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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

I'm at home and away from my notes, but Ed has previously indicated there's a fair number of Netherese who survived the Fall and are still active in some form.

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Originally posted by Ayrik

I thought the Netherese diaspora reached all corners of Faerûn? Halruaa, Thay, perhaps exotic Zahkara or even sorties to Wildspace, other worlds, and other planes. It's somewhat surprising that the commoners dispersed throughout nearby lands, the ones we call the North and the Sword Coast, Cormyr, Sembia, the Dales, the Moonsea, etc ... while (with few exceptions) the once-mighty arcanists put the greatest distance possible between themselves and their fallen glory.

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I know of at least a dozen Netherese who are still active in the Realms of today, albeit some of them in greatly changed forms. Hint: a LOT of Netherese bound themselves into magic items (especially swords), to 'live on' telepathically. If your blade seems able to see what's around it without having visible eyes, hear thoughts of nearby creatures, and mend/heal itself in limited ways, it just might contain the sentience of a Netherese.

The pages of ELMINSTER: THE MAKING OF A MAGE and SHADOWS OF DOOM both contain Netherese survivors (one each), and I can reveal here that I know of at least two who reside quietly (pretending to be "just plain folks") in Waterdeep and Suzail, respectively. No, I'm not going to give names, because for a DM it's far more useful to have them as ‘handy tools.'

The Waterdhavian one founded a successful mercantile family now regarded as noble, and then (having prepared for this with covert investments, coin caches, and property purchases) faked his own death, to reappear as a retired merchant, a role he's played several times since. Like Elminster, he meddles covertly in city politics and society, spreading rumors and ‘turning' particular individuals to hold more cosmopolitan world-views (investing in other lands, and taking an interest in folk from those places). He does this because he very much wants to avoid Waterdhavian haughtiness from growing any greater than it is already.

The Suzailan one is a female who firmly believes that Netheril fell because of overweening pride and overarching mastery of magic. She enjoys life in Cormyr (when it isn't imperiled by war, of course), has hidden coins and gold in plenty for her needs, and covertly works to do two things: confuse and confound War Wizard investigations, and to make both War Wizards and others think that there are secret personal dangers involved in too much spellcasting, and in casting specific, over-powerful spells. She is VERY good at keeping hidden, spreading such rumors through the mouths of passing strangers by means of suggestion magics, and never doing anything openly herself. She's no enemy of the Crown; she just doesn't think allowing the War Wizards to reach the status of ‘extremely effective secret police' is a good idea. She's dwelt in Suzail for almost forty years, and knows it will soon be time to "disappear" or be noticed as something other than the well-to- do widow she's pretending to be, but is tarrying because she enjoys the city and its folk so much (she perceives a rising danger in wealthy, ever-restless Sembia of sorcerers and wizards becoming overproud and reckless in their use of magic, but has such a distaste for what she's seen of Sembian society that she just doesn't want to go there, while also seeing that it would be a very good place to take a new face and name).

You can, of course, create many more Netherese, though I'd suggest that they all conceal their origins and that they NOT (or try not) to know of each other, rather than forming any sort of shadowy secret society or power group. That would be why, even for the two examples from my novels, clearly identified Netherese should be very scarce. After all, if Netheril is most remembered as a "land of awesome magic," then anyone identified as Netherese can expect wizards and sorcerers to launch surprise attacks, mind- invasions, and attempts to capture or financially control them, to get all the magic that's "surely" waiting in their minds, or in the case of items, hidden in places they know.

...the Netherese survivors won't get along at all well with the people of Shade. In fact, I'd venture to say that ALL surviving Netherese in Faerûn would be wary at best, and actively hostile at worst, to the new "arrivals."

"Hiding from and otherwise ignoring" would probably be their initial reaction, and they'll quite rightly see attempts by the folk of Shade to find them as attempts to snatch their power. If that happens just once, word will get around, and the folk of Shade will then discover they've bitten off a lot more than they can ever hope to chew.

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Originally posted by Marc

Larloch's liches

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Originally posted by Dennis

Therion Gers was one of the first rulers of Netheril. He died 1374 DR.

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Originally posted by Marc

Zikthann and other unknown liches of Illusk
Wondermen of Scornubel
the archmage that is trapped in Stone that Speaks

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Originally posted by Light

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Originally posted by Dennis

Therion Gers was one of the first rulers of Netheril. He died 1374 DR.

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- Where exactly did you get this?

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One of the many things the elves traded was magic. Nether the Younger’s friend, Therion Gers, was the first Netherese to learn this new trade. After one year of tutelage in the ways of cantras (0-level spells), he cast a spell to start a campfire. Two years later, the community considered the first human arcanist (Netheril’s name for a wizard) the third-most-important person in their society, under Nether the Young and Spiritsummoner the shaman. The people changed the mage’s name to Therion the First of Gers, since he was the first arcanist of Netheril.

