Elminster Aumar: The Life of the Sage of Shadowdale, 212 to 1492 DR
Elminster Aumar is one of the most famous wizards in the Forgotten Realms. He is the Sage of Shadowdale, the Old Mage, and Mystra's favored Chosen. Every edition has given him a stat block, and the numbers tell part of the story. First edition made him a 26th level magic-user and second edition a 29th level wizard. Third edition split him into fighter 1, rogue 2, cleric 3, wizard 24, archmage 5, at challenge rating 39. All three kept him chaotic good. Fourth edition made him a level 19 controller.
The third edition build tracks his biography: a boy with a sword, then a thief, then a priestess, and only after that a mage. Below is his life in order, with dates in Dale Reckoning, taken from the Forgotten Realms Wiki's compiled history.
Prince, Outlaw, Thief
Elminster was born in 212 DR. His father was Elthryn Aumar, lord of the village of Heldon and a prince of Athalantar, a son of Uthgrael, the great king of the Stag Throne. His mother, Amrythale Goldsheaf, was a woodsman's daughter. When he was a boy, the magelord Undarl killed both parents and destroyed Heldon. Elminster was the only survivor. He took his father's broken blade, the Lion Sword, and lived by foraging.
Helm Stoneblade found him and brought him to the outcast Knights of Athalantar, who were living as brigands in the Wind Cavern in the Horn Hills. By sixteen he was tired of killing. He moved to the capital, Hastarl, and became a burglar called Eladar the Dark. With a young thief named Farl he formed the Velvet Hands, a gang set against the Moonclaws, who served the magelords. When Dorgon Stonecloak, a Magister of Mystra, offered to teach him magic, Elminster turned him down. He hated every mage because of the magelords.
Elmara and Myrjala
His hunt for revenge led him to the magelords' temple, where guards overwhelmed him. Mystra rescued him and turned him into a woman, Elmara, to strengthen his bond with magic and widen his view of the world. For several years Elmara served as a priestess of Mystra. The goddess then came to her as a mage named Myrjala Talithyn and taught her spellcasting. They became friends and then lovers. Elmara eventually confessed to being Elminster. Myrjala already knew, since she was an avatar of Mystra.
In 240 DR they rallied High Forest elves, the exiled knights, and the Velvet Hands, stormed Hastarl, defeated Undarl Dragonrider, and took the Stag Throne back from Elminster's uncle Belaur. Elminster abdicated in favor of Helm Stoneblade. On the road out of the city, Undarl attacked again and was revealed as a malaugrym, a shapeshifter from another plane. Myrjala's magic had no effect on him and she appeared to die. To stop Elminster from giving up magic, Mystra revealed herself and asked him to become one of her Chosen. He said yes.
Ninety Years in Myth Drannor
In 241 DR he walked east to the Forest of Cormanthor. A dying elf, Imbryl Alastrarra, gave him the kiira of House Alastrarra to take home, and Elminster did so. Coronal Eltargrim received him with Mystra present, and his trial with the Srinshee in the Vault of Ages made the two lifelong friends. He became the first human allowed to live in the city. He was named Sha'Quessir, meaning elf-friend, and made an Armathor of the Coronal Guard. Elves who opposed opening the city framed him for murder anyway.
He spent 20 years apprenticed to a cruel House Starym mage known as The Masked. He still helped raise the city's first mythal, which was completed in 261 DR. That year the city became Myth Drannor and opened to non-elves. Also that year, Lady Laurlaethee Shaurlanglar tried to kill him with poisoned moonwine and then with spells. In 324 DR he picked the harp symbol for Lady Dathlue Mistwinter's Harpers at Twilight, though he was a bad musician. He left in 331 DR, having spent about 90 of his roughly 120 years among the elves.
Tests, Daughters, and a Bad Pupil
He returned to defend Myth Drannor in the Weeping War. He fought beside Khelben, then called the Nameless One, and destroyed a gate at the battle at Silversgate, which pulled him into other planes. In 720 DR he attended the Gathering of the Gods at the Dancing Place, where the Harpers were founded again.
In 759 DR adventurers found him waking in a tomb, convinced he had been in stasis for about a century. The wiki says this doesn't fit the decades just before it and suggests his memory was altered. Azuth then told him to get by without Mystra's help. He apprenticed himself to Dasumia, a sorceress serving Bane, and became Court Mage of Galadorna. When she ordered him to strike down innocents, he refused and attacked her. Dasumia turned out to be Mystra, testing him.
