Corentin Palanchini @Sartana87
1)
Hello @TheEdVerse! What can you say about the farmer Taburg Shen, a mysterious name on the map of Eveningstar? 2)
Or what can you say about Eveningstar's bakery, not mentioned in the Volo's Guide to Cormyr ? Thanks and be well.

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 3, 2020

1)
Taburg Shen is a quiet, polite but not outgoing, farmer of mushrooms (extensive cellar under his elevated-on-pilings house), mixed human food crops, and hay. He grows many herbs and does tree grafts to grow various tree-fruit… 2)
…for family use. Shen’s family hails from Durpar, by way of Chessenta; his now-deceased father Thontravur was brought to Shadowdale to settle as a young child, by his parents, and Thontravur romanced and married…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 3, 2020

3)
…Velveira Almarrand, a wealthy Sembian daughter who fled her parents’ expectations and arranged marriage for a solitary subsistence life in Shadowdale; Taburg was their eldest child (his younger sister Randarla was a restless… 4)
…adventuring sort who joined the Harpers, traveled, and eventually died of Zhent violence in a forest ambush in Tethyr) and dwells on the farm he inherited from them with his small family: wife Shalarla, of Daggerdale stock, …#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 3, 2020

5)
…and three strong, capable daughters who are accomplished hunters and trappers, and help elves often against Zhent and woodcutter depredations into the forests.
(If your Realms campaign is set more recently, Shalarla outlived…6)
…Taburg, to a ripe old age, and like him is buried on the farm. The burial was done by their three daughters, who now share the farm, unmarried and taking various lovers from time to time, and farming as their parents did.)#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 3, 2020

7)
The three daughters, eldest to youngest, are: Haethe (“HAY-thh”); Raedaerle (“Ray-DARE-ull”); and Tarsarra (“Tar-SAR-uh”), Tarsarra being accomplished at arms, an energetic climber of trees and cliff-faces, and known for… 8)
…making literally-pain-killing wine from herbs and wildflowers found on the farm, Raedaerle being the great beauty and an accomplished cook and baker, and Haethe being the strongest and a good horse and ox trainer and tender…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 3, 2020

9)
…(doctor).
As for Eveningstar’s bakery: many farms have their own sideyard bake-ovens (little mortared domes of stone with a wooden door, like a pizza oven), but the dale has had at least two bakeries from the mid-1300s DR onwards. 10)
The most famous of these is the Eveningstar Bakery on the main road.
For many years, it was the home of its owner and baker, the gruff, tall and gaunt Urda Malo, an orphan from Riatavin who ate and drank prodigiously yet never…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 3, 2020

11)
…gained weight and always felt hungry; she lived alone and made “superb” daily bread and even better sweet pasteries that local Evenor bought and ate as avidly as traveling merchants did. As she grew old and frail, she hired… 12)
…live-in assistants, all local Evenor women, who became the bakers, and ran the Bakery together after Malo slipped into a senile dotage (they cared for her until her death of winterchill fever), and their descendants still do.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 3, 2020

13)
The other bakery in Shadowdale stood a little way south down the road to Mistledale, where the Temple Approach Way (the road that ran to face the southern entrance to the Temple of Chauntea, after the swamp was drained, and… 14)
…that temple was built) met the Mistledale Road, the SW-most building of the trio bracketed by roads, on the E side of the Mistledale Road.
It was the home and shop of Anthan Lokalarr, baker (who retired to Shadowdale from…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 3, 2020

15)
…Selgaunt’s high prices and constant intrigue, in 1377 DR), and founded The Roundloaf. Which didn’t really compete with Malo’s bakery, but sold just one thing, almost exclusively to wagon-merchants buying in bulk: … 16)
…hard-crust roundloaves of nourishing bread coated in cinammon-oil-treated wax to slow mold growth until it could be sold, mainly throughout Sembia.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 3, 2020

1)
Yes! Sorry about that. I was reading from my (faded pencil and paper) files and typing them into a computer file, to answer you, and copied out the passages about The Roundloaf from the wrong pages due to them being out of…#Realmslore https://t.co/HWX0HXGNCB

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 6, 2020

I had to work all of this out first for my Mirt stories as early as 1967 (his foes had a habit of attacking him while he was answering nature's call), but then the moment D&D play began, PCs started using sewers, garderobes, and nightsoil wagons as travel routes!#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 13, 2020

1)
All of the above. Sanitation in the Realms depends on where you are, and your wealth/social class.
If you’re traveling and stay at a way-inn, you’ll be like most middle-class city folk: chamberpots under every bed, typically 2)
…emptied by the youngest non-toddler family member, with accompanying mugs of leaves for wiping and flowerpetal- or lime-scented water for washing and diluting the pee or covering the poo (as well as the chamberpot lid) to keep…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 12, 2020

3)
…the smell down. Emptied into a backyard covered bucket, which gets taken to a cesspool/pit or (copper a dump) to the local nightsoil wagon (as shown in a scene in ELMINSTER’S DAUGHTER, one of the very few sanitation details 4)
…not edited out of my manuscripts).
Some cities have sewers, usually because they’re coastal (tidal flushes) and/or have streams/rivers running through them that can be diverted to flush out the sewers. In most cities, there…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 12, 2020

5)
…are indoor rooms, known as garderobes or less formally as “jakes,” consisting of a seat, a gravity drop pipe descending from underneath it, and large jugs of water for washing and flushing (down the pipe to a cess-cistern in 6)
…the cellars, which has a turn-the-balun/open the board sluice connection to the sewers—so the sewers can’t readily back up into your cellar). Some homes have wiping cloths, washed by servants or family members, some have…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 12, 2020

