Well, I suppose we all follow our own wyrd...

-Popular Neverwintan saying

Neverwinter, officially the '''Free Lords' City of Neverwinter, also known as the City of Skilled Hands''', is an influential and wealthy mercantile city situated. The official name is a reference to its long-standing membership in the Lords' Alliance, a federation of nominally independent merchant cities across the Sword Coast North allied in trade and common defense.

A picturesque city of artisans, craftsmen, and powerful guilds, Neverwinter is renowned for its art and architecture and is widely regarded as one of the most notable cities in the North. The city is rightly famous across Faerûn for its remarkable artistry with intricate water clocks, glass work, and clever devices

Though the continuous habitation of the Sword Coast must date back to the Founding Time of the elven realms, the elves of Iliyanbruen never had a settlement of significance at the site of Neverwinter, but they did have a sea tower that facilitated the use of the natural harbor for ships to and from Evermeet. Following their clash with the fierce Northmen of Illusk, the elves of the present-day Neverwinter Wood commenced a slow but steady mini-Retreat, with most travelling to Evermeet but some moon elves travelling to Eaerlann and some golds to Siluvanede. After 50 years they had mostly relinquished the coast to human Northman settlement. Attempts by the humans to log the Neverwinter Wood were dealt with swiftly and harshly and were therefore significantly curtailed, but the elven capital of Sharandar remained populated and the elves maintained control of the woodlands.

Eigersstor was founded in 87 DR by the aged Northman raider Eiger "One-Arm" Sparsarl, originally hailing from Tuern, who gave up life on a longship after losing his sword arm to orcs and settled his large family (he had 9 wives, over 25 sons and a host of grandchildren) at the site of present-day Neverwinter. There was an influx of people following Uthgar's assault on Illusk after 95 DR, which helped the settlement survive attacks from raiders and humanoids.

In 152 DR it underwent a further population boost after Illusk fell to orcs and enjoyed the benefit of having Grath's Hold (Modern: Port Llast) as a buffer between it and the orcs when they fell upon that settlement in 175 DR. The orcs had created a realm, which they named Agrock, and they began to tentatively probe the elven holdings in the Neverwinter Wood. That met with swift action from the elves who launched an all out attack, destroying the orcs and their short-lived "kingdom" but at the cost of most of their young warriors. After 180 DR, Iliyanbruen existed in name only with only scattered elven enclaves located within the forest.

Neverwinter meanwhile, protected by the forest on its eastern flank, the sea to the west and buffer cities and realms to the north and south, went from strength to strength. It also entered into a period of intermittent and most victorious battle against their northern neighbor, Illusk. The rivalry established in the earliest days of Neverwinter will persist through the modern day incarnation of Illusk, Luskan.

Some time before the year 300 DR, Eigersstor is transformed into Neverwinter and the original settlement built around the ancient elven sea tower is soon a bustling port city and trading hub for goods and material flowing down from the northern uplands. The essential, lingering magical residue of Iliyanbruen would also attract the attention of mages from other early nations.

In 457 DR, the Year of the Unfurled Flag, four of those mages (Aganazzar, Ilyykur, Presper, and Grimwald) founded the Neverwinter Academy of Arts Arcane upon ruins of the former estate of the elven lord Halueth Never. While initially founded only as a school for the furtherance of magic in the Savage North, the Neverwinter School of Wizardry as it was also called would eventually grow into the seeds of The Covenant, a secret, political mage pact that would shape the North for centuries.

Meanwhile, to the south, a separate center of political power was rising as the Tri-Crowned Kingdom of Phalorm was sealed with The Council of Axe and Arrow in 523 DR, the Year of Trials Arcane. Though initially only encompassing the lands around the River Delimbiyr, within a century the reach of the so-called Kingdom of Man will enfold a nominally independent Neverwinter and the surrounding lands. While the growth and expansion of civilization in the North seemed meteoric, the opposition to that growth was growing in the mountains of the Spine of the World.

In 611 DR, the Year of the Normiir, the rampaging Everhorde erupts from the Spine of the World and engulfs the North. Illusk is one of the first settlements to fall to this huge orc army and is left in total ruin save for the Host Tower of the Arcane whose magical defenses render it impervious to physical harm. The horde then assaults the realm of Yarlith. The armies of Phalorm march north but are too late to prevent Yarlith's fall. They do succeed however in raising the siege of the independent trading city of Neverwinter, thanks to the aid of Palarandusk the Sun Dragon, and for the next year, in pitched battle after pitched battle, the warriors of Phalorm with the aid of other communities of the North strive desperately to defeat this huge army of orcs.

