100 replies to this topic

[Deathsangel]

** Request from the scribe:

No doubt our esteemed quizmaster will be asking anyway in due course, but I'd love to know how some of the powerful weapons got their names... Crom Faeyr, Vorpal sword (stolen from the Jabberwocky hunter?), Staff of Rhynn, etc. Did some of them actually belong to mighty legendary figures or are they merely (!!!) named in honour of them?

Weapons tend to get names for:

Gods that created them - (Elhonna's Quiver)
Mortals that wielded (and created) them - (well enough of those in the game eh )
Function of the weapon - (i.e. Godsbane)
The action of the item - (i.e. Danaern's Instance Fortress)
The name the intelligent weapon gave itself. - (Zagyaz, Cloak of the Kings)

[Jarno Mikkola]

What I have learnt about D&D gods this week is that they were a pretty paffy bunch. Mortals like Elminster and Midnight killed some of them.

Is Elminster even human? After all, part of Mystra's essence was passed to him, he has been seen during more than 1000 years period of time etc. He is a fighter->thief->cleric->mage->arcmage...

[Deathsangel]

I solute Kellen for his win on the religion part of the quiz, and give a warm handshake to Tempest. To the rest I am glad to see other participate and welcome them with a warm heart.

[Bluenose]

Interresting that Essylis of Lizardfolk, may someone give me a reference? I know of Blibdoolpoolp, Deep Sashelas, Eadro as gods for waterdwellers but this name is new to me, given in I can't look through my bestiary of Fearun now ... or any book of fearun on the DVD...
Luckily I also have lots of stuff in good all fashion books

Appears in Serpent Kingdoms in the 3e books that I have, and there's an NPC in the Cormyr adventure who worships him. Here's the text:

Essyliss
After the creation of the lizardfolk, the World Serpent created an aspect of himself in their image. The god felt the need to give these simple creatures a deity the could call their own, lest they be distracted by the plethora of other deities. The worship of Essyliss lasted two thousand years after the fall of sarrukh-ruled Mhairshaulk. Ultimately, however, the splintered factions of the lizardfolk began worshipping Semuanya. Today Essyliss is worshipped be a handful of lizardfolk, and barely a trace of him remains.

Align: N; Favoured Weapon, Club; Domains; Animal, Protection, Scaly-kind; Storm, War, Watery Death; Symbol, Lizard Head; Portfolio, Lizardfolk; Worshipped by, a handful of lizardfolk.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Unlike Jarno I am not going to say all those races you can change into as this time is to short for me to consider 'playing as'.

Either way, as the quiz goes I am still going to win in the numbers.
This is the Imp -way of thinking.

Ooh, and then there is the stone statuet...

[Bluenose]

Unlike Jarno I am not going to say all those races you can change into as this time is to short for me to consider 'playing as'.

Either way, as the quiz goes I am still going to win in the numbers.
This is the Imp -way of thinking.

Ooh, and then there is the stone statuet...

And some rather bizarre effects with wild magic.

Not that I'm necessarily counting most of these for anything but a potential tie-breaker.

[Kellen]

Honestly Temp, couldn't even get the Elf from your mod?

[Tempest]

Oops.

[Kellen]

I'm wondering if the Lythari count. I'm not sure if they're on Faerun, or actually elsewhere on Toril.

[Deathsangel]

Isn't that just a fancy name for an elf lycanthrope just like humans? Sorry, I am slightly in doubt of that...

@ Jarno - now some things are just plain silly, but things like Blood Elves & Eldar is not Fearûn

[Kellen]

The lythari are a subrace of elves who can transform into wolves. Unlike most werewolves, they can transform at will and keep their minds while in wolf form. Because the lythari have changed so far from their elven roots, most Faerûnian scholars now consider them a separate race from elves.

[Deathsangel]

The lythari are a subrace of elves who can transform into wolves. Unlike most werewolves, they can transform at will and keep their minds while in wolf form. Because the lythari have changed so far from their elven roots, most Faerûnian scholars now consider them a separate race from elves.

Thanks for the info

[Kellen]

Forgotten Realms Wikia for the win

[Scipio]

Creator races: Wow, now I really have learnt something, not just something new but also something that has changed my perception of the whole D&D universe. Never having read any of the literature except for game manuals, I'd always supposed humans were the last to arrive. So they predated elves, dwarves, etc? Wow. Are "we" the elder race?

Question to you boffins: How much is the history and prehistory of Toril drawn from by Tolkien, since we have halflings that seem to be hobbits, etc? Or did LoTR merely provide general inspiration?

