Home > General Discussion

Red Wizard Prelude? Thoughts?

I've spoken to one or two people already about this, but I want to know what the server at large thinks about the idea. Specifically, I would like to know if you would be interested in participating in this, and even if you do not I would like to know if you'd find such a thing fun - something that will enrich the server.

In an nutshell, in this prelude a Red Wizard Enclave somehow manages to find its way into the Underdark and within the city of Sanctuary. The immediate goals of this group would be to re-establish their enclave in Lower Sanctuary, serve as a counter balance to the Spellguard of Upper Sanctuary, and to help lend legitimacy to the Lower Sanctuary Council.

There would, of course, be an intense rivalry between the Spellguard and this Enclave which I believe could lend to greater interest in the Spellguard as a faction. It would also, I believe, make the move for Lower independence more interesting and would help balance things out a bit more.

The details of this are still being worked out. I mainly want to know how many people find this idea interesting, and how many people may be interested in participating in the Prelude.

Here is information directly from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting source book:

Thayan Enclaves

Thayan enclaves are indecent mercantile and political entities within an urban area in a non-Thayn country. Here people interact with Thayan in a peaceful manner, buy magical items, and make deals with the Red Wizards who control the enclave.

An enclave is established after a Thayan diplomat negotiates with the local authorities. These negotiations usually entail lists of benefits for the local rulers, such as an increased amount of magic for their guards and protectors, as well as for the authorities themselves. Depending on the nature of the local authorities, the diplomat presents gifts or offers bribes in order to sweeten the deal. For peaceful or good nations, the gifts are benign or useful items such as potions of cure spells, wands of fly, magic shields, and so on. For more aggressive countries, the bribes are often items that can be used for illicit deeds, such as potions of invisibility, or combat items such as a wand of fireball or magic weapons. Once both parties agree that an enclave can be built, they discuss the exact terms.

The Thayans always require the local government to agree to three demands (known as the Three Laws of the Enclave) and refuse to establish an enclave unless the other party agrees to all of them. The Three Laws prevent abuse at the hands of those who oppose the presence of the Red Wizards on moral, cultural, or religious grounds. If such abuse occurs, the Thayans can claim that the local authorities have failed to provide protection for diplomatic envoys acting within the confines of the law, which would make the local government accountable to Thay itself.

The Law of Sovereignty: The enclave is treated as Thayan soil. Thayan law applies within, the Red Wizards are responsible for patrolling the enclave themselves, and the law of the rest of the country does not apply. The enclave's inhabitants are not immune to prosecution; for example, local authorities can demand that a man who murders someone elsewhere in the town then retreats to the enclave be turned over to the local law, whereupon the Thayans must comply. Slavery is permissible within the enclave, although if the local laws forbid slavery, few Thayans force this point by keeping slaves in the enclaves.

The Law of Trade: The Thayans price their goods and services at 10% below the normal cost. Their merchandise is primarily magic items, and some enclaves also sell mundane equipment such as tapestries and weapons. Technically the sale of slaves is permitted, but since local laws apply outside the enclave, this is futile in lands where slaver is outlawed. An enclave normally sells scrolls of 0-level spells for the cost of creating them if the customer buys an equal number of other magic items (including potions and scrolls of 1st level or higher). The Law of Trade also states that the Thayans can accept slaves as payment for items, and these slaves can be legally transported within the borders of the sovereign nation on the way to Thay. Most antislavery countries require that a potential slave in this situation must either be willing (such as a man selling himself into slavery to provide for his family) or a criminal convicted of a serious offense (such as a murder or treason). The local government sometimes even trades criminals in exchange for Thayan goods.

The Law of Crafting: This law dictates what the Thayans will and will not create for sale to the general public. Normally an enclave only produces potions, scrolls (of up to 4th-level spells), wands, +1 armor, +1 weapons, and minor wondrous items. none of these may have abilities easily used for crime (such as potions of invisibility or a wand of charm person) or overtly destructive (such as a wand of fireball). They may also cast spells for hire. In general, the Thayans never create an item worth more than 2,000 gp, because such items dominate limited resources that could be used to procure cheaper and more desirable products. all items produced in an enclave are required to bear the mark of the Red Wizards and the insignia of the city where the enclave is located. They also refuse to create dangerous items (such as described above) because should someone be harmed with an item created in an enclave, the Thayans could be held responsible. This policy also prevents such items from being used against them.

In exchange for these demands, the Thayans agree to donate 1% of the enclave's profits to the local government. The actual amount is rather soft, since an accurate count is not provided for the local government, and some enclaves allocate a portion of these funds to bribe local guardsmen and officials. Most enclave contracts include brief but regular periods of military service by the wizards in the enclave's employ, which allows the local government access to more spellcasters.

