Imagine a goblin troupe all mottled with pustules & weeping sores all over and you’ll know what occurred to at least one group of ‘shroomherds down in Skullport. Spores from some special gold mushrooms grown on their personal middens (& perhaps altered by a skull or Halaster or another power?) have made these goblins quite a bit stronger and tougher (pain inured, not tougher skin) than average. The Shroompikes seek to take over more goblin-run shroom farms by either infecting other goblins or simply expanding their crops of gold mushrooms onto other middens and let the spores propagate and spread without any fuss. Biggest drawback is that an infected goblin needs at least three ripe gold shrooms per day or be disoriented for one day and suffer -3 Str & Con & Dex each successive day without that food
I once came up with a question: “What if dragons had feathers?” A little later I'd run with that one Ideia of a Feathered Wyvern that could spit poisonous flamable oil from his mouth. Kinda like a breath. In his pointy sharp tail he carried a metal end that could send away sparks when it hits metal ou rocks with it. When the sparks fly over a person that's covered in it's poisonous oil, the oil ignites with a deadly burst. My players loved.
I recently had some good player feedback from a Dragon encounter where the Dragon maintained its Humanoid shape for a good part of the fight and describing its physical attacks (this being a crystal dragon) as materialising crystal shards, and radiant energy as more like a laser beam, and the eventual Dragon form reveal was spun as a construct that assembled itself around the person.
I created a subspecies of kobold that lives in the arctic wastes, their scales are covered in thick fur and they focus far more on survival than trap making. Unfortunately I haven't gotten the chance to use them yet but I love them.
One of my favorite things from Ed Greenwoods books is Halsters parts in "Elminster in Hell" Seeing Mystra restore him showing the tragedy of his madness, and him going to Avernus and wasting pit fiends left and right in Mystras name is one of the best scenes I've ever read in a book
this is fantastic. Thank you ed. i feel a little justified in how i'm running Skullport, but i also feel enlightened with new concepts. In my game, the skulls can be summoned by the saying the word "Parlay" three times in a row, invoking the court of 13 judges. Since we play on the map in roll 20, i also use their blue lights to rope off players if they are getting lost. The rule is, if you get caught in the light of a skull, say nothing, do nothing, don't look at them, don't breathe. The skulls are lawful, but they function on an entirely different perception. They govern magical realms and forces beyond mortal comprehension, so while they are policing a supernatural realm, the matters of mortals in which they govern disputes may be akin to a bipolar dog trainer breaking up a dog fight. They don't see you as a higher intelligence, and they will treat you with a superior dominance. You may get put in a Kennel and straved until you break, or you may get beaten, or get put down on the spot. Also. the person who calls for parlay may also be punished, so it is scarcely invoked as a last resort. Finally, i ruled the skulls by vampire rules: They cannot enter a building unless invited, they cannot cross running water, they do not like daylight. This is why pirates of many factions choose skullport to have their meetings, because blood in the street is too risky, and getting on the water is a stone's throw away from the black tankard. I've been using various mushroom wines and ales to stave off short and long term insanity, so when a warlock has extreme paranoia imposing DISADV on CHR they can have a drink to get their charm back for an hour or so. But I never really considered the nature in which these brews were cultivated, extracted, and refined by magic mushroom strains, and how skullport would house many warehouses, factories, and laboratories of invested alchemist cartels. I also like that it is a place for outcasts. I have many schizophrenics, diseased lepers, and wererats who beg for alcohol to ease their addled mind, and they huddle in groups in hopes to not be fodder for the illithids and cloakers that hunt the alleys. They aren't evil people per seh, but they are sick, and in need of healing, so they wait nearby waterdeep, waiting to die, hoping that they can get their ticket back to the surface. I also enjoy the Zhentarim and Harper Dynamic in skullport. I use the Harpers as underground railroad anti-slavery operation, and the Zhenalso smuggle slaves out of skullport but with intent to debt them for life. It's a wonderfully odd place that breeds room for many thought experiments as a DM. Thank for making such a wonderfully dynamic underworld. ua-cam.com/users/clipUgkxKWiXrkg1rrZl9KphyxgrE4lOgKzd7Pr7?si=eOSLRSFFB7CNyKei
Ah Skullport, been there a few times with various characters through several editions of D&D, most recently in the 5e Dungeons of the Mad Mage when it came out a few years ago.
