Flooded Forest The Flooded Forest was a swamp lying between Cormanthor , the Dragon Reach , and the Earthspur Mountains , between the lands of the Moonsea and the Vast in north Faerûn . Geography . The Flooded Forest was a section of the great forest of Cormanthor that lay beyond the River Lis . However , it lay in a low bowl that filled with water , becoming a swamp surrounded by a ring of boggy woodland . The swamp was stinking and foul and the marshes around the southern edges tended to be wreathed in mists . Maple and oak trees made up much of the forest . Although the trees had lasted centuries , most died when it turned to swampland ; some were still standing a century later , but were so fragile they could fall at a touch . Fallen trees were a common sight , and falling trees were a common hazard to explorers . Mushroom s and hanging moss es were grew everywhere . Duskwoods lined the southern edge of the Flooded Forest . Inhabitants . Lizardfolk and black dragon s made their homes in the Flooded Forest . One particular black dragon was the one known as Velvet . There were a number of carnivorous plant monsters , including assassin vine s , dark tree s , shambling mound s , and tendriculos es . There were also fungus creatures , such as shrieker s and violet fungi . Other monsters include giant owlbear s and stirge s , and stranger things that were unknown and unnamed to the local hunters who encountered them . Some of these creatures were not actually native to the area . This led to theories that they were being imported and released by some person , group , or power to drive people away . Pirates and bandits made their hideouts deep in the swamp , particularly around its southern end . History . Sometime around the mid – 13th century DR , the forests here began sinking into swampland , becoming the Flooded Forest . In the Year of the Prince , 1357 DR , Mestrel Hawkmantle , a Harper bard , travelling from Elventree , swam the River Lis and did a little hunting in the Flooded Forest before moving on . Around 1370 DR , strange monsters began lurking in numbers around the Flooded Forest ' s southern marshes , including owlbears , stirges , and strange unknown creatures . Hunters from Ylraphon were forced to gather into large , well - armed bands and practiced great caution on their expeditions . The Flooded Forest was encroaching on the eastern side of the town of Ylraphon around 1370 DR , and was in the process of reclaiming its northeast . Locations . One unwilling settlement in the Flooded Forest was the town of Ylraphon on its southern edge and being steadily consumed by the swamp on its eastern and north - eastern sides . The outer ruins of the former city were left overgrown and submerged . They included several large , aboveground tombs and crypts , which provided shelter and hiding places for wanderers , bandits and pirates . Recurring local stories told also of ruined temples of Bane , Gruumsh , and Moander within these parts of the Flooded Forest , north of Ylraphon . One was the House of Moander . They tended to be built on raised and drier areas of the swamp . On the southern fringe of the Flooded Forest , west of Kurth , stood the mysterious Mage ' s Tower , said by some to be the base of the even - more mysterious Mage Who Never Dies . Legends and rumors . The ruins and tombs circling Ylraphon , in the fringes of the swamp , were a common target of adventurers seeking treasure or magic , but they ' d been entirely robbed by orcs by 1370 DR , leaving little bar a few undead . However , with adventurers finding treasure in the House of Moander shortly before that time , more wealth was thought to lie hidden in the temples . Folk in Ylraphon told of ghostly presences and screaming in the ruined temples of Bane , Gruumsh and Moander , and a few feared that they were being reused by living cultists . With the resurrection of Bane in 1372 DR , it was thought quite likely that his temple would be secretly renovated and reopened , perhaps to direct the church ' s influence into the Vast . Many , however , suspected that smugglers , bandits , or orcs simply stored their loot in these places , and that they made the screams to scare people off , or that they ' d had a falling out . Evil groups and orcs regularly stocked up on supplies in Ylraphon before venturing into the Flooded Forest . Some rumored that such bands served the mysterious Mage Who Never Dies , the master of the Flooded Forest . The Mage Who Never Dies apparently claimed the southern parts of the Flooded Forest as their dominion , including the Mage ' s Tower . Strange stories of the deepest parts of the swamp told of half - sunken cities , weird mirages , vampiric pixie s , and circles of giant frog s casting spells , and even worse things . Many believed that the remaining treasure of the Turning Key adventuring band of Tavilar lay somewhere in the Flooded Forest , sunken in a bog , but this was too large and too dangerous an area to search .