That's not really the rebuttal Ed Greenwood thinks it is. If you invent something, then you have a monopoly on it, at least until someone else copies it. Under this protocol, the only way you can keep technology is to share it with everyone, including your enemies, and most nations aren't down for that. Real-world technological development leads to arms races, but the Harpers put a stop to that, so what you're left with is stasis. The Harpers may not expressly desire that, but the outcome is the same.
>but the Harpers put a stop to that
They try. If you manage to succeed all the time, in very single nation, is up to the dm and the kind of story/ world he wants to present. They cant be everywhere at once, with the nessecariy resources to get the job done. And the nations and powers in question also have a word in the matter
>up to the GM
No fricking shit you worthless waste of protein, but we're not talking about what you do at your table, we're talking about the canon interpretation that Greenwood came up with, and it's moronic because of the way technology proliferates (very quickly) and the way empires are built using said technology. Also, the implication that empires are automatically net generators of misery is also fricktarded.
it wasn't anti-globohomo, just elven supremacist
Ed himself said in one of his videos that the elfs themselves invited humans, dwarfs and other races to do the lesser jobs before getting the brilliant idea of opening portals to the abyss so they could demons to do their dirty work
>They are literally anti-globohomo.
They are the globohomiest of globohomos possible to homosexual globally in all of the Forgotten Realms, anon, what the frick are you on about? They're quite literally a glowie self-insert type thing.
empires are globohomo, especially ones with superior technology
globohomosexual loves slavery, lowered quality of life, the removal of knowledge/history/lore/etc, it loves to make everybody the same/no culture of your own
what do harpers stand for?
now try to twist this truth, little lawful-evil cuck
1 month ago
Anonymous
them why the british empire went out of it's way to abolish slavery, translate, study and spread oriental history, lore and history into the west ?
and when this "no culture of your own" came up ?
the harpers only work to keep the status quo, prevent technological, magical and cultural advancement, protecting criminal safe havens from their neighbours, block commerce and cover elven crimes against all other races
1 month ago
Anonymous
>defending the british empire
ok then
1 month ago
Anonymous
yeah, they did a few good thing in their run
1 month ago
Anonymous
things that may have seemed good at the time, but time has proven to be bad choices
1 month ago
Anonymous
I agree. Frick the British!
1 month ago
Anonymous
No, you don't understand, the British Empire was so great that over sixty countries have a national holiday celebrating no longer being a part of it. That's, like, a record.
1 month ago
Anonymous
nobody said it was perfect or all good, only that it did some good things for humanity
1 month ago
Anonymous
Savages often think like that.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>empires are globohomo
Yes, they are, generally speaking. And the Harpers are effectively imperialists, especially in the cultural sense. They recognize no national borders, work to increase their own influence and power, follow the (pseudo-historical) doctrine and ideology of a literal dead imperial city-state, and actively sabotage attempts to deviate from the globohomosexual status quo that they enforce, all while maintaining a hypocritical opinion of their own moral superiority.
It seems he's trying to justify why they let the printing press from Waterdeep go unabated, as they shared the technology with anyone who wanted it, while they fricked with guns.
However I wonder how much of it he actually believes in, given in interviews he said the only reason there's no gunpowder in Faerun is because TSR had a mandate against it at the time of publishing which suggests Thay having cannons was an oversight that no one noticed until too late, and when he did add Smokepowder it was because that mandate was taken away, he wanted to make room for Spelljammer guns, and Greenwood hates retcons so he avoids them whenever possible.
This is the sort of idiocy that somebody who doesn't understand history believes. Because history is a long chain of somebody developing something, monopolising it, and then it getting out until everybody has it. Case in point for recent history, the US built an atomic bomb first, but it didn't take that long before plenty of other nations did it too. No technology ever remains exclusive. So the Harpers still, simply put, engage in active subversion of history and stalling progress for their own ends.
...If they're so opposed to monopolies why don't they just use their espionage network to spread said technology to everyone else instead of stifling it?
because its a fantasy setting that has to appear somewhat vaguely medieval with some modern shit in its products, not some magitech science fantasy one that is unrecognizable to the IP
Not sure if Greenwood is moronic or if he intentionally wrote the Harpers as being moronic. The Pax Romana was the longest-lasting peace of antiquity, and it was a direct result of Rome advancing from Republicanism to Imperialism.
I'm not an imperialist by any measure, I'm a nationalist, but saying that "no successful empire builders as it causes misery for all" is a patently false statement even at face value. Also, the ability to derive success from individual technological advancement, a result of advancements in law in the early renaissance, directly lead to the dissemination of knowledge and engineering, which had previously been hoarded and guarded in families or guilds (and then subsequently lost time and again).
He says a lot of words here but the fact of the matter is that he could've simply said "Yes".
>Not sure if Greenwood is moronic or if he intentionally wrote the Harpers as being moronic
To use your own simple answer: Yes.
For a more complicated one: Greenwood is part of that particularly braindead branch of the hippy-dippy movement that believes any power or dominance is inherently evil and that if everyone were equal then no one would ever raise hand against another and we'd all just fall back to sitting in a great big circle beating each other off to the words of John Lennons Imagine remixed to the soundtrack of Kumbaya.
I mean he all but says it, 'Any technological advantage is going to immediately be used to conquer/oppress de facto', as if the tipping of the scales of power between, say, the Red Wizards of Thay and Neverwinter isn't a good thing. >B-but people will die when they're killed in the ensuing wars (of liberation from wizard tyrants) and that's bad
Yeah, what's really bad totes isn't the several thousand peasants killed every year by rando demons, it's the idea that anyone would become advanced enough to stop such things. Am I right lads?
The Harpers, conceptually, are one of the worst possible groups of people out there, because if they'd had their way then way back at the dawn of time they'd have bricked the first fricker to learn to light fire for playing god, then sat in the cold, dark cave as the wolves closed in feeling smugly superior about having 'saved us all from the real danger'.
They've the mindset of luddites combined with the smarmy self-justification of the elite.
Now admittedly, he does have a point that organizations absolutely need to restrict the power of rampant technological oppression (see: the entire modern world) but there are also better ways of doing it.
>They've the mindset of luddites combined with the smarmy self-justification of the elite.
Easily done when they canonically have the backing of a few gods and some of the most powerful beings in the setting
They are the elite. They are the literal incarnation of every "renewables billionaire" demanding that renewable energy be underwritten, denying advancement for others while relaxing on top of their pyramid of moral superiority.
>they'd have bricked the first fricker to learn to light fire for playing god, then sat in the cold, dark cave as the wolves closed in feeling smugly superior about having 'saved us all from the real danger'.
how can you live in current year +9 and still think things are better now than in the stone age?
>I'm not an imperialist by any measure, I'm a nationalist, but saying that "no successful empire builders as it causes misery for all" is a patently false statement even at face value.
This tbqh, the British Empire made the world a tremendously better place for billions of people.
The Indian widows who are no longer burned alive at their husbands' funeral pyres might disagree with you. Though plenty of Africans are still pissed at the British from that time when the Brits forced them to abolish slavery, so it's not like the Empire was perfect.
This isn't the rebuttal you think it is as far as Harpers are concerned. The Harpers, canonically, cover up evidence of atrocities such as mass murder committed by the organisation known as Eldreth Veluuthra ("Victorious Blade of the People"), a group of elves who genuinely believe that the human race needs to be exterminated. Genocided, specifically.
>human race needs to be exterminated. Genocided, specifically.
I mean, if you look at faerun, humans are clearly gigaBlack personisraelitespics
elves are the "whites" of the setting and they're right, imo
Destroying Hammas will make live in Gaza, and in the whole region better for everyone and it is a moral good as was the dismanteling of the african slave kingdoms done by the British
Good riddance. You savages are posting online using Israeli electricity, Israeli cell towers, Israeli fiber optics. If they wanted to genocide you they'd just turn everything off and end you in the dark.
They're idiots trying to fight a moral war. War isn't moral. But it's funny when the mud-dwelling apes who cheered on September 11th get their mud huts bulldozed.
[...]
The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
lol, check out this moron-
He's typing out his pinko, neo-luddite opinion on a product of industrial innovation.
Don't forget his air conditioning, two-day shipping, microwave... It's never just using the enemy's tools against him, it's enjoying his comforts until you are your worst enemy.
thats a true statement
but its not good; its led to more indians existing
I'd rather my ancestral city be back under british colonial control than what it is now.
well, I can't say that for my area
we're definitely better off
Same energy as >We're a guild of assassins >But we only ever kill, like, bad people, we promise
All assassins are evil until proven chumps
>killing bad people is wrong
1 month ago
Anonymous
Assassins are never good. Soldiers on the otherhand are rarely evil.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Harpers are assassins though.
1 month ago
Anonymous
such masterful trolling in this thread
I almost feel compelled to applaud
1 month ago
Anonymous
An asassin is just a soldier for a specific task.
1 month ago
Anonymous
That’s like saying a person that takes care of potted plants is a farmer.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>but its not good; its led to more indians existing
kek
1 month ago
Anonymous
bad people is wrong
A guild of assassins doesn't just kill people once or twice or three times. They're a group of people on hand for the explicit purpose of murdering people their clients want dead.
As a general rule, the longer the list of people that need to be killed to make the world 'a better place', the more likely it is that's a nominative goal, and the real target is power.
Hence, assassins either know their charter is bullshit and they're evil, or they believe it and they're chumps.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>know their charter is bullshit
what if their charter isn't bullshit ?
1 month ago
Anonymous
If you need a covert secret elite murdering people for the good of the world and they are both entirely justified and always occupied, your setting is officially grimdark.
Yes, even if that setting is reality.
bad people is wrong
A guild of assassins doesn't just kill people once or twice or three times. They're a group of people on hand for the explicit purpose of murdering people their clients want dead.
As a general rule, the longer the list of people that need to be killed to make the world 'a better place', the more likely it is that's a nominative goal, and the real target is power.
Hence, assassins either know their charter is bullshit and they're evil, or they believe it and they're chumps.
>guild of assassins
sorry, we were just talking about assassins
>The Pax Romana was the longest-lasting peace of antiquity
It's funny that you believe that. It's funnier that it may indeed be true for that shithole of putrescent anuses called Europe.
>The Harpers are Chaotic Good and dedicated to tearing down monopolies
Remember that guy who railed against Big Magic and tried to publish an open-source alternative which could end world hunger? The Harpers tortured him.
There was also the time Volo tried to make magic accessible for all. Elminster and the Harpers turned him into a statue and rolled back everything he disseminated by scorched earth and burning books.
One thing that I never understood is why the churches of the lawful Gods, an even some chaotic Gods, tolerate Harpers to begin with
At least Gond, Waukeen and Lathander should be some of their main enemies
working to make magic less accessible don't go against the creed of Mystra ?
Mystra's "creed" doesn't mean shit. This is the same goddess who considers the literal fricking wizard Gestapo of Cormyr to be a shining example of how all the world should be.
She is "neutral good" only because Greenwood says she is, and he doesn't know what the alignment chart means, By her actions, both current and prior incarnations, she is somewhere between lawful and neutral Evil, capital E.
I loved Mystra taking L after L and getting fisted by Ao in the Cyric books. She and her gay little friends put Cyric on trial in Cynosure for being a butt-head and Ao put a stop to it and called her a moron because Cyric was acting within the mandate of his divine portfolio by being a huge dick and neck-knifing all their clerics and friends.
Cyric is my favorite character in Greenwoods imagination and he keeps getting done dirty by the weenies who write the sourcebooks but he’s dunked on the gods many times and I love reading about it.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Far and away the best FR books
1 month ago
Anonymous
puhleeze
those old books are SHIT
making of a mage, elfshadow, dissolution, forsaken house, and homeland are the best
1 month ago
Anonymous
For me its the Finders Stone Trilogy.
Alias my beloved!
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Finder Wyvernspur literally designed Alias from scratch >gave her giant breasts
Based.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>in 1357 DR there were dozens of her Lookalikes running around in the Realms
Anon
The true creed of Mystra is "you will suck her (or her chosens) breasts, you will drink their milk, you will live in a mudhut and you will be happy"
One thing that I never understood is why the churches of the lawful Gods, an even some chaotic Gods, tolerate Harpers to begin with
At least Gond, Waukeen and Lathander should be some of their main enemies
working to make magic less accessible don't go against the creed of Mystra ?
Volo's magnum opus was based on him befriending and copying the secrets of various wizards across the realms, studying their methods, and making them easier and accessible to anyone and everyone who wanted to learn magic.
While for many people this didn't achieve much, since if you're not inborn with a spark of magic no amount of mumbo jumbo will give you magic (in FR), for some of the early ones who got it, it led to horrible shit happening since there's a reason they don't teach apprentices the words to a fireball spell.
Once these wizards found out what Volo had done, they took a crusade against him to torture/destroy/etc him.
Elminster's interference is why Volo still lives (which as Greenwood would later reveal, Elminster being protective of Volo is because Volo is a walking, talking macguffin, whose true backstory is still under NDA due to a never finished Volo RPG back in the 90s), but part of his torture included curses that made it so he could never rewrite the book fully, and there are even some words/sentences he can never say.
All known copies have been destroyed.
As for Mystra's creed, she wants magic to be more accessible, but not if it means the destruction of loads of people thanks to it going fricking wild.
Also new mystra is a c**t. Mystryl was best goddess of magic.
>Oh you see, only special pre aproved people can learn thing because it might be DanGerouS >Everyone will starting throwing fireballs and fingers of death because the aren't subservient to us enlightened wizards
sounds like a cope for gay wizards holding monopoly over knowledge
>you are only allowed to have spells if you use them exactly as I demand, and if you do otherwise I will have my army of personal epic-level minions destroy all your work because only my way is allowed
How is this b***h not Lawful Evil. She's a fricking dictator that would make Bane himself get rock hard.
Depends of what Mystra.
Mystryl was chill all things considered then she died and the world went to shit became of Karsus's Folly and so when Mystra came into being she capped magic and decided that the best way forwards is to slow roll out low level magic (think this of the tier of light or prestidigitation).
Then she tried fricking over her followers to try and become a god again early during the Time of Troubles and got killed by Helm for it.
This leads to Mystra 2 AKA Midnight, a follower of Mystra that became the new Mystra after the aforementioned incident with helm. She has only a few decades of experience on the job due to being trapped in a bear for 4e and the worst thing she has done is doing a Xanatos Gambit to destroy the Shadow Weave which caused the Spellplauge to happen.
[...]
Volo's magnum opus was based on him befriending and copying the secrets of various wizards across the realms, studying their methods, and making them easier and accessible to anyone and everyone who wanted to learn magic.
While for many people this didn't achieve much, since if you're not inborn with a spark of magic no amount of mumbo jumbo will give you magic (in FR), for some of the early ones who got it, it led to horrible shit happening since there's a reason they don't teach apprentices the words to a fireball spell.
Once these wizards found out what Volo had done, they took a crusade against him to torture/destroy/etc him.
Elminster's interference is why Volo still lives (which as Greenwood would later reveal, Elminster being protective of Volo is because Volo is a walking, talking macguffin, whose true backstory is still under NDA due to a never finished Volo RPG back in the 90s), but part of his torture included curses that made it so he could never rewrite the book fully, and there are even some words/sentences he can never say.
All known copies have been destroyed.
As for Mystra's creed, she wants magic to be more accessible, but not if it means the destruction of loads of people thanks to it going fricking wild.
Also new mystra is a c**t. Mystryl was best goddess of magic.
Ed revealed the Volvo is kept alive because he is a Weave Anchor (Individual or object Mystra tied the weave to so the Weave doesn't get immediately blown up is she dies again) but nobody wants to actually let him know because he would be so insufferable about it.
Elminster is his primary baby babysitter because nobody really wants the job so it kinda defaults to him.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>tied the weave to so the Weave doesn't get immediately blown up
If the thing is so stupidly volatile then maybe Mystra needs to be blown up so we can go back to everybody being able to use magic normally. Like when 4e happened, the Weave went away... and everybody picked themselves up and figured how to do magic without begging permission from a goddess who can't keep her head on straight.
1 month ago
Anonymous
The Weave is easymode spellcasting for normies, which makes magic more common, which empowers Mystra which is probably why she created it. It's a GUI compared to the command line casting of other D&D settings like Greyhawk or Planescape. Those have fewer casters total but a higher quality of high-level ones. A 17th level Greyhawk wizard is busy bending time, achieving immortality or trying to steal god's powers, while a 17th level Faerun one is casting moderately bigger fireballs.
>Also new mystra is a c**t. Mystryl was best goddess of magic.
Both suck. Imagine being a wizard in a world where your ability to cast spells depends on a deity that dies every few years. Might as well start using the shadow weave instead, it's less fickle
>Might as well start using the shadow weave instead, it's less fickle
Better off going off-grid, i.e. learning psionics. Sure there's some effects that just don't work without infrastructure, and you have to deal with everyone in Faerun calling you a new-age hippy and an X-Man, but you do get a lot of fine control.
Mystryl was around for ages and only died because she went so hard libertarian that a mage found the break reality spell and used it.
Mystra was a b***h but changed the rules to make sure that doesn't happen again, and was around for over 1000 years before Helm punched her in half for being a b***h who thought she was above Ao's rules.
Midnight shows why elevating humans to gods is a shitty idea even if they are allegedly good people, since she keeps bringing her feelings and politics into things until the other gods smack her down for it.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Mysrtyl was always hard libertarian in term of magic and worked for thousands of years, much better than Mystra, who barely manage a thousand years without being destroyed
>Might as well start using the shadow weave instead, it's less fickle
You moron. That's just the in-between spaces in the weave. If the weave goes, so does the shadow weave.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>That's just the in-between spaces in the weave
No, it's an off brand weave created by goth mommy dommy Shar
1 month ago
Anonymous
Anon.
That's the shadow weave.
Google is your friend.
This is why Wild Mage used to be a giant frick you to Mystra. >Oh you want to take my magic then I will just be a walking nuke literally tearing holes into the weave because frick you!
