High Moor

The High Moor is a large, monster-infested, open moorland in western Faerûn, and is bordered on the east by the Serpent Hills and on the west by the Misty Forest. It was created in about -10500 DR when the fallen kingdom of Miyeritar was destroyed by the Vyshaantar Empire's magics during the Crown Wars.

The High Moor contains numerous ancient ruins and structures, but the most familiar include Dragonspear Castle on the western edge, Hammer Hall, a log house and stables surrounded by a wooden palisade near the banks of Highstar Lake, and Orzogoth, a large ancestral hall near the Serpent Hills. Forays into the High Moor are usually based in the town of Secomber, north of the region.

Most folk think the Moor is a rocky wilderness, vast and uninhabited - except by trolls. Its soil is too thin for farming, and its stone - mostly granite - is of poor quality for mining. It’s sparsely settled by human barbarian tribes that raise goats and sheep on the moors, guard caravans coming from the east, and fight constantly with the various goblinoid tribes.

Bound on the west by the Misty Forest, whose dim blue glades and deep groves have always carried a fey and whimsical - but deadly - reputation, and on the east by the yuan-ti and ophidian-haunted Serpent Hills, these crag-studded, rolling grasslands are said to hide the ruins of lost, long-fallen kingdoms. Just which kingdoms sages argue furiously over. Minstrels sing colorful but contradictory ballads on the topic, and legends are uniformly vague."The bones and thrones of lost lands" is a favorite phrase; it’s borrowed from a long forgotten ballad.

A few wolves and leucrotta are the most numerous predators on the Moor thanks to trolls, bugbears, and hobgoblins, who have slain most other large beasts of prey. Their relative scarcity has allowed hooved grazing animals of all sorts to flourish, from small, sure-footed rock ponies to shaggy-coated sheep. Those who dare to venture onto the moor can be assured of ready food - either they catch it, or they become it. Rope trip-traps, javelins, and arrows are the favored ways of bringing down the fleet grazing animals, although those with patience and a quick hand can dine on grouse, flunderwings, rabbits, and ground-dwelling moor rats in plenty.

Like the Evermoors north of the Dessarin, the High Moor is studded with lichen-festooned rocky outcrops, moss, breakneck gullies, and small rivulets of clear water that spring from the ground, wind among the rocks for a time, and then sink down again. It’s also shrouded by frequent mists. The prevailing winds are gentler breezes than the mist-clearing, chill winds of the North.

With the obvious exception of Dragonspear Castle, ruins are harder to find in the moorlands. Foundations and cellars are usually all that remain - and almost all such serve as the lairs of monsters. Many towers have toppled into rock piles and have later been hollowed out to serve as tombs - which have in turn been plundered and then turned into dwellings by beasts arriving still later. There are also legends of magically hidden castles and high houses appearing only in certain conditions, such as full moonlight or deep mists, to those in the right spot.