Detailed Lore for your RP

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Realmspeak:
The overuse of dialect or invented words can become tiresome or clumsy, but sprinkling speech lightly with archaic words and phrases - such as 'tis and 'twas - or invented words placed so that context make their meaning clear, can help the Realms come alive as a medieval fantasy world different from out own modern world. Here is some useful Realms speech lore.

--MODERN TERM - REALMSPEAK--

anyhow - anyhail
anyway - anyhail
perhaps - mayhap ('perhaps' is used by bards, minstrels, courtiers, nobles and between many middle-class merchants, but only with intimates and family and never in public)

barflies - hardjaws (refers to garrulous tavern regulars)
barkeep - tavernmaster ('innkeeper' is used in the Realms. 'barkeep' never is used)
beauty/beautiful - glim/glimmer

breakfast - morningfeast (or mornfeast)
lunch - highsunfeast
dinner - evenfeast (or eveningfeast)

noon - highsun
tomorrow - on the morrow
tonight - this night

foreigner - outlander
hick - haynose (or bumpkin)
noble - highborn (polite) highnose (deliberately rude)
know-it-all - clevershanks (men) clevertongue (women)
priest - holy-nose (only mildly offensive, akin to using 'cop' for 'policeman')


--MORE INVOLVED TERMS--

Art or the Art (capitalized) means magic and its mastery.

Badaulder (bah-doll-durr) is the western Heartlands expression for "hogwash". Its usage is creeping into Cormyr.

Brightstar means great, exciting, pleasing, marvelous, or superb

Darburl (dar-burl) means angry. For example, "He makes me proper darburl, that one."

Galad is a nonsense word for "I'm astonished" or "I'm impressed".

Lalandath means agile, sleek, and lithe. It's often used to describe dancers or women whose beauty is accentuated by their movements.

Power (capitalized) means divine magical powers.

Rivvim means lusty or amorous.

Thael means glad, pleasant, or heart-lifting.

Time bells means any sort of alarm clock, wake-up gong, or audible time signal.

Throatslake (or gulletfire, or beer or wine) is any drinkable that takes care of thirst and doesn't cause illness in doing so, but isn't particularly pleasant to consume.


--SUBJECTS--

Importer
"Trader from afar" and "far-trader" are well-established Realms terms for someone who trades in goods from afar. It doesn't mean a foreign merchant who has come from afar, which would be called an "outlander merchant".
"Far-shipper" and "caravan merchant" are also common terms used to describe someone who bring in outland goods from afar. Far-shippers imply a two-way trader that largely remains in the city. The caravan merchant implies a traveling trader who literally does the bringing and taking themselves.

Hooligan
"Toughs" is a general collective term for those with an attitude of habitual street loiterers.
"Fastfists" are those who are belligerent at that very moment, such as when drunks spill out of a tavern spoiling for a fight.
"Alleyblades" are lowlife, opportunistic thieves and scavengers who lurk in alleys and carry knives or homemade weapons to threaten or defend themselves with.
"Bullyblades" are muscle hired on a long-term basis by nobles and wealthy non-nobles to 'take care of things for them'.
"Cask-smashers" are vandals adn their damage is "casking" (even if it doesn't involve casks).
"Sharpjaws" is used for posers who pretend to be hard, violent types but are usually thrill-seeking teenagers.

Paramour
"Rose" is a term for a beau, a suitor, or 'the one I desire'.
"Brightheart" means someone your heart is set on.
"Stag" (for males) or "doe" (for females) is a polite (and bardic) way of describing a lover.
"Buck" or "Steed" (for males) or "filly" or "mare" (for females) are jockular, among-the-lads talk for the same. These would not be used in front of parents, priests, or disapproving relatives.
"Lovers" and "brightbirds" are polite, neutral terms, the latter implying two people who are courting but not necessarily intimate.
"Fancyman" and "fancylass" are disapproving pejoratives, as in 'Your fancyman's been around again'. If the speaker is older, "fancyman" becomes "fancylad".

Nouveau Riches
"Newcoin" is a pejorative that refers to those that are newly rich and spending to show it off.
"Brightcoin" is used for the socially rising. It's usually a polite term.
"Bright-fisted-coin" would refer to to one who is ramming one's own success down the throats of others.
"Thrusters" are tirelessly ambitious social climbers. No arrogance is necessarily implied; this term characterizes someone that will do anything to advance in standing.
"Highmantle" is used for someone who is successfully superior or refined in manners, as in someone who is politely haughty, not sneeringly over-the-top offensively haughty.
"Highnose" describes anyone who displays a general haughtiness; also known as "nose-worthy".
"Swirlcloaks" are those trying to copy the accents, phrases, fashions, gestures, and pastimes of the nobility.
"Coin Mountain" is the current Faerûnian term for fabulously ultra-wealthy people.

Thieves
"Snatch-runner" is a term for idiotically reckless thieves. It's a pejorative term used for those too foolish to avoid being caught soon if they don't 'learn some wisdom' in a hurry.
"Fumblehands" are clumsy thieves.
"Softshadow" is deft, veteran thief.
"Dayblood" is a polite term for a new thief. Someone that 'doesn't yet have the blood of the night in them'.
"Blood of the night" refers to the feel, nature, or the essence of what it is to steal for a living.
"Nightblood" is a general term for an individual of the profession.


--CURSES--

Haularake (hah-rake, said quickly) is the all-faiths, acceptable in polite society equivalent of 'gods darn it all, anyway'.

Sark (ssark, drawn-out 's') is a more powerful form of 'haularake', equivalent to 'gods damn it all!'

Hrast (hur-rast) is a non-deity-specific 'damn'.

Naeth (nayth, drawn-out 'th') is the equivalent of saying 'dung'.

Naed (nayd) is a stronger form of 'naeth'.

Sabruin (sah-broo-in) is the equivalent of '-- you' or '-- off'.

Tluin (tuh-loo-in) is the most emphatic way of saying 'sabruin'.

Stlarn (stuh-larn) or stlarning is a mild expletive, about the equivalent of 'screw', as in 'Bah! They can't do one simple thing without stlarning up!'

Hrasting (hur-rast-ing) is a mild form of 'stlarning', not associated with 'hrast'.

Straek (strrake, drawn out 'r') means 'go drown yourself, right now and painfully.'


--INSULTS--

A few examples:
"Dragons fall stunned from the sky when they behold what you are so bold as to call your face, peering up at them".
"His mother named him after the family stallion, for some curious reason".
"For once, try not to act as stupid as your face tells all the world you are".

Notes:
It should be noted that halflings, gnomes, orcs and elves all tend to be more amused than angered by insults directed at them. The same is true of dwarves, unless their female ancestors or living kin are impugned.
Human actors, minstrels, bards, courtiers, and caravan merchants are the targets of so many insults that they soon learn to take them calmly even if naturally hot-tempered.
Drow, beholders, and illithids tend to be intelligent enough to keep control over themselves when they believe they have been disrespected, but to call any of them "nigh human" is an insult indeed.


--NOBLESPEAK-- *Specific to Waterdeep but likely similar in Cormyr*

Lord or Lady is used to address everyone of known noble status.
Young Lord or Young Lady is usually used for toddlers or young children.
Young Master or Young Mistress ('Miss' does not exist in the Relams as a form of address; it means to 'fail to hit what you were aiming at') is seen as a form of admonishment. Acceptable instances of its usage would be anyone speaking to an infant, toddler, or a misbehaving youth; as well as when used by a very old noble to a younger noble.
Saer (rather than 'Sir') or Goodwoman is used by those uncertain of a person's status but not wanting to give offense.

"the Lord" refers to the head of the noble family/house.
"old Lord" refers to an immediately previous head of the family/house.

Nobles refer to themselves as we lords.
Nobles refer to non-nobles as citizens (polite) or commomers (impolite).


--ADDRESSING RULERS-- *Cormyr specific*

Your Majesty - the King and Queen

Your Highness - all other royals

Lord or Lady - nobility and senior courtiers


--SPEAKING TIME--

Time in the Realms is never spoken of in terms of hours or minutes and days are never referred to as "Monday", "Tuesday", or any real-world day name.

Where we would say "a second or two" most Faerûnian humans say "a breath or two".

What we would call a minute is "a goodly breath or three".

Dwarves tend to call anything up to about three minutes "but a little while".

Halflings would call the same amount of time "a long song". To a halfling, a minute is "a tune" and ten minutes is "three long songs.

In cities, temples, and monasteries, the equivalent of hours are "bells" or "candles". These are counted in reference to or from an obvious event, such as dawn, dusk, or highsun (noon).

Modern Term - Realmspeak
predawn - godswake
dawn - dawn
full morning - harbright
late morning - elsun
noon - highsun
early afternoon - thulsun
late afternoon - tharsun
sunset - sunset
gloaming - eventide
dusk - nightfall or dusk
night - night
midnight - midnight or deepnight

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Education:
A lot of what passes for education in the Realms is free (or almost so) for the asking. Anyone with a cion or two can receive basic instruction in tasks from local guilds (along the lines of, 'Don't do this, or you'll blow yourself up; instead call the guild!'). Local lore is often free for the asking from local courtiers or civic scribes. Priests of almost all faiths offer information about who the gods are, what their portfolios and beliefs are, and so on for free. This information from priests carries an emphasis on the beneficial importance of the priest's own faith, but has little overtly lying propaganda, because in the polytheistic Realms, it's considered a sin by all to deceive about any faith.

Other learning sources include high sages (researchers, too expensive for most folk below the wealthy merchant or guild level, and often consulted by rulers and nobles) and low sages (neighborhood shopkeepers who dispense small scope information from their acquired knowledge and personal libraries). Low sages' tend to have good experiential learning, but their book learning often repeats the errors that are in their books.

Most commoners hire low sages to tutor their children on specific matters. Guilds sometimes hire low sages to teach regular classes or write "chapbooks of learning" (short schoolbooks).

High sages, on the other hand, debate with each other, write chapbooks for broader audiences, and sponsor adventurers to recover lost books.

Common education varies widely from place to place based on the attitudes of local rulers.
- In general trading centers like Amn, Sembia and Waterdeep a population that is literate and able to do basic arithmetic will reduce cheating, unrest, and theft, and provides customers with more coin and interest in wonders from afar.
- In lands with militias like Cormyr commoners are trained in local geography, map reading, discipline, the local chain of command, how to access local lords and their staff, how to read and write, how to draw and interpret way-marker symbols, and so on. Purples Dragons get posted all over the realm of Cormyr, and so have a wider worldview and pick up all sorts of local lore, such as brands used by local horse breeders, where specific caravan goods come from, and so on. Since so many folk across the realms have done military or militia service, most of the population has a shared grounding in lore.

Much common knowledge is built up locally from gossip, rants, facts in chapbooks, and from talking with traveling peddlers and caravans.


--TUTORING--

Private tutors are common among nobility and the very wealthy. Academies are less popular due to the likely stigma of the child not having a private tutor for whatever reason (impoverishment or dangerous attitude). These tutors are usually aging relatives, hired clergy of impressive character, high sages in need of housing and income, infirm or elderly experts taken on as house servants, impoverished or exiled outland nobility, and retired military officers (for weapons training).

