Irenicus and Why he is one of the most powerful mages?

KKnight

Besides the obvious power, what makes Irenicus at or close to Elminster's level of expertise. He can take enemies down one by one and is easily one of the most dangerous mages to walk faerun. The books made by phillip athens butchered him and the other characters but that is a whole different ball of wax.

If you are like me and think Irenicus is easily one of the most powerful, well voiced and excellent spellcasters (which is common) in a video game, was it the fact that he is a level 30 wizard that makes him so powerful. I never got a chance to see his equipment so I dont know if that has anything to do with it.

1-Im not very familiar with in depth d and d so if someone knows Irenicus strength would they care to explain.

2-How powerful is he compared to Blackstaff, Elminster and thats about it. Those are the other top mages I know of, unless someone knows a draco lich spellcaster that is worse.

Thanks in advance.

enqenq

I wouldn't really define his power based on what he does in cutscenes. Would you really want to endure him killing his enemies using the same recipe as high level mages/liches? Bam go the protections, and then Time Stop, and then symbols or swarm+fiend, etc etc...

WebShaman

Irenicus doesn't come close to Elminster, Khelben Blackstaff, Halister, The Symbol - let alone the legendary giants like Larloch & Co.

Elminster is one of the Chosen of Mystra. Halister makes Irenicus seem sane (and is much more powerful). And The Symbol (I believe she is dead now, iirc) is just...overboard. And Larloch...well, he is probably the most powerful known Mage in the FR.

I suspect there is probably a Dragon Mage out there, somewhere, who comes from the Days of Thunder and holds more power than Larloch, but that is just my meanderings.

Musigny

Do you want him in your team ? Redemption ?
Install a vanilla BG2 game (+ fixpack + ascension) + "The longer road" v1.5.1 mod.
Disastrous from a tactical/challenge perspective but you will have tens of dialog lines with him.
Even though I am no big fan of the mod it is nice to play it once.

WebShaman

Here is an (incomplete?) list of more powerful magic-wielding beings in FR lore as Irenicus :

Larloch
Ioulaum
Shaan the Serpent-Queen
Srinshee
Ka'Narlist of Atorrnash
Telamont Tanthul
The Sisters
Elmister
Szass Tam
Halaster
Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun
The Symbul

There may be others that I missed, but the above are pretty much way, WAY over Irenicus' powerlevel.

The Sisters and The Chosen would spank Irenicus' badly - Silverfire would pretty much end Irenicus as would certain powers granted The Chosen that would reduce Irenicus' spellpower with each spell cast.

Irenicus is just not all that powerful, really. I mean, he gets defeated by a Bhaalspawn!

Seldar

What about Aganazzar and Abi Dalzim ?

MonoCanalla

Gromph Baenre?

Gotural

Elminster is also not that powerful (in 2e at least), he is a level 29 mage and i'm sure Charname could kick his ass.

Considering Irenicus is not really old (compared to Elminster, Larloch & Co) and that he already managed to create a spell which instantly kill all Charname's party "Rapture of the Father" i think he could have become very very powerful.

Add to that the fact that the others are kind of "cheating" with things like Silverfire, Chosen of Mystra and the like. Imagine if Irenicus would have manage to drain the Tree of Life, keep Charname's soul and live 2 000 more years, what kind of power would he have reached ?

Necroblivion

The fact that Irenicus is not mentioned in the FR lore doesn't make him less powerful. As far as I remember he is a level 29 wizard which is the same level as Elminister at the time of 2nd edition. He is capable of truly epic feats, as we can all see in the game. I would safely say that he is one of the most powerful wizards in the FR.

And I wouldn't say that Larloc is the most powerful. According to 3.5 he is one level lower then Elminister, which is also a Chosen.

vangoat

Gotural said:

Add to that the fact that the others are kind of "cheating" with things like Silverfire, Chosen of Mystra and the like. Imagine if Irenicus would have manage to drain the Tree of Life, keep Charname's soul and live 2 000 more years, what kind of power would he have reached ?

even creatures mysterious and magical will fall.

don't forget the pointy hat

jackjack

I'm not all that convinced of Khelben's might. He had the heroes of Waterdeep do all of his dirty work in the Temple of Darkmoon.
Prove me wrong, "Blackstaff", prove me wrong…

KKnight

Well I guess that if Irenicus could cast spells as fast as he did in the tree of life dream prelude to Suldenessalar, he could kill nearly anything in existence. He casted a spell about as fast as my warrior could swing. The spell causes instant death, the sword causes 22 damage (Which is better?) heh. I always decide Im going to try a different 2 man warrior team against Jonaeleth but My warrior and Dorn just works best with poison weapon. Ends the fight in a few. As long as they dont take poison going through stoneskin Im glad

WebShaman

Ok.

