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Originally posted by Ed Greenwood, via The Hooded One, 28 Dec 2010

The River Lis sluggishly empties the Moonsea south into the Dragonreach (or “Dragon Reach”) arm of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
“Lis” is a human contraction of the elven name “Nuathlis” (= “Nuatha’s Way,” Nuatha [itself a contraction of “Ileiyranautha”]] being a fabled long-ago elven warrior princess of the early days of Cormanthyr {an adventurous, fiery-tempered spitfire who met a tragic end after a long career of daring exploits, monster-slayings, and successful duels to the death against more powerful elven foes}, and “lis” referring only to the sort of “way” that is a water route; when translating “lis,” some sages prefer to use the Common Tongue word “flow” rather than “way,” though to most elves, “lath” is more properly “flow” {there are about a dozen similar words for routes, but among the most mundane and popular are “norn” for “fate” or “path of destiny” or “path chosen through life” and “lir” or “lyr” for “trail” or “track” or “obvious/marked route”).

The northern end of the Lis is often called “Lisenmouth,” and of old was the site of Eueurarlor (pronounced “EEE-ewe-eee-arr-lor”), a small, unwalled, “tall-spired” elven city of magically-melted, fused, and largely opaque glass structures (almost all of them soaring towers that flared out at their bases like giant forest trees). This enclave of magical researches and experimentation was inhabited by the minor Cormanthan elven Houses of Alavaunt, Eyrcil, Imbran, Jalant, Lauryth, and Tarsyrymbar. The date of its establishment is not recorded, but elves have dwelt at the mouths of the Nuathlis since Cormanthyr was founded.

Eueurarlor was ruled by its most powerful mages. They worked amicably together, albeit with the usual petty jealousies and some ongoing friendly rivalries, seeing the wider world (even, for some Eueurarlans at some times, the rest of Cormanthyr) as foes to make common cause against. The mages of the city worked many ward-spells that hid the city in mists, cloaked it from prying magics, and kept wandering human wayfarers and explorers, and even determined intruders, at bay. (Many human vessels, and even wayfarers on foot, treading the riverbanks, managed to pass along the Lis but never saw the hidden city; others wandered, led astray by the wardings, or were turned back.)
House Jalant specialized in watching over particular formidable local “monsters,” magically aiding and abetting them from afar (so that their presence remained as much as possibly undetected) to keep these creatures alive and to make most of their battles and enterprises successful. In particular, the Jalant mages helped Raorlykh, a mighty morkoth that laired in the descending undersea banks of the Moonsea just east of Lisenmouth (though it had several “backup” tunnel networks west of the mouth of the Lis, and elsewhere), flourish for decades, becoming widely feared and a lurid staple of Moonsea tavern tales.

Eueurarlan spells also shielded the fang dragon Aehraundrel (who laired in the mountains east and south of Lisenmouth) against the magics of Mulmaster and other would-be slayers, including the numerous black dragons of the Lisen swamps (who were themselves bred, watched over, and protected by Eueurarlan mages). Aehraundrel laired with Maroareies, a gigantic gorynych that possessed—and used in battle—some ancient enchanted rods and scepters.

Yet as human settlement and magical strength in the Vast and Moonsea increased with the passing years (and the Jalantan-championed monsters were one by one slain), the Eueurarlans couldn’t elude detection forever. Ever-stronger and more persistent probes were hurled at the Lisenmouth area—and it’s thought that the mysterious inhabitants of Ironfang Keep (who had long found a city that made travel down the Lis difficult, hampered the spread of Mulmaster’s influence, and gave Melvaunt, Thentia, and Zhentil Keep a “problem” to hurl probe after strike against, to be a useful thing indeed) decided, for still-unknown reasons, to stop covertly aiding the Eueurarlans, and shatter the wardings of Eueurarlor.

However its foes learned of its true nature and defenses, Eueurarlor was attacked repeatedly by mage-led human forces from various Moonsea cities from 1241 DR onwards. It easily repulsed these forays, but was hurled down and scattered—utterly destroyed—in a spell battle in early Mirtul of 1244 DR, when a force of “many ravening beasts” (various sorts of marauding monsters, including dragons) led by unidentified powerful elven and human mages (some tales say daemonfey were involved, others insist the host’s commanders were House Starym elves of Cormanthyr, drow, or even the infamous human Malaug—or some alliance of these fell beings) stormed and conquered Eueurarlor, slaughtering all of its inhabitants. (Two tales claim not all of the city’s mages perished, but that a handful of Eueurarlans were captured and magically enslaved, either imprisoned for interrogation and later uses, or bound into magic items where they presumably still abide.)

