Manshoon
his clone of the ancient archwizard infiltrated Waterdeep years ago and has been hiding out in Kolat Towers ever since, in the city’s Southern Ward.
The original Manshoon was one of the founders of the Zhentarim. Evil to the core, he made enemies all across Faerûn, including other powerful spellcasters such as Khelben Arunsun and Elminster. Fearing that he might be destroyed by his foes, Manshoon magically crafted several clones — but a mishap caused all of them to be awakened at once, whereupon they tried to destroy one another in a series of conflicts that came to be known as the Manshoon Wars.
A Flying Snake of the Zhentarim
Now the original Manshoon is dead, and it’s widely believed that all his clones were destroyed as well. In fact, at least three are still alive. The one presently in Waterdeep escaped death by hiding out in Undermountain, where he eventually ran afoul of Halaster Blackcloak. After a brief spell duel, Halaster captured Manshoon and amputated his left arm at the elbow for reasons unknown. Manshoon escaped imprisonment and fled Undermountain, taking refuge in the city above. Attempts to magically regenerate his severed limb failed, forcing him to craft an artificial arm and hand for himself.
Manshoon took control of Kolat Towers, a crumbling residence in the Southern Ward that was abandoned years ago by the two wizards who built it. The edifice is surrounded by a magical barrier that has the properties of a wall of force. Manshoon rarely leaves the towers and uses a teleportation circle when he must do so, and thus is never seen entering or leaving.
Manshoon aims to rule Waterdeep and replace the City Watch with Black Network mercenaries that are loyal to him alone. By bribing and blackmailing the Masked Lords, he hopes to oust Laeral Silverhand as Open Lord and take her place, kill the Blackstaff, reduce the Masked Lords to mere vassals, and declare himself the Wizard-King of Waterdeep. Once the city is firmly in his clutches, Manshoon will then turn his attention toward Undermountain, destroy Halaster once and for all, and claim the dungeon’s riches.
MANSHOON THE MANYFACED
Forging the Realms By Ed Greenwood - 10/29/2014 Ah, Manshoon. Well-known for his clones, Manshoon has learned the value of patience, which, in turn, makes him a deadly enemy to have indeed! Few individuals in the history of Toril have been more misunderstood than Manshoon, he of the many clones, driving-force founder of the Zhentarim and First Lord of Zhentil Keep. Some of his clones have ruled other places, and the Manshoon onstage in 1479 DR and the decade thereafter was a clone that had awakened as a vampire and had been the Night King in Westgate. A “unique” vampire, it should be noted, of mutable, slowly shifting vampiric abilities. Like so much else about Manshoon, change is paramount.THE MANSHOON WHO TIRED OF RULERSH
IP Manshoon as a young man was driven by boundless ambition. Evil, cunning, manipulative, and utterly ruthless (from childhood on, he eliminated several relatives without hesitation, as they became obstacles), he wanted to rule Zhentil Keep, sweeping aside an elder generation and rejecting their authority. In fact, he wanted to be free of all authority; doing just as he pleased—yet early on saw the importance of allies, and of manipulating dupes to further his aims and to thwart rivals and outright foes. Nor did Manshoon fear obvious danger, so without hesitation he made common cause with beholders who made clear from the outset that they saw him as an expendable tool. This alliance lasted for an astonishingly long time, considering the manipulative nature of all parties involved, benefiting both sides greatly as the many-eyed ones bolstered the Zhentarim, and the Zhentarim reached out across Faerûn to sway attitudes and events to benefit both the beholders and Manshoon. It is this arrogant, aloof, “I’ll coolly rise to rule all, anticipating what all foes will do and being prepared for them, and being mildly amused by their futile strivings” Manshoon whose reputation spread across the continent. Sages and rulers and the commoner in the street envisage this version when they think of Manshoon. And it is this same power-hungry Manshoon who’s been left in the past by the living Manshoon, though echoes resurface with each newly activated clone. In truth, Manshoon swiftly tired of ruling and being seen to win and lording it openly over others, giving way to a Manshoon who rather than destroy the Zhentarim (and many of his selves; that is, clone after clone that would be expended in the struggle, as he died and replaced himself repeatedly) to take down Fzoul, decided to lose the struggle with Fzoul to win a better fate for the organization he’d co-founded. In part, he did this because he’d tired of the ceaseless demands of ruling the Zhentarim, and the constant attempts to undermine him or assassinate him. Increasingly, he had to set aside one of his chief delights: experimenting with magic to devise new spells. And increasingly, this irked him. He wanted time to enjoy working with magic, not just fighting and destroying with it. Manshoon also realized that he enjoyed manipulation from behind the scenes far more than giving orders and the inescapable protocol and time-consuming obligations of “being seen to rule.” So ruling became a temporary means to furthering his schemes and no longer an end in itself.THE MANSHOON WHO SURVIVED THE MANSHOON WARS