Elminster is one of the Chosen of Mystra. You don't want to mess with them.

Silverfire, and that really irritating spell that causes your spellpower to DECREASE with every casting...that is nasty.

Larloch is IMMUNE to all magic unless he doesn't want to be. This was allowed by Mystra herself. I am really, really interested in what Irenicus is going to do against him : use bad language?

Also, Larloch is allowed to use a lot of magic that others are forbidden to, due to Mystra; for this boon, Larloch muss share his Arcane knowledge with others, slowly spreading it throughout the FR.

Not to mention that he has 60+ liches that he mentally can control and cast spells through.

Gromph Baenre, Archmage of the Underdark. Pretty powerful, and probably more than Irenicus.

Power is not just measured by level.

enqenq

More like the levels we can reach in BG2 (ToB in particular) shouldn't be compared to canon levels.

Irenicus should challenge Larloch to a wet t-shirt competition.

Necroblivion

WebShaman said:

Ok.

Elminster is one of the Chosen of Mystra. You don't want to mess with them.

Silverfire, and that really irritating spell that causes your spellpower to DECREASE with every casting...that is nasty.

Larloch is IMMUNE to all magic unless he doesn't want to be. This was allowed by Mystra herself. I am really, really interested in what Irenicus is going to do against him : use bad language?

Also, Larloch is allowed to use a lot of magic that others are forbidden to, due to Mystra; for this boon, Larloch muss share his Arcane knowledge with others, slowly spreading it throughout the FR.

Not to mention that he has 60+ liches that he mentally can control and cast spells through.

Gromph Baenre, Archmage of the Underdark. Pretty powerful, and probably more than Irenicus.

Power is not just measured by level.

From the Lords of Darkness source book, page: 161. "Larloch is immune to cold, electricity, polymorph, mind-effecting attacks. Larloch is also immune to ONE arcane spell per level, but which spells those are is unknown."

But I am not saying that Jon can take down Larloch or Elminister. I would compare him to Halaster. It should be something like that:
1. Larloch / Elminister
2. Larloch / Elminister
3. Symbul
4. Halaster
5. Irenicus
6. Blackstaff
7. Alustriel

Gromph got his behind kicked by a quite powerful lich in the Wars of The Spider Queen and had to be saved by his sister. According to this books he is not that powerful, compared to the legendary wizards.

WebShaman

http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10920&whichpage=1

Read, and weep.

Here's one of those bits from Ed that I mentioned earlier:-

"Larloch is a onetime Netherese sorcerer (still possessed of a lot of Netherese scepters, which he knows how to make) who is now a quite insane "ultra-lich" (in this case, the term means he has many unknown powers which are up to you the DM, among them the fact that he can still learn and develop new spells, increase in levels, etc.). HE'S PROBABLY A 46th LEVEL EVIL-ALIGNED WIZARD RIGHT NOW, and he crafted many of his own undead abilities prior to undeath, which argues that he found his own 'process' for achieving lichdom.

Larloch is served by many (60+ ?) liches, formerly archwizards, whom he guides in concert, as the leader of a telepathic-web 'Overmind.' Thus far, neither psionics nor mind-influencing magics have ever been effective against him or any of his serviotr mages, because the others in the link can withstand and overcome such influences, causing them to fail.

In theory, an attack could reach all of them through the link, but some quite powerful Red Wizards have tried and failed (Szass Tam didn't try such an attack, which may be why he survived...he remains fearful of approaching Larloch and his mages, but fascinated by the details of their lichdom, hoping it might yield him some powers.)

One of Larloch's given-to-himself powers (which - in a long, involved, and secret, personally-developed process - cost him 10 years of life and some vitality, irrelevant of course given his goal of lichdom) IS AUTOMATIC SPELL REFLECTION OF ALL MAGIC CAST UPON HIM. He can by act of will override this ability, for example when he wants to work a spell on himself; otherwise, it always operates.

