@TheEdVerse quick #realmslore question. In 1375DR, Halaster kills himself performing a ritual. In 1492, we find he is still alive. How did he survive, why did he send visions of his death, and what was he up to between 1375 and 1492?
— jeffusano (@jeffusano) August 13, 2020
1)
Halaster survived in part because he was so attuned to the Weave; when the ritual went awry and his body was rent asunder, his essence was scattered across the planes (some of it being caught in the Weave). 2)
The ritual also made use of the Weave, like any arcane magic working, and the manner in which it did left some of his sentience ensnared in the Weave. This gave him time enough to desperately hurl visions into the minds of…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 14, 2020
3)
…folk with the Gift (and some others) all across Faerûn. He was able to mingle compulsions with some of these visions, succeeding in forcing certain individuals to carry out specific actions. Some of these were “take care of… 4)
…this unfinished business for me, as I perish” but other deeds were aids to his own reassembly. However, Undermountain is so riddled with magic (the magic that keeps Waterdeep from collapsing down into it, the wards of the…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 14, 2020
5)
…city, the nigh-countless localized enchantments cast on various ceilings, pillars, steps, doors, and other elements of the dungeon, and so on) that the Spellplague’s chaotic effects on magic made the interior of Undermountain… 6)
…a magical roiling mess, with ripples of magic crashing through each other and rebounding in a wild tangle that fed on itself and built in power for a long time, rather than subsiding as ripples in water do, and this mess…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 14, 2020
7)
…prevented Halaster being reincorporated (pulling together a new physical body for himself, housing an intact soul within it) within Undermountain, his chosen seat of power, until the Spellplague was over, and its chaos had… 8)
…entirely faded.
When this finally befell, and magic was restored to its former stability, Halaster was able to restore himself to physical life. Whereupon he returned to Undermountain and resumed his “mad” life there…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 14, 2020
9)
…(as seen in Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage).#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) August 14, 2020