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Message: <blockquote data-quote="humble minion" data-source="post: 9104845" data-attributes="member: 5948">The "Elminster is unable to respond to your sending right now because he's busy dealing with something MUCH more cosmically important than your trifling quest, please leave a message after the beep" solution isn't really any more satisfying now than it was 20 years ago, IMHO.  And you can't really do a sourcebook that covers the Dales and completely bypass him.  He's iconic, but intrusive.I do wish they'd killed Elminster off.  I know they'd never do it, and Ed Greenwood and a lot of FR fans would be furious if they did, but he's a lot more intrusive to FR being an actually playable setting than more politically-focused NPCs like Khelben and the Simbul, or the lower-level types like Dove Falconhand etc were, and WotC cheerfully killed them.  Or at least reduce him to a sage, like he was waaay back in the day, than the archwizard he became later.  I loathe what 4e did to the Realms generally, but nobbling Elminster so he was not actually able to intervene much was one of its better ideas.  Keep him around as someone the PCs can talk to or seek advice from, and even grant him some degree of Mystra's protection so casual assailants can't just off him, but saving the world should be PC business.</blockquote>