In this series I will look at the history of the Forgotten Realms world and publish a series of maps depicting the continent of Faerûn and the wider world of Toril at various points in its past. Like my previous series, Nations of the Forgotten Realms, this series draws on The Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas and other Dungeons & Dragons resources for the setting, particularly The Grand History of the Realms, Netheril: Empire of Magic, Cormanthyr: Empire of Elves and Lost Empires of Faerûn.
The work of Richard Baker, Ed Bonny, Eric L. Boyd, James Butler, Thomas Costa, Ed Greenwood, Dale “slade” Henson, Brian R. James, George Krashos, Steven Schend and Travis Stout was particularly useful in compiling this series, along, obviously, with the work of everyone who has ever put pen to paper for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting (officially or unofficially).
The Elven Reconstruction
After the chaos of three millennia of the Crown Wars, the elven realms of Faerûn were battered and broken. The largest nation, Aryvandaar, had dissolved, whilst Miyeritar had been effectively destroyed in the Dark Disaster. Shantel Othreier’s tree cover had mostly been eliminated, leaving behind only scattered remnants.
Ilythiir, the great dark elf nation of the south, had collapsed due to the Descent of the Drow, the cursing of the dark elves by the elven pantheon, the Seldarine. The dhaerow, or drow as they became known, were banished from the surface realms and their sunlit kin paid little more heed to them. They were gone and their aversion to the sunlight meant they could never return, so the threat was no more.
For the species that already made the Underdark home, however, the situation became dire. Hundreds of thousands of dark elves flooded into the caverns and tunnels of the Underdark, finding many of them already occupied. Battles were fought, but the dark elves’ magic was fierce and their desperation gave them an edge in combat.
Particularly hard-pressed was the dwarven realm of Bhaerynden. Located beneath the very heartlands of Ilythiir, the realm came under attack very soon after the Descent in 10,000 BDR, and within a millennium the drow had overrun most of the kingdom. Circa 9000 BDR, the dark elves took the city of Bhaerynden itself, after a lengthy siege. The dwarves were forced to retreat. The victorious drow renamed the city Telantiwar.
For over a millennium, the drow of Telantiwar became one of the greatest threats of the Underdark. Drow raiders struck at the surface lands, and they delved deeper into the earth in search of powerful magic and rare ores. The majority of the surviving drow of Ilythiir gathered in and around Telantiwar, and it seemed that Ilythiir might be reborn far below the ground, to become a renewed threat to their surface elven kindred far sooner than might have been expected. There were a few holdouts – drow descended from the dark elves of Miyeritar had established their own Underdark cities and redoubts far to the north, and one group of Ilythiiri had established the city of Llurth Dreier to the north-west of Telantiwar and had an unclear relationship with that city – but the renewed might of Ilythiir seemed assured.
Fourteen centuries after the Descent, circa 7600 BDR, the entire cavern of Telantiwar suddenly and abruptly collapsed. The roof caved in, burying the entire city under thousands of tons of rock. The entire Underdark cavern system surrounding the city collapsed as well. A thunderous roar that could be heard across much of the continent emanated forth, and a vast cloud of dust rose into the sky that took months to clear.
The dwarves of Bhaerynden had returned and, in great secret, had weakened the structural supports of the city using magic and mine-craft. A vast scar in Toril’s surface was the result, a gaping wound in the surface of the world some 350 miles long that soon became known as the Great Rift. The destruction of Telantiwar and countless scores of supporting towns, garrisons and forts was staggering in scale. The dwarves may have killed more dark elves in a single day than the entirety of the Crown Wars had managed in three thousand years. They certainly reduced drow numbers in the south of Faerûn to such an extent that it would be more than eight millennia before they became even vaguely a threat again.
The dwarves returned in force, building the great underground metropolis of Underhome just off the Great Rift, and the formidable fortification known as the Great Gates to link the city to the surface Realms. This marked the founding of the Deep Realm of the dwarves, still the grandest dwarven nation on all of Toril.
Among the inadvertent victors of this campaign were the drow of Llurth Dreier, who saw their power and prestige soar. The destruction of Telantiwar left Llurth Dreier as the largest and most powerful drow city on Toril, as it remains some nine millennia after its founding.
