Human person @RedNoBlue
In 4th edition, when the Spellplague hit, the Weave couldn’t be manipulated due to the inherent madness of the Far Realm infecting it. Was that the reason Gods couldn’t provide the same function of spells as before?— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 29, 2020
1)
The Spellplague is what mortals on Toril called the Weave going wild, so wild surges happened, arcane spellcasters went mad or their brains literally exploded or caught fire, existing magics and newly-cast spells usually…#Realmslore 2)
…failed or twisted into unforeseen and unintended effects, and so on.
The Weave went wild because Mystra is the Weave, and had just been murdered; the Weave was in turmoil, with its own energies and the world-energies it…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 29, 2020
3)
…accesses rippling and roiling through it in clashing tidal waves.
The only reason the Weave didn’t collapse is because Mystra had foreseen the consequences of her death, and guarded against them, adding to those mortals… #Realmslore 4)
…(the Chosen, in particular) who held a fraction of her divinity (divine silver fire) additional mortals, witting and unwitting, to be more Weave anchors. So the Weave was ‘anchored’ by many mortals, widely scattered across…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 29, 2020
5)
…Toril, who were all tiny parts of Mystra. From them her vestige (seen briefly onstage in a cave in one of my Sage of Shadowdale novels) could arise to observe what was going on and give guidance to mortals who would heed her…#Realmslore 6)
…(her Chosen), and eventually she could return, and by means of these same Weave anchors the Weave could survive, so arcane magic could go on working, with increasing certainty/trustworthiness as time passed, and the Weave… #Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 29, 2020
7)
…stabilized.
Immediately after the Spellplague hit, the Gods couldn’t answer any prayers with spells, because they were used to calling directly on the Weave to do so, and the Weave wouldn’t work. So mortal clerics could…#Realmslore 8)
…renew only 1st through 3rd level spells, just as they can when on another plane where they are out of touch with their deity. (Instead of having to go across the world to speak to someone in person, the gods had become used…#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 29, 2020
9)
…to picking up the telephone to talk—and when they tried to use the phone/the Weave immediately after the Spellplague hit, it was alive-crackling but not working.)
As the Weave slowly stabilized, gods found it glitch-prone; 10)
…sometimes it reliably communicated spells to those praying to them, and sometimes it didn’t. So what they could use it for had changed, and not for the better. Until Mystra returned.#Realmslore— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) May 29, 2020