LOST LORE OF THE REALMS #29

If I Could Visit The Realms “For Real,” Where I’d Go And What I’d Take With Me

I’d bring these things to the Realms:

Lots and lots of candy to use in bribery, to get people to do things to aid me. My maps of the Realms. Lots of pencils and a tiny knife to sharpen them with, and notebooks to make lots of notes in. And at least three digital cameras with large memories (as in, bigger than smartphones).

The only way I’d get there would be with the aid of Elminster or Laeral.

If I was visiting before the Spellplague, my “musts” would be to visit Storm in Shadowdale, Alustriel in Silverymoon, Mirt in Waterdeep, and Tessaril Winter in Eveningstar in Cormyr (in that order), to see all of those places (I need a strong escort to take me all around Waterdeep whilst I gawk, enjoying the Moon Sphere, and then get me into a nobles’ revel). (If things ‘went bad’ in Cormyr, I could hide in the Hidden House.) I’d ask El to take me to see the Srinshee, and beg her to show me some of the most beautiful places known to elves. (At least a few moments, under her protection, at the heart of the overgrown-by-forest ruins of Myth Drannor, please!) I’d want to be taken up the Unicorn Run, and—so on, and on, and on. Believe me, I have a long tour list.

I can tour all of these places in my imagination, right now, but it would be good to dine in Storm’s kitchen and really taste the soup, if you know what I mean. Even if the only way to do so was to let Syluné ‘ride’ my body, using it to go and do what she wanted.

A Trio of Weather Microclimates

In Amphail, just northeast of Waterdeep, the summers are warm but the winters are wet and cold, with heavy snowfalls. Akin to southern Ontario in Canada, or Wisconsin or Michigan in the USA (so, great farming conditions for temperate-to-cold crops).

In Candlekeep, compared to Amphail, the weather is wetter (due to onshore seamists), and more moderate: warmer in winter, cooler in summer, thanks to the moderating influence of the sea.

Waterdeep is even more moderate, as Mount Waterdeep acts as a shield against worst sea gales, protecting the city and providing thermal mass in winter).

Information Sharing In The Realms

There’s no “official” postal service in the Realms, with stamps and uniforms and suchlike, but all peddlers, minstrels, caravan wagon-merchants, trading coster offices, and caravan masters have traditionally taken verbal messages, written messages, and small packages (usually a canvas ‘purse’ sewn together and sealed against damp with pitch or sap before being sewn inside a second layer of canvas) for delivery to distant places, in return for quite steep fees (so common folk use such means only in emergencies). The cost reflects the fact that the delivery person may pay someone else, partway along the route, to do the last leg of the delivery, and still wants to make a few coins of profit after doing this. It would be rare to find any tangible message being delivered for less than a 6 gp ‘up front’ charge, unless it’s “just to the next village or two along” a shared road.

Heralds and court envoys regularly deliver official messages and royal communications, of course.

All priesthoods maintain a regular message service between temples (and can use spells to deliver short verbal messages ‘directly’), and often offer a cut-rate service to faithful worshippers (who have already given regular or substantial offerings to the temple) for including their messages along with the temple reports, written prayers and sermons, and holy decrees.

Lastly, shippers of large cargoes will often make several copies of a message for their intended recipient, and slip it inside crates or coffers that are then closed and sealed. Sometimes these are of the “If the finder of this delivers it unopened to Durth Merrilees of Merrilees Tapestries on the Way of the Dragon, Durth will pay a reward of 4 dragons” variety (this example obviously being for a message inbound to Waterdeep).

Note that this can take some time, and many messages never arrive. Note also that there’s really no such thing as privacy unless codes are used, because in many cases a ‘local village scribe’ does the initial writing for the sender, and anyone can open and read (or even alter) the message en route. Many folk employ ‘private codes’ of this sort: plain everyday writing, but certain phrases have a previously-arranged ‘private meaning’ (example: “Aunt Maerl continues to do well, and asks after you” really means: “Our investment scheme is flourishing, and that extra money you offered to put into it is now needed”).

There are armed, experienced, mounted couriers within Cormyr and Sembia (operating only within the boundaries of those countries), because there’s enough wealth and population density to support such services. They typically deliver small packages swiftly and reliably, in return for 25 gp or more fees.

As for the general spread of information (news and rumors), it spreads by priests spell-talking to distant priests, via ‘wandering’ peddlers and minstrels and the Harpers, via trading costers, and with every ship and caravan (alert readers of my accounts of the Realms from 1979 onwards should recall what THO knows well: every arrival of a caravan to stay the night at the Old Skull spurred most of Shadowdale to turn out to “hear the latest” news).

