The Sword HeraLds
One of the most fascinating—and little known— subjects in any study of the folklore of Cormyr is the Sword Heralds. Volo made such a hash of wild speculations about these rather mysterious folk that Elminster said grimly, “We fix that, or this book gets renamed forthwith: Volo’s Guide to the Effects of an Imprisonment Spell on the Victim, Written from Personal Experience.” So here, in game terms, is what Elminster would reveal about this topic. He offers it with only one bit of advice: “Remember, ye're not the first gung-ho adventurers to learn about all this—and where are all those predecessors now?” The Sword Heralds were mages of Cormyr long ago. They specialized in creating hideaways: extradimensional refuges that only the most wealthy folk— nobles, successful merchants, and powerful priests and wizards—could afford. Such refuges were of great importance when Cormyr was a wild land roamed by monsters and rivals and lashed by weather that one hadn't time to construct sufficient shelter to withstand (because of warfare, failing crops, or the like). Eventually, these refuges ceased to be hiding places for folk fleeing the weather or the blades of enemies. They were then commonly used to store valuables and perishable treasures because within them there are no extremes of heat and cold, nor any precipitation, keeping weathering to a minimum.
Abandoned or forgotten refuges that have been rediscovered sometimes hold elaborate antique ladies' gowns that are now much sought-after at court.
The Sword Heralds acquired the name by which history knows them today because entry to one of their refuges could only be accomplished by someone going to a particular secret spot with two items: something fairly common but kept a family secret, and an edged metal weapon that one of the Sword Heralds had touched during the enchantment. The common items ranged from a cup of water or mushroom soup to a human bone, a stag antler, or a leaf from a particular type of tree. The edged weapons were typically one of 3 to 12 swords and/or daggers owned by the family to whom the refuge was constructed. The common item was always consumed during the magical passage into the refuge, and in a few cases the weapons also couldn't pass into the refuge and would fall to the floor at the spot at which the activating being entered the refuge. Exit from such refuges typically requires only entering a specific area— usually the end of a blind corridor—and not any sort of ritual or triggering items.
Entrants into a hideaway could bring a living being who was touching them along with them, as well as anything they or this second being wore or carried. Typically, noble houses and wealthy merchants took gems, coins, and legal documents into their refuges to begin with. Only in desperate circumstances did the owners discover that these refuges were ideal hiding places for fugitives from justice and inconvenient corpses.
The Sword Heralds died or disappeared centuries ago, and many refuges are now lost or their precise whereabouts forgotten, though a few remain closely guarded family secrets. (The Hidden House used by Lord Tessaril Winter of Eveningstar1 is one such.) By ancient law, a king of Cormyr and his agents (for example, the war wizards) cannot demand to see or enter such a refuge or even force someone to confirm the existence of a refuge. This hasn't stopped them from employing chartered adventurers and private citizens to find out such things for them. As a result, many refuges sport traps and/or guardians. The traps typically are deadly defenses of the main passage in the refuge, and are often consist of hinged falling stone blocks and hedgehogs.[1] [2] Guardians range from animated skeletons to family liches.
The Sword Heralds are said to have left behind a list of all their refuges, disguised in a series of impenetrable verses (one example follows) that they hid all over Cormyr in the halls of the Palace of the Purple Dragon, the Royal Court, and in private homes alike. The Sword Herald also constructed great keys—small items that various sages violently disagree over the forms of, from orbs to rods to gauntlets—that open the way into all Sword Herald refuges when used in the proper place, even without the proper blade or common item.
Some refuges have been found by adventurers.
Dawninghunt refuge
Most notable among these finds is that of the Dawninghunt refuge in 1346 DR, which proved to contain a chest of over a thousand large and splendid emeralds as well as four big, extensive spellbooks and several items of minor magic—and a wardrobe of fine gowns once worn 200 years earlier by the Lady Rhyndaera Dawn- inghunt. These garments became an instant fashion rage at court when reintroduced by nobles who'd bought them from the fortunate adventurers. The Golden Griffon Eyes all-woman adventuring band from Selgaunt (charter by Azoun's hand in 1341 DR) made its fortune on the find and settled into retirement on luxurious wooded estates near Espar. They earned their hard- sought riches not only by defeating a formidable guardian monster of unknown species, but also by discerning the meaning of the following verse:Full moon on Wyvernwater touches thee, Proud warrior conquering benches three. Where the smaller steel points a way, Stand where the lonely warrior may.This verse referred to a statue of Ring Dhalmass that still stands on the banks of the Wyvernwater hard by Hultail. The statue depicts the armed and armored king on a rearing horse whose hooves prance on three stone benches that form the base of the statue. The king is waving a sword over his head and is outlined in moonlight whenever a full moon shines down on the area. The sculpted monarch also has a dagger at his waist. If one looks at where its sharp end is pointing, one sees a small rocky knoll about a mile away that is known as Knight's Stand because a lone warrior once held its height against an orc band. The knoll is also flooded with moonlight when the moon is full. If one stands on it with the right blade and item (in this case, a handful of grass) or one of the Sword Heralds' great keys, one can see an upright oval of light that is the gate into the Dawninghunt Vault. A person using the gate enters a small room that holds only a chair, a table, a chamberpot, a stoppered carafe of water, a cot, a candle lantern, and lots of dust. The names of Dawninghunt ancestors, along with the dates of their lives, are inscribed on large stones set flush in the walls as if these ancestors were interred behind the stones. If one puts the chair up on the table, however, part of the floor of this chamber vanishes to reveal stairs down into the vault proper: a large room lit by a driftglobe. Its unfailing light once fell upon a stack of chests crammed with coins, gems, and trade bars of silver and gold, now part of the Golden Griffon Eyes' wealth. The driftglobe gleams still on the tombs of six Dawninghunts, including the sage Harglast Dawninghunt, whose coffin is now enclosed by a forcecage (and contingency spells that set off certain alarm spells elsewhere, among other things). These precautions have been taken to keep adventurers from magically ques tioning him about his field of expertise: magical items of early Cormyr! Another verse of the Sword Heralds has become well-known because it appears and disappears from time to time (seemingly at random) on the top of a tomb in a public crypt in Suzail:
