Post/Author/DateTime	Post
WarBaby2 12-26-05, 08:58 PM	n'eavening travellers! i've been DMing the realms for over 10 years now and many brave heroes and vile villians passed my compaigns in that time. but i guess for my new story i will need some help from people ho may know a little more about fearun then i do. ;-) the plot is pretty simple but felt appealing for me. i'm planning to set it up in the shining south region (mainly halruaa and the shaar) and it will be centered around a group of airship pirates. the point where i would need suggestions is the time, because it will be set in early 1598DR. why? well, because of two reasons: 1) there aren't as many airships in faerung in late 14th century and 2) i plan on moving toril into some kind of high rennaissance aera, including exploration and collonisation of other continents. ok, here is what i made up myself so far for the timeline as it progressed from 1373DR... 1389: Azoun V takes the throne of Cormyr. the kingdom is torn by internal conflicts and intrigues through shade influence and the local nobility. late 14th century: one of the seven sisters is kidnepped by one of Szas Tams secret rivals to provoke the wrath of the "good forces" of the dales. elmister of shadowdale and the remaing 6 sisters launch a campaign into the heart of Thay to free her. Szas Tam confronts Elmister at Thay mount, unaware of the betrayal. in the following confrontation, both are banned from this plane of existance by the unknown architect of this betrayal and are belived dead. blinded by rage and greeve about the loss of her beloved, the Simbul uses her Spellfire to destroy Thay mount and all of the leading zulkirs of Thay, leaving the country leaderless. after that she wanishes from history. the remaining heroes of the realms retreat after this tragedy. around 1400: Lantan becomes the Union of Gondorian and opens it's gates under a new government. it starts expanding troughout the northern hemisphere by building tradeoutposts, techsmith enclaves and even technical universities. many inventions are made and traded in the following years: magical cannons, warmashines like siege golems and war airships... 1412: King Azoun V, after years of strugling to keep the peace in his kingdom, unites with the (now virtually leaderless) Dales and forms the democratic Eastern Hearthland Federation. he is voted the first president and builds a parlament out of the former Dales and cormyrian nobility. 1419: after years of isolation and stagnation under the rulership of the shade princes, the city of shade bursts in civil war. the remaining nighkings are unable to keep control of the city and it crashes thou the curse of events. the remaining shadovar are allowed to join the EHF. 1422: waterdavian airships land on the unknown continent north of Maztica. an outpost is astablished and the continent is named Alangath. exploration begins. 1426: the natives of Alangath's eastern coast, tribes of orcs and goblinoids aswell as prmitive clans of animal/elf crossbreeds, pose no thread to the newcomers, so more outposts along the coast (named the shield coast) are astablished. 1432: the port city of New Waterdeep is founded at the place of the first landing on Alangath. after 1430: other nations (Calimshan, Amn, the Silvermarshes, the North city states) astablish their own outposts and cities in the new world, the shield coast becomes more and more a twin of the sword coeast to the east. the largest cites are: North Sails, New Luskan, Calimatash and the elven city of Elan Athem. air travel becomes more and more common and nearly every kingdon and government, aswell as trade corporations and privateers use their own airships. smokepowder weapons begin to replace the archaic weapons like bos and cross bows. early 1464: an exloration airship from North Sails vanishes on it's flight to the uncharted regions of west Alangath. later this year, numerous western outposts are destoyed by an unknown force. the native tribes are blamed. to be continued... ok, now i'm tired! still a way to go... any suggestions and changes are apreciated! thanks for reading! :-) good night!
Sweethug 12-27-05, 05:40 AM	So far, this looks great. Maybe you could add this twist to your timeline : Obould manages to take adbar and felbar and a big part of the north (with help of duergars). Many refugees take the south road. Obould is now the self proclaimed North Imperator. At the head of thousands of orcs, goblins, trolls and giants, he gives borders towns and kingdoms a chance of stoping the bloodshed by signing a peace treaty in wich they recognize his leadership. They refuse. The lord's alliance led by alustriel prepare for war. The Shades steps in and take side for the Alliance but they ask some territorial agreements in exchange. Alustriel refuses. The Shades turn to Obould and they make a deal. They give him some strong war artifacts from the ancient netheril and they get what they want (melting the glacier to get water and make anauroch verdant again). An all out war begins in the north. It lasts decades leaving both sides exhausted, all major cities ruined. The whole lands are surounded by strange magical effects and haunted by the souls of many restless. Undeads roams free by thousands. Much of the populations left for the west and the south. They cross the sea and become settlers in the new world. All this could begin around 1378 and lasts 20 or 30 years. Excuse my poor english.