Informal tutoring (augmented by temple instruction) is the norm in rural areas across Faerûn, and teaches local children basic arithmetic, local laws and customs, and 'simple letters' (reading and writing enough to handle basic road and market signs).


-SCHOOLS & ACADEMIES--

Bards, heralds, and various faiths (particularly monastic orders) set up organized schools (or "academies"), but the vast majority are in large cities. Such places function as what we would call "finishing schools". While they impart lore, their primary purpose is to teach etiquette, deportment, an accent, fashion correctness, a worldview, and so on, to aid in social climbing or success.

While there are a few academies that have the resources, charismatic staff, and/or noble sponsorship to create something grander (which are mostly in large cities) , the vast majority are comfortable little establishments, such as three widows sharing a house and instructing young ladies on sewing, good manners, and how to act as a hostess. They will have a door guard, one or more maids, and a regular clientele (akin to a modern real-world dentist).

Canon example of a current popular academy in the Realms:
Mathulk's House (Suzail)

Clientele: Men from all walks of life (both masters and servants), desiring to learn how to dress, maintain a wardrobe, walk and dance with dignity, and the proper things to say and do in most social situations.
Secret Clientele: Women wanting to pretend to be a man for a revel, or women needing to fool others into thinking them a male for more serious purposes.

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Well Being:

--MEDICINE--

The level and extent of medical knowledge varies widely across the Realms, but is highest among the non-human common races, because tending to humans has become for many of them a way of gaining long-term acceptance in human-dominated communities. Herbal lore is predominant among such practitioners, coupled with "potions" (herbal concoctions, not magic) that are effective in dealing with minor diseases, allergic reactions, and shock. "Physics" are concocted, expensive bottled medicines, which are generally hard to find and priced accordingly. "Herbs" (parts of plants, flowers, and so on) are what is commonly used on a daily basis.

The organs of all humanoid races are known, as well as the general functioning of the body, the function of blood, and the importance of cleanliness for recovering from wounds.

Almost everyone in the Realms understands that ill or wounded people need rest, to be covered by a blanket or at least kept out of the full sun; that moving or rough handling will do greater harm; and that people should be given much to drink. Stretchers and slings are commonly used, and when a stretcher isn't available, the injured is usually lashed to felled tree trunks and borne along between two strong carriers.

Scarring as an aftereffect of injuries is common, because cauterization is a well-known procedure. Herbal painkillers (usually liquids that are brewed and drunk, but also liquids drizzled into wounds) are widely used, especially before someone is sewn up.

Splinting is common, many being experts at neatly sewing flesh, and the importance of using flame or alcohol (not both together, obviously) to prevent infections.

Herbal Lore
Everyone (from farmers to foresters to shopkeepers) knows a few old family remedies, and almost every rural place not in the remote wilderness has an herbalist or two. A village on a trade route might have an apothecary, and almost all market towns have one. If the village is not on a trade route then a priest at a local shrine may act similarly to earn income.

Apothecaries prepare and sell physics, but also sell raw and 'readied' (washed, cut, and sometimes powdered) herbs for kitchens and for medicinal use. Many festhalls and herbalists offer inexpensive herb bath or steam bath services, which always include a rubdown (deep tissue massage). Many travelers and street-dwelling poor use these services regularly to get clean, get their clothes washed, to get warm, and to have aches and pains seen to. For some, its what makes their lives bearable. Usually 1cp for a bath or massage, and 2cp for both with clothes washing and drying thrown in.

Very few sages specialize in herbal lore, but there are some self-styled academic authorities among humans. In Cormyr, the Guild of Naturalists has offices in Suzail and Arabel. It has a professional fellowship of those who study animal and plant life with the aims of understanding natural cycles fully and thereby exploiting natural substances (from plant saps and distillates to beast ichor and organs) to makes scents, medicines, poisons, spell inks, dyes, sealants, preservatives, cooking herbs, and so on. A Cormyrean consulting a guild member is expected to buy guild products, but guild members will sell advice as well as concoctions to outlanders, and will buy raw herbs in good condition from anyone.

Instead of repeating what's been done, here are a few existing threads with listed herbs (I don't take responsibility for their accuracy).

Herbalism on Faerûn

Darkharp's Apothecary (extraordinary thread for this information)


--ILLNESS & HYGIENE--

Most civilized people in the Realms understand how disease transference works for specific diseases. They disagree on treatments, aside from the basics (rest, care, bathing and purgatives, and the careful feeding of observed specifics) and tend to use what had worked for them and their friends in the past. The reasons for these disagreements are the various churches, most of which are striving to maintain influence and control (and a continuing flow of coins for healing) by way of having the lower ranks spread misinformation as to exactly how this or that disease is best treated. ((consider this when your character offers to heal everyone, everywhere for free. Maybe your church wouldn't be so pleased.))

"Bad hygiene" in the Realms constitutes people only washing their hair every four days or so and again before special occasions, and that they bathe 'smelly areas' every night if possible. People do not have reeking, filthy bodies; 'unwashed peasants' is not a Realms norm. Persons desiring to make a good impression who can't get a chance to properly bathe will rub scented oils on their body or into their hair to change their strong oder into something less unpleasant.

Here are a few Realms / Real-World name comparisons
Windchill fever (pneumonia)
Foamjaws (rabies)
Sallar (typhus)
Whitewasting (leprosy)
Mummy rot (flesh rot)
Heartstop (heart attack)

Other known afflictions can be found in Darkharp's Apothecary as well.


--DRUGS--

In the Realms, a drug is something (usually liquid, taken orally) whose making is complicated and unknown to whoever is using the word. In other words, the liquid made by boiling harlthorn and hoof-leaf together would be a drug if its manufacture wasn't so widely known. Most drugs are secret-recipe mixtures of herbal distillations, plants saps, and animal secretions, all of which have no real-world inspirations or counterparts.

Local laws often restrict making and importing of drugs, because bad things have happened in the past. Since alchemy, doctoring and the like all approve of using herbal and created substances to help the sick and injured, drugs are seen only as bad when they are clearly intended to be used to incapacitate someone to be taken advantage of in some way, or killed. Poisons are always seen as bad except when used with state sanction in war, or by physicians as part of medical treatment (this latter use would be very closely watched by local law keepers and guilds).

Drug making is secretive and a matter of constant experimentation, so there are thousands of drugs that go by even more names. Lists of drugs can also be found in Darkharp's Apothecary

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Class and Nobility:
In the realm of law, as in many other areas of life, those with the most clout usually get to make the rules. In Faerûn, an appropriate synonym for "those with the most clout" would be "the members of the noble class". No discussion of legality and justice in the Realms can avoid the fact that social class and noble standing (or lack of it) are critical to how the system works for each individual.

Almost all societies in the Realms are divided into classes based on genealogy and wealth. Individuals can move from class to class, but such is never easy (unless one moves from society to society, leaving the neighbors who have known him or her from birth).


--LOWER CLASSES--

In most locales in the Realms, non-noble men and women are considered equals but have traditional roles or fields of dominance.
- For men, this dominance extends to warfare, sea voyaging, and smithing.
- For women, this is hearth and home, and shop keeping.
- In guilds, members' rights and privileges are never based on gender.

The closest thing to a feudal society in the Realms in Tethyr. Almost all Heartlands and more northerly farmers in the Realms are free-men, though a case can be made for serfdom (in practice, not name; 'serf' is an unknown term) in Tethyr (before the Black Days) and in present-day Calimshan. Those two countries have more high-yield farmland, so perhaps some form of serfdom is used in the highest-output farmlands. The most common Realms term for the equivalent of a serf is a "bondsman", meaning someone who holds land under a contract that sets forth conditions. However, the duties and rules for bondsmen do not directly correspond to those of real-world serfs.

No farmer in the Dales is anything but a free-holder ("freeman" or "freewoman") or a hired "crofter" working and living on the lands owned by another and paying rent to that owner in the form of either coin or a portion of the crop yield. In Sembia and upland Cormyr, crofters are the norm. Except for strips of land alongside major roads and in the most remote locales, almost all the tilled land is owned by one wealthy family or another. In "downland" Cormyr (roughly south of Immersea and Waymoot), some wealthy families own large numbers of separate city buildings or small farms, but their properties are scattered among the small holds of independent Cormyrean citizens ("freefolk").


--NOBLES--

In most places, being a nobles gives you special treatment under the law through kinder investigations and fairer trials. Nobles tend to have rights lesser folk lack, even something as trivial as being allowed to stop and leave their coach int he middle of the street, or being able to enter and leave a city at all hours (when gates would remain firmly shut for others).

Most important: Nobles have connections. Nobles grew up knowing the right people to get things done, everything from quietly arranging investments, to giving jobs, to where to 'find' ("source" in polite speech) almost anything. They are taught the local ways of successfully commanding, demanding, and influencing, and are expected to use them (most do). With rare exception, nobles do not exercise their influence in outright malicious ways.


--BECOMING NOBLE--

The process of being made a noble varies from place to place. In most realms and city-states, you gain a tile by pleasing the ruler, or by serving as a convenient fall guy. The tile can be either a vacant tile that you assume or, more commonly, a new title invented on the spot.

Cormyr distinguishes between hereditary and nonhereditary titles. Azoun IV (before his death), Filfaeril (his queen, before and after his death), Alusair (as regent), and any ruler thereafter can confer a title on you that gives your offspring no title or staus at all. "Sitting nobles" everywhere frown on rulers adding upstarts to their ranks and will often treat them with disdain regardless of what title they've gained. There are also court titles (also known as "offices") that come with great power, but aren't themselves a mark of nobility. Although, they're usually given to nobles, or if handed to commoners, are commonly accompanied by at least a knighthood.

In Amn, Tethyr and any land imperiled by monsters or brigandry, one can often gain nobility by offering to police a border area. Serving as examples are the baron of Hawkhill in the northern mountains of Amn, and the standing offer from the Crown of Cormyr to make a baron of anyone who can occupy, tame, police, and patrol the Stonelands.

Personal service to a monarch plus marriage to nobility usually gains you a noble title in your own right.

If a hero personally and publically saved Cormyr, the ruling Obarskyr of the day would probably reward him or her with a handsome title: "High Protector of the Realm" or some such. The Obarskyr would almost certainly not publically say if the title was hereditary or not, and it wouldn't be worded to sound hereditary. Only War Wizards, senior palace scribes, and local heralds would know the permanence or impermanence of the title. Of course, public opinion would probably enthusiastically support bestowal of the title at the time, but the Obarskyr is banking on the passage of time that the nature of the title, hereditary or not, won't be of great public interest. Cormyr's early history argues against the public acceptance of hereditary elven titles.

In Sembia, if you just want to be called "lord", all you need to do is amass a staggering amount of coin, take up residence in Sembia, and proclaim yourself a lord. This method has worked for scores of individuals over the past few centuries.

Many ambitious adventurers have set themselves up as nobility in the Border Kingdoms, conquering a few pastures and forests and declaring it a realm. They usually also give themselves all sorts of grand and often ridiculous titles, such as "Emperor of the Lower Middens". That's the usual sort of way adventurers become noble, aside from wooing and marrying nobility.

