “orders from Vangey” is going to be believed unless everyone present knows Vangey is dead. Yes, this has great potential for treachery and abuse, but that’s why Vangey did all the mind-snooping.
True, but Vangey is neither omnipresent nor omniscient, so I'm surprised that some foe hasn't exploited that great potential at some point in his 64-year tenure to Cormyr's peril.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
If you’re thinking, “Ah, but the abusers would be impostors from outside, perhaps Zhents or War Wizards or Dragon Cult wizards or mages hired by Sembians!” then you’re following the same fallacy that led you to post: [If this is how the War Wizards truly operate, they should have been gutted piecemeal after 64 years.]
By WHOM? Again, you seem to be thinking of them as waging war either against invaders, or against neighbours of Cormyr (in other words, fulfilling an, ahem, military role). The War Wizards police Cormyr, and most of the foes they work against are ambitious nobles, slavers, would-be crime bosses in Suzail, Marsember, and Arabel, and the like - - and these “piecemeal gutters” have no idea of this potential flaw in the War Wizard command structure.
Again, I ask you: just who do you see as a force whose efforts could cause the kept-as-mysterious-as-Vangey-can-make-them War Wizards (who have the benefit of their own extensive intelligence-gathering, one of their primary tasks, AND magical means of internal communication) to collapse? Or be “gutted piecemeal”?
I’m really curious. Yes, the Red Wizards or the Zhents MIGHT be able to accomplish this feat, if THEY ever all worked together properly - - but we haven’t shown you the slightest hint in published Realmslore that they’ve tried.
The FBI and CIA are often portrayed as idiots, especially in fiction, but they haven’t fallen apart yet. Neither has the KGB. Internal turf battles happen all the time in all three of these organizations, yet they still exist.
So just who’s supposed to make the War Wizards fall apart, or “gut” them? Exasperated Cormyrean farmers? The nearest huffing-through-his-moustache, goblet-in-hand noble?
I don't see the Red Wizards, Dragon Cultists, Zhents, Fire Knives, Baneites, etc. as trying to attack the War Wizards as a whole to destroy them in a large action, or the War Wizards as engaging in large-scale operations against any large scale invasion of those powers. However, I was under the impression that individuals and small cells of these organizations were constantly at work within Cormyr, pursuing this plot or that plot, and that the War Wizards were thus constantly busy trying to spoil these plots. If my impression is correct, then that means that the War Wizards are constantly suffering losses through attrition. This situation is not primarily one cell suffering heavy losses with other cells being relatively unscathed (although that does happen on occasion, e.g. the Sevensash investigative team), but is primarily ALL the various teams being attritted over time, and what compounds this is that a wizard of any real power is not easily replaceable. I believe that an institution without an overall organization designed to smoothly keep going in the face of such losses (i.e. a designated chain of command to allow for continuity of leadership despite losses) would eventually be gutted piecemeal - one cell or team at a time - due to the attrition degrading the leadership and coordination of the war wizards.
Are you saying that the War Wizards are NOT constantly beset with any number of plots by individuals or small groups of those aforementioned evil organizations trying to achieve this end or that within Cormyr? Or that the War Wizards don't bother involving themselves unless those ends directly threaten the realm? I personally would have thought that the war wizards would always seek to foil any plot of these powers within the borders of Cormyr, even if the plot had nothing to do with undermining the Forest Kingdom and was nothing more than finding some lost treasure hoard, given that Red Wizards, Zhents or Dragon Cultists would hardly openly seek an adventuring charter.
And as far as the FBI, CIA or the KGB being portrayed as idiots... well, portrayal isn't the same thing as reality. While they're admittedly not perfect in varying degrees depending on organization, I don't think they in reality are idiots. If they were, they WOULD have become farcically ineffective in short order. The difference I see between this and Realmslore is that portrayals of real-world organizations (whether fictional or supposedly non-fictional) are often colored by the author's political agendas or axes to grind, while I see Realmslore in general (other than the dialogue of novel characters that have explicit biases) as objective and accurate (if often insufficiently detailed) portrayals of people and groups of Toril - portrayals of what they're "really like" so that DM's and players can interact appropriately with them. I know that much Realmslore is published in the "unreliable narrator" format, but I've always viewed that as meaning incomplete and not deliberately misleading or biased unless it was crystal clear from context that bias was present (e.g. Zhents or Red Wizard characters speaking about Elminster).