Finally, in 612 DR, the Year of the Jester’s Smile, the armies of Phalorm and other allied settlements of the North led by the Helmite priest Helbrace, shatter the Everhorde at the Battle of Firetears, south of Triboar, at the cost of much of their strength and the life of the elven King Lathlaeril "Leafspear". The warriors of Phalorm spend the next two years hunting down the surviving orc bands that roam the area. The victory would prove to by Pyrrhic for the beleaguered kingdom as the devastation to Phalorm was fatal. By 614 DR, after suffering wave after wave of savage attacks by orcs, goblinoids, and civil war, the kingdom of Phalorm would be dissolved marking the last time Neverwinter would even nominally be part of a larger human kingdom.

In the wake of this fast flowering and destruction, the mages of the Neverwinter School of Wizardry would forge a secret pact to rebuild, guide, and strengthen the civilized kingdoms of the North. This secret pact, forged by the Four Founders (Aganazzar, Ilyykur, Presper, and Grimwald), would become the Covenant, and would guide the destiny of Neverwinter and the North from 673 DR, Year of the Covenant until its eventually destruction in spell battle with the Red Wizards of Thay in 1101 DR, the Year of the Maelstrom.

Manipulating both the civilized human kingdoms and the barbaric Uthgardt tribes of the North, the mages of the Covenant sought to build lasting bonds of alliance and trade that would put an end to the constant cycle of destruction suffered at the hands of the savage races of the North. Using divination, the mages would guide the warriors of the North to seek out and destroy the enemies of man before they ever again form into something as terrible as the Everhorde, and for centuries they were successful. The Age of the Covenant is, for many, a high water mark for civilization in the North that has yet to ever be recreated.

By the mid-tenth century, however, the terrible and unending tide of monstrous humanoids had begun to take their toll on the Covenant-whelmed allies of the North. Weakened by constant warfare, the Uthgardt tribes began breaking up or refusing to march to war. The Covenant was showing its cracks.

In 951 DR, under the urging of the death shamans of the orc god Yurtrus, the great Urkypt horde boiled out of the Sword Mountains. Laying siege to town, village, and hold, with numbers continually resupplied by the reanimated dead fallen in battle, the orcish horde laid waste to the Twilight Lands of the Sword Coast North. The great dwarven hold of the Phandelve, the human fast of Phandalin, the last fortress of Ilyanbruen at Aeloroth'lir all fell before the cunning monstrous army. Only the magical defenses of the Covenant's home city itself spared Neverwinter from a brutal sack at the hands of the death army.

Then, after whelming the battered armies of the North in 955 DR to fight yet another onrushing tide, everything fell apart. The promised horde of orcs failed to appear, and in their absence the allies of the Covenant lost all faith in the promises and predictions of the failed mages. That the horde had been whisked away by magic far to the East at the direction of the distant Red Wizards of Thay was a truth that mattered little to non-mages. The mages of the Covenant, perhaps seeking a satisfying vent to their frustrations, would embark on an ultimately suicidal war of retribution against the Red Wizards which would culminate in the death of two of the Founders and the exile of the remaining two. The Covenant would be publicly shattered in 1101 DR.

With the absence of the mages that had so guided the city for centuries, Neverwinter now entered the age of the Lords Protector, as the martial generals that had executed the will of the Four Founders assumed direct control over the city in a series of popular military dictatorships. For two centuries, the great enemy of the city would be orc-held Illusk to the north, and the armies of Neverwinter and the other states of the Lords Alliance would find endless battle upon its soldiers tusks. Eventually, in 1302 DR, the combined armies of the Alliance would finally overwhelm the ruins of Illusk itself, driving the orcs and their allies from the city. The Battle of the Broken Helm would also see the distinctive service of a young infantry lieutenant in the form of the eventual Lord Protector Nasher Alagondar.

Though the ruins of Illusk were liberated, the peace was not so deftly managed. Over the next 20 years, Neverwinter's northern neighbor, now renamed Luskan, quickly became a haven for smuggling, piracy, and crime under the auspices of the Arcane Brotherhood, a pseudo-Covenant of mages that took up residence in the city's Hosttower. When the criminal links between Neverwinter's ruling Lord Protector and the Arcane Brotherhood were uncovered, a popular revolt occurred within the walls of Neverwinter itself. After a few days of fierce fighting, the beleaguered Lord Protector fled the city and Nasher Alagondar was proclaimed the new Lord Protector. For the past forty years, Alagondar has ruled the city fairly and well, with no major military engagements aside from constant, low-level skirmishes with Luskan to distract the city from its growth as a commercial power of the North.

The Age of Founding

The Age of the Covenant

The Age of the Lords Protector

The city is divided roughly into four regions: