D&D 5E 5th Edition and Cormyr: Flexing My Idea Muscle and Thinking Out Loud

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Ideas For New Arcane and Divine Spells

What follows are some ideas for arcane spells. Some of these could be divine spells as well.

1. "Spell Mime" - This spell creates an illusionary humanoid figure. That figure mimes the somatic gestures, as well as the movements required to handle material components, for the last spell that was cast in the area of the Spell Mime's effect. The figure continues to mime in this manner until the duration of the Spell Mime ends. While this spell is in effect, it grants advantage to any arcane or divine caster that attempts to identify the spell the being mimed. This spell does not produce sounds related to verbal components. The figure is faceless.

2. "Spell Scribe" - This spell creates a temporary illusionary arcane script that shows the formula for casting the last spell that was cast in the area of the Spell Scribe. The script appears on any flat surface the caster designates, but this surface cannot be smaller than an area proscribed by the width and length of the caster's hand, nor can the surface area be longer or wider than the caster's height. If the last spell cast was memorized from a spellbook then the script created by the Spell Scribe duplicates the arcane writings of the spellcaster that cast that spell. If the last spell cast was not memorized from a spellbook then the script appears in the form and style of the caster's own arcane writing style.

3. "Spell Chime" - This spell temporarily links the caster to an object that can be manipulated to produce sound (a lute or a warhorn, for example, or something like a large church bell). For the duration of this spell, any time the caster successfully casts a spell, the object linked to the caster sounds off. This spell automatically fails if the caster is attuned to three magic items. It's duration automatically ends if the caster becomes attuned to three magic items.

4. "Spell Echo" - This spell recreates any and all sounds produced by the last spell to have been cast in the area of the Spell Echo's effect prior to the Spell Echo being cast. Secondary sounds are not produced. A secondary sound would be any sound produced as a result of the spell, such as a grunt of pain from being slashed by a Blade Barrier, or the sound of a statue toppling over after it was struck by a Bigby's Hand spell. Note: The sounds of the blades slashing a creature, as well as the sound of the conjured hand striking the statue, would be produced by the Spell Echo. This spell lasts as long as the spell whose sounds the Spell Echo is recreating.

5. "Spell Informant" - Once cast, this spell lingers in an area designated by the caster. Any time a spell is cast in that area, the Spell Informant sends a magical message that appears in the mind of the spellcaster. This message gives the name of the being that just the spell. Upon delivery of this message the Spell Informant ends. A caster may not have more Spell Informants active than his or her highest spellcasting level. If the being that is being identified is known by multiple names, the Spell Informant uses the last name the being was called by.

6. "Blood Coins" - After you cast this spell, you may select a number of coins no greater than five times your caster level. If any of the coins you select have been touched by someone other than you who has either committed a murder or assisted in the commission of a murder within the last 24 hours, then those coins will begin to ooze blood. The coins bleed for a number of rounds equal to your caster level, or until you spend a bonus action to end the spell.

7. "Forge Echo" - This spell may be cast on any object that was made by an ironsmith. The spell reproduces the sound of the smith's hammer as it was being used to forge the object the spell was cast upon. If multiple smiths worked an object at the same time, all their hammers sound off.

8. "Similarity" - This spell causes an item of clothing worn by a creature within the spell's range to appear identical to another item of clothing of the same kind worn by a different creature within the spell's range. For example, the dust and mud covered boots of a passing mercenary may be made to temporarily resemble the clean, ornate boots of a nobleman riding in the other direction. At higher levels, the caster may select multiple of the same kind of clothing item to appear identical. For example, the travel robes of a party of adventurers may be temporarily made to resemble the robes of one of the king's guards manning the castle gate that the PCs wish to get past. This spell ends after one hour, or when any of the clothing items involved in the spell become separated by a distance longer than the range of the spell.

9. "Coin Curse" - The caster may select one object no larger than a sack or a small chest when this spell is cast. If any coins within the object are removed by any creature other than the caster, the coins deliver an electric shock to the creature. This causes 1 HP of damage. At higher levels, this spell may be cast on larger objects. If cast as a 9th level spell, this spell may target the dwelling of the caster (such as a tower, castle, dungeon abode, or the lair of a dragon).