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You then post: [It plainly and simply isn't possible for one man's micromanaging & meddling whim to hold together an organization of 600 people in a feared, effective, and efficient force at accomplishing a variety of tasks for almost 64 years before beginning to unravel and to posit otherwise shatters all believability for me. And magic doesn't change this in the slightest, in my opinion.]
I guess you’ve never heard of Tito, then, or Mao, or Queen Victoria, or Elizabeth I, or Henry Ford for that matter. I suppose you can “disbelieve” in those folks, but that won’t make their names or accomplishments vanish from the history books. Funny, I still see Fords on the streets today.
All of those examples aren't very good analogies to the War Wizards. All of those individuals were micromanagers, yes, but every one of them ALSO had extensive and highly-organized organizations operating under them (governments, or a large corporation in the case of Ford) that allowed them to achieve the success they enjoyed. You've said that the War Wizards aren't nearly that higly organized, so there's no comparison that can be made here. If Tito, Mao, Q.V., Q.E.I, or Ford had the low level of organization you've ascribed to the War Wizards, none of them would have achieved the success they historically did. You just can't say that the personal and direct rule of a micromanager with very little organization underneath his level is comparable to a micromanager who has a complex organization operating under him.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You then posted some perfectly valid comments about wanting specificity in your D&D play and in lore available to DMs, and went on to post: [you did make that gentlemens' agreement to withhold any systematic or reasonably complete presentation of the War Wizards - which frankly I don't see the necessity for].
Okay, I’ll be blunt. It was seen as the best way by the TSR designers and their immediate bosses at the time to avoid introducing contradictions AND hampering creativity. In other words, they wanted the freedom for Designer X or Novel Writer Y to invent this or that little detail to best suit their needs for the project at hand, so that a synthesis would develop over time, rather than ‘everybody running to Ed.’ I KNOW this was partly due to their experience with Gary Gygax becoming the bottleneck for Greyhawk development because he was so busy trying to run the company as well as write Greyhawk products, and I suspect (from things I’ve heard said, down the years) it might also have been partly due to TSR not wanting me to have the sort of influence Margaret & Tracy did over Dragonlance, for whatever reasons. I can’t confirm that second bit at all, and frankly am not interested in trying to, because it’s all water under the bridge now. However, you said you didn’t see the necessity, so behold the explanation.
Ah, they didn't want you becoming "Gygax II" for the Forgotten Realms so made that agreement a requirement of the deal. I've heard that Gygax was a micromanager himself when it came to Greyhawk. I have to admit, because of my own love of detail and desire for consistency, if I had developed "Jerry's World" I might have a little trouble completely letting go of it without at least some role as "continuity director" to provide some oversight over the "synthesis" and quash any relatively extreme departures from the feel/flavor/facts of the world that other authors might come up with.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
I appreciate that you can’t possibly read my mind and fill in all the gaps in published lore exactly as I would, and so come up with War Wizards that precisely match my original (or modified, down the years) conception of them.
I admire your diligence in trying to find every last published detail and extrapolate fairly. And I accept that you have to personally be happy with your results, and that you’ll see things differently from the way I do.
I’m trying to explain exactly how I see the War Wizards, and make certain there are NO misunderstandings between us arising out of using the same or similar words but meaning different things by them, and so on. I’m trying to show you WHY I see the War Wizards the way I do.
I’m not Vangerdahast (thank the gods!), so I can’t meddle in your mind and MAKE you agree with me. I do, however, want you to be very clear on what I mean by certain words and phrases, and where I’m coming from.
I sincerely appreciate all of that.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
You then posted this: [As a more general question beyond the War Wizards, do you design the Realms as a whole to specifically provide opportunities for such farce and comedy? If so, might that have (however inadvertantly) influenced your own design of the War Wizards and their seeming lack of organization?]
No, and no. Absolutely not. The farce and comedy arises from our deep friendships, our shared experiences (so that we can, for example, respond to a situation arising in play with a silly but appropriate Monty Python, Goon Show, Sellers solo, Hoffnung, Cook & Moore, Fry & Lawrie, Dave Allen, Billy Connolly, or Flanders & Swann comment that everyone around the room will instantly understand and react to), and from CHARACTER-based challenges. For instance, I’ll give Torm a chance to verbally lambaste a pompous Sembian envoy, or get caught in bed with a lovely daughter by her parents returning home - - situations where the player can choose to have fun IF they (and the other players) want to.
The humour always arises out of human nature (check THO’s revelations of Realmsplay events, early in last year’s Questions to Eddie thread).