Mystra (Midnight's predecessor as the goddess) is said to have allowed Larloch to acquire powers approaching those of "old Netheril" in return for 'leaking' spells to persistent adventurers he or his minions might come into contact with, but this may be no more than rumour spread by the Zhents or Red Wizards or Dragon Cultists, designed to lure adventurers into Larloch-weakening forays...

As for Larloch knowing the identities and locations of other liches/Netherese survivors...no, only the one's he's destroyed. Larloch is too self-centered to hunt down folks who don't come within his easy reach. He controls plenty of archwizards/liches already, but may decide to try to either control or destroy a new one when they come into contact. He seems to be pursuing other goals, however. Which ones? That's up to each DM....."

Larloch and his lich minions have no interest in attracting attention that would waste their time and magical resources (and perhaps, if word got around how dangerous they were, even threaten their existence in the face of a concerted attack from various magical power groups working together). Larloch is not interested in ruling Faerun...but he IS interested in creating and controlling a series of magical gates linking many worlds (parallel Prime Material Planes) and Outer Planes...and so rigging their enchantments that anyone using them comes under his control/faces his forceful removal of their magic items, information from their mind, and so forth. The gates are easy for him to create (he licked all of those problems long ago). The control enchantments have been giving him troubles for thousands of years now, and as an obsessive perfectionist, he isn't going to let this rest until he gets everything just so...nor is he going to create the gates until he's ready to put the controls on them.

In short, he's a munchkin only if played that way. All Player Characters have to learn sometime that there are folks in the Realms just too powerful to tangle with.

I'm reminded of the original Realms campaign, and the Company of Crazed Venturers attacking Shaan the Serpent-Queen (who briefly appeared in a Wizards Three DRAGON article). She was busy working magic on a small island off Mintarn. They attacked, broke her concentration, and she looked up with an irritated frown. They bid her stop, or they'd destroy what she was working on; to demonstrate, one of the Company mages touched (and disintegrated) a stone he was standing beside.

She shook her head in derision, and touched the island beneath them, disintegrating IT, and dumping the Company into the chilly sea waves for a long swim...whilst she turned back to her spellcasting, floating on nothing and ignoring them once more.

A heavy-handed lesson, but...well, Larloch's in the same league, and more. Just consider him a power of the Realms and Don't Go There.
Ed"

That is from Ed Greenwood himself, so...Larloch. And the Automatic Spell Reflection works like Immunity - I mean, wow.

Of course, then there is Ioulaum.

He was the first to rule a floating Netherese city, and survives today, as an undead "Elder Brain" (Underdark, page: 84) But not only is he an elder brain, he is also lvl 31 wiz, lvl 5 arch mage and a lvl 5 Netherese Arcanist. this combined with the power an elder brain has, it makes him a CR 66, far beyond any known lich, arch-lich or demi-lich.

If one were to maximize his hitpoints he would end up, not only a lvl 41 arcane spell caster but end up with a total of 804 hit points. That is a lot of hitpoints for a lvl 41 spellcaster.

Necroblivion

WebShaman said:

http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10920&whichpage=1

Read, and weep.

Here's one of those bits from Ed that I mentioned earlier:-

"Larloch is a onetime Netherese sorcerer (still possessed of a lot of Netherese scepters, which he knows how to make) who is now a quite insane "ultra-lich" (in this case, the term means he has many unknown powers which are up to you the DM, among them the fact that he can still learn and develop new spells, increase in levels, etc.). HE'S PROBABLY A 46th LEVEL EVIL-ALIGNED WIZARD RIGHT NOW, and he crafted many of his own undead abilities prior to undeath, which argues that he found his own 'process' for achieving lichdom.

Larloch is served by many (60+ ?) liches, formerly archwizards, whom he guides in concert, as the leader of a telepathic-web 'Overmind.' Thus far, neither psionics nor mind-influencing magics have ever been effective against him or any of his serviotr mages, because the others in the link can withstand and overcome such influences, causing them to fail.

In theory, an attack could reach all of them through the link, but some quite powerful Red Wizards have tried and failed (Szass Tam didn't try such an attack, which may be why he survived...he remains fearful of approaching Larloch and his mages, but fascinated by the details of their lichdom, hoping it might yield him some powers.)

