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Shadowdale is the most famous of the Dalelands, and is known as the home of the archmage Elminster and two of the Seven, Storm Silverhand and . Through its history, Shadowdale has battled both Zhentarim and drow invasions. What Shadowdale lacks in numbers, it makes up for by the strength of its inhabitants, including some retired adventurers.

• Government: Elected Lordship
• Ruler: Wyndael Falconhand
• Population: 14,000
• Races: Humans, half-elves, elves, gnomes, halflings

The Inn of Lost Dignity is an unmistakable site on the roads through Teshwave. Being in the central intersection of the two main roads in town it is impossible to miss. Just look for the sign with a picture of two legs sticking out of a barrel. The food is mediocre, the drinks are good (The Boars Blood, and Dragon’s Breath come highly recommended at 3cp) Stables for upto a dozen horses plus a pen for a dozen more. The Bar seats 50 comfortably with a fire place and small stage. With only ten rooms and a great location expect to pay a premium. This is an excellent place to pick up news of the surrounding country.

Location

West of Zhentil Keep along the River Tesh. Roughly 96 miles (31 leagues) east of Daggerfalls. North/North-east of Shadowdale and Voonlar. Formed by the intersection on the banks of the River Tesh of the Shadowdale Road running up from Voonlar and the Tesh Road running between Daggerfalls and Zhentil Keep.

Description

• Population: approx. 1400
• Races: Human, halfings
• Government: Elected Lordship
• Ruler: Tolan Berg

Known Buildings

• Inn of Lost Dignity

Also known as The Forgotten Realms or Toril.

See the following pages for more information on the recent history of Faerun:

• Spellplague

A massive change in body and mind marks a creature that has survived contact with the original wave of the Spellplague. Such survivors are called the plaguechanged. Few of their descendants survive today—the initial plague was so virulent, and the changes wrought were so extreme. As well, many decades have passed since the Spellplague’s end, and old age claimed most of the plaguechanged. A few of the horrifying things bred true, though.

Plaguechanged creatures are monsters, whatever their original race, driven insane by their dreadful metamorphosis. Even the least of them display potent abilities. Luckily, few of these creatures leave the plaguelands.

Spellscars are usually gained when creatures come too close to a plagueland, though sometimes they afflict beings who have never had any contact with rampant magic. Sometimes a spellscar is a physical abnormality, but more often it is an intangible mark that appears only when its power is activated. An active spellscar might appear as jagged cracks of blue light racing across the forearms and hands, a corona of cerulean flame, a blazing blue glyph on the forehead, or perhaps even wings of cobalt flame. In all instances, blue fire is a sure indicator of a spellscar.

A creature can learn to master its spellscar through a variety of methods. (The FORGOTTEN REALMS Player’s Guide has more information.) Some beings travel to plaguelands in hopes of gaining a spellscar; such “scar pilgrimages” are encouraged by an organization called the Order of Blue Flame.

Plaguelands is a term used to refer to areas or regions where the Spellplague exists. Creatures that venture close to Plaguelands can gain Spellscars.

Spellplague

On the 29th of Tarsakh, in the Year of Blue Fire (1385 DR), a magical disaster called the Spellplague changed the face of Toril, its lost sibling Abeir, and even the planes themselves. Flesh, stone, magic, space, and perhaps even the flow of time were infected and changed.

Most scholars believe that the Spellplague was the direct result of the murder of the goddess Mystra at the hands of Cyric, which Shar engineered. This popular theory holds that magic was bound so long in Mystra's Weave that, when the goddess died, it spontaneously and ruinously burst its bonds. Areas of wild magic, already outside the constraints of the Weave, touched off first, but the plague raged on and on in ever-widening spirals, devastating some places and leaving others untouched. It even tore through the realms of demons, gods, and lost souls before the end.

Ancient realms that had passed beyond easy reach of the world were pulled back, such as the Feywild (called Faerie in ancient days). The Abyss, home of demons, fell through the planes, unleashing swarming evil before finding its new home at the bottom of the Elemental Chaos. Even the long-forgotten sibling world Abeir burned in the plague of magic, despite having been cut off from Toril for tens of millennia. Portions of Abeir’s landscape were transposed with areas of Toril in the disaster. Such landscapes included their living populations, bringing realms such as Akanûl and Tymanther to Faerûn’s face.

Across the Trackless Sea, an entire continent of the lost world reappeared. The Spellplague was a potent agent of change, but it also set off a whole string of secondary catastrophes. The problems continued for a decade, leading to the Wailing Years, during which time arcane magic ceased to function and the planet of Toril was transformed.

