Another question if I might! Are glasses/specticals of non magic nature fir correcting vision a thing in Faerûn? Oh, yes. Many are pince-nez or monocle format, or hang down from a headband above them; some jewelers and artificers wear magnifying lenses in this manner, too.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 16, 2020

Then the next question would be how expensive they are… It depends. On how complex and powerful the lenses, and where and when you're buying them (large city with competition, like a temple of Gond = cheaper than if you must buy from a traveling merchant). Waterdeep: reading glasses as low as 5gp, but usually 25-100 gp.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 16, 2020

One more quick question. How would you rank the Shadow Thieves and the Host Tower are threats or rivals that would have agents in the city. Or the Kraken Society for that matter. All three would have good spy networks (and keep watch over adventurers), but would keep very low profiles. They have other fish to fry, are riding the local prosperity train upwards like everyone else, and don't want to attract attention to themselves in the Deep.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) January 16, 2020

Hey Ed, do the people of Toril have local mythical related names for the planets they can see, that appear as stars in the night sky? (Nothing “Realmspace related” but from their own lore). Yes, but some of those names, despite appearing in the Realmspace book, are indeed from their own lore. Peruse https://t.co/qOmAEmUDO7 and some of those Torilian-origin names will be quite clear.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 28, 2020

What about the stars? Also mentioned in the same FR wiki entry (scroll down). Or in many, many places in the decades of published Realmslore. Warning: many stars and constellations have different names in different Torilian cultures, from the Beldine to the elves, and the hin to orcs.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 28, 2020

Greetings & HUZZAH @TheEdVerse! My Hin Cleric of Chauntea wants to name her owl animal companion "wise friend", her pony "strong friend", etc, but I haven't been able to find a "Hin dictionary" anywhere. Any pointers for a humble admirer? Thanks!

— ubergrog (@ubergrog) August 8, 2020

1)
I’ve assembled only the barest bones of a Realms hin lexicon over the years, but I can tell you this much: “true friend” or “trusted friend” is “vaer” and in any compound linguistic construction in the halfling tongue comes… 2)
…first, with the descriptor second (“sautha” is “drinking buddy” or “pleasant acquaintance”).
“hrimm” is wise and “yahael” is strong, so “wise friend” would be “vaerhrimm” and “strong friend” would be “vaeryahael” and could…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 9, 2020

3)
…indeed be used for formal names, as halflings tend to speak Common almost exclusively, and save their own tongue for oaths, terms of endearment, names, and vows.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 9, 2020

Ahmet Cem Alemdar @AhmetCemAlemdar
Dear @TheEdVerse,
I humbly ask, how would a 1v1 duel between Telamont Tanthul and Mordenkainen would end. Who would win and if Telamont were to end up in Barovia would he share Mordenkainens fate there. Thanks.#dnd

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 16, 2020

1)
Assuming the duel occurs when Mordenkainen isn’t raving insane, and Telamont doesn’t manage a disabilitating ambush to begin the fight, Mordenkainen would almost certainly mop the floor with Telamont, who is arrogant and far 2)
…too used to being obeyed by underlings and not fighting against those who do not consider him their superior. Mordenkainen has far more dirty-fighting and ‘walk many worlds, face many foes and challenges’ experience.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 16, 2020

3)
The besetting fault of the Princes of Shade is their overconfidence/dismissal of everyone else as ‘lesser;’ it’s a weakness that gets them in trouble every time. Experienced beings like the Srinshee and Larloch can often 4)
…easily manipulate senior Thultanthans without necessarily ever having to fight or confront them, just by seeing and exploiting their weaknesses.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 16, 2020

5)
Telamont in Barovia would very likely wind up sharing Mordenkainen’s fate and worse, because he’d underestimate the capabilities of not just Strahd, but nigh everyone else he encountered.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 16, 2020

Silver dragon fangirl @WhynotDragons@TheEdVerse Hello! …
The 3rd ed. Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting has a lot of great information on Rashemen, but I have a lingering question about the society:
why are the vremyonni secluded when male divine casters are not?
Thank you!

