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The yuan-ti of the Serpent Hills rule a loose kingdom of reptilian creatures, in a tenuous alliance with a number of spirit nagas and dark nagas. The bulk of this kingdom's population are ophidians, a lesser race of serpent people. Shortly after the fall of ancient Netheril, this Kingdom of the Snakes became a mighty force in the Heartlands, with its capital temple-city in the western end of the Forest of Wyrms. Founded on ancient Netherese ruins, the rulers of this temple-city (called the Shrine of Cowled Serpents) used Netherese artifacts to help them dominate the region for over a century, until a coalition of human wizards from nearby kingdoms banded together to put down the threat they represented. Their capital was destroyed and the yuan-ti forced to flee the Forest of Wyrms, most of them taking up residence in the Serpent Hills.

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When Karsus stole the Weave from Mystryl and brought about the doom of the Netherese Empire, the sudden loss of magic caused the floating cities to crash to the ground. The city of Hlaungadath landed the most northward of any of them, and it sits now near the High Ice. The ruins of this place have been covered to some extent with the sands of Anauroch, but structures still poke through the sand and littered stone, marking the passing of this once-great place.

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On the eastern side of Anauroch is a desolate and stony plain called At'ar's Looking Glass. Rumors are many and varied about who At'ar was, if he or she even existed, and why the plain is named after this enigmatic figure. Some believe that At'ar was a selfish wizard from Netheril who craved as much power as possible. According to one version of this story, At'ar tried to take on the phaerimm himself and wrest the secret of their life-draining magic from them. The result was the devastation called At'ar's Looking Glass. According to another story, At'ar was a diviner who could use the plain to scry faraway places, and that the plain was actually once a huge lake. . . .

The sages who spread tales of At'ar's Portal Collection say that At'ar had a fortress in the mountainous Azirrhat. It was here that he would put all the portals that he stole from others, and the two he made himself. To guard them, so it is said, he planted a race of lizardlike humanoids called asabi (see Monsters of Faerūn) in the deep caverns underneath his portals, and the creatures would keep out all beings but himself. Some believe that the asabi were At'ar's downfall and that they slew him and took the whole complex for themselves.

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After the fall of Netheril in the Year of the Sundered Webs, three smaller realms survived the wreckage of the great empire: Anauria, Asram, and Hlondath. Anauria was the wealthiest of these three. It stood in the broad lands north of the Stormhorns, in that part of Anauroch that is now known as the Sword. In the days of Anauria, the Stonelands were green and forested, a well-watered upland of swift streams rushing down from the mountains to the south. A number of Anaurian noble families built hunting lodges, villas, and summer palaces in the hills, retreating to the cooler elevations during the hottest months of the year. One of these families was House Nemrin, a family of wealthy nobles who wielded great influence in the affairs of Anauria.

During the last years of the kingdom, the Nemrins fell into disfavor. Accused of trafficking with demons and plotting rebellion by a rival noble family -- House Maluradek -- Lord Ashkelor Nemrin found himself banished from the court on the basis of evidence presented to the king by his rivals. Ashkelor removed himself to the relative seclusion of his family's summer palace in the hills, Nemsergaar. There Ashkelon plotted revenge against his accusers and awaited his vindication before the king.

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Even Elminster is a trifle hazy over just how Klauth discovered how to use red dragon eggs to make himself more mighty, but he knows what spell the much-scarred red wyrm employs to do so: a Netherese spell named Thellar's argauneau, after the mage who devised it (an archsorcerer who delighted in "bettering" dragons with his experiments, over a long career that produced two-headed dragons and several more stable subspecies).

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The Crown of the Mountain: This ancient artifact appears as a crown or spike-studded circlet of rough, unadorned stone that can't be shattered by any known means. It alters to fit the brow (or wrist, or tail) of its wearer and seems immune to most spell effects (and all divinations and destructive magics thus far applied to it).

The true origin of the crown is in dispute. Some say it was a gift of the dwarven gods to their people, others that it was yet another powerful tool devised by a Netherese sorcerer-king, and there are even some who hold to the view that it was brought to Toril from some other world, suffering the loss of its primary purpose and some of its greatest powers in the process.