One of Larloch's given-to-himself powers (which - in a long, involved, and secret, personally-developed process - cost him 10 years of life and some vitality, irrelevant of course given his goal of lichdom) IS AUTOMATIC SPELL REFLECTION OF ALL MAGIC CAST UPON HIM. He can by act of will override this ability, for example when he wants to work a spell on himself; otherwise, it always operates.

Mystra (Midnight's predecessor as the goddess) is said to have allowed Larloch to acquire powers approaching those of "old Netheril" in return for 'leaking' spells to persistent adventurers he or his minions might come into contact with, but this may be no more than rumour spread by the Zhents or Red Wizards or Dragon Cultists, designed to lure adventurers into Larloch-weakening forays...

As for Larloch knowing the identities and locations of other liches/Netherese survivors...no, only the one's he's destroyed. Larloch is too self-centered to hunt down folks who don't come within his easy reach. He controls plenty of archwizards/liches already, but may decide to try to either control or destroy a new one when they come into contact. He seems to be pursuing other goals, however. Which ones? That's up to each DM....."

Larloch and his lich minions have no interest in attracting attention that would waste their time and magical resources (and perhaps, if word got around how dangerous they were, even threaten their existence in the face of a concerted attack from various magical power groups working together). Larloch is not interested in ruling Faerun...but he IS interested in creating and controlling a series of magical gates linking many worlds (parallel Prime Material Planes) and Outer Planes...and so rigging their enchantments that anyone using them comes under his control/faces his forceful removal of their magic items, information from their mind, and so forth. The gates are easy for him to create (he licked all of those problems long ago). The control enchantments have been giving him troubles for thousands of years now, and as an obsessive perfectionist, he isn't going to let this rest until he gets everything just so...nor is he going to create the gates until he's ready to put the controls on them.

In short, he's a munchkin only if played that way. All Player Characters have to learn sometime that there are folks in the Realms just too powerful to tangle with.

I'm reminded of the original Realms campaign, and the Company of Crazed Venturers attacking Shaan the Serpent-Queen (who briefly appeared in a Wizards Three DRAGON article). She was busy working magic on a small island off Mintarn. They attacked, broke her concentration, and she looked up with an irritated frown. They bid her stop, or they'd destroy what she was working on; to demonstrate, one of the Company mages touched (and disintegrated) a stone he was standing beside.

She shook her head in derision, and touched the island beneath them, disintegrating IT, and dumping the Company into the chilly sea waves for a long swim...whilst she turned back to her spellcasting, floating on nothing and ignoring them once more.

A heavy-handed lesson, but...well, Larloch's in the same league, and more. Just consider him a power of the Realms and Don't Go There.
Ed"

That is from Ed Greenwood himself, so...Larloch. And the Automatic Spell Reflection works like Immunity - I mean, wow.

Of course, then there is Ioulaum.

He was the first to rule a floating Netherese city, and survives today, as an undead "Elder Brain" (Underdark, page: 84) But not only is he an elder brain, he is also lvl 31 wiz, lvl 5 arch mage and a lvl 5 Netherese Arcanist. this combined with the power an elder brain has, it makes him a CR 66, far beyond any known lich, arch-lich or demi-lich.

If one were to maximize his hitpoints he would end up, not only a lvl 41 arcane spell caster but end up with a total of 804 hit points. That is a lot of hitpoints for a lvl 41 spellcaster.

Cool story. But as much as I hate it many of Ed's lore is not canon. More over, we are not arguing that Jon is more powerful then Larloch. The thread is about Jon being one of the most powerful wizards in the FR. There will always be a bigger fish.

Gotural

In the game Irenicus is a level 30 Mage so 1 more level than Elminster. I think that in 2e Elminster is kind of meh, but in 3.5 he's level 39 IIRC. Still Larloch's power is immense and far far far greater than Elminster's.

MonoCanalla

gromph is Archmage of Menzoberranzan, not the Underdark.

KKnight

Damn, Larloch sounds like he is just nasty. I love how mages in D and D just really go over the top with how difficult they are to destroy. If it makes any sense while the game Baldurs Gate 2 is excellent against taking on Irenicus with a party, its HIGHLY unrealistic for a warrior or some other class combo to SOLO the guy in Bg2. Just saying you can do it, but its very unrealistic because if you mess one little thing up your toast. I guess that is why Drizzt and Artemis hate mages and have so much trouble with them. Cant say I blame them.

