Lore FAQ Thread

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Vogelens
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Re: Lore FAQ Thread

Postby Vogelens » Tue Jan 03, 2017 6:33 pm

Toros wrote:There seems to be a common theme said amongst pcs that the sarshel city watch are either incompetent or indifferent, that the country is poorly maintained and teeming with bandits, and that the general state of things is generally dystopian.

Obviously the recent demon attack would reduce overall quality of life and infrastructure, but these sorts of things have been said off and on for a while, and I haven't seen evidence of that to be the case. Clarafication is appreciated!
I think this is in part because I have seen some DMed guards in the past who were not portrayed as too competent, while there are also quite a few bandit dungeons in Sarshel itself, and the surroundings.

Clarification would be good though, so we can also RP how well hidden and skilled those bandits/smugglers would be, if they can get away with it in Sarshel etc.
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Re: Lore FAQ Thread

Postby Loreweaver » Tue Jan 03, 2017 7:57 pm

The main thing to realize I think is that Sarshel has been in decline for a long time. It's the last of the four major cities to be seriously attacked back in 1295 DR, it's become more removed from the center of power since the court migrated to Lyrabar in 1338, it's lost some economical influence since the Uplands were allowed to establish an independant laern in 1340. The Time of Troubles was relatively mild, but with the Damaran troubles with the Witch King (mainly 1357-1359 DR) both the quantity of trade and the quality of Damara's bloodstone plummeted. The establishment of New Sarshel across the Easting Reach drew away most of the remaining craftsmen, artists and merchants shortly thereafter.
Trade with the Bloodstone Kingdom is finally returning to normal, luckily, and the Tuigan Horde has driven a mass of empovered refugees into the city to boost its population count. But it's built for many more people than live there, and so while the city's got a great guard-to-citizen ratio, the guard-to-backalley ratio is poor. This is not usually a safety problem because people know to cluster together and avoid the derelict parts of town.

With recent events like the temple's collapse, the unending winter and evacuations surrounding the recent daemonic attack (most of the remaining citizens were evacuated by ship following word from Laviguer), and it's virtually become a ghost town. It may be that people will yet return - some are doing so already, and Dilpur is uncomfortably overcrowded so may yet release some citizens of its own back to Sarshel. But that requires some sign from the higher-ups, like the reconstruction of a Triadic temple or directions from the king.

The other cities have certainly had their own problems, but Sarshel has had reason to feel particularly neglected of late. Some would say it's been a deliberate government policy to empty out the city gradually and without great panic in anticipation of daemonic attack, or believe the nation is too busy mourning the last king's death to recognize the needs of the living. It may be a plot coming from Hlammach or Sembia to undermine the city or the crown.
Whatever the case, the Warcaptains responsible for the city, the Royal Constable, the guards, the Royal Heralds and other officials who are still present should be taken as doing what they can with the means they have. Food comes in few varieties and is rationed, but it is provided. Crimes are investigated and punished where possible. Roads are patrolled, ships inspected, judgements are issued, records are maintained, rituals observed. But there are few in the city who don't feel somewhat abandoned by the kingdom, or some doubt as to whether the city has a future left at all.

So too the Triad. Its main priests are, as they have long been, close to the court in Lyrabar. It looks like they're waiting for some omen before they commit fresh priests to Sarshel in numbers, or perhaps they have more pressing matters which demand the temple's strength. According to one persistent rumour, a lot of holy warriors have perished this last year, leaving frightful challenges to the hands of lesser men. And the kingdom certainly has a lot of wild places, with a lot of unpleasant history lurking inside.
While the coastal region is traditionally the most populated and productive, we may be well into the thaw before Impiltur can afford to turn its attention to support of the peaceful affairs of fishers and farmers.

As a last point on law and order, the vast majority of Impiltur's ruling order leans towards lawful-good behaviour. It has clear instructions on providing for those who cannot provide for themselves, about ensuring security and justice. In other years, with open roads, opportunities and well-fed bellies, that has been easier to deliver than of late. But people do their best and in most places that is enough.
At the same time, a combination of idleness, of wavering faith and desperation, of isolation and rumour has led to increases in the number of people who set aside both the king's law and the king's justice to make their own living, often through crime. In many cases that's a result of too much law enforcement rather than too little, as people feel punished for trying to survive a situation they did not create.

