#second sundering

I talked about it a couple of times before, but let me quickly do it again. The Second Sundering happened between 1482 DR and 1487 DR (so between 10 and 5 years prior to BG3). The details do not really matter that much. What matters is, that Ao tried to rewrite the Tablets of Fate, an act that brought with it the possibility of reordering the deities of the Realms, so those deities just created a ton of chosen in an attempt to preserve their powers, due to how the Forgotten Realms divine powers work. This did very much also include the Red Wizards trying to get those chosen into their hands and extract that divine juice from them, but that is less important for Gortash and shit.

What is important is this: it does kinda seem that Gortash was not yet a Chosen of Bane, when he sold Karlach. This is never confirmed in text fully, but I feel it is highly likely for one specific reason: he seemed to still have been in conflict with the Zhentarim when he sold Karlach. And the Zhent are followers of Bane, which is why they are actually begrudgingly following him by the time the game takes place. There is a couple of in game documents from the past talking about how they were in conflict with Gortash over smuggling operation in the past. Until they suddenly were not.

What is noticable about the Second Sundering too is, that a bunch of the Chosen created during it, were not active followers of the gods who chose them. They just... vaguely aligned with their morals.

And to me it makes so much sense. Because more than anything I see Gortash as an opportunistic coward. Like, sure, he made the Banite cult in Baldur's Gate big again. But who says that he did that before he became a chosen. Because the thing is that I do not really see him follow a god without a guarantee to get something out of it for himself. And let's be real here: the gods of the Forgotten Realms do in general not do shit for the majority of their followers. And while I totally see Gortash generally liking the idea of being a tyrant, this man also knows that Bane is a god that most people do not like. So being a Banite without a guaranteed return feels like too much of a political risk. Especially considering the one group of Banites that is very clearly active in Baldur's Gate at the time (the Zhent), is actively hostile to him, and probably will not just cease hostilities based on him going: "Yo, I am a Banite now!"

So to me it would make a whole lot more sense that he was generally morally somewhat aligned with Bane, sure, but not actively worshipping him. Until he became his Chosen by a sheer cosmic coincident, like many of the Second Sundering Chosen.

Unlike many of the Second Sundering Chosen he found out that he was a Chosen. Possibly because of the Dark Urge showing up. And Gortash, being the opportunistic coward he is went: "Oh, I can use that in my advantage."

And let's be honest here: this man would have enjoyed the hell out of getting up to the Zhentarim, all smug, and going: "Oh, by the way, I am the chosen of your god now, so you cannot harm me."

That is to say: I do not think that Gortash was a Banite before he became a chosen of Bane. He became a Banite because he was a chosen of Bane and could use the cult of Bane in his advantage once he was. Not because I think he would have been morally opposed to Bane before - clearly not - but because the risk/reward calculation would have been off too him.

Especially with how much he loves to play himself up as a hero I could actually more see him pretending to be aligned with one of the warrior/heroic gods. Again, not because of morals, but because of how he wants to be perceived.

As gamers' thoughts turn to a New Year, it's worth remembering how the Forgotten Realms has reinvented itself with each iteration of Dungeons & Dragons.

Dungeons & Dragons has been through several iterations, but because the standard fantasy campaign world has morphed from edition to edition, those changes were usually independent of the game world itself.  The Forgotten Realms went through some startling in-universe changes to reflect the new rules set -- three times: The Time of Troubles, the Spellplague, and the Second Sundering. 

2nd Edition: The Time of Troubles

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was a hit in the 80s.  It was also a focal point of the Satanic Panic, a belief in America that children were being corrupted by media, including Dungeons & Dragons.  TSR planned to consolidate the disparate rules for AD&D, but it also had another goal in mind.  Shannon Appelcline explains in Designers & Dragons:

TSR (re)announced the new edition of the game in Dragon #117 ( January 1987).  In the next issue, project lead Zeb Cook famously penned a column title “Who Dies?”  It mentioned that part of the revision would involve deciding which character classes to throw out.  The column was remarkably prescient, spotlighting the two classes that were eventually removed from the game — saying that assassins had always been bad for party unity while monks had been better covered by Oriental Adventures.  However it also threatened many other favorites, from clerics and thieves to illusionists and druids.  The result was a huge outcry, thousands of letters, and a lot of debate about the new edition.  Cook would later say that he was trying to evoke a reaction.  Whatever the purpose, it allowed players to have a real hand in the revision of the game, first through their letters, then through a massive questionnaire.  Players even saved the bard, another class that Cook had marked for extinction.