Cool. That's good to know. My own preference for gaming tends towards the more serious side. There are occasional spots of humor that are character generated as you describe, but they tend to be more subdued.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
The “Keystone Kops” nature of the early published Zhentarim was due to the TSR Code of Ethics, which was being VERY strictly applied to the Realms because Dragonlance (what with Raistlin and Takhisis and Kitiara and the draconians) was seen by some in the company as having ‘broken’ the Code and gotten far too ‘evil-is-successful-and-attractive’ - - and “We’re NOT going to let that happen in the Realms!”
While I don't like farcical or silly portrayals of evil, neither am I fond of the 'evil-is-successful-and-attractive' portrayal either. I prefer heroes to villains and in the end good has to win and evil has to lose or I'm not satisfied. For this reason, I can sympathize with TSR's viewpoint even if I don't like how evil devolved into farce.
quote:
Originally posted by Ed via THO
I could go on, but this post is long enough already. I’m not angry with you or disparaging of your intent to do a War Wizard document or the work you’ve put into the Realms thus far, Jerry. I just want things to be very clear between us, and I look forward to your reactions and comments to what I’ve posted here. I HOPE you’re closer to seeing “my” version of the War Wizards by the time you’ve read down this far (note that I said seeing, not necessarily accepting).
Over to you, sir!
Neither do I hold any anger! I enjoy a lively discussion, and enjoy the pursuit of clarity. I can't and won't promise that the War Wizards I end up writing up (actually rewriting at this point) will conform exactly to what you envision, and I neither seek nor expect any sort of official sanction of the end product. There are some things we'll have to agree to disagree about, but I will give what you've said a careful thinking about and do the best I can to incorporate as much of what you said (as well as any further comments you wish to make on what I've just written) as I can and still produce something I can believe in.
{End of part 4 of 4 - That's it! Whew! }
Jerry Davis
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FoolishOwl
Acolyte
USA
5 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 08:19:57
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There are a few questions that have been rattling around in my head, and I think they may be related.
1. You've often talked about how the Chosen, elves, and so on have to come to terms with living among humans who they will outlive. How does it affect humans to know that there are other intelligent beings, elves and dwarves in particular, that will far outlive them?
2. My impression is that Cormyr, or at least Suzail, has a great literary culture -- the popularity of Deneir is one part of the evidence of this. What are the fashionable or popular literary forms? And what sort of circulation will written work have?
3. What sort of philosophical traditions and schools are there? Are some, or all of them, connected to particular churches, or to particular regions? What's the big philosophical debate of the day? |
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Garen Thal
Master of Realmslore
USA
1105 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 09:01:42
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Because I'm not one for cut-and-paste quoting and response, I'll raise a few issues for thought (not debate, because they're for consideration), and slink back into the shadows:
-As regards the continuity of rank, hierarchy and organization in Cormyr, the Purple Dragons have undergone at least two major shakeups (at least one before they were ever called the Purple Dragons), and the War Wizards have undergone a couple as well. The War Wizards are roughly 800 years old, and their organization depends entirely on the person at the top.
-Speaking of the organization of the War Wizards, the best analogy for their operation is that of a fraternal organization (remember that their original name was the Brotherhood of Wizards of War): there are a few officers at the top--the Mage Royal (Vangey, and later Caladnei), a lieutenant (Laspeera), some permanent, titled officers (alarphons, and members of the College of War Wizards), and an overwhelming majority of "members at large." As in a fraternal organization, the rank-and-file members are assigned to tasks (what would be event committees, nomination committees, and the like) according to ability, seniority, loyalty to the chief officer, and promise of potential the member possesses. A member might chair a fundraising committee, be the secretary of the Winter Food Drive committee, and be only a member of the Constitution committee, but he knows full well his place in each group, what his authority is, and what it isn't.
In the case of the War Wizards, the Constitution governing their operations is far shorter than it would be for a modern-day fraternal organization. In short it is "follow your orders, keep your senses about you, and serve Cormyr in all things." Having been a member of such organizations, I can attest that even very strict, "lawful" societies operate on a model strikingly similar to the War Wizards; Ed might echo my sentiments, given the number of groups he belongs to himself.
As an addition to the analogy, keep in mind that many fraternal organizations have constitutions that designate their chairman (president, or whatever it happens to be called) as an ex officio member of all committees, giving that individual the right (and, technically speaking, responsibility) to barge in on any and all activities of all subdivisions of the larger organization in order to supervise what's going on, while still leaving the responsibility for the task to the committee itself. In short, to "play Vangey."