The infamous “Manshoon Wars” occurred when almost all of the scores of clones of himself Manshoon had prepared were activated at once, and they set about madly trying to destroy each other. It had more than the immediate effect of shredding Manshoon’s sanity until the many, many clones were reduced to a mentally far more comfortable few (his “mass clones” are more mentally stable than clones created by the more widely known clonespell). The three surviving, active-on-Toril clones were the most mentally disciplined and experienced, and this mental toughness, more tolerant world-view, and above all increasing patience dominated Manshoon from this point on. (The use of “almost all” here alludes to a handful of magically warded clones and clones that Manshoons located on other planes of existence, who weren’t awakened, did not take part in the struggle of many Manshoons, and presumably survive, hidden and in stasis, to this day.)THE MANSHOON WHO BECAME A VAMPIRE
One of the three surviving Manshoon clones died in the shadovar attack on Zhentil Keep, though he exacted a stiff price for his life. Another perished in Undermountain thanks to the Weave-chaos of the Spellplague that claimed the lives or the sanity of so many wizards. This left just the clone that had awakened as a vampire and risen to command the Night Masks of Westgate—a city even more riddled with intrigue than the Zhentil Keep of Manshoon’s early life (before his Zhentarim rule became ironclad). Manshoon enjoyed the cut and thrust of Westgate’s intrigues more than ever, but now found the slayings wasteful, and overt threats and displays of power increasingly . . . distasteful. Immediate gains of the sort he’d formerly prized above all, the winning of every battle large and small, he increasingly saw as empty. It was the “long game” Manshoon now prized: the setting and achieving of large, long-term goals without the need to triumph in everything, every day. Manshoon was changing.THE MANSHOON WHO FACED DOWN MYSTRA
There came a time, chronicled in the Sage of Shadowdale trilogy, when Manshoon was given a direct and public command by Mystra to work with Elminster, in furthering her causes. In effect, she treated him as one of her Chosen. And he rejected her, behind her back, a moment after her “departure.” (Of course, being as the spells he hurled at Elminster called on the Weave, Mystra was well aware of his actions.) Mystra had fully anticipated his treachery, though she hoped he’d make another choice. More than anything else, she’d wanted to offer him a place in her willing service, to choose or reject her. Although she knew his rejection was likely, she did not want to destroy him, for she foresaw his usefulness in time to come. More than anything else, she wanted to remind him of her presence and scrutiny, in hopes it would temper his behavior. She was right; it did. Manshoon had been busily sewing discord in Cormyr to win himself a new base of power when he eventually rose to rule that realm (and in the process, gleefully ruining much of what Elminster had built and held dear). After he’d lashed out and destroyed Elminster (for good or not was immaterial at that moment; what mattered was that he’d slaked his long-nurtured, burning hatred in real triumph), he realized his toying with Cormyr had been driven solely by the desire to tear down his longtime foe’s work. Manshoon didn’t want to control Cormyr, either from on its throne or behind it. For one thing, the pettiness and eccentricities of the Forest Kingdom’s nobility made it all just too much work. Mystra had correctly read Manshoon because she, too, was changing—and growing. Her time of hiding in the Weave by immersing herself in it and scattering herself throughout it had led her to experience more of the thoughts, memories, and work of her predecessor (the earlier Mystra), and of the clones of Manshoon that had become “voices in the Weave” (Weave-echoes). Manshoon recovered memories from his earlier selves by the same means, and seeing what he once had been further strengthened his desires to leave what that person behind. THE MANSHOON WHO SAT OUT THE SUNDERING As the Sundering of Abeir and Toril proceeded and open warfare spread across Faerûn, Manshoon increasingly became an observer rather than a participant. Although at times his choice to do so left him restless, he consciously decided not to enter the fray. In part, he was protecting himself from almost inevitable destruction, for his scrying had led him to correctly anticipate the shadovar attempts to drain the magical energy of the wards of Candlekeep and the mythal of Myth Drannor, so as to gain power enough to conquer the Weave (and not destroy it in doing so). This scheme was confirmed by his ongoing eavesdropping, and he soon came to foresee Telamont Tanthul’s doom. One of the reasons Manshoon thought the Most High would fail and be destroyed (and that he himself would suffer the