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

45)
…a wily schemer by the name of Hulkane Spaudelar. Nasal-voiced, long-nosed, and prissy, Spaudelar was widely mocked for his pet phrases and habit of waving his hands wildly in distaste, but although he had to best foes 46)
…and win arguments, he never did it for personal gain, living simply and avoiding all opportunities to gain influence or benefit. Various criminal elements of the city misread him as being ripe for subversion, and when he…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019

47)
…exposed some of their attempts to meet with him and cozen him, they assassinated him to cut short the damage he could do—so he was gone by mid-1473 DR.
This time, it was the turn of the guilds to try to control who sat in the… 48)
…Open Lord’s chair, decrying the past results of the Masked Lords voting one of their own into it or the nobles installing a candidate of their liking. Of course, the guilds couldn’t agree on a candidate, and in the end put…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019

49)
…forward six rivals. The Masked Lords liked none of them and instead plucked another independent commoner from the streets, Elchantra Gauntan, a singer, dancer, and sometime model whose good looks and good fortunes were in 50)
…her past. Wry, street-wise, and good-natured, she ruled well but her health declined under the pressure, and she froze to death one bitterly cold winter night in 1477 DR after falling asleep in her coach on the way back to…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019

51)
…the Palace, when equally weary staff overlooked her when seeing to the horses, and left her in it overnight.
What followed was known as “the Chaos,” a succession of a dozen Open Lords (a few guild candidates, but most of them… 52)
…from the ranks of the Masked Lords) being voted in and proclaimed, then assassinated after days or months, in which the city was in uproar and lawlessness rose in the streets and alleys.
Into this tumult stepped the…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019

53)
…charismatic and scheming Dagult Neverember, who held the Open Lordship for a decade, from 1479 DR until he was ousted in 1489 DR.
Laeral Silverhand was proclaimed Open Lord in 1489, and is still Open Lord (the current year 54)
…in the Realms depends on just where things stand in your Realms campaign, but published FR adventures and novels have brought us past 1492 DR).#Realmslore

You are the Literal Best. Hope your sanity has survived, Lord Carriker!

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019

Awww…

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 2, 2019

hey got a Forgotten realms question. Demigods are listed as true deities but they are also listed in Quasi-deities as the offspring of a god and a mortal. Are their two kinds of demigod in the realms or are they the same? They are the same. (Or so we mortals think. Demigods vary a lot in powers and nature, and a lot about most of them remains mysterious/conjecture.) Even priests and sages argue about the nature of divinity, hence "true deities" AND "quasi-deities" at the same time.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 9, 2019

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

(1)
I know you just recently answered this question for someone else, but I can’t seem to find it.
It was about the Realms and real world analogs. You stated along the lines, that you tried to avoid Realms cultures mimicking real world cultures?(2)
The question came up in a group chat, and people were equivilating things like Cormyr = France, or Amn = Spain.
I just seem to recall you saying at one point that you wanted to avoid these type of equivalencies when you began forming the Realms.

— Dwaine Spradling (@DwaineSpradling) November 22, 2019

1)
That’s right. The problem is, it jolts some gamers out of immersive roleplaying and into “what I learned in history class about this or that real-world culture” (e.g. “But stirrups weren’t in use in…”) rather than experiencing the Realms. 2)
The problem is, TSR's need, back in the day, for a world that would host "Oriental Adventures," 'Arabian Adventures,' jungle adventures, pirate adventures, and so on meant that some TSR designers and artists directly embraced real-world analogues, and presented…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 23, 2019

3)
…regions of the Realms that way. Resulting in some clumsiness and awkwardness that evokes such gamer questions as, “But how come we have pyramids next door to–?” and suchlike. All of which could have been avoided in favour of a richer FR world that might ECHO 4)
…some real-world elements or historical cultures, without copying them. It's not just jarring for those wanting to roleplay, it's lazy design work that heads us straight at looming consistency problems.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 23, 2019

5)
However, if emulating a real-world historical culture or even going with the "these real-world people got through a gate into the Realms and now live there" works for you and your campaign, do it! It's whatever floats YOUR boat, as a player, DM, or worldbuilder.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 23, 2019

Dear @TheEdVerse,

In Cormyr as of 1491 DR, are there any noble families you would consider “local” to Waymoot in the same way the Wyvernspurs or Cormaerils are to Immersea?

