Introduction (WRR)

:Article from Wizards & Rogues of the Realms
: Before I begin this accounting of my travels throughout and beyond the Heartlands of Faerûn, it would seem only proper to introduce myself. In most places I am called by the name Athanial, although I've had a few other epithets added over the years. Many of these were less than flattering, so I've done my best to forget them. Somewhere over the years, I've also come to be called The Wind or The Breeze because of my tendency to drift from place to place without ever pausing long.
: The years have been kind enough to me, but I'm not as young as I used to be. The young men who used to try their best to make me pause in my wanderings don't give me a second glance now, and the scars of far too many narrow escapes have left this once-pristine skin wrinkled and creased. I've a good many years left in me, but there's more behind than ahead, as they say.
: When these truths became apparent to me, I decided that it was probably a good time to pick up my pen and tell the world my story. After all, I've seen more than a few books devoted to telling the tales of people whose lives have been a lot less interesting than mine. I don't know that the great sages in Candlekeep or the arcane masters of Thay will see any need to add my writings to their collections of lore, but I've a good deal to say and I think the casual reader will find it interesting enough.
: To begin with, I was born many years ago in the mercantile section of Procampur. My mother was a good-hearted woman, but she had a touch of larceny in her past that I guess I must have inherited. Dad was a hard-working potter who made a fair living practicing his craft. I suppose that my life might have been pretty average if they hadn't gotten themselves killed in a kiln explosion. After the funeral, I was sent to live with a woman who claimed to be my aunt. I quickly found that I didn't like her any better than I knew her. Within a year, at far too tender an age, I found myself wandering the countryside.
: Eventually, I began to practice a wee bit of larceny in order to get by. At that time, I wasn't very good at it, for I was quickly arrested. In short order, however, I came to be a member of what I took to be a common thieves' guild. Several years later, I found that the folk I was living with were more than the usual collection of cutpurses and burglars, but that's a tale for another day.
: As you read the pages that follow, I encourage you to remember that I'm not an expert on any of the people or places that I describe. No one who spends their life on the road can become a master of any subject, except for walking and riding, perhaps. I do know a good deal about a great many subjects, however, and I've done my best to pass on the most interesting of that here.
: Let's begin with wizards, some of the most fascinating (in my opinion) of Faerûn's people.
:: — An excerpt from the journals of Athanial the Wind
The FORGOTTEN REALMS® campaign setting is nothing if not magical. It is a world of dragons and monsters, heroes and villains, elves and goblins. More importantly, however, it is a place of enchantment and wizardry, where the supernatural is commonplace. Never in the history of our world—even in the Dark Ages, when belief in the supernatural was at its peak—has there been an era when the populace was so affected by the arcane.
In a world like this the practitioners of magic are often at center stage. Is the weather unusually bad this season? No doubt the influence of some wizard. Is a neighboring country arming for war? Probably some power-hungry magician has managed to gain influence at court. Was an approaching enemy fleet suddenly becalmed or assailed by sea monsters? We must be under the protection of a powerful warlock. The truth of the matter may be very different, of course, but wizards are often something of a catch-all for blame, suspicion, and credit.
To the common man, the term wizard is often applied, along with words like necromancer, sorcerer, and witch, to describe anyone who is able to harness the powers of magic. The average person can't tell you the difference between an abjurer and an illusionist or an enchanter and a summoner. Those with a little more education might be able to identify the general fields of a necromancer or an enchanter, but beyond that they are usually at a loss.
Sages (and players) know better than that. They know that the people of Waterdeep are very different from the people of Halruaa and that the people of Halruaa have little in common with the inhabitants of Rashemen. If this is the case, how can the wizards of those places be assumed to be any less dissimilar? The answer is obvious: They can't.
==Using This Book==
Wizards and Rogues of the Realms isn't meant to be read from front to back like many other accessories in the FORGOTTEN REALMS line. Rather, it's a reference book. The entries in this book have been arranged geographically, following the path traced in the book A Grand Tour of the Realms, included in the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Setting boxed set.
This book presents players and DMs alike with a great many kits designed to give the many wizards of a FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign their own identity. When a player or a Dungeon Master (DM) needs to create a new wizard character, he need only flip to the section of the book that describes wizards from the region of the character's birth to find a kit that will make his character unique.
In some cases, the changes to the standard wizard or mage character required by a given kit are minor; in others, they're much more severe. In all cases, however, the important thing to remember is that a kit is designed to promote role-playing, not rules lawyering. Players should select kits based on how much fun it will be for them to assume the role of that character and the subsequent contribution their actions will have to the enjoyment of everyone in the game group. Picking a kit because it allows the character extra spells or better saving throws shouldn't be a player's first consideration.
==Author's Note==
In addition to the numerous kits included in this book, a new class of wizard is presented for use by
Dungeon Masters and player characters (PCs). The spellsingers have long been a part of the background lore of the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting, but never have their secrets been fully revealed.
When I started work on this book, I was asked to include this character class, the details of which had been created by Ed Greenwood many years ago. I was glad to do so, for these characters are among the most intriguing in any campaign setting I know of.
Dusting off the rules for spellsingers, I found that they predated the release of the AD&D® 2nd-edition game. In updating these characters, I made a few changes to simplify the mechanics and bring out the flavor of the class as I perceived it.
: William W. Connors February, 1995