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Originally posted by Steven Schend



Steven
who's favorite bit is the kender on the phone explaining that Troy couldn't blow up the moon...

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Originally posted by Myssa Rei

Good day, Mr. Schend. I have to say, I must commend you for your excellent novel Blackstaff. Just... Wow.

I have to wonder though at the aftermath of the book. Maybe it's just me, but it seemed like a perfect setup for the return of the Ravencloak to Faerun (a concept my DM's been toying a bit for some time)...

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Originally posted by Steven Schend

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Originally posted by Myssa Rei

Good day, Mr. Schend. I have to say, I must commend you for your excellent novel Blackstaff. Just... Wow.

I have to wonder though at the aftermath of the book. Maybe it's just me, but it seemed like a perfect setup for the return of the Ravencloak to Faerun (a concept my DM's been toying a bit for some time)...

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Thank you very much.

As for the Ravencloak's return, I can't really say. Not my call, but it might be fun.

Steven

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Originally posted by Mace Hammerhand

Steven, is there a chance you're going to revisit and re-work your Dungeon Crawl adventures to fit into 3.5?

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Originally posted by Dagnirion

-Steve, I am currently working on a little project concerning the Fair Folk, and I want to have a certain monk there, who is simply known as Schend, hint that Myth Adofhaer might have actually been called Myth Adofaer at one point or another. Any objections to me using your name? I know some people don;t like little things like that. Think of it as a little salute, to all of the hard work you've done for us over the years. :)

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Originally posted by Steven Schend
Go right ahead. Sounds amusing and I don't mind the homage at all.

Steven

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Originally posted by Steven Schend

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Originally posted by Mace Hammerhand

Steven, is there a chance you're going to revisit and re-work your Dungeon Crawl adventures to fit into 3.5?

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I'd never say never, but it's unlikely they'll be updated...unless they work the Lost Level and Maddgoth's Castle and the Aquitiocrun into the new Undermountain product they're planning....

In any case, it'll not be me doing rules adjustments, as I'm not as up on 3.5 as most. Heck, I bug Eric and Tom whenever I have a rules query now.

SES

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Originally posted by Asgetrion

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Originally posted by Steven Schend

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Originally posted by Mace Hammerhand

Steven, is there a chance you're going to revisit and re-work your Dungeon Crawl adventures to fit into 3.5?

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I'd never say never, but it's unlikely they'll be updated...unless they work the Lost Level and Maddgoth's Castle and the Aquitiocrun into the new Undermountain product they're planning....

In any case, it'll not be me doing rules adjustments, as I'm not as up on 3.5 as most. Heck, I bug Eric and Tom whenever I have a rules query now.

SES

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Steven, those modules were GREAT! The only major change that our DM did, was to replace Maddgoth with Maaril, who was a major foe of our PCs at that time.

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Originally posted by Lemernis

Steven, a question about racial tolerance in Amn:

In Lands of Intrigue, the chapter 'Civilized Races' of Book II: Amn suggests that for an Amnian to encounter any race other than a human or halfling is very rare. Dwarves, elves, half-elves, and half-orcs (outside of Purskul) are almost never seen. Dwarves and elves, when they are seen, are usually travelers or adventurers. Half-elves and half-orcs are virtually unknown. Most in Amn have never seen, and never will see, a gnome in their entire lifetime.

But this doesn't seem to square well with the fact that Amn receives an enormous volume of caravan and sea trade from abroad. Caravans from the southern Sword Coast and Western Heartlands, and Amn's seaports, almost have to be bringing Amnians into contact with a wide variety of other races on a daily basis.

Is the rarity of contact with dwarves, elves, half-elves, and half-orcs something of an oversight?

Or is the limited contact with other races mainly due to Amnian society being heavily bigoted? (Halflings being racially intolerant as well?)

It is noted that half-orcs will be regarded as second-class citizens anywhere in Amn outside of Purskul, no matter how rich they become. That race has monster blood, so that alone could account for the bigotry in their specific case... But with wealth trumping all else in the Amnian social hierarchy, it does say a lot that even an extremely wealthy half-orc would be shunned.

But does the same basic intolerance apply in Amn to all other races? Amnian culture is acutely status-conscious, shallow, gossipy, petty, full of prejudices, etc. There is no scholarship in Amn, no written history, and most knowledge of Amn's history and the outside world is passed down intergenerationally at the family hearth. Amnians have their deeply ingrained prejudices against mages, for example.

I could envision a strong racial intolerance easily occuring in Amn. If so, perhaps races other than humans and halfling are consequently keenly aware that they would be unwelcome, if they tried to settle in Amn. So they tend to limit contact, and keep interactions curt and 'business only'.

