Mystryl died because she just pulled herself out of the Weave or something along those lines, and when she returned as Mystra, Netheril was dead, Karsus was dead and she banned his spell. This is while she was in control of the Weave.
The Weave does not exist as it was in Post Spellplague. Mystra doesn't exist Post Spellplague. So is this spell once again usable? Could an enterprising Archmage relearn this spell, or reverse engineer other spells from it, involving immortality, ascension to godhood, and other powerful things..
Doable?
Something tells me that would upset the status quo.
I'll have to do some reading to figure out where Karsus' Avatar might be located so I can integrate it into a wizard character
My LFR GMs will hate me heheheeh
Note that the way the 4E rules are designed, when you have Epic Characters (and are progressing to level 30), those characters are supposed to be able to go toe to toe with divine powers and in some cases achieve a form of immortality.
With this in mind, I think Karsus’ Avatar fits with what 4E is trying to do.
Also, I think the open ended nature of the Ritual Casting rules allows for Karsus' Avatar to be cast. If anything, not having the Weave present should (in my opinion) make it easier to research and cast it.
From a DM perspective, building a series of Epic adventures into a campaign arc around researching this spell as a ritual makes sense. You could use it to lead to all kinds of holy wars, battles with The Shades (who would view any efforts to resurrect this spell as infringement of their rightful turf/knowledge) and encounters with other power groups who would want this ritual spell for themselves.
Lastly: In my opinion, I don’t think Karsus was necessarily accessing the Weave when he cast his spell. I believe the secrets of the Nether Scrolls plus his own magical knowledge allowed him to bypass the Weave and access the stuff of magic directly.
Mind you, if anyone other than Misc had said it, I'd be telling them to do what they want at home, so long as everyone enjoys it. But don't tell him that...
Netheril was dead,
You son of a Shou. How DARE you insult Netheril's pride.
Actually, this topic presents a interesting question. Didn't Szass Tam try to reach godhood through a ritual? Maybe a remote link to Karsus' failed attempt?
On the other hand it might be used as something the PCs in a campaign are looking for so they can finally depose some ancient, wicked god/goddess. Followers of Mask or some other god might want to use it against Shar or Cyric perhaps.
So they would depose Cyric or Shar for a few moments and then Cyric or Shar return none the worse for the wear and their dead.
They spell isn't permanent, except for a single misstake the spell has always be stated to be temporarily. Mystra only killed herself because she didn't want to wait for the spells natural end because the damage to the weave was getting worse with every second. Any other deity could just wait unti the spells wears of.
-Regardless, in the end, the caster dies. And, even if he/she didn't, there's not much of a point for the spell in D&D, as opposed to Realmslore.
Well, the player would get a couple of rounds as a deity and then he would just die. Not such great a spell unless you have an emergency when you can make these few moments really count.
!!!!!!
I think you just gave me a great campaign idea for my 4E game.
The idea would be to give the players the "noble sacrifice" option, where they can opt to use this spell to ascend the ranks of divinity in order to battle some NPC who's just done the same thing, to keep that NPC from wreaking havoc on the Realms, with the idea that the NPC pulled off the spell as a Ritual and it worked 100%.
But the player's ritual has no gaurantee of lasting and might require the sacrifice of a willing Exarch to combine its power with the (Epic) character's soul to pull the whole thing off.
Hrmm....
Actually let players pull this spell off? Sorry, but that's a tad to liberal, even for me... By the by, I don't think canon agrees with you about the spell though, despite your interesting and heretical take on it.
Mind you, if anyone other than Misc had said it, I'd be telling them to do what they want at home, so long as everyone enjoys it. But don't tell him that...
There is a reason you are awesome, Stigger. This -all of it- is proof of that.
As the great Kung Fu master once said, "There is no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness."
We may know about it, but suffice to say, no one on Faerûn knows about it.
The Shadow knows. (lolz, for those of you that get the reference)
Or at least -as the book says- the, “truth that Shar would have them know.”