same fate if he stepped into this fight) was because he knew Larloch wouldn’t be able to resist getting involved—and Manshoon knew this because of his own earlier dealings with the archlich. In these fleeting skirmishes, he resoundingly lost every one—even when he manipulated Fzoul’s priests and certain beholders into fighting for him, and so he kept very quiet about them. Manshoon also knew Mystra would muster her champions (how could she not, when her own survival was at stake?). That would embolden Shar to get directly involved, however briefly . . . and such a high-powered clash just couldn’t end well for a lone Manshoon. After he revealed himself, he would inevitably get caught in a magical crossfire. Manshoon did not foresee the Srinshee’s involvement, but did believe (correctly) that other lone wolves and mighty archwizards would also watch from the sidelines and plunge in if they saw a chance. Now, strong in his new and coldly greater patience, he thought it wiser by far to wait this particular fray out, see who fell and who flourished, and then act accordingly. After all, if Elminster fell, who better to step forward and take his place than Manshoon? He could become Amarune’s mentor and Mystra’s servant. He was already the third or fourth string for Mystra’s bow—after Storm, but before any attempt to reassemble the dead and shattered Halaster. Or if his old, old rival Elminster survived one more time, he could bide his time. Manshoon told himself he really had to outgrow this obsession with the Sage of Shadowdale and decide to merely ignore him and step around his deeds and strivings. There would come a time . . . of his choosing, not Elminster’s, when he could triumph. Not yet, though. Manshoon was no longer raging at waiting, hungry for that day of reckoning to come. No, he had mastered patience and was content to pursue more subtle intrigues in Cormyr and elsewhere, just to keep his hand in, while he turned to crafting new spells again, to increase his power and keep an eye on those liches who now lacked Larloch to guide them (or did they?). Because if these liches were masterless, who better to step in and become their ruler than, ahem, Manshoon? Moreover, crafting those new spells would remind Mystra of his capabilities—that Manshoon of the Many Manshoons was too useful to cast aside . . . that he was indeed a worthy backup bowstring. Once, such a role would have left him seething. Now, it’s one that merely makes him smile. Others may preen or bluster, craft Dread Rings, or try—and fail—to subsume mythals and wards and the Weave itself. Yet he, Manshoon, endured when they failed and fell; always, he was still there. He is the battered rock that endured and would outlast—had outlasted them. Had outlasted everyone. Except Elminster, all the gods damn him. Except Elminster. Not a unique sentiment, Elminster is at some pains to remind us all. Many folk want him dead and try to do something about that, yet he is still here. Enduring still and through dozens of happenings that have been called “the Death of Elminster”—and all without even the benefit of clones. For as Elminster said, “I’m the one who tweaks the noses of clones, and makes them oversized and bright red in the process. I’m not, however, responsible for the floppy shoes or the unfunny pranks and jokes.” Источник <http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/manshoon-manyfaced>AFTER THE FALL
Forging the Realms By Ed Greenwood - 09/17/2014 . Источник <http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/after-fall> Venture with Ed Greenwood into the events that happened after The Herald—but be wary. If you wish to avoid spoilers, consider reading the novel first! This time around, we’re looking at an element of the Realms after the events of The Herald, in the waning months of 1487 DR, so please consider these first few lines a spoiler warning. Cue gentle and melodious background music, as I soothingly tell you about this year’s bumper crop of thaethe flowers—those large edible mauve blossoms used for salads and garnishes in the Vilhon, that are now growing wild over the hills of Tanistan, and are finding their ways onto tables throughout Erlkazar. And now I’ll touch upon the intriguing rise in popularity of traveling bards who intersperse their ballads and laments with short, cynically humorous one-act plays about the changing expectations of gods regarding mortals—and the changing nature of daily life in every kingdom they happen to be performing in. The brilliant comic and mimic Imlith Khaldregarr is fast becoming famous across Faerûn. Right, warned and spoiled enough? Good. On to our main theme: the fate of the surviving Shadovar after what happened in The Herald. Simply put, life ended abruptly for some inhabitants of the Netherese city of Thultanthar, also known as “Shade,” and it changed markedly for others (the survivors). Herein, we take a look at what happened to the city and what some of those survivors are now up to.THE DAY A CITY FELL