MonoCanalla

Who is the most kick ass Red Wizard? Shouldn't he, whoever is, be on the list?

Same with the Zhentarim.

Now, in defense of my beloved Gromph Baenre, everybody can have a bad day. Artemis Entreri was defeated by a random mage and had to be rescued by Jarlaxe. I think the narrative drama sometimes is over the roleplaying logic. Gromph had to be rescued by his sister for plot reasons, obviously.

WebShaman

Szass Tam is on the list : he basically is the "top dog" of the Red Wizards - The Zulkir of Necromany http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Szass_Tam

I also suspect that somewhere among the Aboleths is a Mage of ultimate power, since they come from the Universe before this one. That would mean that if there is such a being, it would wield power from before the formation of the Gods themselves (and Ao).

And all about Larloch - http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Larloch

Note that of course it mentions

The true extents of his powers were unknown, and some were unique and of his own devising, having made a number of permanent magical modifications to his own body and lich nature via wish spells and rituals.

Ed Greenwood has filled us in on some of them - Automatic Spell Reflection, for example.

Note that Larloch does make a cameo in BG2:EE.

Necroblivion

MonoCanalla said:

Who is the most kick ass Red Wizard? Shouldn't he, whoever is, be on the list?

Same with the Zhentarim.

Now, in defense of my beloved Gromph Baenre, everybody can have a bad day. Artemis Entreri was defeated by a random mage and had to be rescued by Jarlaxe. I think the narrative drama sometimes is over the roleplaying logic. Gromph had to be rescued by his sister for plot reasons, obviously.

For Zhents you have Manshoon which is quite powerful and Sememmon which is not epicly powerful but have a considerable power.

WebShaman

Gromph Baenre, although powerful, is not all-powerful! I mean, consider the environment where he abodes: the Underdark. To get where he is, he must be very powerful, resourceful, cunning, and probably one of the meanest, cruelest, bastages alive...as well as careful.

As for him being defeated, well, Irenicus got beaten by a Bhaalspawn. So...it happens. Any Mage can be defeated under the right circumstances. What really matters, is what sort of precautions a Mage has taken ahead of time to compensate for just such an occurance.

Obviously, Irenicus had an Epic Fail in that regards, whereas the best Mages of the Realms all have contingency plans for such an occurance.

As a result, Irenicus is a "Meh" among Mages, now simmering in the Hells...

Brunachos

Look, WebShaman, there is no way to completely agree with you when you compare Irenicus with all this other powerfull spellcasters of the cannon lore by a single reason: The game don't give us many tips on the REAL extention on JI's power, or its origins... the only clues we have to it are the lines of the cowled wizards saying his power "is immense"; some harper in the compound mentioning something about it being "terrifing" and, finnaly, the statement of the priestess in Suldanesselar that he was "as powerfull as anyone could be without being a god" or anything like that. We have no more than that, so it is up to our imagination to decide. And I disagree with you when you say the cutscenes aren't a good measure: they are better than the "fightable" JI, that was reduced to a random wizard so any middle level party could defeat him and finish the game: He is not the dumbass in spellhold that couldn't even cast Time Stop against those mad idiots you recruit: He is the weapon of mass destruction that would be able to kill all the cowled wizards single handed if he want!
In my personal opinion he would beat them all: Larloch, Halaster, Elminster... why? Well, because he is voiced by David Warner... that would be the ultimate stroke!

WebShaman

Jon Irenicus is just a middle of the road Mage with a god complex like Tiax. He got smacked around by his own people, and had to USE a second party (his sister) to accomplish the goal of sucking the divine souls of two "meh" Bhaalspawn out - hardly the "legendary Mage" sort. He obviously chose the least powerful Bhaalspawn (as witnessed later) and had them captured once again with "agents".

Then in Spellhold, a major mistake on his behalf - he lets both live! Again trusting to "agents" - this time his sister who of course betrays him. Or at the least, ignores his instructions.

It is one of the parts that makes me wonder about Bohdi's state of mind. The Bhaalspawn had already defeated her once - why does she think she can now defeat him? It seems like the revenge gene in House Irenicus is a very powerful one...makes them blind.

So:

He can't even defeat the least powerful of the Bhaalspawn (before it becomes powerful enough to defeat the rest).

