The Time of Troubles was precipitated by an attempt by the gods Bane and Myrkul to steal the Tablets of Fate from the overdeity Ao. The tablets were created by Ao to sustain the balance of good and evil, law and chaos and contain the areas of which each of the gods of the Forgotten Realms rule over. Angry with the gods for their habitual pursuit of power and negligence toward their mortal faithful, Lord Ao relegated every god (except for the guardian god Helm, selected to protect the gates to the heavens) to walk among their followers on the earth. The immediate effects of this edict were threefold. First, divine magic (spells granted to clerics by their patron deities) ceased to function altogether unless the cleric was within one mile of their deity's avatar. Second, arcane magic (a forc