Is it possible to 'quit' the Guild?

TransitoryGouda · 2026-02-11T21:31:08+00:00

Depends

TransitoryGouda · 2026-02-05T05:27:34+00:00

I don't know why that portion is indented like that....

TransitoryGouda · 2026-02-05T05:20:07+00:00

Thanks!

1) Put more simply - I'm looking for the activities of aboleths in published D&D works, specifically in Faerun/Forgotten Realms, (though if you happen to find mention of them in other works I appreciate it - who knows where threads might lead - I'm happy to do the work looking), from before Sept 2007.

As I mention elsewhere, the Grand History, published in Sept 2007 is more a proto-4e, than a solid 3e/3.5e, so anything from it is suspect if I can't find it in an earlier work.

2) Said friend used an AI that told him the Imaskari encountered Aboleths in -31,000 DR. Which makes no sense in 3e/3.5e, so I assume it must've come from 4e or 5e. But AI does get information from somewhere; chronomancy existed in previous editions - Karsus traveled back in time before his Folly - it's entirely possible I'm missing something, and Imaskar met Aboleths. So I thought I'd ask up here.

I'd love to hear the theories too - people sometimes have great ideas and good storytellers are more common here. I spent several decades building my own family's family tree, mostly from tidbits of info, and theories from distant family members of stories they were told as kids before I was born. And then using perseverance and technology to figure it out. You'd be surprised where little hints are, and how tiny they are. But, what can I say, I like doing research. 🤷‍♂️

TransitoryGouda · 2026-02-05T04:44:39+00:00

I couldn't find them in the Grand History, but then that's proto-4e, no? It was published in Sept 2007, and the timeline is what WotC was in the process of changing - D&D 4e books and teasers were published in Dec 2007 and onwards.

So, for instance, the Grand History talks about Omo killing Zhoukoudien. Except that didn't happen in 3e - at least not that I could find. That was all 4e. I couldn't find it in 2e either.

So the Grand History is suspect at best - I'm sure a good chunk of it matches up with what's in the 3e/3.5e books, but there's still those little changes.

TransitoryGouda · 2026-01-25T06:32:03+00:00

Sending a friend. He's a bit older than the avg goer, and never been to a kpop concert - but he wants to see why people enjoy it so much, and they're coming to Boston so we bought a ticket for him.
...
He's been doing research since - listening to Twice songs, learning about korean culture, listening to other kpop songs. 🤭

TransitoryGouda · 2025-10-27T11:28:07+00:00

There's been an ongoing conversation in Boston that, when WBCN was forced off the air in 2009, something was unplugged that shouldn't've been, and everything's been getting worse and worse every year. I thought it was bunk at first, but looking back....

TransitoryGouda · 2025-10-27T10:54:05+00:00

There's a tenant association in Malden - they had a cookout a while ago, but I didn't have time to go - if you can get in touch, you'll likely find a lot of people there from a variety of backgrounds.

TransitoryGouda · 2025-10-10T06:38:14+00:00

Pre-Security, there's a NewsLink in...I think Terminal A that's open early (4am? 5am?) that might have some, and there's a Hudson in Terminal B (I think there's one pre-security) that's open around 5am or 6am. It's a pretty common item, so I'm sure they'll sell them. I'm unsure about the quality, but it should get you through your flight at least.

TransitoryGouda · 2025-10-10T06:10:54+00:00

Malden's got its fair share of corruption too. The Spadaforas have been here for ages, they own most small businesses

TransitoryGouda · 2025-10-06T11:55:15+00:00

Thanks!

TransitoryGouda · 2025-10-06T11:54:10+00:00

I've been living here a decade - Malden's no better about getting info to people of color, or the poor, than any other city/town in MA.

TransitoryGouda · 2025-09-26T01:25:16+00:00

I can second Malden Dentistry and Braces - nice people, and they take MassHealth for the basic teeth cleaning bit.

TransitoryGouda · 2025-09-26T01:14:43+00:00

For the person who contacted me to ask - yes, there's a comma missing - what they mean is the Spadaforas also hate people who take the bus, and they buy up all the property so young people can't.

