Locations You Wish You Could Learn More On

Rulke55

There are so many great locations and details in Baldur's Gate world, aka Faerun, but I am one of those who focuses on things that aren't always entirely relevant. One of the missions I wish was more and told more was the one involving Ulcaster School. It is a place we know so little on and information online not entirely forthcoming. I found information stating the founder of Beregost built it and it burnt down by Calishite (hope I am spelling this right). It got me thinking, since Khalid admits to be from there, would it not have been awesome for him to say something about that place. I know during the time banter had not come into game, but since it is so small I doubt any banter mods do this.

I don't know it was meant to be great school yet underground it felt cramped, more like a dungeon and less like a building. I expected answers, Firewine Bridge was handled so much better in my opinion. I think Ulcaster School was given short straw, it never felt like an amazing former magic school, it felt like a low level dungeon. With so little information we get it just confounds matters more.

Tuth

I both agree and disagree on this matter. Yes, it would be great to know more about the places like the Ulcaster school, what happened there and why. Though at the same time I like that such areas are covered in mystery. Sometimes there is no one alive to tell the story of a ruined place, some stories get forgotten and lost forever. This leaves room for our imagination and that's why I like it the way it is. We can come up with our own theories and legends about Ulcaster school and other mysterious places.

elminster

Ulcaster was destroyed a few hundred years before the events of BG1. So I doubt Khalid would know anything about it. Certainly not anything more than the locals.

That said its too bad you can't ask Volo himself about the history of many of these places. Particularly given he wrote a book on the topic

Rulke55

elminister a mod doing this, would be perfect. Sadly not my strength.

Grum

Agreed on Ulcaster. Also I remember, in IWD There is more info:

http://www.gamebanshee.com/showshot.php?/icewinddale/equipment/images/ulcasteracademyring.jpg

It looks like it was a school of necromancy based on those rings. Further backed up by the ruins crawling with undead, with a ghost teacher and powerful skeletal warrior.

So based on the class rings:

A school of necromancy opens
It becomes "frighteningly powerful"
A group of wizards destroys it
There are survivors bearing powerful necromatic tools who escaped and who continue to teach

Rulke55

This may interest you Grum

Only information could find of Ulcaster, seems the school was very connected Beregost.

Beregost (Large Town, 2,915). Beregost's forty or so stone and wood buildings cater to the trade between Amn and Baldur's Gate. The town has no official government, instead being run by the high priest of its major temple to Lathander. Yellow-garbed acolytes of the temple bear arms and keep the peace. Curiously, the town's founder was also a spellcaster rather than a politician - a wizard named Ulcaster established a magic school here that attracted a farming village to support it. Jealous Calishite wizards burned down Ulcaster's school three hundred years ago. The ruins still dominate the eastern side of the road, where the Morninglord's clerics graze their sheep to keep an eye on the ruins and prevent unsavory characters from going in (or coming out.)

Grum

Nice find! Got anything on the firewine ruins?

Rulke55

Grum, not that I can find, here's source I used.

http://www.realmshelps.net/faerun/western-heartlands/west.shtml

Cahir

I read in one of the sourcebooks (don't remember which one exactly, I have to check later) that Thalantyr knows much about the fate of Ulcaster School. IIRC there was a demon infestation that lead to destruction of this school of magic. I need to check the details cause my memory seems to be rather fuzzy on this.

Rulke55

Cahir any update?

Cahir

@Rulke55

Yeah, sorry about delay.

Here's what Dragons of Faerun sourcebook has to say about Ulcaster's school demise:

In the Year of Crimson Magics (1026 DR), the mage Ulcaster, a conjurer of note, established a school of conjuration on the ruins of Hilather’s tower that attracted would-be mages from up and down the Sword Coast. For eight decades, Ulcaster and his senior apprentices secretly attempted to replicate Hilather’s earlier work on the site. Just as they were on the brink of success, the school was destroyed in the Year of the Solemn Halfling (1106 DR) in a spell-battle with Calishite mages who feared the school’s growing power. Ulcaster vanished during the fray, and his fate remains unknown. Today, some whisper that the wizards of Calimshan jealously guard the secret of binding genies and other beings of power into physical objects, and that they will visit the fate of the Ulcasterian school on any who presume to unlock their secrets.

Thalantyr's interest in Ulcaster's School is also related to a magical demonshield called Kuraltaar. Here's what Dragons of Faerun has to say about it:

To conjurers trained in the tradition of the Ulcasterian school, the recovery of a Demonshield holds the promise of finally unlocking the secrets of Hilather’s Workbook. Despite its relative obscurity, if the shield is taken from Iryklathagra’s hoard and word of its recovery spreads, conjurers from across Faerûn will try to acquire it. Thalantyr of Beregost, a conjurer of great repute and perhaps the greatest living scholar of Ulcaster’s work, will seek to acquire the Demonshield as the cornerstone on which to refound the Ulcasterian school. Rivals of Thalantyr will seek Kuraltaar for their own ends, and Calishite mages who guard their secrets jealously will not tolerate study of Hilather’s legacy. Whoever holds Kuraltaar will be the target of numerous attacks from summoned servitors, including aerial servants, fiends, and elemental-kin, and the devastation wrought by those who escape their bindings is apt to be immense.

Grum

Insightful! That really clears a lot up. Thank you.

Vitor

I wish I could learn more about Neverwinter pre-3E. 3E started to mess with Faerun... In 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms was much more a core high fantasy world, closer to dark medieval ages, with class restrictions and less comic bookish and anime influence.

Maybe Neverwinter could've been a city and region as nice as Baldur's Gate before the 3rd edition version. The version we saw in Bioware's Neverwinter Nights was already a messed version... I wish I could've seen Neverwinter in Infinity Engine...