#d&d lore

[itsabardknocklife]

Things the Baldur's Gate Fandom Needs To Know About Mystra

The current Mystra is the third Mother of Magic and she was originally a mortal human woman named Ariel Manx.

Ariel was the second daughter of a wealthy merchant and she liked to sneak out at night to go partying in the clubs.

While out clubbing one night, Ariel - known as Midnight among her friends - met a conjurer named Tad who introduced her to magic and brought her to Mystra's temples.

When Ariel was 21, she attracted Mystra's attention and began to feel as though she were being watched. Whenever this happened, she found that her ability to cast spells increased and that spells that she once found difficult were much easier.

In 1358, when Ariel was 26, the ALL gods were cast out onto the Material Plane by Ao because Bane and Myrkul were being little shits and making yet another power grab, like they do.

The Original Mystra was extremely Unhappy about being thrown out of the heavens and tried to march back up the Celestial Stairway to reclaim her place of power.

Ao did not take kindly to this, and promptly had Helm kick her ass.

Unfortunately, Mystra dying is Bad For The Weave, and Ao had to replace her.

He picked Ariel.

When she was 26.

Immediately after she kicked Myrkul's bony ass in a duel that took place in the sky over Waterdeep.

In order to make the transition easier, Ariel took up the name of Mystra so that

27 years later, Cyric and Shar conspired to kill her so that Shar could take over as the Mother of Magic and spread her Shadow Weave over the land.

Instead of granting Shar control of the Weave the way she hoped, the new Mystra's death/disappearance caused the Weave to collapse, taking the Shadow Weave with it and kicking off what is known as the Spellplague.

Unlike the last two times Mystra was killed, everything went kind of nuts. Magic faded, blue fire raged across the land, killing everything it touched and then raising them into ghouls, the landscape became warped, it was Bad.

The only good thing to come out of the Spellplague was the Dragonborn, who were released from thousands of years of enslavement as a result of the blue fire blowing everything to shit. Hooray for the dragonborn!

Anyway.

Over the next hundred years, things calmed down and the magic… sort of returned, but there were a lot of changes to how magic worked. The Mother of Magic was a non-entity, her presence unfelt even by the famed Elminster of Shadowdale.

At least, not until 1479, when he found her possessing a bear and guarding a hoard of magic items she'd stashed while mortal.

She sent him out to go find new candidates to become her Chosen, and he came back a few weeks later after gorging on the magic of a few of Mystra's other Chosen and gave her enough juice to "return."

Three years later, the Second Sundering started when Bhaal's last two descendants fight to the death and resurrect him as a result.

At this point, ALL the gods are out there recruiting people to become their Chosen right, left, and center. It's a race to become the strongest god in the pantheon, with the winners being decided based on who has the most followers.

This goes on for five years, with the Second Sundering coming to a close in 1487. This was when Mystra became fully restored as a Goddess, with the Weave returning to its original strength.

Over the next two years, MOST of the gods drop their Chosen like they're hot and go quiet, resulting in the rise of clerics as mortals struggled to understand why the gods' behaviors changed so drastically from before.

Mystra was actually one of the few who kept in contact with her Chosen while a few others (such as Ellistraee and the Dead Three) chose to remain on Toril in Avatar form.

In the year 1491, Gale Dekarios of Waterdeep finds the Netherese Orb and has his silver flame (the mark of Mystra's chosen) consumed by it.

12 years after Mystra - once the mortal woman known as Ariel Manx - recovered from her near-death experience.

Please, I am begging you. Stop portraying Mystra the Ultimate Evil and Gale as her Innocent Victim. Their whole relationship is so much more complex than that. Mystra put so much trust in Gale and simply asked that he not cross her boundaries in return, and Gale, in his own words, "sought to cross [those] boundaries." He's a man who heard no and decided that he wasn't going to stop trying until that no became a yes.

I'm not saying Gale is the villain in this, but I am saying that both Gale and Mystra are complex individuals who are both flawed in different ways, and reducing them down to Good and Bad is doing them a disservice.

#gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #mystra #bg3 mystra #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #d&d lore

[keicordelle]

Baldur's Gate handles Ilmater's faith much better than any other source I've seen of it, I'm very impressed. 2e Ilmater lore was just awful

#bg3 #d&d #d&d lore #ilmater #baldur's gate 3 #my screenshots #~k

[crystal-overdrive]

Call to Bane

This ritual is a calling, not an invocation. Suitable for postulants and regular connection, this ritual does not force Bane to come (truly, not even an invocation could force anything upon the Lord of Tyranny Himself), but opens a connection between Him and a seeker.

Take a black, five-fingered candle, fashioned especially for this purpose, and light each finger, from the smallest to the thumb, while intoning:

One finger for Strength One finger for Knowledge One finger for Fear One finger for Power One finger for Tyranny

When the candles are lit, say: 

Five candles. Five virtues. Five digits on the black hand of Bane. 

Adopt the orans position, and say:

Bane! Dark Lord, He Who Takes Action, He who took his Godhood by might,  Heed my call.  Kneel, prostrate yourself before our Lord:

I, your faithful, come to you in terror and submission.  Ready to spread your darkness,  Ready to become that which I fear. 

Lord, bless me with your power.

Listen for his response, or any message he may have for you. When you are ready, open your eyes, give thanks, and extinguish the candles.

#writing more lore for the fic and figured I'd share #please don't try this at home #bane #5e bane #d&d bane #d&d lore #bg3 lore #banite ritual #fic ref #my fic ref #banites #church of bane #cult of bane #enver gortash #bg3 enver gortash #gortash #my bane lore

[andauril]

Lae'zel's reaction to Mindflayer!Tav is honestly the most real one. She knows the Mindflayer isn't Tav anymore; this is the tadpole, having completed ceremorphosis. The person you used to be is gone. What is left is the tadpole, and your body, twisted beyond recognition. The Mindflayer might have your memories; it might even think it is you, but they're not the same person. Like, Gale proposing to Mindflayer!Tav is cute and all, but the man should honestly know better.

Does this mean Mindflayer!Tav is automatically evil? No. Omeluum is a good example of a friendly Illithid. But Omeluum is also not its host. The Emporer is not Balduran either. At best, Mindflayer!Tav (or Mindflayer!Karlach, etc.) is an extreme case of partialism (where something of the Host's mind is left over instead of being completely subsumed). This is also likely the case with the Emporer. TL;DR: Lae'zel would not love you as a worm and I love her for being real like that.

#andauril rambles #d&d lore #bg3 #lae'zel #mindflayers #ceremorphosis #baldur's gate 3 #baldur's gate iii

[miradelletarot]

LORE/TIMING HELP!

OK BG3 and Forgotten Realms/ D&D people! I need your very high intelligence rolls tossed my way! So! I am trying to establish a semi-accurate and realistic time frame for between Acts 1-3. Possible (though very mild) Act 3 spoilers (not pertaining to anything patch 5 b/c I haven't gotten there yet so PLEASE don't discuss anything of that here...but general stuff may be mentioned so please proceed with caution).

So, in Act 3, if we don't play as Gale, we meet Tara on the roof. Now, She was left back in Waterdeep so assuming there was no Greater Teleportation spell available to her, it would take her about 45 days to get from there to Baldur's Gate. (Source) I can't recall anything being mentioned anywhere that anything like this was available, but if I'm wrong please lmk. Obviously, actual gameplay doesn't take this long, but I want to focus on what could actually be a realistic timeline. Think of any D&D campaign and you are gonna have fighting days, resting days, travel days, even shopping days. This is (sorta) reflected in game, but you can just play and play, and get thru everything in days frankly. I have spoken to a few people and some have said 1-2 months while others have said only like 2-3 weeks have passed. Which brings me to my next point: Weeks are separated into tendays (literally...10 days in a week). A month, is about 3 of those (with a few odd days tossed in through the year) which you can see in the image below. You'll notice that the events in BG3 take place just before Feast of the Moon (not important i guess, but interesting!) **more after the image**

