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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy E Grenemyer" data-source="post: 7542764" data-attributes="member: 12388">A handy list of hidden magic, all to be found in Cormyr, from the novel "Swords of Dragonfire", by Ed Greenwood, p.68 of the hardcover edition:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Darlock's six tasked spirits</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Crown of the Slayer</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Hunting Blade</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Door Into Nowhere</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The wandering cloaks of wyvernshape</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The flying swords that guard Emmaera Dragonfire's bones</li> </ul>Let's get to work, shall we?1. The name for The Hunting Blade suggests a magic item with properties tied to hunting, but this need not be so. 2. Better, methinks, if the sword is identical to a magic sword found in the Dungeon Master's Guide, with some quirks or properties to tie it to Cormyr and/or the sword's own history. 3. Thus, a sword that's good for chopping things, and one that keeps your spirits up to boot:[ATTACH]103894[/ATTACH]4. As to history, it suits my needs if the sword found its way into the hands of the Buckfast noble family (a "rustic" House, which is to say a noble family living well away from the centers of power in Cormyr--i.e., Suzail, Arabel and Marsember--that does a lot of the work with their own hands). The Buckfasts live east of Thunderstone, which puts them near the Thunderflow (river), the Thunder Peaks to the east and the Hullack Forest to the north. Plenty of good hunting (of animals and monsters) to be had in the mountains and forest. 5. This region of Cormyr isn't quite the frontier it used to be (esp. by 1491 DR). Yet Cormyr still hasn't built a proper north-south road through the Hullack. Purple Dragons are garrisoned in Thunderstone and occupy some excellent defensive positions, but they patrol between the Hullack and the Thunder Peaks, they don't ride through that forest. In fact, if there's a major problem (orc army massing in the Hullack), then by standing order forces from Arabel or Marsember would be called in; there aren't enough Purple Dragons and Wizards of War in the region centered on Thunderstone to deal with such problems decisively. 6. Thinking backwards, it makes sense that the further back in time you go, the less populated/settled the region ought to have been. This makes it prime real estate for robber barons, monsters, elves plotting to slay humans (e.g., the Eldreth Veluuthra), Sembian interests gathering to raise trouble, in addition to all the other history we know about (fallen Orva/now the Vast Swamp; the druid Hullack; the agreements that averted bloodshed and passed control of the Hullack Forest to Cormyr). Seems like the right place to have a limb-chopping sword. 7. When everday Cormyreans fight and die with valiant bravery in order to protect Cormyr's ruling monarch or royal family members, there's a good chance those Cormyreans (or the next surviving heir to the family, if the bravery resulted in death of the former head of household) will be ennobled. Happened all the time in Cormyr. So it was with the Buckfasts. 8. A wrinkle in their story was the need for the King that ennobled them (Pryntaler Obarskyr, circa 1200 DR) to bind lands newly secured in the region where modern day Thunderstone exists to the nation of Cormyr. 9. This meant convincing his longtime foe turned loyal friend Eltrym Drauthglass, aka "Lord of the Hullack" to agree to marry off some of his daughters (there were six of them) into recently ennobled families of Cormyr, the later obeying King Pryntaler’s decree to “move east and settle” the newly won lands. 10. These "Ladies of the Hullack" were free to choose whom to marry, for Eltrym commanded them only to find a suitable husband (he would not have dreamed of choosing for them because he didn't believe himself that wise/he trusted his daughter's judgement far more). His daugthers saw the need to bind their ancestral lands to Cormyr for mutual protection and to lessen the chances of future bloodshed. 11. Eltrym's second eldest daughter, Theera, came to love Sargrast Buckfast after a lengthy courtship. Eltrym lived long enough to see his daughter married, and gave her a sword that would have gone to one of her four brothers, had any of them survived the battles with Cormyr. 12. That sword is The Hunting Blade. The gifting of the blade was done out of sight from prying eyes. Because the sword already had a history (of which a handful of stories and one proper legend are still sung about by bards in Cormyr to this day), and because it has never been seen in the nearly three centuries since Eltrym's death (and on the handful of occasions when openly worn by later generations of Buckfasts, not recognized), the sword is believed by most sages to have been hidden away at Eltrym's command. 13. Thus, in the year 1347 DR, Sebryn Korthyn, Sage of Elturel, included The Hunting Blade in an introductory list of hidden magic in Cormyr for his "The Realm of the Dragon: Cormyr In The Time Of Vangerdahast, Vol. I". 13. Sebryn's assumption became all but truth, for in the year 1371 DR a young and foolish lording by the name of Ravance Buckfast lost the family sword to the dragon Thraxata, in a confrontation atop The Bloodhorn. The Hunting Blade has not been recovered by 1491 DR.</blockquote>

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