Faerun (Remix)

The World: In the world of Toril, between the windswept Sea of Swords to the west and the mysterious lands of Kara-Tur to the east, lies the continent of Faerûn. A place of varied cultures and races, Faerûn is dominated by human lands, be they kingdoms, city-states, or carefully maintained alliances of rural communities. Interspersed among the lands of humans are old dwarven kingdoms and hidden elven enclaves, assimilated populations of gnomes and halflings, and more exotic folk. A great deal of adventure is to be had in the Realms, for those willing to seek it out. The routes between cities and nations often cross into the territory of brigands or marauding humanoids. Every forest, swamp, and mountain range has its own perils, whether lurking bandits, savage orcs and goblinoids, or mighty creatures such as giants and dragons. Ruins dot the landscape and the caverns that wind beneath the surface. In these places, treasures of every living race — and a number of dead ones — wait for adventurers intrepid enough to come and claim them. Faerûn is filled with rich history and wondrous tales of adventure and magic, but the lifeblood of its common people is agriculture and trade. Most rural folk depend on farming to eat, and Faerûnians who live in cities ply skilled trades or use brawn to earn their keep, so they can purchase the goods and food provided by others. News and gossip are carried between population centers by caravans and ships that bring in supplies for trade and by traveling bards and minstrels who recount (or invent) stories to inform and entertain people in taverns, inns, and castles. Adventurers also spread news — while also creating it! The common folk of Faerûn look on adventurers with a mixture of admiration, envy, and mistrust. Folk believe that any stalwarts willing to risk their lives on behalf of complete strangers should be lauded and rewarded. But such adventurers, if they become successful, amass wealth and personal status at a rate that some people find alarming. Even people who admire these adventurers for their energy and their acts of valor might have misgivings: what horrors will be unleashed if adventurers, heedless or unknowing of the danger, unlock a ruin or a tomb and release an ancient evil into the world? Most of the people who populate the continent have little or no knowledge of lands outside Faerûn. The most educated among the populace agree that Faerûn is but one continent and that Toril is the whole of the world, but for the majority of people, who don’t experience intercontinental travel or extraplanar exploration, “Faerûn” is more than large enough of a concept for them to comprehend. Except in the most remote or insular places, Faerûnians are accustomed to seeing people of different cultures, ethnicities, and races. Only in the most cosmopolitan areas does such casual acceptance extend to evil humanoid races — such as goblinoids, orcs, and drow — to say nothing of even more dangerous creatures. Adventurers tend to be more tolerant, accepting exiles, misfits, and redeemed folk from strange lands and with unusual shapes. Most adventurers come as one of the following classes: Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard. Barbarians: are mighty warriors who are powered by primal forces of the multiverse that manifest as a Rage. More than a mere emotion—and not limited to anger—this Rage is an incarnation of a predator’s ferocity, a storm’s fury, and a sea’s turmoil. Some Barbarians personify their Rage as a fierce spirit or revered forebear. Others see it as a connection to the pain and anguish of the world, as an impersonal tangle of wild magic, or as an expression of their own deepest self. For every Barbarian, their Rage is a power that fuels not just battle prowess, but also uncanny reflexes and heightened senses.Barbarians often serve as protectors and leaders in their communities. They charge headlong into danger so those under their protection don’t have to. Their courage in the face of danger makes Barbarians perfectly suited for adventure. Invoking magic through music, dance, and verse, Bards: Bards are expert at inspiring others, soothing hurts, disheartening foes, and creating illusions. Bards believe the multiverse was spoken into existence and that remnants of its Words of Creation still resound and glimmer on every plane of existence. Bardic magic attempts to harness those words, which transcend any language. Anything can inspire a new song or tale, so Bards are fascinated by almost everything. They become masters of many things, including performing music, working magic, and making jests. A Bard’s life is spent traveling, gathering lore, telling stories, and living on the gratitude of audiences, much like any other entertainer. But Bards’ depth of knowledge and mastery of magic sets them apart. Clerics: Clerics draw power from the realms of the gods and harness it to work miracles. Blessed by a deity, a pantheon, or another immortal entity, a Cleric can reach out to the divine magic of the Outer Planes—where gods dwell—and channel it to bolster people and battle foes. Because their power is a divine gift, Clerics typically associate themselves with temples dedicated to the deity or other immortal force that unlocked their magic. Harnessing divine magic doesn’t rely on specific training, yet Clerics might learn prayers and rites that help them draw on power from the Outer Planes. Not every member of a temple or shrine is a Cleric. Some priests are called to a simple life of temple service, carrying out their devotion through prayer and rituals, not through magic. Many mortals claim to speak for the gods, but few can marshal the power of those gods the way a Cleric can. Druids: Druids belong to ancient orders that call on the forces of nature. Harnessing the magic of animals, plants, and the four elements, Druids heal, transform into animals, and wield elemental destruction. Revering nature above all, individual Druids gain their magic from nature, a nature deity, or both, and they typically unite with other Druids to perform rites that mark the passage of the seasons and other natural cycles. Druids are concerned with the delicate ecological balance that sustains plant and animal life and with the need for people to live in harmony with nature. Druids often guard sacred sites or watch over regions of unspoiled nature, but when a significant danger arises, Druids take a more active role as adventurers who combat the threat. Fighters: Fighters rule many battlefields. Questing knights, royal champions, elite soldiers, and hardened mercenaries—as Fighters, they all share an unparalleled prowess with weapons and armor. And they are well acquainted with death, both meting it out and defying it. Fighters master various weapon techniques, and a well-equipped Fighter always has the right tool at hand for any combat situation. Likewise, a Fighter is adept with every form of armor. Beyond that basic degree of familiarity, each Fighter specializes in certain styles of combat. Some concentrate on archery, some on fighting with two weapons at once, and some on augmenting their martial skills with magic. This combination of broad ability and extensive specialization makes Fighters superior combatants. Monks: Monks use rigorous combat training and mental discipline to align themselves with the multiverse and focus their internal reservoirs of power. Different Monks conceptualize this power in various ways: as breath, energy, life force, essence, or self, for example. Whether channeled as a striking display of martial prowess or as a subtler manifestation of defense and speed, this power infuses all that a Monk does. Monks focus their internal power to create extraordinary, even supernatural, effects. They channel uncanny speed and strength into their attacks, with or without the use of weapons. In a Monk’s hands, even the most basic weapons can become sophisticated implements of combat mastery. Many Monks find that a structured life of ascetic withdrawal helps them cultivate the physical and mental focus they need to harness their power. Other Monks believe that immersing themselves in the vibrant confusion of life helps to fuel their determination and discipline. Monks generally view adventures as tests of their physical and mental development. They are driven by a desire to accomplish a greater mission than merely slaying monsters and plundering treasure; they strive to turn themselves into living weapons. Paladins: Paladins are united by their oaths to stand against the forces of annihilation and corruption. Whether sworn before a god’s altar, in a sacred glade before nature spirits, or in a moment of desperation and grief with the dead as the only witnesses, a Paladin’s oath is a powerful bond. It is a source of power that turns a devout warrior into a blessed champion. Paladins train to learn the skills of combat, mastering a variety of weapons and armor. Even so, their martial skills are secondary to the magical power they wield: power to heal the injured, smite their foes, and protect the helpless and those who fight at their side. Almost by definition, the life of a Paladin is an adventuring life, for every Paladin lives on the front lines of the cosmic struggle against annihilation. Fighters are rare enough among the ranks of a world’s armies, but even fewer people can claim the calling of a Paladin. When they do receive the call, these blessed folk turn from their former occupations and take up arms and magic. Rangers: Far from bustling cities, amid the trees of trackless forests and across wide plains, Rangers keep their unending watch in the wilderness. Rangers learn to track their quarry as a predator does, moving stealthily through the wilds and hiding themselves in brush and rubble. Thanks to their connection with nature, Rangers can also cast spells that harness primal powers of the wilderness. A Ranger’s talents and magic are honed with deadly focus to protect the world from the ravages of monsters and tyrants. Rogues: Rogues rely on cunning, stealth, and their foes’ vulnerabilities to get the upper hand in any situation. They have a knack for finding the solution to just about any problem. A few even learn magical tricks to supplement their other abilities. Many Rogues focus on stealth and deception, while others refine skills that help them in a dungeon environment, such as climbing, finding and disarming traps, and opening locks. In combat, Rogues prioritize subtle strikes over brute strength. They would rather make one precise strike than wear an opponent down with a barrage of blows. Some Rogues began their careers as criminals, while others used their cunning to fight crime. Whatever a Rogue’s relation to the law, no common criminal or officer of the law can match the subtle brilliance of the greatest Rogues. Sorcerers: Sorcerers wield innate magic that is stamped into their being. Some Sorcerers can’t name the origin of their power, while others trace it to strange events in their personal or family history. The blessing of a dragon or a dryad at a baby’s birth or the strike of lightning from a clear sky might spark a Sorcerer’s gift. So too might the gift of a deity, exposure to the strange magic of another plane of existence, or a glimpse into the inner workings of reality. Whatever the origin, the result is an indelible mark on the Sorcerer, a churning magic that can be passed down through generations. Sorcerers don’t learn magic; the raw, roiling power of magic is part of them. The essential art of a Sorcerer is learning to harness and channel that innate magic, allowing the Sorcerer to discover new and staggering ways to unleash their power. As Sorcerers master their innate magic, they grow more attuned to its origin, developing distinct powers that reflect its source. Sorcerers are rare. Some family lines produce exactly one Sorcerer in every generation, but most of the time, the talents of sorcery appear as a fluke. People who have this magical power soon discover that it doesn’t like to stay quiet. A Sorcerer’s magic wants to be wielded. Warlocks: Warlocks quest for knowledge that lies hidden in the fabric of the multiverse. They often begin their search for magical power by delving into tomes of forbidden lore, dabbling in invocations meant to attract the power of extraplanar beings, or seeking places of power where the influence of these beings can be felt. In no time, each Warlock is drawn into a binding pact with a powerful patron. Drawing on the ancient knowledge of beings such as angels, archfey, demons, devils, hags, and alien entities of the Far Realm, Warlocks piece together arcane secrets to bolster their own power. Warlocks view their patrons as resources, as means to the end of achieving magical power. Some Warlocks respect, revere, or even love their patrons; some serve their patrons grudgingly; and some seek to undermine their patrons even as they wield the power their patrons have given them. Once a pact is made, a Warlock’s thirst for knowledge and power can’t be slaked with mere study. Most Warlocks spend their days pursuing greater power and deeper knowledge, which typically means some kind of adventure. Wizards: Wizards are defined by their exhaustive study of magic’s inner workings. They cast spells of explosive fire, arcing lightning, subtle deception, and spectacular transformations. Their magic conjures monsters from other planes of existence, glimpses the future, or forms protective barriers. Their mightiest spells change one substance into another, call meteors from the sky, or open portals to other worlds. Most Wizards share a scholarly approach to magic. They examine the theoretical underpinnings of magic, particularly the categorization of spells into schools of magic. Renowned Wizards such as Bigby, Tasha, Mordenkainen, and Yolande have built on their studies to invent iconic spells now used across the multiverse. The closest a Wizard is likely to come to an ordinary life is working as a sage or lecturer. Other Wizards sell their services as advisers, serve in military forces, or pursue lives of crime or domination. But the lure of knowledge calls even the most unadventurous Wizards from the safety of their libraries and laboratories and into crumbling ruins and lost cities. Most Wizards believe that their counterparts in ancient civilizations knew secrets of magic that have been lost to the ages, and discovering those secrets could unlock the path to a power greater than any magic available in the present age.

Toril and its Lands:Toril is a vast and wondrous world, filled with an immense diversity of peoples and a rich, full history. For most folk of the Sword Coast, however, knowledge doesn’t extend much beyond the confines of the North, and anything “known” outside of Faerûn proper is based more in rumor than in fact. The vast central continent of Toril, Faerûn is a land mass divided by a great sea known as the Inner Sea, or the Sea of Fallen Stars. The lands beyond the North can be roughly divided into those to the south and those to the east, becoming more foreign to the folk of the Sword Coast and the North the farther away they are. The Sword Coast and the North: Running along the Sea of Swords from north of Amn to the Sea of Moving Ice, the Sword Coast is a narrow band of territory dominated by the city-states of the area that use the sea for trade. For most who care about such things, the area is delimited by Neverwinter in the north and Baldur’s Gate in the south, but territory farther to the north and south that isn’t under the sway of a more influential power is usually also included in maps of the Sword Coast. More broadly, the North refers to all the territory north of Amn, split into two general regions: the Western Heartlands and the Savage Frontier. The Western Heartlands encompasses a narrow strip of civilization running from the Sunset Mountains to the Sea of Swords, and northward from the band of territory marked by the Cloud Peaks and the Troll Mountains to the Trade Way. The Savage Frontier is the name given to the rest of the unsettled or sparsely settled territory in the North, not including the major cities and towns and any settlements in their immediate spheres of influence. Most of the communities, nations, and governments of the North can be grouped into five categories: the cities and towns that are members of the Lords’ Alliance, the dwarfholds that have been built throughout the area, the island kingdoms off the coast, the independent realms scattered up and down the coast, and the subterranean environs of the Underdark. The Lords’ Alliance is a confederation among the rulers of various northern settlements. The number of members on the Council of Lords, the group’s governing body, shifts depending on the changing status of member cities and political tensions in the region. Currently, the Lords’ Alliance counts these individuals as council members: Laeral Silverhand (the Open Lord of Waterdeep), Dagult Neverember (Lord Protector of Neverwinter), Taern Hornblade (High Mage of Silverymoon), Ulder Ravengard (Grand Duke of Baldur’s Gate and Marshal of the Flaming Fist), Morwen Daggerford (Duchess of Daggerford), Selin Ramur (Marchion of Mirabar), Dowell Harpell (of Longsaddle), Dagnabbet Waybeard (Queen of Mithral Hall), Lord Dauner (Ilzimmer of Amphail), Nestra Ruthiol (Waterbaron of Yartar). The Lords’ Alliance includes the strongest mercantile powers of the North. In addition to providing military support and a forum for the peaceful airing of differences, the Alliance has always acted under the principle that communities with common cause that engage in trade are less likely to go to war with one another. By maintaining strong trade ties within the alliance as well as outside it, the Lords’ Alliance helps to keep the peace. The Lords’ Alliance isn’t a nation unto itself, but a partnership of the rulers of towns and cities across the North, who have pledged peace with one another and promised to share information and effort against common threats such as orc hordes and Northlander pirates. It is a loose confederation of those settlements and their agents, all of whom owe allegiance first to their homelands, and second to the Lords’ Alliance. In the harsh lands of the North, where winters are cold and monsters and human barbarians regularly stream out of the mountains to pillage outlying settlements, large nations are rare indeed, particularly in the current state of the world. Instead, great city-states have emerged, enriched by trade and protected by stout walls and loyal defenders. Such cities — including Baldur’s Gate, Mirabar, Neverwinter, Silverymoon, and Waterdeep — extend their influence into nearby regions, often creating or accepting vassal settlements, but in the end, these realms are cities, driven to consider their own protection and future before other concerns. In the years soon after its founding more than one hundred fifty years ago, there was more interest in membership, and the Alliance accepted some members from farther south. Since then, events such as the growth of Elturgard into a power in its own right, and the recent fall of the Silver Marches, have caused the group to draw in on itself, restricting its membership to powers in the North. The current members of the Alliance are Amphail, Baldur’s Gate, Daggerford, Longsaddle, Mirabar, Mithral Hall, Neverwinter, Silverymoon, Waterdeep, and Yartar. There is some doubt that Mithral Hall will be part of the alliance for much longer, but until rulership of the dwarven city is more firmly established, it remains a member. It is impossible to ascribe an overall character to the individual members of the alliance. As a group, the agents of the members are interested in the preservation of civilization in the North, and they share what information they can — and oppose what threats they must — to further that goal. In the end, though, a merchant of Waterdeep and one of Baldur’s Gate are concerned mainly for their own purses and the welfare of their home cities, and are unlikely to care what happens to the other, except inasmuch as it affects trade. Baldur’s Gate: On the Coast Way, some forty miles upstream along the River Chionthar from the Sword Coast, lies the bustling city of Baldur’s Gate. Home to tens of thousands, the harbor city has poor soil, but its sheltered bay, well away from the tides that batter the coast, make it an ideal location for trading goods from locations to the west in the Sea of Swords, inland along the river, and up and down the coast. Baldur’s Gate is a place of commerce, and the city enjoys great success handling the coins of other powers and making them its own.Sadly, Baldur’s Gate has a storied connection with the dark god, Bhaal. Just a few years ago, the city saw the terrifying return of the Lord of Murder. Following a number of deaths, one of the city’s dukes, Torlin Silvershield, was revealed as the Chosen of Bhaal, and underwent a monstrous transformation, turning many citizens into bloodthirsty killers and inspiring a riot and much death before finally being put down by brave adventurers. Even now, murderous echoes ripple through the city and beyond, and reports of unexplainable, gruesome killings flow out of Baldur’s Gate. Baldur’s Gate is ruled by the Council of Four, dukes who vote among themselves on matters of law and policy for the city. A single grand duke is chosen from among the four, and is empowered to break ties when the council is deadlocked. The current Grand Duke is Ulder Ravengard, who is joined by Dukes Thalamra Vanthampur, Belynne Stelmane, and Dillard Portyr, the former grand duke, who ceded the post to Ravengard after the city’s recent troubles. Below the council sits the Parliament of Peers, a group of about fifty Baldurians who meet daily (though almost never in full number) to discuss the future of the city and recommend actions for the dukes to take on all matters, great and small. At any given time, roughly one-quarter of the peers are powerful members of Lower City society, with the rest drawn from the Upper City’s noble families, called patriars. Defense of the Upper City is handled by the Watch, the official constabulary of the city’s elite. Their duty is to defend the patriars and enforce their laws, and little else. For the rest of Baldur’s Gate, security is enforced and order maintained by the Flaming Fist mercenary company, a supposedly neutral force which is free to fight in external conflicts, so long as it doesn’t side against Baldur’s Gate. By tradition, the highest officer of the Flaming Fist is one of the city’s dukes, and Grand Duke Ulder Ravengard fulfills that tradition proudly. Membership in the Flaming Fist is fairly easy to achieve, and adventurers with much experience swiftly advance in rank (and, consequently, political influence) once they become permanent members. Many ranking officers are former adventurers who have “retired” to military life. In both the Upper and Lower Cities, the underworld is controlled by a shadowy group known merely as the Guild. The dukes don’t acknowledge the power of this group in any meaningful way — at least not publicly — but try (at least nominally) to curb its influence where and how they can. I lost count of how many gangs claim territory in the Lower and Outer City, and all of them seem to owe allegiance to the Guild. Efforts to destroy the Guild have thus far failed, due in part to the inability of outsiders to identify a clear leader of the group, but in no small measure to the shameful lack of effort on the part of the rulers of the city to protect its people. Upper City, The Upper City of Baldur’s Gate is the enclosed haven of the city’s nobility — the patriars. Sitting atop their hill, the patriars look down on the rest of Baldur’s Gate in every real sense, wielding their wealth and influence to push the Council of Four to protect their lifestyle. Though at one time a wealthy merchant or powerful adventurer might hope to advance to the ranks of the patriars, there is no longer room, physically or otherwise, for the class of the Upper City to grow. Now, only those born into the patriar families inhabit the manors of this oldest part of Baldur’s Gate. The poorest among these go so far as to sell furnishings and decorations from inside their homes in order to keep up appearances with their fellow patriars. Most would say that the lives of patriars are marked by luxury and decadence, and for a great many of them, this is likely true. However, some families do make an honest attempt at improving the city, and nearly every family has at least one member who engages in major commerce — no matter one’s heritage, everyone must have coin in order to eat. There is but one nonhuman family among the patriars, the dwarven Shattershields, who have been in Baldur’s Gate for long enough that they are just as accomplished as their human peers at looking down on the rest of the citizenry. A number of gates divide the Upper City from the Lower City, but the one to note is the famous Baldur’s Gate, from which the city takes its name. Trade passes only through this gate, and is taxed by the city — despite the fact that it was just such taxes that led to the city’s being overthrown by its first dukes and the Lower City enclosed by its ring wall. The other gates exist solely for the convenience of the patriars and their retinues. Any who aren’t in the presence of a patriar, wearing a patriar’s livery, or bearing a letter of proof of employment by a patriar must use Baldur’s Gate to pass between the Upper and Lower Cities. Bear this in mind when trying to sneak from one part of the city to the next. Lower City, Hard against the harbor lies the Lower City, where stone, slate-roofed houses stand (sometimes unsteadily), and the folk who have long performed the real work of the city reside. Baldur’s Gate depends on trade, and that trade flows in and out of the Gray Harbor. The hands that load and unload ships, that tally cargo and haul goods, that repair keels and mend sails, all live here. The damp clings heavily in this portion of the city — some say it’s held in by the Old Wall — and lamps (lit and filled by citizens, not the city) pierce the fog. Most locals are wise enough to carry lanterns or lamps, and visitors that have not learned to do so can usually hire a young Baldurian to guide them through the streets. The Lower City was long ago walled in to benefit from the protection of the city, but the divide between the two wards is as stark as it has ever been. The Flaming Fist is responsible for keeping order in the Lower City, and do so with brutal efficiency, deterring most from engaging in bold, public acts of theft, vandalism, or violence. Where merchants in other cities might hope to one day join the nobility, in Baldur’s Gate the best one can hope for is to become an absurdly wealthy and influential merchant. Becoming a patriar is out of the question. Still, the wealthiest Baldurians live as much like the patriars as they can, buying up adjacent properties in the hopes of demolishing them in order to build large homes to echo the manors of the Upper City. The Bloomridge district has a number of such homes, and some of the patriars grumble that these merchants are growing too comfortable with their new status. Outer City, Outside the walls, there are no laws barring construction or settlement, and so those who are too poor to reside within the city or to purchase property have slowly built up a third ward of the city, living in the shadow of its walls, paying its taxes, and covering both sides of the roads leading into Baldur’s Gate. Here, the poorest of the poor live in the Outer City, but so too do those whose businesses are considered too troublesome, noisy, or foul-smelling to operate within the walls, so tanners, smiths, masons, dyers, and other tradesfolk abound. The city does woefully little to help the folk here, and charitable souls (myself included) sometimes start at one end of the road with a full purse, only to see it empty by the time they reach the other end. The lack of laws in the Outer City has led to two strange phenomena, unrelated to one another. A walled Calishite district has grown up to the east of the city proper, known by Baldurians as Little Calimshan. Within the district, neighborhoods are divided by walls, but these walls have walkways atop them so that foot traffic can proceed unimpeded by the gates that slow carts and mounts. Here, refugees from Calimshan have found a home away from that southern nation, and largely depend on themselves for trade, culture, and defense. Buildings have also been constructed along Wyrm’s Crossing over the Chionthar. Shops, taverns, and tenements choke the bridge, hanging from both spans, and even in some cases built to hang from the supports that hold it up. Folk must pay a toll to cross on foot or by cart or wagon, but many swear they would pay yet more to be able to use the bridge without having to dodge the hawkers and urchins that infest the area. Neverwinter: A short while ago, Neverwinter was beset by all manner of damage, danger, and gloom. Now, the orcs that once menaced the city have moved east to join their brethren in being crushed by the dwarves. The Chasm that rent the land has been sealed by powerful magic. The High Road has been cleared and rebuilt, and trade has resumed with Waterdeep and realms to the south. What was the blasted, wounded city of Neverwinter just a decade ago is now an exciting, humming place, where folk seem eager to throw off the hardships from which they have emerged and create a new, brighter future for their city. Nearly half a century ago, Mount Hotenow (the nearby volcano that perpetually heats the river flowing through the city) violently erupted, destroying much of Neverwinter, killing thousands, and leaving in its wake a great, gaping chasm that split the city. Neverwinter was in ruins, and external influences — from Netheril to Thay to Lord Dagult Neverember of Waterdeep to the agents of the Hells themselves — sought to exert control over the city. Many folk fought to stem all these dangers, and eventually, a measure of peace fell over Neverwinter. Since Dagult Neverember was deposed as the Open Lord of Waterdeep, he has thrown his full attention and effort into the rebuilding of the city from which he claims descent. Whatever people’s opinions are of his claim to Neverwinter’s throne, he has proven a capable, inspiring leader over these last few years, and the population has embraced him as Lord Protector. He engineered the sealing of the Chasm and the restoration of the High Road, and is seeking other ways to repair and improve the city. Even if he can never prove his descent from Lord Nasher Alagondar, the people of Neverwinter have accepted his leadership. (My rumored personal dislike of Lord Neverember has nothing to do with my assessment of his leadership; I merely find him an intolerable flirt.) Neverember’s influence radiates outward from the Protector’s Enclave, centered at the Hall of Justice. With Tyr restored to life and his worship returning to prominence, the Lord Protector has moved into a modest, private villa. This sacrifice — and the renewal of Tyr’s faith in the previous center of his operations — is only further proof, to some, that Neverember deserves to rule Neverwinter. As yet, Castle Never remains a dangerous ruin, but Neverember has plans to reclaim and rebuild it as a symbol of the city’s rejuvenation. The faithful of Oghma have arrived in Neverwinter to restore the House of Knowledge to its former glory, but beyond that, shrines to all manner of gods have been cobbled together in every corner of the city. As the city restores itself, there are likely to be requests for ennoblement and the privileges that provides, and certainly, trading interests will emerge. But Lord Protector Neverember is sure to point out that he is merely a protector, not a king, and so can’t invest or recognize anyone. Guilds may form, but it is sure to be years, if not decades, before any prove strong enough to persevere over their rivals. Increasingly, calls come from the citizenry for the enforcers out of Mintarn to be replaced by respectable, local guards who have a personal interest in the defense of Neverwinter. This public sentiment has led to some neighborhoods organizing their own makeshift militias, and the Lord Protector wants to avoid conflict between them and the mercenaries he has hired. As a result, Neverember has slowly been drawing down the number of soldiers from Mintarn, as the citizens that grew up defending the makeshift Wall from threats out of the Chasm prove themselves capable of becoming a proper military force. Both Baldur’s Gate and Waterdeep have offered to help train the new guards of Neverwinter, but Lord Neverember prefers the assistance of seasoned adventurers to the ignominy of seeking help from his former city. With the restoration of nearby Gauntlgrym, Neverwinter hopes to have a close ally that can provide it with stout armor and strong weapons. Although the city presently has little to offer, trade activity is rapidly growing in Neverwinter, as word of its rebirth opens it up to shipping from the Sea of Swords, goods from the north, and coin from the south. Adventurers come to Neverwinter seeking work and following rumors of nearby treasures, and often find additional employment clearing out dangerous corners of the city and escorting the ever more numerous caravans up and down the High Road. It is the Lord Protector’s hope that, with commerce and income both on the rise, and talented craftfolk returning to ply their trades, that Neverwinter will someday again be worthy of its former epithet: the City of Skilled Hands. Opposition to Neverember’s authority still exists, but with no unified leadership and no other power in the city to which to appeal, the rebels are slowly turning away from their resistance and toward helping the city rebuild. Many of the Sons of Alagondar, a rebel group that initially opposed Lord Neverember, have begun to volunteer as replacements for the Mintarn mercenaries currently patrolling the city. If the Sons of Alagondar can be brought into line with his goals, Neverember hopes to use that achievement as a draw for wealthy Waterdhavian nobles — who have been reluctant to link their fortunes to a failed Open Lord who was effectively exiled from Waterdeep — to invest in the city and perhaps rebuild some of the noble villas in that district as places for them to stay when they do business. With the Chasm closed, and the wall that separated the rest of the city from its horrors now torn down, a great swath of Neverwinter lies empty, with no inhabitants and plentiful chunks of stone plundered from ruins all across the city. Anyone who is willing to do so can come to this area, claim a portion of land, and build a structure in which to live or work. There aren’t yet any guilds to restrict trade or construction, and no nobles to be petitioned or placated. Those seeking to create a home or start a business can simply do so, and even those without skills or money can use their hands and backs to provide until they can set up a place for themselves. Along the river, many of the merchant villas are being claimed and restored by folk who have heard rumors of what Neverwinter once was, and might be again. Some have no skills to speak of, and many have no wealth, but all come with the desire to work and to enrich themselves in the process. New stores and workshops open by the tenday, and workers without training offer their services as laborers or apprentices; those that fail move on to other employment, taking advantage of the multitude of opportunities the city now offers. Those with no other options can get work dredging or mapping the city’s sewers for the Lord Protector, a task made necessary by the cataclysm that created the Chasm. Like any city, Neverwinter isn’t without its drawbacks. Though most folk are willing to work, some steal as a means of making their living, and prey upon those who have little to be taken. Food is sometimes scarce, as inns and taverns underestimate the number of guests they will receive, or merchants simply run out of goods to sell. It’s likely to be a few years before the city entirely shakes itself of these ills, but for some, the uncertainties of life in Neverwinter are what make the place exciting. For many traders, in particular those who produce or vend the grains and vegetables needed in the city, it is a vast opportunity to both aid a fledgling power and get quite rich in doing so. Waterdeep: Rising from the shores of its deep harbor to ring the great mountain standing tall out of the Sea of Swords is Waterdeep, the City of Splendors and the Crown of the North. To all of Faerûn, this great metropolis stands as the pinnacle of what a great city might be, in wealth, influence, and stability. Here, the citizens work, the nobles sneer, and the great masked lords plot and scheme, all while merchants dance between them to collect their coins and continue profiting as best they can. Waterdeep’s shops and merchants offer goods of every sort from every corner of Toril, and even the rarest of items can be procured, given sufficient coin and patience. Adventurers lacking one or the other can very easily find all manner of employment, from simple escorting of caravans, to guarding nobility, to investigating a ruin or rumor of monsters anywhere in the North. Though it has stood for hundreds of years, Waterdeep is only now returning to its status of a century and a half ago. The recent disruptions began when the gods walked the Realms and slew each other before the eyes of mortals, until they walked back to their divine domains through the very streets of Waterdeep itself. Decades later, more deities began dying off, magic failed, and all manner of catastrophes started altering the very nature of the city. Lord Neverember wasted the city’s navy and then, instead of rebuilding it, hired sailors out of Mintarn (and profited from the endeavor). Now, the City of Splendors is on the mend. The harbor has been cleared of the broken ships that made up the former district of Mistshore, and Waterdeep again has its own navy. The city’s Guard (its army), Watch (police force), Navy, and it famous Griffon Cavalry are all being reformed, but all of that might be a matter of years in the settling. A plague chased most residents out of the Warrens and Downshadow, and living or digging below the city’s surface has been deemed illegal except by those authorized by the lords to do so. Somehow, even the air seems fresher. In the words of one wise moon elf matron (whose status as my aunt has positively no bearing on her wisdom), “Waterdeep is back to where it was when I was a lass.” Perhaps most surprising of the newest developments is the return of Laeral Silverhand to Waterdeep. Long thought dead, she reemerged only recently, and swiftly rallied the masked lords to support her supplanting of Dagult Neverember as Open Lord of Waterdeep. Very few remember Lady Laeral from her previous time in the city, but those elves who have been living in there for the last century claim she is more reserved than she once was. The new Open Lord doesn’t speak of her family — any mention of her children, her late husband (the fabled Blackstaff, Khelben Arunsun), or any of her famed sisters is cause for her to cut short whatever conversation may be in progress at the time. Her relationship with the current Blackstaff, Vajra Safahr, is cordial, but the two are seldom seen in one-on-one conversation, and most think that Lady Laeral has little to learn from a mage who isn’t nearly her equal. As always, the Open Lord is selected and supported by several masked lords, who bear masks, robes, and amulets to disguise themselves when publicly sitting in judgment or council, and who make policies for Waterdeep. Every Waterdhavian has suspicions as to whether this or that influential citizen is or isn’t a lord of the city, and some are willing to make their beliefs public, but few who are confronted in such a way have ever claimed to be a lord, and none of those have also produced proof of that assertion. Not hidden at all are the other lords of the city — the nobles of Waterdeep, whose high-nosed behavior and heavy-handed spending establish fashion in the city, which in turn creates trends all across the North for clothing, weaponry, favored trinkets, music, and any other preference that can be changed at a whim by those with enough coin to afford the expense. More than seventy-five noble families call Waterdeep home, representing between them all manner of business interests, rivalries, and internal strife. Being a noble carries with it a great deal of advantage. Operating from one’s place at the head of the economic and social hierarchy, a noble can easily lift a mediocre craftperson out of obscurity, dash the hopes of a wealthy merchant of ever securing another contract within the city, or provide the backing an ambitious adventuring band needs to find fame and great wealth. The only true competition nobles face is from one another. Such rivalries are the source of much gossip and intrigue as the nobles of Waterdeep always try to maintain at least a veneer of civility in their squabbles. Although they seldom agree on much, one matter that all the noble houses see the same way is that their status should not be tainted by newcomers, and certainly not by anyone so brightcoin as to purchase one’s way to a noble title. When during Lord Neverember’s tenure it became legal for impoverished houses to sell their titles, and thus allow others to become noble, many leaders of the old-blood houses were apoplectic, particularly after some purchasers lost all their coin and sold their titles again within a season or two. Open Lord Laeral Silverhand has, to the relief of those leaders, seen the folly of this decision, and gathered enough support among the Lords of Waterdeep to not only reverse it, but to restore titles and lands to noble families who lost them through folly. The change has won her much support among the nobles. Now Zhents and Thayans and Baldurian merchants have coin enough to buy property within the city, if they choose, but that is no reason to award them noble titles and legal rights, instead of merely a mansion, for doing so. THE WARDS OF WATERDEEP, Waterdeep has long been divided into several large regions called wards. To locals these are essential to Waterdeep, but outsiders often lose track of which ward they’re in or what a ward’s name signifies. The names of the wards suggest the contents of the buildings and the character of the activity in each one, but no laws exist that restrict a given activity or class of people to any specific ward. Castle Ward. As the name indicates, Castle Ward contains Castle Waterdeep, Piergeiron’s Palace, and many other public buildings of the city. This ward is home to mainly the wealthy or influential who can’t count themselves among the nobility. Other structures are taken up by educational or religious concerns that primarily serve the city at large, not the residents of the ward. Dock Ward. Most of the city’s harbor area is located in Dock Ward, as are the businesses and warehouses that depend on the city’s newly restored harbor. It’s a crowded neighborhood of many winding streets, where folk are comfortable making deals that might in other places provoke the displeasure of the law. Field Ward. Of relatively recent vintage, the Field Ward stands between the inner and outer north walls of the city (an area formerly used as a caravan grounds). This ward grew up in a messy, unregulated fashion and is home to many of the poorest residents of the city. North Ward. Home to many noble villas, townhouses, and a great many inns, North Ward is the neighborhood of the respectably wealthy. Sea Ward. Those whose fortunes are on the rise build their homes in Sea Ward, and they join many long-established noble families in residence. This area in the northwest of the city is home to much of the city’s wealth, the location of the grandest villas of the city’s noble families (except for those in North Ward). Southern Ward. Stables, warehouses, and shops related to overland trade dominate Southern Ward. Most residents are hardworking folk that load and unload caravan carts, and otherwise perform low-paying work. Trades Ward. A narrow slice of land between the Castle Ward and the City of the Dead, Trades Ward is the center of commerce for the city, with most of the smaller transactions and respectable trade taking place here. City of the Dead. The city’s walled cemetery, the City of the Dead is the only place in Waterdeep where it is legal to bury the deceased. It is used by many citizens as a public park during the day, a lovely green space of pretty mausoleums and grand statues in which to escape the city’s hustle and bustle. Undercliff. While not considered by many to be a ward of the city, the little villages and many farms that sprawl across the land east of the city were lawfully incorporated into Waterdeep when it moved a barracks and training facility to the area. Dwarfholds of the North: The various dwarven communities of the North are the heirs and survivors of Delzoun, the great Northkingdom of long ago. Despite continually warring over the centuries with the orcs and goblinoids of the region, and having to fight off assaults from below by duergar and drow, the shield dwarves have stood fast, determined to hold their halls against all threats — and, when necessary, reclaim them. Holds that survive from the days of Delzoun include Mithral Hall, Citadel Adbar, and Citadel Felbarr. The fabled city of Gauntlgrym, built by the Delzoun dwarves and recently taken back from the drow, stands as a beacon of resurgent dwarven strength in the North. Stoneshaft Hold and Ironmaster are lonely settlements continually girding themselves for threats real and imagined. Sundabar and Mirabar are also generally considered dwarfholds, despite their substantial human populations. Until recently, many of the dwarfholds were members of the Silver Marches (also known as Luruar), an alliance of cities that provided mutual protection across the North. Disagreements and failed obligations during a war with the orc kingdom of Many-Arrows destroyed the remaining trust between members of the Marches, and that pact is no more. The dwarfholds still ally with one another, and individually with nearby human realms, but no longer pledge to stand unified with all their neighbors.The history of the dwarves in the North is a long and violent one, dating back more than six millennia. Before there was a Standing Stone in the Dalelands, or a Waterdeep, or a Myth Drannor, there was the brief (in dwarven terms) glory of Besilmer, and the realms of Haunghdannar and Gharraghaur. Ruins now, to be sure, but these kingdoms lasted longer than almost any living realm of humans, even if their works have been forgotten by humans and dwarves alike. The greatest and most recent of these dwarven realms was Delzoun, also called the Northkingdom. It stretched from the western edge of what was then the Narrow Sea (later, the Great Desert of Anauroch) west almost to present-day Silverymoon, and from the Ice Mountains to the Nether Mountains. Citadels Adbar and Felbarr were fortresses of Delzoun, and Mirabar, Mithral Hall, and Sundabar all owe their existence to that ancient kingdom or its descendants. Fabled Gauntlgrym, said to be touched by the presence of Moradin himself, was built by Delzoun’s dwarves — first as a mine, and then as a city. It was the dwarves of Delzoun who built Ironmaster, too, and all the great mines and renowned forges of the North reside in the halls of the dwarves. Now, when shield dwarves invoke the name of Delzoun, they are calling upon the glory of all their past accomplishments: every feat of architectural mastery, every fine blade or crushing warhammer forged, every kingdom and battle — won or lost — in defense of their people and the folk around them. The name is as much a battle cry and a badge of honor as it is a call into history, for although every dwarven settlement now has its own masters, kings, and queens, they all respect the memory of the great hammer of Delzoun and the glorious kingdom it represented. RUINED KINGDOMS OF THE NORTH: Many folk consider the start of civilization in the North to be marked by the founding of Waterdeep. More learned folk are aware of the deeper history of the region, and know of at least some of the kingdoms that have been built by the residents of the North down the centuries. Ruins of these kingdoms are scattered throughout the North, and many present-day cities and towns are built atop their remains, sometimes with their residents ignorant of what lies just beneath their boots. Eaerlann. The elven kingdom of Eaerlann, a survivor of the ancient Crown Wars, stretched from the High Forest to the Delimbiyr Vale. Weakened by the retreat of much of its populace to Evermeet and by orc attacks, Eaerlann finally fell six hundred years ago to the demons that burst forth from Ascalhorn (once known as Hellgate Keep and now as Hellgate Dell). Netheril: For centuries, the legend of Netheril served as a lesson of human hubris and a lure for treasure hunters too prideful to learn from its story. Long before the Dales Compact and the advent of Dalereckoning, Netheril arose as a human empire founded on the might of magic learned from the golden Nether Scrolls, artifacts at least as old as the creator races. Flying Netherese cities drifted through the skies all over the North, but primarily they hung high over a verdant land that is now the desert of Anauroch. Then Karsus, one of the mighty mages of Netheril, dared to believe that he could wrest control of the Weave and become a god himself. He almost succeeded, but in his failure Karsus killed the goddess of magic, shredded the Weave, and sent the floating enclaves that couldn’t flee to other planes crashing to the ground. From the moments after the crash when the spilt blood was still fresh to the present day’s moss-covered or dune-buried stones, the ruins of Netheril and its arcane secrets have drawn many to their doom. Island Kingdoms: Off the western coast of Faerûn are a number of island realms of varying size. The most distant, and yet perhaps the most symbolically important to the mainland, is Evermeet, the island paradise of the elves, reputed to be a part of the divine realm of Arvandor. Much closer to Faerûn are the Whalebones and Ruathym, ancient homes of the ancestors of the Illuskan people, and the Moonshaes, where many of those same people now share the islands with the Ffolk and an elf offshoot known as the Llewyr. The free port of Mintarn lies nearby, a neutral site for meetings between enemies and a recruitment spot that offers abundant jobs for sailors. Despite its size, the tiny island of Orlumbor, with its treacherous harbor and its skilled, in-demand shipwrights, is an independent and influential nation unto itself. In the seas to the south, pirates of many races and predilections sail from the Nelanther Isles, preying on trade running north and south along the coasts. Since the beginning of the Sundering, fabled Lantan and Nimbral have returned. Both the center of invention and the isle of Leira-worshiping illusionists are even more secretive and less welcoming of strangers than before their disappearance. West of the Sword Coast lies the Sea of Swords, and beyond that the Trackless Sea, a vast expanse separating Faerûn from whatever lies to the far west. Between the shore and the unknown are a number of islands, some large and others so small they lack names of their own. These island nations trade — and war — with Faerûn and one another, just like any mainland nation. Independent Realms: Interspersed among the fortresses of the dwarves and the settlements protected by the Lord’s Alliance are significant sites that have no collective character, except that they exist largely outside the protection or purview of the great powers of the region. Even the civilized locales among these places, such as Elturgard, exist, at best, in an uneasy tension with the denizens of the wilder lands within and just outside their borders, and survive only through constant vigilance and the steady recruitment of new defenders. A great variety of independent nations and notable locations is encompassed within the wild lands of the North. Among them are the great library of Candlekeep, home of the greatest collection of written lore in Faerûn; the imposing, giant-scale castle of Darkhold; the fortified abbey of Helm’s Hold; sites of great battles such as Boareskyr Bridge and the Fields of the Dead; realms of some security, such as Elturgard and Hartsvale; and the yuan-ti realm of Najara. The lands of the Uthgardt, the towns of frigid Icewind Dale, the quiet Trielta Hills, the cutthroat city of Luskan, and the legendary Warlock’s Crypt, dominion of the great lich Larloch, are all independent realms, as are the High Moor, the Trollclaws, and the High Forest. There is much danger and adventure to be had in the free places of the North, and a great deal of wealth and treasure as well. The ruins of ancient kingdoms and countless smaller settlements litter the countryside, waiting for the right explorers to happen upon them. Though there are myriad nations, kingdoms, and city-states scattered across the length and breadth of Faerûn, it would be a dangerous mistake to assume that all of the lands in and between those places are tamed. Travel a short way beyond most civilized places, and one finds oneself in the midst of wilderness haunted by