When it comes to depicting the strangeness of Spell Weaver magic, technology, gadgets, do-dads, and all that stuff, *Numenera* sounds like the absolute perfect place to draw inspiration from. It's an entire setting based on the idea of quite literally countless incomprehensibly ancient and mindbogglingly advanced civilizations having risen and fallen and risen and fallen literal geologic eons before the setting's present day, with nearly every single one leaving behind utterly bizarre technologies that may as well be indistinguishable from magic and which make the most sophisticated technologies we will have five hundred years from now look like flintknapping by comparison. So, yeah, long story short: Lots of weird old shit that would fit right in with these guys.
The famous swamp at the time of 1371DR had connections to time traveling Netherese arcanists. As populated as Cormyr was at that time it still had outlying areas & ancient dungeons & tombs dating back to the fall of Netheril. Some Netherese fleeing the life drain settled Cormyr & the Dalelands as they fled southward. These spellweavers can still be found today hiding themselves in these dungeons. Great video A.J.! Yet another wonderful recollection from the vast history of Faerun!
I have to say I'm always a pretty huge fan of the whole "they're so advanced we can't understand them and we're so primitive they can't understand us" idea. Sure the lore makes it perfectly clear they can communicate to beings on our level fairly easily, but I love the idea of, say: Even if they sincerely want to communicate with a us, it's every bit like us trying to communicate with a dog or cat. Possible, yes, but very challenging and requiring a lot of cooperation between both parties.
I did a dragon magazine prompt with this. Thanks to a natural one. The spellweavers managed to complete The Code Of Reversion. It was quite memorable as tens of thousands of years was undone. Dead Silence then the guy tosses his die into the trash can XD
Ha ha ha! I wonder if any of the Spell Weavers would even know of the future that they unmade? Perhaps only one of them remembers, and that individual is put in a special node with many other individuals who recall many other futures that were also destroyed, each time the Spell Weavers attempted their cosmic experiment...
DM went with a stable time loop. The deities didn't meddle until after the spell weavers completed the code of reversion. Aka gods interfered precisely because the code of reversion was created.
Hahaha. In laymen's terms the spellweavers are directly responsible for destroying their own empire ad nasueam. 1.Code Of Reversion draws on divine power inherent in the primal language. 2.Deities notice a reality disturbance investigate and take umbrage at the incredible hubris of the spellweavers and cause one arcane furnace to go nuclear-interlinked via portal nodes makes the greatest explosion ever. 3.Far distant future spellweaver completes the code of reversion drawing on that divine power 4.An echo of its completion ripples through reality causing a disturbance. Thousands of years suddenly unmade. Time resumes with the spellweaver multiverse empire at its apex. The reality disturbance is created 2. then 3 then 4. Ad nasueam.
@@michaelnelson8618 The beholder's antimagic field's greatest strength is also its weakness. It it produced by the central eye so you can't get rid of it by amputating an eye stalk. But since it comes from the central eye the anti-magic field can only be projected IN FRONT of the beholder. Weavers have an easy time of exploiting that. In game this is why you should also always try to draw them forward and have your casters fall in behind it to cast with their first task being to disable the disintegration eye stalk once they spot which one it is so that the rest of the party can better engage. I had a sadistic DM and if we didn't adapt our tactics on the spot we'd be watching our character sheets burn by the end of the night so we developed some pretty precise SoPs lol.
I think it is just related to the six arms, all the other details flowed from that design aspect, but, you would have to ask the original author about it, I am just guessing.
It's sad that they're not more present in the lore, they seem really interesting, although I guess it does make sense for them to be forgotten. Their goal and the way they go about accomplishing it, really reminds me of Nox the antagonist from the first season of Wakfu. That kind of backstory/goal always make for a cool character(s), although the period of time the Spell-weavers are trying to erase is so mind blowing huge it make it hard to emphasize with their goal.
The power they have to restructure reality reminds me of Truename Magic. If only it had been implemented better than what it was. I think it would be very flavorful and appropriate for them to use Truenames to alter reality. They are a very interesting race.
I'd love to see more about beings like this or Illithids. It gives you a bigger picture of how the multiverse is laid out from the writers. They were on to something huge when all this was conceived. And not much content is out there tackling this. The only problem i have with how all this is laid out currently: the exceptionally short time Faerun is. It would make more sense if it was billions of years (like our own 4.5 billion years). 40K? Is nothing comparatively.
This reminds me of a creature i created once, It was a crossbreed between a mind-flayer and a spellweaver, it was utterly broken and i have since agreed it never should have existed to begin with. but it was interesting having a single creature both be a master of the arcane and a master of psionic power, with a genius level intellect and no moral compass. But so utterly broken, hilarious but broken.
True, and that would definitely have been a better way to handle it, this was back in 3rd edition and another DM had challenged me to create something entirely unheard of, and at the time i was fascinated by both species and had a what if moment, so the mindweaver was born, or as my wife likes to call it Cthulu.
Not far enough. Ploymorp it onto one of those demon scylla creatures the m-somethigs with the multiple blades just to have the superior physical abilities and watch the chaos unfold.
I have been looking into some of the stuff some people came up with for dnd 3.5. particularly the Epic Bestiary V1 book one guy wrote. The book has some truly nightmarish and actually impossible to beat monsters, some with 500+ Hit Dice such as the Nexus Dragon, Or the Neutronium Golem that does 225k damage a hit (on average) That's a Golem made from neutron star material... 1d4chan.org/wiki/Neutronium_golem
you know is truly a testament of how good your channel is the fact that where i'm is 4:00 AM and after a long day of work i willingly decide to stay awake to watch your video (the last thing i will do before i go to sleep ) :)
That overwhelming telepathic Blast from trying to read their mind would be completely useless against a psionic character empty mind is a pretty useful ability so is split mind
Thanks to this a new faction was born in my head. A large group of Spellweavers through self-reflection realized that their mistake wasn't the disjunction but their arrogance and lack of care for life. Whether or not they believe the gods are gods is immaterial because they aren't gods so their attempt to become one is both counterintuitive and the sole reason for their destruction. Realizing this they started gathering and tutoring good natured humanoids and really any good nature creature that has the capability to learn and ended up creating a civilization or culture that focuses on the discovery, study, and reverse engineering of ancient cultures temper by discipline and spiritual self reflection. They failed so maybe these races, should they learn from the mistakes of others, could fair better. After all they are little more than wraiths now as their original selves died a long time ago.
