Quick question, can I get a brief explanation on what happened to the Sharn after the Sharn Wall? Don't need to go into too much detail, I'm just curious because I can't imagine beings powerful enough to defeat the Phaerimm, something that even the Netherese couldn't defeat, just disappearing after their 600 year war.
I'm only tangentially knowledgeable about D&D stuff, and I'd never heard about this civilization until I saw this video. That having been said, every time I see a story in which a civilization creates floating cities, my first thought is "okay, how'd they fuck things up bad enough to make all the cities fall and thus snuff out their civilization overnight?", and lo and behold this story didn't disappoint. It really is a Sword of Damocles situation to have your entire civilization hinge upon a single factor never being able to stop functioning, else everything instantly grinds to a halt in such a way that instantly creates a cataclysm".
Karsus Folly better known as eff around and find out. A maneuver so fantastically short sighted that mages of the realm still measure catastrophic stupidity by units of Karsus.
Going in the dark into a doorway without checking if the door is open = 1 microKarsus. Slowly sawing off a branch of a tree you yourself are sitting on = 1 milliKarsus.
I feel Netheril was gone when Karsus's spell pretty much *KILLED* it. He was an idiot too in any case if you ask me. 😏 Chosing to become not just any god but 'the magic god', although temporarily maybe, to fight creatures highly resistant to magic. What a fool. How can someone be this talented yet so uncreative? Makes me almost angry to think this idiocy destroyed the type of civilization I dig the most. 😁
You have to remember that Karsus was extremely arrogant even for a Netheril mage. He knew the risks, he just thought he was beyond them. Turns out he wasn't.
we ran a campaign based on the party being in an adventurers guild, and their job was to go to the underdark below the anarauch desert where all the cities crashed into the earth, and recover old netherse artifacts and magic secrets. it was pretty fun
Well you might play around the Shadovar. Shade Enclave is pretty messed up. One might argue Imaskar might be the greater civilization. For one thing they never fell. Literally and figuratively.
@@mikewaterfield3599 technically they didnt all fall since their greatest leader is still alive(well undead) and functioning as probably the most powerful entity in all of forgotten realms. only karsus and his followers fell. but their first and greatest leader ioulamm did not fall. and now hes just chilling as an elder brain lich with 33 levels wizard, 5 levels in netherese arcanist and 5 levels in archmage. just a plain old regular elder brain is one of the most dangerous creatures, and hes also a lich that casts spells as a level 43 wizard, and he built up an entire new following in the underdark. others like he said went to other planes. so in the end, only parts of the nether empire fell, while other leaders like ioulamm still live on and possess all of the supposed "lost" knowledge.
@@PeteZam never use 5th ed character levels past 20, D&D past second ed does not handle epic levels or ascension well. Generally speaking considering the last true survivors of of Netheril are Shade Enclave, Halrua, and Thay……. Eh Netheril was bound to F up. Personally the level of magic never made much sense to me. Elves are naturally far more attuned to the weave. Too many godlike arch wizards for my liking. Although it is hilarious in the novels they way people react to even the suspicion of a lost Nether Scroll.
28:59 I played in a game once where a large southern desert was the direct result of a god of death being born there it used to be a fertile plains and forests. If blood was spilled on its sands there was a chance of undead pulling themselves out of the sand below to attack you.
Given how all the deserts on Toril are magical scars, special mention should be made of the Dark Sun setting, where the life-draining magic turned the entire world of Athas into a barren wasteland. Perhaps Toril would've suffered the same fate if all the destructive magic usage was kept unchecked.
@@tooslow4065 True, but the consequences are nevertheless very similar and the parallells between the two worlds' magically destroyed ecosystems are striking
I seem to remember seeing a theory somewhere that Toril and Athas are actually the same world. Athas is just the far distant future. It's kind of silly and doesn't really work, but there you go.
I absolutely love all these younger DMs out there getting excited about Netheril. Wish Ed could read all these posts. 😊 My campaign back in the early 90s was entirely based on Netheril but started in 1371DR. Now that I'm DMing again my new "younger players" are getting to run thru the 2nd plotline I built 30 yrs ago. Starting again back in 1371. Sorry, just feeling nostalgic tonight. Thanks Mr Rhexx for posting this video. Excellent research you've done here. I tip my arcanist hat to you!
@@celuiquipeut6527 Thanks! I'm finally producing my original world setting next year. Its going to be mostly about exploring ancient ruins. The concept, (like the ruins) never seems to die. 😉👍
@@helixxharpell Me and my group, we never played in Faerun. We had created our own world, made our maps, cities, on a scale. We had made a whole bunch of NPC. It was so amazing. To live in this world. And the timeline, every session we made, was a different group of adventurer, but if we had high level ones (once we went to lvl 20 in a 2.5 setting...we almost ascended to God hood. Only 1 person survived, and it was the PC of our DM. That character survived and became the villain of our next campaign...and aell, he was so tough ue stayed the villain for a couple of others campaign as well. Lol) It made all our games so much more relecant and interesting. We had an ever moving forest, full of driads. The forest would move woth you, change its course. It was a real labyrinth, with static pocket of "rooms" with encounters. But how you went there....we had to make maps, well our character. It really took us some times to figure it out. We had a rough bu fair DM. I suspect he was a psychopath. Lol and i am grateful for it. I use to always play a Paladin. After he went high level, he set to go to a desecrated village, where undead roamed. The region was desolate, plant were dead, it was the lair of a Necromancer...who became a Lich. Had to fight a draco lich. The thing is...that used to be my old character. I had played a necro and in the end turned him into a lich. When the session was over, we would give our DM our character sheet. It took me a while to realise who i was fighting. My Pally ended up dying. Our group wiped. My Pal was sole survivor. I kept going. What ended up happening is, my sword stayed there. It was basking in a forever Godray. It became a legendary 2 handed weapon...that i later got to pick up as a lower level Pally... My DM was a genius. I could write a book about all our adventures. It was quite the teenage years we had!. Played DND with that group from 13yo until 18. Me and my brother we created our own tabletop game. Your our own rules. It was a mix of Vampire the masquerade and DnD. It worked really well. We weote whole compendium about ennemies, different demons, angels, a post apocalyptic world where the air is unbreathable. Humans live in domes. And anomalies, lile vampires thrives. Where wolves hunt them. This was before all those where wolf movies in the 00. I tried to convince my brother to publish it. But he refuse categorically. I want to keep it to himself.... All that to say, dont be afraid. Create your own world. It is why DnD was created in the first place. They use to encourage this. And your story telling will be even better and your player will tank you for it.
@@celuiquipeut6527 Love hearing all these great stories! Our world setting will appeal to that nostalgia. Many campaigns end around 12th-15th these days. That's a shame too. We're addressing that 15th to 20th level storyline structure as well. Our 1st set of adventures will take PCs from 4th all the way to 20th level. Thanks for replying! Happy gaming!
@@helixxharpell Oh wow! Thats great news! A lot of DM are afraid or incapable to manage a group with that amount of power. It requires skill amd a lot of imagination. Imagination seems to be declining nowadays, so its really great what you are doing! I wish you a lot of fun together!
