Forgotten Realms
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Introduction
Welcome to the world of Faerun, a place of great heroes and stark evil, encompassing lands of magic, mystery, and high peril.
Bold knights dare the crypts of dead monarchs, seeking glory and treasure. Insolent rogues prowl the dank alleyways of ancient cities, plotting their next exploit. Devout clerics wield mace and spell, questing against the terrifying powers that threaten the land. Cunning wizards plunder the ruins of fallen empires, delving fearlessly into secrets too dark for the light of day. Dragons, giants, blackhearted villains, demons, savage hordes, ant! unimaginable abominations lurk in horrible dungeons, endless caverns, ruined cities, and the vast wild places of the world, thirsting for the blood of heroes.
This is the land of Faerun, a continent of heart-stopping beauty and ages-old evil. It is your land to shape, to guide, to defend, to conquer, or to rule. It is a land trod by noble heroes and unredeemable villains, a great and terrible company to which you and your fellows now belong.
Welcome to the FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign setting.
The Land of Faerun
From the bitter, windswept steppes of the Endless Waste to the storm-lashed cliffs of the Sword Coast stretches a wide, wild land of shining kingdoms and primal wilderness, Faerun is only one continent of the world known as Toril. Other lands lie in distant corners of the world, but Faerun is the center of it all, the crossroads and crux upon which all else turns. Dozens of nations, hundreds of city-states, and countless tribes, villages, and settlements dot its expanse.
The continent of Faerun measures more than thirty-five hundred miles from east to west and twenty-five hundred from north to south. It includes sun-blasted deserts, vast forest deeps, forbidding mountains, and gleaming inland seas. Across this vast expanse travel minstrels and peddlers, caravan merchants and guards, soldiers, sailors, and steel-hearted adventurers carrying tales of strange, glorious, faraway places. Good maps and clear trails can take even an inexperienced youth with dreams of glory far across Faerun. Thousands of restless young would-be heroes from back-country farmsteads and sleepy villages arrive in Waterdeep and the other great cities every year in search of wealth and renown.
Known roads may be well traveled, but they are not necessarily safe. Fell magic, deadly monsters, and cruel local rulers are all perils that you face when you fare abroad in Faerun. Away from the main roads and the great cities, the countryside is far wilder than the city folk remember. Even farms and freeholds within a day's walk of Waterdeep itself may fall prey to monsters, and no place in Faerun is safe from the sudden wrath of a dragon.
The Civilized Folk
Of the many races of Toril, a dozen or so account for nine-tenths of all folk who live in the world today. Humans are the most numerous. They are a race of kingdom-builders, merchants, wizards, and clerics whose crowded cities lie scattered across the fair face of the continent. Young and vigorous in comparison to the other races, humans hold the future of Faerun in their hands—for good or for ill.
While humans were still eking out a subsistence in scattered, disorganized bands, two older races—dwarves and elves—raised mighty realms in the mountains and forests. The zenith of both races is now past, but Faerun is filled with wonders of stone, wood, and magic they wrought at the heights of their power. Grim dwarven citadels filled with the clamor of industry and breathtaking elven cities as graceful as spun glass still stand, even as year by year human dominion grows.
Though they never commanded the power of the dwarves or the elves, halflings and gnomes have adapted better to the rise of humankind. Halflings have prospered, taking advantage of the situations created by the cultural conflicts between the humans and the elder races. Although halflings hold lands exclusively for their people in only a handful of places, their settlements can be found throughout most human lands. Gnomes prefer more reclusive dwellings and do not raise mighty cities, but,' like the halflings, their homes and settlements are scattered through a dozen human lands.
Other races are sometimes considered civilized folk, too, despite their smaller numbers. Centaurs and fey roam the great northern forests, good of heart but growing evermore wary of human incursions. Merfolk rule vast underwater domains in the warm seas of the south. Proud, wemics roam the endless plains of the Shaar. But their numbers are few compared to even a small human land.
Savage Peoples and Monsters
Against the young human lands and the ancient refuges of the older races stand ranged a great number of enemies. Foremost among these are the savage peoples—goblins, orcs, ogres, and all their kin. Breeding fierce warriors in dark mountain fortresses and noisome cavern dens, they regularly burst forth from their strongholds to pillage and slaughter villages and towns unfortunate enough to lie in their path.
Faerun is home to creatures far more malevolent, cruel, and calculating than orc chiefs and rampaging ogres. The deeps of the Underdark house sinister and powerful beings such as the drow, the beholders, and the mind flayers. These terrible creatures dream of enslaving the surface lands and feasting on human cattle while they rule as the overlords of all Toril.