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Laws:
Laws vary from place to place. I'm going to avoid detailing those from other places. Most of them involve public flogging, fines, hard labor, and/or city exile. Long-term jail sentences are very rare. Some, like tomb-raiding and fraud involve branding.

Here are a list of FRC's in-character laws: FRC's Laws of Cormyr

--PROPERTY LAWS--

Generally, formal laws regarding possessions and property exist in kingdoms and other organized countries. Otherwise, might makes right, and the law is whatever the local lord or kingpin says. In reality, this brute force, "My sword is the law" approach is always tempered by custom. Customs are formed by the habits of generations, built up into "the way things are done" as well as by the expectations of locals and by the unwritten "rules of wayfaring" as understood by caravan merchants, peddlers, pilgrims, and envoys, and enforced by priests and the Heralds. An example of policing of these unwritten rules: If you were to set up an inn and then murder everyone that shows up, even if that's morally acceptable for you, it will not be suffered to stand. Once word gets out, expect to soon be destroyed by several caravans arriving at once intent on murdering you. Or failing that, expect to be shunned and ignored with no one visiting you for any reason (including trade), ever again, from then until the end of your life.

Centuries of disputes all over the Realms have led to property laws that are usually akin to this arrangement: You can charge fees for the use of your land, or you can fence off your land and guard it, with notices, prohibiting all or specific uses of it, but you can't simply butcher, maim, imprison or rob individuals you find on your land. Moreover, you can't flout local customs with regard to buying and selling land, or renting land to farmers to till, or providing stable and paddock space and room and board to travelers.

Border disputes might be settled with violence, or by documents and rules and solemn agreements. Borders between nobility, rulers, or countries are always solemnized somehow, usually with agreements or treaties arising out of wars and enforced by periodic border patrols or even garrisons. Often, for clarity and convenience, such borders follow a natural boundary like a river, mountain range, road or stream. Miscreants fleeing across a border can't depend on protection from their destination unless there are patrols or garrisons at the border, those in pursuit will simply follow them, ignoring the boundary.


--SLAVERY--

Officially illegal almost everywhere in known Faerûn, except Dambrath, Thay, and the Old Empires, the practice of slavery is known to be widespread in most of the eastern lands. This doesn't mean is doesn't go in in many other places though. In the cold Savage North, orcs take human slaves whenever then can, and eat slaves that are no longer considered useful. In the chill wilderlands north of the Moonsea, ogres capture humans for use as slaves and food. There has always been a thriving slave trade in Sembia, Westgate and Marsember, but by the very nature of the business as practiced in that part of the Realms, there aren't named, high-profile groups of slave takers. Rather, it's always a few individuals (not more than a dozen to each cabal) doing snatch-and-grab jobs and fetching captives who are often drugged then transferred to ships of captains who covertly deal in slaves. This is an important income for some Sea of Fallen Stars pirates. Many of these cabals are able to call on the occasional assistance of evil wizards and priests if someone starts to hunt or hound them in exchange for bodies to experiment on or use in rituals.

Because of the small, secretive, informal nature of these gangs, there's little official mention of slavers. Unofficially, Faerûnians hear a lot of horrific tales of slavers snatching innocent folk, causing them to be hated and feared. Folk in Marsember tend to be blasé about slavers, and Sembians know and accept that hiring someone to have a rival, a fellow heir, or a creditor "removed" is a daily business option. But Dalefolk and rural Cormyreans will grab pitchforks and attack suspected slavers on sight.


--CORMYREAN NAMING AND TRADE LAWS--

Cormyr's naming laws and fair trade regulations are typical of those that have been developed in other well-governed lands and settlements in the Realms.

No Royal Names Allowed
Dating back to ten years before Azoun IV died there has been a Crown law banning businesses of all sorts (including inns, taverns, and private clubs) from using royal names, royal nicknames, and royal heraldry, as well as preventing them from "decrying the Crown". This means you can't name your tavern Azoun's Codpiece. Local Purple Dragons would be offended and might wreck such an establishment even if there was no law. Veteran Purple Dragons tend to take a very dim view of anything that poles fun at the Crown. Such an act of naming would be seen as tempting misfortune, and as such many potential customers would avoid the place as well. An exception to this would be naming meals or ales (Azoun's Preferred or Azoun's Chosen) during a remembrance festival. Lauding royalty, rather than mocking the Crown, does not earn an exception to the law.

The law also prevents directly naming any business after a particular battle (even a victory), or any noble, noble family, local lord, or specific heraldic blazon. Intentionally, there is no rule against a business using the name of a Cormyrean naval ship.

Using Place Names
You can name your tavern, inn or stables (but not any other kind of business) directly after the place it is located in. For instance, "The Arms of Arabel" and "The Pride of Arabel" are legal names for inns and taverns but not for armorers, weapon shops, bakeries, garment shops, and so on. A tailor can't do business as "The Flashing Needle of Arabel", even if that nickname has been bestowed upon him by his customers.

The laws prohibit duplication of, or even similarity to, an existing name. Crown agents will force a name change on "the second business in" if, in their sole opinion, confusion could arise (including the possibility of getting tax records confused). So, if the "Pride of Arabel" is flourishing, you can't legally open "The Promenade of Arabel" because the two business may get confused by a wayfarer from afar, but the "Delight of Arabel" or "Heart or Arabel" would be fine.

No business can name itself after a place it isn't located in. There are a few old businesses that break this rule, and the right to go on breaking it can be bought and sold, but the number of exceptions never increases. Many elder businesses sport discreet "banner boards" under their main sign boards to inform all that this establishment was formally known by a famous or infamous, but now banned, name.

Signs Must Be Seen
Inns, public stables, and taverns are required by law to have clearly visible signs that thrust out into the street. These signs must be lit by lanterns or some other means, such as magic, so as to be readable by night, except during instances when local authorities specifically decree otherwise, such as during a war. Other kinds of businesses might choose to have such signs, or might be governed by local guild rules or trade agreements in their signage. Almost all businesses do have signs, though not all of them use thrust out signboards. In all cases, the Crown (acting through local means) has instant and final say over the signs.

Local heralds have a duty to inspect and order and changes to all such signage that infringes on heraldry or misleads the public as to the nature of the business. The High heralds can override local heralds, who can in turn override local lords.


--QUALITY OF GOODS--

Tax collectors and all traveling Crown officials and courtiers have clear, easy, and confidential channels through which to complain about bad beer and similar shortcomings in inns and taverns. Complaints can be made first-hand or on behalf of any citizen. All complaints are ultimately routed to the Desk of Justice (which is really a room rather than a desk and has nothing to do with judicial proceedings). Rather, it is a small band of undercover inspectors run by a Highknight (a person who serves the royal family as a personal enforcer, spy, or envoy). These inspectors have the power to close a kitchen or taps on the spot, confiscate or destroy food, yank Crown licenses, and effectively shut down a business for as long as it takes to fix it, even if that is forever. They rarely have to do so, these days; their mere appearance awes many patrons and frightens most hostelry owners bone white.

There aren't specific qualities set down in law, however. The Desk tries to prevent poisonings, disease, and (the most important and prevalent part of their work) daily deception. For example: A tankard of ale has certain expectations for size. A miniature tankard or one with a small interior is not what is expected. Many size expectations (including tankards) are based on hand or finger size, so people with larger hands are, rightfully, expected to receive more. Similarly, if you are promised mutton, or goose eggs, or ale from Arabel, what you are served should be just that.

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Sentencing The Guilty:
Even where clearly codified laws exist, sentences are generally at the discretion of the ruler. For instance, the king can let the guilty party go free, or allow an individual to perform some task rather than enduring the usual punishment. Likewise, the king can decide that nobles, rather than being flogged and imprisoned, must pay huge fines.

As a rule, no place that thrives on trade will dare allow open bribery or flawed justice. Any rigging of results must be done behind the scenes rather than in public. Also, places that survive on trade almost always have clearly codified laws, separate-from-the-authorities judges, and arrangements to let guilds partially punish their own members. A common belief that visiting merchants will be treated equally to residents and citizens must be fostered and maintained, or the merchants will stop coming.

In many places, magisters or their equivalents, guilds, and priests all have the right to call on the aid of spells to determine truth and falsehood. In most places, royalty and nobility have rights or privileges others in society don't have.

Trial by combat is rarely allowed in "trade reigns" places, but might occur in places of rural "rough justice" or in communities dominated by a faith that allows such activity, such as in a hamlet around a temple. In Sembia and some other civilized places, battle between hired champions, or even personal dueling, is often a public entertainment used in cases when a noble feels slighted by another noble.

Most places in the Realms have nothing resembling real-world libel and slander laws. Also, aside from prohibitions against copying or counterfeiting the words of royalty or nobility, or the decrees of magisters or guildmasters, nothing really approaching modern real-world copyright law exists in the Realms. Many popular works exist in hundreds or thousands of copies. Many of these copies may exist from merchants who notice a particular title is selling briskly and hold a copy to serve as a master while they print new ones. The original author rarely gets paid anything for these later editions, and might never know of their existence.

The Realms does not have lawyers, robed and wigged or otherwise. There are some "advocates", paid orators who will speak in court (always in the presence of an accused, not appearing in their stead) and who might know something of the law and can give advice to an accused.


--SEIZED GOODS--

In actual practice, rulers or their officials have almost complete discretion over what happens to items found in the possession of an accused. The blanket power is tempered by public scrutiny, usually supported by vigilant local clergy, reinforcing general principles that are actual law in some places, but merely prevailing opinion or tradition in others. These principles include the following strictures:

-- Identifiable stolen items should be freely returned to their owners, not kept or sold by the government.

-- In peacetime, there should be clear and tight limits on what authorities can confiscate as evidence or suspected stolen goods. For example, if a thief has been storing stolen good in a dockside warehouse used by many individuals, the authorities have the right to search the entire building and examine everything, but not confiscate all the contents of the warehouse simply because they believe some of the contents were stolen.

-- Magical things need to be thoroughly examined (and probably kept) by the authorities. However, local officials have an obligations to "hunt it all out", and when it has been examined, tell local citizens the whole truth about what magic was found, where it came from, and what it was intended for.

-- Any hint of undead in a settled area is to be treated like magic: hunted out, destroyed, and the whole truth told locally.

-- Law keepers who find and seize anything should not be allowed to personally keep it, otherwise, they would have a strong incentive to misuse their office for personal gain.

-- Contraband should be publically and promptly sold by the government, not destroyed or kept by government officials.

-- Any investigation that disrupts the community (arrests, prolonged questioning, searches, and seizure of goods, for example) should eventually be explained fully to the community. Authorities have very few justifiable grounds for not telling citizens anything they ask about (though the "king's will" is a justifiable ground).

-- Disputes over what happens to property must me resolved in public, not behind closed doors.


