@TheEdVerse what exactly happened to Manshoon's soul? Since a soul moves into the clone when the caster dies, are Manshoon's clones without souls, or did his soul somehow fracture into each of the clones? Maybe something else?
Things are getting real on Monday morning.#dnd
— Draugr DM 💀❄️ 🔜 Gamehole Con (@justice_arman) September 30, 2019
1)
Years ago, Mystra offered Manshoon the status of one of her Chosen. (Remember, Mystra is about promoting the use and importance of arcane magic in the world, not about being ‘good’ per se. She does want magic to be available… 2)
…to all, not kept from most by those who have lots of magic or who fear magic. The Manshoon of then Mystra obviously thought suitable to be one of her Chosen; I doubt she’d see the Manshoon of later centuries the same way.)#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2019
3)
He refused. Readers of my Sage of Shadowdale trilogy can see him refusing again. Nevertheless, Mystra saw him and the Zhentarim as useful and necessary to human use of arcane magic, just as she views Szass Tam and the Red 4)
…Wizards, or Arklem Greeth and the Arcane Brotherhood. She saw that the special clone spell he’d devised (Manshoon’s clones are different in the details from clones other wizards create using the ‘standard’ Clone spell) left…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2019
5)
…him in grave danger of insanity as bodies died and Manshoon’s sentience moved to new clones, and so quietly used the Weave to store and bolster his soul to make the ‘clone hops’ more stable and Manshoon less erratic and 6)
…dangerous to himself, to the Weave, and to the wider Realms. So his soul is kept in the Weave, and his sentience shifts from clone to clone. His early clones had the memories/experience and mastery of the Art they had when…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2019
7)
…created, so every time Manshoon ‘became’ a new clone he’d lost some spells and levels and forgotten recent events in his life (so his every death had a cost). More recently, Mystra’s Weave-work allowed Manshoon to ‘jump’ 8)
…intact from clone to clone. Manshoon has always had multiple clones in reserve, even after the perilous times when several clones were active at once—in part because of his extensive roster of clones due to his paranoia and…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2019
9)
…cunning, and in part because his clones are different than standard clones (hence the 2e rulebooks containing Manshoon’s own clone spell, as distinct from the standard PH clone spell).
Mystra does the same Weave-storage and 10)
…bolstering for Elminster, who in recent decades (as seen in several of my novels) has possessed the bodies of various other living sentient beings. She did it so well that he was able to function in the
Sage of Shadowdale…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2019
11)
…trilogy when she herself was ‘gone,’ and the Weave was ‘going wild’ (it never collapsed, despite being Mystra herself, due in part to many mortal beings, such as Elminster, holding small amounts of Her silver
fire within12)
…themselves, and so functioning as Weave anchors).
And as for the morality of the behaviour of the various archwizards involved, one of the themes explored in my Realms fiction is the sanity of living for centuries, outliving…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2019
13)
…our friends, lovers, and even lands several times over; another is the morality of possessing the bodies of others, and the wider morality of “If I have this mighty magical power and someone else doesn’t and they oppose me 14)
…stand in my way/endanger the Realms, how much should I coerce them to get what I want in life?”#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 30, 2019