-Vangerdahast is a hypocrite. And a liar. And probably a "murderer" (in that he killed those better left alive to rot in prison or somesuch). Vangey is the dark shadow that floats behind every bright crown, with blood on his hands, grief on his shoulders, and guilt on his soul to keep his king pure and his kingdom strong. Many are the kingmakers that live such lives, in his world and in ours.
-Okay, I lied. One quote. "I would expect instances in which war wizards are attached to a Purple Dragon units yet not placed under command of the commanding officer of that unit for the duration of the mission to be quite rare and exceptional."
Not so. Instances in which War Wizards are outside the authority of the Purple Dragon commander to which he is "attached" (not the most appropriate of terms, mind you) are the norm, not the exception. A War Wizard could be accompanying a unit for any number of reasons: to investigate the officer, perform magical examinations of sites the unit will visit or items they expect to find, to apprehend magical threats, and so forth. A War Wizard that happens to be with a group of Purple Dragons is not a soldier or a piece of ordnance; he is an agent of the Realm and an officer of the Royal Court with orders on how he is to operate. Any deleterious effects this sort of relationship might have (and they are not as extreme as assumed; Purple Dragons and War Wizards have separate missions, and know it) is usually erased the first time a Purple Dragon is saved by a timely spell from an "attached" War Wizard.
Just some thoughts to think on.
G |
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Blueblade
Senior Scribe
USA
804 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 15:18:12
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I’m not going to charge into the fascinating Ed and Jerry debate, but like Garen Thal, I’ve GOT to make just two comments:
1. I think Ed’s sports analogy was good, and he deliberately chose fast-paced games rather than baseball, Jerry, because baseball is inevitably a slow game with much waiting between plays. In hockey, a LOT of the “line changes” Ed refers to happen as the play is going on, at full speed. I’ve played both hockey and baseball, and Ed’s analogy fits more than yours does, Jerry, because of this stop-have-play-stop facet matching “real life” far less. Now, American football is far more about time management than Canadian football (in the Canadian game, the time clock very rarely stops for any reason, so there’s less “time management” than in either the American college or pro games). I could go on, but I’d be digressing more from my point about the different way the two of you are thinking. Jerry is way more “command and control” and Ed is way more “real life works like this, in our world and in the Realms.” For my money, Ed wins the credibility sweeps every time.
Which brings me to:
2. Jerry, you posted this: “If the War Wizards are not *institutionally* effective, then they fail to be any sort of credible deterrent.”
What horse cobbles, to put it politely. If you think any group has to be organized to be a deterrent, you really DON’T live in the real world. Ed’s point here was that public perception of (fear of) the War Wizards made them a deterrent within the realm, and within the realm is where they almost exclusively operate. I don’t think ANY form of organization within the War Wizards would be a deterrent to the Red Wizards, Cult of the Dragon, yadda yadda. Nobles (and commoners turned outlaw) in Cormyr probably fear the War Wizards MORE because they don’t know how they’re organized. In your arguments with Ed, you continually equate organization with effectiveness, as a given, and then start arguing from there. Sorry, but I think if anyone in the debate has the right to set ‘givens,’ it’s the guy who created the sandbox we’re disputing over.
I do agree with you that to be as effective as possible, good organization is necessary. But Ed’s telling you how they ARE, and you keep trying to tell him how they SHOULD BE, which sits rather uneasily with your vilification of Vangey for “ends not justifying the means.”
Right. Down off the soapbox. Can’t wait for Ed’s demolition repost.
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 03 Feb 2005 : 15:39:40
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Blueblade (and Jerryd, and everybody else) please bear in mind that you might have to wait, because Ed’s got a plate full of Realmslore queries already in front of him, that other scribes are patiently waiting for.
I’ll probably help entertain you during your wait by posting a little something about we Knights uncovering Vangey’s tricks, in Ed’s home Realms campaign. Expect it in a day or two, not earlier (very real-world busy this end just now, I’m afraid).
love to all,
THO
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2005 : 01:06:52
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Hello, all. Ed of the Greenwood makes reply to Wooly Rupert:
Hi, Wooly. No, there’s absolutely nothing about Laeral’s daughter Maura in CITY OF SPLENDORS. Last time I checked, anyway. :}
As for the Lords Who Sleep: well, now . . .
Thoughts among WotC designers or freelancers like moi? Possibly.
