Appearance: A nondescript volume
of brown, curling parchment leaves
sewn to a grey canvas cover.

History and Description: The
Nathlum is wholly and strongly evil; its
protective magics cannot be dispelled
(at least, not by the spell commonly
known as dispel magic), and these protections
cause all creatures of alignment
and instinct deemed "good" to
suffer blinding, burning pain in the
eyes and head. (Elminster offers a confusing
description of the symptoms
which need not be detailed here but
can be interpreted thus: Anyone of
good alignment will suffer 2-4 points of
damage per round that the book is held
or perused.) Its origin and the reason
for its name are unknown; its first definite
identification is in the catalog of
Tymor Threeshields, the inventory of
the booty he brought back from the
Orcfastings war, but hints of it can be
traced through the scanty written
records of the orcs under the leadership
of Wund, and Orfidel writes almost
four hundred years ago of his meeting
with the evil mage Lethchauntos the
Black, who went to dwell among the
orcs, and describes what could well be
the Nathlum in Lethchauntos's possession.
From Tymor's hall, the volume
went to Neverwinter as part of the
dowry of Tymor's daughter Nulauznee
(Elminster suspects that Tymor wished
to be rid of it), and nothing more is
heard of it until the Nathlum passes
unexpectedly into the hands of Phrandjas
of Port Llast (a northern town), a
thaumaturge whose careful and exacting
studies enabled him to subsequently
rise quickly in the ranks of the Art.

Contents: Phrandjas takes characteristic
pains over his notes regarding the
Nathlum; we learn that it appeared to
be complete when he received it, and
held sixteen recipes for poisons,
four glyphs of warding set down nowhere else,
and the formula of the spell maze.

Phrandjas, despite the pain caused him
by perusing the book (because he was
good), copied certain of the recipes for
later sale to the alchemists of the town,
and all of the glyphs, and Elminster has
passed on some of this information.
 
 
 
 

Magic-User Spellbooks

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Books of the Forgotten Realms