The southern mouth of the Lis was of old called Tarakt, after an infamous orc warleader slain on its banks (along with all his army), by elves of Cormanthyr in 667 DR. It empties the river waters into Mirrormoss Bay (to the elves, Neirthoura, "Stars-In-The-Water"), the northernmost end of the Dragon Reach. Today, some humans call this spot “Southmouth,” whereas elves familiar with it are more likely to refer to it as Neirlath (“Stars-flow”).

The waters of the Moonsea are deeper, colder, and darker than those of Mirrormoss Bay, and in the vicinity of Lisenmouth hold several gates (portals) linking Faerun with watery “otherwheres,” both other undersea locations on Toril and other worlds. These gates are seldom used, and presumably largely secret and/or forgotten at both ends, but “fellbarbs” (tsochari) have been known to occasionally issue from them, and either make for the Moonsea ports (presumably to “possess” citizens thereof) or hurriedly enter the Lis and make for the Flooded Forest.

Few surface-dwellers know that Mirrormoss Bay is the breeding-place and abode of thousands upon thousands of sentient octopi-like creatures, “darkdrifters” (the same creatures known as “tako” in more easterly areas of the Realms; those of the Bay have hides varying in hue from inky black to a dark, mottled bark-brown) and countless fungi they farm in the Bay (carpeting it in a “spore forest” of treelike spired growths, about which vines are trained to create nets for yet more fungal growth, in layers upon layers that form amorphous-walled “rooms” in which darkdrifters can readily hide, and charge forth from to ambush intruders), as food.

Water temperatures and nutrient conditions are ideal in the Bay for the darkdrifters, and they are magically dominated by the Wet Lisen in the same way that the Eueurarlans enspelled local monsters of old, to keep the darkdrifters from internal strife and from departing the Bay.
So numerous are the darkdrifters that the Selu'Maraar sea elves of the Dragonreach largely avoid the Bay, venturing into it rarely—and only in large, well-armed warbands. Their nearest “deep” (seabottom fortress, a warren of largely-concealed caverns in an undersea ridge) is Lararrlal, some distance to the south of Mirrormoss Bay (it’s actually due west of Ylraphon).
The darkdrifters (by natural inclination, reinforced by Wet Lisen control) also prevent aquatic Moonsea denizens from migrating into the Sea of Fallen Stars, or carrying on underwater trade between the Moonsea and the Sea of Fallen Stars.

The waters of the Lis mingle with those of the Flooded Forest to the east for the southernmost fifth or sixth of its flow. The Flooded Forest, also referred to as “the Lisen swamps,” is a vast swamp of standing dead trees smothered with vines and swampy overgrowth, that’s fed by the Lis and by another river to the east, flowing from the Moonsea down into the Flooded Forest, that goes by many names, including the Mulmaea and the River Staur (after Ingrur Anastaur, a long-ago human wayfarer who explored this area; the river name is now pronounced “store-uh”). All of the descriptions of the Lis herein apply to this second river, too.

Much of the vast swamp, the banks of the Lis all along its length, and both of the mouths of the Lis tend to be a soup of pudding-like, water-saturated sand and clumps of earth and stone knit together by the gelid waste secretions of the Wet Lisen, which the monsters use to bind materials into barriers, weirs, and lairs, floating atop water in evershifting, trackless bogs known collectively as “the Lisen Sands.”

The Lis is fed by scores of tiny freshwater streams emptying into its western verges, and by the brackish (mix of fresh and salt water) Flooded Forest swamp (itself fed by many freshwater streams emptying into it from the east and south). This makes the saltwater Lis brackish along its banks; though it carries salt water from the Moonsea, what it empties into the (salt water) Dragon Reach is brackish.

The River Lis itself is navigable, but not all that easily. It is broad, shallow, and very silty, its winding channel changing often. Its waters usually move slowly, generating lots of oxbows (“oxbow” or half-moon lakes that were once river loops, but have become cut-off backwaters), side-channels, and quicksand.