creatures deadly and foul. Candlekeep: The great keep never fails to take my breath away: it stands on a volcanic crag a hundred or so feet from the coastline, a flat-topped spur of rough stone out in the midst of the surging sea. Imagine, if you can, the top of this crag hemmed in entirely by a tall wall. This wall is interrupted by several towers all the way around, and it encloses a large space from which even more of these same towers rise. Those who have seen this vista from above have said that it looks like nothing so much as a cake decorated with too many candles. The mist of sea-spray fills the air nearest the western walls, and in winter, this moisture can cause treacherous build-ups of ice. Sometimes entire towers along the western edge of the keep have to be abandoned for the season, they become so overtaken by frost. From the center rises the largest and thickest tower of Candlekeep. If the other towers are well-wrought branches and blossoms, then this surely is the bole of the tree: strong, massive, and rising well above the perimeter structures. About the central keep a garden spirals in rising steps, and those lucky enough to enter the library proper do so by passing around and up through this green space to the keep’s main door. However, most folk who visit Candlekeep see this structure only from the courtyard east of it, where the facilities for arriving scholars lie. The only gate into Candlekeep stands at the end of the Way of the Lion, which is the only road that provides access to and from the outside world. The route extends from Beregost, leagues away, and winds a lonely path out on the peninsula where Candlekeep stands. The Great Library, Candlekeep is the largest repository of lore and writings in all the Realms (although my scholarly kin in Evereska don’t like being reminded of that). It was once the home of the great prophet Alaundo the Seer, and within its walls were written the Prophecies of Alaundo. Its vaults, it is said, contain hidden knowledge enough to make any person with the ability to discover and absorb it all powerful beyond compare. The problem with doing that, of course, is the same as with secrets in any other location: one must know that a secret exists before its details can be sussed out. To that end, Candlekeep’s vast library is something of a defense in and of itself: for every bit of hidden lore of potentially great power that lies within, there are thousands of inconsequential recipes, old songs, bits of history, journals of long-dead folk, and myriad other pieces of writing of no lasting importance save to the monks of this place, and the sages who come seeking such trifles. Of course, before this treasure trove can be plumbed, one must gain entry to its hallowed halls. The cloistered scholar-monks of Candlekeep, who are called the Avowed, guard this place and work tirelessly to ensure the library’s protection and preservation. Though they are friendly enough in a workaday fashion, they are also suspicious of all visitors to the library.Gaining Entrance, I have assisted more than one visitor with entry into the library, so I know the process well. The price of admission is the donation of a work of writing not already in the possession of Candlekeep. Though the monks refer to this offering as the “entrance-gift,” it is a toll to be paid, and often a quite high one. To most, this requirement might seem difficult or even impossible to fulfill. After all, how is the would-be visitor to know exactly what Candlekeep does and does not have in its labyrinthine stacks? To this end, most visitors come to Candlekeep with multiple books they suspect might meet with approval. Fortunately for some, the donation need not be utterly unique. Some tome or treatise the library doesn’t have in its archives is preferable, but the monks are open to a few other possibilities: rare editions, books with a great deal of history tied to them, even tomes with insightful (or just interesting) notes scribbled in the margins have all been accepted, as have the journals of folk who are well traveled or highly learned. Most of those who come as petitioners to the gates of Candlekeep already know the cost of entry; those who don’t are told of it at the gates, and turned away kindly if they have no such gift. Heralds; priests of the gods Oghma, Gond, Deneir, and Milil; certain archmages; and others acknowledged as “friends of Candlekeep” are permitted to enter without making such a donation (though such folk often contribute to the library’s vaults as a matter of course anyway). The great double gates of Candlekeep are as three times the height of a human, and wrought of strange black metal that seems to repel lightning and to be immune to magical divinations, according to at least one wizard I’ve accompanied here. Both of these panels are emblazoned with the castle-and-flame sigil of Candlekeep in their upper reaches. One of the two gates stands open far enough to admit visitors during the day, with the other kept shut. Five purple-vestmented monks tend this entrance. One of them steps forward to greet those seeking admission, discussing with new arrivals their intentions and examining what gifts they have brought. As the first monk examines an offered gift, determining its title and provenance, a second gate guard performs a casting of the message spell. The Waterdhavian sage Waldrop tells me that the recipient of this spell is an Avowed in a room nearby with a massive tome that notes the books in Candlekeep’s vaults. Apparently aided by magic of some kind, that tome-keeper determines if the library has the book being offered, and responds concerning whether the gift is accepted or not. One of the priests of Deneir whom I regularly accompany to Candlekeep has mentioned truth-seeking magics being at work on this threshold. The door-guard’s fellows watch closely for any trouble, and other monks peer from the high towers that flank the gates, ready to summon help or lend magical support in case of attack. Those who are admitted are referred to as “seeker,” but also addressed by name if the monk knows it, or by “goodsir” or “goodlady” otherwise. Once a visitor is admitted, the monks at the gate part ranks to allow the seeker inside to the Court of Air. Visitors are instructed to cross that area and stand before the Emerald Door, where another monk receives them, offers them food, bath, and sleeping quarters, and arranges for each to meet a monk who will help to plan and then supervise the seeker’s visit to the library. The Court of Air, The Court of Air is aptly named. This cobbled courtyard is empty, containing neither tree nor well. Its southern wall is the southern wall of Candlekeep itself, with a number of fieldstone-wrought buildings intended for visitors’ use built along it. Nearest the western wall of the courtyard stand two buildings: the House of the Binder, a large temple of Oghma with plenty of space to allow his faithful to camp and socialize, and the Baths, a public facility that draws water from the natural spring beneath the keep. On the other side of the baths is the Hearth, a great eating-place and social hall for seekers, which has shrines to Deneir, Gond, and Milil built into it. The Hearth connects to the House of Rest, a structure with four-bunk rooms where seekers are assigned quarters upon their acceptance. Finally, next to the House of Rest, and built up against the eastern wall of the courtyard, are the stables, where mounts are housed and provisioned for the length of a seeker’s stay, and the granary. The northern edge of the Court of Air is made up of a wall into which are set twelve towers. These are the towers within which visitors are allowed to study. The famous Emerald Door stands in the western wall. Here a Keeper of the Emerald Door stands at all times, assisted by a small group of under-monks who act as messengers and runners. It is the Keeper who officially welcomes newly arrived seekers, and makes arrangements for their stay. Only this door leads deeper into the inner ward; the other towers have entrances onto the Court of Air, but don’t have points of egress into the inner ward and thus the rest of the library. These court-facing towers in the north wall, called the “necessariums” by the monks, are the main places in which visitors interact with the treasures of Candlekeep. They are honeycombed with reading rooms and small gathering chambers, where monks may bring individual tomes to seekers to be read, and where seekers may consult with monks on further materials to enable their research. Despite being adjacent to other towers and having bridges to more distant ones, the chambers that guests can reach in the necessariums don’t allow access to the rest of the keep. Within the Keep, Unfortunately, the foregoing is the extent of the information I have about the interior of Candlekeep. My personal experience is limited (as is the case with most visitors) to the Court of Air. Though the stories fly fast and thick in the Hearth about what lies beyond the necessariums, it is almost all conjecture and hearsay, with a heavy dose of fable, you can wager safely. From the Court of Air, one can see that the tall towers that rise up above the northern court wall are interconnected by covered walkways. Many of these are roofed, but not walled, and monks — some of them under quite prodigious burdens of books — scramble to and fro along them. The passages are sometimes interrupted by small spiral staircases that provide access to higher and lower levels, and some of the larger walkways slope gently from one floor in a given tower to the different level in another. The only other fact I know about Candlekeep’s interior is that it extends even beneath the level of the courtyards, with staircases in the cellars of certain of the towers that lead down into the very bedrock of the pillar upon which the keep is built. A monk once confided to me that these caverns store emergency supplies and provide access to great wells, all of which would enable the great fortification to survive entire seasons — if not years — of siege. The Avowed, The monks of Candlekeep are all cloistered scholars. Most of them have no magical power to speak of (though many of them are trained to know about such things); a notable handful, though, are spellcasters — either clerics of gods that represent the pursuit of knowledge or wizards. Even warrior-monks and paladins have been known among the Avowed, though never many at once. The Avowed are the sworn servants of the great keep, each rigorously tested to weed out any deceit before being permitted to take the oaths of the order. The monks’ first priority is the defense of the library’s knowledge against those who would steal or destroy it, but also against natural effects that might do likewise, such as mold, wet, and decay. Many of the monks wield various kinds of magic items to aid in these endeavors, and Candlekeep’s facilities include more than a few scriptoria to facilitate the copying of books becoming worn, binderies to repair the same, and even magical storage that preserve rare books from any further decay or damage. I’ve never made a detailed study of the Avowed, as it’s never been terribly needful for me to do so, but from my time spent in Candlekeep’s Court of Air, as well as my conversations with Waldrop, I’ve picked up a few things. The rank-and-file of the Avowed are divided into acolytes, who are newcomers to the order, and scribes, who tend to the majority of the work in the keep. Acolytes provide labor, doing the cleaning, lifting, and general sweating that a place of such size requires, and work at their studies, hoping to prove themselves and be accepted into the ranks of the scribes. The scribes do most of the archival labor required of the Avowed, and often pitch in with hands-on efforts when a particularly large chore needs doing. The master readers are the sages and elder monks who oversee the scribes and teach the acolytes. All are possessed of significant experience and dedicated to the great library, and it is from this group that individuals are chosen to fill in the upper ranks when positions open up. Above the master readers are other high-ranking posts, each with specialized duty, from the Gatewarden who tends to the security of the keep to the Guide who instructs and educates the Avowed. Of particular note is the Chanter, who is responsible for continuing the ongoing recitation of the prophecies of the great seer Alaundo, who once made his home here. I remember the first time I came upon the Endless Chant. It starts at the edge of one’s hearing (I was one of the first in the courtyard to sense it), and slowly grows closer and louder. As it does so, everything else falls silent around you. In short order, a procession of Avowed arrive on the scene, and the only sound anyone can perceive is their echoing, sonorous chant. The Chanter or one of his subordinates (called “voices”) leads this procession, and each of the Avowed is expected to lend his voice to the procession occasionally. It was through my friendship with Waldrop that I met one of the eight Great Readers, the council of elder Avowed who oversee the operation of Candlekeep. She was tall, and I remember thinking that she was one of the most erudite folk I’d ever spoken with. Each of the Great Readers is given an arena of responsibility within the Avowed, usually a topic of scholarly importance, and acknowledged and treated as the foremost expert in that field. Finally, above them all are two others: the Keeper of Tomes and the First Reader. Where the First Reader’s focus is maintaining the integrity of Candlekeep’s scholarship, and ever expanding its literary resources and base of knowledge, the Keeper governs the great library. The Keeper’s word is law, quite literally — each Keeper’s edicts are recorded for the edification of future Keepers, and all are maintained as ongoing traditions until changed by the word of a future Keeper. Waldrop tells me that traditionally the Keeper and the First Reader are supposed to have an antagonistic relationship, one focused on the cloistered monks and the enlightened goals of the library and the other on the mundane aspects of scholarship and Candlekeep’s interactions with the outside world. Although these high-ranking monks keep most visitors at arm’s length, it isn’t unknown for them to deal with adventurers directly when they need such services. While these scholars rarely have much coin to pay for the services of a company of venturers, they do possess the precious currency of Candlekeep: knowledge. I know of many companies who have been shown lore concerning lost ruins, then asked to brave some dangerous place and return with prizes that can be found only in that location. If the treasure that might be found in such places isn’t enough of a reward, some Avowed are empowered to offer inducements such as procedures for creating magic items and written copies of rare spells to sweeten the deal. Services, Those who come to Candlekeep are permitted to remain for one tenday before departing, and must remain away for at least a full month before returning. During this tenday, they may ask to read specific tomes known to be in the possession of the library, or they may ask the monks to find them tomes concerning certain topics. These works are brought to the reading rooms in the towers that face the Court of Air. Guests are permitted to ascend into those towers and read (but not copy) the tomes there, always in the company of one of the monks. One of Candlekeep’s main sources of income is the sale of books. Three kinds of such books exist: copies of tomes of nonmagical lore, copies of spellbooks and other magical formulae, and works of the Avowed. Copied Lore. The copying and binding of a work of nonmagical lore in Candlekeep’s library is generally performed at a cost of 100 gp or so (though quite large books are always more). This manufacture may take several weeks, particularly for large tomes, so it isn’t uncommon for those who desire such a work to commission it in writing, along with advance payment, and then come to the gate to pick up the book, or pay an additional price to have it delivered. Spellbooks. In contrast, magical books of spells and formulae cost much, much more — a spellbook might be priced at thousands or even tens of thousands of gold pieces. Each simple spell or cantrip in such a tome costs 25 gp or so, with the more complex and powerful spells fetching 150 gp or more each. Works of the Avowed. Each year, the monks of Candlekeep release a small book stamped with the sigil of the keep, and credited to “The Avowed of Candlekeep.” These books are always focused on singular topics, and contain short essays, excerpts, and other writings germane to the topic. They are sold at Candlekeep and by representatives in large cities for between 50 gp and 100 gp per book, though some are often resold for a great deal more. Candlekeep also buys books and even sponsors adventurers on expeditions to seek out lost sources of lore across the Realms. The exchange of coin in such undertakings is, of course, open to the usual sort of negotiation. High Forest: Anyone with even a hint of elven blood can’t help but feel it stir upon setting foot in the High Forest. The sheer age and the power of the trees, the depth of their roots, and the wind whispering through their leaves — all these things call to us. A vast green cloak in the midst of the North, the High Forest is a reminder of ages past, when thick woods blanketed much of Faerûn, and sylvan creatures of all types lived among the trees. Even today the High Forest has barely known the tread and touch of humans, and old growth dominates its flora. Elven communities in the forest are typically small and often nomadic. In part, this is a reflection of the desire to keep the woods untouched, but there are ruins here, such as those of Ascalhorn — now called Hellgate Dell — that remind us of the fallen cities and empires of the past. The High Forest once sheltered three great elven realms beneath its boughs, and the bones of those empires still lie tangled in its roots. Many tribes of wood elves — and a few moon elf tribes — still roam the wood protecting these ruins, the monuments to their golden age. Few beyond the borders of the High Forest know much about these elves, who have no single leader and make little contact with the outside world. Travelers in the High Forest must always be wary of elves they meet for they can never be sure of their welcome, and any promises of safe passage might not be honored by the next band of elves. One elf is leading the effort to change this situation. Known as the Red Lady, or simply the Lady of the Wood, Morgwais is a wood elf who seeks to unite the disparate tribes. She leads the Caerilcarn, the “Council of the Wood,” which periodically gathers many tribal leaders together to share information, consult, and deliberate. Her stated aim is to resurrect the kingdom of Eaerlann, and she has made bold steps in that direction by allying the settlements of Nordahaeril, Reitheillaethor, and Teuveamanthaar (which most know as Tall Trees). As yet though, the elves who believe in this vision are small in number and spread far apart over the eastern reaches of the High Forest. Fey and sylvan creatures of all sorts — including satyrs, dryads, and treants — inhabit the High Forest. Small wonder that one almost immediately feels the presence of unseen watchers upon entering the woods. Nowhere in the forest is this feeling more palpable than near the Grandfather Tree, an oak larger than you might imagine possible, which serves as a holy site for the Treeghost tribe of the Uthgardt. Four smaller oaks — enormous indeed, though still smaller than the Grandfather — mark the boundaries of the site, protecting the tree and aiding those whom its spirits determine are worthy, speeding their natural healing. Teleportation magic often goes awry here, and the caverns deep beneath the site are rumored to contain all manner of magical portals. If it isn’t the elves, the fey, or the trees themselves watching visitors, it might be the centaurs who make the High Forest their home, claiming the plateaus near the head of the Unicorn Run. For decades, the centaurs have been growing in number, enough so that they may soon divide their tribes and claim additional lands as their territory. Pegasi and unicorns can be found here, and even some of the fabled aarakocra, the winged bird-folk, live among the peaks at the heart of the wood. Within the depths of the forest is an entire mountain range known as the Star Mounts. Constant strong winds keep weaker flying creatures from approaching the peaks of the mountains, with the strange exception of the aarakocra, who had an ancestral homeland there before being chased out by a dragon. Most the peaks may be viewed only from afar, and at a distance they seem to glitter from the strange, massive crystals dotting their slopes. They are also known to hold rich deposits of iron and nickel, but no one has mined these mountains in hundreds of years. The Star Mounts are the source of the waters of the Unicorn Run, which cuts through the rocks of the lower range to form a series of gorges and cliffs known as the Sisters. The sight of the tiered waterfalls is positively breathtaking, well worth the challenge of reaching them. Mist shrouds the Sisters, and feeds the vegetation on the small plateaus of the area. To the north, the headwaters of the Dessarin River flow down from a smaller pair of mountains called the Lost Peaks. Far less idyllic are the cursed ruins of Karse. Here are the remains of the great heresy of the Netherese wizard Karsus, who sought to claim godhood, slew the goddess of magic, and brought about the end of an age and untold destruction across the entire world. High Moor: The High Moor was once a place much like the High Forest or the nearby Misty Forest, but during the Crown Wars, thousands of years ago, powerful magic burned the land such that all that remained was a blasted moor. It is a rocky wilderness infested with trolls and goblinoids and all manner of other dangers for anyone who treks across it instead of going around. As the name suggests, the High Moor is a raised area extending for many miles of heath, lichen-covered outcroppings, and hidden gullies. Herd animals wander the land, from sheep to rock ponies to the occasional rothé. These beasts graze without great risk, because wolves and other predators that would thin the herds are themselves the prey of the trolls and goblinoids that otherwise rule the moor. These two-legged threats sometimes seed the High Moor with traps, but are normally occupied with fighting and killing their prey and each other. There is something of a cycle to the hunts of the High Moor: wolves are killed off by the hobgoblins one year, leading to more sheep grazing, which brings the trolls out (the local trolls enjoy mutton, it seems), which brings intrepid adventurers to deal with the growing menace, enabling just enough of the wolves to survive that they aren’t wiped out completely. Human barbarians also inhabit the High Moor, living mostly on its western fringes with large herds of sheep and goats, the soil being too thin and too poor for farming. They aren’t Uthgardt or related to them, but they might have some distant ties to the Northlanders, as they seem to be of Illuskan stock. They speak a dialect of Illuskan I’d not heard before, and my first meetings with them were quite tense and filled with misapprehension. However, I came to know people from both the Girondi and Belcondi tribes, all of whom acted with bravery, honor, and good humor in my presence. Travelers in this region should note that the human tribes share the suspicion of magic common among many Northlanders, but thankfully it isn’t the fanatic hatred shown by the Uthgardt. There are also some small orc tribes, Redclaw and Blue Feather, among them. The humans and goblinoids both despise the orcs, and my hosts said they allied with one another in the past when the orcs grew great in number. Orogoth: For such a large expanse, the High Moor contains few known ruins. One such is Orogoth, the former villa of a noble family of old Netheril. Local legends say the family dabbled in dragon magic, attempting to capture those powerful wyrms and acquire their powers. The tales differ as to what folly led to the family becoming immolated in its home, but most agree the culprit was a dracolich, of all things, residing in the ruin and defending the family’s wealth. The gods only know what led to the creation of such a creature or what binds it to this place. The answers — if any there be — lie within its lair. Misty Forest, West of the High Moor but heavily influenced by it, the Misty Forest draws its name from the fog that rolls off the heights of the moor to shroud its trees. Melandrach, King of the Woods, rules here and holds the forest as the exclusive domain of the elves. Though game animals roam in plenty, the local humans know well that the elves protect them and punish trespassers who poach in the forest. Even barbarians know better than to hunt here, as they don’t wish to draw Melandrach’s attention or ire. Travelers who leave the inhabitants of the Misty Forest alone, and who build their campfires small and solely of fallen branches, are usually permitted to pass, so long as the folk of the forest aren’t in a foul mood or stirred up against outsiders for some other reason. Secomber, Just off the High Moor, on the north bank of the Delimbiyr near the Unicorn Run, is the small town of Secomber, on the border between the North and the settlements of the Western Heartlands. Built over the ruins of Hastarl, capital of the ancient kingdom of Athalantar, Secomber is a quiet place where fishers and farmers go about their work, and local folk hire out to hunt or fish, or guide travelers through the area. Skilled guides who know the High Moor well, and can navigate its many dangers and its local tribes, are common — or appear to be, given how often their services are offered. Local stonecutters, primarily from a small clan of dwarves, excavate pink granite from the rock walls on northern edge of the moor. Uthgardt Lands: When I was newly departed from my homeland and first found my way to the North, I encountered a band of Uthgardt nomads on the trail — a part of the Elk tribe, led by a warrior named Gyrt. It was a tense meeting. I think the only reason I was not killed on sight is that I was an elf traveling alone. I think they feared I was a wizard. Uthgardt hate all magic but that of their shamans and any enchanted weapons and armor they find, but a wizard willing to walk the wilds alone could be a powerful one. Traveling as we were on a grassy plain, we could see one another for some distance. Since I didn’t strike them down with lightning from afar, they were willing to approach peaceably. Still, they stopped when they were within bowshot and seemed to be arguing about whether to shoot me. I waited as patiently as I could until one who seemed to be their leader addressed me in heavily accented Common. I replied a greeting in Bothii, their own ancient language, which again set the group to argument. At last, the leader dismounted and approached me, giving her name as Gyrt. Glad was I then that I took the time to learn the language from a learned friend in Evereska! In anticipation of any demand, I offered Gyrt a fine dagger from Evereska, as well as a necklace I wore. For her band I offered a bag of baubles I’d brought for such an occasion. Pleased with my gifts and assured that I was no wizard, Gyrt and I sat down to talk. I asked to share her campfire for the night, and Gyrt made space for me. That was my first meeting with Gyrt, but it wouldn’t be my last, nor my last encounter with Uthgardt. I’m grateful to my friend Gyrt for teaching me so much about her people, for it has allowed me and many fellow travelers to see Uthgardt and live to tell the tale. Over the years, as I earned Gyrt’s respect and she mine, we became friends, and I came to know her three sons as well. Though Gyrt died some decades ago, I still visit her children, whom I played with when they were young. They now have children of their own, and all call me auntie. During my time with Gyrt and her kin, the people of the Elk explained much to me about the workings of their tribe — their view of the world and their place in it, their traditions and the laws they live by. I came to realize, as I came across other Uthgardt tribes in my travels, that much of what is true for the Elk tribe is true for other Uthgardt. Though they comport themselves in seemingly disparate groups honoring different totems, Uthgardt have much in common. What follows is what I have learned of the people who call themselves “children of Uthgar.” Though the Uthgardt each belong to a given tribe, these are markers of identity, rather than coherent populations. In my experience, it is rare outside of occasional large events (such as the ascension of a new chieftain, or certain religious gatherings) for all members of a single tribe to come together in one place. Instead, the Uthgardt tend to travel in bands, groups of tribesfolk that number between a dozen and a hundred, usually twenty to fifty. These bands generally consist of several family groups, each led by a matriarch or patriarch. In many ways, these folk are similar to nomadic Tel’Quessir, in that they make their decisions by consensus among the heads of the families, and disagreements are handled efficiently: those who don’t like the decision of the majority go their own way, forming a new band or joining a different one.For most Uthgardt tribes, the only stability in their history is the site of their ancestral mound. Most of the Uthgardt holy sites have existed since antiquity, but the fortunes of the tribes that revere them have hardly been static. Following are brief descriptions of the Uthgardt tribes today. Blue Bear. The easternmost of the Uthgardt are the Blue Bear — thought destroyed more than a century ago — who have recently emerged from inside the High Forest and reclaimed their ancestral mound at Stone Stand, just south of the Moon Pass and north of the forest. The Blue Bears have reoccupied much of their old territory in the time since they returned to prominence, though they don’t venture near Hellgate Keep, considering it a taboo place. Black Lion and Red Tiger. North of Blue Bear territory, in the Glimmering Wood, is Beorunna’s Well, a settlement of some size that near the ancient ancestral mound of the Red Tiger tribe. The settlement was founded some time ago by members of the Black Lion tribe, who put down roots here rather than continuing to live as nomads. Though the Red Tigers are less than comfortable with the present situation, they consider Beorunna’s Well their holy site, so they make the best of things. Bands of Red Tiger tribespeople often winter in Beorunna’s Well, and many of its hunters and trappers use the settlement as a place to sell the leather and furs they acquire in nearby forests. Sky Pony. In a part of the Glimmerwood called the Moonwood stands the One Stone, the ancestral mound of the Sky Pony tribe. These are a people divided; half of the tribe has settled and built a sizable steading around the One Stone, similar to what Black Lion has done at Beorunna’s Well. The other half of the tribe considers this act an insult to their totem, so they launch raids on the settlement, burning as much of it as they can and then escaping. Tree Ghost. In the depths of the High Forest stands the Grandfather Tree, the ancestral mound of the Tree Ghost tribe. The Tree Ghosts split off from the Blue Bears long ago and all but disappeared into the forest, although occasional reports reach civilization that they are still alive and can sometimes be seen clustered around the Grandfather Tree. Some sages postulate that the newly reborn Blue Bear tribe might well be Tree Ghost Uthgardt who are following a call from a revived Blue Bear totem. Great Worm. The Frost Hills, a small southern spike of the Spine of the World Mountains just north of the Evermoors, is the site of Great Worm Cavern, the ancestral mound of the Great Worm tribe. These Uthgardt are notoriously reclusive; it has been twenty years since the tribe has sent raiding parties out anywhere but against the orcs of the Spine Mountains. Black Raven. As forbidding as the Spine of the World Mountains they roam, the Black Ravens are fanatical in their adherence to the old Uthgardt ways. Ranging out from Raven Rock, their ancestral mound deep inside the mountains, they have been known to send raiding parties as far south as Silverymoon, but their most frequent targets are the caravans that come in and out of Mithral Hall. Elk. The Elk are fierce raiders and savage killers throughout their nomadic range: the Evermoors and the plains east of the Dessarin and lower Surbrin river valleys. Of the Uthgardt tribes, they are the most arrogant, surly, and self-indulgent. Considered by many to be little more than bandits, they often raid other tribal settlements for food, plunder, and sport. The Uthgardt are spread across the North, rarely found farther south than the High Forest. There is no nation of Uthgardt to which they belong; instead, each tribe has a central ancestral mound, regarded as a holy site. Gyrt told me that the holy site of the Elk tribe is at a place called Flint Rock, somewhere in the Evermoors. She, understandably, never offered to take me there, and I was never foolish enough to ask. By and large, the Uthgardt are a hunting people who rely on game for much of their sustenance, favoring large herd animals such as elk, rothé, and deer. Young men and women looking to make a name for themselves sometimes build their reputations by hunting dangerous predators and great beasts: bears, great cats, large boar, and even monsters such as wyverns, owlbears, and displacer beasts. Some tribes put the prowess they demonstrate in hunting to good use in another endeavor, for which the Uthgardt are well known: raiding. As a rule, the Uthgardt engage in raiding only in remote areas — meaning that the closer a potential target is to civilization, the less likely it will be set upon. The raiders prefer to strike against wealthy merchant caravans and nobles’ baggage trains, which offer the likelihood of fine foods, alcohol, and jewelry that Uthgardt wear as trophies and trade among themselves. For the most part, Uthgardt have little use for coin, so travelers hoping to buy their way out of a confrontation are advised to offer something else. Uthgardt don’t see national boundaries or the bonds of civilization that tie a merchant to a farmer whose house the merchant passes on the road. To them each interaction with us — meaning we who aren’t Uthgart — is different. Thus, an Uthgardt band that raids in one season might come to trade during the next. They do understand the concept of belonging to a larger group, and that those groups might be in conflict. After all, each tribe of Uthgardt has its ancestral enemies among the other Uthgardt tribes. Yet when I attempted to explain how I, and elf from Evereska, was connected to folk in Waterdeep or Silverymoon, Gyrt just laughed. She had not seen these cities, so I might as well have said I knew folk who lived on the moon. When I mentioned Yartar and Red Larch, places that I knew Gyrt’s band had passed near, she laughed still harder. To her I was too great, too “strong” as she put it, to have any connection to places she saw as providing prey for her tribe. If a band of Uthgardt come upon your campsite, my advice is this. First, do what you can to hide all signs of magic or spellcasting. Then show them hospitality and invite them to warm themselves. If you have jewelry or a fine weapon, offer these gifts to the one who seems like the leader. Ask how their hunting goes, and give them a chance to brag. Be appreciative, but not obsequious. Tell them you have heard of the prowess of the Uthgardt people — their hunting skills and strength first and foremost — but attribute these claims to a tribe other than their own. The strongest among the band will insist on the chance to prove him- or herself better than the stories you’ve heard, and will want you to bear away tales of about his or her tribe instead. You or one of your companions might need to agree to a challenge of some kind, a feat of strength or a bout of fisticuffs, by which the band may measure your prowess. It doesn’t greatly matter if you win or lose, though. Simply express a desire or a willingness to compete, and you will earn some measure of respect. If you win the challenge, be gracious, and express gratitude that you finally found someone of great status to test yourself against. If you lose, be self-effacing and rueful, and give the victor the best part of the meal at hand. This advice will not always work, of course. Some bands aren’t so easily assuaged, particularly if they are out deliberately hunting you or folk like you. At all times, remember that these are a proud and strong people with a fierce love of life and its simple pleasures. Demonstrate an outlook complementary to theirs, and they might make of you a comrade. Show fear or contempt, and they will respond with quick violence. Some Uthgardt tribes are seen by others as lost to the world. They are considered anathema, and even speaking of them outside certain contexts is forbidden. The Thunderbeast tribe has not been heard from in several years. When the Thunderbeasts made their annual pilgrimage to Morgur’s Mound in Neverwinter Wood, they found their holy site desecrated. Soon thereafter, their chieftain took them back into the depths of the High Forest, and they have not emerged since. The Gray Wolf tribe is taboo because of its many werewolf members. It has done much to plague the people in the environs of the Neverwinter Wood. The tribe doesn’t share the ‘gift’ of lycanthropy with others and therefore ensures there are no survivors of its attacks. The Griffon tribe has long been shunned due to its practice of trading with non-Uthgardt - and even spellcasters - at a settlement known as Griffon’s Nest. The Red Pony and Golden Eagle tribes vanished centuries ago. They were last seen in the vicinity of the One Stone, the ancestral mound they shared with Sky Pony. The People of Uthgar. The Uthgardt trace their origins back to the mighty hero Uthgar, a warrior without compare. During my time with his tribe, Gyrt spoke freely of the tales of Uthgar that have been passed down among his people. The saga begins in the distant past when the humans of the North lived in fear and isolation. Great spirits roamed the forests of the North, preventing humans from banding together to rise up against them. Into this turmoil came Uthgar, who challenged each of the great spirits, one at a time, besting them and subjugating them to his rule. Each of the defeated spirits became embodied in the totem of one of the groups of humans who followed and revered Uthgar. Thus were born the tribes of the Uthgardt, each taking the name of their totem spirit. The sites of Uthgar’s victories are marked even today with the great ancestor-mounds of the Uthgardt. Each is said to have been built over the remains of a tribe’s totem spirit, along with the tribesfolk who died while helping Uthgar to fight the creature. A tribe lays claim to the territory around its ancestral mound for many leagues, declaring it as the grounds in which the tribe hunts and sets up camps. Generally speaking, Uthgardt bands of a given tribe will range as far as two to three weeks’ travel away from the tribe’s ancestral mound, with raiding parties going much farther afield. These holy sites are scattered through the North; in almost all cases, the exact location of one is known to few people other than members of that tribe. Almost all of the original tribes of the Uthgardt are active in the North today. Even a tribe thought to be lost or destroyed might be represented somewhere by a small number of humans who claim to be descended from the one of the tribes of old, but such people, where they exist, aren’t numerous by any means, and their claims are often spurious. The Uthgardt take their ritual practices and taboos very seriously. Most taboos and traditions vary from tribe to tribe, but at least one stricture is universal among the Uthgardt: magic other than that of the shamans or the magic of weapons and armor is forbidden. The priests of the Uthgardt revere their ancestor-god and also invoke the names of their totems as intercessors with the Father of the Tribes. Their ethos is simple: strength is rewarded with more strength, and when strength fails, it is because a person is not worthy. Luskan: Anyone who goes to Luskan should know about its ruling Ships and the Arcane Brotherhood. The Ships of Luskan have been described as bands of pirates, but that characterization misses how deeply ingrained the Ships are to the society of Luskan and the mentality of its citizens. Attack a Ship member and you might incur not just the wrath of the Ship, but of much of the city as well. As for the Arcane Brotherhood, one member of it may or may not come to another’s aid, but know that each of these egotistical mages is eager to prove his or her magical prowess, and none can afford to show weakness before the folk of Luskan. Luskan, the City of Sails, spans the icy River Mirar, which tumbles from the Spine of the World, races past Mirabar, and then plunges toward the sea. The swift river has cut deep here, and Luskan rests atop two escarpments on either side, with sheer, forty-foot bluffs of gray stone rising above the water. Around the city’s perimeter, thick stone walls with squat towers provide defense. The southern gate, called the Twin Teeth, boasts the most impressive towers, standing twice as tall as the city walls, and bedecked with crenellations and arrow slits enough for numerous defenders, in a show of strength toward the southern approach. The Ships Within the city walls and on the nearby waters, Luskan is ruled by its Ships and their five High Captains: First High Captain Beniago Kurth, Second High Captain Barri Baram, Third High Captain Dagmaer Suljack, Fourth High Captain Throa Taerl, Fifth High Captain Hartouchen Rethnor. The five High Captains take the names of their Ships when they ascend to leadership. The captains are the highest authorities in Luskan; they and the members of their Ships conduct themselves as a sort of nobility, albeit one that isn’t hereditary. Despite the name, each Ship is not a single vessel, but an organization of stalwarts owing allegiance to one another and to their captain, whom they elect for life. To be a member of a Ship is a select privilege, one that only one in ten of Luskan’s residents can claim. The five Ships of Luskan are more than gangs of pirates. They are fellowships of people who live, train, work, make love, and go to war with each other. To join one is a mark of honor and continues a grand tradition that Luskar associate with democracy, self-determination, and individuality. Each Ship has its own symbol and colors. Members of a Ship often wear their colors, decorate their round shields with the symbol and colors, and tattoo themselves with the symbol. Like their Northlander relations, Luskar Ship members regularly tattoo their faces, but instead of representing their island, the tattoos are either personal marks or tattoos of their allegiance to their Ship. Membership in a Ship is voluntary, but once undertaken it is until death. To join a Ship, a Luskar must be of fighting age (fourteen or so, for humans), and possess at least one sword or axe, one spear, and three of the sturdy, bossed shields the Northlanders prefer. Each Ship accepts new candidates from time to time to fill vacancies caused by death, but as a rule, the Ships don’t expand their ranks by taking on a large number of new members at one time. Each Ship has some number of sailing vessels, the size, crew, and type of which help to determine the influence of the Ship’s High Captain and its rank within the city. The current First Ship, Kurth, has so many vessels that it nearly outnumbers the next two Ships combined, and its membership is so numerous that Ships Suljack, Taerl, and Rethnor could merge and still not equal it. The laws of the city govern the behavior of the Ships and their captains, decreeing the Ships responsible for the city’s defense, its administration, and the management of its resources. Beyond these universal tasks, each captain takes on other duties as desired in order of that Ship’s standing in the hierarchy, leaving less glamorous and less lucrative tasks to the captains and Ships of lower rank. Since each of the Ships has the ability to take what it likes and leave what it doesn’t want to the lesser Ships, a strict division of duties has arisen among them. Ship Kurth controls the city’s docks and activity occurring thereupon. Among the most profitable of the merchandise that passes through the port are weapons and tools from Ironmaster, and ambergris for the perfume trade. Ship Baram operates Luskan’s fishing industry. The food it provides is so vital to the city’s welfare nowadays that Baram has risen to Second Ship on the strength of its successful forays out to sea. Ship Suljack holds sway over, and conducts most of, the piracy and raiding that originates out of Luskan. It occasionally passes the more meager opportunities down to Taerl. Ship Taerl, recently elevated from Fifth Ship, had been accustomed to taking the hindmost. Now its workers and sailors happily accept chances for profit handed down from above, and just as happily delegate the most menial and undesirable chores to Rethnor. Ship Rethnor engages in few worthwhile activities aside from guard duty, which is a poor source of income. Rethnor toughs sometimes roam the streets of Luskan, looking for a quick and perhaps violent way to grab some coin. Without question, the people of Luskan show their Northlander heritage. They raid ships and coastal settlements, engage in interdiction and piracy, and value strength of arms above most other qualities. During Luskan’s long history on the Sword Coast, however, the city has adopted many of the attitudes of mainland folk. Luskar don’t kidnap people from other settlements or tribes, and they hold that women have social standing equal to men (two of the High Captains, Suljack and Taerl, are women). They don’t distrust magic, as their island brethren do. Slavery is, at least nominally, illegal in Luskan, though a slave taken and sold at sea is usually overlooked by authorities. The law in Luskan is supposed to be upheld by soldiers of the Ships, who are empowered to arrest criminals and bring them before the Magistrates of the city. In practice, arrests are as often made by mobs, but the result is the same: an appearance before the Magistrates. Each of the five Magistrates is chosen by a High Captain, but need not be a member of that captain’s Ship. The Magistrates are, at least officially, neutral. Most citizens have their cases decided by a single one of these judges, but a dispute involving a Ship member is heard by all five. Luskan doesn’t officially tax its citizens; the city makes its money through trade, fishing, piracy, and raiding. The defense of the city comes at the expense of the Ships, paid for by the profits of those activities as well as the protection money the Ships extort from businesses and homes to keep the thieves and gangs at bay. Bribery is a common practice, a seemingly accepted means of gaining the favor of one of the High Captains to obtain fishing rights, earning an advantageous decision from the Magistrates, or having a business rival or undesired suitor arrested, accosted, or roughed up. Given its status as the harbor that feeds the goods of Mirabar to the Sword Coast, bridging the coast with the utter north, and offers the only convenient crossing of the River Mirar for many miles, Luskan makes considerable coin as a crossroads. Merchants wishing to avoid Luskan can choose to use the Blackford Crossing, some thirty miles upstream, eventually connecting with the Blackford Road on the northern bank, but the savvy know that Luskan’s Ships control the cable-guided ferries at the crossing, and demand tolls based on the size and contents of the goods being ferried across. The Blackford Road still bears the ancient marks of the dwarven realm of Gharraghaur, reminding travelers of whose wealth sustains the region. North of the city, the Northern Means heads up toward Icewind Dale. Not many take this route without purpose, but scrimshaw from the dale finds its way into Luskan, where those who would purchase it can do so without going any farther into the frozen terrain. The north side of the city, known as North Bank, is devoted almost entirely to warehouses, caravan yards, and workspace. It includes the Mirabar Shield, the fortified compound that represents Mirabar’s trading interest in Luskan. Mirabar uses it as a base to trade with the Sword Coast and the islands of the Trackless Sea. The main city stands on the southern side of the River Mirar. North of Reaver’s Run is the Reach, where most of the homes and smaller businesses are located. South of the Run are the slums, the “bad” area of town. Near the slums is the Captain’s Close, where the residences of High Captains Taerl and Suljack stand, but the area is otherwise quite poor. Five islands stand in the bay formed by the River Mirar and are claimed by Luskan, Blood Island is filled with Ships’ soldiers tasked with guarding the city; it holds a guard tower, barracks, an armory, and little else of interest. Closeguard Island is the home of High Captain Kurth. Cutlass Island has two rocky heights split by a pebble-strewn beach. The southern peak is surmounted by the Sea Tower, where Luskan’s first pirates built their stronghold, while the northern one is home to the Hosttower of the Arcane and the stables it shares with Ship Kurth. Fang Island has no inhabitants, and is named for its propensity for destroying vessels swept down the River Mirar. Harbor Arm Island is a tall spire sheltering Whitesails Harbor from the worst of the storms and waves that wash in from the south. The Bridges, The North and South Banks are spanned by three bridges: the Upstream Span, from the South Bank straight to the North Gate; Dalath’s Span, the middle bridge with a name none can place in legend, and Harbor Cross, split between the Short Span that runs from the South Bank to Blood Island, and the Long Span that continues on to North Bank. Only Ship members and those authorized by a High Captain may traverse Harbor Cross. Dark Arch connects South Bank with Closeguard Island, and only members of Ship Kurth and the Arcane Brotherhood may cross that span unchallenged. The same is true of Sword Bridge, which crosses from Closeguard Island to Cutlass Island. Although Closeguard Island is officially unguarded, it’s still true that only members of the Arcane Brotherhood or Ship Kurth are expected to be there, so anyone out of place is aggressively questioned about their presence. The Arcane Brotherhood, In the last decade or so, two great changes have come over Luskan. The first was the plague that crippled the gangs that had controlled the city, allowing the High Captains to reclaim the power they had long held in Luskan. The other, far more sudden, was the return of the Arcane Brotherhood and its five-spired tower. A few years ago, the ruined Hosttower of the Arcane began regenerating its damaged stone, climbing into the sky once more. Shortly thereafter, mages of the Arcane Brotherhood emerged, almost immediately began cleansing the Luskar ruins of undead, and fought off a dragon menacing the city. Cheered by the citizens, they swore to keep themselves out of the politics of the High Captains and the city at large, but the notion that powerful wizards closely aligned with one another can truly remain neutral is laughable to anyone familiar with such things. Now, the Arcane Brotherhood again walks the streets of Luskan, marked by the distinctive colors and patterns of their cloaks. From a distance, these cloaks all bear the same cut and silhouette, but each wizard of the Hosttower chooses a color or a design, and a moniker to match it. The leadership of the Arcane Brotherhood is the archmage and the four overwizards of the other spires of the Hosttower: Cashaan the Red (Archmage Arcane), Zelenn the White (Overwizard of the West), Jendrick the Blue (Overwizard of the South), Teyva the Gray (Overwizard of the East), Druette the Raven (Overwizard of the North). Other notable members of the Brotherhood include Vaelish the Brown and Maccath the Crimson. Icewind Dale: Go far enough north, and you will come to the mountains rightly called the Spine of the World. Turn west and go toward the Sea of Moving Ice, and you might eventually come upon one of the scattered communities of Icewind Dale. You can also travel up the ever-narrowing road from Luskan called the Northern Means, and eventually come upon the frozen tundra beyond. Why travel so far? Well, if you’re like many who’ve drifted up there from the south, it is because an easier life doesn’t suit you, you’re running from something, or you just don’t fit in anywhere else. Ten-Towns: Coming up the hard road from the south, the first thing you’ll see is Kelvin’s Cairn, a great mountain scarred by a crack down its southwestern face. Even in high summer, its peak is capped in snow and ice. In the mountain’s southern shadow is Bryn Shander, the largest, most populous, and most fortified of the Ten-Towns