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Poisonous
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Re: Lore FAQ Thread

Postby Poisonous » Tue Jan 03, 2017 8:39 pm

Thank you for the info, LW! A few comments.
Food comes in few varieties and is rationed, but it is provided. Crimes are investigated and punished where possible. Roads are patrolled, ships inspected, judgements are issued, records are maintained, rituals observed.
I have noticed a frustrating trend of players vastly exaggerating the problems not in character, but out of character. There are certainly problems, and it's reasonable for any range of discontented feelings, but players should be cautious not to say in their offline rp posts that the masses are starving or that the roads are entirely wild. This sort of misinformation proliferates, and it makes it difficult for everyone to rp I'm a shared setting.

We're in exciting, gritty times, but when ooc saying things or describing conditions in offline rp, let's be careful and mind what the dms have actually told us.
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Re: Lore FAQ Thread

Postby blatob » Tue Jan 03, 2017 8:51 pm

As Admin has been gifted The Word from above, he sends unto us.

In other words, Poisonous is right. Admin/DMs have final and indisputable right to form and change the setting. All major changes should be settled by asking them for advice first.

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Re: Lore FAQ Thread

Postby Silver Snow » Tue Jan 03, 2017 9:19 pm

I think the "where possible" part of it is important. Not only are the roads busier than normal with refugees back and forth, but there is clearly less guard and warsword activity. From Sarshel alone just under 6,000 people are now spread out and either reduced to refugee status or banditry, not counting refugees from other areas. Whether or not the roads are completely lawless or not isn't relevant, but they are far -more- lawless than they have been in any recent times unless I'm mistaken. If before we could rp there being extensive bandit and smuggling operations what with the dungeons that represent such, it's only more believable now. With something like a horde of demons and a full abandonment of a small city, dystopian does seem like a fairly good way to describe the region. Of course it makes sense that what order there is wouldn't be abandoned but I took away that it'd be plainly limited in scope until further notice.

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Re: Lore FAQ Thread

Postby Artifice » Wed Jan 04, 2017 8:31 am

I think it's worth noting that some roads have or have had autotext that pops up to explain how it is in a state of disrepair, or how it was much more well maintained historically. It's also worth noting that there are aggressive or criminal forces relatively close to Sarshel, even camped out on roads, compared to where I assume other barons have holds.

I haven't seen much on the forums that would contradict what Loreweaver's said though, especially considering there are hostile mobs that can attack you for walking around in certain areas of Sarshel and I was always told that the admins would contact players if they'd like them to tweak something. :D

I have a question thooough. I noticed the server uses Daemon as kind of a catch all term, whether on the forums, in class descriptions or in roleplay. I don't want spoilers if it's plot related but I am curious, since fiends have a role in the pantheon of the forgotten realms and have a relatively well known position as concepts.

For example: People might know what an Aasimon 'Angel' is, what a Baatezu 'Devil' is, what a Tanar'ri 'Demon' is on some generally simple level, because of stories or myths surrounding their Gods and Goddesses. There are obviously many such stories concerning Helm, and his church has a big historical role in Impiltur right? Are these differentiated on TER or does TER use a homebrew that merges them together?
Spoiler:
I'm also a little curious because of the whole Elven situation, since Daemon refers specifically to Yugoloths, which are neither Devil nor Demon, and they had a big and well known hand in the fall of Myth Drannor and the downfall of Elven civilization across the Forgotten Realms... Even though I have no Elves myself. I'm just a nerd.
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blatob
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Re: Lore FAQ Thread

Postby blatob » Wed Jan 04, 2017 8:59 am

Interesting. I couldn't get the distinction between deamon and demon. Ever. Now, personally, I would think that a peasant would label all devilish creatures as demons, too. Like, say, Kalashnikov used to refer to DDR, Hungarian, Chinese or Yugoslavian copies of the system, even if Kalashnikov, may he rest in peace, had nothing to do with those. Most people are simply not versed enough in planes to know the difference. And I thought Tanar'ri went away with 2nd edition?

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Re: Lore FAQ Thread

Postby Artifice » Wed Jan 04, 2017 10:16 am

Noooo... Definitely not. They got more lore than ever in subsequent editions!

