Shadows: The Palpable Cohesion of Formless Corporeality

Shadows: The Palpable Cohesion of Formless Corporeality was the second major work of Telamont Tanthul, under the pseudonym "Shadow".

Description
Shadows was a tome describing the Plane of Shadow, based on investigations by Telamont himself and a group of other researchers. It was careful not to rudely dismiss previous beliefs on planar mechanics and explained the concept of demiplanes and quasiplanes thoroughly, beyond simply describing research into the Shadow Plane.

History
When a student at Karsus's Academy of Mentalist Study, Telamont Tanthul published a thesis on the planes of existence. His work was scorned, and he was expelled, because thinking at the time insisted that all planes branched from Netheril itself. Further study of the demiplanes and quasiplanes was banned in a number of cities of Netheril.

Nevertheless, Karsus himself found the work fascinating, and secretly, he invited Telamont to return and continue his studies, Karsus funded the investigations, even providing a building, the Shadow Consortium, in which to work in safety, and Telamont recruited other researchers to covertly join him in his research. As part of this research, Telamont was granted access to the Planus Mechanicus, one of the sets of Nether Scrolls, which described planar relationships.

After eleven years, sometime in the &minus;390s DR, Telamont described their findings in this book. Upon its publication, which was lauded and approved by Karsus, other archwizards recognized the importance of the research and the advantages of exploiting the Shadow Plane for magical power, as a source of shadow servants and the basis for Shadow's shadow magic. The ban on research into other demiplanes and quasiplanes was lifted, and other students were now instead encouraged to investigate such planes.