Karsus of Netheril

[TeslaJr]

Does anyone know if there's any information out there on the spell Karsus used against Mystryl? I think it was called Karsus' Avatar, but the only information I've found is a small entry on page 98 of Lost Empires of Faerun.

[Zanos]

There's more information about it and what happened in the fall in general in the 2nd edition book Netheril: Empire of Magic. As far as I remember it was the first and only 12th level spell, had a bunch of expensive/rare material components, fused you with a god for a limited amount of time, and that Karsus got turned to stone for his efforts.

[Mnemnosyne]

Karsus's Avatar
(Invocation/Evocation, Enchantment/Charm, Alteration)
Level: 12
Field: Mentalism
Range: Unlimited
Components: V, S, M
Duration: Unlimited
Casting Time: 6 hours
Area of Effect: One god
Saving Throw: Special

Karsus spent well over a decade researching this spell. It was so complex that he had to use a stone-filled gizzard of a gold dragon and part of the epidermis of the pituitary gland of the tarrasque just to enchant one of the material components of the spell.
This spell allowed the caster to become a god of his choosing, replacing a current god with himself the moment the spell was completed. Whether the gods received a saving throw, were aware of its casting, and other factors were unknown.
The notes regarding the spell’s essence were nowhere to be found. It’s believed Mystra, the reincarnated form of Mystryl, snatched the spell information from the ruins of Karsus’s enclave and sent it on an eternal journey to the ends of the universe.
That's all the details on the spell in the Netheril: Empire of Magic campaign setting. Part of the casting is also described in the Arcane Age novel, Dangerous Games, if I remember correctly.

[Vertharrad]

Why do you need to know? After being used once magic was repatterned to make it impossible to use this spell(and other spells like it) again...which made it a one use spell only.

[TeslaJr]

Why do you need to know? After being used once magic was repatterned to make it impossible to use this spell(and other spells like it) again...which made it a one use spell only.

No reason really, I was just curious.

[Sith_Happens]

Why do you need to know? After being used once magic was repatterned to make it impossible to use this spell(and other spells like it) again...which made it a one use spell only.

http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lfgcg5qzsl1qbvc38o1_400.jpg

[Graypairofsocks]

There's more information about it and what happened in the fall in general in the 2nd edition book Netheril: Empire of Magic. As far as I remember it was the first and only 12th level spell, had a bunch of expensive/rare material components, fused you with a god for a limited amount of time, and that Karsus got turned to stone for his efforts.

I think he also got turned into a vestige(I think it was online one).

Also your avatar really applies to what Karsus did.

[Psyren]

I think he also got turned into a vestige(I think it was online one).

He's a vestige and in fact, he's one of the ones in ToM. The Karsite race descends from him as well... let's just say the dude got around.

[Zanos]

I think he also got turned into a vestige(I think it was online one).

Also your avatar really applies to what Karsus did.
Dude gets a bad rap. As opposed to most wizards who just care about power, Karsus did legitimately want to save Netheril from the threat of the Phaerrim. Moreover I'm fairly certain that Karsus's Avatar was a temporary spell; it wasn't designed to permanently turn him into the god of magic. So for all of his efforts to save his country he got turned into a vestige, has a race of descendants who are forever barred from magic, and the last thing he saw while he was alive was his country crash into the ground. Didn't really help that the Netherese didn't have an excellent grasp of what a god really was.

Something something road to hell paved with good intentions, I guess.

[Mnemnosyne]

Karsus's only real mistake was picking the wrong god as target for his spell. If he had picked any other god, the weave wouldn't have collapsed and everything would have been fine (assuming Ao signed off on it, of course). But as a fresh god with no experience, he couldn't handle the requirements of managing all of magic.

Of course, what I've always found weird is that Mystryl let it happen in the first place. She could simply have denied him the ability to use magic before it all happened, but didn't. Instead she seemed to just prepare for it by readying Mystra to take her place. ...a lot like the first Mystra herself eventually did with Midnight, preparing her to take her place and essentially then essentially committing suicide by cop with Helm.

[Psyren]

I find that a bit naive. Magic was his bread and butter - if he couldn't handle the relatively low cosmic bar of his lifelong specialty, what makes you think he could handle, say, the responsibilities of Jergal, or Amaunator, or Shar or something? I think there still would have been catastrophe, just in someone else's portfolio - undead running amok, or the sun winking out, or the land becoming barren in a flash.

Furthermore, not hitting Mystryl would have meant she could have simply undone whatever he tried to do or pinched off his Weave access entirely. In other words, he did hit the best target possible, it was just a bad idea from the get-go.

