Talk:Murder in Cormyr

I started out checking dates for the Swamp Rat tavern, then had to check the dates for Volo's Guide to Cormyr, then had to check the dates for Murder in Cormyr. And now I'm in a mess I need to write my way out of.

First, the novel Murder in Cormyr is based on the Ghars entry in VGtC. No year is mentioned in the novel, but Presenting... Seven Millennia of Realms Fiction puts it in 1367 DR, and novel dates its main events to the middle of Eleint, 16–21.

Except that the novel's main events are explicitly set while the Iron Throne was banned from Cormyr, which the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 2nd edition (revised): "Running the Realms" page 23 puts in Marpenoth of 1367 DR, the month after Eleint. It says "The Iron Throne has been banished from operating in Cormyr until winter of next year" so that would expire on Nightal 20 (which I assume to be the official start of winter based on the 3e-and-later calendar diagrams, though the 2e calendar doesn't seem to mark this).

But when did the ban start? RtR page 27 says "The Iron Throne has recently been banished for a year from acting within Cormyr." MiC discusses the event in similar language. This "for a year" isn't too exact, it could easily be an approximation. The present perfect continuous tense "has been" puts the start of the banishment at any time up to Marpenoth, 1367 DR – I'm reminded by the FRCS 1e's statement that these chronologies are dated to when they were first made well known to Faerûn at large. In fact, it's implied to be recent news in MiC and the Iron Throne plot is suggested to be revenge for the banishment, so summer (maybe late summer) of 1367 DR would be reasonable without being much more than one year. (Other Iron Throne spying activity goes back to Mirtul, but easily predates the banishment, so I discount it.) So I don't see a contradiction here; MiC is set in 1367 DR.

Moving on, the novel invents the "recently opened" Swamp Rat tavern, and events there put the opening well before Mirtul 27. Since the novel was published a few years after, VGTC makes no mention of the Swamp Rat tavern, of course, while listing the other taverns and inns. So we can assume Volo wrote about Ghars before the Swamp Rat opened, so VGtC is set circa 1366 DR. The Swamp Rat I assume opened early in 1367 rather than late 1366, so it can be "recently" rather than "last year". BadCatMan (talk) 12:29, 29 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Is it very implausible that Volo simply chose not to document the Swamp Rat for whatever reason? At any rate, dating Murder to 1367 DR seems reasonable. The only problem seems to be how it affects Volo's Guide to Cormyr, which does not seem to have a fixed year attached. As long as we can verify that Cormyr is set in 1366 DR there shouldn't be much of an issue. Ir&#39;revrykal (talk) 12:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)


 * It is possible: the Swamp Rat is not actually in town, but outside it in the farming country. Volo could've missed it. But this is just minor homebrew speculation, so.


 * Another point is that Volo very briefly lists the Iron Throne as one of several active trading groups in Cormyr, suggesting it's before the ban, but this is also very limited evidence. BadCatMan (talk) 13:53, 29 March 2021 (UTC)