@TheEdVerse I just learned that Shar apparently made the Shadowfell? Is this different from the Shadow Plane we used to be familiar with? Since 5E I had always assumed their similarity and simply a renaming via Realms perspective. Then of course Ravenloft was *in* it…
— Justin Ray Glosson (@ivstinus) May 9, 2020
1)
“Made” is a strong word (remember that almost all we know of what the gods did, except what their avatars do in front of mortal eyeballs while striding around Toril itself, is told to us by deities, their servitors, and 2)
…their clergy, and just may be propaganda).
If I was writing down history about this, I would change the word “made” to the word “caused.”
What Shar did was successfully manipulate Cyric into murdering Mystra, causing the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 9, 2020
3)
…Spellplague (as the dying Weave ‘went wild,’ great ripples crashing across it from Weave anchor to Weave anchor). As existing wards and spells failed all across Toril, and wizards went mad, Shar was busy elsewhere. Out among 4)
…the planes, to be precise.
Where, caused by the widening ripples, the Elemental and Energy Planes collapsed, merging roilingly into the Elemental Chaos.
Shar played lockkeeper, exerting all of her personal power (and she’s one…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 9, 2020
5)
…of the few deities who can work with necrotic energies without being diminished or altered by them, and understands the properties of necrotic energy) to steer as much as she could of the necrotic energies flowing from the… 6)
…collapsing Negative Energy Plane so that rather than being lost into the stew of Elemental Chaos, they flowed into her home plane, the existing Plane of Shadow (we wrote of this on page 69 of the 4e Forgotten Realms Campaign… #Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 9, 2020
7)
…Guide).
This changed the Plane of Shadow, and clergy of Shar will tell you that “the Shadowfell” (Shar’s name for the altered Plane of Shadow), was her “creation.” So it is, but she didn’t create it out of nothing. If I took…8)
…the outer panels off my old tractor and replaced them with pieces of a Ferrari, I have ‘made’ something new, but it’s still my old tractor, that I bought rather than made from the ground its tires sit on, up, underneath.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 9, 2020
9)
With its new necrotic energies, the altered Plane of Shadow gained some new properties. Many souls of the dead came now to the Shadowfell, and had to pass through it to get to the Fugue Plane. And—and this was the entire 10)
…reason why Shar acted as she did, hoping to increase her own power and reach thereby—the necrotic energies of the Shadowfell were the new energy source for, and root source of, all shadow magic. The power and reach of…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 9, 2020
11)
…shadow magic cast/called upon in the Prime Material Plane (on Toril) had been subtly ebbing and fading for some time, and by this move Shar boosted shadow magic and her own might, in the Realms.
All planes change, over time 12)
…influenced by energies leaking from, and actual invasions from, adjacent planes; the planes don’t exist in isolation, but affect each other constantly (though post-Spellplague, the Astral Sea and the Elemental Chaos surround…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 9, 2020
13)
…and separate the other planes, and so act as buffers between them). So the Plane of Shadow has been called many things by sentient mortals, down the ages, such as Shadowland, Shadow, and “the demiplane of Shadow,” and 14)
…these different terms don’t always merely denote different mortal ways of viewing the same thing, they actually describe different versions of the same plane as it evolves.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 9, 2020
