Be Wizard in the Forgotten Realms

Rememeber when Forgotten Realms was at the edge of invdnting the printing press, the renaissance, and the gunpowder revolution?

Didn't the Harpers get rid of those?

I don't even know who the Harper's are but reading this thread is making me hate them

Source? I want to run a similar setting.

>be mortal in Points of Light
>Attempt to find ways to not die
>Curbstomped by creepy death cult the rest of the gods tolerate for some reason
>Go to shadowfell after death
>Judged by immortal servitors of the goddess of fucking people up for trying to become immortal

Unrelatedly
>Such a fucking cold bitch the god of death decided to bone her
>Proceeded to take all his shit, kill him, erase her own name in a hissyfit, and move to BFE
>All so the surroundings can match her emoness
>Rest of the gods have to kiss her ass if they want to raise ANYONE

Mystra's probably worse, but there's like 200 times more stuff written about her.

Didn't Mystra hate the Thayan wizards because they ruled their nation without the consent of the people, outright enslaved a small number of them, and used them as sacrificial spell components sometimes? Like they just gave magic users everywhere a shit name. Same with Zhentarim wizards. Setting an edict to kill everyone in a tyrannical government is pretty reasonable.
>the Goddess of Magic goes out of her way to stop new archmagi outside the control of her own kids or immediate allies
Citation extremely fucking needed. I never got the impression you'd end up on Mystra's hit list unless you damaged the Weave or did something like enslaving a large number of people.

Harpers are basically "good guy anarchists" who topple monarchies and governments they believe might either unfairly oppress others, or use their power to conquer others. This often includes people who create radical new inventions that might upset the power balance in the world.

They absolutely do. They're basically the Crane Shinobi from old-age L5R, "it's okay for us to do completely taboo stuff that defines evil in our culture because the devs say we're the designated good guys."

In this case, they're a powerful organization of spies and assassins supported by all the setting's Designated Good Guys whose job is to supposedly "fight all the bad guys and keep all of the good guys BESIDES US from solving enough problems to upset the status quo, btw we're totally not Lawful Neutral and we'll say we lean Chaotic Good if anything because that's more fashionable." Oh, and guess what? Their leaders are the Simbul's sisters, more Chosen of Mystra. Mostly what they seem to do is powermongering and fighting the Zhents, who are basically Cobra Commandos that worship Bane, a mortal tyrant who fought his way to godhood with two other party members who fucked up and died during the Time of Troubles. By contrast, both Mystra and Midnight who became nu-Mystra were straight-up handed godhood.

The only good depiction of the Harpers was in Baldur's Gate II where they were depicted as backstabbing, easily corrupted, ruthless assholes...up until the point where Elminster shows up, hands you a magic item, and says "those guys totally weren't True Scotsmen".

>to reiterate, the Goddess of Magic goes out of her way to stop new archmagi outside the control of her own kids or immediate allies from rising up, forcing them to either go underground or join up with a big organization that usually has an Evil alignment majority in it

If you weren't autistic you would have realized how great of a character motivation this is for a murderhobo.

>stop those who might use their power to conquer others
>run by members of a family whose average level is 20 and basically walk into rulership wherever they go.

The fact that they're all retarded multiclasses with no actual pure Wizards among them and their main enemies are straight Wizards who stay on an even keel by not being retarded multiclasses despite being much lower level says a lot, frankly.

Pic related, pretty sure she's a Bard/Ranger/Sorceress

Mystra deserved the smiting Helm gave her

You're really hitting the biggest gripes about Faerun on the head with these posts; the setting is one where your adventurer doesn't matter, where acts of heroism and derring-do are only possible because the local developer OC was too busy fucking the avatar of a goddess to care (and no, silly boys, you PCs aren't allowed to fuck them!)

>Pic related, pretty sure she's a Bard/Ranger/Sorceress

Whatever she is, she's got some huge boobs considering how far they're pressing out even with the weight of chain pushing them down. Seriously, those things are probably the size of her head.

