The Time of Magic

Magic is the birthright of many creatures; powers in excess of most mortals' abilities that seem to grant them dominion over lesser races. Dragons, beholders, titans: these beings all manipulate the world through magical might, but none hold mastery over and refine their powers to the degree of the enigmatic and elusive Spellweavers. Natural sorcerers, as potent as they are alien, Spellweavers are the orphans of an ancient empire, ruined seemingly by happenstance. Collectors, traders, and instigators, Spellweavers ever seek to reshape the present, which as perhaps gone terribly wrong.

Only seen on rare occasions, and always because of their involvement in some scheme or obtain magic items by trade, persuasion, or force, spell weavers are a mysterious race of powerful sorcerers. These elusive beings evidence the last descendants of an ancient, magically advanced empire that, many millennia ago, spanned numerous worlds and planes.

In this forgotten time, the Spellweaver empire consisted of a vast league of colonies, called nodes, which spanned the multiverse. Huge pyramids of stone and steel powered by gigantic magical furnaces, these nodes were widely separated, often with only one existing on any single world or plane of existence. All of them, however, connected to one another through a complex matrix of magical portals. Thus, each node served as a huge planar travel installation, capable even of instantly moving with all of its inhabitants to other locations of planes.

The Spellweaver empire was largely a noninvasive one-an advanced community of intellectual watchers who only occasionally subjugated more primitive creatures to carry out menial chores and hard labor. What few races they encountered that posed threats the Spellweavers gifted with powerful magic items and artifacts, allowing these cultures to destroy themselves from within, (and act some Spellweavers still practice in modern times). Yet, above all, the Spellweavers were interested in semantics, a subject they had researched for thousands of years, traveling through the multiverse to meet and observe nearly ever culture imaginable. Through the tireless study and practice of innumerable symbol and language codes, the spell weavers learned to avail themselves of their physical attributes and natural talents like no other race, developing an uncanny telepathy and the ability to cast multiple spells at once.

The Weave is (incorrectly) thought by many to be the only means of accessing magic in Toril. The Weave is by no means ubiquitous, nor is it the only means one can wield magic, those with courage and skill can mould raw magic directly using complex rituals. There is, a darker, more secretive alternative to the Weave, an older attempt that was aborted but which has gradually spread in secret to cover large areas of Faerun.

The Myth of Mystra and Shar

The myths and legends surrounding the Shadow Weave are told only in whispers among secretive groups of wizards that utilise it, or have heard of its existence through rumour.

These tales speak of a conflict between the goddesses Mystra and Shar, and how Mystra created the Weave to allow her followers to access magic. Shar, in her jealousy created the Shadow Weave so that her faithful might combat the Weave and its users, and eventually supplant the Weave with something that Shar controlled.

To the educated sage the tales are true nonsense. Mystra was a goddess born out of the destruction of the Netherese pantheon, and her predecessor Mystryl was worshipped only as far back as -3000 DR, while the Weave itself has existed since its creation by the secretive organisation known only as the Bae’tith over 30,000 years ago.

The Shadow Weave was a corrupting force of magic similar to the Weave. Like Shar herself, the Shadow Weave was a force based upon nothingness, for while the Weave could be considered a loose latticework running throughout reality, the Shadow Weave was the pattern formed by the negative space in between.

The Dark Lady's Weave is the only true source of power. Servants of Mystra are restricted by their goddess, for Mystra has established limitations and the bounds of magic. Followers of the Dark Lady are subject to no such limitations.

Oruana Drearon

The Weave has not always existed, it was created by and for the Creator Races, to allow them a safer and easier way to harness magical energies, (It also allowed the true creators to provide a simpler and less powerful means of producing magical effects while at the same time accelerating the speed of magical advancement beyond their ability to cope, with the intention of their rapid magical advancement destroying the organised empires the races were creating).

The Weave is in essence the largest and most complex magical item every crafted, and is made up of a series of magical items that extend its area and functionality.

Like most magical items or energies, The Weave is not static, it is mutable, can be changed through design or evolution, and after such a lengthy existence, has acquired a sentience composed of multiple sentiences.

