do we have a guess at when Gargauth was exiled from Baator? Seems to me like it was *at least* a couple thousand years before Dale Reckoning That’s probably a good guess, because Gargauth has been meddling in human affairs in Faerûn for a long, long time. However, a guess is all mortals can make, because even clergy and devils lie or are mistaken or have hazy recollections of passing time.
…— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 27, 2018
Even real-world modern dating can get confused, beset by inaccuracies, or willfully fabricated; all folk of Toril know of devils is affected by all three of these factors (devils lie a lot to exaggerate their own importance, influence, and fearful reputations).
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 27, 2018
1) Veldalin was a reclusive necromancer whose tower (fortified stone mansion with a tower at its rear) stood not far from the city wall of Saerloon, north of the North Market. He made a living destroying or capturing and commanding into his service (and thus, taking…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 28, 2018
2)…them from wherever they were feared or being a danger or nuisance) undead in Saerloon and its vicinity, and in “renting out” undead as temporary bodyguards to wealthy patrons (sometimes, even as “spectacles,” entertainment at revels they held). He also sponsored adventurers…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 28, 2018
3)…to go and retrieve tomb-treasure for him, splitting the loot with them, and sending along ghosts in his service to aid them, spy on them, and “keep them honest.”
It should be understood that Veldalin’s “ghosts” were translucent, wraith-like phantoms, apparitions…— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 28, 2018
4)…of varying powers, not what a gamer might term “standard ghosts as found in the Monster Manual.” Veldalin disliked human deceit, gossip, maliciousness, and “babble,” preferring the relative silence of the undead, and survived the Spellplague thanks to preparations…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 28, 2018
5)…beforehand; he combined the oldest and strongest of his “ghosts” into a many-minded (and decidedly insane) “superghost” of sorts, that he called a “direhaunt,” and when magic started to go awry (causing his tower to start to collapse around him) he immolated himself with a…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 28, 2018
6)…spell that thrust his sentience into his direhaunt, to take it over and so continue to exist in undeath, cheating death. The spell worked, but Veldalin found his incorporeal form a challenge to both his ambitions to continue casting necromantic spells, and to his sanity…
— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 28, 2018
7)… (the minds he was sharing the phantom form with wore on his own sanity). He has mastered casting necromancy again, but is seldom lucid for long, these days…as he wanders Sembia and the Dales and the wilderlands from eastern Cormyr to the Moonsea shores.
And there you go. :}— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 28, 2018
