1. Setting Chronology and Divergences

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Our campaign splits off from the chronology of Cormyr and Dalelands NWN server at a point in time of the year 1383, prior to the events of The Hand that Feeds, which was an attempt to resurrect the dead god Moander. In our continuity this server event did not happen, and Moander is still a dead power, and Zugttmoy has not ascended with his portfolio.

As of this posting, our setting time is the end of 1383.

Everything prior to 1372 DR is identical to source materials for the Forgotten Realms Campaign supplements of 3rd and 2nd editions with some key divergences:

  • Deity Lore from 2nd edition Faiths and Avatars supercedes information from 3rd edition Faith and Pantheons. Any conflicts in dogma, doctrines, alignments and followers defer to the Faiths and Avatars writeup. A quick access reference online is from a website now archived on Wayback Machine.
  • Our setting still uses the Planescape cosmology, rather than the 3e Toril specific World Tree. Toril is still a crystal sphere in the Great Wheel in our setting. The Planescape cosmology and timeline is identical to that in the Planescape Campaign Setting, prior to the Faction War supplement. Nothing from that supplement forward is considered canon.
  • The Wall of the Faithless doesn’t exist. Some scholars theorize that it went away with the passing of evil gods in charge of the Fugue; others contend that it still exists; Volo and other skeptics dismiss the latter and make it akin to mothers using tales of boogeymen to make their children behave.
  • The Silence of Lolth did not happen, because it didn’t happen in Cormyr and Dalelands setting. Lolth’s faith is thriving in the Underdark
  • The Phaerimm invasion of Evereska in 1371 did not happen, because it didn’t happen in Cormyr and Dalelands setting; Evereska has not been invaded, and the mythal is the original mythal, which was not part shadow weave, which was stupid anyhow.
  • The invasion of Helm’s Hold amidst the Wailing Death of Neverwinter is canonical and it was saved by the Hero of Neverwinter. After recovering from its losses, Helm’s Hold gained a reputation for safety over the next decade and began to quickly grow again. The abbey became a grand cathedral and the town itself has grown to become a small city. (This was not canonized in official lore until after 3e)

Post-1372 Timeline

The following are highlights of events that happened in the years since 1372.

1372-74

  • The City of Shade returns to the Prime. Tilverton destroyed, occupied by shadow creatures, which begins the Shadowvar War.
  • The elven village of Ssrenshen is utterly destroyed. It was confirmed by Deepingdales’ intelligence network that while drow were the initial assailant, Shadovar had native infiltrators and traitors from inside Deepingdale and Velethuil’s walls. It was ultimately a Shadovar manipulation and an attempt to wipe out much of the Auzkovyn clan of Vhaeraunite drow and elven warriors from Ssrenshen at once. Supporting this evidence, there was an explosion from beneath the city that killed both elves and drow.
  • The Temple of Sune is destroyed in a Shadowvar assault upon Northeast Arabel, despite the sacrifices of many itinerant clergy and templar, the temple is razed to the ground.

1376 DR – The Year of the Bent Blade

  • A strange psychic phenomenon known as The Whispers plagues Cormyr. Its presence is eventually tied to the Far Plane, as are the bizarre creatures (also called Whispers) that are sometimes created by and/or from these psychic forces.
    • A rift opens near Castle Crag, resulting in the deaths of several War Wizards and Purple Dragons.
    • A major Far Realm incursion destroys the Violet Flame tower in southwest Arabel following a divination gone awry. The rift was swiftly closed and the tower rebuilt.
    • The source of The Whispers is eventually tracked to a planar prison in the Anauroch, where an elder brain is trapped or imprisoned. It is eventually destroyed or perhaps more accurately banished, but Regent Alusair Obarskyr, Mage-Royal Caladnei, and several Purple Dragons and War Wizards are lost in the process, thought dead but actually pulled into the Far along with the Brain.
  • Regency Council of noble house matriarchs and patriarchs formed to rule in Azoun V’s stead after the disappearance of Regent Alusair.
  • The village of Waymoot was destroyed by a large orcish force, suspected to have been sponsored by the Zhentarim. The keep held out but the town itself was completely destroyed. The orcs were eventually routed in a sally action by the remaining Purple Dragons combined with a three-pronged assault by adventurers and Purple Dragons on entrenched orcish positions.
  • The city of Immersea was attacked by a dracolich from within the Wyvernwater, who sent an army of undead against the city. The undead were eventually beaten back but large-scale destruction to the city and coastline necessitated extensive rebuilding, much of the funds for which were provided by adventurer donations. The dracolich in question possessed an artifact amulet that increased its size massively; the object was removed from the dracolich during the battle but lost in the chaos and has yet to be found.

