Editing Spellplague (section)

==Seriously, what happened?==
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Okay, for real, the problem with elaborating on what the Spellplague did is twofold. Firstly, not a lot of detail is actually gone into in the 4e Campaign Guide for the Forgotten Realms, which is pretty vague on the details for the most part - you have to read a lot of the tie-in novels and even some [[Dragon Magazine]] articles for some of the skubbier details, and in fact it can be hard to immediately know ''what's changed'' at a glance unless you have the 3e and 4e campaign guides side-by-side for comparison or are a Realmslore autist. Secondly, the actual changes to the 4e version of the Realms are only partially due to the apocalyptic wave of [[Wild Magic]] that was the Spellplague; the fact that time has skipped forward 100 years from 3e has also left its mark on the world.

Still, 1d4chan will try to provide an easy summary of shit that changed in between 3rd and 4th edition.

===How It Happened===
[[Cyric]] murdered [[Mystra]] and then [[Shar]] tried to take control of the Weave. That's the fundamental core of why the Spellplague happened. People complain about this, pointing out that two versions of Mystra had died and been reborn before this one, but that's also ignoring that both deaths also left their mark on magic as a whole. The death of Mystra #1 caused all magic to rapidly weaken until it almost vanished entirely, only returning after she reincarnated herself - whilst officially she banned 11th level and higher spells, one could read it that the Weave was so damaged by her death that such powerful magic simply became impossible to use. Meanwhile, the death of Mystra #2 caused the formation of [[Wild Magic]] and [[Dead Magic]] zones across Toril, which were even known as "Helmlands" because it was her death at the hands of [[Helm]] that caused them. So killing Mystra to unleash the Spellplague isn't entirely unprecedented.

===Changes to Nations===
* [[Maztica]] is swapped for a [[dragonborn]] nation called Laerakond, which becomes known as "Returned Abeir".
* Several of the most prominently magical regions of the [[Shining South]], which WotC seemingly deemed "expendable", are burned and blasted into the magical equivalent of [[Fallout]] wastelands, collectively known as the Plaguewrought Lands. These precise areas are Halruaa, Sespech, the Golden Plains, and the Nagalands.
* A portion of southern Unther is transplanted to Abeir, receiving in exchange a [[dragonborn]] city-state that becomes the new nation of Tymanther.
* Large sections of Chondath and western Chessenta are replaced with a [[genasi]]-inhabited portion of Abeir, which dubs itself Akanûl.
* Large portions of the Sea of Fallen Stars and Vilhon Reach collapse into the [[Underdark]], draining away much of the water and exposing long-sunken ruins.
* The shadow-tainted survivors of [[Netheril]] return from the [[Plane of Shadow]] in force and begin reclaiming their ancestral territory. [[Krinth]] and [[Shade]]s of Netheril begin giving birth to [[Shadar-Kai]], as do "shadow-touched" humans across Toril.
* [[Neverwinter]] is annihilated by a volcanic eruption caused by the stirring of the fiery [[Archomental]] bound in the lost [[dwarf]] city of Gauntlgrym.
* The long-subdued [[genie]] overlords of Calimshan (Toril's pre-Islam Arabia nation, as opposed to [[Al-Qadim]], which is [[Crystal Dragon Jesus|Crystal Dragon Islam]] Arabia) are set free. They proceed to call forth their long-slumbering legions and resumed their war, an act which also enkindled long-dormant genie blood running rampant throughout the population and caused a massive percentage to change from humans into [[genasi]], who proceeded to conquer their human kindred. 
* [[Latan]] is seemingly sunk, although it's later retconned that they were just shifted to Abeir.
* Dambrath experiences an uprising by a never-before-mentioned organization dedicated to restoring Dambrathian rule to the Dambrathi, overthrowing the Cintri - the [[Drow]]/[[Half-Elf]]/Dambrathi hybrid minority of [[Loviatar]] and [[Lolth]]-worshipping [[Amazon]]s who've been running the place for generations. 
* The [[Feywild]] is brought back into planar alignment with Toril.
* Mulhorand is destroyed and its people annihilated; the [[Deep Imaskari]] subsequently emerge from their long period of hiding in the [[Underdark]] and settle amongst the ruins, creating the reborn realm of High Imaskar.

===Changes to Characters===
In a nutshell, any human character from 3rd edition is dead and buried of old age. This includes many iconic characters like Mirt the Moneylender, King Azoun of Cormyr, and Khelben Blackstaff.
* The [[Seven Sisters]] are all wiped out, except for the Simbul, who is reduced to a mana-eating lunatic that [[Elminster]] must keep locked up in a dungeon hidden under Shadowdale.
* Speaking of [[Elminster]], he loses 99% of his magical abilities and is left as a genuinely frail, embittered, tired old man.
* [[Drizzt]] loses all of his companions to old age.
* [[Tyr]] was manipulated by [[Cyric]] into duelling with [[Helm]], accidentally killing the latter. In grief, he abdicates from godhood, giving his power and his faithful over to [[Torm]] instead. This titbit is actually covered in the article "Channel Divinity: Champions of Torm" in Dragon #381.
* Most of the [[demihuman]] deities are downgraded to "Exarches". In practical terms, this didn't change anything, it just meant WotC declared they weren't going to bother creating feats, [[Paragon Path]]s and other mechanics to support them.
* A few deities are conflated or merged together. One prominent example of this is that [[Amaunator]] temporarily returned from the dead and subsumed his younger inheritor, [[Lathander]].
* [[Asmodeus]] murders the god [[Azuth]] and steals his divinity, combining it with the raw magical energies of the Spellplague to forcibly reshape the [[World Tree]] into the [[World Axis]].