Well, why wouldn't you use counter spell? Pretty basic protection against hostile magic, I would think. So your average wizard would surely have it just in case they need to lock down an enemy caster for awhile.
Would a Mindflayer be able to telepathically speak with a Spell weaver? Given the "age" of the Mindflayer empire and their eldritch telepathic inclinations? How would they interact? The Mindflayers might have a personality crisis if their spot as the old hyper intelligent alien race with mind powers was questioned.
Personally, I think the Weavers created the Mind Flayers, thinking that an organic computer archive would be a handy tool, they made the first Elder Brain and enhanced it with the same sort of range their telepathy has... whoops, that didn't turn out very well! So in short, yes, they can certainly communicate with Illithids.
Make sense, Think what horror would be birthed if a colony of Illithids tryd crossbreeding with a spell weaver. Like a Mind-witness but with spell casting...
Would explain why Neothids are huge worms. The Spell Weavers would be crazy and smart enough to think " What if I jam'd one of those big crab leeches in someone it might be enlightening ".
15:20 On the Spellweaver's ultimate goal of reordering the universe, then bring stricken by a civilization ending calamity that they are presently endeavoring to walk back to reshape the universe back into what it was before: Final Fantasy XIV's "Shadowbringer" expansion might have drawn on this thread. /// The Amauratian primordial race caused a calamity in a presently-unknown way. They manifested a God, which decimated them. To solve that problem, they created another, lesser God, which defeated the first, but split their world into 14 distinct planes, which they are attempting to rejoin into a singular whole again. /// I love finding these creative tethers between media I enjoy Thank you for making these videos!
Yeah kind of, but in order to preserve his own existence, he may be waiting for them to find the gems of reversion just so he can alert the pantheons and kick off one hell of a big fight.
I give them the ability to sacrifice the use of one hand and thus the extra spell casting to concentrate on more than one spell at a time, one per hand. Perfect creature to break spellcasting rules.
13:05 What do you mean they don't sound terrible thus far?? They use SOULS as fire wood... You and I have a very different definition of the word "terrible."
Well compare that to what the other terrible creatures, beings in the D&D setting do with still living being an their souls. Which range from eternal torment to turning you into the lowest rung of fiend kind. They might not be good or great, but far from terrible in my eyes too.
Elric Engquist I'll take eternal torment over nonexistence thanks. My odds for having something good happening may be 1 in a quadrillion but that is greater than 0.
Noximus Jamaicanus He never mentioned that fact at that point though. That's why he said "so far". He was just about to get to the part where he talked about how terrible they are.
Always loved these guys makes for an interesting campaign in which they could start as allies, or rivals, even could just be shadowy patrons to a group or even specifically as a warlock patron. Though i also used the name for a mage-class that is able to physically weave the many threads magic into the forms of spells, but need to make certain tat checks based on the level of the spell they want to use, as well as with modifiers if they want to alter spell, or if they had first hand knowledge of the spell itself.
Really like the idea of these guys. I'm imagining what happens if they were to decide to become a lich as it won't matter after the "universal factory reset" anyway
I just fell in love with the spellweavers 😁😀 I've always thought the same about the Gods in Faerun (coming from Mystara, the whole thing is too theocentric. Especially that magic depends on a sentient being that might be substituted by another (if Lolth is to be believed))
@@AJPickett ah understand now. Thank you for your reply! It made my day to know you read the viewers commentary! It makes me feel like they matter to you unlike many other UA-camrs who ignore our commentary. Thank you!
If you believe NASA, the only reason we can't normally make glass as strong as steel or even stronger is because of the presence of water in our atmosphere, And how hard it is to remove from any glass when forging it, But if we were to attempt to make glass On the moon or somewhere else that doesn't have much water, According to NASA we could make glass as strong or stronger than steel.
This is perfect for the horror game I'm coming up with, oh man thank you so much. Two questions though, is it mentioned anywhere how many gems they created, and where can I find out more about the silver hexomeric folio and other items they've made?
There is no mention how many gems they made, but I would guess the number is some multiple of six, and that the gems are either powerful artifacts themselves, or are now built into other powerful artifacts. I think nothing short of divine power could destroy them and that some of them may be VERY difficult to acquire, some ideas include, Tharizdun's crystaline prison demiplane in the Ethereal void (it is over a mile wide), the Shard of Ultimate Evil (in the bottom layer of the Abyss guarded by Obox-ob), the Eye Gem of Vecna (good luck getting that one), the pommel radiant diamond in the Unholy avenger sword wielded by the Fallen Solar Malkizid, etc. As for the Hexomeric Folio, that is from the #338 Dragon magazine article.
I think a funny idea if they succeeded in their goal within the forgotten realms would be the Speelweavers all alone and then they see Lord Ao looking annoyed.
I had Crystonians, the more human ancients to Loom of Magus (my campaign multiverse) battle Spell Weavers as virtual equals late in their development. Crystonians practitioners of magic were multi-dimensional in communication, so they were just as confusing to Spell Weavers as they were to Crystonians. The first Crystonian magic users were called "Loom Weavers" and the first psychics were called "Loom Spinners." Spell Weavers encountered Crystonians after the Loom Dragons creation of Loom of Magus when the lower planes tried to invade and failed. They were perplexed by how easily the 4-limbed Crystonians were so easily able to understand and counter them, and even more perplexed about how they were able to summon enemy outer planar beings who hated them. They saw the divide in the Crystonians when they became the High Crystonians and Necronians as well as the "civil war" that created the multi-star-system multi-hierarchy system of millions of gods. Loom of Magus is a "silver sphere" 100,000 light years in diameter and also exists in all the outer planes. It is fringe when it encroaches, non-existent when it is not allowed. I don't do nerd vs. nerd smack-talking. Loom is my multiverse if you allow it. If you don't allow it, Loom does not exist there. Easy-peasy.
I know I'm late to this, but I had an interesting idea of how to make a campaign about a resurgence of Spellweavers work. Suppose the goddess of magic at the time (can't remember if its Mystra or Mystral etc) was responsible for the spell to revert the universe failing. With her control over magic, she manipulated the spell so that it would fail, and cause every being but her to forget about the Spellweavers' existence. Why make them forget? To ensure that the Spellweavers empire would stay down, and have no help from any powerful interlopers. Mystra herself could then monitor the weavers herself, keeping them hidden and killing them where possible. Problematically, that goddess of magic is now dead, as a result of Karsus' actions at the fall of the Netheril empire. So now the only deity keeping them in check is dead, and the Spellweavers quickly make a comeback.