1377 DR – The Year of Dawn Strife

  • A large force of orcs centered in the King’s Forest, the Helmlands, and the Stonelands attempted another large-scale assault on Cormyr. They were eventually driven back.
  • Zhentarim forces raze the city of Griffon Hill, destroying the Thayan embassy there, then seize control of Stonehaven after an extensive battle. Surviving Thayans flee to the sister embassy in the Underdark city of Sschindylryn.
  • The Temple of Sune in Arabel — razed during the Shadowvar war — rises again as Brightwater Halls with Mistress Warder Madelein presiding, along with the arrival of Blythe Heartgrove as a new attendant and Clergy Signora.

1378 DR – The Year of the Cauldron

  • Strange, alien, horrifying dreams begin to plague much of the populace of the area, beginning with people with connections to chaos – through their bloodlines, their faiths, or their planar travels – then eventually spreading to the rest of the population: commoner, noble, and adventurer alike. The source is eventually discovered to be an impending planar conjunction between the Far Realm and the Prime. Several cerebrotic blots begin to appear as the Far draws closer, most of which are closed by adventurers who daringly enter within the warped terrain.
  • After several months of conflict, a large-scale assault on Stonehaven results in the death, capture, and/or expelling of the Zhentarim occupation. The city is re-occupied and now owned and run by the Purple Dragons, and renamed to Swordhaven.
  • Velethuil loses Elder Caedor Maerdrym to an assassination, and Former adventurer Nadril Nailow is selected as the replacement and newest Velethuil Elder. While was not as hardcore isolationist as Maerdrym, he is still sympathetic to letting Ssrenshen refugees keep in their insular community within Velethuil.

1379 DR – The Year of the Lost Keep

  • Orcs and Malarite tribes allied together to try killing people, Dalesfolk and Cormyreans alike, in an attempted an effort to bring back the fabled colossus demon known as the Elf-Eater. A group of adventurers had stopped this. An Unseelie fey who went under the pseudonym Primrose, maddened by Malar’s ways, facilitated these alliances and attacks.
  • A series of cultish activities, serial murders, and monstrous assaults on small towns around Cormyr – particularly near Eveningstar and the King’s Forest – eventually culminate in the discovery of a lost Netherese enclave, Shalast, in the distant northwestern Storm Horns by a group of adventurers that included clergy of Brightwater Halls. Previous discovery of the enclave had been prevented by a large-scale “occluding field” that warded away travelers and explorers as well as blocked divination magic.
    • The city was still occupied, mostly by giants and yuan-ti, and ruled by a Netherese archmage bearing the rank of Runelord, one Karzoug. He was eventually confronted and defeated within his demiplane sanctuary at Shalast’s Pinnacle Spire.
    • Karzoug’s death and the destruction of his demiplane resulted in the unraveling of much of the persistent magic within Shalast, including the occluding field and the wards that shielded it from the passage of time. While resident creatures seem to be mostly unharmed (save their losses in combat with the adventurers), the city is now in ruins and most of its more fragile treasures were instantly destroyed.
    • In the course of the conflict adventurers discovered there were six other Runelords – each associated with a specific Deadly Sin (Karzoug’s was Greed) which in turn was associated with a specific school of arcane magic (Transmutation in this case). According to their discoveries, one of the other six was already active, and the other five would no doubt rouse in response to Karzoug’s own awakening and then his death.
  • The unified dwarven clans of Oghrann – Stoneshield, Crownshield, and Firebeard – begin searching in the Thunder Peaks and surrounding areas for the lost ruins of the holy city of Thunderholme, and call upon local dwarves, gnomes, and dwarf-friends to aid them in the search, intending to reclaim the forgotten halls for their clans and re-establish a dwarven state in the region.
  • Cults dedicated to the reverence of “Steel Royal” Alusair and “Mage Revenant” Caladnei begin popping up all over Cormyr, often with magically-inclined cultists aiding in creating more cerebrotic blots or summoning Far Realm aberrations to cause trouble. At least one of these cults is led by a young scion of the Dracohorn noble house, who is slain during the course of the investigation; the house’s patriarch, Lazare Dracohorn, denies any involvement with the cult activity and relinquishes any claim to hold legal action against the adventurers for the death of his grandson. The majority of Dracohorn house has relocated out of Cormyr for the duration of the Far incursion.

