#fzoul

[sauronpilled]

thinking about Zhentilars and their unhealthy desire for companionships. how they had to rely on each other no matter the personal feeling, because everyone outside of Zhentil Keep could careless about them. thus creating an almost obsessive dependency between one another once they've become attached.

[shadow-djinni]

evil old men, anyone?

[vintagerpg]

To quote NYC Krishna hardcore band, Shelter: “Here we go again.”

The sequel to SSI’s inaugural gold box game, Pool of Radiance, was 1989’s Curse of the Azure Bonds. That game is also the sequel to Jeff Grubb’s novel, Azure Bonds (1988) which introduces Alias, the amnesiac swordswoman. This tabletop product is…I don’t honestly know. I didn’t play the Azure Bonds computer game so I am relying on online summaries, but I did read the novel, and so all three are muddled together in my head. The cover says the adventure is based on the novel. And the back copy says the videogame is coming soon. So I think this is the middle of the three products. The adventure sure feels videogamey, though less constrained than Pool of Radiance. The maps have more variety in shape, and they aren’t all strung together—there is a lot of traveling going on.

Lotta early Forgotten Realms lore going on. I kinda forgot how big a deal Alias and her saurial paladin sidekick Dragonbait were. A lot of stuff that I think of as so strongly characterizing the first era of Forgotten Realms is pretty fresh and new here—Zhentil Keep, Fzoul, Myth Drannor, even Elminster! I often think the Realms are boring, and I think that is actually true, 90% of the time, but this little slice of it is so full of promise, I can’t help but dig it. It’s weird that it seems to belong more to a videogame than the RPG setting though.

[varusai]

✨Get To Know You Meme✨

tagged by @elvenmoans thx! didn’t know people still did these lol

Three Ships:

1: Moonsea Tyrants (manshoon/fzoul) evil old men from my dnd campaign

2: Black Hands Clasped (enver gortash/julian of yulash) evil blorbos from my besties unpublished bg3/oc au fic that i get exclusive access to

3: Gideon/Harrow/Ianthe evil women (not gideon) from the locked tomb series

First Ship:

Genuinely i think it might have been Scar/Lex from AVP??? i can’t really remember anything before that. like actually writing/reading fanfiction for.

Last Movie:

transformers: revenge of the fallen

Last Song:

wake the dead - blessthefall

Currently Reading:

The Biology of Human Survival: Life and Death in Extreme Environments- Claude A. Piantadosi

Currently Watching:

lost (rewatching, on s01e03)

Currently Eating:

loaded baked potato soup and bread

Currently Craving:

wendy’s baconator combo and something sweet after😔

Tagging:

@revasnaslan @sunnidaydreamer @twilight-alchemist @voxiferous @bi-colored-corn @darkeecofreak @shadow-djinni @lara60 @minigenos @ro-blaze

[littlevoidfluff]

Oc Fun Facts: Dirge Edition

Dirge is the godspawn child of Leira and Mask who was dropped off with the mortals of Mask's clergy who they used as meat suits to make Dirge in the first place. Due to being the child of the God of intrigue and goddess of lies and trickery, Dirge literally can't tell the truth unless it is in a situation/circumstance in which it would be furthering/contributing to a lie, plot, or scheme. In situations where she needs to be able to do so, she has to make do by lying incredibly badly and in such a way its obvious what the truth is, but she takes psychic damage when she does this because its so antithetical to her nature. The other alternative is sign language

^ was a massive headache for her adopted parents/Mask's clergy growing up despite having anticipated it.

Urami was the first to figure out that sign language was a work around for the inability to verbally speak the truth, and thus most of their conversations are in Thieves Cant Sign Language

Urami is the only person still alive who has seen her real face, and the only person to ever know her real name

She's a College of Blades bard, and she actually learned her bardic skills from a Bhaalist bard in Waterdeep, who was also the one who eventually informed her that Urami was in Baldur's Gate. (Bhaal instructed him to do both)

She has a raven familiar named Pecky

She and Urami once had a competition over who could piss off a room of their Banite allies the fastest. Dirge won.

"Why don't I have the same respect for Banites as I do Bhaalists? Well it's simple really. All Banites have the same sad sob story. They weren't loved as children and their fathers never said they were proud of them, and now they've got daddy issues and praise kinks and the only time they experience sexual pleasure is when their superior says "good boy" while they're cleaning their boots with their tongue."