Few know if the Spellweaver plan to acquire total knowledge of all existing communication was their ultimate goal or if they had some other purpose. What is known is that, at the height of their prosperity, the Spellweavers conducted a grandiose and dangerous experiment, possibly an attempt to alter reality across the entire multiverse. This experiment, however, met with tragic failure and caused a catastrophe of colossal proportions. For the unexplained reasons, the furnaces within every Spellweaver node exploded one after the other in a terrible chain reaction, obliterating the pyramidal colonies and all their inhabitants within seconds, effectively purging the multiverse of the Spellweaver empire in a single moment. Only the few members of the race who were away from the nodes survived, becoming the ancestors of all modern Spellweavers.

Not all Spellweavers obsess over the past, however. While some accept ruin of their civilization and attempt to live peacefully, others strive to rebuild the Spellweaver empire. To them, the greatest impediment to renewed Spellweaver mastery is the world's infestation by innumerable humanoid races, which dominate it through their verminous fecundity alone. Hearkening back to offensive strategies utilized during the TIme of Nodes, these Spellweavers are all too glad to supply such races with the instruments of their annihilation.

Originally called Mystryl, the goddess of magic was a greater power of Limbo within the domain Dweomertor, born during the battle between Shar and Selûne in the dawn of time. Being the goddess of magic, spells, creativity, invention, and knowledge, she was said to have taught the first spellcaster of the Realms. All spells of all types were known to her when their creators constructed them, and her spirit was said to imbue all inventors, authors, songwriters, and artists. She was most venerated by wizards and those who used magic or magical items. She provided and tended the Weave, the conduit that enabled mortals to safely access the raw magic force.

Mystryl was depicted as a beautiful human female with rainbow-colored hair, radiant skin, and burning blue eyes. She wore simple, but elegant, blue-white robes of the finest heavy silk. At other times she was depicted as a vaguely female humanoid form composed entirely of prismatic-hued will-o’-wisps.

According to Ao, Mystryl had ultimate control over all magic and could shape it to her will, and she could withdraw a being's access to the Weave and prevent it from using spells of any sort, and in an even harsher restriction she could also prevent a being from using any sort of magic whatsoever if she so decreed. These conditions persisted until she removed them.

Mystryl could even deny deities access to the Weave, but she couldn't deny other gods the ability to grant their worshipers spells through prayer.

True to her chaotic nature, Mystryl was flirtatious and profound, flighty and persistent, light-hearted and deadly serious. Her moods and state-of-mind varied from moment to moment, but she generally tried to do what she thought was right. She seemed too trusting and innocent at times, and tended to overreact when she felt she had been tricked. She distrusted but didn't hate Shar, who had sought to seize control over her for centuries, and she also rebelled occasionally against the good-intentioned suggestions of Selune, who she regarded as smotheringly maternal at times. Kozah and Moander, who always seemed intent on ruining that which she created or inspired, were her mortal enemies. Mystryl died when Karsus, wanting to take her place as god of Magic created the most powerful spell ever (12th level spell) and nearly destroyed the Weave. Mystryl sacrificed herself to save the Weave before it was too late.

The Demon Weave was a magical fabric that the goddess Lolth attempted to create in order to make herself the new goddess of arcane magic after the demise of Mystra.

The Demon Weave coexisted with the torn remains of Mystra's Weave that Mystra and her servants were trying to restore once she herself had been restored by Elminster in 1479 DR. The Demon Weave drained both power and stability from Mystra's Weave but Lolth had not managed to make it sustain itself in the way that Mystra's Weave could before the Spellplague and upon its restoration after the end of the Second Sundering. Therefore, the Demon Weave relied on the existence of Mystra's Weave in order to function and should Mystra's Weave have ever completely ceased to be, so too would the Demon Weave.

Those that Lolth allowed to use the Demon Weave could access arcane magic just as reliably as they could before the Spellplague but few knew that it required the efforts of individuals such as Elminster, Storm Silverhand, the Srinshee, and many others working under Mystra's auspices to bolster both Mystra's Weave and thereby ensure the survival of the Demon Weave.