[Deathsangel]

For my second answer, I needed a source which gave me number five of answer list..

I would like to note following... Same source also states the following:

Other sages incorrectly leave out the aearee but include dragons in the list.
Elves, dwarves, and some human ethnic groups were immigrants to Abeir-Toril from other worlds.

Which is funny as than I do wonder what created dragons to be honested... aearee with sarrukh??
And what did human create, also noting the immigrants (I actually thought Elf were from the Fey... and I had no clue of Dwarves as you have no subterrean creator race.)

Also same site:

It should be noted that other sources refer to only three creator races - an amphibian, an avian and a reptilian

To Bluenose to figure it out

@Scipio: to my knowledge inspiration. D&D takes tibits from around the world of mythology and literature

Edited by Deathsangel, 15 May 2008 - 07:14 AM.

[Kellen]

Doh! Misread the question and thought it as six legs, four arms...

[Bluenose]

Creator races: Wow, now I really have learnt something, not just something new but also something that has changed my perception of the whole D&D universe. Never having read any of the literature except for game manuals, I'd always supposed humans were the last to arrive. So they predated elves, dwarves, etc? Wow. Are "we" the elder race?

In the Forgotten Realms, yes. Humans are a native species, very hardy and difficult to stamp out - rather like cockroaches Elves are interlopers from another dimension, Faerie. Orcs were brought from other worlds, at least twice. I'll have a look at others, but I think both dwarves and gnomes claim to be either created or found by their gods. Halflings just sort of appear at some point after the decline of the Creator Races. Half-elves and half-orcs are a mystery, to me at any rate And as some of the answers to the say quite a few species were created by others.

Question to you boffins: How much is the history and prehistory of Toril drawn from by Tolkien, since we have halflings that seem to be hobbits, etc? Or did LoTR merely provide general inspiration?

I'd say there's a lot of Tolkien in D&D in general. Certainly halflings, who were even called hobbits in some of the earliest versions before the Tolkien estate started to talk about law-suits and copyright. Then you can get into the argument about how much of Tolkien is really original, because he didn't invent elves, dwarves, or even orcs (orcne appear in Beowulf). Ed Greenwood created the Forgotten Realms as a setting for fantasy stories back in the 1960s, when Tolkien was really becoming very popular in North America if I understand correctly, and I'd be suprised if it wasn't one of his inspirations. At the same time there are definitely others. If Fritz Leiber wasn't among them I'd be absolutely astonished, given the nature of Waterdeep compared to Lankhmar.

[Kellen]

Also, we completely missed Fey'ri as an elven subrace...

[Bluenose]

For my second answer, I needed a source which gave me number five of answer list..

I would like to note following... Same source also states the following:

Other sages incorrectly leave out the aearee but include dragons in the list.
Elves, dwarves, and some human ethnic groups were immigrants to Abeir-Toril from other worlds.

Which is funny as than I do wonder what created dragons to be honested... aearee with sarrukh??
And what did human create, also noting the immigrants (I actually thought Elf were from the Fey... and I had no clue of Dwarves as you have no subterrean creator race.)

Also same site:

It should be noted that other sources refer to only three creator races - an amphibian, an avian and a reptilian

To Bluenose to figure it out

@Scipio: to my knowledge inspiration. D&D takes tibits from around the world of mythology and literature

Dragons started to appear at the time the Creator Races are in terminal decline. There was a rain of meteors that among other things merged a series of disconnected lakes to form the Sea of Fallen Stars. Mixed in with this were eggs, from which dragons hatched. Subsequently individual dragons began to carve out separate kingdoms in various locations. The dragon-kings enslave elves, humans, and anything else that isn't powerful enough to stand them off. While they weren't able to defeat the last remnant Sarrukh kingdom, they did nearly exterminate the Aearee (and the Avariels) and they fought a really large with with the Colossal Kingdom, a nation of giants that ruled North-East of the Sea of Fallen Stars covering most of what is now Kara-Tur, the Endless Waste, and south as far as Mulhorand. The end result is the end of the Colossal Kingdom and indirectly the dragon-kings ruin.

Dwarves are a bit of a mystery. I'll look it up, but I think they claim to have been born underground, created by the efforts of Moradin. They first appear in the Yehimal Mountains where Faerun, Kara Tur and Zakhara meet, and emigrated into all three areas.

[Bluenose]

Also, we completely missed Fey'ri as an elven subrace...

I did say not half-breeds.