Hi @TheEdVerse, do children go to school in Waterdeep? #realmslore #waterdeep

— RPG Match – connecting TTRPG players (@RpgMatch) April 8, 2022

1)
Depends on the child. If they’re attached to a temple, yes, there are classes. For almost everyone else, there are tutors: nobles usually have them on staff, wealthy wannabe-nobles hire them in for a few hours every second or… 2)
…third day or so, and the children of guild members attend guild-sponsored tutor sessions, usually at the headquarters of the guild. However, as one moves down the scale of wealth, the chances for instruction at anything more…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 9, 2022

3)
…than practical job skills dwindle, except for what family members and close family friends can pass on, sometimes in return for a meal. Someone who does well at such practical jobs may well end up apprenticed to an artisan or… 4)
…crafter, and receive secondary instruction (that is, tutelage in matters not directly related to the work they’re apprenticed to learn how to do) as an apprentice.
There’s one important exception to this: children in whom the…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 9, 2022

5)
…Gift (the innate ability to wield the Art/magic) is detected young. They get instruction, because the Lords of Waterdeep, the nobles, and the guilds all agree that wizards should be educated, so as to have morals and see… 6)
…consequences, not just instructed on how to hurl spells around.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 9, 2022

A few, but it's found more in Murghôm, Durpar, Raurin, Estagund, Semphar, Veldorn, Var, and Ulgarth. The Realms name for such a blade varies from place to place, but many traveling traders call them a "sar" (plural: sarren). "Zarak" is the most popular local name.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 17, 2022

Hi Ed, “zarak” is local for where? Thay? Local to those countries I listed. Sar is what they tend to get called elsewhere.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 18, 2022

1)
for tweeting this closeup of the cover, because it gives me a dandy opportunity to share a little more about the scene: In the scene on our cover, Britt Martin brings us a tense trade negotiation in the street foyer of a merchant cabal’s office in the Thayan city of Eltabbar—dickering so exacting that the dates and wine are running out, and evening is drawing down.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 4, 2022

2)
From left to right, around a table on which trading maps of regions in Chessenta are spread out, we see Bezunthyn Phrul, a Red Wizard senior in years but of middling rank, “standing witness” to all that’s said, but impassively saying nothing. 3)
Next to him, the half-elven merchant Shelmazra Hornwyntur, Thayan born and an influential and rising member of the Ang Harrad merchant cabal, leans forward to point out where the first shipments should go, and by which route.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 4, 2022

4)
Beside her, the aging Ang Harrad merchant Albrynd Mrethem (once the able right hand of Ang Harrad herself, before her sudden and suspicious demise), keeps an intent eye on a skull floating nigh the shoulder of the chief Red Wizard negotiator, trying to gauge the.. 5)
…lich’s reactions to what’s being said.
He’s trying to do so because as everyone in the chamber knows, the skull is that of the Red Wizard lich Hauzrym, often sent to watch and listen for Szass Tam himself. If the ruler of Thay is taking a personal interest in…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 4, 2022

6)
…Ang Harrad dealings, the Ang Harrad cabal may soon find itself used in some dark plan.
Also intent on anything the skull might say, as well as Hornwyntur’s plans, is the young Red Wizard Lazurmrella Hlaree, who’s led the negotiations on behalf of the Red… 7)
…Wizards. Who are seeking to limit what the Ang Harrad ships, and to have everyone they ship it to clearly identified, so such outlander contacts can be measured for usefulness and what influence may be brought to bear on them. Hlaree is acutely aware that in…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 4, 2022

8)
…this, her first important negotiation, she’s being judged by all her fellow Red Wizards.
Continuing around the table, Red Wizard Harazulkh Orblaun has had enough of the contrary nature and curt refusals of important senior Ang Harrad merchant Alamrund Draug, … 9)
…and is now forcefully mingling not-so-veiled threats with trading details into Draug’s ear.
For his part, Draug is looking away at us, as we look in on the scene, and wondering if we can be seized upon as a distraction. He needs one, for although he’s…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 4, 2022