Neither the uncounted hordes of goblinkind nor the dark powers that lie beneath the surface world are the most dangerous threat to human cities and realms, however. That honor must be reserved for the most terrible and awesome creatures of Faerun—-the dragons. No one knows just how many dragons soar through the icy spires of the Spine of the World or slither through the depths of the Forest of Wyrms, but even a single dragon can spell doom for a city. From time to time, great numbers of dragons take flight at once and wing across the face of Faerun in a terrifying Rage, burning and devouring at will.
Heroes and Villians
Faerun is a land of heroes both light and dark, and you must choose where you will stand in the struggle to come. Regardless of race or station, the most notable creatures to roam Faerun are its heroes and their enemies. In the courts of kings, the dens of thieves, and the citadels of dark powers, companies of questers, treasure seekers, monster slayers, and freebooters struggle to preserve the things they hold dear and to vanquish the enemies who would destroy them.
The most dangerous creature on Faerun is, as you might expect, a person with the ruthlessness to do whatever is necessary to achieve her goal. Even a dim-witted ogre can guess what a red dragon might want when it appears on the horizon, but fathoming the purposes and designs of a scheming wizard or unscrupulous merchant lord is far more difficult.
A World of Magic
Toril is steeped in magic. It permeates the entire world. Fallen empires thousands of years old left portals and wrecked towers scattered across the landscape that are still filled with potent enchantments. Haughty wizards whose spells can lay low entire armies plot against each other as they pursue their studies into ever more powerful— and more dangerous—fields of arcane lore. Deities channel divine energy through their mortal agents to advance the causes that interest them. Adventurers of all types, evil and good, wield mighty spells seemingly at will.
Most Faerunians never learn to speak a spell, but magic touches their lives in ways they do not always see. Skilled wizards and sorcerers serve the monarchs of the land, plying their spells to defend their realms against attack and to watch their enemies' movements. Clerics intercede with the deities to invoke their blessings as real and tangible benefits to the endeavors of the community. Monstrous aberrations of twisted magic and warped energy are often the deadliest creatures to prey on Faerun's common folk, and adventurers armed with enchanted steel are the land's first line of defense against such perils.
Ancient Wonders
The history of Faerun is dominated by the cyclic rise and cataclysmic destruction of empires founded on knowledge of the intricacies of magic. The Imaskari wrought magical pariah to bridge the gap between worlds, only to be destroyed by the god-kings of the slave races they imported to Faerun. Their lost realm now lies beneath the dust desert of Raurin. The mighty Empire of Netheril dominated the center of the continent, its skies graced by floating cities and its wizards commanding unimagined might. They reached too far and were destroyed in a magical catastrophe of world-shaking proportions, forever changing the workings of magic itself. Realms such as Narfell and Raumathar, Athalantar and Cormanthyr, Illefarn and Hlondath have left their ruins throughout the world.
Magic both old and strong still slumbers in the wreckage of these ancient realms, Every year some new marvel is rediscovered in an old ruin: a spell never before seen or a wondrous item of great power and high purpose. More often, though, blights and perils long forgotten or magical abominations that should never see the light of day emerge to trouble the world anew, unearthed by those ignorant or unscrupulous enough to seek them out.
Mages, Priests, and Minstrels
Crumbling towers and buried vaults of elder lands hold power and peril beyond compare, but it is the living wielders of magic who shape Faerun's future. Every land in Faerun is home to the lonely towers of reclusive wizards and the fortress-like temples of clerical orders.
Practitioners of the Art, the wreaking of arcane magic, include the most powerful mortals to walk the face of Toril. Mysterious enchanters, proud diviners, and depraved necromancers roam Faerun, engaged in their own secretive business, Some seek deeper knowledge and greater power, others toil in the service of dark masters, and others still strive to right wrongs wherever they find them. Any person with the wits of a fence post treads cautiously in the presence of sorcerers or wizards, for who can guess at their purposes and designs?
Invokers of divine magic, also known as the Power, include the clerics of Faerun's multitudinous goddesses and gods. Devoted to the service of their patron deities, they run the gamut from 'priests of Tempus who march with armies to scholarly clerics who carefully protect knowledge in the hoary halls of the Inner Chamber of Deneir and the Seat of Lore of Oghma in Berdusk. The deities of Faerun watch over every corner of the world and aspect of life, and only a fool would ignore their mortal agents.