The changes went beyond classes. Appelcline explains: 

James M. Ward, who had instituted the removal of demons and devils, explained in Dragon #154 (February 1990) that “[a]voiding the Angry Mother Syndrome has become a good, basic guideline for all of the designers and editors at TSR, Inc.”  Apparently, TSR had received one letter a week complaining about the demons and devils since the original Monster Manual was printed, and those 624 letters, or what Ward called “a lot of letters,” had been the reason he’d removed the infernal races.

The end result was that D&D's rules didn't just change, its policies did too: 

The release of AD&D 2nd Edition corresponded with important policy changes at TSR.  An effort was made to remove aspects of the game which had attracted negative publicity, most notably the removal of all mention of demons and devils, although equivalent fiendish monsters were included, renamed tanar'ri and baatezu, respectively.  Moving away from the moral ambiguity of the 1st edition AD&D, the TSR staff eliminated character classes and races like the assassin and the half-orc, and stressed heroic roleplaying and player teamwork.  The target age of the game was also lowered, with most 2nd edition products being aimed primarily at teenagers.

To reflect these changes, the Forgotten Realms experienced a world-spanning event known as the Time of Troubles.  Lord Ao, over-deity of the Forgotten Realms gods, decided to shake things up by demoting all deities to avatar status to teach them some humility.  Some deities died during this time, while other mortals ascended to godhood.  MerricB explains the mechanical end results: 

Now, the point of this was to update the world to the new rules.  The change in clerical spell lists could be attributed to the gods now paying more attention to mortals.  Half-orcs, demons and devils were just pushed aside in the new Realms… they existed, they just weren’t talked about much.  Monks had never been that much of an issue.  But assassins… TSR had a special plan for them.  You remember how Bhaal, the god of assassins, got himself killed?  Well, when he was killed, that act also killed every assassin in the Forgotten Realms.  Sucks to be them!  (Or to have an assassin PC!) 

Much of these changes were expressed through fiction and comics, while other changes were hinted at and explained only later.  And of course, Bhaal's death was an excuse to remove assassins from the game.  You can see the full list of changes on the Forgotten Realms wiki, but suffice it to say that these changes were far-reaching.

3rd Edition: Nothing to See Here

Third edition passed the Forgotten Realms without incident: 

The introduction of D&D 3e was exceptional in that there was no overarching, global in-setting event introduced to explain the rules changes.  Oddly, the adventure Die Vecna Die! was intended to explain the rules changes (for all D&D settings), but its events were never made FR canon.  WotC just proceeded with the 3e rules and setting changes without adding any corresponding historical events.  The 3e change is thus “silent” in FR's historical record.

This isn't to say that the Forgotten Realms weren't changed in significant ways, but rather that the campaign wasn't adjusted to reflect the rules.  The next edition would not be so kind to the Realms.

4th Edition: The Spellplague

The Spellplague didn't have nearly the amount of fictional support but its effects were just as far-reaching -- if not more so -- as The Time of Troubles, Mystra was assassinated by Cyric and Shar -- Cyric and Midnight were adventuring companions at one point before the Time of Troubles -- causing the magical essence behind the Forgotten Realms to be warped by the Far Realm.  4th Edition's changes to D&D were significant, so the impact felt on the Forgotten Realms was equally disruptive.  Planes were shuffled, including the creation of the Feywild and the introduction of the Elemental Chaos.  Deities were shuffled too, with Asmodeus ascending to godhood and bringing the Abyss into the Elemental Chaos (demons were reclassified accordingly).  Spells and magic items worked differently, with items that possessed charges no longer functioning the same way. 