Does Ed not realize he basically wrote the Harpers to be Reapers, but bards instead of squid robots?
So Harpers are the FR version of Globohomo?
In practice, they're closer to the least flattering depictions of the Catholic Church who stifle innovation or political independence from them out of an increasingly questionable motive that the ways of the parent civilization their organization survived were the only "right" ones.
They're a bardic Inquisition.
One of the nations that the Harpers support above all, to the point that the queen is a Harper sleeper agent, is the Orwellian nightmare known as Cormyr. They consider it a shining beacon of what the world could be like if "more people would let themselves be guided".
Why Cormyr is the Orwellian nightmare? I have rather basic knowledge of the realms, but Cormyr seemed like a prosperous and stable kingdom with some reins on murderhobos.
>military service used for policing >war wizards are literally Gestapo thought police (and will regularly brain scan anybody they suspect, and if you are warding your thoughts then you can be arrested, after all if you were innocent you wouldn't have anything to hide RIGHT ANON?) >the commoners love the king, and you had better do it too or they will report you to the police, who are the military for unpatriotic actions >by the way, the military are allowed to search you upon request at any time, for any reason >you happen to be a wizard entering the country? Time to register, incidentally registering means you are officially a reservist war wizard and can be conscripted at any time >and if you're a warrior entering the country all weapons are peace bonded so they can't be drawn, tampering with said weapons is arrest and imprisonment >oh, adventurers are exceptions... except you need proof of status which is a Charter, and all those are exclusively made by the war wizards, and uses fricking magical ink and parchment so that the names of anybody written on said Charter can be auto-tracked at ANY time by ANY war wizard, FOREVER (and wherever you are on the planet) >any/all retired army will work as unofficial official espionage for the king, you never quit the Company >the head of the Gestapo, I mean war wizards, is also the official court mage and is responsible for guarding the royal family, by the way he regularly checks and edits the memories of the royal family to make sure that everything is in order >courts and judgements are exclusively the province of the Crown and Gestapo >no innocent until proven guilty clause >the Chosen of Mystra are aware of all this and actively go out of their way to support it
Is there any word on how this affects their foreign relations, like at all? Like how their wizards abroad are conscripted just because they pass through? Or how foreign travellers might be killed by monsters or bandits because they cant draw their bonded arms quick enough? Or how a foreign state tracks their people with these contracts? Like if you´re a travelling lord of Gauntlgrym or a respected scholar of Silverymoon with connections back home
1 month ago
Anonymous
The last time a respected anything of Silverymoon was shown visiting Cormyr, it was a female half-elf ambassador that the king promptly railed.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Officially monsters and bandits are dealt with by the military. If not, well, accidents happen and according to the average Cormyrean it's a good thing that the military is coming to handle those reports of bandits and monsters in the region.
Most wizards are also smart enough to not go into Cormyr. The ones who do are powerful enough that they can evade the detection and sweeps (or get help in evading them if they are Harpers), and in a small handful of cases are simply strong enough archmages that the war wizards can't bring them down without mass casualties.
That also being said, in every single novel Greenwood writes there's at least one or two scenes where a dozen or even dozens of war wizards get blown up in mass spell casualty events. The attrition rate just based on his books alone in the organisation must be fricking horrifying, so they're probably conscripting them as fast as they can find them.
You forgot that Cormyr does not allow major religious faiths to be established with royal or noble support. In fact it actively works to marginalise any and all deific influence. Why? Because that might give more support to a faith than to the state.
Literally the only things keeping Cormyr from going full shithole is that the royal family are basically the most lawful Good people ever and that all the noble houses are afraid of looking bad in front of each other and losing status because they all want to take the crown for themselves.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Can't be too "Good" if they're happily leading an oppressive police state.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Azoun IV was literally classified as Lawful Good
1 month ago
Anonymous
And the Harpers are allegedly Chaotic Good. They aren't.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Ontological Definitions supersede player morality when talking about the lore of a setting.
Cope
1 month ago
Anonymous
well, thats not quite true
the harpers as an organization are mostly neutral, Id say
they're "any non-evil"
elminster and the seven sisters are largely CG
bards tend to be chaotic (more CN than CG)
rangers tend to be chaotic good
a lot of the founding deities are chaotic good (iirc)
elves are chaotic good (though frankly the way ed and elaine write them I cant really agree with that)
but if you read about harpers in the campaign setting books, theres a lot of non CG people and ideas
its a police state with state wizards who do all kinds of spying and mind-frickery on its citizens
its indefensible; im not sure why greenwood made it that way other than to give it a realistic downside so its not a 100% goodguy kingdom
Cormyr deals with a lot of shit. Demons, dragons, evil wizards, all of them go out of their way to kill or control the royal family, usually while devastating as much of the nation as possible. Pretty understandable that they're paranoid as frick when you realize they've come close to annihilation a bunch of times and it's frequently the same old-ass wizard who's hopped up on life extending magic who has to deal with it. Plus the nobility are insufferable c**ts constantly scheming against the crown and each other and think it's just fine if the nation is burned down as long as they move up a rank afterwards.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Or let it fall and something better might rise in its place. Sembia is right next door and it gets along fine without an actual thought police patrolling it.
1 month ago
Anonymous
But Anon, Sembia are capitalist merchants and those are le bad
they are also racist against elfs just because they got apprehensively attacked by elfs in the past and occasionally by the Eldreth Veluuthra, and this is also le bad
1 month ago
Anonymous
Tethyr is also occasionally racist against elves because it got attacked by them repeatedly, and they too get along mostly fine.
Calimshan also got attacked by elves (dark ones) and it gets along fine despite racism against elves now.
1 month ago
Anonymous
NO ANON
You can't be fine unless you suck up to the elfs, the harper way
1 month ago
Anonymous
Sembia is only fine because for the vast majority of its history it was the designated "This is the place for GMs to put something" zone.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Cormyr deals with a lot of shit. Demons, dragons, evil wizards
So does everyone else
1 month ago
Anonymous
Cormyr being a police state evolved from Greenwood coming up with ways to railroad his players
Most other nations presumably do some similar things at least sometimes to handle the never-ending supply of evil cults and bbegs with magic macguffins
>the nobility are insufferable c**ts constantly scheming against the crown and each other
Pretty sure there was an entire novel about this, and the grand plan of the nobles masterminding it was to get rid of the royals, and remove royalist supporter nobles because those wouldn't be trustworthy if it was successful anyway, and then have the nation run by a council and committee so nobody could have absolute power like the royal family had been engaging in with their army and war wizards for centuries.
Practically every Greenwood novel as a really poorly implemented coup attempt or riot by nobles
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Cormyr being a police state evolved from Greenwood coming up with ways to railroad his players
Glad to know he's a moron at the table too
1 month ago
Anonymous
>ummm bad things could happen so that's why you can't have rights and you have to live in this wizard police state.
1 month ago
Anonymous
If Mystra wasn't an incompetent tit about getting people to sign up to her vision of magic then maybe there'd be fewer of one, plausibly two, possibly even all three of those things.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>the nobility are insufferable c**ts constantly scheming against the crown and each other
Pretty sure there was an entire novel about this, and the grand plan of the nobles masterminding it was to get rid of the royals, and remove royalist supporter nobles because those wouldn't be trustworthy if it was successful anyway, and then have the nation run by a council and committee so nobody could have absolute power like the royal family had been engaging in with their army and war wizards for centuries.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Plus the nobility are insufferable c**ts constantly scheming against the crown and each other
HOW?
Nope.
Spelljammers cannot fly in Toril's Crystal Sphere and when they get to close they turn into very sparkly looking meteors as they crash into Toril.
Which is why even during the height of Netheril the Netherese had a Spelljammer port on one of the Tears of Selune (not on Selune itself tho because the Selunearians just like the Moon Rabbits in 2hoe are a bunch of israelites)
It is something that is however conveniently forgotten by writers just like the Wall of the Faithless tend to be.
>Spelljammers cannot fly in Toril's Crystal Sphere and when they get to close they turn into very sparkly looking meteors as they crash into Toril.
Is this some WotC cope to erase Spelljammer from 3e? Realmspace was one of the core spheres in real Spelljammer, along with Greyspace and Krynnspace.
Not to mention Stardock.
wait, there wasn't a piece of lore about Waterdeep having a law that spelljamers and other flying ships should land in the water before approaching the city and port like regular ships ?
I'm just going from memory, but I swear that used to be something on that line in 3e
There is.
The guy talking about spelljammers crashing is talking out his ass.
One of the big rumors from the Shining Sea book is about how a spelljammer ship came down, and now a bunch of Giff mercenaries with guns are active in the area.
Greenwood and Grubb were good friends, so when Grubb wrote up Spelljammer (despite a few higher ups at TSR hating it), Greenwood specifically made changes to the setting to accommodate Spelljammers
1 month ago
Anonymous
>you are talking out if you ass because the Spelljammer-Lore is a mess
Yeah okay buddy.
>One of the big rumors from the Shining Sea book is about how a spelljammer ship came down, and now a bunch of Giff mercenaries with guns are active in the area.
One of the creation myths in the Evermeet-Book is also how the only native elves were the Drow-Ancestors and High/Moon-Elves originally came from outside of Realmspace.
>Greenwood and Grubb were good friends, so when Grubb wrote up Spelljammer (despite a few higher ups at TSR hating it), Greenwood specifically made changes to the setting to accommodate Spelljammers >despite a few higher ups at TSR hating it
Was it even Grubb? I remember another dude being involved whose name I cant remember-
And there was a big rub because from what I remember they forced whatshisname to set it in the Netheril-Era when he didnt want to.
If you look at some of early Spelljammer-shit when it was still in the Dragonzines and before it was published as its own thing you will notice some big discrepancies.
The Spelljammer-Shit has probably more retcons and rewrites over the years than them trying to make Zakhara or Double-Japan fit the Realms.
Its a total mess which is why there is so much contradictory shit.
If Spelljammers were common why would they need normal ships or even trade-caravans?
If Spelljammers were around in Realmspace wouldnt every Fortress or Castle have some magic Anti-Air-Defense system like Evermeet?
wait, there wasn't a piece of lore about Waterdeep having a law that spelljamers and other flying ships should land in the water before approaching the city and port like regular ships ?
elaborate
I'm just going from memory, but I swear that used to be something on that line in 3e
Yes it is a total mess. Thats my point.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Was it even Grubb? I remember another dude being involved whose name I cant remember-
Grubb got his name on the box set as Designer, but there are six other Developers, one guy listed as Spiritual Guidance, and the foreword says that even the illustrator and cartographer were involved in coming up with ideas.
Spelljammer seems to have been a collaborative design effort between half the design studio.
>Cannot fly into Toril's Crystal Sphere >Crash into Toril
That's a loooong fricking distance, given Realmspace is like 8 or 9 planets that have Spelljammer travel between them.
>Vilhon Reach >Emerald Enclave start a campaign where they day Harpers are actually worse than Thayans >Enough Harpers turn up dead on the streets that Harpers stop showing up in the region at all >Region has been improving ever since
elminster: making of a mage
doesnt have that problem; its actually a really good book and you can tell it was a passion project for him
I agree the rest just aren't much good
I would love to see some Harpers starting to figure out how much shit their organization caused and that they might also be the badies
They starting a plot to 'reform' the Harpers or create a parallel counter Harper gayops organization, but keeping with the alleged spirit of what the Harpers should be, would be an interesting story to read
>the moonstars
what they do to counter harper shenanigans
I dont know
I never wanted to read about them, cuz frick khelben
Nothing, they're just Harpers who actively sign up to moral ambiguity rather than drinking the kool aid.
Like someone in this thread pointed out some of the late TSR-Stuff and FR-novels felt like they were building towards the Harpers getting some sort of comeuppance with how some of the Harper-Cells were working against each other/competing with each other and even Elminster, Laeral and Khelben started to distance themselves from the Harpers with Khelben even creating his own version, the Moonstars, because he thought that the Harpers were bogged down too much with internal politics.
Even early WOTC stuff pointed in that direction until 5E where Harpers are back to being unambiguously portrayed as the good guys despite the same shit as during 2E.
Elminster and the Justice League of Mystra regularly quit the Harpers. They've done it like 3 times.
Reminder that Elminster in 5e has quit the Harpers AGAIN and is now literally running the secret police and FBI/CIA of Waterdeep. While Laeral is ruler of Waterdeep.
1 month ago
Anonymous
and yet they never drop their hammer on the Harpers and always return for more gayops
1 month ago
Anonymous
They quit and wait for the Harpers to collapse, then rebuild it to do what they want. Then when it inevitably goes rogue (because it is literally a fantasy version of the CIA except without oversight to stop it) they quit and wait for it to collapse before coming back to rebuild it.
Although you'd think they could try and build it right the first time. Nobody ever said wizards were competent. Nobody EVER accused Mystra of being competent either.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>CIA except without oversight
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Nobody EVER accused Mystra of being competent either.
Thats comes with being a woman.
We wouldnt even have this issue if Azuth, Velsharoon or Savras stepped up to finally replace her.
But Azuth is a Mystra-simp who happily watches her rail other mortals, Velsharoon is autistic and Savras is a Doomer.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Azuth would be a horrible replacement for that exact reason.
Oghma or something would have been better. Savras might be interesting. Or just removing the "magic god" position entirely.
1 month ago
Anonymous
At this point it would be best to even have Mystryl pull a Amaunator and come back to b***h slap Mystra
1 month ago
Anonymous
They could even excuse it too.
The Time Magic book for AD&D mentions that Mystryl being Goddess of Time in addition to magic knew everything and anything before it happened, and just chose not to interfere with it.
However if you attempt time travel, you actually end up in her domain, because she has to judge whether you're allowed through or not, and give you the quick run down on temporal paradoxes.
So she still exists, just she exists outside of time, because she refuses to interfere with the fact that she's technically dead.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Something Something Mystra fricks up again >Ao facepalms, he had enough >Ao go to Mystry, who is busy lecturing some random time traveler, and tell her to move her fat ass and fixed that shit >Mystryl is forced to return to Faerun >Get really mad when she sees up close what became of magic on her absence >Since this is Hor- Forgotten Relms, Mystryl end up in a catfight and doms Mystra, using the weave itself to bondage Mystra and Assuming the post as top magic milf >She also forces Azuth to watch for reasons
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Azuths face when
1 month ago
Anonymous
Azuth would be a horrible replacement for that exact reason.
Oghma or something would have been better. Savras might be interesting. Or just removing the "magic god" position entirely.
The only true replacement was Karsus.
But he was done dirty and sabotaged by that conniving b***h at the very last moment.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Karsus realized he couldn't handle the power and so gave it up before things got worse.
The truth of the matter is that Ed by his upbringing envisions an ideal world as one wherein is a conflictless, egalitarian, free love society, guided by a bunch of Small Time Honest Tradesmen/Yeomen and Clever but Good Hearted Merchants, conduct good faith trade with each other.
Anything that denies this world is mostly viewed as a negative or perversion.
the harpers help to maintain aristocratic police states like Cormyr, ruled by an absolute monarch puppet by the head of the war wizards, to council a supremacist terrorist group keen on genocide humans and suppress any innovation that would push Faerun beyond medieval city states and kingdoms
That's the opposite of Ed's presumed "ideal world" according with that Anon
Its not because in Ed's conception of the realms the Harpers generally are working towards that goal with a slow and steady over the course o centuries mentality. >the harpers help to maintain aristocratic police states like Cormyr, ruled by an absolute monarch puppet by the head of the war wizards
Because Cormyr is more valuable as a long term stabilizing influence and the common folk are mostly fine outside of the designated "here be monsters" areas you need documents to get into anyway. Queen Filfaeril Selazair (Azoun IV's wife) was for all intents and purposes a Harper Agent while being Queen > to council a supremacist terrorist group keen on genocide humans
If your talking about the Eldreth Veluuthra then the logic is that letting them wipe out some villages here and there is better than setting back Elven races relations potentially centuries and that they were manage well enough to never stop any meaningful progress. >suppress any innovation that would push Faerun beyond medieval city states and kingdoms
Because those city states don't go into open conflict against each other that often.
What Ed wants is the end goal but within the Realms the goal is to basically prevent a D&D version of the 30 Years War and slowly shape society towards paradise from the shadows.
And if you see Ed describe NPCs almost universally if they are Good or Lawful oriented the ones your meant to like are basically all Fiscally Smart or Free Spirit Types as a Major feature.
Seriously just watch this and you will see what I mean.
1 month ago
Anonymous
get it through your thick fricking skull, subhuman, the only good world is one where I have power over all the goyim and have all the modern amenities I could ask for!
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Because Cormyr is more valuable as a long term stabilizing influence
that curiously takes the form of an authoritarian police state
> the common folk are mostly fine outside of the designated "here be monsters" areas
so they are in place outside Cormyr, and without dealing with a burocratic police state
>ueen Filfaeril Selazair (Azoun IV's wife) was for all intents and purposes a Harper Agent while being Queen
I know and that make it even worse
>letting them wipe out some villages here and there is better than setting back Elven races relations potentially centuries
and you know what would be even better for the elven relations with the other races ? if they denounced terrorists and move to wipe them out
the elfs, along side with the harpers, not doing that and going a step beyond to cover them up only proves that they don't give a frick about the lives of humans and other non-elf races
If the elfs need a secret organization covering up their crimes, maybe they don't deserve good relations with the other races
>What Ed wants is the end goal but within the Realms the goal is to basically prevent a D&D version of the 30 Years War
where did he ever said this ?
