TypoNinja
2012-06-20, 04:06 AM
So, this post
=>TypoNinja
Mystra has died 3 times and in all 3 circumstances the following happened:
The first time was when Karsus performed his first and last casting of Karsus' Avatar, the most powerful spell ever created in the history of Dungeons and Dragons. When Karsus casted this spell he gained control over magic however due to the sudden influx of knowledge Karsus had realized what he had done, Karsus had the skill with magic, the power, and the knowledge, however he lacked the ability to control the one key factor of all magic through out Toril. The Weave... Karsus lacked control of the weave and this almost destroyed it which would have just turned Toril into a Dead Magic plane... Mystryl as she was called at the time made the ultimate sacrifice and ended her own life... for a total of 5 minutes all magic on Toril effectively ceased and in that time: An Empire fell and a great magical beast of good was corrupted to evil. However, not all was last as Mystryl imparted her divinity in an heir and so the Weave was protected and remained undisturbed til the time of trouble...
Bane and Myrkul, ever curious in finding out Ao, the Highgod's source of power succeed in stealing the Tablet of Fate, Ao angered by this theft called all the gods to his side and demanded that the theif come forth, when no one came forth Ao casted all the god out and sent them to search Toril for the Tablet, save for Helm whom was ordered to defend the Stairway to Heaven. Mystra, Mystryl's successor feeling her precious weave fall to pieces approached the Stairway and requested to pass, Helm responded justly and steadfast in his duties... When Mystra tried to force her way in Helm defended himself and slayed her quickly... all Magic for a short while was disrupted and all spells, magical items, etc became wild and unpredictable (excluding those reliant on the Shadow Weave). After the Tablet was recovered by a band of adventurers the Heroes were rewarded with Divinity and so Mystra's Heir, a women named Midnight became the 3rd incarnation of the Lady of Mystery...
Her last death is a little bit harder to explain but here is what I'll give you... A secret plot between Shar and the recently elevated to deityhood Cyric and for the Death of Mystra, Shar gifted Cyric with a cloak that would hide him from all gaze, even that of a deities, forcing his way into Dweomoheart, Cyric assassinated Mystra and due to Mystra's death her Divine realm was also destroyed casting out multiple gods out of the heavens. Savas was killed in the destruction of Dweomoheart, and the god Azuth was casted into the Ninth layer of Baator where his Divinity was consumed by Asmodeus elevating him to godhood... The Spellplague was released and magic was changed...
In one campaign however because my group hated 4th edition we made all spells effected by the spellplauge instead become impede spells and we were allowed access to old 10th+ spells we created like forever ago... was awesome man :smallsmile:
Actually the reason why Evil Wizards in Toril don't chain gate themselves to godhood in toril is because even Ioulaum (the guy who effectively knows everything) doesn't know exactly how divinity works so why should anyone else? I'm confident Evil Wizards have tried to figure out how divinity works but they just can't, it is a closely guarded secret by Ao and the Gods. Divinity in Toril works by 3 Factors: You need the approval of Ao, you need to be worshiped by a hundred to a thousand followers, and you need to possess an inherit Divine Spark gifted by a Divine parent. You need 2 out of 3 to become a God in Toril.
Actually the IC version of the DM is Ao, Mystra is just an extension of that will...
I had a lot of fun with this :smallsmile:
Inspired some more thoughts from me, but was off topic, I promised a split off here it is.
I'm not as huge on the actual lore involved, but I've had several discussions with my DM on this topic, so here are my thoughts.
I've always disliked the weave, and more importantly the nearly unlimited power it bestows upon its controller. My thoughts have a few premises.
Magic works a specific way, we call it magic, but its more like a branch of science, it has rules, its interactions are predictable, and while sorcery is inborn, wizardry is based on learning, its a taught skill. To a sufficiently educated student it's a subject of study like any other. Assuming a high enough score to cast of course.
The Weave is not the source of magic, its the means by which magicians access magic, this can be demonstrated by the outer planes. Magic still works there even though the Weave is not present. There's a whole other shadow weave too. Magic fails when the weave is disrupted because our method of controlling the magic is disrupted not the nature of magic it self, otherwise there would have been mass extinctions to go with Weave based magic disruptions. Take the Karsus' Avatar incident as an example. 5 minutes should have seen every magical beast die, and probably all the Fey and Abominations, and all the dragons would have exploded in pretty colors.
I view the Weave as a preventative measure, the history of the Realms includes several massive magical catastrophes, and examples of magic more powerful than 9th level spells. Other realms without the Weave have had magic misused badly have suffered for it in a grand scale. Darksun is a great example of what happens when wizards who don't give a **** have a run of the place.
Us pesky mortals just can't be trusted with unrestricted magic, so it's limited, and by the time a spellcaster gets enough power to escape from the Weaves influence they've become used to thinking about magic a certain way and don't challenge that assumption. Until they get advanced enough to hit Epic magic and the limits fall away.
So a god of magic's primary purpose becomes to keep us from screwing the place up too badly, its why pretty much every TO trick you see on the boards here never happens in cannon. Anybody who tries gets a visit from an avatar with the celestial equivalent of a rolled up news paper.
All of the above incidents in the spoiler text weren't magical disruptions, they were weave disruptions. It's a technicality to be sure, but an important one in this case I think.
