Forgotten Realms changes - The Orc King novel prelude's 'facts'

[StarFyre]

I didn't see this discussed in the past few weeks, unless I missed it so thought I would post. I just read the prelude in The Orc King (borrowed from friend to read) and it is actually discussing 100 years ahead of the timeline of the Drizzt & friends characters current timeline.

* mild spoilers but only from the prelude so no big deal*

Drizzt, being elven species, only one of the friends still alive..and he mentions some changes in discussion with another elf, as they hunt some highwaymen, who are hunting orcs, although there is a treaty with the orcs in the Spine of the World. Those brigands are against the orcs and try to kill them all, while Drizzt is now trying to protect them.. some notes of interest:

* he mentioned "how far the region has come, in a world gone mad by the Spellplague"
* the region called SIlver Marshes was MORE civilized due to the long line of orc Kings called "Obould"
* "his perspective and memories of that time a hundred years gone, before the rise of the empire of netheril, the coming of the aboleths, and the discordant and disastrous joining of 2 worlds" -- not sure if the 2 worlds parts refers to something in the underdark alone OR to the spellplague, but that lends credence to what that guy theorized ofthe spellplague and the elven high magic/chronomantic effect that created Evermeet... (THe Sundering spell - causing history to be rewritten from the start, hence it being part chronomantic in nature, and a separate timeline being created as well...one with and one without evermeet)...then, the spellplague being both realities crashing back together into one combined reality, but who knows what state the other was in at the time)
* luskan is destroyed
* speaking of cities, people, etc "lost to the spellplague or worse"

Anyone else read this part? what do people think?

Sanjay

 

[Warbringer]

- causing history to be rewritten from the start, hence it being part chronomantic in nature, and a separate timeline being created as well...one with and one without evermeet)...then, the spellplague being both realities crashing back together into one combined reality, but who knows what state the other was in at the time)

Sanjay

blah

 

[Deekin]

* "his perspective and memories of that time a hundred years gone, before the rise of the empire of netheril, the coming of the aboleths, and the discordant and disastrous joining of 2 worlds" -- not sure if the 2 worlds parts refers to something in the underdark alone OR to the spellplague, but that lends credence to what that guy theorized ofthe spellplague and the elven high magic/chronomantic effect that created Evermeet... (THe Sundering spell - causing history to be rewritten from the start, hence it being part chronomantic in nature, and a separate timeline being created as well...one with and one without evermeet)...then, the spellplague being both realities crashing back together into one combined reality, but who knows what state the other was in at the time)

That was confirmed to be Bad Fan-fic.

What Drizzt is talking about is putting the Aber back in Toral.

 

[Aloïsius]

What Drizzt is talking about is putting the Aber back in Toral.

And, what is Aber ?

 

[Green Knight]

And, what is Aber ?

And what's Toral?

And how much more of this thread is going to be consumed with criticizing the spelling of the previous poster?

Anyway, we don't actually know what Drizzt is talking about when he says something about the disastrous joining of two worlds. Yeah, it could be a reference to them putting the Abeir back into Abeir-Toril, but that's not a certainty. That's just a theory referring to an Ed Greenwood article from a couple years ago. There's no reason to automatically assume that Drizzt's comment is a reference to what Greenwood wrote.

 

[Aloïsius]

And what's Toral?

And how much more of this thread is going to be consumed with criticizing the spelling of the previous poster?

huh, I did not paid attention to the spelling. So...

Anyway, we don't actually know what Drizzt is talking about when he says something about the disastrous joining of two worlds. Yeah, it could be a reference to them putting the Abeir back into Abeir-Toril, but that's not a certainty. That's just a theory referring to an Ed Greenwood article from a couple years ago. There's no reason to automatically assume that Drizzt's comment is a reference to what Greenwood wrote.

What is Abeir ?

 

[Green Knight]

Huh. Here I thought you were pointing out his misspelling, when you were asking a genuine question. Well, to answer your question, Abeir-Toril is the name of the planet where the Forgotten Realms, Maztica, al-Qadim, and Kara-Tur settings are on. Originally it was simply named Toril, but the name was changed to Abeir-Toril so that it would appear in the beginning of an encyclopedia. There's also an article by Ed Greenwood floating around indicating that there's more to the name.

 

[dimonic]

The Orc King and 4th edition

I didn't see this discussed in the past few weeks, unless I missed it so thought I would post. I just read the prelude in The Orc King (borrowed from friend to read) and it is actually discussing 100 years ahead of the timeline of the Drizzt & friends characters current timeline.
* mild spoilers but only from the prelude so no big deal*

I have just finished the book, so I warn of spoilers here. The prelude is the only part of the book that deals with the 100+ year interval. The rest of the book is the beginning of the events that lead to that point (and covers only a single season).

Anyone else read this part? what do people think?

Sanjay

It is a reasonable read, if a little preachy (overstresses the modern "alighnment is not a straight-jacket" viewpoint). The book also parallels modern intelligent (*snip real-life politics* -Darkness) thinking on warfare re: political vs military solutions.

It is clearly setting up the "points of light" world for 4th edition, clearing away a lot of the overly detailed realms.

 

[ChaosShard]

It is clearly setting up the "points of light" world for 4th edition, clearing away a lot of the overly detailed realms.

(Emphasis mine)

I'll respectfully disagree with you here, as I happen to love having a heavily detailed world.

Also, I spoke to Chris Perkins at Digital Life, and most of the changes will be happening in regions that the FR staff feels are under-utilized for campaigns. Most of those (Anauroch being the example he sited) have relatively little detail. However, Sembia goes through some major upheaval during the Twilight War series (an excellent read, btw!), so there will most likely be changes everywhere, but not a full blown tabula rasa situation across the breadth of Faerun.

 

[fabneme]

There's also an article by Ed Greenwood floating around indicating that there's more to the name.

Where can I find this article?