>slowly shape society towards paradise from the shadows.
and yet all they do is to keep it stagnant and prevent innovations that would turn the live of the common people less shitty while leaving their area of influence much more vulnerable to more organized outside forces
All the Harpers ever do is to keep the realms in a less stable position and more stagnant, fricking the common folk
Harper apologist deserve the rope
1 month ago
Anonymous
>If the elfs need a secret organization covering up their crimes, maybe they don't deserve good relations with the other races
Not really related to you frickers' discussion, but I found it interesting when it came to the hellgate keep nonsense. >One house of elves is so into eugenics they start experimenting with mixing elf blood with other races to see the results >Through experiments and magic they make stable super elves with demonic powers but still (mostly) elven bodies, with the best one looking like a perfect elf save for her wings and red skin, but she has demonic super strength among other things >Other elves find out about this >Other elves also find out that quite a lot of these experiments are (literally) in their infancy still, but have shown signs of even more improvements, and some of them also aren't spontaneously turning evil despite the demon blood >All signs of this experiment need to be shut down, every man, woman, and child in the house, from the house, or even married to someone from the house need to be exterminated, and all records of this need to be destroyed and buried >Elf 1: What if there are survivors or some curses caused by this mess and people need to know about it to combat it? >Elf 2: That sounds like the talk of someone who wants to be exterminated, this never happened and that elven house never existed
1 month ago
Anonymous
Makes one wonder how many times that kind of shit happened
1 month ago
Anonymous
Its canon that common people in the Realms are notoriously intolerant of anything new or magical outside of the major cosmopolitan cities. Not like lynching tier but more in anything that doesn't have multiple generations of positive precedence is Not Welcome.
The way Ed describes it is that every Farmer has heard a few stories about outside influences getting involved in another guys life and it causing mass destruction and suffering and so fear the new intensely, better the devil you know and all that.
This mans that the main people who will take advantage of all those new advancements are the types of ambitious asshats which crave power.
1 month ago
Anonymous
the actions of the Harpers, blocking progress are what ensures that attitude to remain the standard among common folk and that idea of being ambitious making you into an proto-tyrant asshat is laughable
1 month ago
Anonymous
>that idea of being ambitious making you into an proto-tyrant asshat is laughable
Its true in the realms.
The Realms at least as Ed sees them is a bunch of slackjaw luddites who would fear fire if not for the historical precedent, managed by a bunch decadent nobles who outside of handful of "the good ones" inspired by Arthurian Legend, care more about their own power and prestige, while the clergy are all a bunch of selfish buttholes also jockeying for their own power and prestige for them and their god.
Anyone who tries to rise above this for the sake of themselves is being greedy about it and must be stopped.
Or they are an Outsider faction to this order and seek to pillage and ravage the simpleminded folk of the "Good" areas.
It is only via slow deliberate planning and subterfuge that this mass of offal called civilization can be shaped into something better without risking large scale war that would progress things at the cost of short term mass death and large scale destruction of nature.
Look at Ilmater the god of being able to bend over and take it and keep going afterwards is a Lawful Good Deity, in fact he is 1/3rd of the Traid, a group of Lawful good deities which if all worshiped equally and fully turns someone into a fricking Superpaladin
Its a fantasy world as a 20th century glowie would see it made by the son of such a glowie.
You can criticize it however you like but within the internal logic of the setting, divorced from outside influence, the Harper's are closer to ontological good than evil.
1 month ago
Anonymous
As for adventurers they are generalized as either Free Spirits who first and foremost want to experience the world, forced into it out of duty, or are selfish dickbags who want power and prestige.
And out of those the Adventure for the sake of Adventure is portrayed as the most noble.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Its true in the realms
There's nothing that points towards it
>The Realms at least as Ed sees them is a bunch of slackjaw luddites who would fear fire if not for the historical precedent,
1. Death of the author
2. Differnt people from different places in the realms have wildly different positions, what you said is applicable to the people of the Dalelands and Cormyr, but hardly to Halruaa or Lantan
Most of the realms aren't inspired by Arthurian legends, only Cormyr is
>Anyone who tries to rise above this for the sake of themselves is being greedy about it and must be stopped.
Again, no were in the lore this is stated
or would you believe that every merchant on Sembia is Evil
>It is only via slow deliberate planning and subterfuge that this mass of offal called civilization can be shaped into something better without risking large scale war that would progress things at the cost of short term mass death and large scale destruction of nature.
nowhere in the lore is this even implied
>Look at Ilmater the god of being able to bend over and take it and keep going afterwards is a Lawful Good Deity, in fact he is 1/3rd of the Traid, a group of Lawful good deities which if all worshiped equally and fully turns someone into a fricking Superpaladin
and that means nothing as there are many other Lawful Good Deities that are much more militant and not as pacifistic as Ilmater
>within the internal logic of the setting, divorced from outside influence, the Harper's are closer to ontological good than evil.
No they aren't, no matter how you try to spin it
1 month ago
Anonymous
1. We are talking about a setting that despite multiple different authors is mostly made by one guy and that bleeds into his work.
2.How many of those places are also depicted as The Other? Someplace like Thay certainly is and with how little we have on it Lantan is also.
Halruaa got blown up and it people for decades were anti magic and are only recently starting to use it again while keeping it at an arms length https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t56Az0HNQXM&t=1s
Like I said most nobles are dickheads and the ones that aren't are mostly Round Table inspired. If you wanted to catch me out you could of brought up the various city states which are also ruled by greedy dickheads for the most part. >or would you believe that every merchant on Sembia is Evil
Yes?
Sembia is a derisive view of America by a free love hippie Canadian. Most of the time they are massive buttholes. Outside of Miklos how many Sembians have done anything positive? Meanwhile it seems like their biggest import is fricking evil plots to "acquire" someone else territory. There is a reason the Netherese took their asses over as they did. (And their is a difference between glowie mentality and burger mentality). >nowhere in the lore is this even implied
Myth Drannor is viewed by the narrative as a good place to be at its height. The Harpers seek to make the world align more with Myth Drannor and align with its principles in their political policy. >and that means nothing as there are many other Lawful Good Deities that are much more militant and not as pacifistic as Ilmater
But how many of them are in a Triad with two other LG Gods that makes their followers into Superpaladins which get boosted powers and Threefold Smite. >No they aren't, no matter how you try to spin it
Then why are they typically classified as Chaotic Good?
I don't even like the Harpers personally but you acting the same as the people who declare all FR Gods are evil because of The Wall of the Faithless.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Sembia is a derisive view of America
ha
I always thought the dalelands were colonial america and sembia was britain
1 month ago
Anonymous
Yeah Ed mentioned it in the early days of the patreon.
Cormyr was based off of Arthurian Brittan and fantasies of knights riding horses between giant tress while Sembia is based off America.
1 month ago
Anonymous
fricking *canadians*
as if I needed more reasons to dislike them
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Its a fantasy world as a 20th century glowie would see it made by the son of such a glowie.
And that's a good thing, much like Jack Vance's background as a sailor shaped his books. Harpers are good enemies for a mid-level party to get caught up with, have frenemy relationships spiral out of control, and ultimately dunk on. They have the perfect glowie spirit of "my character sheet claims CG, I pretend to be LN, I'm actually CN, and my friends are rapidly slipping into NE."
1 month ago
Anonymous
very good post
1 month ago
Anonymous
Oh my god at first I wanted to call you a luddite but I think you might be onto something.
This puts so much shit in the realms into context its scary.
Just take Karsus Folly which funnily enough is seen by scholars as cautionary tale that man shouldn't covet the divine in the Realms when you theory could also see it as a man desperately grasping at straws to save his people and his realm from destruction by interdimensional magic vampires that the oversaturation of magic in his realm brought forth.
It even explains why Mystryl chose not help the Netherese in their time of need.
You blew my mind.
1 month ago
Anonymous
They still commit the cardinal sin of sacrificing innocents for their greater good. They're the personification of "kill an orphan today and donate to a hundred tomorrow" that only works if you assume alignment works like it does in a video game where sacrificing enough black unicorn corpses absolves you of murdering a neutral trading caravan.
1 month ago
Anonymous
And that's why the Harpers have collapsed and been rebuilt 3 times already, they view that shit as necessary but over time, it causes a karmic buildup for lack of a better word and the organization is purified through blood and reborn as its founders return and reassert its core tenants.without actually doing much to fix the underlying problems.
1 month ago
Anonymous
lawful evil confirmed
assmad banites talking shit about the harpers
1 month ago
Anonymous
To be fair, being an ambitious asshat is how the Harpers' parent civilization died, and elves are smarter than YOU, so what makes YOU think you would do any better than they would? No, better to slowly sculpt FR back into their ideal paradise, no matter how many humans have to die to make it happen. After all, they only live a century if that even, when they're not furthering Elvish goals they're busy dying just by standing around.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Myth Drannor died because the Gold Elves were right all along.
>maybe we shouldn't use moonblades to decide who is or isnt worthy to lead >most functioning moonblades are now in moon-elf hands; multiple goldelf dynasties were literally ended by trying to find worthy successors for moonblades
>maybe we shouldn't let non-elves into myth drannor >myth drannor is now a ruin
>maybe we shouldn't let those weird human refugees of the fallen magic empire into our lands just because they helped us against the dragons >nearly all former elven empires now have human kingdoms on top of them
>maybe we shouldn't mingle with silver-elves >moon-elf is now the monarch of all elves and it starts the great retreat
1 month ago
Anonymous
yeah but whi- uh, I mean, gold elves are bad
1 month ago
Anonymous
Gold elves made peace with the Moonies' bad decisions and now live in their hidden village where they get to bone angels once a year and make beautiful angel-elf children.
I can get behind that.
1 month ago
Anonymous
yeah but whi- uh, I mean, gold elves are bad
Also if I recall Elaine say on candlekeep that the Moonblades by their nature are oriented towards Moon Elf Ideology
1 month ago
Anonymous
Yes thats the best part.
The Moonblades are essentially a psy-op to get rid of the Sun Elf Ruling class. Notice how many of them only stopped roasting heirs to Sun Elf Dynasties when some of them started mingling with Moon Elves.
Then notice how elves most closely working with the Harpers are Moon Elves.
Its like a fricking Eugenics project.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Moonblades were always a power play, the guy who pushed it and created them made and replicated his own consciousness into the blade's choosing power, and he actively did not believe anybody other than a moon elf should be allowed to be king. Surprise, guess what fricking happened, especially after half the gold elf noble houses had their heirs obliterated in the very first creation ceremony of the moonblades. It was unironically a five thousand year keikaku by a moon elf to take control of the elven race.
Other blades made with high magic, blessed by Corellon and more than a SINGLE moon elf frick as their choosing method, have regularly picked worthy gold elves. The King's Sword that decided the ruler of all Cormanthor? Three of the eldest high mages gave all their lore and knowledge to help create that sword. They had no problems picking a gold elf if he was worthy.
Meanwhile, moonblades automatically deny purely on the basis of "moon elves only frick off".
1 month ago
Anonymous
Don't forget that gold elves opposed engaging with Harpers. The moon elf royals did, and then because one Harper couldn't keep his dick in his pants the king of Evermeet was assassinated, the Elf-Eater attacked and ate half the island, and the only heir to the elven nation ran away, fricked a human, and had a half-elf spawn who is now, by birthright, heir to the throne of the elves.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Moonblades were always a power play, the guy who pushed it and created them made and replicated his own consciousness into the blade's choosing power, and he actively did not believe anybody other than a moon elf should be allowed to be king. Surprise, guess what fricking happened, especially after half the gold elf noble houses had their heirs obliterated in the very first creation ceremony of the moonblades. It was unironically a five thousand year keikaku by a moon elf to take control of the elven race.
Other blades made with high magic, blessed by Corellon and more than a SINGLE moon elf frick as their choosing method, have regularly picked worthy gold elves. The King's Sword that decided the ruler of all Cormanthor? Three of the eldest high mages gave all their lore and knowledge to help create that sword. They had no problems picking a gold elf if he was worthy.
Meanwhile, moonblades automatically deny purely on the basis of "moon elves only frick off".
Myth Drannor died because the Gold Elves were right all along.
>maybe we shouldn't use moonblades to decide who is or isnt worthy to lead >most functioning moonblades are now in moon-elf hands; multiple goldelf dynasties were literally ended by trying to find worthy successors for moonblades
>maybe we shouldn't let non-elves into myth drannor >myth drannor is now a ruin
>maybe we shouldn't let those weird human refugees of the fallen magic empire into our lands just because they helped us against the dragons >nearly all former elven empires now have human kingdoms on top of them
>maybe we shouldn't mingle with silver-elves >moon-elf is now the monarch of all elves and it starts the great retreat
I'm starting to believe that the drow were right all along and surface elves suck
Say what you will about the Drow being evil but at least they never started to cuck themselves
1 month ago
Anonymous
>letting them wipe out some villages here and there is better than setting back Elven races relations potentially centuries
Jesus Christ mane.
How does this not sound Capital E evil to you.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>letting them wipe out some villages here and there
This is Evil. If the elves want to not have people hate them, then they should own up to and handle their shit. Otherwise it's just tacit support for the genocide-happy.
Printing press is specifically one of the things the Harpers allowed because the inventors in Waterdeep spread the technique around for everyone to use.
I know someone who has Harper in their online handle in an obvious reference to this organization. They are a literal disgusting troony with Dunning-Kruger that is off the charts.
Mystara had a funnier explanation for the status-quo. As the world is basically a training ground for adventurers maintained by immortals to test and find who's worthy, the not!gods frick up everything which could destroy their toys - not!Egypt sorcerers create a race of strong servants? "Something" goes wrong with the magic and they become ungobernables and topple their masters.
I swear, the harpers are the most memed on thing on /tg/ right now. I do not believe anything anyone here says about them, as some of you seem to clearly have an agenda to conflate them with the real life thing you actually want to hate on. Threads are just outrage-farming.
>I do not believe anything anyone says about them.
Hey frickhead. Google is a tab away, go look it up yourself.
Then when you realize we're giving you the 24 carat truth, come back here cap in hand and tell us what your self-developed opinion of them is then.
>I do not believe anything anyone here says about them, as some of you seem to clearly have an agenda to conflate them with the real life thing you actually want to hate on. Threads are just outrage-farming.
Tons and tons of shit on Ganker fall under that category, lots of thinly veiled threads everywhere.
But a magical fantasy CIA is really cool and funny to me so I don't mind the flanderization, run them over when your horse
everybody knows, but you can't just post a legitimate sincere thread; it'll go to page 10 in like 2 minutes and nobody will respond
you have to act like a bot/shill and post some bait, then MAYBE some anons start a real discussion
They would be immediately crushed by any one of over a dozen ancient, secret, epic-level conspiracies and organisations. Forgotten Realms has nothing on the unstoppable, invincible, unbeatable secret circles and conspiracies of Eberron.
They would devolve into a civil war as some would see how the things they worked to suppress in Faerun actually make the lives of the common folk of Khorvaire much more comfortable and safe while other would point to the mournlands and screech about how they were right all along, and a part would just have a meltdown by seeing orcs as respected shamans/druids, goblinoids b***hing about the glory of their ancient fallen empire (like the elfs back in Faerun) and Elfs worshiping the dead and looking somewhat in favor of necromancy
They are a secret(?) organization of do "gooders" Who's main goal is stopping any single person, group of people or organization from gaining too much power. This can range from stopping the arch lich bonedaddy from getting the crystal codpiece of the sexgods to stopping some bloke in some city from inventing the printing press.
I used to like the harpers before I read the Harper-Novels.
Its like someone predicted CURRENT YEAR SJWs in the 80s and 90s, same energy with the constant self-rightousness and a long history of frickups that have ramifications for everyone for years to come.
>yfw the elven royal bloodline that was in power for millenia was eradicated, half a dozen ancient and powerful High-Elven noble houses were left with no heirs, Evermeet was invaded by the Elf-Eater and the 7th Elven Crown War was nearly started just because a Harper couldnt keep his dick in his pants.
And yet writers perform literal summersaults to claim they are the good guys becase MUH DROW INTRIGUE or MUH ZHENTARIM PLOT or MUH NATIONALISM BAD.
Not even Cyric himself could orchestrate the chaos and strife that the Harpers cause on a yearly scale.
The one that got me the most was the Shadowking Duology. >Starts off with an ex-adventurer being pulled back into business by a hot young harper-girl to save the fricking day >Ends up with him crippled, his illegitimate son cursed with dark magic that'll eventually consume him, his former best friend riding off into the sunset with the harper girl, oh and he discovered that his wife's death which was caused by said former best friend, was basically glorified suicide on her part because she couldn't live with the guilt and shame of their relationship* >All of this because two different harpers didn't know they were acting against each other, and a third was sent in to murder them both to make sure they don't mess with a different zhentarim related plot that was being monitored
*While he was trying to score with the woman he had been courting, she kept turning down the sex and was super shy about it. In his recollection this all came ahead to one night where she rode him hard and then ever since then she'd lay with him but she was never quite as active as she was that night. Turned out the truth was that she had a twin sister who found out his bloodline carried certain magic within it, so to get that magic in her bloodline she raped him in the night, and to make sure the good sister doesn't interfere, she drugged/tied-up said good sister and forced her to watch as the evil sister fricked the boyfriend like a cat in heat. As the good sister was under orders from higher up in the harpers to not let others know about her twin, she had to go along with it and pretend that she did it even though she was uncomfortable with the whole thing.
It was a really weird pair of books.
> Its like someone predicted CURRENT YEAR SJWs in the 80s and 90s,
Would it shock you that they existed for hundreds of years? I remember when feminists were screeching about marriage being rape in the 60s. They aren’t anything new but they are much more visible.
>MUH NATIONALISM BAD >Harpers' entire rationale is acting on the values of their dead nation which in spite of killing itself was the best thing evar and no stinking human country could ever hope to compete
The Harpers in Faerun are like a moronic, self-rightous version of the CIA: Whenever they show up to help someone they make it worse for everyone around.