If not, might there be extinct families that were? Perhaps of Esparin stock?

Thank you Ed! 🙏

— Jeremy E. Grenemyer the bastard son of Stonekettle (@sanishiver) October 25, 2019

1)
Hi! Sure, local-to-Waymoot noble families in 1491 DR are two: House Irlingstar and House Orthwood. The extinct local noble families, from the time of Esparin, are three: House Huntwood, House Olarynd, and House Zemair 2)
The Irlingstars are stylish, sophisticated fashion-plates and dilettantes who indulge in many hobbies (collecting exotic monsters as pets, for example). They are scattered all over Cormyr, Sembia, Westgate, Berdusk, Iriaebor, …#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 26, 2019

3)
…and Athkatla, are usually local investors, adventurer sponsors (occasionally for shadywork), and landlords, but shouldn’t be confused with the non-noble Amnian and Tethyrian Irlingstar families (there are at least three, 4)
…all unrelated, who are to be found up and down the Sword coast, always in cities, usually as moderately successful local merchants).
The Orthwoods are small in numbers and wealth, and are low profile, but maintain mansions in…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 26, 2019

5)
…Waymoot and Suzail.
Please note: the Huntwoods MIGHT not be extinct, because some early younger sons and daughters fled the strife of Esparin to forge new lives in distant corners of Faerûn, and may not all have died out in 6)
…later generations. Known as hunters, their heraldic badge was a descending-to-the-right diagonal row of three face-on brown stag’s heads (overlapping antlers), on a silver field. Current heraldry: Irlingstars: on a white…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 26, 2019

7)
…field, X of lower-left-to-upper-right gray quill pen (point down, in front) over a silver dagger (point down). Orthwood: a diamond-shaped scarlet shield transfixed at the center by two black arrows, running… 8)
…diagonally to upper left and upper right (where the white fletchings are visible).#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 26, 2019

@TheEdVerse can you tell me more about the halfling metal, Dalrun? Where are the clay filled banks its dug from? I'm guessing it's the Delimbiyr =)

— stephen parlin (@smparlin) November 9, 2019

1)
{Dlarun, not Dalrun; “Dalrun” is a long-dead dwarf known for his wit and sharp tongue, about whom many apocryphal tales are told.}
Your guess is correct, but that’s not the only place (other known sources: the banks of the many… 2)
…small streams and rills in the eastern Border Kingdoms, the upper Nagaflow, the headwaters of the Ith, the Liontongue in Veldorn, and the lower River Lapendrar in Thay).
Dlarun or “icesteel” is a soft, malleable bone-white…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 9, 2019

3)
…metal that can be brought to a high polish, and shines green in candlelight or in magical radiances (in texture, think lead but not toxic or as heavy), which means it’s pretty much useless for structural applications but 4)
…great for inlays and other applications where fine details need to be graven or molded.
(After being refined, dlarun must be reheated in a secret process known to few halfling smiths, to make it hard enough for use in making…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 9, 2019

5)
…armor, weapons, or tools, and/or suited to taking enchantments, or exhibiting its natural property: in contact with a being’s skin, it allows that being to see through illusions, and confers a limited immunity to certain 6)
…psionic effects. Dlarun is unsuited to resisting fire, or carrying enchantments related to flame, but has an affinity for cold and frost {hence its nickname}).
In the past, when demand from human clients for magic items was…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 9, 2019

7)
…lower, hin who had ready access to the clay in which the white flakes of dlarun were found made many small household vessels and covers (e.g. protections for books) of dlarun, where human might use pewter or copper, 8)
…respectively. Dlarun was then relatively rare because of its few sources, but inexpensive (cheaper than most alloys and better-known metals).
Since the 1330s DR, its price has risen steadily as more and more folk have become…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 9, 2019

9)
…aware of its existence and properties, and demanded it. Dlarun is now more expensive than silver, but not quite as pricey as gold.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 9, 2019

Can Dlarun items be reformed after going through the hardening process I to a new item, e.g. can a smith who finds several Dlarun figures reforge them into sword or dagger blade?