So, if that's the case, that would put BG3 events taking place within a month's time, but even that seems short. There's so much to explore, so many people to help, etc etc. I had estimated (generously I'm sure) that each act took about 2-3 tendays each which would give us a roughly 2.5 to 3 month timespan. If this only goes for a 2-3 week span, then Gale is certainly rushing into the whole idea of marriage tbh lmao!! Like "babe, i know we have only dated for like a tenday, but marry me?" xD though, to be fair, even if we go for the 3 month (very generous) timespan bbygirl is still rushing into things, but I think we can give him a pass since they all fought for their lives and all lol. I just wanna get everyone's big lore dump info on this matter b/c I honestly wanna know, AND I am gonna use it to help time parts of my next fics. The timing is kinda important to help me plan things and also to make sure I am not doing some weird time dilation head canon shit that could mess everything up in the world LOL

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #BG 3 Lore #forgotten realms #Forgotten Realms Lore #D&D Lore #Waterdeep #Baldur's Gate #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale #baldur's gate gale #gale #gale romance #baldurs gate #baldur's gate iii #I am putting these investigative skills to work y'all #help please #Writing research #writing reference #Lore Dump #Info Dump

[effelants]

Thinking about Withers' note in the epilogue

So, "dark sun", I think we're all fairly confident that that's in reference to Cyric (or is it??? WHAT IF SOMETHING ELSE???? but then there's also a lot of other Cyric references in the game, so I'm fairly confident about this take tbh).

But what is "white sky"?

Any theories, any ideas? I'm coming up short (read: "I have ideas, but legitimately all of them are too dumb and/or far-fetched to print"), and I'd hate to just assume that because I can't think of what it could be, it's just there for poetic effect djfkghsdg

#bg3 #bg3 spoilers #patch 5 spoilers #withers #bg3 withers #cyric #d&d cyric #dungeons & dragons #d&d #d&d lore

[karniss-bg3]

Speaking of Aranea... have you seen Chwidencha? They failed Lolth's test too, but after seeing those, I think it's definitely better to be a drider. The creep my out on a different level lol

Huh, I haven't. Let me look it up.

.

.

.

WHAT IN THE--!

#Chwidencha #answered #Kar'niss #just when I thought Lolth's bullshit couldn't get any worse #either that or she ran out of ideas #Lolth #drow #D&D lore

[tinkerbitch69]

Some ramblings I came up with while thinking about the best faction in D&D’s Planescape: The Bleak Cabal!

If nothing holds meaning, then pain serves no purpose. It doesn’t teach, it doesn’t punish, it doesn’t spur growth or change or redemption. It’s just pain. It just hurts. With no reason to, it just hurts…

So why not try to soothe them? why would you want people to hurt?

#any planescape fans on this site? #warning: I will get into a argument about faction philosophy #dungeons and dragons #dnd #d&d #dnd lore #d&d lore #d&d multiverse #planescape #planescape torment #planescape factions #bleak cabal #bleakers #ttrpg #philosophy #optimistic nihilism #positive nihilism #bleak positivity

[timeforelfnonsense]

Do you like d&d? Are you someone who plays bg3 and wants to learn more about lore but feels overwhelmed by how much of it there is? Might I suggest my friend, Mark’s podcast?

Mark is our d&d groups main dm and a professional voice actor (as well as one of my favorite people in the world). If you are wanting to learn more about the forgotten realms or looking for a good sleep podcast I recommend it.

The most recent episode is about the city of Waterdeep. Home to everyone’s favorite shoe eating wizard.

#d&d lore #writing reference #bg3 fic writers might find this interesting #Spotify #Waterdeep #gale of waterdeep #long post #bg3 #forgotten realms

[crimson-hope]

Hmm I was thinking about making a short racial lore guides for the game before it comes out. Many people do know about d&d races but there are people coming into bg3 blind.

Just simple things like elves being considered adults culturally when they're 100 despite being physically adults at around the same age as humans.

Just for rp reasons.

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #d&d lore #Role-playing is a must #Lol I'm probably just rambling

[corkyjettscorner]

I read some D&D lore, to better understand Baldur’s Gate 3, and I found out that drow have a good goddess, Eilistraee. She’s a very cool goddess, she protects all drow that escape from Lolth, and promotes harmony and love between all races. She eoncourage her fellow drow to go on surface and live in peace with everyone. So now I made a cleric-paladin that worships Eilistraee, and I want to see if there are different dialogues lines with my beloved Minthara! 😻❤️

#baldur's gate 3 #d&d lore #minthara #minthara baenre #cleric #eilistraee #she’s hot #she’s mother #sheesh #she’s so cute

[cheesewritings]

It's Theory Time!