10. "Forge Sacrifice" - This spell requires at least one metallic object produced from metal smelted in a forge. If the object is placed within a cold or otherwise inert forge, that forge becomes instantly hot enough to melt ore and extract metal. This effect lasts for one hour per object sacrificed. Only 24 objects may be sacrificed in this manner per casting.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Encounter Idea Inspired by the Artwork of Ryan Alexander Lee

Firstly, check out this wonderful piece of art by Ryan Alexander Lee:
http://ryan-alexander-lee.deviantart.com/art/Until-I-Say-350311505

Isn't it just amazing?

The first thing I saw in Lee's pieces was the axe. Secondly, I saw the skull.

But I didn’t see her face until the fourth or fifth time I viewed the artwork.

This artwork practically demands to be turned into an encounter.

And here. We. Go.

1. In the first piece, it appears the dead guy was looking to chop some wood. Looks like he didn’t get to use any of the wood; rather, the wood is using him. For an encounter where the players stumble upon the scene in Lee's piece, I'd describe the corpse wrapped in tree roots, and then show the artwork to the first PC to approach within 5' of the corpse.

2. Dryads come to mind. Maybe the dead guy (or gal -- you never know) was a defender of the woods. Somebody the Dryads liked. Maybe one of them even loved the fallen warrior.

3. Perhaps a lonely nymph longing for affection is finding it in the fallen warrior, for lack of anything living to touch.

4. Maybe the fallen warrior is the first of many dead warriors to be found in the area, and whatever felled them all lurks in the trees and the roots, which are all one living entity located deep within one of Cormyr's three largest woodlands (the King’s Forest, the Hullack Forest, or the Hermit's Wood). The plant thing elected to destroy the small force assembled to take whatever it is the entity guards--something rare; something of value to wizards or priests or merchants.

5. Perhaps the fallen warrior lay on a slope. If the PCs move up the rise, they come upon a sun-filled, oval shaped depression in the earth, about a half-mile to a mile long, where the trees are fewer in number than the densely-packed-with-trees forest that extends for miles in every direction. The undergrowth is sparse among the trees in the depression.

6. Sunlight finds its way to the ground easily into the depression, which is filled with yellowed bones picked clean and encased in armor. There are no helmets visible. Gauntleted hands still clutch weapons and shields, the former all appearing to point upwards and the later resting more or less on edge, while tree roots run like a nest of snakes over the armor, at once embracing it and imprisoning it.

7. All of this is visible from the edge of the rise, just past the first body the PCs encountered. The view does not suggest a graveyard—or perhaps it’s not the view but the feeling/vibe the oval clearing gives off. Death happened here in abundance, but that which grows has spent time taking in the dead and their accoutrements while time passed without concern for the dead.

8. Any PC who lingers at the perimeter in lieu of walking down the other side of the slope into the clearing begins to feel as though he or she is being watched. It’s a nagging feeling, and one that isn’t shared by any PC that elects to walk into the clearing to get a better view of the bodies or peer at the trees whose roots have become like manacles and chains imprisoning the dead. In fact, anyone walking in the clearing hears nothing at all, except for their footsteps and any other noise they make (remember, utter silence is pretty creepy).

9. There is no great oak or other dominating-over-all tree in the clearing—should any PC think to ask—but there is a mound of war helms dead center. It’s not hard to spot, if a PC walks a ways into the clearing. The helms are not the same. Some are simple utilitarian things. Others are decorated with antlers or wings, and sport long snouts, spikes and grim visages.

10. As one moves closer to the mound of helms, it becomes harder and harder to hear anything. Within ten feet of the mound, a PC can’t even hear themselves if they shout at the top of their lungs. The air feels denser, too. Not hot or humid, just thick, as though some intangible resistance is present. It’s like being in a dream where you’re trying to run, but you can barely move your feet.

