Talk:Vhaeraun

I find Vhaeraun's holy symbol and artwork of him may be incorrect. it is stated in the prologue of Storm of the Dead that Eilistraee has the mask covering the lower half of her face. is is stated elsewhere that vhaeraun's differs?

Also at the end of Storm of the Dead Eilistraee "Eilistraee turned her hand palm-up, lifted her mask, and blew the ash away. " (like 1 paragraph from the end of book).Doonval ti bekk&#39;har (talk) 01:47, August 30, 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you mean, but the images are taken from the sourcebooks, Faiths and Pantheons and Player's Guide to Faerûn, so they are correct. — BadCatMan (talk) 11:40, August 30, 2013 (UTC)


 * Lisa Smedman's description of Vhaeraun, Eilistraee, their rituals, and other aspects (like the symbol of Vhaeraun) in her books, don't match the actual lore. Lore incongruences are a known problem with the Lady Penitent books, actually--Tsammarco (talk) 20:38, July 17, 2016 (UTC)

About the Jaezred Chaullsin,

I intend to edit it as an Assassin's Guild instead of a house. The reason is while they are called a House they fall too far from the regular meaning of one. I tried to change it but it was edited back, here I write the reasons why I think it is better to call it a criminal organization and not a House in the sense of nobility.

A house would imply familial ties inside the group being the deciding factor to be part of it, while the group itself does descend from the ruling House of Chaulssin according to the WE City of Wyrmshadow, it is in fact led by a ruling council of eight patriarchs who head different families (hence different last names), moreover entering this group is done by being useful in toppling Lolth's rule and not necessarily blood ties (the 7 declared as not being of a race listed by this point in the racial composition of the guild, they could be normal drow but this would pose the question why not declaring them as such, thus implying that these sevens' background is rather diverse).

Although "house" would mean being a governmental body, while they are "ruling" what's left of Chaulssin, they are not governing it. For example, nothing implies an interest in building infrastructure or expanding the city, having foreign policy or the like.

Moreover the monetary gain is done in way akin to mafia esque organizations. Individuals take criminal jobs and pay a percentage of it to the upper echelons, instead of taxes collected in regular intervals like a government.

And most importantly, the Jaezred Chaullsin are explicitly described as and called an Assassins' Guild in the Web Enhancement.

So my suggestion is "A patriarchally led Assassins' Guild that rules what is left of Chaulssin."

How about it?

Best Regards

Saya222

Two editors, one page
Hello, Tsammarco and Saya222. I'm glad to see two new/returned faces come in and start a big project on an important topic. It's good for the wiki and I hope you'll enjoy the wiki-writing experience and decide to stay on for other projects. I'd like to share some advice to make your efforts easier.

First, it looks like two editors want to make a project out of this one topic. This will inevitably lead to editing conflicts (when two editors edit the page at the same time, the second will have their changes interrupted), and potentially overwritten passages and duplicated work if you work on the same topics at the same time. So I suggest you two collaborate closely on this. Talk about it, decide who does what, work out a division of labor.

Second, the page is now getting very long. Cramming a worshipers section into a deity article is fine for the smaller/older/stubbier god pages, but for recent deity work, we've been pushing for worshiper-related information to be shifted into a separate Organization page. Tsammarco, remember we did this with Eilistraee? For example: That allows each page to focus on its topic, with separate infoboxes and categories, and makes them easier to read. So perhaps one of you could do Vhaeraun and the other church of Vhaeraun?
 * Ilmater and Church of Ilmater
 * Eilistraee and church of Eilistraee
 * Mystra/Mystra (Midnight) and Church of Mystra

Third, please please please please learn to use the Preview button. In whatever skin you're using, it will be right next to/above Publish. That will show you what the page looks like after your changes, so you can see what worked, what didn't, and think about your changes before you save them. This page saw 26 edits just today, which is a lot to go through if anyone needs to unpick a change or find out who added what to an article. Ideally, an editor should only make one edit to add the new and corrected information, and maybe one or two more to fix any errors. (I recommend writing in a word processing program like Word first, then adding the finished piece to the article.)

Fourth, I recommend using these pages as models: They follow all our current styles and formatting and have been checked over, and some have been voted as Featured Articles.
 * Ilmater, Church of Ilmater, Eilistraee, Mystra/Mystra (Midnight), Church of Mystra, Waukeen

Fifth and finally, don't rush! A lot of new editors just go mad on editing in the first week or two, they jump between topics, they don't spend the time to learn or practice, then they burn out or get bored, and disappear. Take your time, work on one thing at a time, and get it right. Vhaeraun is a mammoth topic for a first project. I recommend starting on something minor so you learn the wiki code and style, before tackling something like this.

So, please look this over, see what you think and what you can take on board, and ask me if you have any questions. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:14, July 18, 2016 (UTC)


 * PS: Sixth: Separate groups like the Jaezred Chaulssin are better discussed and detailed on the Jaezred Chaulssin page. This page should focus on Vhaeraun himself, with only one or two lines at most to introduce groups like the Jaezred Chaulssin, House Jaelre, or the Dragon's Hoard. This reduces duplication and repetition of lore and allows a page to focus on its main topic, not be cluttered with only tangentially related topics. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:19, July 18, 2016 (UTC)

Copying what follows here, from User talk:Tsammarco, since it is relevant.

