User talk:Sirwhiteout

Welcome!
Well met, Sirwhiteout, and welcome to the Forgotten Realms Wiki! Thank you for your edit to the Metallic dragon page. We hope you like the place and decide to stay and explore the Forgotten Realms with us.

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Again, welcome! Happy scribing!

— Hashimashadoo (talk) 02:09, September 16, 2016 (UTC)

Welcome!
Thanks for all of your dragon edits! ~ Lhynard (talk) 11:32, September 16, 2016 (UTC)


 * SirWhite, thank you for all your recent 5e updates. Keep up the good work :) - Darkwynters (talk) 19:14, December 22, 2016 (UTC)

New Images
Thanks again for your great work adding 5e information to this wiki.

Regarding your new images, it is important for legal reasons for us to state the source and the copyright information for each one. Please see File:Shield guardian.jpg as an example. We prefer if you use the Information template. The Shield_guardian.jpg page uses the following mark-up:

Be sure to specify the source as well. Did you get these by scanning the 53 Monster Manual yourself? Or did you get them from a legal online source? If the former, you need to use the Fairuse tag instead of the Promotional tag. If neither, the image needs to be deleted.

Thanks again for joining our team!

~ Lhynard (talk) 15:39, September 17, 2016 (UTC)

Once again, thank you for your contributions; it is great to have so much new art on this site.

Could I make another request, though? Please add categories to all of the images you have uploaded. You can see the list here: your images

I am going to start working up from the bottom of the list. Please be sure to follow my lead in adding categories to any new pages and work your way down from the top of the list.

Thank you!

~ Lhynard (talk) 01:25, November 20, 2016 (UTC)

Wow, that was fast! Thanks! ~ Lhynard (talk) 05:32, November 20, 2016 (UTC)

Spell tables
Please read the Template:Spell/doc page and use the appropriate field values for the various types of spells (oaths, circles, and the new traditions, etc.). The automatic category generation code depends on finding certain words in the Spell table and will create spurious categories if the guidelines are not followed. Thank you for your contributions, and have fun! &mdash;23:52, December 3, 2016 (UTC)

Advanced features
Thanks for your work on the 5e spells. There are a few things you need to know when dealing with spells that cross multiple editions. First, for rituals in 4e and 5e, you need to add the  parameter to the Spell table so the categories are generated properly. See what I did to locate animals or plants. Only 3rd edition calls it detect animals or plants, so after I renamed the page to the 5e name, I turned off the 3e categories using  in the Spell table. I re-added the 3e categories to the redirect page. I hope that makes sense. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 03:26, March 24, 2017 (UTC)


 * I see! Thanks for clearing that up. I had asked something to that effect about rituals in the Template talk:Spell page, but for some reason it wasn't generating the page correctly. Maybe I had messed something up. I'll get on to fix the ritual pages I edited as soon as possible then. As for redirects, the 5e name always takes precedence over older names, right? In any case, since I don't currently have previous edition sourcebooks on me, I don't feel comfortable doing the redirects and moving categories about without checking how each edition names each spell, so if what I did on Locate animals or plants is alright I could just do that for now on other spells that have changed names. Sirwhiteout (talk) 03:52, March 24, 2017 (UTC)

Food & Drink
I just wanted to say thank you for your latest project; I am quite enjoying it, and it is very helpful to a DM to be able to look up setting-specific foods. ~ Lhynard (talk) 03:15, March 6, 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks! This project started exactly during research for an upcoming Storm King's Thunder campaign. I'm glad it's being useful. Sirwhiteout (talk) 03:47, March 6, 2017 (UTC)

Thumbs up and a question
Great work on Layers of the Abyss, I love seeing that article improved! - Its a great task you have taken on valiantly. :-)

I have one question about Layer 223, Rarandreth/Offalmound, which got me interested in the article in the first place: In Faiths & Avatars, Rarandreth/Offalmound is given in the format Layer/Realm. So shouldn't that mean that Rarandreth is the name for the layer, and Offalmound is (only a part?) within in? (Though there is no hint anywhere why Offalmound should not be the whole layer and give its name to it like for other deities residing in the Abyss.) I don't have Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, though, if that sheds any light on the question. Thanks for letting me know your opinion!

