History of Aetheril

## The Falls of Netheril

The weight of history falls on the shoulders of this planned new land. It bears the scars of hubris, borne of triumphant ascendance and desperate defeat. It carries the momentum and inertia of karma incarnate; the embodied intentions of divine aspiration.

Ancient players are still on the board, not the least of which is a former man who was alive during the fall: Larloch himself.

Beyond, there are the Shadovar, shade-infused descendents of Netheril, still scattered around Faerûn.

There are the Bedine, the one-time desert dwellers who adopted the Anauroch, only to become the middle class of Netherese surface dwellers once the dark splinter-group returned.

There are the phaerimm, the far-realm aberrations bent on devouring or subjugating all who aren't them. The very same race that were attracted to the light of magic and sought to digest it right along with those who used it.

There are the descendent cultures like Halruaa, who trace their history right back to the time and people who adopted the Nether Scrolls and lived in floating cities. Then are those who fought against the once-mighty human empire of magic – and more still, the expatriates who fought against their own.

The concept of Aetheril takes that complex history, the lessons learned and the best practices, and uses it as the foundation for a new land...

### Ancient History

The rise of Netheril is well-documented (for those who can read). From the first age, nearly four millennia before the Dalereckoning, the humans of the Alliance of Seventon learned the magic of the Eaerlanni elves. 300 years later, the Nether Scrolls were discovered in the ruins of Aryvandaar. Thus began the Nether Age, which quickly evolved to the mythallar era and its floating cities, the Silver Age, the Golden Age, the Age of Discovery and finally what historians now call the Shadowed Age – the beginning of the fall.

Some place blame for the fall on the abrasive magic of Netheril for having provoked the wrath of the phaerimm. In that, we see the all-too-common practice of terrified survivors blaming the victim. Not that Netheril was blameless – *the political differences between High Netheril and Low Netheril were stark and unconscionable* – but the simple fact is that the far realm natives were already closing on their chosen target.

### The Shade Resurgence in the Time of Troubles

In **1372** **DR**, the floating city of Thultanthar ("Shade" in common) returned to the Prime Material Plane. So began a campaign to reassert a darker version of the Netherese will on Faerûn and all of Toril. Sembia was the first to fall, and others soon after shared the fate of subjugation.

Even after a millennia in the demiplane of shadow, the splinter Netherese were still an incredibly potent force. Over the next century, the Netherese not only reasserted their dominance, but fixed the damage wrought by the phaerimm, erasing the sands of the Anauroch to return the region to the grasslands they once were.

But in that stretch, the story begins to diverge. While the ends and timing are similar, including the **1487** **DR** mutual destruction of Thultanthar and Myth Drannor, the non-interventionist Stonehearth were thrust into the story when they (and their magic) were targeted by the Shadovar. Little packets of reality were already different from the original timeline, and now, massive pockets of change sent the universe in a different direction.

### Aftermath of the Second Fall

Even the destruction of Shade couldn't destroy the Shadovar. The dark perversion of Netheril persisted on the ground in Netheril, defeated in their war but not destroyed. Beyond Shade and the northern Faerûn home, there are pockets of Shadovar Netherese that still exist... but have yet to assert any claim on their homeland.

In the year after the war, neither Cormyr nor Sembia made any move against the extant (now grounded) Shadovar-Netherese, nor made any claim of territory nor reparations. Still neighbors, but with both surviving peoples shell-shocked, it was effectively a regional armistice.

## The Current SitStat

While the Bedine had married in to become the new middle class of Low Netheril, some now formed a militia called the "Sand Kings" in a call to returned to their roots. The Sand Kings rose up against the fallen High Netherese in what amounts to an insurgency.

By **1488** **DR**, this became a three-party war when the conflict destroyed the "Memory Spire" – a stasis tomb of trapped phaerimm. Once the aberrations were free, they tore into the fighting factions and immediately started draining the restored grasslands back into a blackened, life-drained desert.

This sparked Stonehearth's unilateral intervention. After nearly two centuries of non-interference and neutrality, it was phaerimm's attack on Toril itself that drew Stonehearth out of their comfort zone. The Shadovar and Bedine factions were pacified and neutralized and their factions absorbed as refugees and prisoners of war.

The openly warring phaerimm were quickly destroyed, but some retreated into the Underdark to turn this into a kind of vampiric guerrilla war. The hunt continues from Stonehearth's newly, magically constructed regional capital of ***Shadowbane Keep***.

## The Future

The influence of the Magocracy of Netheril has had such a profound impact on Toril that the name has taken a life of its own. Supposedly the name of an elder of the original Alliance of Seventon fishing villages, the connotation has grown to mean great power and dark destinies. It has come to refer to anything "below" in a direct jab against the floating cities the Netherese once maintained. The "nether" has been used to describe a transitive metaplane that connects the normal and shadow weave of magic.

It isn't possible to use the word "nether" without evoking four millennia of preconceived notions and prejudice. That was why Stonehearth elected to rename the area they were annexing.

The new name was "Aetheril" – a combination of the astral and ethereal planes. For the House that pulled portions of Toril back from Abeir, the name held portent for the future.

### Aetheril Development

The intercession against the phaerimm hadn't just been a military action, but also an arcane engineering action. Stonehearth immediately reversed the damage the aberrations had committed against the planet.

With Shadowbane Keep already fully operational, this new capital was slowly growing in population. Portals simplified the logistics, making it a 15-second wagon ride from North Point keep. Homesteads were parceled in the area, and high-powered Stonehearth agriculture imported to this new cooler but still fertile climate.

Stonehearth was using its blueprint of nation-building to create a bustling, productive land full of life.

For the time being, as of 1489, Aetheril is treated as a massive principality. There are intentions to declare the area a separate Stonehearth kingdom, and its own entity within the Commonwealth, but there are *criteria* first. As with North Point, Stonehearth needs to destroy the last of the regional phaerimm before taking the mantle of a full kingdom.

That was the new kind of deliberate objective metric that added validity, authority and credibility to a crown. It was the kind of humility that told neighbors that Stonehearth carried the lessons of the past.

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