Like many changes tied to Fourth Edition, the reception was mixed, including one of the authors who had a significant stake in the Forgotten Realms, R.A. Salvatore.  Aldrick explains on the Candlekeep forums: 

Salvatore and presumably the other authors were called in and basically told what the changes were going to be; they weren't consulted at all.  So it was a major shock.  They were basically told, "Hey guess what, we're advancing the world 100 years."  Salvatore was very, very, very upset.  Since over half his main characters were human, he basically didn't see how it could work for him.  In his words, "140 year old humans don't fight very well."  Salvatore wrote a really long letter to several Senior Editors at WotC pleading with them to reconsider the 4E changes, but clearly it fell on deaf ears.  Presumably a lot of other authors were also very upset, and more specifically Ed Greenwood.  Salvatore talks about coming out of that 2006 meeting where the changes were revealed with Ed Greenwood, and Ed was basically about to cry.  Ed turned to Salvatore and asked, "What are we going to do?"  It seemed that they couldn't stop it or change their minds.  So Salvatore responded to Ed with, "We're going to be smarter than them.  We're going to think long term."  That's when Ed and Salvatore got together secretly and started brainstorming on how to fix the Realms when WotC realized how much it was going to be despised by most of the fans.

They would get their chance with Fifth Edition.

5th Edition: The Second Sundering

To understand the Second Sundering it's helpful to understand the First Sundering.  It was a magic ritual cast by elves that created the Isle of Evermeet -- but also blew up much of the Forgotten Realms:

Hundreds of High Mages assemble in the heartland of Faerûn at the Gathering Place.  Ignoring the lesson learned from the destruction of Tintageer centuries earlier, they cast a spell of elven High Magic designed to create a glorious elf homeland.  On the Day of Birthing, the magic reaches its apex as the spell extends both back and forward in the mists of time.  Faerûn, the one land, is sundered apart by the unbridled force of the Sundering.  As a result, hundreds of cities are washed away, thousands of elves lie dead, and the face of Toril is changed forever.  The name Faerûn, no longer the One Land, is given to the largest continent.  Surrounded by vast expanses of water, the island of Evermeet, thought to be a piece of Arvandor and a bridge between worlds, breaks the surface of the Trackless Sea.  Blessed by the goddess Angharradh, verdant forests and wildlife soon flourish across the island.  Corellon Larethian wards Evermeet against Lolth, Malar, and the other powers of the anti-Seldarine and entrusts a unique seed to the Fair Folk of the isle.  The seed soon sprouts, growing into a miniature tree known as the Tree of Souls.  Over time, the souls of ancient elves who choose to stay on Toril, rather than pass on to Arvandor, merge into the Tree of Souls, slowly augmenting its power.  Prophecies reveal that the Tree of Souls will someday be planted on Faerûn when the Fair Folk finally return to the mainland after a period of exile on the Green Isle.

The Second Sundering reversed a lot of what happened due to the Spellplague, with Ao restoring much back to pre-Fourth Edition changes.  This video of a seminar on the topic explains the Sundering in more detail.  Aldrick picks up the thread:

Fast forward to a couple of years ago at Gencon when 5E was announced.  James Wyatt pulls Salvatore aside after he's done a seminar, and begins bringing up 5E Forgotten Realms.  At that time WotC hadn't planned on what to do, but according to Salvatore, James Wyatt said that 4E FR had "gone off the rails" and then started outlining everything that needed to be done to fix it.  That's when he took James aside and for over 20 minutes outlined everything he and Ed had been planning for years.  Salvatore basically sees all of this as an attempt to try and fix "Ed's Realms" - that's how everyone is basically looking at it.  He said that he's willing to take personal responsibility for 5E FR because he had a direct hand in it, but he also said that he's "very proud" of what they've come up with.

And that brings us to now, the 5E Forgotten Realms that looks a bit like the same Realms before changes wrought by the Spellplague.  The Forgotten Realms wiki illustrates how everything old was new again:

By the end of the Sundering, the world began to look very much alike to how it was during the 1300s... At the end of the Second Sundering, most of the consequences that the Spellplague had wrought upon Toril were nowhere to be seen... Many deities previously presumed dead or missing managed to return to life (or to re-emerge) during the Second Sundering, and then to quickly amass new followers (or to win back their old faithful), and to reclaim at least some of their former portfolios (resulting in a new distribution of spheres of influence among the Faerunian deities)... The Sundering of Toril and Abeir had extensive repercussions on the arrangement of the planes of existence and of the divine domains.  The World Axis cosmology was rearranged in a new Great Wheel, which only differed from its previous iteration because of the presence of the Elemental Chaos and of the Feywild and Shadowfell.

