[D&D 3.5] Karsites, Azurins, & Divine Minds

[Kevingway]

Hey guys,

So I got this idea to include a very unique human to a campaign.

Karsites (ToM 84) are humans who have inherited the twisted bloodline of Karsus, the only spellcaster to achieve godhood through casting (aka creating a 12th level spell and causing the death of a previous incarnation of the God of Magic in Faerun... or something). As a result of whatever tomfoolery would cause such a thing, Karsites cannot cast spells, but they can tap into psionic powers. Many Karsites, gathering together in small communities of outcasts, take to the worship of Karsus as the "only true God" or something like that.

Azurins are humans whose souls passed through "something" that granted their souls purity, which then entered into a human body. Something-something-something, they're basically humans that have an essentia pool instead of an extra skill point per level.

Now, my idea for this character is to be a Karsite Azurin (Karsite can be applied as a template to almost anything with human blood, as shown in one of the toolbars of ToM), who, ultimately, becomes a Divine Mind. My largest problem with this idea is that, while I love the concept, Karsus isn't one of the deities specified who grants any domains in Complete Divine. (Why would he? Karsites can't cast spells, so granting domains would be redundant.)

So what might you think Karsus's domains/mantles would be? I'm personally voting on copying Mystra's domains (due to the semi-close relation) and simply changing "Good" to "Evil," (so it would be "Deception, Evil, Knowledge, Magic"), but I don't know Karsus well enough to say whether he would grant anything different.

Also, how does the overall idea sound? Is it plausible roleplay-wise, as well as characteristically (since the ToM toolbar specifies only half-orcs and half-elves, not necessarily Azurins), to have a human with a pure soul and the blood of an evil tyrant? (I'll just call him a tyrant.) Would this fly with a mere +2 level adjustment?

Overall, I'm just looking for comments... I'm personally striving to see the idea work, even if Divine Mind isn't a great class (I'll make it work).

[Zanos]

Just a quick lore clarification for you, Karsus "succeed" in become a god, but he immediately lost control of the weave as he decided to use his spell to take on the powers of the current god of magic, and all magic in the realms failed as a result. Mystrl sacrificed herself to restore the weave, and was reincarnated as Mystra. This caused, among other things, the floating cities of Netheril to crash to the ground. Protecting Netheril from a race of malevolent spellcasters known as the Phaerim was the reason Karsus developed the spell in the first place, so I guess it was supposed be a lesson in mortal hubris. It seems a bit off to me, considering other mortals have ascended since then, and nothing really awful happened.

Anyway, Karsus was turned to stone and pretty much died, but he lived on as a Vestige.

Karsus is not actually Evil, and I believe his alignment was Chaotic Neutral. People who knew him in life said that he a bizarre personality, and that he frequently would have complete shifts where someone who he considered a close friend one day he would ignore the next. He gets a bad rap for the whole killing Mystra thing, but his intentions were mostly good and he certainly wasn't malevolent.

I won't comment on mechanics, but that's the general story on Karsus himself. Magic, Spell, Rune, and Knowledge would probably be decent domains to start with.

[Psyren]

1) Karsus actually did succeed in stealing Mystryl's post for awhile, so those are probably the mantles he would grant, yes. Note that when he took over her job, Mystryl was neutral rather than good, so I wouldn't necessarily give him an alignment mantle at all.

2) Keep in mind that Karsus, being mostly dead and what remains being a vestige, is likely not the actual source of the divine power/domains/mantles your concept would draw from, at least not in FR. It's much more likely that someone else is granting power using his name; note that Shar has both Deception and Knowledge, and she'd be a likely candidate as well given her history with the situation.

3) Divine Mind's worst problem is really its flavor and the fact that you can fall from a psionic class (*twitch*). If you can get past that it's not terrible; I don't see it being lower than T4 unless you pick a really lousy mantle, and you can pick pretty lousy powers on a Psywar too.

[Kevingway]

Thanks for the responses!

That's interesting, because Karsites are almost always evil according to the ToM entry. Apparently, by directly communing with Karsus, the Karsites are told to pretty much search for and destroy any spellcasters and blaspheme the church/worship communities that aren't praising Karsus himself. That adds a twist to things.

Edit: Tell me more about Shar. I briefly looked at the Wikipedia entry for her, and I love the idea of almost being tricked into thinking that the power was coming from Karsus when it was indeed Shar making my character serve a similar motive.

[Psyren]

They're only "often" evil, which IIRC is just above 50%. Not much worse than everyone else really.


Edit: Tell me more about Shar. I briefly looked at the Wikipedia entry for her, and I love the idea of almost being tricked into thinking that the power was coming from Karsus when it was indeed Shar making my character serve a similar motive.

She's sort of the big nasty of Forgotten Realms, like Takhisis is for Dragonlance. Almost all of the big evil plots can be traced back to her, or to Bane or Cyric. (She is NE, Bane is LE, Cyric is CE.) She's a nihilist who's been trying to destroy Toril since the very beginning and return everything to the darkness before creation.

Brief history is that she and Selune were the first two deities to exist in FR (after Ao of course); his two daughters in a sense. Selune represented creation, and Shar destruction - and before long the two ended up at each others throats in what could be called the central conflict of the setting. Selune drove her away for awhile by flinging divine essence at her, which tore through her and created Mystryl. That Mystryl is of course the same deity whose position Karsus tried to usurp.

Anyway, Shar has basically been regaining strength all that time (culminating in her coup that led to 4e) and she is a very high-rank deity in both 3.5 and 4e. After Mystryl's death, she was replaced by Mystra, and though Mystra allows everyone to use magic via the Weave (including evil gods) she opposes Shar since Shar set up her own Shadow Weave for he followers to use. The current Mystra (again, discounting 4e) is the one after that one, due to the Time of Troubles, and she opposes Shar too.

TL;DR: Evil, powerful, sexy and just as concerned with magic as Mystra, though oddly she doesn't grant the Magic mantle (she really should.) And relevant to your interests, she has no compunctions about granting spells in another deity's name, which she is in fact currently doing with Ibrandul. Since Secrets is one of her portfolios, she is being true to form.

[Kevingway]

Now that's amazing. Thanks a lot! Loving the concept behind this already.

[JoshuaZ]

Thanks for the responses!

That's interesting, because Karsites are almost always evil according to the ToM entry. Apparently, by directly communing with Karsus, the Karsites are told to pretty much search for and destroy any spellcasters and blaspheme the church/worship communities that aren't praising Karsus himself. That adds a twist to things.


It isn't clear from ToM if they are actually getting this belief from communicating with Karsus or they just think they are.