Effects on Magic Items and Spells

Most items that permanently store magic, such as weapons, armor, cloaks, and boots, survived the Spellplague and continue to function normally. Even though their creation used the Weave, permanent access to magic was built into such items when they were created. However, some items created prior to the Spellplague temporarily stored “charges” of magic, such as wands and staffs. Such items either no longer work or don’t function the same way they used to.

Many creatures that had been able to cast spells and channel magic through the Weave found themselves powerless in the Spellplague’s wake. Some never regained their abilities. Others attuned themselves to the new magical environment, aided by a diversity of talents, a process that took days for some and years for others. Still others took shortcuts to arcane power by swearing pacts to enigmatic beings.

Effects on the Landscape

The Spellplague ate through stone and earth as readily as flesh and magic. Broad portions of the continent of Faerûn collapsed into the Underdark, partially draining the Sea of Fallen Stars into the Glimmersea far below and leaving behind a gigantic pit called the Underchasm. The event splintered the Old Empires south of the drained sea into a wildscape of towering mesas, bottomless ravines, and cloud-scraping spires. Of those ancient lands, the most changed by the Spellplague were Mulhorand, Unther, and Chondath, as well as portions of Aglarond, the shores of the Sea of Fallen Stars, and the Shaar. What was once called Halruaa was destroyed in a great holocaust, as if every spell held there had loosed its power simultaneously. The land bridge between Chult and the Shining South was sunk; now only a scattered archipelago remains.

Tendrils of the Spellplague reached to many other corners of Toril, sometimes bypassing great swaths of land by infecting both sides of the many portals that dotted the world. Such an effect might have been responsible for drawing portions of lost Abeir into Toril. Some sages suggest that the two worlds have undergone periodic conjunctions ever since they diverged, but that these were too subtle for most creatures to notice. By an accident of timing, the Spellplague occurred during just such a conjunction, which caused the briefly overlapping lands to run athwart each other instead of passing in the night as before.

Pockets of active Spellplague still exist today, most notoriously in the Plaguewrought Land. Each of these plaguelands is strange and dangerous. No two possess the exact same landscape or features, but entering any of them could lead to infection by the Spellplague. Luckily for the world, the remaining plaguelands possess only a small fraction of the Spellplague’s initial vigor and are in hard-to-reach locales, often surrounded by twisted devastation. Most lands of Faerûn and Returned Abeir are entirely free of such pockets, though the plaguechanged and spellscarred might appear in any land.

Effects on Creatures

A creature, object, or spell touched by the Spellplague usually dissolved into glowing, dissipating ash. Places hit in the first few hours of the disaster twisted into mad nightmares: delicate structures of mind-skewing dimensions, half-melted cities, and shattered physical and magical laws. Sometimes living creatures survived but were hideously mutated. In the worst cases, they were altered, twisted, or fused to other creatures (regardless of species) or even to portions of the landscape. Most such mewling horrors perished within a few days.

A few things changed by the Spellplague survived only by accepting the new reality. Living creatures so affected are differentiated into two broad groups: plaguechanged and spellscarred.

Aftermath

By 1395 DR, the majority of the effects of the Spellplague had come to an end and most arcane magic had returned to normal.

By 1479 DR areas of Toril still affected by the Spellplague are referred to as Plaguelands.

From left to right: Human, sun elf, wood elf, moon elf, draw, wild elf.

Tel'Quessir are a number of closely related, long lived fey races commonly known as elves, though this term is now acknowledged to be techically inaccurate. Nonetheless, the name is common and many of the Tel'Quessir consider themselves as one larger culture, an attitude not unjustified given that nearly all Tel'Quessir speak elven and share a common history together. Perhaps more importantly, the Tel'Quessir were once one race, generally assumed to have been the eladrin or "high elves."

For these reasons and others, the Tel'Quessir are often considered as though they were one race and called "elves."

Races

• Eladrin – includes dark elves, green elves, moon elves, star elves, and sun elves. They have a close relationship with the Feywild and magic.
• Elves – includes wild elves and wood elves. They have a stronger bond with nature than the eladrin.
• Drow – cursed by the god Corellon, these Tel'Quessir have an aversion to sunlight and live primarily underground.

There are several other sub-races of Tel'Quessir as well, and it's not clear if they fit neatly into one of the above three sub-categories. They include:

• Avariel – A race of winged elves. They live in crystal cities high in the mountains.
• Aquatic Elf – A race of elves that can breathe water. Like their land-bound counterparts they have giant cities protected by mythals.
• Lythari – A race of elves that can transform into wolves, though not into a hybrid form like lycanthropes.

While not strictly a sub-race of Tel'Quessir, the result of a human and Tel'Quessir mating is a half-elf, half-eladrin, or half-drow, whereas the offspring of a Tel'Quessir and a fiend is called a fey'ri.

Elven Races: L-R: human, sun elf, wood elf, moon elf, drow, wild ef