In the final battle for Myth Drannor, mercenary armies assembled, paid, and led by Shadovar laid siege to the elven city in a tightening ring. The elves defended the city fiercely, inflicting terrible losses on the besiegers, but the defenders were outnumbered twenty to one or more, and not a single elf that fell could be replaced. The outcome was inevitable. And it was all a sideshow, to prevent the elves from mounting any sort of coherent and sustained magical defense of their mythal. That was what Telamont Tanthul was after, that and the many-layered wards of the monastery of Candlekeep half a continent away, all on the orders of the goddess Shar, who desired to seize the Weave and become the goddess of magic to usher in utter and ongoing chaos, loss, and despair—or destroy the Weave in trying, and bring about the same result. If Telamont failed in the attempt, then he was just one more unworthy tool to be used and tossed aside—one more personal instance of loss and despair. And it all came so close to succeeding. The Most High girded himself with magical power by draining magic items galore. If all he’d had to contend with had been the Coronal—herself fighting hand to hand in a last stand to defend the ever-shrinking heart of her city—he would undoubtedly have triumphed. The problem with reaching for great magical power in the Realms is that there are so many contenders, so many others hungry for power who have been waiting in the wings, biding their time for what they see as their best chance. So Telamont Tanthul, an undeniably arrogant and overconfident ruler used to having his will backed by many arcanists of skill and power, came up against a Chosen of Mystryl, Larloch, who had decided to set aside his usual diffidence and caution and make his own bid for the Weave. After all, in his opinion, the Mystras who came after Mystryl were inferior guardians of the Art (arcane magic who better than he to take up Mystryl’s mantle and govern all magic? And this certainly seemed to be his best chance. Larloch had successfully seized the power of Candlekeep’s wards, and although he was overextended and knew it, the prize was worth it. He was more powerful than Telamont Tanthul to begin with, and where the Most High had augmented himself with the magic of a city and many of its most puissant magic items, Larloch began with more power than that, and far more experience, plus the energy of Candlekeep’s wards. Unfortunately for Larloch, Myth Drannor had a defender even more powerful than he was, who struck at him at just the right moment: the Srinshee. And unfortunately for Telamont, the infamous Chosen of Mystra Elminster, smarting from being tricked by Larloch, showed up to try to defend the Weave he’d worked for so many years to strengthen, extend, and repair. Elminster considered Telamont an overconfident, uncaring, irresponsible tyrant, but he wasn’t interested in besting him in a duel—a contest he might well have lost. Rather, he was interested in winning at all costs and defending the Weave by denying Telamont the power of Myth Drannor’s mythal. So Elminster didn’t engage Telamont in a spellhurling duel of the sort wizards engage in at MageFairs. Rather, he desperately used the Weave itself, which he had over the preceding century slowly mastered through the many, many repairs he’d wrought on it—a Weave already damaged and imperiled, and probably doomed if he didn’t defend it. With it, he took all Telamont’s might and lashed the Most High with it, ravaging him and pinning him in place so he couldn’t teleport himself away to safety (for the Weave can be curved around into a cage, so translocation brings you back to where you departed from). It was something Elminster would never have dared to do if the Weave wasn’t so endangered already, and he wouldn’t even have known how to do forty or fifty years earlier. So with Telamont trapped in it, Thultanthar crashed down onto the center of Myth Drannor and shattered with great loss of Netherese life. The Most High disappeared, possibly destroyed and at least suffering the destruction of his body. That does not mean he is clearly gone for good. When the city of Thultanthar began flying from its usual location above Anauroch toward Myth Drannor, the Srinshee foresaw the danger to the Tree of Souls, which had been planted at the heart of the resettled elven city. So she started visiting all of the surviving baelnorn guarding family crypts under Myth Drannor, and she commanded or cajoled them (whatever worked for each guardian) to get to the Tree of Souls and magically shield and defend it with all their might. Scores of them obeyed her and warped the Weave around the tree to form a conical protective barrier around it—so when the Netherese city came crashing down, the Tree survived, and the cone of baelnorn and their magic punched up through the stone of the descending city like a great fang or spike. Their magic was of the Weave, and they were of the Weave; there is a slender possibility that Telamont Tanthul became of the Weave, too, surviving as a sentience within the Weave, as so many of Mystra’s fallen servitors already do. So in the wake of that fall, a few blocks of central Myth Drannor are rubble under the shattered remnants of Thultanthar. Scavenging monsters are roaming the battlefield, which is a huge stretch of forest littered with elf and