One of the things I looked forward to
when I joined the TSR staff last fall was
my chance to be in the "TSR Profiles"
section of DRAGON® Magazine. Of course,
this feature was discontinued shortly after
I got here. When I asked what other
opportunities for magazine fame were
available, everyone suggested I write a
?Game Wizards? column. All I needed was
a subject ? and it wasn?t hard to come up
with one.

I want to talk about my first big project
at TSR: Empires of the Sands, a sourcebook
for the FORGOTTEN REALMS?
setting. In that product, we invited questions
and comments from the players.
We?ve received quite a few responses ?
thank you! ? and this is a good place to
deal with some of your questions.

The map problem
The first thing to clear up is a problem
with the pull-out map. As many of you
with the product already know, one side
of the map has a glaring error. One of the
transparencies used to make the map was
reversed during printing, so the coastlines,
rivers, and lakes are all reversed. After the
sourcebook came back from the printer, I
spotted that something was wrong with
the map almost immediately (that?s always
the way it works, by the way ? a mistake
you didn?t see every time you checked the
product before it went to the printer leaps
off the page at you the moment it comes
back), but it took three of us to finally
figure out the exact problem.

Those of you who wrote us to complain
about the map also wanted to know how
we were going to fix it. Here?s what?s going
to happen: When Empires of the Sands is
reprinted, the map will be corrected. At
that time, we will have the printer run a
few thousand extra copies of the new
map, and we will send them to anyone
who sends us a self-addressed, stamped
envelope. An announcement will be made
in this magazine when the map becomes
available. We are sorry about the mix-up
and hope this will take care of it.

A look at Amn
Another problem: Thayze Selemchant,
the merchant who brought Amn out of its
civil war and heads up the Council of Six,
is noted as having a strength of 18/56.
Since he?s a magic-user by profession, this
is not possible according to the rules. I see
Thayze as a physically imposing man
whose real power stems from his political
position and his force of will; he also happens
to know some spells. DMs who want
to keep their campaigns letter-perfect
need to reduce his strength to 18; on the
other hand, I think his unique strength
makes him a more interesting character.
Besides, he doesn?t gain very much from
his strength, so any DMs who want to
keep it at 18/56 are welcome to do so.

Someone asked how the Council of Six,
which closely regulates magic-users in
Amn, treats visiting mages. I suppose that
any wizard attached to a visiting trader
would be given an exemption from the
law, with the trader held responsible for
anything the wizard does. If a wizard
spent more than six months of any year in
Amn, he or she would become subject to
Amn law regarding magic-users in general.

Some letter-writers took exception to the
presence of an electrum mine outside the
town of Keczulla, pointing out that electrum
is an alloy not found in nature.
Ignoring the obvious arguments about
what constitutes "natural" and what
doesn't in a fantasy world, we can say that
the electrum found in this mine is a result
of mixing closely intertwined gold and
silver deposits under geologic pressure
over thousands of years. The result --
electrum!

Other writers took exception to my
giving Chardath Spulzeer of Spulzeer
Castle an unholy avenger sword. The
?unholy avenger? name implies that this
sword is an evil twin of a holy avenger
sword; if that were true, the sword could
only be used fully by an antipaladin, a
character class that does not exist in the
official rules. All this is true, but I have
always believed that NPCs are not bound
by the rules as player characters are,
especially when the rules get in the way of
a good story or an interesting characterization.
By calling Spulzeer?s sword an
unholy avenger I wanted to quickly identify
the swords abilities, not its limitations.
For the record, Spulzeer?s sword is a oneof-
a-kind sword with all the properties of a
holy avenger, except that it does +10 hp
damage to lawful-good beings. This sword
only works in the hands of someone completely,
totally, inhumanly evil. How evil?
Being evil enough to awaken a 3lst-level
lich and murder your entire family at this
lich?s request seems evil enough for me.