Ripe 12-27-05, 01:45 PM	It's rather good except for one thing: late 14th century: one of the seven sisters is kidnepped by one of Szas Tams secret rivals to provoke the wrath of the "good forces" of the dales. elmister of shadowdale and the remaing 6 sisters launch a campaign into the heart of Thay to free her. Szas Tam confronts Elmister at Thay mount, unaware of the betrayal. in the following confrontation, both are banned from this plane of existance by the unknown architect of this betrayal and are belived dead. blinded by rage and greeve about the loss of her beloved, the Simbul uses her Spellfire to destroy Thay mount and all of the leading zulkirs of Thay, leaving the country leaderless. after that she wanishes from history. the remaining heroes of the realms retreat after this tragedy. What made you write that? That part of sub-plot have absolutely no connection with everything else you plan for Realms future. And there is simply no way that events would play like that [the end result may be the same but events would play out very, very differently]. So where to start?... First you have to realize that El, sisters and Szass Tam are much to inteligent to act like some spoiled brats. As per the current Rulebooks thay have Inteligence scores of 27 (Elminster), 15 (Storm), 20 (Simbul and Alustriel) and 22 (Szass Tam and Khelben). Now if I remember corectly under 2nd edition rules it was said that each point of Inteligence is roughy equal 10 points of IQ score in real world. That would mean that those people had IQ of 150 (Storm), 200 (Simbul and Alustriel), 220 (Szass Tam and Khelben) and 270 (Elminster) [I may be off but I remember that Int score of 10 was equal to having IQ 100, I'm just not sure that after that is 1 point of Int = 10 points of IQ]. The point is that those 7 would never launch an attack in the heart of Thay. Just look at how they did to infiltrate City of Shade in Return of Archwizards trilogy to give you a rough idea how would they proceed. Also Szass Tam is not stupid - if he saw those 7 he would realize that the missing sister is either killed and they're out for revenge or kidnaped by some Red Wizard. In either case he would be worried [he is the most powerfull Red Wizard after all, so anybody capable of killing or kidnaping one of Mystra's Chosen without his knowledge must be powerfull enough to treaten him] and would most likely help them free missing sister. Before you say that it's not in his character, please remember that he allready helped mid-level group of Harper agents bring down Maligor, Zulkir of Transmutation [he was later replaced by Druxus Rhym], effectivelly replacing his opponent with an ally. Also you should keep in mind that one of Szass Tam's ally is Yaphyll, Zulkir of Divination who constantly spy on other Zulkirs, powerfull Red Wizards and other enemies to uncover plots against Szass Tam, Red Wizards and Thay. Like I said, end result may be the same (El and Szass might still be banished by that unknown entity, but they would fight him together not each other; their destruction might unite all the Zulkirs to fight that threat so they still got destroyed, together with many Red Wizards, Simbul might still leave in grief, etc.) but the events leading to that ending would be different. Also just out of curiosity: Since no other events happen in Thay or that area [and since you never wrote who planed the whole event and why] what was the point in that part? To remove El, Sisters and Wizards from the game? Or...
