@TheEdVerse Could you share what Veldorn is like in your home Realms? In your '86 Realms turnover, was it a land of monsters ruled by “beast chiefs” with a vampire overlord or were those aspects added by TSR?
Thanks, and I hope your recovery is going well.— AdamDravian (@AdamDravian) November 27, 2019
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Hi, Adam!
In my home Realms, Veldorn is indeed a land of monsters dwelling together with a hierarchy of overlords, sub-chiefs, and enforcers. (What TSR added was making the overlord a vampire.) This wasn’t in my initial… 2)
…turnover, but rather in one of the many, many followup phone calls with Jeff Grubb and others at TSR, and the sharings of lore that sprang from those.
What IS in the original turnover packages are a few notations on the maps…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019
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…that I amplified in the later conversations, that gave most of the sentient “monster” races in the game their own homelands or multiple ruled areas (not just humans, dwarves, and elves). [For example, north of the Moonsea, … 4)
…Mount Gaethluntar being noted as the home of the flind, and Thar as the “land of the beast-men” = ogres, these being human-drawn maps and reflecting human attitudes.]
My notion was that because of the nature of humans to…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019
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…dominate through conflict when they came into constant contact with other races, in terrain they wanted to occupy (as opposed to rugged mountains, or the bottom of the sea), such “monster kingdoms” would be in areas of the 6)
…Realms either remote from the Sword Coast and Cormyr/Dalelands “human-settled-and-‘civilized’” foci of early Realmsplay, or in undesirable-to-humans terrain like swamps, mountains, really frigid wastes, and deserts.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019
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TSR picked up this idea and ran with it (for example, where Troy Denning located the giant realms in his trilogy of novels), in part because it gave adventurers journeys (quests) to reach monster-ruled areas, where ruins or… 9)
…topic in another way by having the Chosen and servitors of Mystra tasked by Her with distributing spell scrolls, spellbooks, and magic items into tombs, ruins, and other places for ‘just anyone’ to find, so as to increase8)
…monster lairs could be located, full of treasure, without the question arising of why earlier adventurers hadn’t seized the treasure already, if it was just sitting there nearby, in relatively ‘safe’ areas. (I tackled this…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019
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…topic in another way by having the Chosen and servitors of Mystra tasked by Her with distributing spell scrolls, spellbooks, and magic items into tombs, ruins, and other places for ‘just anyone’ to find, so as to increase… 10)
…the widespread mortal use of magic.)
Veldorn was always ‘the Realm of Monsters’ because it was a land where all sorts of ‘beasts’ lived together in (relative) harmony, whereas around the edges of the map (Evermeet for the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019
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…elves, Luiren for halflings, and so on) there were quite a few “one sort of monster rules here” places. I had hoped that Veldorn would be explored in print a lot more than it was, as a setting that encouraged adventuring 12)
…(as, in another way, the Border Kingdoms and the Bandit Wastes/Bandit Kingdoms do), but there were always projects set elsewhere in the Realms to do first. I wanted Veldorn to have constant vying for power, without all that…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019
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…much open bloodshed, because those on top wanted to avoid a widespread bloodbath that would tear the realm apart in utter anarchy, and clamped down whenever anyone got too violent. Which would mean human adventurers, rather than getting torn apart on sight 14)
as undesirable intruders and/or prey, might be suffered to live longer as pawns, manipulated into doing the specific violence that monsters in their immediate vicinity wanted done, rather than the monsters themselves doing it and being punished for those deeds.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019
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The beauty of it all, from a game designer’s POV, was that I had gleaned this idea of “Here Be Monsters” in remote areas from ancient real-world maps and the fantasy genre (not just the modern sources, but Amadis of Gaul and all the other romances parodied in 16)
…Don Quixote) when imagining the Realms before D&D or any other roleplaying games came along. It just seemed fitting that (aside from orcs and other marauders, who "came to you") heroes had to go on long, perilous journeys to reach lands ruled by 'Others.'#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019
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And I seem to be on the mend, although wearing a heart monitor is a pain; thanks for asking! :}#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) November 27, 2019