Seriously, The elite Shadovars know a good deal of the nature of Netheril’s downfall, how it was caused and who caused it. Thank Shar’s clerics for divining that much and passing it on to Telamont and a handful of others while they were safely ensconced in the Plane of Shadow.
-Lords of Darkness (3rd Edition D&D), page 81.
It’s said that Mystra erased all record of the spell notes for this spell, but nobody can say for sure.
Mystra wiped the knowledge from the Realms, but not from Shar. And Shar can tell whomever she wants. The Shadow for example. Imagine Telamont Tanthul as modern-day Karsus...
Velsharoon cast a spell to become a demi god. In Faiths and Pantheons it is stated that Talos let such a spell go around, letting mages become demi gods, then steiling their powers, and killing them.
So Szass Tam's spell could be from the same «stock» of spell.
-No, Velsharoon learned of a ritual via Talos to attain divinity. Talos, of course, shared this with Velsharoon so that he could "suck him dry" and empower himself by draining the divinity of another, weaker deity. Karsus, on the other hand, developed Karsus' Avatar without the aid of other powers (dispite the retroactive assertion by 3e that Shar egged him on) that would steal the divinity of another deity.
Karsus' Avatar wasn't exactly become a god spell... it was steal a god's power to empower the caster really. Not quite the same thing, since I don't recall it having a permanent duration.
Duration: Unlimited
the spell is open to all via the book's link on http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads
it is page 142
also, for the subject of this topic
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.
for 4e, that says to me it is in the far realm.
Duration: Unlimited
-The duration of the spell was altered in Powers & Pantheons.
for 4e, that says to me it is in the far realm.
-Technically, the Far Realm isn't in the multiverse. It exists outside of the multiverse. That's why it's so weird and alien to us.
-The duration of the spell was altered in Powers & Pantheons..
what was/is it?
The duration of the spell has changed. The involvement of divine powers has changed and there are two and a half competing views on Mystril's death.
Wouldn't that be something if the Abolethic Sovereignty brought bits of Karsus' Avatar spell back with them. ;)
The duration of the spell has changed. The involvement of divine powers has changed and there are two and a half competing views on Mystril's death.
And that's all a good thing in my opinion.
Good Realmslore should give DMs plenty of options to build off of for their campaigns.
As it relates to this topic: We have "the facts," but we also have enough uncertainty thanks to competing sources to adapt the backstory to fit our 4th Edition games.
Works for me!
Mystril's response as described by Greenwood makes more sense given the original duration of the spell.
-Yes, and no. I, for one, think that, while it is certainly believable for Karsus to have cast the spell in an attempt to preserve his people and his empire, it's a little hard to believe that he would do so at the cost of his life. As such, the unlimited "I become a deity forever" duration makes a bit more sense than the limited "I become a deity, save my people, and then die. D'oh!" duration. Netherese Archmagi just seem a little petty to be so selfless. Just a little bit.
Is it me or is that one of the most contradictory portions of Toril's history in print.
The duration of the spell has changed. The involvement of divine powers has changed and there are two and a half competing views on Mystril's death.
-It indeed is. There's two different durations of Karsus' Avatar. There are retroactive attempts to insert the Shadow Weave into Netheril, that conflict with each other, and with other bits of established lore. There are three different explanations as to what happened to the Shadow Enclave in the "final days" of Netheril. There's conflicting information pertaining to whether or not the Shade Enclave could or could not return to the Prime Material Plane after first shunting into it, whenever it was.
-This is the danger of retcons, not paying attention to preexisting continuity, and general editorial laziness (in the final tapestry, if not the individual instances). Truly horrible...
-Yes, and no. I, for one, think that, while it is certainly believable for Karsus to have cast the spell in an attempt to preserve his people and his empire, it's a little hard to believe that he would do so at the cost of his life. As such, the unlimited "I become a deity forever" duration makes a bit more sense than the limited "I become a deity, save my people, and then die. D'oh!" duration. Netherese Archmagi just seem a little petty to be so selfless. Just a little bit.