Wizards and clerics are not the only wielders of magic in the world. Druids and rangers serve nature deities and guard the deep forests. Bards wander the land, carrying news and gossip with their magical songs. Faerun is a land rich with wielders of magic, and their works and deeds topple thrones and shake empires.
Characters
Guarded wizards of Thay, distrusted by the common folk of the Dalelands, seek deeper knowledge in the elven ruins of Cormanthor. Determined clerics of Tyr wander the cold lands of the Moonsea, battling against the sinister influence of the Zhentarim. Stout-hearted shield dwarves seek to free the plundered citadels of their ancestors from the feral orcs and ogres that occupy them. Almost any kind of fantasy hero or villain may find a home in the FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign setting. Faerun is an old continent with hundreds of disparate cultures.
In this world, your fighter is not defined simply by his Strength score of 16 and his mastery of the bastard sword. He is defined by his homeland, his training, and his background. Just as the Dungeon Master (DM) carefully crafts adventures to highlight the magic and perils of the far-scattered lands of Faerun, each player contributes to the campaign a character whose personality, motivations, and attitudes reflect the heroes—or the villains—of a land shrouded in mystery, myth, and legend.
Races of Faerun
Faerun is inhabited by hundreds of different races. Some races are native and have lived here for uncounted thousands of "years. Others arrived over centuries of migration and conquest from other planes and worlds. The races most commonly found as player characters-- humans, dwarves, elves, half-elves, half-orcs, halflings, and gnomes— are descended from both Faerunian natives and immigrants from other worlds. Because of their complex ancestry, members of most of these races and subraces display a wide range of skin and hair colors.
As a further consequence of their mixed heritage, humans, dwarves, elves, and the other major races of Faerun have much in common with their kin on other worlds.
Automatic and bonus languages for all races appear in the race descriptions, since Faerun is home to a number of unique tongues. In the case of races for which "home region" appears in the race description—for example, humans or planetouched—the language selection is determined by the character's home region.
A character's choice of race and region determines her automatic and bonus languages. The following languages are always available as bonus languages to characters, regardless of race or region: Abyssal (clerics), Aquan (water genasi), Auran (air genasi), Celestial (clerics), Common, Draconic (wizards), Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Goblin, Giant, Gnoll, Halfling, Ignan (fire genasi), Infernal (clerics), Orc, Sylvan (druids), Terran (earth genasi), and Undercommon. Druids also know Druidic in addition to their other languages.
Each race description gives the primary regions or strongholds of the race. Characters can choose one of these regions for their home region, they can default to the general racial entry for their region, or they can choose to be from elsewhere in Faerun. The information given in this section helps you construct a character, but does not directly affect your character's starting feats or equipment.
Classes
Following the class discussion is a listing of lands or cultures suitable as home regions for characters of that class. For example, Narfell is a land of nomadk horseriders. Barbarians, fighters, rangers, and rogues are well suited to this kind of life, and are commonly found there. Wizards are not. Therefore, the barbarian, fighter, ranger, and rogue class descriptions list Narfell as a region. You do not have to choose one of the regions listed for your character's class if you do not want to. However, whether your character comes from a region suited for his class affects your ability to choose regional feats and your selection of starting equipment.
Prestige Classes
Complete List of Prestige Classes of the Realms
Character Region
A character in the FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign is more than just a class and race. Your homeland determines in part your personality, your outlook, and what sort of abilities you have. In game terms, character regions encourage you to take a class relevant to that region's culture, allow you to learn special feats appropriate to your region, and enable you to start out with some extra equipment based on the way people in that region live. Every character has the opportunity to choose a region during the character creation process.
"Region" is a broad term. In most cases, it refers to a political entity, such as the wizard-ruled nation of Thay. It may also refer to a geographical area that lacks a central government or well-defined borders, such as the barbarian lands of Narfell. Finally, a region can be defined as a racial cultural identity, such as that of the gold dwarves or half-orcs.
A character can only have one homeland, so you cannot get the regional benefits of both Amn and its neighboring nation, Tethyr. However, nonhuman characters are free to designate either their physical homeland or their racial culture as their character region, although they must be a member of a class listed for their race or homeland to select the corresponding regional feats and receive the bonus starting equipment. For example, Vartok the gold dwarf might be from the Smoking Mountains of Unther, but he can choose either gold dwarf or Unther as his native region, and he gains the benefits for the region of his choice if he selects a character class listing the region he chooses as a preferred region.