Some governments are swift to confiscate land, buildings, and everything owned by certain sorts of criminals, but in other lands or city-states, such actions would bring swift and strong protest from the citizenry. Different lands have varying governments and likewise differing popular attitudes regarding the presumption of guilt. For instance, in Cormyr no one's lands or buildings may be seized until royal assent has been given, in the wake of a formal sentence. However, in Calaunt, Mulmaster, or Westgate, if a high-ranking official believes someone is guilty, seizers can occurs well before the person has been tried, and some individuals deemed miscreants just disappear, never getting a public trial at all. In Chessenta until the mid 1320's, city rulers customarily arrested persons they disliked, then, even if they were not charged with crimes, let them escape with armed agents of the ruler in hot pursuit. If caught, the person was slain on the spot. The ruler then took the individual's worldly goods, leaving the family of the "dangerous recreant" destitute. If the fleeing recreant successfully got away (the agents would not pursue past the borders of the city's territory), it was deemed the will of the gods that the person escaped. Although all the recreant's property was forfeit, the ruler would ignore him henceforth, rather than sending more agents after him. It should be noted that this practice in Chessenta stopped due to individual, non-violent protests from outsider merchants threatening to stay away from the domains of such rulers. Surprisingly, so it proved, the rulers eventually gave in.


--THOSE WHO ENFORCE--

In any society, there is a broad area between the laws on the rolls and their daily, actual, on-the-ground enforcement. For instance, Purple Dragons in dangerous-due-to-monsters-and-brigands rural areas of Cormyr, far from the niceties of Suzail, are like a lot of rural law enforcers in the Dales and elsewhere in Faerûn. They often throw people in cells overnight to cool them off, but for all but the most serious crimes, rather than charge and hold the miscreants and send word for officials to come and try them, they're quite apt to scare the offenders and beat them up (with bare fists), then send them on their way with growls of "Don't come here and try such foolness again!"

Most such rural and small-town law officers are wily, salt-of-the-earth, cunning (but not necessarily corrupt) veterans who won't easily be caught in ambushes or duped. They know the local terrain and hiding places and are aware of the residents who are crooked and might fence stolen goods. There are no haughty, I-never-get-my-hands-dirty "high-nosed city brightcloaks" among them.

The Watch of Waterdeep
Cities tend to have more polite and disciplined, but sometimes markedly less effective, law officers than small communities do. Perhaps the best of these police forces is the famous Watch of Waterdeep, some details of which follow. These points can be used for a model for Watch behavior elsewhere.

Waterdhavian Watch officers always wear uniforms when on patrol, and carry both weapons and horns with which to summon aid. Aid is usually in the form of other Watch patrols, but specific horn calls can summon Watchful Order magists or soldiers from Waterdeep's small standing army, the City Guard, as well.

Every veteran Watch officer knows at least the top people and the heirs of all Waterdhavian noble families on sight, plus the troublemakers.

In most daily situations, when not in front of a lord or palace official, Watch officers tend to ignore rank formalities when their ranks are similar.

Watch members found guilty of crimes or misbehavior are often fined by the watch as well as punished under law. Dismissal and imprisonment apply to the most egregious offenses. On the other extreme, distinguished service often earns handsome retirement bonuses from the Lords, sometimes even including pieces of outlying land or an in-city building.

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Crown Agents:
Every ruler has formal envoys and ambassadors who travel the Realms constantly, engaging in formal diplomacy. Almost all the rulers also have unofficial representatives, investigators and "trouble fixers" who do the daily (and nightly) dirty work to keep the ruler on the throne. Every city-state or ruler employs more than just outside-the-law hired agents such as outland adventuring gangs, dupes, scapegoats, and armed "heavies". They also employ ongoing, loyal secret agents who investigate murders, conspiracies, crimes, and incipient treason. The Highknights and War Wizards of Cormyr are famous examples, but even as small a place as Tagarath has its secret agents, tax spies, tax collectors, and police force with trained war dogs.


--THE WAR WIZARDS OF CORMYR--

The Forest Kingdom is famous, and widely feared, for its state force of wizards, which defends and informs the Dragon Throne. The War Wizards are the ultimate "not-secret" police, a self-governing force that spies on everyone in Cormyr, from the Obarskyrs to night-soil carters, to try to uncover threats to the throne before they truly imperil the stability of the kingdom.

Cormyr is thought by many in the Realms as a shining bulwark of peaceful, law-abiding prosperity. It certainly strives to be, but behind the bright exterior of green forests, verdant farms, fluttering banners, and Purple Dragons in shining armor are dark and ever-present threats. Arabel and Marsember are both conquered cities that frequently stir into near rebellion, and nobles all over Cormyr test the authority of the ruling Obarskyrs all the time. Without the War Wizards (and an energetic, wise, strong-willed person at their head) Cormyr would have been plunged into civil war scores of times.

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Hearth and Home:
Every player whose character has been attacked at home, in bed, or has arrived home battered and weary after a hard adventure to find that home looted, burned to the ground, or under the bulk of a grinning dragon, knows the sickening shock, the violation, of having one's home messed with. As the beggar Jorthyn famously told King Azoun IV of Cormyr: "I'll fight for my best begging spot, Majesty, just as fiercly as you'll defend yon Palace." Azoun, and the people of wider Cormyr when they heard what Jorthyn said, agreed with his every word. Sage or shopkeeper, farmer or noble, your home is nigh everything.


--HOMES--

In the Realms, people can live in anything, from grand palaces and fortresses to dirt dugouts and caves.

For instance, in the Windswept, cliff-top Sword Coast coastal fishing community of Ulgoth's Beard, almost everyone dwells in dirt-floored, windowless stone cottages with roofs of growing turf, planted with herbs and edibles. Most such dwellings have an entry room that doubles as a dining and living room (and in winter, as a kitchen), and opens into two or three inner rooms that are used for bedchambers and storage. The hearth is central, and in cold weather, stones are heated and placed in bed and cold corners to warm the dwelling as much as possible. These humble cottages are referred as their "dens".

Folk of the Heartlands usually reside in timber-framed homes, the oldest and grandest having fieldstone foundations and ground floors.

In cities, most buildings are rectangular blocks of brick and stone, with gently sloped slate or tile roofs. A typical city building has shops in the "first down" (cellar level) and on street level, with two or three (and in a few of the more prosperous and crowed cities, four) floors above the street-level shop. In the priciest heart of a city's urban area, the lowest of those upper floors, or all of them, are apt to contain business offices. Elsewhere, they are usually rented out to tenents as living space, very like real-world low-rise apartment buildings.

An isolated farm might be a "steading" or a "croft" (and its owners, "crofters"). It is called "hold" only if it is fortified or defensible in some way. This could mean it has earthworks or stone towers, or even a cave.

The word "cabin" is unknown in the Realms. There are cottages, but most who live in them call them "my hearth".

"Standath" is the Dragon Reach and Moonsea name for a retangular stone building that has cellars. Shops are often located on the uppermost cellar level, entered by a "duck down steps" route from street level, as well on the ground floor, and sometimes even the second floor. The two or more upper floors are residential suites.

A "murdath" is the same as a standath but with no cellars beneath, usually due to hard bedrock near the surface, swampy ground, or ever-present flooding danger.

In the 1360s DR, fine city dwellings started being called mansions rather than manor houses or villas, with some exceptions, such as Waterdeep, Amn, and Tethyr.

The general term for ritzy digs is "grand house" and a fortified grand house is called a "keep" even if it doesn't look like a castle.

Any run-down hovel, from cottages to mansions, is a "darkhalls" or, if really dilapidated, a "rookwrack".

Indoor toilets are "garderobes" in grand houses or castles and "jakes" otherwise; only outdoor toilets are "privies", "thunderthrones", or "gloryhouses".

Wealth
Typical furnishings for poor folk include a bed and a table with an oil lamp (or "candle-cup"). Possessions and extra blankets are kept in a strongchest that is either stored under the bed or used as a sideboard. Valuables are often hidden under the floorboards beneath the strongchest or the bed (or both), with strings of scrap metal attached to the furniture to sound a clang if either are moved.

As wealth increases (and space accordingly), folk furnish their homes with chairs, then side tables, followed by couches that aren't just beds dressed up with cushions and sat on during the day. Lamps become far more numerous and decorative. Strongchests remain the most common means of storage. Only the wealthy can afford wardrobes and other pieces of fine storage furniture.

Likewise, only the truly wealthy, and the guilds who work for them, can afford elaborate building plans. Many nobles proudly display detailed models of their country places in their city residences, for the less fortunate to gasp over at revels. A few even hire mages to populate their miniature structures with moving miniature people for such evenings (often transformed rats or mice, but sometimes hirelings that have displeased their noble masters).


--HOSPITALITY IN THE DALES--

It's the custom throughout most of the Dalelands to give a visitor in summer a cup of water to drink and a bowl of water in which to bathe one's feet. Visitors do the bathing and removal of footwear themselves, and can refuse either kind of aid without insulting the host. In the winter, a visitor is given warm water or warmed oils for his or her feet, and a place by the fire, stove, or whatever source of heat is available, plus something warm to drink. Again, refusing is not an insult.

Visitors who come armed with battle weaponry are expected to promise "peace upon this house", which is a literal promise of "I won't draw a weapon or use it while under this roof, nor set fire to the lodging itself". Thereafter, visitors are expected to offer their sheathed swords to the lady of the house for safekeeping until their departure. If the weapons are hidden, they must be yielded up speedily when the guest announces his or her intended departure, or else the guest is entitled to do violence to recover them.


--HEATING AND COOKING FUEL--

In the Realms, as in the real world, fuels for producing heat have traditionally been ignitables that are plentiful, near at hand, gained with relative ease, and cheap--for example, wood in forests, peat near bogs, or livestock manure mixed with straw and dried in grasslands.

In desert areas across the Realms, people use dried camel dung as fuel, and the cold northern areas use the dung of local pack beasts. Additionally, some areas of grasslands, such as the Shaar, use cut sheeves or "stooks" of fried grasses (straw), and some coastal areas use fish oil or whale oil. Regardless, firewood is still by far the most plentiful and widely used fuel in the Realms.

Lands such as Cormyr, Chessenta, Tethyr, Turmish, and the Dales use coppicing on country estates to produce high wood yields. This is done by cutting limbs from living trees with care to not to kill the tree, so they will regrow fuel for cutting again in a decade or less.

Much wood destined for cities is pre-burned and smothered with turf so that is smolders, forming charcoal. The burning charcoal is then extinguished, and when cold, transported to a city for sale. Charcoal is favored beacuse it burned hotter and faster than wood and with less smoke. It can also be scented with various liquids to give off pleasant odors.

Dragon dung is reputed to have all sorts of wild properties and powers. Alchemists have discovered a handful of these assertions to be true, such that it causes rapid growth and regeneration when used in a poultice, in some cases of sickness and disease. Adventurers have confirmed some others--such that dragon dung ignites easily, even in freezing or drenched conditions; that in some confined conditions be made to explode when lit; and that it burns with an intense blue flame. All such tales stress, however, only the dung of certain types of dragons does these particular things, and the accounts differ on which types have which effects.


--INNS AND TAVERNS--

Inns are primarily places where a traveler can sleep for the night, stable one's horse, buy semi-secure short-term storage, and get simple meals either in one's rooms or in a "common room" (dining room).