— stephen parlin (@smparlin) November 10, 2019

Yes, but doing so takes GREAT (rare) smithing skill, AND very high heat (i.e. lava rift underground, not a bellows-driven forge). Or to put it another way: not usually.#Realmslore https://t.co/GnEmuLNzS1

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 10, 2019

@TheEdVerse Could you share what Veldorn is like in your home Realms? In your '86 Realms turnover, was it a land of monsters ruled by “beast chiefs” with a vampire overlord or were those aspects added by TSR?
Thanks, and I hope your recovery is going well.

— AdamDravian (@AdamDravian) November 27, 2019

1)
Hi, Adam!
In my home Realms, Veldorn is indeed a land of monsters dwelling together with a hierarchy of overlords, sub-chiefs, and enforcers. (What TSR added was making the overlord a vampire.) This wasn’t in my initial… 2)
…turnover, but rather in one of the many, many followup phone calls with Jeff Grubb and others at TSR, and the sharings of lore that sprang from those.
What IS in the original turnover packages are a few notations on the maps…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019

3)
…that I amplified in the later conversations, that gave most of the sentient “monster” races in the game their own homelands or multiple ruled areas (not just humans, dwarves, and elves). [For example, north of the Moonsea, … 4)
…Mount Gaethluntar being noted as the home of the flind, and Thar as the “land of the beast-men” = ogres, these being human-drawn maps and reflecting human attitudes.]
My notion was that because of the nature of humans to…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019

5)
…dominate through conflict when they came into constant contact with other races, in terrain they wanted to occupy (as opposed to rugged mountains, or the bottom of the sea), such “monster kingdoms” would be in areas of the 6)
…Realms either remote from the Sword Coast and Cormyr/Dalelands “human-settled-and-‘civilized’” foci of early Realmsplay, or in undesirable-to-humans terrain like swamps, mountains, really frigid wastes, and deserts.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019

7)
TSR picked up this idea and ran with it (for example, where Troy Denning located the giant realms in his trilogy of novels), in part because it gave adventurers journeys (quests) to reach monster-ruled areas, where ruins or… 9)
…topic in another way by having the Chosen and servitors of Mystra tasked by Her with distributing spell scrolls, spellbooks, and magic items into tombs, ruins, and other places for ‘just anyone’ to find, so as to increase8)
…monster lairs could be located, full of treasure, without the question arising of why earlier adventurers hadn’t seized the treasure already, if it was just sitting there nearby, in relatively ‘safe’ areas. (I tackled this…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019

9)
…topic in another way by having the Chosen and servitors of Mystra tasked by Her with distributing spell scrolls, spellbooks, and magic items into tombs, ruins, and other places for ‘just anyone’ to find, so as to increase… 10)
…the widespread mortal use of magic.)
Veldorn was always ‘the Realm of Monsters’ because it was a land where all sorts of ‘beasts’ lived together in (relative) harmony, whereas around the edges of the map (Evermeet for the…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019

11)
…elves, Luiren for halflings, and so on) there were quite a few “one sort of monster rules here” places. I had hoped that Veldorn would be explored in print a lot more than it was, as a setting that encouraged adventuring 12)
…(as, in another way, the Border Kingdoms and the Bandit Wastes/Bandit Kingdoms do), but there were always projects set elsewhere in the Realms to do first. I wanted Veldorn to have constant vying for power, without all that…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019

13)
…much open bloodshed, because those on top wanted to avoid a widespread bloodbath that would tear the realm apart in utter anarchy, and clamped down whenever anyone got too violent. Which would mean human adventurers, rather than getting torn apart on sight 14)
as undesirable intruders and/or prey, might be suffered to live longer as pawns, manipulated into doing the specific violence that monsters in their immediate vicinity wanted done, rather than the monsters themselves doing it and being punished for those deeds.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019

15)
The beauty of it all, from a game designer’s POV, was that I had gleaned this idea of “Here Be Monsters” in remote areas from ancient real-world maps and the fantasy genre (not just the modern sources, but Amadis of Gaul and all the other romances parodied in 16)
…Don Quixote) when imagining the Realms before D&D or any other roleplaying games came along. It just seemed fitting that (aside from orcs and other marauders, who "came to you") heroes had to go on long, perilous journeys to reach lands ruled by 'Others.'#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019

17)
And I seem to be on the mend, although wearing a heart monitor is a pain; thanks for asking! :}#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019