Elminster had a lot of enemies in his 800 years of life. He had many remarkable enemies. Among them Sammaster and Manshoon seems like the only ones that deserve the title of Elminster's nemesis. Which one is the most deserving in your opinion?

Here is my attempts to clean up and stitch together the 2e maps from the 2e Moonsea supplement:

Hi Rez copy

Location Index with wiki page links

Honestly between the low contrast names on the map, and the poor quality of the source scan, I'm not terribly happy with how this one came up. But it will have to do...

I don't really have any interest in digitally reproducing these maps using AI or whatever. I feel the original art and style has its own value, and the more I "clean" and futz with a map, the more I am moving away from the original maps...

But I am trying to figure out how we can put together a "2e Maps Remastered" project. Someone somewhere has the original maps, and if we could get a modern 300DPI 24bit scan of those individual map pages from the supplements, we can actually make some nice color corrected, cleaned up, poster sized maps. Which would be nice. DM me if you have any 2e supplement map scans of decent quality... I'll stitch 'em to together and clean them up. And if you know of a collector with copies of the physical maps that wants to contribute to the community... Please put me in touch with them.

Some time ago, I've finished reading War of the Spider Queen, and that had a decent amount of duergar in it, but I've been wondering if there's any novels that center or dwarves/duergar? Something with a protagonist of that race maybe?

Aside from Drizzt novels because iirc they feature Bueronn, I know about him.

I'm writing a campaign about planar travel and want to better understand how to traverse through the ethereal plane. My question is this: per my understanding that the ethereal plane only envelopes the inner planes, why do the outer planes have ethereal curtain colors if they do not border the ethereal plane? Or am I misunderstanding how the ethereal plane works? Can you access the outer planes using the ethereal plane?

I'm currently listening to the Audiobook for *Lord of Stormweather* by Dave Gross, book 7 of Sembia Gateway to the Realms.

In it, several of the characters have been magically transported to some mysterious place that may or may not be still in Faerun I am not sure. Regardless, there are creatures that seem to be plot important but I have never heard of them and am having some trouble with the description.

Since I only have the audiobook I don't know the proper spelling but it is pronounced something like SKWA-LOHS and all that I understand is that they are large and fly through the sky. And maybe elves live on and revere them?

Are these a lesser-known creature, or just an invention purely for the sake of this novel? Has there ever been any art of them?

Thanks in advance.

As the question suggests, I'm hoping to play a Thri-Kreen sorcerer, but the description of the race given by the wiki doesn't provide much idea for why a Thri-Kreen would be part of a party since just about everything about them seems to suggest that they'd be antisocial and antagonistic to the party

There are many beings in D&D that are not gods but are equivalent to gods, such as the Lady of Pain and Primus, so I want to ask whether the 5e Greatwyrm is also such a being. If so, what level of deity can it be compared to?

In the book Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, the Greatwyrm is described as godlike; Primus is also described as godlike in the 2014 Dungeon Master's Guide. Even ancient dragons—one tier below Greatwyrms—list “Destroy one or more gods as an act of vengeance or to ascend to godhood” among their possible long-term goals.

In Fizban's Treasury of Dragons it is clearly stated that Chronepsis is a black Greatwyrm rather than a deity, while in the Turn of Fortune's Wheel module (published after Fizban's) Chronepsis is again called a god.

At the same time, the CR of a Greatwyrm is between 26 and 28, far higher than Auril's divine true form; its CR is comparable to the Overlords of Eberron, and in previous-edition settings the Overlords have been mentioned as equivalent to lesser or intermediate powers. For reference, even the Empyrean—commonly regarded as the quasi-deity-level representatives of the celestial hierarchy—have CRs that place them on the same tier as ancient dragons, which are themselves one step below Greatwyrms. In addition, Greatwyrms correspond to intermediate and lesser powers from earlier editions (many former intermediate or lesser dragon deities are now presented as Greatwyrms).

So the question is: what level of deity can a Greatwyrm be compared to?

I was looking at this map 2nd edition map from the Vilhon Reach sourcebook and comparing it to a newer 5e one, and wanted to share my stitch up and cleanup of it.

Enjoy.

EDIT Here is Link to a high rez version.

EDIT2 Here is link to my location Index.