Gortash had a migraine for weeks after that

Actually, Fzoul is pretty much the only Banite she'll be polite to/respects. She heard about that one time Fzoul threatened to give her father an opportunity to practice screaming by torturing him and thought that was hilarious. She's liked him ever since. (yes she's aware Fzoul was serious, no she doesn't care)

Her go to way of casting Vicious Mockery is the phrase "how about you suck my dick" to the tune of "everybody clap your hands" from cha cha slide. the cadence is in fact perfect for it

She has a ridiculous sweet tooth and has probably stolen the same value in chocolate that she has in gems and jewelry

She's met Sceleritas and thinks he's delightful. She wants to know why SHE doesn't get an evil little imp butler with a funky hat! Sceleritas considers her.... adequate for Urami.

She's stolen the snake skeleton off at least five of his hats without him noticing until he's already back in the throne of blood

She never met Orin until act 3 of the game because Urami did his damnest to keep them away from each other. Not because he was concerned that Orin would harm her, but because he was afraid Dirge might like Orin more than him lmaooo. Due to her giving Urami a brain smoothie, that's no longer a concern by the time Dirge DOES meet Orin

[archduchessgortash]

Banite Ranks

For my fics, I'm reworking Banite lore, the church ranks in particular.

In the established lore, after Bane was killed in his mortal form, Cyric stole most of his worshipers and wiped out nearly all of the rest (Circa 1361 DR). During this time, the High Imperceptor of the Church of Bane was on the verge of converting to open worship of Cyric. There had already been a schism, and the church was kind of a mess. An offshoot group began worshipping Iyachtu Xvim, Bane's son, and Bane would eventually use him for his own resurrection. Upon reclaiming his portfolio, I imagine the Dark One would have been none too pleased with his faithless previous High Imperceptor.

Fzoul Chembryl, a Chosen of Bane, helped bring about Cyric's downfall and aided greatly in restoring the church of Bane, but I haven't found reference to Chembryl having the rank of High Imperceptor. He was so loyal that Bane raised him up as an Exarch for his service.

Fast-forward the age of Bilbo Baggins at the start of the Fellowship of the Ring (111 yrs for the unlettered, spoken in a Gale-like voice), and we have the Banite-laden plot of Baldur's Gate 3, without a single character I can find using the rank names in the previous century's lore for the church. Because of this fact, I arbitrarily decided, for the purposes of my fics, that Bane recreated all the positions in his new church so I could have rank names to use that felt less off than incorprating the old ones. Deleting the entire rank system that included the unfaithful feels like a Bane thing to do, ya know?

I decided that since, in more recent years, the church fosters cooperation to gain power and influence, I'd create a small ruling body with new titles, incorporate the titles found in-game into the ranks and flesh those out a bit.

Thus was born the Black Hand of the Church of Bane...

The Black Hand includes the Chosen and four others, or the Chosen may sit above all five ranks if they prefer to be less hands-on (pun intended). Should they wish to be part of the Hand, the Chosen is granted the highest rank, whether or not that seat is currently occupied. What happens to the current occupant is entirely at the whim of the Chosen.

The Chosen's rank will be the Prime Digit, Black Sovereign, or Dread Patriarch/Matriarch. All these names are the same rank/person. The leader of the cult (the Chosen in this case) selects their preferred title.

The Chosen corresponds to the thumb of the hand. It is the digit without which a hand loses the most versatility. Hence, one of the names for the top rank in the cult is simply the Prime Digit.

The other four are the 1st - 4th Digits and are sometimes called the Fingers of the Hand. They have titles as well. They work in conjunction with one another and report directly to Gortash. He doles out the orders, but status reports, etc, go to his assistant.

The thumb is the Black Sovereign (Gortash).

The first finger/digit is the Black Claw.

The second is the Black Gavel.

The third is the Black Binder.

The fourth is the Black Needle.

Sometimes, we drop Black from the titles.

For Gortash, when he isn't called simply the Chosen or Director, he prefers Sovereign and Prime. The leader he replaced in my fics preferred Patriarch, and to say Gortash did not get along with him is putting it lightly.

Classes:

The Claw and Gavel are usually high-level fighters or clerics.

The Binder is invariably the most powerful magic-user in the cult.

The Needle is always an alchemist.