These would make for an interesting Sorcerer bloodline Homebrew. Allowing the Sorcerer to use hit points, make the chromatic disk, yada yada, to eventually being able to Spell-weave maybe up to your Sorcerer proficiency bonus. 🤔
wow listening to the tail end of this video gave me a dirty idea, and draining magical items to replentish spell slots. make a Spell Weaver also a spellfire channeler. lol
Yes, although the Illithids are in a looped temporal existence, they had an origin, but then went back in time from the future and created themselves, overwriting their former origin. (time travel tricks)
It would certainly be an unusual activity for any spell weaver to do that, but, they have had a very long time to do some very strange things, for instance, it is possible that they accidentally created the Illithid race, so, sure, I say go for it!
It seems like it could work with a bit of home brewing to make it fit better. I'm pretty sure the old one(s) is/are from the far realm though. Remember all rules are nothing but suggestions to the dm, who, in the end has the ultimate say.
I would think so. Also remember that a patron that makes a pact with a warlock is a being of great power, and expects things in return for their patronage they give to the warlock. So the Spellweaver might actually expect the player/warlock to seek out info on the gems they lost, or other such information that they might find useful. The hard part would be reskinning or making new abilities that would make sense for a warlock to gain from a pact with them.
Oh and tell the Spartan as he's fighting for his life trying to pick up a rank and file marine that his sgt in terminator armor is right behind him and says hello
Clarification the spellweavers are not atheist by traditional definition they are anti-theist this means that they are against the worship of Gods an atheist is someone who lacks belief the spellweavers know the powers of the so-called gods they do not worship them because they do not believe in their divine nature they rejected as a premise this makes them anti-theist
I find it ironic that it is Vecna that keeps mortals from getting to know to much about SpellWeavers and what they’ve discovered. But I guess when the entire multiverse is concerned all/most types of gods must agree on keeping them at bay. Makes me chuckle a bit at how the spellweavers consider Lord Ao. I wonder how would they react if they knew of the Luminous Being or the nature of such higher powers.
I know this is an old video, but there’s new, relevant lore. To avoid spoilers, I won’t detail the lore itself, but will tell where to find it. See the “SECRET OF THE OBELISKS” sidebar in Chapter 7 of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.
it would be cool that it was the Mindflayers that cause the Collapse of the spell weavers civilianization making the Mindflayer think magic is weak. The Spell Weavers can't be Ceremorphed but their brains can feed a Mindflayer for years.
19:20 those symbols sound like they're memetic. Also, if they gift trojan aftifacts to civilizations they consider a threat, how would they do so if the civilization is staunchly antimagic in their views?
Agreed. A civilization that is anti magic wouldn't make much progress. In a world where magic is literally part of the basic physics wizards are the scientists. So anti-magic peoples would just stop advancing. No threat.
@@jacobfreeman5444 but on the off chance that such a civilization came to be, one that is firmly against magic, believing that it is a perversion of the nature and the natural laws, and operates solely on the laws that govern the prime material, that would provide a unique threat to them.
A 2e guide to PC Spell Weavers: PC Spell Weaver characters must have a minimum 17 Int, 14 Con & Dex. They gain progress in levels, gain HP, Save and have the THAC0 of a Mage. Spell Weaver Characters gain 1 spell/level and must progress 3 levels before they can learn the next level of spells. The 1st spell they learn in each spell level must be an offensive spell, the 2nd must be a defensive spell and the 3rd must be a utilitarian spell. Example: A 3rd level PC Spell Weaver will know 3-1st lv spells, 1 offensive, 1 defensive and 1 utilitarian. A 6th lv PC Spell Weaver would know 3-1st lv & 3-2nd lv spells, 2 offensive, 2 defensive and 2 utilitarian. An 18th lv PC Spell Weaver would know 3-1st lv, 3-2nd lv, 3-3rd lv, 3-4th lv, 3-5th lv and 3-6th lv spells, 6 offensive spells, 6 defensive spells and 6 utilitarian spells. PC Spell Weavers CANNOT cast the same spell more than once in a round, they must weave their spells into interesting combinations instead. They do this by selecting good combinations of spells from their huge collections of spell books. PC Spell Weavers CANNOT learn spells above 6th lv. PC Spell Weavers DO NOT get any magic resistance. PC Spell Weavers CANNOT use multiple weapons or magic items, because the limited design of humaniod weapons/items and their limited understanding of combat does not let them. Instead they use weapons/items the same as humanoids and are limited to 1 wand/staff/rod/item or 1 weapon, unless they learn the 2-weapon style specialization, ambidexterity or have high dexterity. In combat with melee weapons they suffer the same penalties for off-hand weapon use as humanoids, with the penalty increasing for each extra hand the PC Spell Weaver attempts to use. Using multiple bows or slings is also impossible although dual hand crossbows, pistols or thrown weapons are possible. PC Spell Weavers may use their free hands not engaged in melee combat to weave spells. PC Spell Weavers retain their natural armour class. PC Spell Weavers may telepathically communicate with humans but if a human tries to contact a PC Spell Weaver the result is confusion for 1d6 days as the PC Spell Weaver is immune to telepathy. PC Spell Weavers retain their ability to detect magic and invisibility but it takes 1 round of full concentration and only 1 ability is usable at a time. PC Spell Weavers retain the ability to become invisible but it is limited to once per day. Spell Weavers retain their ability to plane shift to an alternate reality home world once a day but they must remain there for 1 day and can only return to the same spot they left. PC Spell Weavers can teach the art of Spell Weaving to Mages and Clerics with and Int of 17 and a Dex of 14. Mages and Clerics may use this ability to cast 2-1st lv spells in 1 round but weaving 2nd lv or higher spells is impossible for non-Spell Weaver characters. An Intelligence check at -6 must be made and if failed, both spells are lost and the spell caster is left confused for the remainder of the round. When PC Spell Weavers reach 18th level their is a 5% chance during any stressful encounter they will spontaneously divide into 6 new 1st lv Spell Weavers. PC Spell Weavers have developed a specialized weapon called a Hexblade to help them when their magic is not enough. This weapon is essentially a 2-hand sword with an extra cross guard forming an X with 4 hand holds on the backs of the cross guards. This allows a PC Spell Weaver to wield the Hexblade with deadly speed. The Hexblade requires 2 hands to wield and for every extra hand used the weapon speed is reduced by 1. The Hexblade can also by wielded in a manner that allows the PC Spell Weaver to move it in mystical passes that channels the PC Spell Weaver's spell points into a magical bonus and speed bonus at a cost of 1 spell point per point of enchantment per round. For each hand used on the Hexblade the PC Spell Weaver can enchant the blade by +1 to hit and damage and increase the rate of attacks by 1/2 rounds. 6-hand use allows the PC Spell Weaver to enchant the Hexblade to +6 and make 3 attacks/round for a cost of 6 spell points/round. Some PC Spell Weavers have forgone spell casting to become Blade Weavers. These Blade Weavers can possess some highly modified Hexblades.