Also great work on the many spell inventions! Daranios (talk) 19:38, September 19, 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I've been meaning to clean up that article for a while now. Hopefully by the time I'm done this will be a nice single place where all this lore from all these disparate sources is gathered. I'm almost emerging now, I can almost see Pazunia from down here in the low 100s. :-)
 * Both Demonomicon and Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss call the entire layer Offalmound, and the only place where I even found the mention to Rarandreth was indeed Faiths & Avatars, but I couldn't find it in the nice layer/realm presentation of On Hallowed Ground (in fact, Moander isn't even mentioned there). It could be on some other source, though. It took quite a bit of digging to find out that 348 is called "Indifference", not "Fortress of Indifference", which is a castle in there, or that 507 was already called "Occipitus" even before the piece of Celestia merged with it. Now, originally in the plagiarized text it said that it was Moander who had renamed the layer from Rarandreth to Offalmound, but I couldn't find any verification of this. The place this stuff came from had a lot of homebrew content mixed in. I'll do some more digging.
 * Also, about the spell inventions, I think they're mostly done now, right? There are only a handful left to categorize, and all are non-existing spells, no? That was also a fun project. -- Sirwhiteout (talk) 20:46, September 19, 2017 (UTC)


 * Moander is mentioned on page 182 of On Hallowed Ground in the Dead Powers table. &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 21:23, September 19, 2017 (UTC)


 * True! And I had even put that reference in the text. I should start saving vs. demonic madness. In any case, that entry says Offalmount is the realm name, but that seems to be the case for all Abyssal layers present in the book, in which layer is given as just a number. -- Sirwhiteout (talk) 21:32, September 19, 2017 (UTC)


 * I see, so Rarandreth remains a strange case as also discussed here.
 * Yes, I think the existing spells now all have their invention included, but I plan to go through them and add the missing years even for the missing spell articles - but not the spells themselves, that would too much work for me :-). Daranios (talk) 19:15, September 20, 2017 (UTC)

Another Abyssal Layer
Hi. Just to not interrupt your work, I prefer to point you out to this. There is an Abyssal layer described in Dungeon 172 that is not in the article. --Zero (talk) 17:33, September 21, 2017 (UTC)


 * Is it in the Codricuhn article? I couldn't find any mention of a specific layer anywhere in that issue. -- Sirwhiteout (talk) 23:02, September 21, 2017 (UTC)

Your recent image uploads, 11th October 2017
If you are uploading images under a fair use license, then image quality is not something we actively strive for. Fair use will often be easier to argue with lower quality images. I'm not saying that you should roll back to the previous images, but just bear it in mind for the future. -hashtalk 16:10, October 11, 2017 (UTC)


 * Is it going to be a problem? Since many of the existing pictures are of higher quality than the ones I've been uploading, I wasn't aware that this could become an issue. I thought it would be nice to put better versions of the 5e pictures, but I'd hate to get the wiki in trouble for it. Should I roll them back, just to be safe? --Sirwhiteout (talk) 18:11, October 11, 2017 (UTC)


 * It should be fine. It's just safer, from a legal perspective, to have lower-quality images *if* someone tries to do something about it. There's no hard definition of what fair use is, but there is a US court case that established that uploading lower resolution images of artwork could be construed as fair use. Like I said, I won't be asking you to rollback the images, but if you upload an image, saying it's fair use, you should bear this in mind. -hashtalk 01:21, October 13, 2017 (UTC)

On Top of Things
You, sir, are on top of things. I'm changing templates all around, and you fix them before I can even notify you of what I am doing! :) ~ Lhynard (talk) 18:24, January 29, 2018 (UTC)