11. Should a PC persist and ultimately touch any of the Helms, some interesting (and deadly) things happen.
11a. First, white glowing ovals appear within each helm, like pupil-less eyes, while everywhere in the clearing the hands of the corpses holding onto weapons and shields all let go. The sound of all the weapons and shields falling a short distance to the ground is heard by all—even the PC(s) at the mound of helms—and the sound is deafening.
12a. Second, the oppressing weight in the air around the helms vanishes, and the helms fly off in all directions to hover over the corpses, while the weapons and shields rise up in the air at about chest-height, one set of weapon/shield to each glowing-eyed helm.

12. The helms and weapons attack, seeking to swarm PCs, to give no quarter, and to slay the PCs quickly and efficiently. Whatever the force is that animates the helms and weapons produces no body to attack. A helm, weapon or shield can be attacked readily enough, though mundane attacks are unlikely to destroy them quickly enough to keep a PC from being chopped to pieces and slain.

13. PCs who escape out of the clearing are not pursued if they can make it over the edge and down past the slope on the other side. That initial corpse depicted in Lee's artwork effectively marks the boundary of danger.

14. PCs who remain in the clearing can attack the corpses (remember, it's stumbling-over-roots terrain near any corpse, so adjust movement speeds accordingly). Doing so is the same as attacking an unconscious foe, so unless a PC is being swarmed by flying swords, it’s a no-miss attack. Dashing the brittle skulls (all the bones are brittle), ripping away the armor, and hacking at the roots imprisoning the armor will do damage to the animated helm/sword/shield form linked to that corpse. Note: DM’s who enjoy memorable visualizations can tell PCs that whey they hack at the roots, the roots sever as easily as hacking at exposed flesh, and the roots bleed bright red blood.

15. All of this kind of goes against the caressing, sort of cuddling nature of the artwork, so perhaps there is a Dryad or Nymph lurking near that corpse, who appears and begs the PCs not to destroy her beloved. She could explain the story behind the clearing, and in so doing give more adventure hooks to the PCs, or advice that can help them if they’re already on a quest and can’t deviate, all in return for the PCs agreeing to go back into the clearing and recover the one helm that the Dryad promises them didn’t animate, and return it to her once-mortal beloved.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Let's Start With A Hole In Some Dirt

1. So...something akin to a halfling's den set into a low hill, but this is more of a long oval of dirt with a hole in one side that's small enough to require a human to crawl in on hands and knees to get inside. 

2. It's well within the King's Forest, off a path that was once a road wide enough to allow coach and horse traffic of the sort that includes important nobles and Crownsworn officials. 

3. The path is little more than a foot trail now, and that too is fast disappearing. As is the mansion-keep that sat at one end of the path, the keep's walls fallen down and grown over. The state of the mansion? That's up to you, Dear Reader.

4. Outlaws like to camp in the area, because adventurers and the agents of nobles and debt collectors continue to seek out the mansion-keep. Easy pickings for fresh clothes, news, weapons and bedmates. 

5. It used to be that explorers would come regularly, the adventurers to search for lost riches and the debt collectors to find anything worth hauling off and selling to pay for debts owed (even worked stone blocks can be resold). Nowadays the outlaws have to sow rumors to attract unwitting victims to the ruins, which is fine because even outlaws need to make supply runs, and the chance of being recognized by Crown forces is worth the risk in order to hear the latest news (the better to determine if the Crown has finally decided to move en masse on the ruin and clear out anyone using it as a place to spring ambushes on the unwary).

6. The hole in the ground is set into one of two mounds of earth that flanked the road, a squat tower sprouting out of each mound. These marked the border of the estate in the woods that is now an abandoned ruin.

7. The left-hand tower collapsed in on itself, the fallen stone filling up the space within the mound. Some unknown force dashed aside the exposed tower over the right-hand mound, and bushes and ground cover overgrew it. The space inside the mound partially collapsed, but adventurers cleared out the splintered wood that was all that was left of the door that led into the mound of dirt (set into the estate side of the mound) and found nothing of value in the oval cavity beyond the ruined door.