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 25, 2020

1)
The vremyonni wield some highly destructive spells, forbidden to all other Rashemi because of the damage they can do to people (so, some of the ruling witches no doubt fear being slain) and the land. The matriarchal rulers of…#Realmslore 2)
…Rashemen want to keep the identities of individual vremyonni secret (which is why they are always masked when in Rashemen) so they can go out into the wider world as spies, not known to be vremyonni, and so anyone who does…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 25, 2020

3)
…identify an individual as one of the vremyonni won’t know what battle-spells that particular male arcane spellcaster of Rashemen can cast. Vremyonni are forbidden to practise or experiment with spells away from Running Rocks 4)
…in normal (peacetime) conditions, and are discouraged from joining in daily Rashemi society because the ruling witches don’t want competition (and unrest; certain vremyonni in the distant past got very good at gossip and…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 25, 2020

5)
…rumor and manipulating witches into rifts and factionalism and hatred or mistrust of each other). The vast majority of vremyonni enjoy seclusion, as it affords them maximum freedom to study magic and further their mastery of 6)
…the Art (those who don’t often find ways to slip away from Rashemen and disappear into the wider Realms).#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 25, 2020

3)
…directly into the embrace of ‘their’ deity.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 16, 2020

1)
Derlusk is a port city of winding old streets crammed with two- and three-storey old houses. Most, at street level, are bookshops, selling all manner of books, from collected sermons to lurid fiction chapbooks to old histories. Upper floors of these buildings are 2)
…offices for scribes (who write letters for fees, e.g. love letters, or copy texts for patrons who want a second copy, and who often write and publish poems and fiction in their spare time); letter-press publishers; living quarters; or private libraries (used…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 22, 2020

3)
…by sages who write detailed, in-depth answers to questions, for fees). So the city contains far more books than Candlekeep, but many of them are duplicate copies of various tomes, and a lot of them are trashy fiction. The sages and scholars are experts at…#Realmslore 4)
…retrieving information, and knowing a little about a lot of things, so they know HOW to retrieve it (like knowing the names of important merchant families of Iriaebor two centuries ago, so you know what to look up when trying to find out more about mercantile…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 22, 2020

5)
…feuds back then). So think of them as veteran real-world librarians, more than philosophers. Nor are they monks of Oghma and Deneir. Derlusk is the readers’ paradise, not dedicated to preserving knowledge, but dedicated to selling books, preserving and. 6)
…collecting books, and writing and printing new books. Nobles from all over Faerûn pay merchants to go there and find them "good reads," and so it's the place where merchants sell libraries or books they've salvaged in their trading. It would be a mistake to…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 22, 2020

7)
…think of Derlusk as trying to compete with Candlekeep, or fostering philosophers or schools of thinking–but it IS a place that can supply Candlekeep or schools of thought with necessary tomes. Quite a few folk have managed to get into Candlekeep by 8)
…proffering rare, forgotten tomes they bought at Candlekeep (and luckily for them, the monks didn't yet have in Candlekeep's vast library).#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 22, 2020

9)
Anyone thinking of starting a fire in Derlusk to watch the whole city burn might be dissuaded by various legends known in the Borders, the Vilhon, Tethyr, Ormpurr, and around the Lake of Steam, that doing so will bring terrible curses down on the arsonist.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 22, 2020

@TheEdVerse Hi @TheEdVerse! Here my next question is about ROOM #20: THE GRIM STATUE
Here an immense statue releases a deadly lightening bolt into the room every few rounds. But in the past something of immense power removed the head and fingers of the statue. Who did this and why? O great sage of The Realms. Shall the origins and desecration of the Grime Statue remain shrouded in mystery for all time? Or shall you generously raise the lamp of enlightenment and burn away the webs of secrecy for us all?#realmsquestions

— DM Wyvern (@dm_wyvern) February 20, 2020

1)
The Grim Statue was magically transported into Undermountain by Halaster. He did this to see if a new spell of his devising could translocate, intact, such as large stone statue. He was successful, and then enspelled the 2)
…statue to be the anchor discharge point of a ‘Weave loop’ that generates endless magical lightning bolts, as one of the perils of the dungeon that it amused him to inflict on intruders.
The statue he’d ‘borrowed’ came from a…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 22, 2020

3)
…ruin half-buried in the sands of Raurin, and was of a long-dead (or vanished; the individual went on an expedition into other planes, and never returned) Imaskari wizard by the name of Voraum Nelnaer.
Adventurers exploring… 4)
…Undermountain much later happened upon the statue, and sought to stop its lightning bolts by magically destroying the statue’s fingers. When this didn’t work, they tried vaporizing the head with a second spell—which failed to…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 22, 2020

5)
…disrupt the Weave loop AND sent deadly stone shrapnel racing about the chamber, slaying or wounding all of them. The survivors fled. Much later, some of Halaster’s “cleanup crew” of constructs and magically-coerced monsters 6)
…removed both stone rubble and the bodies, leaving the still-serenely-hurling-lightning-bolts, but beheaded and fingerless, statue still stationed in its chamber.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 22, 2020