Neverwinter

[Matt James]

Neverwinter: The City of Skilled Hands, the Jewel of the North

87 DR
The Year of Hoar Frost – Eigersstor (Neverwinter) is founded.

1372 DR
The city succumbed to the Wailing Death, a disease that resisted magical healing and killed most of the population of the city. The cure was eventually found but the casualties by that time were catastrophic. It was soon discovered that the Wailing Death was merely the precursor of war between Neverwinter and the city of Luskan. Although it was the Sarrukh Queen Morag who sponsored the war, rather than the Host Tower of the Arcane, the fighting (which ended in a stalemate, thanks to a plucky adventurer known only as the Hero of Neverwinter) soured the relationship between the two cities even more.
Despite this, a shaky relationship between Neverwinter and Luskan was reestablished until an upstart Host Tower mage named Black Garius attempted to raise an undead army to conquer Neverwinter, ostensibly in the name of the King of Shadows. Again, an adventurer put an end to the plans of Black Garius and defeated the King of Shadows once and for all.

Unfortunately the conflict, which came to be known as the Shadow War, left the economy of the Sword Coast North in tatters, and its security was in doubt due to the deaths of so many Greycloaks during the fighting. This made it a great opportunity for an enterprising Samarachan mercantile house led by a woman named Sa'Sani. Under her leadership, and with the assistance of a group of adventurers, the Neverwinter region's economy was brought back to health by the end of the Year of Lightning Storms.

1479 DR
Almost thirty years ago, the city of Neverwinter died. Minor earth tremors that had plagued the region for several months were the precursors of the eruption of Mount Hotenow. A portion of that volcano's peak exploded with such force that lava and superheated ash poured across the city. Half of Neverwinter's population died instantly and many of the city's buildings razed. A great rift now known as the Chasm rent the surface where the shifting earth had pulled apart. Strange zombies roamed the land in the aftermath, their dead flesh turned to ash by the fires that consumed the city.

*The Fall 2011 D&D Lair Assault program features Mount Hotenow.