1380 DR – The Year of the Black Star

  • A strange blot of darkness appeared in the sky over Suzail, visible by day as a slightly-rotating disc of pure darkness and by night thanks to a corona of golden fire that surrounded it. Dubbed “The Black Star” by locals, observing the object directly was determined to cause strange hallucinations and to tamper with mortals’ sanity. War Wizard authorities warn citizens to avoid looking directly at the Star, and to report any unusual occurrences due to accidentally doing so to clerical aid.
  • With a cataclysmic burst of light and magical power, the Black Star over Suzail erupted into activity, spearing the Dragonmere with green light that eventually resulted in the creation of a huge tower, composed of various materials (natural, unnatural, and outright impossible in some cases), building itself out from the ocean. This Emerald Spire, as it came to be known, quickly was revealed as a primary launch point for the Far Realm’s attack, including a visit from the Far-transformed lost regent Alusair Obarskyr herself. Now a twisted creature of rust-iron bones and molten-metal flesh, the “Steel Royal” declared herself the rightful ruler of both Cormyr and her territory in the Far Realm, Xanthe, and demanded the surrender of the Prime kingdom. When such was refused by the king and council, the Spire began to produce living islands from its interiors, which Cormyrian military saw to the destruction of with adventurer aid.
  • Once the islands were dealt with, it was quickly revealed by magical investigation and divination that the Spire held some manner of connection to Xanthe by means of the Black Star, which itself was an active portal between the Far and the Prime. Two groups of adventurers were dispatched into the heart of the Spire, one to descend to its base and destroy its root system as the various islands it created had been destroyed, the other to ascend to its peak and disrupt its communication with Xanthe and, if possible, see to the closing of the portal.
  • Upon the completion of both tasks, a segment of both groups were captured by the Spire’s defenses, the power of the Far Realm, the magic of the missing “Mage Revenant” Caladnei, or some combination of the above, and caught in a bubble of “un-time” that forced them to navigate their way through the Spire’s crumbling interior and up to the face of the Black Star’s portal itself. There they found themselves face to face once again with Alusair, but after some communication and display of their martial and magical prowess as well as their bravery and devotion to Cormyr’s well-being, the adventurers were able to convince her that Xanthe and Cormyr should remain separate, and that her place now was to rule over their Far Realm neighbor and leave the Prime to its own devices. Alusair seemed to accept this declaration with some regrets, but returned to the Far Realm without further hostilities, closing the portal behind her and allowing it and the Emerald Spire to collapse dead and powerless into the sea.
  • Another fallen Netherese ruin, Edasseril, was found buried deep in the Vast Swamp, lost amidst the various other remnants of bygone ages swallowed by the mire over the years. The city was found in a state of total petrification, including even vegetation and environment, though signs of the magic fading were discovered by the adventurers and the archeologists who hired them. A single de-petrified survivor was recovered, and investigation into the enclave is ongoing.
  • An elaborate auction for a Netherese relic found in the ruins of Shalast is held in Saerloon in Sembia. Among the participants is Cormyr’s own Lady Tesseril Winter, Lord of Eveningstar, who eventually wins the bidding for the object. The auction is then attacked by a mysterious group of cultists, though they are eventually stopped and slain or captured by local authorities with the aid of Winter, her entourage, and local adventurers. Winter returns to Eveningstar with her prize and rumor has it she will be soon seeking adventurer aid once again to investigate its origins in greater detail.

1381 DR – The Year of Reclamations

  • Keryth’Keryn’Suoress: In the middle of Winter, Lord Uleth of Deepingdale, at the behest of the Council of Velethuil, put forth a summons of any and all willing adventurers to aid in the reclamation of Ssrenshen, an elven settlement that had been destroyed destroyed by the Shadovar, and then claimed by the drow led by the Matron of House Zaurvs. Though Matron Zaurvs had been slain years prior, the House and its forces were now led by her three Granddaughters, and at their disposal were an army of fiendish minions of unknown origin. After an extended campaign with notable losses on all sides, Ssrenshen was eventually liberated once more and the displaced insular elves who had sought shelter in Velethuil returned to rebuild their home. In the wake of this, Velethuil became a more open community welcoming of non-elven guests.
  • Mad Axe: The Thunderholme Campaign: After a multi-year effort, Clan Oghrann, led by Lord Khondar Stoneshield, has reclaimed the holy city of Thunderholme for the dwarven people. Aided by adventurers from far and wide, the surrounding area was cleansed of monsters, both big and small. Within Thunderholme’s ruins, the undead that had been enthralled by the Sibilant Shade, Aurgloroasa – discovered to have become a demilich, rather than just the dracolich she had been previously sighted as – were defeated as well. Finally, the rulership of Thunderholme has been returned to the dwarven people as well. Rumors say that there are already ongoing negotiations with both Cormyr and Deepingdale, among others, to establish trade and goodwill for the longevity and restoration of the reclaimed city.
  • In Wrath’s Shadow: In the wake of the Far incursion upon Toril and the spire looming above Cormyr, rampant goblin activity infested its way into the city walls of Arabel. Heartwarders Blythe and Auroa of Brightwater Halls joined in a party of adventurers to get to the bottom of why. As they proceeded, their encounters became far less feral, and far more abyssal. What they ultimately discovered is not something related to the Far spire, but the work of loyalists to ancient Netherese archmages known as the Runelords. Their battles ultimately led them into the Storm Horns, where they ended the devisings of an abyssalist ‘collector’ who used soul gems to fuel his collection of ‘dolls.’ The party defeated the golems and their creator, and Blythe and Auroa took the remaining soul gems to their temple to bring the souls freedom.

