Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 omniblackchaos Jul 04, 2009 2:34:44	I have not gotten a real answer to what happened to Halastar in 4e. I have heard that he disappeared or that he is dead. The stories of his death seem.....nonsense to me. So if anyone can give me a clear answer that would be great.
#2 borris Jul 04, 2009 4:20:07	Halaster died in 1375 when he tried to cast an epic ritual intended to stop the coming of 4th edition. Er, I mean the Spellplague.
#3 markustay63 Jul 04, 2009 5:32:55	Like everything else that stood in the way of 4th edition, he was murdered and they took his stuff. Since his soul was 'shattered', presumably someone could find and collect all those shards and put him back together, so it is possible for him to make a new appearance in 4e... but I doubt it.
#4 arcas_shan Jul 04, 2009 5:49:18	Halaster died in 1375 when he tried to cast an epic ritual intended to stop the coming of 4th edition. Er, I mean the Spellplague. And I thought he was evil and crazy.
#5 markustay63 Jul 04, 2009 13:30:40	No... he was 'cured' by Mystra in Elminster in Hell. Apparently Shar had something to do with his insanity, and he obviously decided to work against her purposes after his 'fix'.
#6 omniblackchaos Jul 04, 2009 13:52:07	In elminster in hell he had supposedly been exposed to the shadow weave and so was denied much of the weaves higher powers. Mystra was able to cleanse him of it and restore his mind along with some TLC he seemed to be back to his old 1000% power lol but still got thrown back by half of hell coming out to play. I heard about him falling into the earth after a failed epic casting. This is.......aham just nonsense seeing as he was in undermountian and so even more powerful there then anywhere else. He had clones and contengenices up the yingyang. Not to mention his ability to shift between images in undermountian. So I would really like a logical reasoning explaination on how a........fall was able to shatter his soul and all that. Or is this just one of those he is like he is because I said so kind of things? I thank you all for your replies.
#7 Iluvrien Jul 04, 2009 15:02:38	More than likely the answer is either "it is like it is because we say so" or "The reason is " Sadly, in the end, continuity doesn't have to come into it. I think we need a sticky post at the top of the Realmslore board... "These people are canonically dead, Dave". That way people could easily check to see what has happened to whom.
#8 lykor Jul 04, 2009 16:55:37	Didn't Undermountain also asplode? Or was it just Skullport?
#9 omniblackchaos Jul 04, 2009 18:39:08	I may be wrong but undermountian survived and has warring factions in it from the monsters that Halastar captured. The 1st lvl is supposed to be more dengerous then it used to be. But again this is all second hand info on my part.
#10 old_sage Jul 04, 2009 19:44:28	No... he was 'cured' by Mystra in Elminster in Hell. Apparently Shar had something to do with his insanity, and he obviously decided to work against her purposes after his 'fix'. Aye. Mystra removed Shar's influence from him. Shar had essentially made him insane because she exposed him to the use of the Shadow Weave and other ways that drove him to the point of beocming mentally unstable. After Mystra cured him, and up to the time of his death, he was mostly sane. But we also knew that Halaster could slip back into his periods of insanity every now and then... but it was nothing compared to what he experienced before the purging of the influence from Shar.
#11 nightseer Jul 05, 2009 0:31:08	The first level of Undermountain is now called Downshadow, and it is a Ward of Waterdeep. IIRC
#12 sfdragon Jul 05, 2009 0:39:32	downshadow, a very good book. I recommend you buy it, so mr. de Bie will write more of them. I also say buy depths of madness so Eric will write more books which all leads me to wonder why every author so far for waterdeep has a character that is spellscarred. about the only one who didnt was stephen shend's blackstaff tower. which I also recommend buying
#13 dan_vk Jul 05, 2009 9:24:18	Canon leaves plenty of possibilities to bring Halaster, or some semblance of Halaster, back without collecting the pieces of his soul (I am not even sure how one would do that--track down everyone he contacted and rip Halaster’s memory from their mind with a psionicist or magic?). In a game I am running that takes place in 1479 DR the antagonist is a living spell of a damaged Chever’s Simulacrum of Halaster. He only has memories from before Halaster’s stasis in -2488 DR, calls himself Hilather, and insists he is the last true Imaskari Artificer Lord. You could use something similar without the whole ‘no memory’ thing. Halaster is one of my favorite characters and I certainly would not want him dead in any of my games, 1300s or 1400s DR. Even though I love Elminster, with how much me meddles in the affairs of the powerful and how little Halaster does one would think Elminster would have bought the farm instead of ending up living on one. I heard about him falling into the earth after a failed epic casting. This is.......aham just nonsense seeing as he was in undermountian and so even more powerful there then anywhere else. He had clones and contengenices up the yingyang. Not to mention his ability to shift between images in undermountian. So I would really like a logical reasoning explaination on how a........fall was able to shatter his soul and all that. Or is this just one of those he is like he is because I said so kind of things? It is stated in Expedition to Undermountain that Halaster died because the Twisted Rune interfered with a very complex and powerful spell, his master work. I understand Halaster was one of the most powerful mages in Faerûn, but conversely think of the horrible consequences of messing up a spell a mage of that power needs centuries to design; Toril is lucky the only direct casualty was Halaster. EtU also states Halaster chose to split his soul to send fragments of his memory to many people across Faerûn in the hope they would be convinced to come to Undermountain and finish his spell. In other words, Halaster found the completion of the spell so important that he chose to end his existence instead of using his myriad magical clones and other contingencies. I can only conclude immediacy was of the utmost importance to Halaster and he believed others would come to finish his spell faster than if he used a contingency to save himself to try again at a later date. I did not see anything about his falling through the mountain, nor did I see anything specifying what far-off doom he envisioned (I assume the Spellplague, but there are no hints there). I only have the gaming materials, so if there is more specific material in novels I would love to know. On a completely conjectural note, does anyone else think the runestone was a result of the surge of magical energy into Sargauth Enclave during Karsus’ Folly?
#14 tempest_of_the_7_storms Jul 06, 2009 9:19:11	Ofcourse this not being exactly canon by Brian James, but I guess it is as close as we'll get unless WoTC start giving out info on the 100-year gap. But seems that some are already out looking for his shards: 1376 DR (Year of the Bent Blade): The High One charges his pupil Flamsterd with retrieving Halaster's soul-shards, scattered throughout Toril and beyond. BRJ So I guess he could return again at some point ... who knows.
#15 markustay63 Jul 07, 2009 9:24:36	What would be interesting is if they only manage to retrieve about half of the soul shards, and then try to revive him anyway. Thus creating one of those 'harrowed' (half-dead) that you can supposedly play soon. He would just become an epic baddie - some sort of archmage maddened by having only half a soul (The insanity could be caused byt he extreme pain of living with half a soul might cause... just an plothook, mind you).