The waters of the Lis are always opaque with suspended mud, and its wide channel is usually twelve to fifteen feet deep (with a soft-chocolate-mud bottom that will allow solid objects—such as the keels of ships, or poles used to move vessels along—to readily pass or sink through it for about another six feet or so).

So ships of even deep draft can usually sail the Lis, but getting lost in the shifting channels or mired in shallow-draft bogs is a constant problem. Barges, “leaf-needle” scudders (or just “leaf-needles;” this is the Common Tongue term for canoes or kayaks; some sages prefer the more formal name “bowshotkeels,” but in daily use, that word is seldom heard) and tiny skiffs can usually pass freely along the main channel, but seagoing cogs, caravels, and the like must usually be poled with all sails down, and a skiff venturing ahead with sounding lines to cautiously “sound out the way” onward. Sometimes such tiny open boats try to set marker poles, but this practice is usually an exercise in futility.

Sail is sometimes of aid when traveling the Lis, but current (for southbound vessels) is more reliable, if much slower. Ships navigating in either direction will need long fending-poles, paddles or oars, and the very long oars (usually worked by three men or more, not by lone rowers) known as “sweeps.” Fending poles and sweeps are usually made of two or more green, still-flexible treetrunks, lashed or pegged or spell-fused together. Due to the everchanging sandbars and channels, sailing or drifting ships need such aids for steerage purposes, and northbound ships of course need paddles or oars, and poles, just to move along against the current.

Sometimes the Lis becomes impassable to deep-keeled ships, and hundreds of them have become temporarily stuck while sailing it; scores of these have gone missing, sunken by “pirates” (who tend to be swamp-dwelling outlaws, or raiders sent out by Mulmaster, Hillsfar, or Calaunt to harry merchant shipping not their own) or misadventure, or “dragged down” by the Wet Lisen. (It follows that many, many cargoes have been lost along the Lis, or even deliberately hidden by folk ignorant of the truly mutable nature of local terrain, and so usually subsequently lost, so inevitably there are many tales of “treasure” awaiting lucky seekers in the Lisen Sands or along the river bottom.)

However, the Lis has never become so choked that water cannot pass from the Moonsea to the Dragonreach. Fierce winds blowing down from the north (and hurling up racing waves in the Moonsea) often generate “Scourings” of the Lis that briefly give it depths of more than forty feet and a (relatively) clear, straight channel. Such storms can arise at any time, but are frequent every spring.
A “roarer” blowing down the Lis can be successfully “raced” (ridden end to end) by a ship, but often vessels caught in such a storm will have their seams opened and “go under,” or be driven aground, swamped, and covered by the swamp sands (the Lisen Sands form dunes that unlike ‘desert dunes’ change only by water action, not wind, as they’re well-anchored with vegetation, and tend to accumulate around, and cling to, ships and other solid objects). These sandbars change constantly; in some conditions and spots, they literally form, move, and disappear daily.
Tidal surges are locally mild and affect the Lis little, because the vast swamplands adjoining it act as a sink for inflows. So whirlpools and undertows are rare, but quicksand and changing eddies (of the slow, lazy sort) are everywhere. Surge waters usually just alter submerged sandbars, in a ceaseless process of silent underwater change that is the bane of pilots seeking to steer ships through the area.

The Flooded Forest, the Lisen Sands, and much of the Lis itself is a desolate, reeking landscape of muck, standing dead ‘drowned’ trees, lots of choking vines and stunted wetland living trees (in short, large marshes with lots of ground cover for lurking outlaws and critters) . . . and except during downpours or heavy mists (which make visibility short range indeed) thick and endless clouds of stinging insects.

Down the years, much blood has been spilled over control of the Lis, both in difficult overland skirmishes, and in naval battles along it and at both of its mouths (the Moonsea more than the Dragonreach, but that’s because ships out of Calaunt, Sembia, and Ravens Bluff long ago reached a truce in the Reach after losses became too heavy for any of those powers to bear, and threats were made by Sembia and the Bluff to entirely blockade—and “starve”—Calaunt if hostilities went on, and to “sink any ship leaving a Sembian port” and “hurl down Sembian towers with the spells of our wizards” if Sembia tried to retaliate against the Bluff . . . and everyone saw the wisdom of just ignoring each other, and sailing past—except when Mulmaster, Hillsfar, or Zhentil Keep sent attacking ships south, whereupon Calaunt, Sembia, and Ravens Bluff (forcibly using Scrardale’s harbor as a naval base) made common cause against these threats).