The Rise of the Arcorar Kingdoms
After the establishment of Elven Court and the end of the Crown Wars, elves flocked to the Great Eastern Forest, the vast canopy of trees that ran from the Lake of Dragons almost to the Great Mount in the far north of Faerûn, and from the Sunset Mountains to the Earthspur.
The elves granted the forest a new name, Arcorar, the “Great King Forest,” and soon a multitude of new realms joined Elven Court. Rystall Wood was founded in the north of the woodland (in what is now the Border Forest) in 8800 BDR. Jhyrennstar, in what is now the woodlands surrounding Daggerdale and Shadowdale, followed in 8400 BDR. Uvaeren (in modern Mistledale) was established in 8200 BDR, and Semberholme to the southwest in 8000 BDR.
Other elven kingdoms also arose. Not far to the west, east of fallen Miyeritar, the hidden realm of Evereska was established in the hill lands known as Shaeradim around 8600 BDR. Evereska was planned to be a refuge and redoubt, insurance against the future ruination of elven power, so its existence was kept a secret from the other realms. Siluvanede was founded by sun elves in the north-west of the High Forest in 8400 BDR.
At this time, some established elven kingdoms also fell. The fate of the great elven empires left the sole survivors of the that time period, Illefarn and Keltormir, wary of suffering the same hubris and arrogance that had led Aryvandaar to ruin. In 8800 BDR, a series of dragon attacks burned down vast tracts of woodland in Keltormir, breaking up the formerly massive forest canopy into smaller, distinct woods. By 8500 BDR this fragmentation resulted in the official dissolution of Keltormir, and its replacement by the smaller, more distinct realms of the Wyrmwood (in the north, in the modern Snakewood), Darthiir (in the south, in the modern Forest of Mir) and Tethir (between the two, in the modern Forest of Tethir).
And now, for a time, we must take our leave of the elves, whom we have seen plunge from the heights of glory into slavery, and thence to the glory of empire and the ruin of war. Now we must look beyond the elven realms, for other races were rising to greatness elsewhere in Faerûn, and an ancient vendetta begun aeons ago on another plane was about to reach its conclusion upon the world of Toril.
The Era of Skyfire
Life in the Elemental Planes is not entirely within mortal understanding. The powerful entities that exist there feud over the most bemusing of causes across spans of time that encompass the creation and death of entire worlds.
One such feud, epic even by the standards of the multiverse, was undertaken between the djinni Lord Calim and his eternal nemesis, the efreeti Lord Memnon. They had clashed and clashed again on a hundred worlds and on dozens of planes, leaving the ruins of civilisations smouldering in their wake. Even Calim, whose patience and humour were said to be legendary, began to weary of the infinite war. Gathering his followers, he transported himself and them to the world of Toril, arriving approximately 7800 BDR in the lands south-west of the Marching Mountains in the event referred to as “the Great Arrival.” This area had been formerly heavily forested and part of Keltormir before dragon raids had cleared it. Now it was home to verdant grazing land and fertile soil.
Calim and his followers created, by magical means, a great city that quickly took shape on the northern shores of the Shining Sea at the mouth of a river. Calim, with typical and disarming modesty, named the city, the river, and the surrounding lands all after himself: the city Calim at the mouth of the River Calim, in the Empire of Calim, pleasing his vanity and infuriating countless succeeding generations of cartographers and historians.
Calim did not do all of this himself, even with his djinn compatriots. Amongst their entourage were vast numbers of human and halfling slaves (possibly the first halflings to arrive on Toril, although the records are contradictory), and not long after their arrival they seized more slaves from the human tribes to the north, those who had dwelt along the River Wurlur (the modern Ith) with the permission of the elves since long before even the Crown Wars.
Calim’s rise to rulership was not without challenges. A flight of dragons burned his city to the ground ten years after his arrival. In retaliation, Calim led a bloody expedition to destroy the dragons in the Marching Mountains. The dragons allied with their old enemies, the giants of Darchar (a small kingdom in the modern Small Teeth and Tejarn Hills), to take the fight back to the djinn, leading to further bloodshed. By 7700 BDR, every dragon in the Marching Mountains had been slain and the giants had beat a hasty retreat to the north. Within another ten years, possible border disputes with the elves of Darthiir Wood and the dwarves of Shanatar had been resolved through negotiation, and the Calim Empire expanded to encompass all the lands from the sea to the River Agis and Marching Mountains, and east to the Alimir Mountains.