Alehouses (taverns) are mainly places for drinking, sometimes with rentable private booths or chambers for conducting business meetings. Such chambers can also be rented for overnight stays. Taverns usually serve simple food of the sausage, meat-pie, stew, and bread-loaf variety. Taverns in the Realms rarely offer extensive menus. The main room of a tavern is the "taproom", and taverns have "tavernmasters" and even "tankard-tenders" (but never barkeeps, barkeepers, or bartenders) Female servers are known as "wenches" (not a disrespectful term), and male servers are known as "keghands", never waitresses or waiters. Taverns serve ale in "tankards", and wine in tall glasses or "flagons" (no one uses the word "mug" or "pint").

The Realms has uncounted thousands of both inns and taverns. A small wayside settlement might have just an inn that serves also as a tavern. Conversely, backcountry hamlets and villages not on a trade road often lack an inn; the tavern serves both functions, with a stable loft offering crude overnight sleeping facilities for travelers. Generally taverns are noisier and less formal than inns, and taverns tend to welcome everyone, whereas inns are restricted to paying guests, and perhaps one or two persons that come to meet with a guest. Local lawkeepers tend to be slightly more lax in disciplining the patrons of taverns ("Well, what did you expect? Drunkards brawl, and you went to a place where patrons go to get drunk!") than they are for inns, where its understood that patrons are paying for some measure of peace, quiet to sleep, and security.

Taverns and inns often have stables, run by stablemasters who direct hostlers to tend horses.

Both inns and taverns have cellarers who see to the procurement, storage, and retrieval of drinkables and sometimes food, too. Female servants are generally known as "maids", and male servants as "jacks". In a small inn where one servant sees to everything for multiple rooms, that servant is a "chambermaid" or "chamberjack" (or "maid" or "jack", less formally). If the inn is a little larger, it will have "chamberers" assisted by "warmers" (more formally, "warming maids" or "warming jacks") who see to chamber pots and to ewers, basins, towels, and for wash water and drinking water. These names are used even in inns that never heat water. An even larger inn will seperate the warmers from those who deal with the chamber pots, who are then "nightmaids" or "nightjacks".

A wayside inn or tavern might buy, sell, and trade mounts and pack animals, but in cities and market towns, such guild-dominated trade is done at "livery stables" instead.

Typical superior tavern fare throughout Faerûn consists of inexpensive drinks (such as mint water, small beer, local ales and wines, and some offering of stronger spirits) as well as an assortment of nuts, wheels of cheese, small round loaves of salty bread, sausages, soups, and 'everything in' stews. Stews typically salty to encourage more drinking and serves in tankards with long spoons chained to the handles to scoop out the last bits in the bottom.

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Eats:

--PUBLIC DINING--

In the Realms, the most popular everyday terms for "restaurant" are "feasthouse" and the slightly grander "feast hall" or "feasting hall". The Chondathan word "skaethar" has crept into Common as a formal usage, meaning "dining establishment", where the word "feasthouse" has a meaning closer to "eatery".

Small wayside inns and taverns that offer the only public dining in a town don't bother with menus. Whatever's "on" tonight is it, with usual meal choices so simple that the plattermaid just verbally imparts them ("What'll it be, goodsirs? The fish of the joint?" or "Full meat or the stew?") and outlines the drinkables and desserts.

A larger settlement might have multiple places to eat but little true competition. For example, a village might have a temple that serves food only to pilgrims and night guests, an inn that serves a different sort of fare but only to patrons, and a tavern that serves only sausages, cheese, and hot hardbread with lots and lots of ale to everyone. Again, no written menus are needed or used.

Most feasthouses and feast halls inside inns and taverns are located where there's true competition, as is usual in market towns and cities, as well as places where food sources change often. Newly arrived fare is chalked up on menu boards, typically on display beside the bar as well as on a pillar not far inside the front door. Beautiful printed menus tend to be found in highborn feasting halls and inns that have ornate feast chambers or agreements with feasthouses and dining clubs.

Very few establishments boast what we would recognize as coated-paper, multipanel foldout menus. These establishments are mainly in Calimshan and the Tashalar, but a few are in Amn, coastal Tethyr, and the Vilhon.


--WHAT'S TO EAT--

The bounty of the land and agriculture are watched over by Chauntea; however, no deity governs food and drink. Many faiths use special foods, meals, food preparations, and drugs in various holy rituals, but food and drink are not exclusively the portfolio of and one deity.

The best food nowadays is never imbued with magic, after centuries of accumulated fear and abhorrence of the results of magical tinkering with food. Too often in the past has magic been used to poison foes, transform foes, or just trick someone into eating dung, glass shards, or other disgusting or harmful substances that had been temporarily transformed into something more appetizing. Just about every Faerûnian society down the centuries has shunned magical food preparation -- except for specific tasks such as peeling and ingredient mixing -- and the prevailing attitude across the realms is admiration of cooking done without magic. Some jaded and wealthy nobles see enchanted food as exclusive, rare, and special because it's forbidden or frowned upon, claiming it has a taste that more mundane food cannot achieve.

The backbone of many human diets is grain and meat. Most meat in the realms is marinated simply and cheaply in stale beer with sugar, garlic, salt, and mustard, or the cooks preferred handful of herbs, to taste. The blood from slaughtered animals is always saved to be cooked as drippings or used in making gravy.

Handfoods
Snacks are popular in most places in the Realms, particularly in crowded, fast-paced cities. Here are some examples:
Handpies: Meat-and-gravy-filled, savory palm-sized pastries of an astonishing variety of ingredients and tastes, from curries, to leek-with-bacon, to minted lamb. Popular in the Heartlands, the Dales, and the Savage Coast North.
Salted, Roasted Seeds: Especially pumpkin and pistachios. Popular in the Tashalar.
Wheels of Sharp Yellow Cheese: Some with ground nuts or diced olives inside, or laced with zzar or various liqueurs. Popular in the Heartlands, the Dales, and the Savage Coast North.
Raisins: Popular in Heartlands and on the coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
Date Cakes: Served as pressed, flat ovals. Popular in Calimshan and the Tashalar.
Fig Cakes: Served as pressed, flat ovals. Popular in Calimshan.
Cranberry Cakes: Served as pressed flat ovals. Popular in Sembia, the Vilhon, and Turmish.
Dried Apricots: Popular in the Tashalar, Lurien, Var, and Estagund.
Quince Sticks: Cakes of dried quince pressed together with various beetles and formed around edible klooer roots (licorice-like roots of a parched wilderland bush). Popular in the Vilhon, Shaar, Var, and Estagund.
Honeydrops: Thumb-sized candies of honey mixed with an edible gum and spices to provide flavor and keep the honey from melting and running in hot conditions. Popular in Calimshan, the Vilhon, Mulhorand, Raurin, and Chessenta.
Sugar Cakes: Like real-world petit-fours, sugar icing-drenched confections of baked cake that have been laced with jams or chocolate or herbal distillates. Popular everywhere, but they tend to be in short supply and expensive.
Cherrybread: Like real-world fruitcakes, various diced fruits, marinated in spirits, baked into a molasses cake and sold as small whole loaves or slices wrapped in leaves. Popular in the Border Kingdoms, the Vilhon, and on the coast of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
Blood-Drops: Beets sliced very thinly, fried in oil, and then dusted with salt and various spices, from sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg to the various hot spices.
Potato Cakes: Like real-world Irish wedge-shaped griddle cakes.
Talyth: This morsel is a cracker the size of a small human palm with a thin slice of sausage on top, and various sorts of herbs, spices, and mushed-down-flat foodstuffs in between, lightly baked together. Talyths are usually savory, and can include anything from snails and oysters and spices worms right up to diced eggs and mixed cheeses. In winter, talyths can be premade and packed on ice, for later heating or reheating, to be served immediately. Popular on the Sword Coast, in Cormyr, Westgate, and Sembia.

There are many more, but almost all large markets during the summer and autumn, across most of Faerûn, should have the majority of those mentioned above for sale.

Some handfoods aren't suitable as traveling fare, but others are prized by adventurers and wayfarers across Faerûn as essentials, particularly if the go beyond the standard hunk of sausage, whole pickle, and wedge or small wheel of cheese.

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Drinks of Choice:
On a daily basis, most Faerûnians drink water, grass broth (a salty soup made by boiling water with local greenery in it), teas, cider, and small beer (household brewed ale). When people dine out, or visit a local tavern for the evening, stronger drinks are usually consumed.

--COFFEE--

Known as "kaeth" or "kaethae" in the Realms, coffee is rare north of Calimshan and the southern Vilhon shores, except in the most cosmopolitan ports such as Waterdeep, Athkatla, and Westgate. It's major sources are located southeast of Durpar, halfway up the eastern side of the Anauroch, and overseas to the west in Maztica. Sacks of beans come into Baldur's Gate and get shipped out from there, mainly to Calimshan and the Tashalar.The Bedine of the Anauroch call coffee "qahwa" or just "qaw". They rarely trade it, consuming almost all of it themselves.

Coffee is drunk black in Calimshan and the Tashalar, its taste often altered with dried, ground nuts and roots and even sprinklings as strong as ginger. In Sembia, on the other hand, it is usually mixed with melted chocolate or liqueurs. Brewed coffee is the most popular form of consumption, but peddlers, explorers, and adventurers often chew the beans as they travel.


--TEA--

Unlike coffee, few teas in the Realms are shipped far, or sold for high prices. However, clubs of tea-fanciers in Athkatla, Calimport, and other rich cities are filled with wealthy connoisseurs who'll pay much for favorite blends. This limited commerce in tea doesn't occur because tea isn't popular or well thought of. It's because the majority of the teas in the Realms are tisanes, or infusions, or herbal teas -- made from leaves of various plants other than "tea" plants. Moreover, the vast majority of teas are made from local wild plants, and travelers in the Realms expect teas to vary in taste from place to place -- so not a lot of long-distance shipping goes on.

Tea is always drunk clear, never with milk. However, murky brews from powered leaves whisked in a bowl are the norm in the Shining South; and in ports where travelers from many places mix, all sorts of tea-making habits and techniques are used and copied.

No one levies import or export duties on tea. ("Tea? Pass, merchant, and may you know better fortune within than to have to trade in tea!") Even someone with a caravan-full wouldn't be charged with duty, though he or she might be watched, as if a madman or liar who must be up to something else.


--BEER--

Like teas, beer is made locally all over the Realms, and the flavor and appearance of brews vary widely. Beer is a cheap, daily drink often enjoyed with gusto. Typical in many locales, made-in-the-kitchen "small beer" is generally sneered at, as so much good beer is made locally. An example alehouses may serve a "red", an orange-red, fiery (peppery) hard cider; a fiery, black, almost licorice-tasting smoky stout; and a lot of light ales.


--CIDER--

More popular than beer in many places, cider can be sweet and nonalcoholic or hard (alcoholic), and anything from semi-sweet to bitter. Cider is cheap and easy to make in apple-growing country (the mid- to southern Heartlands), and if it "goes off" it can be used as vinegar in both cooking and preserving (pickling). The strong reek of cider vinegar is used by some folk to confuse creatures that track by scent, such as war & tracking dogs. Though many women and children prefer the taste of cider of more bitter beers, cider is not generally considered a lesser drink than beer. It doesn't travel as well or keep as long as beer does when handling and conditions aren't optimum, so it is less available in locations not near to apple country.


