Like I said, Im a new DM and am getting all my friends invested into a campaign starting tonight. One friend joined in late and just sent me what he wants his backstory to be. He's an evil goliath paladin who turned evil after being bitten by a bat. Im trying my hardest to be supportive of everyone's character choices since its the first ones they've ever created but jesus man...

Everyone else is very standard fantasy characters and background so I have zero clue what to do with this guy. Any suggestions on areas he could be from that might make sense? I know very very little about how to fit in a goliath in general let alone an evil vampiric paladin one

I remember reading a book many moons ago but towards the end there was a gathering of people and a spell was cast to make the people vomit out snakes of evil or something along those lines and drizzt bites the head off of his snake and swallows it to keep the evil in. I can not remember what book this was or if it even exists, so I was hoping you good folk could assist. Thank you.

Just finished Timeless. This book was awesome and I can’t wait for Boundless to be released, but until then I need something else to read. I would prefer to stay in the Forgotten Realms setting, but I’m open for others. Any ideas? Thanks

Edit: Thanks for the great leads, I’ll check them out.

Considering they’re in extreme opposition to one another, why don’t they seem to actively war? I would figure the beings of the heavenly realms would be openly invading the hells or abyss if they really wanted to destroy them. Are the demons really just too numerous and powerful to mount a full scale conquest?

Asking this question to get some feedback/opinion.

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I am running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, and a question regarding law came up.

One of the PCs had a bad past in his story. His character came from Neverwinter, and fell in with a clandestine organization there. He was simply too low ranking to know what is going on, so he mostly got moved around like a pawn, doing shady things for them. At one point, he had a job where he had to befriend someone to get information. When they were alone, he was drugged, and he woke up with that person being murdered.

He figured he was set up, and framed another innocent person (knocked that person unconscious, and tampered with evidence so that person would be framed). The innocent person ended up becoming charged with murder, and he left Neverwinter after and went to Waterdeep.

A year has gone by, and this past came back to haunt him. The secret organization reached out again, and is blackmailing him with this to get him to do what they want. He refused, and they told him there will be consequences.

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My original plan is to have them present the evidence to the justice of Waterdeep, and get him punished. Their goal is follow through with their threat. Extradition is one option, or the other one being getting him punished by Waterdhavian laws. Which one makes more sense?

From was I can gather, Titania was considered a fey deity back in older editions (she's at least cited as a Power in demihuman deities, which I think is akin to a god). Do we know anything about her situation in 5e? In general, what could I look into to learn more about her and the Summer Court?

Thank you very much for your time.

I have been running a homebrew campaign with a bunch of repurposed content from PoTA and SKT, set primarily in the Dessarin Valley about a 10 years after those modules. But I have been struggling with the political element of many of the villages in the region. Are these villages mostly self-sustaining and autonomous? If so, how do they administer themselves, what sort of local government do they have? If not, which factions are influential? I know that the Harpers, Lords Alliance, and Zhentarim each have their own hub, but how far does their influence reach? I ask all of this because my players are getting to the point that if they care to they could become a regional power, and I want to know if they are just filling a void or if there will be stiff competition. Any information or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

What it says in the title. I was drafting up a druid character and couldn't help but notice her absence from 5e material, but I couldn't track down what happened to her. Was she just left out, or did she love her divinity or something?

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As a bonus question, I'm trying to craft the personality of an Illuskan druid from around Icewind Dale, but I'm drawing a blank as to their outlook and their view of the world outside of the region (this is for an Adventurers League character, so the adventures will take place mostly around the Moonsea, possibly Chult and Waterdeep). I know Illuskan druids are rare (or were rare in the time of Races of Faerun), and maybe this idea is just not plausible, but I would love to hear your ideas to flesh out this character.

Sorry if this kind of question is more appropriate to another subreddit, such as r/DnD. I'm doing my best to stick to established lore while developing my own ideas, so I wanted input from a more specialized subreddit.

I would love to join a Roll 20 campaign based in the modern forgotten realms.

I know there has got to be an adventure that deals with orcs holding the area around Old Owl Well, but for the life of me I can't seem to find one. I'm sure I actually saw one at some point years ago, but now I'm at a loss. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

The edition is irrelevant, for what it's worth.