If it was played straight it would honestly be pretty interesting, toppling Mystra would be a neat end in and of itself...but Forgotten Realms is notorious for the fact that whenever someone tries to change the status quo the gods sit them down and go "no, this is the way things are forever". Mystra is kind of an exception because the other gods were willing to do this to her when she got grabby, but she has all the hallmarks of developer favoritism and the untouchability that goes with it. It's about on par with the "anyone who doesn't like kenders is a bad person" stuff, "anyone who disagrees with Mystra is probably an asshole with a future as a lich".

God, this is so true. I generally like FR except for bullshit like this, and I always remove it from my campaigns and warn players never to bring up any of this crap in my games.

>Mystra hate the Thayan wizards because they ruled their nation without the consent of the people
Somebody needs to bitch-slap you real bad.

This. They have absolutely no competition aside from the people who were so evil and so hard that they managed to create equally restrictive organizations or hide somewhere so as not to piss off the Chosen.

By the way, you can fuck at least one of the Sisters...in theory. The Queen of Silverymoon is a huge slut who loves orgies and naked parties, according to Ed Greenwood, but when Drizzt Do'Urden started having chemistry with her that shit got nixed with such hastiness that it had a distinct feel of the devs telling R.A. Salvatore that non-developer named characters can't touch that pussy.

That's a good point but I know for a fact her armor is mithril ultra-light elf forged stuff so she can cast arcane spells without penalty in 3.5. Her actual multiclass is...Rogue 1, Fighter 4, Bard 8, Sorcerer 12, Harper Agent 3. Total levels, 28. Alignment, Chaotic Good. Here's her wiki entry, tell me if you see signs of Mary Sue or not.

By the way, she's immune to naturally occuring lightning for no real reason.

forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Storm_Silverhand

FR seems more like a setting to steal from than one to actually run things in.
>That one fucker that made a few dozen clones and fucked up dying so they all woke up
>The gods were being stupid and got smote, so now they're running around mortallands and trying desperately not to get shanked
>There's a tangle of wrongmagic opposing the tangle of rightmagic, deal with it
>Some fucking gnomes just invented guns
>A really bored lich makes the entire skeleton of a rival into his phylactery, then splits it up using magic so he has 206 phylacteries (Eat your heart out, Voldy)
>Giant snake monster dudes that warp their minions on the fly
>Turns out the magic god position just got passed on and the new one is a shitty fit, figure out how to fix it or take advantage of the situation

Yet the Harpers support plenty of royal families and her Chosen aren't exactly advocating for democracy. In fact, Mystra took the form of an Evil-aligned wizard for many years so she could enslave and have weird magic bondage sex with Elminster while tutoring him without his knowledge. Back then she was Neutral-aligned, she didn't have a problem with that kind of behavior so much as she had a problem with powerful spellcasters venerating the pursuit of magic over kissing her ass personally. It would be like if Helm's primary charge to his clerics was to beat up any watchmen or guards who didn't wear his holy symbol, or Tormite Paladins started jihading literally every other kind of Paladin.

>>Some fucking gnomes just invented guns
>Gnomish armies conquer half the sword coast
>Gnomish colonial outposts everywhere

Now there's a campaign idea!

Damn shame Thay had to stop being Asian to make room for Oriental Adventures.

What is the absolute strongest woman in FR a male PC has a shot at having sex with, or even developing a relationship with?

Probably better that way, otherwise now WOTC would be burning any Thay books and retconning them since:

>evil yellow peril is white supremacy RACISMMMMM'KAY

BG 2's depiction is based on what they were supposed to be according to Greenwood.
The Harper's were a secret organization BECAUSE they were basically anarchists who wanted to destroy anything and everything that could lead to folks getting too strong or influential.
Early on it was implied half of the trouble on the sword coast (back when the sword coast was described as continually torn up by bandits, raiders, and barons who wanted to declare their own mini-nations), was caused by Harper meddling because they feared what would happen if another player as powerful as Baldur's Gate or Waterdeep got established in the area, as it might lead to the most powerful nation state ever if it could get an alliance going!

