A Gazetteer of the Silver Marches
Contents
Southerners picture the North as nothing but savage wilderness — endless blizzards, monster-haunted forests, and roving orc hordes that sweep away any foothold civilization manages to gain. It's a land they assume was never tamed and never will be.
That view is a mistake. Settlements and farms may be sparse compared to the warmer south, but the abandoned mines and ruined towers scattered across the region are proof that great realms once stood here. The North has a long history of civilization, not just wilderness.
Thousands of years ago this region looked nothing like it does today — there was no Anauroch desert, and deep forest covered nearly everything. The elves raised their first great realms here (Aryvandaar, Illefarn, Miyeritar), the dwarves of Delzoun claimed the mountains and the Underdark beneath them, and orcs and goblins multiplied in the high peaks.
Humans arrived and learned magic from the elves. Their first notable realm was Illusk, but it was Netheril, rising around the Narrow Sea, that became the great human empire — and overreached. Wielding the raw power of the Weave, the Netherese were undone partly by the phaerimms' desert-spreading sorcery and finally by the archwizard Karsus, whose failed bid for godhood in −339 DR killed the goddess of magic and collapsed the empire.
As Netheril fell, unprecedented orc hordes poured out of the mountains. Delzoun fell around −100 DR; only the elf realm of Eaerlann held. Survivors became the founders of holds like Ascalhorn, Silverymoon, Everlund, and Sundabar, while others descended into barbarism as the Uthgardt. A short-lived alliance, Phalorm (the Realm of Three Crowns), held the line against the reavers in 523 DR before being overwhelmed in 615 DR.
In 882 DR the wizards of Ascalhorn doomed themselves by summoning demons, turning the city into Hellgate Keep and dragging down neighboring Eaerlann and Ammarindar with it. The old realms were gone, but new ones grew: Waterdeep anchored the North, and Silverymoon — founded in 574 DR — became the Gem of the North.
The new realms still battled hordes and monsters. A massive orc invasion in 1235 DR reached as far south as Calimshan before being broken. From the 1350s onward the shield dwarves pushed to reclaim lost holds: Bruenor Battlehammer retook Mithral Hall in 1356 DR, and Citadel Felbarr was recovered from King Obould's orcs in 1367 DR. Troll, giant, and fiend troubles mounted through 1368–1369 DR, including the destruction of Hellgate Keep. With danger rising on all sides, High Lady Alustriel summoned the region's leaders in 1371 DR, and from that council came the League of the Silver Marches.
No one truly knows the whole North — it's too vast, too wild, and too thinly settled, so even experts know little beyond major landmarks and a few safe routes. The Silver Marches proper is a more manageable scope, but it still spans roughly 500 miles east to west (Surbrin to Anauroch) and 300 miles north to south (High Forest to the Spine of the World).
The name itself is vague. The region centers on Silverymoon and takes in five other great cities plus many smaller settlements, but its borders are ill-defined in a land where law often reaches no farther than a sword's length. The six major League signatories are Citadel Adbar, Citadel Felbarr, Everlund, Mithral Hall, Silverymoon, and Sundabar — each sworn to Alustriel but still self-governing, fielding its own guards and patrolling its own surroundings.
Silverymoon's sages divide the Marches into three core regions: the Rauvin Vale (along the River Rauvin from the Surbrin to the Nether Mountains), Old Delzoun (north of the Nethers, south of the Cold Wood and Ice Mountains), and the Moonlands (north of Silverymoon, between the Surbrin and the Cold Wood). The surrounding mountains, moors, and forests mark the outer edges.
The Marches are built around three valleys and three mountain ranges, all running roughly east to west. At the far north, the Spine of the World and the Ice Mountains form a protective wall against the tundra beyond; Citadel Adbar is the most remote outpost of civilization out here.
South of that wall lies the Cold Vale, the northernmost valley — desolate, forested, and nearly as hard to cross as the mountains themselves. The Rauvin Mountains, orc-infested and dangerous, split Old Delzoun into northern and southern halves.
South of the Rauvins sits the heart of Old Delzoun, the well-settled vale around the city of Sundabar, though farmland thins out within twenty miles of the walls. Beyond it rise the Nether Mountains — an even more imposing double range over 300 miles long, haunted by perytons, dragons, and other large predators.
Southwest of the Nethers lies the Rauvin Vale, a fertile valley following the River Rauvin, with Everlund to the east and Silverymoon to the west. The stretch between the two cities stays wild, but the vale around them is the most densely populated part of the Marches — still a frontier by southern standards.
A roughly 1,000-square-mile expanse of pine woods and muskeg bog on the northeast flank of the Nether Mountains. Its trees dwindle to scrub and then vanish as Anauroch encroaches to the east. Even by the standards of this thinly settled region it's considered empty wildland — remote and rarely traveled.
Hidden in the drier eastern reach is Graevelwood, a concealed clan of rock gnomes living in tunnels beneath a rocky crag. Expert trappers and scouts, they trade furs and woodwork with Deadsnows and Citadel Adbar while carefully hiding their trails, and their clanlord keeps them out of sight in anticipation of a coming orc war. The wetter western Arn is troubled by kobold bands and dotted with ruins said to date back to old Netheril.
Graevelwood — hamlet; pop. 133 (mostly rock gnomes); ruled by Clanlord Mavheran Haerlskeel.
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