Thread by @TheEdVerse

1)
You raise some great points about the perils of inquiring too deeply or energetically into the mortal pasts of deities in the Realms. What I can tell you from observed history is that MOST deities have no problem with their…
#Realmslore

https://twitter.com/jayeedgecliff/status/1179536457863700481

2)
…own clergy researching and speculating—so long as what the church then tells lay worshippers and outsiders is what the god approves of. (And yes, most of them prefer mystery and “I have existed since before the world began” …
#Realmslore

3)
…to “I was once a short, pimply street thief with pimples who once fell in a sewer and twice got caught stealing plums from street stalls.”)
When it comes to sages and other lay individuals, their ire is reserved for those who…
#Realmslore

4)
…publish falsehoods or exaggerations/generalizations the god dislikes, or who uncover more of the truth than the deity prefers (most deities being vain, and caring about their image in the minds of all). Such sages may be…
#Realmslore

5)
…smitten with divine fire or a wasting, wizening curse, struck blind, or scared by visiting servitors of the gods (think of the three Spirits who visit Scrooge in A CHRISTMAS CAROL) who demand that the sage recant, in print, …
#Realmslore

6)
…offering instead THIS approved version—or suffer the fatal consequences of failing to do so. In any case, copies of published works that a deity disapproves of will be hunted down, seized, and destroyed by clergy and devoted…
#Realmslore

7)
…followers of that deity (sometimes, success at this is part of a novice priest demonstrating their readiness for elevation into “the full priesthood”). Which has, of course, the effect of making the few surviving copies…
#Realmslore

8)
…valuable, eagerly sought after, and believed by all to be preserving “dark truths that the deity wants suppressed.” (Candlekeep is one likely repository of such “shunned” works, but so are the private libraries of archwizards…
#Realmslore

9)
…such as Elminster, who can magically hide and trap such reading-chambers so as to safeguard what’s shelved there.)
A curious adventurer who has no intention of publishing or discussing what they find beyond the circle of…
#Realmslore

10)
…their fellow adventurers will usually NOT be chastised by the god, but manipulated by the god’s agents (servitor creatures and mortal clergy) into “uncovering” what lore the deity wants uncovered, to bolster the image and…
#Realmslore

11)
…origin story they prefer to be “out there” in the world. This is known among upperpriests as “turning a disbeliever.” The idea is that the adventurer (or amateur whose hobby is an interest in matters divine or a particular…
#Realmslore

12)
…god) will come to believe in, and spread to the extent they talk to others at all, the view of the deity that the deity prefers the world accept.
Now, as for Bane, I can tell you this: as a mortal, he lived centuries ago, …
#Realmslore

13)
…and upon his death his soul was snatched and stored by Jergal, who Had Plans for his own retirement, and was looking for certain qualities in a successor (in the case of Bane, a quenchless hunger to rule all, and be feared…
#Realmslore

14)
…by all through the maliciousness and malevolent intentiveness of his rule). [So Bane died long before his ascension to godhood.]
#Realmslore