Glonder rides a long long way Through forests wild and marshes fey, And at the place of many nets, Glonder walks, but first frets.To decipher this, one must know that almost 300 years ago the mage Glonder rode the length of Calantar's Way in a single night and day to meet and defeat a dragon. The only place on this route where one might find “many nets” is Immersea, where the mist-fishers employ many nets indeed. From time to time the phantom of Glonder is seen in Immersea, wringing his hands or rushing about with his hands raised in endless spellcasting. So one must find the spot where the phantom first appears on its sporadic nightly rounds, and there one must take the right blade and item to find the way to an unknown refuge. These directions were worked out by the court jester Ubaldo over a century ago, but no one knows what the right common item is, or has the right blade, or has discerned precisely where the phantom first appears. However, where it appears must be the cellar of some structure in Immersea, because the phantom then rises up out of Calantar's Way and rushes to a certain alley. Standing with a great key in hand in the spot where Glonder rises through the street has proven ineffective. At least eight great keys are known to exist, but it is thought that many more have been hidden or stolen. Much of the argument over what the keys look like centers on these missing keys, one of which is perennially rumored to be for sale or rent in Sembia. Local lore in Suzail insists that one of the scepters of the extensive Obarskyr regalia has a great key built into it. Suzailan lore also holds that another great key was long ago given into the keeping of an anonymous commoner of the city at a masked ball, so that the realm might have a chance of survival if evil magic possessed the mind of its king or evil forces swept over the land with conquering armies. The sage Tharondar of Arabel (now deceased, but writing well after the Sword Heralds disappeared) postulates that there may be lesser keys that open several refuges, but not all of them. Like so much about the work of the Sword Heralds, this may be pure speculation. We do know that there were at least 17 Sword Heralds, that they weren't formal heralds of any sort (though they did offer nobility of the realm the service of limning a chosen badge-of-arms on stone walls and other permanent locations), that they were powerful wizards who devised many hitherto unknown and now-forgotten spells, that they indulged in planar travel and in feuds with the Red Wizards of Thay, and that the most powerful of them was a man called Yimluth.
Yimluth
Yimluth was an archmage of at least 26th level and a werestag. He could take the form of a stag or a hairy-hided manlike form with a stag's head. Ultimately he was unable to leave one of these bestial forms, and he remains in hiding somewhere in the Ring's Forest if he hasn't been slain. (It’s generally agreed he had achieved near-immortality.) He also may be traveling from refuge to refuge by means of powerful magic that enables him to jump from one extradimensional place to another. One group of bards and sages believe Yimluth now serves Mielikki or Silvanus in order to achieve demigodhood or that he is a demigod already. Another group swears that he is in some sort of stasis, awaiting a desperate call from the throne of Cormyr that will bring him to the defense of the realm in its time of greatest need. As Elminster commented dryly, it’s clear only that his true fate is unknown.Murald
Another Sword Herald whose name is remembered is Murald. He was a lover of gardens and tapestries. At least six paintings and tapestries on the walls of various inner chambers of the Palace of the Purple Dragon are his work. They are also gates to different locales in the Realms. One of these locations is a hunting lodge somewhere in the heart of the Ring’s Forest, another depiction leads to the eastern slope of Maiden’s Tomb Tor near Waterdeep, and a third is known to lead to a cavern refuge in the Storm Horns somewhere overlooking Espar that is kept stocked with weapons, foodstuffs, and helmed horror guardians.Goals
The aims, identities, and ultimate fates of the Sword Heralds remain shrouded in mystery. All that is known is that they came to the realm suddenly, but without fuss, had no open strife with the Crown or nobles, and worked on many things that enriched the realm. On several occasions they sat in judgment on an individual or a policy, trying to awe the king or the nobles into seeing things as they did. These assemblies so impressed the folk of the day that everyday Cormyrean speech today applies the term “full swords court” to any fancy, formal, or very important and solemn occasion. Although the Sword Heralds seem to have vanished, some folk believe at least a few of them still survive. It’s a popular superstition that they’re still guiding or influencing the realm, unseen, today. Mothers and old wives sometimes chide misbehaving children with the saying: “Remember—the Heralds are watching!” Many members of the staff of the Palace of the Purple Dragon believe that some of the ghosts haunting the courts and gardens in Suzail are Sword Heralds or their servant creatures, but the truth about the Heralds has so far eluded Vangerdahast, and if Elminster knows, he’s not telling. [1]As described in the novel Crown of Fire. [2]A hedgehog in this sense, is a giant shield weighted with rocks or bricks on its upper side and festooned with a forest of downward-pointing swordblades on its lower side. It is triggered by a treadle or by stepping on a flagstone, which releases a catch. The whole affair the plummets down on a chain to impale intruders from above. A successful Intelligence ability check and a successful saving throw vs. paralyzation are required to completely avoid this deadly trap once it is triggered. If only one roll succeeds, half damage is suffered; full damage is 5d6 points.Если вы хотите что то добавить или присоединится к команде редакторов - пишите комментарии
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