 * Heh, I was checking out recent updates in the last of my free time today and noticed you were tinkering with the template, so I decided to help out to expedite things. By the way, I loved the new field in template:cite book. Makes the citations much nicer to read. Nice work! &mdash; Sirwhiteout (talk) 18:29, January 29, 2018 (UTC)


 * … unless that is a problem. Should I wait to be notified before going around and updating things? &mdash; Sirwhiteout (talk) 18:44, January 29, 2018 (UTC)


 * No, you're good. It did indeed make it faster for me. Thanks.


 * I had actually made a template for the "Concordance" a while back for the Rock of Bral article, so we had some duplicates floating around also.


 * Thanks for the feedback on the template. Now, unfortunately, I have about 100 other map citation templates to adapt to use the new template field. :) I'm going to wait to see if others are OK with it first, but I'm glad that you like it.


 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 18:57, January 29, 2018 (UTC)

Pronunciation Table
Please feel free to edit this or add better examples: Pronunciation table

I'll probably add links to it from the IPA tomorrow night.

And thanks for the impressive work today!

~ Lhynard (talk) 03:25, May 18, 2018 (UTC)


 * I loved the examples in there. The table is awesome! If I think of anything else, I'll happily add it there.


 * By the way, great job developing this entire machinery! It is a truly impressive piece of code. ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 13:34, May 18, 2018 (UTC)

Slack
Greetings! I have been empowered to invite you to the Forgotten Realms Wiki Slack community, an informal chat group of FRW admins and regular editors. If you are interested, please fill out https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfoVCqUNSPCKTp77IxhwMDyIQ4UGVoB1AP0MM15agNUZsU94Q/viewform and leave your email address so that High Imperceptor Admin Fw190a8 can send you an invite. Your email address will not be shared with anyone except Slack. There are no fabulous benefits for joining, and certainly no penalties for declining, we just talk now and then. Hope to see you soon! :) &mdash;Moviesign (talk) 14:32, July 6, 2018 (UTC)


 * Wow, thanks! What an honor. I just responded to it. :) — Sirwhiteout (talk) 17:19, July 6, 2018 (UTC)


 * It makes me smile to know that you consider chatting with a bunch of nerds an honor. :) ~ Lhynard (talk) 20:40, July 6, 2018 (UTC)

Blog posts
Hello there! Just saw your blog posts: What a fun idea to combine science and fantasy (and I like the hamster idea, though I am not sure that's Ao's style ;-)! I couldn't post there, so one comment here: The fact that one cannot bring the given size and calculated pressure in unison in the Coliar case, do you think the root of that is the assumed uniform density of air? That's a definite difference to, say, Jupiter. (By the way, you might want to use "." instead of "," in the densities given, if I understand them correctly. It seems in Portugese just like in German one uses "," in numbers where there is a "." in English.) Daranios (talk) 20:36, August 3, 2018 (UTC)


 * Hmm, that's weird. You should be able to post comments to the blog post. Anyway, the main goal of the exercise was to see if it was possible to find a density and pressure gradient that could be livable in the whole planet. The density was never assumed to be constant, but the temperature was. Apart from this simplifying hypothesis, I used the same parameters used to model Earth's troposphere, in which the density varies as that of an ideal fluid: linearly with pressure, inversely proportional to the temperature. In fact, assuming a non-constant temperature might dampen the pressure gradient a bit, but it still does not avoid an infernal heat in the center of the planet (much like inside Jupiter!).


 * Also, thanks for the heads-up on the decimal points. I had intended to use "." everywhere, but I forgot to convert some of the numbers from my notes. I fixed it now.


