can you describe what Arabel looks like from the street on a typical day? What do the buildings and people look like?Cobbled streets (overlaid by tiny mud and dung patches here and there), all wide enough for 2 large wagons to comfortably pass and still…

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

…leave room for foot traffic. Buildings three or four floors high (with cellars, too), and steeply-pitched shingle or shake or slate …

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

…roofs (almost no tiled roofs due to winds and severe winter cold), those roofs being steeply-pitched ("highpoint") to shed snow; many…

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

…chimneys and dormers. Half-timbered ("Tudor") upper floors that jut out over streets, lower floors of fitted fieldstone and/or brick. …

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

Most buildings battered/weathered, but good and solid (rebuilt often due to chimney fires, high storm winds, winter "claw"). Many warehouses

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

…and wagons; clearly a caravan/trading city, wherever your eye falls. Many horse troughs and pumps (freeze during winter, when cellar…

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

…pumps that don't are used exclusively), but kept filled in other months in case of raids out of the Stonelands, so city never runs short

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

…of untainted water (Crown law about this). Other laws: streets may not be blocked except by Purple Dragons and Town Watch (i.e. be …

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

…careful when parking wagons). People: wide ethnic mix of humans (drow, "goblinkin," and half-orcs not welcome), dwarves. A passing…

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

…scattering of gnomes, halflings, and elves. Much transient (caravan and peddler/wayfaring merchant) traffic. Covert Crown spies keep…

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

..watch for Cormyr over who arrives and leaves (to guard against rebellion, not just invasion, though this is more historical holdover…

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

…than sharp concern, these days). Rainwater shed from roofs goes down wide pipes into barrels and cellar-cisterns. Youth with slings…

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

…keep pigeons and the like rare sights within the city walls. Camping paddocks for caravans outside city walls, policed by Purple Dragons

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

(who provide firewood, and forbid the cutting of brush for some distance around Arabel, except for the brush clearing they themselves do, ..

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

…to make sure any potential besiegers lack cover).
Think that covers the basics. Just ask if you'd like more.

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

A pleasure!

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 18, 2017

dear sage, do you know of any wandering bladesinger masters in the Realms my elf may apprentice to? Do they have any quirks?I know of at least a dozen. Most are loners, but a few (Laethra Longtresses comes to mind) are gregarious and might take on an apprentice. +

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 21, 2017

Laethra's quirks include a love of swimming down raging whitewater rivers, and an itch to climb high spires and roofs. She has caches…

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 21, 2017

…and tiny hidehold refuges in ruins all over the Sword Coast and Moonsea Norths. Doth Laethra sound suitable? ;}

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 21, 2017

Hi Ed, nice to e-meet you! How much would someone need to pay for a document forgery in Baldur’s Gate? Asking for a friend.Depends on the document, and how needy/urgent they seem. 100 gp base level for deed or contract, but some go down to 50 for poor requestors

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 18, 2017

Thanks! It amazes me. Sorry for this type of question, but do you really have this value in your head? Or is there some thinking involved?There's always thinking involved, but sometimes (as this time) it's remembering what we (Jeff Grubb of TSR, back in the day, and me) decided

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 18, 2017

You sir are an institution! Thanks for your wisdom 🙏…price is quickly going to shoot up to 10,000 gp or so. Even more if I think you're desperate. Less, of course, if I owe you for something

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 19, 2017

I was unprepared for this question yesterday. I came up with 200. Regardless the value, players considered expensive, which was the goal :-)Good! Yes, if the players think it's expensive, that's good. Otherwise, everyone in society would forge first, earn legit documents second!

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 19, 2017

And if they went for it, the forged documents wouldn’t pass a more attentive check (no special ink, lower quality paper…) and get troubles…forgeries much harder to pull off.

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 19, 2017

do you update any of your older books? or is everything pretty much set in stone? looking at herb descriptions and such :PTSR (now Wotc) own the copyrights; updating would be up to them. (And herbs really don't change that much in five decades. ;} )

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 5, 2017

@TheEdVerse this site, showing info from dragon magazine and some herbs, are those from FR? or they from another setting? tracking the herbz

— PastorGall ♠♫♪ (@PastorGall) August 5, 2017

https://t.co/3va8c0Ha0N

— PastorGall ♠♫♪ (@PastorGall) August 5, 2017

If you mean the Arcane Botanica article, no, that's not canon, for the Realms or D&D. Not saying it's not good, mind you; use what you like!

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 5, 2017

how does adoption work in the realms? i dont see an entry for it anywhere, heh. just walk in and take any child you want? or…?Adoption is administered by temples (and shrines, and traveling priests). They determine matches, give guidance to (&watch) adoptive parents

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 5, 2017

is an Eldritch Knight fighter magic enough to be a Cormyrean War Wizard?I've always imagined most war wizards were evokers or abjurers myself

— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 3, 2017

Good Sir,
I’m going to be placing a chaotic dwarf on trial.Shift of political power, he lost.Any inside info on this process?ThxHeh. What is the jurisdiction trying the dwarf? Waterdeep? Cormyr? Sembia? Outside the Realms? (Matters. ;} )

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 11, 2017

NE of Neverwinter. It’s a clan he helped start, but he’s not the ‘ideal dwarf’ to some, and after a shift in power, the ruling tribunal is headed by someone who just doesn't like him and wants his name separated from the history.

— Adam (@TheOneXalted) September 11, 2017

Ah. This would be a gathering of clan elders, matriarchs and patriarchs, all voting: any matriarch's vote counts double vs. a patriarch. …

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 11, 2017

The head of the tribunal would state what they want to happen to the dwarf on trial, and the elders would debate and demand any evidence…

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 11, 2017

Never knew dwarves were more of a matriarchal society. Very cool!
Would there be any universal law governing dwarf behavior? Not these days. Too many clans have had to do too many things just to survive. In GENERAL, dwarves cleave to their family over others, …

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 11, 2017

Thank you Sir for the responses and for taking the time to do so.
Any chance the NDA’s on the Deep Imaskari are lessening? Lol! Heh. No. ;} But maintain hope…one never knows. ;}

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 11, 2017

"good old days" (that weren't good, for the most part) see my DWARVES DEEP.

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 11, 2017

Are Sapphiraktar & the Twisted Rune still active in the Realms? And Would they align with the Zhents?Heh. We dare not say. ;}
And they're not allies anyone sane would trust. But then, the Zhents aren't…ahem (fades back into the shadows)

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 11, 2017