of Icewind Dale. Ten-Towns is a grouping of communities clustered around the three lakes of the area: Maer Dualdon, from which the Shaengarne River flows down toward Ironmaster; Lac Dinneshere to the east, whose waters are nearly always cold enough to kill; and Redwaters, named for an old battle between rival fisherfolk that left the waters bloody. Ten-Towns thrives on fishing and trade, both endeavors reliant on the knucklehead trout of Icewind Dale’s lakes. Without these fish, the people of Ten-Towns would starve, but there would also be little for them to barter or sell. The ivory-like bones of these fish are the basis of the famous scrimshaw that is sold as far south as Calimshan and farther east than I care to consider. The bones are also used to make all manner of small, sturdy tools: fish hooks, arrowheads, sewing needles, buttons, and more. Each town on the lakes has its own fleet of fishing boats, and the towns carefully divide the lakes to protect the population and the delicate balance between the communities. Independent-minded folk who come to Ten-Towns are discouraged from striking out on their own, and when they do, they often fail, either due to the dangers of the waters, being blocked out of the best fishing areas, or simply being refused trade by the scrimshanders, whose wares are expensive. Icewind Dale is a place where cooperation is essential for survival, and ignoring that fact can leave one quite alone in a time of need.Where nine of the Ten-Towns survive primarily on fishing, Bryn Shander lives on trade, making it the place to visit when you come here. The walls keep the town safe from barbarians who raid the area and the beasts of the tundra, and the packing in of its people means Bryn Shander is also warmer than the other towns, both literally and in terms of the welcome you receive. I have visited only a few of the other towns, and while they have their quirks and charms, they are mostly what you might expect: fishing villages at the edge of frigid waters in a frozen waste. Certainly, there is trade to be done, coin to be made, and intrigue to be investigated in even in the smallest of these communities (which can number as few as a hundred souls). The only other point of interest is the town of Targos, on Maer Dualdon, which has grown rapidly and is threatening to burst the bounds of its protective wall, and thus has a hum of opportunity about it. Reghed Barbarians: Ten-Towns isn’t the only community in Icewind Dale. Tribes of human barbarians called Reghed also operate in the area. Hunters and raiders who value strength and devotion to their ancestral heroes, they claim a great many heroes among their honored dead, including some who were responsible for the safety of Ten-Towns, Icewind Dale, and beyond. A Reghed camp is made up of a large ring of hide tents, able to be broken down and transported as the Reghed move to keep up with the herds of reindeer they depend on for food and clothing. Kelvin’s Cairn: Dwarves still live in the mines of Kelvin’s Cairn, but in fewer numbers than they once did, and with less influence than they had on the rest of Icewind Dale a century or two ago. The dwarves here claim their continued allegiance to Clan Battlehammer of Mithral Hall, even though they returned to the colder north when they discovered their ancient home no longer suited them. Bryn Shander serves them as a trading post, allowing them to keep humans and other strangers away from their mines, which are some distance away in the shadow of the Cairn. The dwarves send a representative to the council of speakers that governs Ten-Towns, but have no say in their proceedings except to declare acceptance or refusal of the decisions of the human gathering. Lands to the South: To the south of the Sword Coast lie ancient nations, a tremendous, forbidding jungle, and all manner of lands destroyed or transformed by magical cataclysms and upheavals. Amid the ruin and the distress in these realms are signs of renewal and hope, as tenacious civilizations and peoples rebuild, reclaim, and create anew. Amn: A nation led by the representatives of five noble families, Amn is a place where the wealthy rule, openly and without pretense. Shrewd traders and ruthless in business, Amnians believe that the end of a successful transaction is justified by any means, ethical or otherwise. Although the nation is richer by far than even the northern metropolises of Baldur’s Gate and Waterdeep, its influence is curtailed by the unwillingness of its rulers to work together in the nation’s best interest. The members of the Council of Five are fairly unified and tight-fisted in their control of Amn, but their ability to affect events outside their own borders is limited because they can’t agree enough on major matters of foreign policy. The oligarchs utterly control their nation, but beyond the areas that each rules, their families and businesses compete with one another and with the locals of far-flung places. The use of arcane magic is illegal in Amn, meaning that the only authorized spellcasters in the nation are wielders of divine magic who enjoy the support and patronage of a temple, and users of arcane magic who have been given special dispensation by one of the oligarchs. So pervasive is the sway of Amn’s oligarchy that few crimes merit physical punishment but those that involve the use of arcane magic or an offense against one of the council’s merchant houses. Other infractions are forgiven after the miscreant makes payment of an appropriate fine. Calimshan: This southern land has long been the battleground for warring genies. After years of struggling beneath their genasi masters, human slaves arose to follow a Chosen of Ilmater, at first using nonviolent resistance, and then erupting in full rebellion following his disappearance. They overthrew the genie lords of Calimport and Memnon, casting the remaining genies out of the cities and back to their elemental homes or into the depths of the deserts. Much of Calimshan is a chaotic place dominated by wealth, political influence, and personal power. Many pray for the return of the Chosen and the completion of his work. Others are learning to live together without genie masters, and to grudgingly accept the remaining genasi among them. Chult:The vast, choking jungles of Chult hide what many believe to be great mineral wealth, including large gemstones and veins of ore. Poisonous flora and fauna riddle the jungles, but some still brave the dangers to seek their fortunes. Some of the exotic plants that grow only in Chult fetch high prices in mainland markets. Ruined Mezro stands across the sea from Calimshan, waiting for explorers and its displaced people to cleanse the city of its undead inhabitants and uncover the treasures that lie hidden there. Eastward along the Chultan peninsula lie the remains of Thindol and Samarach. Despite the apparent fall of both civilizations, Thindol remains infested with yuan-ti, while the illusions cloaking Samarach’s mountain passes conceal the activities in that nation. Lands to the East: To the east lie many of the older nations of the Realms, including the Western Heartlands of Faerûn — those civilizations centrally located on the continent, and thereby best able to take advantage of trade routes and access to the Sea of Fallen Stars. As in the North, there are cold lands to the east, as well as more temperate regions. As one travels farther from the Sword Coast, one moves from lands not so different from one’s own to places so foreign they might as well exist on other continents or worlds — which a few of them actually have done. Cormyr: For most folk in central Faerûn, the notion of a human kingdom is inextricably linked to Cormyr. A strong realm bolstered by its loyal army (the Purple Dragons), a cadre of magical defenders and investigators (the War Wizards), and numerous wealthy and influential nobles, Cormyr is recovering from its war with Sembia and Netheril — a conflict that cost the nation much, but left the kingdom standing, and which, in the end, Netheril didn’t survive. The pride of that victory remains strong in Cormyr’s collective consciousness, even as Queen Raedra draws back from plans to permanently welcome into the realm towns that lie beyond Cormyr’s traditional borders. Cormyreans are justly proud of their homeland, and go to great lengths to guard it and its honor. Still, there is no shortage of danger in the Forest Kingdom, whether from scheming, treacherous nobles, monsters out of the Hullack Forest or the Stonelands, or some ancient, hidden magic. Cormyr is many things, but dull isn’t one of them. Rashemen: A harsh, cold land filled with hardy folk, Rashemen is a fiercely traditional nation. It is ruled by its Iron Lord, Mangan Uruk, who speaks for the power behind the throne: the Wychlaran, the society of masked witches that determine Rashemen’s course. These witches wield great powers tied to the land and its magic and guard against evil fey and vengeful spirits. A small number of male spellcasters, known as the Old Ones, create magic items and weave arcane rituals for the witches. Rashemi witches revere the Three, a triumvirate of goddesses they call Bhalla (the Den Mother), Khelliara (the Forest Maiden), and the Hidden One. Over the centuries, scholars in other lands have speculated that these deities might be faces of Chauntea, Mielikki, and Mystra, respectively. The nation’s warriors are a fierce, stoic lot, famed for their strength, endurance, and stubbornness in battle. Rashemen is a long-standing enemy of Thay, and has often thwarted that nation’s ambitions to rule Faerûn. Little pleases a Rashemi warrior more than the chance to strike down a Red Wizard in battle. Sembia: Following a period of subjugation at the hands of Netheril, Sembia is already on its way to becoming the economic power it was in prior years. Although relations are cool with the Dales and Cormyr following the most recent war, Sembian merchants are quick to dismiss previous conflicts as the work of the Netherese, and remind their former trading partners of the long and mutually profitable relationships they previously enjoyed. To prove its good intentions, Sembia has “allowed” Featherdale and Tasseldale to regain their independence, even though Sembian investors had owned much of Featherdale for nearly seventy years when the war came to an end. Before Netheril claimed Sembia as a vassal state, mercenary work and adventuring were popular livelihoods among Sembians who didn’t have local families to feed. Those endeavors are even more popular now among veterans of the war, who are better trained than their predecessors were. A few of Sembia’s less scrupulous former soldiers have taken to banditry, which offers other Sembians more opportunities for guard work. Thay: For centuries one of the greatest concentrations of magical might in Faerûn, Thay is ruled by the ancient lich, Szass Tam, and the nation’s Council of Zulkirs in a ruthless magocracy. The council’s will is enacted by regional tharchions and bureaucrats, leaving the ruling Red Wizards to focus on magical study and more important arcane matters. For a time, living mages couldn’t hope to advance to prominence in Thay: Szass Tam promoted undeath as a means of existence with boundless possibilities, and held back those who didn’t agree with this philosophy. The recent battles with the demon Eltab, however, have prompted Szass Tam to loosen this stricture — the living now have hope of ascending within the Red Wizards, even if that hope is merely to advance to a high station within the cadre of Tam’s servants. The Underdark: The Underdark: Extending miles downward and outward beneath the surface of Faerûn, and reaching to other continents as well, the great network of subterranean caverns known as the Underdark is home to all manner of strange and deadly creatures. Duergar and drow — dark reflections of dwarves and elves — live in these sunless lands, as do the svirfneblin, or deep gnomes. Most surface-dwelling folk aren’t threatened or even disturbed by denizens of the deep places, but the creatures occasionally emerge to raid or to seek some kind of goal in the surface world. Among the lands of the Underdark beneath the North are the svirfneblin city of Blingdenstone, the duergar city of Gracklstugh, and the infamous drow city of Menzoberranzan. Also prominent is Mantol-Derith, a trading post for Underdark merchants. Known by many as the Realms Below, the vast, miles-deep network of caverns, caves, and underground waterways called the Underdark is home to many strange creatures and even stranger societies. No one is quite sure the extent of this massive ecosystem, except to say that it reaches at least the breadth of the continent, and that most creatures are fully capable of surviving their entire lives within it, provided they can find enough food and safety to do so. Breathable air is plentiful, and clean water can be found. Beyond that, most surface folk only have the tales of adventurers, the survivors of attacks, and the occasional escaped captive to describe the horrors lurking below the surface.What follows are portions of the tale told by Oshgir, a half-orc warrior who was captured by a duergar raiding party, sold to a Zhentarim agent, captured by drow, and then escaped his captivity by killing an overseer and fleeing to Blingdenstone. This account was recorded by a traveling scribe of Deneir named Kimitar Thaeless and submitted to the library at Candlekeep. Most don’t believe that a half-orc was quite so eloquent in his telling, and thus contend that the scribe embellished the tale somewhat. Gracklstugh: After days of walking in the deep, dark places beneath the surface, I was led, in heavy chains, to Gracklstugh, on the shores of the Darklake. I was set to work almost immediately at a forge, to pump bellows, heft ingots, and carry barrels of quenching oil. The place is called the City of Blades, for good reason: the fine steel of the duergar is impressive, considering the quality of the iron they were starting with. Hammering, refining, and careful polishing gave the metal the strength and sleekness necessary, and diligent sharpening added wicked edges to many of the blades I handled. The duergar make their homes mainly beyond a great wall, which I never passed through. To the north, the floor of the cavern that contains the Darklake hovers dangerously low, such that in some places it is barely ten feet above the water’s surface. The whole of the great cavern glows, and the continuous flow of hot iron through the city gives the illumination a yellow cast at all times. It is frightening, if you forget where you are. More than that, it is hot. After a month or so of working under a minor smith, I quarreled with the apprentice set to supervise me, and he dared me to test the strength of his new blade. It broke, as I expected, but did the job well enough. The duergar didn’t seem to be angry that the apprentice lay dead at my feet, but it was only a short time thereafter that I was dragged off to the market to be sold. As it happened, a human was in the city on some diplomatic mission. I caught his eye, and he purchased me. Mantol-Derith: I soon learned that I was not bought entirely for my brute strength, but also for what knowledge I had of the duergar. My new owner was a member of some group he called the Zhentarim, and when I told him all I knew, he offered me my freedom and a place among his agents. Together we would journey to a place called Mantol-Derith, where I would serve as his bodyguard. From there we would go to the surface, and I could remain in his employ if I wished. Freedom and a job? How could I refuse? Mantol-Derith is a hidden place accessed by secret ways. Slaves, such as I had been, are typically not permitted to go there. Once in the cavern, I had to remain near my employer, but by keeping my eyes and ears open, I learned a lot about this place. Mantol-Derith is where duergar, drow, and svirfneblin come to trade with each other and with surface-dwellers interested in conducting business with the deep places. Its location is kept secret — I only know that it is fairly close to the Darklake. The drow sell weapons, armor, magic scrolls and potions, and fine works of art. The duergar trade mainly in fine steel, and demand high prices to do so. Deep gnomes come to market with gems, certain fungi only they are capable of growing, and salt, which much of the Underdark has little ready supply of. The surface folk bring wines, ales, and spirits, cloth, wood, paper, and a great many other goods. The laws of Mantol-Derith don’t seem to care about anything other than commerce. There must be no prohibition on what sorts of creatures can visit here — among other things, I saw a pair of mind flayer envoys doing business in the market. The most serious of crimes are theft, the use of magic to influence negotiations, and the counterfeiting of goods by mundane or magical means. Anyone discovered to be in violation is sentenced on the spot, wrapped in heavy chains, and carted off to be tossed to the bottom of the Darklake. Menzoberranzan: I eventually got away from the place, but not before I had learned more about Menzoberranzan than any sane person would care to know. Although the life of a slave can be brutally short in the City of Spiders, the drow aren’t so extravagant that they do away with every captive they take. At the same time, they are masters of punishment — it is fear of pain, not fear of death, that motivates the slaves of drow. If you’re lucky, you’ll only feel normal shackles and the occasional whip or light spell-blast. A bit less luck or more malice, and the serpent-headed whips of the priestesses come out. If you aren’t a drow in the City of Spiders, you aren’t worth a name. All manner of surface-dwellers — orcs and elves, humans and halflings — are brought here to serve as slaves to the drow in their refuge. The constant fear of punishment, from one’s mistress or another, more powerful drow, keeps most slaves obedient, even when they aren’t directly supervised. The great cavern of the city is filled with tall spires, and homes both great and small are carved into the stalagmites and stalactites that pierce the darkness. Gentle illumination from magic or glowing fungus decorates some homes and businesses, as well as the mansions of the high houses of the city, eight of which have positioned themselves above all others. While the lesser houses dance and fight and scheme for advantages over each other, they all live under the heel of House Baenre and the Matron Mother, who rules the city in Lolth’s name. On a large plateau high above the cavern floor is Tier Breche, also called the Academy, where the city trains its priestesses, mages, and noble warriors. The city’s market is centrally located, and rothé are raised on an isle toward the eastern edge of the city. If you are ever so unfortunate as to be enslaved by the drow of Menzoberranzan, my advice to you is simple and stern: do as you are commanded, avoid insulting their goddess (which means don’t even brush off a spider crawling on you), and attempt escape only if you are desperate or sure of your survival. If you are given the proper opportunity, as I was, you might discover that the neck of a drow snaps with surprising ease. Menzoberranzan fills a large vault that was formerly a lair of giant spiders and beholders. The vault is known by its dwarven name, Araurilcaurak (“Great Pillar Cavern”), because of Narbondel, the giant rock pillar at the vault’s center that joins floor and ceiling. The cavern is roughly shaped like an arrowhead, with the pool of Donigarten at its tip, and stretching two miles across at its widest point. The ceiling rises a thousand feet high, and the floor is studded with stalagmites.Two areas rise above the rest of the city: Tier Breche, the side cavern occupied by the Academy where most drow citizens are trained for adulthood; and the larger Qu’ellarz’orl (or House-Loft), a plateau that is home to many of the city’s mightiest noble houses, separated from the lower city by a forest of giant mushrooms. From either of these heights, a surveyor can view the city. The view shows rows of spired stone castles, their sculpted highlights lit by the soft, tinted flows of permanent faerie fire lights. Blingdenstone: My initial joy at reaching Blingdenstone was quickly tempered. The deep gnomes don’t seem to like visitors they can’t recognize or identify, and being a half-orc didn’t help matters in the least for me. After dodging arrows loosed from the high walls of the city, I gave up on going through the gate and snuck in through a small cart tunnel, emptying out part of a load of ore to make room for myself. I managed to avoid conflict with the guards that discovered me in the cart. When they ordered me to stand, I did so with my weapon held at my side, and I turned to display my back to them. When they saw that it was covered in lashes and the scars of the priestesses’ fanged whips, and they realized that my blade was of drow manufacture (though I clearly was not), they were willing to believe my story. Though the gnomes kept me under watch, I was allowed to regain my strength for a few days, and I saw a bit of their community in the meantime. Once I was inside the city, I could tell that it’s not much of a city at all. The svirfneblin all live in close contact with one another, and this togetherness can be disconcerting, especially for someone accustomed to small luxuries like shutters on windows and doors on privies. The homes are all smoothed-over natural stone, with little evidence of hard corners. Each industry has a portion of the city to itself: trading, smithing, mining, and the growing of a special fungus crop. Still many of the old tunnels and caverns remain unclaimed and sealed off, whether to guard against invasion or perhaps because of what now dwells there, I don’t know. If you’re welcomed long enough to the city, you can trade for fine goods and armor here; the gnomes’ chain mail and mining picks seem most worth acquiring. Before sending me on my way, the gnomes were kind enough to give me a pick, a dagger, and some of their trillimac, an odd fungus that can be made into something like bread. It’s a bit spongy, but it doesn’t spoil quickly, and it got me to the surface before I starved to death.

Aasimar: Aasimar (pronounced AH-sih-mar) are mortals who carry a spark of the Upper Planes within their souls. Whether descended from an angelic being or infused with celestial power, they can fan that spark to bring light, healing, and heavenly fury. Aasimar can arise among any population of mortals. They resemble their parents, but they live for up to 160 years and have features that hint at their celestial heritage, such as metallic freckles, luminous eyes, a halo, or the skin color of an angel (silver, opalescent green, or coppery red). These features start subtle and become obvious when the aasimar learns to reveal their full celestial nature. Dragonborn: The ancestors of dragonborn hatched from the eggs of chromatic and metallic dragons. One story holds that these eggs were blessed by the dragon gods Bahamut and Tiamat, who wanted to populate the multiverse with people created in their image. Another story claims that dragons created the first dragonborn without the gods’ blessings. Whatever their origin, dragonborn have made homes for themselves on the Material Plane. Dragonborn look like wingless, bipedal dragons— scaly, bright-eyed, and thick-boned with horns on their heads—and their coloration and other features are reminiscent of their draconic ancestors. Dwarves: Dwarves were raised from the earth in the elder days by a deity of the forge. Called by various names on different worlds—Moradin, Reorx, and others—that god gave dwarves an affinity for stone and metal and for living underground. The god also made them resilient like the mountains, with a life span of about 350 years. Squat and often bearded, the original dwarves carved cities and strongholds into mountainsides and under the earth. Their oldest legends tell of conflicts with the monsters of mountaintops and the Underdark, whether those monsters were towering giants or subterranean horrors. Inspired by those tales, dwarves of any culture often sing of valorous deeds—especially of the little overcoming the mighty. On some worlds in the multiverse, the first settlements of dwarves were built in hills or mountains, and the families who trace their ancestry to those settlements call themselves hill dwarves or mountain dwarves. Elf: Created by the god Corellon, the first elves could change their forms at will. They lost this ability when Corellon cursed them for plotting with the deity Lolth, who tried and failed to usurp Corellon’s dominion. When Lolth was cast into the Abyss, most elves renounced her and earned Corellon’s forgiveness, but that which Corellon had taken from them was lost forever. No longer able to shape-shift at will, the elves retreated to the Feywild, where their sorrow was deepened by that plane’s influence. Over time, curiosity led many of them to explore other planes of existence, including worlds in the Material Plane. Elves have pointed ears and lack facial and body hair. They live for around 750 years, and they don’t sleep but instead enter a trance when they need to rest. In that state, they remain aware of their surroundings while immersing themselves in memories and meditations. An environment subtly transforms elves after they inhabit it for a millennium or more, and it grants them certain kinds of magic. Drow, high elves, and wood elves are examples of elves who have been transformed thus. Drow typically dwell in the Underdark and have been shaped by it. Some drow individuals and societies avoid the Underdark altogether yet carry its magic. High elves have been infused with the magic of crossings between the Feywild and the Material Plane. Wood elves carry the magic of primeval forests within themselves. They are known by many other names, including wild elves, green elves, and forest elves.Sea elves fell in love with the wild beauty of the ocean in the earliest days of the multiverse. While other elves traveled from realm to realm, sea elves navigated the currents and explored the waters of many worlds. Today these elves can be found wherever oceans exist, as well as in the Elemental Plane of Water. Shadar-kai are the elves of the Shadowfell, originally drawn to that dread realm by the Raven Queen. Over the centuries, some of them have continued to serve her, while others have ventured into the Material Plane to forge their own destinies. Once shadar-kai were Fey like the rest of their elven kin; now they exist in a state between life and death, thanks to being transformed by the Shadowfell’s grim energy. Shadar-kai have ashen skin tones, and while they’re in the Shadowfell, they also become wizened, reflecting the somber nature of that gloomy plane. Gnomes: Gnomes are magical folk created by gods of invention, illusions, and life underground. The earliest gnomes were seldom seen by other folk due to the gnomes’ secretive nature and their propensity for living in forests and burrows. What they lacked in size, they made up for in cleverness. They confounded predators with traps and labyrinthine tunnels. They also learned magic from gods like Garl Glittergold, Baervan Wildwanderer, and Baravar Cloakshadow, who visited them in disguise. That magic eventually created the lineages of forest gnomes and rock gnomes.Gnomes are petite folk with big eyes and pointed ears, who live around 425 years. Many gnomes like the feeling of a roof over their head, even if that “roof” is nothing more than a hat. Goliath: Towering over most folk, goliaths are distant descendants of giants. Each goliath bears the favors of the first giants—favors that manifest in various supernatural boons, including the ability to quickly grow and temporarily approach the height of goliaths’ gigantic kin. Goliaths have physical characteristics that are reminiscent of the giants in their family lines. For example, some goliaths look like stone giants, while others resemble fire giants. Whatever giants they count as kin, goliaths have forged their own path in the multiverse—unencumbered by the internecine conflicts that have ravaged giantkind for ages—and seek heights above those reached by their ancestors. Halflings: Cherished and guided by gods who value life, home, and hearth, halflings gravitate toward bucolic havens where family and community help shape their lives. That said, many halflings possess a brave and adventurous spirit that leads them on journeys of discovery, affording them the chance to explore a bigger world and make new friends along the way. Their size—similar to that of a human child—helps them pass through crowds unnoticed and slip through tight spaces. Anyone who has spent time around halflings, particularly halfling adventurers, has likely witnessed the storied “luck of the halflings” in action. When a halfling is in mortal danger, an unseen force seems to intervene on the halfling’s behalf. Many halflings believe in the power of luck, and they attribute their unusual gift to one or more of their benevolent gods, including Yondalla, Brandobaris, and Charmalaine. The same gift might contribute to their robust life spans (about 150 years). Human: Found throughout the multiverse, humans are as varied as they are numerous, and they endeavor to achieve as much as they can in the years they are given. Their ambition and resourcefulness are commended, respected, and feared on many worlds. Humans are as diverse in appearance as the people of Earth, and they have many gods. Scholars dispute the origin of humanity, but one of the earliest known human gatherings is said to have occurred in Sigil, the torus-shaped city at the center of the multiverse and the place where the Common language was born. From there, humans could have spread to every part of the multiverse, bringing the City of Doors’ cosmopolitanism with them. Orcs: Orcs trace their creation to Gruumsh, a powerful god who roamed the wide open spaces of the Material Plane. Gruumsh equipped his children with gifts to help them wander great plains, vast caverns, and churning seas and to face the monsters that lurk there. Even when they turn their devotion to other gods, orcs retain Gruumsh’s gifts: endurance, determination, and the ability to see in darkness.Orcs are, on average, tall and broad. They have gray skin, ears that are sharply pointed, and prominent lower canines that resemble small tusks. Orc youths on some worlds are told about their ancestors’ great travels and travails. Inspired by those tales, many of those orcs wonder when Gruumsh will call on them to match the heroic deeds of old and if they will prove worthy of his favor. Other orcs are happy to leave old tales in the past and find their own way. Tieflings: Tieflings are either born in the Lower Planes or have fiendish ancestors who originated there. A tiefling (pronounced TEE-fling) is linked by blood to a devil, a demon, or some other Fiend. This connection to the Lower Planes is the tiefling’s fiendish legacy, which comes with the promise of power yet has no effect on the tiefling’s moral outlook. A tiefling chooses whether to embrace or lament their fiendish legacy. The three legacies are described below. Abbysal, The entropy of the Abyss, the chaos of Pandemonium, and the despair of Carceri call to tieflings who have the abyssal legacy. Horns, fur, tusks, and peculiar scents are common physical features of such tieflings, most of whom have the blood of demons coursing through their veins. Chthonic, Tieflings who have the chthonic legacy feel not only the tug of Carceri but also the greed of Gehenna and the gloom of Hades. Some of these tieflings look cadaverous. Others possess the unearthly beauty of a succubus, or they have physical features in common, with a night hag, a yugoloth, or some other Neutral Evil fiendish ancestor. Infernal, The infernal legacy connects tieflings not only to Gehenna but also the Nine Hells and the raging battlefields of Acheron. Horns, spines, tails, golden eyes, and a faint odor of sulfur or smoke are common physical features of such tieflings, most of who trace their ancestry to devils. Bugbears: Neither bugs nor bears, bugbears are the hulking cousins of goblins and hobgoblins. With roots in the Feywild, early bugbears resided in hidden places, in hard-to-reach and shadowed spaces. Long ago and from out of the corner of your eye, they came to the Material Plane, urged to spread throughout the multiverse by the conquering god Maglubiyet. Centuries later, they still bear a fey gift for lurking just out of sight, and many of them have sneaked away from that god’s influence. They are long of limb and covered in coarse hair, with wedge-shaped ears and pointed teeth. Despite their formidable build, bugbears are quiet skulkers, thanks to a fey magic that allows them to hide in spaces seemingly too small for them. Centaurs: Centaurs gallop throughout the multiverse and trace their origins to many different realms. The centaurs presented here hail from the Feywild and mystically resonate with the natural world. From the waist up, they resemble elves, displaying all the elf varieties of skin tone. From the waist down, they have the bodies of horses. Deep Gnomes: Deep gnomes, or svirfneblin, are natives of the Underdark and are suffused with that subterranean realm’s magic. They can supernaturally camouflage themselves, and their svirfneblin magic renders them difficult to locate. These abilities have enabled them to survive for generations among the perils of the Underdark. Like other gnomes, deep gnomes can live for centuries, up to 500 years. Duergar: Duergar are dwarves whose ancestors were transformed by centuries living in the deepest places of the Underdark. That chthonic realm is saturated with strange magical energy, and over generations, early duergar absorbed traces of it. They were further altered when mind flayers and other Aberrations invaded and performed horrific experiments on them. Fueled by Underdark magic, those experiments left early duergar with psionic powers, which have been passed down to their descendants. In time, they liberated themselves from their aberrant tyrants and forged a new life for themselves in the Underdark and beyond. Like other dwarves, duergar typically have a life span of 350 years. Genasi: Tracing their ancestry to the genies of the Elemental Planes, each genasi can tap into the power of one of the elements. Air, earth, fire, and water—these are the four pillars of the Material Plane and the four types of genasi. Some genasi are direct descendants of a genie, while others were born to non-genasi parents who lived near a place suffused by a genie’s magic.A typical genasi has a life span of 120 years. Changeling: With ever-changing appearances, changelings reside in many societies undetected. Each changeling can supernaturally adopt any face they like. For some changelings, a new face is only a disguise. For other changelings, a new face may reveal an aspect of their soul. The first changelings in the multiverse appeared in the Feywild, and the wondrous, mutable essence of that plane lingers in changelings today—even in those changelings who have never set foot in the fey realm. Each changeling decides how to use their shape-shifting ability, channeling either the peril or the joy of the Feywild. Sometimes they adopt new forms for the sake of mischief or malice, and other times they don a new identity to right wrongs or delight the downtrodden. In their true form, changelings appear faded, their features almost devoid of detail. It is rare to see a changeling in that form, for a typical changeling changes their shape the way others might change clothes. A casual shape—one created on the spur of the moment, with no depth or history—is called a mask. A mask can be used to express a mood or to serve a specific purpose and then might never be used again. However, many changelings develop identities that have more depth, crafting whole personas complete with histories and beliefs. A changeling adventurer might have personas for many situations, including negotiation, investigation, and combat. Personas can be shared by multiple changelings; a community might be home to three healer changelings, with whoever is on duty adopting the persona of Andrea, the gentle physician. Personas can even be passed down through a family, allowing a younger changeling to take advantage of contacts established by the persona’s previous users. Fairy: The Feywild is home to many fantastic peoples, including fairies. Fairies are a wee folk, but not nearly as much so as their pixie and sprite friends. The first fairies spoke Elvish, Goblin, or Sylvan, and encounters with human visitors prompted many of them to learn Common as well. Infused with the magic of the Feywild, most fairies look like Small elves with insectile wings, but each fairy has a special physical characteristic that sets the fairy apart. Firbolg: Distant cousins of giants, the first firbolgs wandered the primeval forests of the multiverse, and the magic of those forests entwined itself with the firbolgs’ souls. Centuries later, that magic still thrums inside a firbolg, even one who has never lived under the boughs of a great forest. A firbolg’s magic is an obscuring sort, which allowed their ancestors to pass through a forest without disturbing it. So deep is the connection between a firbolg and the wild places of the world that they can communicate with flora and fauna. Firbolgs can live up to 500 years. Githyanki: Once members of a people who escaped servitude to mind flayers, githyanki split from their cousins, githzerai, and fled to the Astral Plane. In that timeless, silvery realm, githyanki honed their psionic powers and built a great city called Tu’narath. They have since spread throughout the multiverse, starting in outposts outside the Astral Plane, called creches, where time passes and their children can reach adulthood. A lanky people with skin tones of yellows, greens, and browns, githyanki complement their physical prowess with psionic might, instilled in them by mind flayers and cultivated over eons in the Astral Plane. Now all githyanki can use their psychic bond with that plane to access splinters of knowledge left behind by beings who travel, live, and die among the silver astral clouds. Githyanki who reside in the Astral Plane can live indefinitely. Githzerai: Githzeri migrated to the Everchanging Chaos of Limbo after the ancient schism that split their ancestors from their cousins, githyanki. Limbo is a roiling maelstrom of matter and energy, collapsing and reforming without purpose or direction, until a creature exerts deliberate will to stabilize it. Through their potent psionic power, githzerai carved a home for themselves amid the chaos. As the ages passed, githzerai explorers ranged out to other planes and worlds of the multiverse. Githzerai are generally slender, with speckled skin in shades of yellow, green, or brown. Eons of cultivating their mental powers within the endless chaos of Limbo have imbued githzerai with the ability to shape psionic energy to protect themselves and probe minds. Goblin: A subterranean folk, goblins can be found in every corner of the multiverse, often beside their bugbear and hobgoblin kin. Long before the god Maglubiyet conquered them, early goblins served in the court of the Queen of Air and Darkness, one of the Feywild’s archfey. Goblins thrived in her dangerous domain thanks to a special boon from her—a supernatural knack for finding the weak spots in foes larger than themselves and for getting out of trouble. Goblins brought this fey boon with them to worlds across the Material Plane, even if they don’t remember the fey realm they inhabited before Maglubiyet’s rise. Now many goblins pursue their own destinies, escaping the plots of both archfey and gods. Hobgoblin: Hobgoblins trace their origins to the ancient courts of the Feywild, where they first appeared with their goblin and bugbear kin. Many of them were driven from the Feywild by the conquering god Maglubiyet, who marshaled them as soldiers, but the fey realm left its mark; wherever they are in the multiverse, they continue to channel an aspect of the Feywild’s rule of reciprocity, which creates a mystical bond between the giver and the receiver of a gift.On some worlds, such bonds lead hobgoblins to form communities with deep ties to one another vast hobgoblin le,gions have emerged, with ranks of devoted soldiers famed for their unity.Hobgoblins are generally taller than their goblin cousins but not quite as big as bugbears. They have curved, pointed ears and noses that turn bright red or blue during displays of emotion. Kenku: Feathered folk who resemble ravens, kenku are blessed with keen observation and supernaturally accurate memories. None of them can remember the origin of the first kenku, however, and they often joke that there are as many kenku origin stories as there are kenku. Some of them paint their genesis as a curse, being a flightless bird people doomed to mimic other people’s creations. Other kenku recite cryptic but beautiful poems about their advent being a blessed event in which they were sent into the multiverse to observe and catalog its many wonders. Whatever their true origin, kenku are most often found in the Shadowfell and the Material Plane, and they tend to have the coloration typical of ravens. Kobold: Some of the smallest draconic creatures in the multiverse, kobolds display their draconic ancestry in the glint of their scales and in their roars. Legends tell of the first kobolds emerging from the Underdark near the lairs of the earliest dragons. In some lands, kobolds serve chromatic or metallic dragons—even worshiping them as divine beings. In other places, kobolds know too well how dangerous those dragons can be and help others defend against draconic destruction. Whatever their relationship to dragons, kobold scales tend to be rust colored, although the occasional kobold sports a scale color more akin to that of a chromatic or a metallic dragon. A kobold’s cry can express a range of emotion: anger, resolve, elation, fear, and more. Regardless of the emotion expressed, their cry resonates with draconic power. Lizard Folk: The saurian lizardfolk are thought by some sages to be distant cousins of dragonborn and kobolds. Despite their resemblance to those other scaled folk, however, lizardfolk are their own people and have lived on the worlds of the Material Plane since the worlds’ creation. Gifted by the gods with remarkable physical defenses and a mystical connection to the natural world, lizardfolk can survive with just their wits in situations that would be deadly for other folk. Because of that fact, many lizardfolk myths state that their people were placed by the gods in the Material Plane to guard its natural wonders. Lizardfolk have colorful scales and exhibit a wide array of scale patterns. Their individual facial features are as varied as those of lizards. Satyr: Originating in the Feywild—a realm of pure emotion— satyrs thrive on the energy of merriment. They resemble elves but have goatlike legs, cloven hooves, and ram or goat horns. The magic of the fey realm has given them an innate ability to perform, to delight, and to resist magical intrusion. While they’re usually found in the Feywild, satyrs do wander to other planes of existence, most often to the Material Plane. There they seek to bring a bit of their home plane’s splendor to other worlds. Tabaxi: Created by the Cat Lord—a divine being of the Upper Planes—to blend the qualities of humanoids and cats, tabaxi are a varied people in both attitude and appearance. In some lands, tabaxi live like the cats they resemble, naturally curious and at home in playful environments. In other places, tabaxi live as other folk do, not exhibiting the feline behavior the Cat Lord intended. Tabaxi’s appearance is as varied as their attitudes. Some tabaxi have features or patterning in their fur like tigers, jaguars, or other big cats, while others have appearances more like a house cat. Still others have unique patterns or might style their fur to their preferences—or might even be hairless! Yuan-ti: Yuan-ti were originally humans who transformed themselves into serpent folk through ancient rituals. Most yuan-ti were corrupted into monsters by those rites, but some yuan-ti instead became a new people who mix characteristics of humans and snakes. Blessed with resistance to magical and poisonous effects by the rituals that created them, each of these yuan-ti manifests their serpentine heritage in a variety of ways: a forked tongue, snake eyes, a snakelike nose, or some other ophidian characteristic. However a yuan-ti looks, they have the power to pursue great good or evil in the multiverse. Giants: The myths of giants across the Material Plane differ in many details, but most of them portray giants as descendants of a progenitor god, typically Annam, the All-Father. Giants believe they are nearly divine, and they are inclined to view their existence as part of a mythic story that is still unfolding. Unlike some other powerful, ancient creatures (such as dragons), giants don’t typically exalt themselves and demand worship from lesser beings. Rather, they are often drawn to follow gods—and sometimes other powerful beings—who help them live out their part in that epic saga.At the largest scale, the ordning establishes the relative positions of the six main kinds of giants, with storm giants at the top, followed (in order) by cloud giants, fire giants, frost giants, and stone giants, with hill giants at the bottom. Other creatures of the Giant type—such as ettins, fomorians, and trolls—are not counted as part of the ordning, placing them functionally below the hill giants.At a smaller scale, every giant has a precise place within the larger framework of the ordning, and each kind of giant has a different way of assigning that place. Cloud giants rank themselves based on wealth, fire giants based on crafting skill, frost giants based on physical strength, and stone giants based on a combination of artistry and rock throwing. Hill giants give their respect to larger and stronger giants without putting much thought into hierarchical ranks. Only storm giants, largely solitary and imagining themselves above such petty concerns, have no interest in ranking themselves. Regardless of a giant’s ranking within its kind, no giant can transcend the ordning of the six giant kinds; the most accomplished fire giant artisan ranks below the poorest cloud giant, for example. Dragons: The most comprehensive histories suggest Toril (the world of the Forgotten Realms setting) has not always known dragons, at least not in their current forms. Many scholars theorize that Toril’s dragons evolved from some reptilian ancestor. And though it’s possible to read these theories as contradicting the story of “Elegy for the First World,” it’s also possible to imagine that the newly formed Toril, fragmented from the First World, retained a hazy memory of the full ideal of dragonkind, which then took thousands of years to manifest. Certainly, the dragons of Toril cleave closely to the draconic archetypes (Red, Blue, Green, White, Black or Metalis) and although Bahamut and Tiamat have sometimes been known by other names on that world (such as Xymor and Tchazzar), they have always had a part to play in the world’s divine drama.Bahamut and Tiamat, the primordial dragons and the purported creators of the First World, are the closest things to gods among dragonkind. Since they share the same fundamental connection to the Material Plane as their dragon offspring, Bahamut and Tiamat are ontologically distinct from the gods that hail from the Outer Planes. But for practical purposes, they are divine—worshiped by mortal creatures, able to grant cleric spells to their followers, and both ageless and immortal. Since the destruction of the First World, both primordial dragons now dwell in the Outer Planes—Bahamut on Mount Celestia and Tiamat in the Nine Hells.

Red Wizards of Thay: The Red Wizards continue to meddle across Toril, hunting artifacts and unearthing magics to support their dreams of global domination. They serve the will of their ruler and Lich Szass Tam and have a penchant for necromancy and the undead. Luskan: Still untrusted across the realms, the Arcane Brotherhood attempts to present a reformed image to the Sword Coast. If they have truly changed is up for debate, and their unofficial rule of Luskan continues. The High Captains cause problems for all seagoing folks and the City remains in constant conflict with itself and its neighbors, particularly neverwinter. Demonic Corruption: Demons are running wild in the Underdark, their madness is not beginning to affect the surface world. These demons may have cultists aiding them or simply be breaking through reality on their own. They seek to undermine all mortals and drag them to corruption. Netheril Remnants: After a failed attempt at reclaiming their lost empire, Netherese enclaves continue to resist defeat. Across the sword coast and abroad, the forces of the defeated Netheril Returned and Shadowvar cause problems for the Lords Alliance, Independent Realms, and Cormyr. Diabolic Interference: Devils continue to undermine all aspects of life, particularly the nobility. Trading power and influence to morally dubious nobles for unspeakable favours and acts of cruelty against the common folk. Cult of the Dragon Remnants: Remnant cells of Dragon Cultists of Tiamat continue to seek out powerful dragons to serve. Being defeated and prevented from summoning Tiamat to the mortal plane still stings and the cult is hard at work to get revenge. They are often found in league with dragon and seek to bring ruin to the realms. Zhentharim: The criminal network of the Zhentharim continues to squeeze the city of Waterdeep. They scheme to install one of their own as open lord and secure their powerbase. They can be reasonable and negotiated with, for the right price. Lord’s Alliance: Battling foes and threats on all sides, the Lords Alliance stands strong but is beginning to falter. They need heroes to turn the tide against the forces assailing the realms. These champions of law and order refuse to let evil and lawlessness flourish in their kingdoms. They stand united in principle, but political fractures are begining to form. Orc Unrest: Although broken, the Many Arrows Tribe is growing and unsettled. If they gather enough of a force to their banner, a full blown invasion from the savage north may ensue. They cannot be reasoned with and may turn to other chaotic forces or evil beings in order to achieve their goals of conquest and battle. Cult of Elemental Evil: Having failed to bring on the apocalypse has not dissuaded the Cult of Elemental Evil from causing chaos. The 4 cults are reaching out to their Elder Evils and trying once more to sow ruin. Where they operate, the elements are out of balance brining them into direct conflict with Druids. The Emerald Enclave: fierce defenders of nature, this network of Druids and Rangers protects the wilds from dark forces and plots against the very land itself. Some radicals within the group may go a step too far and be at odds with civilisation and settled folks acros the realms. The Harpers: an alliance of good-hearted adventurers, mainly bards, wizards, and rogues, are fighting the good fight wherever they are needed. They operate with no allegiance to any ruler, only to the good of the realms and its peoples which can put them at odds with law enforcement. Aberrant Influences: denizens of the far realm, Aboleth, Mind Flayers, Star Spaw, and Elder Evils stir in the dark places of the world, intent on unraveling the minds of mortals for alien and unknowable reasons. Some mad cultists or misguided magicians are joining forces with these alien creatures and spreading their corruption. The Dead Three: Followers of Bane, Myrkul, and Bhaal are causing chaos across the Sword Coast. They spread their god’s agendas and appear to be loosely coordinating with one another. How long they can cooperate is anyone guess given the dark agendas and infighting inherent to the alliance of evil. The Last Crusade: A holy alliance between militant followers of Helm, Torm, and Lathander have begun a sweeping crusade and inquisition to mercilessly root out cultists or anyone they deem to be a dark magic user. Warlocks and dark wizards have gone to ground, and even more law abiding magicians are wary around these zealous individuals. Amnnian Armies: Amn sees opportunity to the north, the Lord’s Alliance is spread thin and unable to fend off all threats. Amn is gathering strength and waiting for the time to strike and finally seize territory. However, the mighty trading empire cannot endanger its commercial interests so it must be certain of victory before starting all out war with the north. The Ordening: Giants across Toril are attempting to upset the longstanding Orderning, changing the hierarchy of various types of giants. The Storm King, leader of all giants, is not happy with the challenge. The internal conflict threatens to crush the small folk as the giants fight amongst themselves. Cormanthan Conflict: The Purple Dragon nights have rallied a bloodied nation of Cormyr to fend off the remaining armies of the Shadowvar of Netheril. An alliance with the Elves of Evereska is on the horizon which could turn the tide. Champions are needed to root out conspiracies and support the armed conflicts as they arise.

