Ilhundyl

Ilhundyl, known as the Mad Mage, was a powerful wizard of the early 3 century DR who briefly ruled the Calishar Emirates and was considered one of the most notorious and deadly wizards of his age.

History
Formerly of the city of Volothamp in Calimshan, then part of the Shoon Empire, Ilhundyl conducted terrible experiments and openly summoning and dealing with demons from the Abyss, which he proved unable or unwilling to control. Soon, the Calishite satraps could no longer overlook this, especially after they learned he was using the fiends to kill them. For his misdeeds, he was banished from both the city and the whole realm in the.

The Mad Mage wiped out a number of Tethyrian garrisons in the Tejarn Hills the following year.

In the, Ilhundyl conquered the largest settlement of the newly established halfling realm of Meiritin. He then named himself ruler of the Calishar Emirates. The Shoon Empire was unable to send an immediate military response because of low-level unrest in the south of the empire near Shoonach. He reign as a cruel sorcerer-tyrant from his so-called Castle of Sorcery and dominated the land within his magic, and countless people fled north in fear of his magic.

Having been told by Lord Mage Dunsteen that Ilhundyl was the best living source of knowledge on the working of magic, Elminster Aumar, then known as Elmara, at the beginning of the young wizard's career, visited him at his Castle of Sorcery. She effortlessly passed through his maze of illusory walls and portal traps, pits, and worse, and impressed the Mad Mage enough to grant her an audience. Ilhundyl bade her to grow powerful and quest for and then sacrifice Ondil's Book of Spells, while arranging for her death. However, thanks to the intervention of Mystra herself, Elminster survived Ilhundyl's trap and the Mad Mage received a blank spellbook.

Years later, Elminster, now a powerful wizard, decided to begin his campaign against evil wizards by facing Ihundyl. Confronting him in the summer of the, they fought a terrible battle; Elminster won but only with the help of his tutor, Myrjala Talithyn, who killed Ilhundyl with her spellfire to rescue him.

Personality
He was called the Mad Mage because he had strange whims and pursued them vigorously, heedless of whatever and whoever he destroyed in the process. He obsessively valued his life and privacy against all those who sought to stop him.

Appearance

 * Elminster: The Making of a Mage