solving the problem of spell weavers would mean working with them to use those reversion gems in a new ritual to reflect creation a third time. a branch timeline that gives them what they want without destroying what is.
I agree with you. Actually have a player in one of my groups asking to make a pact with one, and so I am both going to make a adventure for him to figure out how to make the pact. Yet also going to make a unique pact-set of abilities an such that are tailored to the Spell-weaver as I don't see them giving a pact warlock the same abilities as other pact-givers would.
*Minor spoilers for Bastion, a game that came out in 2011* Oh wow, the code of reversion sounds a lot like what Rucks planned to do after the calamity. Some really nice questions brought up by a cosmic reset button.
just me or do Spell Weavers look similar to the Silents from Doctor Who. would be in interesting mix if you ran into a cluch of them, fought them or whatever enteracted in whatever way. roll a wisdom check and a astromonical DC to see if you forgot them.
Dan Acton oh it is, torchwood is the adult version. and its much darker. personally the end of their first encounter with the weeping angels has to be a tramatising toper i've never seen the show beat.
Thanks for the shoutout man! Spellweavers are hands down (all six of them) in my top 5 favourite monsters. Excellent video!
Hey! Thanks a lot, really enjoy your vids :)
AJ Pickett likewise!
I did a cross-over with my players in Ancients storytelling. Spell Weavers were one story.
Your top 6!
@@DungeonDad @ajpicket get a room 😊 the bromance is big
This is one I come back to again and again. These guys are, to me, the epitome of an endgame boss/antagonist. I am obsessed.
When it comes to depicting the strangeness of Spell Weaver magic, technology, gadgets, do-dads, and all that stuff, *Numenera* sounds like the absolute perfect place to draw inspiration from. It's an entire setting based on the idea of quite literally countless incomprehensibly ancient and mindbogglingly advanced civilizations having risen and fallen and risen and fallen literal geologic eons before the setting's present day, with nearly every single one leaving behind utterly bizarre technologies that may as well be indistinguishable from magic and which make the most sophisticated technologies we will have five hundred years from now look like flintknapping by comparison.
So, yeah, long story short: Lots of weird old shit that would fit right in with these guys.
Using Flintknapping in a sentence? 20 points to Ravenclaw House!
You also can describe the Realms whit Numenera's description
The famous swamp at the time of 1371DR had connections to time traveling Netherese arcanists. As populated as Cormyr was at that time it still had outlying areas & ancient dungeons & tombs dating back to the fall of Netheril. Some Netherese fleeing the life drain settled Cormyr & the Dalelands as they fled southward. These spellweavers can still be found today hiding themselves in these dungeons.
Great video A.J.! Yet another wonderful recollection from the vast history of Faerun!
I have to say I'm always a pretty huge fan of the whole "they're so advanced we can't understand them and we're so primitive they can't understand us" idea. Sure the lore makes it perfectly clear they can communicate to beings on our level fairly easily, but I love the idea of, say: Even if they sincerely want to communicate with a us, it's every bit like us trying to communicate with a dog or cat. Possible, yes, but very challenging and requiring a lot of cooperation between both parties.
I did a dragon magazine prompt with this.
Thanks to a natural one. The spellweavers managed to complete The Code Of Reversion. It was quite memorable as tens of thousands of years was undone.
Dead Silence then the guy tosses his die into the trash can XD
Ha ha ha! I wonder if any of the Spell Weavers would even know of the future that they unmade? Perhaps only one of them remembers, and that individual is put in a special node with many other individuals who recall many other futures that were also destroyed, each time the Spell Weavers attempted their cosmic experiment...
DM went with a stable time loop. The deities didn't meddle until after the spell weavers completed the code of reversion. Aka gods interfered precisely because the code of reversion was created.
Wow, that even messes with MY head!
Hahaha. In laymen's terms the spellweavers are directly responsible for destroying their own empire ad nasueam.
1.Code Of Reversion draws on divine power inherent in the primal language.
2.Deities notice a reality disturbance investigate and take umbrage at the incredible hubris of the spellweavers and cause one arcane furnace to go nuclear-interlinked via portal nodes makes the greatest explosion ever.
3.Far distant future spellweaver completes the code of reversion drawing on that divine power
4.An echo of its completion ripples through reality causing a disturbance. Thousands of years suddenly unmade. Time resumes with the spellweaver multiverse empire at its apex. The reality disturbance is created
2. then 3 then 4. Ad nasueam.
"No magic user can compete with the speed of a spell weaver"
I take your wager and raise you one beholder mage.
I wanna see that fight.
@@somestormchaseridjitwithwi2024 It would be short. Weavers are far more powerful than Beholders. Like a lvl 20 fighter vs a kobold.
@@thenson1Halo antimagic field tho?
@@michaelnelson8618 The beholder's antimagic field's greatest strength is also its weakness. It it produced by the central eye so you can't get rid of it by amputating an eye stalk. But since it comes from the central eye the anti-magic field can only be projected IN FRONT of the beholder. Weavers have an easy time of exploiting that. In game this is why you should also always try to draw them forward and have your casters fall in behind it to cast with their first task being to disable the disintegration eye stalk once they spot which one it is so that the rest of the party can better engage. I had a sadistic DM and if we didn't adapt our tactics on the spot we'd be watching our character sheets burn by the end of the night so we developed some pretty precise SoPs lol.
@@thenson1Halo beholder MAGE. not just a beholder.
I wonder if the obsession with the number six is based on the elder things from HP Lovecraft and their obsession with the number five.