Not killed. Entombed. Legend has it the goddess cursed Karsus to be aware all this time. To witness his folly, to think of what he did wrong and to watch his world crumble as he watched on in helplessness
@Adam Bielen the legend says he slowly regains power and that someday he may return. After all. He technically was a god, if but for a moment. I think i read it eaither in the netherize novel or in magic if fearun 3rd ed.
@@adambielen8996 "Those with experience in pact magic could call up his vestige, where he appeared as a giant blood-red boulder, like the one found in the High Forest where his petrified form landed. Blood burbles up from the top of the stone, trickling down the side facing the summoner, pooling at the base. When he spoke, the pool fountained upwards, its height varying on the volume of his voice."
You should do one of Greyhawk too, the first setting of D&D and it was created by Gary Gygax himself, mostly I tell because some of the most legendary villains come from there, Acererak, Vecna, Iggwilv, Tharizdun, and most of all this villains became multiversal in all Dungeons and Dragons Multiverse, sort of like the Dragon Gods that are appearently the most present Gods in all of the Settings.
Played a game where i was a necromancer from netheril popping into dnd 5e time line. being trapped in a coffin as a re-born (Failed complete ressurection). for some 2-3 thousand years reduced from 20 to lvl 3 with a new magic system. playing an old skeleton guy from a few thousand years was a hell of a fun time. still my most favourite character to play by far.
Netheril is pretty essential to setting up the world of Faerun. I think they are inspired by the Roman Empire, with the rags to riches story and of course the dramatic fall. I didn't know the full story on Ioun becoming an undead Elder Brain essentially, that is pretty interesting. He is like a distillation of all the worst traits of Netheril: pride, a desire to avoid death, and supremely self-interested. Even with the Terraseer forewarning the Netherese, their fall couldn't be avoided.
So happy the Sharn get some spot light in a D&D video. Considering they did in 600 years what the Netherese couldn't do with all their magic; it is a wonder the world hasn't changed more due to Sharn. If you want a game mechanic understanding of what the sharn are capable of; the 3rd edition version listed them as a base CR6 or so but stressed that this was more like a template. All sharn had levels in arcane and divine spell casting. They had a racial trait where if a sharn got 1 level of an arcane class, then they automatically got 1 level in a divine class. Their ability to reach though portals at will for touch attacks or aim spells at awkward angles isn't to be underestimated either.
My friends and I played a campaign where we all choose weird non-evil monsters for player characters and I made a Sharn cleric, was one of the most fun campaigns I ever participated in.
The Terraseer is mentioned again in the history of Forgotten Realms, his name is Arthindoland and he led a city called Oreme. This is all mentioned in "Serpent Kingdoms".
TLDW: Netheril was powerful until some arrogant prick used magic to crash the universe's OS. It's okay though because Mystra turned magic off and on again and that did the trick.
I just realized something: that immortality spell attributed to Iolaum was rendered at least partially functionally obsolete in BOVD, where the Steal Life spell lets you drain a victim with an 8th level slot and make yourself ~48-60 weeks younger with each victim/casting (variance because it drains ability scores 1 point for 1 week, most vanilla NPCs in 3.5 RAW have 10's before racial modifiers so most should have their lowest ability score in the 8-10 range and whatever their lowest is you'd get that times 6 in weeks younger). Yes it's slower, but it's also a hell of a lot easier, even with the whole new moon requirement for becoming younger, and single people disappearing at a time would be a hell of a lot easier to keep quiet than a whole battalion.
Impeccable timing with this series Rhexx. I've been writing up a custom setting for my future D&D games for some time now and I'm getting around to the historical lore of it. I've gotten lots of good inspiration from this series. Keep it up!
Nice stuff! With more and more of Netheril stuff coming back with the recent adventures (Ythrin, the oblesiks and the Nether scroll of Azumar) it really helps to get more info on their origins!
After playing BG3 and getting involved in the D&D world for the first time these videos are truly amazing and I’m so invested in the Forgotten Realms lore❤
I love the history of Toril! Thanks so much for this amazing treat! If I recall correctly, the Netherese actually hunted people who lived on the ground. They would chase them down with wyverns and take their heads as trophies.
The Netherese didn't know the source of the magic drain, which is why they created the Tomb Tappers to look for whatever was causing it. Karsus also didn't cast that spell because of the magic drain, he was fairly isolated and didn't care what happened to the Netherese.
"Phaerimms dated back to the Days of Thunder. The wizards of the sarrukh empire of Isstosseffifil battled the phaerimms, and although the Isstossef succeeded in driving the phaerimms deep into the Underdark, the massive ecological change resulting from their weavings of Art caused the Isstosseffifil empire to collapse."
See, MrRhexx, over 33 mins of pure POSITIVE content with no apology needed feels really good! An apology is only needed when a violation of our trust is committed. For as long as no violation is committed, let the positivity reign! Trusting your viewers to be patient while you do your incredible research to create such awesome content is one of the highest compliments you can give us. To apologize for that is to take that wonderful feeling away. We Love You and support your interests and efforts to build this community 🫶 (Keep this awesome feeling going, please.)
Finally, the part I wanted to hear about the most. Granted, I lnew about precisely one of the previous event but I 've still been looking forward to this.
Good info, my DnD has homebrewed some lore so that Netheril wasn't completely destroyed and instead has been in it's own different plane caused by Karsus folly. And my Wizard character is from there, he left his plane to hide something from the other Netherese. He is also a history professor there so it's good to know all this stuff I might have to use
Selune rescued a flying enclave at the time of the fall and it is the only enclave to still exists today (it's on Selune's plane) and they have at least 1 full chapter of the scrolls. they survived because they were the only enclave that had allowed the worship of gods of which Selune was the main one. they barely make contact with Faerun and only just to get the Nether Scrolls but if you plane shift there and are cool with the goddess then they are friendly enough to teach you magic. dont know if this lore is still accurate but haven't heard anything else about it while i was searching about the Nether Scrolls.
Now that you're back to covering Netheril and their powerful magic, would love to hear your lore on epic level spellcasting! Based on your videos about 10th level magic and beyond, it sounds like a great way to circumvent those pesky magic restrictions. Your channel has given me so many great ideas for my 5e planar campaign, and it would be great to have even more cool lore and systems from earlier dnd editions to incorporate!
Hyped to see some Karatur or maybe Zakhara, sword coast is nice but ther is soo much more that would allow games to have a fresher feeling to them. Also, i cant get enough of Netherise, its just too good, only Sigil can top them in culture.
Just realized I flubbed a bit when I mentioned a Buffy fanfic on an earlier vid in this series: it wasn't an Imaskari expedition that had a couple people stay on ancient Earth that show up in the fic, they were Netherese, but they found Earth via Imaskari records of some sort, and whatever defenses the emigrating gods had erected basically made their Spelljammer crash when they arrived and they were basically stuck. Either way, yeah the author clearly knew a bit about this and I'm still sad they never finished it...
Your videos always inspire me for new campaigns or just make me want to play D&D in general, Especially the ones about civilizations and D&D history. The only problem is that I sometimes get bored after watching one of these because I want to play D&D so badly I don't have interest in playing anything else. Keep it up.
There was a high level magic companion to DnD long ago called "The Spellcasters Bible" for magic beyond character level 18. Had a spell called Geds bloody pill for making a magic battery/slash recharge as well as the fun spell "Last word" that allows you to prep a spell to cast after death.
