Origin of the Spellplague.

[SPECTRE666]

-George Krashos had this to say over at candlekeep. Its on page #9.

Well here's the low down on the "spellplague" before it even was the "spellplague" from Ed himself. Given that the 100 year jump and the Abeir returning thingies are now in the public domain, this post isn't spoiling anything and I thought that the wider forum community might appreciate the insight.

There are actually THREE references, all of which will
really only be understandable "after the fact." One of
them is the "Smashed the black star" curiosity that
several scribes have been so fascinated by, and
another is a CYCLOPEDIA heading (yes, just the
heading). [Ed was referring to the "Abeir-Toril" heading]

The third, "main" reference is on page 40 of the DM'S
SOURCEBOOK, referring to Mellomir's claim of finding
an "ancient" and "magical" treasure in the vicinity of
the Haunted Halls. The dwarves vanishing over the
years were fleeing the Realms through gates (portals,
linking to other worlds / alternate Prime Material
Planes) that are not in the Haunted Halls, but can be
reached through the Halls (I think the maps I gave you
at GenCon included the "Whisper's Crypt" level, yes?).
The dwarves were departing to avoid the coming
Spellplague, and the monsters and adventurers
vanishing into and emerging from the Halls were also
using the gates.

The original text of this entry had Mellomir referring
to an unspecified "message of fire."

The original turnover of FR1 THE HAUNTED HALLS OF
EVENINGSTAR included a magical "message" formed by
flames dancing in midair that briefly appeared to
anyone entering the many-pillared room of Encounter
31, that said this: "A great storm of magic is coming,
that will twist or maim many. Beware the Black Star."
It was edited out because the TSR designers of the day
thought it too substantial to print without providing
something of an explanation (that there was no
wordcount left in the module to provide, and that
would open a can of worms they wanted to avoid). This
same message appears in front of the gates used the
dwarves, monsters, and adventurers, whenever they are
approached from the "Realms" side.

So there you have it. Too mangled and chopped-down for
anyone studying the Old Grey Box to recognize without
this explanation. Sorry. I DID warn everyone it would
be nigh-impossible to spot, beforehand.

By the way, there's something else in FR0 tied to
this: Sabirine's Specular. A Spell Engine provides a
tiny "shelter" from Spellplague effects around itself,
and Sabirine chose to die rather than embrace lichdom
because she didn't want to endure years of undeath
only to be swept away in the Spellplague, or twisted
and maimed and left in a world ravaged by the
Spellplague.

The Spellplague term isn't mine (I called it "the
Doom," or "the Coming of the Black Star" or "THE
Spellstorm"), and I always intended this to be a
mythical always-in-the-future bogey-tale.

There you have it.

-- George Krashos

SPECTRE666