Soooo comments?
=>TypoNinja
Mystra has died 3 times and in all 3 circumstances the following happened:
The first time was when Karsus performed his first and last casting of Karsus' Avatar, the most powerful spell ever created in the history of Dungeons and Dragons. When Karsus casted this spell he gained control over magic however due to the sudden influx of knowledge Karsus had realized what he had done, Karsus had the skill with magic, the power, and the knowledge, however he lacked the ability to control the one key factor of all magic through out Toril. The Weave... Karsus lacked control of the weave and this almost destroyed it which would have just turned Toril into a Dead Magic plane... Mystryl as she was called at the time made the ultimate sacrifice and ended her own life... for a total of 5 minutes all magic on Toril effectively ceased and in that time: An Empire fell and a great magical beast of good was corrupted to evil. However, not all was last as Mystryl imparted her divinity in an heir and so the Weave was protected and remained undisturbed til the time of trouble...
Bane and Myrkul, ever curious in finding out Ao, the Highgod's source of power succeed in stealing the Tablet of Fate, Ao angered by this theft called all the gods to his side and demanded that the theif come forth, when no one came forth Ao casted all the god out and sent them to search Toril for the Tablet, save for Helm whom was ordered to defend the Stairway to Heaven. Mystra, Mystryl's successor feeling her precious weave fall to pieces approached the Stairway and requested to pass, Helm responded justly and steadfast in his duties... When Mystra tried to force her way in Helm defended himself and slayed her quickly... all Magic for a short while was disrupted and all spells, magical items, etc became wild and unpredictable (excluding those reliant on the Shadow Weave). After the Tablet was recovered by a band of adventurers the Heroes were rewarded with Divinity and so Mystra's Heir, a women named Midnight became the 3rd incarnation of the Lady of Mystery...
Her last death is a little bit harder to explain but here is what I'll give you... A secret plot between Shar and the recently elevated to deityhood Cyric and for the Death of Mystra, Shar gifted Cyric with a cloak that would hide him from all gaze, even that of a deities, forcing his way into Dweomoheart, Cyric assassinated Mystra and due to Mystra's death her Divine realm was also destroyed casting out multiple gods out of the heavens. Savas was killed in the destruction of Dweomoheart, and the god Azuth was casted into the Ninth layer of Baator where his Divinity was consumed by Asmodeus elevating him to godhood... The Spellplague was released and magic was changed...
In one campaign however because my group hated 4th edition we made all spells effected by the spellplauge instead become impede spells and we were allowed access to old 10th+ spells we created like forever ago... was awesome man :smallsmile:
Actually the reason why Evil Wizards in Toril don't chain gate themselves to godhood in toril is because even Ioulaum (the guy who effectively knows everything) doesn't know exactly how divinity works so why should anyone else? I'm confident Evil Wizards have tried to figure out how divinity works but they just can't, it is a closely guarded secret by Ao and the Gods. Divinity in Toril works by 3 Factors: You need the approval of Ao, you need to be worshiped by a hundred to a thousand followers, and you need to possess an inherit Divine Spark gifted by a Divine parent. You need 2 out of 3 to become a God in Toril.
Actually the IC version of the DM is Ao, Mystra is just an extension of that will...
I had a lot of fun with this :smallsmile:
Inspired some more thoughts from me, but was off topic, I promised a split off here it is.
I'm not as huge on the actual lore involved, but I've had several discussions with my DM on this topic, so here are my thoughts.
I've always disliked the weave, and more importantly the nearly unlimited power it bestows upon its controller. My thoughts have a few premises.
Magic works a specific way, we call it magic, but its more like a branch of science, it has rules, its interactions are predictable, and while sorcery is inborn, wizardry is based on learning, its a taught skill. To a sufficiently educated student it's a subject of study like any other. Assuming a high enough score to cast of course.
The Weave is not the source of magic, its the means by which magicians access magic, this can be demonstrated by the outer planes. Magic still works there even though the Weave is not present. There's a whole other shadow weave too. Magic fails when the weave is disrupted because our method of controlling the magic is disrupted not the nature of magic it self, otherwise there would have been mass extinctions to go with Weave based magic disruptions. Take the Karsus' Avatar incident as an example. 5 minutes should have seen every magical beast die, and probably all the Fey and Abominations, and all the dragons would have exploded in pretty colors.
I view the Weave as a preventative measure, the history of the Realms includes several massive magical catastrophes, and examples of magic more powerful than 9th level spells. Other realms without the Weave have had magic misused badly have suffered for it in a grand scale. Darksun is a great example of what happens when wizards who don't give a **** have a run of the place.
Us pesky mortals just can't be trusted with unrestricted magic, so it's limited, and by the time a spellcaster gets enough power to escape from the Weaves influence they've become used to thinking about magic a certain way and don't challenge that assumption. Until they get advanced enough to hit Epic magic and the limits fall away.
So a god of magic's primary purpose becomes to keep us from screwing the place up too badly, its why pretty much every TO trick you see on the boards here never happens in cannon. Anybody who tries gets a visit from an avatar with the celestial equivalent of a rolled up news paper.
All of the above incidents in the spoiler text weren't magical disruptions, they were weave disruptions. It's a technicality to be sure, but an important one in this case I think.
Soooo comments?