I think it is just related to the six arms, all the other details flowed from that design aspect, but, you would have to ask the original author about it, I am just guessing.
6:00 That explains the specifics of Jergal's "reborn as six gods" strategy.
??? please elaborate
It's sad that they're not more present in the lore, they seem really interesting, although I guess it does make sense for them to be forgotten.
Their goal and the way they go about accomplishing it, really reminds me of Nox the antagonist from the first season of Wakfu. That kind of backstory/goal always make for a cool character(s), although the period of time the Spell-weavers are trying to erase is so mind blowing huge it make it hard to emphasize with their goal.
The power they have to restructure reality reminds me of Truename Magic. If only it had been implemented better than what it was. I think it would be very flavorful and appropriate for them to use Truenames to alter reality. They are a very interesting race.
I'd love to see more about beings like this or Illithids. It gives you a bigger picture of how the multiverse is laid out from the writers.
They were on to something huge when all this was conceived. And not much content is out there tackling this.
The only problem i have with how all this is laid out currently: the exceptionally short time Faerun is. It would make more sense if it was billions of years (like our own 4.5 billion years). 40K? Is nothing comparatively.
This reminds me of a creature i created once, It was a crossbreed between a mind-flayer and a spellweaver, it was utterly broken and i have since agreed it never should have existed to begin with. but it was interesting having a single creature both be a master of the arcane and a master of psionic power, with a genius level intellect and no moral compass. But so utterly broken, hilarious but broken.
Yeah, if I had one converted via Ceremorphosis, like most Illithids it would rely solely on its impressive psi powers.
True, and that would definitely have been a better way to handle it, this was back in 3rd edition and another DM had challenged me to create something entirely unheard of, and at the time i was fascinated by both species and had a what if moment, so the mindweaver was born, or as my wife likes to call it Cthulu.
Not far enough.
Ploymorp it onto one of those demon scylla creatures the m-somethigs with the multiple blades just to have the superior physical abilities and watch the chaos unfold.
I have been looking into some of the stuff some people came up with for dnd 3.5. particularly the Epic Bestiary V1 book one guy wrote. The book has some truly nightmarish and actually impossible to beat monsters, some with 500+ Hit Dice such as the Nexus Dragon, Or the Neutronium Golem that does 225k damage a hit (on average) That's a Golem made from neutron star material...
1d4chan.org/wiki/Neutronium_golem
do you have a stat sheet for this creature? because I would like to see it!
I'd love to get in on a game with any of this. It's hella interesting.
you know is truly a testament of how good your channel is the fact that where i'm is 4:00 AM and after a long day of work i willingly decide to stay awake to watch your video (the last thing i will do before i go to sleep ) :)
I am flattered, but get some sleep! DMing is best done when fully rested.
That overwhelming telepathic Blast from trying to read their mind would be completely useless against a psionic character empty mind is a pretty useful ability so is split mind
Thanks to this a new faction was born in my head. A large group of Spellweavers through self-reflection realized that their mistake wasn't the disjunction but their arrogance and lack of care for life. Whether or not they believe the gods are gods is immaterial because they aren't gods so their attempt to become one is both counterintuitive and the sole reason for their destruction. Realizing this they started gathering and tutoring good natured humanoids and really any good nature creature that has the capability to learn and ended up creating a civilization or culture that focuses on the discovery, study, and reverse engineering of ancient cultures temper by discipline and spiritual self reflection. They failed so maybe these races, should they learn from the mistakes of others, could fair better. After all they are little more than wraiths now as their original selves died a long time ago.
A meeting between the Spell Weavers and the Mind Flayers would be an interesting one...
Absolutely.
What about mind flayers, these things, and those ancient fish things?
@@DkKombo
Sounds like the setup for a joke!
...So, a spellweaver, a mindflayer and an aboleth walk into a bar..
"... And that kids is how I met your mother. All three of them. :D"
The illustration at 6:22 has 7 arms... clearly an outcast of his race.
I was beginning to think I was the only one who noticed that. LOL
An outcast or the Chosen One?
spell star seems like a really good way to get around stuff like wizards who really like to overuse counter spell.
Auto-counter spell Counter Spell! LOVE IT!!!
Well, why wouldn't you use counter spell? Pretty basic protection against hostile magic, I would think. So your average wizard would surely have it just in case they need to lock down an enemy caster for awhile.
Would a Mindflayer be able to telepathically speak with a Spell weaver? Given the "age" of the Mindflayer empire and their eldritch telepathic inclinations? How would they interact? The Mindflayers might have a personality crisis if their spot as the old hyper intelligent alien race with mind powers was questioned.
Personally, I think the Weavers created the Mind Flayers, thinking that an organic computer archive would be a handy tool, they made the first Elder Brain and enhanced it with the same sort of range their telepathy has... whoops, that didn't turn out very well! So in short, yes, they can certainly communicate with Illithids.
Make sense, Think what horror would be birthed if a colony of Illithids tryd crossbreeding with a spell weaver. Like a Mind-witness but with spell casting...
And legs.
Could be the very first Mind Flayers were Spell Weavers who were transformed via Ceremorphosis
Would explain why Neothids are huge worms. The Spell Weavers would be crazy and smart enough to think " What if I jam'd one of those big crab leeches in someone it might be enlightening ".
15:20
On the Spellweaver's ultimate goal of reordering the universe, then bring stricken by a civilization ending calamity that they are presently endeavoring to walk back to reshape the universe back into what it was before:
Final Fantasy XIV's "Shadowbringer" expansion might have drawn on this thread.
///
The Amauratian primordial race caused a calamity in a presently-unknown way. They manifested a God, which decimated them.
To solve that problem, they created another, lesser God, which defeated the first, but split their world into 14 distinct planes,
which they are attempting to rejoin into a singular whole again.
///
I love finding these creative tethers between media I enjoy
Thank you for making these videos!
This is a great GOO warlock patron idea
In a odd way vecna is actually protecting the multiverse for these six armed nutjobs
Yeah kind of, but in order to preserve his own existence, he may be waiting for them to find the gems of reversion just so he can alert the pantheons and kick off one hell of a big fight.
"Destroy the world? That's where all my stuff is!"
Evil in dnd tends to have a habit of containing itself
ie the Blood war with the Abyss and 9 Hells
One does not simply take yeenoghu for a walk on a leash.
A force of Spellweavers vs Sigil would be an amazing campaign.
That it would!
