D&D General Fall of Netheril- The Return of the Arcane Age Subsetting

[Paul Farquhar]

Still reading through it, but at first glance, I really wish WotC hadn't dropped pronunciation guides with the rules revision. Their inclusion in earlier 5e products was super helpful. How are other people pronouncing Netherese vowel salads like "Eileanar" and "Ioulaum"?

Those look fairly simple to me. One assumes unless stated otherwise it’s as standard English. So I-leen-R and loo-law-m.

 

[pukunui]

Those look fairly simple to me. One assumes unless stated otherwise it’s as standard English. So I-leen-R and loo-law-m.

I long ago learned not to assume standard English pronunciation for any made-up name in the Forgotten Realms.

For instance, Sune is pronounced "SUE-nee" but Selune is pronounced "Seh-LOON-eh". Malar is "MAY-lar" but Milil is "Meh-LILL".

You say Eileanar looks like it starts with a long I sound, but the EI diphthong makes a long A sound in Leira ("LAY-rah") and a long E sound in Piergeiron ("Peer-GEER-on"). It does apparently make a long I sound in Eilistraee (“EYEL-iss-TRY-ee”).

At least the U sound is fairly consistent in the Realms, even if the most of them don't have the little mountain over them. (Faerûn is "FAY-rune", Azuth is "Ah-ZOOTH" and Kossuth is "Kah-SOOTH" and so on.)

EDIT: I'm referencing the 1e FR grey box for official FR pronunciations. I realize that some have changed over the years, like Auril has gone from "AWE-rill" in the grey box to "oh-REEL" in Rime of the Frostmaiden.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You say Eileanar looks like it starts with a long I sound, but then why is Leira pronounced "LAY-rah" not "LIE-rah"

Because Eileen is a common Irish name. E before I at the start of a word lengthens the I sound. I.e. as standard English (and very common in German). If it follows a consonant its pronounced differently. Whilst there are many exceptions, there is a reason for the "i before e" rule. Following a consonant, the e joins the consonant, it is no longer a diphthong. If you want a long I following a consonant you generally use "ie", although that doesn't always work. For some reason English doesn't like ii very much! I assume the reason you are saying LAY-rah is a pronunciation guide specifically over-ruled standard English. Removing the thing that tells you that it’s actually pronounced throatwobbler-mangrove makes life simpler. Leira is one of those made up words that looks fine written down, but if you try to say it using standard rules becomes an almost unpronounceable le-ira. I would probably McCaffery it to L'ira.

At least the U sound is fairly consistent in the Realms

As it is in standard English. It's only US English that tried to abolish the letter.

NB Azuth and Kossuth should really have a circumflex, like Faerun, but they are a pain to type. "uu" is something else that tends to be disallowed in English spellings. Yeah, vacuum, go figure!

EDIT: I'm referencing the 1e FR grey box for official FR pronunciations. I realize that some have changed over the years, like Auril has gone from "AWE-rill" in the grey box to "oh-REEL" in Rime of the Frostmaiden.

The grey box pronunciation is standard English (see Auric Goldfinger). RotFM goes full throatwobbler.

 

[Amphytrion]

Still reading through it, but at first glance, I really wish WotC hadn't dropped pronunciation guides with the rules revision. Their inclusion in earlier 5e products was super helpful. How are other people pronouncing Netherese vowel salads like "Eileanar" and "Ioulaum"?

I always assume a Tolkien-leaning pronunciation, which can be approximated by the letter sounds in romance languages and makes them usually very straightforward.

English has a very particular extreme case of vowel drift that makes words such as these confusing, but that ambiguity goes away on the latinate sound. In this case: Eh-ee-leh—ah-nar.