--WINE--

Faerûnian wines range from opaque, glossy black to clear and nigh-colorless, from sugary sweet to "wrinklemouth" bitter, and from local "tath" (poor or very ordinary) to expensive, far traveled "dance in your glass" vintages sought after by collectors, argued over by snobs, and unobtainable by the ordinary "jack in the street". Literally thousands of vintages exist, from little-known and the local to those whose volume fills hundreds of casks that are shipped far across Faerûn for local bottling.

Elves, and to a lesser extent half-elves, can consume large amounts of wine without becoming inebriated, whereas red wines contain some substance not yet identified that leaves gnomes reelingly imbalanced -- or rapidly puts them to sleep -- after them imbibe only a small amount.


--STRONGER DRINK--

All hard liquor is known in the Realms, and favored by dwarves, gnomes, and goblinkin over all other drinks. Increasingly, among humans, spirits aren't drunk straight but are mixed with other drinks to increase the potency of the secondary drink.

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Work for All:
Daily existence in the Realms involves hard work for almost everyone. In rural areas, this work tends to be primarily a matter of survival, such as getting food, water, and fuel enough to last the winter. The reward for such is the food, water, and fuel thus gathered. In urban areas, on the other hand, work is not directly related to survival, and it usually takes the form of effort compensated by income.


--SUZAIL'S LABOR FORCE--

Looking at Suzail in Cormyr illustrates what sort of jobs are considered "paid living" in a typical city in the Realms. Lots of poor citizens dwell near the docks at Suzail's western end. Many of them work as dockhands (casual day laborers, loading and unloading cargo) or repairers and makers of simple household wares (pottery, cutlery, tools, stools, benches, and the like). Others make a living through illicit trade (forgery, drugs, or smuggled goods). Such urban poor, known as "hardhands", "lowlives", or "graspers", make up about twenty percent of citizens.

A step up in income and respectability are the "commoners". This group includes the maids and independent house servants who work in middle- and upper-class homes cleaning, cooking, fetching things, and generally acting decorative. It also includes most shop assistants, who restock goods, fetch and carry, and sweep up. They might or might not be well fed or well treated, but they are underpaid and do not enjoy stable employment. These laborers make up about forty-five percent of citizens.

Above commoners are "journeymen", "trusties", and "fairhands" (skilled casual laborers). These are the governesses, really superb cooks, mercenaries, bodyguards, excellent seamstresses, skilled smiths recently arrived from other lands, and so on. They are highly sought after, and so command good wages and stable employment. They make up about eight percent of Suzail's inhabitants and are middle class.

The next social rank up is the middle class proper, sometimes referred to as "burghers", but usually just "citizens", meaning the speaker thinks of these folks as the residents who matter. These are the shopkeepers, landlords, investors, crafters, and shippers. Guild members are in this group. Thanks to Suzail's size and wealth, it makes up about twenty-five percent of the city's inhabitants.

This leaves roughly two percent of folk who form the upper class: courtiers, the wealthiest merchants (who often aspire to nobility), and nobility ("highborn" in polite terms, or "highnoses" less politely).

In a city that isn't a capital, all three of these upper-class elements are less numerous, and crafters might outnumber shopkeepers.


--DAY JOBS FOR ADVENTURERS--

Many adventurers have the skills to readily land more mundane, less dangerous work as bodyguards, caravan guards, "drawn-dagger agents" (the polite term for a spy, hired killer, outside-the-law facilitator, usually for a wealthy patron or guild), or envoys (when such a post involves perilous journeys or negotiations in which intimidation is likely). Guard duty (of a person, property, or place) is common "winterbound" work for adventurers.

Yet some wayfarers seeking work are more creative, not always in ways that involve breaking the law. In general, if a job is dangerous, unpleasant, or exacting -- and the hirer wants discretion, absolute secrecy, or loyalty -- the rewards are high. Grave digging, for instance, is poorly paid and unglamorous in some places, but very well paid in others. Working in the sewers of Waterdeep (because it guilded work, and highly dangerous) is well paid, but unpleasant. Stonemasonry concerned with fortifications (castle and wall repairs; shoring up vaulted ceilings; and mining to enlarge cellars, tunnels, and privy chutes) is generally underappreciated but is well paid.

Every city has to decide how to dispose of excrement, and sewers seldom work well unless they're flushed by streams and not the subject of tidal flooding (a problem in most ports). Because of this, many places, -- such as Suzail in Cormyr, and Athkatla in Amn -- have "night-soil" or dung wagons that collect chamber pot refuse from the populace and cart their collections out of town to be dumped on fields where they are mixed with straw and left to rot down to compost. More than a few dung carters have smuggled items -- and even people -- out of cities under the noisome heaps in their wagons, for payment of a lot more than a wagonload normally earns them.

Animal training (and monster capturing, which is almost always adventurers' work) tends to be low in status but well compensated. So, for that matter, is finding and bringing back rare plants or unhatched eggs for herbalists and alchemists.

Painting and plastering palaces and nobles' mansions, styling hair, and sewing and custom fitting garments for nobility are also generally unglamorous but well-paid lines of work. In some communities, smiths, plumbers, and "slaughterers" (butchers) are paid well for their work. So are bed nurses for royalty and nobility, particularly those who bathe, tend, and guard the mad or long-term afflicted... and royal or noble taster, who sample the food and drink of important persons to take the fall for them in casses of bad cooking or murderous malice.

A lesser-known line of work that pays well is writing love letters, job applications, and delicate apologies on behalf of noble, royal, or merely wealthy patrons. In short, a scribe who poses as another person, writing for that person and keeping both the writing task and the contents of what was written utterly secret. A variant on this kind of work (believed to be the source of one court lady's fortune, some centuries ago in Cormyr) is writing "lust tales" or "heartwarms" (flowery romance) intended for the eyes of one royal patron only (and sometimes written to order, using real individuals as characters). A few bards secretly hire others to write their jokes, and conversely more than a few royalty and nobility employ bards to write ballads and witty poems they can claim as their own.

Outlaws and Bounty Hunters
Some hired adventuring bands go rogue and decide to keep the lands and property they seize for their own. Once this activity is discovered, the perpetrators are denounced to local rulers, who usually declare such bands outlaw and send other adventuring bands out to deal with them. Not until 1400 DR did the public opinion towards bounty hunters begin to shift. In that year the Masked Lords of Waterdeep issued a decree by which it became legal to hire bounty hunters (usually adventurers, but sometimes out-of-work caravan guards or sellswords) to go after outlaws whom you see as having wronged you. These bounty hunters attempt to get your property back or at least eliminate the outlaws and so "repay the debt in blood before the gods". This practice eventually became very popular, though many faiths still frown on it.

Blood for Coin: Mercenaries
It takes the right environment, plenty of time and coins, and usually an ordered, law abiding land, such as Cormyr, to build a professional standing army. For everyone else in the Realms, who are probably poorer and who don't need an army all the time but might pressingly need one right now, mercenaries are the answer. Leaders use their best, most loyal fighters as personal bodyguards and generals, and turn to "hireswords" for the bulk of the fighting force. ("Hireswords" are also known as "sellswords", though this latter term is more for individuals and impromptu bands, whereas "hireswords" are well organized -- with ranks, insignias, or even uniforms -- chartered companies.)

Mercenaries are particularly suited to raiding, pillaging, and wild charging attacks, activities they enjoy and ones in which breakdowns in discipline won't matter as much as, say, when withstanding a siege or holding a vital pass. A reputation for unreliability inevitably clings to mercenaries, because saving their own skin usually trumps dying for a cause. It's not their own homes and families they're fighting for -- although their self-respect, their prospects for continued employment, and their standing with Tempus all demand they fight well.

Those same societal pressures make mercenaries trustworthy in limited ways. Most patrons who hire them don't have to worry about said hirelings double-crossing them in the midst of battle, because hired blades "bloodsworn" to one side in a conflict dare not switch sides. Even if they are captured or offered more money, they must sit out as neutral, usually withdrawing from the battlefield to keep from having to fight on the wrong side in self-defense, and departing the region of the conflict to avoid being imprisoned by whoever captured them. Mercenaries also dare not swich sides because heralds and priests of Tempus would proclaim their deeds to everyone, so no one would hire them thereafter. Even if such turncoats change their name, trudge halfway across the Realms, assemble into different groups, and start over, they might still be recognized and scorned. Those who are not shunned outright can most often find work only as "dullblades".

"Dullblades" are inexperienced, untested, or untrustworthy muscle sent on the most dangerous assignments and deemed expendable. They are paid the bottom rate. At the other end of the salary scale, employers hire skilled individuals as soldiers, such as "nightblades" (commandos) and sappers, who can build bridges and plant bombs covertly and while under heavy attack.

Mercenaries in winter "not fighting season", without a war to wage, as well as disgraced and untried swords for hire, are often employed by merchants as bodyguards, cargo loaders and unloaders, and guards for warehouses, shops, cargo, and wagons.

From the 1350s DR onward, the already-established ever-larger mercenary companies began to dwindle and disappear. By the mmid-1360s DR, most of the standing companies consisted of a charismatic leader plus a staff of four to six trusted battlefield officers, commanding forty mounted and fully armored fighters, with a handful of veteran trainers (often sorely wounded oldsters) training a reinforcements force of twenty-odd copper-a-day hopefuls.

The Retired Adventurer
Few adventurers survive long enough to succumb to the infirmities of old age. Others choose not to, instead striding lightly clad into a blizzard or provoking an armed brawl they have no hope of winning. Many who do survive are disabled in ways that limit the professions they can undertake -- ruling out, say, becoming weapon trainers or guides for younger adventurers.

Many ex-adventurers find someplace warm enough to sleep under the stars the year through, and take to frequenting taverns and selling embroidered tales of heroics of their younger days, directions, and maps to younger adventurers. A few retain enough skill to become expert weapons sharpeners, or "eyes and ears" spies for rulers or other organizations.Some become despairing, or uncaring, enough to hire themselves out to be experimented upon by alchemists, necromancers, wizards, and makers of scents.

Then there are the truly desperate, those who'll try anything for a chance at having their youthful vigor restored, or a new life in a new body (perhaps that of a monster, or an automation, or even the sentience of an enchanted sword). "Everybody knows" that some sorely wounded and pain-wracked elderly have -- by the grace of the gods or through fell magic -- gained new lives. The mightiest priests of Tempus transfer the minds of great heroes into swords, and into suits of armor worn by temple guards, so such steel can reason and speak advice. A handful of the walking suits of armor popularly known as helmed horrors, animated in secret by very powerful clerics and wizards, house the most valiant warriors their creators could find.

Less dramatic but more successful is the sort of retirement managed by the veteran mercenary Harondus Sardgard. He wanted a little ease and a low public profile. So he kept up his contacts in the sword-swinging business for protection, sank his coin into rental properties all over Waterdeep, and lived in one of his own buildings on all the rents coming in. There are scores more like him.

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Guilds:
The official trade organizations collectively known as guilds are by nature specific to a trade or a group of (usually closely related) trades, and are almost always found in cities. Over time, many of them tend to sit in open opposition to the local rulers and nobility. Over the centuries, guilds have had a lot of influence over trade customs, other guilds, local laws and regulations, and the way things are done all over the Heartlands. Most guilds have heraldry, badges, and colored wax seals of inspection they stamp on goods. These change with bewildering rapidity, often to denote dating and therefore old goods, or to try to foil fraudsters who have gained or duplicated a seal stamp.