Its like a fricking parody, lemme just name a few instances:
>long before the time of troubles >Harpers are butthurt about the King of Tethir and the nobles >not because they are corrupt but because they are mean to elves and non-humans >start supporting general in a coup >goes breasts-up and in a matter of weeks nearly all nobles get lynched including the ones on the side of the harpers >Tethir is stuck in a civil war for 30 years because of the power vacuum
Or the shit they pulled in Anuaroch. >Zhentarim want a stable traderoute from the dales to the swordscoast >They try to get both the Bedouin-Tribes and the Asabi-Lizardpeople-mercs native to the desert on their side >Harpers go "oh no we cant have that the Zhents will just oppress them!" >Harpers try to pull a Lawrence of Arabia and fail >Tribes and Lizardpeople start a war against each other that nearly wipes out both
Last but not least: >be lantanese inventor >been dicking around explosive powder and oil >create one of the first firearms in the realms >wow now normal people will be able to go toe to toe with Magic-Users this will change the powerbalance for years to come >harpers blow up the inventors ship, shop and half of the harbour >pat each other on the back that the saved the world because Khelben Blackstaff one of the most powerful wizards in the realms defacto despot of Waterdeep told them that blackpowder is too big of a threat for the realms
>Anauroch
I fricking love how that one was clearly the harpers in the wrong.
Same with when the blockaded Zhentil Keep.
>Zhentil Keep has fallen after the time of troubles >The people of the city actually overthrew the weakened Zhentarim, and forced the cult out of the city >While trying to rebuild from the ruins, a devil in disguise as a human takes over >He hates humans, but hates disorder more so he's actually doing a good job at rebuilding the city to be an orderly place without the Zhentarim being allowed back in (at the time the Zhents had gone NE/CE because Cyric) >Harpers don't want the Zhentarim to have a newly rebuilt power base so they blockade trade, resources, and workers on the way there >City languishes, devil is eventually found out and banished >Zhentarim move in to the weakened/suffering city and easily take it over again because they bring with them power and resources from being criminal buttholes
Whoops!
>Lantan
They were afraid because the inventor was going to sell it to the highest bidder, and what if the Zhents bought it? Though that one was clearly a retcon because 2e FRA clearly said that Guns would be common place by 1372 and then 3e took place in 1372 so they had to retcon that to justify why WotC didn't put guns everywhere.
Its not because in Ed's conception of the realms the Harpers generally are working towards that goal with a slow and steady over the course o centuries mentality. >the harpers help to maintain aristocratic police states like Cormyr, ruled by an absolute monarch puppet by the head of the war wizards
Because Cormyr is more valuable as a long term stabilizing influence and the common folk are mostly fine outside of the designated "here be monsters" areas you need documents to get into anyway. Queen Filfaeril Selazair (Azoun IV's wife) was for all intents and purposes a Harper Agent while being Queen > to council a supremacist terrorist group keen on genocide humans
If your talking about the Eldreth Veluuthra then the logic is that letting them wipe out some villages here and there is better than setting back Elven races relations potentially centuries and that they were manage well enough to never stop any meaningful progress. >suppress any innovation that would push Faerun beyond medieval city states and kingdoms
Because those city states don't go into open conflict against each other that often.
What Ed wants is the end goal but within the Realms the goal is to basically prevent a D&D version of the 30 Years War and slowly shape society towards paradise from the shadows.
And if you see Ed describe NPCs almost universally if they are Good or Lawful oriented the ones your meant to like are basically all Fiscally Smart or Free Spirit Types as a Major feature.
Seriously just watch this and you will see what I mean.
Ed Greedwood's dad was a western glowie in the early cold war so he probably had first-hand stories about the mentality.
Honestly, I don't think deliberate repression of technology is necessary to keep tech progression slow in a highly magical setting like the Forgotten Realms. I can't imagine it'd be easy to figure out the laws of nature when there are so many things around that can easily violate them.
If a thing happen, it's natural
If there are things in the realms that violate the natural laws of out world that only means that the natural laws in the realms are different from our world's, not that it's a violations of the natural laws of the realms universe
A nuclear power plant is just a giant water wheel connected to a giant kettle. The sole purpose of the radioactive material is that it's really hot.
Even if we assume Faerun is composed of the four classical elements and nuclear heaters aren't possible, that's not important. You can stick anything hot in there and the design still works. And Faerun has plenty of hot things. If anything it would be far easier to construct on Faerun than on Earth, since they have access to ultra-durable materials and heat sources that don't require fuel.
*Exactly*. Science and technology are different things. Science is figuring out that nuclear reactions create heat, technology is figuring out that you can use heat to boil water and turn a wheel.
>Honestly, I don't think deliberate repression of technology is necessary to keep tech progression slow in a highly magical setting like the Forgotten Realms. I can't imagine it'd be easy to figure out the laws of nature when there are so many things around that can easily violate them.
The *idea* of a connecting a giant kettle to a wheel has been around for millennia, we just didn't have a way to build one hot enough until science caught up.
Even if you argue that the Elemental Plane of Fire isn't actually where fire comes from, and they don't understand real fire... you don't need to do that to stick a fire elemental in a bottle and then use it to turn the wheels of a carriage.
You still need a way to turn the energy of that turning wheel into electricity, and more than likely they just handwave that spinning a magnet inside a conductor doesn't work the same way it does on earth.
of course this is moot when you can just open a portal to the elemental plane of lightning and skip the whole turbine process to begin with
We're very lucky in this world that 99% of things that we can observe is not chaotic (in chaos theory definition) and converge to something that can be resolved with 1st or 2nd differential equation. Now imagine where everything needs at least 4th or diverge wildly otherwise. Unless you build supercomputer (with what physics??) any fireball you throw might as well be directed by roll of a die
>any fireball you throw might as well be directed by roll of a die
the fact that it isn't shows the FR world isn't fundamentally any more chaotic than our world
But the damage is, isn't it? No wonder that higher level is required to guarantee higher damage. And trying to use it as a consistent input for a hypothetical machine is just asking for trouble
So did pre-TSR Forgotten Realms have gunpowder?
TSR had mandates but it also added whole regions like Kara-Tar or the Moonshae as well, which weren’t in Ed’s original writing.
Allegedly yes it did, which is why Thay has cannons and Lantan eventually got guns.
FR also has steam engines but they've never been used outside if one museum because TSR/WotC is afraid of allowing steam to exist. Except one 2e book has a prototype horseless carriage that uses a steam engine to function
Drow of the Underdark also has magic drow prosthetics, Ed didn't give much of a shit about such things as "technological cohesion".
You can kind of get why TSR had the gunpowder deleted during the 1e era, the gun rules in that edition are only for converting Boot Hill and other TSR games, and only existed to allow Murlynd to exist in Greyhawk. Then 2e went and added the arquebus to the core weapon list, and the Giff in Spelljammer, and all that shit.
>Drow of the Underdark also has magic drow prosthetics, Ed didn't give much of a shit about such things as "technological cohesion".
I do kind of miss the whole "Drow have insane super tech made by idiot savants" that 2e implied.
AD&D 2e Drow of the Underdark.
The section on Drow Artisans, it also has the picture of a Drow woman with a cyberpunk prosthetic arm.
If you mean "does it appear anywhere else", I don't think so. The Menzoberranzan box set references FOR2 for shit like Jade Spiders and spells, but the prosthetics are generally studiously ignored.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>dat art
Is this how Tim Bradstreet started his career?
1 month ago
Anonymous
Good eye, it is Bradstreet.
1 month ago
Anonymous
I also remember that in war of the spider queen there is one guy in book one who got a metal leg/prosthetic but they never go deeper into that
A number of nobles use them as a personal spy network and pay them for it.
Many of them are also murder hobos who donate some or their finds to the group.
The real reason they have almost no presence in the Vilhon Reach and Unapproachable East is because most people in power in those regions don't need to rely on a semi-secret organization to handle their back room matters, so it costs the Harpers money to operate in those regions.
Ironically those regions also show why the Harpers are silly.
The UE has loads of nations who faced the brunt of the closest thing to a World War that Faerun has ever witnessed, and built back from it, each a stable power house in their own right.
Meanwhile the Vilhon Reach has one major nation and a bunch of warring city states that at one point unleashed a super plague that even decades later the area it was unleashed in is still uninhabitable because the disease refuses to die and wipes out all life.
Both examples of nation building and technology happening, vastly different results.
Though the Harpers ate supposed to be nonsense to some degree, their entire philosophy is based around a misunderstanding of an ancient empire that collapsed ages ago, and the belief that everything was better back then, so that by retvrning to tradition, they can be as great as those people.
Of course they forget that the empire was an elven one that treated all other races as slaves or second class citizens, but everyone likes to assume that when the super powerful take over, they'll be one of the super powerful and not just another ant.
You stupid chud bigot! The Harpers are actually a good thing! You're not a Red Dragon Nazi chud, are you? Do DnDrones honestly believe this? Look at the comments in these videos.
I find the concept of an 'enforced stasis' kind of fascinating. Just the scale of humanity locked in a never-ending social experiment replicating Strasser's history pattern is a nightmarish but utterly fascinating thought experiment. It was done particularly well in Judson's Fitzpatrick's War and even Gor's Priest Kings were pretty neat conceptually though the execution left a lot to be desired. Then again, I also liked the Brethren Moons from Dead Space so maybe I have a thing for cyclical civilization cycles.
What's the deal with this gay?
He seems lazy and inconsistent as frick
From the FR wiki:
But it was Oghma's burden to choose which ideas and thoughts would spread and which would fade away with their creator, so that all others would not be in jeopardy. Resting heavily in his heart were the experiences of millennia and hence in this duty he was serious, firmly protective, and deeply cautious.[3][8][9][10][11][12] He favored a doctrine of ideological conservatism and sticking strictly to the status quo, rather than risking a rogue idea disrupting the delicate balance of knowledge he had been preserving since history began.[11]
Oghma post-Time of Troubles.[31]
KNOWLEDGE MUST BE FREE TO TRAVEL WHERE IT IS DESIRED.
Yet after the Spellplague, something changed in Oghma. He was still the judge of ideas and innovations, choosing which would be remembered and forgotten, but the Lord of Knowledge could not stand the suppression of any original thought, regardless of whether the consequences were good or bad. He thrived on ideas, especially new ones, and the sharing of knowledge in all its forms.
All that talk of Mystra... what do you think of picrel? Honestly I'm only annoyed that he gets the ambition portfolio as if no one has it while Bane rules over it
He's ugly and unlikable.
I thought he'd be my fav since I'm a sucker for wizards and generally enjoy romance in videogames, but I couldn't stand him and so far haven't done any romance in bg3 at all because they all gross me out somehow.
I feel the devs probably didn't care too much about the math.
Same thing with Astarion being a 39 years old high elf but being in some position of power. > B-but they age same as humans! The 100 years thing is just cultural!
gay explanation, we know he was meant to be a human, clearly they didn't care about changing anything regarding him to make him seem more elven other than describing him visually as an elf.
And with Gale it's obvious that we were meant to see Mystra as a groomer. Consider what Minsc said, and the whole "my parents didn't get me a cat so I summoned my own!".
I have no idea how true it is, but I know I was reading people saying that the devs initially cared a lot more about Realmslore than current WotC does, but WotC required loads of random changes here and there to fit their current version of the setting, which is for example why the events of 4th edition are basically nonexistent despite the fact that would be like people from now not talking about anything that happened between 1920 and 2020, but being obsessed with shit that went down in 1900 and 1910 (though also not caring that much about shit from the 1800s)
WotC is just being a responsible employer.
You wouldn't allow your children near a freak like Greenwood.
Likewise they don't allow their cherished employees near him.
>Hasbro has essentially forbidden their writers from asking him shit about Realmslore. >be WotC writer >have sibling >have sibling join Candlekeep forums >feed sibling questions for Ed
Wow guys, looks like Ed wrote something wacky on Candlekeep again, too bad those are all canon posts and we have to respect them haha.
Mystra is a groomer, it's just not been made that plain before. Gale wasn't the first, and he won't be the last. She groomed Elminster too, and Sammaster, and many more. She also groomed her eugenics program daughters, but I don't THINK she fricked them.
The greatest litmus test of if someone is either
A women
Or
Has gotten all their Lore from BG3
If they have only gotten lore from BG3 then they likely have negative connotations about Mystra and think positively on his ascension. If they are a Women they also think that Mystra is a abusive evil gaslighter and Gale did nothing wrong.
She's a terrible goddess, you don't need BG3 to dislike her.
did they fix the ending where if you play as him and want to become a god you get btfo by mystra and if he's an npc he managed to do it?
Also I think of all the gods he's the gaygiest >You see I won't do anything in particular to help, except boast my exploits to inspire you! If I, a prodigal since infancy wizard, who managed to frick mystra over more in more ways than one because she happens to like me and my natural born talents, became a GOD!... surely you can achieve something good too! 😀
he get's btfo if he tries to become the god of magic, but manages it if he becomes the got of ambition... who then offers his followers nothing but encouragement and a "great example"
he isn't even taking shit from bane he is just using the crown of karsus to power himself up and says he is a god now and everyone should follow his example while he is not gonna do anything from now despite all of his compaining during the game that gods don't do shit because well suprise suprise gods have rules they have to follow,
but gale is also a butthole about it because if i understood him right he won't even grant spells to his clerics
he also does not even have bane on his radar despite trying to steal his portfolio (if bane didn't get killed by jergal in the ending) and depending on your choices in game he is also manipulated by rapheal and thinks that the devil can't do anything to him because he is a god
really the good ending for gale is to have mystra fix his orb problem and then become a happy teacher in waterdeep
well raphael is far from the top of the totem pole. He's just a powerful cambion who managed to climb the ladder.
Plus Gale now plays with "the devil he knows" in a game of cat and mouse
1 month ago
Anonymous
oh yeah rapheal isn't any better than gale when it comes to hubris, but gale still shouldn't be so confident because of his status as he has zero followers in a setting where gods need prayers and is only a god because of a artefact that if he loses it he might just explode because the only reason he isn't exploding during the game is because mystra has his back again after act 2 which she won't anymore if he ascends with the crown
1 month ago
Anonymous
If I believe the ending, Gale already has followers. I don’t know if it’s by virtue of existing or simply interacting with them. Plus temple(s?) being built in his name.
As far as we know he doesn’t need the crown anymore, but with his whole ambition schtick he won’t give it away. You’ll have to take it from him. Which he does to Raphael. Only bad thing is that the Karsite Weave is still a thing and is still feeding on the Weave. Mystra can’t decide to stop supplying it to everyone, or bar anyone from it like Gale, which means that if she ever dies again or the orbs starts consuming more than Mystra can repair… well, if he was a nuke before, now he’s a world ender in the making.
Perhaps that’s why Ao lets him ascend. Gale will become the force that wipes the slate clean.
>he isn't even taking shit from bane he is just using the crown of karsus to power himself up and says he is a god now and everyone should follow his example while he is not gonna do anything from now despite all of his compaining during the game that gods don't do shit because well suprise suprise gods have rules they have to follow,
lmao that legit sounds like Azuth Reloaded
The greatest litmus test of if someone is either
A women
Or
Has gotten all their Lore from BG3
If they have only gotten lore from BG3 then they likely have negative connotations about Mystra and think positively on his ascension. If they are a Women they also think that Mystra is a abusive evil gaslighter and Gale did nothing wrong.
Nah, Mystra is a b***h
I've thought this ever since Helm b***hslapped her on Ao's orders for her breaking the rules and got demoted from being a greater deity because of it
Mystra believed her own hype.
Most gods do.
Midnight was a b***h for trying to stop people from using magic for evil purposes.
Its canon that common people in the Realms are notoriously intolerant of anything new or magical outside of the major cosmopolitan cities. Not like lynching tier but more in anything that doesn't have multiple generations of positive precedence is Not Welcome.
The way Ed describes it is that every Farmer has heard a few stories about outside influences getting involved in another guys life and it causing mass destruction and suffering and so fear the new intensely, better the devil you know and all that.
This mans that the main people who will take advantage of all those new advancements are the types of ambitious asshats which crave power.
I like that early FR actually addressed racism to a certain degree. >First Waterdeep book talks about how orcs/ogres can get jobs sweeping the streets or moving furniture and other shit like that, even if people don't trust them >Meanwhile first book to describe Baldur's Gate properly mentions that there's a bounty on half-orc scalps, because down south they don't fricking play.
I never heard anything about Harpers before. When I see it in the movie and try to read further, I immediately dislike them. This is the "good guys" faction??
I need harper haters to say something bad about the actual bad organizations in the setting >zhentarim >church of bane (theres lots of evil churches but bane seems to be the big one) >red wizards
The bad thing is that they are never allowed to succeed at anything and are treated as the butthole in the locker you bring out to slap him around a few times before you put him back into the locker until you have need of him again.
Just look at Szass Tam, Sammaster or Manshoon, from 3E onwards they were turned into Saturday Morning Cartoon villains.
WotC is just being a responsible employer.
You wouldn't allow your children near a freak like Greenwood.
Likewise they don't allow their cherished employees near him.
Yes yes we get it, you dont like Ed because he fricked your mum when you were a wee little kid, whatever.
Personally I think we do need more people like Ed in writing unhinged shit because otherwise fantasy either becomes stale or you give birth to something like the New-Weird-Movement type of writing that reddit adores.
Ed's magical realm is comparable to the existence of 4chins in that regard, yes you have to wade for miles through shit but when you find something good it blows your mind and stay with you for years.
Hell even Ed dislikes what Wizards did to the Big Villains of the setting as in his mind adventuring in the realms shouldn't go past like exploring a crypt or taking down the local crime boss that's actually a monster.
And to tie this all back in that's what the Harpers are there for in terms of gameplay.
When the bard at the inn tells your adventuring party about the slave ring two miles away from town and is willing to pay you to take care of it, when a player asks how they know all of this and have the money, the underlying lore is that the Bard is a Harper Agent using the players to solve a problem. Which leads into future quest hooks or intrigue.
Second goddess of magic (first Mystra) sounds like an absolute piece of shit >groomed Azuth, Savras and Elminster. >didn't give a shit when Azuth imprisoned Savras but just kept enjoying her boytoy. >possessed some sorceress in order to prostitute around and use said sorceress' body to give birth to seven daughters >fricked over her chosen Aloevan by making her mad, killing her and trapping her soul. >fricking full of herself until her death >handpicked another moronic prostitute, Midnight, indirectly leading to Midnight becoming her successor
Do the opposite of anything a Harper instructs you to. Subvert all Harper plans. Expose all members of the Harpers.