Magic in the Realms: From the simplest cantrip to the mightiest workings of High Magic, from the blessings of healing mercy to the raising of mighty heroes from the dead, magic permeates the Realms. Any understanding of magic begins, and ends, with an understanding of the Weave. The Weave is an essential element of the universe, running through everything in unseen threads. Some creatures, objects, and locations have deep, intrinsic ties to the Weave and can perform extraordinary feats that come naturally to them (a beholder’s flight, a vampire’s charming gaze, a dragon’s breath weapon, and so forth). Creatures with the necessary talent and skill can also manipulate the Weave to perform magic by casting spells.The Weave isn’t normally visible or detectable, even through the use of spells. Detect magic doesn’t let you perceive the Weave, for instance. The Weave isn’t magic, precisely, any more than a collection of threads is a garment; it’s the raw material from which the tapestry of magic is woven. In two senses, both the metaphorical and the real, the goddess Mystra is the Weave. She is its keeper and tender, but all three times the goddess of magic has died or been separated from her divinity (twice as Mystra, and once as her predecessor, Mystryl), magic has been twisted or has failed entirely. With Mystra’s last death and the coming of the Spellplague, the Weave was thought destroyed, and the term lost its significance. Since the end of the most recent Sundering, both Mystra and the Weave have returned to their roles of centuries past, and spells and magic items are more reliable than they had been while the Spellplague raged. The inborn magical abilities of certain creatures, the acquired supernatural powers of people such as monks, and psionic abilities are similar in that their users don’t manipulate the Weave in the customary way that spellcasters do. The mental state of the user is vitally important: monks and some psionics-users train long and hard to attain the right frame of mind, while creatures with supernatural powers have that mind-set in their nature. How these abilities are related to the Weave remains a matter of debate; many students of the arcane believe that the use of the so-called Unseen Art is an aspect of magical talent that can’t be directly studied or taught. Magic Items: Where a spell effect is brought to life by manipulating the threads of the Weave, the creation of a magic item ties some of those threads together in a specific way, to produce the desired effect for as long as the item lasts. The Weave provides immediately available energy for spells and also enables those who know the craft to harness that energy inside an object until it is called forth by its user (who, of course, need not be a spellcaster). In some cases, the magic of an item must be tied to its wielder, representing an entwining of the threads of the Weave between wielder and object known as attunement. As with all matters related to magic, the number of items to which a single being can be attuned is limited, but the benefits of such a relationship can be considerable. Mythals: Mythals are some of the most powerful magic in the world of Toril, constructs that bind and shape the Weave in a particular location, sometimes so powerfully that the rules of magic or even reality can be bent or rewritten. A mythal is a permanent field of overlapping magical wards and effects tied to a specific location. In its original usage, this term applied to the works of High Magic that protected ancient elven cities. It has since been expanded to cover all manner of similar protections, from the immense floating cities of fallen Netheril to the wards of Silverymoon to the smaller — but no less effective — workings of magic that keep safe important locations like Candlekeep. Even the many-layered wards and effects of Undermountain, beneath Waterdeep, are considered a mythal by some. Most mythals are defensive in nature, designed to restrict the kinds of magic that can be employed in the area they govern, and the most common restrictions are concerned with teleportation and conjuration magic. Evereska’s mythal influences the weather of the area and wards its inhabitants against disease, while the mythal of undersea Myth Nantar makes its waters breathable and more comfortable for creatures not suited to underwater life. In many ways, a mythal is less like a spell or a magic item than a living creation of magic, capable of growing stronger or weaker, absorbing damage, or dying. Mythals can also sometimes heal themselves, as did the mythal of Silverymoon, blossoming out of the Moonbridge following Mystra’s most recent return. Each active mythal has one or more beings attuned to its effects, who can ignore any restrictions on spellcasting, can direct targetable effects of the mythal, and can teach others of appropriate skill how to access its secrets. Except in cities such as Silverymoon and Evereska, adventurers are most likely to encounter damaged or failing mythals in ruined locations where magic once had great influence. Although an identify spell might reveal some of the simplest effects of a mythal, active restrictions on spellcasting can be discovered only by trying (and failing) to cast a prohibited spell. A powerful spellcaster might learn how to access or repair a mythal without assistance, but such feats are legendary, and rarely attempted by even the most renowned of mages. Any elven city with Myth in its title (Myth Drannor, Myth Glaurach, Myth Nantar, and others) has, or had, a mythal protecting it. The ruins of such places are certain to have unpredictable effects related to their damaged or destroyed mythals. Summoning Creatures: Summoning or conjuring creatures from other planes on a permanent basis is difficult and requires significant knowledge of magic. Specially designed rituals and precautions must be taken to prevent the creature escaping or worse, possessing the summoner. Weave-Affecting Magic: Certain spells allow casters to perceive or manipulate the effects of the Weave in particular ways. The Weave itself also has irregularities that affect spells. Detect Magic. Detect magic reveals threads of the Weave woven together through spellcasting, or the “knots” of the Weave in a magic item. A magic item appears enmeshed in the silvery-blue threads of the Weave, and the way the threads are arranged reveals what type of magic is used (necromancy, abjuration, and so on). Similarly, active spells and areas imbued with magic are limned in a silvery network of threads, which might twist and reknit themselves depending on the magic involved. Dispel Magic. Dispel magic unwinds and prematurely ends magic, unraveling whatever construct of the Weave was put in place. Antimagic. Antimagic effects can dispel existing spells and unravel any magic woven from the Weave. Permanent effects, such as those from magic items, are usually suppressed by antimagic: while the effect is within an area of antimagic, the construct of the Weave unravels, but the threads snap back into place once the magic is outside the area. Dead Magic. In rare areas of dead magic, the Weave is absent. Not only do spells and magic items cease to function, but even the supernatural abilities of creatures that are innately tied to the Weave might fail as the knot of the Weave they carry with them unravels. Wild Magic. In an area of wild magic, the Weave becomes “tangled,” spontaneously forming its own constructs and resulting magic. It also tends to twist the constructs of the Weave created by spellcasting, causing unexpected results. The Occult: this is a loose term used to describe all manner of strange and dark practices and beings. This includes, demonology, diabolism, witchcraft, bloodmagic, necromancy, and working with alien beings of the far realm and more. Religion in the Realms: Though wizards work wonders with their Art, and adventurers take their fates into their own hands, it is on the gods that most folk in the Forgotten Realms depend when they have need. The gods play a role in the lives of nearly everyone, from the mightiest lord to the meanest urchin. The various races of Toril worship their pantheons, which remain largely the same from region to region, with different cultures and societies emphasizing some deities over others. Although exceptions exist — the gods of Mulhorand, for example — all the gods are revered across all of Faerûn. The average person worships different gods in different contexts. Most vocations have a patron deity: farmers make offerings to Chauntea for the prosperity of their crops, clerks sharpen their quills with a prayer to Deneir, while pious merchants remember to set coins aside for Waukeen at the end of the day. Most people worship a deity associated with their livelihood, family, or home, while others feel called to a particular god for a variety of reasons. Individuals often carry or wear a small token of their favored deity: a pendant or a pin in the image of the god’s holy symbol, or some other personal keepsake. In addition, people regularly venerate gods based on their needs and circumstances: a farmer whose favored deity is Chauntea would pray to Amaunator for a few clear, sunny days, and a Waterdhavian noble who habitually worships Deneir would give thanks to Sune after a successful coming-out party for her son. Even priests of particular gods acknowledge the roles that other deities play in the world and in their lives. In general, worshipers view their relationships with the gods as practical and reciprocal: they pray and make offerings because that is how one invites the blessings of the gods and turns away their wrath. These prayers and other acts of devotion are generally performed quietly at the shrine in one’s household or community, or occasionally in a temple dedicated to one’s deity, when a worshiper feels the need to “come knocking upon a god’s door” to ask for attention. Forms of worship are often acts of veneration: giving thanks for favor shown, making requests for future blessings, and offering praise for the deity’s intercessions, large and small. Because most folk in Faerûn don’t want to attract the ire of the cruel or savage gods, beseeching them to keep the peace is also an act of worship. A hunter or a farmer might make offerings to Malar in hopes of keeping predators at bay, and a sailor might pray to Umberlee that she withhold her wrath for the duration of a voyage. The Faerûnian pantheon isn’t the only one known on Toril. Nonhuman races honor their own gods, for example, and people in faraway lands are known to worship altogether different gods. Occasionally, foreigners bring the worship of these gods to Faerûn. In addition, on rare occasions a new god comes into being, perhaps a mortal elevated to godhood or a deity whose arrival was foretold by prophets and leaders of new religions. In cosmopolitan places such as Waterdeep and Calimshan, small shrines and temples to strange gods spring up from time to time. The burgeoning worship of a new deity is rarely a concern to the other gods of the Faerûnian pantheon, and the people who revere those deities, except when the newcomer’s area of concern directly competes with that of an established deity. The methods of resolving such conflicts range from friendly dueling festivals or rites meant to emphasize the glory of one god over another, to campaigns of outright religious bloodshed. Over generations, a new god might become a settled-in member of the pantheon. Indeed, some scholars posit that Faerûn has many “immigrant” gods, who joined the pantheon’s ranks so long ago that their foreign origins are lost in antiquity. Over and over, mourning bells have tolled for some of the deities of the Realms. Gods were struck down during the Time of Troubles, when the Spellplague wrought its destruction, and most recently when Netheril fell. Some deities have even been slain by mortals wielding impossibly powerful magic. When a god withdraws from a pantheon, divine magic stops flowing to the faithful, and miracles and omens associated with that god cease, that deity’s priesthood loses faith, and holy sites are abandoned or taken over by other faiths. To the deity’s worshipers in the world, it is immaterial whether the god is truly dead or merely dormant — the consequences for them are the same either way. Yet, as recent events have borne out, a god who is gone might not remain absent forever. More than a few supposedly dead gods have returned and amassed a new body of worshipers. Indeed, the legends of some gods speak of a cycle of death and resurrection. As the Sage of Shadowdale once noted, “If the gods can grant the power to raise mortals from death, why do ye assume they should be laid low by it forever?” The Afterlife: Most humans believe the souls of the recently deceased are spirited away to the Fugue Plane, where they wander the great City of Judgment, often unaware they are dead. The servants of the gods come to collect such souls and, if they are worthy, they are taken to their awaited afterlife in the deity’s domain. Occasionally, the faithful are sent back to be reborn into the world to finish work that was left undone. Souls that are unclaimed by the servants of the gods are judged by Kelemvor, who decides the fate of each one. Some are charged with serving as guides for other lost souls, while others are transformed into squirming larvae and cast into the dust. Those who serve as priests of a god aren’t necessarily clerics. Indeed, the power invested in clerics and other divine spellcasters by the gods is given out only rarely (see “Divine Magic” below). The work of a priest is to serve one’s deity and that deity’s faithful, a task that doesn’t necessarily require the use of magic. The kind of person attracted to a deity’s priesthood depends on the tenets of that god: the cunning rogues who venerate Mask have little in common with the upright law-keepers of Tyr, and the delightful revelers who revere Lliira are different from both. Temples and Shrines: The core religious institutions of Faerûn are temples and shrines. Whether a small, out-of-the-way building, or a complex made up of multiple structures and tracts of land, each temple operates according to the traditions of its faith, although powerful or charismatic figures who rise to prominence within the temple hierarchy might motivate or inspire changes to those traditions.Temples in Faerûn don’t have regular services as such. Group observances in a temple occur only at specific festival times, and priests also go out into the community to perform rites such as marriages and funerals. Temples are places where worshipers go either to spend personal or family time in a space consecrated to a deity or to seek the aid of the priests for some reason. Small shrines and private chapels, as distinct from full-fledged temples, are common throughout Faerûn, particularly in areas where a temple doesn’t exist. Shrines tend to be unstaffed, kept up by the locals and visitors who use the place for prayer. A shrine might be as modest as a roadside well, where traveling merchants can drop a coin to request good fortune from Waukeen, or as grand as a statue of Amaunator surrounded by braziers in a pavilion in the middle of a village. Traveling priests often seek out and visit these sites, and they act as meeting places for the faithful. When word gets around that a traveling priest of Eldath has come into town, the faithful seek her out at the holy spring dedicated to the goddess at the edge of town. A family or business might maintain a shrine or a chapel to its favored deity, perhaps a set of wind chimes consecrated to Akadi hung from the high branches of a tree in the garden, or a wooden symbol shaped like the hand of Azuth in miniature displayed on a prominent wall with a space nearby to burn a candle or some incense. Communing with the Gods: Though many tales are told of times past when the gods appeared in physical form and walked the land, occasions of that sort are few and far between. For the most part, the gods communicate with their faithful through signs and omens, appreciated by those able to interpret them. Of course, some signs are more subtle — and thus more open to interpretation — than others. The most common kind of communion that worshipers and priests find with their deities is in prayer, song, or meditation. Such experiences are intensely personal, and it is common wisdom to keep them that way. After all, “advice” from one’s god that appears during morning prayer and gives one a good turn to the day is worthwhile only for oneself. Let each worshiper commune in their own way, as the saying goes. Divine magic also provides a means of communing with the gods and can be used to call upon their guidance. Divine pronouncements of this sort are often personal in scope and brief, and those edicts that concern broader matters tend to be open to interpretation or debate. Priesthood: Priesthood is a vocation like any other, with those who undertake it often honing their abilities through a system of apprenticeship. At a small temple, a novice or an acolyte might study under the only priest available. Larger temples can accommodate groups of acolytes, each learning under the direction of one or more mentors responsible for training them in the duties and skills of the priesthood. Once acolytes complete their education, they are often ordained in a ritual in which a successful candidate is invested with the responsibilities of the priesthood. Conflicts and Persecution: The moral and ethical values of the deities in Faerûn run the gamut, representing all the outlooks that their mortal followers demonstrate, from the principled agents of good to the vicious proponents of evil. Most cultures and societies aren’t nearly as cosmopolitan as the population of Faerûn taken as a whole; as a result, religious persecution (from the viewpoint of those who garner the attention) is practiced in places where worship of certain deities is frowned on. Most governments that engage in persecution limit such restrictions to the establishment of formal temples, priesthoods, and organized festivals. (On a practical level, it’s impossible to prevent individuals from innocuously or secretly worshiping whichever deities they choose.) For instance, although worship of Talona — like that of many evil gods — is forbidden in Waterdeep, this prohibition extends only to the creation of a temple and the presence of her priesthood within the city. Individual citizens or families who revere Talona might be viewed as misguided, but they aren’t taken into custody or punished as long as they obey the laws of the city. Some places take this form of persecution a step further, for a variety of reasons. A tyrant might outlaw worship of Torm, lest it inspire rebellion, and an otherwise fair-minded mayor of a river-mill community might demand that worshipers of Silvanus find elsewhere to live because of recent problems the timber-cutters have had with local druids. Divine Magic: The gods show their favor toward mortals in myriad ways. A chosen few have their minds and souls opened to the power of magic. There is no formula for who does and doesn’t receive this divine insight, as the gods keep their own counsel concerning their selections. Some who are favored seek to ignore or deny their gift, while others embrace it wholeheartedly. Some who display the potential for divine magic develop and practice their abilities in a temple, a sacred grove, or some other spiritual place, perhaps in the company of other students. Other practitioners of divine magic discover and nurture their gods-given power entirely on their own. The Gods of Faerûn: The gods that make up the pantheon of Faerûn are much like the population of some of the Realms’ greatest cities: an eclectic blend of individuals from a variety of sources. The makeup of the pantheon has shifted over the ages, as a result of changes in the Realms and its people (or vice versa, depending on which scholars you believe). The deities of the Faerûnian pantheon are by no means the only powers worshiped in the Realms. The nonhuman races have pantheons of their own and scattered other cults and local divinities can be found across Faerûn. Amaunator: The Keeper of the Eternal Sun, the Light of Law, the Yellow God.The rule of law and the glory of the sun are both in Amaunator’s dominion. His priests help establish bureaucracies and lawful order in communities. They often witness contracts and signed agreements, stamping such documents with the sun-symbol of Amaunator to signify their validity. His priests teach that Amaunator has died and been reborn time and again. Like the sun, he might pass into the realm of darkness, but inevitably his bright gaze will fall on the world once again. Amaunator is seen as a stern and unforgiving deity, not unlike Silvanus in comportment, but his concern isn’t for the balance of life — he cares that things proceed according to the celestial order, that promises are kept, and that the rule of law persists.Farmers and travelers beseech him when they pray for rain or sun, as do any others looking for a favorable change in the weather. But the most common form of propitiation to Amaunator is the practice of swearing oaths, signing contracts, and declaring laws under the light of the sun. So ingrained in the common perception is the connection between a solemn oath and the sun that those engaged in closing deals or issuing edicts often pause and wait for a passing cloud to clear the sun before completing the transaction or pronouncement. Asmodeus: The Lord of the Ninth, The Cloven, Old Hoof and Horn. Open worship of Asmodeus began roughly a century ago when small cults with charismatic leaders sprang up in the aftermath of the Spellplague. That catastrophe left many asking why the gods were angry or had abandoned them. To those questioners, the faithful of Asmodeus provided answers and a god who would forgive all their faults. Still, for the next few decades, the cult of Asmodeus struggled for acceptance. In the beliefs of the people of the North — which coincide with many tales told by dwarves, elves, and others — Asmodeus is Lord of the Ninth, the leader of all devils of the Nine Hells. People know devils to be iron-minded and silver-tongued purveyors of temptation, whose price for their boons can be as dear as one’s soul. It’s said that when a soul waits on the Fugue Plane for a deity to take it to its appropriate afterlife, devils approach the soul and offer it a chance at power and immortal pleasures. All a soul needs to do is take one step out of the dust and the milling crowd and put a foot on the first rung of the infernal ladder that represents the hierarchy of the Nine Hells. The faithful of Asmodeus acknowledge that devils offer their worshipers a path that’s not for everyone — just as eternally basking in the light of Lathander or endlessly swinging a hammer in the mines of Moradin might not be for everyone. Those who serve Asmodeus in life hope to be summoned out of the moaning masses of the Fugue Plane after death. They yearn for the chance to master their own fates, with all of eternity to achieve their goals.To those not so dedicated, priests of Asmodeus offer the prospect of a reprieve in the afterlife. All souls wait on the Fugue Plane for a deity’s pleasure, which determines where a soul will spend the rest of eternity. Those who lived their lives most in keeping with a deity’s outlook are taken first. Others, who have transgressed in the eyes of their favored god or have not followed any particular ethos, might wait centuries before Kelemvor judges where they go. People who fear such a fate can pray to Asmodeus, his priests say, and in return a devil will grant a waiting soul some comfort. Today, shrines to Asmodeus are still rare and temples are almost unheard of, but many folk have adopted the habit of asking Asmodeus for reprieve from their sins. After transgressing against a god in some way, a person prays to Asmodeus for something to provide respite during the long wait. Asmodeus is known to grant people what they wish, and thus people pray for all the delights and distractions they desire most from life. Those who transgress in great ways often ask Asmodeus to hide their sins from the gods, and priests say that he will do so, but with a price after death. Auril: The Frostmaiden, Lady Frostkiss, Icedawn. Auril, the merciless goddess of cold and winter, is worshiped mostly in regions that are affected by deep winters. Folk propitiate Auril with offerings and prayers for mercy. Her priests warn others to prepare for winter, and to stock extra provisions in order to have some to spare as offerings to the goddess. Few favor Auril except for those who make their livelihood from winter or those who truly love the season. Her rare priests tend to be folk who would, but for their status, likely be outcasts from their communities. They practice celibacy and remain aloof from others when not serving in their official capacity. Luskan has a temple dedicated to Auril, the white-spired Winter Palace. The structure is a roofless array of pillars and arches carved of white stone. The rituals of Auril’s worship often seem cruel to outsiders. In Luskan, visitors gather at the temple to watch the frequent “wet parades,” a ritual in which supplicants don garments packed with ice. They then journey between six white pillars known as the Kisses of Auril, which are dispersed throughout the city. The worshipers move from pillar to pillar, chanting prayers to the goddess. Upon reaching a pillar, a supplicant must climb it and then “kiss the lady,” touching lips to a rusty iron plate at the top. In winter, these events resemble frantic footraces, with the added risk of frostbite and injuries caused by falling from the slippery pillars. The parade runners are cheered on by patrons who come out of nearby taverns to place bets on the stamina of the participants. Those who finish the race are thought to have helped make the winter easier, and they rarely have to pay for food or ale all winter long. Azuth: The High One, the Lord of Spellcraft, the First Magister.Few pay homage to Azuth aside from wizards. For them, the High One is the ultimate embodiment of all that they hold dear. Mystra serves as goddess of magic; Oghma is god of knowledge; and Deneir is god of writing and language. Azuth takes aspects of these general fields and applies them to the specific practices of wizards. For instance, while Mystra is the deity who represents the soul, art, and wonder of magic, Azuth is god of a wizard’s long hours of study, exacting standards of movement and speech, and cramped, ink-stained fingers. Wizards invoke Azuth when they scribe scrolls, inscribe magic circles, attempt to memorize spells, and even when they cast spells. Often this acknowledgment comes in the form of silently forming Azuth’s holy symbol, pointing the index finger of the left hand to the sky. For many wizards, the gesture is so commonplace in their lives that it becomes an unconscious habit. Temples dedicated to Azuth are scarce, and clerics of the deity are extremely rare. Even in magic-saturated Halruaa, only a handful of holy places are dedicated to Azuth. Sometimes a statue or a shrine dedicated to him stands in a corner of a temple to Mystra or another deity. More often, a wizard has a personal shrine at home. Azuth is represented at such sites as a hooded and bearded figure with left hand held high, finger pointed up. Sometimes he is represented by merely the hand. In either case, the finger often serves as a candleholder or as the point of origin for a light spell. Bane: The Black Hand, the Lord of Darkness. Bane has a simple ethos: the strong have not just the right but the duty to rule over the weak. A tyrant who is able to seize power must do so, for not only does the tyrant benefit, but so do those under the tyrant’s rule. When a ruler succumbs to decadence, corruption, or decrepitude, a stronger and more suitable ruler will rise. Bane is vilified in many legends. Throughout history, those who favor him have committed dark deeds in his name, but most people don’t worship Bane out of malice. Bane represents ambition and control, and those who have the former but lack the latter pray to him to give them strength. It is said that Bane favors those who exhibit drive and courage, and that he aids those who seek to become conquerors, carving kingdoms from the wilderness, and bringing order to the lawless.At many times and in many places in Faerûn, the faithful of Bane have been seen as saviors for their efforts in slaughtering raiders, throwing down corrupt rulers, or saving armies on the brink of defeat. But in just as many other places, the worship of Bane has created or supported cruel dictatorships, aided mercantile monopolies, or brought about the practice of slavery where before it didn’t exist. Beshaba: The Maid of Misfortune, Lady Doom, Black Bess. Beshaba is the counterpoint to Tymora and is just as frequently acknowledged in daily life as is her more benevolent “sister.” She is seen as a cruel and capricious goddess who must be propitiated to avoid attracting her attention and interest in a negative way. Beshaba’s name is invoked when someone is beset by bad luck — which could be as minor as stubbing a toe or breaking a wagon wheel, or as catastrophic as slipping and accidentally falling off a cliff. It is also invoked to ward off her attentions when someone is doing something in which good luck wouldn’t play a part but bad luck might. For example, someone rolling dice would invoke Tymora because they want random chance to fall in their favor, but someone about to cross a rickety bridge would ask Beshaba to keep the bridge intact. Folk make the symbol of Beshaba by folding in their thumbs and extending their fingers on one or both hands (mimicking the horns of her holy symbol) to ward off misfortune. The same gesture raised to the head signifies a salute; when pointed at someone, the “horns” indicate ill favor directed toward that individual.Many druids worship Beshaba as one of the First Circle. They propitiate her with dances while wearing fire-blackened antlers dipped in blood. According to these druids, her holy symbol is the horns of a stag because when Beshaba was first worshiped, humans were simple hunter-gatherers and she was believed to bring misfortune to hunters, such as being gored by a stag. Although most people tremble in fear at the prospect of Beshaba’s attendance at any event (even in spirit), Beshaba is almost always invoked and welcomed formally in the opening speeches or ceremonies of formal functions such as marriages and coronations, contests of sport or martial prowess, and at the naming ceremonies of children. If she isn’t invited to such an event, she might take offense and wreak misfortune on those involved. Temples to Beshaba are virtually unknown. It’s common, however, for rural folk to erect a post and mount antlers on it at the site of some roadside accident or murder. In cities, where antlers are hard to come by and murders and accidents more prevalent, the fashion is to draw the black antlers of Beshaba with charcoal on a nearby wall, leaving the symbol on display until weather scours it away. These “shrines,” in either form, serve as warnings to others about places of ill fortune. More formal shrines to Beshaba exist in places where folk frequently hope to ward off misfortune. These sites tend to be posts or stones painted red with blackened antlers attached to them, or a red, triangular wall-mounted plaque with attached antlers. Both types have a stone or bronze bowl where coins can be tossed or burnt offerings made. The Red Wizards of Thay commonly erect such shrines outside their ritual chambers to guard against unfortunate mistakes. Few dare to take Beshaba as a patron. The rare clerics of the Maid of Misfortune are those who have been deeply affected by great misfortunes and who seek to warn others of the essential unfairness of life — or to inflict that unfairness upon them. Bhaal: The Lord of Murder. The folk of Faerûn don’t normally pray to or acknowledge Bhaal. He is seen as a deeply evil and destructive deity who hungers for death — meaning the death of any sentient beings through unlawful means. Some people pray to Bhaal when they want to commit murder. A person might have good reason to resort to murder, such as when one is unable to redress some injustice through lawful means. But it’s far more common for prayers to Bhaal to be uttered by those who seek to kill someone out of jealousy, greed, or wrath. It’s rare for anyone but assassins or compulsive killers to take Bhaal as a patron, and clerics who revere Bhaal often qualify on both counts. Murder cults of Bhaal have arisen in the past, each led by a charismatic, self-styled priest of Bhaal, but organized worship of the Lord of Murder is extremely uncommon. Temples and shrines are similarly rare. Those who erect a shrine to Bhaal usually do so to thank him for a successful murder. Such shrines typically feature a skull or a severed head surrounded by drops of blood (often both from the murdered victim). Chauntea: The Great Mother, the Grain Goddess. Chauntea is goddess of agriculture: sowing and reaping, seeding and harvest, breeding and butchery, shearing and weaving. In this aspect she is a rural deity rarely prayed to behind the walls of a city except by kitchen gardeners. But Chauntea is also the Great Mother, a goddess of crib, hearth, and home. And as such she is welcomed into all homes at mealtimes and at the birth of children, and folk give her thanks whenever they experience the pleasure of settling by a fire and feeling safe and loved. Chauntea’s faith is one of nurturing and growth. Agricultural aphorisms and farming parables dot her teachings. Growing and reaping, the eternal cycle, is a common theme in the faith. Destruction for its own sake, or leveling without rebuilding, is anathema to her. Temples of Chauntea maintain a great body of lore about farming and cultivation. Her priests work closely with communities in rural areas, and they are willing to roll up their sleeves and dig their hands into the dirt. THE EARTHMOTHER The druids of the Moonshae Isles worship the Earthmother, she who is the generative power of the land itself. To some mainlanders, the Earthmother is an aspect or manifestation of Chauntea, but to the Ffolk, she is simply the Earthmother, and always will be. The moonwells of the isles are her sacred sites and her windows onto the world. See “Druids” in chapter 4 for more information. Cyric: The Prince of Lies, the Dark Sun. The worship of Cyric derives directly from the story of his ascension to godhood. Cyric was a mortal during the Time of Troubles and the key to how that chaotic period resolved, but he was also a selfish traitor and a murderer. When he became a god, Cyric continued to work various plots of deceit and murder — the most famous of which is that, according to legend, Cyric murdered Mystra and thus caused the Spellplague over a century ago. Those who don’t worship Cyric see him as a god of madness, strife, and deceit, although his priests consider such claims to be heresy. Their Prince of Lies isn’t a twisted madman, but a god of dark majesty who proves that, ultimately, all bonds between folk corrupt and wither away. Cyric’s church works openly in Amn, where the citizens espouse the principles of ambition, self-reliance, and “buyer beware.” Those who take Cyric as their patron tend to be sadists, con artists, power-mad connivers, and worse. Other folk pray to Cyric when they want to do wrong but don’t want others to find out about it.“The Dark Sun,” originally one of Cyric’s epithets, has become a metaphor for strife in the Realms. “A Dark Sun has risen o’er this court” might be spoken as a warning that intrigues and infighting have gotten out of hand in a noble household; and married couples know to seek advice from others if “a Dark Sun shines through the window” in their relationship. Deneir: The Lord of All Glyphs and Images, the First Scribe, the Scribe of Oghma. Deneir is the god of literature and literacy, the patron of the artist and the scribe. His is the power to accurately render and describe, to write and to read, and to pass on information. In legend, Deneir is often portrayed as being a scribe in service to Oghma, and he is sometimes thought of as Oghma’s right hand. It’s common practice for someone who writes a letter or records information to say a prayer to Deneir to avoid mistakes. Similarly, artists acknowledge Deneir before beginning and upon completing paintings, particularly illuminations on manuscripts, tapestries that relate stories, and any such attempt to use art to capture the truth. Followers of Deneir believe that information not recorded and saved for later use is information lost. They consider literacy an important gift of the gods, one that should be spread and taught. His followers are scribes and scholars devoted, like their patron, to preserving written works, and also to experiencing them, for they say that Deneir himself is hidden within the lines, shapes, and passages of all written works. Priests of Deneir take an oath of charity as well, compelling them to accept the requests of others to write letters and transcribe information. The god’s followers tend to be individualists, united by their shared faith but not overly concerned with religious hierarchy and protocol. This behavior is supported by the fact that Deneir’s blessings of divine magic are more often bestowed on those who lose themselves in written works than on those who fancy themselves part of any temple or religious order. Contemplation of the faith’s most holy book, the Tome of Universal Harmony, is the most effective way to become deserving of Deneir’s blessings. Eldath: The Quiet One, the Guardian of Groves, the Mother of the Waters. Eldath is the goddess of waterfalls, springs, pools, stillness, peace, and quiet glades. She is thought to be present at many such places, particularly those that serve as druid groves. Eldath is a goddess of comfort, healing, and calm. Her blessed waters heal the sick, cure madness, and comfort the dying. Most rural places have a pond or a glade that locals ascribe to Eldath. Tradition dictates that it be a place of quiet reflection where others are left to their thoughts. A body of water such as a pond or a spring typically serves as a repository of offerings. If the holy site is a glade, a stream one crosses along the way might serve as the repository, or a prominent bush or tree in the glade might be the place where people tie offerings. Typical offerings are broken weapons or items that are remembrances of arguments, which the faithful discard while making a wish for peace in the future. Many of those who favor Eldath are pacifists or people who are troubled by violence they have witnessed or experienced. Eldath’s priests don’t organize into large sects. Indeed, many are itinerant, wandering between various holy sites and shrines, seeing that the locations are cared for and that they remain places of sweet serenity. The faithful of Eldath are usually close to nature, and allied to druids, who count Eldath among the First Circle. It is taboo to strike a priest of Eldath, and killing one is said to bring great misfortune. Despite the measure of protection that this belief affords them, most priests of Eldath avoid conflicts rather than attempting to quell them. Those who serve Eldath are happy to preside over peaceful negotiations and to certify treaties, but they can’t force others to engage in harmony. Gond: The Wonderbringer, the Inspiration Divine, the Holy Maker of All Things. Gond is the god of artifice, craft, and construction. He is revered by blacksmiths, woodworkers, engineers, and inventors. Anyone who is crafting something might say a prayer to Gond to guide the work, but folk know that Gond smiles most brightly upon new inventions that others find useful. Priests of Gond wander the North dressed in saffron vestments, adorned with sashes that contain within their folds gears, locks, hooks, and bits of steel, tin, and wood that might prove useful in a pinch. They also wear belts of large, linked metal medallions and enormous sun hats. A traveling priest of Gond offers services to distant villages as a tinker, a carpenter, and a civil engineer rolled into one, ready to help build a better paddock gate, dig a new well, or mend pots or furniture that might otherwise go to waste. All priests of Gond keep journals in which they record ideas, inventions, and innovations discovered in their travels, and take great delight in meeting fellow priests and sharing their finds. In large cities, the Gondar construct temples that serve as great workshops and inventors’ labs. Wandering priests turn their journals over to the resident scribes at such temples, who then record the priests’ observations for posterity and the benefit of all. Most who favor Gond practice time-honored crafting professions: they are smiths and engineers, architects and weavers, leatherworkers and jewelers. Even so, this faith has a well-earned reputation as a haven for crackpot inventors and visionaries. The center of Gond’s worship on the Sword Coast lies in Baldur’s Gate, where the faithful have erected two huge structures in honor of the Wonderbringer: a temple called the High House of Wonders and a museum of craft and design called the Hall of Wonders. Lantan had been the preeminent place of Gond’s worship in the world until a century ago, when the island nation disappeared, and since its return the few Lantanese merchants seen in Sword Coast ports have said little about the present state of their homeland. Gwaeron Windstrom: The Mouth of Mielikki, the Master Tracker, the Tracker Never Led Astray. Few aside from rangers of the North pray to Gwaeron Windstrom. Said to have been a mortal man elevated to godhood by Mielikki, Gwaeron serves rangers as their intercessor with Mielikki. He is seen as a master ranger, the perfect tracker, a peerless animal handler, and a dedicated foe of rapacious creatures such as trolls and orcs. He is said to look like an old man with a long white beard who is still hale and mighty, and he is believed to take rest and sleep in a stand of trees near Triboar. Rangers pray to Gwaeron because he represents much of the work they do, and because he can speak to Mielikki on their behalf. In the North, most rangers view Mielikki as too mysterious, holy, and wild to be addressed directly with their requests, but they consider Gwaeron Windstrom to be one of them and thus understanding of their needs. Gwaeron has no temples, but shrines dedicated to him can be found in many places that serve wilderness wanderers as trail markers. Each one is denoted by a carving of Gwaeron’s symbol, a paw print with a star on the palm, on a prominent tree or stone. Helm: The Watcher, He of the Unsleeping Eyes, the Vigilant One. The god of vigilance and protection, Helm is seen as the epitome of the guardian, the watcher, and the guard. He is venerated by those who need to remain watchful for enemies or danger. Helm is a favorite deity of people who make a living by protecting someone or something, such as bodyguards, members of the city watch, and the guards of a treasury vault. Helm embodies the spirit of watchfulness without regard to good or evil. In legends, he is honorable and keeps his word to a fault, such as when he guarded the celestial stairways during the Time of Troubles, preventing the gods from ascending them and continuing the chaos of that period, until the Tablets of Fate were found. Although his faith has known dark days, worship of Helm never truly faded away. Most of his followers believe that the Watcher can never be vanquished utterly, and recent events have borne out that assertion. Helm’s priests teach that one must be ever vigilant, ever aware, ever prepared for one’s enemies. Patience, clear thought, and careful planning will always defeat rushed actions in the end. Those who favor Helm strive to be alert, clear-headed, and true to their word. These traits don’t necessarily make them nice people, however, and as such many consider the faithful of Helm to be inflexible and merciless. Hoar: The Doombringer, Poet of Justice. Hoar, known in the lands along the Inner Sea as Assuran, is a god of revenge and retribution. He isn’t typically worshiped habitually, but his name is invoked by those who seek vengeance. When a guilty party falls prey to fate — such as when a murderer escapes prosecution, but is then accidentally slain himself — the hand of Hoar is given credit. When one hears three rolls of thunder in succession, it is thought to be a sign from Hoar that some act of vengeance has been performed. Many human societies have the custom of ringing a bell or a gong three times when judgment of a crime is rendered or an execution takes place. Folk speak Hoar’s name when they want revenge, particularly when they are incapable of avenging themselves. This invocation might be in response to a petty slight or a true injustice, and the acknowledgment of Hoar might be a short prayer said aloud or might be written down somewhere. It’s generally believed that the more permanent the form of the prayer, the more likely it is to be fulfilled. For this reason, some etch their prayers in lead and bury it or hide their prayers inside diaries. Aside from bounty hunters and those on crusades of vengeance, few truly revere Hoar, and he is served by fewer still who would call themselves priests. Temples or shrines of Hoar are almost nonexistent except for ancient sites in Chessenta and Unther. Hoar became a member of the Faerûnian pantheon when his worship extended beyond the lands that originally revered him. Most consider Tyr to be the arbiter of laws, and Hoar to be the god who metes out punishment that comes as a result of breaking those codes. A judge might favor the worship of Tyr, while a jailor or a headsman is more likely to pray to Hoar. Ilmater: The Crying God, the Rack-Broken Lord, He Who Endures. Ilmater is the god of suffering, martyrdom, and perseverance, renowned for his compassion and endurance. It is he who offers succor and calming words to those who are in pain, victimized, or in great need. He is the willing sufferer, the one who takes the place of another to heft the other’s burden, to take the other’s pain. He is the god of the oppressed and the unjustly treated. It is said that if he had his way, the Crying God would take all the suffering in the world onto himself, so as to spare others. Since he can’t, he blesses those who endure on others’ behalf, and he alleviates suffering when he can. Martyrs who die that others may live are always blessed by Ilmater with a final rest and reward in the god’s afterlife, should they so choose. Ilmater’s priests take in the ill, the starving, and the injured, and his temples give most of what they receive to help offset the suffering of the world. His followers provide succor when they can, but also use force to put an end to torture and suffering inflicted on others. Ilmater’s priests travel to places where the worst possible conditions exist, ministering to the needs of the oppressed, the deceased, and the poor. They put others ahead of themselves, are sharing of all they have, and emphasize the spiritual nature of life over the welfare of the material body. Priests of Ilmater who are on a quest to aid others can be recognized by their hair shirts, vests of coarse fur worn against the bare skin. It is taboo to harm such priests as they go about their duties, such as when they administer to the wounded on a battlefield. The taboo is so strongly felt among humans that other races respect the custom. Even orcs and goblinoids will avoid directly attacking a peaceful priest of Ilmater, as long as the priest administers to their fallen warriors as well. Most folk deeply respect the work and the sacrifice of Ilmater’s faith, and lend aid to such endeavors where they can. When a temple of Ilmater sends its faithful to help refugees of war or victims of plague, their willingness to sacrifice their own well-being always prompts ordinary people to support them, whether they are inspired or shamed into action. Jergal: The Final Scribe, the Pitiless One, the Bleak Seneschal. Legend has it that Jergal is an ancient deity. The story goes that in the time of Netheril he was worshiped as the god of death, murder, and strife. Yet with the passing of time, he became bored with his position. Then one day three mortals, each a powerful adventurer, met Jergal in the lands of the dead, determined to destroy him and take his power. Instead, Jergal calmly abdicated his throne of bones and allowed each of the three mortals to take part of his divinity. Thus it was that Bane assumed the portfolio of strife, Myrkul the rulership of the dead, and Bhaal the portfolio of murder. Jergal lost his former stature and became a scribe of the dead. Jergal is now seen as an uncaring custodian of the dead. He is thought to record the passing of the living and to aid Kelemvor in seeing that souls are properly bound to their appropriate afterlife. He is rarely acknowledged directly, except for being mentioned at funerals and among those who practice the custom of writing the name of the deceased on a sheet of parchment and placing it in the corpse’s mouth. This rite is common in places where an individual’s grave or tomb isn’t marked with the person’s name. Few people favor Jergal as a deity, and most who do are concerned with the dispensation of the dead in some way. Priests of Jergal serve communities as undertakers and caretakers of gravesites. Jergal has no temples dedicated to him aside from abandoned places devoted to his old, darker incarnation, but his priests are welcome in the temples of Kelemvor, Deneir, and Myrkul. His faithful send their annual recordings of mortality to holy sites where records of that sort are kept. Kelemvor: The Lord of the Dead, the Judge of the Damned. Kelemvor is seen as a just, fair, and comforting god of death. Death comes to all, and when it occurs Kelemvor is there to take each soul by the hand and lead it to the proper afterlife. Kelemvor’s priests teach that those who revere the gods according to the rites of their religion have done their proper service and will be offered the afterlife they seek. The faithful of Kelemvor provide people with peaceful transitions into the care of the Lord of the Dead. They help the dying put their affairs in order, and they officiate at funeral rites for those who can’t afford the lavish ceremonies of their faith. The tenets of Kelemvor’s faithful compel them to forestall or prevent untimely deaths whenever possible. Different sects and worshipers define “untimely” in different ways. One group might concentrate on stopping the spread of disease, another on the prevention of murder, and yet another on eliminating the scourge of the undead. In fact, all the faithful of Kelemvor despise the undead and work to some degree to eliminate them, for undead of any sort are seen as an abomination of the natural order. This belief obviously puts Kelemvor’s faithful at odds with necromancers, priests of Myrkul, and others who promote the creation of the undead, and it also causes conflict from unexpected sources. For instance, priests of Kelemvor routinely destroy any writings about the creation of the undead that they find — an act that offends those who value knowledge for its own sake, such as the faithful of Oghma and Deneir. And there also exist undead that aren’t evil, such as the baelnorn, which the elves consider holy. Kelemvor’s devotees seek the end of such beings regardless of that fact. Lathander: The Morninglord, Inspiration’s Dawn, the Rose-and-Gold God. Lathander is the god of the spring, birth, and renewal, a deity of conception, vitality, youth, renewal, and self-perfection. He is god not of the sun but of the dawn, which represents the start of a new day filled with potential. Lathander is a god of beginnings. People commonly offer a prayer to him before undertaking any journey or endeavor. Lathander’s name is invoked to seal alliances and christen new ventures or companies. As a result, the god is very popular among the merchant classes, and the church has benefited accordingly. The rising sun is his symbol, and his colors are the rose, gold, and violet of the dawn. Lathander’s temples and shrines host a wide range of functions both municipal and personal. At such places folk get married in dawn ceremonies, announce the start of civic projects, and even give birth when possible, to provide the baby good fortune. The faithful of Lathander embrace the founding of new communities and the growth of civilization, as long as that civilization gives everyone the potential to succeed. They despise the undead, seeing them as both a corruption of the natural order and a disavowal of new beginnings, because undead cling to their old existence rather than moving on. Leira: The Lady of the Mists, Mistshadow, the Lady of Deception. Leira has worn many masks, and more than once has been thought to be dead or to be another deity altogether. Perhaps such a reputation is only natural for the goddess of illusion and deception. Her faithful agree that whatever the “truth” might be, their Lady takes great delight in the confusion sown by her various incarnations. Even the faithful of Cyric once taught that their god killed Leira, but now they espouse the strange idea that somehow she is his daughter. Leira isn’t viewed as malicious or as a trickster but is seen as enigmatic, quiet, and retiring. She is credited with inventing Ruathlek, the language of illusionists and the spoken tongue of Nimbral. The faithful of Leira seem to be scarce, although it is difficult to know this for certain, because those who favor her rarely make their inclinations known. Leira is the patron of illusionists and liars. She receives little regular worship except from illusionists, who pray to the Mistshadow for potency in their magic, and con artists, for whom she is a kind of champion. Most people pray to her when they hope to keep something secret, or placate her with a prayer before making an important decision when they fear being deceived. Some folk perform a swirling motion with a finger behind their backs when telling a lie as a way of beseeching her for aid. Her priests wear vestments of white and mist-gray, and their faces are covered by smooth, featureless masks. Only in Nimbral do temples to Leira exist, and shrines dedicated to her found across the continent are usually disguised as other kinds of sites, marked with signs that only the faithful would recognize. Lliira: Our Lady of Joy, Joybringer, the Mistress of Revels. Lliira is a beloved goddess, a deity of contentment, release, joy, happiness, dance, and freedom. As the patron of festivals, she is honored at any celebration, and dance is the primary way to worship her. The Mistress of Revels is said to abhor violence, and any fighting or drawing of weapons (except in ceremony) at a celebration will cause her to withhold her favor. Her priests and priestesses, known as joybringers, take it as their mission to make other people happy, even if just for a moment. Her faithful always wear at least one clothing item of a bright, cheerful color, and her priests’ vestments have more in common with festival attire than with somber ecclesial garments. Rubies and sapphires are sacred to Our Lady of Joy, and her priests bless anyone they see wearing such adornments. Lliira’s followers aren’t frivolous, however. To them, divine joy is a very real gift to the world of mortals, and one much needed. To that end, they fight those who would bring misery to others. They are fierce against their foes, and joyous revelers when