What FR novels should I read to find out more about religion/faith in FR?

johntyl

I wish to know more about the religious faith in BG such as Helm/Torm/Lathandar etc. Are there any Forgotten Realm novels that touch majorly on that? Thanks in advance!

Kamigoroshi

The Finder's Stone novel trilogy talks about Moander, Finder Wyvernspur and Tymora. Possibly others too in lesser detail. I forgot.

Although it may be both faster and more informative if you read sourcebooks instead of novels. Faiths & Avatars would be a good start.

johntyl

@Kamigoroshi just did a google on Faiths & Avatars and that's exactly what im looking for! Thank you v much

BelgarathMTH

@johntyl , There's a series of books called "The Cleric Quintet" where Cadderly, the cleric of Deneir, is the main character. There's a lot in it about Cadderly's faith in Deneir, how he came to be called as a cleric, and political relationships and intrigue in the Church of Deneir and its rivalry with evil churches. I think it's a Salvatore series.

JumboWheat01

You could also hit up the Forgotten Realms wikia, it's loaded with more info than you'd probably want on the Realms. The more popular gods, naturally, have larger pages. While some info is still stuck in 4e, a fair amount of it has been updated to 5e.

Arunsun

JumboWheat01 said:

You could also hit up the Forgotten Realms wikia, it's loaded with more info than you'd probably want on the Realms. The more popular gods, naturally, have larger pages. While some info is still stuck in 4e, a fair amount of it has been updated to 5e.

This, basically.

Besides, the Avatar series give a lot of insights on gods and how they work and interact with the world. Not exactly about how faith is organised, but still a must-read to understand the role of the gods (and the events depicted in Baldur's Gate, too)

johntyl

BelgarathMTH said:

@johntyl , There's a series of books called "The Cleric Quintet" where Cadderly, the cleric of Deneir, is the main character. There's a lot in it about Cadderly's faith in Deneir, how he came to be called as a cleric, and political relationships and intrigue in the Church of Deneir and its rivalry with evil churches. I think it's a Salvatore series.

Thank god its by Salvatore. He's by far the only author I've enjoyed so far among the FR writers.

johntyl

Arunsun said:

Besides, the Avatar series give a lot of insights on gods and how they work and interact with the world. Not exactly about how faith is organised, but still a must-read to understand the role of the gods (and the events depicted in Baldur's Gate, too)

Thank you. Just made the purchase on Kindle

kanisatha

I own almost all of the FR novels, so here ya' go:

Avatar series - Mystra, Cyric and Kelemvor
Cleric Quintet - Deneir
Moonshae trilogy and Druidhome trilogy - druidic faith
Empryean Odyssey trilogy - Tyr and Helm
Finder's Stone trilogy - Finder
Haunted Lands trilogy - Bane
Lady Penitent trilogy - Llolth and Eilistraee
Lost Gods trilogy - Bane, Bhaal and Moander
Priests series - various
Twilight War trilogy - Lathander, Mask, and Shar
War of the Spider Queen series - Llolth

Fardragon

The take on FR religion described in The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide clearly uses Roman religion as a RL historical model.

johntyl

@kanisatha @Fardragon thank you. Shall check them out!

kanisatha

You're welcome, @johntyl. And if I had to narrow things down with a recommendation, my very strong recommendations would be the Twilight War and Lady Penitent trilogies. They are awesome stories with incredible writing. They will surely draw raw emotion out of you.

Irennan

kanisatha said:

You're welcome, @johntyl. And if I had to narrow things down with a recommendation, my very strong recommendations would be the Twilight War and Lady Penitent trilogies. They are awesome stories with incredible writing. They will surely draw raw emotion out of you.

I agree about Erevis Cale. That trilogy is just great. Kemp offers some real deep insight into the human psyche in those books, and they pack some levels of badassery (and not only of the kind just meant to show how "kewl" a character is), even if they can get pretty dark.

However, I disagree about Lady Penitent (btw, OP, I suggest you to read Starlights and Shadows and War of the Spider Queen before Lady Penitent). That series had some serious issues with its representation of the drow gods (mostly of Eilistraee and her followers, who were warped in those books and were not what they are meant to be in their lore and previous representations of them--both their principles and their rituals are misrepresented in Smedman's books (but there are mistakes for Vhaeraun as well). It also was the result of an editorial mandate to adjust the drow and their gods to WotC's plan for 4e FR/D&D: the author herself disagreed with the changes that the novels were supposed to bring. They surely made the drow poorer and far less interesting. Aside from that, nearly everything in it has been reverted through the mass resurrection that the Sundering brought, and some of it wholly ignored, as if it had never happened or been written (so the series has little to no impact to how things turned out).

WotSQ and LP, in all honesty, entirely missed Eilistraee's point, what the redemption she wishes for the drow actually is, and the kind of positive goddess she is. If you want to see what Eilistraee is actually about, read Starlights and Shadows by Elaine Cunningham. Eilistraee gently and lovingly leads to drow to open their hearts to life, to see all the beauty that they were denied, and sets their dreams alight once more. Through this goddess, they re-learn to live anew, that's Eilistraee's "redemption". I think Elaine made a splendid work at showing that in her books, in all those little scenes where Eilistraee ever so gently is there in so many important moments of Liriel's travel, and helps her to see life in a deeply different way.

In short, Eilistraee is supposed to be about sparking enthusiasm and passion for all that wonderful there's in the world. She has always been about helping the drow forge their own path in life, and about acceptance of everyone for what they are. She's surrounded by evil and took so many blows, yet she can still find the beauty in everything, even in what was broken or in the darkest souls (like her people have become), and gives all herself make it flourish again in all she touches. She's among the very few who can see that spark of light within the drow, and basically the only one who--even when all others consider them monsters--never stops trying to open their eyes to what they're missing on in life, to make her “children” *live* once more.

However, in the WotSQ (books 4 and 5, which have been written by Smedman and Athans, who--coincidentally--also wrote and edited LP)+LP books made Eilistraee *all/mostly* about killing Lolth, rather than doing all she can to help the drow who were lost or in need (and there were many during that time), which is very reductive for this goddess's character. I'm not saying that Eilistraee wouldn't get rid of Lolth, but that wouldn't be her #1 goal, nor her preferred way of action, precisely because there needs to be understanding in the drow, and the choice needs to come from them. Killing Lolth isn't going to magically change the drow into her followers. If Lolth died, most drow would look for demonic patrons, rather than becoming good, the added bloodbath due to the factions struggling for power would only be a further blow to this goddess.

Furthermore, in those books (and only in those books) her followers are militaristic, misandrist, self-righteous a**holes, nothing like they're supposed to be in this goddess' lore (I mean, they mutilate males for watching their dances--which is flat out evil--when in canon males too can dance...). In addition to that, all of sudden, after millennia of dedicating herself to that cause--to *all* drow--redemption goes from being a positive change, from rediscovering life, to redeeming yourself and renouncing to what you were born as (which is antithetical to all that Eilistraee stands for, and has never had anything to do with her, it was never even considered by her, in over 10k+ years that the drow have been cursed, and in over 20+ years of lore about her); and at the end of those books it is assumed that the vast majority of drow are all of sudden unredeemable and to be cast down a priori, for no reason at all... glad that this was undone, honestly.