 * I'm having a lot of fun with these posts and discussions. But I decided to keep the technical bits out of the post, because I thought they might bore people. Maybe I should include them? ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 21:30, August 3, 2018 (UTC)


 * Also, I just unblocked commenting on the posts, so you should be able to post there. I had accidentally blocked them, because I thought that checkmark meant something else. ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 21:33, August 3, 2018 (UTC)


 * Ah nice, though as I started here I'll continue here: So if the density change is included, might it be that the employed average density of air causes the problem for the Coliar case? Jupiter has, Wikpedia tells me, 1,326 kg/m³ (as compared to 1.2 kg/m³), so a lot more mass drawing inside, but also a lot more material to generate counter-pressure and keep up size. But if something similar would be the case for Coliar, I guess only a layer quite far out would have a tolerable pressure for the inhabitants. Daranios (talk) 17:32, August 5, 2018 (UTC)


 * So, the hydrostatic equilibrium equation is a boundary value problem. That means that I can solve the equation only up to a value at some point. In the case of Coliar, I selected the boundary condition as the pressure value at the center, because the whole point of the calculation was to see if the whole volume of the planet could have inhabitable pressures. That's how I got the small radius. Because of the nature of the problem, it is perfectly possible to choose a boundary value at some other point in the planet's interior or on its "surface", that would potentially give different curves, each curve representing a different solution to the equilibrium equations.


 * In short, that was why we needed to add a dampening factor to the pressure gradient. Without it, Coliar would only have a very thin inhabitable shell, located around a vicinity of where one sets the boundary condition to be 1 atm. Above it, the air would rapidly become too thin; below it, the pressure would rapidly become too high. The dampening factor effectively expands the width of this strip to include the entire planet. Sirwhiteout (talk) 21:33, August 7, 2018 (UTC)


 * Ah, ok, so having all of Coliar inhabitable is the condition that requires magic. Or hamsters. :-) Daranios (talk) 19:15, August 9, 2018 (UTC)


 * Exactly! For comparison, check out the density/temperature profile of the atmosphere of Jupiter. Its troposphere is less than 200 km thick (still enormous compared to Earth's 18-km-thick troposphere), but the pressure and temperature variations are wild. The "inhabitable" area, pressure-wise, would be around the yellow strip in the plot, but temperature-wise, it would be somewhere between the green and blue strips. So Jupiter is even worse: its regions of inhabitable pressure and temperature don't even match. ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 19:57, August 9, 2018 (UTC)

Oeridian?
Hello! I have a question about the demonym for Oerth: In former editions Oeridian was a human ethnicity on Oerth (on the continent with an also related name, Oerik), not a name for all inhabitants of the planet. Are you sure that Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes uses Oeridian for all people of Oerth? On the other hand, I have found "Oerthly" as demonym used in a 1st and a 2nd edition source each. Thanks for clarifying! Daranios (talk) 21:46, September 1, 2018 (UTC)


 * I think you are right. It is how Shemeshka refers to Mordenkainen personally, but not to all inhabitants of Oerth. If it is in fact an ethnicity, then it should be fixed. I will check and fix it. Thanks for the heads-up! ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 21:50, September 1, 2018 (UTC)


 * OK, I found a bunch of references that list Oeridian as one of the many ethnicities of Oerth and adjusted Mordenkainen's page accordingly. I also did find two different demonyms for Oerth natives: one from a Monte Cook Ravenloft book that says "Oerthian" and another from an unpublished Greyhawk sourcebook that says "Oerthly". I put both there on the page, but feel free to add the additional references you know as well. ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 04:39, September 2, 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks! Didn't know about the Oerthian until now. I have added another source for Oerthly, from Greyhawk Adventures, fundamental to that setting. Thanks for adding the demonyms, many of them are clear, but many also aren't! If I had more time, I'd do some myself :-) Daranios (talk) 16:18, September 2, 2018 (UTC)

Creatures by Region
Hello there! Recently I have wondered about the categories Category:Creatures found in Chult and your new Category:Creatures found in Barovia. In my opinion that is a whole now route of categorizations to go, something like creatures by homeland or by region. I guess we had the same discussion about the creatures by planet some time ago, but I can't find that at the moment.

