Very interesting. I’ve been wondering about this for years. So in the home Realms: Beh-HAHL or Bahl? Low-vee-A-tar or Low-VEE-a-tar? MAY-lar or MAH-lar? Mahsk or Mask? MERR-kool or MER-kul? In the home Realms:
Bahl
Low-VEE-a-tar or Low-VIE-ah-tar (Southern)
MAH-lar
Mask
MEER-kool (Myr = “Meer,” just as Tyr is “TEER”)
But across Toril, as across our real world, you will hear a wide variety of pronunciations. And the gods hear them all. ;}#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) January 30, 2019

Ed, thank you so much for indulging my curiousity, but this now brings up another question. Since gods hear whenever their name is spoken (as a kind of cacophonous white noise), doesn’t that confuse things if the god’s name is the same as a common word, like “soon” or “mask”?

— AdamDravian (@AdamDravian) January 30, 2019

Yes. Even gods can’t concentrate on everything at once (though if they’ve ALREADY decided to focus on particular individuals or places, they CAN filter out everything else and “be there” as eavesdroppers). And a good thing for us mortals, too! We get away with…#Realmslore 2/3) …a lot that gods might otherwise punish. (You might say the art of being an effective god is mastery of multitasking.) Please note: when a deity's name is uttered in prayer, in a temple, while clutching a holy symbol, or by a paladin or someone making a…@Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) January 30, 2019

3/3) …sacrifice/offering, it "sounds different" to divine ears (and so can be told apart from other utterances and soundalikes, so someone saying "mask that before you paint the trim" or "The bread'll be done soon" isn't heard by those deities in the same tone as their names).

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) January 30, 2019

Wow! Thank you!
I’d seen an answer to sexuality on Candlekeep ages back. But this goes way deeper.
Given your mention of those strict inherence rules for nobles: how’s the order go for a noble heir who’s gay? Their heir apparent is … eldest nibling? What if they adopt?

— 🌈Jaye🦄Em🌹Edgecliff🏳️‍🌈 (@jayeedgecliff) February 2, 2019

1) It varies widely across the Realms, depending either on tradition within those families, or the laws of the realm they’re nobles of (same as in the real world: some noble titles descend through the male line, some through female, and so on). Back when I was five…#Realmslore 2) …or six and first thinking these things through for the Realms, I had to decide what would happen if folk could magically be brought back to life, and decided that to prevent "eternal kings" who just keep getting resurrected or reign as liches, death would…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 3, 2019

3) …knock an individual out of the succession (and we see that in Cormyr: A Novel). In some families, a returned-from-death person would still be considered part of the family and could conceivably “re-inherit” if they were the only one left standing after all…#Realmslore 4) …other kin died off, while in other cases, particularly if the dead were nasty or unpopular, they would be shunned and kicked out of the family). So the first answer is: it depends. Let's look at Waterdeep and Cormyr, the two gatherings of nobility most seen…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 3, 2019

..published Realmslore to date. So: a noble heir who happens to be gay is still the noble heir; they still inherit. If they die without “issue of their body,” the succession passes to their next eldest kin (in some families, of a particular gender; in most, …#Realmslore 6) …gender doesn't matter except in rare cases of twins born at the same moment, in which case there's usually a standing family rule of boy first or girl first; if not, the family would pray to a god of the head of the house's choice for vision-guidance, unless…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 3, 2019

8) …the realm support (when they don't, that's when you get civil war and usurpers supported by strong noble factions, and the "new monarch" is usually pressed to issue new decrees making everything clearer and as the majority of the nobles want it). I have left…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 3, 2019

7) …the REALM had a law/rule about this). Adopted children are still noble, but aren’t in the succession (they stand outside of it and get “passed over”). For royalty, there are ALWAYS complicated laws, formed by royal decrees over the years that the nobility of…#Realmslore8) …the realm support (when they don't, that's when you get civil war and usurpers supported by strong noble factions, and the "new monarch" is usually pressed to issue new decrees making everything clearer and as the majority of the nobles want it). I have left…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 3, 2019

9) …the details of such laws and customs of succession as murky as possible to allow Realms novelists and game designers and individual DMs down the year maximum freedom for storytelling/PC “stakes.” If you’d like a model for how to govern in cases of “which of. 10) …two or three seemingly-equal candidates should inherit, consider first what Jeff and I showed in Cormyr: A Novel of someone not wanting the kingship abdicating in favor of a sibling, then turn to glance at the NFL. Yes, the American professional football…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 3, 2019

league. On their website, before the playoffs/postseason, there’s always a link to “tie-breaking procedures” or some such that demonstrates how they decide between two teams that finish with the same points. It’s always intrigued me that in the end, after…#Realmslore 12) …factors are exhausted, it comes down to a coin toss. In the Realms, there'd never be a coin toss; that would be the point at which it would be handed to the gods, to send a sign. (Which, yes, might mean clergy faking something or twisting an interpretation,…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 3, 2019

13) …but no system is perfect. It’s in the conflict and vying for power that many storytelling/roleplaying adventure possibilities arise, after all. Note that in the Realms as in real life, there have been many instances of gay persons managing somehow to have 14) …offspring in the usual way, so as not to endanger the succession (they are reared that the maintenance of their house [family] comes before all else, and in most cases would believe and follow that, no matter their personal losses/costs).#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 3, 2019

Hey @TheEdVerse need some help to figure out the ranking system of Cormyr’s Purple Dragons. I am playing a PC who is a “lieutenant” in modern parlance so I have labeled him a Swordcaptain, but some places on google say this is more a enlisted sergeant-type rank. Volo’s is scant You are correct. See POWER OF FAERUNp29 for a handy comparative ranks table. A modern private = blade in the Purple Dragons; corporal = telsword ("sword"); sergeant = first sword; lieutenant = swordcaptain; captain =lionar; major = ornrion; colonel = constal, etc.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 8, 2019

I think the confusion arises because "swordcaptain" is used as a rank in some town and city watches across the Realms as the title of a street patrol leader…so, yes, about an enlisted-sergeant-type rank. But Cormyr=long-established professional military=firm ranks.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 8, 2019

Thank you mighty Sage, I knew that Volo guy was sketchy. Heh. Sketchy indeed. And so shifty he escapes being drawn in many sketches. ;}

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 8, 2019