Netheril
The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Empire the World has Ever Seen
This is a summary of the information found in this rare example of hard historical work. A history that is sparsely known throughout the world, and even more unlikely to be more than anecdotal referrals to something considered fairy tale, is well researched and distilled in this book.
Preface
Being nearly 108 centuries ago, the fall of Netheril has nearly been completely forgotten by today's generations. The handful of individuals having been alive for that long remember, as do a chosen few great historians, but mostly asking any general person what he knows about Netheril, produces far away stares and shrugging shoulders. Still it is worth not forgetting this important part of our distant past, not least because the works of this empire still influence our world even now. This history book aims to keep the knowledge of the ancient empire alive, if only under a cover of dust in a far away corner of a great library.
Early Beginnings
In the beginning the area that would later become the empire of Netheril was a paradise of fertile lands, a friendly climate and mesmerizingly beautiful nature. A valley crisscrossed by sparkling rivers, fed by musically clattering waterfalls coming down nearby mountainsides, of rolling hills with waving oceans of grass, that fed scores of herbivores. The humans in this area led happy and content lives, feeding themselves on whatever natural bounty was at hand. Ample bushes supplied sweet berries, groves of fruit trees bore myriads of tasty fruits. The beauty and ease of this area was so great that it has inspired many a religion with a story of an ancient paradise created by a deity to provide his beloved creatures with all they needed to live the easy life in happiness and social contentment.
Contact with the Valari Elves
To the east of the lands of Netheril lay the lands of Valar. After the sundering of the elves, a score of open minded wood and moon elves found a new home in Valar and traveled far and wide to neighboring areas to share their knowledge and wisdom. As the nation of Netheril grew in size and prosperity, these elves made contact and established diplomatic relations. Not realizing the fickle nature of humankind, who will embrace all new things with fervor and conviction, and develop new knowledge and technologies to an industrious level, the Valari elves taught the humans the 'Art'. As the humans started to ravenously assimilate the new knowledge and skills, one king in particular, Nether the Elder to be precise, started developing his nation with newfound enthusiasm. The erstwhile paradise valley now started to be known as the lands of Nether, or Netheril. In his nation each and every citizen was taught the basics of spell casting. Before long even the simplest workers and maidens used cantrips to make their daily tasks easier.
Discovery of the Nether Scrolls
After three centuries of development of the Netheril empire the Nether scrolls were discovered in the ruins of Aryvandaar. The scrolls themselves are a topic for a different work altogether, but we will delve into their history a little before proceeding. As legend has it, when the world was created, one of the original deities that formed the newborn world created by Eru, taught his magic to his followers, a primitive reptilian race known as the Saurith. The Saurith archived this magical knowledge on miraculous sheets of precious metal that were flexible like paper, known as the Golden Skins of the World Serpent, the nickname they gave their deity. The magical properties of these scrolls was such that once the silvery lettering floating on their surface was read, new knowledge automatically appeared, making it possible to provide endless information on a single scroll... Once a reader gained enough skill and experience, rereading the scrolls provided new knowledge and insight, causing the fervent student to keep developing endlessly.
The Nether scrolls contained no magic in and of itself, but presented fundamental magical theory and arcane knowledge. These could be divided in 5 chapters, each existing of 10 scrolls. The knowledge contained in these scrolls was so vast that even comprehending the contents of a single scroll required weeks of full time study.
The five known chapters were Arcunus Fundare; a fundamental arcane theory that boosted skill and effectiveness of any arcane magic-user. Magicus Creare; the skill to create magic items. Maior Creare: the skill to create constructs. Planus Mechanicus; Knowledge of and possibility to travel between planes. Ars Factum; the skill to create artifacts... Once the arcanists of Netheril started studying the Nether scrolls they leaped forward in magical skill and development and left the simple and largely harmless magic from the elves behind them.
At which point the arcanist Congenio Ioun created a magical item now known as an Ioun stone, the first of several to follow. This extraordinary feat of magical prowess was exemplary of the development of magical technology and skill that came from the scrolls.
Having attained this much power, the empire of Netheril started expanding into neighboring areas, using their potent arcane powers to lay waste to their neighbors' defenses.
Mythalar
This great arcanist then proceeded to greatly change to arcane capabilities of Netheril, with the invention of the first Mythallar. Resembling a huge crystal ball, shining with a bright light like the sun itself, it concentrated, refined and converted the raw magic of the weave, so as to sent magical power out to its surroundings to power magical devices of all kinds. The radius of this device was a mile, providing useful and refined magical energy to all within that area.
As such the mythalar provided the necessary power to create the first of the floating citadels, raising the city's arcanists up from the simple masses to dwell in the sky above.
He then improved on the mythalar design by giving it sentience, making it self aware and even more powerful.
Theft of a Scroll
Seeing where the Netheril empire was heading some Qualinesti elves, aided by a rock gnome thief they had hired to help, managed to steal one of the Nether scrolls.
Finding himself alone at this point, Rilmohx decided to take a quick glance at the texts on the scroll. Such was the power of the Nether scrolls that this mere glimpse bestowed upon the gnome the entirety of illusion magic, arcane knowledge that has been passed down to all gnomes to this very day.
The Silver Age of Netheril
Now firmly separated from the other Netherese, the High Mages in their floating citadel became the new ruling council of Netheril. Under their rule the Netheril Empire spread far and wide across the world and further developed their societies, also beginning to delve into the earth to mine valuable and useful ores, previously only procured from trade with the dwarves.
Meanwhile the stolen Nether scrolls were scattered across the world, hidden away in hard to reach of find places.