Wasn't the main character of Honor Among Thieves a Harper?
Yes. And when he was arrested for stealing and sent to prison, the Harpers let him rot and moved on.
He robbed one of their vaults for personal gain
>HarperBlack folk glow in the dark, you can see them in your carriage. You just run them over, that's what you do.
Deep in the thread now, but I want you to know I laughed.
Your response?
Inb4 bans horse archers
Fixed your link for you.
That's not really the rebuttal Ed Greenwood thinks it is. If you invent something, then you have a monopoly on it, at least until someone else copies it. Under this protocol, the only way you can keep technology is to share it with everyone, including your enemies, and most nations aren't down for that. Real-world technological development leads to arms races, but the Harpers put a stop to that, so what you're left with is stasis. The Harpers may not expressly desire that, but the outcome is the same.
>but the Harpers put a stop to that
They try. If you manage to succeed all the time, in very single nation, is up to the dm and the kind of story/ world he wants to present. They cant be everywhere at once, with the nessecariy resources to get the job done. And the nations and powers in question also have a word in the matter
>up to the GM
No fricking shit you worthless waste of protein, but we're not talking about what you do at your table, we're talking about the canon interpretation that Greenwood came up with, and it's moronic because of the way technology proliferates (very quickly) and the way empires are built using said technology. Also, the implication that empires are automatically net generators of misery is also fricktarded.
So Harpers are the FR version of Globohomo?
Correct.
They are literally anti-globohomo. That's their whole thing. Just a bunch of pissy banites and red wizards ITT.
>Anti-globohomo
>Infiltrate every single human civilization to force them uphold the ethos of a dead elven kingdom
yes, an elven kingdom which was anti-globohomo
it wasn't anti-globohomo, just elven supremacist
Ed himself said in one of his videos that the elfs themselves invited humans, dwarfs and other races to do the lesser jobs before getting the brilliant idea of opening portals to the abyss so they could demons to do their dirty work
>They are literally anti-globohomo.
They are the globohomiest of globohomos possible to homosexual globally in all of the Forgotten Realms, anon, what the frick are you on about? They're quite literally a glowie self-insert type thing.
empires are globohomo, especially ones with superior technology
globohomosexual loves slavery, lowered quality of life, the removal of knowledge/history/lore/etc, it loves to make everybody the same/no culture of your own
what do harpers stand for?
now try to twist this truth, little lawful-evil cuck
them why the british empire went out of it's way to abolish slavery, translate, study and spread oriental history, lore and history into the west ?
and when this "no culture of your own" came up ?
the harpers only work to keep the status quo, prevent technological, magical and cultural advancement, protecting criminal safe havens from their neighbours, block commerce and cover elven crimes against all other races
>defending the british empire
ok then
yeah, they did a few good thing in their run
things that may have seemed good at the time, but time has proven to be bad choices
I agree. Frick the British!
No, you don't understand, the British Empire was so great that over sixty countries have a national holiday celebrating no longer being a part of it. That's, like, a record.
nobody said it was perfect or all good, only that it did some good things for humanity
Savages often think like that.
>empires are globohomo
Yes, they are, generally speaking. And the Harpers are effectively imperialists, especially in the cultural sense. They recognize no national borders, work to increase their own influence and power, follow the (pseudo-historical) doctrine and ideology of a literal dead imperial city-state, and actively sabotage attempts to deviate from the globohomosexual status quo that they enforce, all while maintaining a hypocritical opinion of their own moral superiority.
It seems he's trying to justify why they let the printing press from Waterdeep go unabated, as they shared the technology with anyone who wanted it, while they fricked with guns.
However I wonder how much of it he actually believes in, given in interviews he said the only reason there's no gunpowder in Faerun is because TSR had a mandate against it at the time of publishing which suggests Thay having cannons was an oversight that no one noticed until too late, and when he did add Smokepowder it was because that mandate was taken away, he wanted to make room for Spelljammer guns, and Greenwood hates retcons so he avoids them whenever possible.
Greenwood is a total glowie apologist, it's one of many reasons to hate him
His father was one, and one of his players is in Canada's foreign intelligence service. He's deep in that area by association if nothing more.
>tfw the realms were a piece of glowie propaganda all along
This is the sort of idiocy that somebody who doesn't understand history believes. Because history is a long chain of somebody developing something, monopolising it, and then it getting out until everybody has it. Case in point for recent history, the US built an atomic bomb first, but it didn't take that long before plenty of other nations did it too. No technology ever remains exclusive. So the Harpers still, simply put, engage in active subversion of history and stalling progress for their own ends.
...If they're so opposed to monopolies why don't they just use their espionage network to spread said technology to everyone else instead of stifling it?
because its a fantasy setting that has to appear somewhat vaguely medieval with some modern shit in its products, not some magitech science fantasy one that is unrecognizable to the IP
Not sure if Greenwood is moronic or if he intentionally wrote the Harpers as being moronic. The Pax Romana was the longest-lasting peace of antiquity, and it was a direct result of Rome advancing from Republicanism to Imperialism.
I'm not an imperialist by any measure, I'm a nationalist, but saying that "no successful empire builders as it causes misery for all" is a patently false statement even at face value. Also, the ability to derive success from individual technological advancement, a result of advancements in law in the early renaissance, directly lead to the dissemination of knowledge and engineering, which had previously been hoarded and guarded in families or guilds (and then subsequently lost time and again).
He says a lot of words here but the fact of the matter is that he could've simply said "Yes".
>Not sure if Greenwood is moronic or if he intentionally wrote the Harpers as being moronic
To use your own simple answer: Yes.
For a more complicated one: Greenwood is part of that particularly braindead branch of the hippy-dippy movement that believes any power or dominance is inherently evil and that if everyone were equal then no one would ever raise hand against another and we'd all just fall back to sitting in a great big circle beating each other off to the words of John Lennons Imagine remixed to the soundtrack of Kumbaya.
I mean he all but says it, 'Any technological advantage is going to immediately be used to conquer/oppress de facto', as if the tipping of the scales of power between, say, the Red Wizards of Thay and Neverwinter isn't a good thing.
>B-but people will die when they're killed in the ensuing wars (of liberation from wizard tyrants) and that's bad
Yeah, what's really bad totes isn't the several thousand peasants killed every year by rando demons, it's the idea that anyone would become advanced enough to stop such things. Am I right lads?
The Harpers, conceptually, are one of the worst possible groups of people out there, because if they'd had their way then way back at the dawn of time they'd have bricked the first fricker to learn to light fire for playing god, then sat in the cold, dark cave as the wolves closed in feeling smugly superior about having 'saved us all from the real danger'.
They've the mindset of luddites combined with the smarmy self-justification of the elite.
Now admittedly, he does have a point that organizations absolutely need to restrict the power of rampant technological oppression (see: the entire modern world) but there are also better ways of doing it.
>rampant technological oppression (see: the entire modern world)
there's no such thing harpBlack person
The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
lol, check out this moron-
He's typing out his pinko, neo-luddite opinion on a product of industrial innovation.
>t. harper
Go hug a tree.
>They've the mindset of luddites combined with the smarmy self-justification of the elite.
Easily done when they canonically have the backing of a few gods and some of the most powerful beings in the setting
They are the elite. They are the literal incarnation of every "renewables billionaire" demanding that renewable energy be underwritten, denying advancement for others while relaxing on top of their pyramid of moral superiority.
>they'd have bricked the first fricker to learn to light fire for playing god, then sat in the cold, dark cave as the wolves closed in feeling smugly superior about having 'saved us all from the real danger'.
how can you live in current year +9 and still think things are better now than in the stone age?
>I'm not an imperialist by any measure, I'm a nationalist, but saying that "no successful empire builders as it causes misery for all" is a patently false statement even at face value.
This tbqh, the British Empire made the world a tremendously better place for billions of people.
nope
The Indian widows who are no longer burned alive at their husbands' funeral pyres might disagree with you. Though plenty of Africans are still pissed at the British from that time when the Brits forced them to abolish slavery, so it's not like the Empire was perfect.
You will never have someone who loves you enough to die rather than live without you and you never will. Admit your jealousy, wegro.
Absolutely deranged and seething post
we should have adopted this custom instead of getting rid of it
>This tbqh, the British Empire made the world a tremendously better place for billions of people.
This, as Israel is doing to Palestine right now 🙂
This isn't the rebuttal you think it is as far as Harpers are concerned. The Harpers, canonically, cover up evidence of atrocities such as mass murder committed by the organisation known as Eldreth Veluuthra ("Victorious Blade of the People"), a group of elves who genuinely believe that the human race needs to be exterminated. Genocided, specifically.
>as far as Harpers are concerned
Who? The British empire are a moral good
>human race needs to be exterminated. Genocided, specifically.
I mean, if you look at faerun, humans are clearly gigaBlack personisraelitespics
elves are the "whites" of the setting and they're right, imo
Destroying Hammas will make live in Gaza, and in the whole region better for everyone and it is a moral good as was the dismanteling of the african slave kingdoms done by the British
Good riddance. You savages are posting online using Israeli electricity, Israeli cell towers, Israeli fiber optics. If they wanted to genocide you they'd just turn everything off and end you in the dark.
They're idiots trying to fight a moral war. War isn't moral. But it's funny when the mud-dwelling apes who cheered on September 11th get their mud huts bulldozed.
Don't forget his air conditioning, two-day shipping, microwave... It's never just using the enemy's tools against him, it's enjoying his comforts until you are your worst enemy.
hows that working out?
Well India still hasn't returned to burning widows alive so I'd say at least some of Britain's civilizing influence stuck!
thats a true statement
but its not good; its led to more indians existing
well, I can't say that for my area
we're definitely better off
>killing bad people is wrong
Assassins are never good. Soldiers on the otherhand are rarely evil.
Harpers are assassins though.
such masterful trolling in this thread
I almost feel compelled to applaud
An asassin is just a soldier for a specific task.
That’s like saying a person that takes care of potted plants is a farmer.
>but its not good; its led to more indians existing
kek
bad people is wrong
A guild of assassins doesn't just kill people once or twice or three times. They're a group of people on hand for the explicit purpose of murdering people their clients want dead.
As a general rule, the longer the list of people that need to be killed to make the world 'a better place', the more likely it is that's a nominative goal, and the real target is power.
Hence, assassins either know their charter is bullshit and they're evil, or they believe it and they're chumps.
>know their charter is bullshit
what if their charter isn't bullshit ?
If you need a covert secret elite murdering people for the good of the world and they are both entirely justified and always occupied, your setting is officially grimdark.
Yes, even if that setting is reality.
I'd rather my ancestral city be back under british colonial control than what it is now.
>Perfidious Albion hands typed this post
He's unironically right.
>British is good
The only thing the English are good at is being the Platonic ideal of what a subhuman degenerate is.
Who would’ve thought bringing up the biggest & most powerful empire in the history of humanity would make so many people so upset…
that would be america, chief
>guild of assassins
sorry, we were just talking about assassins
Why do I get the impression you have bad teeth?
I hate anglos so much its unreal.
>t. Argentinian
Argentina, the only country with grievances with Britain.
Wrong.
Half of Europe hates you for convincing the Yanks to leave Stalin alone.
anglos created america and by extension Ganker so everything they did was a disaster for humanity
He almost always gives Realms information from the perspective of people in universe.
That's clearly supposed to be the way the Harpers see things.
>The Pax Romana was the longest-lasting peace of antiquity
It's funny that you believe that. It's funnier that it may indeed be true for that shithole of putrescent anuses called Europe.
>The Harpers are Chaotic Good and dedicated to tearing down monopolies
Remember that guy who railed against Big Magic and tried to publish an open-source alternative which could end world hunger? The Harpers tortured him.
There was also the time Volo tried to make magic accessible for all. Elminster and the Harpers turned him into a statue and rolled back everything he disseminated by scorched earth and burning books.
One thing that I never understood is why the churches of the lawful Gods, an even some chaotic Gods, tolerate Harpers to begin with
At least Gond, Waukeen and Lathander should be some of their main enemies
working to make magic less accessible don't go against the creed of Mystra ?
It does, however, go against what Ed says about them being against monopolies. Unless their end goal is to get rid of all magic for some reason.
Mystra's "creed" doesn't mean shit. This is the same goddess who considers the literal fricking wizard Gestapo of Cormyr to be a shining example of how all the world should be.
She is "neutral good" only because Greenwood says she is, and he doesn't know what the alignment chart means, By her actions, both current and prior incarnations, she is somewhere between lawful and neutral Evil, capital E.
I loved Mystra taking L after L and getting fisted by Ao in the Cyric books. She and her gay little friends put Cyric on trial in Cynosure for being a butt-head and Ao put a stop to it and called her a moron because Cyric was acting within the mandate of his divine portfolio by being a huge dick and neck-knifing all their clerics and friends.
Cyric is my favorite character in Greenwoods imagination and he keeps getting done dirty by the weenies who write the sourcebooks but he’s dunked on the gods many times and I love reading about it.
Far and away the best FR books
puhleeze
those old books are SHIT
making of a mage, elfshadow, dissolution, forsaken house, and homeland are the best
For me its the Finders Stone Trilogy.
Alias my beloved!
>Finder Wyvernspur literally designed Alias from scratch
>gave her giant breasts
Based.
>in 1357 DR there were dozens of her Lookalikes running around in the Realms
Anon
The true creed of Mystra is "you will suck her (or her chosens) breasts, you will drink their milk, you will live in a mudhut and you will be happy"
Volo's magnum opus was based on him befriending and copying the secrets of various wizards across the realms, studying their methods, and making them easier and accessible to anyone and everyone who wanted to learn magic.
While for many people this didn't achieve much, since if you're not inborn with a spark of magic no amount of mumbo jumbo will give you magic (in FR), for some of the early ones who got it, it led to horrible shit happening since there's a reason they don't teach apprentices the words to a fireball spell.
Once these wizards found out what Volo had done, they took a crusade against him to torture/destroy/etc him.
Elminster's interference is why Volo still lives (which as Greenwood would later reveal, Elminster being protective of Volo is because Volo is a walking, talking macguffin, whose true backstory is still under NDA due to a never finished Volo RPG back in the 90s), but part of his torture included curses that made it so he could never rewrite the book fully, and there are even some words/sentences he can never say.
All known copies have been destroyed.
As for Mystra's creed, she wants magic to be more accessible, but not if it means the destruction of loads of people thanks to it going fricking wild.
Also new mystra is a c**t. Mystryl was best goddess of magic.
>Oh you see, only special pre aproved people can learn thing because it might be DanGerouS
>Everyone will starting throwing fireballs and fingers of death because the aren't subservient to us enlightened wizards
sounds like a cope for gay wizards holding monopoly over knowledge
>you are only allowed to have spells if you use them exactly as I demand, and if you do otherwise I will have my army of personal epic-level minions destroy all your work because only my way is allowed
How is this b***h not Lawful Evil. She's a fricking dictator that would make Bane himself get rock hard.
Depends of what Mystra.
Mystryl was chill all things considered then she died and the world went to shit became of Karsus's Folly and so when Mystra came into being she capped magic and decided that the best way forwards is to slow roll out low level magic (think this of the tier of light or prestidigitation).
Then she tried fricking over her followers to try and become a god again early during the Time of Troubles and got killed by Helm for it.
This leads to Mystra 2 AKA Midnight, a follower of Mystra that became the new Mystra after the aforementioned incident with helm. She has only a few decades of experience on the job due to being trapped in a bear for 4e and the worst thing she has done is doing a Xanatos Gambit to destroy the Shadow Weave which caused the Spellplauge to happen.
Ed revealed the Volvo is kept alive because he is a Weave Anchor (Individual or object Mystra tied the weave to so the Weave doesn't get immediately blown up is she dies again) but nobody wants to actually let him know because he would be so insufferable about it.
Elminster is his primary baby babysitter because nobody really wants the job so it kinda defaults to him.
>tied the weave to so the Weave doesn't get immediately blown up
If the thing is so stupidly volatile then maybe Mystra needs to be blown up so we can go back to everybody being able to use magic normally. Like when 4e happened, the Weave went away... and everybody picked themselves up and figured how to do magic without begging permission from a goddess who can't keep her head on straight.
The Weave is easymode spellcasting for normies, which makes magic more common, which empowers Mystra which is probably why she created it. It's a GUI compared to the command line casting of other D&D settings like Greyhawk or Planescape. Those have fewer casters total but a higher quality of high-level ones. A 17th level Greyhawk wizard is busy bending time, achieving immortality or trying to steal god's powers, while a 17th level Faerun one is casting moderately bigger fireballs.
>Also new mystra is a c**t. Mystryl was best goddess of magic.
Both suck. Imagine being a wizard in a world where your ability to cast spells depends on a deity that dies every few years. Might as well start using the shadow weave instead, it's less fickle
>Might as well start using the shadow weave instead, it's less fickle
Better off going off-grid, i.e. learning psionics. Sure there's some effects that just don't work without infrastructure, and you have to deal with everyone in Faerun calling you a new-age hippy and an X-Man, but you do get a lot of fine control.
Mystryl was around for ages and only died because she went so hard libertarian that a mage found the break reality spell and used it.
Mystra was a b***h but changed the rules to make sure that doesn't happen again, and was around for over 1000 years before Helm punched her in half for being a b***h who thought she was above Ao's rules.
Midnight shows why elevating humans to gods is a shitty idea even if they are allegedly good people, since she keeps bringing her feelings and politics into things until the other gods smack her down for it.
Mysrtyl was always hard libertarian in term of magic and worked for thousands of years, much better than Mystra, who barely manage a thousand years without being destroyed
>Might as well start using the shadow weave instead, it's less fickle
You moron. That's just the in-between spaces in the weave. If the weave goes, so does the shadow weave.
>That's just the in-between spaces in the weave
No, it's an off brand weave created by goth mommy dommy Shar
Anon.