--GUILDS IN SUZAIL--

Suzail, the capital of Cormyr, is home to a smaller number of guilds than Waterdeep and in that respect is more typical of cities across the Realms. These guilds should prove a good model that can be modified for other cities.

Guilds in Cormyr have far less power and wealth than in Waterdeep, and are far friendlier to authorities. They operate only in Suzail and the lands immediately around the city (on the southern or Suzail side of the Starwater River, plus Hilp but minus Marsember). Thanks to rebellious histories of Arabel and Marsember, most guilds have trade agents and observers in both of those cities, but no real power or organization. This is reinforced by the traditional resistance of nobles to anyone, even the Crown, meddling unnecessarily in life. customs, and matters befalling on "their" lands -- which covers much of the countryside.

Guilds in Cormyr perform the following functions, for the benefit it themselves and the members.

1. They publicize rosters of their members in good standing, intimating that all do work of the best standard, and agreeing that members shall not hesitate to repair and maintain any item that is the work of another member, This means a guild member will never tell a would-be customer: "Pooh! I can't fix that! Utter trash; hurl it away and buy one of mine!" Most guilds secretly try to fix prices by agreeing on a going rate for certain goods or services that members aren't bound to, but which they will refer to when negotiating with clients. They do not have the legal right to set prices or even standards. They do have almost complete control over who qualifies for membership, dues, and the local conduct of the trades they represent.

2. The agree on approved glues, finishes, and other materials. Sometimes, guilds also approve of suppliers for their materials, as well as -- when members desire -- procuring supplies in bulk to get discounted prices for members. Nonmembers who buy raw supplies from guild members are charged a markup over standard street prices.

3. They provide warehousing or materials storage facilities for members. Most guild charters provide for immediate emergency storage for members who have been burned out of their own facilities or otherwise prevented from using them. In addition, most guilds secretly provide one or more hidden locations not officially owned or linked to the guild for members to temporarily stash goods, themselves, or apprentices who are wanted by the law or who are being hunted by personal foes.

4. They maintain, with the agreement of the royal court, precise and public definitions of objects, sizes, and amounts used by guild members in their trade. This ensures that one member's "firkin" or "ell" is the same as another's.

5. They support indigent retired guild members, usually by a monthly measure of grain, ale, and meat or fish, or a few coins in lieu of such supplies. Some guilds maintain an "old bones lodge" for retired guild members, which sometimes take in non-members for stiff fees to support the care of the retired guild members, who are charged little to nothing.

6. They offer money changing and money lending services to members in need and set rates (always lower than market) agreed upon at guild meetings. Most guilds also provide secure money storage for members, who often prefer such silent storage to banking their coins with the royal court, enabling tax collectors to take note of the amounts of funds specific individuals handle.

7. They provide guild members as observers when caravans arrive for the fairs at Jester's Green, elsewhere around Hilp, or south of the Starwater, as well as when ships unload at the docks in Suzail. In fact, they insist of guild members being present in order to see what cargoes are arriving, in which containers, where they are intended to be sold, and to whom. This supervision allows the guilds to see if everything adheres to regulations as well as gives them a day or so of warning on price fluctuations.

Guilds in Cormyr also unofficially perform a lot of other functions, from investing members' profits to engaging in (or hiring others to perform) arson, vandalism, or theft against rivals. All guilds lobby against outlander peddlers and ship captains who don't adhere to court-approved guild measures. Additionally, guilds quite openly gather information about who is trading in what sort of goods, and they argue before the royal court as to which guild should have the say over a newly introduced product or service.

Almost every guild charges membership fees -- and its apprentices or would-be members even higher fees. The royal court must be kept fully informed of fee changes and of membership requirements, and court officers aggressively investigate all complaints regarding apprentices or probationary members facing unusual difficulties in acquiring full membership. The Crown prohibits any non-Cormyreans and any Cormyreans of noble or royal blood from being guildmasters. In addition, most guilds withhold membership from persons who don't own land in Cormyr. Crown law prevents race or gender from having any part in guild membership rules.

To form a guild, its proponents must first successfully petition the Crown. A royal charter is granted that sets forth membership requirements, a founding roster of members, a rota of officers, and the guild rules. It also includes the grant of a badge or a device for guild use. All guilds are required to keep up-to-date rolls at court and in their headquarters, recording all changes in membership, rules, and fees. In addition to fines, a guild may receive "marks of censure". Two marks of censure against any guild means an automatic War Wizard investigation of all guild activities, taxes, and finances. Six marks means the guild charter is forfeit. Marks are officially rescinded after an investigation is passed, but are never automatically removed after passage of time.


--ILLEGAL GUILDS--

Every civilized realm has so-called or self-styled guilds everyone knows about that are actually illegal organizations regulated only by themselves. In the case of Cormyr, these outlaw guilds include the infamous Fire Knives and an endless succession of small, local thieves' guilds that are inevitably crushed by the War Wizards and the Highknights but often re-founded. Such illicit organizations have traditionally held little power in Cormyr, except in Marsember and in small but frequent Dragon Coast smuggling operations. In fact, at any one time, Marsember usually has a Guild of Marsember rebel organization and three or four small Guilds of Goodrunners that adopt various fanciful names and try to import goods from Sembia, Westgate, or the Vilhon Reach without paying taxes or enduring government inspections. The Crown usually infiltrates and shatters the false guilds, sometimes hiring adventurers to assist when fighting is expected.



--CRAFT GUILDS--

Apart from the grand, official high guilds of Cormyr, small local craft guilds are found in every town and city in Cormyr. Some villages even have fledgling, disorganized craft guilds. Those found in towns and cities are often little more than powerless complaining societies. A craft guild is a collective of all the various crafters and shopkeepers in a particular place (as opposed to just those engaged in a specific profession), who band together to try to buy material in bulk for the sake of lower prices and shipping costs. The guild also tries to argue taxes down to a minimum and seeks to establish common working conditions for its members. The goal of a craft guild is to eliminate what the weaver Lurdruth Thaloane of Waymoot recently called "unfair advantages gained by merchants who work family members, children they've taken in, and debtors they have holds over to death in near slavery!"

Craft guilds tend to have high-sounding names such as Benevolent Muster of Merchants of Eveningstar, and the Loyal Council of Coinfellows of Espar.

The chief benefits of both craft guilds and the high guilds are social. Members can swiftly spread word among fellow members of prices, practices, swindles, and other news. This quick news aids in cutting down on imposters, false rumors of shortages designed to drives prices of materials up, and confidence tricks. In addition, opportunities of employments are far easier to find and spread.



--HIGH GUILDS--

These true Cormyrean craft fraternities -- that is, organizations of workers largely engaged in the same specific profession -- have been somewhat curbed in powers, hauteur, and fripperies since their excesses during the Tuigan Horde. These excesses included uniforms, secret handshakes, arcane festivals and rituals, passing internal laws, advising their members on which Crown laws to obey and which to flout, and closely allying with certain noble families who had their own treasonous agendas for financial gain.

The Guilds of Cormyr currently recognized in the Forest Kingdom are as follows, presented in roughly descending order of influence.

Sculptors and Mason Guild
Controls stonework, statuary, quarrying, plastering muddaub, and waterproofing. Steadfastly loyal to the Obarskyrs.

Guild of Carpenters and Joiners
Controls wood cutting, curing, staining, furniture making, fitted carpentry, and joinery.

Armorers Guild
Controls armor and weapon making, plus the making of tempered tools from sewing needles to tiny gears and cogs. This guild is watched by the War Wizards to prevent any noble from equipping a private army.

Guild of Coachlars, Carriers, Waymen, and Locksters
Controls wagon makers and wagon owners, locksmiths, "coachlars" (coach drovers), "carters" (those who operate local delivery wagons), and "draymen" (deliverers and loaders of ships at the docks, on wagons everywhere, and in warehouses). "Locksters" is the Dragon Reach term for owners and guardians of warehouses.

Truebreeds Guild
Controls trade in horses, oxen, sheep, cattle, guard dogs, and sheep dogs, as well as the breeding, care, and sale of all kept beasts. This guild is banned from, in simple terms, "making monsters", though there is pressure for them to break this rule.

Seafarers Guild
Includes sailors, captains, fleet owners, navigators, mapmakers, ropers (local name for rope makers), sail makers, shipwrights, and ship repairers.

Vinters and Falconers Guild
Controls falconry, raptor breeding and trading, wine making, vineyard owning and tending, wine blendings, and sales.

Brewers and Cheesemakers Guild
Made up of brewers, spirits blenders and importers, and cheesemakers.

Roofers, Thatchers, and Glaziers Guild
made up of roofers, slate masons, shingle cutters, thatchers and thatch cutters, glaziers, "sandglass" makers, and glass stainers.

Tanners and Leatherers Guild
Composed of tanners, leather dyers, glovers, "corvisers" (boot and shoemakers), cobblers, harness makers, battle leatherers (makers of leather armor), trimmers, "weatherdarrs" (makers of leather caps, hats, "deep-snows" leggings, and weather cloaks), and leatherwork repairers and alterers.

Guild of Naturalists
Controls medicinal, edible, lubricant, dye-source, and craft-worthy uses for plant and animal matter, either as distillates or as solids (and all who work with such substances and associated research and vending).

[Lady Frost]

Taken from Elminster's Forgotten realms.

Coinage:
A bewildering variety of coinage is strewn across the Realms, with many different local names for the familiar copper, silver, and gold pieces. There are triangular coins, square coins, circular coins, and oval coins—which are by far the most common. They are of different metals, and some are pierced when minted for stringing on rings or cords. Many other coins are pierced with small holes by merchants when in use, though very few are cut in half, since partial coins are seldom considered to have any value. Decorations on coins are almost always stamped on their faces, and edges are left plain. These decorations can be anything from crude numerals to detailed illustrations, although certain countries tend to cling to a consistent style, or at least an equivalent artistic style. Calimshan, Sembia, Amn, Cormyr, Silverymoon, and Waterdeep are generally considered to have the artistically finest coins.

Most coins bear simple devices, usually heraldic badges. Some display stylized crowns with a ruler’s name underneath, and a few, mainly the artistically finest coins of valuable denominations, have lifelike rulers’ heads impressed on them, usually in side profile.

Coins of Cormyr and Sembia are considered the regional standard for the Dragon Coast, the Dragon Reach, the Vast, the Dales, the Moonsea, and the Vilhon. Cormyrean coins are extremely pure metal, very heavy, and resistant to wear; Sembian coins are deemed slightly inferior to Cormyrean coins.