As gamers look forward to new games and new worlds to play in 2018, they can take comfort in the fact that even the Forgotten Realms goes through cycles.  Happy New Year everyone!

You know what? I might ramble a bit about DnD Lore, because I am recently starting to get really into the lore. And I think that the Second Sundering is super interesting in terms of how it might connect to BG3 and its characters.

Quick refresher for everyone who (like me) never really had any contact with the lore of DnD and specifically the Forgotten Realms prior to 2023.

The Forgotten Realms is more or less the main setting for DnD and describes a collection of worlds that are technically speaking connected to our world. The main world most of the lore happens is called Toril, though frankly: Toril mostly consists of Faerûn (where most plot happens) and then an assorted collection of stereotypical settings that are mostly "Fantasy-East-Asia", "Fantasy-Egypt", "Fantasy-Africa" and "Fantasy-Aztecs".

The Forgotten Realms have magic (the Weave) and a wide collection of gods. And most worldwide storylines can be best described as: Bhaal, Myrkul, Bane, and Shar do some bullshit. And: Ao (who totally is not based on YHW) has issues.

Most of the recent events within the lore are all connected to those things. To give you a quick rundown:

The laws of the Forgotten Realms were written down by Ao in the Tablets of Fate, and about a hundred years ago Myrkul and Bane stole those tablets trying to give themselves more power. This made Ao angry at all the other gods and throw them out of the Astral planes. Stuff happened. More stuff happened. The Tablets of Fate were found again and Ao decided to destroy them to prevent something like that from happening again. Which lead to the Spellplague among other things. But we are not talking about the Spellplague today. No, we are talking about the Second Sundering, which happened just a few years ago from the perspective of Baldur's Gate 3.

Because Ao decided to reforge the Tablets of Fate to properly put the worlds of the Forgotten Realms back into order. And here is a thing you need to understand about the gods in the Forgotten Realms: They all, with no exception, strive for more power. No matter how Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil they are, they strive for power. And they all knew: When the Tablets would be reforged, the gods' powers would be more pinned down compared to how free they were without the tablets. So, all the gods tried to get more powers by getting more followers. To archive this, they all got themselves more chosen, so that they could be more present on Toril, which is how this most notably affected the people on the world.

The main events of the Second Sundering happened between 1484 and 1487 DR. (BG3 takes place in 1492 DR.)

Now, I will not go into too much detail of what happened. The tl;dr is that the usual people (the dead three and Shar) did their usual bullshit, some of the chosen were kidnapped and at times killed, there were several wars, some of the effects of the Spellplague were reversed, and some dead gods came back (including Mystra, but that is a story all on its own).

Within the world not all people even learned what was going on. Like, sure, people would have known about the wars and some might have heard some rumors about the chosen running around and stuff, but they would not have learned exactly what was going on with the gods and with the tablets of fate.

Still, some of the characters in BG3 would probably have known of - and even been involved in - in the events. Most notably of course Gale, who as a chosen of Mystra would be involved into everything in one way or another. Again, Mystra is probably a topic on her own. But yeah, Gale would have been involved somehow.

Chances are that Wyll's entire thing with defending the city from the Tiamat people, was also probably somehow connected to it.

The same goes of course for Shadowheart. She might in fact not fully remember this - but she was most certainly somehow dragged into those events by Shar.

The other three origin characters would not have been that involved. I firmly believe that Astarion knew next to nothing about what the fuck was going on, due to Cazador keeping the Spawn kinda away from the outside world except for hunting. And while the Second Sundering did involve some events in the Hells and on the Astral Plane, I doubt that Lae'zel or Karlach were very involved.

Ironically, someone who might well have been deeply involved would have been the Dark Urge. Because Bhaal was fairly involved in everything going on. Heck, chances are that even Gortash and Orin were in some way involved. Not quite sure about Ketheric. But those two? Yeah, probably involved.