And the Phaerimm weren't even that big a threat anymore once Netheril took to the sky. It was only after his own screw-up crashed the cities that they emerged.

[Vertharrad]

IDK...it's like how they killed off Mystra by BS during the switch from 3rd to 4th edition. Every deity knows the moment you arrive in their realm. For someone with reportedly massive intelligence...he showed massively poor wisdom in using it and became the single worst catastrophe to plague the Netherese.

[Alleran]

I find that a bit naive. Magic was his bread and butter - if he couldn't handle the relatively low cosmic bar of his lifelong specialty, what makes you think he could handle, say, the responsibilities of Jergal, or Amaunator, or Shar or something?
It's mentioned that one of the problems with choosing Mystryl was that the Netherese were placing a continual and massive strain on the Weave, which Mystryl was spending a lot of her time repairing and modulating to prevent it from spiraling out of control. Presumably, if they hadn't been doing that then Karsus might actually have been able to handle the influx of divine power and take up the slack, but as it was, it was too much for his brain to comprehend in the moment that he ascended to divinity. There's no indication (that I can recall offhand, anyway) of a similar strain placed on Jergal, Amaunator, Shar and their ilk.

And in Realmspace, magic and the Weave isn't a low cosmic bar. It's a really, really high one, linked with one of the most powerful deities in the sphere.

[Vertharrad]

If such strains happen, why arent they codified in RAW as a way to modulate wizards from going all ape**** without being penalized? You can't rule anything if it's destroyed...

[Alleran]

If such strains happen, why arent they codified in RAW as a way to modulate wizards from going all ape**** without being penalized? You can't rule anything if it's destroyed...
It is. Technically. The Netherese had access to 10th, 11th and 12th level spells. Not metamagic versions of lower slots, but actual, real 10+ level spells.

The sphere as a whole lost that when Mystryl reincarnated into Mystra, because that kind of resource expenditure turned out to be too much. Basically, it used to be truly supercharged magic. Now it's no more or less than the rest of the Great Wheel.

[Psyren]

It's mentioned that one of the problems with choosing Mystryl was that the Netherese were placing a continual and massive strain on the Weave, which Mystryl was spending a lot of her time repairing and modulating to prevent it from spiraling out of control. Presumably, if they hadn't been doing that then Karsus might actually have been able to handle the influx of divine power and take up the slack, but as it was, it was too much for his brain to comprehend in the moment that he ascended to divinity. There's no indication (that I can recall offhand, anyway) of a similar strain placed on Jergal, Amaunator, Shar and their ilk.

And in Realmspace, magic and the Weave isn't a low cosmic bar. It's a really, really high one, linked with one of the most powerful deities in the sphere.

None of that changes the fact that magic and the weave were still his area of expertise. Taking over any god's job could have been disastrous; the spell itself was just a bad idea all around and should never have been cast regardless of target.

[BWR]

It is. Technically. The Netherese had access to 10th, 11th and 12th level spells. Not metamagic versions of lower slots, but actual, real 10+ level spells.

The sphere as a whole lost that when Mystryl reincarnated into Mystra, because that kind of resource expenditure turned out to be too much. Basically, it used to be truly supercharged magic. Now it's no more or less than the rest of the Great Wheel.

Except you had Elven High Magic which was basically epic magic. Far more costly and difficult to cast than the 10+ level spells of Netheril's day, but still more powerful than 9th level spells. It didn't make the transition to 3.x, AFAIK.

[Zanos]

None of that changes the fact that magic and the weave were still his area of expertise. Taking over any god's job could have been disastrous; the spell itself was just a bad idea all around and should never have been cast regardless of target.
Wasn't there precedent at the time for other mortals having become deities? Not exactly unreasonable to think you could do it with magic if it had been done in other ways previously.

Also, the Phaerrim were his motivation. They were using their magic/life drain abilities to sap Netheril of magic. It's what turned the Anauroch into a desert in the first place. They weren't aware that it was the Phaerrim doing it and they were hidden from their divination, but he still knew there was a problem.

[Psyren]

Wasn't there precedent at the time for other mortals having become deities? Not exactly unreasonable to think you could do it with magic if it had been done in other ways previously.

Not that I know of. Mortals becoming gods (and vice-versa) didn't really become a thing until the Time of Troubles.

[Bonzai]

A fun idea I've always had in the back of my mind for a campaign, was that Karsus was known to have had several clones ready incase of his death. They didn't activate because his soul was more or less sundered between the asral and material plane... possibly anchored by the Karse Stone. If some calamity happened... say the death of Mystra, the weave, and the spell plague, (or perhaps something the players did that destroyed the Karse Stone); then a clone of Karsus could be awakened. This could lead to all kinds of interesting implications to the Realms as a whole. Perhaps this clone is made from a young idealistic Karsus, or perhaps from the arrogant arch mage. He would have a ton of enemies, regardless of his intentions and motivations. How would the other Netherese survivors feel about him? The Chosen? You get the idea.