Automatic Languages: The languages automatically known by all characters from this region, regardless of Intelligence score. Common, though not listed on the table, is always an automatic language unless Undercommon is listed as an automatic language.
Bonus Languages: Characters of exceptional Intelligence (11 or higher) begin play with one bonus language per point of Intelligence bonus, which must be chosen from the list on the table.
Regional Feats: If you choose a home region preferred by your character class, you may select regional feats appropriate to that region. These feats represent the common sorts of talents that people from that region learn. If you did not choose a character class preferred in your home region, you cannot begin play with one of those regional feats. You are still limited by the number of feats available to your character based on class and race. You can acquire regional feats later in your adventuring career. With a few exceptions, any regional feats appropriate to your race or homeland that you don't select at 1st level are still available the next time you gain the ability to select a feat. You may even learn feats from a new region altogether, whether or not you belong to an encouraged class for that region. After 1st level, each 2 ranks in Knowledge (local) pertaining to the new region you have allow you to select feats from a single region (other than your home region, if applicable).
Equipment: Finally, the table lists equipment your character starts with if he chooses a region preferred for his character class. This equipment is in addition to any equipment you get with your starting package or whatever you might buy with your starting money. If multiple choices for bonus equipment are available in a region, you may only choose one of the options listed. You may choose to sell your bonus equipment at 50% of its listed cost, if you would rather have extra cash instead. (Some particularly wealthy areas offer gold pieces as one of the options. You don't want to sell them.)
Feats
Almost every rogue or fighter from the mythical land of Halruaa knows just a bit of magic. In Sembia, Waterdeep, and the dark cities of the drow, duelists teach the beautiful and deadly twin sword fighting style. Common-born rangers and druids of the Dalelands are known for their oddly fortuitous luck and their perseverance in the face of terrible peril. It seems that any adventurer exploring the deadly ruins and perilous wildernesses of Faerun possesses a little specialized training or a knack common to the lands in which he grew up.
Magic
The world of Toril is literally a magical place. All existence is infused with magical power, and potential energy lies untapped in every rock, every stream, every living creature, even the air itself. Raw magic is the frozen stuff of creation, the mute and mindless will of being, suffusing every bit of matter and present in every manifestation of energy throughout the world.
Magic permeates the peoples of Faerun as well as the lands. Every town is home to mighty temples venerating the deities and housing clerics who call upon divine power to heal injury, ward against evil, and defend the lives and property of the faithful. Subtle and astute wizards stand by (and sometimes behind) the throne of every land, turning their formidable powers to the service of their lords. Aberrations made by ancient magic seethe and hunger in the dark spaces beneath the world's surface, awaiting the chance to feed. Even the most unimaginative fighter or most brazen rogue quickly learns to respect the power of magic, or sees her career as an adventurer come to a spectacular and ghastly end.
The Weave
Mortals cannot directly shape raw magic. Instead, most who wield magic make use of the Weave. The Weave is the manifestation of raw magic, a kind of interface between the will of a spellcaster and the stuff of raw magic. Without the Weave, raw magic is locked away and inaccessible—an archmage can't light a candle in a dead magic zone. But, surrounded by the Weave, a spellcaster can shape lightning to blast her foes, transport herself hundreds of miles in the blink of an eye, even reverse death itself. All spells, magic items, spell-like abilities, and even supernatural abilities such as a ghost's ability to walk through walls, depend on the Weave and call upon it in different ways.
The exact nature of the Weave is elusive because it is many things simultaneously. The Weave is the body of Mystra, the goddess of magic. Mystra has dominion over magic worked throughout Toril, but she cannot shut off the flow of magic altogether without ceasing to exist herself. The Weave is the conduit spellcasters use to channel magical energy for their spells, both arcane and divine. Finally, the Weave is the fabric of esoteric rules and formulas that comprises the Art (arcane spellcasting) and the Power (divine spell casting). Everything from the texts of arcane spell books to the individual components of spells is part of the Weave. Magic not only flows from source to spellcaster through the Weave, the Weave gives spellcasters the tools they need to shape magic to their purposes.
Whenever a spell, spell-like ability, supernatural ability, or magic item functions, the threads of the Weave intertwine, knit, warp, twist, and fold to make the effect possible. When characters use divination spells such as detect magic, identify, or analyze dweomer, they glimpse the Weave. A spell such as dispel magic smooths the Weave, attempting to return it to its natural state. Spells such as antimagic field rearrange the Weave so that magic flows around, rather than through, the area affected by the spell.
Areas where magic goes awry, such as wild magic zones and dead magic zones, represent damage to the Weave.
