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As REF5 Lords of Darkness tells us, "Widden Valley is a broad expanse of grassy fields and tree-lined hills. The narrow Widden River bisects the valley. To the south of it is the village of Meryn. To the north of it is the ruined city of Tor Mak...once a prosperous place, a center of learning that was home to scholars and wizards. But the walled city was laid waste in the Goblin Wars, now long past." Like Daufin, this locale was created by Deborah Christian for REF5 Lords of Darkness, and the whereabouts of Tor Mak was kept nebulous therein so DMs could most easily transplant it into their own campaigns. At the time, I chose to make the Widden the middle tributary of the River Nun (the one that on the mapsheet for The Vilhon Reach rises closest to Colletro), and placed Tor Mak about three miles north of the river and about fifteen miles east of the headwaters of the Widden, and Meryn about ten miles south of the river and about sixteen miles from its rising (in other words, farther west than 'due south' from Tor Mak). I didn't develop any backstory for either Tor Mak or the Goblin Wars, because play in the 'home' Realms campaign didn't reach the ruins, and because I like to leave mysteries lying around for other folks to build Realmslore on. :}
Readers of my lore-screeds on Chondath will recall that all of this area is in the hands of various self-styled lordlings. The closest of these is Faelae Windthrarn, who calls himself 'Crowned Lord' of the Malander-which is the valley occupied by the main River Nun, that (if one navigates upriver from the sea in a very small boat) is the westernmost branch, and reaches farthest south. The Malander is a small realm of verdant barley and root-crops farms, policed by the swift-riding 'knights' of the Crowned Lord. Lord Windthrarn dines on and exports a constant supply of sheep, too plentiful in numbers to be supported by the small number of fields he gives over to grazing, and Elminster suspects that the Crowned Lord has a captured deepspawn in a cavern somewhere busily disgorging an endless stream of sheep. In the original 'home' Realms campaign, this law-of-the-sword region is very much like the Border Kingdoms: adventurer types are endlessly arriving, butchering or running off the resident lordlings, and setting themselves up with grand titles (such as "The Overking of All Crommador" and "The Exalted Lord of the Great Realm") to rule over a few cow pastures, a village, a mill, a keep, and a woodlot or two-until the next would-be ruler comes along. It makes for great adventuring, with running feuds, lurking Thayan agents making alliances with one lordling against another and then backstabbing their recent allies, intelligent undead and mages who want to cast experimental spells and practise monster-crafting running amok, outlaws rushing in (hotly pursued) with stolen treasure to hide, and the works. When PCs need a breather, they can always seek the Underdark or a big war elsewhere as a place to relax in.

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The Glandar's Grimoire: The Glandar was a mage-king of long ago, whose lands were somewhere near the Vilhon Reach. "The Glandar" is actually a title; his real name has been forgotten. It is known that the Glandar was an intelligent, powerful mage whose Art was skilful enough to create aerial craft even in those dim days, and whose small kingdom boasted irrigation, medicine, and Art far more advanced than those of neighbouring lands.

The Glandar was also a cruel tyrant who permitted no other being beside himself to study Art in his lands - and this policy proved to be his undoing. He was alone when attacked by a group of young, ambitious mages of Unther. Although he slew many of them, he was overwhelmed and utterly destroyed. His grimoire (so named because its first page bears inly the inscription: "The Grimoire Most Perilous of the Immortal Glandar, Lord of the Undying, Scepter of Glandara") was seized by his slayers, whip battled each other for the spoils, wreaking much havoc in the fallen mage's land of Glandara. ("Scepter" was the title the Glandar ruled by; "Lord of the Undying" is believed to refer to his mastery of undead, through Dark Art).

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