Would be fun to somehow combine the code of reversion with the mind flayers resetting time over and over in a campaign
I give them the ability to sacrifice the use of one hand and thus the extra spell casting to concentrate on more than one spell at a time, one per hand. Perfect creature to break spellcasting rules.
Ohhhh definitely using these in my Campaign
Hey A.J. this was Fabulous! I love the spellweaver, think you can do a vid on the demon prince Dagon?
Dagon is an Obrynth lord, an old one and yes, for sure!
13:05 What do you mean they don't sound terrible thus far?? They use SOULS as fire wood... You and I have a very different definition of the word "terrible."
Hmmm true.
Well compare that to what the other terrible creatures, beings in the D&D setting do with still living being an their souls. Which range from eternal torment to turning you into the lowest rung of fiend kind. They might not be good or great, but far from terrible in my eyes too.
Elric Engquist I'll take eternal torment over nonexistence thanks. My odds for having something good happening may be 1 in a quadrillion but that is greater than 0.
Reague of Regends Much like I said previously, I'll take eternal torment over being erased from existence thanks.
Noximus Jamaicanus He never mentioned that fact at that point though. That's why he said "so far". He was just about to get to the part where he talked about how terrible they are.
HP lovecrafts "The shadow out of time" The great race of Yith, this race of spellweavers are as close to the yith as I have ever seen.
I like to think of them as kind of like the great race of yith with their technological and magical expertise and their exploration for knowledge
Man what an awsome race to mess around with in a campaign!
So basically Spell-weavers + Tharizdun + Mindflayers is a bad bad bad day for the multiverse.
Yes.
8:58 You mean without any Material Components, since Somatic Components are physical movements, like hand gestures?
Whoops! Thank you Zansi, my mistake.
Always loved these guys makes for an interesting campaign in which they could start as allies, or rivals, even could just be shadowy patrons to a group or even specifically as a warlock patron. Though i also used the name for a mage-class that is able to physically weave the many threads magic into the forms of spells, but need to make certain tat checks based on the level of the spell they want to use, as well as with modifiers if they want to alter spell, or if they had first hand knowledge of the spell itself.
Nicely done.
Really like the idea of these guys. I'm imagining what happens if they were to decide to become a lich as it won't matter after the "universal factory reset" anyway
Wow. So as long as one spellweaver is alive then there race can go on? Since one creates 6 and each of the 6 create 6 more and so on.
I just fell in love with the spellweavers 😁😀 I've always thought the same about the Gods in Faerun (coming from Mystara, the whole thing is too theocentric. Especially that magic depends on a sentient being that might be substituted by another (if Lolth is to be believed))
Love your work. I listen to all the content I can find that you make. Quick question.... What do you call it the mighty gluestick channel?
ua-cam.com/video/fP36EN74IPw/v-deo.html I started doing youtube videos as a Crafting channel for my terrain and sculpture work.
@@AJPickett ah understand now. Thank you for your reply! It made my day to know you read the viewers commentary! It makes me feel like they matter to you unlike many other UA-camrs who ignore our commentary. Thank you!
@@burakc9673 you are most welcome, thanks for taking the time to comment :)
Amazing video! What was the name of the mirror universe and species you mentioned ad 10:30 minutes
forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Nerra
Omg wow what a quick response! Now we need that video on the and the, wait for it, MIRROR UNIVERSE! (Sci-Fi noises)
If you believe NASA, the only reason we can't normally make glass as strong as steel or even stronger is because of the presence of water in our atmosphere, And how hard it is to remove from any glass when forging it, But if we were to attempt to make glass On the moon or somewhere else that doesn't have much water, According to NASA we could make glass as strong or stronger than steel.
I could not understand the race’s name at 10:32 :(
luckily the full script is also uploaded with the video and you can read it with Closed Captions turned on 🙂 The species name is the Nera
@@AJPickettI tried, but they are not present for me on this particular video. Ty for the answer!
This is perfect for the horror game I'm coming up with, oh man thank you so much. Two questions though, is it mentioned anywhere how many gems they created, and where can I find out more about the silver hexomeric folio and other items they've made?
There is no mention how many gems they made, but I would guess the number is some multiple of six, and that the gems are either powerful artifacts themselves, or are now built into other powerful artifacts. I think nothing short of divine power could destroy them and that some of them may be VERY difficult to acquire, some ideas include, Tharizdun's crystaline prison demiplane in the Ethereal void (it is over a mile wide), the Shard of Ultimate Evil (in the bottom layer of the Abyss guarded by Obox-ob), the Eye Gem of Vecna (good luck getting that one), the pommel radiant diamond in the Unholy avenger sword wielded by the Fallen Solar Malkizid, etc. As for the Hexomeric Folio, that is from the #338 Dragon magazine article.
I think a funny idea if they succeeded in their goal within the forgotten realms would be the Speelweavers all alone and then they see Lord Ao looking annoyed.
Now he has to start again from scratch 😂😂
Cool, now I know what inspired Ascians
I had Crystonians, the more human ancients to Loom of Magus (my campaign multiverse) battle Spell Weavers as virtual equals late in their development. Crystonians practitioners of magic were multi-dimensional in communication, so they were just as confusing to Spell Weavers as they were to Crystonians. The first Crystonian magic users were called "Loom Weavers" and the first psychics were called "Loom Spinners." Spell Weavers encountered Crystonians after the Loom Dragons creation of Loom of Magus when the lower planes tried to invade and failed. They were perplexed by how easily the 4-limbed Crystonians were so easily able to understand and counter them, and even more perplexed about how they were able to summon enemy outer planar beings who hated them. They saw the divide in the Crystonians when they became the High Crystonians and Necronians as well as the "civil war" that created the multi-star-system multi-hierarchy system of millions of gods. Loom of Magus is a "silver sphere" 100,000 light years in diameter and also exists in all the outer planes. It is fringe when it encroaches, non-existent when it is not allowed. I don't do nerd vs. nerd smack-talking. Loom is my multiverse if you allow it. If you don't allow it, Loom does not exist there. Easy-peasy.
Incredible!
I'm a little confused are the spellweavers one of the five Creator races mentioned in the old tomes and manuscripts of the Forgotten Realms
No. they were pretty much wiped out before the creator races emerged.
AJ Pickett oh wow I tip my hat to you good sir I did not know that and I know a lot about Dungeons & Dragons more then most people
What is the creature you mention them encountering from a mirror universe?
