Personalities: Banak

This is a Reaper miniature, not sure of the name or product number. I thought he was pretty close to the representation of Banak from The Bloodstone Lands. He's a bit beefed up, so perhaps he's a few levels higher than he was when Larry Elmore painted that cover.

I don't think I like very much how the beard turned out, I should maybe have gone with white rather than black so he'd look a little more goat-like.

Here is the original cover painting for reference:

03185: Bergun Sunblaze, Sun Priest

One thing that I wish WOTC would do is put out more mythoi specific priests in their mini line, but since they are geared toward the rpg improbably tabletop skirmish game, there isn't a lot of point to it for them from a business model. If they do one, they do one. Not much sense from their point of view of having 6 different poses for priests of Lathander.

Reaper really helps fill in the gaps. They can't do exact representations of mythoi specific priests from the trademarked Forgotten Realms, but each of the gods in that setting have portfolios that can't be trademarked...like the sun, for example.

This sculpt by Bobby Jackson will make a nice addition to the priests of Lathander in my world. Right now, my PCs are exploring the ruins of a temple to Lathander in Dagger Falls. If they end up taking the relics from that church, soon to be dedicated to Cyric, to a temple of Lathander for safe keeping, I'll need some Lathanderites to accept them and bestow blessings. Bergun Sunblaze will likely be there.

The Spellplague, 4th Edition, and the Realms

I don't know why it didn't occur to me, but it didn't, and it took me as much by surprise as when Azrael became Batman. Or even further back, the Crisis on the Infinite Earths.

If Hasbro is making WOTC dumb down and streamline the D&D game by creating another version of it...and this one is going to have a completely re-worked magic system, new versions of the monsters, new rules for fighters that make them as "fun" to play as clerics and wizards...then there will be major consequences for the different campaign worlds.

I guess it shouldn't be a surprise at all...with each new campaign setting there has been a RSE. (Realms Shattering Event) This is sort of like what happened with the Time of Troubles when 2nd Edition came out.

What is the "it" that I keep talking about? Let me explain....

I picked up my copy of "The Orc King" yesterday and in the prologue there was Drizzt talking about events 100 years in the future...there was an uneasy peace with the orc tribes, and talk of Luskan being levelled...there was also a mention of something called the Spellplague.

I was mystified. So, I looked it up...and basically Mystra is going to die, again, and the whole of the Realms is going to be re-imagined.

1385 DR Year of Blue Fire

Unthinkable catastrophe ensues when Cyric, aided and abetted by Shar, murders Mystra in Dweomerheart. The plane itself disintegrates at once, destroying Savras and sending the gods Azuth and Velsharoon reeling into the endless Astral Plane. Without Mystra to govern the Weave, magic bursts its bonds all across Faerun and the surrounding planes and runs wild. In Faerun, this event is known as the Spellplague. Thousands of mages are driven insane or destroyed, and the very substance of the world becomes mutable beneath veils of azure fire that dance across the skies by night or by day.

Many planes are shifted or destroyed as well. Only greater deities prove strong enough to maintain their realms against the resultant chaos. Tyr, Lathander, and Sune move against Cyric and successfully imprison the Black Sun in his Supreme Throne, under a sentence of house arrest to last one thousand years.

Sages in centuries to come mark the Weave's destruction in the Year of Blue Fire as the end of the old world, and the terrible beginning of the new.

That ain't going to happen in my world. In my world, we never switched to 3rd edition, so completely destroying and rebuilding my Forgotten Realms to accomodate some coporate pin-head who wants to wring the last few dollars out of the franchise by creating 4th edition would be pretty stupid.

Besides....I'm not sure that my players are ever going to get to 1369 DR, so something that isn't going to happen until after 1385 probably won't impact me much anyway.

But it sucks to know that my break with official timelines now has to be just as official.

More Reading:

• Christopher Perkins
  
• Gleemax
  
• Faerunrp.com
  
• Enworld
  

Realms Research

Here's one thing that I wish TSR would have done and WOTC would do...and that is clearly indicate in each Forgotten Realms product what year the product information reflects in Dale Reckoning.

It is sooooo frustrating to try to put the information in some kind of chronological order when you have no idea when in the chronology the module or product takes place.