Since the inception of the Thayan enclave, their numbers have increased quickly. Within the lands bordering on the Inner Sea, nearly every (90%) metropolis-level location has an enclave of one sort. Most (75%_ large cities have one, many (50%) small cities do, some (30%) large towns do, and a few (10%) small towns have an enclave, while smaller settlements might have a single Thayan representative or none at all. A typical enclave holds a number of Thayans equal to 1% of the settlement's population. Guards and other support staff for the wizards, including servants, assistants, and mundane artisans, make up at least half of the enclave population. The remainder are wizards of various levels (some with levels in the Red Wizard prestige class). The highest-level wizard is the leader of the enclave, and always has at least one level in the Red Wizard prestige class.

I've wanted to do something like this for over a year. Count me in, preferably as a Wizard rather then a Knight.

I wouldn't be taking part in the prelude myself, but I'm very much in favour of this idea, and it can only go too slow. >.>

I wouldn't mind playing a knight or some other type off odd servant.

I think this'd be great. I'd love to play a knight, although I wouldn't object to a wizard.

i could tag along. really don't the thayans have professional thieves or somehting? i could play a rouge though i could play a wizard if ya want

If I'm free from my other characters, count me in as some one's knight. :twisted:

I was there for the last Thayan prelude. It rawked.

I'd love to play as some slick merchant. Count me in!

An interesting idea. I would like to see what a community of ex-slaves would think of an envoy from a slaver nation, who having lost contact with Thay, would have little recourse if any of "their rules" were broken. And on that same note, little way to get many new recruits- unless other Thayans just happen to stumble into Sanctuary. If my current PC was not so involved in his own life currently, I would like to be a part of this. Actually, he might just get involved if this happens anyway.

Sorry, but I assume that my PC (an most proper ex-slaves) would burn it down if given the chance.

tib-

The slave issue is something that I believe will make it all the more interesting. Perhaps the better question is, how would Thayans view a city full of escaped slaves? (And being forced to have to settle there because they have no where else to go!)

The recruitment issue will mostly depend on DM ruling. However, I would imagine that most any Human Specialist Wizard would be courted by the Red Wizards. The race restrictions for the Knights might be a bit more lax. After all, they're cut off from Thay - and the group will have most likely been fleeing Thay for some yet unknown reason. So they'd likely be weary of any other Thayans who happened to show up in the city after them.

I'm going to talk to the DM's some more about this to try and flesh things out, since there seems to be a good deal of interest.

Meldread tib-

The slave issue is something that I believe will make it all the more interesting. Perhaps the better question is, how would Thayans view a city full of escaped slaves? (And being forced to have to settle there because they have no where else to go!)

This is the kind of thinking that make me enjoy this idea even more. I might have to make an alt so I can get in on the ground floor.

Sounds great.

If I can find the time, I'd like to make a Red Wizard who enters the priesthood of one of the popular Thayan religions (Bane/Shar/Loviatar - probably not Kossulth) as something akin to a low-level arcane devotee.

Pretty obvious what the thayans would do, they'd try and CLAIM some of the residents as their own slaves ;)

How well would that go down with the council :)

They may even recognise the council as the slave owners, the spellguard and the watch as the enforcers of the council and attempt to purchase some :D

The thayans of course are intelligent enough to not call them "slaves" rather than employees :P

I'd hop aboard. I'd want to play a slave though. Thayan Knight... Monsterous Gladiator... Goblin helm bearer and shoeshiner... You get the idea. If this will have enough support in the wizard department- then I'd LOVE to be a part of it. (will app if nessesary) Anyhow, in either case, I'd be up for the prelude. Expendables are fun times.

The biggest point of conflict I see would be the Spellguard >.> That could be fun, or quick, one of the two.

I'd like to portray a faithful Thayan Knight slash Manservant.

*wills the topic to be added to the prelude forum... *

*waits until that time before adding yet another concept to the melting pot*

One thing I thought about last night was how it might be nice to arrive in Sanctuary with a few highier lvl npcs already built into the fledgling group. It makes more sense to me if the majority of us are just apprentices when we arrive but are still under the leadership of one or two powerful thayan wizards/knights that can make the kind of more serious demmands/negotiations with the city to establish an enclave. For example, 2nd lvl wizards can not even brew potions let alone craft wands to sell.

I don't know, maybe we should just quest until reach those crafting lvls. It doesn't really matter, just a thought. I'm still in as a wizard whenever this happens.

I'm trying to get in touch with a DM and work out the details of what will be possible and what will not be possible. The most important things will be how/why we got down into the Underdark, and how we will recruit more people. It makes most sense for us to be renegades of some sort, I believe. It would give us the most leeway in deciding what to do, and not distract from the Seeker faction of trying to find a way back to the surface. (After all if we're all on the run from Thay the last thing we'd want is for us to end up back on the surface.)