I suspect the amount of writers who said "Woah harpers are cool!" plus the fact TSR pushed greenwood to have clear cut good guys and clear cut saturday morning cartoon villains, led to the changes we see with them being publicly accepted and seen as a good thing and the ultimate good guys who never do anything wrong.

There was a reason that the Vilhon Reach set mentions that being associated with the Harpers was seen as worse than being associated with the Red Wizards there.

My solution, personally, is ignoring their given stats and dev favoritism, and to play it straight what they are. People are suspicious of the Harpers and local authorities work to drive them out like they would any other mafia, lower the level of each Sister by 10 and make them choose an actual class, portray actual harm done by them realistically. For example, let's say a particular Duke of Baldur's Gate manages to unite the surrounding countryside under his banner and raises a huge army to conquer the Sword Coast and create a unified Sword Kingdom. The Harpers do what they do and infiltrate a concubine into his arms who then infiltrates her poisoner hairpin into his heart with a smug little poem because that's how Harpers do. Consequently instead of returning to the status quo, the Sword Coast is riven into two factions, pro-Duke loyalists who serve the old Duke's young son and blame Waterdeep for its connections to the Chosen of Mystra and the Harpers via Khelben Blackstaff, and anti-Duke rebels who might as well be Waterdhavian shills and agents.

Probably Elminster during one of his "phases"

The rot goes deeper than that. Remember in Neverwinter Nights how your level 1 adventurer is told to go solve the plague on his own while the high-level Paladin and Cleric on retainer sit around in the temple (and it's made apparent immediately that their spells don't work on the plague), and how in the next chapter you get a "spymaster" who had no idea about all the traitors in chapter 1 and can only give you the same vague rumors you get from your henchmen and nearby NPCs? The whole mentality of sitting on your hands because you can't be bothered seeps down to EVERYONE!

Nooooooo, user, stahp! You know that's not how real life works! If you kill the Duke than the idea dies with him, just like Brutus killing Julius Caesar saved Rome from becoming an Empire!

Now I know that I'll play a Fighter/Vengance paladin whose wizard wife was murdered my the Mystra cult.

Name him Max.

"She wasn't a witch, she was my wife!"

>Setting an edict to kill everyone in a tyrannical government is pretty reasonable.

Yes, if you're the God of Justice or the God of Freedom or the God of Rebellions, all of which exist in setting. The Goddess of Magic is, by her very role, supposed to be impartial, and it's made clear several times that her actual gripe is that they don't bow down to Elminster and the Sisters. As has already been said, your options are to kneel or become so ruthless that you head straight for Eviltown to survive.

Yes.

AD&D 2e established that they were becoming a thing and that the technology had become stable enough to share outside of the places of discovery and that it would be a handful of years before printed books and guns became widespread. 3e, which took place a few years later, hit the reset button on that and said all of that tech was still experimental at best and just pretend it doesn't exist if you'd prefer that.
Grand History of the Realms (3.5e) has an excerpt about the Harpers disguising one of the seven sisters as a famous gnomish prostitute so she can sneak in, fuck a bunch of gnomes, and destroy the entire gun making facility and possibly kill all the people who know how to make them, DESPITE the fact that Thay has already been established to have cannons capable of firing magical artillery anyway.

Forgotten Realms Adventures I think was the title.

What books should I read to get a good understanding of the shittery of the Harpers, the Chosen, the Seven, and Mystra?

It's in one of the Elminster books, the one where he meets the Simbul because he, without Mystra's approval, is trying to get her to slow down on murdering random young Red Wizards who have the potential to become new Zulkirs. No, she doesn't go after Szass Tam, she goes after 'prentice boys who've invented more efficient methods of enchanting.