Several years ago when I started running my very first game, branching off from the Phandalin storyline to create my own stories with an amazing group. I got this CRAZY idea to BUILD a playable Skullport. At this time I was actually live-streaming our games from Mexico and so I took over the entire living room of the apartment (much to the dismay of my girlfriend at the time, but she was supportive!), after 3 months I completed my cardboard skullport. 7 ft long (and I actually didn't have the space to add the area where the 'barracks' and 'administrators' were housed. But it was such a cool place to adventure. I read SO much lore about Skullport and Undermountain (the reason they were in Skullport was to find a fabled 'Drow-killer' sword once wielded by a Harper to clean up Skullport....but he was driven ever deeper into Undermountain by the influence of the sword! And the only way to get any information about it was to talk to the ones that were alive the 100 yrs prior when it happened, the hags. It was quite an adventure that resulted in an alliance with a very eclectic and book-loving Green Dragon, who is currently the head of the Classic Arts guild in Neverwinter rebuilt. This was one of my favorite stories I've created from the realms with my friends so far. When I returned back to the US in 2020, I donated my 2 large garbage bags of cardboard skullport to my favorite gamestore El Duende.
I've always enjoyed the 'Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser' feel of Skullport. Great place for old school, in it for the treasure, but spend it all on partying, adventurers.
Here's my question, those drow women Ed mentioned. How many of them are either open or secret followers of Eilistraee given that one of her most sacred temples is in or near Skullport.
I just recently took my players through Skullport with a big adventure all planned out. Well they finished the adventure, with zero combat. Now my players are not murder hobo's by any means, but they blew my mind on that one.
When the flame skulls spit out their spells, do they still have any spell components? Could a wizard hear them muttering an incantation and counterspell it, or is it completely by surprise?
@@edgreenwoodofficial Wait.... the Skulls can leave Skullport?!?! I had always assumed they were bound to the m... uhm... Skullport itself. Oh.... with the various gates and portals around the place.... the possibilities of using these almost anywhere is endless.... 😃 "Oh, that thing you found out was actually a demi-lich....Yeah.... about that....." I've always loved Skullport for it's ability to eventually interconnect ANYTHING/WHERE. I've just never thought of taking the Skulls outside of the place, and suck them into bizarro land.
Halister famously once brought out his lickin toad during a game of silent treatment.he licked the toad seven times, and then proceeded to beat the blood queen in a game of croquet. Saw it with my own scrying orb.
While walking the catwalks in Skullport, have your players roll a D20 periodically as a party, if its a 1, have players roll any die you want, lowest score breaks the catwalk and begins to fall, roll for in...
This is a truly fantastic channel, but I do wish the titles and thumbnails were a bit less "clickbaity", for lack of a better word. There's nothing wrong with trying to attract subscribers, but a picture of Ed making some bewildered face next to obnoxious giant letters makes the channel seem kind of shallow and generic, like I'm about to watch some random schmuck and not the Grandmaster himself. Just my two cents. Either way, I'll continue to watch - the content itself is excellent!
I am a lvl3 fan well Idk but Ed please before you go please Make El, the OP he deserves to be in a full long ass lord of the rings styles ending you and he deserves.
@@TroySavary as far as I know there isn't really an exact analog. For example the realms seem decidedly more technologically advanced in some fields than others. For example their ships look like ones from 1600s or 1700s they don't have firearms which in the real world were developed in 1400 with cannons being developed before that
@@ninjadolphin01 I don't mean technology levels. I mean the actual calendar year. The Realms had portals to and from Earth in the past, according to Realms lore. They were curious where in the Realms timeline they would end up if they found a portal now.
@@TroySavary hmm there is the thing about the Mulan being brought from presumably Earth or some parallel version of it in -4366 DR so about 5900 years before now so assuming time flows are the same its 5900 years from whenever that was. Considering the antiquity of ancient Egypt that still gives a great variance, and I'm not sure if that was even in Mr. Greenwood's original vision of the Realms. For fun let's assume some of those things and say the Mulans were brought from Egypt in the Old kingdom, say c 2400 BCE with the construction of the pyramids. It would be like 3400 CE, I guess? that's making quite a lot of assumptions tho. EDIT: so right now would be like, idk 200-300ish DR
In ”five years old” you, that's supposed to mean “When I was younger”, right ? No fnckn way you did that as a 5yo, right ? Otherwise, tell me the brand of crayons you ate, mines where normal.
Even crayons are too sophisticated for most 5yo nowadays. Most will settle for snot. And then you have 5 yo Ed, conceiving a whole world, geopolitics and all, and imagining fantasy short stories that would still be read 50+ years later. Man is a legit genius.