7)
…“bumsticks” (scrap cloth tacked to a branch, used like a backscrubber, only lower down ;} ), some have wiping leaves, and many have scented water to purge smells, and potpourri (“crushscent bowls” or pomanders, in the Realms) 8)
In rural areas, most farms, homes, taverns, and inns all have outdoor privies (outhouses), with under an open-walled roof, to keep water out) handy heaps of sand and lime and shovels large and small. You use it, with the…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 12, 2020

9)
…aforementioned leaves or bumstick, there’s an ewer and basin for washing, and when you’re done, a sprinkle of lime and a shovel-full of sand go down the hole. When the hole’s full, the outhouse gets moved, and the hole gets 10)
…limed heavily, or a fire lit atop it, and then (after fire dies to ashes; no fires are ever lit in forest loam locales) covered over with earth and left. (Successive outhouse moves causes the ‘ring garden’ around some homes.)#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 12, 2020

No wait. Not costal. No sewer for Silverymoon?

— Lou Anders is Staying Home (@LouAnders) April 12, 2020

1)
Northbank Silverymoon has sewers flushed by three now-totally-buried streams (like London, England’s many long-ago-roofed-over streams that became open sewers and so were ‘buried’ without controversy; see the classic reference work “The Common Stream” by Rowland 2)
…Parker) that flush into the Rauvin. Southbank Silverymoon has no sewers, and uses the nightsoil wagon system ("leavings" taken far south and spread on open wilderlands to rot down).
Any large-city freshwater flush system uses weir-grids to collect solid filth…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 13, 2020

3)
… (“muck”) that gets taken away by wagon and dumped far from noses in the city (Waterdeep’s goes from the harbor grids to the Rat Hills, S along the coast). Gulguthra (otyughs and neo-otyughs) devour human waste in such dumping-grounds, and serve the same.. 4)
…function in some castle, monastery, abbey, and isolated inn middens.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 13, 2020

@TheEdVerse Hi Ed, whom would be considered the most prodigious crafter of new spells in Realms history? And who had the most impact on the more common spells in use? Many thanks ~GG

— Gareth ! (@garethgarfoot) May 26, 2020

1)
It depends on who’s doing the considering. Many archmages are preening narcissists, and would claim the “most prodigious” title for themselves. As for who had the most impact: Azuth and the Chosen of Mystra, who decide which spells to scatter scrolls of, to be. 2)
…found, and which spells to try to suppress or to teach or encourage the sharing of (by local guild rules, MageFair manipulations, etc.).
I would deem Elminster to be the most prodigious, because he rebuilt so many Netherese and other magics into…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 26, 2020

3)
…"everyday useful" spells widely known today.@Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 26, 2020

Hey @TheEdVerse, quick question. I'm going to run King Lareths council in the Galena Mountains on the 14th of Marpenoth, 1372 DR In around 12 hours. How tall are the Galena Mountains, and what temperature would it be around that time of year?
Thanks!#Realmslore #dnd

— Alex McClay (@AlexMcclay2000) September 20, 2020

1)
So Marpenoth is the Torilian equivalent of October, and the Galena range (named by TSR, by the way, after a resort they used to go to on retreats, which was of course named for the mineral) is roughly as northerly as… 2)
…“halfway north up Canada” in climate terms. The Galenas themselves are tall, jagged fangs of very sharp, rugged rock, tall enough to be permanently topped with ice and snow (which at that latitude means they must all be over…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 20, 2020

3)
…8,000 feet in elevation; my notes have them as around 11,000, with the tallest summits being just over 14,000). The range is only about 25 miles wide, with nigh NO level ground, and cascading streams and rivers rather than…
#Realmslore 4)
…navigable ones (the Galena Snake being the most well-known named river), plus of course lots of hostile resident giants, orcs, hobgoblins, and goblins. There are rich iron, silver, and bloodstone deposits (and heck, to make…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 20, 2020

5)
…the name fit, lots of galena). So in October, daytime in-sun temperatures would be above freezing in the lowest reaches of the mountains only. At night, particularly with windchill, “deep freeze” indeed. Yes, exposed PCs… 6)
…could readily freeze to death. PCs in caverns would likely be okay, but not comfortable. The Galenas are not known for gales or frequent high winds, though.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 20, 2020

Speaking of the Galenas, the map on p.9 of Elminster’s Forgotten Realms shows that your home Realms had only a few mountains east of Thar. Is there a mountain range north of where that map cuts off, as in the published Realms, or was that added along with the Bloodstone Lands? That map is just part of one 8.5"x11" map panel (out of 55 of them). There is a mountain range north of that, and glaciers, and lots of rugged frozen country, stretching north and east (if you go far enough east, you reach Sossal).#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 21, 2020

Shayan Ghorbanian @ShayanFilmStuff@TheEdVerse
in the 14th century, Waterdeep's Harbour was very clear, but by 1479 it had become brown and murky. Under Laeral, has the harbour cleared up? Also, how did the merfolk let it get so dirty?

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 9, 2020

1)
First, Mistshore was burned to get rid of most of it—which means everything aboard the ships plunged down into the harbor when the fire reached vessel waterlines. Not only did that dump poisons and even some living aquatic… 2)
…monsters into the harbor, the taint killed some merfolk and forced many of them to relocate away into the Outer Harbour to avoid being sickened and dying.
Very shortly thereafter, some of the Xanathar’s agents diverted some…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 9, 2020

3)
…sewers to give themselves more subterranean space—and a lot more foulness began to flow daily into the harbour. Merfolk who tried to fix the latter were slaughtered by an undead eye of the deep Xanathar servitor. 4)
The Xanathar’s reach is long.
However, Laeral’s is even longer, so that servitor is gone and remedial sewer work has been done and some mighty spells cast, and the harbour waters are clearing up.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 9, 2020