A female PC.

Or if you don't care about consent, whoever the strongest female NPC your character's capable of beating in a fight.

A female FR video game character, guaranteed. Maybe a dragon?

Probably a Song Dragon.

So they are the Communists of Forgotten Realms.

One more reason to kill them all.

The princess/regent of Cormyr had a scene where she invited one of her guards to fuck her in the woods. You could probably get in on that, she's not one of the Chosen so her muff isn't off-limits, royal blood doesn't matter one whit.

They portray them all as somewhat slavic or Mediterranean whites now. Asians live in Kara-Tur and Shao-whatever.

>He actually thinks that any of the FR deities are unbiased or natural

Yeah I mean, its so weird, why they wouldnt have shitty personalities like Nordic and Greek Deities they are confirmed to be based on. Makes no sense, right?

>The princess/regent of Cormyr had a scene where she invited one of her guards to fuck her in the woods.

Isn't she queen, now?

Check'd and kek'd

So... We can destroy the Harpers with memes?

>The princess/regent of Cormyr had a scene where she invited one of her guards to fuck her in the woods.
Doesn't Volo casually mention that she fucks anyone who's got some muscle and a big dick?

I vaguely recall a book where she outs herself as a slut in front of a bunch of people just to piss off her dad, before the whole running away from home to become an adventurer thing.

I also vaguely recall that she fucked her half-brother, and Azoun had the bastard black bagged

No, her sister had a son, so she served as Regent during 3.5e and then passed the throne on once the boy got old enough

>but she has all the hallmarks of developer favoritism
>Everytime a writer tries something autistic screeching from the fanbase ensues
>no no no guys, its dev favouritism

It is amazing how retarded someone becomes when it comes up to making up reasons why you dont like something. I get it you dont like Mystra but there are like a million of legitimate reasons not to like something instead of pretending to be retarded, you know.

We can only hope

>Doesn't Volo casually mention that she fucks anyone who's got some muscle and a big dick?

Dex-martials BTFO.

So he basically made fantasy Black Bloc anarchists complete with them being, viewed in a nonpolitical way, fucking awful people who do fucking awful things, and because they were shiny and pretty and fit that YA romantic fantasy aesthetic and were all Chaotic musicians the lesser authors and devs thought they were heroes?

If you want to know True AD&D™ and also the truth of the Harpers, you must read the final 2E rulebook: Cloak & Dagger by Eric L. Boyd / Steven Schend / Sean K. Reynolds. Harpers did 3E.

>because they were shiny and pretty and fit that YA romantic fantasy aesthetic and were all Chaotic musicians the lesser authors and devs thought they were heroes?

Yes. Welcome to Forgotten Realms, where the world is stagnant and PCs don't matter.

Forgotten Realms is generally a shitty setting, it makes me sad that WotC is hell bent on pushing it as the vanilla setting when its retarded cosmology clashes and at times even directly contradicts other better and longer standing cosmological traditions in the franchise.

Are you me? I hated her for the same reasons, she was so obviously some dev's waifu and designed to be completely untouchable.

Wait, did the Harpers destroy Lantan!?

Imagine a world where WotC pushed Eberron as the default setting for 5e.

I don't think it really lines up very naturally with Ebberon. I mean, look at all the trouble they've had making an artificer that doesn't suck.

That would be even worse. Eberron as a default setting would basically require the system to be built on expecting magic items to go out like candy.

>she was so obviously some dev's waifu

Mearls. She was Mearls's waifu.

>somewhat slavic or Mediterranean whites now.

So wait they are fantasy Croats now?

The difference is that people successfully give her the finger all the time, she doesn't have NPCs ten levels above the usual cap on call running shit for her, every Archlich Epic Destiny, or Demigod Epic Destiny, or any of the countless others that made you immortal were putting your dick in her face and waggling it vigorously.

