@TheEdVerse Hi Ed, hope all is well with you. Just wondering if you recieved my question. I was just curious if you had an idea where Half-Drow would be from? I was looking for sometype of surface community that would have drow, and humans but not Dambrath. Any suggestions?

— Brad Smith (@BradSmi18016971) August 25, 2019

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Hi, Brad. I’ve fallen behind on Twitter answers these last few days due to trundling around hospitals getting ready for my heart surgery, and so away from Net access (I’m old school). Sorry for the delay.
There are half-drow…who can pass for human (in looks) scattered all over Faerûn. Many of those who aren’t from Dambrath hail from Jhalhoran and Klondor in Mulhorand, or Nezras on the other side of the Dragonsword Mountains.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 26, 2019

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Which hints that drow may be coming to the surface for other purposes than slaughtering humans, from those peaks.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 26, 2019

Thanks so much, this helps a lot. Wishing you a speedy recovery. A pleasure! One more note: followers of Eilistraee dwelling in forests all over the surface world are a source of some of those half-drow scattered all over.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 26, 2019

I was thinking of that, she’s one of my favorite godess’s (Mystra and Selune are too), so I’d like my character to worship her, but I couldn’t find a settlement name for him to have been raised in. I just know his mother was drow, maybe a priestess of Eilistraee? She could easily be. Some followers of Eilistraee dance in Ardeepforest, nigh Waterdeep, but most keep to larger (High Forest) or more remote woodlands.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 26, 2019

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I don’t like ANY too-close real-world analogues in the Realms. However, I knew “going in” that they would happen, so the Realms could accommodate pirate D&D, jungle D&D, and so on. I had a hand in developing Al-Qadim via my… 2)
…work on Anauroch (which in turn drew on Troy Denning’s excellent Ruha novels), and it is as much Arabian Nights as it is real-world desert historical Near East, so I don’t feel the same way about it.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 30, 2019

🙂 would Garl Glittergold want his clerics to forge and create wespons/armor in Faerun? I know he is different in Greyhawk? I know Rock Gnomes like to tinker and create stuff, or does Garl more focused on trickery and coin? Realms clergy of Garl Glittergold MUST help forge an axe inlaid with gold and gems, to pass from novices to full priests. Thereafter, they're expected to make, repair, or "renew" (inlay and beautify) helms, shields, etc. for temple sales or as Garl's favour (a gift).#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 1, 2019

@TheEdVerse I'm lost. In SKT, Tiamat, and a lot of the extended lore, the Zhentarim are described as slavers, murders, and otherwise evil. Yet I got people trying to tell me they're no worse than any other group because the narrator in SCAG says they've gotten, "less evil".

— Space Is Pretty Big (@SpaceIsVeryBig) September 6, 2019

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The Zhentarim began as a cabal of mages (and others of Zhentil Keep) led by Manshoon making a grab for political power, by allying with local clergy of Bane (led by Fzoul, and obeying his orders rather than those of the 2)
…High Imperceptor, head of the faith), and by allying separately with several beholders. So, a strong evil component. The Zhents got control over Zhentil Keep through murder, blackmail, threats, and financial coercion. #Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 6, 2019

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Again, evil. They had some allies and members who were from the lower planes (DEFINITELY evil), and after coming into control of Zhentil Keep sought to enrich themselves on an ongoing basis by establishing 4)
…and/or controlling the shortest, fastest, cheapest trade routes between the Moonsea and the Sword Coast. They resorted to murder and intimidation to dominate the trade in useful metals brought along those routes, and slavery…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 6, 2019

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…was one of the trades they participated in. So, evil again. They covertly sponsored rebels and troublesome urban gangs in many places to run interference for their own activities, and tried in many places to put ‘puppet’ 6)
…local rulers in place, and/or corrupt tax collectors, local Watch officers and other lawkeepers, and so on. Not the style of a good organization. They mustered and maintained a standing army for Zhentil Keep, that invaded…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 6, 2019

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…various Dales and other locales with the aim of conquering them, causing widespread bloodshed and suffering. Evil.
However, as membership changed, over the years, the Zhents saw the need for better Public Relations: a better image fo 8)
…their organization, in order to lessen the fear the very mention of their name caused (driving away potential clients/trading partners who would have nothing to do with them). So they remade their image—a process that was…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 6, 2019

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…speeded up forcibly when the Spellplague hit and wiped out, or mind-ruined, a lot of their most powerful wizards. And while they never had any sort of formal purge of ‘bad’ members, the passage of years also removed members 10)
…permanently from their ranks who had participated in many evil acts, blunting any criticism of “Well, they SAY they’re not evil, but I see faces among them who were there at this massacre and that slave-taking raid.” Recent…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 6, 2019

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…editions of the game have regarded the Zhentarim as one faction among many, who just have a darker past—and for many Zhent members, this can be literally true: they see themselves, and are, simply a tightly-knit, 12)
…hierarchical, need-to-know trading organization that’s good at intel, and is widely spread and so can compete in trade. It remains true that they place internal discipline and Zhent policy over the say of local laws and… #Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 6, 2019

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…authorities (i.e. a typical Zhent would shelter a fellow Zhent on the run from the local Watch, and help that fellow Zhent ‘get away,’ as opposed to turn the fellow Zhent over to the authorities), but that is also true of 14)
…many guilds, costers, and other playable AdvLeague factions in the setting. Local gossip does remember that the Zhentarim have a dark past, yes, but how evil particular current Zhent members are is up to the DM.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 6, 2019

do medicinal herbs in the realms have the same types of growth rates as we do? Depends entirely on where they're growing (fertile soil, amount of water, local weather), plus if wild or tended. In some locales, like the Unicorn Run in the High Forest, Semberholme, Tangletrees, and deep groves sacred to Eldath, things grow with astonishing speed.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 22, 2019

Is the spellplague still a thing? Can people still become infected by it, or are the last vestiges all that will remain? The Spellplague is unpredictable; it affects individual creatures and locales differently, and some effects are still playing out (think the last few feebly-spitting sparks, after a chain-lightning reaction). However, for most of Toril, it is "over" (no more onsets).#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 6, 2019

What background scale is the backbone of music theoretical treatises? Heh. There is no single scale, but a plethora of them. For convenience, Jeff Grubb and I agreed back in 1986 that we’d use real-world terms like “octave” and “key” to avoid driving hundreds of future collaborators nuts.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 30, 2019

how critical to Zhentil Keep *are* its slaves?
It occurs to me to wonder just what it will do to them that we’re smashing down the walls that hadn’t just got blasted with Spellfire a few months ago with a magical blizzard and then turning the slave holds / They're the economic basis for the big windfall profits, but bread-n-butter for the Zhents are shortest/cheapest shipping routes twixt Sword Coast and Moonsea, plus control over metals coming out. You're costing them coin, earning their ire, but not ruining them.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 2, 2019