Or do you mean thoughts on the part of someone in the Realms, i.e. someone in Cormyr wanting to ‘replace’ the Lords Who Sleep? As protectors of the realm, Vangey and Co. (see ELMINSTER’S DAUGHTER) are a replacement of sorts . . . but haven’t been (yet, anyway) promoted to fulfill the other function of the Lords Who Sleep: inspiring and reassuring the populace (“and in time of need, my son, the Lords Who Sleep will awaken and ride, to defend us all! D’ye see them? No? Then worry not, for no matter how dark things seem, the threatened doom of the realm is not yet at hand!”).
Let me say this much: this topic has been discussed by some creative minds, but nothing has been ‘set in stone’ (as they say) as of this writing.
So saith Ed. Hmmm . . . very interesting . . .
love to all,
THO
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36804 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2005 : 01:22:55
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quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
Hello, all. Ed of the Greenwood makes reply to Wooly Rupert:
Hi, Wooly. No, there’s absolutely nothing about Laeral’s daughter Maura in CITY OF SPLENDORS. Last time I checked, anyway. :}
As for the Lords Who Sleep: well, now . . .
Thoughts among WotC designers or freelancers like moi? Possibly.
Or do you mean thoughts on the part of someone in the Realms, i.e. someone in Cormyr wanting to ‘replace’ the Lords Who Sleep? As protectors of the realm, Vangey and Co. (see ELMINSTER’S DAUGHTER) are a replacement of sorts . . . but haven’t been (yet, anyway) promoted to fulfill the other function of the Lords Who Sleep: inspiring and reassuring the populace (“and in time of need, my son, the Lords Who Sleep will awaken and ride, to defend us all! D’ye see them? No? Then worry not, for no matter how dark things seem, the threatened doom of the realm is not yet at hand!”).
Let me say this much: this topic has been discussed by some creative minds, but nothing has been ‘set in stone’ (as they say) as of this writing.
So saith Ed. Hmmm . . . very interesting . . .
love to all,
THO
Hmm, interesting...
I, for one, should really like to see more on this group. It occurs to me that a tale of their re-founding could be quite an interesting read...
As always, thanks to you both! |
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George Krashos
Master of Realmslore
Australia
6666 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2005 : 05:41:01
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Thanks Ed (and THO) for the clarification on the hin of the Easting Reach. Duly noted and incorporated.
quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
A pleasure to chat with one of THE top Lore Lords of the Realms, as always. Glad you liked the Vangey revelations; I still want to write more of his story in future Realms fiction pieces. Sorry I missed you on my Oz tour in 1984 (I got as close as a convention in Melbourne, with ‘Uncle’ Wes Nicholson as my host and driver and companion to wife and self for five weeks). The gods alone know when I’ll ever have the time and money to get out your way again, so I’ll just have to start working hard on getting WotC to bring you to GenCon Indy some year as a guest. Perhaps if you wrote a blockbuster Realms novel . . .
Yes, wouldn't that be nice. I'll have to write that short story that's been bouncing around in my head and send it to you! That'll teach you. And to make you feel old, I was 14 in 1984 and had just bought my first DRAGON magazine and read my first Ed Greenwood article: "The Ecology of the Rust Monster".
And 20 years is too long a time between holidays. Come DownUnder - I'm sure the C-Keep scribes scattered around our continent will more than make you welcome - me especially.
-- George Krashos |
"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus |
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George Krashos
Master of Realmslore
Australia
6666 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2005 : 05:49:09
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
Hmm, interesting...
I, for one, should really like to see more on this group. It occurs to me that a tale of their re-founding could be quite an interesting read...
As always, thanks to you both!
Well, of course I had my Lords Who Sleep and Sleeping Sword article conceptualised and ready to be written around about the time Troy killed them all off in three sentences in "Beyond the High Road". At least my prophecy from Alaundo rhymed!
"When Sitral's brood pace the cobbles deep,
And great wyrms scour the twisted stones,
Ondeth's blood will set the Lords Who Sleep
To slumber in Grolag's bones.
For legions of fiends and the walking dead
Will bring ruin to our wooded land
Unless those who should have been long dead
Marshal for battle and make stand."
Never happen now, though ... 
-- George Krashos
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"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus |
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Dargoth
Great Reader
Australia
4607 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2005 : 07:46:26
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We'll there is Spring Revel, an RPGA D&D convention in Australia in september.... James Wyatt came out last year and Stephen Randel Mcfarlan (He actually DM'd 2 of Green regent module I played in, in 2003)
Perhaps Ed should see if he can get WOTC to give him the 05 guest |
“I am the King of Rome, and above grammar”
Emperor Sigismund
"Its good to be the King!"