Unique Effects of the Weave
Magic in Society
From the smoking foundries of Luskan to the wondrous cities of Halruaa, Faerunians live in a world populated by practitioners of magic both arcane and divine. Magic has changed the world more than once in the past—the deserts of Raurin and Anauroch now mark the places where the highly magical empires of Imaskar and Netheril once stood. The great river of history is directed and redirected by magically powerful people acting out of both malice and benevolence. Even so, magic still rarely touches the life of the common Faerunian.
The Art
The Power
The Invisible Art
Secret Lore
Since the days when elves, dwarves, giants, and dragons ruled a Faerun of trackless forest and unspoiled wilderness, those who could manipulate the Weave have sought deeper understanding, greater power, and hidden knowledge in the hope of gaining an advantage over their enemies. The early human empires were no different. The Imaskari mastered the lore of gates and portals, transporting thousands of hapless slaves from other worlds to serve their arcane might. The Netherese studied the art of devising magic devices, creating marvels and terrors that still slumber under the sands of Anauroch. The Raumathari blighted Faerun forever by summoning hordes of orc warriors to serve in their war against old Narfell and then losing control of their own warriors.
Wizards dream of secret schools of magic, paths of spells made possible by a new understanding of the Art, and forbidden studies leading to awesome new powers. Dozens of paths to power and understanding have been tried and abandoned, and new research— some founded in meticulous study, some inspired by fevered flights of horror—routinely unveils some new methodology of arcane spellcasting or results in spells never before seen in Faerun.
Stories abound of the legendary spells of old Netheril and the vanished elven realms, spells whose power dwarfed that of the mightiest wish possible today. Wizards have unlocked the secrets of a dark Weave unfettered by Mystra's power, clerics and adapts draw potent spells with runes, and the wreckage of ancient dweomers lie scattered across the land in the form of a portal network riddling the fabric of space.
The Shadow Weave
The Magister
Spells of Faerun
Almost every faith of Faerun harbors secret divine spells, prayers and invocations known only to the initiated clergy. Hundreds of reclusive wizards and sinister circles devise new arcane spells, seeking a purer understanding of the Art or a simple weapon other spellcasters lack. The temples of fallen deities and the ruins of ancient cities hold scrolls of powerful and dangerous spells, forgotten by the lesser clerics and wizards who populate Faerun today.
The spells and domains described in the Player's Handbook form the common knowledge of Faerun's bards, clerics, druids, paladins, rangers, sorcerers, and wizards. Any character may acquire these spells in the. usual fashion. The domains and spells described here represent the secrets and special knowledge available to certain groups and individuals, plus a few Faerunian spells that have become common parlance among the land's spellcasters.
Life in Faerun
Nomadic hunters wander the icy barrens of the Great Glacier and the trackless jungles of Chult. Soot-covered armorers hammer away in the dwarven forges of the Great Rift and the stinking smelters of Baldur's Gate. Heavily guarded merchant caravans wind through Calimshan's harsh deserts and along the roads of the Heartlands. An adventurer's road leads through many lands and even more cultures, customs, and locales.
Most of Faerun's humans labor as peasants, farmers, and simple craftsfolk, living in countless tiny thorps and villages. Over this vast sea of simple folk rule the wealthy and the privileged, in whatever form wealth and privilege take in a particular land. In some lands the common people are ruthlessly shackled and exploited by their cruel overlords, but by and large Faerun is populated by folk content with their lot in life.
Time and Seasons
Almost every people or race of Faerun marks the passage of days, seasons, and years in some fashion. In Cormyr and a dozen other kingdoms, royal astrologers carefully tend the Roll of Years. Even the war-heralds of the unlettered orc-tribes compose harsh chants that record the days and deeds of their fierce chieftains.
The Lore of the Land
Toril is a large world, and Faerun one of its largest continents. Thanks to diligent sages and scribes over centuries, the details and characteristics of many lands have been recorded. But in all that time, only a small part of Faerun has been described in any detail.
To most folk who dwell in it, climate is a matter of harsh basics: when the seasons come, how the growing season (and therefore the available food supply) fares, and how severe the weather is the rest of the time. In general, the kingdoms of Faerun produce more than enough food to feed their people and the various beasts that roam them. But localized shortages and the perils of lack of water, blistering heat, exposure, and freezing keep folk from complacency.