In any event, one would think that exposure to other races in a land with so much trade from abroad would be much higher...

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Originally posted by Zanan

Vendui!

Over at the Forgotten Realms Chat board, a debate is brewing about the return of that city/realm in what was formerly Miyeritar and the possible influx of former/new followers of Eilistraee to the Realms. People are claiming that this return involves the sharn as well, "transformed" former followers of the Dark Maiden. Now, I hold my hands up and have to admit that I haven't yet read the novel so far, thus I have no clue about this return at all. What I do know is the info on the sharn which we have from the Menzoberranzan box and Monsters of Faerūn, neither makes a mention on them being transformed Eilistraeens. Obviously, any new novel or sourcebook can shed new light on this, as Blackstaff apparently did.
My question now would be about in-setting relevance and the number of inhabitants / worshippers / followers of the risen again place - with regard to Eilistraee. Or will we see a sourcebook that deals with this event anytime soon and sheds some more tangible facts on the issue? Obviously, if these sharn were hidden followers of the Dark Maiden, her status as a lesser deity would be easier to explain, given the low numbers of worshippers that she has - in the sourcebooks.

Aluve, Zanan!

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Major Centers of Worship: Before the elven Crown Wars, Eilisrraee's faith was strong in Miyeritar, and she had small numbers of faithful in Ilythiir and the other elven realms of the time. The Dark Disaster, unleashed during the Third Crown War, transformed Miyeritar into the blasted wasteland now known as the High Moor and dealt a devastating blow to the ranks of the Dark Maiden's followers. When the Ilythiiri were transformed into the drow and banished from the sunlit lands at the end of the Fourth Crown War some five hundred years later, Eilistraee's church effectively collapsed and was not reformed for millennia. A few ancient, sacred sites of power built before the Crown Wars survive in the Misty Forest, along the borders of the High Moor, and in the Shar, scattered across the onceverdant savannah.

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Originally posted by Steven Schend

Amn is heavily humanocentric and biased so, as you've stated. They tolerate the halflings only out of familiarity (and their longtime presence in both Tethyr, their former realm which is now part of Amn, and the fact that they have trade goods (wine, etc.) that Amnians want. They tolerate the half-orcs because they want the labor/slaves. In no way does this mean they'll actually consider them equals as living beings.

Dwarves and elves and gnomes aren't necessarily known (at least in this area since the fall of the surface dwarf realms around there) to be all that organized in large numbers for trading. And the gnomes aren't either.

It may seem a stretch to declare that most Amnians see anyone who isn't human as thoroughly alien, but even with all the trade, that's no guarantee that they'll see other races. Humans tend to dominate the sea trades and caravan costers that bring and remove trade to/from Amn. The occassional elf, dwarf, gnome, or other is just that--rare and considered dangerous.

One other reason behind Amn's distrust of demihumans is simple--those they do see via land or sea are rarely peaceful traders or adventurers. They're more often the pirates (over which I regrettably glossed over some in LOI and EoSS) or the wandering monsters of the plains.

Don't know if this helps clarify or further confuse. If you want to continue discussing this, great; let's just talk about specific situations, which always change the broad generalizations a tad.

Steven

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Originally posted by Steven Schend

Interesting substitution; did he alter all those homunculi to be faerie dragons or something to be in keeping with Maaril's title?

Thanks for the kind words, and I'm glad you enjoyed the modules.

SES

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Originally posted by Steven Schend


C) Even if (B) weren't true, none of the former dark elves of Miyeritar have relinquished their collective sharn forms, which would make their worshiping a dancer a tad tricky at best. To not be sharn would have them suddenly become subject to Corellon's Judgement and become drow (Yes, there's a difference, in this context, between dark elf and drow. Honest.).

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Originally posted by Lemernis
But as to caravans from abroad... Is it then safe to say that the Amnian bias to trade exclusively with fellow humans is so strong that they will typically refuse to do business with any other race? (Halfings being the only exception, as noted.) Or at least for Amnians fail to given these races any reasonable sort of deal? And if so, then perhaps caravan companies from abroad that do business in Amn might even be somewhat averse to hiring non-humans? I.e., for fear that it may harm their business prospects?

Because if so, that could explain why there is such limited contact with dwarves, elves, half-elves, gnomes, and half-orcs (outside of Purskul).

I guess the same would apply to adventurers passing through who seek to hire out their services as caravan guards, in Amnwater let's say. There'd be a strong bigotry, i.e., the subtext to those races seeking employment would be "demi-humans need not apply."

What about seeking to join up with the military, though? The NWN2 persistent world project I'm involved with will be set in central Amn during early winter 1370, so there will be urgency on the part of the Amnian military.