I was gonna be good and not question the honor and integrity of Netherese archwizards quite yet
but I do think that an unlimited duration serves the thematic purpose of Karsus as a wizard undone by his own hubris more then a death sentence version where the act is also construed as selfless sacrifice (gone horribly wrong but still selfless).Mostly though I'm looking at it and thinking I've got a problem with Mystril suiciding without contingency for a spell that ends in six hours. Yes I can come up with explanations but they're haphazard at best. Her actions make more sense given the unlimited duration and I'm curious whether the Karsus storyline was created on the premise of an unlimited duration Avatar spell. 6 hours is catastrophic but fixable, letting a madman who can't control the Weave however take it permanently more effectively justifies a suicide without contingency.
I was gonna be good and not question the honor and integrity of Netherese archwizards quite yet
-Exactly the tree I was barking up.
Mostly though I'm looking at it and thinking I've got a problem with Mystril suiciding without contingency for a spell that ends in six hours. Yes I can come up with explanations but they're haphazard at best. Her actions make more sense given the unlimited duration and I'm curious whether the Karsus storyline was created on the premise of an unlimited duration Avatar spell. 6 hours is catastrophic but fixable, letting a madman who can't control the Weave however take it permanently more effectively justifies a suicide without contingency.
-This part, some sense can be made from it, looking through the lens that the spell was limited in duration, and Mystryl knew it. If put in the situation that you are a pilot, and terrorists hijacked the plane you were flying, knowing that they intended to ram a place of great political/cultural/economic importance, would you intentionally crash your plane to stop them, knowing that there was no other way? If push came to shove, I know that I probably would. Mystryl might have understood that the spell would eventually end with Karsus' demise, but she might have believed that whatever he did while deity of magic would have been extremely catastrophic to the Weave, and to the planet. Thus, she hit the 'Abort' button as soon as possible, and started over.
Taking Greenwood's statement that Mystril's re-incarnation was accidental (at least on her part) as canon leaves me thinking that Karsus would have to be in position to do something truly cataclysmic in those six hours. Otherwise, she should be in a better position to fix the damage as a live goddess of magic than mortals would be able to fix both the damage of Karsus folly and the loss of the Weave. I can make and accept the argument but it seems haphazard and the original duration would make it less so. That sequence just seems to work better if we take the Netheril rendition and ignore the later ret-cons.
The theory works to a degree, it works better if I take the implications of printed lore that the re-incarnation as Mystra was deliberate rather than Greenwood's view that it was accidental.
-I much prefer the former, official explanation. It makes more sense for, a deity of such importance in-setting as Mystryl/Mystra, that a fail-safe be in place. The problem with that, though, is that you begin to wonder: Why don't other/all deities of importance have such a fail-safe to prevent themselves from truly dying?
That sequence just seems to work better if we take the Netheril rendition and ignore the later ret-cons.
-That's usually what's best. The original material, ignoring other material later added on, intentionally or unintentionally is the way the original author intended things to be.
Duration: Unlimited
the spell is open to all via the book's link on http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/downloads
it is page 142
Which was an error from the very begining.
Not only was this, as has already been stated in this thread, later corrected in Powers&Pantheons but Netheril Empire of Magic, the very same supplement from which you quote page 142, already said the spell was only temporarily on page 12
"This spell, called Karsus’s avatar, was the only 12th-level spell ever created. It was designed to [b]temporarily[/b] steal the powers of a deity."
Powers&Pantheons did not suddenly introduce a new changeg duration, it merely remedied the contradiction between page 12 and page 142 by stating which one is correct.
The limited duration was already stated as early as the unlimited duration (or earlier if you count page 12 as earlier as page 142) and nothing that was only added later.
*sshhhhhh* You'll give Lord Karsus ideas! Seriously, what were you thinking? 
-I much prefer the former, official explanation. It makes more sense for, a deity of such importance in-setting as Mystryl/Mystra, that a fail-safe be in place. The problem with that, though, is that you begin to wonder: Why don't other/all deities of importance have such a fail-safe to prevent themselves from truly dying?
Didn't Bane do just that with his children holding little bits of his power? That power finally pooling in Iyachtu Xvim and the Xvim was consumed from within to have Bane reborn.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong (and I know you will oh master of lore, LK) but wasn't Shar presumed dead for a while. No I think she was just in hiding just to mess with her enemies while she plotted, but who's to say she was dead and came back from a contingency?