Home and Hearth
Wood elves make their homes in graceful pavilions under the stars in forest clearings, rarely remaining in the same place for more than a day or two. Shield dwarves carve workshops and mines from the hearts of mountains, fortifying their homes. Goblins and orcs favor warrens of burrows in the wilderness. Human homes run the gamut from a herder's yurt in the Endless Waste to a prince's palatial townhouse along Waterdeep's richest street. Any experienced traveler soon comes to appreciate that there are as many different ways of life in Faerun as there are kinds of people.
Orc-infested mountain ranges, troll-haunted wastelands, wild woods guarded by secretive and unfriendly fey creatures, and sheer distance divide Faerun's nations from each other. Faerun's city-states and kingdoms are small islands of civilization in a vast, hostile world, held together by tenuous lines of contact.
Language
Common language and culture defines a state just as much as borders, cities, and government do. Each major nonhuman race speaks its own language, and humans seem to generate dozens of languages for no other reason than their lands are so widespread and communications so chancy that language drift occurs over time. Hundreds of human dialects are still spoken daily in Faerun, although Common serves to overcome all but the most overwhelming obstacles to comprehension.
The oldest languages spoken in Faerun are nonhuman in origin. Draconic, the speech of dragons, may be the oldest of all. Giant, Elven, and Dwarven are also ancient tongues. The oldest known human languages date back some three to four thousand years. They come from four main cultural groups—Chondathan, Imaskari, Nar, and Netherese—that had their own languages, some of which survive today in altered forms after centuries of intermingling and trade.
The Common Tongue
Coin and Commerce
If one single reason explains how humans have come to dominate so much of Faerun compared to other, wiser races, it might be this: Humans are Toril's best merchants. The great ports of the Inner Sea spin gold like a spider spins silk. Dwarves excel at pure industry and craftsmanship, and elves command ancient magic conceived long before humans walked Faerun, but humans command a different and perhaps more powerful magic—the magic of gold.
The growth of human prosperity and influence in lands that were once wilderness is the single greatest development in the Heartlands of Faerun over the last thousand years or so. Human settlers carve out freeholds and villages from the virgin wilderness, often fighting for their lives and property against the monsters (or sometimes the elves, fey folk, or forest creatures) who dwell there. From the new settlements flow raw materials such as timber, furs, valuable ores, and perhaps fish or meat. More humans come to harvest the waiting riches, and new cities are born. Eventually a city is surrounded by farmland instead of forest, and the process repeats in some other trackless forest or mountain valley.
Craft and Engineering
With a few exceptions, Faerun is a land without heavy industry, steam power, or firearms. For millennia magic, not technology, has been the path to understanding and true power. Hundreds of wizards develop new spells, create new magic items, or uncover new fields of magical lore with each passing year; but the number of savants who advance the boundaries of mundane knowledge is much smaller. Just as wizards are inclined to closely guard their magical secrets, many great architects, engineers, and inventors hoard their learning and rarely pass it on to the world at large.
While technology is sometimes viewed as a somewhat inelegant and weak compared to true magical power, most folk of the Heartlands have a passing familiarity with simple machines such as waterwheels and building principles such as the arch. Magic often serves as an adjunct to any large construction process, not a replacement for good engineering and months or years of heavy labor. The design of a city's new bridge is likely to come from an expert architect, who consults with various wizards regarding the use of magic to strengthen, reinforce, and preserve the work after it is complete. The strongest and most enduring structures make use of both sound construction and potent magic without relying entirely on either.
Geography
Seeing every kingdom, every city-state, every mountain range and forest and ruined castle of Faerun would be the journey of a dozen human lifetimes. Faerun is a continent of extremes, in climate, terrain, and human geography. Almost anything can be found somewhere within its vast wilds and myriad cultures, which collectively are home to more than sixty-eight million inhabitants. Towering mountains and oceans of grassland, blasted deserts and lush forests, barbarians in iron and furs or decadent city-folk in silk and perfume... all of these things and many, many more exist in this wide and wondrous land.
Anauroch
Chultan Peninsula
Considered by most to be a backward, unsettled land of monsters, jungles, disease, and savages, the Chultan peninsula boasts several distinct cultures and relatively stable governments that date back hundreds of years. These lands' reputations derive from their isolation from the rest of the world, the magical concealment of key cities, and the fever-induced rants of old sailors. The Chultan peninsula encompasses the land from the Mhair Jungles westward, including the Black Jungles, the jungles of Chult, and the countries of Tashalar, Samarach, and Thindol.
