Ioulaum

{{Character|

fgcolor=#fff|

bgcolor=#000|

| image=

| name=Ioulaum of Seventon

| aliases=Ioulaum the Magnificent, Ioulaum the Archmage, the Oracle of Ellyn'taal

| gender= Male

| race=Netherese Human (former), Netherese Human Lich (former), Illithid Elder-Brain Illithilich

| parents=Unknown

| dob=-3315 DR (Age in 1380 DR: 4,695)

| pob=Seventon, Low Netheril

| occupation=Archmage, Arcanist, Lord of Xinlenal, Oracle

| affiliations=Netheril, Ellyn'taal

| siblings=Unknown

| spouse=None Known

| children=None Known, Apprentices include Karsus, Wulgreth, and Tabra

| class=Arch-Wizard

| alignment=Unknown

}}

The legendary inventor of the mythallar was one of the few sorcerer-kings who neither perished in the fall of Netheril nor fled to Halruaa. Thanks to his crafting of the lost epic spell Ioulaum’s longevity, Ioulaum of Seventon lived for centuries, throughout most of the Netherese era. When the phaerimms arrived, however, he soon realized that their lifedrain spells were causing his life-sustaining magic to fail. Foreseeing the doom of Netheril, he embraced lichdom and established a lair in the depths of the Northdark.

In –339 DR, Ioulaum disappeared from Netheril. Because the archwizard had been an immensely popular figure and something of a folk hero, the news of his disappearance touched off a panic among the populace. The High Mages of Netheril grew fearful of a popular revolt, and Karsus was moved to cast Karsus’s avatar, the spell that finally doomed the Empire of Magic.

After the fall, Ioulaum quietly continued to choose apprentices from among the most promising Netherese refugees. Curiously, he also accepted apprentices from the nearby mind flayer city of Ellyn’taal, and his illithid students, who called themselves the Alhoon, are believed to have been the first illithiliches. Ioulaum’s intentions became clear when he created an undead elder brain from the minds of his illithid students and then merged his own sentience into it. Most of his illithilich apprentices were destroyed in this arcane ritual, but a few escaped and spread the secret of illithilich creation to mind flayer communities throughout the Realms Below.

Ioulaum’s last human apprentice, Tabra, witnessed the rite and thought her master had been destroyed in a battle with his own students. In revenge, she slaughtered the last few of Ellyn’taal’s mind flayers by casting Ioulaum’s longevity on herself in the midst of the community. She then destroyed all records of the spell (except her own and those that Ioulaum himself had secretly hidden away) and fled to the surface.

Ioulaum survives today in the form of an undead elder brain. Now known as the Oracle of Ellyn’taal, he lairs in the depths of the abandoned mind flayer city, surrounded by echoing chambers carved with alien illithid sculptures. Because staying overlong in these strangely preserved, empty halls results in a strange form of madness, only Ioulaum’s undead servitors and the ghosts of the mind flayers slain by Tabra remain here with him.

The few intrepid explorers who have chanced upon the Oracle of Ellyn’taal have gained bits of arcane knowledge dating back to the height of Netheril from their meetings with it. Thus far, no one suspects that this “oracle” was once the legendary Ioulaum, but word of its existence has begun to spread in whispers across the North. Ioulaum extracts a terrible price for the information he provides—the voluntary, permanent loss of some fraction of the questioner’s sanity or the complete knowledge of a new epic spell (which is then forever lost to the questioner).