That's the shadow weave.
Google is your friend.
This is why Wild Mage used to be a giant frick you to Mystra.
>Oh you want to take my magic then I will just be a walking nuke literally tearing holes into the weave because frick you!
I mean
The harpers in bg3 were a bunch of homosexuals so I don't think the /tg/ interpretation is far off
everything in bg3/5e is homosexualry
that doesnt count
Does Ed not realize he basically wrote the Harpers to be Reapers, but bards instead of squid robots?
In practice, they're closer to the least flattering depictions of the Catholic Church who stifle innovation or political independence from them out of an increasingly questionable motive that the ways of the parent civilization their organization survived were the only "right" ones.
They're a bardic Inquisition.
I wonder how much his love of the harpers is linked to his father himself being involved with glowies
So it's Harrison Bergeron with magic? Except for Elminster of course, but self-inserts get special privileges.
>The Harpers want peacetime by trying to keep folks as equal as possible.
Aren't most of the nations in the Forgotten Realms ruled by an unelected monarch?
Most nations in Faerun aren't nations.
They're mostly city-states that have loose alliances with one another.
One of the nations that the Harpers support above all, to the point that the queen is a Harper sleeper agent, is the Orwellian nightmare known as Cormyr. They consider it a shining beacon of what the world could be like if "more people would let themselves be guided".
Why Cormyr is the Orwellian nightmare? I have rather basic knowledge of the realms, but Cormyr seemed like a prosperous and stable kingdom with some reins on murderhobos.
>military service used for policing
>war wizards are literally Gestapo thought police (and will regularly brain scan anybody they suspect, and if you are warding your thoughts then you can be arrested, after all if you were innocent you wouldn't have anything to hide RIGHT ANON?)
>the commoners love the king, and you had better do it too or they will report you to the police, who are the military for unpatriotic actions
>by the way, the military are allowed to search you upon request at any time, for any reason
>you happen to be a wizard entering the country? Time to register, incidentally registering means you are officially a reservist war wizard and can be conscripted at any time
>and if you're a warrior entering the country all weapons are peace bonded so they can't be drawn, tampering with said weapons is arrest and imprisonment
>oh, adventurers are exceptions... except you need proof of status which is a Charter, and all those are exclusively made by the war wizards, and uses fricking magical ink and parchment so that the names of anybody written on said Charter can be auto-tracked at ANY time by ANY war wizard, FOREVER (and wherever you are on the planet)
>any/all retired army will work as unofficial official espionage for the king, you never quit the Company
>the head of the Gestapo, I mean war wizards, is also the official court mage and is responsible for guarding the royal family, by the way he regularly checks and edits the memories of the royal family to make sure that everything is in order
>courts and judgements are exclusively the province of the Crown and Gestapo
>no innocent until proven guilty clause
>the Chosen of Mystra are aware of all this and actively go out of their way to support it
Is there any word on how this affects their foreign relations, like at all? Like how their wizards abroad are conscripted just because they pass through? Or how foreign travellers might be killed by monsters or bandits because they cant draw their bonded arms quick enough? Or how a foreign state tracks their people with these contracts? Like if you´re a travelling lord of Gauntlgrym or a respected scholar of Silverymoon with connections back home
The last time a respected anything of Silverymoon was shown visiting Cormyr, it was a female half-elf ambassador that the king promptly railed.
Officially monsters and bandits are dealt with by the military. If not, well, accidents happen and according to the average Cormyrean it's a good thing that the military is coming to handle those reports of bandits and monsters in the region.
Most wizards are also smart enough to not go into Cormyr. The ones who do are powerful enough that they can evade the detection and sweeps (or get help in evading them if they are Harpers), and in a small handful of cases are simply strong enough archmages that the war wizards can't bring them down without mass casualties.
That also being said, in every single novel Greenwood writes there's at least one or two scenes where a dozen or even dozens of war wizards get blown up in mass spell casualty events. The attrition rate just based on his books alone in the organisation must be fricking horrifying, so they're probably conscripting them as fast as they can find them.
Heheh, it's funny to me everyone is afraid of Paladins enacting a theocratic Lawful Good police state when it was in fact the Wizards' doing.
You forgot that Cormyr does not allow major religious faiths to be established with royal or noble support. In fact it actively works to marginalise any and all deific influence. Why? Because that might give more support to a faith than to the state.
Literally the only things keeping Cormyr from going full shithole is that the royal family are basically the most lawful Good people ever and that all the noble houses are afraid of looking bad in front of each other and losing status because they all want to take the crown for themselves.
Can't be too "Good" if they're happily leading an oppressive police state.
Azoun IV was literally classified as Lawful Good
And the Harpers are allegedly Chaotic Good. They aren't.
Ontological Definitions supersede player morality when talking about the lore of a setting.
Cope
well, thats not quite true
the harpers as an organization are mostly neutral, Id say
they're "any non-evil"
elminster and the seven sisters are largely CG
bards tend to be chaotic (more CN than CG)
rangers tend to be chaotic good
a lot of the founding deities are chaotic good (iirc)
elves are chaotic good (though frankly the way ed and elaine write them I cant really agree with that)
but if you read about harpers in the campaign setting books, theres a lot of non CG people and ideas
its a police state with state wizards who do all kinds of spying and mind-frickery on its citizens
its indefensible; im not sure why greenwood made it that way other than to give it a realistic downside so its not a 100% goodguy kingdom
Cormyr deals with a lot of shit. Demons, dragons, evil wizards, all of them go out of their way to kill or control the royal family, usually while devastating as much of the nation as possible. Pretty understandable that they're paranoid as frick when you realize they've come close to annihilation a bunch of times and it's frequently the same old-ass wizard who's hopped up on life extending magic who has to deal with it. Plus the nobility are insufferable c**ts constantly scheming against the crown and each other and think it's just fine if the nation is burned down as long as they move up a rank afterwards.
Or let it fall and something better might rise in its place. Sembia is right next door and it gets along fine without an actual thought police patrolling it.
But Anon, Sembia are capitalist merchants and those are le bad
they are also racist against elfs just because they got apprehensively attacked by elfs in the past and occasionally by the Eldreth Veluuthra, and this is also le bad
Tethyr is also occasionally racist against elves because it got attacked by them repeatedly, and they too get along mostly fine.
Calimshan also got attacked by elves (dark ones) and it gets along fine despite racism against elves now.
NO ANON
You can't be fine unless you suck up to the elfs, the harper way
Sembia is only fine because for the vast majority of its history it was the designated "This is the place for GMs to put something" zone.
>Cormyr deals with a lot of shit. Demons, dragons, evil wizards
So does everyone else
Cormyr being a police state evolved from Greenwood coming up with ways to railroad his players
Most other nations presumably do some similar things at least sometimes to handle the never-ending supply of evil cults and bbegs with magic macguffins
Practically every Greenwood novel as a really poorly implemented coup attempt or riot by nobles
>Cormyr being a police state evolved from Greenwood coming up with ways to railroad his players
Glad to know he's a moron at the table too
>ummm bad things could happen so that's why you can't have rights and you have to live in this wizard police state.
If Mystra wasn't an incompetent tit about getting people to sign up to her vision of magic then maybe there'd be fewer of one, plausibly two, possibly even all three of those things.
>the nobility are insufferable c**ts constantly scheming against the crown and each other
Pretty sure there was an entire novel about this, and the grand plan of the nobles masterminding it was to get rid of the royals, and remove royalist supporter nobles because those wouldn't be trustworthy if it was successful anyway, and then have the nation run by a council and committee so nobody could have absolute power like the royal family had been engaging in with their army and war wizards for centuries.
>Plus the nobility are insufferable c**ts constantly scheming against the crown and each other
HOW?
Based. Frick empires.
>t. the neck under the boot
Be the boot.
Be neither, and kill all boots
So you’ll have a nice day?
pilpul
this Ed guy is a moron, I think I will actively ignore his moronic fetishist setting
>Drains the heat from your entire planet to fuel a star.
Spelljamming is commonplace in Forgotten Realms.
Nope.
Spelljammers cannot fly in Toril's Crystal Sphere and when they get to close they turn into very sparkly looking meteors as they crash into Toril.
Which is why even during the height of Netheril the Netherese had a Spelljammer port on one of the Tears of Selune (not on Selune itself tho because the Selunearians just like the Moon Rabbits in 2hoe are a bunch of israelites)
It is something that is however conveniently forgotten by writers just like the Wall of the Faithless tend to be.
>Spelljammers cannot fly in Toril's Crystal Sphere and when they get to close they turn into very sparkly looking meteors as they crash into Toril.
Is this some WotC cope to erase Spelljammer from 3e? Realmspace was one of the core spheres in real Spelljammer, along with Greyspace and Krynnspace.
Not to mention Stardock.
wait, there wasn't a piece of lore about Waterdeep having a law that spelljamers and other flying ships should land in the water before approaching the city and port like regular ships ?
elaborate
I'm just going from memory, but I swear that used to be something on that line in 3e
There is.
The guy talking about spelljammers crashing is talking out his ass.
One of the big rumors from the Shining Sea book is about how a spelljammer ship came down, and now a bunch of Giff mercenaries with guns are active in the area.
Greenwood and Grubb were good friends, so when Grubb wrote up Spelljammer (despite a few higher ups at TSR hating it), Greenwood specifically made changes to the setting to accommodate Spelljammers
>you are talking out if you ass because the Spelljammer-Lore is a mess
Yeah okay buddy.
>One of the big rumors from the Shining Sea book is about how a spelljammer ship came down, and now a bunch of Giff mercenaries with guns are active in the area.
One of the creation myths in the Evermeet-Book is also how the only native elves were the Drow-Ancestors and High/Moon-Elves originally came from outside of Realmspace.
>Greenwood and Grubb were good friends, so when Grubb wrote up Spelljammer (despite a few higher ups at TSR hating it), Greenwood specifically made changes to the setting to accommodate Spelljammers
>despite a few higher ups at TSR hating it
Was it even Grubb? I remember another dude being involved whose name I cant remember-
And there was a big rub because from what I remember they forced whatshisname to set it in the Netheril-Era when he didnt want to.
If you look at some of early Spelljammer-shit when it was still in the Dragonzines and before it was published as its own thing you will notice some big discrepancies.
The Spelljammer-Shit has probably more retcons and rewrites over the years than them trying to make Zakhara or Double-Japan fit the Realms.
Its a total mess which is why there is so much contradictory shit.
If Spelljammers were common why would they need normal ships or even trade-caravans?
If Spelljammers were around in Realmspace wouldnt every Fortress or Castle have some magic Anti-Air-Defense system like Evermeet?
Yes it is a total mess. Thats my point.
>Was it even Grubb? I remember another dude being involved whose name I cant remember-
Grubb got his name on the box set as Designer, but there are six other Developers, one guy listed as Spiritual Guidance, and the foreword says that even the illustrator and cartographer were involved in coming up with ideas.
Spelljammer seems to have been a collaborative design effort between half the design studio.
>Cannot fly into Toril's Crystal Sphere
>Crash into Toril
That's a loooong fricking distance, given Realmspace is like 8 or 9 planets that have Spelljammer travel between them.
I love Ed.
I really do.
I love his writing, I love the way he fleshes out characters, I love his way of storytelling.
And I do love the Realms.
But pretending that whenever Harpers get involved things dont go from bad to worse after reading nearly all FR-Novels is just wild to me.
>Vilhon Reach
>Emerald Enclave start a campaign where they day Harpers are actually worse than Thayans
>Enough Harpers turn up dead on the streets that Harpers stop showing up in the region at all
>Region has been improving ever since
Neat except for the part where Harpers actively suppress Information about the Emerald Enclave or Eldreth Veluuthra existing.
His storytelling is barely even readable though, the man can't keep hold of a plot thread to save his life.
Give him a break, he don't have a consistent supply of tit milk and whipings for Ao knows how long
elminster: making of a mage
doesnt have that problem; its actually a really good book and you can tell it was a passion project for him
I agree the rest just aren't much good
I would love to see some Harpers starting to figure out how much shit their organization caused and that they might also be the badies
They starting a plot to 'reform' the Harpers or create a parallel counter Harper gayops organization, but keeping with the alleged spirit of what the Harpers should be, would be an interesting story to read
oh you mean the moonstars?
>oh shit, our enemy is using guns against us! we hate guns!
>well we better not use guns against them
incoherent analogy
only because you're a brainlet
no u
>the moonstars
what they do to counter harper shenanigans
I dont know
I never wanted to read about them, cuz frick khelben
Nothing, they're just Harpers who actively sign up to moral ambiguity rather than drinking the kool aid.
Like someone in this thread pointed out some of the late TSR-Stuff and FR-novels felt like they were building towards the Harpers getting some sort of comeuppance with how some of the Harper-Cells were working against each other/competing with each other and even Elminster, Laeral and Khelben started to distance themselves from the Harpers with Khelben even creating his own version, the Moonstars, because he thought that the Harpers were bogged down too much with internal politics.
Even early WOTC stuff pointed in that direction until 5E where Harpers are back to being unambiguously portrayed as the good guys despite the same shit as during 2E.
Elminster and the Justice League of Mystra regularly quit the Harpers. They've done it like 3 times.
Reminder that Elminster in 5e has quit the Harpers AGAIN and is now literally running the secret police and FBI/CIA of Waterdeep. While Laeral is ruler of Waterdeep.
and yet they never drop their hammer on the Harpers and always return for more gayops
They quit and wait for the Harpers to collapse, then rebuild it to do what they want. Then when it inevitably goes rogue (because it is literally a fantasy version of the CIA except without oversight to stop it) they quit and wait for it to collapse before coming back to rebuild it.
Although you'd think they could try and build it right the first time. Nobody ever said wizards were competent. Nobody EVER accused Mystra of being competent either.
>CIA except without oversight
>Nobody EVER accused Mystra of being competent either.
Thats comes with being a woman.
We wouldnt even have this issue if Azuth, Velsharoon or Savras stepped up to finally replace her.
But Azuth is a Mystra-simp who happily watches her rail other mortals, Velsharoon is autistic and Savras is a Doomer.
Azuth would be a horrible replacement for that exact reason.
Oghma or something would have been better. Savras might be interesting. Or just removing the "magic god" position entirely.
At this point it would be best to even have Mystryl pull a Amaunator and come back to b***h slap Mystra
They could even excuse it too.
The Time Magic book for AD&D mentions that Mystryl being Goddess of Time in addition to magic knew everything and anything before it happened, and just chose not to interfere with it.
However if you attempt time travel, you actually end up in her domain, because she has to judge whether you're allowed through or not, and give you the quick run down on temporal paradoxes.
So she still exists, just she exists outside of time, because she refuses to interfere with the fact that she's technically dead.
>Something Something Mystra fricks up again
>Ao facepalms, he had enough
>Ao go to Mystry, who is busy lecturing some random time traveler, and tell her to move her fat ass and fixed that shit
>Mystryl is forced to return to Faerun
>Get really mad when she sees up close what became of magic on her absence
>Since this is Hor- Forgotten Relms, Mystryl end up in a catfight and doms Mystra, using the weave itself to bondage Mystra and Assuming the post as top magic milf
>She also forces Azuth to watch for reasons
>Azuths face when
The only true replacement was Karsus.
But he was done dirty and sabotaged by that conniving b***h at the very last moment.
Karsus realized he couldn't handle the power and so gave it up before things got worse.
>believes the propaganda
ngmi
The truth of the matter is that Ed by his upbringing envisions an ideal world as one wherein is a conflictless, egalitarian, free love society, guided by a bunch of Small Time Honest Tradesmen/Yeomen and Clever but Good Hearted Merchants, conduct good faith trade with each other.
Anything that denies this world is mostly viewed as a negative or perversion.
So his ideal is the exact opposite of what the Harpers help to maintain and what they want to bring about
prove it
the harpers help to maintain aristocratic police states like Cormyr, ruled by an absolute monarch puppet by the head of the war wizards, to council a supremacist terrorist group keen on genocide humans and suppress any innovation that would push Faerun beyond medieval city states and kingdoms
That's the opposite of Ed's presumed "ideal world" according with that Anon
Its not because in Ed's conception of the realms the Harpers generally are working towards that goal with a slow and steady over the course o centuries mentality.
>the harpers help to maintain aristocratic police states like Cormyr, ruled by an absolute monarch puppet by the head of the war wizards
Because Cormyr is more valuable as a long term stabilizing influence and the common folk are mostly fine outside of the designated "here be monsters" areas you need documents to get into anyway. Queen Filfaeril Selazair (Azoun IV's wife) was for all intents and purposes a Harper Agent while being Queen
> to council a supremacist terrorist group keen on genocide humans
If your talking about the Eldreth Veluuthra then the logic is that letting them wipe out some villages here and there is better than setting back Elven races relations potentially centuries and that they were manage well enough to never stop any meaningful progress.
>suppress any innovation that would push Faerun beyond medieval city states and kingdoms
Because those city states don't go into open conflict against each other that often.
What Ed wants is the end goal but within the Realms the goal is to basically prevent a D&D version of the 30 Years War and slowly shape society towards paradise from the shadows.
And if you see Ed describe NPCs almost universally if they are Good or Lawful oriented the ones your meant to like are basically all Fiscally Smart or Free Spirit Types as a Major feature.
Seriously just watch this and you will see what I mean.
get it through your thick fricking skull, subhuman, the only good world is one where I have power over all the goyim and have all the modern amenities I could ask for!
>Because Cormyr is more valuable as a long term stabilizing influence
that curiously takes the form of an authoritarian police state
> the common folk are mostly fine outside of the designated "here be monsters" areas
so they are in place outside Cormyr, and without dealing with a burocratic police state
>ueen Filfaeril Selazair (Azoun IV's wife) was for all intents and purposes a Harper Agent while being Queen
I know and that make it even worse
>letting them wipe out some villages here and there is better than setting back Elven races relations potentially centuries
and you know what would be even better for the elven relations with the other races ? if they denounced terrorists and move to wipe them out
the elfs, along side with the harpers, not doing that and going a step beyond to cover them up only proves that they don't give a frick about the lives of humans and other non-elf races
If the elfs need a secret organization covering up their crimes, maybe they don't deserve good relations with the other races
>What Ed wants is the end goal but within the Realms the goal is to basically prevent a D&D version of the 30 Years War
where did he ever said this ?