The soupy terrain itself has defeated any longterm control beyond the “as far as the point of my blade/reach of my spells extends” sort. Since the destruction of Eueurarlor, no stone structure or fortification built along the Lis has lasted more than a day or so; the Wet Lisen see to that, no matter what mages and spells are used to defend the building.
There are scores of sunken buildings beneath the bogs and “backwaters” (bayous) of the Flooded Forest, including some temples and wizards’ abodes that retain enchanted items—but these are hard to find, and are almost always inhabited by the Wet Lisen and their various guardian creatures (all sorts of aquatic predators that can be kept alive in a temperate-cold swamp environment, and controlled, by the use of spells).

The Wet Lisen (also called “the True Lisen” by some sages) are evil, intelligent water nagas, twisted long ago by Netherese experimentations into creatures made evil by their hunger for ever more magic and power, and who were bred to have a ring of four long, delicate human-like arms and hands that protrude from their snake-like bodies (in two pairs; one just beneath their heads, and a second, slightly longer pair halfway down their serpentine bodies). These “Wet Lisen” are can function as well on land, breathing air, as they can underwater, and tolerate a wide variety of temperatures. Their tails are both prehensile and powerful, able to “slap” or impale foes in battle or enable the nagas to swim swiftly and powerfully. Wet Lisen can speak and write many languages (both magical and mundane), can cast and devise spells, and employ magic items, as the most capable human wizards do, and are particularly practiced at mind-influencing magics of all sorts. They can fall silent and immobile for long, patient periods, and in daily life strive to become very aware of politics and events around them, and the details of lives of other creatures, so as to know how best and most effectively to personally sway or deftly influence such creatures.

Long native to the Lisen swamps, they have tried to always remain hidden yet at the same time continuously influence cities around them (notably Mulmaster and Calaunt). They are now increasingly possessed by fellbarbs (tsochari), though almost all the remaining “untainted” Lisen (about a third or so of all Wet Lisen) are unaware of the tsochari, believing instead that certain of their brethren are forming secret societies and cabals. The few Wet Lisen who suspect what’s going on are targeted by the fellbarbs for possession or destruction, to silence them before they can persuade their untainted fellows to do something about this silent menace. (For their part, the fellbarbs regard the Wet Lisen as nigh-perfect host creatures, with one exception: they regard the nagas’ innate love of remaining hidden as a drawback, and are now driving their possessed Wet Lisen to either magically transform themselves to be able to fly, or to breed black dragons of the Flooded Forest into loyal, effective aerial steeds physically suited to carrying entwined Wet Lisen, and eager to serve such masters to the death.)

The princes of Shade must be aware of the Wet Lisen and their attempts to influence nearby cities, but have thus far ignored and avoided them. According to Elminster (our only source of information on these matters, as he is on most lore of the Realms), this is not due to overlooking or belittling the nagas, or intending to spare rather than ultimately conquer or destroy them, but because of some great, pulsing drowned magic beneath the Flooded Forest, that is inimical to the very nature of a shade. When within a dozen miles or so of it, shades are always aware of its presence (as a “soundless thunder” in their heads), become wracked with pain or nausea if they venture too near, and actually melt away to nothingness if brought too close (individual limbs will slump into liquidity, as the shade writhes in shrieking agony, at a slightly greater remove from the destructive magic). Just what this magic is, Elminster isn’t certain, but it’s been there since before his birth, has nothing to do with the Weave or (so far as he knows) with Mystra or her works, and is of godlike power/intensity—so it may well be a god, or Primordial. Or not.

Elminster tells us the Wet Lisen live for four to six centuries, if not slain earlier, and are descended from nagas that the reclusive Netherese archwizard Ragruular magically augmented and altered, to be his servants and guardians. Eventually they became his apprentices, he shared all of his magic with them, and they avenged him after his death in a spell-duel with a rival archwizard, Ommanaunth Vraer. Vraer’s kin initially thought that various Netherese were taking the shapes of four-armed nagas to hide amongst “Ragruular’s slave-beasts” and so conceal their identities, and started hunting down all nagas they saw, but earned the enmity of another archwizard, Durlarion, who was breeding and spell-taming nagas (without arms) for very different purposes, when they mistakenly slew some of Durlarion’s creatures.