Okay so The Upside Down is basically a mirror dimension of Hawkins right? What else is a mirror dimension? The Shadowfell. In D&D lore, the Shadowfell is a mirror dimension of the physical plane. There's no color, landmarks are usually recognizable but altered in some way. It's often frequently subjected to small earthquakes, and lightning storms. Portals to the Shadowfell don't just appear, nor are they created by accident, they're intentionally made by very powerful magic. Any mortal who visits the Shadowfell is forever changed.

Now think about the Upside Down. Lightning storms, when it overtook Hawkins it was allegedly an earthquake. It's almost as if it's stuck in time, with recognizable landmarks that are significantly altered ("it's like she was made for another dimension") Portals are created intentionally via powerful magic.

And don't even get me started on the whole Vecna connection. Stay tuned for more

#stranger things #d&d #D&D lore #Shadowfell #mirror dimension #vecna #eleven #theories #stranger things theories

[faeries-fires]

Volo is a wizard, not a bard

A lot of people who are not familiar with Forgotten Realms lore erroneously assume that he's a bard since he dresses and kinda acts like one in the game, but he is not. He is a WIZARD, and very mediocre at that (poor man is only level 1 lmao).

Source

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #volothamp geddarm #please reblog so more people can see it #volo isn't larian's creation #he's a well known d&d character #he appears in many campaigns #and he's got a lot of interesting lore #like the fact that he's a weave anchor #if you want to learn more visit the source link I've added #d&d lore

[archcambion]

Cambions have a weird history in DnD.

In 1e and 2e, cambions were the names of offspring between demons and mortal women. This lead to unfortunate implications... Or intended complications. Regardless, this didn't mean there weren't half devils, or that female demons couldn't have held mortal kids, half devils were just rare compared to half demons and the setting didn't bother to name them.

This was likely due to demons being impulsive with both binary genres being fertile. Demons may not plan on having offspring and descents but would jump at the opportunity to use them for their whims.

In contrast in 1e and 2e lore, only male devils were fertile and devils were meticulous planners and had full intention of using their children.

Of course the term for cambion is a umbrella term in in 1e and 2e.

We have baron cambions, who were offspring of demon lords and mortals. There were also true cambions, and those were offspring of a tiefling woman and a demon. Cambions, apparently, killed their mother at birth. Unless if you were a female offspring of a succubus. Then you were an Alu-Fiend and a woman.

This was the explanation why cambions were often evil, humans rejected them and demons thought they were losers. However, the lore never explains if the cambion child is dependent of a caregiver or more like demons in being born independent. I'm not a fan of any species killing their mother at birth due to the fact that this is usually written by people who don't realize unless the baby has a wet nurse before formula, the baby dies within days.

But for all my complaining, 2e cambions were not always evil. There was a 10% chance they'd be not-evil. I liked that.

In 3e, the writers decided was too damn confusing and everyone with a fiend father and mortal mother were half-fiends and generally regarded as cambions... unless if you were an alu-fiend. The only mention of demonic cambions was in an adventure module towards the end of 3e that was all about Grazzt being annoyed Lloth wouldn't be a booty call.

4e said fuck that, cambions were only offspring of devils as apart of Hasbro's idea to get rid of all the previous lore outside of the Forgotten Realms. Unlike demon based cambions, devil based cambions were adored and spoiled by their infernal parents. 4e was so hated that Hasbro moved onto 5e when there wasn't a lot of sufficient lore on why devils pampered their children beyond having more worshipers for Asmodeus... or anything else besides the bare bones, really.

In 5e Hasbro retconned the old lore back, though they did change the cambions to fit the 'let's make lore more simple'. As of this edition, any offspring between a fiend and a mortal was a cambion. Didn't matter. All were cambions. It didn't matter how much the mortal parent (male or female) attempted to help their fiendish child, that child was evil. So, the good news was that cambions no longer killed their mothers at birth. The bad news is that cambions according to RAW can no longer be not-evil.

Of course, this is all based on RAW sources and very brief and glib. Homebrew and headcanon is basically the true rule of DnD, but it's fun to know how things have developed since Gary Ggynax got super bored with his friends one day.