human mercenary corpses (for Myth Drannor was a city of living forest, not a paved-over area crammed with buildings, like most human cities). All living elves have temporarily abandoned the city and the corpse-littered vicinity, and the disheartened and leaderless surviving mercenaries are foraging (pillaging) throughout the forest and into northern Sembia and the Dales. Of the ruling Tanthul family, there’s no sign—but that does not mean the princes are all dead. Some of them may well be destroyed or reduced to “voices in the Weave” (their minds surviving, but their bodies gone). To a citizen of Thultanthar on the ground, their fates are simply unknown. The dazed surviving Netherese are suddenly homeless and left with no chain of command—when they had been used to a daily life of order in obedience to absolute command—and with the everyday magical wards and effects prevailing in Thultanthar gone with their city. Moreover, the surviving Princes of Shade—if any—have also fallen silent. They may be recuperating in hiding, they may be humiliated and preferring to keep hidden until they are whole once more, and they may be as bewildered as “ordinary” arcanists far below them in rank, and concealing themselves while they try to make some sense of it all. Whatever the reasons, the surviving Thultanthans are scattered in a hostile world, with their own confidence in their innate superiority shattered. It’s a world some of them are woefully unfamiliar with, and a world that hates and fears them—if it knows of them at all. So, now what?THE THREE
Three ambitious heirs to the rule of Thultanthar—a city that no longer exists, though there are other surviving Netherese cities that could be taken over, and plenty of newer, non-Netherese cities that could be conquered, for that matter—survive and are working together. Two are the beautiful and cunning sisters Lelavdra and Manarlume, both daughters of Prince Dethud and therefore Princesses of Thultanthar in their own right, a pair of unscrupulous, ruthless manipulators quite willing to seduce and cozen to gain their own ways. Manarlume is the elder sister and the more thoughtful, and Lelavdra is the more assertive and impulsive; neither wants to work or govern without the other. The third is the able arcanist Gwelt, whom the Most High trusted with organizing a resistance movement to the rule of the Princes, so malcontents could be gathered, identified, and later mercilessly dealt with in relative ease. Now calling themselves “the Three,” these young and ambitious Shadovar seek to gather together surviving Thultanthans under their command, the two women claiming their right to rule by blood inheritance, and Gwelt claiming to be carrying out the orders of the Most High—authority Telamont expressly gave to him—in asserting his right to command. At the moment, the Three are in firm accord and consider themselves good friends, though who knows what the stresses of decision-making over time will lead to? Their initial actions have been to find and rally surviving Thultanthans (almost threescore arcanists of low rank, and just over twenty non-Shadovar Thultanthan citizens) to “the Court of the Three,” with Gwelt doing most of the hunting down and persuading. Their professed aim was to “continue Thultanthan society in a remote refuge and to seek a new role on the altered Toril we find ourselves in, keeping to ourselves more than we did before, and devoting ourselves in the short term to finding allies, identifying foes and likely foes, and hiding ourselves until we are strong enough to withstand challenges.” Gwelt privately advised the sisters to establish close relationships with the best survivors, to tighten their loyalty, and to set them all to seeking other survivors and likely allies (working separately and in disguise). “Our pride was our folly,” Gwelt says often. “We shall make mistakes, but let it not be that mistake, again.” Gwelt himself traveled about on this work, while the sisters set to work building a home for all Thultanthans who want to stand with them, with cached supplies, in one of the least ruined fortresses of those that were formerly part of the Citadel of the Raven. They are using their magic to conceal themselves from (and spy upon) the handful of Zhents already there and rebuilding the central citadel, trying to judge who to co-opt, who to eliminate, and who to deceive for as long as possible. Gwelt found many more survivors than he’d expected to, but was rebuffed by a surprising number of them; individuals who now personally find freedom from the Tanthuls to be a sudden flame of vital life and refuse to step back under the heel of anyone. From now on, they’re going it alone, or cooperating with fellow Shadovar on an individual, probably temporary basis, on their terms. Or, in other words, Faerûn has just acquired a large new supply of independent, opportunistic “loner” wizards who are far from novices and whose world-view has been rocked (so they are changing). For them and for Toril, the future could hold—anythingЕсли вы хотите что то добавить или присоединится к команде редакторов - пишите комментарии
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