8. The outlaw camp is small, maybe 10-15 persons depending on their health and their willingness to take in new additions. They like to keep moving through the woods, the better to keep from being caught.

9. A pair of rangers have tracked the outlaws, but haven't moved against them. The outlaws are good at blundering into forest dangers and lingering traps in the ruins they explore (the ruin near the hole in the mound is one of a handful in the area--each suffered the same troubles that drove off or slew the occupants of the buildings that once stood proud in the woods).

10. In the wintertime, the hole in the mound stays warm and dry. There is a lingering magic there that once kept the place comfortable. The rangers use the space to rest in (it's easier for one to rest while the other is on watch) and are careful to keep it hidden. The outlaws do not know about it.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

A Friendly Warning

Dear Reader,

As Springtime progresses into Summer here in the States, I will be culling entries from this thread in order to place them into my Cormyr sourcebook.

Thus, if there is anything here you find useful or if you like returning to specific entries in order to read or reference them, then you would do well to save a copy of that content to the storage device of your choice.

I will continue to generate new content and ideas. As before, it will be posted here first.

Thank you, Dear Reader, for the privilege of allowing me to speak inside your brain. I hope you continue to find what I have to say useful.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Dangers of the King's Forest: Tenday Mold

1. Tenday Mold is a little bit of everything: mold, rot and fungus.

2. Should your character ask about it, he or she is likely to be informed that the dead god Moander bequeathed Tenday Mold unto Cormyr as a parting gift; something meant to trouble Cormyreans for all of eternity thanks to their efforts to see that deity driven out of the Forest Kingdom once and for all.

3. Others will tell your character that elves made Tenday Mold, and that the legends of elves ruling the region before there ever was a Cormyr are true. Tenday Mold was just one of several methods the elves used to slow the advance of humans into their woodlands, and that the elves “forgot” to take it with them when they left once and for all.

4. Of more practical concern to your character will of course be the question of just what Tenday Mold does. Accounts vary of course, because the chances of encountering someone who’s been infected and survived are small—DM’s choice, as suits the needs of the campaign—but most NPCs will tell you some version of the following: If you are caught in a burst of Tenday Mold and it gets on your skin in a warm, moist spot—such as under your armor, in your armpits or your crotch—or if you inhale a cloud of it, there is a good chance it’ll take hold and grow, much to your detriment. (DM's choice on chance of being infected, and on a saving throw, if any, to resist the infection.)

5. Once it starts growing on flesh, Tenday Mold is nigh impossible to kill without killing or at least seriously harming the infected (i.e., it can be burned off, provided your character does not mind being set fire too; just as the infected flesh can be carved off). Druids know how to remove it safely, as do forest denizens like Dryads and Pixies—who are just as vulnerable to Tenday Mold as humans, elves, orcs, or any other humanoid creature—but you’d better be good at convincing such denizens to help you, or be quick to offer a favor in return for aid (read: accepting the equivalent of a geas placed on your character as the healing takes place).

6. Tenday Mold does not only grow on skin. It bores into the body, devouring muscle and solidifying over joints, making a victim immobile within 1d4+2 days after infection. Once immobile, your character will come to smell so bad that anything living (i.e. that has to breathe) will be driven off. Thus can the mold can grow and kill its victims without interruption.

7. Magical healing in the form of one-spell-heals-damage clerical magic does not cure Tenday Mold; hit point loss is of course remedied, but the mold keeps right on growing—even if a character is returned to full hit points. The right combination of healing-type spells must be cast (DM’s choice as to what spells work, and in what order if multiple spells are required, plus any required Healing Skill check or not). Characters at full HP suffering from Tenday Mold remain in excruciating pain.

8. In 8+1d4 days your character’s body will be fully covered in mold and spores, your character will draw his or her last breath and die (assuming starvation hasn’t killed your PC already). Your PC’s corpse will be frozen in place, and will look like a statue covered from head to foot in thick, powdery mold. Your character is now the latest in a long line of green, gray and blue mold covered humanoid-looking forest statues to be found in the deeper, darker parts of the King’s Forest.