Cold Lands
The region called the Cold Lands consists of the territories adjacent to or near the Great Glacier, namely Damara, Narfell, the Moonsea, Sossal, and Vaasa. Their inhospitable climates are largely due to the glacier's influence, This collection of nations is erroneously called the Bloodstone Lands by many, but that title actually refers only to Damara and Vaasa. Sparsely inhabited but rich in mineral wealth, these lands draw foreigners looking to strike it rich quickly. Most, however, quickly become daunted by the hostile environment and aggressive tribesfolk.
The Moonsea
The Vast
The Heartlands
The nations of the Heartlands share a common language, and their cultural heritage and social order are similar. They are not necessarily the most populous, dangerous, or powerful states of Faerun, but they are perhaps the most representative. Travelers from one part of the Heartlands generally find the same kind of villages, the same kind of merchants, and the same kind of overlords in other parts of the Heartlands as they are accustomed to at home. Beyond the Heartlands, people seem strange and lands are wild, uncivilized, decadent, or ancient beyond belief.
Many adventurers lead long and successful careers without setting foot outside the Heartlands. There is no shortage of dangerous monsters, mysterious ruins, and murderous dungeons within these lands. Sinister powers such as the drow, the Zhentarim, the Cult of the Dragon, the Red Wizards of Thay, and now the proud archwizards of Shade all seek to extend their dominion over the human kingdoms of these lands. Only the courage of bold and resolute adventurers stands between Faerun and a very dark future.
The Dalelands
The Dragon Coast
The Island Kingdoms
The great island kingdoms of the western seas have little to do or with each other. Nor, for that matter, do they have much to do with the rest of Faerun. Each of them has its own people, history, and way of life, ranging from the shifting arrays of magical power surrounding the Elven Court on Evermeet to the brutal raiders of the Nelanther Isles.
The Lands of Intrigue
South of the Western Heartlands and west of the Vilhon Reach are the Lands of Intrigue: Amn, Calimshan, and Tethyr. Tied to each other by geography and a long history of invasions, conquest, and competition, the people of these countries have survived by wits and sword, learning to guard their true feelings and present a pleasant face to their enemies. All three of these large, populous nations rely heavily on trade, particularly with distant countries. Their lands contain a wide variety of terrain, making them home to an equally wide variety of monsters.
The North
Despite settlements and civilizations that have endured for a thousand years, the constant orc invasions, harsh weather, and unyielding wilderness prove that the North is still a frontier, "The North" is a term Cormyrians and Dalesfolk use to refer to the lands west of Anauroch and north of the High Moor.
The North can be divided into five separate areas: the High Forest, the greatest existing forest in all Faerun; the Savage Frontier, which encompasses the lands outside the High Forest and Silverymoon; the Silver Marches, a new confederation of cities, towns, and fortresses centered around the shining city of Silverymoon; the Sword Coast North, the lands west of the Dessarin River; and Waterdeep, the City of Splendors, virtually a nation unto itself.
The Old Empires
Heirs to a fallen realm that defied the very heavens, the people of the Old Empires were summoned to Faerun millennia ago and enslaved by wizards. With the help of their foreign deities, the former slaves freed themselves and settled that lands that are now Chessenta, Mulhorand, and Unther. These countries rose to power thousands of years ago and have been in decline ever since, their vast territories since lost to younger and more vigorous realms.
Resistant to change and hostile to visitors for centuries, the Old Empires have been forced into active participation in Faerun in recent years, and may be regaining a prominent position in Faerunian politics and culture.
The Shining South
Along the southeastern coast of Faerun stretches a vast land of magic, mystery, rumor, and legend. To the folk of the Heartlands, thousands of miles away, the South is a place of myths and tales that seem unbelievable. A land where everyone is a wizard? A kingdom of halflings? A realm ruled by drow? All of these things and more exist in the South.
The South is normally accounted to consist of the coastal lands of Halruaa, Luiren, Dambrath, Durpar, Estagund, Var the Golden, and Veldorn. It also includes the land dividing the South from the rest of Faerun, the great grassland known as the Shaar, and the Great Rift, a mighty dwarven kingdom in the middle of the Shaar.
The Great Rift
Rethild, the Great Swamp
The Shaar
The Unapproachable East
To the folks of the Heartlands, these lands are the mysterious, exotic, and deadly east, a region of terrible magic, untold wealth, and strange and capricious laws. The term "Unapproachable" generally describes the distance from the Heartlands of Faerun, but some of these countries are considered unapproachable because of their temperament. Thay is an aggressive magocracy, Aglarond defends its borders against all intruders, and Rashemen is a cold, hard land of powerful witches and fierce warriors. The lands of the Unapproachable East trade with the Old Empires because of their proximity, and Thesk is the avenue through which exotic goods from the far eastern lands of Kara-Tur enter Faerun.