I'm currently trying to learn everything I can about Thay, Thayan Enclaves, Red Wizards, Thayan Knights, and such to share as much information as I can with everyone who wants to create a character. I'm thinking about grabbing the Unapproachable East and Lords of Darkness books off Amazon. Does anyone know of any novels which have Red Wizards and Knights as the main characters?

Also, any cannon info that can be found on the web would be great.

(Does anyone know if this is cannon?)

Alright, it seems like we could have a great deal of leeway in what we decide to do. I encourage everyone who is interested in this idea to join #enclave on IRC.

We should make sure we can get as many people who are interested as possible on tomorrow (Thursday, the 19th) at 9PM EST where we can begin tossing around ideas.

How did we end up in the Underdark? What will we do now that we are there? As well as other questions that need to be addressed. Once we've ironed out the details, we'll schedule a prelude.

I think I could see the following types of characters definitely fitting into the prelude: Red Wizards, Red Wizard Apprentices, Thayan Knights. Other types of characters may also fit, once we figure out how and why we'll end up in the Underdark. (Other characters such as Merchants and Slaves.)

I'll reiterate, everyone who is interested should try and join #enclave of IRC, and be around for a OOC meeting that will go into building up a story for the group. This will take place TOMORROW, the 19th, at 9PM EST.

Meldread

(Does anyone know if this is cannon?)

Not likely.

Monks of the long death often work for the red wizards if somebody is wanting to go down that path.

FRCS This order is quite strong in Thay, though not with the sanction or cooperation of the Red Wizards.

as i said i'll come as the thief or scout if ya want. human or hin?

Argh, I'm really torn. I've got to decide whether I want to get in on the ground floor of a powerful evil faction or stick with Helmut full-time and work with (or against) the Thayans to as trade partners (or rivals).

Tough decision...

Just in case you've forgotten, Red Wizards shave their heads. Please choose the bald head when creating your character. :D

Argent Gish Just in case you've forgotten, Red Wizards shave their heads. Please choose the bald head when creating your character. :D

Inaccurate.

Hair is a status symbol in Thay. The higher your social standing, the shorter your hair is generally cut. Wizards are allowed to shave their head while no member of any other caste is allowed--however Red Wizards are not compelled to be bald. It is the general style, but it is not required.

And many Thayans who are operating in other lands may choose to grow out their hair. A native of Sembia or Arabel who's never seen a Thayan is likely to buy from the one who looks more like him, even by degrees.

Oroborous

Hair is a status symbol in Thay. The higher your social standing, the shorter your hair is generally cut. Wizards are allowed to shave their head while no member of any other caste is allowed--however Red Wizards are not compelled to be bald. It is the general style, but it is not required.

Correct in some points, but wrong in others. It is the Thayans nobles of Mulan descent who remove generally of of their body hair through magical means, and the bald head is not solely limited to Wizards. In lieu of this hair, they instead get intricate Tattoos, focussing on somewhat macarbe topics. Demons, dragons, etc.

The only restriction on appearance in Thay is the colour red. Anyone not of the Red Wizards who wears red robes is beaten/hung, and while it is not illegal to wear some red, the punishments have lead to people generally avoiding the colour.

Will a DM who can answer our questions about what would be possible, be around tomorrow at 9PM EST for the meeting?

To reiterate to anyone who might have missed it: An IRC Channel has been setup (#Enclave) stop by this channel if you are interested in being a member of this prelude. There will be a meeting tomorrow for everyone to throw in their ideas of what the back-story for the prelude will be. It -must- involve an Thayan Enclave, but outside of that anything pretty much can go. We also have to make choices on how we'll handle certain issues that come up. How will we handle recruitment? How should we interact with other characters? What would be our short term and long term goals? Etc.

Not everyone can be Red Wizards. We're looking at three or four Red Wizards, with any other wizards being apprentices. The majority of people seem to want to be Knights.

If all goes according to plan, I should have prelude information ready to be posted by Saturday.

Reminder: Meet on IRC Channel #Enclave on October 19th at 9PM EST if you want a say in how this will be getting off the ground.

I should be there with a few ideas to bounce around.

9PM EST TONIGHT

FALL BREAK IS IN YEA!

The meeting will be held in three hours from this posting.

The meeting will begin in roughly 50 minutes.

I am already playing a Thayan and was about to talk to DM's about an enclave before I clicked on this thread, glad someones thinkin ahead! by the way I play Salazar Karak-Tu

i forgot about this crud

Proof that it should be locked. It's already been moved to Preludes anywho.