Gods help me my current pet project has me trying to piece together the history of Waterdeep post-Spellplague, including the fate of the myriad noble houses. RIP my whole entire sanity. @TheEdVerse I don't suppose you can kick a brother a list of the Open Lords post-Piergeiron?
— Joseph Carriker (@oakthorne) December 1, 2019
1) PART 1
Of course I can. Here we go, folks…Piergeiron ‘the Paladinson’ became Open Lord of Waterdeep in 1314 DR, and died in office in 1379 DR (of age and ill health, after several assassination attempts at the hands of those 2)
…increasingly impatient to replace him with their various stooges; one of those attempts claimed the life of his loyal bodyguard, Madeiron Sunderstone, late in 1378 DR).
Piergeiron was succeeded (a month after his death, by…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019
3)
…majority vote of the Masked Lords, after many candidates had been proposed by various Lords, but rejected by others) by (a compromise candidate, initially seen within the Lords and across the city as a caretaker, but who 4)
…won respect while in office) the respected-in-trade Waterdhavian merchant (parchment and paper-maker and bookbinder) Audreithra Teltorna, who was not a Masked Lord.
She held the Lordship until the Spellplague hit in 1385 DR. #Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019
5)
In its tumult, agents of the Xanathar (of the time) succeeded in assassinating Teltorna, intending to install their puppet among the Masked Lords as her replacement.
However, they overplayed their hand, and their candidate, 6)
…the shipwright Andramas Rujyntral, was rejected by the Lords. A flurry of assassinations among the Lords followed as the Xanathar’s agents took their revenge and sought to eliminate rival candidates within the Lords and…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019
7)
…Rujyntral’s most steadfast opponents, but this goaded various Lords to hire adventurers to assassinate both Rujyntral and any of the Xanathar’s agents they could identify and hunt down. They succeeded so well that the )
…Xanathar not only lost Rujyntral, it suffered the loss of so many loyal human agents that it decided to retreat into the shadows, rebuilding its network with slow care and keeping well away from the Masked Lords (a policy…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019
9)
…that remained in force until a new Xanathar succeeded to the title).
The Masked Lords endured a little more than three months without an Open Lord at the helm, until the ravages of the Spellplague demanded that their appointed 10)
…spokesperson (Acting Voice Of the Lords) Watchlord Phulundaera Vantur (a seasoned veteran who’d risen through the ranks; her much-scarred body incorporated magically-bonded limbs and organs from fallen comrades) be adopted…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019
11)
…as the new Open Lord.
Phulundaera was street-wise and gruff and no-nonsense, and the guilds and just plain citizens of the streets loved her, because she stood for equality of treatment under city law and policy, for the… 12)
…high and the low. This same quality made her detested by the nobles and ‘wannabe nobles’ nouveau riche, and they tried to arrange many accidents for her. As she was already old and ailing, one such assassination attempt…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019
13)
…finally succeeded, in 1389 DR.
The nobles and the wealthy then spent money and called in favors in ‘the Golden Deluge,’ and succeeded in buying enough votes to put their own candidate into the Open Lordship’s chair: a… 14)
…wastrel young noble son named Hauthshaw Assumbar, who had little useful education, even less strength of will (no principles, and a tendency to obey whoever had yelled at him loudest, most recently), and beliefs only in the… #Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019
15)
…superiority of the nobility and of Waterdeep and of hot buttered snail, to all else. He was intended to be the pawn of the noble houses, but a guildmaster (Hartran Ilandrouth of the Coopers’ Guild) shrewdly sent his 16)
…daughter, Shalantha, to seduce and cozen Assumbar, giving him Ilandrouth’s directions, which were not just promoting guild interests, but were in the main shrewd good governance—but infuriated the nobles, who had coin enough…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019
17)
…to pay for many assassination attempts. They succeeded in poisoning Shalantha fatally and Assumbar enough to frighten him in fleeing the city in disguise, late in 1390 DR, aboard a ship to Mintarn with adventurers. 18)
He eventually made it to the Moonshaes, but there was recognized and assassinated by someone who thought his death would plunge Waterdeep into confusion and weaken it.
His head was sold to a factor (trade agent) of the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019
19)
…Deepwinter noble house of Waterdeep, who sent it back to Waterdeep to prove Assumbar’s demise.
The chest containing Assumbar’s head was opened by the Masked Lords meeting in council in the Palace in 1391 DR, but proved little 20)
…more than an unpleasant anticlimax, as the winter of early 1391 DR had been full of fractious debates to replace Assumbar, with everyone assuming he’d been murdered (Shalantha’s body had been found purple and bloated with…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019
21)
…poison).
As before, the Masked Lords, with many personal interests at stake and many interests across the city seeking to influence them, found it difficult to choose an Open Lord, until one among them, 22)
…Athlynxthlas Ultrumpet, put himself forward with the promise that he’d simply be the mouthpiece of the Lords, deferring all decisions to them, even the traditional magisterial (judging criminals) rulings.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019
