While the clergy wouldn’t really like you, the city itself has always specialized in cutting edge research into contact with other planes. The respect from your fellow mages (and citizens; research like this saved the city from the Fall of Netheril) for this valuable work would offset any charge of heresy. After all, despite the respect the Church of Shar has gained, the denizens of Shade share the Netherese belief that gods are essentially no different from powerful wizards. The clergy certainly couldn’t murder you; the High Prince would come down on any such murderers like the proverbial bag of hammers – Shade needs all its strength to survive and prosper; murdering its mages is… not wise.
Of course, there’s dozens of reasons to keep such research secret, and beyond the borders of Shade, it’d be important to keep such things secret.
EDIT: Oh my. Karsus and Amaunator still exist as vestiges? (Amon would presumably be a Mulhorandi name, the hidden one, also Amun) Fantastic! In a terrifying kind of way that provokes many plot ideas for me...
Rhoenix: As far as I know, canonically, there are no Warforged in Faerûn. Therefore, I heartily encourage it.
More specifically, as such you’d be an advanced prototype created by one of the more important campaign NPCs. If Shade lacks anything, it’s reliable manpower. He’s already running a system that can potentially create great numbers of golems, albeit ordinary ones that are not sapient, and will not function outside of Shade.
Devising something like the warforged would be a logical next step in his intentions to adapt this sorcery for military use now that the city has returned to Faerûn. Such a character can easily be seen (though the exact reasons would be unclear) being assigned to the kind of missions I have in mind.
You would however, functionally be a completely new creature and the only one of your kind (yet) I’m not sure if that appeals to you. What’s more, you’d frequently be taken for (and encouraged to impersonate when in wider Faerûn) a golem.
Chaos monks are probably the most difficult, simply because the Shadovar are unlikely to have such a tradition, they have few enough clerics, and those with a suitably introspective character are likely to be streamed into wizardry at their Age of Ascension (13). Further, most of the city is highly lawful, for the most part, they believe very heavily in unity and common organization and action. The city has spent almost two thousand years in a domain inhabited by any number of hostile, umbral creatures, and is now on a mission to conquer the world, most of them have a highly lawful attitude.
Duskblade is pretty much ideal, and ideally represents the kind of elite martial tradition both Shade and Netheril would have, filling much the same social niche as Paladins do. There is something said about the history of this martial tradition here, though if you’re playing a character from Shade, it would of course be a human version learnt (perhaps more accurately, pilfered) long ago.
The Nomad: You’d not actually have to be using Shadow Weave magic, if you don’t wish to. While you’d certainly be aware of it, it has advantages and drawbacks, especially now you’re not on the plane of shadow. On the other hand, it is good for killing Phaerimms.
There’s one change to the basic wizard class I’d make for mages from Shade.
You might also want to consider actually being a Shade; it’s got a fairly steep ECL (+5) though. (Indeed, any of the ideas so far work as shades, except the monk and the warforged, the last for obvious reasons).There are only three ‘schools’ of magic practiced by Shade’s arcanists, Invention, Mentalism and Variation.
Invention:- Conjuration, Evocation
Mentalism:- Enchantment, Divination, Illusion,
Variation:- Abjuration, Necromancy, Transmutation,
Every wizard from Shade would be a specialist in one of these, picking one to gain a +1 on spellcraft checks to learn the relevant spells. However, an actual specialist wizard would gain the full benefits of specializing for all ordinary schools in one of each of these traditions (Inventors get a bonus item creation feat as well) with one bonus spell per school per day. The cost of this is that one of the other three schools is prohibited.
I’m not entirely sure if this works, balance wise, and may take some fiddling to get right.
The Silence and I: Lack of setting knowledge isn’t actually that much of a problem; the City of Shade only returned to the material plane three years ago (I’m planning to start a little while back, in 1374 DR, shortly after the re-establishment of Myth Drannor) after a seventeen hundred year journey in the Plane of Shadows. I’ll be posting some useful background links.
Fighter-mages would of course be useful (and indeed, quite normal) with much the same as my comments on Duskblades above.
Resources
Arcane Age: Netheril – Empire of Magic – a WotC download of the AD&D expansion which details the Empire of Netheril. It’s not generally thought of as particularly good, but it has a lot of useful background.
Shadovar, Shades, and the City of Shade, by Sean K Reynolds
The Unearthed Arcana Reputation System (and most of the rest of it) is OGL, and is thus available here. I’m most likely to be using it to influence use of artifacts and similar things, as well as at what point one may (if not already) be invited to become a Shade.
If you can get it, Lords of Darkness covers much of Shadovar society. With the exception of the influence wielded by the High Prince’s sons, and its Netherese human-centric attitudes, it is essentially an arcane meritocracy. Children are tested from an early age and assigned areas of study, the most adept mages and warriors are enhanced by becoming Shades, the rulers of the city. The city contains a substantial number of goblinoid slaves who perform menial tasks under the supervision of the commoners, and other creatures. The general economy is a command affair that serves more to regulate the flow of goods (though it has little trade with Faerûn, it had some with the various denizens of the Plane of Shadow) than to enable wealth creation.
Given the shade concepts people seem to be coming up with here, it’s likely the PCs will be agents of certain senior arcanists within the city of Shade
Normally, I’d be bugging someone to be a cleric, but in this case, that’s not really that characterful, given the arcane emphasis of the home of most of these characters. There will, mind, be a crapload of healing potions available, which will be replaced free of charge, and you might get to see how these are produced.
The kind of missions you’ll be sent on will probably vary between three themes:
- First Contact and Research: Diplomacy with the various cultures of Faerûn, and inquiring into the histories of other cultures.
- Item Retrieval: Retrieving specific magic items or lore from hostile forces.
- Phaerimm Extermination: Most of the city are unaware of the true reasons for Netheril’s fall, and blame it entirely upon the Phaerimms, who, like the Shades, are once again active in Faerûn. Expeditions to go and kill them in the underdark are quite common. Further information on Phaerimms