I love these videos! They teach me so much for my homebrew in the setting! Oh olease please please keep teaching us more about the history of settings! 😢 I bought all your pdfs!🎉
This is probably my favorite part of D&D lore. Netheril is just so friggin cool to learn about! Imagine being able to upcast a spell like fireball or something upwards of 11th level. The amount of damage that would do 😅
This is great timing. Next week I'm starting a campaign set in netheril in an alternate timeline where Karsus' Folly never happened so having having some audio to listen to to learn more about the kingdom is super convenient!
So, that joke that every other monster was made by either the mind flayers or by a long lost wizard casting spells on animals... I suppose these are the long lost wizards in question?
I'm running a homebrew campaign where there are "wells" of magic that can be used to fuel the creation of magic items, but I didn't have much of an explanation for why. Your explanation of the Mithalar here is just what I needed to explain it! I'm now going to copy and paste the Netherese empire into my campaign as the source for these wells, but much farther back in history to the point where no one really knows about them, except for the BBEG who will basically recreate Karsus's Folly in an attempt to bring magic to everyone to make the world a better place, at any cost! In my campaign, instead of the phaerim that brought the downfall of the empire, it'll be Kaiju monsters that are devastating forces of nature and incredibly resistant to magic.
Amazing as always! You know none of us would complain if you made it a 10+ video deep dive!! 😁 Also, I’m going to use that Awaken/Alter Beast Nether Scroll the explanation for Hitpoint Press’ Humblefolk existing in my version of Faerun! 🦊🐭🐔🐥🦉
Was thinking about returning to D&D after decades away and watching your videos and your passion for the topics has definitely pushed me to jump back in. Also currently enjoying your tour of the Heavens. Keep 'em coming! And thank you! 🙏🖖
Wonderful video, and very timely. I'm running Icewind Dale and one of my players is rather curious about finding Ythryn and the history of the empire it came from.
Poor Terraseer. The guy probably just gave up. Helping found the greatest civilization on earth just to see it kill itself must be heart breaking. Also I do not really understand why not more cities tried to escape by shifting planes, expanding into and exploring the infinite seems so fitting for their civilization
This guy just couldn't become a normal lich huh, he had to create a life extension spell and then when that stopped working he decided to turn into an elder brain
I have to know, where did you find that world map for 24:50? I've looked for a map before, but only found the Western portion of that map (Approximately the Sword Coast). There are some older ones, but that one is so detailed!
I'm currently play a runechild sorceror who is descendent on netherese lane line of being pureblooded. We are in 3.5 playing the Cormyr module. My character went from evil monster summoner to neutral cleric of mystra. Gotta praise the goddess that saved your bloodline
@@ivosantos2758 "Why don't you hold this Amulet of Delayed Blast Fireball for a bit while I go stand over here? I mean... why don't you hold this ordinary nonmagical amulet?"
An arcanist in an old D&D novel used a spell to summon a specific greater demon just to have it loosen a tight lid of a jar the arcanist wanted to open.
so back in the 3.5 days the forums CR him out Ioulaum the Elder Brain Lich: Male Netherese Human Elder Brain Lich Wiz31/Acm5/Netherese Arcanist 5; CR 53. He is one of the few things that could take out Larloch or a certain lich dragon.
I didn't know he survived and became an elder brain lich seems too much to me, already being a netherese archmage who survives the fall made him strong enough, and ok if you want to make him greedy and selfish make him a lich, but why all that messing around to be an elder brain? What's the point? Is some reason given?
32:15 Look for the small cluster of islands above the words ‘Celestial Sea’ in the upper right portion of the circled red area. These are the Isle of Gargantuas, the term 2nd edition used for Kaiju! Three species of Kaiju live on these islands, based off of King Kong, Mothra and Godzilla!
I love your videos dude ever since the elder scrolls lore videos and now I dont even play dnd but I like how you explain the lore of the world and make it feel so interesting
I'm still fascinated by the setting that came about organically in a one player campaign I cowrote with a friend that was new to dnd. He wanted to be on earth originally, in Italy, as a sort of occult hunting sorcerer. I transposed Italy into, and onto, or parallel within Sembia. He loosely based his character on the comics and movie character Constantine (Kianu Reeves), a sorc that hunted demons and witches etc. The one shot prologue, which took several sessions, was based on Princess Bride. Buttercup was being abducted by the rival Gilder in order to stop Humperdink. He was possessed by a powerful demon that was basically bringing about an antichrist through attempting to sacrifice Buttercup. The plan was thwarted and Humperdink was slain, and the demon, which became a recurring character went back to the abyss. But in that moment when he was slain from his host our 3 charscters were sucked into the unleashed magic explosion and we spun out into what was the 4th ed shadow fell, where we made our way to gloom wrought, which I had had in mind for a city scape setting based on my character from another campaign thst was serving the raven queen. By pure coincidence, based on the Constantine comics, my friend wanted a "hideout," like a mage tower. I sat him in front of the map, not knowing anything about forgotten realms, did the equivalent of spinning the globe and he chose the location of the "city of shade" then in Anaroch. I went into hardcore lore investigsting and was shocked and surprised to discover that Gloomwrought in the Shadowfell was the parallel shadow realm version of the city of shade, which had several names, but was known as Thulthanthar. From there the campaign practically wrote itself. Thulthantar was one of the surviving floating enclaves, it was the one that spent about 1300 years in the shadow realm or Shadowfell. It eventually came back and, if I recall correctly, per the lore, reestablished the neo netherese empire. Our campaign basically prequels those events as they are leaving the Shadowfell. Before they reestablish new netheril in the material plane they made an attempt and a bid for power in the Shadowfell by assaulting Gloomwrought with a confederation and opportunistic alliance with the demonic forces of Orcus and an associated powerful lich. We started off on our our way to Shadowfell's Anorouch and stayed at the inn in Shadowfell Arabel. When Thulthanthar descended on the city with it's airship navy and they firebombed and decimated the city. With survivors from the inn we managed to overtake some of the shade netherese and commandeer one of their airships, as we flew the rest of the way to Gloomwrought, Arabel in flames and ruins fading bright in the Shadowfell's permanent night horizon. Basically we brought tidings to the city that it's material plane sister city was on its way to seige the city. Three days of spies and descending chaos as the city's factuins broke out into open conflict and refugees formed and others bolstered their defenses. It was an epic battle scenario that unfolded. The demons in the west gates, the undead on the east, and the netherese and Thulthanthar looming over the city from the air. Basically the undead were being powered by a mythallar and its energies being channeled by the lich. Once that part of the seige lifted and the demon captains, lead by the Humperdink demon were slain (he ended up having several names), the demons retreated too, and the netherese, alone in the seige retreated and then teleported back to the material plane. The netherese bid for an extra planar empire failed. God that was so much fun, and it was organic and more or less fit the lore. I still think about it all the time and want to build on those adventures. We ended up secondarily pursuing an avatar of the remnant of defeated Shar. Difficult to explain or place in the lore except that it's more or less "present day," in the lore. We ended up back on earth trying to stop this "shard of Shar" (of which there are presumably many, becasue her power was shattered and trying to make a comeback, becasue the netherese were her main civilization of worshippers left. Her primacy as a major diety collapsed with them, when, if I rememeber correctly, Elminster brought down Thulthanthar when it was similarly assaulting Myth Drannor? God I can't rmemeber, Its been years.) It was epic, had several more mini side campaigns related to that and the aftermath, still want to do more. If you're out there, I hope this inspires you, please rememeber me when you visit Gloomwrought and hopefully the moment and setting where Thulthanthar and the Netherese fight for their ascendance!