--SHINING EXAMPLES--

Cormyr
Modern Cormyrean coins bear the monarch’s face and name on one side and a date, a denomination, and a mint mark on the other. For nine out of ten coins, this mark is a full-on bearded, hatless wizard’s face, referred to as “Old Vangey” but meant to represent all War Wizards and denoting the Royal Mint in Suzail. About ten percent of coins instead bear two parallel crescent moons, their horns to the dexter. This mark denote a High Horn minting. The High Horn fortress has always had a smithy and nearby “dungeon” caverns used to store metals mined in the surrounding mountains. There’s been only one minting since the death of Azoun IV. Rather than an Obarskyr’s face, such “Regency” coins bear the Purple Dragon royal arms with five parallel bars on its body. Older Cormyrean coins (minted in 1290 DR and earlier) don’t bear dates, but instead have a line saying “first minting,” “second minting,” or the like, in reference to the reign of the monarch under which the coins were issued. There were eight mintings during the reign of Azoun IV, but three is the highest count any earlier king managed.

Sembia
Sembian coins have become more numerous, thanks to the country’s growing wealth, size, and ever-soaring mercantile activity. They tend to be larger but thinner than most other coinage. All have the arms of Sembia on one side and, on the reverse, the denomination on the top of the coin and the date (in DR) curving around a “proof stamp” (mint mark) in the middle. Sembian coins often have a bluish tinge from being fire-cleaned of the grease they are exposed to during their stamping. The grease is deliberately cooked into the iron coins to inhibit rust, and it does a fair, if not foolproof, job.

Westgate
After 1364 DR, Westgate stopped regularly minting coins for about a decade. As a result, its already easy acceptance of the coinage of many lands became entrenched. In Westgate, almost all outland coin is valued the same way currency is in most places: by condition, purity of the metal, size (as pertains to the amount of metal), and origin. Exceptions are Cormyrean and Sembian coins; those coins are accepted as common coinage, just as they are in the Dales, the Moonsea, the Vilhon, the Dragon Reach, the Vast, and the Dragon Coast. However, Westgate also accepts the authokh and bebolt (currencies widely used in Chessenta, the Vilhon, Border Kingdoms, the Tashalar, and everywhere south of that), whereas those other places do not.


--TAKING COINS--

Throughout the Realms, the acceptance of older or unfamiliar coins depends on their condition and the metal of which they are made. Gold coins are accepted everywhere at face value unless they are broken, unusually small, or obviously impure. Silver coins that have tarnished to black are seldom accepted, but if they are cleaned without ruining their markings, they’ll probably be accepted, too. For everything else, folk must go to a money changer, which is no hardship since most cities on any coast or major trade route have several.

The oval, rather than round, shape of many Faerûnian coins comes from the comparative ease of getting oval coins “lined up right” in wooden molds for striking their second sides. When the coins are round, doing so is much more difficult and takes longer. The striking itself creates distortion, causing meant-to-be-round coins to be rejected because they’ve ended up oval instead. So, long ago, most realms just adopted oval as their standard.

Coins from long-gone lands that have been drilled, are lighter than today’s norm, or less pure are worth less. In present-day lands, even for mintings from the reigns of much earlier kings, the collective will of far-traveling merchants firmly prevails. This influence is the same reason why outland coins are present and accepted at all, rather than being melted down for their precious metal content and refashioned into something else. The merchants, mainly caravan traders, want a gold piece from Amn to be equal to a gold piece from Sembia to help keep every single merchant from being cheated in every last transaction.

“Slighting” coins (shaving them, cutting bits off, and the like) reduces their acceptability but not necessarily their value. A merchant might say, “I’m not taking that coin, friend — find a real gold piece in your purse, or the deal’s off!” If a merchant accepts a coin at all, it will be for its stated face value, except in transactions when both parties privately agree otherwise. For this reason, contracts sometimes specify “to be paid in lawful coin of Cormyr,” or some other realm or city. Moreover, coin alterations such as hole-punching and bisecting don’t affect the acceptability of the coin at all when such alteration is done officially by the realm or a regional ruler.
In effect, the merchants of Faerûn act in concert—without any formal agreement or discussions — to establish the equivalent of a “gold standard.”


--TRADE BARS--

Trade bars are widely accepted because they must conform closely to a given size and weight to be accepted at all. They are an easy way to melt down and reuse suspicious coins, because an existing trade bar can be pressed into clay to make a mold for a new trade bar.

Proof and ownership marks are commonly stamped into the bottom surface of a trade bar, and don’t affect its value.

Trade bars minted more than two centuries ago vary widely in dimensions and value. For this reason, when they are traded they are either weighed to ascertain their value or melted down and recast. Most hidden hoards of trade bars are the results of hasty burials in the face of advancing foes or fierce weather, and are soon snapped up when nature or chance digging uncovers them.


--BANKING--

Faerûn has no places or organizations called banks, but there are providers of banking services, which the Realms calls “manycoin services.” Manycoin services include moneylending, money-changing, and “keepsafe” (safe storage). - “Keepsafe” refers to the holding of coins (which the moneylenders invest, to make themselves more funds), contracts and other valuable documents, and small portable valuables such as expensive jewelry worth too much to comfortably store at home, or to carry while traveling.

In the Realms, several groups provide manycoin services. Temples offer them to individuals of the right faith, guilds provide them to members, and some caravan costers provide them to everyone located in the cities in which they are based. In addition, independent moneylenders offer manycoin services to everyone—including adventuring bands and noble families.

Temples tend to fulfill the functions of real world banks, but their rates are ruinous to the small lender and borrower, which includes most laborers and commoners. These small lenders and borrowers instead use moneylenders, such as the infamous Mirt. Moneylending is a common living for an adventurer or a mercenary who is too old or wounded to continue that profession, who has made a few coins and kept up on connections with hireswords.

Most moneylenders are “smallcoin” folk who deal with laborers. Stereotypically, this sort of character is a Scrooge-style miser in charge of a gang who’ll beat you up if you don’t pay. More genteel lenders, known as rollcoins, make large sums available to outfit a shop, or buy an entire cargo or a herd or other large “sure thing” purchase. Only the genuinely ruined default on one of these short-term loans, because doing so means they’re finished in the city. Rollcoins always demand collateral that’s either nonportable, such as real estate, or “under the hand” (given into their keeping), so either way they don’t lose. Rollcoins are treated with respect by all, since successful city dwellers are always planning for what might happen if grim days come, and rising citizens are always looking around to learn who will be useful to them. This respect is exhibited even when a lender is cordially hated behind the smiles, as happens with grasping, leering, unpleasant rollcoins who casually pilfer from clients or prospective clients—in other words, the sort that always features in ballads and nasty tavern tales.

By tradition—and because they want to stay in business—independent moneylenders across Faerûn provide manycoin services with no questions asked. That is, they won’t report to local authorities when and how much anyone “proffers” (deposits) or “redeems” (withdraws), or if someone proffers something stolen or sought after by the government or anyone else (such as a royal crown an entire army is searching for). As the moneylenders’ saying runs, “Utter discretion, with coded receipts (priests of Waukeen refereeing).”

Many wealthy individuals and groups in the Realms see the need for what we might think of as a Swiss bank account and the Realms calls a “silent safehold.” That is, a stash for money the owner wants to quietly hold onto for later needs, far from where foes can steal it or governments can tax it or spy on it. So paying someone a modest annual handling fee to quietly “safehold” large amounts of wealth, for certain individuals, is both a bargain and an ideal service.

Moneylenders tend to be individuals, except for a handful of upper-crust lenders. Dealing with an upper-crust moneylender is done in a private room. Servants accompanied by
hulking uniformed guards accompany every patron to his or her own room. There are generally three or four of these rooms clustered around a central strongdark, in which the moneylender and the cash sit. The word “strongdark” is derived from “darkened strong room,” and it’s usually a room with many stub walls concealed by black curtains that the occupants can hide behind if attacked.

[Lady Frost]

From Volo's Guide to Cormyr. pg 7,8

Bearing Arms in Cormyr:

Let those who read these words of practical advice to travelers not misinterpret my intent: I mean no ill to the throne or fair realm of Cormyr1 but strive only to
enlighten readers who might otherwise unwittingly blunder into unlawful acts or sensitive areas and thereby offend in ignorance.

The war wizards vigilance makes a word or two of warning necessary: Anyone bearing an item clearly a weapon into Cormyr must seek out the nearest Purple Dragon guardpost and have these arms inspected and bound with peacestrings. For these purposes, a weapon is any knife larger than a belt blade used for dining, or anything that does harm
when swung that can’t be explained away as a wayfarer’s staff or tradesman's tool. Purple Dragon patrols and passing war wizards are surprisingly frequent, and anyone going armed will be challenged unless their weapons are clearly tied. Being found with an unbound weapon—unless one has just defended one's life against an armed attacker and has witnesses who can attest to the fact that you didn't draw steel first is grounds for arrest on the spot and a sentence of at least confiscation of goods
and expulsion from the realm.

Only persons named in a royal charter of arms (customarily sold to adventurers' bands for sizable sums of money), bearing a license to sell weapons, able to prove that they belong to the Purple Dragons or the war wizards, or fulfilling other specific circumstances, have the right to bear arms in the realm. Some of the other valid reasons for bearing arms are: if one is of noble Cormyrean birth, if on militia duty, if pursuing weapons practice under the supervision of your local lord, if on a hunt sanctioned by your local lord, if temporarily attending a recognized hunting lodge, or if holding a Crown writ. Outlanders visiting Cormyr can only use the latter two reasons.

Crown writs are issued to confirm temporary rights to bear arms. For example, one might confirm a person's status as a noble guest of the realm (such as a visiting envoy from another land), a noble guest’s bodyguard, or a special messenger or agent of the Court. Such persons must either bear the writ with them, a Purple Dragon ring, or a Court token. In all cases, records exist to verify issuance of writs, tokens, charters, and the like. Travelers who wish to unlawfully go armed in Cormyr must be very good bluffers or their careers at large won't be long. Such vigilance by the Purple Dragons and war wizards keeps the realm largely free of casual brigandage.

[Lady Frost]

This was a response from Ed which I found on Candlekeep: forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9685&whichpage=5
This seemed relevant when considering how PCs or NPCs might react to a Dragon Disciple or other unusual race.


Unusual Races in Cormyr:

--How could I handle a presence of a Mulhorand genasi, how the Cormyreans will interact with him?--

Cormyr is a tolerant, “crossroads” trading land; citizens of all of its three cities and all waystop communities along its central and eastern roads are used to seeing all manner of “strange outlanders.” Unless they look very like a known or legendary “dangerous monster” (for most Cormyreans, known monsters include carrion crawlers, doppelgangers in their “native” form or seen during shapeshifting, and goblins; legendary perils include drow, illithids, and dragons), the treatment a particular “outlander” receives depends on how he or she behaves. A black earth genasi from Mulhorand would be ridiculed if trying to make a living as, say, a lap dancer in a high-end city festhall or club, an attendant arranging tiny fragile ceramics or jewelry pieces in a crowded shop, or perhaps a fashion model, but would otherwise generally be treated as “just another trader” or laborer (“Ho, touch of giant blood in that one, I’d say!”). On the other hand, a black earth genasi from Mulhorand who set up a bone altar and prayed to orc gods would get attacked, pronto. If the player handles the PC according to what RACES OF FAERUN says about the attitude and demeanor of most earth genasi, the character should be accepted readily by Cormyreans (though they may glance at him or her twice, or stare with interest, just because the character is a tad “different” and therefore interesting).