Irenicus has no back up plan if things go wrong. And the main reason is arrogance: he doesn't think anything can go wrong because he is sooooo smart and has "planned everything". Well, we find out that he is not and has not. Just mortal, after all.

In fact, at every turn he fails, fails, FAILS! You would have thought that he would have realized after failing once, that he was capable of failing. Then he gets not only defeated, but KILLED and sent to the Hells!

You would have thought that at LEAST his arrogance would have had a contingency plan!

But no, it is all or nothing.

And that is the real reason why Jon Irenicus is just a middle of the road psychotic, not worthy to rub shoulders with the power elite.

He makes for a great villain for a mid-level party. And that is all.

FinneousPJ

@WebShaman‌ Why do you say least powerful? I don't think that makes any sense.

WebShaman

Because at the time of capture he was what, 7th level?

The rest, as seen in ToB were much higher level for far longer than . And had Irenicus not concentrated on , would probably never had reached the higher levels by the time that Mellissan's plans had come to fruition.

So basically, and Imoen were the "weakest" (re: least powerful) of the remaining Bhaalspawn, at least as far as we are led to believe.

FinneousPJ

But isn't it true that while SoA is going on, there's still loads and loads of bhaalspawn roaming the realms? By ToB most of them have been killed off, that's true, but in SoA I'd wager there are lots of individuals less powerful than charname. 7th level is a pretty powerful character in DnD, after all.

Brunachos

Levels aren't such a perfect measure to hank the power and status of individuals in BG: they could say something in some circumstances, but most of times they serve to make the game "playable" and to fit characters in its mechanics. If you take levels that serious you would agree that Baldur's Gate city should be overwhelmed by anyone, because his warriors and wizards are so low leveled, and Amn is full of über liches and paladins... and Tethyr is just a nation of godlike beings that cannot be matched and is destined to rule the world!
And I don't think CHARNAME is the weakest of bhaalspawns: he/her managed to spread havoc across the swordcoast, he/her was so powerful that, feeling his potential, Melissan decided to use him/her to kill the Five one by one...
Finally, Irenicus did not fail: in my playthrough I decided to face him in Spellhold without assembling the army of mad wizards, so he casted "Wish" and killed me and, in that alternate universe, probably succeeded in his scheme, become a deity, raped suldanesselar and delivered the remains to the drow and the Rakshasa!

WebShaman

Using a Wish spell to kill a party is something that no sane DM would ever allow - the wording would be twisted around to circumvent the desired result.

It is ABSOLUTELY ridiculous that JI can use the Wish spell to kill you (and party) but can't kill you (and party) along with a small group of crazed Mages with that same Wish spell.

After the threat of the Wish spell is gone, JI is a milksop. All rant, no bite. He went down before the concentrated wrath of Dorn and Vikky in milliseconds (helped a bit by Neera, of course).

Then he sputters around like the imbecile that he is, I didn't expect you to...oh Jon. Oh Jon! Whatever did you expect, then? That Saemon (whatever his name is, the lout) would not turn on you? That would not enlist the very resources that hate you the most? Why didn't you kill all those crazy Mages before I got out of the Maze? Surely you could have beaten each one one-by-one, right?

Or were you afraid that you were not up to it, hmmm?

As for a useless waste of time and resources, didn't it occur to you, super-brain, that this battle was reminiscent of what was to come?

Ever ignorant, ever the fool!

But the thing that really, REALLY got me steamed was...the assumption that I would go after JI and that snot-nosed brat Imoen! It is not like I had a choice, I was railroaded by the Devs into doing it!

You know, I really didn't CARE! You can have Imoen, that whiney little tart needed to go! As for revenge...you will die from the curse, wither away, become...nothing, after awhile.

I have other things to do with my time. Thank you for taking care of the Imoen problem for me.

After I had done everything else there was to do, there really isn't anything else that you can do, but to *groan* go to Spellhold.

I mean...JI was on his last legs. A few months, and he would have kicked the bucket anyway. I literally took YEARS before I went to Spellhold! He should have been dust by then!

To me, this is the biggest immersion breaker of them all, and JI's biggest flaw (aside from underestimating again, and again, and again!) I mean...there should have been a different way to make you go to Spellhold. Forced Teleportation, you get captured (again)...I don't care, just give me the Deus ex machina that takes care of this "teeny-tiny problem"!