Black Gauntlets are the most numerous Banites in-game. I've placed their ranking directly below the Hand, as the stronger ones act as Gortash's guards in Wyrm's Rock. Low rank Banites wouldn't be given that responsibility, though some Iron Consuls are considered his bodyguards, so I put them directly below the Gauntlets. I've decided that Black Gauntlets are similar to high-ranking military, and the Iron Consuls are lower ranking but still are officers of a sort.

For my purposes, I've decided that the strongest Black Gauntlets can obtain a rank on the Black Hand. Thus, some in-game Black Gauntlets will have Hand ranks in my fics.

Almost every Banite we fight is a cleric or a fighter, and this feels truly silly to me. (Though I do love how laughable their clerical powers actually are, befitting Bane's current status as a quasi-deity). I've also seen no instances of them using healing magic. It makes sense from a might-makes-right deity, but it also makes his clerics comparatively weak.

I've created additional consul ranks for more variety in function.

The new consul ranks I've added are as follows:

Iron: Fighters (and the uncleric-like clerics), Rangers & Monks

Bronze: Rogues & Warlocks

Gold: Wizards, Sorcerers & Bards

Obsidian: non-combatant thinker types (Gortash's assistant is this rank)

Malachite: bottom rung office workers

Below these are the Fists of Bane.

I'm debating whether it was Bane who changed the rank names or if Gortash did it instead. His memoir notes say he re-established the Banite cult (though I have beef with so much in that document's timeline, particularly in how it deviates from the tiny bits of Durge's actual memory that come through in narration). The scrunkly tyrant is arrogant and ambitious enough to have arbitrarily decided to alter a hierarchy that had been in play for thousands of years. He's going to rule the world, after all.

[icarianarts]

It’s gonna be a while until Fzoul shows up in our campaign but I am having fun doodling this pathetic old bitch in the meantime

[thirdtofifth]

hello! I wanted to ask if you’d considered doing older named monsters such as Lilith or Fzoul since they don’t have a 5e equivalent or does that go against your no named monsters rule?

I will occasionally do named monsters, although I prefer to do ones that are statted out in 3.5 or Pathfinder. I do make exceptions though.

[varusai]

Vaal has a magic (+2) mace that was given to him by Fzoul Chembryl after successfully aiding in his resurrection/reconnecting him to his body so he could manifest an avatar on the material plane.

He loves it and it’s one of his favorite things he owns right up there with his extra large bag of holding, however, he isn’t particularly reliant on it. He has a heavy preference for polearms and uses a halberd first and foremost. He uses the mace more as a sidearm, or when he’s somewhere that would make carrying a polearm difficult, dangerous, or unnecessary.

Does your character use a legendary or iconic weapon? What is it? How reliant is your character on it?

[shadow-djinni]

Private Sanctums for Private Affairs

Rating: E Relationship: Manshoon/Fzoul Chembryl Additional Tags: Secret Relationship, Period-Typical Homophobia (discussed), Established Relationship, Dom/sub, Dom Manshoon (Dungeons & Dragons), Top Manshoon (Dungeons & Dragons), Sub Fzoul Chembryl, Bottom Fzoul Chembryl, Light BDSM, Oral Sex, Anal Sex

1339 DR, the Year of the Weeping Moon After much of the year spent away from Zhentil Keep on a military campaign, Manshoon and Fzoul take an evening in the privacy of the Tower High to reconnect.

Ladies, gentlefolk, and those of us with more sense: the fic is live! Almost 9,000 words of...uh, a lot of politics, actually, with smut in between. Enjoy!

[patrizio-ag]

http://davventura.altervista.org/curse-of-the-azure-bonds-le-parole-di-un-saggio/ In questa voce del #DiariodegliAvventurieri, un allegato cartaceo al manuale del #videogioco si lamenta una certa perdita di loquacità da parte del #Saggio #Dimswart, ma ovviamente, sul libricino non si potevano scrivere pagine di prosa barocca. In sostanza, salvo una minima imprecisione (#Fzoul non è il capo degli #Zhentarim, ma uno dei tre capi) per quanto finora constatabile, dice tutte cose vere, a partire dal fatto che studiò approfonditamente i tatuaggi di #Alias. https://www.instagram.com/p/CRq9tRiLRfH/?utm_medium=tumblr

[candlekeep]

Transcript:

February 8, 2023

illuminatirob — Hello @Ed Greenwood! I am so happy to be here. I've been a heavy user of Candlekeep's forums over the years, and I have some questions that have been argued extensively, and I'd love to have the ultimate input on then I might be so fortunate?  (Even though, I may get flak over this, haha) Is Khelben evil? I ask the question from the lens of normative ethics, regarding his having taken the Scepter of the Sorcerer King, and giving it to Fzoul. The ensuing carnage and problems were extensive, and in light of them, and the fact that Khelben is one of the Master Harper's that came up with the code of the Harper's, how can he say he lived by those tenets and doing the right thing, with everything that came of his actions in the end? I mean no disrespect: I just love analyzing characters, and I've run through this a million times in my head. Khelben is one of my favorite characters ever. So compelling!

