Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Tyranthraxus Jan 14, 2015 20:41:53	Hi,   Ive been gming Expeditions locally and I have had a couple of players in particular start asking me questions. I think some of them (5 different people) know the realms a little but I thought Id post in here some of the questions Ive been asked.   Nearly all of them really only mean something to their characters background but its probably useful for other people also   1). Where is the nearest temple to Tyr from Phlan? My character was trained there   * I had no idea. I know Tyr had a temple there during both Pool of Radiance (novel/game) and in Sokol Keep before it was destroyed but I didnt know anything much about the religous views around the Moonsea in regard to that God. I told him that Cormyr and Kingdom to the SW would probably be the closest one.   1a) THe same question but Torm instead of Tyr.   * I remember one of these Gods serving the other because their views were quite similar. So I basically use the same answer.  This time I actually looked up City names and said Arabel (no idea if correct though)   2) Does Phlan have nobles?   * This I was more confident about as Fantasy cities/towns always have a caste system and there is a Nobles Qtr on the map. I didnt realy name them bar House Sokol so he made up his own.   3) Why is the Graveyard so big on the map compared to the Town size?   This I some looked up on Google and noted Phlan had been a City in the past. I said due to the boom and busy cycle of Phlan that the Graveyard was so massive because the population of Phlan had been a lot bigger in the past. Well that was my reason!   4) Do the Red plumes still exist?   I actually had to look this up straight away. The name was familiar though. They were the Mercenary army of Hillsfar who constantly fought against the Zhentil Keep forces. Maalthir the mage of Hillsfar had died, so I said that many of them deserted or moved on or just because a more regular force for Hillsfar.  Of course this then became a question of what was Hillsfar like.. I didnt have much to say on that.   5) Why was Zhentil Keep in Ruins? .   One player saw the map of the region from Bandits of the Iron Route. This brought back memories of the grand purge of Cyric (which lead to the question of who was bigger in Zhentil Keep now.. Cyric or Bane. ) which destroyed Zhentil Keep. So much history to sort through!.   I did say Zhentil Keep at one point had one of the few shops in the Realms where you could buy magic items.     There were other questions on setting in game, but thats all I remember for now. Hope it helps someone
#2 Pauper Jan 15, 2015 11:02:05	My Realms-fu is not awesome, but I'll try to help out here.   Tyranthraxus wrote:
#3 Avross Jan 15, 2015 11:13:52	I've always gone to http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page. for setting questions.   This have wouldn't answer all your questions though.   When we ran Secrets of Sokol Keep, the players were baffled why the nobility and guards of the city weren't dealing with what seemed to be a major infrastructure issue.  There wasn't anything in the module that spoke to it, and because we run a round robin DM table, I didn't have anything else from AL to reference.   We've essentially resigned ourselves to trying to steer players away from stuff like that, and falling back to using a code phrase "you look into it for a while, but it doesn't turn up anything" when they seem overly persistent.   Sometimes you have to just accept that you're running a game which is more or less on rails.   It doesn't matter where a character is from, but if it helps them flesh out their background more and enjoy the character, then the work is worthwhile.
(Reply to #3) Tyranthraxus	Avross wrote: