Ever been playing Baldur's Gate 3 and, while preparing to flatten Ketheric Thorm with an 11,000 pound bear, wondered exactly what to shout as you jump him? Well, you're in luck—there's now an informal Twitter tutorial on how to verbally give the business from the highest authority on it there is.
In response to a thread asking what the most lore-accurate way to say "jesus f*cking christ" is on Twitter, creator of the Forgotten Realms setting Ed Greenwood goes into great, authoritative detail on how to properly cuss out the pantheon (thanks, Wargamer).
"So in the Realms, everyone sane believes in all the gods," Greenwood explains—which is reasonable, considering said gods work acts of divine nonsense on the regular. He then explains that "they swear by either the deities they most revere, or that anger them the most.
"So for Mystra, THE goddess (of magic), the equivalent oath would be: 'Elminster Farruking Aumar!'" For context, "farruk" is the equivalent of the f-bomb in the Forgotten Realms—go farruk yourself, I farruked up, you get the farruking picture. As to why Elminster popped up, he's the chosen of Mystra—so the Jesus Christ of D&D. For one specific god, that is. Greenwood then goes on to list a few other christlike expys for different deities.
Congratulations, you now know the exact phrase with which to make Shadowheart gasp and clutch at her pearls—or just stab you to death. Probably the latter.
However, as Greenwood reminds us, holy swearing in the Forgotten Realms usually follows the structure of "By the (attribute) of (deity) … So: 'By the Unholy Madness of Cyric!' or 'By The Unfailing Lash of Loviatar!' or 'By the Blessed Blood of Ilmater!'"
Granted, that's a lot of words to get out after stubbing my toe or trapping my fingers in a car door, but I'm happy to be well-equipped nonetheless. Greenwood's wisdom quickly summoned a crowd of would-be acolytes to ask how to swear at their god of choice. For instance Hoar, the god of retribution, can be tempted with the phrases "By the smiting lightnings of Hoar!", "By the three thunders of the Doombringer!", and "Jaxanaedegor Farruking Doomfall!"
Eilistraee, a chaotic good drow goddess of freedom, beauty, swordplay, dance (the list of domains goes on for a while) can have her groove thrown off by the phrases: "Kazra Farruking Louantrar!", "By the Bared Beauty of the Dark Dancer!", or, if you want to be nicer to her about it, "By the Divine Dances of the Goddess!"
I'm particularly a fan of Greenwood's drow phrases, which include "Eltiah Lolth!" or "Lolth spit!" and "Ua tah phind thlah ea Lolth!", which means "By the deadly kiss of Lolth!" Great if you want to tell a duthlur or ogglin that their vibes are waela.
So, how do you properly upset Ketheric Thorm before destroying him with a bear from orbit? Alas, Greenwood doesn't say, though I imagine "Ketheric Farruking Thorm!" will do just fine. However, he does have appropriate phrases for his myrkulites who I assume are watching on in horror: "By the tireless smile of the Reaper!" and "By the endless bones of the Lord!" are the appropriate exclamations of fear.
As for working these fun new words into our current vocabulary, maybe we should be calling those Sex% speedruns Farruking% speedruns instead.
