@TheEdVerse I was hoping you could resolve a question that has come up within my group. An older Spelljammer book mentions Elminster's Hideout connecting to his castle. We can not find any other mention of him having a castle. Did the book intend to refer to Elminster's Tower?

— CaseG (@Victus42) February 20, 2020

1)
The Hideout connects to El’s Tower via the castle, which is an old stone keep (still a castle, but not nearly as grand as the word makes most folk think) hidden high in the Thunder Peaks not far southeast of Thunderspire2)
…Mountain; it’s disguised by ward-spells to look like the natural stone pinnacle it began life as, before long-ago dwarf masons set to work. The castle is empty of all but stairs, rooms, and magical gates to various…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 22, 2020

4)
…of this mountain range’ base built by local dwarves as a trap-filled place for said creatures to attack (very few dwarves were stationed there; they were in various caverns in the mountains), and as a project for young…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 22, 2020

5)
…dwarves to become skilled masons and stonecutters. The traps were cleared out by humans in the early days of Archendale, who planned to extend the dale’s official reach into these mountains and found mines and build roads… 6)
…between the dale and the mines to enrich Archendale forever, but these plans never came to anything, and the keep was abandoned. Elminster and others of the Seven several times cleared it of brigands and opportunistic dragons…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 22, 2020

7)
…seeking lairs, and decided to ‘spell-shroud’ it to keep it from such uses, and as something they could use when they needed it.
The keep has at various times been known as Blackhammer Hold (to the dwarves of clan 8)
…Blackhammer), Uruld’s Folly, Halardraco’s Fang, the Archenfang, the Silent Keep, and Elminster’s Grand Castle (this last was a mocking title bestowed by The Simbul, whom El took there for a night of lovemaking; she wasn’t…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 22, 2020

9)
…expecting luxury, but she WAS expecting something more than cold, bare-but-for-dust-and-rubble stone).#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) February 22, 2020

Sweet!! I look forward to seeing the end result of that. 😀

Speaking of which, I wish to ask if you have any advice for a newbie adventure writer for a d20-based campaign setting that’s currently not published yet. I’ll provide details when I have a chance.

— Samuel K Kauffman (@SamuelKKauffman) August 27, 2020

1)
When I sit down at conventions with game designers wanting to ready a new setting for publication (will that ever happen again? Yeesh!), I always tell them to answer two questions for themselves (not for me or the public): what do you want to DO with this setting? 3)
…have?) and big ones (tech level and magic level across various races, cultures, and lands, magic systems, overall literacy and knowledge of how the world works/how magic works, clashing views of life within races and cultures and between one race or culture and another, … 2)
What are its big tales waiting to unfold, or be resolved? HOW (format) do you want to tell them/have others tell them or play them? Leading to…where, in ten years? Twenty years?
The answers you give yourself should shape tiny design decisions (how many kids does this ruler..

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 27, 2020

4)
…and so on). Easy to get overwhelmed/bogged down in the abstract and trying to “do it all,” but much easier if you have a direction you’re heading for in the future, if not a specific end goal/destination, and build towards it, little piece by little piece. Avoid absolute…

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 27, 2020

5)
…statements (there’s only one buried titan, that’s the last dragon) wherever possible, unless made by unreliable narrators, as it keeps story options open.
And so on, through tons of abstract ‘experience advice’ I can dump on you, until you, as you say, provide details. :}

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 27, 2020

What did you want to do with the Forgotten Realms when you first set out? What do you want to do with it now? I created the Realms when I was a young boy, as a fantasy world to tell stories in (there were no fantasy roleplaying games back then). I want those tales to be about "real" people (not necessarily human) and to explore the Realms in them.
Fifty-five years later, I still do.

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 3, 2020

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