1382 DR – The Year of the Broken Crown

The Head that Wears the Crown: In the early part of this year, an assassination was carried out on the young King Azoun V by a creature known as a Ghazneth. What followed was a nearly year-long vacuum of power in which a hastily formed council of nobles sought an heir to the throne.

  • In the wake of this, a wave of assassinations among noble houses, and attempts to usurp the throne were mounted by the Fire Knives, which were thwarted by adventurers including covert efforts by the guild operated by the Cups of Joy tea house in Highmoon, which lay waste to a secret cell in Cormyr. The counterintelligence efforts led to the eventual extermination of the Fire Knives at their home base in Westgate, leaving the Night Masks to step back in as the dominant guild over the city. Any remaining Night Masks are now scattered and disorganized, at best.
  • The assassination of the king was orchestrated by an archlich, Vezzil, in a quest of vengeance in attempt to overthrow Cormyr as well as to launch an effort to assault the elves of Cormanthor and the Dalelands. What followed was a protracted series of battles called the War of the Broken Crown, involving hordes of undead, dragons on both sides, and an eventual climax that led to the demise of the lich and his army.
  • Queen Tanalasta Obarskyr, the Crown Princess and mother of King Azoun V, who was assassinated in 1371, was resurrected by the acts of adventurers in the kingdom, and she was crowned Queen of Cormyr in this year; her son who had been killed by the Ghazneth in the onset of the War of Broken Crown was also ultimately resurrected following the end of hostilities.

1383 DR – The Year of Runes Remembered

  • Words of the Ancients: Following up from the events of In Wrath’s Shadow, members of Brightwater Halls, Heartwarders Blythe and Auroa, were among one of three teams assembled to delve further into the cult of the Walking Rune, in attempt to reach the Runelord of Sloth, Krune, before the Zhentarim. The race leads them into a pocket plane where they ultimately break the code that would force the Netherese Enclave to reveal itself and crash land in Cormyr.
  • Feast of Sigils: Blythe’s team was reassembled to lay siege to the berthed enclave of the Runelord Krune. She, Auroa and the rest of the party were joined by High Knight Raina, taking the back way into the city in attempt to undermine defenses for the full frontal assault amidst a city that had become a living mausoleum of undeath. Krune was ultimately defeated, not by death, but by conflict of ethics upon realizing that his patron deity, Jergal, has subscribed to a different doctrine, and the ancient priest chose to end his undeath of his own hand, and with that, the rest of the enclave went with him.
  • Festering Wounds in Westgate: Following the eradication of the Fire Knives during the War of the Broken Crown, Westgate has been in a state of upheaval and uncertainty as to whom is truly in charge of municipal affairs. The Night Masks seized the opportunity to step into the vacuum left behind by their old rival guild, who had begun edging them out over the course of the prior two decades; however it’s been anything but a smooth transition, and the city degraded into a state of mob rule that betrays even its past stories as a robber barons’ bureaucracy. In response to the chaos, some of the merchant houses have chosen to turn to outside sources in attempt to restore a semblance of order in Westgate. Over the course of many months, contingents of mercenaries have been dispatched from the Iron Throne’s centers in Cormyr and Sembia, and have set up what amounts to a sanctioned occupation of the better half of the city. It is said that the Iron Throne mercenaries are a ruthless lot when it comes to keeping order; some locals decry martial law and rigid curfews, while others see it as a welcome sight in opposition to underworld activity and the longtime stories of creatures of the night that infest the city beneath its streets. Regardless of their reception, there is no indication that the Iron Throne’s presence is going to go away anytime soon. In fact, rumor has it the operation is personally spearheaded by the faction’s founder.