Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy E Grenemyer" data-source="post: 6788190" data-attributes="member: 12388">Halvarl’s Lost SwordsBased out of Asbravn, Halvarl’s Lost Swords are noteworthy for being discovered in petrified form amongst a group of fallen down statues scattered across a valley abutting the tall peaks of the Sunset Mountains.[1]Though Halvarl and four others were freed, time and the elements reduced the majority of Halvarl’s companions to broken, weather-beaten stone, and they could not be saved. [2]The shattered remains of Halvarl’s comrades and the alien, out of touch ways of his companions lent credibility to a most startling claim: the five individuals that would become the Lost Swords hailed from a time when the lands of Teshar and Anauria still existed, and there was only the Great Sand Sea, not Anauroch.[3]Little is known about the Lost Swords, other than their origin: In the Year of the Tusk (112 DR), Halvarl fled his home along the southern coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars and traveled by boat to Suzail where he assembled a twelve-strong band of adventurers with the intent of battling the monsters and mercenary wizards forever harrying the nascent kingdom of Cormyr, not knowing the adventurers were destined to be frozen in time for the next 1300 years.Cormyrean sages believe at least two of the Swords are natives of Asram, that all but one of the Swords hailing from Suzail perished in statue form, and that save for Halvarl all the survivors are women.[4]Halvarl is a skilled fighter and expert at negotiating, and all the Lost Swords are superior horse riders. The specific abilities of the other Swords are a mystery to those not native to Asbravn.And it is in Asbravn where the Swords have busied themselves with gathering information about the new world they live in from the many merchants and travelers that pass through the town, and with assisting the Riders in Red Cloaks[5] in driving off Zhentarim aggressors. The catacombs beneath Asbravn have piqued the Lost Swords' interest as well.None but Halvarl speaks for the Lost Swords.[1] The Lost Swords were both discovered and freed by another adventuring company: the Five Bright Blades of Cormyr. The Bright Blades did not linger; well before Halvarl and his companions found their way to Asbravn, the Bright Blades had already arrived in Suzail, there to petition the ruler of all Cormyr for a private audience. Rumorfire burned bright through Suzail when word passed from the Royal Court to greater Suzail that not only was the audience granted, but a mysterious woman was revealed by the leader of the Bright Blades. Most assume her to be a lost Royal, but others claim she is of the blood of one of the families Silver.[2] “Or they were released during the Time of Troubles or the Spellplague, when magic was not so reliable. There are tales of men and women from the past appearing in the wake of each of these calamitous events.” This from the doomed sage Loagrandboydar, and written as part of his regular correspondence with the monks of Sagekeep before he fell prey to magical calamity in the depths of the Royal Palace of the Purple Dragon. (See page 302 of the novel “Bury Elminster Deep”.)[3] Though Halvarl will go on at length about the world as he knew it (to anyone he befriends and learns to trust, mind), he will not speak of his fallen comrades and has never willingly told anyone the name of the adventuring company he founded in Suzail.[4] As overheard at the headquarters of the Society of Stalwart Adventurers in Suzail by a well-dressed and always hooded figure known as the Rogue Cloak—a thief who’s been kicked out of the Society and then readmitted numerous times. The Rogue Cloak listened in as members of the Five Bright Blades recounted their discovery of the Lost Swords, and then sold an account of that conversation to sages specializing in adventurer lore and the history of Cormyr and the surrounding lands. For their part the members of the Blades have let it be known that when next they encounter the Rogue Cloak they intend to remove his (or her) tongue and nail it to the Society’s front door as a reminder to all that what is said within its walls is to remain within those walls.[5] Asbravn’s volunteer militia. See the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, page 225.</blockquote>

Verification