History

The first reliable record of the crown (as opposed to the disputed, fanciful tales of it being bestowed upon mortals by various gods, or worn by a Netherese archwizard as he went down fighting a titanic spell-battle against over forty hostile mages) occurs in three separate adventurers' diaries, all of which mention a hitherto-unknown wizard by the name of Larbrand "from southern lands" who used the crown in a quarry in the Tashalar circa 336 DR. The writers hailed from different cities around the Shining Sea; their attribution of a more southerly origin for Larbrand has led many to think he came from Halruaa or perhaps even Zakhara. The truth is now lost; even Larbrand's fate is unknown, beyond his later encounter with the sage Hoarmandar, whose description of the crown is Elminster's main source.

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The years changed him, however, as years change all beings. These days, the great emerald wyrm called Raulothim seems more a statue than a gliding shadow. He spends long days lying motionless and gazing out over the North from the lip of his lair in the Pit of Stars, the cauldron of an extinct volcano (known to the Netherese as Xardmount) on the rocky island of Axard, the north-easternmost isle of Ruathym. The pit is named for the many blobs of volcanic glass -- white, clear, and smoke-hued -- that line its walls and gleam in the sun like so many gigantic cabochon-cut gems.

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truly ancient gold he-dragon (mature when Netheril was young), Palarandusk has prolonged his existence beyond the natural death and decay of his body through powerful magic of his own devising. Now the spells that maintain his magically-knit form are failing, and he dares materialize for only a few minutes each day -- usually showing himself for only a few seconds, to proffer something, snatch something, or attack.....

Palarandusk is first mentioned in a nameless, fragmentary book whose pages are burnished sheets of electrum stamped with characters unintelligible to the sages of today without benefits of magic to divine their meanings. In the days before Netheril was founded, Palarandusk dwelt somewhere along the Sword Coast and hunted such prey as wyverns from what is now Luskan to where Waterdeep was later founded.

Enslaved -- or forced into servitude to avoid a worse fate -- by the sorcerer Mileirigath in the early days of Netheril, Palarandusk spent centuries toiling in obedient obscurity, his longevity and eventually his nature and abilities altered by many spells cast on him by his master and Mileirigath's apprentices. When that realm of increasingly decadent splendor fell, he seized what magic (spellbooks in particular) he could from the ruins and the clutches of plundering illithids and other fell foes, and set about using his augmented magical abilities in freedom for the first time.....

Palarandusk is not known to have ever mated (though his early days are a mystery to historians and might well have included pairings), and he isn't known to particularly welcome the presence or friendship of other dragons. He worked amicably with other wyrms while in service, in Netheril, but seems never to have sought out other wyrms. A true and contented loner, the Unseen Protector maintains no current alliances.

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Perhaps the most important of these is the magic that has kept her alive thus far: force burn, a spell derived from magic left behind by Netherese mages that is deadly to the subterranean race known as the phaerimms. Fear of it has driven them to ignore Iymrith rather than turning their power to the task of destroying her.

Adventurers are warned that Iymrith has developed spells that employ sand as a weapon -- and that apparently confer the ability to use such magic on some of the many gargoyle servants she has created. Iymrith is first heard of in adventurers' journals written circa 570 D.R. as a young and aggressive dragon who smashed a Bedine trading encampment on the edge of the desert, who tore apart a caravan bound for the distant Sword Coast, and who left the camp laden with desert gems.....

Iymrith apparently challenged an older dragon somewhere in the vicinity of the High Moor shortly after her emergence from Anauroch -- and had to flee for her life. Sorely wounded, she crashed into some ruins (possibly remnants of fallen Netheril) in the Forgotten Forest and hid for some years, healing slowly and stealing forth only by night to find food. At some point during this time of nighthunting, she somehow gained magic beyond the normal capabilities of even the oldest blue dragons; Elminster believes she was captured by a powerful archmage and modified by him to serve as an intelligent servant. This belief is supported by sightings of a blue dragon flying over the Delimbiyr Vale with a disintegrating, robed human skeleton perched between her shoulders in a high-backed saddle. This was almost certainly Iymrith, who soon began to raid camped caravans and Sword Coast settlements by night, unleashing wizard spells from a roster strong and varied enough that many mages used magic -- in vain -- to hunt down a rogue wizard they believed to be dwelling in hiding somewhere in the Greypeak Mountains.