their work is done. Loviatar: The Maiden of Pain, the Scourge Mistress, the Willing Whip. Pain isn’t a means to an end for Loviatar’s faithful, but an end unto itself. To them, nothing is as transcendent as suffering, and all pain is holy, from the crudest barbarism, to the most sublime torture, to the emotional suffering of the heartbroken or the betrayed. The pain that one feels is proof of the Lady’s attention, and so her faithful are notorious self-flagellants. Pain is also a path to power, in terms of both one’s ability to inflict it and one’s ability to endure it. A cold, cruel demeanor is considered ideal because it best emulates the Scourge Mistress, and for the same reason her faithful appreciate beauty, cultural refinement, and a certain adeptness at manipulation. Though temples to Loviatar are rare, her faithful are more numerous than might be expected. Loviatar is the chosen deity of those who inflict pain as a matter of course, including torturers and others who need to break the will of their victims. She is favored by sadists and masochists, and some of her followers form cultish cells of secret adherents. Each of these groups is led by someone who takes pleasure in administering pain and dominating others, supported and backed up by a number of submissive sycophants. Worshipers of Loviatar rarely gather in numbers except in the more populous cities. When small cadres of faithful operate quietly in such places, few citizens take notice or raise a fuss if they do witness cult activity. The sufferers who endure the lash, however, aren’t always willing participants, and Lovatar’s cults sometimes operate secret slavery rings, which can draw the attention of the authorities. The open worship of Loviatar and temples clearly dedicated to her are rarely seen except in lands where slavery is an accepted practice. Malar: The Beastlord, the Black-Blooded One. Malar epitomizes the dark side of nature, the world that is red in tooth and claw. His faithful believe the hunt is the center point between life and death — the facing off of hunter and prey, forcing the issue of who lives and who dies. People believe that Malar can’t be propitiated and knows no mercy, so he receives prayers only from those engaging in a hunt. Such supplicants pray to Malar for two reasons: to beg the aid of his peerless skill as a hunter, or to adopt his fearsome mantle and thus ward off other predators. Malar is the god of those who delight in the hunt, don’t shy from bloodshed, and savor the fear of their prey. Many lycanthropes consider Malar to be their divine father, as do some other intelligent predators. He has many devotees who are druids and rangers of particularly savage inclination, and many barbarians take Malar as a patron for his ferocity and cruelty. His priests use claw bracers, impressive gauntlets bedecked with stylized claws that jut out from the ends of the fists, as ceremonial weapons. Mask: The Lord of Shadows, the Master of All Thieves. Mask is a trickster god, the patron of ne’er-do-wells, spies, and thieves. All that occurs within shadow is in the purview of Mask. People whisper a prayer to Mask whenever stealth is required or intrigue is afoot. Courtiers and diplomats invoke the god’s name in hopes of a smooth negotiation. Those who favor Mask usually pursue thievery and other forms of acquisition of what belongs to others, such as pickpocketing, burglary, mugging, and con games. Ordinary folk pray to him to avert his eyes from their valuables, but the cautious sometimes employ “Mask’s purse,” a small, cheap cloth pouch worn in plain sight (thus easily cut or lifted) containing a small offering of coin. By convention, a pickpocket pilfers Mask’s purse when encountering another person wearing one, and considers the gain a gift from the god, while the one who lost the purse is grateful to the Lord of Shadows for accepting a respectful sacrifice of a small portion of his goods. Of course, nothing prevents another pickpocket from targeting someone who has lost Mask’s purse, but anyone with the ill luck to attract multiple pickpockets in a single outing has probably earned Mask’s ire anyway. Priests of Mask are usually thieves by profession, and often serve as higher-ups in the local underworld or criminal syndicate. They go by the title of demarche or demarchess, and wear veil-masks when acting in their priestly capacity. Mielikki: Our Lady of the Forest, the Forest Queen. People rarely speak of Mielikki except in quiet forest spaces. Woodlands that evoke wonder are where she reigns supreme, but she is said to keep watch over good folk in any forest, not matter how dark or cruel. When children are lost in the woods, people beseech Mielikki to protect them until they are found. Mielikki is the goddess of the forest and the creatures that live within it. She is seen as a remote and spiritual deity — less human-like than many other gods. She’s not unmindful of people, but her attention and favor are difficult to attract. She is the patron of rangers in the same way that Milil is the patron of bards, but even rangers rarely pray to her directly. They instead pray to Gwaeron Windstrom, who they believe will carry their words to the goddess by tracking her to whichever forest she hides in. Mielikki’s symbol is a unicorn, which prompts some to think of her as such and conflate her with Lurue, Queen of the Unicorns and the actual goddess of their kind. But most tales depict Mielikki as a beautiful woman whom Lurue allows upon her back as a rider, and the two are thought to be boon companions. Mielikki’s relationships with other deities of the natural world are more complex. Silvanus is sometimes thought of as her father and Eldath is considered her sister, but Mielikki walks her own path through the wilds. She has many shrines, particularly in the Savage Frontier. Most consist of a dead tree trunk into which has been carved a likeness of her holy symbol, a unicorn’s head. Alternatively, the likeness might be carved on a separate piece of wood and tacked to a living tree. These shrines typically mark the point in a forest beyond which locals know not to cut timber or hunt. Often these tributes are created by loggers at the end of a logging excursion as a mark of thanks to the goddess for providing the wood and for keeping the timber cutters safe during the work. Milil: The Lord of Song, the One True Hand of All-Wise Oghma. Milil is the god of poetry, eloquence, and song. He is a god of creativity and inspiration, of the entire song more than just the lyrics or the music. He represents the finished thought, the result of the process that takes an idea from conception to realization. Milil is most venerated by bards, troubadours, and other entertainers, but anyone preparing to entertain or speak before a crowd might offer Milil a brief prayer for a successful performance. Those who seek inspiration in a creative endeavor also pray to Milil. His icons depict him as a handsome male, sometimes a human, sometimes an elf, and even a half-elf in places (such as Aglarond) that have a large half-elf population. He is variously depicted as young or old, but his identity is always apparent because of his five-stringed harp made of silvery leaves, which he carries constantly. He is the ideal to which all performers aspire: poised and confident, winningly charismatic, and a source of inspiration for those who listen to him. He is said to have total recall of anything he hears or that is spoken while music plays, as well as utmost skill at improvisation. Holy sites dedicated to Milil are often found in performance venues and schools of music. Whether the site is a vast concert hall or a small choral chamber, it must have excellent acoustic qualities. Milil’s priests are patrons of the arts in addition to being performers themselves, and they frequently act as tutors in the arts of performance at his shrines and temples. Like Deneir, Milil is sometimes thought of as being in service to Oghma. In these portrayals of the deity, Milil is the god’s left hand, also referred to as the One True Hand. This expression isn’t meant to denigrate the right hand (Deneir); rather, it stems from the fact that left-handedness is more often associated with great artistic ability and the belief that the greatest art comes from the acceptance of truth. Myrkul: The Lord of Bones, Old Lord Skull, the Reaper. Myrkul is an ancient god, one of three former mortals who were raised to deityhood when Jergal grew weary of his divine duties and distributed his influence between them. Myrkul became the god of death and the dead, and ruled over the City of the Dead for centuries until he, in turn, was slain. In time Myrkul returned, for can death itself truly ever die? Myrkul’s faithful see him as the Reaper, who lays claim to souls and brings them to Kelemvor to be judged. Myrkul is a deity of death, decay, old age, exhaustion, dusk, and autumn. He’s the god of the ending of things and hopelessness, as much as Lathander is the god of beginnings and hope. Folk don’t pray to Myrkul so much as dread him and blame him for aching bones and fading vision. Myrkul is thought to be passionless and uncaring even of his most devout worshipers. Those who take Myrkul as a patron tend to be morose, taciturn, and obsessed with the dead and the undead. Like many followers of Kelemvor and Jergal, priests of Myrkul serve as undertakers and typically keep their patron’s identity secret. Shrines to Myrkul or engravings of his holy symbol appear in many places where humans bury their dead, but full-fledged temples are rare. The few that exist are hallowed places where the dead from hundreds of miles around are brought for internment, even if they were not of Myrkul’s faith. There is little space set aside for the living in such a location, usually a single modest shrine, but its catacombs and ossuaries are vast. In the deepest chamber of each temple rests a throne, and upon that throne sits the doomwarden — the preserved corpse of the most revered saint in the history of the temple (often its founder). Initiates to the faith are brought to kneel before a temple’s doomwarden, where they must spend a night and a day fasting and meditating in complete darkness. Mystra: The Lady of Mysteries, Our Lady of Spells, the Mother of All Magic. Mystra is the goddess of magic, and with that the goddess of possibilities. She is venerated by mages and by those who use magic or magical objects in their daily lives. She also receives the prayers of those who find magic wondrous or encounter magic they fear. Mystra is the goddess of the essential force that makes all spellcasting possible. She provides and tends the Weave, the conduit through which mortal spellcasters and magical crafters can safely access the raw force of magic. The faith of Mystra is pervasive in Faerûn, which is to be expected for a land as touched by magic as it is. Her worshipers include those who use magic or work closely with it, such as alchemists and sages. The blue-clad priests of Mystran temples count wizards and sorcerers among their numbers, as well as the occasional bard. The goal of Mystra’s faithful is simple: that magic be preserved and promulgated throughout the Realms. It isn’t unusual for her followers to keep an eye out for those who demonstrate high potential for using magic and help arrange for such persons to find tutelage with a suitable mentor. Oghma: The Binder, the Lord of Knowledge. Oghma is the god of inspiration, invention, and knowledge. Above all else, Oghma represents knowledge in its most supreme, raw form — the idea. An aphorism cited by his faithful about this concept serves them as a prayer when it is repeated aloud: “An idea has no heft but it can move mountains. An idea has no authority but it can dominate people. An idea has no strength but it can push aside empires. Knowledge is the greatest tool of the mortal mind, outweighing anything made by mortal hands. Before anything else can exist, the idea must exist.” Oghma’s faithful spread knowledge and literacy as widely as possible, believing that minds ought never to be shackled by ignorance and thus not be able to bequeath the benefit they might otherwise provide their fellows. Not surprisingly, those who follow Oghma oppose those who foster deceit, trickery, and ignorance. Folk of many professions favor the Binder: wizards, cartographers, artists, bards, clerks, inventors, sages, scribes, and all manner of others who uncover, preserve, and create knowledge and learning. The worship of Oghma was, at one point, one of the few organized faiths in Faerûn that had an established orthodoxy and a complete network of temples that adhered to that orthodoxy. Schisms during the Time of Troubles shattered that network, and now the structures that house the faith are individual temples or small networks of allied temples, much in the manner of other faiths. The Red Knight: The Lady of Strategy, the Crimson General, the Grandmaster of the Lanceboard. The Red Knight is the goddess of planning and strategy. Those who favor her call themselves the Red Fellowship. They believe wars are won by the best planning, strategy, and tactics. The worship of the Red Knight is filled with doctrine about strategy, such as: “Every war is a series of battles. Losing one doesn’t mean losing the war.” “In war, plan for peace. In peace, plan for war.” “Seek allies among your enemy’s enemies.” Worship of the Red Knight arose among a hero-venerating monastic order of Tempus in Tethyr shortly after the Time of Troubles. The Red Knight has since grown in popularity because of what her followers call the Great Stratagem: for decades, her priests have been traveling to places of warfare to educate generals and kings in the arts of strategy and battlefield tactics. Many of the leaders they approached turned them away at first, but it soon became apparent that those who accepted the counsel of the Crimson General’s followers gained a distinct benefit. Grateful victors built temples to the Lady of Strategy, and gradually her faith spread. Today, followers of the Red Knight can be found in nearly any land that has seen warfare in the past century. Worshipers of the Red Knight are rare in the general population, but those who revere her can frequently be found among high-ranking commanders of armies, instructors in colleges of war, quartermasters, and the authors of tomes of strategy. Each temple to the Red Knight includes an altar dedicated to Tempus, and so such a place is likely to be frequented by mercenaries and soldiers. A temple is surrounded by a vast pavilion and courtyard, which can be rented by companies of soldiers and mercenaries for practice and training. Her priests believe that drilling one’s troops in a temple courtyard is a form of propitiation that the Red Knight looks upon with special favor. Savras: The All-Seeing, the Third Eye, Divination’s Lord. Savras is a god of divination and fortunetelling. Few people worship him, but many pray to him when performing small rituals of foresight. For example, young men and women sometimes attempt to divine the names of their future spouses by saying a rhyming chant that calls upon Savras while gazing in a mirror. Savras has no currently active temples in Faerûn, and his shrines are few and far between, tucked away in the corners of libraries and scriptoria. Despite this lack of prominence, certain folk pay regular homage to Savras, including investigators, diviners, judges, and others who have a need to uncover the truth. Such individuals can sometimes be identified by the elaborate staffs they carry in homage to Savras. According to legend, Savras was trapped in Azuth’s staff for ages. Azuth eventually freed Savras so long as Savras swore fealty, and today the staff is a potent symbol for those who revere Savras. Devout worshipers take great pains to decorate and embellish their staffs, each hoping that Savras might find it a welcoming place to stop for a time. Selûne: Our Lady of Silver, the Moonmaiden, the Night White Lady. Selûne is thought to be among the most ancient of Faerûn’s deities. Most humans in Faerûn consider the moon in the sky to literally be the goddess gazing down on the world, and the trailing motes of light behind it her tears. She is also a goddess of stars and navigation as well as motherhood and reproductive cycles. She is seen as a calm power, frequently venerated by female humans as well as by a mix of other folk: navigators and sailors, those who work honestly at night, those seeking protection in the dark, the lost, and the questing. There are many legends about Selûne, chief among them being the tale of the battle at the beginning of time between Selûne and her sister, Shar. The Tears of Selûne, the cluster of starry lights that follow the moon around the sky, are thought to be brought about by the goddess’s joy, sorrow, or both. Milk, a symbol of motherhood, is used in many rites performed by the worshipers of Selûne, as are trances and meditation. Those who favor her typically set a bowl of milk outside on each night of the full moon. Shar: The Mistress of the Night, the Dark Lady, Our Lady of Loss. The dark twin of Selûne, Shar is the goddess of darkness, both in its physical form and as it exists in the minds and souls of mortals. People worship Shar as the goddess of night, secrets, loss, and forgetfulness. She represents pains hidden but not forgotten, and vengeances carefully nurtured away from the light. She is said to have the power to make folk forget their pain or become inured to a loss, and many people in distress pray to Shar for such a blessing. Shar is revered by those who must venture into dark places and so pray to her for protection, such as miners, as well as by those who have fallen into melancholy and despair, who wish to forget something, or who have lost something and wish to recover it. Priests drawn to serve Shar often nurture their own deep wounds or dark secrets, which in their minds makes them best suited to console those who suffer from a similar ill. Throughout the world’s history, many followers of Shar have done dark deeds in her name — most notably the shadovar of Netheril, an entire society dedicated to Shar. The tragedies and losses brought about by the fanaticism of her followers have caused many places to outlaw her worship and thus driven most of her priests into secrecy, but such prohibitions only heighten the priests’ umbrage at authorities and make the faithful a focal point for rebellion and revenge against whoever rules. Silvanus: Oak Father, the Old Oak, Old Father Tree. Silvanus represents the entirety of nature, deserts as well as forests, sharks as much as deer. But folk in the North, who contend with the dangers of forests, mountains, and plains, see Silvanus more as a god of those places. Silvanus is thought of as a grim and severe father figure who metes out flood and drought, fire and ice, and life and death in the wilderness. In legends he often commands other nature deities, dealing out rewards and punishments to them as is fitting.Nature and its impartial fairness is central to the dogma of Silvanus’s faith. His priests seek to know the total situation, to view the macrocosm; their viewpoint isn’t confined to one person’s or one nation’s idea of what is best. The loss of a farming community to goblin raids is a tragedy for some, but the event provides an opportunity for the wilderness to grow up and make the land fertile again, which in turn provides new challenges for those who would return to tame it. The creed of Silvanus dictates that nature’s glory must be preserved not merely because nature is beautiful, but because wild nature is the true state of the world. Its expanses refresh and revitalize the mortal soul, and give breath to all the world. Many of his faithful oppose the expansion of settlements into wild places, and consider excessive consumption of natural resources to be not only wasteful but blasphemous. Silvanus often receives veneration from travelers in wild lands, explorers, and residents of rural communities far from the protection of a local lord or a great city. The oak leaf is Silvanus’s symbol, and a grove of oak trees within a village or on its outskirts is often dedicated as a shrine to him. In rural places where oak trees don’t grow, an oak leaf etched into the bark of another kind of tree signifies a sacred site. Sune: Lady Firehair, the Lady of Love, the Princess of Passion. Sune Firehair is a deity of passion and the delights of the senses. She is the goddess of beauty in all its forms — not just pleasing sights, but also enchanting sounds, luxurious tastes and scents, and the exquisite pleasures of the flesh, from a lover’s caress to the brush of silk on the skin. Her worshipers seek out these pleasures in life, not out of mere decadence, but because the experience of pleasure is the touch of Sune herself. The followers of Sune have a reputation as hedonists, and so they are, to a degree. More than that, her priests foster beauty in the world. They do so by creating art, by acting as patrons for promising talents, and by investing in merchants who bring luxuries to far-off places that have never seen satin or tasted a luscious wine. Her priests consider loveliness to be one of their greatest callings, and all are trained in comportment, fashion, and cosmetics. Indeed, so talented are Sune’s priests in the creation of beautiful appearances that many take pride in their ability to present themselves as stunningly attractive examples of either gender. But beauty is more than skin deep, say the Sunites; it issues from the core of one’s being and shows one’s true face to the world, whether fair or foul. The followers of Sune are believers in romance, true love winning over all, and following one’s heart to one’s true destination. Fated matches, impossible loves, and ugly ducklings becoming swans are all in the purview of Sune. Temples dedicated to Sune are common in human lands, and they frequently serve as public baths and places of relaxation. A temple usually features a mirrored and well-lit salon where folks can primp, as well as see others and be seen. Where a temple doesn’t exist, or in a large city where the nearest temple might be too far to walk to, a small shrine to Sune often stands near a street corner. These sites consist of a mirror hung beneath a small roof where one can say a prayer while checking one’s appearance. The spot might feature a shelf or a cupboard holding various perfumes and cosmetics so that those without the funds to purchase such items can still make themselves feel beautiful. Talona: Lady of Poison, Mistress of Disease, the Plague-crone. One of the most often beseeched of Faerûn’s deities, Talona is the goddess of disease and poison, blamed for everything from common illnesses to crop failure to brackish wells to plague. Depicted in temple iconography as a withered crone with a cup or a vase that holds all the varieties of disease and poison, Talona is a fearsome goddess, and many are the prayers that beg her for protection from illness and poison. Various rituals to placate her involve the use of three drops of blood or three tears — to be dropped into a well that has gone bad, dripped into the handkerchief of someone beset by coughing, dropped into a fire made by burning a withered crop, dripped into the mouth of a plague sufferer, and so on. It’s common practice to mark a container of poison with her holy symbol, three droplets in a triangle, and during epidemics folk paint the same image on the homes of the infected. Though she is often the recipient of prayers, Talona has almost no temples and few cults dedicated to her. A cult or a shrine to her might arise in an area after it suffers from pestilence, when some of those who survived decide to revere her or even become priests. Talos: Stormlord, the Destroyer. Talos is the dark side of nature, the uncaring and destructive force that might strike at any time. He is the god of storms, forest fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, and general destruction. He counts the ravager, the raider, the looter, and the brigand among his followers. Those who favor him see life as a succession of random effects in a sea of chaos, so the devout should grab what they can, when they can — for who can say when Talos will strike and send them into the afterlife? Talos is portrayed as a broad-shouldered, bearded young man with a single good eye, the other covered by a dark patch. He is said to carry a collection of three staffs, made from the first tree cut down in the world, the first silver smelted, and the first iron forged. He uses these staffs to raise destructive winds, cause terrible storms, and split the land in acts of rage. The three lightning bolts of his holy symbol represent these staffs, and when he vents his wrath on the world, he is thought to hurl them down from the sky as lightning strikes. Although Talos is a popular deity, his name is invoked more often out of fear than out of reverence. He does have priests, mostly traveling doomsayers, who warn of disasters to come and accept charity in exchange for blessings of protection. Many of his faithful wear a black eyepatch, even if both eyes are intact. Tempus: The Foehammer, the Lord of Battles.Tempus is a war god concerned with brave conduct during war, using force of arms over talk for settling disputes, and encouraging bloodshed. The god of war is random in his favors, meaning that his chaotic nature favors all sides equally. Lord Tempus might be an army’s ally one day, and its enemy the next. He might seem to manifest before a battle, appearing to one side or the other. If he is seen riding a white mare (Veiros), then the army will succeed. If he rides a black stallion (Deiros), then defeat is certain. Most often he appears to be riding with one foot in each mount’s stirrup, signifying the unpredictable nature of battle. In such visions, Tempus is always a powerfully built warrior dressed for battle in the style of those who envision him. Tempus’s favor might be randomly distributed, but over the centuries his priests have made an effort to spread and enforce a common code of warfare — to make war a thing of rules, respect for reputations, and professional behavior. This code, called Tempus’s Honor, has the purpose of making conflicts brief, decisive, and as safe as possible for those not directly involved. The rules in the code include the following: arm anyone who has need of a weapon; disparage no foe; acquit oneself with bravery; train all for battle; and don’t engage in feuds. Those who poison wells, taint fields, kill noncombatants, or engage in torture in the name of war are all considered sinners. Worshipers of Tempus are legion, and his name is often on the lips of soldiers. His priests are tacticians, often skilled in the art of war. Many of his ordained don’t serve in temples, but as battlefield chaplains with armies and mercenary companies, encouraging their fellow soldiers with both word and blade. Priests of Tempus teach that war conducted properly is fair in that it oppresses all sides equally, and that in any given battle, a mortal might be slain or might become a great leader among his or her companions. Mortals shouldn’t fear war but should see it as a natural force, the storm that civilization brings about by its very existence. Torm: The Loyal Fury, the True, the Hand of Righteousness. Torm is the god of duty and loyalty, revered by those who face danger to bring about a greater good. Those who favor Torm believe that one’s salvation can be found through service, that every failure to perform one’s duty diminishes Torm, and that every success adds to his luster. Those who take Torm to heart must strive to fulfill his commandment to go out into the world and be an active force for good, to right wrongs, and to help the hopeless. They must strive to maintain peace and order while opposing unjust laws. Followers of Torm stand ever alert against corruption and are expected to strike quickly and hard against any evidence of rot in the hearts of mortals. As the sword arm of justice, Torm’s faithful are expected to bring quick deaths to betrayers. Considering these tenets, it should be no surprise that most human paladins have Torm as their patron. Most temples dedicated to Torm are fortresses built on heights. These structures offer austere quarters for residents and visiting knights, drilling grounds, and stables. White granite, lion statues, and armored figures predominate in the architecture, with the coats of arms of fallen heroes decorating the walls of the great halls. Torm is seen as the good right hand of Tyr, and a such his symbol is a white gauntlet made for the right hand. It represents Tyr’s sword hand, but it is also a symbol of forbearance. Torm is frequently depicted with his right gauntlet extended palm forward, which worshipers call the Hand Resolute. It signifies the principle that the just and true must pause before acting to judge whether their intentions uphold Torm’s ideals. Temples, civic structures, and the homes of the faithful are often decorated with images of the Hand Resolute as a constant reminder of this principle. Worshipers of Torm come from most walks of life, for he welcomes any who seek the best in themselves and others, who uphold his tenets of loyalty, responsibility, duty, and kindness, or who are willing to sacrifice to keep evil from gaining ascendancy in the world. The faithful know that all of them will stumble from time to time while following in Torm’s footsteps, but Torm’s priests teach that the shame of a minor fall from grace is far less severe than declining to rise oneself up to Torm’s standards. Tymora: Lady Luck, Our Smiling Lady. Tymora is the bright-faced goddess of fortune, the one to whom gamblers and game-players pray in Faerûn. Our Smiling Lady is said to love none so much as those who gamble with the utmost skill and daring. Yet she is thought to watch over all who take risks to better their fortunes. The battle cry of the followers of Tymora is “Fortune favors the bold.” Someone might say words to Tymora before any endeavor in which a little good luck would help, but not when an incidence of bad luck might occur. (On such occasions folk pray to Beshaba to spare them from bad luck; praying to both is thought to anger both goddesses.) One common method of divining the future is to toss a coin to a stranger (typically a beggar) and ask if it’s heads. If it is, the coin is left with the stranger as payment for Tymora’s favor. If it’s not, the stranger can choose to keep it (and the bad luck) or return it. Those who favor Tymora — as distinct from folk who invoke her name by mumbling over the dice — tend to be daring sorts. Adventurers and gamblers make up much of their ranks. They all have the belief that what is good about their lives is the result of having both good luck and the bravery to seek it out. Tymora has worshipers among all sorts of folk: the dashing young noble, the risk-taking merchant, the daydreaming field hand, and the scheming ne’er-do-well. Priests of Tymora and temples devoted to Lady Luck are scarce, since her faith tends not to stress a need for intermediaries: “Let the lucky man and the Smiling Lady suss it out,” as the old saying goes. Shrines to Tymora at gambling parlors aren’t unusual, however, and sometimes such establishments attract a priest and effectively become temples. Tyr: Grimjaws, the Maimed God, the Evenhanded. Tyr Grimjaws, Tyr the Evenhanded, Wounded Tyr, the Maimed God, the Blind, Blind Tyr, the Lord of Justice — all of these names speak to the nature of the Faerûnian god of justice. Tyr appears as a noble warrior missing his right hand, which he lost to Kezef the Chaos Hound in an act of bravery and sacrifice, and with his eyes wrapped in cloth to signify his blindness, caused by a wound dealt to him by Ao when he questioned the justice of the Overgod’s actions. Tyr’s followers devote themselves to the cause of justice, to the righting of wrongs and the deliverance of vengeance. This devotion isn’t necessarily concerned with equality or fairness, but rather the discovery of truth and the punishment of the guilty. Those who favor Tyr tend to be stiff-necked about matters of theology and laws, seeing things in terms of black and white. Tyr’s credo of lawfulness and honesty is a demanding one, and his priests remind the faithful not to hold in contempt others who can’t live by it — it wouldn’t be an honorable calling if everyone could muster the strength of will to follow it. Many orders of knighthood are devoted to Tyr, including the Knights of Holy Judgment and the Knights of the Merciful Sword. Such knights — as well as judges and priests, clerics, and paladins who worship Tyr — sometimes wear thin strips of diaphanous cloth over their eyes to remind others of the blindness of justice. Umberlee: The Bitch Queen, the Queen of the Depths, the Wavemother. No community that lives by the sea can ignore the influence of Umberlee, the furious goddess whose tempestuous nature reflects and is reflected by the waters of the deep. Any such community makes sure to host festivals to propitiate the Wavemother and seek her favor. Although mercurial in temperament, she can be generous to those who do her honor, as is any great queen. The Bitch Queen is worshiped out of fear instead of adoration, and ship crews offer her gems, tossed over the side, to calm storm-tossed waters. As her most common moniker suggests, she is viewed as capricious and cruel with no firm ethical outlook; the sea is a savage place, and those who travel it had best be willing to pay the price of challenging her domain. There is little in the way of an organized clergy of Umberlee. Her priests roam coastal cities, warning of doom and demanding free passage on ships in return for ensuring the goddess’s pleasure. Often they wear the colors of waves and storms, and they decorate themselves with items that remind others of the sea’s dangerous nature — a necklace of shark teeth, seaweed wrapped about a human bone, and so on. The preserved hand of a drowned person is thought to be a particularly holy object, and some of her few clerics use such severed hands as holy symbols. Umberlee does have a large number of shrines in the coastal cities, and sailors often leave flowers or small candies at them in hopes that she will spare them on their next voyage. Both Waterdeep and Baldur’s Gate have true temples dedicated to Umberlee, staffed largely by the widows of sailors lost at sea. Waukeen: Our Lady of Gold, the Coinmaiden, the Merchant’s Friend. Waukeen is the goddess of wealth and trade, on both sides of the law. Her most ardent worshipers include shopkeepers, members of trading costers, wealthy merchants, caravan guides, itinerant peddlers, moneychangers, and smugglers. She is interested in anything that increases trade and the flow of money, whether new trade routes, new inventions, or the whim of changing fashion. Those who take Waukeen as a patron can be reliably thought of as greedy, but the Coinmaiden is said to frown upon misers and smile upon the industrious and the profligate, and thus priests who bear her holy symbol find themselves welcome in many towns and cities. Temples of Waukeen resemble guildhalls and often serve as meeting places for trade consortiums. Those who follow Waukeen’s ethos seek to create more opportunity for all and see competition for wealth as one of society’s main means of progress. Thus, the faithful of Our Lady of Gold often find themselves at odds with trade guilds and others who would form monopolies. It’s common practice among those who seek Waukeen’s favor to set aside a tithe of ten percent of their profits, but rather than being given to a temple, the money is meant to be spent to help a struggling business, to finance a new endeavor, or, if all else fails, on frivolous fun. THE GODS OF MULHORAND: People of Faerûn refer to Mulhorand as one of the Old Empires, but most don’t know that Mulhorand is in fact the oldest human empire still in existence on the continent. Mulhorand’s pantheon of deities, sometimes called god-kings or pharaohs, can trace their lineage even farther back. According to the demigods enthroned in Mulhorand, the ancestors of the Mulhorandi people were brought from another world and enslaved by the Imaskari in an ancient empire deep in what is now Raurin, the Dust Desert. When the gods of those ancestors heard the pleas of their distant faithful, they set out in a great celestial ark guided by the entity known as Ptah. Upon arriving in the world, two of the deities, Re and Enlil, set about empowering the slaves and fomenting rebellion. The revolt succeeded, but Re and Enlil couldn’t keep peace with one another. Each then founded a separate dynasty of divine mortals, Re in Mulhorand, and Enlil (father of Gilgeam) in Unther. Re and his related deities ruled Mulhorand through mortal incarnations for thousands of years. Time took its toll, and the attention the deities of Mulhorand paid to their followers wavered and diminished. Each new incarnation of Isis, Osiris, and Thoth was a little more human and a little less divine. When the magically powerful Imaskari returned with a vengeance a little over a century ago, they stole the scepter of rulership from a grasp so weak it barely had any strength left. Although Mulhorand’s conquerors outlawed slavery in the area they now called High Imaskar, the Mulhorandi people recognized the yoke they now bore. The Imaskari were the new coming of the slavemasters of old, as depicted in the carvings in the pharaohs’ tombs. Many prayed that the vanished gods would return and once again free them from Imaskari rule, and during the Sundering, that is what happened. What were referred to as Chosen in other lands were recognized in Mulhorand as living gods, come to lead the Mulhorandi in an uprising. Today Mulhorand is ruled by demigods that call themselves by such names as Re, Anhur, Horus, Isis, Nephthys, Set, and Thoth. They take different forms, some human and others tieflings or aasimar, but all speak and act like the gods of legend come to life, which they must be. This family of deities bears the scars of all the past loves, rivalries, and wars between them, but for now they have set their differences aside for the betterment of Mulhorand and its people, and the people of Mulhorand love them for it. Cults: For some mortals, the gods hold no draw. These individuals are often outcasts or the hopeless, susceptible to promises of charismatic cult leaders and their otherworldly masters. Cults typically come in one of 6 varieties, Demonic, Diablolic, Aberrant, Shadow, Fey or Elemental. Demonic cults work in service of demons of the abyss, typically for Demon Lords such as Baphomet, Demogorgon, Fraz-Urb'luu, Graz'zt, Juiblex, Orcus, Yeenoghu, or Zuggtmoy. They work to spread the particular brand of corruption, chaos, and madness manifested by their Demonic patron. Diabolic cults also work to corrupt mortals and topple nations, but through the slow and lawful evil characteristic of Devils. They seek our Archdevils such as Zariel, Fierna and Belial, Dispater, Mammon, Levistus, Glasya, Baalzebub, Mephistopheles, and the greatest of all Asmodeus. Aberrant cults worship the unknowable entities of planes such as the Far-realm or Elder Evils, beings of alien minds and matter that seek to undermine not only individuals but the material plane itself. These eldritch horrors often warp the very reality around them and bring mutation and madness. Shadow cults work shadow magic and serve denizens of the shadowfell, such as the raven Queen. They seek power and subtly work their schemes in the shadows until their dark purpose is complete. Fey Cults are more rare than others, benevolent Archfey are typically not in the business of plotting the world’s end. Usually, Fey Cults spring up around Hags and other malicious fey creatures of the gloaming court. Elemental cults worship powerful elemental evils and seek to bring destruction and ruin to the material plane. These cults are strongly tied to beings of the elemental planes such as Imix (Prince of Evil Fire the All-Consuming Fire, the Eternal Flame), Ogrémoch (Prince of Evil Earth Tyrant of Black Earth, the Mountain of Doom), Olhydra, (Princess of Evil Water, the Crushing Wave, Well of Endless Anguish), Yan-C-Bin, (Prince of Evil Air, the Shadow of the Four Winds, the Howling Hatred), and the Elder Elemental Eye. Tiamat: Tiamat was the lawful evil dragon goddess of greed, queen of evil dragons and, for a time, reluctant servant of the greater gods Bane and later Asmodeus. Before entering the Faerûnian pantheon, she was a member of the Draconic pantheon, and for some time she was also a member of the Untheric pantheon. Tiamat was also the eternal rival of her brother Bahamut, ruler of the good metallic dragons. Tiamat was a unique chromatic dragon, who had one head for each primary color of the most common species of chromatics (black, blue, green, red, white). Each head was able to operate entirely independently of each other and had the powers of a member of the respective race of dragonkind. Her body also had traits in common with a wyvern, including a long tail tipped with a venomous stinger. Bahamut: was the dragon god of justice and a subservient deity to Torm, god of law. Before entering the Faerûnian pantheon, he was a member of the Draconic pantheon, as a deity of good dragons, metallic dragons, wisdom, and enlightened justice (justice tempered with mercy and punishment with forgiveness) known by the name of Xymor. For some time, he was also a member of the Untheric pantheon, under the alias of Marduk. His natural form was that of a platinum dragon, said by many to be the only one of his kind. He was also the eternal rival of his sister Tiamat, queen of the chromatic dragons. Baphomet: Civilization is weakness and savagery is strength in the credo of Baphomet, the Horned King and the Prince of Beasts. He rules over minotaurs and others with savage hearts. He is worshiped by those who want to break the confines of civility and unleash their bestial natures, for Baphomet envisions a world without restraint, where creatures live out their most savage desires. Cults devoted to Baphomet use mazes and complex knots as their emblems, creating secret places to indulge themselves, including labyrinths of the sort their master favors. Bloodstained crowns and weapons of iron and brass decorate their profane altars. Over time, Baphomet’s cultists become tainted by his influence, gaining bloodshot eyes and coarse, thickening hair. Small horns eventually sprout from the forehead. In time, a devoted cultist might transform entirely into a minotaur — considered the greatest gift of the Prince of Beasts. Baphomet himself appears as a great, black-furred minotaur, 20 feet tall with six iron horns. An infernal light burns in his red eyes. Although filled with bestial bloodlust, there lies within a cruel and cunning intellect devoted to subverting all of civilization.Baphomet wields a great glaive called Heartcleaver. He sometimes casts this deadly weapon aside so that he can charge his enemies and gore them with his horns, trampling them into the earth and rending them with his teeth like a beast. Demogorgon: Prince of Demons, the Sibilant Beast, and Master of the Spiraling Depths, Demogorgon is the embodiment of chaos, madness, and destruction, seeking to corrupt all that is good and undermine order in the multiverse, to see everything dragged howling into the infinite depths of the Abyss. The demon lord is a meld of different forms, with a saurian lower body and clawed, webbed feet, as well as suckered tentacles sprouting from the shoulders of a great apelike torso, surmounted by two hideous simian heads, named Aameul and Hathradiah, both equally mad. Their gaze brings madness and confusion to any who confront it. Similarly, the spiraling Y sign of Demogorgon’s cult can inspire madness in those who contemplate it for too long. All the followers of the Prince of Demons go mad, sooner or later. Fraz-Urb'luu:All demons are liars, but Fraz-Urb’luu is the Prince of Deception and Demon Lord of Illusions. He uses every trick, every ounce of demonic cunning, to manipulate his enemies — mortal and fiend alike — to do his will. Fraz-Urb’luu can create dreamlands and mind-bending fantasies able to deceive the most discerning foes.Once imprisoned for centuries below Castle Greyhawk on the world of Oerth, Fraz-Urb’luu has slowly rebuilt his power in the Abyss. He seeks the pieces of the legendary staff of power taken from him by those who imprisoned him, and commands his servants to do likewise.The Prince of Deception’s true form is like that of a great gargoyle, some 12 feet tall, with an extended, muscular neck and a smiling face framed by long, pointed ears and lank, dark hair, and bat-like wings are furled against his powerful shoulders. He can assume other forms, however, from the hideous to the beautiful. Often the demon lord becomes so immersed in playing a role that he loses himself in it for a time.Many of the cultists of Fraz-Urb’luu aren’t even aware they serve the Prince of Deception, believing their master is a beneficent being and granter of wishes, some lost god or celestial, or even another fiend. Fraz-Urb’luu wears all these masks and more. He particularly delights in aiding demon-hunters against his demonic adversaries, driving the hunters to greater and greater atrocities in the name of their holy cause, only to eventually reveal his true nature and claim their souls as his own. Graz'zt: The appearance of the Dark Prince is a warning that not all beautiful things are good. Standing nearly nine feet tall, Graz’zt strikes the perfect figure of untamed desire, every plane and curve of his body, every glance of his burning eyes, promising a mixture of pleasure and pain. A subtle wrongness pervades his beauty, from the cruel cast of his features to the six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. Graz’zt can also transform himself at will, appearing in any humanoid form that pleases him, or his onlookers, all equally tempting in their own ways. Graz’zt surrounds himself with the finest of things and the most attractive of servants, and he adorns himself in silks and leathers both striking and disturbing in their workmanship. His lair, and those of his cultists, are pleasure palaces where nothing is forbidden, save moderation or kindness. The dark Prince of Pleasure considers restriction the only sin, and takes what he wants. Cults devoted to him are secret societies of indulgence, often using their debauchery to subjugate others through blackmail, addiction, and manipulation. They frequently wear alabaster masks with ecstatic expressions and ostentatious dress and body ornamentation to their secret assignations. Although he prefers charm and subtle manipulation, Graz’zt is capable of terrible violence when provoked. He wields the greatsword Angdrelve, the Wave of Sorrow, its wavy, razor-edged blade dripping acid at his command. Juiblex: Called the Faceless Lord and the Oozing Hunger in ancient grimoires, Juiblex is demon lord of slime and ooze, a noxious creature that doesn’t care about the plots and schemes of others of its kind. It exists only to consume, digesting and transforming living matter into more of itself. A true horror, Juiblex is a mass of bubbling slime, swirling black and green, with glaring red eyes floating and shifting within it. It can rise up like a 20-foot hill, lashing out with dripping pseudopods to drag victims into its bulk. Those consumed by Juiblex are obliterated.Only the truly insane worship Juiblex and tend to its slimes and oozes. Those who offer themselves up to the demon lord are engulfed by it and become vaguely humanoid, sentient oozes. The bodies of these former flesh-and-blood creatures form Juiblex’s extended physical body, while the demon lord slowly digests and savors their identities over time. Orcus: Orcus is the Demon Prince of Undeath, known as the Blood Lord. He takes some pleasure in the sufferings of the living, but far prefers the company and service of the undead. His desire is to see all life quenched and the multiverse transformed into a vast necropolis populated solely by undead creatures under his command. Orcus rewards those who spread death in his name by granting them a small portion of his power. The least of these become ghouls and zombies who serve in his legions, while his favored servants are the cultists and necromancers who murder the living and then manipulate the dead, emulating their dread master. Orcus is a bestial creature of corruption with a diseased, decaying look. He has the lower torso of a goat, and a humanoid upper body with a corpulent belly swollen with rot. Great bat wings sprout from his shoulders, and his head is like the skull of a goat, the flesh nearly rotted from it. In one hand, he wields the legendary Wand of Orcus, Yeenoghu: The Beast of Butchery appears as a great battle-scarred gnoll, towering 14 feet tall. Yeenoghu is the Gnoll Lord, and his creations are made in his twisted image. When the demon lord hunted across the Material Plane, packs of hyenas followed in his wake. Those that ate of great Yeenoghu’s kills became gnolls, emulating their master’s ways. Few others worship the Beast of Butchery, but those who do tend to take on a gnoll-like aspect, hunched over, and filing their teeth down to points. Yeenoghu wants nothing more than slaughter and senseless destruction. The gnolls are his instruments, and he drives them to ever-greater atrocities in his name. Yeenoghu takes pleasure in causing fear before death, and he sows sorrow and despair through destroying beloved things. He doesn’t parlay; to meet him is to do battle with him — unless he becomes bored. The Beast of Butchery has a long rivalry with Baphomet, the Horned King, and the two demon lords and their followers attack one another on sight.The Gnoll Lord is covered in matted fur and taut, leathery hide, his face like a grinning predator’s skull. Patchwork armor made of discarded shields and breastplates is lashed onto his body with heavy chains, decorated by the flayed skins of his foes. He wields a triple-headed flail called the Butcher, which he can summon into his hand at will, although he is as likely to tear his prey apart with his bare hands before ripping out its throat with his teeth. Zuggtmoy: The Demon Queen of Fungi, Lady of Rot and Decay, Zuggtmoy is an alien creature whose only desire is to infect the living with spores, transforming them into her mindless servants and, eventually, into decomposing hosts for the mushrooms, molds, and other fungi that she spawns. Utterly inhuman, Zuggtmoy can mold her fungoid form into an approximation of a humanoid shape, including the skeletal-thin figure depicted in grimoires and ancient art, draped and veiled in mycelium and lichen. Indeed, much of her appearance and manner, and that of her servants’, is a soulless mockery of mortal life and its many facets.Zuggtmoy’s cultists often follow her unwittingly. Most are fungi-infected to some degree, whether through inhaling her mind-controlling spores or being transformed to the point where flesh and fungus become one. Such cultists are fungal extensions of the Demon Queen’s will. Their devotion might begin with the seemingly harmless promises offered by exotic spores and mushrooms, but quickly consumes them, body and soul. Sharing a layer of the Abyss with Juiblex, plus their mutual insatiable hunger, has made the two demon lords mortal enemies, each devoted to destroying and ultimately devouring the other. Zariel: Zariel was once an angel, but her impetuous nature and love of battle led to her fall. In her previous life, she was charged with observing the battles on Avernus and tracking their progress. From this exposure, she grew obsessed with the Blood War, and a thirst for battle grew within her that she couldn’t ignore. In time, she became frustrated that she and the other angels were forced to remain spectators while the demons and devils battled. The hosts of Mount Celestia, she believed, could descend upon Avernus en masse and wipe both hordes of evil from the cosmos if they so desired.After her repeated requests to join the fray were denied, her frustration overtook her, and she launched herself into the Blood War. Accompanied by a mob of mortal followers, she cut a swath through a legion of devils before their numbers overwhelmed her. A delegation of bone devils later dispatched to the site by Asmodeus recovered her unconscious form beneath a small mountain of her slaughtered enemies. After allowing her to recover in the depths of Nessus, Asmodeus installed her on Avernus as his champion and new lord of that layer. Fierna and Belial:In the flaming realm of Phlegethos, Fierna and Belial rule in strange tandem. They are variously thought of by mortals as mother and son, daughter and father, wife and husband, or ruler and consort, but none of those terms can capture the paradoxical nature of their partnership. The Nine Hells is a hierarchy in which two individuals can’t normally hold the same position as ruler of a single layer. Yet Asmodeus allows these two to claim dominion over Phlegethos as partners and rivals.Fierna’s charisma, equaled only by that of Asmodeus, makes her a brilliant manipulator capable of filling mortal and immortal hearts with whatever emotion she chooses to evoke. Belial, meanwhile, doesn’t attempt to sway others with his interpersonal skills and focuses on the duties of ruling a layer of the Nine Hells. The two seem to hate and admire one another in equal measure and are in constant competition. Every time Belial outthinks Fierna, she talks her way out of whatever trap he has devised. Fierna stages insurrections against Belial, but his contingency plans rescue him from possible disaster. Other devils might gain a brief advantage over the two lords because of their infighting, but whenever any true threat to their rule arises, the seeming enemies cooperate to dispatch pretenders to their shared throne. Dispater: Dispater is the foremost arms dealer of the Nine Hells, and perhaps the greatest weapons supplier in all the planes. As the lord of Dis, he oversees a mining and smelting operation that continually churns out weapons and armor. Using some of the great number of secret techniques Dispater has unearthed over his lifetime, the foundries of Dis produce deadly armaments that help to stem the abyssal tide. The fighting requires constant reinforcements, creating a voracious appetite for the products of the iron mines on Dis and the workshops in the sprawling metropolis that shares the name of the layer. Dispater trusts no one and dislikes surprises. Since Zariel’s rise to power, he has taken to dwelling in the libraries inside his iron palace. He employs a network of spies and informants to watch over anyone that might threaten him, a measure of his deep paranoia. Dispater has created an impenetrable suit of adamantine armor for himself, imbued with charms designed to foil spells and keep him safe in any environment, no matter how hostile. No one can guess at all of its features, since he crafted it using methods that only he has mastered.Dispater’s paranoia affects everything he does. For example, he often dispatches orders and other missives by branding his message on the back of an imp. The imp wears a leather vest that conceals the message, and the laces of the vest are knitted into the imp’s heart. If the vest is removed by anyone other than the intended recipient, that act kills the imp and causes its body to disintegrate before the message can be read.The lord of Dis measures everything in terms of the knowledge it contains and the secrets that can be gleaned from it. He yearns to solve every mystery of the