omething stood out in the Elminster’s Forgotten Realms book – do the War Wizards of Cormyr really have the manpower, resources and time to mind-read citizens to root out private wine clubs, of all things? Raiding the Suzail speakeasies! ;)They have the ability, but not the time. Yet like real modern-world intelligence organizations, they like to let folk everywhere believe they mind-read everyone, all the time, in hopes this will have a behavioral effect. ;}
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) January 14, 2018
Ahhh, so it’s more that the people are aware that the War Wizards MIGHT decide to mindread them than that the WWs actually do it. Makes a lot more sense to me, thank you 🙂 Exactly. And mind-reaming is a lot less precise and a lot more damaging to the read person AND the reader than Cormyreans are led to believe. It's really like watching about twenty speeded-up movies on different holographic screens that have been superimposed over each other!
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) January 15, 2018
That’s really interesting! Are all War Wizards taught how to do that, or is the knowledge restricted? I find myself more and more intrigued by the Cormyrean “secret police”! Very few of them can do it. It requires not just mastery of certain spells (e.g. high level as a wizard), but is INCREDIBLY mentally tiring, so can't be kept up for long. You can't "steer" a mind without harming it, towards certain thoughts, so it's like trying to listen for…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) January 15, 2018
…particular whispered words in a crowd of chattering people.
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) January 15, 2018