It wasn't that long ago that dwarves were minor level walking anti-magic zones, other than clerical magic.

Add to this how tradition minded they are.

I wonder how the culture is reacting to the recent rise of dwarven wizardry?

I'm planning a mission for my campaign involving a dracolich with a lair in the Underdark, but I'm not as familiar with different locations in the Underdark aside from the big ones like Menzoberranzan to have an idea for where this could go off the top of my head. It's an adult blue dracolich looking for a space with relatively easy access to the surface and a cavern large enough to fly in if that makes any difference.

Does anyone know if there's a location that'd work already established in FR lore? Thanks in advance

https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Melissan

Honestly, she lacks the charisma of Sarevok and Irenicus, even though she is more powerful than them.

I liked that she, like Sarevok, is an example of a chaotic evil character capable of making long term plans and manipulate people.

I also liked her villainous breakdown when the angel appears to say the contest is over and she lost.

If there was a time capsule that included items from any plane from any time period in the D&D universe, what do you think would be in it? (I'm thinking of putting something like this in my campaign just as something fun my players could find in their travels.)

EDIT: I'm looking more for common mundane items that commoners might put into a time capsule such as knick knacks, jewelry, pictures, letters, etc. And I'm looking for items from across ALL planes and from ALL timelines, such as Eberron, Shadowfell, Avernus, Feywild, the Plane of Fire, etc.

How well do characters without any religious education know who all the gods are? Would it just be the ones who are worshipped in their home area and neighbouring countries (to the extent that they affect foreign relations, such as the people of the Dalelands would be fully aware of Bane and Cyric)? I’m just trying to gauge what the level of awareness would be, if that makes sense.

My favorite region is Shaar.

I work with teens for my job, and I'm running some adventures for them based in Luskan. Since I also run art programs, I also like hand-making my maps and minis. Here are two ships I made for an upcoming session.

(Using Ghosts of Saltmarsh with some modifications)

Out of the list of Epic boons within 2014 5E. Boon of True sight is one of them. Which gives you a permanent 60ft of true sight. I know how it works which reveals illusions and true forms and sees into the Ethereal Plane constantly. Not to mention you won't be able to see darkness ever again. How terrible would it be to actually live with it permanently? Unless of course, you can toggle it. Which would be great for anyone that likes to sleep in darkness.

Is there some prayer or oath or something that's appropriate to that situation?

I saw this reply to a post about BG3 that questioned some elements of the Forgotten Realms lore. As a World of Darkness player who has only done a few D&D one-shots, I'm not super familiar with the default setting.

I would really like to know your guys' opinion on this take, because I don't quite know what to make of it:

This isn't a Baldur's Gate 3 problem. It is a Forgotten Realms problem.

As unpopular as this take might be, the truth is that Forgotten Realms has absolutely disastrous world-building. The divine pantheon and how the gods interact with mortals is easily one of the worst offenders.

I have been DMing for 12 years, and the consensus among me and the people I've played with has always been clear: the more lore you pull from Forgotten Realms, the more bloated and broken your campaign becomes. It is essentially a scrap yard. You pick the things that actually work, throw out the rest, and build your own setting. Personally, I just use the D&D ruleset and ditch the official lore entirely.

It is easy to see why Forgotten Realms fails as a cohesive fantasy world when you compare it to established IPs like Lord of the Rings. Tolkien built Middle-earth with deep internal logic. Magic is rare, races have distinct historical roots, and the divine forces feel monumental yet structured.

Forgotten Realms, on the other hand, just throws dozens of contradictory ideas into the canon pool because they look cool or because Wizards of the Coast needs to sell a new sourcebook. When you have dozens of active gods constantly meddling, micro-managing mortal affairs, and treating the material plane like a high school drama, the stakes disappear. If every tavern has a level 20 retired wizard and every city has a direct line to a deity, your players' actions stop feeling heroic and just feel redundant.

Good world-building requires restraint, and Forgotten Realms has none.

I've read the fandom wiki, but I'm wondering if anyone has any fun or interesting facts about Luskan. My party (I'm the DM) is headed there tonight on their way to Icewind Dale.

Planning on getting Calimport and Empires of the Shining Sea.

What should I expect? What are the Highs and Lows of the books/region?

Any neat easter eggs, cool NPCs?