not so much, they're more focused on the whole dragon thing (again) now.
The True Spellfire once wielded by Shandril Shessair, Haelam Sunderstone, Baerendra Riverhand, and others--spellfire in it's purest form--has warped drastically with the fall of Mystra and the Unwinding of the Weave. However it can still be wielded by those touched by the Spellplague who have learned to master their spellscar, which in turn they use as a focus to channel the power that has changed them. While still powerful, its dangerous nature may make it a less coveted power by the evils of Faerun. However the Order of Blue Fire may take an unusual and falsely benign interest in adventurers who have mastered spellfire.
See the Spellscarred Savant paragon path in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide.
The Silver Fire wielded by the Chosen of Mystra--spellfire in its comparatively lesser form--also still lingers to this day. Among those mortal adventurers known to wield it are the apprentices of at least one of the Seven Sisters. In the century of her rule the Simbul of Aglarond schooled countless mages in the secrets of her power, including the fire of Mystra. Whether she imbued them with its power and with the ability to pass it on to others, or merely taught them how to harness it from the ravaged currents of magic is unknown. Nonetheless it serves them mightily in the defense of their realm.
See the Simbarch of Aglarond paragon path in the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide.
I always thought Spellfire was the raw power of the weave itself and bypassed Mystra and whatever "safety valves" she might have imposed.
-It was a manifestation of that raw magical power, yes. Mystra, herself, was the Weave incarnate, at the same time, and Silverfire was derived from her own divine power, implanted into her Chosen.
Idea comes partly from a wraith (the term is functional, not accurate) in Hand of Fire who was happy to move on Shandril but got a look at Alustriel and decided that something in the power she carried was probably too much for him.
It protects its host and provides a couple perks but the Chosen don't have full access to whatever potential exists in it.
-That's the part that always made me shrug.
On the flip side when Mystra needs it to happen or when certain Chosen seek abilities that don't contradict her goals, Mystra allows further development of various abilities. Azuth teaching El spellfire for instance.
Note to whom it may concern: spellfire will not show up on any of El's statsheets. Its primarily of novel/forum tidbit, to be added ignored or modified at will.
I imagine Spellfire originating in the times of Mystryl, it seems more chaotic
and the Silver Fire being created by Mystra 1
it's better that the Silver Fire is less powerful, then the hate towards the Chosen would be even greater
-Good point. "Everyone" seems to hate the Chosen of Mystra, but there isn't much enmity towards Spellfire users.
Probably because you rarely see Spellfire users. You had those three novels with Shandril and that was pretty much it. Was spellfire mentioned very often outside of those novels? I know it rarely came up in the setting, and Shandril and any other spellfire users never had as much as a presence in the novels or the setting as Elminster/the Chosen/Seven Sisters. So there's your explanation. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind.
If i recall correctly, Elminster actually HAS Spellfire, and weilds it in the first book of the trilogy during the Time of Troubles (I forget the trilogy name, the one with the Malaugrym)
As for it in game terms, I have one player who always wants to be a Spellfire Weilder/Channeler. It's caused many problems in game terms and myself and my fellow GMs have tinkered with it endlessly to try and make it work.
-It was a manifestation of that raw magical power, yes. Mystra, herself, was the Weave incarnate, at the same time, and Silverfire was derived from her own divine power, implanted into her Chosen.
Is/was Mystra the power behind the weave or was she say the protector of the weave . Is the weave so powerful that even Ao cannot completely control it? Imho, I believe that thSpellfire from the weave would be far more powerful than the Silver fire that comes from a gods divine essence because even the gods have to rely on the weave to cast their god magic therefore making the weave more powerful that the gods themselves(of course I could just be talking out of an orifice here)
Side note, Divinities needed the Weave generally to cast spells within realmspace. Outside realmspace they were fine and Divine Salient Abilities (including alter reality) still work
... the trilogy during the Time of Troubles (I forget the trilogy name, the one with the Malaugrym)
Is that trilogy called the Shadow of the Avatar? I started reading Shadow of Doom, but stopped because I realized that Shandril's Saga was first, and started reading the latter this week. I've liked Spellfire, so far.
Does anyone know when, approximately, Shandril's Saga takes place? My guess is mid-1300s.
Is that trilogy called the Shadow of the Avatar?
-Yes.
In the Year of the Prince, 1357 DR.
War was beginning.
In fact, just about every god has their own fire! :D
In 4e, I would just say it was a purified form of a power source that a weilder can manifest in a Warlock-like fashion. So you could have arcane Fire (Blue Fire), Divine Fire (Silver Fire), Shadow-fire (Blackfire), Primal Fire (Green), etc, etc...
Just hook 'em to a power source and your good to go.
Now that I've wrapped my head around the power-source concept, I like how easy it is to shoe-horn stuff into the rules. Very design-conscious.
I still don't like the fluff wrapped around it - I will always think of FR as a 2e/3e setting first.
I really wish they had just designed a brand-new world around the rules - I probably would have jumped onboard from day 1. Trying to make FR fit into them broke to much continuity, and spoiled both the old setting and the new rules, IMHO.
Well, Cerullean Fire would just be Blue Fire, and hooked to the Arcane source (although silver would make more sense, because of Mystra, but we do have at least one other goddess giving out silver fire (called Moonfire), so that is why I have placed 'Silver' with Divine magic, rather then Arcane.
Now that I've wrapped my head around the power-source concept, I like how easy it is to shoe-horn stuff into the rules. Very design-conscious.
-Cerulean would also describe Incarnum, which would be more Divine oriented than Arcane oriented, in my opinion.
I still don't like the fluff wrapped around it - I will always think of FR as a 2e/3e setting first.
-Damn sucky 1e.
Total knowledge: 1 iset of related instinctively learned spells... but one powerful, set of instinctively learned spells.
One would think all current mages would be able to learn it now with considerably less difficulty than mages from Mystra's time.
-I don't necessarily see an explanation forthcoming, when I think it really badly needs one.
Except that now the Weave is gone and everyone is using the raw underlying magic.
As I said, that's not the case. They're using a range of Weave-substitute 'interface' methods to draw on the world's natural/magical energies, some of which have existed for a long time and others were researched after the Spellplague. Ed's gone into this.
'Can't be learned at all' was an overstatement:
Elminster figured out how to manipulate the Weave to call forth spellfire. Any of the Chosen who became sufficiently attuned to the Weave (by using it for centuries), and took the time to experiment and study, could theoretically duplicate what Elminster did, and end up with spellfire too. Several of them (no, I'm NOT going to reveal which ones) already have.
But no one else is known to have learned it in the whole history of the Realms, which is why it's been so coveted by the power-hungry for centuries. Have you read Shandril's Saga? Spellfire is like nuclear weapons: it's of a different order to other magic.
... and the Shandril books managed to bore me enough that I didn't read the whole way through.
In the past though, there was never mention of more weave like interfaces already being around. The Weave was pretty much the only layer above raw magic, thus allowing Mystra to limit the powers of even gods on Toril since they used that interface and not some other variant.
I don't recall it being as impressive in game mechanics :P
-Yeah, a lot of people didn't like how it translated in the rules.