In the war that followed, a handful of Ragruular’s naga’s outlasted Vraer’s kin and apprentices, but learned that all Netherese would consider them potential slaves or worse.
So they fled Netheril to the Lisen swamps (then much smaller than they are now, for the land around them has slowly sunk over the years due to collapsing caverns in the Underdark beneath, flooding and drowning much elven-ruled woodlands and creating the Flooded Forest) because of the presence of the great hidden magic that melts shades. The nagas can feel this magic, too, but it harms them not, nor causes them discomfort. They know not what it is, and disturb it not for fear of destroying or lessening it out of ignorance, but know that where they can see and touch it (in certain deep-drowned caverns, ruins, and muddy deeps of the Lisen swamps), it appears as a vast, pulsing, living gelid mass that can grow eyes and tentacles and great toothless met maws, and swallow anything or anyone that touches it.

The Wet Lisen of today consist of a few elders and scores of younger nagas, all of them wizards of varying powers. The young hide deep in the swamps and never attack intruders; all who do hurl spells against, say, a PC adventurer will be a wizard of 16th or higher level (most will be W22s to W24s), and any formidable band of invaders will soon face the scrutiny, mustering of swamp monsters, and spells hurled from afar of several W26s and higher. Elminster believes that the tsochari only augment the magical knowledge and capabilities of Wet Lisen they inhabit, hampering them not at all.

The misty, boggy, everchanging, monster-haunted conditions of the Lis and the Flooded Forest make the area a haven for the most desperate outlaws and those pirates who foolishly dismiss the many tales of deadly swamp monsters. The Wet Lisen are wise enough to let many of these “drenched fools” flourish, sometimes for several seasons, to give more organized intruders (such as military forces sent by Zhentil Keep, Hillsfar, or Sembia) one more foe to deal with.

Most outlaws lead a hand-to-mouth existence, but the pirates usually trade some of their booty, and with their assistance (usually as guides and guards, in return for stiff fees or “a third-share of the take”) stolen or illicit goods (the former often being gems or metal tradebars, but sometimes furs or even enchanted items, and the latter usually being slaves) are smuggled down or across the Lis, or hidden in the Flooded Forest for a time, until scouring searches die down.

The biting, stinging, bloodsucking insects and small, “mundane” monsters (giant wasps and stirges, zairtails and spiders and snakes, not to mention all manner of carnivorous plants) bedevil most humans who venture into the Lisen Sands or the Flooded Forest, even if they never see anything more sinister. For one thing, falling asleep is usually a death sentence given all the hungry hunting creatures, and for another, the outlaws and pirates usually lurk along the verges of the swamps, stalking and then ambushing all intruders. Lighting a fire creates a beacon that will draw endless attackers down on anyone near the flames, tracking by scent (or even eating without nausea) is difficult to impossible amid the overpowering reek of decay, and the everpresent mists make keeping anything dry for long a doomed aim, as well as reducing visibility to two spearlengths at times (making navigation hard, and spotting approaching monsters harder). Watchful Wet Lisen often cast spells from afar to make small boats founder and reduce those in them to frightened, struggling intruders rather than wayfarers of confident purpose . . . and angering a Wet Lisen with the wrong sort of response can goad it into forcing monster after monster—up to and including young, small black dragons—to attack the offending intruders, who typically can never find the lurking sentience directing these attacks, before they are harried into headlong flight . . . or slaughtered to the last terrified man.

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Originally posted by Ed Greenwood, via The Hooded One, 28 Dec 2010

The Battle of the Lisen Sands

In early Eleint of 1346 DR, scattered battles on the waves of the Moonsea had been going on for almost six summers, not to mention assassinations and attempted winter arson on ships in drydock in several Moonsea ports. City rulers all around the ice-rimed sea spent the cold months muttering thoughts of war, and sending agents south to try to hire battle-ready mages for the skirmishes of next spring.

Mulmaster and Zhentil Keep were the strongest of these city-state combatants, but both had separately hit upon the notion of trying to force the other Moonsea ports (primarily Melvaunt, Thentia, and Hulberg), who’d proven to be untrustworthy allies and rash in warfare, to make war on each other, letting them eliminate or at least weaken each other and buying Mulmaster and Zhentil Keep time to build more ships, equip and train real armies, and gird themselves with battle-ready mages, for the real struggle to come.