I also received a few questions about the
character Deepshadow, head of the
Thieves? Guild in Athkatla in Amn. Though
listed as a 5th-level thief/12th-level assassin,
Deepshadow is not a dual-classed
character. Many of you have pointed out
in your letters that such a dual class is not
allowed by the rules. Deepshadow is a
character with two classes. As a young,
wily adventurer, Deepshadow (who did
not go by that name then) was content to
be a thief. But he became dissatisfied with
the way the guild was being run, and he
got involved with guild politics. He quickly
realized, however, that he could advance
farther and faster in the hierarchy of the
guild if he were an assassin, so he changed
classes. Politically, it was a great decision;
his background as a thief made him a
popular choice of the rank and file of the
guild, and his skills as an assassin came in
handy when dealing with troublesome
rivals. Today, Deepshadow has a strong
grip on the Athkatla Thieves? Guild, and
that doesn?t seem likely to change soon.

On to Calimshan
In the description of monsters appearing
in Calimshan, I accidentally included the
marid, which is a creature inhabiting the
Elemental Plane of Water. This was a mistake;
delete the marid from the list.

Another letter writer thought my population
figures for the cities of Calimshan
were too high. Calimport is listed with a
year-round population of over two million.
By comparison, the northern metropolis of
Waterdeep barely breaks half a million in
the busy season. I don?t think this is too
out of line ? I see Calimport as a sort of
Mexico City of the Forgotten Realms: huge
and sprawling with a vast population, but
most of its people are the forgotten poor.
The wealth and power of Calimport is
concentrated in a small upper class, so
Calimport, while still a major city, does not
wield the economic clout a city of its size
otherwise might.

By the way, the population of Suldolphor,
southeast of Calimshan and occasionally
claimed by them, was left out of the
sourcebook. It is 210,000.

Zanassu, the Demon Lord of the Spider
Swamp in Calimshan, can return to the
swamp 10 years after being physically
destroyed. One letter writer asked if this
required the aid of an evil sorcerer on this
plane, and if so, how powerful should that
sorcerer be. I consulted with our expert
on extradimensionality, Jeff Grubb, designer
of the Manual of the Planes supplement
for the AD&D® game. He said that in the
case of a demon lord like Zanassu, it is
most likely that he has taught a chant to
his many followers in the swamp?This
chant has no power when used by one
person or even a small group, but when
enough followers gather in one place and
concentrate on returning Zanassu to the
Prime Material Plane, the chant will do so.
How many followers are required? Oh, say
about 10,000.

On the eastern borders of Tethyr and
Calimshan are some small mountain ranges
that are not named on the maps. Geologically,
they are extensions of the
Snowflake Mountain range, and many
people call them the Snowflake Mountains.
Residents of the smaller villages in and
near these mountains, however, have their
own names for them. The mountains on
the eastern border of Calimshan are locally
known as the Embooli Mountains,
named after a famous local ruler dead for
over 300 years. In Tethyr, the two mountainous
areas to the east are known as the
Eastland and Small Eastland Mountains.

Other questions
At the bottom of each filled-out Character
Record Sheet, the encumbrance of
each member of the Company of Eight is
preceded by a mark that looks like a squiggly
equal sign . Some letter writers
didn?t recognize it as the mathematical
symbol for "approximately equal to." Since
each character carries some of his equipment
on his horse and some in his pack,
switching back and forth depending on
the situation, we can only guess at his
encumbrance on a record sheet. During
play, of course, each player is expected to
know his character?s encumbrance more
precisely.

Another letter asked about the drow
elves in the Forest of Mir. These drow do
live underground, like drow everywhere,
and have an extensive underground civilization.
But they also spend a good deal of
time above ground, which is unusual for
their kind. Like drow elsewhere, these
dark elves are also worshipers of Lolth.

Yet another letter writer had some questions
about the climate of the three lands
in the Empires of the Sands. Amn is
located (roughly) between 30° and 40°
north latitude; Tethyr is between 22° and
30° north; and Calimshan is between 140
and 22° north. The average annual rainfall
is 25? in Amn, 20? in Tethyr, and only 8?
in Calimshan. If you want to use the
weather system published in the Wilderness
Survival Guide, consider Amn to be
temperate, and Tethyr and Calimshan to
be subtropical.

And lastly, a number of would-be
authors have asked permission to use
parts of the Empires of the Sands as the
settings for stories and modules submitted
to DRAGON Magazine and DUNGEON®
Adventures. Please be my guest! I am
always eager to see what other people
envision for particular places, characters,
and countries in the Empires.

Thanks again for all the feedback and
comments. I don?t always have time to
answer the mail I get on the various projects
I work on, but I do read it all. Your
opinions are important to us and help us
make better games.



OCTOBER 1988