Undermountain - Consolidated Lore
Wyllowood
The druid Wyllow in her enchanted forest passed along several pieces of information. She has a history with Halaster, the Mad Mage but it was clearly a complicated one. She also took keen interest in Sumfun and his Nobanion aspect.
For the party as a whole she shared:
- Halaster is a master of planar and dimensional magic. Halaster’s domain is here for a reason, going back centuries to a knot in the weave.
- He pulled in her and her forest saying only it was for her own good. He has pulled in any number of horrors above and below to shore up his fortress (again she goes mad just thinking/talking about being under a mountain like this)
- She cannot leave. Halaster has told her the rune gates would be death to her and her forest would die without her. He destroyed the only rune gate she found
- He appears at odd times to talk with her and she is sure he is always watching. Was with her not a week before
- Some of his apprentices are still rumored even after the centuries have passed; the voice in the mountain is rumored to be one of them but she’s stopped talking to Wyllow.
- Monsters have been traversing her wood in a push to leave the mountain. She leaves them if they pass peacefully. Drow, mutations, devils, she abhors them all.
- Several have come over the years to try to descend deep and stop Halaster. A team of dwarven warriors foolishly tried to descend through the tunnels to the east
- The blue veins in Undermountain are arcane in nature and not her specialty. Does not know much as the illusion masks the walls but rumors of an arcane academy below where many answers about the mountain, the disciples, our host might be answered.
She likely had more but this is what you learned.
Arcane Academy (Dweomercore)
Several sources (yet to be explored) including lectures, libraries, teachers and students. Questions persist in the two parties. Apprentices? Runes? Blue veins? Halaster is headmaster? Manshoon? Sex boats? Did Wyllow heart Nobanion?
You did come across fleeting details of some students from talking to a couple and the school store dude.
- Gemma Shadowdusk is a human noble from Pessius' dream
- Elan Thor is a drow
- A Rashemi with his bodyguard
- Two tiefling sisters, Turbulence and Violence, eager to leave
- Cephalosk is an illithid and unpopular
- A bard named Belois Some
Magic and the Mountain
Where Waterdeep stands today, there once stood Aelinthaldaar, the capital city of the ancient elven kingdom of Illefarn. When the elves left, they used a powerful spell to erase all traces of their capital. This spell had the unintended side effect of creating a permanent knot in the Weave, the fabric through which all magic is channeled. This knot lies deep underground and isn’t something that can be seen, felt, or undone, but it can cause madness to bloom in the minds of mortal beings who dwell near it for too long. This knot is maybe the greatest focus for wild magic since an archmage named Karsus first tried to steal Mystryl’s power. Karsus' folly and fall flared very nearby in the world and the surge of wild magic was devastating to the weave - the knot and wild magic and the shadow ran rampant at the start of the Spellplague.
Halaster has changed magic in the mountain via a mythal. It prevents specific extranplanar magic like teleportation and banishment and yet the archmage uses such magic to pull in other realms, lands, and creatures into Undermountain adding more and more levels to keep the himself safe.
Disciples of Halaster
Over the centuries Halaster has been connected with disciples known as "The Seven".
- Zarovich a master of undeath who was trapped in a demiplane improisoned by fog and magics from a mythral.
- Rhodysa a savant in nature and transformative magiks and jealous of power (The Delvers are believed to have fought her as a Leshen in the druid's Wyllowood).
- Akasha focused on necromancy and the preservation of life drawing on the mountain itself
- Jhessira is an apprentice most known to the world as around 680DR she had left his service and became Magister at Myth Drannor, writing much of what the world knows of the madness of Halaster. She was a master of aracne weaves and living spells but has been vanished and lost. Rumors of sightings 100 years ago in Maldigas' Refuge
- Tomas engineer and construct master helping Jhessira (with the statues) but also himself becoming "something more"
- Styvirween the Summoner
- Muriel the warrior mage
Temple of Selune and Shieldmeet
The mysterious mage Hilaster mage appeared on the sword coast soon after the fall of Netheril, finding the place of Karsus’ Folly where the weave was strong but damaged where Karus fell after taking on Mystra’s power. He built Halaster’s Hold and began a furious pursuit of knowledge to control fiends, master the planes, and grow even more powerful. He assembled apprentices to speed his total control of Undermountain and left his hold in 309 to live permanently there. Halaster seemed obsessed with Karsus’ efforts to wrest magic from the weave.
By the early 11th century DR, the now city of Waterdeep had expanded to encompass the ruins of Halaster's Hold. In the Year of the Bold Barbarian, 1007 DR, Ahghairon cast magical wards on the ruins to stop its hazards getting out into the city, but the odd eddies of wild magic threaten to undo these wards.
Repeated references efforts researching Karsus and some odd blood magic and efforts to locate and coopt the scion.
Ah, yes. Karsus. Karsus was perhaps the most powerful wizard who ever lived. The child-who-would-become-a-god, the elves called him. And he tried. With a spell of his own devising, he endeavored to usurp in one fell swoop the power of the goddess of magic... Imagine what it must have felt like. To be a god. To know yourself to be untouchable. To be mistaken. — Gale of Waterdeep
The Tower
Mystra's Bargain 1372
Queens
Matt has to add all the stuff from OBX session in Jan