cosmos, a quest that might seem foolhardy for anyone other than an immortal being. Any hint of a secret that remains hidden draws his attention, and a discovery that could tip the scales in his favor might be enough to entice him to act against his fellow Lords of the Nine.Given his reclusive nature, gaining an audience with Dispater is difficult at best, with no guarantee that any correspondence truly reaches him. Mammon: Mammon is the foremost merchant and miser of the Nine Hells, and perhaps the richest entity in all the planes. As the lord of Minauros, Mammon oversees the soul trade. While those who pledge their souls are claimed by the devil they bargained with, lawful evil creatures that aren’t bound by any contract emerge from the River Styx as lemures. Roving bands of soul-mongers patrol the river’s banks, harvesting the newly created devils. On its arrival, each soul passes through the capital of Minauros, the Sinking City, and is recorded. The soul is then distributed to whoever should claim it, according to contracts in force and laws in effect. Mammon appropriates any extra lemures for himself and sells them for profit. Mammon has accumulated a great treasure hoard, but spends only a small portion of it on maintaining his domain. As a result, Minauros is a fetid, wretched place, its structures characterized by cheap construction, flimsy materials, and shoddy artisanship. Levistus: Even by the otherworldly standards of the Nine Hells, the realm of Stygia and its lord, Levistus, both occupy strange positions in the hierarchy. Stygia is a frozen wasteland of mysterious origin, a churning, murky sea covered in a thick layer of ice. Where the ice gives way to open water, immense icebergs drift on the unpredictable currents. Levistus is trapped within one of these bergs, imprisoned there by Asmodeus for reasons that few can even guess about.As part of Levistus’s punishment, Asmodeus decreed that he must offer escape and safety to the desperate, especially those who fear for their lives. A criminal might entreat Levistus on the eve of his execution, for instance, agreeing to exchange his soul for a boon that enables him to escape to safety. With nothing to do in his tomb other than answer distant entreaties from the Material Plane, Levistus has attracted the devotion of a wide variety of criminals, rascals, and ne’er-do-wells across a multitude of worlds. He continues to meet his quota of souls, both despite his lack of mobility and because of it. Being imprisoned means that Levistus can focus his full attention on such matters, which allows him to excel at what he does. Glasya: Malbolge is the prison of the Nine Hells, and on this layer dwells its most infamous criminal. Glasya, the rebellious daughter of Asmodeus, rules the place and oversees the punishments doled out to devils that stray from their assigned tasks. These lawbreakers are put on trial in Phlegethos, and if they are found guilty they are dispatched to Malbolge to endure years of torment. That Glasya is both prison warden and the Nine Hells’ most notorious criminal is evidence that in the infernal realms, crime pays as long as you avoid being convicted. Baalzebub: Maladomini was once a bustling realm of vibrant cities and a panoply of roads, gardens, and bridges. It was the center of the Hells’ bureaucracy, where every edict, law, and order was dutifully copied and filed away. With each passing year, the devils would add more fortresses and archives to Maladomini to house all their records.Then came the single greatest act of treachery in the annals of the Nine Hells. At the time, the archdevil Baalzebul was so powerful that he ruled two layers of the Hells, Maladomini and Malbolge. He conspired to topple Asmodeus and replace him, which in itself was not a crime. But in order to work his plans, he knowingly altered documents that passed into his care with the intent of confounding the apparatus of the bureaucracy. Before his scheme could come to fruition, he was caught and subjected to the most bizarre of punishments.In that time long past, Baalzebul believed that he could cast Asmodeus as incompetent and amass a force to replace him before Asmodeus’s allies could act, but his calculations failed to take into account the unpredictability of the Blood War. A sudden offensive from the Abyss struck Avernus just as Baalzebul was about to put his plan in motion. Baalzebul directed most of his shield legions to stay out of the fight, instead of helping to hold the line against the demons, so that he could use them in staging his coup. The absence of those legions, however, enabled the horde to push close to the doorstep of Dis. Baalzebul was forced to abandon his plans, realizing that the Nine Hells would be of little use to him if it was overrun with demons, and ultimately he united with the other archdevils to turn back the invasion. But when an investigation of the events uncovered his treachery, Baalzebul didn’t submit to punishment, and Maladomini was wracked with fighting as the other Lords of the Nine took to the field against the conspirator. The resulting devastation left much of the layer in ruins. Baalzebul was overwhelmed and defeated, Asmodeus stripped him of his rulership of Malbolge but left him in charge of Maladomini, albeit with a new set of duties. Asmodeus knew that Baalzebul’s superior intellect and propensity for lying would make him the ideal representative of the bureaucracy of the Hells in the worlds of mortals. So, to ensure his loyalty while taking advantage of his talents, Asmodeus enacted two laws concerning him. First, whenever Baalzebul lied to a devil, he would transform into a slug-like creature, hideous to all who beheld him, for one year. This penalty was retroactive, covering several millennia of deceptions and untruths — and only recently has Baalzebul worked off all those transgressions and been returned to his former humanoid form. In all that time, he has not told a lie to another devil, and his continued honesty is motivated by his desire to keep his current appearance.Second, Asmodeus decreed that any deal Baalzebul strikes shall end in disaster for the other party. For this reason, other devils avoid forming alliances with him, even though they know he is compelled not to lie to them. Mortals, on the other hand, know nothing of the situation and still offer their souls to him.His ability to scheme neutralized by these limitations, Baalzebul continues to ensure that the devils’ bureaucracy runs smoothly. He focuses most of his attention on gathering souls from the Material Plane, a task to which his talent for lying is well suited. Mephistopheles: Cania, like Stygia above it, is a bitterly cold realm of glaciers and howling ice storms. Mephistopheles holds court here with the ice devils that make up his retinue. Operating from his great tower, the icy citadel of Mephistar, he conducts a never-ending series of experiments that expand his understanding of arcane magic and of the planes of existence.Mephistopheles keeps his realm churning with punishing storms. He doesn’t entertain visitors, and Asmodeus has charged him with maintaining a stout security force around Nessus. Travelers that aren’t protected against the environment, which is cold enough to kill a creature in seconds, have little hope of surviving.The foremost wizard in the Hells, Mephistopheles suffers nothing that would compromise his intellectual focus. He hates distractions and allows only particular devils to speak to him without first being spoken to. He has been known to disintegrate minions for the smallest transgressions, and sometimes carries out an execution simply because he suspected that a devil was about to do something to annoy him.Mephistopheles is able to devote almost all his time to his research thanks to the loyalty of Hutijin, his top lieutenant. Even though Hutijin commands enough power to threaten his master’s position, he is content to remain at the right hand of the throne, at least for the time being. Asmodeus: From his throne at the bottom of the Nine Hells, Asmodeus commands a sprawling bureaucracy tied to a massive war apparatus dedicated to turning back the demons that invade the uppermost realm of Avernus, and to taking the fight to the other planes, including the Abyss, whenever the opportunity arises.Asmodeus and the other archdevils rule over the nine layers that comprise the Hells. The devil lords make up a hierarchy that is both rigid and fragile. Although Asmodeus is more powerful than any other lord, he has to be constantly wary of treachery within his ranks. It could be said that the true ruler of the Nine Hells is the immense body of rules and regulations that dictate how all devils, even Asmodeus, must conduct themselves. Imix: Imix, the Eternal Flame and the All-Consuming Fire, is the Prince of Evil Fire. His natural form resembles a 30-foot-tall, 10-foot-wide pillar of fire with smoldering black pits for eyes. Imix rarely speaks, but he crackles and roars with terrible laughter as anything combustible within his grasp bursts into flame and feeds his hate. Mortal beings are mere objects of contempt to Imix, and he burns alive any he can catch for nothing more than the wicked glee of watching them writhe and die in his flames. Like his native element, Imix is fickle, temperamental, and highly destructive. Anything combustible stokes his hunger, but he takes special delight in feeding on the handiwork and possessions of intelligent beings, such as crops, buildings, or goods. Imix doesn’t even spare his own followers or those who placate him with gifts and sacrifices — he is capricious and unpredictable, and often turns on those who think they have earned his favor. Ogrémoch: The Prince of Evil Earth is Ogrémoch (pronounced oh-gray-mock), the Mountain that Walks. His natural form is a shambling, 50-foot-tall colossus of rock, with crystal growths embedded throughout his body. When he bothers to speak, his voice sounds like grinding stones. Ogrémoch is a miser who regards all the resources and treasures found in the ground as his own. He holds nothing but contempt for mortals (or any other denizens of the Material Plane) and desires nothing more than to crush and subjugate whomever he encounters. What he can’t crush, he endures and outlasts. Ogrémoch especially resents any mortals that dare to remove valuable metal or stone from the earth, and those who shape or build things of stone. He notices each nugget of gold or raw gemstone removed from areas under his influence, seeking to reclaim treasures “stolen” from him — and to punish the thieves. When the Prince of Evil Earth gains access to the Material Plane through an elemental node, he begins to methodically locate and destroy every mine, quarry, town, or fortification in the area. It’s not that he needs the wealth, but the principle of the thing — extracting treasure from the earth — is anathema to Ogrémoch. Olhydra: Olhydra is the Princess of Evil Water. Sometimes known as the Crushing Wave, the Dark Tide, or the Well of Endless Anguish, she takes the form of a great wave, 20 feet high and 15 feet wide, with opalescent eyes. She prefers to remain in or near large bodies of water — seas, lakes, rivers, or sometimes great subterranean pools. When she needs to, she can surge onto dry land, moving much like a wave rushing up onto the shore, but only great anger or desperation would drive Olhydra to move more than a few hundred feet from her native element. Olhydra surges forth tirelessly and relentlessly. She delights in creating dangerous and destructive manifestations of elemental water, especially maelstroms and floods. She is eager to assert her power by smashing any vessel that dares to venture into her realm, and lays waste to villages or towns established within her reach. Olhydra erodes that which she can’t batter and drown; she is patient, retreating in the face of adversity only to return stronger than before.Of all the Princes of Elemental Evil, Olhydra is the one most interested in mortals. She recognizes that pirates and raiders who redden the waters with mortal blood (and occasionally send treasure-laden ships into her clutches) are agents of her hateful outlook, whether they know it or not. Consequently, Olhydra sometimes spares the worst sort of seafarers from her wrath, patiently waiting for the day when they deliver others into her power. Yan-C-Bin: Yan-C-Bin (pronounced yan-see-bin) is the Prince of Evil Air. A being of great wisdom and malice, Yan-C-Bin’s plots began at the forging of the worlds. Subtler than the other elemental princes, Yan-C-Bin operates unseen, studying his enemies from afar, ambushing them swiftly, and vanishing before his foes can retaliate. His natural form is an invisible vortex of howling, swirling air 30 feet high and 15 feet wide, but Yan-C-Bin sometimes takes the shape of a gaunt, venerable, dark-skinned human with wispy white hair and glowing white eyes. When he wishes to remain unseen, Yan-C-Bin manifests only as a gust of cold wind flowing silently past. From his floating palace in the endless, cloudy skies of the Plane of Air, Yan-C-Bin watches worlds as they change over millennia. Evil aerial creatures worship the elemental prince as a god, and claim to see Yan-C-Bin’s eyes in swirling storms. Yan-C-Bin doesn’t care for their offerings, their sacrifices, or their worship. His only concern is the annihilation of the material realms as they are ripped apart by the superior elemental might of air and wind. The Elder Elemental Eye: While the princes of Elemental Evil act independently of each other, there is a mysterious force that seems to link them together: the Elder Elemental Eye. Some sages believe that the Eye is a dark, primordial god that corrupted the elements in the beginning of the world, giving rise to each of the princes. Others hold that the Elder Elemental Eye is a binding force — a common fate, or perhaps a curse — that ties the princes together. Whenever one aspect of Elemental Evil takes root in the world, the other three soon follow, and the four cults are often found together despite their mutual antipathy. Elder Evils:The Elder Evils are a variety of entities whose existence dates to the beginnings of the multiverse—or possibly predates it. Some Elder Evils are creatures of the Far Realm (see chapter 6), while others are akin to gods or primordial beings of the Elemental Planes. Some are thought to be imprisoned, while others are said to be slumbering until they awaken in some apocalyptic cataclysm. The names given to these terrible entities include such strange descriptions as Atropus, the World Born Dead; Dendar, the Night Serpent; Hadar, the Dark Hunger; Haemnathuun, the Blood Lord; Ityak-Ortheel, the Elf-Eater; Kezef, the Chaos Hound; Kyuss, the Worm That Walks; the Queen of Chaos; Tharizdun, the Chained God; Tyranthraxus, the Flamed One; and Zargon, the Returner. They are all forces of corruption and evil. Nothing good can come from their influence. Bargains made with them end in catastrophe or death. Hadar: Hadar (HAY-dar or ha-DARR), the Dark Hunger, is an ancient stellar entity originating from the Far Realm (see chapter 6). It appears as a cinder-red dying star, barely visible in the night sky, and it siphons life from its minions to avert its own demise. Two widely used Warlock spells invoke Hadar’s power (see the Arms of Hadar and Hunger of Hadar spells in the Player’s Handbook), and a few Warlocks claim this Elder Evil as their Great Old One patron. Kyuss:Variously identified as an Elder Evil, as a demigod, or as a mortal priest of the demon lord Orcus (see chapter 6), Kyuss (KYE-uss) is a mysterious figure best known as the Worm That Walks. Kyuss manifests on the Material Plane as a colossal mass of maggots and worms animated by a single evil will. Tharizdun: For a being known as the Chained God, the Elder Evil Tharizdun (thuh-RIZZ-dun or thair-izz-DOON) has managed to extend his baleful influence from the Greyhawk setting through many worlds of the Material Plane. He is an ancient force of entropy, the end of all things and the extinction of life. His worshipers are nihilists who seek to end all worlds by liberating their god. Tharizdun is often linked to cults of Elemental Evil. Zargon: Zargon (ZAR-gawn) is an Elder Evil—an undying abomination from eons past with an insatiable appetite. A tentacled, slime-covered horror with a cyclopic red eye and an indestructible horn, Zargon corrupts creatures it doesn’t devour, transforming its victims into amorphous servants. Zargon is imprisoned on the Material Plane in a prison deep in the earth. This prison is described in the Quests from the Infinite Staircase adventure anthology.

The Material Realms: The philosophical and elemental forces of reality converge to create the following planes of existence: Material Plane. Feywild. This vibrant, idealized realm brims with life and emotion, which are most intense in the realm’s Domains of Delight. Shadowfell. This gloom-haunted realm holds grim wastelands, haunted ruins, and the infamous Domains of Dread. Transitive Planes: The transitive planes serve as paths between planes. Astral Plane. This endless, silvery expanse links the Material Plane and the Outer Planes. Whole civilizations have arisen in this glimmering vastness, while others navigate the magical cosmos in spelljamming vessels. Ethereal Plane. This ghostly realm connects the Material Plane and the Inner Planes. The region where the Ethereal Plane overlaps with other planes is called the Border Ethereal, a place where creatures can glimpse visions of planes beyond. The Inner Planes: Elemental forces and the building blocks of reality originate from these Inner Planes: Elemental Plane of Air. Winds blow clouds and floating islands across this boundless sky. Elemental Plane of Earth. This maze of caverns winds through stone and untold mineral riches. Elemental Plane of Fire. An everlasting inferno, this realm blazes with life on volcanic islands. Elemental Plane of Water. This bottomless ocean churns with mysterious sea life. Elemental Chaos. Here on the fringes of the Inner Planes, elemental forces clash unpredictably. Para-Elemental Planes. In these borderlands between the Elemental Planes, elemental forces combine into realms of ash, ice, magma, and ooze. The Outer Planes: Realms where ideas take form and spirits spend their afterlives, the Outer Planes are the homes of immortals. The following locations compose the Outer Planes: Sigil. Sigil, the City of Doors, is a metropolis rather than a plane at the center of the Outer Planes. Here portals lead throughout the multiverse, and the enigmatic Lady of Pain maintains order. Outlands. Influences from the other Outer Planes converge in the Outlands, where portals lead to those planes. At the Outlands’ center rises the Spire, a pillar atop which floats Sigil. Other Outer Planes. These planes are listed on the Outer Planes below. Some are paradises, some are nightmare realms, and some are more bizarre. Each is dominated by forces that embody one or more of the alignments. Abyss: The Abyss embodies all that is perverse, gruesome, and chaotic. Its virtually endless layers spiral downward into ever more appalling forms. Each layer of the Abyss boasts a horrific environment that is harsh and inhospitable to mortals. Each layer also reflects the entropic nature of the Abyss. Much of the plane seems to be in a decaying, crumbling, or corroded state, and its corruption affects visitors.Layers of the Abyss, The layers of the Abyss are numbered based on the sequence of their discovery and cataloging by explorers from Sigil. Thus, the Plain of Infinite Portals is identified as the first layer, Azzagrat encompasses the 45th, 46th, and 47th layers; the Demonweb is the 66th layer; and so on. The Layers of the Abyss table presents several infamous layers; detailed descriptions of these layers follow. Layer 1: The Plain of Infinite Portals: This layer is the miserable gateway to the infinite layers of the Abyss. Under a glaring red sun, the rocky ground contains gaping craters that are portals to the other layers of the Abyss. Other portals lead to Pandemonium, Sigil, the gate-town of Plague-Mort in the Outlands, and the Astral Plane, making this layer the best way to escape the horrors of the Abyss. Iron fortresses dot the landscape, homes to petty lords and upstart demons that are as changeable as the Abyss itself.The portal leading to Plague-Mort is tucked within a fortress called the Broken Reach, ruled by a succubus named Red Shroud. In the Broken Reach, those who can prove their strength and mettle can stay unharmed for a few days at least. Layers 45–47: Azzagrat: The demon lord Graz’zt embodies manipulation and cruelty, tempting mortals with the promise of appalling delights and decadent luxuries. He rules over the realm of Azzagrat, which encompasses three interconnected layers of the Abyss. His seat of power is the fantastic Argent Palace in the city of Zelatar, whose bustling markets and pleasure palaces draw visitors from across the multiverse in search of obscure magical lore and perverse delights. By Graz’zt’s command, the demons of Azzagrat present a veneer of civility and courtly comity. However, the so-called Triple Realm holds as much danger as any other part of the Abyss, and planar visitors can vanish without a trace in its mazelike cities and in forests whose trees have serpents for branches. Layer 66: The Demonweb: Lolth is the Demon Queen of Spiders, whose schemes entangle entire civilizations on worlds across the multiverse. Of all demon lords, she might have the most active interest in the worlds of the Material Plane and in the cultists who do her bidding on those worlds, but her interest lies only in domination. Lolth’s layer is an immense network of thick, magical webbing that forms passageways and cocoonlike chambers. Structures, ships, and other objects are caught in the webbing. The webs conceal random portals that snare objects from demiplanes and Material Plane worlds that figure into the schemes of the Spider Queen. Lolth’s servants also build dungeons amid the webbing, trapping and hunting Lolth’s hated enemies within crisscrossing corridors of web-mortared stone. Far beneath these dungeons lie the bottomless Demonweb Pits where the Spider Queen dwells with her most loyal servants—yochlol demons created to serve her that outrank mightier demons while in the Spider Queen’s realm. Layer 88: The Gaping Maw: The Sibilant Beast and the self-styled Prince of Demons, Demogorgon yearns for nothing less than undoing the order of the multiverse. A two-headed monster who seems as much in conflict with himself as with other beings, the Prince of Demons inspires fear and hatred among other demons and demon lords.Demogorgon’s layer is a vast wilderness of brutality and horror known as the Gaping Maw, where even powerful demons are overcome by fear. Reflecting Demogorgon’s dual nature, the Gaping Maw consists of a massive primeval continent covered in dense jungle, surrounded by a seemingly endless expanse of ocean and brine flats. The Prince of Demons rules his layer from two serpentine towers, which emerge from a turbid sea. Each tower is topped with an enormous fanged skull. The spires constitute the fortress of Abysm, where echoes of Demogorgon’s turbulent thoughts resound through the halls, tearing at the minds of creatures who dare to enter. Layer 113: Thanatos: Known as the Demon Prince of Undeath and the Blood Lord, the demon lord Orcus is worshiped by Undead and by living creatures that channel the power of undeath. A brooding and nihilistic entity, Orcus yearns to make the multiverse a place of death and despair, forever unchanging except by his will, and to turn all creatures into Undead under his control. Orcus’s realm of Thanatos is a land of bleak mountains, barren moors, ruined cities, and forests of twisted black trees under a black sky. Tombs, mausoleums, gravestones, and sarcophagi litter the landscape. Undead swarm across the plane, bursting from their tombs and graves to tear apart any creatures foolish enough to journey here.Orcus rules Thanatos from a vast palace known as Everlost, crafted of obsidian and bone. Set in a howling wasteland called Oblivion’s End, the palace is surrounded by tombs and graves dug into the sheer slopes of narrow valleys, creating a tiered necropolis. Layer 222: The Slime Pits: Also known as Shedaklah, this layer is ruled by two separate yet equally repugnant demon lords—Juiblex and Zuggtmoy—who coexist with little conflict. Juiblex, the Demon Lord of Slimes and Oozes, is an amorphous mass that lurks in the abyssal depths. The wretched Faceless Lord cares nothing for cultists or mortal servants, and its sole desire is to turn all creatures into formless copies of its horrid self. Zuggtmoy is the Demon Queen of Fungi and the Lady of Rot and Decay. Her primary desire is to infect the living with spores, transforming them into her servants and, eventually, into decomposing hosts for the mushrooms, molds, and other fungi that she spawns. As the name suggests, the Slime Pits is a bubbling morass of fetid sludge. The landscape is covered in vast expanses of caustic slimes, and strange organic forms rise from the oceans of ooze at Juiblex’s command. Zuggtmoy’s palace consists of two dozen immense mushrooms, among the largest in existence, hollowed into grand chambers and twisting corridors. The palace is surrounded by a field of acidic puffballs and poisonous vapors. Layer 422: The Death Dells: The demon lord Yeenoghu hungers for slaughter and senseless destruction. Gnolls are his instruments on the Material Plane, and he drives them to ever-greater atrocities in his name. Delighting in sorrow and hopelessness, the Gnoll Lord yearns to turn the cosmos into a wasteland in which the last surviving gnolls tear one another apart for the right to feast upon the dead.Yeenoghu rules a layer of ravines and badlands known as the Death Dells. Here, creatures must hunt to survive. Even plants try to snare the unwary to bathe their roots in blood. Yeenoghu’s servants, helping to sate their master’s hunger as he prowls his kingdom, capture creatures from the Material Plane for release in the Gnoll Lord’s realm. Layer 600: The Endless Maze: The demon lord Baphomet, also known as the Horned King and the Prince of Beasts, embodies bestial bloodlust. If he had his way, civilization would crumble and all mortals would embrace their predatory instincts.Baphomet’s layer is a never-ending dungeon with the Horned King’s enormous palace at its center. A confusing jumble of crooked hallways and myriad chambers, the palace is surrounded by a mile-wide moat concealing a confounding series of submerged stairs and tunnels leading deeper into the fortress. The Abyss embodies the loathsome corruption of chaos and evil. A descent into the Abyss is a journey into a hostile and uncharted environment. It’s also an opportunity to confront the evil in one’s own heart and to resist the temptation to turn against allies in order to survive. Heroic characters might make a desperate last stand against endless hordes of demons here, or they might try to avoid detection while seeking a holy relic left behind by some lost hero who dared to venture here.It’s the nature of the Abyss to contaminate the other planes it touches. Opening a portal to the Abyss from any other plane allows the Abyss to create tiny pockets of Abyssal evil that can eventually become so corrupted that they’re drawn into the Abyss. Thus, adventurers exploring a desecrated temple or fetid swamp on the Material Plane can unexpectedly find themselves in a demon-infested environment very much like the Abyss without ever leaving their home plane. Acheron: Acheron is made of immense iron blocks whose metallic surfaces ring beneath the marching feet of endless armies. These blocks drift through an airy void, sometimes colliding with a fearsome clang, crushing all between them and sending shudders through the plane. Acheron has four layers, with the largest blocks gravitating to the top layer. Some scholars have theorized that the crashing blocks of the upper layers are eventually broken down into smaller chunks of matter that sink to the lower layers. The truth is actually the opposite: the tiny shards of Ocanthus, the lowest layer, break off from an icy mire in its deepest recesses and are gradually assembled and organized, perhaps under the influence of nearby Mechanus, into the perfect cubes of Avalas. The nature of Acheron instills bloodlust in those who visit the plane.Layers of Acheron. Acheron is a plane of enforced order, where rigid conformity leads to crushed spirits and broken hopes. The spirits here can’t conceive of anyone refusing to obey the will of their commanders. They are dedicated soldiers, forever lacking a cause. A journey into Acheron is a confrontation with the bleak nihilism of unending conflict, the harsh reality of authoritarian rule, and the uncaring pressures of social conformity. It’s also an opportunity for characters to grapple with the question of what they are fighting for, among armies that have forgotten how to even ask the question.On a more literal level, an adventure in Acheron can involve preventing a villain from scavenging Thuldanin for some new horror of warfare to be unleashed on the battlefield. Or it might require retrieving a secret from the imprisoned thoughts or memories found in the blocks of Tintibulus. Arborea: Arborea is a plane of extremes: stupendously craggy mountains; unbelievably deep gorges; forests of monstrously huge trees; and vast stretches of wheat fields, orchards, and arbors. Wild-hearted nature spirits dwell in every glade and stream, brooking no infringement. Travelers must tread lightly. The air of Arborea seems charged with excitement. Sudden squalls brew up out of nowhere, beating the tree-lined paths with heavy winds. The storms pass within minutes and leave behind warm arcs of sunlight filtering through the forest canopy. Music always seems to be playing in the distance; sometimes it originates from groups of elf musicians, but just as often the faint tune is merely the wind curling through the boles of the great trees. Arborea is a larger-than-life place of violent moods and deep affections, of whim backed by steel, and of passions that blaze brightly until they burn out. Its good-natured inhabitants are dedicated to fighting evil, but their reckless emotions sometimes break free with devastating consequences. Rage is as common and as honored as joy in Arborea. An adventure in Arborea can be an opportunity for characters to discover who they are when masks fall away and the honesty of unfettered emotion is revealed. The inhabitants of the plane are accustomed to this emotional honesty. Lifelong friends might share a laugh over food and wine, cross blades over a mutual lover, and write songs celebrating each other’s courage and integrity, all in a single evening. For those who aren’t accustomed to this candor, though, it can lead to hurt feelings and lingering resentment.Creatures that visit Arborea and then leave sometimes experience a desperate desire to return—a yearning so intense that it can interfere with day-to-day life. What secrets lie buried in the sands of Mithardir? An expedition might involve investigating whatever gods or Celestials once inhabited the silver desert or find some knowledge they possessed. Arcadia: Arcadia thrives with orchards of perfectly lined trees, ruler-straight streams, orderly fields, immaculate roads, and cities laid out in geometrically pleasing shapes. The mountains bear no trace of erosion. Night and day are determined by an orb that floats in the sky above both of Arcadia’s layers. Half of the orb radiates sunlight and brings about the day; the other half sheds moonlight and brings on the starry night. The orb rotates evenly without fail, spreading day and night across the entire plane. The weather in Arcadia is governed by four allied demigods called the Storm Kings: the Cloud King, the Wind Queen, the Lightning King, and the Rain Queen. Each one lives in a castle surrounded by the type of weather that ruler controls. Arcadia is suffused with a vigorous life energy that bestows great vitality on visitors.Everything on Arcadia works toward the common good and a flawless existence. Here, purity is eternal, and nothing intrudes on harmony. Individuality is subsumed to peaceful life in community, and military might can be brought to bear on those who disrupt that peace. An adventure in Arcadia can be an opportunity to explore the tension between individual freedom and societal responsibility for the common good. Even lawfully inclined adventurers rarely conform neatly to social expectations, and a visit to this plane can highlight that conflict. Astral Plane: The Astral Plane is a realm of thought and dream, where visitors travel as disembodied souls to reach the Outer Planes. It is a great silvery sea, the same above and below, with swirling wisps of white and gray streaking among motes of light—the distant stars of far-flung Wildspace systems. Most of the Astral Sea is a vast, empty expanse. Visitors occasionally stumble upon the petrified corpse of a dead god or other chunks of rock drifting forever in the silvery void. Much more commonplace are color pools—magical pools of colored light that flicker like radiant, spinning coins. Creatures on the Astral Plane don’t age or suffer from hunger or thirst. For this reason, creatures that live on the Astral Plane (such as githyanki) establish outposts on other planes, often the Material Plane, so their children can grow to maturity. A traveler in the Astral Plane can move by simply thinking about moving, but distance has little meaning. In combat, though, a creature has a Fly Speed (in feet) equal to 5 times its Intelligence score and can hover. Just as movement is accomplished by the power of thought, all that is required to find one’s destination is to think about it. As long as the destination is somewhere in the Astral Plane (or in Wildspace, as described below)—such as “the nearest githyanki outpost,” “the nearest color pool leading to the Abyss,” or “the Wildspace system of Realmspace”—thinking about a place makes the creature aware of the most direct route to that location. The creature doesn’t know how long the journey will take or how perilous it will be, just which direction to go in. The Astral Plane is where the petrified remains of dead gods end up—gods who were slain by more powerful entities or who lost all their mortal worshipers and perished as a result. A dead god looks like a gigantic, nondescript stone statue that bears little resemblance to the divine entity it once was. Githyanki, mind flayers, and other residents of the Astral Plane sometimes turn these drifting hulks into outposts and cities, many of which are hollowed out beneath the surface. The githyanki city of Tu’narath is perhaps the most infamous such place. Bobbing in the Astral Plane like corks in an ocean are vast, airless expanses called Wildspace systems. In these systems, the Astral Plane overlaps with the Material Plane, and the stars and planets of the Material Plane are accessible from the Astral Plane. Every world of the Material Plane is situated in a Wildspace system. As an Astral traveler approaches a Wildspace system, the silver fog of the Astral Plane gradually thins until it falls away in Wildspace. Then the sun of the Wildspace system comes into view—often millions of miles away—along with colorful gas clouds, planets, moons, and other cosmic bodies. A Wildspace system teems with space-dwelling life-forms, including spores, plankton, and larger creatures that resemble fish and aquatic mammals. Creatures and objects in Wildspace age normally and exist on both the Astral Plane and Material Plane simultaneously. This overlap enables creatures to use spells such as Teleport to travel from Wildspace to a nearby world, or vice versa. A creature or ship traveling from one Wildspace system to another must cross the Astral Plane unless it has some other magical means of traveling from one world to another. (See “Material Plane” in this chapter.) Spelljammer: Adventures in Space contains extensive information about Wildspace and Astral travel. A psychic wind is a storm of thought that batters travelers’ minds rather than their bodies. The storm is made of lost memories, forgotten ideas, and subconscious fears that went astray in the Astral Plane and conglomerated into this powerful force. A psychic wind is first sensed as a rapid darkening of the silver-gray sky. After 1d4 minutes, the area becomes as dark as a moonless night. As the sky darkens, the traveler feels buffeting and shaking, as if the plane were rebelling against the storm. As quickly as it comes, the psychic wind passes, and the sky returns to normal in 1 minute. A group of travelers journeying together is subjected to one location effect, determined by consulting the Psychic Wind Locations Effects table. Characters most often visit the Astral Plane as a way of getting somewhere else—either to one of the Outer Planes or to different worlds of the Material Plane via Wildspace. En route, they might encounter fellow travelers, such as Celestials, Fiends, slaadi, modrons, or githyanki.As a realm of thought, memory, and dream, the Astral Plane can also be an adventure destination. Characters might try to plumb the crystallized thoughts of dead gods or sift information from the torrent of a psychic wind. Or they could face Astral manifestations of their own memories, fears, and dreams. Beastlands: The Beastlands is a plane of nature unbound, of forests ranging from moss-hung mangroves to snow-laden pines, of thick jungles where the branches are woven so tight that no light penetrates, of vast plains where grains and wildflowers wave in the wind with vibrant life. The plane embodies nature’s wildness and beauty, but it also speaks to the animal within all living creatures—not necessarily in a fierce, predatory way but with respect to their physical substance and fundamental needs. The spirits of the dead on the Beastlands typically take animal forms or part-animal forms (such as centaurs). Among the greatest inhabitants of this plane are the primal spirits called animal lords. The Beastlands embodies wild, beautiful nature and the vibrant power of life thriving in the natural world. Visitors to the plane feel invigorated and more vital—their minds more alert, their reflexes sharpened, and their strides quickened. Hunger pangs are acute, but food and drink taste better than ever before. Sleep is always deep and restful, and sleepers always awaken alert. Adventures in the Beastlands might explore the ways that good philosophies, while purporting to value life, actually devalue the physical nature of life in favor of abstract concepts of law and ethics. Characters might end up in conflict with those who dismiss animals as inferior and irrelevant forms of life. Bytopia: The surfaces of Bytopia’s two layers face each other like the covers of a closed book. Looking up from Dothion, the “top” layer of the plane, a traveler can see Shurrock, its other layer, about a mile overhead. Both layers are idealized worlds that reflect the plane’s philosophy of personal achievement alongside social interdependence. Bytopia is the heaven of productive work, the satisfaction of a job well done. The goodness flowing through the plane creates feelings of goodwill and happiness in creatures dwelling there. While Dothion rewards those who seek a quiet life, Shurrock is the paradise of those who continually challenge and better themselves. The two layers of Bytopia are often referred to as the “Twin Paradises,” and it’s said that every action carried out on one layer has repercussions on the other—an equal and opposite reaction, though a more metaphorical than physical one. An adventure in Bytopia might challenge characters to recognize the impact their actions have on the world by witnessing the mirrored reactions to their deeds on the opposite layer. Carceri: The grim inspiration for all other prisons in existence, Carceri is a plane of desolation and despair. Its six layers hold vast bogs, fetid jungles, windswept deserts, jagged mountains, frigid oceans, and black ice. All form a miserable home for the traitors and backstabbers trapped on this prison plane. Unknown horrors are entrapped in the ice of Carceri. No one can leave Carceri easily. Magical efforts to leave the plane by any spell other than Wish simply fail. Portals and gates that open onto the plane become one-way only. Secret passages out of the plane exist, but they are hidden and well guarded by traps and deadly monsters. And though the River Styx flows between Carceri and its neighbors, the passage is extremely dangerous, and ferries leading out of Carceri are both rare and expensive. Carceri is a sunless plane of despair, of passions and poisons, and of realm-shattering betrayals. Hatreds run like a deep, slow-moving river, and there’s no telling what the flood of treachery will consume next. It is said that prisoners can escape Carceri only by becoming stronger than whatever force imprisoned them there, but that’s a difficult task on a plane whose very nature breeds despair and betrayal. The same tendency toward betrayal prevents those who are imprisoned here from working together for long toward the common goal of escape.Adventures on Carceri might explore the forces—spiritual and psychological as well as physical and outright demonic—that keep characters trapped or imprisoned there. Characters might help a prisoner escape, from an unjustly held spirit to some primeval god banished to oblivion here. Demiplanes: Demiplanes are extradimensional spaces that come into being by a variety of means and boast their own physical laws. Some are created by spells. Others are natural folds of reality pinched off from the rest of the multiverse. Theoretically, a Plane Shift spell can carry travelers to a demiplane, but the proper frequency required for the tuning fork can be extremely hard to acquire. The Gate spell is more reliable, assuming the caster knows of the demiplane. A demiplane can be as small as a single chamber or large enough to contain an entire realm. For example, a Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion spell creates a demiplane consisting of a foyer with multiple adjoining rooms, while the land of Barovia exists entirely within a demiplane under the sway of its vampire lord, Strahd von Zarovich. When a demiplane is connected to the Material Plane or some other plane, entering the demiplane can be as simple as moving through a portal or passing through a wall of mist. Demiplanes are limited realities shaped according to the will of whoever created them. Adventures in demiplanes might let characters explore how they would shape reality to suit their desires and ideals, or confront distortions of reality crafted by villains. Elemental Plane of Air: The Plane of Air is home to constant winds of varying strength. Here and there, chunks of earth drift in the openness, many covered with lush vegetation. These earth motes serve as homes for djinn and other natives of the plane. Other creatures live on cloud banks infused with magic to become solid surfaces, supporting towns and castles. Drifting clouds can obscure visibility in any direction in the plane. Storms are frequent, ranging from strong thunderstorms to fierce tornadoes or mighty hurricanes. The air is mild, except near the Para-elemental Planes at either end of the plane, where the temperature is more extreme. Rain and snow fall only in the part of the plane nearest to the Para-elemental Plane of Ice. Although few landmarks distinguish one area of the Plane of Air from any other, the following are notable features of the plane. Aaqa, Here and there are hidden realms reachable only by following a particular sequence of flowing winds. Fabled Aaqa is one such realm, a shining domain of silver spires and verdant gardens atop a fertile earth mote. The Wind Dukes of Aaqa are dedicated to law and good, and they maintain a vigilant watch against the depredations of Elemental Evil. They are served by aarakocra. Labyrinth Winds, Much of the Plane of Air is a complex web of air streams, currents, and winds called the Labyrinth Winds. These range from stiff breezes to howling gales that can rip a creature apart. Even the most skilled flying creatures must navigate these currents carefully, flying with the winds, not against them. Mistral Reach, Located near the Para-elemental Plane of Ice, the Mistral Reach is a region of frigid winds and driving snowstorms. Earth motes in the reach are covered with snow and ice. Sirocco Straits, The Sirocco Straits is the region of the plane nearest to the Para-elemental Plane of Ash, where hot, dry winds scour earth motes into barren chunks of rock.The essential nature of air is movement, animation, and inspiration. Air is the breath of life, the winds of change, the fresh breeze that clears away the fog of ignorance and the stuffiness of old ideas.When turned toward wicked ideals by cultists of Elemental Evil, elemental air represents destructive power turned to vengeful ends. Cultists of Evil Air wield howling storms to forcefully express their personal freedom or lay claim to things they feel they have been wrongfully denied. Elemental Plane of Earth: The Plane of Earth is a chain of mountains rising higher than any mountain range on the Material Plane. It has no sun of its own, and no air surrounds the peaks of its highest mountains. Most visitors to the plane arrive by way of vast caverns that honeycomb the mountains.Important features of the Plane of Earth include the following. City of Jewels, The plane’s largest cavern, called the Great Dismal Delve or the Sevenfold Mazework, is home to the City of Jewels—the capital city of the dao. The dao take great pride in their wealth and send teams across the plane in search of new veins of ore and gemstones. Thanks to these expeditions, every building and significant object in the city is made from precious stones and metals, including the slender gemstone-inlaid spires that top most buildings. The city is protected by a powerful spell that alerts the entire population if a visitor steals even a single stone. Furnaces, The Furnaces are the mountains nearest the Para-elemental Plane of Magma. Lava seeps through their caverns, and the air reeks of sulfur. The dao have great forges and smelting furnaces here to process ores and shape precious metals. Mud Hills, The Mud Hills abut the swampy Para-elemental Plane of Ooze. Landslides wear away the slopes of the hills, sending cascades of earth and stone into the bottomless swamp. The Plane of Earth constantly regenerates the land, pushing new hills up as the old ones erode to nothing. Earth symbolizes stability, rigidity, stern resolve, and tradition. The plane’s position opposite the Plane of Air in the ring of the Elemental Planes reflects its opposition to almost everything air represents. Elemental Evil views earth instead as an implacable force of destruction, perfectly willing to crush venerable institutions and respected traditions in its advance. Cultists of Evil Earth crave the power to destroy the works of civilization with landslides, sinkholes, or mighty earthquakes, and they believe the earth thirsts for the blood of those who don’t venerate it properly. Elemental Plane of Fire: A blazing sun hangs at the zenith of a golden sky above the Plane of Fire, waxing and waning on a 24-hour cycle. It ranges from white hot at noon to deep red at midnight, so the darkest hours of the plane display a deep-red twilight. At noon, the light is intense. Most business in the City of Brass (see below) takes place during the darker hours. The weather on the plane is marked by fierce winds and thick ash. Although the air is breathable, creatures not native to the plane must cover their mouths and eyes to avoid stinging cinders. The efreet use magic to keep the cinder storms away from the City of Brass, but elsewhere in the plane, the wind always blows, sometimes rising to hurricane force during the worst storms. The heat on the Plane of Fire is comparable to a hot desert on the Material Plane and poses a similar threat to travelers (see “Environmental Effects” in chapter 3). Sources of water are rare, so travelers must carry their own supplies or produce water by magic. Important features of the Plane of Fire include the following.Cinder Wastes, The Plane of Fire is dominated by a great expanse of black cinders and embers crossed by rivers of lava. Roving bands of salamanders battle each other, raid azer outposts, and avoid patrols from the City of Brass. Obsidian ruins dot the desert—remnants of forgotten civilizations. City of Brass, Perhaps the best-known location on the Inner Planes is the City of Brass, which stands on the shores of the Sea of Fire. This is the fabled city of the efreet, and its ornate spires and spiked walls reflect the efreet’s grandiose and cruel nature. True to the nature of the Plane of Fire, everything in the city seems alive with dancing flames, reflecting the vibrant energy of the place. The heart of the city is the formidable Charcoal Palace, where the tyrannical emperor of the efreet reigns supreme, surrounded by nobles and a host of servants, guardians, and sycophants. Sea of Fire, Lava flows through the Fountains of Creation toward the Para-elemental Plane of Ash and pools into a great expanse of lava called the Sea of Fire, traversed by efreeti and azer sailors in great brass ships. Islands of obsidian and basalt jut up from the sea, dotted with ancient ruins and the lairs of powerful red dragons. Torchy’s, Built atop a tall basalt crag in the middle of a lava river is an iron-walled tavern that is most easily reached by hot-air balloon. The proprietor is a sentient Flame Tongue (Mace) named Torchy, who sells a fine ale and seems to have a new wielder every few months. Torchy’s is a popular hangout for ballooning enthusiasts. Fire represents vibrancy, passion, and change. At its best, fire reflects the light of inspiration, the warmth of compassion, and the flame of desire. The cults of Elemental Evil represent fire at its worst: cruel and wantonly destructive. Cultists of Evil Fire seek the power to burn away the impurities of the world with volcanic eruptions, uncontrolled wildfires, heat waves, and droughts, transforming the Material Plane into a mirror of the Cinder Wastes.Adventurers frequently come to the City of Brass on quests for legendary magic. If it’s possible to buy magic items in your campaign, the City of Brass is the most likely place to find any item for sale. The efreet are fond of trading in favors, especially when they have the upper hand in negotiations. Perhaps a magical contagion or poison can be cured only with something that must be purchased in the markets of the city. The City of Brass is a hub for trade from across the multiverse Elemental Plane of Water: The Plane of Water is an endless sea, called the Sea of Worlds, dotted with atolls and islands that rise up from enormous coral reefs that seem to stretch forever into the depths. The storms that move across the sea sometimes create temporary portals to the Material Plane and draw ships into the Plane of Water. Surviving vessels from countless worlds and navies ply these waters with little hope of ever returning home. A warm sun arcs across the sky of the Plane of Water, seeming to rise and set from within the water at the horizon. Several times a day, the sky clouds over and releases a deluge of rain, often accompanied by spectacular shows of lightning, before clearing up again. At night, a glittering array of stars and auroras bedecks the sky. The weather on the plane is a lesson in extremes. If the sea isn’t calm, it is battered by storms. On rare occasions, a tremor in the planar firmament sends a rogue wave sweeping across the plane, swamping entire islands and driving ships down to the reefs. Any land that rises above the surface of the sea is hotly contested by the few air breathers that live on the plane. Fleets of rafts and ships lashed together serve as solid ground where nothing else is available, although most natives of the plane never break the surface of the sea and thus ignore these habitations. The following are among the most important features of the Plane of Water. Citadel of Ten Thousand Pearls, The nominal emperor of the marids dwells in the Citadel of Ten Thousand Pearls, an opulent palace made of coral and studded with pearls. The palace is the glittering centerpiece of the Sea of Light (see below). Visitors are welcome to ask favors of the emperor, whose mood is as changeable as the sea. Darkened Depths, The deeper extents of the plane, where no sunlight reaches, are called the Darkened Depths. Horrid creatures dwell here, and the absolute cold and crushing pressure mean a swift end to creatures accustomed to the surface or the Sea of Light. Krakens and other mighty leviathans claim this realm. Isle of Dread, One of the few islands on the plane is the Isle of Dread, which is connected to the Material Plane by means of a storm that regularly sweeps over the island. Ships from different worlds of the Material Plane end up wrecked on the rocks and reefs around the island, and settlements across the island are populated by the descendants of sailors who never found a way home. Theoretically, travelers who understand the workings of the storm could use it to travel to a desired Material Plane world. Sea of Ice, Bordering the Para-elemental Plane of Ice is the Sea of Ice. The frigid water is choked with icebergs and sheet ice, which are inhabited by cold-loving creatures from the Plane of Ice. Drifting icebergs can carry these creatures farther into the Plane of Water to threaten ships and islands in warmer seas. Sea of Light, Life flourishes in the sunlit waters of the Sea of Light, located in the upper reaches of the Sea of Worlds. Aquatic peoples craft castles and fortresses in the coral reefs here. Silt Flats, The region of the Plane of Water nearest to the Para-elemental Plane of Ooze is called the Silt Flats. The water is thick with soil and sludge, turning into muddy ground before giving way to the great swamp that is the Para-elemental Plane. The nature of water is to flow, not like the gusting wind or the leaping flame, but smoothly and steadily. It is the rhythm of the tide, the nectar of life, the bitter tears of mourning, and the balm of sympathy and healing. Given time, it can erode all in its path. Elemental Evil emphasizes the erosive power of water, as well as the destruction wrought by surging tides, deadly maelstroms, and raging torrents. Cultists of Evil Water believe the seas and deep waters are eager to reclaim the water trapped in the bodies of living creatures, and think it’s their duty to return others to the primal waters by drowning them or shedding their blood. Elysium: Elysium is home to creatures of unfettered kindness and a refuge for planar travelers seeking a safe haven. The plane’s bucolic landscapes glimmer with life and beauty. The River Oceanus originates in the lowest layer of Elysium, Thalasia, and flows through the plane’s layers before cascading onward to the Beastlands. Though illustrations of the plane’s layers seem to show the river flowing “up” from each layer to the one “above” it, the experience of passing from one layer to another on the river is no more dramatic than weathering rapids on any ordinary river. Along its course, the great river splits into myriad smaller flows, recombines, and splits again. Tranquility and contentment seep into the bones and souls of those who enter Elysium. The longer a visitor remains on the plane, the less reason they find to ever leave. An adventure in Elysium can challenge characters’ devotion to doing good by offering them the opportunity (or the temptation) to rest from their labors and enjoy a well-earned reward.Belierin is said to be the prison of some deadly creature. Some tales say it’s a powerful titan, perhaps the tarrasque, while others claim it’s a deposed duke of the Nine Hells, a banished elemental prince, or even a near-dead deity. Evil creatures sometimes lurk in the marshes, seeking to free the prisoner or claim some power from it.Characters might also venture to Elysium to seek out some ancient spirit on the Heroic Isles. When faced with the once-a-millennium task of forestalling a prophesied disaster, characters might consult with the valorous knight who accomplished the deed a thousand years ago. Ethereal Plane: The Ethereal Plane is a misty, fogbound dimension. Its “shores,” called the Border Ethereal, overlap the Material Plane, the Feywild, the Shadowfell, and the Inner Planes, and every location on those planes has a corresponding location on the Ethereal Plane. Visibility in the Border Ethereal is usually limited to 60 feet. The plane’s depths comprise a region of swirling mist and fog called the Deep Ethereal, where visibility is usually limited to 30 feet. Characters can use the Etherealness spell to enter the Border Ethereal. The Plane Shift spell allows transport to the Border Ethereal or the Deep Ethereal, but unless the intended destination is a specific location or a teleportation circle, the point of arrival could be anywhere on the plane. Border Ethereal, From the Border Ethereal, a traveler can see into whatever plane it overlaps, but that plane appears grayish and indistinct, its colors blurring into each other and its edges turning fuzzy, limiting visibility to 30 feet into the other plane. Conversely, the Ethereal Plane is usually imperceptible to those on the overlapped planes, except with the aid of magic. Normally, creatures in the Border Ethereal can’t attack creatures on the overlapped plane, and vice versa. A traveler on the Ethereal Plane is imperceptible to someone on the overlapped plane, and solid objects on the overlapped plane don’t hamper the movement of a creature in the Border Ethereal. The exceptions are certain magical effects (including anything made of magical force) and living beings. This makes the Ethereal Plane ideal for scouting, spying on opponents, and moving around without being detected. The Ethereal Plane also disobeys the laws of gravity; a creature there can freely move in any direction. Deep Ethereal, to reach the Deep Ethereal, one typically needs a Plane Shift spell, a Gate spell, or a magical portal. Visitors to the Deep Ethereal are engulfed by roiling mist. Scattered throughout the plane are curtains of vaporous color, and passing through a curtain leads a traveler to a region of the Border Ethereal connected to a specific Inner Plane, the Material Plane, the Feywild, or the Shadowfell. The color of the curtain indicates the plane whose Border Ethereal the curtain conceals; see the Ethereal Curtains table. The curtains are also distinguishable by texture and temperature, each one reflecting something of the nature of the plane beyond.Traveling through the Deep Ethereal is unlike physical travel. Distance is meaningless, so although travelers feel as if they can move by a simple act of will, it’s impossible to measure speed and hard to track the passage of time. A trip through the Deep Ethereal takes 1d10 × 10 hours from one curtain to another, regardless of the origin and destination. In combat, creatures move at their normal speeds. An ether cyclone is a serpentine column that spins through the plane. The cyclone appears abruptly, distorting and uprooting everything in its path and carrying the debris for miles. Travelers with a Passive Perception score of 15 or higher receive 1 minute of warning: a deep thrum in the ethereal matter. Travelers who can’t reach a curtain or portal leading elsewhere suffer the cyclone’s effect. Roll 1d20 and consult the Ether Cyclone table to determine the effect on all creatures in the vicinity. Against the unending mist and unseen terrors of the Ethereal Plane, the Radiant Citadel stands bright as a bastion of hope. It’s a living relic of the ingenuity and collaboration of twenty-seven great civilizations on the Material Plane. Abandoned and lost for ages, the Radiant Citadel was resurrected from its slumber and reclaimed by descendants of those societies. The Radiant Citadel is a nexus of diplomacy and trade, a repository of histories and secrets, and a thriving sanctuary for those seeking safety or a better life. The floating city is a miracle of architecture carved out of a single, massive fossil that snakes around a colossal gemstone shard known as the Auroral Diamond. The luminescence of the Auroral Diamond is mirrored in the constellation of fifteen structure-sized gemstones, the Concord Jewels, that orbit the city and provide transportation to the far-flung homes of the city’s founding civilizations. In the haze of the Ethereal Plane, the Auroral Diamond is a scintillating beacon visible from miles away. The diamond seems to have moods, changing colors unpredictably, but it is always visible for wanderers lost and in need.Just beyond the city whirls a massive ether cyclone known as the Keening Gloom—a looming threat that’s a grim reminder of the Radiant Citadel’s precarious position. Heroes and paupers meet on equal footing in the Radiant Citadel. By common agreement, power and resources are equitably shared. Dignity is afforded to all, and great need is met with great aid. Adventurers typically use the Ethereal Plane to travel from one place to another, either skirting around Material Plane obstacles on the Border Ethereal or venturing into the Deep Ethereal to travel to the Inner Planes. The Radiant Citadel can serve as a home base for any campaign built around the idea of exploring new worlds. Several such worlds are introduced in Journeys through the Radiant Citadel, an anthology of short adventures. Far Realm: The Far Realm is outside the known multiverse. In fact, it might be an entirely separate universe with its own physical and magical laws. Where stray energies from the Far Realm leak onto another plane, matter is warped into alien shapes that defy understandable geometry and biology. Aberrations such as mind flayers and beholders are either from this plane or shaped by its strange influence. The entities that abide in the Far Realm are too alien for mortal minds to accept without strain. Titanic creatures swim through nothingness there, and unspeakable beings whisper awful truths to those who dare listen. For mortals, knowledge of the Far Realm is a struggle of the mind to overcome the boundaries of matter, space, and rational thought. Some Warlocks embrace this struggle by forming pacts with entities there. Anyone who has seen the Far Realm mutters about eyes, tentacles, and horror. The Far Realm has no well-known portals, or at least none that are still viable. Ancient elves once opened a vast portal to the Far Realm within a mountain called Firestorm Peak, but their civilization imploded in bloody terror, and the portal’s location—even its home world—is long forgotten. Lost portals might still exist, marked by an alien magic that transforms the surrounding area. The Far Realm is the home of entities so far beyond comprehension that mortals can’t fathom their motivations. To see these beings is to become lost in their magnitude and the evidence that mortals have never, will never, and could never matter to the cosmos at large. Adventures involving travel to the Far Realm or its influence seeping into the Material Plane might touch on fundamental questions of what it means to be a person, what mental and bodily autonomy mean and their value, and whether mortals have any control over their fate or any importance in the grand scheme of things. Feywild: The Feywild, also called the Plane of Faerie, is a land of soft lights and wonder, a place of music and magic. The plane responds to unfettered emotion: flowers turn and tremble in the presence of a heated argument, grass withers under the feet of one who seethes with malice, and birds chip merrily in the presence of those who are joyous and squawk angrily at those who are dour. Time and distance in the Feywild are mutable, as is the plane’s geography. Roads are uncommon, and the ones that exist change as frequently as the land around themselves. Feywild natives are accustomed to the plane’s mutability, but it can be terribly disorienting to visitors. The Feywild exists in parallel to the Material Plane as an alternate dimension that occupies the same cosmological space. When moving from the Material Plane to the Feywild, travelers usually find themselves in a location similar to the one they left, but more marvelous and magical—and often more vibrant and colorful, too. Adventurers climbing a volcano on the Material Plane might suddenly find themselves scaling a Feywild mountain topped with skyscraper-sized crystals that glow with internal fire. Leaving behind a wide and muddy river on the Material Plane, characters might appear beside a clear and winding brook whose waters glitter like diamonds in the Feywild. In the heart of a dismal marsh might lie a portal leading to a vast bog filled with eerie lights and sinister shapes twisting in the water. And moving to the Feywild from old ruins on the Material Plane might put a traveler at the door of an archfey’s castle. Domains of Delight: Much of the Feywild is governed by powerful Fey called archfey. The area under a particular archfey’s command—called a Domain of Delight—reflects the character and desires of its ruler. Some domains are bright and cheery, bathed in perpetual sunlight and awash in colorful wildflowers, while others are gloomy and drab, cast in unending twilight. Most of them change with the emotional state of their rulers.The following sections describe a handful of the best-known Domains of Delight. Fablerise: The domain of a story-spinning spider archfey named Yarnspinner, Fablerise is a rambling thicket of twisted roots, thorny vines, and sinuous creepers. This vegetation weaves together to form long tunnels, grand hallways, and enormous domes. Yarnspinner loves reading stories to the animals that occupy his domain. Gloaming Court: The Queen of Air and Darkness rules the Gloaming Court, a realm of twilight, fireflies, cobwebs, and autumn leaves accompanied by the music of hooting owls and croaking frogs. The Fey of the Gloaming Court shun the formalized etiquette and rituals of the Summer Court (see below), instead prizing behavior that is intuitive and instinctual. Prismeer: Prismeer is a large domain belonging to the archfey Zybilna. It encompasses a vast swamp called Hither; an ancient forest named Thither; and a stormy, mountainous landscape called Yon. Zybilna resides in the Palace of Heart’s Desire, situated where the three portions of her realm meet. As its name suggests, the palace is fabled as a destination for anyone seeking their heart’s desire. On some worlds, Zybilna is regarded as a fairy godmother of sorts, granting wishes for the lost, the forsaken, or the betrayed. Sometimes her wishes bring happiness, other times despair. (Prismeer is detailed in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight.) Summer Court: Ruled by the archfey Queen Titania, the Summer Court is the most settled and pastoral domain in the Feywild. Wrapped in the warmth of a perpetual summer day, with fluttering butterflies and a riot of colorful flowers, the lands of the Summer Court mimic the trappings of courtly life in some realms of the Material Plane. The residents of this court wear elegant clothing and value elaborate ceremony and ritualized etiquette, and the Fey are quick to shun those who flout the Summer Court’s baroque rules. Fey Crossings: Fey crossings are places of mystery and beauty on the Material Plane that have a near-perfect mirror in the Feywild, creating a portal where the two planes touch. A traveler passes through a fey crossing by entering a clearing, wading into a pool, passing into a circle of mushrooms, or crawling under the trunk of a tree. To the traveler, it seems like simply moving into the Feywild. To an observer, the traveler is there one moment and gone the next. Like other portals between planes, most fey crossings open infrequently. A crossing might open only during a full moon, on the dawn of a particular day, or for someone carrying a certain type of item. A fey crossing can be closed permanently if the land on either side is dramatically altered—for example, if a castle is built over the clearing on the Material Plane. Feywild Magic, Tales speak of children kidnapped by Fey creatures and spirited away to the Feywild, only to return to their parents years later without having aged a day and with no memories of their captors or the realm they came from. Likewise, adventurers who return from an excursion to the Feywild are often alarmed to discover upon their return that time flows differently on the Plane of Faerie and that the memories of their visit are hazy. You can use these optional rules to reflect the strange magic that suffuses the plane. The Feywild gives physical expression to powerful emotion and excels at metaphor. When characters venture into the Feywild, they might find themselves robbed of a cherished memory or deep regret, then later find the stolen memories embodied in little figurines or lockets. A mischievous sprite might sneak up behind a character who is laughing loudly and steal their laughter, robbing the character of the ability to laugh until the sprite is found and the laughter—perhaps taking physical form as a bouquet of lovely flowers—reclaimed. Gehenna: A volcanic mountain dominates each of the four layers of Gehenna, and lesser volcanic earthbergs drift in the air and smash into the greater mountains. The rocky slopes of the plane make movement difficult and dangerous. The ground inclines at least 45 degrees almost everywhere. In places, steep cliffs and deep canyons present more challenging obstacles. Hazards include volcanic fissures that vent noxious fumes or searing flames.Gehenna is the birthplace of yugoloths, greedy and selfish Fiends that dwell here in great numbers.Gehenna is the plane of suspicion and greed, with no space for mercy or compassion. Adventures on this plane might be an opportunity to explore themes of betrayal, examining how characters behave when tensions run high and they can trust no one—perhaps not even each other. (See “Environmental Effects” in chapter 3 for one way this atmosphere can manifest.) Characters might encounter people in need who turn out to be yugoloths in disguise, pitting the characters’ growing suspicion against their empathy and compassion. Characters might make their way to the Teardrop Palace on Khalas to purchase something they can’t find elsewhere, probably at a terrifying cost. This bustling market, crowded with Fiends and occasional mortal visitors, offers all manner of forbidden and sinister goods for sale. Its name comes from its shape: the point is on the palace’s uphill side so it diverts the ever-present lava flow to either side of the structure. Or characters could try to infiltrate the Tower Arcane in search of some great secret from yugoloths’ ancient history. The tower, a sinister structure adorned with blades and spikes and guarded by arcanaloths, stands somewhere on Chamada. It is rumored to hold yugoloths’ history and the records of their contracts. Hades: The layers of Hades are called the Three Glooms—places without joy, hope, or passion. A gray land with an ashen sky, Hades is the destination of many souls that are unclaimed by gods or Fiends. These souls become larvae and spend eternity in this place, which lacks a sun, a moon, stars, or seasons. Leaching away color and emotion, the gloom on this plane is more than most visitors can stand.At the end of each Long Rest taken on the plane, a visitor makes a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature gains 1 Exhaustion level that can’t be removed while the creature is in Hades. If the creature reaches 6 Exhaustion levels, it doesn’t die. Instead, it permanently transforms into a Larva, whereupon all Exhaustion levels afflicting the creature are removed. Hades embodies despair manifested as apathy. Pure, undiluted evil is like an inescapable force of gravity, dragging all creatures down—not in body, but in spirit. Even the consuming rage of the Abyss and the devious plotting of the Nine Hells are subjugated to hopelessness in the Gray Wastes of Hades. The plane slowly kills dreams and desires, draining hope and optimism from formerly fiery spirits.An adventure in Hades can challenge characters to find an answer to the ever-present question that hangs over this plane: why bother? As apathetic despair saturates their hearts and spirits, they must find a way to rekindle the passion of life and the sense of purpose that drives them or else succumb to the hopelessness of the plane.Adventurers might pursue a hag, a lich, or another evil spellcaster who comes to Hades to collect larvae for vile purposes. Once they are in the Three Glooms, the adventurers risk becoming trapped by the overwhelming despair of the place. Limbo: Limbo is a plane of pure chaos, a roiling soup of impermanent matter and energy. Stone melts into water that freezes into metal, then turns into diamond that burns up into smoke that becomes snow, and on and on in an endless, unpredictable process of change. Fragments of more ordinary landscapes—bits of forest, meadow, ruined castles, and even burbling streams—drift through the disorder. The whole plane is a nightmarish riot. Limbo has no gravity, so creatures visiting the plane float in place. A creature can move up to its Speed in any direction by merely thinking of the desired direction of travel.Limbo has no layers—or if it does, the layers continually merge and part, each is as chaotic as the next, and distinguishing one from another is impossible. Power of the Mind, Limbo conforms to the will of the creatures inhabiting it. Creative imaginations can create whole islands of their own invention within the plane, sometimes maintaining those places for years. A nonsapient creature such as a fish, though, might have less than a minute before the pocket of water surrounding it freezes, vanishes, or turns to glass. Slaadi live here and swim amid this chaos, creating nothing, whereas githzerai build entire monasteries with their minds. Limbo is change. That constant churn is most easily discerned in the ever-shifting physical form of elements altering and reconfiguring in the vast expanse of the plane, but it applies just as much on a mental and emotional level. Visitors to the plane find themselves caught up in a storm of intrusive thoughts and unruly emotions, forcing them to confront the transient nature of so much of what they think of as their identity. The key to success on this plane—both in shaping the physical environment and in mastering the internal landscape of chaos—is asserting one’s sense of self, identifying what is unchanging amid the storm of constant change. The sanctuaries of the githzerai are among the few havens that adventurers can hope to find on this tumultuous plane. Although githzerai aren’t generally hostile to visitors who come in peace, they don’t welcome those who bring the chaos of Limbo with them: a tumultuous heart brought into a refuge can unravel the entire sanctuary. Adventurers might also come to Limbo to explore the secrets of the Spawning Stone. Said to have been created by Primus, the overlord of the modrons, the Spawning Stone absorbs chaotic energy and makes it possible to shape enclaves of order in Limbo, but the chaotic energy it absorbs is responsible for the creation of slaadi. Material Plane: Worlds of the Material Plane are infinitely diverse, but it was not always so. Some legends speak of a primordial state, a single reality called the First World, where many of the peoples and monsters that inhabit the worlds on the Material Plane originated. After the First World was shattered by a great cataclysm, the many worlds were formed like reflections or (in some cases) distortions of that original reality.Some myths describe a great tree that grew on the First World at the dawn of time. Planted and tended by the god Corellon, this tree was a seedling of Yggdrasil, the World Tree that connects all the Outer Planes (see “Traveling the Outer Planes” earlier in this chapter). When the First World was destroyed, seeds from this great tree scattered into the void of the Material Plane. Legends say that these seeds sprouted and formed worlds of their own—all the myriad worlds that now constitute the Material Plane. The most widely known worlds are the ones that have been published as official campaign settings for the D&D game over the years, many of which are shown on the D&D Settings table in chapter 5. If your campaign takes place in one of these settings, your version of it can diverge wildly from what’s in print. Mechanus: Mechanus is where perfectly regimented order reigns supreme. It consists of equal measures of light and dark, and equal proportions of heat and cold. On Mechanus, law is reflected in a realm of gigantic clockwork gears, interlocked and turning according to their measure. The cogs seem to be engaged in a calculation so vast that no deity can fathom its purpose. Some theories hold that they are the clockwork of time throughout the cosmos—that time itself would stop if the gears ceased their turning. Other theories propose that the cogs uphold the basic rules and order of the cosmos. Modrons are the primary inhabitants of Mechanus and maintain its intricate clockworks. The plane is also home to the creator of the modrons: a godlike being called Primus, whose realm is called Regulus. Mechanus has no distinct layers. Each turning cog has its own force of gravity pulling toward its center, with structures built on the faces of the cogs. Some of the cogs are like small islands, while others are hundreds of miles across.Mechanus embodies absolute order, and it influences those who spend time here. Individual consciousness is subordinated to the search for perfect order, and “I” is ultimately subsumed into “we.” An adventure on Mechanus might lead characters to examine their individual egos in the light of the adventuring party. It might challenge a character to set aside personal goals for the benefit of the group (or the greater cause of cosmic law), or alternatively it might encourage characters to assert their own individual identities, distinct from the party and possessing their own goals and needs. Mount Celestia: The Seven Heavens of Mount Celestia rise like a mountain from a shining Silver Sea to utterly incomprehensible heights, with seven plateaus marking its seven heavenly layers. The plane is the model of justice and order, of celestial grace and endless mercy, where angels and champions of good guard against incursions of evil. It is one of the few places on the planes where travelers can let down their guard. Its inhabitants strive constantly to be as righteous as possible. Countless creatures aim to reach the highest and most sublime peak of the mountain, but only the purest souls can. That peak fills even the most jaded of travelers with awe.The pervasive goodness of Mount Celestia bestows blessings on creatures on the plane.The plane of ultimate law and good is sometimes imagined to be the most boring place in the multiverse, but in truth Mount Celestia’s nature makes it the target of unrelenting attacks by evil forces. The devils of the Nine Hells, in particular, long to corrupt the goodness of the Seven Heavens. The yugoloths of the Lower Planes covet the wealth of the plane, particularly the mines of Solania and the scattered gems of Jovar. And the demons of the Abyss would like nothing better to smear their filth on the gleaming purity of Mount Celestia. But while Fiends of all sorts launch doomed assaults on the shores of Lunia, evil’s true foothold on the plane is in the hearts of those well-meaning visitors who bring their secret shame and hidden sins to the holy mountain. An adventure in Mount Celestia is an opportunity for characters to prove themselves worthy of the many blessings it offers—or to become worthy by forswearing the selfishness, greed, and hatred that lurk in their hearts.On the edge of a clear lake in Mertion stands the city of Empyrea, renowned for the healing power of its fountains and springs. Pilgrims from across the planes seek out the healers, hospitals, and restorative magic found here. Negative Plane: Cupped like a bowl beneath the other planes, the Negative Plane is the source of necrotic energy that destroys the living and animates the Undead. A lightless void without end, it is a needy, greedy plane, sucking the life out of anything that is vulnerable. Heat, fire, and life itself are all drawn into the maw of this plane, which always hungers for more. To an observer, there’s little to see on the Negative Plane. It is a dark, empty place, an eternal pit where a traveler can fall until the plane steals away all light and life. Merely entering the plane is comparable to the life-draining touch of a wraith, so only creatures that have Immunity to Necrotic damage can survive there for long. In some locations on the Negative Plane, the intensity of the plane is so great that the negative energy folds in on itself, stabilizing into solid chunks of matter that devour light. These chunks, called voidstones, are thought to be the source of Spheres of Annihilation and similar magical effects. Anything that comes into contact with a voidstone is destroyed in seconds.An adventure on the Negative Plane is a face-to-face confrontation with annihilation, which is unlikely to end well for the adventurers. Even if their magic enables them to survive the environment of the plane, the experience tends to drain all the vitality, energy, and happiness from body and soul. The Negative Plane has all the apathy and despair of Hades and the Shadowfell, combined and concentrated in an infinite expanse of nonbeing and uncreation. Nine Hells: The Nine Hells inflames the imaginations of travelers, the greed of treasure seekers, and the battle fury of all moral creatures. It is the ultimate plane of law and evil, and the epitome of premeditated cruelty. The devils of the Nine Hells are bound to obey the laws of their superiors, but they squabble within their individual castes. Most undertake any plot, no matter how foul, to advance themselves. At the very top of the hierarchy is Asmodeus, who has yet to be bested. If he were vanquished, the victor would rule the plane in turn. Such is the law of the Nine Hells. The Nine Layers, The Nine Hells has nine layers. The first eight are ruled by archdevils who answer to Asmodeus, the archduke of Nessus, the ninth layer. Collectively, the rulers of the Hells are called the Lords of the Nine. To reach Nessus, one must descend through all eight layers above it in order. The most expeditious means of doing so is the River Styx, which plunges ever deeper as it flows from one layer to the next. Only the most courageous adventurers can withstand the torment and horror of that journey. The first of Nine Hells, Avernus, is an eternal battlefield in the Blood War. By Asmodeus’s orders, no planar portals connect directly to the lower layers of the Nine Hells. The first layer, Avernus, is the arrival point for visitors, a rocky wasteland with rivers of blood and clouds of biting flies. Fiery comets occasionally fall from the darkened sky and carve out fuming impact craters. Empty battlefields are littered with weapons and bones, showing where the legions of the Nine Hells prevailed against invading enemies. The archdevil Zariel rules Avernus, having supplanted her rival, Bel, who fell out of Asmodeus’s favor and was forced to serve as Zariel’s adviser. Tiamat, the Queen of Evil Dragons, is a prisoner on this layer, ruling her own domain but confined to the Nine Hells by Asmodeus in accordance with some ancient contract (the terms of which are known only to Tiamat and the Lords of the Nine). Zariel appears as an angel whose skin and wings are scorched. Her eyes burn with a furious white light that can cause creatures looking upon her to burst into flame. Her seat of power is a flying basalt citadel that rakes the battlefields of Avernus. Dis: Dis, the second layer of the Nine Hells, is a labyrinth of canyons wedged between sheer mountains rich with iron ore. Iron roads span and wend through the canyons, watched over by the garrisons of iron fortresses perched atop jagged pinnacles. The second layer takes its name from its current lord, Dispater. A manipulator and deceiver, the archduke is devilishly handsome, bearing only small horns, a tail, and a cloven left hoof to distinguish him from a human. His crimson throne stands in the heart of the Iron City of Dis, a hideous metropolis. Planar travelers come here to conspire with devils and to close deals with night hags, rakshasas, incubi, succubi, and other Fiends. Contracts signed on his layer contain special provisions that allow Dispater to collect a cut of the deal. Dispater is one of Asmodeus’s most loyal and resourceful vassals, and few beings in the multiverse can outwit him. He is more obsessed than most devils with striking deals with mortals in exchange for their souls, and his emissaries work tirelessly to foster evil schemes on the Material Plane. Minauros: The third layer of the Nine Hells is a stench-ridden bog. Acidic rain spills from the layer’s brown skies, thick layers of scum cover its putrid surface, and yawning pits lie in wait beneath the murk to engulf careless wanderers. Cyclopean cities of ornately carved stone rise up from the bog, including the great city of Minauros, for which the layer is named. The slimy walls of the city rise hundreds of feet, protecting the flooded halls that are the lair of Mammon, the archduke of Minauros. Mammon resembles a massive serpent with the upper torso and head of a hairless, horned humanoid. Mammon’s greed is legendary, and he is one of the few archdevils who will trade favors for gold instead of souls. His lair is piled high with treasures left behind by those who tried—and failed—to best him in a deal. Phlegethos: Phlegethos, the fourth layer, is a fiery landscape whose seas of molten magma brew hurricanes of hot wind, choking smoke, and volcanic ash. Within the fire-filled caldera of Phlegethos’s largest volcano rises Abriymoch, a fortress city made of obsidian and dark glass. With rivers of molten lava pouring down its outer walls, the city resembles the sculpted centerpiece of a gigantic, hellish fountain. Abriymoch is the seat of power for the two archdevils who rule Phlegethos in tandem: Belial and Fierna, Belial’s daughter. Both are handsome devils who resemble tieflings, with red skin and small horns. Belial exudes civility, even as his words carry an undercurrent of threat. His daughter is said to have the wickedest heart in the Nine Hells. The alliance of Belial and Fierna is unbreakable, for both are aware that their mutual survival hinges on it. Stygia: The fifth layer of the Nine Hells is a freezing realm of ice within which cold flames burn. A frozen sea surrounds the layer, and its gloomy sky crackles with lightning. Archduke Levistus once betrayed Asmodeus and is now encased deep in the ice of Stygia as punishment. He rules this layer all the same, communicating telepathically with his followers and servants, both in the Nine Hells and on the Material Plane. Stygia is also home to its previous ruler, the serpentine archdevil Geryon, who was dismissed by Asmodeus to allow the imprisoned Levistus to regain his rule. Geryon’s fall from grace has spurred much debate within the infernal courts. No one is certain whether Asmodeus had some secret cause to dismiss the archdevil or whether he is testing Geryon’s allegiance for some greater purpose. Malbolge: Malbolge, the sixth layer, has outlasted many rulers, among them Malagard the Hag Countess and the archdevil Moloch. Malagard fell out of favor and was struck down by Asmodeus in a fit of pique, while her predecessor, Moloch, still lingers somewhere on the sixth layer as an imp, plotting to regain Asmodeus’s favor. Malbolge is a seemingly endless slope, like the sides of an impossibly huge mountain. Parts of the layer break off from time to time, creating deadly, booming avalanches. The inhabitants of Malbolge live in crumbling fortresses and great caves carved into the mountainside. Malbolge’s current ruler is Asmodeus’s daughter, Glasya. Her cruelty and love of wicked schemes rival those of her father. The citadel that serves as her domicile on the slopes of Malbolge, called Osseia, is supported by cracked pillars and buttresses that are sturdy yet seem on the verge of collapse. Beneath the palace is a labyrinth lined with cells and torture chambers, where Glasya confines and torments those who displease her. Maladomini: The seventh layer, Maladomini, is ruin-covered wasteland. Dead cities form a desolate urban landscape, and between them are empty quarries, crumbling roads, slag heaps, the hollow shells of empty fortresses, and swarms of hungry flies.The archduke of Maladomini is Baalzebul, the Lord of Flies. He is a tall, powerful devil with the compound eyes of a fly. The archduke has long conspired to usurp Asmodeus, yet has failed at every turn. Asmodeus laid a curse on him that causes any deal made with him to lead to calamity. Asmodeus occasionally shows Baalzebul favor for reasons no other archduke can fathom, though some suspect that Asmodeus still respects the worthiness of this adversary. Cania: Cania, the eighth layer of the Nine Hells, is a frozen hellscape whose ice storms can tear flesh from bone. Cities embedded in the ice provide shelter for guests and prisoners of Cania’s ruler, the brilliant and conniving archdevil Mephistopheles.Mephistopheles dwells in the ice citadel of Mephistar, where he plots to seize the throne of the Nine Hells and conquer all the planes. He is Asmodeus’s greatest enemy and ally, and the archduke of Nessus appears to trust Mephistopheles’s counsel. Mephistopheles knows he can’t depose Asmodeus until his adversary makes a fatal miscalculation, and so both wait to discover what circumstances might turn them against each other. Mephistopheles is also a godfather of sorts to Glasya, further complicating the relationship between Mephistopheles and Asmodeus. Mephistopheles is a tall, striking devil with impressive horns and a cool demeanor. He trades in souls, as do other archdevils, but he rarely gives his time to any creatures not worthy of his personal attention. It is said that only Asmodeus has ever deceived or thwarted him. Nessus: The lowest layer of the Nine Hells, Nessus is a realm of dark pits whose walls are set with bleak fortresses. There, pit fiend generals loyal to Asmodeus garrison their diabolical legions and plot the conquest of the multiverse. At the center of the layer stands a vast rift of unknown depth, out of which rises the great citadel-spire of Malsheem, home to Asmodeus and his infernal court. Malsheem resembles a gigantic hollowed-out stalagmite. The citadel is also a prison for souls that Asmodeus has locked away for safekeeping. Convincing him to release even one of those souls comes at a steep price, and it is rumored that Asmodeus has claimed whole kingdoms in the past in exchange for such favors. Asmodeus most often appears as a handsome, bearded man with four large horns, piercing red eyes, and flowing robes. He can also assume other forms and is seldom seen without his ruby-tipped scepter in hand. Asmodeus is the most cunning and well-mannered of archdevils. On the surface, he seems warm, pleasant, and lighthearted, doling out wisdom and small acts of kindness like a caring father. The ultimate evil he represents can be seen only when he wills it so, or if he forgets himself and flies into a rage. Infernal Hierarchy The Nine Hells has a rigid hierarchy that defines every aspect of its society. Asmodeus is the supreme ruler of all devils and wields the power of a lesser god. Worshiped as such on the Material Plane, Asmodeus inspires evil cults and sinister Warlocks. In the Nine Hells, he commands scores of pit fiend generals, which in turn command legions of subordinates. A supreme tyrant, a brilliant deceiver, and a master of subtlety, Asmodeus protects his throne by keeping his friends close and his enemies closer. He delegates most matters of rulership to the pit fiends and lesser archdevils that make up the infernal bureaucracy of the Nine Hells, even as he knows that those powerful devils conspire to usurp his throne. Asmodeus appoints archdevils, and he can strip any member of the infernal hierarchy of rank and status as he likes. Infernal Hierarchy: Lemure, Imp, Spined devil, Bearded devil, Barbed devil, Chain devil, Bone devil, Horned devil, Erinyes, Ice devil, Pit fiend, Archdevils, Duke/duches, Archduke/archduchess. Archdevils. The archdevils include all the current and deposed rulers of the Nine Hells, as well as the fiendish aristocrats that make up their courts, attend them as advisers, and hope to supplant them. Promotion and Demotion. When the soul of an evil mortal sinks into the Nine Hells, it takes on the physical form of a wretched lemure. Archdevils and greater devils can promote lemures to lesser devils. Archdevils can promote lesser devils to greater devils, and Asmodeus alone can promote a greater devil to archdevil status. All diabolic promotions involve a brief, painful transformation, with the devil’s memories passing intact from one form to the next.Low-level promotions are typically based on need, such as when a pit fiend transforms lemures into imps to gain stealthy spies under its command. High-level promotions are almost always based on merit, such as when a bone devil that distinguishes itself in battle is transformed into a horned devil by the archdevil it serves. A devil is seldom promoted more than one step at a time.Demotion is the customary punishment for failure or disobedience among the devils. Archdevils or greater devils can demote a lesser devil to a lemure, which loses all memory of its prior existence. An archdevil can demote a greater devil to lesser devil status, but the demoted devil retains its memories—and might seek vengeance if the severity of the demotion is excessive. No devil can promote or demote another devil that hasn’t sworn fealty to it, preventing rival archdevils from demoting each other’s most powerful servants. Since all devils swear fealty to Asmodeus, he can freely demote any other devil, transforming it into whatever infernal form he desires. The Nine Hells embodies the cruelty and corruption of law turned to evil ends. The devils of the Nine Hells are more cunning, more insidious, and far more dangerous than other Fiends. Their intelligence, their delight in deceit and manipulation, and their unhindered pursuit of their own agendas make them truly terrifying foes.A descent into the Nine Hells is a journey into the heart of evil. Every shred of evil is used in the Nine Hells, and each layer specializes in some way to accommodate and exploit the vices and weaknesses of mortals. Far too many people who make such a journey discover their own hearts aren’t immune to temptation and corruption, and they end up making the Nine Hells their eternal home. To avoid such a fate, good-hearted adventurers must resist the insidious manipulation, deceit, and treachery of devils, even when the devils promise to fulfill their deepest longings. Outlands: The Outlands lies between the Outer Planes. It is the plane of neutrality, keeping all aspects of the planes in a paradoxical balance—simultaneously concordant and in opposition. The plane has varied terrain, with prairies, mountains, and shallow rivers. The Outlands is a great disk. In fact, those who envision the Outer Planes as a wheel point to the Outlands as proof, calling it a microcosm of the planes. That argument might be circular, since the arrangement of the Outlands inspired the idea of the Great Wheel in the first place. Evenly spaced around the outside edge of the circle are the gate-towns: sixteen settlements, each built around a portal leading to one of the Outer Planes. The Gate-Towns of the Outlands table lists all sixteen gate-towns and the Outer Planes they connect to. Each gate-town shares many of the characteristics of the plane where its gate leads. Planar emissaries often meet in these gate-towns, so it isn’t unusual to see strange interactions, such as a Celestial and a Fiend arguing in a tavern while sharing a fine bottle of wine. The Outlands is the closest the Outer Planes come to being like a world on the Material Plane. Adventurers can travel easily from one gate-town to the next, making a tremendous variety of planar-themed adventures possible within the boundaries of the Outlands. Adventures in the Outlands often involve the conflicts between opposing planar influences. It’s much easier for a slaad to wreak havoc in the gate-town of Automata than it is for even a horde of slaadi to accomplish anything in Mechanus itself. Celestial spies and Fiend assassins carry out subtle plots and deadly sabotage across the Outlands.Despite these conflicts, the Outlands remains a plane of balance. Toward the center of the plane, away from the gate-towns, lie vast stretches of land similar to the different environments found on worlds of the Material Plane. Preserving nature’s balance from the pull of powerful extremes in any direction can also be a theme of adventures here. Pandemonium: Pandemonium is a plane of overwhelming chaos, a great mass of rock riddled with tunnels carved by howling winds. It is cold, noisy, and dark, with no natural light. Wind quickly extinguishes nonmagical open flames such as torches and campfires. It also makes conversation possible only by yelling, and even then only to a maximum distance of 10 feet. See “Environmental Effects” in chapter 3 for more information about the winds of Pandemonium. Most of the plane’s inhabitants are creatures that were banished to the plane with no hope of escape. The incessant winds force them to take shelter in places where the howls of the winds sound like distant cries of torment. Pandemonium is the plane of last straws. The incessant howling of its winds brings everyone on the plane, sooner or later, to the edge of lashing out in frustration, breaking down in despair, or dissolving into incoherence—and then some event, force, or creature on the plane pushes them over that edge. Simply existing on the plane is exhausting; trying to accomplish even a basic conversation is aggravating.An adventure in Pandemonium can be a way to explore what happens to characters on their worst day, when everything goes wrong and the howling wind won’t let up. The trick is to convey the frustration that characters are bound to experience there without transferring that frustration to the players.A jagged spike somewhere in Cocytus, called Howler’s Crag, is rumored to have a unique magical property: anything yelled from the top of the crag is said to find the ears of its intended recipient—carried on a shrieking, frigid wind—no matter where in the multiverse that person might be. The regions where the Elemental Planes collide and their elemental substances overlap are called Paraelemental Planes: Plane of Ash: On the Plane of Ash, also called the Great Conflagration, howling winds from the Plane of Air mix with the cinder storms and lava of the Sea of Fire. This plane is an endless storm of flames, smoke, and ash. The thick ash obscures sight beyond a few dozen feet, and the battering winds make travel difficult. Here and there, ash clusters into floating realms where outlaws and fugitives take shelter. Plane of Ice: The Plane of Ice, also called the Frostfell, forms the border between the Plane of Air and the Plane of Water. This plane is a seemingly endless glacier swept by constant, raging blizzards. Frozen caverns twist through the Plane of Ice, home to yetis, remorhazes, white dragons, and other creatures of cold. The inhabitants of the plane engage in a never-ending battle to prove their strength and ensure their survival.The Frostfell’s monsters and bitter cold make it a dangerous place to travel. Most planar voyagers keep to the air, braving the powerful winds and driving snow to avoid setting foot on the great glacier. Plane of Magma: The boundary between the Plane of Earth and the Plane of Fire is a great range of volcanic mountains. The Plane of Magma, also called the Fountains of Creation, is home to azers, fire giants, and red dragons, as well as creatures from the neighboring planes. Lava flows down the slopes of these mountains toward the Plane of Fire. Plane of Ooze: The border region between the Plane of Water and the Plane of Earth is a horrid swamp where gnarled trees and thick, stinging vines grow from the dense muck and slime. Here and there on the Plane of Ooze (also called the Swamp of Oblivion), stagnant lakes and pools play host to thickets of weeds and monstrous swarms of mosquitoes. The few settlements here consist of wooden structures suspended above the muck on platforms between trees. Visitors to the plane have sometimes tried elevating houses on poles stuck in the mud, but since no solid earth underlies the muck, even such structures eventually sink.It is said that any object cast into the Swamp of Oblivion can’t be found again for at least a century. Now and then, a desperate soul casts an Artifact of power into this place, keeping it away from the rest of the multiverse for a time. The promise of powerful magic lures adventurers to brave the monstrous insects and hags of the swamp. The Para-elemental Planes are extreme environments but fundamentally similar to places found on the Material Plane—the place where all four elements mingle freely. At a symbolic level, the Para-elemental Planes represent the interaction and sometimes the contrast between the forces and ideals embodied by their constituent elements. The Plane of Ash, for example, highlights the commonality between air and fire—the tendency to movement and change, given a destructive tone by the raging conflagration of the plane. The Plane of Ooze heightens the contrast between stable, rigid earth and steadily flowing water. Positive Plane: Like a dome above the other planes, the Positive Plane is the source of radiant energy and the raw life force that suffuses all living beings. Like the heart of a star, it is a continual furnace of creation, a domain of brilliance beyond the ability of mortal eyes to comprehend. It is a vibrant plane, so alive that travelers are empowered by visiting it.The Positive Plane has no surface and is akin to the Elemental Plane of Air with its wide-open nature. However, every bit of this plane glows brightly with innate power. This power is dangerous to mortal forms, which can’t handle it for long. Only creatures that have Immunity to Radiant damage can survive there.Vibrant life, creative energy, and radiant health are the essential characteristics of the Positive Plane, though touching this fundamental energy can be just as dangerous as entering the soul-siphoning annihilation of the Negative Plane. Characters who survive an excursion into the Positive Plane often find that it leaves them with a lasting charge, making it hard to calm down, to stem the flow of ideas, and even to sleep. On the other hand, they also find themselves with a persistent resistance to disease and despair. Shadowfell: The Shadowfell, also called the Plane of Shadow, is a gloomy dimension whose sky is a black vault with neither sun nor stars. The Shadowfell overlaps the Material Plane in much the same way as the Feywild. Aside from the bleak landscape, it appears similar to the Material Plane. Travelers from the Material Plane who enter the Shadowfell often observe landmarks similar to the world they left, but distorted and often sinister. A mountain on the Material Plane might be replaced in the Shadowfell by a skull-shaped rock outcropping, a heap of rubble, or the crumbling ruin of a once-great castle. The forests of the Shadowfell hold sinister-looking trees, their branches reaching out to snare travelers’ cloaks, and their roots coiling to trip those who pass by. Shadow dragons and Undead haunt this bleak plane, as do other creatures that thrive in the gloom, including cloakers and darkmantles. The Shadowfell is a realm of death, despair, and dread. Shadow Crossings, Shadow crossings are locations where the veil between the Material Plane and the Shadowfell is so thin that creatures can pass from one plane to the other. A blot of shadow in the corner of a dusty crypt might be a shadow crossing, as might an open grave. Shadow crossings form in gloomy places where spirits or the stench of death lingers, such as battlefields, graveyards, and tombs. They manifest only in darkness, closing as soon as they feel light’s kiss. Domains of Dread: In a far-flung corner of the Shadowfell drifts a hidden expanse of roiling mist and vague semireality. At this eerie edge of the multiverse, mysterious entities known as the Dark Powers collect the most wicked beings from across ages and worlds within inescapable, mist-shrouded demiplanes. In these shadowy prisons, the villainous beings become Darklords, able to exercise great power but confined to realms that twist their desires, capturing them in cycles of dread and despair. Mists surround each of the Domains of Dread, making it difficult to leave one domain and even harder to find a path to another. The Mists rise and fall at the whim of the Dark Powers, and they can even slip across the planes to drag people unwittingly into the dread domains. Those who live in these domains ascribe all sorts of sinister stories to the Mists—any supernatural happening, inexplicable disappearance, or malicious force can be blamed on the Mists. The following Domains of Dread are among the most infamous. They are described in more detail in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft. Barovia: The towering spires of Castle Ravenloft loom above the valley of Barovia, which is ruled by Strahd von Zarovich, the first vampire. Borca: Amid opulent estates and impoverished villages, two Darklords—the vicious poisoner Ivana Boritsi and the childishly cruel stalker Ivan Dilisnya—pursue their obsessive schemes. Falkovnia: Empty countryside surrounds ruined or crumbling cities, with only a few pockets of civilization fighting a losing battle against an endless plague of zombies. General Vladeska Drakov commands a fierce military force that desperately clings to power. Kalakeri: A beautiful land of rainforests, rivers, and lakes is a quagmire of intrigue and despair as three royal heirs—transformed into monsters by their depravity and hatred—battle endlessly to claim the throne of their ancient dynasty. Lamordia: Inventors and scholars violate both natural and moral laws amid the frozen bogs and glacial expanses of Lamordia. The worst of them is the domain’s Darklord, Doctor Viktra Mordenheim, whose efforts to create life and abolish death have led to the creation of many monsters. Mordent: Death in Mordent heralds the beginning of a haunted afterlife as a restless spirit, for this domain is the realm of ghost stories and hauntings. The dead here earn no rest, no finality, no peace—just a passage into a shadow world of wispy phantoms, mournful groaning, and clanking chains. Valachan: The devious hunter Chakuna roams the jungles of her domain, hunting the most dangerous beasts she can find. When she grows dissatisfied with simpler prey, she draws people into a fatal contest, ensuring that the land remains steeped in blood. Shadowfell Despair: A melancholic atmosphere pervades the Shadowfell, and extended forays to this plane can afflict characters with despair.When you deem it appropriate, though usually not more than once per day, you can require a character not from the Shadowfell to make a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the character is affected by despair. Roll on the Shadowfell Despair table to determine the effects. You can substitute different despair effects of your own creation. If a character is already suffering a despair effect and fails the saving throw, the new despair effect replaces the old one. After finishing a Long Rest, a character can attempt to overcome the despair with a DC 15 Wisdom saving throw. (The DC is higher because it’s harder to shake off despair once it has taken hold.) On a successful save, the despair effect ends for that character. A Calm Emotions spell or magic that removes curses cures the despair. Sigil, City of Doors: At the center of the Outlands, like the axle of a great wheel, is the Spire, a needle-shaped mountain that rises high into the sky. Above this mountain’s narrow peak, not part of the Outlands but a plane in its own right, floats the ring-shaped city of Sigil, its myriad structures built on the ring’s inner surface. Creatures standing on one of Sigil’s streets can see the city curve up over their heads and—most disconcerting of all—the far side of the city directly overhead. Called the City of Doors, this bustling planar metropolis holds countless portals to other planes and worlds. Sigil is a trader’s paradise. Goods and information come here from across the planes. The city sustains a brisk trade in information about the planes, particularly the commands or items required for the operation of particular portals. The city is the domain of the inscrutable Lady of Pain, a being whose purpose and goals are unknown to even the sages of her city. She appears almost human, although she most definitely isn’t. She wears ornate robes that shroud her body, and a mantle of blades coated in blue-green verdigris surrounds her masklike face. No one is certain who or what exactly the Lady of Pain is, but it’s widely accepted she’s a being on par with deities. Is Sigil her prison? Is she the fallen creator of the multiverse? No one knows—or if they do, they aren’t telling. Ysgard: Ysgard is a rugged realm of soaring mountains, deep fjords, and windswept battlefields, with summers that are long and hot and winters that are cold and unforgiving. Its continents float above oceans of volcanic rock, below which are enormous icy caverns that hold entire kingdoms of giants, humans, dwarves, gnomes, and other beings. Heroes come to Ysgard to test their mettle not only against the plane itself, but also against giants, dragons, and other mighty creatures across Ysgard’s vast terrain. Ysgard is the home of slain heroes who wage eternal battle on fields of glory. Any creature, other than a Construct or Undead, that is killed in combat while in Ysgard is restored to life at dawn the next day. The creature has all its Hit Points restored, and all conditions that affected it before its death are removed. The nature of Ysgard is glory earned through heroic deeds in battle. It’s the euphoria of an athlete, the exhilaration of a summer storm, and the triumphant celebration of victory. Since those who die on the plane return to life to fight again the next day, Ysgard can overlook the horrors of war and focus entirely on the glory. An adventure in Ysgard can be an opportunity for lighthearted combat without consequences, for characters to prove their mettle against truly epic foes and perhaps even against each other. Adventurers might find themselves on the Plain of Ida on the topmost layer of Ysgard, where daily festivals let warriors and athletes show off their bravery and skill. Or they might venture into the lower layers to face greater challenges—or secrets buried in the deep caverns of the plane.