Hillsfar was showing signs of wanting to join in the struggle, as were the ambitious merchants of Scardale and the ruthless tyrants of Calaunt—and merchants from Sembia and Raven’s Bluff were quietly lining up to sponsor this or that ruler (or waiting rival) or city, to protect their business interests regardless of who emerged victorious.

Mulmaster’s High Blade hit upon the idea of blockading the Lis throughout the summer, drawing attacking ships into a variety of traps (floating catapults designed to sink overloaded cogs and caravels, spells ready to swamp vessels, storm spells and the like) while at the same time guarding and guiding gems and trade-bars of smelted metal south to Raven’s Bluff along mountain trails and the roads of the Vast. Victories over Calaunt in several small, vicious battles in the northern Vast had emboldened Mulmaster in such thinking, and the moment they murmured these plans into certain ears in “the Bluff,” merchants of that city poured coins into hiring mercenaries and sending them north to Mulmaster.

Certain Zhentarim got word of these plans (probably from merchants of Ravens Bluff they’d already bought, or established covert holds over), raged for a day or so, and decided that enough was enough: Mulmaster was to be shattered again, as it had been shattered before (at the end of the Moonsea War, some forty summers earlier).

They decided to hurl all of their magelings (lesser wizards) and every seaworthy naval ship they had or could seize from the merchant vessels docked in Zhentil Keep, and set sail without delay.
The clash occurred off Lisenmouth, and raged for a tenday, interrupted by a series of small (but spell-assisted) storms that scattered ships repeatedly. Melvaunt and Hulburg got wind of the battle (literally, from ships blown into their harbors) and joined in, with reckless enthusiasm.

Mulmaster’s traps and its fighting crews took a high toll of attacking foes, but when Zhentil Keep reassembled their fleet, the maroon-sailed ships of Mulmaster were outnumbered and beset.
A few were blown apart by spells, or set ablaze, and a surviving handful fled for their home harbor. Others were cut off from that escape, and instead set sail down the Lis, hotly pursued by Zhent ships following orders to “destroy Mulmaster’s sails, once and for all.”
The Battle of the Lisen Sands was about to begin.

Swollen by the spring waters that followed a wet, heavy-snows winter, the Lis and the Flooded Forest were one vast mist-shrouded, tree-studded lake, and the vessels of Mulmaster scattered and fled in all directions across the swamp—where most promptly ran aground, or were holed by standing dead trees, and took on water.

The Zhents followed, and a swimming, splashing, scrambling battle of utter chaos ensued; the forces involved could barely find each other, let alone organize or communicate effectively. Melvauntan warriors fell upon the Zhents from behind, spells were hurled—and the Wet Lisen roused the swamp against all of the invaders, keying on anyone who used magic (which primarily meant the Zhentarim magelings and their personal Zhentilar bodyguards).

Late-arriving ships from Melvaunt and Thentia, and a few straggling Zhent vessels, were attacked and then boarded on the Lis by Cormanthan elves—because, like the Wet Lisen who’d mustered all of their dominated or controlled monsters against the intruders, the elves considered the Lisen Sands their own territory; large warbands of humans were to be resisted and either eliminated or sent fleeing.
Traditionally, the Cormanthan elves were well-practiced in spying upon (and betimes using magic to hamper) shipping on the Lis, but avoided the heart of the Flooded Forest because the reeking decay of the drowned land upset them too much—all those dead dryads and trees, and muck where lush greenery should be growing—and because of the fell swamp monsters. However, enraged, they now pursued the intruding humans everywhere.

As the darkness of the first night of the battle fell, shivering humans who lit fires swiftly discovered what a fatal mistake this was, as it let everyone else in the swamps—and black dragons summoned by the Wet Lisen, swooping out of the night—readily find them.