It’s weird that Netheril, the ancient civilization that left the most powerful artifacts and secrets coveted by current Realms figures, was itself dependent on the discovery of artifacts and secrets from an even more ancient civilization. I wonder if the Sarrukh also based their power and the Nether Scrolls on secrets and artifacts from an EVEN MORE ancient civilization we just don’t know about yet. And so on.
My campaign is litterally starting with the players seeking out Arthindol/Terraseer's latest prophesies from at which a chaos will follow as they find themselves embroiled in the mystery of the lost city of Karse to prevent or bring about the awakening of the Child-who-would-be-a-god
For soundtracks we, back in my old campaign, grabbed a vinyl of Conan The Barbarian soundtrack and put that on, except flipping it over all the time was annoying. I out it on for my new group and they lved it. Another excellent vid, keep up the great job 😎 🤘 🍻
The Netherese are essentially to the Forgotten Realms what Senju are to Naruto Lore. Also I once heard that Halaster might be a surviving Netherese wizard. Not sure how valid that info is.
11:30 Huh, I already had a number of NPC mages do that using at least one fertile goose egg, a fragment of tissue or drop of blood from any creature possessing characteristics they want their creation to have (multiple creature samples might be used) the spell mending to fuse it all (multiple goose eggs might thus be fused into a single larger egg if desired) a reversed variant of the cantrip exterminate a limited wish and potentially a phantasmal force to provide a visual guide for the limited wish. The mending fused the fragments of flesh or drops of blood with the fertilised egg the limited wish guided which traits from the creatures sampled you wanted your creation to have and the reversed exterminate sparked life back into it and started the embryo developing in the egg. Multiple castings of some of the spells might be needed, particularly if building a bigger egg from several goose eggs, the yokes would be emptied into a bowl while the bigger shell was made by fusing the shards of the smaller shells into a larger one with the mending spell, the whites would be poured into it and the yokes broken together in a bowl and mixed with the other creatures material added then a mending cast on them to bring them together as a single yoke then pored in and the last piece of shell fused in place with mending. If you particularly wanted loyalty you might include a crushed ant egg and a drop of your own sweat, the limited wish would then include that one of the traits you wanted was the instinctive subservience and loyalty of an ant to its queen for you personally (the sweat is to provide the spell with a pheromone and scent sample), which can be the only ant like trait chosen, and the imprinting instincts of a bird or reptile (there's already goose genetic material in the fertile goose egg so you don't need to add any other sample for that). If you want the traits you've chosen to breed true you include that in the limited wish. To finish off the reversed exterminate is then cast to quicken the egg. You then have to keep the egg warm until it hatches (it may need help as it may not be a natural egg layer) and nurture your creation to an adult .. subsequent generations won't necessarily lay eggs and will use whatever reproductive method you chose for them. .. Finding the right temperature for the egg of your brand new never before seen species might be trial and error and if you've not made a big enough egg for it to mature to a viable size and stage before hatching it can be grossly premature at 'birth' so just die after hatching, so unless working from the notes of a previously successful mage and copying their creation rather than making a unique one of your own you may need several attempts to get it right, and each limited wish costs a year of your life. .. All done with standard 1st edition AD&D spells with one reversed second edition cantrip, no more than a 14th level magic user needed. A 1st level mage can do it as well .. but without the limited wish to guide random chance the mixed genetic material usually results in something that dies before it matures enough to be hatched and those (very few indeed) that do hatch are most often unviable monstrosities unable to survive on their own. Mostly inspired by the description in MM1 of the creation of a Homunculus. The first one I used it with made his own flying monkeys .. Himalayan baboons with white swans wings, a fully prehensile spider monkey tail, that had average human level intelligence, could speak and were genetically predisposed to loyalty to him personally.
That would be such a cool campaign. Where the villan summons an altered beast army and you steal his scroll to build an army of your own and fight them.
bro, "alter beast" is op. you can make your own dragon, imaging that. you can make a loyal good-aligned red dragon with more firepower or lighting or something.
How to take over Toril: Step 1: Get "Alter Beast" Spell. Step 2: Modify humans to be Warhammer 40k Space Marines. Step 3: Arm them with Powerarmor. Step 4: Profit.
Check out Dscryb! Gotta level up your narration with them :D dscryb.com/
What sold me is finding out they have a Foundry VTT module
Quick question, can I get a brief explanation on what happened to the Sharn after the Sharn Wall? Don't need to go into too much detail, I'm just curious because I can't imagine beings powerful enough to defeat the Phaerimm, something that even the Netherese couldn't defeat, just disappearing after their 600 year war.
I'm only tangentially knowledgeable about D&D stuff, and I'd never heard about this civilization until I saw this video. That having been said, every time I see a story in which a civilization creates floating cities, my first thought is "okay, how'd they fuck things up bad enough to make all the cities fall and thus snuff out their civilization overnight?", and lo and behold this story didn't disappoint. It really is a Sword of Damocles situation to have your entire civilization hinge upon a single factor never being able to stop functioning, else everything instantly grinds to a halt in such a way that instantly creates a cataclysm".
Chatgpt completely made this obsolete 😂
Almost 5 minutes to get to the actual video is insane. Be better lmao
Karsus Folly better known as eff around and find out. A maneuver so fantastically short sighted that mages of the realm still measure catastrophic stupidity by units of Karsus.
Going in the dark into a doorway without checking if the door is open = 1 microKarsus.
Slowly sawing off a branch of a tree you yourself are sitting on = 1 milliKarsus.
This is why we don't mess with Heavy Magic XD
Karsus, the new Henderson.
I feel Netheril was gone when Karsus's spell pretty much *KILLED* it.
He was an idiot too in any case if you ask me. 😏
Chosing to become not just any god but 'the magic god', although temporarily maybe, to fight creatures highly resistant to magic.
What a fool. How can someone be this talented yet so uncreative? Makes me almost angry to think this idiocy destroyed the type of civilization I dig the most. 😁
You have to remember that Karsus was extremely arrogant even for a Netheril mage. He knew the risks, he just thought he was beyond them. Turns out he wasn't.
Brooooo FINALLY IVE ALWAYS BEEN INTERESTED IN RUNNING A CAMPAIGN BASED AROUND NETHERIL THIS IS PERFECT!!!
we ran a campaign based on the party being in an adventurers guild, and their job was to go to the underdark below the anarauch desert where all the cities crashed into the earth, and recover old netherse artifacts and magic secrets. it was pretty fun
Well you might play around the Shadovar. Shade Enclave is pretty messed up. One might argue Imaskar might be the greater civilization. For one thing they never fell. Literally and figuratively.
