Crown of Narfell
An ancient crown bearing this name and possessed of sinister powers was once worn by the legendary Nentyarch of Narfell. After that evil item was destroyed, its pieces were reforged by the gods of the Triad as a potent symbol of Impiltur’s refusal to bow to the armies of the Abyss. The new Crown of Narfell is imbued with powers that advance the cause of good and law. At present, it is the royal crown of Impiltur.
History
In –970 DR, the reigning Nentyarch (king) of Tharos constructed the great tree-lined fortress of Dun-Tharos in the heart of the present-day Rawlinswood near the headwaters of the Soleine River. Some attribute his rise to the acquisition of a fell artifact that came to be known as the Crown of Narfell, while others claim it came about due to a combination of fortuitous events and personal magnetism. Although the true origin of the Crown may never be known, it is thought that Orcus, the Demon Prince of Undead, gave the headpiece to the Nentyarch as part of a dark pact. In any event, after proclaiming the empire of Narfell and donning the Crown of Narfell, the Nentyarch proceeded to conquer one petty kingdom of the Nars after another, the last of which was the kingdom of Ashanath. The Nentyarch’s army literally wiped out Ashanath’s capital city, Shandaular, reducing it to little more than myth and scattered piles of rubble along the western shore of Lake Ashane. By –900 DR, the empire of Narfell stretched from the uplands of Impiltur to Ashanath and from the eastern slopes of the Giantspire Mountains to the northern bank of the River Umber.
In the centuries that followed, Narfell’s rulers set their sights on the Priador Plateau (now the Plateau of Thay), home once again only to nomadic tribes of centaurs and gnolls following the retreat of Mulhorand. Realizing that the empire of Raumathar to the east had similar designs, successive Nentyarchs pursued a two-pronged policy of endless skirmishing and settlement. The tribal lands of the Rashemi lay between Lake Ashane and the Sunrise Mountains, bordered to the north and south by Raumathar and the plateau. While Narfelli settlers streamed south and east to claim the territory, the Nentyarch’s armies bottled up Raumathar’s forces in Rashemen, pitting the barbaric Rashemi against each other and against the armies of Raumathar. Early successes by Narfell that extended the empire’s reach to the northern shore of the Alamber Sea were reversed after –623 DR because of an ill-conceived invasion of Mulhorand and a surprise attack by Raumathar’s army. In order to reverse the empire’s decline, the ruling class of Narfell was forced to turn to demonic aid to learn the art of sorcery, prompted by the fell whisperings of the Crown of Narfell. In –150 DR, centuries of warfare culminated in a great conflagration that consumed both empires and left all manner of summoned beings to stalk the lands they once ruled.
In the Crown’s early days, its powers were relatively benign, extracting a dark price from the bearer only upon his death. Those who dared call upon the powers of the Crown found their souls absorbed into the Crown at death and their bodies transformed into crown-wraiths. By –150 DR, however, the Crown of Narfell had grown powerful indeed, and its evil persuasiveness almost certainly turned the Narfelli court toward consorting with fiends and ruled the heart of a succession of Nentyarchs. For centuries after the fall of Narfell, the Crown of Narfell was one of many Narfelli artifacts forgotten in the depths of the Citadel of Conjurers, located north of the Hill of Tombs. It is unclear whether the last Nentyarch to rule Narfell died in the catacombs beneath the Citadel of Conjurers, or if the Crown was placed there after his death. In any case, after Impilturan explorers awoke the long-slumbering fiends beneath the Rawlinswood and Forest of Lethyr, a powerful balor named Ndulu gathered a host of demons and marched directly toward the Citadel of Conjurers. Some claim the balor was guided by the hand of Orcus, while others claim Ndulu simply sought the artifacts within to claim their power for himself. Whatever the fiend’s motivation, his ambitions were halted when the paladin Sarshel entered the Citadel and shattered the Crown of Narfell in the Year of Visions (731 DR). The destruction of the artifact somehow broke the back of the demon army, enabling the defenders of Impiltur to prevail. Although Sarshel gathered up all the physical pieces of the Crown, the crown-wraiths escaped, and with them went the darkness that had beset the artifact. High priests of Ilmater, Torm, and Tyr collaborated to reforge the physical crown into a shining beacon of justice, truth, and mercy, while Ndulu corralled the crown-wraiths to forge a shadow crown, later known as the Moaning Crown of Ndulu.
The reforged Crown of Narfell has served as part of Impiltur’s regalia since Sarshel was crowned in the Year of the Proud Father (732 DR). After the royal family died out in the Year of the Fearless Peasant (926 DR), it was for a time the focus of battles between Impiltur’s rival noble houses. Eventually Soargar, Mage Royal of Impiltur, took the Crown of Narfell and other treasures of the realm to his tower in Lyrabar, to await the day that the monarchy would be restored. After being told of its location by Soargar, Imphras I recovered the holy relic from the archmage’s tower and restored it as the symbol of the monarchy. The reforged Crown of Narfell remains in the possession of the descendants of Imphras I to this day and is currently worn by the young King Imphras V.