By 767 DR Dornal Silverhand and Elué Shundar had seven daughters. Elué's body could not bear Mystra's possession, and Dornal abandoned the girls. Elminster raised three of them, later known as Storm, Dove, and Laeral. In 851 DR he began teaching Sammaster, another Chosen, who became obsessed with Alustriel. In 875 DR Elminster and Laeral rescued her from him and killed him.
Shadows, the Simbul, and Shadowdale
Killing a malaugrym on the Plane of Shadow brought its kin to Toril. Elminster fought them at Blackstaff Tower in 1179 DR, which started the Harpstar Wars. He built the Harp of Stars during the war, and it ended in 1222 DR when Khelben took over the Shadowmaster's mind. In 1246 DR he challenged the Simbul to a spell duel that moved from her palace to Crommor's Fang. Partway through, he realized she was a fellow Chosen: Alassra, Mystra's sixth daughter, who became his second great love.
He settled in a tower in Shadowdale and unofficially retired in 1350 DR. The wiki calls the retirement a ruse. In the Time of Troubles in 1358 DR he lost the Weave. Syluné's ghost used his eversmoking pipe as a decoy, and he hit Bane's avatar with Mystra's essence at Morningdawn Hall before disappearing into a rift. Midnight was tried for his murder. He came back calling himself Minstrel and helped ring the Bell of Aylen Attricus at Tantras.
Hell, Spellplague, and Borrowed Bodies
In 1371 DR the new Mystra removed his memories of her predecessor's secrets. When Storm's silver fire hit a Shadovar prince, it tore open a rift to the Nine Hells. Elminster went through on Hammer 1, 1372 DR, to close it. The archdevil Nergal enslaved and tortured him until the Simbul rescued him. In 1374 DR Sharrans hunting the Ebon Diadem blew his tower into another plane.
Cyric and Shar killed Mystra in 1385 DR. During the Spellplague every spell Elminster cast pushed him toward madness, and Alassra went fully mad. He spent nearly a century in that weakened state, stealing enchanted items to feed her. Eventually he and Storm moved to Suzail as servants of the royal family, he under the name Elgorn. In 1479 DR Manshoon destroyed his body. Elminster survived in a near-undead state and lived for a time inside his descendant Amarune Whitewave, and later inside a drow woman. Alassra gave her life to restore his body. He killed everyone responsible and melted Manshoon with silver fire. Then he gave the power Alassra had gathered back to Mystra, and she returned in full.
The Sundering and After
In 1487 DR the lich Larloch betrayed him at Candlekeep. At Myth Drannor, Elminster seized the flying city of Thultanthar and, with power from the Srinshee's final sacrifice, crashed it into Myth Drannor, destroying both. Most residents had already been evacuated. In 1488 DR at Oldspires he destroyed the Lost Spell and removed Mystryl's divine spindle from Manshoon's clone. In 1492 DR he went looking for Gale Dekarios during the Absolute crisis.
Where the Record Splits
- Memory. The 759 DR tomb episode contradicts the years before it. The wiki also floats the idea that Mystra implanted some of his memories, and in 1371 DR a goddess did remove some.
- Descendants. The wiki's summary calls Amarune his great-great granddaughter, but its 1479 DR narrative calls her his great-granddaughter. Filfaeril Obarskyr and Laspeera Inthré are listed as his children only "allegedly."
- Power level. He goes from 29th level in 2e to a level 19 controller in 4e. The wiki doesn't explain the drop. My own reading is that it fits a Chosen stripped of power by the Spellplague, so you can treat it as lore instead of a rules change.
- Rumors. Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue credits his long life to a hidden supply of Evermeet elven bread. Other sources say potions or an elixir of life. Some people say he helped found Waterdeep or set up its Lords.
Using Elminster in Your Campaign
- The sleeper in the tomb. Have the party wake an old mage who is certain of a century that never happened, as in the 759 DR episode. Who edited his memory, and why, can carry an entire arc.
- Elgorn the servant. Run a Cormyr campaign in the decades before 1479 DR where enchanted items keep disappearing from nobles and adventurers. The thief is a weakened Elminster, working in Suzail under the alias Elgorn, feeding them to a mad Alassra. Once the party catches him, he becomes a desperate patron.
- The Gravenhollow echo. An echo of Elminster stays in the Gravenhollow library in the Underdark. It can give Underdark parties advice, or it can remember what the living Elminster was made to forget.