I am happy to either have or not have that categorization tree, but I think that on the whole it would be quite some work, and in my opinion it is should be more or less separated from the creatures by planes categories, as these are ranked as special terrains. Just wanted to point that out before you dive in deeper :-). Daranios (talk) 09:09, September 29, 2019 (UTC)


 * I also don't remember the consensus, but I think it was something around only doing that for planes. Since Barovia is a demiplane, it applies. As for Chult, it does have a very distinct fauna, so it may make sense to have a list for it as well. I don't have a more general suggestion of where to draw the line, though. Sirwhiteout (talk) 18:37, September 29, 2019 (UTC)


 * Right, I did not consider that Barovia and the other Domains of Dread are considered demiplanes in their own right in the newest edition, if I read the article correctly. So that falls nicely into the older planes-as-environments categorization. Daranios (talk) 18:06, September 30, 2019 (UTC)

Locations in/on the Sea
Greetings Sirwhiteout! Thanks for creating the categories on great scale, like Category:Locations in the Western Ocean.

I have a question about the naming convention, though. I have seen some of the marine categories are named "...in the...", others "...on the...". What do you think is better/correct? Specifically I am concerned that we now have both Category:Locations on the Southern Ocean and Category:Locations in the Southern Ocean. "in" seems grammatically more correct for islands and continents (largely) encompassed by the respective sea. But the "on" categories have also been used for cities at the coast of or rivers flowing into the respective sea, and therefore seem to have broader application. That's why at the moment I tend towards the latter. Or do you think we should have both? Thanks a lot for your opinion! Daranios (talk) 21:42, February 10, 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing that out. I was asking myself the same question when creating those categories, since this is a very confusing grammar point to me as a non-native speaker. I didn't notice that the other category already existed. Now, I used the same naming convention that I saw for the other ocean category I saw used most frequently, Category:Locations in the Trackless Sea, but I can see that there are other counterexamples, such as Category:Locations on the Sea of Fallen Stars, or Category:Locations on the Sea of Moving Ice.


 * I have no strong feelings either way, but I think we would need input from someone better versed in these grammatical questions. ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 21:53, February 10, 2020 (UTC)


 * In my version of English, to be "on" a body of water is to border it, such as bordering a river or ocean. But if you are completely surrounded by water, you are "in" that body of water. So an island can be in a river but not on it. But a city would be on the river, if it were built on the shore of said river.


 * If a city is on an island in a river, it's still not in the river, because it is on the island that is in the river, not in the river itself. A city in a river means an underwater city.


 * ~ Lhynard (talk) 21:59, February 10, 2020 (UTC)


 * Well we DO have those to consider! Ruf (talk) 22:00, February 10, 2020 (UTC)

Fan-made Images
Bom dia,estou jogando de loxodon clérigo em uma campanha,cultando The Triad como grupo de divindades.

Como eu vi que não tem um símbolo oficial pra eles eu juntei os 3 simbolos e coloquei em um escudo,se você quiser pode colocar na página,não sei se esta nos padrões de dnd mas quem sabe pode ajudar alguém. Obrigado

Aigilaos (talk)




 * Olá, obrigado pela contribuição. No entanto, como política da Wiki, da mesma forma que só aceitamos informação canônica e oficial para incorporar aos nossos artigos, também geralmente só aceitamos imagens de fontes oficiais, como livros e revistas (Dungeon, Dragon, etc.). Embora haja algumas imagens feitas por fãs pela Wiki, no caso de símbolos normalente aceitamos apenas recriações de imagens que já existam em algum livro.