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Originally posted by Kentinal

2nd Edition

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Major Centers of Worship: Before the elven Crown Wars, Eilisrraee's faith was strong in Miyeritar, and she had small numbers of faithful in Ilythiir and the other elven realms of the time. The Dark Disaster, unleashed during the Third Crown War, transformed Miyeritar into the blasted wasteland now known as the High Moor and dealt a devastating blow to the ranks of the Dark Maiden's followers. When the Ilythiiri were transformed into the drow and banished from the sunlit lands at the end of the Fourth Crown War some five hundred years later, Eilistraee's church effectively collapsed and was not reformed for millennia. A few ancient, sacred sites of power built before the Crown Wars survive in the Misty Forest, along the borders of the High Moor, and in the Shar, scattered across the onceverdant savannah.

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Originally posted by Zanan

Thanks for the exhaustive reply!

As has already been posted, Miyeritar was indeed one if not the center of worship of the Dark Maiden (source: Demihuman Deities). That said, being a center of worship of one faith does not necessarily imply that other deities were any less representative there, only that their respective "centers of worship" did not lay in Miyeritar.

As for dark elves post Descent ... to my understanding, all dark elves of old were transformed into drow, but they were still addressed and speak of themselves as "dark elves".

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Originally posted by Rinonalyrna Fathomlin

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Originally posted by Steven Schend


C) Even if (B) weren't true, none of the former dark elves of Miyeritar have relinquished their collective sharn forms, which would make their worshiping a dancer a tad tricky at best. To not be sharn would have them suddenly become subject to Corellon's Judgement and become drow (Yes, there's a difference, in this context, between dark elf and drow. Honest.).

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Hmmm, honestly I see that (and always have seen that since I read Blackstaff) as kind of unfair. Why should those people be punished just because of what their former race was?

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Originally posted by Steven Schend

As always, bear in mind that these are just my musings--not anything to be construed as canonical in any way. Unless I draw a paycheck from Wizards or am Ed Greenwood, this is all just opinion and tavern talk. [Okay, obligatory disclaimer out of the way. <cracks knuckles and starts typing>]

I'm one of the old-school designers who's fought to make sure there was a distinction historically if not colloquially between drow and dark elves. As I was told back when I worked on Cormanthyr that I couldn't allow any dark elves to NOT be drow, I couldn't leave a loophole for those good dark elves of Miyeritar, alas.

Also remember one thing--Rhymanthiin is a NEW thing. It's NOT just the restored and altered city of Faertelmiir--it's far more than that. Be that as it may, it's also only one city of Miyeritar, and as such, it was the least religious of any of its cities. Thus, my concession of a Dark Maiden's temple there is a conceit to the fans rather than anything rooted in hidden plans or what little logic I bring to my plottings.

For those curious about Miyeritar, I saw it as 8-12 major city-states working semi-independently with a roving seat of power for a central government. There were also a wide band of around 25 towers similar to those among the 4th Circles (in the Blackstaff ritual), around which small villages or towns might also congregate. In all, Miyeritar only consisted of no more than 40 focused settlements and a lot of widespread independent towers or treeholds or burrows or whatnot for its population of elves, centaurs, and various others.

Once every 20 years or so (short for elves), the power would shift among the military, the mages, or the religious, and thus the center of power would shift to the city-state controlled or most influenced by said power group. Faertelmiir was the Library City of Miyeritar, so it was always one of the strongholds for magic more than anything else. Yes, it has temples NOW as Rhymanthiin, and that's the result of those involved in the ritual as well as the races and peoples who became sharn long after Miyeritar's fall and influenced the rebuilding to their wishes and dreams.

And for fans of Lost Empires of Faerun, Kraanfhaor's Door was simply part of one of those tower-settlements which was a major school for wizardry and sorcery. It was not a city-state.

Clear as mud now, right? I'm thinking more and more that I should write more of this up before it flies out of my head.....

SES

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Originally posted by Steven Schend

Because gods don't always focus in on individuals unless they're high priests in their religions? Okay, that's one answer, but it's hardly satisfying.

Yes, Lyrna, it's horribly unfair, but the decision was partly due to demands by my bosses at the time (writing Cormanthyr and elvish history) that I erase the distinction between dark elves and drow and could not leave a loophole through which some could survive.

Now, in my mind, part of the unfairness stems from mortals not knowing all of what went into the decisions of the gods, so there may be more backstory behind Corellon's decision. We know he was torn about forcing the punishment on Eilistraee but he could not avoid it for some reason. Exactly what's involved is unknown by this man behind the curtain....and it may never be known, as I doubt there's much demand for yet another edition of the god-books (but I've been wrong before).

SES

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