#bg3 meta #d&d lore #cambion

[leomonae]

- The Illithiad

#illithiad #illithid tav #we shall not all die verse #d&d lore #baldur's gate 3 #hyperfixation ahoy #illithid #“as illithidly possible” :D

[gaudebo]

release the orc thoughts!!!!!!!!!!!

I swear Im in love (platonic) w you thank you

Here’s my orc thoughts:

Basically every depiction of orcs so far has been blatantly racist and not very good

This is extremely fixable

This is gonna be an essay, buckle up:

So much of orc characterization focuses on them being a violent, savage, uncivilized, tribal people which unfortunately translates directly to racist stereotypes that have been held about most non-white people at some point in time, particularly Africans and Native Americans. We do not like that. Also, Tolkien himself described orcs as "squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types." We do not like that either.

D&D continues this trend by essentially saying "all orcs are ugly aggressive buff mean as shit and they all die young if you like orcs fuck you. they're omnicidal savages. eat shit and die" which makes me, an orc-liker, deeply unhappy.

How is this fixable, you ask?

First of all: this post has been living in my brain rent free for months. Please go look at it.

Second of all: there's so much potential with orcs if you retain them as a tribal people who are not in the least aggressive when left the fuck alone!! They can still be tribal that is (obviously) not inherently wrong but it would be WAY BETTER for them to be a close-knit and collectivist society! You know, like many tribes are! And perhaps the in-universe stereotype of aggressiveness comes from the fact that they are trained from youth to defend the tribe. But that is exactly what it is: defense. They roam the land and never attack first, but will fight to the death when threatened. When not engaged in conflict, they are excellent artisans. It's just, nobody notices that part. They are an insular people, but every so often some of them leave their tribe to seek a separate fortune. (none of this "all half-orcs are the product of terrible circumstances" shit from the dnd wiki. Stop that.)

Also: the stereotype of orcs as uneducated comes from the fact that very few of them can write. It's a trade passed along from master to apprentice for the rare occasions when they do need to interact with outsiders. However, orc tribes have a rich oral tradition and pass information through stories and parables. Most orcs have excellent memories for information that is shared verbally. Also, art (particularly paintings and textiles) is another medium used for storytelling! The lack of a written language does not equal a lack of knowledge. People just aren't looking in the right places.

Furthermore: let's stop doing this "orcs as a monolith" thing. They have varied senses of morality influenced by culture but ultimately up to the individual. Different tribes of orcs have different cultures, dialects, crafting styles, etc. They are all "orcs" but do not all get along or act the same! (much like people who ask me "why don't you act black?" some orcs are probably asked "why don't you act like an orc?" stop doing this.)

Lastly: I'm redacting the "orcs rarely live past 45 years" shit from d&d bc I don't like it lmao that's the only reason on that one. Here is my new hot take: orcs are extremely protective of their elders especially as a society with oral traditions which is why they are rarely seen by outsiders. Orcs still have shorter lifespans than humans but if an old human is 70 an old orc is 60. Not a huge difference, but noticeable.

Disclaimer: I am not immersed in D&D lore. My autistic hyperfixation™ since I started playing skyrim has been orcs and I am consuming orc lore voraciously. I have many thoughts about this feel free to ask me for more of them.

Hoes really be like "if you perceive orcs as racist stereotypes maybe it is because you are racist" but here is the thing: Living in close-knit communities and honing specific skills, being seen as backwards and barbaric even though it's what you've always done. Being judged because of your appearance, perhaps even considered cursed, but you've always looked like this, and you still think your mother and sisters are beautiful even if no-one else does. Being used only for strength, important only when someone needs something from you, intellectual achievements either disregarded or seen as isolated incidents, constantly fighting to prove yourself in a world where everyone has already decided what you are. By god that is relatable as a person of color!! And then to say "and also all of these people are evil and ugly and there is no hope for any of them and they will all die young" kind of hits different when you are seeing yourself in them. Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk

#long post #orcs #dungeons & dragons #dungeons and dragons #dnd #d&d #skyrim #elder scrolls #d&d lore #orc racism #lord of the rings #lotr #tolkien critical #racism #fantasy racism #fix it #yes I'm black yes it influences the way I view fantasy no I will not change this #nerdyskeleton my friend nerdyskeleton #48hr orc lockdown