 * A propósito, existe uma versão em português desta Wiki, ainda em estágio embrionário de desenvolvimento. Se desejar editar artigos em português por lá, seja bem-vindo! Só lembre-se de incluir apenas informação canônica e com as referências apropriadas. :)


 * ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 15:08, February 28, 2020 (UTC)


 * Translation from Portuguese:


 * Hello, thanks for the contribution. However, as we only accept officially published canon information to include in our articles, Wiki policy is to generally also only accept images that were published in official sources, such as sourcebooks and magazines (Dungeon, Dragon, etc.). Although there are a few fan-made images in the Wiki, in the case of symbols we normally only accept reproductions of images that already exist in some source.


 * By the way, there is a Portuguese version of this Wiki, still in very early stages of development. If you'd like to edit articles over there, you are welcome to do so! Just remember to include only properly cited canon information. :)


 * ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 15:08, February 28, 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the recent message Sirwhiteout! I will try to keep your editing advice in mind when making any future edits on this Wiki.

SunderedShor (talk) 03:24, April 11, 2020 (UTC)

The Illogicality of Ecology?
SunderedShor (talk) 17:31, April 30, 2020 (UTC)

Dear Sirwhiteout - why on earth is "Ecology" considered the standard format on this wiki? It makes no logical sense to me and boggles the mind from a scientific perspective.

Ecology is defined as "the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings; it seeks to understand the vital connections between plants and animals and the world around them."

This word has absolutely nothing to do with the functions and mechanisms of a creature's body. It is better suited for describing how a creature interacts with other species and races.


 * Like I said on your talk page, the reasoning behind the section titles we use comes from an effort to standardize all articles in the wiki to have similar ordering and organization of content. The titles chosen more or less mirror the typical sections you see in creature entries from monster manuals across several editions of D&D. They do sacrifice a bit of precision in the interest of consistency, so they end up not not exactly corresponding to formal real-world scientific definitions.


 * If, on the other hand, you would like to propose a change to our organization standards, feel free to do so in the Forum. Just make sure to abide by our existing standards before changing a lot of pages. You can see the standard sectioning scheme in all major template pages. For example, take a look at the Standardized Sections section of the Creature template. ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 17:49, April 30, 2020 (UTC)

Illithid Afterlife
So, I was reading on the Mind flayer page that the illithids didn't really have any beliefs about the afterlife, but then I found the Venerator Creed page, which seems to conflict this by describing ideas about joining Ilsensine in the afterlife. Can you clear this up for me? Is this a conflict? Or just two opposing views among the flayers? Does the religion section need to be expanded a bit on the Mind flayer page? ~ Lhynard (talk) 07:55, May 1, 2020 (UTC)


 * Apparently, glancing over Venerator mentions in the Illithiad and Drizzt Do'Urden's Guide to the Underdark, they were outliers in illithid society. There seems to be a few discrepancies in the Venerator Creed article, though. I'll have to go through the sources and take a closer look at this one. ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 16:08, May 1, 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks! not my area of expertise. ~ Lhynard (talk) 16:31, May 1, 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation and sorry for my breach in etiquette. With a new understanding of what is appropriate I look forward to being a contributor to the forgotten realms wiki. I was unaware of the problem with the page having a history and copyrighted material still existing there. I appreciated your help in this matter and your advice on best practises. I wish you all the best and thanks again. Silvananthus (talk) 02:03, May 16, 2020 (UTC)

Listing Creatures in an Index
Hey there Sirwhiteout, I had created an index for a Dungeon Mag module earlier today and it had me wondering something I have never been clear on before. When an adventure has an "Encounters" table, should the creatures therein be listed for the adventure, or not because unlike other creatures in the adventure they are not guaranteed to appear? SunderedShor (talk) 04:30, May 25, 2020 (UTC)


 * Unless the encounter is described in some detail (even if it's just a sentence or paragraph), if a creature only appears as an entry in a table of possible encounters I think the best approach is to include it in a "Referenced Only" list of the index subsection you are working on. You can use the Refonly template to separate the list and use a smaller font for the entries on the list. ― Sirwhiteout (talk) 14:11, May 25, 2020 (UTC)