@@edgreenwoodofficial your world and stories got me addicted to reading at age 9, ive been a Realms fan ever since. Thank you from the bottom of my heart Old Sage, may your stories and world last forever more. 33 years Adventuring in the Realms and counting.
Klauth (klowth) is my right hand advisor and is one of the Guardians of the dragon Empire. My last gotten Realms campaign was pretty epic. I created the dragon Empire of the northern sword Coast
As I I did with the Flameskulls, is there a unique monster or other vision that you've brought to life at your table?
Imagine a goblin troupe all mottled with pustules & weeping sores all over and you’ll know what occurred to at least one group of ‘shroomherds down in Skullport. Spores from some special gold mushrooms grown on their personal middens (& perhaps altered by a skull or Halaster or another power?) have made these goblins quite a bit stronger and tougher (pain inured, not tougher skin) than average. The Shroompikes seek to take over more goblin-run shroom farms by either infecting other goblins or simply expanding their crops of gold mushrooms onto other middens and let the spores propagate and spread without any fuss.
Biggest drawback is that an infected goblin needs at least three ripe gold shrooms per day or be disoriented for one day and suffer -3 Str & Con & Dex each successive day without that food
I once came up with a question: “What if dragons had feathers?”
A little later I'd run with that one Ideia of a Feathered Wyvern that could spit poisonous flamable oil from his mouth. Kinda like a breath.
In his pointy sharp tail he carried a metal end that could send away sparks when it hits metal ou rocks with it. When the sparks fly over a person that's covered in it's poisonous oil, the oil ignites with a deadly burst.
My players loved.
I recently had some good player feedback from a Dragon encounter where the Dragon maintained its Humanoid shape for a good part of the fight and describing its physical attacks (this being a crystal dragon) as materialising crystal shards, and radiant energy as more like a laser beam, and the eventual Dragon form reveal was spun as a construct that assembled itself around the person.
Down in an Underdark campaign, I had some clerics of Ghaunadaur brew up a variation on the flameskull called Slimeskulls.
I created a subspecies of kobold that lives in the arctic wastes, their scales are covered in thick fur and they focus far more on survival than trap making. Unfortunately I haven't gotten the chance to use them yet but I love them.
Skullport sounds like your party would gain two levels just surviving a shopping trip! lol
Very true! In Skullport, it's all about knowing the right people. ;}
"No arcanist is an idiot!" These people haven't met my characters... 🤣
Fun fact, back in 3e/3.5, a sorcerer - an arcanist by every definition - could well have a familiar smarter than themselves.
One of my favorite things from Ed Greenwoods books is Halsters parts in "Elminster in Hell" Seeing Mystra restore him showing the tragedy of his madness, and him going to Avernus and wasting pit fiends left and right in Mystras name is one of the best scenes I've ever read in a book
Elminster in hell was boss! I loved it!
I hit the thumbs up before the video even started. It's Ed!
Thank you!
Well, that addressed many of the misconceptions I had about Skullport.
I'm glad you found some value in it!
this is fantastic. Thank you ed.
i feel a little justified in how i'm running Skullport, but i also feel enlightened with new concepts.
In my game, the skulls can be summoned by the saying the word "Parlay" three times in a row, invoking the court of 13 judges. Since we play on the map in roll 20, i also use their blue lights to rope off players if they are getting lost. The rule is, if you get caught in the light of a skull, say nothing, do nothing, don't look at them, don't breathe.
The skulls are lawful, but they function on an entirely different perception. They govern magical realms and forces beyond mortal comprehension, so while they are policing a supernatural realm, the matters of mortals in which they govern disputes may be akin to a bipolar dog trainer breaking up a dog fight. They don't see you as a higher intelligence, and they will treat you with a superior dominance. You may get put in a Kennel and straved until you break, or you may get beaten, or get put down on the spot. Also. the person who calls for parlay may also be punished, so it is scarcely invoked as a last resort. Finally, i ruled the skulls by vampire rules: They cannot enter a building unless invited, they cannot cross running water, they do not like daylight. This is why pirates of many factions choose skullport to have their meetings, because blood in the street is too risky, and getting on the water is a stone's throw away from the black tankard.
I've been using various mushroom wines and ales to stave off short and long term insanity, so when a warlock has extreme paranoia imposing DISADV on CHR they can have a drink to get their charm back for an hour or so. But I never really considered the nature in which these brews were cultivated, extracted, and refined by magic mushroom strains, and how skullport would house many warehouses, factories, and laboratories of invested alchemist cartels.