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Mithral Chain of Woe: This ancient, rarely seen item may have been crafted in long-ago Netheril, where they captured, subdued, and controlled (as steeds, digging forces, or beasts of burden) large monsters such as dragons. It consists of two mithral manacles that expand or shrink magically (from 3 inches to a 20-foot interior radius) to pass around a living body or stone spar that they're touched to as a command word is whispered (they do not change size if touched to wood or metal). A second command word causes the manacles to shrink again until they touch something solid -- allowing them, for instance, to be put over a man's head and then shrunk to clasp his neck snugly.

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House Hannith: One of the oldest houses in Procampur, House Hannith has been the backbone of the magical support for the city for nearly its entire existence. The founding members of House Hannith came from the Opus Enclave at the beginning of the downfall of Netheril. They generally stand aloof from the other noble houses, and think that only they truly consider what is best for Procampur instead of what is good for their family.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal
Oddly enough, from the various sources i have read, i did not really consider Hlaungadath to be a Netherese enclave (it was stated as being one in the Anauroch sourcebook, but later sources cite it as an independant human city. The fact that its spires and domes are still largely intact says to me that it is unlikely to have fallen from the sky.

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Originally posted by George Krashos

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal
Oddly enough, from the various sources i have read, i did not really consider Hlaungadath to be a Netherese enclave (it was stated as being one in the Anauroch sourcebook, but later sources cite it as an independant human city. The fact that its spires and domes are still largely intact says to me that it is unlikely to have fallen from the sky.

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Ed's original concept lore for Netheril did not specify that enclaves had to be flying citadels/cities. All archwizards of Netheril created enclaves, whether on the ground, in the sky or underground.

-- George Krashos

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In centuries long past, a restless people known as the Rus swept over much of Faerūn, raiding and pillaging the coastal lands. Some bands of Rus took to the rivers and made their way inland, first raiding and then settling. Before the great Anauroch Desert was formed, a river flowed through the then-forested lands to the Moonsea. One small group of Rus traveled through a chain of lakes and rivers as far as Rashemen and settled there. Their descendants.and echoes of their culture and their magic.can still be found in the land of Rashemen.

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Originally posted by dazzlerdal

Well I get that not all enclaves are flying cities. In my rewrite I have less than a handful of city enclaves, the rest are single buildings, small towers, force objects. The ones outside the Netheril basin tend not to fly, but for those inside Netheril I have an earthgliding enclave, an atmospheric enclave (doesn't technically fly it just kinda floats), and I'm debating on a swimming enclave.

As for Hlaungadath, I think its Lost Empires of Faerun that explicitly states it is a crashed Netherese Enclave. However I believe it also states it was a one time independent settlement.

Anauroch just mentions it as a ruined city.

If it is a Netherese Enclave then why is it largely intact (with extensive cellars).

If it isn't a Netherese flying city then what is it doing all the way up by Ascore. Its location today says it was either located inside the Narrow Sea (the Bay of Ascore) or on the opposite shore. I can think of no reason for its existence on the opposite shore because the northern tundra was empty of settlements and anything of interest except the ruins of Anarath.

Also its name is strange. If it was named Hlaungadath in Netherese times then it bears a striking similarity to the oasis of Haunga, and yet both locations are infested with lamia which leads me to believe that Haunga and its derivitives are the Bedine word for lamia. Which would make Hlaungadath one of the few enclaves not called by its Netherese name.

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Most svirfneblin live beneath northern Faerūn, particularly in the vicinity of the Buried Realms beneath Anauroch, although not directly under the Great Sand Sea.

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