That said, I blundered into a useful Wiki today:

Forgotten Realms Wiki

It doesn't include dates for the references either, but the presumption is that the information is current DR in the official time line.

One example of my frustration, I'm indexing the Villain's Lorebook (TSR 9552) and in the entry for Lord Orgauth of Zhentil Keep there are two entries at the end, for Abarax and Eshaeris. They are clearly not human, but the entry doesn't say what they are. In Googling to find the information, I discovered that Abarax is a pit fiend, and while the Villain's Lorebook is probably around 1368-70 DR, because it is post Prince of Lies, but the Wiki entry I found Abarax in says that Orgauth is dead but Abarax the Pit Fiend polymorphed into Orgauth and took his place...then was Abarax was killed later.

Now, my campaign is in 1368, so none of that has happened yet...but should I put the information about "future" happenings into my index?

It's all very complicated.

Reckoning of Hell?

As is obvious, I'm working on mini representations of the denizens of Hell, but a stumbling block for me is trying to determine when in Dale Reckoning the Reckoning of Hell (as described in A Player's Guide to Hell) took place.

I might want to incorporate A Paladin in Hell into my campaign, but want to know when in DR it would be appropriate. This has major consequences as to the form some of the transformed Devils would have if encountered, who the rulers of the different planes are and so forth.

I'm currently in DR 1368. Can any one tell me if the Reckoning has already happened, and if so, when? If it hasn't happened, when will it? I know that a fair rule of thumb is to check the release date of the product against the year in DR the product is set in...but does that work with non-Realms products?

For example, 1368 given as the "present day" for the revised campaign setting release and Prince of Lies and other products released in Real World Reckoning 1993.

A Paladin in Hell came out in 1998, and A Player's Guide to Hell came out in 1999, followed by The Apocolypse Stone in 2000.

Does that mean that the Reckoning of Hell begins with A Paladin in Hell in roughly 1373?

What's the buzz, tell me whats a happenin'--

Is Mammon a fat and bloated pit fiend or is he a Geryon impersonator in 1368?

Is Baazebul a bug eyed demon or a giant slime drooling slug in 1373?

Iquiring minds want to know. If possible, cite me a source if you have the information.

Thanks!

Though I hate Wikipedia when my students cite it as a source in their papers, it is pretty much the only source for collected information on RPG game settings.

Wiki Entry on The Reckoning

Unfortunately, it doesn't give a Forgotten Realms approximate date for any of the events.

Personalities: Alias

Alias (Wanders)
8th Level Human (F) Fighter

Sources: Azure Bonds, Song of the Saurials, Masquerades.

This miniature is from the Official Ral Partha boxed set of Forgotten Realms Personalities and is designed to be Alias. The product number is 10-550-i.

I don't know if I'll ever have her bump into the PCs in my world, but I'm still kicking around the idea of having a chronomancer's artifact which might pop my PCs around in time so that they could continue to advance in level, but play vintage Realms modules like Curse of the Azure Bonds without trying to update the module to the current date in the Realms that I'm playing in (DR 1368).

Personalities: Adon

Adon (Realms)
9th Level Human (M) Priest (Sune)

This miniature seems to make a good representation of Adon, and is from Grenadier, dated 1981.

Sources: Heroes Lorebook (6-8); Hall of Heroes (3-4); FRE3:43, Shadowdale; Tantras; Waterdeep; The Curse of Tegea; Prince of Lies.

Full stats for the character can be found in the Heroes Lorebook. Though out of print, it can be downloaded from RPGnow (see link in sidebar) for under $5.

In addition to making a catalog of all my monster miniatures in Publisher 2000 using a compendium format and the image of the miniature to illustrate the monster I am doing the same thing for other categories of miniatures in my collection and for use in my campaign.

I'm doing one for the avatars of deities, one for official Forgotten Realms Personalities, and one for personalities unique to my own specific Realms campaign. There will also be similar tomes for each adventuring company and probably another one for "The Fallen" that would include all the personalities who have died.

No small undertaking, but it will make life simpler when it is all finished.

I thought it might be fun to show the miniatures I am using for specific characters, and if you can suggest a better miniature than the one I am currently using, please let me know in the comments section.