I'm pretty sure there was an ED for serving her that, naturally, let you live forever too.

Yeah, guns are a definite threat to Mystra. Funny how Halruaa, home of airships, got fucked up out of nowhere too.

That's right, murdering a bunch of innocent inventors who didn't even know they were pissing in your cheerios for upsetting your power structure is a Chaotic Good act!

>Goddess of Death and spookiness without being explicitly evil
>Doesn't require active worship, great for atheist players or Westerners turned off by religion
>She's a woman, instant brownie points
>Symbol is a Raven, which are like... Deep and intelligent
>Doesn't have a name, goes by title making it easier to remember

Really, you can see why the developers love her.

Eberron is a shit frankenstein-esque setting that stole interesting bits from FR and other shit and failed to implement them properly or made them absolutely mundane.
Shitting on FR and in the same breath praising Eberron is a sure way of telling that someone is legitimately retarded with no sense of self-awareness.

They killed hundreds... To save thousands!

>Insert shitty poem here

>I'm pretty sure there was an ED for serving her that, naturally, let you live forever too.

Well, yeah. Rule #1 with the Raven Queen: She's a Hypocrite. This isn't some alternate interpretation stuff, that's legitimately how she's presented in universe.

>Undead are bad
>Save for the undead I specifically made.

>You can't live forever.
>Unless I let you.

>Fate must be obeyed.
>Unless it's a threat to me.

There is also an ED for basically organising an uprising in death itself to overthrow the Raven Queen and install a less biased system for death.

They should just make Greyhawk or Mystara the default setting, they are the only ones that dont introduce conflicting shit to the wheel cosmology

People wanted the Wall of the Faithless torn down to such an extent that there was a whole video game about it and how did it end? Kelemvor shows up and goes "fuck no you can't." There's autistic screeching from the people at the top of the pyramid where FR is concerned, and it grows louder any time someone tries to change something. Occasionally they wreck everything on purpose to go "IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED!? NO? GOOD, WE'LL FIX IT, NOW SHUT UP."

How will Dexfags EVER recover???

That fatass lich with the 206 phylacteries is my personal hero.

Is Helm the most Chad god in FR?

>You will never spitroast a novel character in a scenario that is within the realm of canon.

Not explicitly, but they tap the same vein as modern commies do.

>Mystra tries to Mary Sue her way around Helm
>Dies

Helm exists, plus FR's gods have actual oversight in the form of Ao.

And remember, if you say she's a whore you can't be good-aligned.

That's 100% what happened. She tried to do the whole "I'll just smile mysteriously, pat him on the head, and walk past that silly boy back into the heavens because a WOMAN has to keep working while these SILLY SWEETIES are punished for stealing the Tablets of Fate."

Then Helm cuts her in half.

The only people who’d call her a whore are scrawny Dexfags and nerds, anyway.

With his hand no less. IIRC he doesn't even use a sword, just anime punches her.

Don't forget she obliterated the soul of a little girl first.

Have a (You) for baby's first shitpost.

You're kind of underselling just how huge on the asshole scale the Thayans and Zhents are

I'm pretty sure in 5e most of the uber-NPCs are dead and buried, but 3.5 was peak retardation for FR.

I kind of always assumed he was gay.

>Imagine a world where DnD is even shittier than it is already, somehow.

You mean the "we did everything in reverse, aren't we creative" steampunk shitpile?

Most people in this hobby tend to come across as a little queer.

Greyhawk

It's called homebrewing settings, you should try it sometime. That way, at least you can have your terrible shit instead of the terrible shit of a bunch of nerds you hate.

Don't forget that she's back now in 5e and the Shadar-Kai are now her personal elvish pets, and they're basically Drow but better in every way and also Pale Gothick Elves of Tragedye and Magicke who use piercings to define their individuality.

What? Really? Tell me more!

>Helm, moments before bisecting the thot of magic