Mel Brooks |
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Lord Rad
Great Reader
United Kingdom
2080 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2005 : 18:08:30
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I'm currently reading All Shadows Fled, and i've been chuckling all the way through the chapter at work earlier today where Mourngrym has a headache one morning. So I just wanted to say thanks Ed, this really brightened my day Torm (not the deity) always makes me laugh too, regardless
My request to Ed, brought on by this novel, is... can you provide me with any additional information on Galath's Roost? I'm very interested in this old stronghold but find very little written on the place, only a paragraph or two within the FRCS and the Dalelands accessory. Have you any details on its rise and fall and details of the layout\structure? Many thanks. |
Lord Rad
"What? No, I wasn't reading your module. I was just looking at the pictures"
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oldskool
Acolyte
USA
31 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2005 : 22:58:42
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quote:
Originally posted by The Hooded One
oldskool, there’s VERY little information about the “Blank Continents” of Toril. Ed’s never drawn any of them; what saw “print” in the Interactive Atlas was someone else’s conception, and Ed and we Knights are unanimous in thinking it resembles our real world FAR too closely. Anchorome should be an archipelago of tiny islands leading to a small C-shaped continent (‘open end’ facing Toril). Originally, before the 1986 negotiations with TSR, one of the players, Victor Selby, was going to detail one continent himself, but never got around to it.
I can tell you this much: Ed never wanted a Mayan-Aztec-’New World’ continent or flavour anywhere in the Realms, viewing it (I believe correctly) as a huge stylistic as well as commerical mistake even before he saw the published result, just as he never wanted the Hordelands to so closely resemble real-world Mongols, or see “the Dalai Lama” inserted into the Realms, and so on.I can also say Ed envisaged prosperous trading realms and city-states with their own stable, developed cultures.
Ed doesn’t want to give you any direct answer himself because he doesn’t want to influence potential WotC plans in any way. I emphasize the word “potential” here, because as far as Ed knows, right now, there aren’t any plans “in the works to expand on these blank places (or perhaps even just revisit in third edition the lands of Maztica, Kara-Tur, or Zakhara).”
Ah, very interesting information, even if I don't get a huge sheaf of continent outlines... hehehehe. In any case, that makes my course clear....
I'll feel a lot more free to run MAKE STUFF UP! Whoooo!
*tips his hat to Ed O' the Green Wood*
oldskool |
DM: "You see a gazebo ahead of you."
Player: "What is it doing? I draw my weapon and charge!"
DM: "It's not doing anything. It's a gazebo."
Player: "Oh.. um. Then I'll cast a fireball at it!" |
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FoolishOwl
Acolyte
USA
5 Posts |
Posted - 04 Feb 2005 : 23:21:53
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I think it's a good policy for a published roleplaying setting to have a few areas that are highly detailed, and large areas left only lightly detailed. That way, you give DMs/GMs/referees the option of either playing in an area where everything's already fleshed out, or in an area where they can fill in details as they see fit, without contradicting the ongoing "official" material.
One of the designers of the science fiction RPG Traveller said that they had a running joke about publishing "Footwear of the Third Imperium," in reference to the endless demands for more fine detail about the setting.
That said, it's a real delight to see the way Ed Greenwood can quickly come up with so many ideas to fill in the gaps. |
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George Krashos
Master of Realmslore
Australia
6666 Posts |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 00:41:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Lord Rad
My request to Ed, brought on by this novel, is... can you provide me with any additional information on Galath's Roost? I'm very interested in this old stronghold but find very little written on the place, only a paragraph or two within the FRCS and the Dalelands accessory. Have you any details on its rise and fall and details of the layout\structure? Many thanks.
Skip Williams wrote an adventure titled "Raiders of Galath's Roost" or somesuch in a semi-recent DUNGEON. No doubt someone can provide further details.
-- George Krashos
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"Because only we, contrary to the barbarians, never count the enemy in battle." -- Aeschylus |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 00:55:43
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Hello, all. Jerryd, I promised you and Blueblade that I’d say a little something about we Knights of Myth Drannor, in the original Realms campaign run by Ed, learning about Vangerdahast’s perfidy. Jerryd, you asked Ed: “You mean that the Knights in your home campaign discovered that Vangey dipped into the mind of Azoun, so the secret spread beyond Filfaeril and Laspeera?”
In a word: yes.