During Calim’s absence on campaign, his marid vassals had staged a rebellion led by Ajhuu and established their own realm along the coast. Calim’s return saw the defeat of the marid kingdoms within three years and their return to the fold. In 7684 BDR, the port city of Calim was rebuilt even grander than before, and began to be referred to as Port Calim, or Calimport. This was not the same as the modern city and wasn’t even on the same site (being located a considerable distance to the east at the mouth of the Calim River), although modern Calishites are more than willing to claim it was to make their city seem even older and more impressive than is the case.
Over the next millennia, the Calim Empire prospered. Trade was established with numerous other powers across the continent and many more humans were enslaved. Some humans proved surprisingly adept at magic, and Calim trained human mages and priests, impressed by their quick learning despite their very short lifespans.
Lord Calim’s idyll came to a crashing end in 6800 BDR when dire news was brought to him: his immortal nemesis, Lord Memnon, had found his trail and followed him to Toril. Memnon’s Army of Fire entered the Realms, north of the River Agis, and established the realm of Memnonnar, based on the city of the same name, at the mouth of the River Memnon (now the Agis; Memnon was seemingly ignorant of the word “modesty” as his foe). Lord Memnon practised uncharacteristic patience, preferring to establish and grow his own power base rather than risk destruction in open warfare. The two sides warily eyed one another, but refrained from direct combat. Still, a confrontation seemed inevitable.
It finally came in 6500 BDR. Memnon launched his assault on the Calim Empire, shaking the ground with the fury of battle and sorcery. For three centuries the fighting raged. The south-western parts of Darthiir Wood were incinerated, to the fury of the elves, and Calimport was burned to the ground and rebuilt twice over (Memnon, three times). The two sides met in combat in twenty-two major engagements across four centuries.
Finally, c. 6100 BDR, Calim and Memnon met in direct combat in the Battle of Teshyllal Fields, to the north-west of Calimport. Such was the ferocity of their engagement that the air was split apart by magic and reality warped. The victory of one side may have resulted in a magical cataclysm that dwarfed even the Tearfall or the Sundering.
They were never given the chance. The elven High Mages of Darthiir and Tethir had joined their power to create a spell of remarkable power. High Mage Pharos created a prison to entrap the essences of Calim and Memnon, and their followers, dispersing their powers into the ground and into the sky. Pharos was well aware of the tendency of High Magic to rebound on the caster, so by imprisoning rather than destroying the two Elemental Lords, he hoped to spare himself and his fellow mages. He was successful, although there were still harsh consequences. Once the djinni and efreeti were imprisoned, the magic fuelling the prison began draining the lifeforce out of the very ground. The result was a rapidly-growing desert that took shape under the centre of the Teshyllal Fields and soon spread outwards in all directions until it met the sea, the mountains and the River Agis: the Calim Desert (possibly some source of minor consolation to Lord Calim; Pasha Memnon’s views on this naming snub are unknown).
Bereft of leadership, both the Calim Empire and the kingdom of Memnonnar collapsed. The remaining efreet and djinn, not sharing the fanaticism of their leaders, left Toril for their home planes. A few minor elementals tried to keep the Calim Empires going as a new realm, the Calim Caliphates, but they were too weak to make this a convincing concern.
Within a few years, Coram the Warrior, a human gladiator and veteran of the fighting pits of Calimport, had led a mass exodus of slaves upriver. Finding a hidden entrance to Shanatar, Coram sought sanctuary among the dwarves. Once his followers were fed and re-equipped, Coram formed an army and sacked Calimport in 6060 BDR, burning it to the ground. Calimport was refounded on its modern site and Coram was proclaimed the first King of Coramshan.
However, Coramshan was not the first human nation of Toril. That honour went to another realm in the far east, founded over two millennia earlier, a name that still garners feelings of fear and horror wherever it is heard in Faerûn.
Thank you for reading The Atlas of Ice and Fire. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content before it goes live on my blogs.
Atlas of Ice and Fire 