>slowly shape society towards paradise from the shadows.
and yet all they do is to keep it stagnant and prevent innovations that would turn the live of the common people less shitty while leaving their area of influence much more vulnerable to more organized outside forces
All the Harpers ever do is to keep the realms in a less stable position and more stagnant, fricking the common folk
Harper apologist deserve the rope
>If the elfs need a secret organization covering up their crimes, maybe they don't deserve good relations with the other races
Not really related to you frickers' discussion, but I found it interesting when it came to the hellgate keep nonsense.
>One house of elves is so into eugenics they start experimenting with mixing elf blood with other races to see the results
>Through experiments and magic they make stable super elves with demonic powers but still (mostly) elven bodies, with the best one looking like a perfect elf save for her wings and red skin, but she has demonic super strength among other things
>Other elves find out about this
>Other elves also find out that quite a lot of these experiments are (literally) in their infancy still, but have shown signs of even more improvements, and some of them also aren't spontaneously turning evil despite the demon blood
>All signs of this experiment need to be shut down, every man, woman, and child in the house, from the house, or even married to someone from the house need to be exterminated, and all records of this need to be destroyed and buried
>Elf 1: What if there are survivors or some curses caused by this mess and people need to know about it to combat it?
>Elf 2: That sounds like the talk of someone who wants to be exterminated, this never happened and that elven house never existed
Makes one wonder how many times that kind of shit happened
Its canon that common people in the Realms are notoriously intolerant of anything new or magical outside of the major cosmopolitan cities. Not like lynching tier but more in anything that doesn't have multiple generations of positive precedence is Not Welcome.
The way Ed describes it is that every Farmer has heard a few stories about outside influences getting involved in another guys life and it causing mass destruction and suffering and so fear the new intensely, better the devil you know and all that.
This mans that the main people who will take advantage of all those new advancements are the types of ambitious asshats which crave power.
the actions of the Harpers, blocking progress are what ensures that attitude to remain the standard among common folk and that idea of being ambitious making you into an proto-tyrant asshat is laughable
>that idea of being ambitious making you into an proto-tyrant asshat is laughable
Its true in the realms.
The Realms at least as Ed sees them is a bunch of slackjaw luddites who would fear fire if not for the historical precedent, managed by a bunch decadent nobles who outside of handful of "the good ones" inspired by Arthurian Legend, care more about their own power and prestige, while the clergy are all a bunch of selfish buttholes also jockeying for their own power and prestige for them and their god.
Anyone who tries to rise above this for the sake of themselves is being greedy about it and must be stopped.
Or they are an Outsider faction to this order and seek to pillage and ravage the simpleminded folk of the "Good" areas.
It is only via slow deliberate planning and subterfuge that this mass of offal called civilization can be shaped into something better without risking large scale war that would progress things at the cost of short term mass death and large scale destruction of nature.
Look at Ilmater the god of being able to bend over and take it and keep going afterwards is a Lawful Good Deity, in fact he is 1/3rd of the Traid, a group of Lawful good deities which if all worshiped equally and fully turns someone into a fricking Superpaladin
Its a fantasy world as a 20th century glowie would see it made by the son of such a glowie.
You can criticize it however you like but within the internal logic of the setting, divorced from outside influence, the Harper's are closer to ontological good than evil.
As for adventurers they are generalized as either Free Spirits who first and foremost want to experience the world, forced into it out of duty, or are selfish dickbags who want power and prestige.
And out of those the Adventure for the sake of Adventure is portrayed as the most noble.
>Its true in the realms
There's nothing that points towards it
>The Realms at least as Ed sees them is a bunch of slackjaw luddites who would fear fire if not for the historical precedent,
1. Death of the author
2. Differnt people from different places in the realms have wildly different positions, what you said is applicable to the people of the Dalelands and Cormyr, but hardly to Halruaa or Lantan
Most of the realms aren't inspired by Arthurian legends, only Cormyr is
>Anyone who tries to rise above this for the sake of themselves is being greedy about it and must be stopped.
Again, no were in the lore this is stated
or would you believe that every merchant on Sembia is Evil
>It is only via slow deliberate planning and subterfuge that this mass of offal called civilization can be shaped into something better without risking large scale war that would progress things at the cost of short term mass death and large scale destruction of nature.
nowhere in the lore is this even implied
>Look at Ilmater the god of being able to bend over and take it and keep going afterwards is a Lawful Good Deity, in fact he is 1/3rd of the Traid, a group of Lawful good deities which if all worshiped equally and fully turns someone into a fricking Superpaladin
and that means nothing as there are many other Lawful Good Deities that are much more militant and not as pacifistic as Ilmater
>within the internal logic of the setting, divorced from outside influence, the Harper's are closer to ontological good than evil.
No they aren't, no matter how you try to spin it
1. We are talking about a setting that despite multiple different authors is mostly made by one guy and that bleeds into his work.
2.How many of those places are also depicted as The Other? Someplace like Thay certainly is and with how little we have on it Lantan is also.
Halruaa got blown up and it people for decades were anti magic and are only recently starting to use it again while keeping it at an arms length https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t56Az0HNQXM&t=1s
Like I said most nobles are dickheads and the ones that aren't are mostly Round Table inspired. If you wanted to catch me out you could of brought up the various city states which are also ruled by greedy dickheads for the most part.
>or would you believe that every merchant on Sembia is Evil
Yes?
Sembia is a derisive view of America by a free love hippie Canadian. Most of the time they are massive buttholes. Outside of Miklos how many Sembians have done anything positive? Meanwhile it seems like their biggest import is fricking evil plots to "acquire" someone else territory. There is a reason the Netherese took their asses over as they did. (And their is a difference between glowie mentality and burger mentality).
>nowhere in the lore is this even implied
Myth Drannor is viewed by the narrative as a good place to be at its height. The Harpers seek to make the world align more with Myth Drannor and align with its principles in their political policy.
>and that means nothing as there are many other Lawful Good Deities that are much more militant and not as pacifistic as Ilmater
But how many of them are in a Triad with two other LG Gods that makes their followers into Superpaladins which get boosted powers and Threefold Smite.
>No they aren't, no matter how you try to spin it
Then why are they typically classified as Chaotic Good?
I don't even like the Harpers personally but you acting the same as the people who declare all FR Gods are evil because of The Wall of the Faithless.
>Sembia is a derisive view of America
ha
I always thought the dalelands were colonial america and sembia was britain
Yeah Ed mentioned it in the early days of the patreon.
Cormyr was based off of Arthurian Brittan and fantasies of knights riding horses between giant tress while Sembia is based off America.
fricking *canadians*
as if I needed more reasons to dislike them
>Its a fantasy world as a 20th century glowie would see it made by the son of such a glowie.
And that's a good thing, much like Jack Vance's background as a sailor shaped his books. Harpers are good enemies for a mid-level party to get caught up with, have frenemy relationships spiral out of control, and ultimately dunk on. They have the perfect glowie spirit of "my character sheet claims CG, I pretend to be LN, I'm actually CN, and my friends are rapidly slipping into NE."
very good post
Oh my god at first I wanted to call you a luddite but I think you might be onto something.
This puts so much shit in the realms into context its scary.
Just take Karsus Folly which funnily enough is seen by scholars as cautionary tale that man shouldn't covet the divine in the Realms when you theory could also see it as a man desperately grasping at straws to save his people and his realm from destruction by interdimensional magic vampires that the oversaturation of magic in his realm brought forth.
It even explains why Mystryl chose not help the Netherese in their time of need.
You blew my mind.
They still commit the cardinal sin of sacrificing innocents for their greater good. They're the personification of "kill an orphan today and donate to a hundred tomorrow" that only works if you assume alignment works like it does in a video game where sacrificing enough black unicorn corpses absolves you of murdering a neutral trading caravan.
And that's why the Harpers have collapsed and been rebuilt 3 times already, they view that shit as necessary but over time, it causes a karmic buildup for lack of a better word and the organization is purified through blood and reborn as its founders return and reassert its core tenants.without actually doing much to fix the underlying problems.
lawful evil confirmed
assmad banites talking shit about the harpers
To be fair, being an ambitious asshat is how the Harpers' parent civilization died, and elves are smarter than YOU, so what makes YOU think you would do any better than they would? No, better to slowly sculpt FR back into their ideal paradise, no matter how many humans have to die to make it happen. After all, they only live a century if that even, when they're not furthering Elvish goals they're busy dying just by standing around.
Myth Drannor died because the Gold Elves were right all along.
>maybe we shouldn't use moonblades to decide who is or isnt worthy to lead
>most functioning moonblades are now in moon-elf hands; multiple goldelf dynasties were literally ended by trying to find worthy successors for moonblades
>maybe we shouldn't let non-elves into myth drannor
>myth drannor is now a ruin
>maybe we shouldn't let those weird human refugees of the fallen magic empire into our lands just because they helped us against the dragons
>nearly all former elven empires now have human kingdoms on top of them
>maybe we shouldn't mingle with silver-elves
>moon-elf is now the monarch of all elves and it starts the great retreat
yeah but whi- uh, I mean, gold elves are bad
Gold elves made peace with the Moonies' bad decisions and now live in their hidden village where they get to bone angels once a year and make beautiful angel-elf children.
I can get behind that.
Also if I recall Elaine say on candlekeep that the Moonblades by their nature are oriented towards Moon Elf Ideology
Yes thats the best part.
The Moonblades are essentially a psy-op to get rid of the Sun Elf Ruling class. Notice how many of them only stopped roasting heirs to Sun Elf Dynasties when some of them started mingling with Moon Elves.
Then notice how elves most closely working with the Harpers are Moon Elves.
Its like a fricking Eugenics project.
Moonblades were always a power play, the guy who pushed it and created them made and replicated his own consciousness into the blade's choosing power, and he actively did not believe anybody other than a moon elf should be allowed to be king. Surprise, guess what fricking happened, especially after half the gold elf noble houses had their heirs obliterated in the very first creation ceremony of the moonblades. It was unironically a five thousand year keikaku by a moon elf to take control of the elven race.
Other blades made with high magic, blessed by Corellon and more than a SINGLE moon elf frick as their choosing method, have regularly picked worthy gold elves. The King's Sword that decided the ruler of all Cormanthor? Three of the eldest high mages gave all their lore and knowledge to help create that sword. They had no problems picking a gold elf if he was worthy.
Meanwhile, moonblades automatically deny purely on the basis of "moon elves only frick off".
Don't forget that gold elves opposed engaging with Harpers. The moon elf royals did, and then because one Harper couldn't keep his dick in his pants the king of Evermeet was assassinated, the Elf-Eater attacked and ate half the island, and the only heir to the elven nation ran away, fricked a human, and had a half-elf spawn who is now, by birthright, heir to the throne of the elves.
I'm starting to believe that the drow were right all along and surface elves suck
Say what you will about the Drow being evil but at least they never started to cuck themselves
>letting them wipe out some villages here and there is better than setting back Elven races relations potentially centuries
Jesus Christ mane.
How does this not sound Capital E evil to you.
>letting them wipe out some villages here and there
This is Evil. If the elves want to not have people hate them, then they should own up to and handle their shit. Otherwise it's just tacit support for the genocide-happy.
Cool now I have an entire organization ready to kill and destroy any wheelchair and wheelchair user
Note he doesn't say they aren't fricking stupid.
>invent printing press to more easily spread knowledge and information to the masses
>get shanked by a bunch of magic glowies
Printing press is specifically one of the things the Harpers allowed because the inventors in Waterdeep spread the technique around for everyone to use.
>Hmmm, this weird mold seems to be able to repel bacteria, maybe I should take some and-*THWACK*
HYTNPDND, gigasatan?
Frick off to your containment threads.
Reminder to always kill Isobel and turn the ~~*harpers*~~ into zombies in BG3
Harpers are super gay and lame.
I know someone who has Harper in their online handle in an obvious reference to this organization. They are a literal disgusting troony with Dunning-Kruger that is off the charts.
oh, an underrail complainer
go back to vrpg and stay there
What?
Mystara had a funnier explanation for the status-quo. As the world is basically a training ground for adventurers maintained by immortals to test and find who's worthy, the not!gods frick up everything which could destroy their toys - not!Egypt sorcerers create a race of strong servants? "Something" goes wrong with the magic and they become ungobernables and topple their masters.
I swear, the harpers are the most memed on thing on /tg/ right now. I do not believe anything anyone here says about them, as some of you seem to clearly have an agenda to conflate them with the real life thing you actually want to hate on. Threads are just outrage-farming.
>I do not believe anything anyone says about them.
Hey frickhead. Google is a tab away, go look it up yourself.
Then when you realize we're giving you the 24 carat truth, come back here cap in hand and tell us what your self-developed opinion of them is then.
>right now
>I do not believe anything anyone here says about them, as some of you seem to clearly have an agenda to conflate them with the real life thing you actually want to hate on. Threads are just outrage-farming.
Tons and tons of shit on Ganker fall under that category, lots of thinly veiled threads everywhere.
But a magical fantasy CIA is really cool and funny to me so I don't mind the flanderization, run them over when your horse
everybody knows, but you can't just post a legitimate sincere thread; it'll go to page 10 in like 2 minutes and nobody will respond
you have to act like a bot/shill and post some bait, then MAYBE some anons start a real discussion
If a branch of the Harpers were transported to Eberron, where would they end up? Would they try to free the Overlords?
They would be immediately crushed by any one of over a dozen ancient, secret, epic-level conspiracies and organisations. Forgotten Realms has nothing on the unstoppable, invincible, unbeatable secret circles and conspiracies of Eberron.
They would devolve into a civil war as some would see how the things they worked to suppress in Faerun actually make the lives of the common folk of Khorvaire much more comfortable and safe while other would point to the mournlands and screech about how they were right all along, and a part would just have a meltdown by seeing orcs as respected shamans/druids, goblinoids b***hing about the glory of their ancient fallen empire (like the elfs back in Faerun) and Elfs worshiping the dead and looking somewhat in favor of necromancy
redpill me on harpers anon, I've never been big on forgotten realms.
OP said everything you need to know
HarpBlack folk glow in the dark, run them over with a chariot, that's what you do
They are a secret(?) organization of do "gooders" Who's main goal is stopping any single person, group of people or organization from gaining too much power. This can range from stopping the arch lich bonedaddy from getting the crystal codpiece of the sexgods to stopping some bloke in some city from inventing the printing press.
I used to like the harpers before I read the Harper-Novels.
Its like someone predicted CURRENT YEAR SJWs in the 80s and 90s, same energy with the constant self-rightousness and a long history of frickups that have ramifications for everyone for years to come.
>yfw the elven royal bloodline that was in power for millenia was eradicated, half a dozen ancient and powerful High-Elven noble houses were left with no heirs, Evermeet was invaded by the Elf-Eater and the 7th Elven Crown War was nearly started just because a Harper couldnt keep his dick in his pants.
And yet writers perform literal summersaults to claim they are the good guys becase MUH DROW INTRIGUE or MUH ZHENTARIM PLOT or MUH NATIONALISM BAD.
Not even Cyric himself could orchestrate the chaos and strife that the Harpers cause on a yearly scale.
The one that got me the most was the Shadowking Duology.
>Starts off with an ex-adventurer being pulled back into business by a hot young harper-girl to save the fricking day
>Ends up with him crippled, his illegitimate son cursed with dark magic that'll eventually consume him, his former best friend riding off into the sunset with the harper girl, oh and he discovered that his wife's death which was caused by said former best friend, was basically glorified suicide on her part because she couldn't live with the guilt and shame of their relationship*
>All of this because two different harpers didn't know they were acting against each other, and a third was sent in to murder them both to make sure they don't mess with a different zhentarim related plot that was being monitored
*While he was trying to score with the woman he had been courting, she kept turning down the sex and was super shy about it. In his recollection this all came ahead to one night where she rode him hard and then ever since then she'd lay with him but she was never quite as active as she was that night. Turned out the truth was that she had a twin sister who found out his bloodline carried certain magic within it, so to get that magic in her bloodline she raped him in the night, and to make sure the good sister doesn't interfere, she drugged/tied-up said good sister and forced her to watch as the evil sister fricked the boyfriend like a cat in heat. As the good sister was under orders from higher up in the harpers to not let others know about her twin, she had to go along with it and pretend that she did it even though she was uncomfortable with the whole thing.
It was a really weird pair of books.
Is this real?
yes
It is, yes. That's an abbreviated account, but it's what happens.
> Its like someone predicted CURRENT YEAR SJWs in the 80s and 90s,
Would it shock you that they existed for hundreds of years? I remember when feminists were screeching about marriage being rape in the 60s. They aren’t anything new but they are much more visible.
>MUH NATIONALISM BAD
>Harpers' entire rationale is acting on the values of their dead nation which in spite of killing itself was the best thing evar and no stinking human country could ever hope to compete
wait a minute...
The self-appointed good-guy-squad are hypocrites?!
How could this happen?
The Harpers in Faerun are like a moronic, self-rightous version of the CIA: Whenever they show up to help someone they make it worse for everyone around.
Its like a fricking parody, lemme just name a few instances:
>long before the time of troubles
>Harpers are butthurt about the King of Tethir and the nobles
>not because they are corrupt but because they are mean to elves and non-humans
>start supporting general in a coup
>goes breasts-up and in a matter of weeks nearly all nobles get lynched including the ones on the side of the harpers
>Tethir is stuck in a civil war for 30 years because of the power vacuum
Or the shit they pulled in Anuaroch.
>Zhentarim want a stable traderoute from the dales to the swordscoast
>They try to get both the Bedouin-Tribes and the Asabi-Lizardpeople-mercs native to the desert on their side
>Harpers go "oh no we cant have that the Zhents will just oppress them!"