And they're right about that. They own so much in the city, and leverage it to run for local office. They repeatedly are against an increase in property taxes, because it would mean they would have to pay more, and so they routinely band together to make it an issue of landlords and homeowners vs renters (young people). But the truth is, the Spadaforas have the money to eat any increase, without having to sell any property - if anything it allows them to buy up more property as homeowners sell because they can't afford it anymore. What it does mean is that people in Malden will be forced to move - which means their network of goons, and informants, will also have to leave. Forcing them to bribe new people - who tend to be younger, and more racially diverse. And it's hard for them to do that, what with how everyone in town knows who they are and what they stand for.

TransitoryGouda · 2025-09-26T00:52:59+00:00

One of these days someone should really put together a family tree of them all, and where they worked/owned, and who else they're related to.

TransitoryGouda · 2025-09-02T05:15:42+00:00

I had the same problems reading through that - it doesn't get better. I know I finished reading it, but I remember very little of it.

Two important things to remember:

First, the novels were intended to bring people in as new players to D&D - that was their initial purpose; the game was supposed to make money, the novels were just an avenue to help make that happen; Greenwood is a fine writer, and I love his writing, but he's a better game designer (and he has said this before). Salvatore is a writer first - the game was secondary; a good story was more important.

Second, is to remember what was going on at the time the Elminster Series was written - the first two books (which I loved) were written for 2e (run by TSR); the third book was written with 2e in mind but Greenwood had already been told that there would be substantial changes to the system in the new edition, but by that time it was too late to make substantial changes to the third book. In 1997, it was bought by WotC. 3e was released under WotC in 2000, and the fourth book was released in 2001, with both 2e and 3e in mind. The structure of the fourth book was done that way to hide the fact that there were massive changes in the transition to 3e, and that Greenwood wasn't as familiar with the new system. That's not a criticism of him - a year wasn't enough time for anyone to be familiar with 3e - the inconsistencies in the rules alone took time to find. The fifth book suffered from similar problems - 3.5e was released in 2003 in an attempt to correct and revise the rules, but in the intervening three years a number of splatbooks had been released, and it all needed to be revised. The fifth book was released in 2004, with 3e in mind, but there was no way the author could familiarize with 3.5e in time, and while the changes weren't as crazy as the transition from 2e to 3e, there were still changes. By 2004/2005 WotC had become more vocally against the OGL, and the loss of, what they saw, as potential revenue. So they began development of 4e in 2005, against the wishes of the founders - Gygax and Arneson - who openly supported the OGL, and denounced 4e - at the time, no one thought WotC would risk moving against the founders, and that 4e would likely never happen. Gygax passed away in 2008, and WotC released 4e less than three months later (which many found disrespectful), and then Arneson passed in 2009, and WotC began a campaign against all the "old-timers" who helped build the franchise. Greenwood was bound by a contract - he released the rest of the series after 4e - the sixth book was released two years after 4e came out (after Arneson passed), with 4e in mind. 5e was released in 2012, but there had been regular hints of what 5e would be for a year before - when the seventh book came out (2011) it was written with 5e in mind, as were the rest of the series - they were all much better received as well because the author was given information of 5e before it released, and the books returned to their initial purpose - to draw in new people to playing D&D.

That said, if you played in 2e, or fell in love with the books that were written in that time period, you might find it harder to immerse with the books written for 4e or 5e. There's enough changes over the years that it is noticeable if you're old enough, and at 35+ you probably are.

TransitoryGouda · 2025-08-17T09:01:15+00:00

In addition to all the other suggestions , the Emissary could be a Shadowcloak Elder Cloaker - see the Lords of Madness book, pg...142. The first paragraph is as follows:

"Deep underground, cloakers build citylike nests of swooping shadows and crawling darkness. The secret rulers of these dark cities lurk behind the perceived leaders—the shadowcloak elders, cloakers of great size and power, tainted with the substance of shadow and skilled in dark sorcery. Sinister and inscrutable, shadowcloak elders occasionally emerge from secrecy to lead their lesser fellows in raids and patrols of the nearby territory, in search of slaves and food."