A Brief History: The known history of the Sword Coast region spans thousands of years, extending back into the misty epochs of the creator races and the ages of the first nations of the elves and dwarves. Comparatively recent history is the story of the rise and deeds of humans and other younger races.Much of what follows in this section is known mainly by sages, some of whom have been alive for the last few centuries of Faerûn’s history. The common folk across the continent have little knowledge of, and little use for, events that have transpired far away in time and space. News does travel, of course, so even people who live in a village along the Sword Coast might get wind of happenings in distant lands. The Days of Thunder: Tens of thousands of years ago, empires of reptilian, amphibian, and avian peoples — known in Elvish as Iqua’Tel’Quessir, the creator races — dominated the world. They built great cities of stone and glass, carved paths through the wilderness, tamed the great lizards, worked mighty magics, shaped the world around them, and warred upon each other. Those were the Days of Thunder. The age of the creator races came to a sudden end some thirty thousand years ago. Perhaps their wars reached a terrible and inevitable crescendo, or they tampered with forbidden forces. For whatever reason, the world changed, and their vast empires vanished. All that remains of them are ruins and the scattered lizardfolk, bullywug, and aarakocra tribes, barbaric descendants of those who once ruled the world. The First Flowering: From the ruins of the Days of Thunder arose the first nations of the Proud People — the elves and dwarves — in the region. The elves raised up the nations of Aryvandaar, Ardeep, and Ilythiir. They settled Illefarn along the Sword Coast, from the Spine of the World to the River Delimbiyr — its capitol Aelinthaldaar in the shadow of what is now Mount Waterdeep. Wood elves and moon elves founded the kingdom of Eaerlann in the Delimbiyr Valley and the High Forest, and separatists from Aryvandaar settled Miyeritar in the lands of the present-day High Moor and Misty Forest. The dwarf clans united as the nation of Delzoun, named for its forge-founder, with dwarfholds built on sites ranging from the Ice Mountains to the Nether Mountains and the Narrow Sea, and settlements and halls westward to the Crags and the Sword Mountains. The Proud People regularly defended their homelands against orc hordes that arose from the mountains of the Spine of the World and surged southward to attack and pillage. The First Sundering: Thousands of years after the rise of the great elven nations, hundreds of elf high mages united to cast a spell intended to create a glorious homeland for their race. The spell succeeded, but it rippled backward and forward in time, and the land was sundered, changing the face of the world. The largest continent of this new world is now called Faerûn. Far from its western shores rose the isle of Evermeet, considered a part of Arvandor, the home of the elven gods on the plane of Arborea, and a bridge between worlds. The Crown Wars: Some thirteen thousand years ago, war broke out between the elven nations of Aryvandaar and Miyeritar, beginning a series of conflicts known as the Crown Wars. Lasting some three thousand years, these conflicts culminated in the Dark Disaster, in which terrible storms engulfed Miyeritar, turning it into a wasteland within a single season, leaving behind the area now known as the High Moor. The high mages of Aryvandaar are blamed for the destruction, although no proof was ever produced. The vengeful dark elves of Ilythiir turned to corrupt and demonic powers, unleashing them against Aryvandaar. In the centuries of destruction that followed, elf priests and high mages fervently prayed to Corellon Larethian and the gods of the elven pantheon for salvation. The Descent of the Drow, Corellon interceded in the Crown Wars and cursed the dark elves so that they might never dwell comfortably under the sun. Now finding themselves pained by exposure to daylight, the drow — in a mere two months’ time — retreated from the sunlit lands of the World Above into the Underdark. They abandoned all loyalty to the elven gods who betrayed and banished them, turning instead to Lolth, the Demon Queen of Spiders, as their patron. Wars soon began between the drow and the underground cities of the dwarves. The Age of Humanity: For millennia following the end of the Crown Wars, humans spread and settled throughout Faerûn as the elven and dwarven nations stagnated and then began a long, slow decline. Deep in the Underdark, the drow fought wars of survival and conquest in their new domain. Rise and Fall of Netheril: More than five thousand years ago, a group of human fishing villages on the shores of the Narrow Sea joined under the rule of the shaman-king Nether, becoming known as the empire of Netheril. The Netherese learned the use of magic from the Eaerlanni elves and became renowned wizards. Centuries later, they discovered the arcane texts known as the Nether Scrolls in the ruins of Aryvandaar and subsequently abandoned the practices of the Eaerlanni in order to procure even greater magical power. Netheril grew to become an invincible nation of magic and wonders, dominating much of the North for three thousand years. Then the power-mad Netherese arcanist Karsus attempted to usurp the role of the goddess of magic. The resulting disruption in the fabric of magic sent Netheril’s floating cities crashing to the ground, destroyed a host of other wards and enchantments, and brought about the end of the great empire. The Great Cities: In the decades and centuries following the collapse of Netheril, many cities of the Sword Coast and the North, such as Illusk and Citadel Sundbarr, took in refugees from the fallen empire, and new settlements made up entirely or primarily of human survivors from Netheril and their descendants were established throughout the North and in the Western Heartlands. Nearly fifteen hundred years ago, the human settlers of the Dalelands and the elves of Cormanthor pledged their alliance in an agreement known as the Dales Compact. A monument called the Standing Stone was erected to mark the occasion, and the advent of Dalereckoning was decreed, beginning with the year 1 DR. This method of numbering the years in Toril’s history has spread across Faerûn and is commonly understood (if not universally accepted). The city of Neverwinter — called Eigersstor when it was a mere settlement — was founded in 87 DR. On the banks of the River Raurin, the humble community of Silverymoon Ford came into being in 384 DR, and less than two centuries later it had grown to become the city of Silverymoon. In 882 DR, a village and trading post on the shore of a deep bay in the shadow of a great mountain was named Nimoar’s Hold, after the Uthgardt chieftain who claimed the area and fortified it. The place became known to sea captains as “Waterdeep,” a name that displaced the original within a few generations. In 1032 DR, Ahghairon, heir to the arts of Netheril, saved the city from itself by unseating Waterdeep’s warlord and would-be emperor, Raurlor. Ahghairon declared that wisdom, not strength of arms, would rule in the city from now on, and created the Lords of Waterdeep. These and other nations and great city-states rose to prominence along the Sword Coast, forming a chain along the Trade Way from Illusk in the far north to Baldur’s Gate in the south, near the borders of Amn. Like their elven and dwarven predecessors, they fought off attacks by savage humanoids, including orc hordes from the Spine of the World. Waterdeep, guided by its mysterious Lords, became a rising power, while old Illusk fell to the orcs for decades, until it was eventually reclaimed and the city of Luskan built upon its ruins. The Present Age: The four and a half centuries since the establishment of the Lords of Waterdeep have been tumultuous times for the Sword Coast and the world. Throughout this period, civilization struggles against the savage forces of chaos, and life attempts to persevere against the agents of death and strife, sometimes in places where even the gods themselves have not been exempt from destruction. The last one hundred fifty years have comprised one of the most cataclysmic periods in Faerûn’s history. On no fewer than three occasions, Toril has been shaken to its core by forces that have repeatedly rewritten the laws of reality. The Time of Troubles: In 1358 DR, the gods were cast out of their otherworldly domain and made to wander the land incarnated as mortals. In seeking to recover their divinity, they warred among themselves. Magic became unpredictable, and the prayers of the faithful went unanswered. Some of the gods-turned-mortal were slain, while a handful of mortals ascended to godhood, assuming the responsibilities of the dead deities. The Return of Netheril: In 1374 DR, the Empire of Netheril rose again when the floating city of Thultanthar, commonly known as Shade, returned from a nearly two-thousand-year-long excursion in the Shadowfell, to hover above the Anauroch desert. The shadow-touched nobles of the city almost immediately began hunting for ancient Netherese ruins and artifacts and preparing for a restoration of their once-great empire. The Spellplague: In 1385 DR, the ascended deity Cyric, aided by Shar, murdered Mystra, the goddess of magic, in her domain of Dweomerheart. This act ripped asunder the fabric of magic in the world, unleashing its raw power in a catastrophe called the Spellplague. Thousands of practitioners of the Art were driven mad or killed, while the face of Faerûn was reshaped by waves and veils of mystic blue fire. Entire nations were displaced or exchanged with realms from other worlds, and parts of the earth were torn free to float in the air. The Second Sundering: A century after the Spellplague, the lands and peoples of Faerûn had become accustomed to the state of things — just in time for everything to change again. The first indication of new turmoil came in 1482 DR, when Bhaal, the long-dead god of murder, was reborn in Baldur’s Gate amid chaos and bloodshed, leaving two of the city’s dukes and many of its citizens dead. The return of Bhaal and his apparent reclamation of the domain of murder from Cyric led some scholars and sages to believe that the rules by which all deities must abide were in flux. In 1484, strange calamities began to occur throughout Faerûn. An earthquake struck Iriaebor. A plague of locusts afflicted Amn. Droughts gripped the southern lands as the sea steadily receded in places. Amid this tumult, conflict broke out in many regions of the continent. The orcs of Many-Arrows warred against the dwarfholds of the North and their allies. Sembia invaded the Dalelands, and Cormyr raised an army to come to the aid of the Dalesfolk. Netheril brought forces to Cormyr’s border, and Cormyr was drawn into a war on both fronts.Throughout this period, tales began to spread of individuals who had been touched by the gods and granted strange powers. Some of these so-called Chosen were at the root of the conflicts that grip the land. Some seemed driven by divine purpose, while others claimed to be mystified as to why they would be singled out. In 1485, in Icewind Dale, the Chosen of Auril foments war with Ten-Towns and was defeated. In Anauroch, seeing that Netherese forces were spread thin, the long-subjugated Bedine people rebelled. Having defeated or besieged the dwarfholds of the North, orcs march on Silverymoon. In Cormyr and Sembia, the Netherese and the Cormyreans traded ground, while the Dalelands became a war zone. As if to offset the drought in the south, in the autumn of 1485 the Great Rain began to fall around the Sea of Fallen Stars and continued unceasingly. While the waters rose to the east in early 1486, the tide turned against the orcs in the North, and by the end of the year their armies were broken and scattered. Also during that year, the elves of Myth Drannor came to the aid of the Dalelands and helped push back Sembian forces. On the Sword Coast, the Hosttower of the Arcane rose again in Luskan, along with the Arcane Brotherhood. In Waterdeep and Neverwinter, efforts were made to clear those cities of century-old rubble and neglect. Cormyr repulsed the last of the Sembian and Netherese forces from the nation, reclaiming its territory, and recalled its forces, turning inward to address issues of rebuilding. Late in 1486, the Great Rain finally abated, but this event didn’t signify an end to the chaos. The Sea of Fallen Stars had grown, submerging great swaths of land beneath its waves. Early in 1487, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions abounded for months, as if the whole world was convulsing. Rumors spread of chasms caused by the Spellplague suddenly vanishing, and stories circulated of known destinations being farther away from one another, as if the world had quietly added miles of wilderness to the distance between them. Word began to spread of places and peoples not heard from since the Spellplague. It became apparent that some of the effects of that terrible time had been reversed. During the year, ships claiming to be from Evermeet, Lantan, and Nimbral — nations thought vanished or destroyed — sailed into ports on the Sword Coast and in the Shining South. Tales spread of the legendary skyships of Halruaa being spotted in southern skies. No longer engaged in Cormyr, Netheril attacked Myth Drannor by floating the City of Shade over it. In a struggle for control of Myth Drannor’s mythal and the Weave itself, the flying capital of Netheril was brought crashing down on Myth Drannor, resulting in the cataclysmic destruction of both. As the year drew to a close, there were nights when the heavens seemed to hang motionless. Throughout much of Faerûn, the winter of 1487 and 1488 lasted longer than any on record. The solstices and equinoxes had somehow drifted. Later seasons followed suit, with each starting and ending later than expected. Prayers to the gods for knowledge and mercy seemed to go unacknowledged, apart from the presence of their Chosen. Although the orcs were defeated in the North, the League of Silver Marches was disbanded in 1488, as former allies blamed one another for failures in the war. Sembia divided into separate city-states only nominally allied with one another. While a handful of settlements survived, the Netherese Empire was no more. The remainder of the Netherese forces battle with the Bedine over control of the Memory Spire, thought to be a tomb of the phaerimm, Netheril’s ancient enemies. The battle awakens what turns out to be a hive of the creatures, and they use the life and magic-draining power of the spire against the lands below. By 1489, many of the wars that began during the Sundering had ground to a close. Other conflicts arose, and mighty threats still imperiled the world, but the deities ceased interfering with the world through their Chosen. The gods were no longer silent but quiet, and in many places new priesthoods arose to interpret the gods’ now subtle signs. The world today seems a place filled with new lands and opportunities, where those who dare can leave their mark. Students of history and those elves and dwarves who recall the past that short-lived humans see as distant perceive a world much like it was over a century ago. For most folk, wild tales of people empowered by the gods, and of far-off lands returned to the world, are the subjects of fireside chatter. Daily concerns and the dangers and opportunities just beyond their doors take precedence, and plenty of both remain on the Sword Coast and in the North. Time in the Realms: Although a number of means exist for marking the days and the passage of time during a year, nearly all folk in Faerûn have adopted the Calendar of Harptos. Even the cultures and races that don’t favor this method of marking time are aware of it, with the result that it is recognized across nearly all races, languages, and cultures.A year on Toril consists of 365 days. In the Calendar of Harptos, the year is divided into twelve months of thirty days, loosely following the synodic cycle of Selûne, the moon. A month is made up of three tendays, also known as rides. Five annual holidays, falling between the months, complete the 365-day calendar. Once every four years, the Calendar of Harptos includes Shieldmeet as a “leap day” following Midsummer. Individual days of a tenday have no special names. Instead, they are denoted by counting from the beginning of the period (“first day,” “second day,” and so on). Days of the month are designated by a number and the month name. For example, sages would record an event as occurring on “1 Mirtul” or “27 Uktar.” People might also refer to a given day by its relationship to the current date (“two tendays from today”) or the nearest holiday (“three days past Greengrass”)Every nation, faith, and culture across Faerûn has its own special festivals and holidays, the observances of which are governed by the cycles of the sun, the moon, the stars, or some other event. In addition, the Calendar of Harptos specifies five annual festivals keyed to the changing of the seasons and one quadrennial festival that are observed in almost every land, with particular celebrations varying based on local traditions and popular faiths. Midwinter. The first festival day of the year is known generally as Midwinter, though some people name it differently. Nobles and monarchs of the Heartlands look to the High Festival of Winter as a day to commemorate or renew alliances. Commoners in the North, the Moonsea, and other, colder climes celebrate Deadwinter Day as a marking of the midpoint of the cold season, with hard times still ahead, but some of the worst days now past. Greengrass. The traditional beginning of spring, Greengrass is celebrated by the display of freshly cut flowers (grown in special hothouses wherever the climate doesn’t permit flowers so early) that are given as gifts to the gods or spread among the fields in hopes of a bountiful and speedy growing season. Midsummer. The midpoint of summer is a day of feasting, carousing, betrothals, and basking in the pleasant weather. Storms on Midsummer night are seen as bad omens and signs of ill fortune, and sometimes interpreted as divine disapproval of the romances or marriages sparked by the day’s events. Shieldmeet. The great holiday of the Calendar of Harptos, Shieldmeet occurs once every four years immediately after Midsummer. It is a day for plain speaking and open council between rulers and their subjects, for the renewal of pacts and contracts, and for treaty making between peoples. Many tournaments and contests of skill are held on Shieldmeet, and most faiths mark the holiday by emphasizing one of their key tenets. The next Shieldmeet will be observed in 1492 DR. Highharvestide. A day of feasting and thanks, Highharvestide marks the fall harvest. Most humans give thanks to Chauntea on this day for a plentiful bounty before winter approaches. Many who make their living by traveling road or sea set out immediately following the holiday, before winter comes on in full force and blocks mountain passes and harbors. The Feast of the Moon. As nights lengthen and winter winds begin to approach, the Feast of the Moon is the time when people celebrate their ancestors and their honored dead. During festivals on this day, people gather to share stories and legends, offer prayers for the fallen, and prepare for the coming cold. Most people don’t keep track of the time of day beyond notions such as “mid-morning” or “nigh sunset.” If people plan to meet at a particular time, they tend to base their arrangements around such expressions. The concept of hours and minutes exists mainly where wealthy people use clocks, but mechanical clocks are often unreliable, and rarely are two set to the same time. If a local temple or civic structure has a clock that tolls out the passing of the hours, people refer to hours as “bells,” as in “I’ll meet you at seven bells.” The worlds of Abeir and Toril drifted apart in 1487 and 1488 DR. In some places this change was accompanied by cataclysm, while in others the shift went without notice. Astronomers and navigators who closely watched the stars couldn’t fail to see that there were nights when they seemed to hang in the sky. The winter of 1487–1488 lasted longer than normal. It was then noted that the solstices and equinoxes had somehow shifted, beginning with the spring equinox falling on Greengrass of 1488 DR. The seasons followed suit, with each starting later and ending later. This shift in seasons has caused some sages, and the priests of Chauntea, to consider changing the marking of some of the annual feast days, but most folk counsel patience, believing that the seasons will fall back to their previous cycle over the coming years.

Nearly every major power of Faerûn has its own currency: coins minted within its borders that represent both its influence and material wealth. Most coins of pure composition and standard weight are accepted at face value across the continent, though not every city-state or nation bothers to mint every sort of coin. Some of the most commonly found, and widely accepted, currency in the Realms is summarized below. Each grouping is arranged in order of value: copper, silver, electrum, gold, and (when present) platinum. Most people across Faerûn refer to coins by whatever name the issuing government uses, regardless of origin, except for Zhentil Keep — for some reason, all Zhent coins have unflattering epithets associated with them. Amn: fander, taran, centaur, danter, roldon Cormyr: thumb, falcon, blue eye, golden lion, tricrown Sembia: steelpence (an iron coin), hawk, blue eye, noble Silverymoon: glint, shield, sword, dragon, unicorn Waterdeep: nib, shard, sambar, dragon, sun Zhentil Keep: fang (“dung-piece”), talon/naal (“flea-bit”), tarenth (“hardhammer”), glory (“weeping wolf”), platinum glory (“flat metal gem”) Silverymoon also mints two special coins: the moon and the eclipsed moon. The moon is a crescent-shaped, shining blue coin of electrum, valued at 2 unicorns in Silverymoon and nearby settlements, and 1 unicorn everywhere else. The eclipsed moon stamps an electrum moon with a darker silver wedge to complete a round coin. It is worth 5 unicorns within the city, but only 2 unicorns elsewhere. Waterdeep has its own coins. The taol is a square piece of brass, worth 2 dragons in the city — and virtually worthless to anyone not trading with Waterdeep. Most traders exchange their taols for standard coins before traveling. The “harbor moon” is a palm-sized crescent of platinum inset with electrum, and is worth 50 dragons in the city, 30 dragons elsewhere. Its name comes from its common use in buying large amounts of cargo. Both taols and harbor moons are pierced to enable the bearer to string multiple coins together. Baldur’s Gate sets the standard for minting trade bars — ingots of metal (usually silver) of an accepted size and weight used in lieu of great piles of coins or gems for larger transactions. The most common such trade bar is a 5-pound bar 6 inches long, 2 inches wide, and 1 inch thick, valued at 25 gp.

Every major power in the realms administers law and order within its domain. Outside the major cities, local towns are run by mayors, elders, or petty tyrants in equal measure. Beyond these settlements, in the wild, only ones moral compass and the gods hold true authority.

Aarakocra Aarakocra Aeromancer Aarakocra Skirmisher Aboleth Air Elemental Allosaurus Animal Lord Animated Objects Animated Armor Animated Broom Animated Flying Sword Animated Rug of Smothering Ankheg Ankylosaurus Ape Arcanaloth Archelon Arch-hag Assassin Awakened Plants Awakened Shrub Awakened Tree Axe Beaks Axe Beak Giant Axe Beak Azers Azer Pyromancer Azer Sentinel Baboon Badger Balor Bandits Bandit Bandit Captain Bandit Deceiver Bandit Crime Lord Banshee Barbed Devil Barlgura Basilisk Bat Bearded Devil Behir Beholder Berserkers Berserker Commander Berserker Black Bear Black Dragons Black Dragon Wyrmling Young Black Dragon Adult Black Dragon Ancient Black Dragon Black Pudding Blights Twig Blight Needle Blight Vine Blight Tree Blight Gulthias Blight Blink Dog Blob of Annihilation Blood Hawk Blue Dragons Blue Dragon Wyrmling Young Blue Dragon Adult Blue Dragon Ancient Blue Dragon Boar Bone Devil Bone Naga Brass Dragons Brass Dragon Wyrmling Young Brass Dragon Adult Brass Dragon Ancient Brass Dragon Bronze Dragons Bronze Dragon Wyrmling Young Bronze Dragon Adult Bronze Dragon Ancient Bronze Dragon Brown Bear Bugbears Bugbear Stalker Bugbear Warrior Bulettes Bulette Bulette Pup Bullywugs Bullywug Bog Sage Bullywug Warrior Cambion Camel Carrion Crawler Cat Centaurs Centaur Warden Centaur Trooper Chain Devil Chasme Chimera Chuul Clay Golem Cloaker Cloud Giant Cockatrices Cockatrice Cockatrice Regent Colossus Commoner Constrictor Snake Copper Dragons Copper Dragon Wyrmling Young Copper Dragon Adult Copper Dragon Ancient Copper Dragon Couatl Crab Crawling Claws Crawling Claw Swarm of Crawling Claws Crocodile Cultists Cultist Cultist Fanatic Cultist Hierophant Aberrant Cultist Death Cultist Elemental Cultist Fiend Cultist Cyclopes Cyclops Oracle Cyclops Sentry Dao Darkmantle Death Dog Death Knights Death Knight Death Knight Aspirant Death Tyrant Deer Demilich Deva Dire Wolf Displacer Beast Djinni Doppelganger Dracolich Draft Horse Dragon Turtle Dretches Dretch Swarm of Dretches Drider Druid Dryad Eagle Earth Elemental Efreeti Elemental Cataclysm Elephant Elk Empyreans Empyrean Iota Empyrean Erinyes Ettercap Ettin Faerie Dragons Faerie Dragon Adult Faerie Dragon Youth Fire Elemental Fire Giant Flameskull Flesh Golem Flumph Flying Snake Fomorian Frog Frost Giant Fungi Gas Spore Fungus Shrieker Fungus Violet Fungus Violet Fungus Necrohulk Galeb Duhr Gargoyle Gelatinous Cube Ghasts Ghast Ghast Gravecaller Ghost Ghouls Ghoul Lacedon Ghoul Giant Ape Giant Badger Giant Bat Giant Boar Giant Centipede Giant Constrictor Snake Giant Crab Giant Crocodile Giant Eagle Giant Elk Giant Fire Beetle Giant Frog Giant Goat Giant Hyena Giant Lizard Giant Octopus Giant Owl Giant Rat Giant Seahorse Giant Scorpion Giant Shark Giant Spider Giant Squid Giant Toad Giant Venomous Snake Giant Vulture Giant Wasp Giant Weasel Giant Wolf Spider Gibbering Mouther Githyanki Githyanki Warrior Githyanki Knight Githyanki Dracomancer Githzerai Githzerai Monk Githzerai Zerth Githzerai Psion Glabrezu Gladiator Gnolls Gnoll Warrior Gnoll Pack Lord Gnoll Fang of Yeenoghu Gnoll Demoniac Goat Goblins Goblin Minion Goblin Warrior Goblin Boss Goblin Hexer Gold Dragons Gold Dragon Wyrmling Young Gold Dragon Adult Gold Dragon Ancient Gold Dragon Gorgons Gorgon Brazen Gorgon Goristro Gray Oozes Gray Ooze Psychic Gray Ooze Green Dragons Green Dragon Wyrmling Young Green Dragon Adult Green Dragon Ancient Green Dragon Green Hag Grell Gricks Grick Grick Ancient Griffon Grimlock Guardian Naga Guards Guard Guard Captain Half-Dragon Harpy Hawk Hell Hound Helmed Horror Hezrou Hill Giant Hippogriff Hippopotamus Hobgoblins Hobgoblin Warrior Hobgoblin Captain Hobgoblin Warlord Homunculus Hook Horror Horned Devil Hunter Shark Hydra Hyena Ice Devil Imp Incubus Intellect Devourer Invisible Stalker Iron Golem Jackal Jackalwere Kenku Killer Whale Knights Knight Questing Knight Kobolds Kobold Warrior Winged Kobold Kraken Kuo-toa Kuo-toa Whip Kuo-toa Monitor Kuo-toa Archpriest Lamia Larvae Larva Swarm of Larvae Lemures Lemure Swarm of Lemures Lich Lion Lizard Lizardfolk Lizardfolk Geomancer Lizardfolk Sovereign Mages Mage Apprentice Mage Archmage Magmin Mammoth Manes Manes Vaporspawn Manticore Marid Marilith Mastiff Medusa Mephits Dust Mephit Ice Mephit Magma Mephit Mud Mephit Smoke Mephit Steam Mephit Merfolk Merfolk Skirmisher Merfolk Wavebender Merrow Mezzoloth Mimic Mind Flayers Mind Flayer Mind Flayer Arcanist Minotaur of Baphomet Modrons Modron Monodrone Modron Duodrone Modron Tridrone Modron Quadrone Modron Pentadrone Mule Mummies Mummy Mummy Lord Myconids Myconid Sprout Myconid Adult Myconid Spore Servant Myconid Sovereign Nalfeshnee Night Hag Nightmare Nobles Noble Noble Prodigy Nothic Nycaloth Ochre Jelly Octopus Ogres Ogre Ogrillon Ogre Oni Otyugh Owl Owlbears Owlbear Primeval Owlbear Panther Pegasus Performers Performer Performer Maestro Performer Legend Peryton Phase Spider Piercer Piranha Pirates Pirate Pirate Captain Pirate Admiral Pit Fiend Pixies Pixie Pixie Wonderbringer Planetar Plesiosaurus Polar Bear Poltergeist Pony Priests Priest Acolyte Priest Archpriest Pseudodragon Pteranodon Purple Worm Quaggoths Quaggoth Quaggoth Thonot Quasit Rakshasa Rat Raven Red Dragons Red Dragon Wyrmling Young Red Dragon Adult Red Dragon Ancient Red Dragon Reef Shark Remorhazes Young Remorhaz Remorhaz Revenants Revenant Graveyard Revenant Haunting Revenant Rhinoceros Riding Horse Roc Roper Rust Monster Saber-Toothed Tiger Sahuagin Sahuagin Warrior Sahuagin Priest Sahuagin Baron Salamanders Salamander Fire Snake Salamander Salamander Inferno Master Satyrs Satyr Satyr Revelmaster Scarecrow Scorpion Scouts Scout Scout Captain Sea Hag Seahorse Shadow Shadow Demon Shadow Dragons Juvenile Shadow Dragon Shadow Dragon Shambling Mound Shield Guardian Silver Dragons Silver Dragon Wyrmling Young Silver Dragon Adult Silver Dragon Ancient Silver Dragon Skeletons Skeleton Warhorse Skeleton Minotaur Skeleton Flaming Skeleton Slaadi Slaad Tadpole Red Slaad Blue Slaad Green Slaad Gray Slaad Death Slaad Solar Spectator Specter Sphinxes Sphinx of Wonder Sphinx of Secrets Sphinx Lairs Sphinx of Lore Sphinx of Valor Spider Spies Spy Spy Master Spined Devil Spirit Naga Sprite Stirges Stirge Swarm of Stirges Stone Giant Stone Golem Storm Giant Succubus Swarm of Bats Swarm of Insects Swarm of Piranhas Swarm of Rats Swarm of Ravens Swarm of Venomous Snakes Tarrasque Thri-kreen Thri-kreen Marauder Thri-kreen Psion Tiger Toughs Tough Tough Boss Treant Triceratops Troglodyte Troll Troll Limb Tyrannosaurus Rex Ultroloth Umber Hulk Unicorn Vampires Vampire Familiar Vampire Spawn Vampire Nightbringer Vampire Vampire Umbral Lord Venomous Snake Vrock Vulture Warhorse Warriors Warrior Infantry Warrior Veteran Warrior Commander Water Elemental Water Weird Weasel Werebear Wereboar Wererat Weretiger Werewolf White Dragons White Dragon Wyrmling Young White Dragon Adult White Dragon Ancient White Dragon Wight Will-o’-Wisp Winter Wolf Wolf Worgs Worg Dire Worg Wraith Wyvern Xorn Yetis Yeti Abominable Yeti Yochlol Yuan-ti Yuan-ti Infiltrator Yuan-ti Malison (Type 1) Yuan-ti Malison (Type 2) Yuan-ti Malison (Type 3) Yuan-ti Abomination Zombies Zombie Ogre Zombie Beholder Zombie Demon Lords Abishai Black Abishai Blue Abishai Green Abishai Red Abishai White Abishai Alhoon Alkilith Allip Amnizu Annis Hag Archdruid Archer Armanite Astral Dreadnought Babau Bael Balhannoth Banderhobb Baphomet Bard Barghest Berbalang Bheur Hag Blackguard Bodak Boggle Boneclaw Bulezau Cadaver Collector Canoloth Catoblepas Cattle Aurochs Deep Rothé Ox Stench Kow Cave Fisher Champion Chitine Choker Choldrith Clockworks Clockwork Bronze Scout Clockwork Iron Cobra Clockwork Oaken Bolter Clockwork Stone Defender Cloud Giant Smiling One Corpse Flower Cranium Rat Swarm of Cranium Rats Darklings Darkling Darkling Elder Death Kiss Deathlocks Deathlock Deathlock Mastermind Deathlock Wight Deep Scion Demogorgon Derro Derro Savant Devourer Dhergoloth Dinosaurs Brontosaurus Deinonychus Dimetrodon Hadrosaurus Quetzalcoatlus Stegosaurus Velociraptor Dolphins Dolphin Dolphin Delighter Draegloth Drow Arachnomancer Drow Favored Consort Drow House Captain Drow Inquisitor Drow Matron Mother Drow Shadowblade Duergar Duergar Despot Duergar Kavalrachni Duergar Mind Master Duergar Soulblade Duergar Stone Guard Duergar Warlord Duergar Xarrorn Duergar Constructs Duergar Hammerer Duergar Screamer Dybbuk Eidolon Eladrin Autumn Eladrin Spring Eladrin Summer Eladrin Winter Eladrin Elder Brain Elder Tempest Elemental Myrmidons Air Elemental Myrmidon Earth Elemental Myrmidon Fire Elemental Myrmidon Water Elemental Myrmidon Fire Giant Dreadnought Firenewts Firenewt Warlock of Imix Firenewt Warrior Flail Snail Flind Fraz-Urb’luu Froghemoth Frost Giant Everlasting One Frost Salamander Gauth Gazer Geryon Giant Strider Giff Girallon Githyanki Gish Githyanki Kith’rak Githyanki Supreme Commander Githzerai Anarch Githzerai Enlightened Gnoll Flesh Gnawer Gnoll Hunter Gnoll Witherling Gray Render Graz’zt Grungs Grung Grung Elite Warrior Grung Wildling Guard Drake Hellfire Engine Hobgoblin Devastator Hobgoblin Iron Shadow Howler Hutijin Hydroloth Juiblex Ki-rin Kobold Dragonshield Kobold Inventor Kobold Scale Sorcerer Korred Kraken Priest Kruthiks Young Kruthik Adult Kruthik Kruthik Hive Lord Leucrotta Leviathan Martial Arts Adept Marut Master Thief Maurezhi Maw Demon Meazel Meenlock Merregon Merrenoloth Mindwitness Moloch Molydeus Morkoth Mouth of Grolantor N Nabassu Nagpa Narzugon Neogi Neogi Hatchling Neogi Adult Neogi Master Neothelid Nightwalker Nilbog Nupperibo Oblexes Oblex Spawn Adult Oblex Elder Oblex Ogres of War Ogre Battering Ram Ogre Bolt Launcher Ogre Chain Brute Ogre Howdah Oinoloth Orcus Orthon Phoenix Quickling Redcap Retriever Rutterkin Sea Spawn Shadar-Kai Shadar-Kai Gloom Weaver Shadar-Kai Shadow Dancer Shadar-Kai Soul Monger Shadow Mastiffs Shadow Mastiff Shadow Mastiff Alpha Shoosuva Sibriex Skulk Skull Lord Slithering Tracker Sorrowsworn Angry Sorrowsworn Hungry Sorrowsworn Lonely Sorrowsworn Lost Sorrowsworn Wretched Sorrowsworn Spawn of Kyuss Star Spawn Star Spawn Grue Star Spawn Hulk Star Spawn Larva Mage Star Spawn Mangler Star Spawn Seer Steeders Female Steeder Male Steeder Steel Predator Stone Cursed Stone Giant Dreamwalker Storm Giant Quintessent Swarm of Rot Grubs Swashbuckler Sword Wraiths Sword Wraith Commander Sword Wraith Warrior Tanarukk Titivilus Tlincalli Tortles Tortle Tortle Druid Trapper Trolls Dire Troll Rot Troll Spirit Troll Venom Troll Ulitharid Vampiric Mist Vargouille Vegepygmies Vegepygmy Vegepygmy Chief Thorny Vegepygmy War Priest Warlocks Warlock of the Archfey Warlock of the Fiend Warlock of the Great Old One Warlord Wastrilith Wizards Apprentice Wizard Abjurer Wizard Conjurer Wizard Diviner Wizard Enchanter Wizard Evoker Wizard Illusionist Wizard Necromancer Wizard Transmuter Wizard Wood Woad Xvarts Xvart Xvart Warlock of Raxivort Yagnoloth Yeenoghu Yeth Hound Yuan-ti Anathema Yuan-ti Broodguard Yuan-ti Mind Whisperer Yuan-ti Nightmare Speaker Yuan-ti Pit Master Zaratan Zariel Zuggtmoy Abjurer Conjurer Cow Diviner Enchanter Evoker Firenewt Illusionist Mind Flayer Lich Necromancer Orc Blade of Ilneval Orc Claw of Luthic Orc Hand of Yurtrus Orc Nurtured One of Yurtrus Orc Red Fang of Shargaas Ox (Cow) Rothé (Cow) Stench Kow (Cow) Thorny Transmuter