Cooperation
Dear Tsammarco,

I’m Saya222. The talk page of Vhaeraun’s page has told me that two people worked on the page and that you were the other one besides me.

First, I need to thank you for editing the page in adding lore, making the page more sightly both in the orderly manner like paragraphs and also in the language section but most importantly in making the page more neutral and thus more informative.

The talk page has told me to divide the work between us, may I ask whether you are interested? I’m asking because I like the character and his troupe and while I try to be neutral, but fact is I word the content in more or less favoring manner. I realized it always on the next day or after you edited it. Added to this comes the fact that you know more, for example I really thought Eilistraee just shot Corellon and the arrow was not directed by Lolth. And most importantly your language and writing style are clearly better than mine, I realize that I translate directly from Japanese sometimes and also have yet to learn to order in paragraphs.

Please reply to this and thank you again

Best Regards

Saya222 Saya222 (talk) 11:30, July 18, 2016 (UTC)


 * Hello, Saya222.


 * I'd be happy to work with you on the page about Vhaeraun and his followers. I understand the difficulty to be neutral, since Eilistraee and Vhaeraun are my favourite deities in the Forgotten Realms (Eilistraee means a lot to me, but I also *really* like Vhaeraun, and was very pleased to see them working together in 5e), so there's no problem with that.


 * I also understand the difficulty with language, as I am a non native speaker too, and I too have troubles with idioms and forms (although translating from Japanese must be surely harder than transalting from Italian).


 * That said, BadCatMan suggested to split the page in two articles, one for Vhaeraun, and one for his followers.


 * A Church of Vhaeraun page should include the info that you have added to the deity page (so, composition of the worshipers/clergy, beliefs/dogma, activities, relationships, orders, notable characters). But it should also include lore about rituals, magic items, equipment, centers of worship. The history is mostly the same as that of Vhaeraun himself, but it could use a few adjustments to better emphasize the role of the worshiper themselves. The sections about the Vhaeraunite orders, organizations and the speciality priests should be just brief paragraphs, and redirect to the main pages (in line with the articles that BadCatMan linked).


 * Vhaeraun's page itself is missing sections about his manifestations, powers, and activities. The worshipers section should be reduced to a small summary, and then provide a link to the Church of Vhaeraun page. We could move the info about the holy symbol and the divine realm to sections on their own (the one about the realm should probably be split in subsections about the Great Wheel, World Tree and World Axis cosmologies, to avoid confusion. The 5e, and current cosmology, is a slightly altered version of the Great Wheel).


 * I don't know what books you have access to (I guess that Lords of Darkness, Skullport and Faiths and Pantheons are among them), but Demihuman Deities and The Drow of the Underdark (both 2e) include a much more complete writeup of the deity and his church, so they should also be mined for lore.


 * Again, I'd be happy to work with you.


 * Best regards,
 * Tommaso


 * PS: I think that we should move the conversation to the Vhaeraun Talk Page (in fact, I'll copy-paste all of this there)--Tsammarco (talk) 13:55, July 18, 2016 (UTC)


 * Dear Tsammarco,


 * thank you for the reply and for sensible direction regarding the work.


 * As you probably know, I'm new to this wiki and I can't yet say that I've got the hang of it. Long matter short, I don't feel confident enough to create a new page by myself, yet.


 * So my suggestion is that I add first a bit of information. Said information is the following two. Please tell me whether these have a place at all.
 * 1. Rituals, "The Masked Lord's Embrace" and the hunt during new moon are rituals I'd like to add.
 * 2. Attitude, this one is an observation rather than lore written somewhere, but Vhaeraun and his followers seem to have a relationship that is more "equal" than other gods. The best example is probably that they think up plans in which they use their god as a tool (Malvag in the Lady Penitent seires openly calls him as such) and they are capable to discuss his weakness with each other including clerics.


 * My other reason to write is pure curiosity. You wrote that Eilistraeean souls for the "Open gate to Arvandor" High Magic were needed because the priests lacked the trust necessary trust. May I ask the page where it was written? I always thought they just needed souls as batteries because it would have drained their own and chose Eilistraee's followers to open a gate to Eilistraee's realm.


 * Thank you in advance for reading this and for everything else


 * Best Regards


 * Saya222


 * 1)Sure, all rituals need to be discussed. They should be added to the Church of Vhaeraun page. If you don't feel like creating it, I will do it either tormorrow, or the day after. I will also add sections about manifestations and activities to the Vhaeraun page.
 * 2)We could say that some followers see their god as a tool, and that they have an unusually down-to-earth opinion of him, if compared to followers of other deities, and then point to Malvag as one example. It is not a general thing. In the novels, that's the PoV of some priests. The sourcebook do mention Vhaeraun's responsiveness, tho, but that is already in the article.