In icewind dale rime of the frostmaiden have an intaresting ending could tie well into what you are looking for
@@mikewaterfield3599 technically they didnt all fall since their greatest leader is still alive(well undead) and functioning as probably the most powerful entity in all of forgotten realms. only karsus and his followers fell. but their first and greatest leader ioulamm did not fall. and now hes just chilling as an elder brain lich with 33 levels wizard, 5 levels in netherese arcanist and 5 levels in archmage. just a plain old regular elder brain is one of the most dangerous creatures, and hes also a lich that casts spells as a level 43 wizard, and he built up an entire new following in the underdark. others like he said went to other planes. so in the end, only parts of the nether empire fell, while other leaders like ioulamm still live on and possess all of the supposed "lost" knowledge.
@@PeteZam never use 5th ed character levels past 20, D&D past second ed does not handle epic levels or ascension well. Generally speaking considering the last true survivors of of Netheril are Shade Enclave, Halrua, and Thay……. Eh Netheril was bound to F up. Personally the level of magic never made much sense to me. Elves are naturally far more attuned to the weave. Too many godlike arch wizards for my liking. Although it is hilarious in the novels they way people react to even the suspicion of a lost Nether Scroll.
28:59 I played in a game once where a large southern desert was the direct result of a god of death being born there it used to be a fertile plains and forests. If blood was spilled on its sands there was a chance of undead pulling themselves out of the sand below to attack you.
Sounds metal as fuck.
Okay not gonna lie I fucking love that idea. Reminds me a little of the birth of Slaanesh in wh40k and it would be such a cool area to explore
This series is why I've made High Archivist Rhexxus an NPC in my world
Oooo, time to copy your homework lol- nah still gonna change the title.
yoink
Elf: That magic is too dangerous and powerful!
Human: dibs
Given how all the deserts on Toril are magical scars, special mention should be made of the Dark Sun setting, where the life-draining magic turned the entire world of Athas into a barren wasteland. Perhaps Toril would've suffered the same fate if all the destructive magic usage was kept unchecked.
different type of magic, so no need to mention athas at all.
@@tooslow4065 True, but the consequences are nevertheless very similar and the parallells between the two worlds' magically destroyed ecosystems are striking
I seem to remember seeing a theory somewhere that Toril and Athas are actually the same world. Athas is just the far distant future. It's kind of silly and doesn't really work, but there you go.
I absolutely love all these younger DMs out there getting excited about Netheril. Wish Ed could read all these posts. 😊
My campaign back in the early 90s was entirely based on Netheril but started in 1371DR. Now that I'm DMing again my new "younger players" are getting to run thru the 2nd plotline I built 30 yrs ago. Starting again back in 1371.
Sorry, just feeling nostalgic tonight.
Thanks Mr Rhexx for posting this video. Excellent research you've done here. I tip my arcanist hat to you!
I played in those days. Played in the 80 and 90's. Its nive to see the young generation too.
@@celuiquipeut6527 Thanks! I'm finally producing my original world setting next year. Its going to be mostly about exploring ancient ruins.
The concept, (like the ruins) never seems to die. 😉👍
@@helixxharpell Me and my group, we never played in Faerun. We had created our own world, made our maps, cities, on a scale. We had made a whole bunch of NPC. It was so amazing. To live in this world. And the timeline, every session we made, was a different group of adventurer, but if we had high level ones (once we went to lvl 20 in a 2.5 setting...we almost ascended to God hood. Only 1 person survived, and it was the PC of our DM. That character survived and became the villain of our next campaign...and aell, he was so tough ue stayed the villain for a couple of others campaign as well. Lol) It made all our games so much more relecant and interesting.
We had an ever moving forest, full of driads. The forest would move woth you, change its course. It was a real labyrinth, with static pocket of "rooms" with encounters. But how you went there....we had to make maps, well our character. It really took us some times to figure it out. We had a rough bu fair DM.
I suspect he was a psychopath. Lol and i am grateful for it. I use to always play a Paladin. After he went high level, he set to go to a desecrated village, where undead roamed. The region was desolate, plant were dead, it was the lair of a Necromancer...who became a Lich. Had to fight a draco lich.
The thing is...that used to be my old character. I had played a necro and in the end turned him into a lich. When the session was over, we would give our DM our character sheet.
It took me a while to realise who i was fighting.
My Pally ended up dying. Our group wiped. My Pal was sole survivor. I kept going. What ended up happening is, my sword stayed there. It was basking in a forever Godray. It became a legendary 2 handed weapon...that i later got to pick up as a lower level Pally...
My DM was a genius.
I could write a book about all our adventures. It was quite the teenage years we had!. Played DND with that group from 13yo until 18.
Me and my brother we created our own tabletop game. Your our own rules. It was a mix of Vampire the masquerade and DnD. It worked really well. We weote whole compendium about ennemies, different demons, angels, a post apocalyptic world where the air is unbreathable. Humans live in domes. And anomalies, lile vampires thrives. Where wolves hunt them. This was before all those where wolf movies in the 00.
I tried to convince my brother to publish it. But he refuse categorically. I want to keep it to himself....
All that to say, dont be afraid. Create your own world. It is why DnD was created in the first place. They use to encourage this. And your story telling will be even better and your player will tank you for it.
@@celuiquipeut6527 Love hearing all these great stories!
Our world setting will appeal to that nostalgia. Many campaigns end around 12th-15th these days. That's a shame too. We're addressing that 15th to 20th level storyline structure as well. Our 1st set of adventures will take PCs from 4th all the way to 20th level. Thanks for replying! Happy gaming!
@@helixxharpell Oh wow! Thats great news! A lot of DM are afraid or incapable to manage a group with that amount of power. It requires skill amd a lot of imagination.
Imagination seems to be declining nowadays, so its really great what you are doing! I wish you a lot of fun together!
Not killed. Entombed. Legend has it the goddess cursed Karsus to be aware all this time. To witness his folly, to think of what he did wrong and to watch his world crumble as he watched on in helplessness
I mean he is dead. He doesn't have any life functions, his soul is just trapped in the hunk of rock that used to be his body.
@Adam Bielen the legend says he slowly regains power and that someday he may return. After all. He technically was a god, if but for a moment. I think i read it eaither in the netherize novel or in magic if fearun 3rd ed.
@@adambielen8996 "Those with experience in pact magic could call up his vestige, where he appeared as a giant blood-red boulder, like the one found in the High Forest where his petrified form landed. Blood burbles up from the top of the stone, trickling down the side facing the summoner, pooling at the base. When he spoke, the pool fountained upwards, its height varying on the volume of his voice."
It was later retconned that he is in hell but we don't talk about that.
@HumanoidCableDreads must have happened in fourth edition. Lol.
You should do one of Greyhawk too, the first setting of D&D and it was created by Gary Gygax himself, mostly I tell because some of the most legendary villains come from there, Acererak, Vecna, Iggwilv, Tharizdun, and most of all this villains became multiversal in all Dungeons and Dragons Multiverse, sort of like the Dragon Gods that are appearently the most present Gods in all of the Settings.
Played a game where i was a necromancer from netheril popping into dnd 5e time line. being trapped in a coffin as a re-born (Failed complete ressurection). for some 2-3 thousand years reduced from 20 to lvl 3 with a new magic system. playing an old skeleton guy from a few thousand years was a hell of a fun time. still my most favourite character to play by far.