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Originally posted by Ed Greenwood, via The Hooded One, 28 Dec 2010

And here I am again, fellow scribes, with the third and last part of Ed’s Lisen Sands battle report:

The next day, most of the surviving humans had no stomach left for battle; they just wanted to fight their way out of the swamps. So they tried doing that. It proved to be a long day for some of them, and a very short one for others. As the humans dwindled into scattered individuals rather than military forces, elves became the primary targets of the Wet Lisen. Savaged, the Fair Folk soon fell back to the west bank of the Lis, withdrawing from the fray, leaving the swamp monsters to their deadly hunt, chase, and slaughter of humans . . . and a second night came.
By the dawn of the third day, a few sailors of Mulmaster stumbled up out of the swamps, onto higher ground, and started the long and dragon-harried trek home through the forested hills and ridges. Perhaps a dozen men—no more—returned to their city, and perhaps half that many sailors from other cities survived somehow, to tell their tales of the disastrous battle. Almost a score of Zhentarim escaped by using teleport rings, to report fearfully back to Manshoon and other senior Zhents.

Though those accounts were received icily, the senior Zhents took secret comfort in the fact that Mulmaster couldn’t conquer the Lis or even turn their backs on the Lisen lands with any confidence—so Zhentil Keep’s forces could engage Mulmaster’s at times and places of their choosing, knowing their overland caravans could win the mundane daily “getting richer and more influential” battle over Mulmaster’s precarious mountain routes (already imperiled by orcs, and about to become far more threatened by Zhent magelings sent to cause avalanches, cave-ins, and orc- and monster-rousings with their spells).

The Battle of the Lisen Sands was remembered as an infamous disaster in cities across the Moonsea, establishing the firm belief that the Flooded Forest was a place to avoid at all costs, and the Lis itself a route only for large and well-armed warships to use, in the best of weather and in full readiness for battle. The swamp, it was said, “spawned monsters galore, beyond counting” and “evil elves” smote all humans with arrows or with “fell magic.” The elves were blamed for everything, even for “calling up” the swamp monsters with their magic.
Only the handful of surviving Zhentarim magelings knew better—and those they reported to. Manshoon’s interest in covertly conquering or cowing dale after dale, and plotting to subvert the nobles of Cormyr (especially in Arabel, Marsember, and the Hullack), took fire at this time. (His plans to infiltrate the leaders of Sembia, was already well under way, but hampered by the many ambitious independent trading cabals of that land, who paid little or no attention to the will and decrees of their rulers.)

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Originally posted by Ed Greenwood, via The Hooded One, 28 Sep 2004

Athenon, you have the Lis correct. Let me quote from Ed’s unpublished ‘What Your Character Knows’ notes:

Much blood has been spilled over control of the Lis, but the terrain itself has defeated any longterm control beyond the “as far as the point of my blade/reach of my spells extends” sort.
The term ‘the Lisen Sands’ refers to treacherous marine navigation and flooded areas, not broad beaches or desert area. You recall brackish water from the freshwater swamps (fed by local streams and springs) emptying into a broad, shallow, VERY silty saltwater river that generates lots of oxbows, side-channels, quicksand, dunes (that unlike ‘desert dunes’ change only by water action, not wind, as they’re well-anchored with vegetation), standing dead ‘drowned’ trees, lots of choking vines and stunted wetland living trees (in short, large marshes with lots of ground cover for lurking outlaws and critters) . . . and everywhere insects, insects, clouds of stinging insects.

Through the heart of it all winds the broad, slow, mud-opaque-water Lis, sometimes impassable to deep-keeled ships, but never choked so much that water cannot pass from the Moonsea to the Dragonreach. Indeed, spring storms in particular (and fierce winds blowing up heading-south waves at all times of year) can generate ‘Scourings’ of the Lis that briefly give it depths of more than forty feet and a clear, straight channel. Usually, it’s 12 to 15 feet deep (with a soft-chocolate-mud bottom that will allow solid objects to readily pass or sink through it for about another six feet or so), and permanently cloudy.

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Originally posted by Azurecobalt

Greetings! I had a question for those knowledgeable of the Moonsea region. In the Moonsea book, the only details about the City of Lis are "The Lis Ruins: This pitiful pile of rubble is all that's left of the last and southernmost Moonsea city to be destroyed. The city was supposed to be a gateway to the River Lis, but it was reduced to ruins 100 years ago by the Flying Plague (a horde of perytons, harpies, and manticores)."

As it was a city, and only destroyed recently, I would think there would be more information about Lis. Who founded it? What was its relationship to other Moonsea cities? What happened to the survivors? And so on. Does anyone know of any other lore about Lis?

Thank you!

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