I know I'm late to this, but I had an interesting idea of how to make a campaign about a resurgence of Spellweavers work.
Suppose the goddess of magic at the time (can't remember if its Mystra or Mystral etc) was responsible for the spell to revert the universe failing. With her control over magic, she manipulated the spell so that it would fail, and cause every being but her to forget about the Spellweavers' existence. Why make them forget? To ensure that the Spellweavers empire would stay down, and have no help from any powerful interlopers. Mystra herself could then monitor the weavers herself, keeping them hidden and killing them where possible.
Problematically, that goddess of magic is now dead, as a result of Karsus' actions at the fall of the Netheril empire.
So now the only deity keeping them in check is dead, and the Spellweavers quickly make a comeback.
These would make for an interesting Sorcerer bloodline Homebrew. Allowing the Sorcerer to use hit points, make the chromatic disk, yada yada, to eventually being able to Spell-weave maybe up to your Sorcerer proficiency bonus. 🤔
16:10
Soulds like a plot hook for the new book Eve of Vecna.
wow listening to the tail end of this video gave me a dirty idea, and draining magical items to replentish spell slots. make a Spell Weaver also a spellfire channeler. lol
Watched the Dungeon Dad video and I get to to watch the TMG version? I am okay with this.
Anyone else find it funny that the picture on the screen at approximately 5:30 has seven arms and not six? LOL
Excellent!
But why the one at 6:00 has 7 hands ? Maybe it's two Spellweavers one on top of the other under that tunic
or a mutant
So are these guys older than the Illithid Empire? Wonder how the two would interact.
Yes, although the Illithids are in a looped temporal existence, they had an origin, but then went back in time from the future and created themselves, overwriting their former origin. (time travel tricks)
Likely trying to murder each other. As both sides would see each other as a threat.
Could one use them as an Old One Warlock Patron?
It would certainly be an unusual activity for any spell weaver to do that, but, they have had a very long time to do some very strange things, for instance, it is possible that they accidentally created the Illithid race, so, sure, I say go for it!
It seems like it could work with a bit of home brewing to make it fit better. I'm pretty sure the old one(s) is/are from the far realm though. Remember all rules are nothing but suggestions to the dm, who, in the end has the ultimate say.
In D&D, the Old Ones term also applies to any Non-Diety Primordials.
I would think so. Also remember that a patron that makes a pact with a warlock is a being of great power, and expects things in return for their patronage they give to the warlock. So the Spellweaver might actually expect the player/warlock to seek out info on the gems they lost, or other such information that they might find useful. The hard part would be reskinning or making new abilities that would make sense for a warlock to gain from a pact with them.
What are the Leshay's feelings on the spellweavers?
Would LeShay help spellweavers? Are they even from the same Universe?
They are not, so, no.
Oh and tell the Spartan as he's fighting for his life trying to pick up a rank and file marine that his sgt in terminator armor is right behind him and says hello
Clarification the spellweavers are not atheist by traditional definition they are anti-theist this means that they are against the worship of Gods an atheist is someone who lacks belief the spellweavers know the powers of the so-called gods they do not worship them because they do not believe in their divine nature they rejected as a premise this makes them anti-theist
Yep.
simular to the dwemer from the Elder Scrolls universe.
Lol, "diamonds, ice crystals, rpg maps, d12s. The things are everywhere"
Nominated for best AJ Pickett, ever.
spell level/hp!? Sounds crazy!
I find it ironic that it is Vecna that keeps mortals from getting to know to much about SpellWeavers and what they’ve discovered. But I guess when the entire multiverse is concerned all/most types of gods must agree on keeping them at bay. Makes me chuckle a bit at how the spellweavers consider Lord Ao. I wonder how would they react if they knew of the Luminous Being or the nature of such higher powers.
I know this is an old video, but there’s new, relevant lore. To avoid spoilers, I won’t detail the lore itself, but will tell where to find it.
See the “SECRET OF THE OBELISKS” sidebar in Chapter 7 of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.
Yup, also the pdf recently released by George and Eric. This video is due for an update.
it would be cool that it was the Mindflayers that cause the Collapse of the spell weavers civilianization making the Mindflayer think magic is weak. The Spell Weavers can't be Ceremorphed but their brains can feed a Mindflayer for years.
Very cool!
I'm wondering what's happen if a would be lich with Vecna as one of their patrons attempted to uncover knowledge on the spellweavers.
That would be a quick trip to nasty consequences town, as Vecna does not abide that sort of behavior.
Bcs of their obsession with 6 they must like Iron Maiden.
Who doesn't like Iron Maiden?
It's a bit far fetched, but it honestly sounds like this race could potentially theoretically deal with the problem of the always expanding abyss?
They sure could.
did you ever get to the video on the nearer? I couldn't find it
You know, I don't think I did... phew... my work will never end. :)
@@AJPickett I appreciate all the videos man, even the ones that are years old, but new to me :)
@@AJPickett Yeah I have been looking for the video, or any information on them. I cannot find even a mention of them.
Whats the name of the creatures that the spell weavers found in the mirror universe and did you ever make a video on them?
19:20 those symbols sound like they're memetic.
Also, if they gift trojan aftifacts to civilizations they consider a threat, how would they do so if the civilization is staunchly antimagic in their views?
Then they probably wouldn't be considered a threat in the first place.
Agreed. A civilization that is anti magic wouldn't make much progress. In a world where magic is literally part of the basic physics wizards are the scientists. So anti-magic peoples would just stop advancing. No threat.
@@jacobfreeman5444 but on the off chance that such a civilization came to be, one that is firmly against magic, believing that it is a perversion of the nature and the natural laws, and operates solely on the laws that govern the prime material, that would provide a unique threat to them.
Great video!
Do you think with a lvl 13 monk, using tongue of the sun and moon could communicate with spell weavers should they click and whistle?
They live, so they understand eachother
So, somewhere during the Dawn War?
A 2e guide to PC Spell Weavers:
PC Spell Weaver characters must have a minimum 17 Int, 14 Con & Dex. They gain progress in levels, gain HP, Save and have the THAC0 of a Mage. Spell Weaver Characters gain 1 spell/level and must progress 3 levels before they can learn the next level of spells. The 1st spell they learn in each spell level must be an offensive spell, the 2nd must be a defensive spell and the 3rd must be a utilitarian spell.