Ed Greenwood — Khelben is an "end justifies the means" person, who (like, say, James T. Kirk of STAR TREK fame) won't hesitate to break laws or rules to "win." He can be harsh and arrogant, too, as he believes he KNOWS the right end goal, and will push for it against the "blindly ignorant." Whereas most of the Seven believe it's not just what you do, or why, but HOW you do it; if you run roughshod over "little people" to forge a better kingdom for them, how are you better than the next tyrant? So Khelben can certainly be seen as evil. That's the thing about the Realms: everyone is a shade of gray. We watch their moral journeys in the novels, and lore, and adventures, and none of them are static. Elminster is generally nicer and more whimsical than straight-shooter Khelben, but also more sly. It takes all sorts to make (and mar) a world.

illuminatirob — Hey @Ed Greenwood, Thank you so very much for that answer, and right away too! I'm honored. I figured Khelben was a consequentialist, and I've had long debates about it, but this is great: thee answer. That's the most amazing thing about ethics: you're "good" in someone's book, and "evil" in another's, simply by the fact that the rules set is different for evaluating morality. Thank you!

Ed Greenwood — You're very welcome! Steven Schend "adopted" Khelben and has penned novels starring him, and he and I have discussed Khelben's character extensively over the years. One other thing to bear in mind: Mystra's Chosen are all very old, and "play the long game," and have suffered much grief, as they outlive kin, friends, and even the realms they grew up in; they're not sane by how we judge things. My Realms tales look at how power corrupts, and how long life claws at psyches, and so on. Khelben became a "hardcase" because it worked for him, to serve Mystra best; the ruthless manipulator and negotiator. Others took different paths.

– From the Greenwood’s Grotto Discord server.

Please support Ed Greenwood’s Patreon for Forgotten Realms lore! The Discord server is open to the public, however only patrons can ask Ed questions directly. Become a patron for as low as $3/month!

[valsharen]

“Fzoul Chembryl had the loudest voice and the most intense passion for Bane’s cause. Though the God of Strife knew Fzoul had opposed his will in the past, he felt a growing admiration for the handsome, red-haired priest, as Fzoul argued for the eventual dissolution of the Zhentarim, of which Fzoul was second in command, and the reformation of the Black Network under the strict authority of Bane himself. Naturally Fzoul requested to be considered for the position of leader of these forces, but the decision would be Bane’s alone, Fzoul cried, and Bane’s wisdom was beyond criticism.” — Forgotten Realms: Avatar Trilogy, Book One (Shadowdale)

[cloodicus]

Bane’s Edgy Exarch Society feat. bitter edgelord rivals

[oldschoolfrp]

Lord Fzoul Chembryl, High Priest of the Dark Shrine and second-in-command of the Zhentarim, and Manxam, the most powerful eye tyrant in the lands of the northwest Inner Sea lands.  (Clyde Caldwell, AD&D Forgotten Realms Campaign Set: DM’s Sourcebook of the Realms, TSR, 1987)

[vaelynx]

Ed Greenwood is an old hippie in every sense of the word.

Hence, Faerun is a land that has surprisingly detailed drugs, wide access to contraception and, for a fantasy setting especially of the time, a commitment to gender equality in every sense - there's excellent heroes and villains of either.

Also, his expy Elminster sleeps with the goddess of magic (and a long range of sorceresses and noblewomen) and ends a sinister plot by the Zhentarim by literally kicking Fzoul Chembryl in the arse. Because Ed Greenwood is an old hippie.

bg3 is very funny because everyone is like "oh my god, it's so horny???" and its like yeah. Welcome to Forgotten Realms, parts of it sprang out of Ed Greenwood's psyche when he was a hormonal teenager, further exacerbated by his specific kinks and sense of humor and world experience and never really edited because I don't think he's ever done a second pass in his life, and you can tell. BG3 is just scratching the surface, man.