9. (For what it’s worth, the stench fades away after your character dies.)

10. A thick, calcified crust will have formed underneath the mold—this what maintains the statue shape. Mounds of puckered spores will have formed in the center of the various colored patches to be found on your PCs corpse. The spores are very sensitive to movement and to the presence of flesh and blood creatures; your PCs corpse will burst in a 20’ radius if anything the size of a Halfling or larger comes within the area of effect, be it humanoid or forest creature or fantastical beast.

11. Druids and rangers that sight your PC’s corpse will mark the area as dangerous and to be avoided. A goodly act among druids is to cast spells causing bushes or vines to grow swiftly around or over your dead character’s form.

12. Rangers trained in the King’s Forest know that Honeysuckle eagerly takes root on Tenday Mold. If it’s planted near your PC’s corpse, the vines will encase it in about a month. This living shell consumes the mold and spores, and in any case dampens the eruption of spores (which seem still able to sense living creatures that wander by), reducing the explosive radius to 5’. Such growth produces flowers of varying colors, and the leaves are tinged with hues of blood red and deepest blue.

13. If the spores on your PC’s corpse explode, little is left behind. The shell in the shape of your PC’s body will be gone. All their flesh and bone is of course gone too. Anything your PC carried or wore that was incapable of rotting away will have been shot out in several random directions at the same time. However, if your PC’s corpse was covered in vines, all that didn’t rot can be found in a pile on the ground, covered in brittle bits of white that look like eggshells.

14. Wise adventurers know to look for human-high mounds of vines, and to carefully prod at them from a safe distance in the hopes of getting at whatever valuables might be found to lie inside.

15. Unscrupulous adventurers will lure or lead the unwary (such as other novice adventurers or the desperate) into the presence of Tenday Mold shells in order to set them off. After the explosion, the bad guys will attack and slay the unfortunates, then make off with whatever is revealed beneath the shells, as well as the property of the newly slain, as Tenday Mold settles quickly to the ground and then dies if it doesn’t find a new host to grow on.

16. Adventurers on the run from superior forces (or from one of the handful of Hill Giant-sized Owlbears that have reappeared within the last century in the King’s Forest) have been known to make for parts of the King’s Forest where Tenday Mold can be found, in the hopes of infecting their foes and creating a diversion by which they can escape.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Some more ideas for spells and other things.

1. Spell Idea:
Avenging Anvil
Cleric 5

This spell briefly summons the anvil a foe's metallic weapon was forged on. The anvil appears overhead or some distance in front of the spell's target, then proceeds to fly at the target at top speed, smashing into them with horrific, bone-crunching force.

2.-7.
Realmslore surrounding Avenging Anvil

• Some say the spell was gifted to a righteous priest of Tempus, that she could smite warriors who'd shown cowardice on the field of battle.
• Amongst the followers of Tyr and Torm, this spell is reserved as a punishment for use against anyone who murders forgemasters and their apprentices.
• NOTE: The importance of forgemasters--and crafters of all kinds--is not lost on followers of the Red Knight, for whom the worship of strategy and planning is their life's work, and all of life is viewed as a series of skirmishes with occasional outbreaks of war. Paladins of the Red Knight are tasked with finding the murderers of anyone that makes objects useful in times of war, and seeing these killers punished for their deeds.
• It's no secret that forgemasters have given themselves over to their work, and so the nature of their attachment to their forge is deeply personal--to the point of being magical. Thus, followers of Kelemvor will seek out haunted forges to determine why the haunted spirit of a forgemaster lurks near it. Avenging Anvil is one of several spells a priest of Kelemvor might employ in such situations, if using it will set the spirit free to find eternal rest and see a wrong made right.
• Dwarves in the Realms find all these stories simplistic; any dwarf born under a rock can tell you Avenging Anvil is the latest name for a spell that is older than most human civilizations, and that was first used several millennia ago to punish dwarves who'd betrayed their clan.
• Likewise on creatures--be it Drow, Orcs, Dragons or worse--that worked towards the demise of entire clans of Dwarves.