 * I reread the passages in Sacrifice of the Widow regarding the souls of the priestesses of Eilistraee, and they were indeed used as batteries, not as "trust catalysts", so to speak. So, thank you for the correction, which I will immediately make both to this and to Eilistraee's page, and my apologies for not double-checking.
 * The first time I read it, I was under the impression that the priestesses' souls were also needed as some kind of bond between the casters, because there was a passage saying that the priests had trouble actually trusting eachother, but that it was needed for the ritual to work. But it was my extrapolation, and they actually managed to muster enough recprocal trust for the ritual, so I will also add that.


 * If you find any other thing that you feel needs to be double-checked, feel free to point it out.--Tsammarco (talk) 22:57, July 18, 2016 (UTC)


 * I've corrected the error, and added a paragraph explaining how some followers see Vhaeraun in the personality section--Tsammarco (talk) 23:43, July 18, 2016 (UTC)


 * Dear Tsammarco,


 * thank you for the reply and for your work.
 * I have to say, though that you are giving me credit I don't deserve because the correction wasn't intended as such and only turned out so.


 * But back to the topic. I added a Ritual section as the last part into the worshipper section. The idea was that two of the ritual "bowl sacrifice" and "Masked Lord's Embrace" are activities to either celebrate success of plans or an occasion to come up with new ones. Personally I found it interesting about the latter that the initiative for planning is given to the follower and not the god giving his plans to the follower to well follow.


 * I've got a question about the stag hunt, if you allow. It is said that it is a perversion of elven rituals. In what way? I do understand that antlers are good trophies and the heart is a good part but what is the part that makes this ritual an evil one? Given that only one stag is referenced as being sacrificed overhunting is certainly not the problem here. Do you have a sourcebook that details this better?


 * Again thanks for the reply and most importantly for the assurance that you set up the church page.


 * Best Reagards


 * Saya222


 * I've created the page about the Church of Vhaeraun. It's not complete yet, but I will add more sections in the future (I've talked about it in the talk page of the article itself). The article about Vhaeraun also needs sections about manifestations and activies (and to move some info to sections about the symbol and the realm), which I will add (probably during the weekend), if you're ok with it.


 * I'm not sure how sacrificing a stag is a perversion of the elven rituals. Demihuman Deities says that it's not as much a perversion of a current elven ritual, as of those performed by ancient surface elves. It doesn't explain how it's supposed to be evil, tho. The only thing that I can think of, is that it consists of killing a non dangerous animal just for the sake of it (compared to--say--a similar ritual performed by the Eilistraeeans where the prey is either a monster, or edible and eaten). But I guess that the animal could then be eaten by the Vhaeraunites as well (I mean, why should they waste food?), so I really don't know.


 * About plans, it's rare for a deity to come down and give precise plans to their followers. It's an exception, rather than the norm. Deities and follwers usually have certain goals and beliefs, which lead to the development of their modus operandi, and--when a problem arises--it is the followers that usually come up with the plan. Deities can nudge mortals towards specific directions (by communicating with them, in a way or another), but they mostly provide the tools/help for it. That said, as you pointed out before, Vhaeraunites do seem to see their deity as a tool for their plans, sometimes.--Tsammarco (talk) 17:33, July 20, 2016 (UTC)


 * Dear Tsammarco,


 * thank you for setting up and writing the page.
 * Also, thank you the answer about my question about the perversion, it was interesting for real life reasons. I didn't know that stags are considered harmless in Italy. In Japan, especially males who are trying to get their harem are considered dangerous because they pick a fight with everything in their territory, including humans.


 * But back to topic, I've added a section about the time between his death and his revival. I will probably write this section a bit further and also something in the Jaezred Chaulssin page. It will probably be in one or two days but at latest at weekend.


 * Thank you again and best regards


 * Saya222


 * I didn't know that male stags could become so aggressive when trying to form their harem. I doubt that they are considered harmless here, or anywhere, in that case. Admittedly, I know basically nothing about them, and thought that they attacked only if provoked.


 * I will try to complete this page during the weekend, and will start to add details to the followers page the next week.--Tsammarco (talk) 00:49, July 21, 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for collaborating on this. I've only just caught up on your discussion; I'll share some quick thoughts and pointers.

First, even if you're both fans of Vhaeraun, try not to be overly sympathetic to the character. He's still evil, still a villain to some games. The aim is to accurately reflect what the sourcebooks and novels say about the character. If they say he's evil, cruel, whatever, then you say he's wicked, nasty, etc. If they differ on some aspect, then try to offer both views.

The attitudes or views of the god and his followers can go in Personality in the Vhaeraun article (from Vhaeraun's perspective) and in an Attitudes section in the church of Vhaeraun article (from the follower's perspective).

Rituals you can discuss on the Church page. If they're very long and detailed, you can consider splitting the ritual off onto a separate page, and leave only a summary on the Church page.

At some point, when you two call it done, I have the time, or you ask, I'll go over the pages, copy-edit them, check facts, fix formatting and style, etc. — BadCatMan (talk) 12:18, July 21, 2016 (UTC)