The Golden Age of Netheril
The next age of the Netheril empire marked great advancements in both magical understanding and economic and political growth.
By now a new floating citadel was raised up from the earth each year, guarding the borders of the empire, and ruling millions from the sky above... Who founded the school of chronomancy, the arcane ability to travel through time.
They realized there was an area as of yet unexplored and independent, the oceans. Thus began exploration of the underwater world, and eventually the building of crystal domed colonies. Added to the two worlds of High and Low Netheril, separating the wealthy and powerful Netherese in the sky, from the poor and subjugated masses below, now came the part known as Deep Netheril.
Age of Discovery
With the discovery of glowstone came a new age in the history of Netheril. As soon as the Netherese arcanists discovered the influence this ore has on magic and vice versa, they started work on using the glowstone to their utmost advantage. Many improvements would follow as the arcanists discovered ever more useful properties of this combination of magic and mineral.
Now having created ships capable of leaving the planet to visit different ones, the High Mage council foresaw great increases in expansion of their empire, their power, wealth and influence. However, the exploration of other worlds was quickly halted as the Netherese spelljammers met with aggressive creatures known as illithid.
The Shadowed Age
Starting with the birth of King Karsus, an arcanist with a legendary amount of arcane prowess, this age marked the beginning of the end for the Netheril Empire. He discovered what became known as heavy magic, going far beyond the level of the magic we know today, and made him go insane, babbling incoherent arcane words all the time. Also his increasing madness made him kill a rogue arcanist in such a manner that he created the first lich.
Meanwhile the arcanists of Netheril kept discovering other planes and demi-planes, one of which was the plane of shadow. The choice of one arcanist to move his citadel to this plane, expanding the Netheril Empire into the plane of shadow, led to the naming of this period in Netheril history.
By now the power, influence and warping magical residue of the Netheril Empires attracted and grew the interest, ire and wrath of other powerful forces and entities. The end of this age was marred by wars, skirmishes and threats to the Netheril Empire from far and wide.
The seer then traveled to the Karsus enclave to warn against the coming of the goddess Mystryl, who meant to set things right.
The Destruction of Netheril
Karsus, having used his heavy magic to create the Hand-of-God artifact meant to use this to wrest the power of Nystryl away from her and take her place as a god himself. The energy going into this 12th level spell was so great that it sucked up all the weave of the world, rendering the use of magic impossible for weeks after. The components needed to create the artifact had cost millions of gold pieces and consisted of several profoundly rare and hard to come by parts. The stories say it took the blood of a Tarrasque, bile from a twelve-headed hydra, the gizzards of a Great Gold Dragon Wyrm and a platinum dragon scale, and took 6 hours to cast with 30 arcanists working together in unison. But all stories relating to this Hand-of-God artifact are fantastic and unbelievable, so there is no way to know what part of it is true. What we do know is that some epic level magic spell was used by Karsus in a face-off with Nystryl.
As with the many fabulous stories of the rumored Hand-of-God artifact, what exactly transpired is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty today. It is assumed that in their clash Karsus and Nystryl caused such damage to the weave that the very fabric that held the planes together became in danger of being torn asunder. The floating citadels of Netheril, being sucked dry of the magical energy needed to keep them floating, came crashing down, killing all those on top and below. The last thing Karsus saw was the devastation to his beloved empire, being filled with regret for his greed for the power of the gods. Nystryl, in a final and ultimate attempt to save the weave and indeed the world itself, sacrificed herself and a blast ensued that shattered the heart of the Netheril Emperil into a crater that now is known as the shattered sea. The blast wave went around the world and very nearly killed all life, ripping continents to shreds and realigning land and ocean. It is said that this is why Valar and Qualar are no longer attached to Arctaria. The links between the Prime Material, the Plane of Shadow and the Feywild were severed for a period, rendering travel between these planes impossible in the meantime. Mystryl reincarnated almost immediately into Mystra, the goddess of magic we know today. She then degreed that magic above the 9th level would henceforth be outlawed, limiting the maximal power of arcane magic to this day.
Epilogue
This work has combined all the shattered stories and studies on the ancient empire of Netheril. Here you find the summary of all collected work on the matter, where we have chosen to filter all information, to focus on the parts that are most agreed upon by different sources.
Do not forget that although we have done our best to limit the information to the most likely parts, much of the information is debatable. Especially at the end, where the destruction of Netheril is concerned, we have to deal with the fact that the huge blast that ended the empire, also destroyed all information on what transpired directly beforehand. We know that the empire existed, grew powerful and was destroyed. But the stories of the hand-of-god artifact can only be considered as a nice fictional conclusion, at most loosely based on true events.
All that we can certainly learn from this, is that heavy magic is too dangerous a tool in the hands of mere mortals, as the clear example of the Shattered Sea makes all too clear.
As a note, next to the spell noted to cause the hand-of-god artifact, these are examples of heavy magic we have managed to find in different papers and studies:
- Antimagic; barring all magic within 300 ft.
- Doom; Enough necrotic damage to kill 22 grown men, dealt to any creature up to size and power of great dragons.
- Immortality; Gaining immunity to all damage for one day per 3 high priests destroyed.
- Aumvor's Soulshatter; separating a soul from its body and sending it to the afterlife, leaving the living but soulless body as a tool for the caster under his control.
- Diluvial Torrent; Dropping a 100 ft long and 20 ft wide cilinder of water from a height of 200 ft on the caster, causing tremendous damage, even to the caster himself.
- Necromantic Singularity; Opening a fissure to the plane of Negative Energy, killing all living creatures one by one in a 1 mile radius.
Type
Manuscript, Historical
Comments