Netheril is pretty essential to setting up the world of Faerun. I think they are inspired by the Roman Empire, with the rags to riches story and of course the dramatic fall. I didn't know the full story on Ioun becoming an undead Elder Brain essentially, that is pretty interesting. He is like a distillation of all the worst traits of Netheril: pride, a desire to avoid death, and supremely self-interested. Even with the Terraseer forewarning the Netherese, their fall couldn't be avoided.
Netheril is unambiguously coded as an Arabian/Islamic caliphate.
Head canon for me he is now the elderbrain in bg3.
So happy the Sharn get some spot light in a D&D video. Considering they did in 600 years what the Netherese couldn't do with all their magic; it is a wonder the world hasn't changed more due to Sharn.
If you want a game mechanic understanding of what the sharn are capable of; the 3rd edition version listed them as a base CR6 or so but stressed that this was more like a template. All sharn had levels in arcane and divine spell casting. They had a racial trait where if a sharn got 1 level of an arcane class, then they automatically got 1 level in a divine class. Their ability to reach though portals at will for touch attacks or aim spells at awkward angles isn't to be underestimated either.
My friends and I played a campaign where we all choose weird non-evil monsters for player characters and I made a Sharn cleric, was one of the most fun campaigns I ever participated in.
The Terraseer is mentioned again in the history of Forgotten Realms, his name is Arthindoland and he led a city called Oreme. This is all mentioned in "Serpent Kingdoms".
@@morgothableBut he went back to that role after the fall of Nethiril
Great vid so far, makes Forgotten Realms lore so much more approachable
TLDW: Netheril was powerful until some arrogant prick used magic to crash the universe's OS. It's okay though because Mystra turned magic off and on again and that did the trick.
Especially for what they did to the gnomes.
Funnily enough, this uploaded just after I had finally finished watching through most of your D&D lore playlist... guess I'm not quite done yet!
LOL literally the same
I just realized something: that immortality spell attributed to Iolaum was rendered at least partially functionally obsolete in BOVD, where the Steal Life spell lets you drain a victim with an 8th level slot and make yourself ~48-60 weeks younger with each victim/casting (variance because it drains ability scores 1 point for 1 week, most vanilla NPCs in 3.5 RAW have 10's before racial modifiers so most should have their lowest ability score in the 8-10 range and whatever their lowest is you'd get that times 6 in weeks younger). Yes it's slower, but it's also a hell of a lot easier, even with the whole new moon requirement for becoming younger, and single people disappearing at a time would be a hell of a lot easier to keep quiet than a whole battalion.
Impeccable timing with this series Rhexx. I've been writing up a custom setting for my future D&D games for some time now and I'm getting around to the historical lore of it. I've gotten lots of good inspiration from this series. Keep it up!
Nice stuff! With more and more of Netheril stuff coming back with the recent adventures (Ythrin, the oblesiks and the Nether scroll of Azumar) it really helps to get more info on their origins!
After playing BG3 and getting involved in the D&D world for the first time these videos are truly amazing and I’m so invested in the Forgotten Realms lore❤
I love the history of Toril! Thanks so much for this amazing treat!
If I recall correctly, the Netherese actually hunted people who lived on the ground. They would chase them down with wyverns and take their heads as trophies.
Damn you crushed that reading of the gnome child. Really tugged at the heart strings... 🥺
I feel like the seer brought the antimagic creatures in a long-term plot to have Karthas kill the goddess of magic
The Netherese didn't know the source of the magic drain, which is why they created the Tomb Tappers to look for whatever was causing it. Karsus also didn't cast that spell because of the magic drain, he was fairly isolated and didn't care what happened to the Netherese.
The Phaerimm also are mentioned to have been around before humans, back when the Sarrukh ruled everything.
"Phaerimms dated back to the Days of Thunder. The wizards of the sarrukh empire of Isstosseffifil battled the phaerimms, and although the Isstossef succeeded in driving the phaerimms deep into the Underdark, the massive ecological change resulting from their weavings of Art caused the Isstosseffifil empire to collapse."
Really hoping you re-release these as a full movie version. This series is fantastic
See, MrRhexx, over 33 mins of pure POSITIVE content with no apology needed feels really good!
An apology is only needed when a violation of our trust is committed. For as long as no violation is committed, let the positivity reign!
Trusting your viewers to be patient while you do your incredible research to create such awesome content is one of the highest compliments you can give us. To apologize for that is to take that wonderful feeling away.
We Love You and support your interests and efforts to build this community 🫶
(Keep this awesome feeling going, please.)
Finally, the part I wanted to hear about the most. Granted, I lnew about precisely one of the previous event but I 've still been looking forward to this.
22:43
When one person on the Wi-Fi decides to download a huge game and it slows everything else down.
Another one! I swear you have no idea how much i look forwards to these!
Good info, my DnD has homebrewed some lore so that Netheril wasn't completely destroyed and instead has been in it's own different plane caused by Karsus folly. And my Wizard character is from there, he left his plane to hide something from the other Netherese. He is also a history professor there so it's good to know all this stuff I might have to use
Selune rescued a flying enclave at the time of the fall and it is the only enclave to still exists today (it's on Selune's plane) and they have at least 1 full chapter of the scrolls. they survived because they were the only enclave that had allowed the worship of gods of which Selune was the main one. they barely make contact with Faerun and only just to get the Nether Scrolls but if you plane shift there and are cool with the goddess then they are friendly enough to teach you magic.
dont know if this lore is still accurate but haven't heard anything else about it while i was searching about the Nether Scrolls.
Now that you're back to covering Netheril and their powerful magic, would love to hear your lore on epic level spellcasting! Based on your videos about 10th level magic and beyond, it sounds like a great way to circumvent those pesky magic restrictions.
Your channel has given me so many great ideas for my 5e planar campaign, and it would be great to have even more cool lore and systems from earlier dnd editions to incorporate!
Hyped to see some Karatur or maybe Zakhara, sword coast is nice but ther is soo much more that would allow games to have a fresher feeling to them.
Also, i cant get enough of Netherise, its just too good, only Sigil can top them in culture.
Easily my favorite video yet. Bravo MrRhexx
Just realized I flubbed a bit when I mentioned a Buffy fanfic on an earlier vid in this series: it wasn't an Imaskari expedition that had a couple people stay on ancient Earth that show up in the fic, they were Netherese, but they found Earth via Imaskari records of some sort, and whatever defenses the emigrating gods had erected basically made their Spelljammer crash when they arrived and they were basically stuck. Either way, yeah the author clearly knew a bit about this and I'm still sad they never finished it...
Amazing work as always and what good timing! I just started a campaign in Anauroch and this video helps to hammer out the details.
Your videos always inspire me for new campaigns or just make me want to play D&D in general, Especially the ones about civilizations and D&D history. The only problem is that I sometimes get bored after watching one of these because I want to play D&D so badly I don't have interest in playing anything else. Keep it up.
I wonder if he will talk about how some of the Drow became uncorrupted or the spell plague that brought the Dragonborn into the world?
There was a high level magic companion to DnD long ago called "The Spellcasters Bible" for magic beyond character level 18.
Had a spell called Geds bloody pill for making a magic battery/slash recharge as well as the fun spell "Last word" that allows you to prep a spell to cast after death.