As Ed told you, it’s a very long and convoluted tale, because when Ed DMs campaign play (as opposed to a one-shot session at a convention), there are always dozens of subplots unfolding at once, NPCs adventuring as energetically as we PCs, general “bustling life unfolding,” and so on. We rarely engage in simple linear adventures or dungeon crawls with a clear and consecutive beginning, middle, and clean ending, so as to then turn to the next adventure, and so on.
Instead, it’s very like real life; there’s always a lot happening around us, and our “adventures” consist of reaching out and taking part in what we want to take part in (with occasional “this lands in your laps” enforced adventures, too).
As most of you may know, the core Knights began play in Espar, in upland Cormyr. You’ll see some of this in SWORDS OF EVENINGSTAR, Ed’s first Knights novel. So we knew of Vangey from our beginnings.
Much later, one Knight noticed that Azoun personally expressed an opinion on some matter (whilst making small talk at a revel, preparatory to trying to bed her) that was sharply different than the opinion he’d expressed much earlier, on the same topic, to the same Knight, at Shaerl Rowanmantle’s wedding to Mourngrym. This puzzled the Knight, and when she asked him why he’d changed his mind so much, Azoun was puzzled, and said he hadn’t done so, and had always held that view.
Now, we Knights had just spent a lot of time fighting a persistent gang of dopplegangers, so this aroused her suspicions, and she sought Syluné’s advice (we were all at that time within Syluné’s spectral reach). With the full permission and cooperation of the Knight, Syluné ‘went in’ to the Knight’s mind and rode it that night as she made love to Azoun, keeping in mental contact with Elminster throughout (he made only two playful comments about Azoun’s lovemaking, as I recall). Because Ed wanted all of us players to ‘know’ this firsthand, he told us that Elminster deliberately included all of us in the mental loop, so we’d all “know the true measure” of what we, as protectors of Shadowdale against suggested Cormyrean expansion, were dealing with.
So we all together discovered, as Elminster traced it, Vangerdahast’s meddlings with Azoun’s mind (and the Old Mage undid a few of them, as I recall).
Jerryd, you should be made aware of some things we discovered that night: that Azoun and Vangey REALLY like each other [no, not as lovers, I mean as really firm, lifelong friends] and both wanted the best for each other, and that Vangey was in the habit of ‘rewarding’ Azoun by giving him tiny, carefully-crafted [edited, NOT false] memories of what Vangey had observed, so Azoun would “know for sure” what certain people in Cormyr truly thought of him, or other Cormryeans, and so on. As you can imagine, these certainties were treasured by Azoun, who felt he could trust in them, and they went a long way towards building Azoun’s confidence (and making sure it was properly placed) and in steering his own behaviour so as to be respected and liked, even by nobles whose daughters he’d openly pursued and enjoyed. So Azoun knew Vangey ‘came into his head’ (ostensibly to read what he, Azoun, had learned and seen, and to examine Azoun for covert hostile magics intended to manipulate him [! quel irony!]) and didn’t mind. He was, of course, unaware of the true extent of some of the changes Vangey made (such as that altered opinion the Knight noticed). So that’s how we learned what Vangey was up to.
We all sat and talked about what, if anything, we could or should do about it. Why was Vangey doing this? Was he in turn being manipulated by someone else? (Larloch, Sammaster, Szass Tam, Manshoon . . . the candidates are endless, yes?)
So we thought about various plans for getting into Vangey’s mind. In the end, Syluné (with Elminster’s help) worked a tiny fragment of one of her pebbles into Azoun’s girdle (yes, the mighty-thewed, aging warrior-king had started to develop a paunch that he wasn’t any too fond of, and wore a leather ‘wound-healing’ girdle to hold it in) so she could ‘stay with’ Azoun when he travelled back to Cormyr. She did, and drifted into his mind to just watch. Vangey of course came right in to see and hear all he could about what Azoun had experienced in Shadowdale, and Syluné read all she could of his mind without being detected. Later, she had Azoun put the tiny speck of pebble behind a shelf of books in Filfaeril’s study, hoping she could use it to manifest there if the need ever arose, and some other means ‘brought’ her into the Palace (something that hasn’t yet happened, and may never happen). Elminster visited Azoun VERY briefly, to ‘carry’ Syluné home, and she revealed to all of us what she’d learned.
As we all approved of what Vangey was trying to do, even if we disliked his methods, we did nothing.
The reason Ed mentioned this revelation was because, we Knights having learned some of Vangey’s secrets that had hitherto been kept out of print, he now felt he could reveal them without ruining our enjoyment of the home campaign. As he said, what had been published up until now was very much “the public image” of Vangey (though many darker hints were there, as he pointed out). It’s somewhat like conditions in the real-life United States before the enlarged reach and boldness of the media that really picked up steam in the 1960s: at one point America had a president who was confined to a wheelchair, but most Americans at the time didn’t know he was because the media never showed it.
