The Shadow Consortium was a famed center of planar studies founded by the arcanists Karsus and Shadow in Eileanar, the enclave of Karsus in ancient Netheril.[1]
Location[]
The Consortium was found on the western edge of the enclave, overlooking the drop below.[2]
Services[]
The building originally served as a fortified hideout of sorts for Shadow and his team to work unbothered by Netheril's attempts to kill them. After his disappearance, it was used as a museum that displayed the impressive results of Shadow's insights into demiplanes, quasi-elemental planes, and para-elemental planes, along with a small team of researchers who explored the unlikely possibilities of semiplanes and antiplanes. In the last years of Netheril, this questionably considered project was led by Alkindus, who oversaw Janin, Pringle, Vanderanus, and Shiris Blamira.[1]
History[]
Following the publishing of Shadow's controversial work on the true nature of the planes, he was exiled and threatened with murder by the outraged members of Netheril's academia, in addition to all academic institutions banning any further research into demiplanes. Appreciating the quality of his work, however, Karsus offered him a place to live and work safely within his enclave, in a facility protected from scrying, teleportation, and all manner of other divinations and conjurations that precluded sudden magical assassination. Shadow gathered up other hunted and disreputable researchers to join him in his work and, after eleven years of effort and with Karsus's approval, he finally published his definitive work on the structure of the planes and the Demiplane of Shadow in particular: Shadows: The Palpable Cohesion of Formless Corporeality. This managed to reconcile the old Netheril-centric beliefs about the planes with his newer, more correct findings, causing the research ban and exile to be lifted.[1]
Several years later in 3469 NY (−390 DR), the assassin Alashar Crywinds caught up to Shadow, leading to both of their alleged deaths or disappearances.[3] With Shadow gone, Karsus had the institute turned into a museum of sorts where the works produced by Shadow could be exhibited proudly, while other arcanists continued their work on related fields.[1]
In 3389 NY (−470 DR), the criminal trial and investigation of Shiris Blamira by High Justice Emilus Wentar and Lord High Justice Andoris Derathar publicly revealed that the Consortium had secretly developed and created shadow mythallars. One of these shadow mythallars had been used by Blamira to create a permanent, independent-minded shadow double as an alibi for her crime of stealing and selling research notes that were to help Karsus reverse-engineer the lost Nether Scrolls. Though the high-profile crime damaged the Consortium's reputation, the revelation that they had pioneered a new form of magic created even more interest in their work.[4] At the conclusion of the trial, the original Blamira was found guilty and executed by coming into contact with one of the Consortium's shadow mythallars, while the shadow double was unaffected and continued working at the facility.[5]
The team of researchers headed by Alkindus continued to work there on their own planar studies until the destruction of the enclave in the Year of Sundered Webs, −339 DR.[1]
Appendix[]
Appearances[]
Novels & Short Stories
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 slade, Jim Butler (October 1996). “The Winds of Netheril”. In Jim Butler ed. Netheril: Empire of Magic (TSR, Inc.), pp. 104–105. ISBN 0-7869-0437-2.
- ↑ Map: The Karsus Enclave included in slade, Jim Butler (October 1996). Netheril: Empire of Magic. Edited by Jim Butler. (TSR, Inc.). ISBN 0-7869-0437-2.
- ↑ slade, Jim Butler (October 1996). “The Winds of Netheril”. In Jim Butler ed. Netheril: Empire of Magic (TSR, Inc.), p. 115. ISBN 0-7869-0437-2.
- ↑ Lisa Smedman (March 2002). “Trial by Ordeal”. Realms of Shadow (Wizards of the Coast), pp. 24, 25. ISBN 0-7869-2716-X.
- ↑ Lisa Smedman (March 2002). “Trial by Ordeal”. Realms of Shadow (Wizards of the Coast), p. 32. ISBN 0-7869-2716-X.