Ardeep Forest The Ardeep Forest , also known as the Realm of the Deepening Moon and Faraway Forest , was a relatively small but thick woodland of blueleaf , duskwood and weirwood trees a few miles east of Waterdeep , on the south bank of the River Dessarin . Geography . Ardeep Forest contained a lot of ridges and steep gullies that were hidden beneath thick vines , dense shrubbery and cloaked in mists which could present a danger . Thanks to the loamy ground , Ardeep Forest ' s vegetation was thick and healthy and aided the growth of mushroom s that glowed faintly . Visitors to Ardeep Forest either came to experience a truly untamed woodland or to seek secrecy . It was a place with sun - dappled paths and pleasant verges . Inhabitants . Ardeep Forest in 1372 DR , like most of the ancient forests of Faerûn , was a lot smaller than it used to be but it still contained large numbers of wild boar and a lot of deer . Eldreth Veluuthra . Traditionally , the Eldreth Veluuthra had been active in the forest . As of 1374 DR , two cells operated here , one hunting down worshipers of Eilistraee near the Dancing Dell and the Ladystone ; and the other guarding the ruins of Phalorm . Wood elves . By the 1480s DR , in the years surrounding the War of the Silver Marches , the forest was inhabited by a group of wood elves from Evermeet , led by Rond Arrowhome . The elves took it upon themselves to preserve the forest ' s ruins and wildlife . History . During the Crown Wars , Ardeep , the moon elf nation that included the forest , was a vassal realm to Shantel Othreier . After Shantel Othreier was conquered by the Vyshaantar Empire , it was taken as a vassal realm of the Empire . When the Vyshaan were dissolved , Ardeep joined with Illefarn , then , when Aelinthaldaar was razed by its own people in - 1100 DR so that they could all live in Evermeet , Illefarn split into three fragmented states of which Ardeep was one and became independent for the first time in many millenia . Alliances were made with the dwarves of Dardath , the human s of Delimbiyran , the gnome s of Dolblunde and the halflings of Secomber and together they formed Phalorm . Phalorm eventually fell though and the last of the elves of Ardeep eventually Retreated West in 1344 DR . The elves left behind a lot of baelnorn and green warder guardians to protect their legacy but without the elves themselves , as of 1372 DR , various monsters including assassin vine s , tribes of kobold s , nyths , tendriculouses , thirsts of stirge s and other creatures had moved in . About a decade before the War of the Silver Marches , the inhabitants of the neighboring village of Nightstone , led by Lord Drezlin Nandar from Waterdeep , started making hunting expeditions into the forest in an attempt to reestablish the hunting lodge held there by House Nandar two centuries earlier . These incursions infuriated the elves . In the following years , the conflict escalated until the elves killed Drezlin . In the aftermath , his widow Velrosa Nandar made peace with the elves and pledged never to make any such expeditions into the forest again . She kept that promised until her death one year later when the cloud giant s attacked Nightstone .