Welcome to Stonehearth

## **North Point? You've heard of it...**

If the names "Neverwinter" or "Waterdeep" or "Baldur's Gate" seem at all familiar, then you've heard of the Forgotten Realms. All of those legendary cities are on the Sword Coast of the land of Faerûn.

There's another city that's about midway between those last two: *North Point*. If you've grown up in Faerûn, you've heard as many stories about North Point as you have those others. Even if you're far away from the coast, you've heard rumors. North Point is smaller and younger... and it's a fire-breathing trouble-maker.

From what you remember, North Point is the home of "House Stonehearth." This group of nobles originally came from Baldur's Gate, and there's part of the trouble: *politics*. There's always politics, isn't there?

Even out here, where you grew up or where you settled down, you've seen the Stonehearth crest. You've seen it on the side of potion bottles and magical scrolls. Heck, your great-grandpa told you stories of how your village survived a war with the orcs because they could buy crates of high-power scrolls and potions *even when the spell plague was driving wizards mad!* How did they do it?

### **A Mad, Mad World**

Some of us don't want to get involved. We get pulled in anyway when evil comes to our doorstep. Some of us are raring to go, looking to find glory or gold or favor from the gods. Some of us will even start that journey, but few will live to see it through.

For a lot of us, evil is already here. Some of us deal with it all day, every day, to the point we forgot what it was like to not run from the shadows. The *actual* shadows. The Shadovar Netherese are a prime example. We all heard fairy tales about Netheril and their amazing magic – it's scary similar to what we hear about North Point now – but the Nether wizards were long dead. Or so we thought; until the floating city of Shade reappeared almost six score ago.

The Shadovar defined dark magic. For nearly a century, wars raged as they reclaimed their lost empire. Then, three decades ago, a moment that caught Faerûn's breath: the city of Shade attacked North Point. Stonehearth drove them back, the floating city on fire before the Shadovar escaped with an armistice.

The Netherese descendants paused after that, focusing their efforts closer to their traditional home. When they recovered, they left Cormyr in tatters and Myth Drannor destroyed *when a whole city fell on it*. But that fallen city was Shade itself. Rumors hold that it took Cormyr and Elminster to finish what Stonehearth had begun.

Even then, the gods-forsaken phaerimm rose in the Shadovar's place, determined to bring back the terrible desert the Netherese had erased. Who stopped the phaerimm? Who had the oomph to civilize Netherese lands? *North Point*.

### **Playing with Fire**

There are rumors of how Stonehearth does it: raw magic. You've heard of that, something about "beyond the Weave," but who knows what that means. The people in North Point, though, they call it something else: ***Primal Magic***.

The rest of the magical world isn't sure what to make of it. It's not evil, but it's *dangerous*. Regular magic is hazardous, we all know a guy who died to trying to learn *fireball*, but that Primal stuff? That's above and beyond.

That Primal Magic is coming. With any luck, it gets here before those trolls do...

## **What's Next...?**

From Calimshan to Mulhorand, that's the average understanding of what's happening on the Sword Coast. Even deep in the backwater provinces, they know there's plenty more to the Stonehearth Marquisate and their use of Primal Magic.

That's where you are, right now. What's your next step?

* I know all I need to know. ***Time for action...***
* I need to know more. ***Give me a scholar's briefing*...**

* What did that Laeral Silverhand person say about **Primal Magic and the world...?**