I also like that it is a place for outcasts. I have many schizophrenics, diseased lepers, and wererats who beg for alcohol to ease their addled mind, and they huddle in groups in hopes to not be fodder for the illithids and cloakers that hunt the alleys. They aren't evil people per seh, but they are sick, and in need of healing, so they wait nearby waterdeep, waiting to die, hoping that they can get their ticket back to the surface.
I also enjoy the Zhentarim and Harper Dynamic in skullport. I use the Harpers as underground railroad anti-slavery operation, and the Zhenalso smuggle slaves out of skullport but with intent to debt them for life.
It's a wonderfully odd place that breeds room for many thought experiments as a DM. Thank for making such a wonderfully dynamic underworld.
ua-cam.com/users/clipUgkxKWiXrkg1rrZl9KphyxgrE4lOgKzd7Pr7?si=eOSLRSFFB7CNyKei
This man has an addictive cadence and his stories are nothing short of enchanting.
Ah Skullport, been there a few times with various characters through several editions of D&D, most recently in the 5e Dungeons of the Mad Mage when it came out a few years ago.
Several years ago when I started running my very first game, branching off from the Phandalin storyline to create my own stories with an amazing group. I got this CRAZY idea to BUILD a playable Skullport. At this time I was actually live-streaming our games from Mexico and so I took over the entire living room of the apartment (much to the dismay of my girlfriend at the time, but she was supportive!), after 3 months I completed my cardboard skullport. 7 ft long (and I actually didn't have the space to add the area where the 'barracks' and 'administrators' were housed. But it was such a cool place to adventure. I read SO much lore about Skullport and Undermountain (the reason they were in Skullport was to find a fabled 'Drow-killer' sword once wielded by a Harper to clean up Skullport....but he was driven ever deeper into Undermountain by the influence of the sword! And the only way to get any information about it was to talk to the ones that were alive the 100 yrs prior when it happened, the hags. It was quite an adventure that resulted in an alliance with a very eclectic and book-loving Green Dragon, who is currently the head of the Classic Arts guild in Neverwinter rebuilt. This was one of my favorite stories I've created from the realms with my friends so far. When I returned back to the US in 2020, I donated my 2 large garbage bags of cardboard skullport to my favorite gamestore El Duende.
WONDERFUL!!!
I've always enjoyed the 'Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser' feel of Skullport. Great place for old school, in it for the treasure, but spend it all on partying, adventurers.
Thank you for these realm lore videos, they are full of information and inspiration!
Right when I saw the picture I hoped where this was going. The Paladins was my favorite from Double Diamond.
Woooooooooooooooohoooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Skullport! Thank you for this!
Any chance of a peek inside the mysterious isles of Lantan?
That would be such a treat!
I've been playing D&D for 22 years and I had never heard of Skullport! Thank you, Ed!
Most of my players hearing about skullport for the first time, "sounds legit, let's go!"
A party of true adventurers! ;}
I gave to my players a map showing the way to go to Tomb of Horrors and they were like "is there good loot?"
Here's my question, those drow women Ed mentioned.
How many of them are either open or secret followers of Eilistraee given that one of her most sacred temples is in or near Skullport.
Quite a few open worshippers, and even more secret ones. :}
I just recently took my players through Skullport with a big adventure all planned out. Well they finished the adventure, with zero combat. Now my players are not murder hobo's by any means, but they blew my mind on that one.
I have read and loved every book please Ed send EL out like he deserves something that will make Karsus hide if he saw his light.
It will be amazing a video like this from the high forest, there's a lot of lore packed there.
I thought i was the only person to use the term "flibber-de-gibbit". you just made my day, thank you Ed.
Dang. I've enjoyed your work and the products of your imagination for decades now. Thank you for continuing to do this!
Ed is a treasure! Thank you, Great Sage, for sharing this!
Love the last segment keep up the good work!
When the flame skulls spit out their spells, do they still have any spell components? Could a wizard hear them muttering an incantation and counterspell it, or is it completely by surprise?
Nothing a high level party of righteous paladins couldn't have cleaned out over the over the years
There are more than a few score corpses thereabouts that once had that very thought as well.
I really want to get a group together to go through the Undermountain dungeon soon.
Awesome
Campaign where zuggtmoy is trying to take over skullpprt
Can flameskulls be counterspelled?
Within the "wards" of Skullport, NO. Outside of them, YES.
@@edgreenwoodofficial Wait.... the Skulls can leave Skullport?!?! I had always assumed they were bound to the m... uhm... Skullport itself. Oh.... with the various gates and portals around the place.... the possibilities of using these almost anywhere is endless.... 😃
"Oh, that thing you found out was actually a demi-lich....Yeah.... about that....."