[CyberThread]

Except you had Elven High Magic which was basically epic magic. Far more costly and difficult to cast than the 10+ level spells of Netheril's day, but still more powerful than 9th level spells. It didn't make the transition to 3.x, AFAIK.



Actually it did, look at the entire PRC called, Elven High Mage lol

[Mnemnosyne]

Not that I know of. Mortals becoming gods (and vice-versa) didn't really become a thing until the Time of Troubles.
I'm not sure if anyone predates them, but Bane, Bhaal, and Myrkul were mortals that became gods. I also vaguely remember something about Mielikki being an ascended mortal, but I might be misremembering as I can't find a reference now. Gwaeron Windstrom was a mortal that ascended before the Time of a Troubles as well, and some legends suggest Valkur was also an ascended mortal. I believe there's even suggestions that Tempus may have been an ascended mortal. He's thought to have killed Garagos, although Garagos didn't actually die, so the story may either not be true or he merely defeated him and took the majority of his portfolio. Though it is true that none of the gods at that time were ascended mortals; Karsus may have been the first.

In any case, it is indeed the great strain on the weave that suggests that Karsus would have been fine picking any other god. There may well have been some issues for a time if he had taken over some other position, but most positions just don't have such a vital facet of reality under their control. If he took over Jergal's portfolio, maybe people wouldn't die right until he got the hang of it, and there would be undead plagues, or if he took Jannath's portfolio, perhaps crops would fail this year and animals would go feral all over the continent and such, but it wouldn't be as devastating as loss of control over the weave. Either of those gods would also have accomplished his goals; as the god of death he could obliterate the phaerimm, and as god of nature and the harvest he could have negated their life drain spells to reverse the desertification of the Netheril area.

And in fact Netheril was dying long before he tried that. The phaerimm had been expanding the desert for decades or centuries by that point, and while Netheril's elite lived on the enclaves, there was a lot of ground population, and more importantly from the point of view of the elite, they needed the groundlings to do farming and provide them with food up there, because enclaves didn't have room to grow their own. So he was certainly trying to help Netheril, he just made an unfortunate mistake in doing so.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Another thing to consider on the strain of the Weave is that most spells live cast require no further input from the caster, but improbably still would take some maintenance from Mystra until they expired or were dispelled. With all of the various casters and their works going on in Netheril, that's probably what did Karsus in.

[Skysaber]

In any case, it is indeed the great strain on the weave that suggests that Karsus would have been fine picking any other god.

This is stated outright in the Netheril boxed set. They give it to us direct, and in as many words: Karsus' spell would have worked fine if he'd just picked any other god.

And it wasn't temporary.


And in fact Netheril was dying long before he tried that. The phaerimm had been expanding the desert for decades or centuries by that point, and while Netheril's elite lived on the enclaves, there was a lot of ground population, and more importantly from the point of view of the elite, they needed the groundlings to do farming and provide them with food up there, because enclaves didn't have room to grow their own. So he was certainly trying to help Netheril, he just made an unfortunate mistake in doing so.

This, too, is stated outright, and in as many words.

Arrogance was a flaw of many Netherese archmages, but in his intent I can find no flaw. I've read the entire boxed set, the Arcane Age adventure where you actually play through the fall of Netheril, Lost Empires of Faerun, and any other source on Netheril I can find. And while they use him as a handy scapegoat, and continually harp on his arrogance, Karsus was doing the best he knew how to save his country, which was already suffering through an extinction event brought on them by the phaerimm.

And, in fact, had Karsus NOT cast that spell, it's probable Toril would be a lifeless ball of rock. The phaerimm were casting the lifedrain and drain magic spells (both permanent and irreversible so long as the casting phaerimm lived) without limit. Netherese civilization was fleeing in every direction from the magic-less desert this created (flying cities fled too), and every place they settled the phaerimm just cast more spells.

This trend could easily have continued until there was not one place on Toril capable of sustaining life, and the gods were doing bupkiss about it. Still haven't, after all of this time.

Which, that would be an interesting alternate universe, come to think of it. The Netherese were capable of spelljamming. Without Karsus' Avatar, Toril looked doomed and so they evacuated it. Anauroch is probably triple the size it is now at minimum, it could be the whole planet because of die-hard researchers staying behind trying to fix the problem (continually leading to the phaerimm casting more spells), and Netherese enclaves rule space, having spread to countless crystal spheres.