As for the rest, I figure they either do and no one knows because what good is a contingency resurect if every knows about it (they'd just spoil it somehow), they don't because they don't think they can die (I'm pretty sure Cyric is sooooo arrogant or crazy to think he'll never get offed) or they don't because it goes against their dogma somehow. Of course, if word doesn't get around the god is dead, and enough mortals keep worshiping the dead god, voila! the god will return.
Though, Shar did still the Cavern portfolio without telling anyone. That sphere of anihilation worshipped as a god by that family (name escapes me) is really Tiamat (or was). Also Alustriel is answering Ulutiu's mail while he's mourning his girlfriend's death. So YMMV when it comes to dieing and coming back.
-Yes, and no. I, for one, think that, while it is certainly believable for Karsus to have cast the spell in an attempt to preserve his people and his empire, it's a little hard to believe that he would do so at the cost of his life. As such, the unlimited "I become a deity forever" duration makes a bit more sense than the limited "I become a deity, save my people, and then die. D'oh!" duration. Netherese Archmagi just seem a little petty to be so selfless. Just a little bit.
Well truth be told, one could figure the original duration of Unlimited was the intent. And, no knock on you, but the errata'ed duration of Unkown Limited was what actually happened. Basically, it was limited because Karsus didn't survive the experience, but no one knows what his original intent was. As you say, it does strike one as odd that a netherese archmage would sacrifice himself in such a way.
... why go through all the trouble of making it not unlimited, It's a spell no one will ever cast? I'm not arguing for one or the other; Now I just want to know what the relevance of it is temporary or not.
-As was said, given the context of the casting and who was doing the casting, it would make a bit more sense to have an unlimited duration, as opposed to an unlimited duration. Ultimately, lore wise, as you said, it doesn't really matter all that much, as the spell was cast once, in the history of the setting, and doesn't have the capacity to be cast again. But, it's something that there were some boo-boos with, so...
No, no.
-Been there, done that. I have no want to do that again.
Didn't Bane do just that with his children holding little bits of his power? That power finally pooling in Iyachtu Xvim and the Xvim was consumed from within to have Bane reborn.
-Kind of. I don't think that, immediately, it was intended for Xvim to be Bane, but it turned out that way. Bhaal did something similar, with the Bhaalspawn and all. Those aren't exactly the same kind of failsafe that Mystryl/Mystra seemed to have, though. With Mystryl, she killed herself and was reborn immediately. With Bane and Xvim, and the Bhaalspawn, it took time (and, in the case of the latter, it never really worked).
Also, correct me if I'm wrong (and I know you will oh master of lore, LK) but wasn't Shar presumed dead for a while. No I think she was just in hiding just to mess with her enemies while she plotted, but who's to say she was dead and came back from a contingency?
-Can't say I recall what you are talking about.
-Can't say I recall what you are talking about.
Well, I seem to remember that Shar disappeared sometime around the middle of 2nd ed. She was presumed dead. Then in 3rd, there she was again! Bummer for everyone. But like I said, I could be wrong.
Well, I seem to remember that Shar disappeared sometime around the middle of 2nd ed. She was presumed dead. Then in 3rd, there she was again! Bummer for everyone. But like I said, I could be wrong.
-That happened to Bane, in a way (died in 2e, magically popped back in in 3e), and Lolth (went silent at the beginning of Lolth's Silence, and came back at the end, but that was all during 3e), but I can't say I know of a storyline in which this happened to Shar.
And as Godess of Magic Mystra knew he just might be able to pull it off.
This would make the spell a risky gamble, but one that I can see a self-centered archmage believing he could win.
Something to consider is perhaps the spell by itself is limited but Karus was prideful enough that he thought he'd find a way around the limitation once he held all of Mystra's power.
And as Godess of Magic Mystra knew he just might be able to pull it off.
This would make the spell a risky gamble, but one that I can see a self-centered archmage believing he could win.
-Sounds reasonable and plausible.