What Ed has given us in Vangerdahast is someone who usually did the right things for the wrong reasons, and sometimes did some very wrong things, too, but all for a cause that arguably gave thousands of people much better lives (relative peace, security, and public order; swift aid when hunger and cold threatened; prosperity and a standard of living much higher than would have been the case if skirmishes between nobles or even open civil war held sway).
As Garen Thal said, he’s the guy with bloody hands who props up the throne. Not a shining hero, Jerryd, but a very INTERESTING character, more interesting than if he had been a shining hero. I sometimes think of Vangey as a cross between Sean Connery in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING and Nick Fury, Agent of Shield.
love,
THO
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Edited by - The Hooded One on 05 Feb 2005 01:00:30 |
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Ty
Learned Scribe
USA
168 Posts |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 01:28:04
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The Hooded One,
I've been intrigued by Impiltur for years now and it's been one area in which I've seen little in the way of hard facts put down. I realize that Damara and Vassa were not part of the original Realms but I've never been 100% clear regarding Impiltur's original place in the Realms. 
If of course, it was thrown in at the same time as Damara and Vassa, then my query ends. Otherwise, have the Knights ever dealt with the Forgotten Kingdom in their world-spanning adventures? Has Mr. Greenwood detailed this area at all?
The area strikes me as a place for many rich high fantasy tales, what with its paladin lords, widowed queen, merchants, and past dealings with the goblinoids of the region. What kind of culture does this area have in comparison to the rural Dalelands or cosmopolitan Waterdeep? I keep having images of the Black Forest when I think of Impiltur (and forbid the poor analogy but I draw imagery similar to Gondor from The Lord of the Rings). I've read much of the official and unofficial 'fan' lore regarding Impiltur but I'm curious how it was touched upon in your adventures (with of course any input from the esteemed Mr. Greenwood if he has the time ).
Many thanks for any information you can provide. |
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The Hooded One
Lady Herald of Realmslore
5056 Posts |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 01:33:41
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It's featured very little in our adventures, Ty. I'll ask Ed for any tidbits he may be willing to share (it IS part of his original Realms), but THE Master of lore for Impiltur is Mr. George Krashos, now an active scribe here at Candlekeep (and one of Ed's secret contacts for years). He's the expert.
love,
THO |
Edited by - The Hooded One on 05 Feb 2005 01:37:02 |
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 05:12:31
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Hi, Ed! First, I wanted to let you know that not only have I grown to love the Realms, but your Realms novels have a way of making me laugh out loud. I love authors who have a sense of humor--keep up the good work. :)
Now, a question that has been nagging at the back of my mind for awhile. It is pretty clear when one reads enough about Cormyr (especially in your threads here!) that Azoun has made love to many different women, all the while being married to Filfaeril. I understand that some marriages in the Realms (and in the real world, if it's desired) end up being "open marriages"; I also recall in the book Crown of Fire that Tessaril (sp?), the Lord of Eveningstar, mentions that Filfaeril knows that Azoun makes love to her when he visits Eveningstar, and that she understood what they shared together--I may not be remembering it correctly as it has been a long time since I read the book, but I got the impression that Queen Filfaeril didn't mind all that much.
My question is this: How did Filfaeril feel about her husband chasing after women, while being married? Did she ever feel lonely, or jealous? I know that it is human nature to be jealous when it comes to love, especially if Filfaeril loved Azoun deeply--what I'm trying to say is that no human can be tolerant and accepting all the time (or at least, it's *very* difficult to do), and I wonder if Filfaeril ever felt sad about this. From what I've read of her, she seems like a kind (but strong) person; did Azoun appreciate what he had? What was the relationship between Azoun and Filfaeril like--was there strong love there, or was it a political marriage that grew and developed over time, but not enough to cause Azoun to stick with his wife only?
Thank you in advance,
Rinonalyrna |
"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) |
Edited by - Rinonalyrna Fathomlin on 05 Feb 2005 05:14:35 |
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Ty
Learned Scribe
USA
168 Posts |
Posted - 05 Feb 2005 : 17:54:57
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Hrm...
Maybe as the unofficial reference manual of the designers and writers of the Realms, we should petition for Krash getting his own sticky? That way we can all personally pester, er, query him ceaselessly for answers to our questions... |
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Questions for Ed Greenwood (2005)
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