The Sword Coast Adventurers Guide lists "the deathless wizard Fistadantalus" as a possible candidate for the Undying (an alternative patron for the warlock class) yet the Dragonlance wiki says he died about forty years after the first Cataclysm- which is right?
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asked Mar 21, 2021 at 0:36
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3\$\begingroup\$ @notovny That’s probably worth writing an answer for, we prefer not to post answers in comments. See here for details: Should users refrain from answers (or partial answers) in comments? \$\endgroup\$– Thomas MarkovCommented Mar 21, 2021 at 13:58
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2 Answers
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It could be both
Keep in mind that the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is for world of Abeir-Toril, while the Dragonlance setting is on the world of Krynn. There is no real guide, AFAIK, to indicate how the timelines of each world lines up. On top of that, Fistandantilus had the ability to travel through time and space so it doesn't entirely matter.
answered Mar 21, 2021 at 4:37
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13\$\begingroup\$ "Is a time traveler dead" is always a really squirrely question to answer. You have to know everywhen they went before they ended up in a time and place where they died. And you have to know how long they lived from their own perspective before that happened. Heck, if a time traveler goes to the future and learns the date of their death, they may well procrastinate the heck out of making it to that date. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Mar 21, 2021 at 14:30
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Dragonlance lore is not clear: the mage being alive/undead and his ability to come into different worlds is entirely up to the DM.
Fistandantilus, known also as the Dark One, is a powerful Black Robe whose aim was to defeat the goddess Takhisis and then take her place in the Dragonlance Pantheon.
Some decades after the Cataclysm, he managed to enter the Abyss (the plane in which Takhisis lives), but something interfered with the spell the mage was casting and a huge explosion occurred. Some details can be found here and in the novel War of the Twins\$^\dagger\$.
Actually, Fistandantilus managed to survive as a spirit, and during the centuries he used to infiltrated the Test of young mages to offer a trade: magical power in exchange of life essence of the younglings. He was planning to return on Krynn. The only one that accepted his offer was Raistlin Majere, 300 years after the Cataclysm. This event is narrated in the novel The Soulforge
After the War of the Lance, Raistlin became the most powerful Black Robe and he planned to ascend to godhood. He travelled to the past, he became the apprentice of Fistandantilus itself, during the years before the Cataclysm. Then, he sucked his life essence and knowledge, using the same ritual Fistandantilus was planning to cast on his apprentice. The interesting part is that Fistandantilus seemed to recognize Raistlin as the Master of the Past and the Future, hence understanding that the young mage was coming from the future. This event can be found in a flashback in the novel War of the Twins. Here there is the classical time paradox: how was possible to Fistandantilus to offer his trade to Raistlin 300 years after the Cataclysm if he was killed by Raisltin in the past? How is possible to Fistandantilus to recognize people from the future?
Raistlin understood that he was not doomed to run into the same steps of Fistandantilus, failing as he did: indeed, the presence of a kender during the casting of time travel spells broke the laws of time and magic, allowing him to take a different path.
The explanation in Dragonlance lore is anyway quite foggy: a DM could employ these time-travel-induced paradoxes to rule that Fistandantilus is alive (in some way) or a powerful undead entity, or even they may rule that he was so powerful to be capable to travel in time, space and among dimensions, being able hence to come into different worlds from his native one, such as Toril.
Anyway, he seems to be still alive (in some way) in the centuries spanning from his (unknown) birth to the time of Raistlin's Test. It seems also that the Dark One organized other ways to prolungate its life: here there is the report of one curios event, but I did not find any reference to this in any sourcebook nor novel.
\$^\dagger\$ This novel tells how Raistlin Majere followed initially the same path of Fistandantilus, from the days before the Cataclysm to the Dwarfgate Wars: then the Raistlin's actions are pretty much the same of Fistandantilus'.
