this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2025

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Tales From the Tables ep.52: Lady Mage of Waterdeep, part 2 (ttrpg.network)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hear ye, hear ye! Tales From the Tables is back with episode 52: Lady Mage of Waterdeep, part 2.

Apologies, not very meme-y this time, still submitting for the sake of completion and popular demand :)

Our intrepid adventurers befriend Laeral Silverhand, and get to know the fames Lady Mage of Waterdeep from a different, personal side. It's very much a Laeral special, lovingly consulted with the man, the legend, Ed Greenwood. It saddens me that so many D&D players only know Laeral superficially, if at all.

"Ruler of Waterdeep" "Oh, she's a powerful wizard and very old, isn't she?" And that's about the extend of most players' knowledge... She's a truly fascinating character who's walked Faerun for over 7 centuries, with beautiful, oft heart-wrenching stories to tell. I do hope my little hints at but a handful of events from her past will encourage a few people to at least read up about her on the Forgotten Realms Wiki, or better yet, reach for the many amazing books by Ed Greenwood or Steven E. Schend.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I've been meaning to ask for a while, do you have any official character art reference sheets for Angela (and/or the others?)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

They did get some poster-style images for their "who's who" special, but other than that, not really. I really should set that up soon...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

Your Laeral is very similar to the way I run Laeral in my games, which is lovely. I think she's a good character, the tragic "I live forever" schtick works well on a genuinely good, intellegent, competent leader type.

I do always feel that she makes friends with the PCs too easily in most of my games. (I have a similar problem running Vajra... which at least evens itself out a bit whenever the PCs suggest having the two of them meet up...) - but also, if you do (good-aligned) adventures out of Waterdeep for long enough, you should probably end up friends with both of them.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Actually well written Lawful Good characters getting along is so rare :)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)

How common is using Clone to live forever? The spell is cheap enough that even poor people can afford the material components (so long as they don't mind a squalid lifestyle), but I'm guessing there's not enough casters for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

On average, it's cheaper to use reincarnate, you just provide a bodypart, and, so long as you didn't die of old age, reincarnate will make you a new "newly-adult" body. It's more expensive than Clone in materials, but much lower level, and if you roll a long lived race like an elf, gnome, or dwarf, you get a lot more mileage out of it before having to go around again.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It's a "new adult body", not a "newly adult body". I'm not sure having a new body resets your age. Though if nothing else, getting a long-lived body means you won't have to cast Clone as often.

Also, I looked into it and it looks like the people she's talking about died before 5e. In 3.5, it was a lot harder to undo aging. There was an epic feat for it, and I suppose Clone and Reincarnate arguably might work, but it didn't say they do, and neither could bring someone back that had already died of old age.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

You're right that it's not clear in the spell text exactly how to handle this, (a common theme with 5e stuff.) - However I'm remembering having a discussion a whole while back about "how old is the new body?" and finding a Sage Advice post saying it's however old that species is when it reaches adulthood, so I was basing my claim off that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's 3000 GP just for the material components, plus another 400 to pay the caster. At one gold piece a day (the amount a skilled artisan earns) it'd take 11.5 years to earn a clone with a poor lifestyle (2 SP per day).

So you're living a poor lifestyle for basically half your professional life, just to earn the ability to repeat your professional life and spend another 11.5 years of it earning the ability to repeat your professional life just to spend 11.5 years of it earning the ability to... you get the idea. You'd also need to find a caster capable of casting an 8th level spell, which is rare.

Possible? Yes. Popular? I doubt it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

23 years. I'm assuming you're going for Squalid living conditions rather than Wretched, so you can only save half your money. But you'd still be able to afford Poor conditions for most of your life. If that's not worth it, why even bother the first time? Just do the minimum it takes to get to a good afterlife, like go grab a sword and go on a suicide mission for a good god.

Of course, really what you'd do is spend 3.5 years saving up 250 gold, then learn a tool proficiency, and now you're a skilled worker and can live a Modest lifestyle and save 1 gp per day, and save up the rest of the money in 2 years.

plus another 400 to pay the caster.

How do you know how much to pay the caster? I thought 5e didn't have an equation for that. Adventures League has a few spells you can buy, which mostly follow the equation level^2 + 2*consumed component cost + unconsumed component cost/10. Using that, Clone should cost 2840 gp (including components).

Edit: I mean 10*level^2 + 2*consumed component cost + unconsumed component cost/10

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

I remember offhand it being 50 GP per level of the spell you want to cast, though I can't say where in the PHB I read that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Just found you on Webtoon! Totally not going to binge the whole comic in an hour...

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Massively different lifespans really is a bitch. Especially when you start outliving generations upon generations of friends and relatives.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Once you're a high enough level you can cast Plane Shift and visit. Arguably, you can just use Sending. It can contact other planes, but I'm not sure if their soul in the afterlife technically qualifies as the same creature.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's actually a significant issue in Waterdeep's setting that she can't just planeshift and visit Khelben, because of where his soul is.

(It's not somewhere you can planeshift to...)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

Yep, and that's why she and the current Blackstaff, Vajra... don't exactly mesh well on personal level. Although they're very professional about it and do work together for the good of Waterdeep, things are... a bit tense.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago

Oh not every Episode has to be meme-y; this one is quite beautiful and full of wisdom! If you have long life, dont just spend the majority of it in wallowing in sorrow, move on and focus on your self set goals.