I love these videos! They teach me so much for my homebrew in the setting! Oh olease please please keep teaching us more about the history of settings! 😢
I bought all your pdfs!🎉
This is probably my favorite part of D&D lore. Netheril is just so friggin cool to learn about! Imagine being able to upcast a spell like fireball or something upwards of 11th level. The amount of damage that would do 😅
This is great timing. Next week I'm starting a campaign set in netheril in an alternate timeline where Karsus' Folly never happened so having having some audio to listen to to learn more about the kingdom is super convenient!
I'm glad to see that you're back making videos weekly
Ioulaum YESSSSS!!!!!! You finally are talking about him!
So, that joke that every other monster was made by either the mind flayers or by a long lost wizard casting spells on animals... I suppose these are the long lost wizards in question?
I'm running a homebrew campaign where there are "wells" of magic that can be used to fuel the creation of magic items, but I didn't have much of an explanation for why. Your explanation of the Mithalar here is just what I needed to explain it! I'm now going to copy and paste the Netherese empire into my campaign as the source for these wells, but much farther back in history to the point where no one really knows about them, except for the BBEG who will basically recreate Karsus's Folly in an attempt to bring magic to everyone to make the world a better place, at any cost!
In my campaign, instead of the phaerim that brought the downfall of the empire, it'll be Kaiju monsters that are devastating forces of nature and incredibly resistant to magic.
Amazing as always! You know none of us would complain if you made it a 10+ video deep dive!! 😁
Also, I’m going to use that Awaken/Alter Beast Nether Scroll the explanation for Hitpoint Press’ Humblefolk existing in my version of Faerun! 🦊🐭🐔🐥🦉
I recommend all of your videos to anybody looking for dnd lore. You do an amazing job my dood
been waiting for a netheril video for years man thanks
Was thinking about returning to D&D after decades away and watching your videos and your passion for the topics has definitely pushed me to jump back in. Also currently enjoying your tour of the Heavens. Keep 'em coming! And thank you! 🙏🖖
Wonderful video, and very timely. I'm running Icewind Dale and one of my players is rather curious about finding Ythryn and the history of the empire it came from.
My all time favorite faction in the either game! ❤️
Poor Terraseer. The guy probably just gave up. Helping found the greatest civilization on earth just to see it kill itself must be heart breaking. Also I do not really understand why not more cities tried to escape by shifting planes, expanding into and exploring the infinite seems so fitting for their civilization
civilization obtains powers rivaled by the gods themselves
"Guys they made *Fridges* , like, everybody had one!" 🤣 i love this hahaha
This guy just couldn't become a normal lich huh, he had to create a life extension spell and then when that stopped working he decided to turn into an elder brain
Love this history series. Looking forward to the one about orcs especially if the kingdom of many arrows is talked about.
Video Begins at 4:30
I have to know, where did you find that world map for 24:50? I've looked for a map before, but only found the Western portion of that map (Approximately the Sword Coast). There are some older ones, but that one is so detailed!
I'm currently play a runechild sorceror who is descendent on netherese lane line of being pureblooded. We are in 3.5 playing the Cormyr module. My character went from evil monster summoner to neutral cleric of mystra. Gotta praise the goddess that saved your bloodline
Cant wait! These series is extremely interesting!
Hi Fermin!
I wonder why Netheril used slaves when it had access to so much magic and technology. What did the slaves do that constructs couldn't?
They could be guinea pigs...
@@ivosantos2758 "Why don't you hold this Amulet of Delayed Blast Fireball for a bit while I go stand over here? I mean... why don't you hold this ordinary nonmagical amulet?"
Great deep dive. Always welcome to see your videos
An arcanist in an old D&D novel used a spell to summon a specific greater demon just to have it loosen a tight lid of a jar the arcanist wanted to open.
I did know that Ioulaum was still alive as an Elder brain, but i think i totally underrated his power.
so back in the 3.5 days the forums CR him out Ioulaum the Elder Brain Lich: Male Netherese Human Elder Brain Lich Wiz31/Acm5/Netherese Arcanist 5; CR 53. He is one of the few things that could take out Larloch or a certain lich dragon.
I didn't know he survived and became an elder brain lich seems too much to me, already being a netherese archmage who survives the fall made him strong enough, and ok if you want to make him greedy and selfish make him a lich, but why all that messing around to be an elder brain? What's the point? Is some reason given?
@@gudemik5335he probably a control freak.
@@gudemik5335ever being on a receiving end of Mind Blast before?
*kobolds read with disgust what the Netheril did to the gnomes*
"Professional HAVE standards."
32:15 Look for the small cluster of islands above the words ‘Celestial Sea’ in the upper right portion of the circled red area.
These are the Isle of Gargantuas, the term 2nd edition used for Kaiju!
Three species of Kaiju live on these islands, based off of King Kong, Mothra and Godzilla!
I've been waiting for this! Sweet!
I remember when Dscrybe sucked lol. I'm glad they grew to something worth buying now
This is my favorite comment of the day.
For more info in the Terraseer and Jergal, definitely check out Ed Greenwood's Lord of The End of Everything
As well as "Serpent Kingdoms", also by Greenwood.
I just realized that "The Simbul" must have cast a 10th level spell in Elminster in Hell when she dropped the top off a mountain in Avernus
Huged D&D fan hear , been role playing ever sinch 12 , keep up the good work , realy enjoy the vedio,s .
I love your videos dude ever since the elder scrolls lore videos and now I dont even play dnd but I like how you explain the lore of the world and make it feel so interesting
Wonderfull video i was waiting for this video since i kind of needed it for my campaign.
I'm still fascinated by the setting that came about organically in a one player campaign I cowrote with a friend that was new to dnd. He wanted to be on earth originally, in Italy, as a sort of occult hunting sorcerer. I transposed Italy into, and onto, or parallel within Sembia. He loosely based his character on the comics and movie character Constantine (Kianu Reeves), a sorc that hunted demons and witches etc.
The one shot prologue, which took several sessions, was based on Princess Bride. Buttercup was being abducted by the rival Gilder in order to stop Humperdink. He was possessed by a powerful demon that was basically bringing about an antichrist through attempting to sacrifice Buttercup. The plan was thwarted and Humperdink was slain, and the demon, which became a recurring character went back to the abyss. But in that moment when he was slain from his host our 3 charscters were sucked into the unleashed magic explosion and we spun out into what was the 4th ed shadow fell, where we made our way to gloom wrought, which I had had in mind for a city scape setting based on my character from another campaign thst was serving the raven queen.
By pure coincidence, based on the Constantine comics, my friend wanted a "hideout," like a mage tower. I sat him in front of the map, not knowing anything about forgotten realms, did the equivalent of spinning the globe and he chose the location of the "city of shade" then in Anaroch. I went into hardcore lore investigsting and was shocked and surprised to discover that Gloomwrought in the Shadowfell was the parallel shadow realm version of the city of shade, which had several names, but was known as Thulthanthar. From there the campaign practically wrote itself.
Thulthantar was one of the surviving floating enclaves, it was the one that spent about 1300 years in the shadow realm or Shadowfell. It eventually came back and, if I recall correctly, per the lore, reestablished the neo netherese empire. Our campaign basically prequels those events as they are leaving the Shadowfell. Before they reestablish new netheril in the material plane they made an attempt and a bid for power in the Shadowfell by assaulting Gloomwrought with a confederation and opportunistic alliance with the demonic forces of Orcus and an associated powerful lich.