>Harpers try to pull a Lawrence of Arabia and fail
>Tribes and Lizardpeople start a war against each other that nearly wipes out both
Last but not least:
>be lantanese inventor
>been dicking around explosive powder and oil
>create one of the first firearms in the realms
>wow now normal people will be able to go toe to toe with Magic-Users this will change the powerbalance for years to come
>harpers blow up the inventors ship, shop and half of the harbour
>pat each other on the back that the saved the world because Khelben Blackstaff one of the most powerful wizards in the realms defacto despot of Waterdeep told them that blackpowder is too big of a threat for the realms
>The Harpers in Faerun are like a moronic, self-rightous version of the CIA
So, the CIA
Nah. That would be the FBI. The CIA and SAD/SOG are more openly morally ambiguous.
>Anauroch
I fricking love how that one was clearly the harpers in the wrong.
Same with when the blockaded Zhentil Keep.
>Zhentil Keep has fallen after the time of troubles
>The people of the city actually overthrew the weakened Zhentarim, and forced the cult out of the city
>While trying to rebuild from the ruins, a devil in disguise as a human takes over
>He hates humans, but hates disorder more so he's actually doing a good job at rebuilding the city to be an orderly place without the Zhentarim being allowed back in (at the time the Zhents had gone NE/CE because Cyric)
>Harpers don't want the Zhentarim to have a newly rebuilt power base so they blockade trade, resources, and workers on the way there
>City languishes, devil is eventually found out and banished
>Zhentarim move in to the weakened/suffering city and easily take it over again because they bring with them power and resources from being criminal buttholes
Whoops!
>Lantan
They were afraid because the inventor was going to sell it to the highest bidder, and what if the Zhents bought it?
Though that one was clearly a retcon because 2e FRA clearly said that Guns would be common place by 1372 and then 3e took place in 1372 so they had to retcon that to justify why WotC didn't put guns everywhere.
Ed Greedwood's dad was a western glowie in the early cold war so he probably had first-hand stories about the mentality.
Honestly, I don't think deliberate repression of technology is necessary to keep tech progression slow in a highly magical setting like the Forgotten Realms. I can't imagine it'd be easy to figure out the laws of nature when there are so many things around that can easily violate them.
If a thing happen, it's natural
If there are things in the realms that violate the natural laws of out world that only means that the natural laws in the realms are different from our world's, not that it's a violations of the natural laws of the realms universe
A nuclear power plant is just a giant water wheel connected to a giant kettle. The sole purpose of the radioactive material is that it's really hot.
Even if we assume Faerun is composed of the four classical elements and nuclear heaters aren't possible, that's not important. You can stick anything hot in there and the design still works. And Faerun has plenty of hot things. If anything it would be far easier to construct on Faerun than on Earth, since they have access to ultra-durable materials and heat sources that don't require fuel.
Nobody said people can't figure out how to heat up water, the frick are you on about?
*Exactly*. Science and technology are different things. Science is figuring out that nuclear reactions create heat, technology is figuring out that you can use heat to boil water and turn a wheel.
>Honestly, I don't think deliberate repression of technology is necessary to keep tech progression slow in a highly magical setting like the Forgotten Realms. I can't imagine it'd be easy to figure out the laws of nature when there are so many things around that can easily violate them.
The *idea* of a connecting a giant kettle to a wheel has been around for millennia, we just didn't have a way to build one hot enough until science caught up.
Even if you argue that the Elemental Plane of Fire isn't actually where fire comes from, and they don't understand real fire... you don't need to do that to stick a fire elemental in a bottle and then use it to turn the wheels of a carriage.
You still need a way to turn the energy of that turning wheel into electricity, and more than likely they just handwave that spinning a magnet inside a conductor doesn't work the same way it does on earth.
of course this is moot when you can just open a portal to the elemental plane of lightning and skip the whole turbine process to begin with
We're very lucky in this world that 99% of things that we can observe is not chaotic (in chaos theory definition) and converge to something that can be resolved with 1st or 2nd differential equation. Now imagine where everything needs at least 4th or diverge wildly otherwise. Unless you build supercomputer (with what physics??) any fireball you throw might as well be directed by roll of a die
>any fireball you throw might as well be directed by roll of a die
the fact that it isn't shows the FR world isn't fundamentally any more chaotic than our world
But the damage is, isn't it? No wonder that higher level is required to guarantee higher damage. And trying to use it as a consistent input for a hypothetical machine is just asking for trouble
kino
So did pre-TSR Forgotten Realms have gunpowder?
TSR had mandates but it also added whole regions like Kara-Tar or the Moonshae as well, which weren’t in Ed’s original writing.
Allegedly yes it did, which is why Thay has cannons and Lantan eventually got guns.
FR also has steam engines but they've never been used outside if one museum because TSR/WotC is afraid of allowing steam to exist.
Except one 2e book has a prototype horseless carriage that uses a steam engine to function
Drow of the Underdark also has magic drow prosthetics, Ed didn't give much of a shit about such things as "technological cohesion".
You can kind of get why TSR had the gunpowder deleted during the 1e era, the gun rules in that edition are only for converting Boot Hill and other TSR games, and only existed to allow Murlynd to exist in Greyhawk. Then 2e went and added the arquebus to the core weapon list, and the Giff in Spelljammer, and all that shit.
>Drow of the Underdark also has magic drow prosthetics, Ed didn't give much of a shit about such things as "technological cohesion".
I do kind of miss the whole "Drow have insane super tech made by idiot savants" that 2e implied.
Sounds neat. Is there anywhere in particular this is referenced?
AD&D 2e Drow of the Underdark.
The section on Drow Artisans, it also has the picture of a Drow woman with a cyberpunk prosthetic arm.
If you mean "does it appear anywhere else", I don't think so. The Menzoberranzan box set references FOR2 for shit like Jade Spiders and spells, but the prosthetics are generally studiously ignored.
>dat art
Is this how Tim Bradstreet started his career?
Good eye, it is Bradstreet.
I also remember that in war of the spider queen there is one guy in book one who got a metal leg/prosthetic but they never go deeper into that
>The self-destructive society that literally only exists because of constant divine micro-management is less harmful to progress than the Harpers
So, who finances the Harpers? Money has to come from somewhere.
A number of nobles use them as a personal spy network and pay them for it.
Many of them are also murder hobos who donate some or their finds to the group.
The real reason they have almost no presence in the Vilhon Reach and Unapproachable East is because most people in power in those regions don't need to rely on a semi-secret organization to handle their back room matters, so it costs the Harpers money to operate in those regions.
Ironically those regions also show why the Harpers are silly.
The UE has loads of nations who faced the brunt of the closest thing to a World War that Faerun has ever witnessed, and built back from it, each a stable power house in their own right.
Meanwhile the Vilhon Reach has one major nation and a bunch of warring city states that at one point unleashed a super plague that even decades later the area it was unleashed in is still uninhabitable because the disease refuses to die and wipes out all life.
Both examples of nation building and technology happening, vastly different results.
Though the Harpers ate supposed to be nonsense to some degree, their entire philosophy is based around a misunderstanding of an ancient empire that collapsed ages ago, and the belief that everything was better back then, so that by retvrning to tradition, they can be as great as those people.
Of course they forget that the empire was an elven one that treated all other races as slaves or second class citizens, but everyone likes to assume that when the super powerful take over, they'll be one of the super powerful and not just another ant.
Nice quints BTW
You stupid chud bigot! The Harpers are actually a good thing! You're not a Red Dragon Nazi chud, are you? Do DnDrones honestly believe this? Look at the comments in these videos.
Same energy as
>We're a guild of assassins
>But we only ever kill, like, bad people, we promise
All assassins are evil until proven chumps
If the Harpers were really good they would be conspiring to turn Faerun into medieval anacapistan
I find the concept of an 'enforced stasis' kind of fascinating. Just the scale of humanity locked in a never-ending social experiment replicating Strasser's history pattern is a nightmarish but utterly fascinating thought experiment. It was done particularly well in Judson's Fitzpatrick's War and even Gor's Priest Kings were pretty neat conceptually though the execution left a lot to be desired. Then again, I also liked the Brethren Moons from Dead Space so maybe I have a thing for cyclical civilization cycles.
So what's their equivalent of Waco?
It seems like theres a big disconnect between what the setting books say and what the novels say.
Awesome thread. Thanks guys, sometimes /tg/ doesn't suck.
What's the deal with this gay?
He seems lazy and inconsistent as frick
From the FR wiki:
But it was Oghma's burden to choose which ideas and thoughts would spread and which would fade away with their creator, so that all others would not be in jeopardy. Resting heavily in his heart were the experiences of millennia and hence in this duty he was serious, firmly protective, and deeply cautious.[3][8][9][10][11][12] He favored a doctrine of ideological conservatism and sticking strictly to the status quo, rather than risking a rogue idea disrupting the delicate balance of knowledge he had been preserving since history began.[11]
Oghma post-Time of Troubles.[31]
KNOWLEDGE MUST BE FREE TO TRAVEL WHERE IT IS DESIRED.
Yet after the Spellplague, something changed in Oghma. He was still the judge of ideas and innovations, choosing which would be remembered and forgotten, but the Lord of Knowledge could not stand the suppression of any original thought, regardless of whether the consequences were good or bad. He thrived on ideas, especially new ones, and the sharing of knowledge in all its forms.
Being forced to walk in Faerun as a mortal avatar made him realize how much stagnation sucked
Why didn't he sort out the shit with his very divided church?
> Walking as a mortal
> Spent all his mortal time as a domestic cat
All that talk of Mystra... what do you think of picrel?
Honestly I'm only annoyed that he gets the ambition portfolio as if no one has it while Bane rules over it
Everything about that was moronic since they just made him Azuth 2.0 but with more melodrama
He's ugly and unlikable.
I thought he'd be my fav since I'm a sucker for wizards and generally enjoy romance in videogames, but I couldn't stand him and so far haven't done any romance in bg3 at all because they all gross me out somehow.
Isn't he the one who b***hes about mystra coming to him in his youth even though Mystra wasn't even around until like 6 years before the game starts?
I feel the devs probably didn't care too much about the math.
Same thing with Astarion being a 39 years old high elf but being in some position of power.
> B-but they age same as humans! The 100 years thing is just cultural!
gay explanation, we know he was meant to be a human, clearly they didn't care about changing anything regarding him to make him seem more elven other than describing him visually as an elf.
And with Gale it's obvious that we were meant to see Mystra as a groomer. Consider what Minsc said, and the whole "my parents didn't get me a cat so I summoned my own!".
I have no idea how true it is, but I know I was reading people saying that the devs initially cared a lot more about Realmslore than current WotC does, but WotC required loads of random changes here and there to fit their current version of the setting, which is for example why the events of 4th edition are basically nonexistent despite the fact that would be like people from now not talking about anything that happened between 1920 and 2020, but being obsessed with shit that went down in 1900 and 1910 (though also not caring that much about shit from the 1800s)
And to add insult to injury it was implied by Ed Greenwood that Hasbro has essentially forbidden their writers from asking him shit about Realmslore.
So some go behind Hasbro`s back and follow him with sockpuppet accounts on twitter or join his patreon to ask questions anonymously.
WotC is just being a responsible employer.
You wouldn't allow your children near a freak like Greenwood.
Likewise they don't allow their cherished employees near him.
>Hasbro has essentially forbidden their writers from asking him shit about Realmslore.
>be WotC writer
>have sibling
>have sibling join Candlekeep forums
>feed sibling questions for Ed
Wow guys, looks like Ed wrote something wacky on Candlekeep again, too bad those are all canon posts and we have to respect them haha.
Mystra is a groomer, it's just not been made that plain before. Gale wasn't the first, and he won't be the last. She groomed Elminster too, and Sammaster, and many more. She also groomed her eugenics program daughters, but I don't THINK she fricked them.
She's a terrible goddess, you don't need BG3 to dislike her.
did they fix the ending where if you play as him and want to become a god you get btfo by mystra and if he's an npc he managed to do it?
Also I think of all the gods he's the gaygiest
>You see I won't do anything in particular to help, except boast my exploits to inspire you! If I, a prodigal since infancy wizard, who managed to frick mystra over more in more ways than one because she happens to like me and my natural born talents, became a GOD!... surely you can achieve something good too! 😀
he get's btfo if he tries to become the god of magic, but manages it if he becomes the got of ambition... who then offers his followers nothing but encouragement and a "great example"
so yeah that's not gonna last long
So he takes Bane's ever shrinking domain and shows nothing for it?
he isn't even taking shit from bane he is just using the crown of karsus to power himself up and says he is a god now and everyone should follow his example while he is not gonna do anything from now despite all of his compaining during the game that gods don't do shit because well suprise suprise gods have rules they have to follow,
but gale is also a butthole about it because if i understood him right he won't even grant spells to his clerics
he also does not even have bane on his radar despite trying to steal his portfolio (if bane didn't get killed by jergal in the ending) and depending on your choices in game he is also manipulated by rapheal and thinks that the devil can't do anything to him because he is a god
really the good ending for gale is to have mystra fix his orb problem and then become a happy teacher in waterdeep
well raphael is far from the top of the totem pole. He's just a powerful cambion who managed to climb the ladder.
Plus Gale now plays with "the devil he knows" in a game of cat and mouse
oh yeah rapheal isn't any better than gale when it comes to hubris, but gale still shouldn't be so confident because of his status as he has zero followers in a setting where gods need prayers and is only a god because of a artefact that if he loses it he might just explode because the only reason he isn't exploding during the game is because mystra has his back again after act 2 which she won't anymore if he ascends with the crown
If I believe the ending, Gale already has followers. I don’t know if it’s by virtue of existing or simply interacting with them. Plus temple(s?) being built in his name.
As far as we know he doesn’t need the crown anymore, but with his whole ambition schtick he won’t give it away. You’ll have to take it from him. Which he does to Raphael. Only bad thing is that the Karsite Weave is still a thing and is still feeding on the Weave. Mystra can’t decide to stop supplying it to everyone, or bar anyone from it like Gale, which means that if she ever dies again or the orbs starts consuming more than Mystra can repair… well, if he was a nuke before, now he’s a world ender in the making.
Perhaps that’s why Ao lets him ascend. Gale will become the force that wipes the slate clean.
>he isn't even taking shit from bane he is just using the crown of karsus to power himself up and says he is a god now and everyone should follow his example while he is not gonna do anything from now despite all of his compaining during the game that gods don't do shit because well suprise suprise gods have rules they have to follow,
lmao that legit sounds like Azuth Reloaded
The greatest litmus test of if someone is either
A women
Or
Has gotten all their Lore from BG3
If they have only gotten lore from BG3 then they likely have negative connotations about Mystra and think positively on his ascension. If they are a Women they also think that Mystra is a abusive evil gaslighter and Gale did nothing wrong.
Shittiest post.
Most women don't even like Gale, even Gortash seems more popular
Nah, Mystra is a b***h
I've thought this ever since Helm b***hslapped her on Ao's orders for her breaking the rules and got demoted from being a greater deity because of it
Mystra believed her own hype.
Most gods do.
Midnight was a b***h for trying to stop people from using magic for evil purposes.
I like that early FR actually addressed racism to a certain degree.
>First Waterdeep book talks about how orcs/ogres can get jobs sweeping the streets or moving furniture and other shit like that, even if people don't trust them
>Meanwhile first book to describe Baldur's Gate properly mentions that there's a bounty on half-orc scalps, because down south they don't fricking play.
I never heard anything about Harpers before. When I see it in the movie and try to read further, I immediately dislike them. This is the "good guys" faction??
what movie?
Checked
Unironically Banestorm's Ministry of Serendipity makes way more sense
I need harper haters to say something bad about the actual bad organizations in the setting
>zhentarim
>church of bane (theres lots of evil churches but bane seems to be the big one)
>red wizards
What's wrong with red wizard? Gauntlet was awesome.
The bad thing is that they are never allowed to succeed at anything and are treated as the butthole in the locker you bring out to slap him around a few times before you put him back into the locker until you have need of him again.
Just look at Szass Tam, Sammaster or Manshoon, from 3E onwards they were turned into Saturday Morning Cartoon villains.
Yes yes we get it, you dont like Ed because he fricked your mum when you were a wee little kid, whatever.
Personally I think we do need more people like Ed in writing unhinged shit because otherwise fantasy either becomes stale or you give birth to something like the New-Weird-Movement type of writing that reddit adores.
Ed's magical realm is comparable to the existence of 4chins in that regard, yes you have to wade for miles through shit but when you find something good it blows your mind and stay with you for years.
Hell even Ed dislikes what Wizards did to the Big Villains of the setting as in his mind adventuring in the realms shouldn't go past like exploring a crypt or taking down the local crime boss that's actually a monster.
And to tie this all back in that's what the Harpers are there for in terms of gameplay.
When the bard at the inn tells your adventuring party about the slave ring two miles away from town and is willing to pay you to take care of it, when a player asks how they know all of this and have the money, the underlying lore is that the Bard is a Harper Agent using the players to solve a problem. Which leads into future quest hooks or intrigue.
And what does this teach us?
Stab the Bard before you go on a merry adventure to free the slaves.
yeah right, you want to buy the slaves
It was fun hearing him basically trash talk the "apocalypse of the week" style that modern WotC does.
Man FR-Threads continue to be the best threads on /tg/.
They have everything.
Second goddess of magic (first Mystra) sounds like an absolute piece of shit
>groomed Azuth, Savras and Elminster.
>didn't give a shit when Azuth imprisoned Savras but just kept enjoying her boytoy.
>possessed some sorceress in order to prostitute around and use said sorceress' body to give birth to seven daughters
>fricked over her chosen Aloevan by making her mad, killing her and trapping her soul.
>fricking full of herself until her death
>handpicked another moronic prostitute, Midnight, indirectly leading to Midnight becoming her successor
There's a reason the LN God was allowed to kill her without dipping to LE
I fricking HATE Mystra.