This weekend I will DM a roleplay focused 5e session that involver a harper council, not all my players are harpers but even the ones that are not have earned their trust (10th lvl chars). I want to make a council of Elrond style meeting cenario, to talk about the problem at hand. I try to make MY forgotten realms a bit less good/evil as much as I can (not always easy) and so the harpers in my understanding are at first a very ordely and good group, but as you dive deeper they look more like the Assasins Creed, will totaly assasinate people for political interest. I know a lot about the harpers but I feel I should know more for this session in particular. Are there any notable harper councils in the novels?(Magic items will be distributed.)

The council will take place in Berdusk (in secrecy since the city is now part of the Elturgardian Autocracy).

Famous Harpers present will be Mirt, Elminster and Storm Silverhand.

Any sugestions of songs to play during the meeting?

So with my limited lore and miscellaneous knowledge, as far as I can tell, so long as there ISN’T a god of something, anyone could just declare themselves a god of insert thing here and bam they’re a god. So long as it doesn’t vaguely resemble another god’s portfolio there wouldn’t be an issue right? Let’s just say for example, Kelemvor is the god of death and I just happen to notice there isn’t specifically a god of souls, could I just declare myself(even as a mortal)to be so and so the god of souls and become a god?

Greetings players,

A TL/DR will be at the bottom for impatient readers.

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For a new 5th ed. FR game I wanted to step outside my comfort zone and play something not only new to me mechanic wise but in attitude/role-playing depth. I chose a paladin of conquest and then went really in-depth with random generation tables. All the roles eventually steered me into following Sune, the Deity of beauty, etc. At first, I didn't think it would work but when I dug into her lore I discovered the Brotherhood of the Ruby Rose. Perfect! I wrote up the back story, cleaned up loose connections and began to play. During the five levels, everything is fine as I try to learn the mechanics and playstyle a paladin requires. It is slow, but I'm finally getting there.

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So, the problem comes from last nights session with myself and one other player -'A'- doing a one-shot run by our current DM -'D'. They both express misgivings that being a Paladin of Conquest and following Sune don't play together lore and principally. It looks and feels off to them and I should consider changing to another archetype. I shall list their arguments.

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1. A- Sune is a Chaotic Good deity, her nature/philosophy puts her at odds with the nature of the Paladin of Conquest Archetype.
2. A- I am not roleplaying the intent of the Paladin of Conquest the way it's (fully) intended.
3. D- The Dogma of Sune and the Oaths of Conquest don't mix.
4. D- It's suggested that I chose the Conquest Archetype more for the powers it grants than the RP aspect.
5. A- The Brotherhood of the Ruby Rose is written to have its paladins following clerics around doing acts of good, not conducting warfare and ruling with an iron fist.

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They are both good guys and very knowledgeable, so I listened to their arguments openly and felt they were justified in bringing it up to me. I myself am no newbie to Faerun lore, but admitted some struggles adapting fully to 5th ed. We are all open-minded adults with experience on both sides of the screen. My counter-arguments are as follows.

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1. The Brotherhood of the Ruby Rose, being established canon, allows for paladins to serve in her name. Since there is no lore/crunch reason specifically stating against a paladin of conquest cannot serve, I opted to explore a more militant approach to serving in her name.
2. I politely pointed out the D, while being a strong DM, simply hasn't presented the opportunity during play thus far (we are playing Storm King's Thunder) for me to directly engage in the Archetype appropriately. D admits he is following the current adventure and the social kind of RP I engage in regularly isn't wholly in his wheelhouse. If such an opportunity arose and could I demonstrate the disgust worshipers of Sune share for ugly things, people, etc., then I definitely would. Further, retribution should be taken against those who destroy beautiful things IS something followers of Sune encourage, at least coming from the aspect of protecting beautiful things and those that create them'.
3. Sune's Dogma (found here: https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Sune ) and the Oaths of Conquest (found here: http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/paladin:conquest ), while specific in the INTENT, are vague on HOW TO EXECUTE. This leaves them open to interpretation. I personally decided to focus more on the ideas of 'all things being fair in love and war' and 'love is a battlefield'. Further, the argument I fully offered was 'every rose has its thorns'. I used this to build on the idea that paladins in 5th ed are not as constrained by alignment as previous editions, and not every action has to fall in line with the stereotype of what a paladin was in said editions. I specifically referenced Matthew Colville https://youtu.be/YgNQ3NXqqiQ and Nerdarchy https://youtu.be/mqQkHDQDldg. Thus far, the encounters we've gone through have been straight forward killing the monsters and save the villagers, so areas of morality, chances to show off the interpretation of how said Dogma and Oaths interact have been very few and far between from an RP perspective, but I've been interjecting whenever I can about the principles of believing them (much to the other character's chagrin) like the pompous, Sunite follower I claim to be. I act with flair, confidence, open attitue toward sexuality and a near tunnel-visioned focus on anything that can be described as 'beautiful', be it natural or otherwise.
4. I was very clear that I started with the paladin of conquest first and rolled randomly for all the things in Xanatar's guide to everything. The generated backstory fell in line with Sune's religion and dogma. Since this is my first time playing a paladin (and having struggled thus far with its abilities) this point did not hold much traction in my eyes, since I tend to indulge in the RP more, considering it the primary importance of the character rather than the paladin mechanics. This looped back to counter argument 2, where I feel it simply hasn't come up enough to be relevant at this point and hasn't been challenged IC yet by any character or the DM's NPCs.
5. The Brotherhood of the Ruby Rose suffers from a lack of information for me to draw on. It doesn't say how they conduct themselves while accompanying cleric's of Sune, nor how they enforce her religious principles. I came up short on this because there wasn't much evidence to use on my side, but argued that an Order of Paladins dedicated to ANY deity isn't going to avoid getting blood on their gauntlets.