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Originally posted by Marc

Therion must be a novel I didn't read

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Originally posted by Ayrik

An assumption is that liches are all living mages who transferred their souls into phylacteries (or whatever) to attain a form of magically-sustained unliving immortality/longevity. It seems possible that the process can be altered (some might say improved) by removing the troublesome requirement for the mage to actually still be alive prior to liching; ie, a way to directly reanimate dead mages into undead ones, which basically means retrieving the soul from death prior to placing it within the phylactery. If such a thing is indeed possible then Larloch is exactly the sort of guy who would discover a method; and if this is so, then it might very well be that all of his (60+) lich servitors were once actually dead, quite possibly once mages who had lived and died as Netherese arcanists.

[Edit]

It also seems likely that Larloch dedicated a little time over the millennia towards "recruiting" his liches. The liching process is said to be somewhat difficult (and risky) to discover, Larloch might have simply approached suitably qualified mages and offered to trade the secrets (and/or alleviate the risks) involved in this process in exchange for spell energy. This idea is not incompatible with my first idea; Larloch might have some method of approaching mages with this offer for lichdom even after they've already died, recognizing Larloch as master might seem a small price to pay for a second chance at (un)life. Then again, liches are attracted to power and magic, Larloch might be something of a celebrity who attracts liches because he's accumulated vast quantities of both.

I also note the dracolich process developed by the Cult of the Dragon; it apparently requires the willing surrender of the would-be dracolich and has the unadvertised side effect of eternally binding the dragon's soul ("anima") under the Cult's sinister dominance. Larloch may have devised something similar which binds the souls (or at least the spell energy) of aspiring liches directly to him; he might have even been a bastard and scattered his version of slave-liching throughout Faerûn to prey upon the power of foolish and lazy archmages seeking shortcuts to immortality.

Finally, little is actually known or said about these lich servitors. They may have in fact originated from other worlds entirely, they may not (usually) reside within the time and space and dimension we know as the Realms. They might even be some sort of echos or pseudo-clones or constructs manifested entirely through Larloch's own dead flesh, mastery of magic, and force of will. They might've been subjugated by Larloch only after already liching themselves up, or they might've been enticed to ally with Larloch's work towards some great project which is unfathomable to lowly mortals; perhaps their goals are benign (that is, not malign), they might simply be concerned with survival in an anti-lich world or they might be attempting to develop or achieve the next stage of magical evolution/ascension (under Larloch's nominal leadership), they might care little (if at all) about Realms so long as their work/research remains relatively uninterrupted - there are wizard guilds, so why not a guild of liches, eh? Conversely, it might be that Larloch himself is an unwilling participant (even a victim) of this arrangement, simply a pawn manipulated by some more powerful entity (like Mystra or Karsus acting "subconsciously" through the sentient Weave, or Shar, or Vecna, or any ugly fill-in-the-blank überfiend, or an overgod like Ao or one of Ao's rivals/competitors, whatever). Larloch is described as being insane by many sources, as being a (supra)genius by others; perhaps the distinction is meaningless to the frail minds of the living, perchance even to the mental perceptions of Faerûnian deities.

Ed has been uncharacteristically forthcoming (non-evasive) in what he's said about Larloch, and what he's said basically amounts to "Larloch is deliberately described as being as mysterious and phenomenally powerful as each DM/author desires to make him to suit the needs of the campaign".

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Originally posted by Marc

Wondermen, FRA, page 103
Zikthann in Drizzt's Guide to Underdark, 91
Stone that Speaks in Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast, 119
Therion must be a novel I didn't read

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Originally posted by Dennis

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Originally posted by Light

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Originally posted by Dennis

Therion Gers was one of the first rulers of Netheril. He died 1374 DR.

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- Where exactly did you get this?

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From Netheril: Empire of Magic, p. 5:

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One of the many things the elves traded was magic. Nether the Younger’s friend, Therion Gers, was the first Netherese to learn this new trade. After one year of tutelage in the ways of cantras (0-level spells), he cast a spell to start a campfire. Two years later, the community considered the first human arcanist (Netheril’s name for a wizard) the third-most-important person in their society, under Nether the Young and Spiritsummoner the shaman. The people changed the mage’s name to Therion the First of Gers, since he was the first arcanist of Netheril.

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Well I don't mean to seem ungrateful but this, despite being interesting knowledge, doesn't answer my question. What you originally said (and you can see it in my quote) is that Therion Gers died in 1374 DR. This is the tidbit that I have been unable to track down.

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