Ripe 12-27-05, 01:53 PM	So far, this looks great. Maybe you could add this twist to your timeline : Obould manages to take adbar and felbar and a big part of the north (with help of duergars). Many refugees take the south road. Obould is now the self proclaimed North Imperator. At the head of thousands of orcs, goblins, trolls and giants, he gives borders towns and kingdoms a chance of stoping the bloodshed by signing a peace treaty in wich they recognize his leadership. They refuse. The lord's alliance led by alustriel prepare for war. The Shades steps in and take side for the Alliance but they ask some territorial agreements in exchange. Alustriel refuses. The Shades turn to Obould and they make a deal. They give him some strong war artifacts from the ancient netheril and they get what they want (melting the glacier to get water and make anauroch verdant again). An all out war begins in the north. It lasts decades leaving both sides exhausted, all major cities ruined. The whole lands are surounded by strange magical effects and haunted by the souls of many restless. Undeads roams free by thousands. Much of the populations left for the west and the south. They cross the sea and become settlers in the new world. All this could begin around 1378 and lasts 20 or 30 years. Excuse my poor english. Well, Alustriel and Silver Marches more or less did that allready. At the end of Hunter's Blade trilogy Alustriel more or less bluntly put that Silver Marches DO NOT plan any military operation against Obould's Kingdom of Dark Arrows and that for the time being they plan to just let Obould control of teritories he conquered. Of course dwarves of Adbar, Fellbar and Mithrall Hall doesn't agree with that, but there is very little they could do about it. And for the time being Obould's only plan is to strengthen his Kingdom so it would not fell apart after his death and does not plan any more conqests or assault on any dwarven fortress. He is satisfied with land he had already taken.
WarBaby2 12-28-05, 04:10 PM	Wow, nice thpughts folks :-) About the story in and around Thay. You got me, I made that up to get rid of all the iconic superheroes. ;-) Your version is better though. Rereading my version made it obviouse that I did write that half a asleep at 3 PM in the morning. ;-) About the story of the North, great idea! I will implement that. I will post an updated version including your ideas by the end of the week. Thanks for the help! I'm looking forward to read mor suggestions... there are still many years to fill! :-) So long WarBaby2
Ripe 12-29-05, 12:34 PM	I just realized that you can't get rid of Elminter that easily due to his Elminster's Evasion spell. Basically its 9th level variant of Contingency spell that automathically transfer caster and everything he carry or touch to specified location (that can even be on another plane) when one of six triggering conditions are met (El usually specify this six conditions: his death, loss of his mental faculties, loss of his physical faculties, destruction of both upper limbs, destruction of his entire body, his utterance of the word "Thaele"), and the spell can even break imprisonment via magic jar, binding, imprisonment, trap the soul and similar spells [on a succesfull caster level check, and El's caster level is 33 so he'll allways succeed if cast by a spellcaster with caster level lower than 24]. And you can bet that he tell Simbul where he'll end up if evasion got triggered. And you can see how effective this spell is in final book of WotSQ when Gromph uses it.
GothicDan 12-29-05, 12:43 PM	How did Gromph get ahold of Elminster's Evasion...?
Ripe 12-29-05, 01:12 PM	Now that is a really good question, but that is the spell he uses. He even call it Contigent evasion and use the same material components - quicksilver and his own blood. Here is the passage when he cast it: Third, he withdrew from his pocket a tiny vial of glassteel containing a dollop of quicksilver. After pricking the tip of his finger on the edge of the duergar axe at his belt, he squeezed a few drops of his blood into the vial. He then smeared the tips of his fingers with the admixture and incanted the words to one of his most powerful spells, a dweomer that would whisk him back to his offices should certain contingencies—contingencies that he would have to articulate as part of the casting—occur. His fingers traced glowing lines in the air as he recited the incantation. Presently, the spell was completed but for the articulation of the contingent triggers. The magic of the spell sizzled around him, awaiting his words. He thought for a moment about the nature of the spell traps he would face then whispered the triggers aloud: "Should my body be rendered involuntarily immobile or be materially consumed by magical energy of any kind, should my soul be trapped or otherwise imprisoned, should my mind become enfeebled or otherwise unable to function." The spell soaked into him, there to await a triggering event. Gromph had only another step or two to take before he moved against House Agrach Dyrr.
GothicDan 12-29-05, 01:38 PM	Very odd. I couldn't see El giving up that particular spell to any but the Seven, and mayhap not even all of them.
Ripe 12-29-05, 02:28 PM	Very odd. I couldn't see El giving up that particular spell to any but the Seven, and mayhap not even all of them. I agree with you on that, but Gromph obviously had access to it. And similarities are too big to assume that Gromph [or someone else] developed the spell himself.
Silverpanther 12-29-05, 03:10 PM	when does el comes back to faerun?!
Ripe 12-29-05, 03:59 PM	when does el comes back to faerun?! Most likely imediately after he got imprisoned, thanks to his Evasion spell.