Edited to add: Fiend is the blanket term used to refer to all evil outsiders in the Forgotten Realms, so you're not entirely wrong there! Daemon tended to refer to the ones from a specific place, the Yugoloth.
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Re: Lore FAQ Thread

Postby blatob » Wed Jan 04, 2017 11:40 am

Ah, but how would an ordinary person ever make a distinction? Or Jonan or Simhan? Despite being adventurers, they are not priests nor wizards and should have no knowledge about such things. Apart from what others would tell them.

I'm sorry, I meant the word tanar'ri. If I remember it right, they switched to demons in 3rd ed.

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Re: Lore FAQ Thread

Postby Loreweaver » Wed Jan 04, 2017 11:47 am

It could be argued that canon lore has interplanar trading hubs where creatures of all kinds merrily interact and share a wealth of factual information, but we choose to leave that outside the scope of the setting.
Most knowledge of the planes therefore comes from visions and divinitions (which are always hard to place), from people who travelled the planes and survived (which is about as comprehensive as reading ship logs from early european explorers) or the words of (conjured) planar beings, who often only understand their own plane and have no good way of explaining it to foreign entities.

Good information becomes even more scattered when dealing with the lower planes, where truth is an expensive and difficult commodity to extract. The concept of numbered abyssal layers for instance is considered an attempt (probably by wizards) to catalogue and categorize information more than an accurate representation of truth. Similarly, descriptions of the hierarchy of its inhabitants and the idea that there are just a few different types of intelligent 'demon' are crude notions at best.
Considering the fact it's a chaotic plane where both appearances and reality are changing, a place of many different 'layers' which are like small worlds unto themselves, it's highly unlikely that the information is remotely complete. Indeed, if one dares to theorize the plane is anything more than a place for souls of the Prime to go to, it may well have a near infinite variety of life - or of 'being' at least.

These are also the years where Great Wheel cosmology is considered the best model to describe planar relations but some are beginning to argue for a World Tree instead. Though technically a retcon, it's interpreted here as an indication that what is known today doesn't really fit the model and there are still many unknowns. That there'll be a World Axis model for cosmology later still indicates real answers are a long way away.

For most people, what they know of the planes is that there are many different afterlives and each will (normally) get the one they deserve. If you want a comfortable eternity, you honour a respectable god who stands for the same ideals as you do.
Impilturans are also aware that there are creatures which don't really belong in the world and have plenty of tales surrounding them. Their Daemon primarily describes any creature which was bound to the land by mages of the old Narfell empire, and the choice of daemon over demon has more to do with archaic spelling than planar convention. Most of these entities were of the CE variety rather than the NE one, but there may also be LE, CN or similar entities about - Narfell's mages had their own agendas after all, and plenty of rivalry. So yes, it's a catch-all.

For those without ranks in Knowledge: Planes, that's about where it ends. They differentiate between Fiends insofar as there is some awareness there are devils who may negotiate and 'daemons' who will not, but the only way to tell them apart is to stick around and see if they start killing.
For those with training, determining a creature's planar origin is about a DC 20 check for the more commonly described creatures, assuming of course there is some opportunity to observe behaviour. Appearance alone is rarely enough for accurate identification when dealing with the outer planes.

In short, planar knowledge is still an emergent field of study, with many unkowns and uncertain theories. The nation discourages attempts to revive old lore (although some whisper the Warwands, higher priests of the Most Holy Order or even the Queen-Regent herself may be studying confiscated material in secret). In practical terms, elves probably were dealing with NE creatures, with different origins than Impiltur's predominantly CE ones, but it's a difference relevant only to a few.

Regarding Helm, he's not been particularly active in Impiltur. He has some representation, but wasn't overly present during the reign of the Elethlim dynasty and since the Heltharn dynasty gave the Triad prominence over other faiths it's been even harder for him to get a real foothold. Both the nation's laws and the dominant role of Torm are harmful to the spread of his religion, although Helm did distinguish himself (for good or bad) during the Time of Troubles.
Helm's much more present in nearby Tsurlagol. That has, on and off, been part of Impiltur (at its height, the kingdom included Tsurlagol/Chessagol and Procampur/Proeskampalar, large territories in Altumbel, as well as cities across the Easting Reach such as Telflamm, and once even towards Ashanath), and one of the council of paladins who governs Hlammach, Oriseus, is a follower of Helm trained at the Noble Hand there. That is pretty much the high point of his influence.


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