There are even newspapers (“broadsheets”) published in many cities (see my long-ago Realmslore Wizards of the Coast website column for some details of those printed in Waterdeep), and these travel with all of the above. The arrival of a ‘new’ (sometimes seasons-old) broadsheet in a remote village is cause for a social gathering at the local tavern for the best reader to entertain everyone for an evening.

Surprise Claimants To Noble Titles Of Cormyr

If an ennobled family has already (apparently) ‘gone extinct’ some time ago, the title and lands left (after all debts are paid) revert to the Crown (who in recent reigns have shown no interest whatsoever in handing out such lands to neighbouring nobles hungry for more), so the claimant really faces the task of convincing the Royal Court (the Royal Magician, Court Wizard if someone else, monarch and senior royals, and senior sages, plus Highknights working as their snoops) of his or her own legitimacy. Note that they’ll use magic to mind-ream (far more covertly than the scenes in my novel ELMINSTER’S DAUGHTER; it’ll probably be a day of hard questioning in the Palace, then a sumptuous meal and a luxurious apartment in the Palace for the claimant, and spells cast into the claimant’s sleeping mind).

They will be inclined to simply dismiss claims more distant than direct (bastard or legitimate) offspring of the ‘main line’ lineage of the family (i.e. if an aunt of the heir sleeps around and gives birth, her offspring, or a descendant of that offspring, will have to really worm their way into the heart of a royal, or offer some valuable service to the Crown, or something of that sort for their claim to succeed). On the other hand, even if four generations have passed, the son of the eldest son of the eldest son of the long-lost brother of the heir of the day would be recognized, because that’s ‘main line.’

If the claimant is trying to step into the lordship or become heir of a noble family that’s still very much in evidence, things get far more messy. The Court tends to try to step back and let the family members try to sort it out, and in most cases said family members use the claimant as a bargaining chip or weapon against each other. Other noble families (especially those feuding with the noble family of the claimant, or claiming to be creditors of a member of that family) may try to ‘use’ the claimant.

Most such claimants meet with fatal “accidents” (food poisoning, or an unfortunate fall from the castle battlements, or hunting mishaps involving errant arrows), and the Court seldom does more than an “embarrassment investigation” (that is, War Wizard and Highknight questioning designed to achieve this: “We know you did it, you murderous noble scum, but we can’t really prove it, so we’re just going to make sure the whole kingdom knows what you’re really like; every success on entering into trade deals from now on”) into the affair unless the claimant somehow survives the murder attempt.

The Armed Forces Of Silverymoon Before The Spellplague

The armies of Silverymoon have changed in name and organization many times over the years, both as a result of plagues (1150 DR) and various orc hordes, and at the whim of many early Warlords of the city. They changed again after Alustriel became High Mage of the city.

Silverymoon still has a militia, and a Sword-of-Coins (officer who hires mercenary bands for particular missions, such as “scour out that trollhold,” and “drive out any orcs you find betwixt XX and YY on this map”).

The Knights in Silver are Silverymoon’s professional standing army of very well armed, trained, and armored mounted cavalry, and are the backbone of the standing military. The ‘Knights in Silver’ name was adopted circa 1349 DR, from a line in the lyrics of a popular-across-the-Sword-Coast-North ballad by the bard Mintiper Moonsilver (before that time, the heavy cavalry of Silverymoon’s paid soldiery was known as ‘the Silvershields,’ and had no formal name at all; both they and their motley fellow warriors (see below) were ‘Soldiers of Silverymoon’ in ‘the Army of Silverymoon.’

The Spellguard (founded in 1255 DR) and the High Guard (palace guards, who also serve as bodyguards for Alustriel, Taern, all city officers, and visiting VIPs) were and are separate units, and so is Silverymoon’s city watch.

What has ‘melted away’ over the years (mainly due to combat losses not being replaced) are the outside-the-walls-patrol and training units known as ‘the Steelshields.’ These motley warriors (I describe them as that because of their widely varying weaponry and armor, not as any aspersion on their discipline or quality as a fighting force) dwindled in numbers, until they were quietly folded into the Knights in Silver.

So the Knights now serve to patrol the lands around the city (in all directions, at least a three-day-ride out from the walls), and to escort important travellers, garrison encamped visitors and caravans, serve in the Argent Legion on Silverymoon’s behalf, and be ready to sally forth as a strike force against raiding bands of brigands, orcs, trolls, hobgoblins, and suchlike.

The Argent Legion officially came into being in 1371 DR (as reported in THE SILVER MARCHES sourcebook, which also details the Knights in Silver and the Spellguard), when the League of the Silver Marches was proclaimed.

...And the "wouldn't fit" tags this time around are modest:

#Tessaril Winter

#trolls

#Unicorn Run (the)

#Waterdeep

#Way of the Dragon (the)