8. Spell Idea:
Anvil Storm
Cleric 9

This spell summons dark storm clouds the color of forge smoke and fire, and in the shape of mountain peaks. From within the clouds the sound of ten thousand hammers striking anvils erupt, which levels a cacophony of sound at the ground below. The sound stops all at once, and the enormous clouds withdraw inward to any of several hundred points within. A moment later, anvils begin to fall from the sky. The shrinking cloud moves about for several rounds as willed by the caster, and anvils continue to fall at a frightening rate until the clouds have dissipated.

9. Spell Idea:
Curse of Slag
Cleric ?

This spell works like Heat Metal, except that the caster may continue to concentrate until the metallic item becomes white hot and melts into a heap of slag. Not sure on duration, saves or damage.

Material Component: Any metallic object forged from the remains of an anvil that has been melted down.

10. Magic Item Idea:
Heart of the Forge
Artifact

This magic item is comprised of a heavy, dense orb of the purest iron. The orb is always warm to the touch, and its surface is crisscrossed with the forge marks of every dwarf forgemaster that used the heat of a particular forge to soften the metal that they worked on their anvils. Such orbs are made only when a particular dwarf clan achieves their greatest and mightiest works at the forge, after which the clan casts all of their anvils into the heat of the forge in the hopes that a Heart of the Forge may form. If it does, the clan offers it up to the combined Dwarven Pantheon as a gift of thanks, after which the clan departs to find a new home, and to quest to bring word to fellow dwarves of whatever wisdom or instructions the Pantheon imparts. If a Heart does not form, the clan abandons its home and splinters into smaller groups, each seeking a new path. Some Hearts are not accepted by the Dwarven Pantheon, and instead are left to the dwarves for safekeeping until a time of great need.

Just what the Heart of the Forge does is something I leave to you, Dear Reader, because it's time for me to get ready for work.

Until Swords Part.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Other Worlds that Touch the Realms

Countless other worlds touch the Realms, or have been connected to the Realms in the past. Some ideas about one of these worlds follow.

1. A world where the continents float; they bob along like boats in the water, save the water that laps against their shores is no more than a mile deep, and where that mile ends the ocean no longer pushes down, but up.

2. Another mile deeper and the ocean gives way to another surface. This one looks down into the haze and ash-choked clouds that cloak the ravaged crust of the world that the continents were once attached to.

3. Somewhere in the space between the haze and the upside-down ocean, gravity resumes its normal pull downward. The weather in between is a snarl of storms, thunder, boiling heat and worse.

4. What creatures lurk on the fractured surface of the Ravaged Crust is something the beings who live on the World Above can only guess at. Only adventurers and the foolhardy attempt to swim the depths of the Two Oceans, or to brave the depths of the continents until they find the place where the world turns on itself, at which point they must climb their way deeper until they emerge and stand on the surface of the World Below.

5. What is known about the Ravaged Crust is that it is crisscrossed with open lesions that spew magma, smoke and ash. Heat boils from great lakes of lava. What rain falls on its surface quickly dissipates into steam. Water that does manage to pool will eventually boil away if it is not collected and allowed to cool.

6. Great needle-like spires of black rock jut from the surface of the Ravaged Crust. Some claim these spires are growing, and that if a spire should ever touch a floating continent, then that land mass will become caught and dragged down into the boiling heat.

7. In the world above, there are no polar ice caps. Most people believe the oceans end in the extreme north and south, and that if one travels far enough they may stand on open air at the water's edge, and look down into the World Below as far as the Ravaged Crust, some miles below.

8. Whereas the elves on the Realms continent of Faerûn gathered to unleash a continent-wide spell that sundered the face of the continent, and so allowed the elves to shatter the power of the Dragons and Giants that harried them while at the same time creating a homeland far west of Faerûn in the middle of the Trackless See (aka Evermeet), the elves of the world of the floating continents were caught unawares by an equally powerful spell devised and unleashed by their corrupt kin, who were long ago banished into the lightless depths of the World Below.

