Avatar

An avatar was a physical manifestation of a deity on Toril.

Powers
An avatar was significantly less powerful than the deity it represented, but on par or beyond the most powerful of mortals. The loss of their avatar did no permanent damage to a deity, as could be recorded for Mystra and Tiamat. It could, however, mean a set-back for divine plans and was always seen as an affront.

Depending on a deity's rank, it could possibly have a number of avatars at once. Divine power also determined how long it would take a god to reform an avatar destroyed on the Prime.

Relationships
Many avatars employed in the Realms were mightier than those found in other crystal spheres, as befitted a world with many powerful mortal individuals.

History
The Time of Troubles in 1358 DR marked an exception to many rules concerning avatars: Ao forced the full persons of all deities to walk Toril in the form of their avatars, which lead to many extraordinary events and the demise of several gods. In the years following this Avatar Crisis, many deities invested their manifestations with increased power. No such development has been reported for most monster deities.

Behind the Scenes
In 2nd edition, the Faiths & Avatars accessory from 1996 introduced rules for avatars up to 40th level. These were also used by its companion volumes Powers & Pantheons and Demihuman Deities. Both Forgotten Realms and Core books published earlier restricted avatars to 20th or (rarely) 25th level. This lead to a discrepancies for avatars appearing both before and since Faiths & Avatars, and to comparatively low power for avatars appearing only before that accessory.