I've always loved Skullport for it's ability to eventually interconnect ANYTHING/WHERE. I've just never thought of taking the Skulls outside of the place, and suck them into bizarro land.
can't get enough of those lore videos from the mouth of a creative lore master himself
4:45 Skullport is the mixed use development dream LOL
This is awesome
Thanks for this!
Halister famously once brought out his lickin toad during a game of silent treatment.he licked the toad seven times, and then proceeded to beat the blood queen in a game of croquet. Saw it with my own scrying orb.
While walking the catwalks in Skullport, have your players roll a D20 periodically as a party, if its a 1, have players roll any die you want, lowest score breaks the catwalk and begins to fall, roll for in...
Skull Port is where you get mugged, while you're getting mugged.
Thank you for your video
Waterdeep 2: Waterdeeper
This is a truly fantastic channel, but I do wish the titles and thumbnails were a bit less "clickbaity", for lack of a better word. There's nothing wrong with trying to attract subscribers, but a picture of Ed making some bewildered face next to obnoxious giant letters makes the channel seem kind of shallow and generic, like I'm about to watch some random schmuck and not the Grandmaster himself. Just my two cents. Either way, I'll continue to watch - the content itself is excellent!
"What's Skullport?"
"You won't find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy"
😊
Skullport sounds like a aristocratic under city of demi-liches that formed a utopian guild of the undead, bamboozling the living for fun.
Is Ed talking about his lore, the board game, or the adventure book Mad Mage?
The lore feeds into all those other products you mentioned.
Yes
I am a lvl3 fan well Idk but Ed please before you go please Make El, the OP he deserves to be in a full long ass lord of the rings styles ending you and he deserves.
😮😮😊
My kids asked me where in Earth history the Forgotten Realms timeline corresponds with. Any official word on that?
Mean in terms of historical analogs, or economic, social, or technological development?
@@ninjadolphin01 The current year in the Realms correlates to what year on Earth?
@@TroySavary as far as I know there isn't really an exact analog. For example the realms seem decidedly more technologically advanced in some fields than others. For example their ships look like ones from 1600s or 1700s they don't have firearms which in the real world were developed in 1400 with cannons being developed before that
@@ninjadolphin01 I don't mean technology levels. I mean the actual calendar year. The Realms had portals to and from Earth in the past, according to Realms lore. They were curious where in the Realms timeline they would end up if they found a portal now.
@@TroySavary hmm there is the thing about the Mulan being brought from presumably Earth or some parallel version of it in -4366 DR so about 5900 years before now so assuming time flows are the same its 5900 years from whenever that was. Considering the antiquity of ancient Egypt that still gives a great variance, and I'm not sure if that was even in Mr. Greenwood's original vision of the Realms.
For fun let's assume some of those things and say the Mulans were brought from Egypt in the Old kingdom, say c 2400 BCE with the construction of the pyramids. It would be like 3400 CE, I guess? that's making quite a lot of assumptions tho.
EDIT: so right now would be like, idk 200-300ish DR
No no no.
Every video you make, must have "creator of D&D" or something like that in the title, in the thumbnail, all that.
GET THEM VIEWS PLZ
So Skullport still exists, we would of thought that the sleeping rudely awakened Black Dragon who slept there demolished the place.
There are creatures in Skullport who can effortlessly demolish black dragons.
In ”five years old” you, that's supposed to mean “When I was younger”, right ? No fnckn way you did that as a 5yo, right ?
Otherwise, tell me the brand of crayons you ate, mines where normal.
He was actually five - he explains it in a previous video, about how Forgotten is older than D&D.
Even crayons are too sophisticated for most 5yo nowadays. Most will settle for snot.
And then you have 5 yo Ed, conceiving a whole world, geopolitics and all, and imagining fantasy short stories that would still be read 50+ years later.
Man is a legit genius.
You give me too much credit, but I'm appreciative that folks are acknowledging just how long I've been working on the Realms!
@@edgreenwoodofficial your world and stories got me addicted to reading at age 9, ive been a Realms fan ever since. Thank you from the bottom of my heart Old Sage, may your stories and world last forever more. 33 years Adventuring in the Realms and counting.
w
*sigh* But real world fungi breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. 😖
Klauth (klowth) is my right hand advisor and is one of the Guardians of the dragon Empire. My last gotten Realms campaign was pretty epic. I created the dragon Empire of the northern sword Coast