9. The dark elves on this world dared grasp with their magic the currents of white hot magma that flowed beneath their homes in the earth, and the sent it roiling up through the World Below to the surface to boil and burn and melt their most hated foes.

10. The elves on the World Above were caught unawares, as were the dwarves, orcs, men, and all other races and creatures. That the spell of the dark elves went awry was no surprise to the One Who Watches, for this Overgod knew what the dark elves were attempting was impossible for them to control. As horrific earthquakes tore the world apart and its oceans boiled off into the darkness beyond the sky, The One Who Watches caught up in his grasp the power of all the gods of elves and dark elves alike, and with it cast a great net of magic that caught the continents as they began to separate and float away from the world.

11. The animus that pitted elf against dark elf, and elf-god against dark elf-god, was made into a tangible force that held the continents in place and dragged what remained of the oceans to fill the space in between.

12. All the races and creatures that survived pray to their deities, but the elves and dark elves of this world have no gods that resemble their kind.

13. In the Realms, one may find naturally occurring portals in the depths below the Sea of Fallen Stars that lead to the world where the continents float. Likewise in the waters off of Evermeet.

Now all I need is a name for this world. Any ideas, Dear Reader?

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Slow day in the brand-new-ideas department, but a few hours of good writing in the updating-the-Cormyr-sourcebook department.

If you've never encountered a War Wizard of Cormyr before, particularly in the 4E or 5E era of the Forgotten Realms, then this might be of use to you.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

TEN IDEAS FOR BLUSTICH

• On the Dragon Coast, in the village of Blustich, the women sing and the men play instruments.

• This is for most gatherings involving summoning the wind and the spirits of the fog.

• Of course the men and women of Blustich sing and play instruments as suits their tastes.

• A very few formal (‘formal’ in this case meaning an activity meant for more than simply singing or playing instruments for entertainment) songs are sung by men only.
Example: Sometimes the spirits of the fog become lost in the forest. If this happens, it’s up to the Walkers in the Woods to lure the spirits home with song, and at least get them back to the graveyard on the landrise above Blustich.

• It’s considered a bad sign if a woman is moved to play an instrument in a formal way. Really bad news if several women do.

• The Walkers in the Woods collect and share leafmaps.

• Leafmaps form slowly—days at a time; each day showning a little more of the way into the woods. Sometimes they form on flower petals.

• At the end of a lunar cycle, leafmaps show the way to the heart of the Hermit’s Woods.

• This path lasts for one day and one night, when Selûne is full in the night’s sky.

• The Walkers in the Woods find lost travelers and others captured by the Hermit’s Woods, and bring them out to safety.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

TEN IDEAS FOR THE HERMIT'S WOODS (NEAR BLUSTICH)

• In the Hermit’s Wood, on consecutively cloudy nights, one can tell if the moon has shown through the clouds by night because a certain flower changes color under the light of the moon.

• Leafmaps form on dead leaves, not just living ones.

• Leafmaps can be used to estimate how far along the moon is in its cycle.

• Traveling into the Hermit’s Woods is most dangerous when Selûne is new.

• When the moon is new, if one travels into the wood by night and loses sight of the edge of the wood, they are certain to become lost.

• This danger lessens as the days go by and the Selûne waxes towards her first quarter.

• The Walkers in the Wood are expert at knowing just how far one can travel without risking becoming lost in the wood.

• It’s easiest to tell if you’re lost at night, for this is when the power lurking over the Wood manifests the strongest. You know you’re lost in the Hermit’s Woods when the moon was shining high in the sky one moment, and now you can’t see it in the sky at all.

• By day, even if Selûne is visible in the sky, one may travel freely in the Hermit’s Woods. Strange things still occur, but rarely.

• If one has yet to leave the Hermit’s Woods by sunfall, however, and they are in a part of the wood it’s not safe to travel in yet, they will become lost. Gods help them, then.