We started off on our our way to Shadowfell's Anorouch and stayed at the inn in Shadowfell Arabel. When Thulthanthar descended on the city with it's airship navy and they firebombed and decimated the city. With survivors from the inn we managed to overtake some of the shade netherese and commandeer one of their airships, as we flew the rest of the way to Gloomwrought, Arabel in flames and ruins fading bright in the Shadowfell's permanent night horizon.
Basically we brought tidings to the city that it's material plane sister city was on its way to seige the city. Three days of spies and descending chaos as the city's factuins broke out into open conflict and refugees formed and others bolstered their defenses. It was an epic battle scenario that unfolded. The demons in the west gates, the undead on the east, and the netherese and Thulthanthar looming over the city from the air. Basically the undead were being powered by a mythallar and its energies being channeled by the lich. Once that part of the seige lifted and the demon captains, lead by the Humperdink demon were slain (he ended up having several names), the demons retreated too, and the netherese, alone in the seige retreated and then teleported back to the material plane. The netherese bid for an extra planar empire failed.
God that was so much fun, and it was organic and more or less fit the lore. I still think about it all the time and want to build on those adventures.
We ended up secondarily pursuing an avatar of the remnant of defeated Shar. Difficult to explain or place in the lore except that it's more or less "present day," in the lore. We ended up back on earth trying to stop this "shard of Shar" (of which there are presumably many, becasue her power was shattered and trying to make a comeback, becasue the netherese were her main civilization of worshippers left. Her primacy as a major diety collapsed with them, when, if I rememeber correctly, Elminster brought down Thulthanthar when it was similarly assaulting Myth Drannor? God I can't rmemeber, Its been years.)
It was epic, had several more mini side campaigns related to that and the aftermath, still want to do more. If you're out there, I hope this inspires you, please rememeber me when you visit Gloomwrought and hopefully the moment and setting where Thulthanthar and the Netherese fight for their ascendance!
It’s weird that Netheril, the ancient civilization that left the most powerful artifacts and secrets coveted by current Realms figures, was itself dependent on the discovery of artifacts and secrets from an even more ancient civilization. I wonder if the Sarrukh also based their power and the Nether Scrolls on secrets and artifacts from an EVEN MORE ancient civilization we just don’t know about yet. And so on.
Fantastic video! They were hoisted by their own petard.
I like how you used "Sacrifice" game main menu music as a background music for your vid. Good choice.
My campaign is litterally starting with the players seeking out Arthindol/Terraseer's latest prophesies from at which a chaos will follow as they find themselves embroiled in the mystery of the lost city of Karse to prevent or bring about the awakening of the Child-who-would-be-a-god
For soundtracks we, back in my old campaign, grabbed a vinyl of Conan The Barbarian soundtrack and put that on, except flipping it over all the time was annoying. I out it on for my new group and they lved it. Another excellent vid, keep up the great job 😎 🤘 🍻
Gnome god traped Kobold god... thats why I'm not so sorry, KOBOLDS FTW
Then deeper we delve!! Good video!
The Netherese are essentially to the Forgotten Realms what Senju are to Naruto Lore.
Also I once heard that Halaster might be a surviving Netherese wizard. Not sure how valid that info is.
Considering what they were capable of. And what he has been able to do alone. I wouldn't doubt it for a second..
what would we do without you. Another amazing and informative video. 🎉
I would not be upset by ten videos in this era
Regarding Alter Beast: All animals are sentient. You're thinking of sapient.
11:30 Huh, I already had a number of NPC mages do that using at least one fertile goose egg, a fragment of tissue or drop of blood from any creature possessing characteristics they want their creation to have (multiple creature samples might be used) the spell mending to fuse it all (multiple goose eggs might thus be fused into a single larger egg if desired) a reversed variant of the cantrip exterminate a limited wish and potentially a phantasmal force to provide a visual guide for the limited wish.
The mending fused the fragments of flesh or drops of blood with the fertilised egg the limited wish guided which traits from the creatures sampled you wanted your creation to have and the reversed exterminate sparked life back into it and started the embryo developing in the egg.
Multiple castings of some of the spells might be needed, particularly if building a bigger egg from several goose eggs, the yokes would be emptied into a bowl while the bigger shell was made by fusing the shards of the smaller shells into a larger one with the mending spell, the whites would be poured into it and the yokes broken together in a bowl and mixed with the other creatures material added then a mending cast on them to bring them together as a single yoke then pored in and the last piece of shell fused in place with mending.
If you particularly wanted loyalty you might include a crushed ant egg and a drop of your own sweat, the limited wish would then include that one of the traits you wanted was the instinctive subservience and loyalty of an ant to its queen for you personally (the sweat is to provide the spell with a pheromone and scent sample), which can be the only ant like trait chosen, and the imprinting instincts of a bird or reptile (there's already goose genetic material in the fertile goose egg so you don't need to add any other sample for that).
If you want the traits you've chosen to breed true you include that in the limited wish.
To finish off the reversed exterminate is then cast to quicken the egg.
You then have to keep the egg warm until it hatches (it may need help as it may not be a natural egg layer) and nurture your creation to an adult .. subsequent generations won't necessarily lay eggs and will use whatever reproductive method you chose for them.
..
Finding the right temperature for the egg of your brand new never before seen species might be trial and error and if you've not made a big enough egg for it to mature to a viable size and stage before hatching it can be grossly premature at 'birth' so just die after hatching, so unless working from the notes of a previously successful mage and copying their creation rather than making a unique one of your own you may need several attempts to get it right, and each limited wish costs a year of your life.
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All done with standard 1st edition AD&D spells with one reversed second edition cantrip, no more than a 14th level magic user needed.
A 1st level mage can do it as well .. but without the limited wish to guide random chance the mixed genetic material usually results in something that dies before it matures enough to be hatched and those (very few indeed) that do hatch are most often unviable monstrosities unable to survive on their own.
Mostly inspired by the description in MM1 of the creation of a Homunculus.
The first one I used it with made his own flying monkeys .. Himalayan baboons with white swans wings, a fully prehensile spider monkey tail, that had average human level intelligence, could speak and were genetically predisposed to loyalty to him personally.
2:54 All I can focus on is the scream sound effect used in the old Swords & Sandals browser game 😅
Arthandal was probably destroyed when Karsus' Avatar was cast and Mistral died. The magic tying Lich's to the negative plane would've been severed.
That would be such a cool campaign. Where the villan summons an altered beast army and you steal his scroll to build an army of your own and fight them.
15:29 I belive that the spell used to create the enclaves was “Proctiv's move mountain”, in fact not designed by Ioulaum.
bro, "alter beast" is op. you can make your own dragon, imaging that. you can make a loyal good-aligned red dragon with more firepower or lighting or something.
Netherese = Numenorian
Amazing stuff !!!
I love this! Keep it going
This was awesome!!
Imagine putting Krasus Folly as a D&D setting, damn fun it would be
Your videos make me want to run a campaign set in the realms!
How to take over Toril:
Step 1: Get "Alter Beast" Spell.
Step 2: Modify humans to be Warhammer 40k Space Marines.
Step 3: Arm them with Powerarmor.
Step 4: Profit.
No one ever talks about how Voldemort is inspired from the nethresse lich Aumvor
Video begins at 4:31