Example: A 3rd level PC Spell Weaver will know 3-1st lv spells, 1 offensive, 1 defensive and 1 utilitarian.
A 6th lv PC Spell Weaver would know 3-1st lv & 3-2nd lv spells, 2 offensive, 2 defensive and 2 utilitarian.
An 18th lv PC Spell Weaver would know 3-1st lv, 3-2nd lv, 3-3rd lv, 3-4th lv, 3-5th lv and 3-6th lv spells, 6 offensive spells, 6 defensive spells and 6 utilitarian spells.
PC Spell Weavers CANNOT cast the same spell more than once in a round, they must weave their spells into interesting combinations instead. They do this by selecting good combinations of spells from their huge collections of spell books.
PC Spell Weavers CANNOT learn spells above 6th lv.
PC Spell Weavers DO NOT get any magic resistance.
PC Spell Weavers CANNOT use multiple weapons or magic items, because the limited design of humaniod weapons/items and their limited understanding of combat does not let them. Instead they use weapons/items the same as humanoids and are limited to 1 wand/staff/rod/item or 1 weapon, unless they learn the 2-weapon style specialization, ambidexterity or have high dexterity. In combat with melee weapons they suffer the same penalties for off-hand weapon use as humanoids, with the penalty increasing for each extra hand the PC Spell Weaver attempts to use. Using multiple bows or slings is also impossible although dual hand crossbows, pistols or thrown weapons are possible. PC Spell Weavers may use their free hands not engaged in melee combat to weave spells.
PC Spell Weavers retain their natural armour class.
PC Spell Weavers may telepathically communicate with humans but if a human tries to contact a PC Spell Weaver the result is confusion for 1d6 days as the PC Spell Weaver is immune to telepathy.
PC Spell Weavers retain their ability to detect magic and invisibility but it takes 1 round of full concentration and only 1 ability is usable at a time.
PC Spell Weavers retain the ability to become invisible but it is limited to once per day.
Spell Weavers retain their ability to plane shift to an alternate reality home world once a day but they must remain there for 1 day and can only return to the same spot they left.
PC Spell Weavers can teach the art of Spell Weaving to Mages and Clerics with and Int of 17 and a Dex of 14. Mages and Clerics may use this ability to cast 2-1st lv spells in 1 round but weaving 2nd lv or higher spells is impossible for non-Spell Weaver characters. An Intelligence check at -6 must be made and if failed, both spells are lost and the spell caster is left confused for the remainder of the round.
When PC Spell Weavers reach 18th level their is a 5% chance during any stressful encounter they will spontaneously divide into 6 new 1st lv Spell Weavers.
PC Spell Weavers have developed a specialized weapon called a Hexblade to help them when their magic is not enough. This weapon is essentially a 2-hand sword with an extra cross guard forming an X with 4 hand holds on the backs of the cross guards. This allows a PC Spell Weaver to wield the Hexblade with deadly speed. The Hexblade requires 2 hands to wield and for every extra hand used the weapon speed is reduced by 1. The Hexblade can also by wielded in a manner that allows the PC Spell Weaver to move it in mystical passes that channels the PC Spell Weaver's spell points into a magical bonus and speed bonus at a cost of 1 spell point per point of enchantment per round. For each hand used on the Hexblade the PC Spell Weaver can enchant the blade by +1 to hit and damage and increase the rate of attacks by 1/2 rounds. 6-hand use allows the PC Spell Weaver to enchant the Hexblade to +6 and make 3 attacks/round for a cost of 6 spell points/round. Some PC Spell Weavers have forgone spell casting to become Blade Weavers. These Blade Weavers can possess some highly modified Hexblades.
These Spellweavers make Asmodeus look like a good guy in comparison.
solving the problem of spell weavers would mean working with them to use those reversion gems in a new ritual to reflect creation a third time. a branch timeline that gives them what they want without destroying what is.
Some of those gems are part of the prison that keeps Tharizdun locked up.
@@AJPickett hmm. Shardminds, we need to talk about the crystal arch real quick
I’d love to see these up against Aboleths.
Spell Weaver : "Which hand is it in?"
Natural diamonds typically form octahedral crystals with a cubic crystal cell lattice though...
Makes me think of a formian or highly evolved spiders/Insects
good slideshow
Maybe I'm mistaken, but didn't these guys also have a strong presence in Spelljammer, like they had their own unique ships just like the Mind Flayers?
If you do find out you are right, I would love to see what you found about that.
The one shown at 4:35 has *7* arms and hands... I'm guessing that this was a mistake by the artist?
Yes, most likely.
These guys seem perfect for a warlock patron
I agree with you. Actually have a player in one of my groups asking to make a pact with one, and so I am both going to make a adventure for him to figure out how to make the pact. Yet also going to make a unique pact-set of abilities an such that are tailored to the Spell-weaver as I don't see them giving a pact warlock the same abilities as other pact-givers would.
Elric Engquist I’d personally think GOO with some new flavor text, but sounds coolioh!
*Minor spoilers for Bastion, a game that came out in 2011*
Oh wow, the code of reversion sounds a lot like what Rucks planned to do after the calamity. Some really nice questions brought up by a cosmic reset button.
Sound like the mysterious leaders of Shadow Wizard Money Gang
Really interested in the Silver Hexamatic Folio
Just a thought...Magic Missile is a first level spell. TPK from a low level spell ;>
Chromatic Orb... Worse... Chaos Bolt
just me or do Spell Weavers look similar to the Silents from Doctor Who. would be in interesting mix if you ran into a cluch of them, fought them or whatever enteracted in whatever way. roll a wisdom check and a astromonical DC to see if you forgot them.
perfect... XD
Sure, they are potent telepaths after all.
AJ Pickett honestly sometimes i can't believe the new doctor who is a kids show.
The Dark master never really thought of it as a kids show. just a family show. lol
Dan Acton oh it is, torchwood is the adult version. and its much darker. personally the end of their first encounter with the weeping angels has to be a tramatising toper i've never seen the show beat.
So reprodution via way of magic Neco Waifers?,.......got it.
ShOtSfIrEd GaMiNg Dammit! Now I want to taste the magic Neco wafers.
VIDEO IDEA: Spellwaver's vs Illithids!
5:50 hang on, that's 7 arms!
6:09 wait that ones got seven arms.
this also makes me curious, how does their lore and the kraken lore interact? which is older? do they know of eachother?