10)
…drained his wine for the sixth time, things aren’t going any better…
(There. That ought to give any DM enough to portray all of these NPCs in a PC's first meeting with any of them. :} )#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 4, 2022

who’s this handsome feller? That's the projected image of the nearby (usually JUST above the roof of any building it appears in) floating skull of the Red Wizard lich Hauzrym, sent by Szass Tam to watch and listen to a meeting or event.
Or as most Thayans call the skull, more simply, "Trouble."#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 4, 2022

@TheEdVerse Sorry for bombarding you with Qs

What are younger folk who help the clergy in temples called/what is their title? I imagine they'd separate them and their duties by hopeful clergy and laypeople?

I envision they hopeful clergy being paiges/clerks to the clergy.

— stephen parlin (@smparlin) December 30, 2021

1)
The formal titles vary by church, but a “novice” is someone recognized as on the path to priesthood, whereas a “lay brother” or “lay sister” (collectively, “Lay devout”) are temple/abbey/monastery/shrine workers not priests or on a path to priesthood. 2)
In many faiths, the lay devout are actually addressed as "Devout" (as in, "Devout Brandor" or "Devout Aslanna" if Brandor or Aslanna was their given name…whereas a novice would be "Faithful X," with "X" being the name of a saint or historical distinguished-service cleric.

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 31, 2021

This might seem like a strange question out of the blue @TheEdVerse but in a discussion with my jimmy rustling wife, the topic of of when specifically Baldurs Gate was created came up. Would you happen to have an approximate date for that?

— Renezuo (Summer Arc) (@RenezuoArt) March 26, 2022

1)
The problem is that the good natural harbour around which Baldur’s Gate developed was a pirate and smuggler’s haven, and supported a tiny settlement of fisherfolk, for many years before Balduran first set sail from it. 2)
It was a known port of call for ships on the Sword Coast by 204 DR (i.e. by then it had “visitors wharves” and a shipyard, and could replace masts and sails). It was known as Baldur’s Gate, and considered a city, by 446 DR. #Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 26, 2022

3)
So, sometime “earlier” (before 0 DR) was when it was founded, and it was likely known as Baldur’s Gate before 300 DR. The designation “city” in the Realms is based neither on the presence of cathedrals nor on precise population… 4)
…totals/thresholds or legal incorporation, but on importance/domination of interland and rough size, and for the Gate likely came earlier rather than later due to the absence of large nearby settlements to provide competition.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 26, 2022

This is great Ed and very useful. After that 204 DR date, was it – for a time – incorporated or controlled by the brief realm of Shavinar, which existed from 227 DR to 277 DR? I see it as nominally being part of Shavinar, but very much, on a daily "on-the-cobbles" basis, doing its own thing: only some citizens paid taxes (the rest never registered), they obeyed laws and enforcers of them only when under the eye of said authorities, etc.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) March 27, 2022

Hi Ed. I commissioned a friend to do this based on Piergeiron battling the Dracolich Kistarianth with Madeiron on Halaster’s Highharvestide. I love these characters. What do you think? I hope you like it! I do. Great composition, and both characters "look right" to me. So, thumbs up!!!

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 2, 2022

Heya, Ed – is tapdancing a thing in the Realms? If so, what culture does it come from and where is it popular circa 1300s DR? Not that I’ve ever heard of. The closest thing: gnome and korred slap-dancing; in which the dancers (and a ring of watchers) slap their own upper front thighs repeatedly between steps, in a syncopated rhythm.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) December 23, 2021

I don't think it's been covered in print, but has been mentioned in several Milwaukee-era GenCon Realms seminars, by me with staff designers and editors on the panel. It's well SW of Faerûn.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 28, 2021

No. That map's rather fanciful. Notice it doesn't specify WHICH Scholar's view? It's more accurate than some maps, yet is still closer to "Dragonnes Be Herre" than reality.
Rule of thumb: trust no map that has Anchorôme as a continent, or Osse as a big continent.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) October 30, 2021