This region is known for its powerful and strange magic. Aglarond is ruled by Faerun's most powerful sorcerer, Thay is under the dominion of the Red Wizards, and the mysterious Witches of Rashemen guide that land's berserker defenders.
The Great Dale
The Underdark
The Vilhon Reach
This region shares its name with the body of water called the Vilhon Reach, a long southern arm of the Sea of Fallen Stars. The region encompasses much of the southern shore of the Sea of Fallen Stars, from the mouth of the Reach west and north to the mouth of the Wet River, and south to the Golden Plains. It is a fertile, rich land divided up into quarreling city-states and petty nations. For all its unrest, the Vilhon remains vital to the whole of Faerun: It forms the trade link between the Lake of Steam, the Shaar, and the rest of the world through its ports on the Sea of Fallen Stars.
With the subtropical and humid weather of the Vilhon Reach, winter temperatures rarely reach the freezing point, snowfalls are rare, and heavy winter rains are common. Spring arrives early, and summer comes hard on its heels with scorching temperatures and oppressive humidity. Autumn brings cooler weather and lower humidity, but an autumn day in the Vilhon can be as warm as high summer in more northerly regions.
The three important nations of the Reach are Chondath, Sespech, and Turmish. In addition, a large number of independent city-states and minor local authorities occupy the region.
Beyond Faerun
Even the wisest scholars of Candlekeep know only a little of what lies beyond the realms of Faerun. While heroes, explorers, diplomats, and merchants have traveled beyond Faerun, rare indeed is the person who has visited more than one particular region outside the commonly known lands.
The Hordelands
The Sea of Night
The last and most fantastic of the lands beyond Faerun is so close that every Faerunian has seen it from afar. Above the sky lies a realm of incredible expanse, the so-called Sea of Night, where rivers of stars and worlds both strange and wonderful shimmer like silver fire, in the dark.
Stories abound of wizards who seek to climb above the sky and explore its dark waters, of princes ruling castles of argent light, and crystal elf-ships that rise gleaming from the western seas into oceans vaster and more wondrous still when twilight falls over the face of Toril. In a land where wizards make castles fly and clerics bring forth godly miracles, the legendary isles and realms of the night sky are home to the wildest flights of fancy and strangest dreams of all.
The Dawn Heralds
The Five Wanderers
Deities
The deities of Toril take an active interest in their world, channeling power through their clerics, druids, rangers, paladins, and other worshipers and sometimes intervening directly in the affairs of mortals. At the same time, they plot, war, intrigue, and ally among themselves, between themselves and powerful mortals, and with extraplanar beings such as elemental rulers and demons. In this they resemble their mortal worshipers, for to an extent deities are defined and shaped by their worshipers, their areas of interest, and their nature—for many deities are actually mortals who have gained the divine spark. Because they lose strength if their worship dwindles away and is forgotten, deities task their clerics and others to whom they grant divine spells with spreading their praise and doctrine, recruiting new worshipers, and keeping the faith alive. In exchange for this work and to facilitate it, deities grant divine spells.
History
Faerun is an old land, full of long-lost empires and wonders. One after another, the great ancient races rose and fell, finally giving rise to the Time of Humans—the last three to four thousand years of Faerun's history. Even within this epoch, great empires and shining kingdoms have risen and fallen passing into the dust of centuries past, leaving only their cryptic ruins and fell lore behind.
The Roll of Years
The Grand History of the Realms
Organizations
Hideous trolls and fire-breathing dragons may account for the doom of many noble heroes, but even more meet their end from the knife in the dark or a smiling face that conceals black-hearted treachery. Faerun is home to fell powers that choose to work through stealth, intimidation, intrigue, and terror. Bold knights and battle-wise wizards alike have fallen to foes they never even suspected in cities or courts they deemed safe.
Hundreds of guilds, cabals, societies, and orders exist in Faerun's wide lands. Some assemble to wage war against evil, swearing solemn oaths of goodwill and protection as binding as any paladin's. But most are alliances of ambitious, wealthy, and frequently ruthless people interested only in advancing their hidden agendas, regardless of who or what gets in their way.
See the main article, Organizations of Faerun
Running the Realms
Monsters
Many creatures roam the wilds and ruins of Faerun, from the terrible and deadly to the strange and wondrous.
The Comprehensive List of Monsters of Faerun.