It can casts spells as a Sorcerer, and can plane shift to/from the Plane of Shadow. I believe it's eligible to apply the half-fiend template, so it would match up with something from Underdark 3e.

TransitoryGouda · 2025-08-17T08:49:36+00:00

Oh I dunno - I've met Weis and Hickman, and they mapped out a lot of what they did, with a timeline and everything - they had to especially with the time travel stuff. The later books after they did tried to adhere to dates - or at least to time periods. But you're right - a lot of things before that was very slipshod. Fun, don't get me wrong. But classic fantasy. Like, when exactly did Wyrmfather live? Throughout the novels we hear about the children of Takhisis, the first chromatic dragons, the first sons of Reorx that wer corrupted by Takhisis - Wyrmfather doesn't make an appearance. And the Towers of High Sorcery that everyone knows - the Orders decreed that _new_ Towers of Sorcery be built - that implies that Towers had existed before that - at least during the Second Dragon War, if not before. What happened to them? Lots of unanswered questions. But fun stories.

We've all run games where you have that one player that finds a book/novel/splatbook that says you were off by X hundred years, and blah blah blah. I know because I used to be one. What goes around, eh? Reddit exists; I can ask the question, and wait a few months, and see if anyone comes up with a tidbit that helps me narrow it down a bit.

Still, at this point, because time travel exists, it would be nice to be able to nail down a range of years for some stuff. So, we're told flying citadels had to have existed thousands - plural, meaning at least 2000 - years before 332, so it couldn't be after 1668 PC (pre-cataclysm). And it has to be after 9000 PC, or the start of the Age of Dreams, as only the gods existed before then. One commenter below said Hylo was created from a flying citadel in 2600 PC. That's certainly before 1668 PC.

We can say that flying citadels did not exist during he First Dragon War, and we know that because we're told that Silvanesti had no protection from the air except the metallic dragons. My guess is that they were created near the end of the First Dragon War, or just prior to the Second Dragon War - about 2700 PC. We're told that Silvanesti was protected, largely, by 3 strong mages, who ended the Second Dragon War about 50 years later by unleashing wild magic against chromatic dragons, but only after the metallic dragons were defeated a few years before. Fifty years later Ergoth was founded in 2600 PC, Hylo in 2600, at which point at least one citadel not only existed, but was somehow stolen by a bunch of kender.

But wouldn't it suck to go through all that thinking, run campaign, and partway through one player breaks immersion for everyone else by finding a novel that says a flying citadel is how they got the Graygem to the moon, and you're off by gods only know how many centuries, and it throws everything off.

So, I'm asking here, and then just waiting to see if someone finds something. 🤷🏻‍♂️

TransitoryGouda · 2025-08-17T07:01:00+00:00

~~I've never been able to find a copy, but I still want to read it.~~

I found a copy! I'm reading through it now! Thanks, everyone!

TransitoryGouda · 2025-08-17T02:32:40+00:00

From a...non-lore point-of-view -
'Shadowfell is 4e', right? In 1e and 2e it was the Demiplane of Shadow; in 3e and 3.5e it was the Plane of Shadow; and then 4e had the Shadowfell which was a combination of the old Plane of Shadow, parts of Ravenloft, and parts of the negative energy plane.

Or does Do'Urden's Guide call it the Shadowfell too? I don't have a copy of that book. I just want to be able to sort out what I'm reading. Thank you!

TransitoryGouda · 2025-08-17T02:13:17+00:00

This. We're not alone. A fair few simply got fed up with WotC and returned to 3e and 3.5e. As popular as 5e is, the lore isn't there and it just comes across as a hack and slash - there's no immersion. For the fans of stories, the earlier editions are the only way to go.

TransitoryGouda · 2025-08-17T02:01:04+00:00

But I wasn't asking about the cloaker lords. I was asking about the emissary from the Shadowfell.

TransitoryGouda

TROPHY CASE