The world fell into darkness in the year 582 A.E. and the evil that broke free in Haven reached every corner of Faerun. A day that came to be engraved in the memory of all peoples and was forever known as the “Last Sun”, the first day of the Lunar Age.
In the following decades, the world has radically changed. Many races died out in the chaos of the early days of darkness. Many overground cities fell, and the World Below was purged of its inhabitants and overrun by Abominations. A handful of strongholds and settlements stand against it all and become the last safe havens in a ruthless and ghastly world.
Faerun is currently in the year 697 A.E., and few remain to remember what sunlight was.
Night World and Magic
The use of magic has radically changed throughout the ages: in the Lunar Age, the sources of arcane power are hopelessly led astray by darkness, and the employment of spells is a dangerous practice.
Harnessing the magic weave of reality has become harder due to the merging of the Dark Mirror with the Material Plane that made the immanent powers of Existence highly unstable.
That arcane balance studied by magic users since the dawn of time has nearly vanished, and both sorcerous and supernatural powers can easily consume the soul of the practitioner. As of today, few have mastery over enchantment, and most come out of the process corrupted.
Lunar Days
Days in Faerun are swallowed in an endless night, for the sun is dead and the otherworldly veil separating the Dark Mirror has vanished. Still, the people of Faerun found a way to keep track of time.
Nights are frigid and sombre, yet the Moon illuminates them, even if scholars still debate whether the moon mirrors the light of other celestial bodies or shines of its own. The Lunar Cult endorse the second theory, for Mirithlen merged with the pale aster and ascended to godhood.
Days are far gloomier than nights, for there is no light in the sky, save the faint one coming from cold and aloof stars.
Endless Winter
Decades of darkness and death drew the Material Plane closer to the Dark Mirror from a morphological and climatic perspective: the sun no longer warms beaches. Mountains and valleys and green plains are infrequent. Most woods died or became spectral, cloaked by mist and silence.
The presence of the last Primes is the only thing that still grants some life, which allows cultivation of only the most resistant of plants and the persistence of some woods and meadows.
Eternal winter laid on the world and many areas are harsh, wind-swept, and covered in snow. The fauna is also affected by the sudden climate change and beasts are ravenous and distrustful. Everything has changed and no one would smile anymore, if not for the terse aurora shining over the world on rare nights.
The Known Lands
Faerun is a very vast world, and many lands stand unexplored after thousands of years. The most relevant events, however, have always happened on the Sword Coast.
In the aftermath of the Last Sun, darkness has turned life in the Material Plane so harsh that cities and wild lands are but a wreck of what they once were. Crossing woods and marshes is an endeavor dared by few, and sunless days can dull even the most resilient souls.
Frost blankets what was one a lively and civilized land. Survivors are holed up in a few defendable outposts, such as the ruins of old cities or villages secluded from the world. Travel in the Known Lands are long and dangerous: if trespassing the borders of the known world was not safe in the past, then now it is nothing short of insane.
Abandoned Villages & Wrecked Towns
In the Lunar Age, what once were joyous towns are now silent wastelands of memories. Forgotten places where the night is swarming with the spirits of the damned, lingering in their houses where they once lived. Populations have been decimated and the few travelers might spend days, if not weeks, without finding any inhabited places.
The Wraith Coast
What was once referred to as the Sword Coast is now commonly known as the Wraith Coast. Thick fog and the wailing of drowned sailors await the few reckless enough to sail these accursed waters. As dreadful as the crossing may be, the secrets that lie hidden among the bones of long lost Faerun still prove to be irresistible to hearts and minds.
The World Below
The name commonly given to the lands below the surface, although it’s now distant name was the Underdark, and the underground kingdoms: it is the place whence the subterranean races like the Rizadrin fled, forever surrendering their homes. The Last Sun laid waste on entire communities and most dwellings are now destroyed ghost towns.
It is one of the most dangerous places on Faerun, for the Dark Mirror let its horror loose here first, and moonlight never shines on it. Now, it is under the rule of Taranta Nera, an Echo of Death, that took material form and presides over ancient underground cities along with its kin.
The World Below is as vast as the World Above and its tunnels crawl under all of Faerun.
Hollow Isles
In the far west, the mists of the Sea of Swords hide a chain of now cold islands, extremely ill-suited for life.
The Moonshae Isle, once an empire unto itself, is not more than a mysterious isle of ruin. None understand why these isles took more devastation than the mainland. Scholars believe that is was the native abode of the first great dragons, for the only buildings the remain are altars and temples to the Cult of the Serpent.
Albeit no civilization remains here, and the dragon worshipers are through to have disappeared, recently strange fires can be seen from the coast. It is as if the spirits of the dead and restless want to draw the attention of the mainland.
Forgotten East
In the eastern region of the Known Lands ancient temples amidst the mountains lie, standing out of clouds and jagged rocks.
What once was a sacred place to the Beronzin, who often pilgrimaged to those peaks, is now a solitary and forgotten region of hazardous climbs, where snow took the place of grass and old woods have gone bare.
Most trails are impassable, so the mountain chain at the end of the continent is not easily crossed. Angry wraiths lurk about, and dark creatures emerge from the many open breaches to the World Below.