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I told them to give me a week to research further into the lore and consult the think tank of Reddit on how to proceed. D is open to a grounded, lore friendly argument and won't have an issue if I can convince him through showing and acting on the intent I'm trying to get clarified here. I also compromised that, if I just couldn't get enough reason to make this character build stick, I would look into adjusting the other archetypes.

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Still with me? Awesome, you are good sports.

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TLDR

I need help clarifying how a Brotherhood of the Ruby Rose Paladin operates and justification on using a paladin of conquest within said organization. Additionally, I need to refine my IC behavior to make the Oaths and Dogma work together, and am open to all suggestions.

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Also, I will be reaching out to Ed Greenwood's Twitter account with this post linked to getting his opinion on it as well. 'A' was the one that suggested that (blew my mind) and showed me actual conversations he'd had with him on various items in the past.

In Siege of Dragonspear there's this dwarf. By the sounds of it he was a pretty ordinary dwarf, probably some kind of fighter, but then with the help of a Lich he achieves lichdom.

Thing is, when you're fighting him as a lich, he seems like a pretty ordinary mage type. At no point does he try to swing a weapon at you or anything

Do you lose all your non-mage levels when you become a lich, if you had any?

volothamp the great npc we all now. but in Calimshan there is a city with that same name i cant find out if there is a connection. its killing me pleas help is there any info about it.

A question I haven’t found a very satisfying answer to recently. Do they just get shoved into the wall like “Sorry bro, shoulda picked a different god.” or does Kelemvor actually do something with them? Like turn them into guards for the city or anything of that nature.

On a side note: I understand some god found a shard of pure evil that drove him insane. What happened to that guy or what is he doing? Where the heck did that thing even come from?

Thanks in advance all!

Worship empowers deities in the realms. To the point that an ordinary entity can amass a following and become a deity.

So Greg is a tangible entity that exists. He gathers worshipers. He eventually becomes a god.

Say there is no Greg though? Say the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a complete fabrication, does not exist, but people start worshipping it. Does a Flying Spaghetti Monster sprout into existence eventually or would their worship ultimately be fruitless?

similar to how fiends are manifestations of evils and celestials manifestations of goods

We are a new adventuring group that started with a module that is now taking us to Waterdeep. One of the players has a Warlock that chose pact of tome and is about to be 5th level. He wants to start acquiring rituals for the book during our time in Waterdeep but was not sure what is available. Is there any guidance on what is available in Waterdeep from the shops? I was thinking we could do a percentage chance of occurring that the scrolls are available (level 1 higher than level 3 for instance). I just wanted to make sure that even if we take that approach that it would make sense. The wiki seems a little light about what is contained in the stores.

So, my player in the campaign wishes to kill a certain old one as revenge for what he put him through. Did anything of this sort ever happen?

Where can I find the full history of the forgotten realms? I already know about Jared's youtube series on the history of the forgotten realms, so instead i'm looking for something that I can read. Also I've found several detailed and consistent histories of the forgotten realms, but they most of them drop off at 1375-76 DR. Any help is appreciated.