Alternate post 1372 history
After careful consideration of 4E's treatment of the Realms I decided to re-write its history from 1372 DR onward. This is an open project that the players of my campaign are involved in. I am very much in favor of DM-Player co-creation and a gaming experience that focuses on depth/narration/realism over an adolescent video game substitute. Hence my rejection of 4E and the Hasbro degradation of the franchise...but enough of that.
My first move was to eliminate the Spellplague gimmick and re-frame Mystra's murder in a more subtle fashion. This created a new balance of power in which Netheril was favored and set the stage for the next several decades. Essentially, worshippers of Shar were given exclusive access to magic while other spellcasters (with the exception of those who derived their powers from alternate sources such as the Elven gods, the elemental planes, necromancers, etc.) were put at an extreme disadvantage.
After Netheril's melting of the northern glaciers, global climate change was initiated. Suzail was flooded and the Regent was informed of the connection between this event and an irresponsible use of Netherese magic. She brashly marched against the Shades and her forces were handily defeated due to the impotency of the War Wizards.
Sometime during the following year Arabel was occupied and the Regent eventually signed an agreement that would make Cormyr an unofficial vassal state. She was then forced to undergo an unwilling transformation into a shade. The remaining War Wizards were summarily executed and replaced by Netherese mages.
Over the course of the next few years Cormyr's government was consolidated and its population was swayed by a skillful campaign of propaganda and economic growth (aided by their new 'alliance' with Netheril). Similar to the effect of Hitler's methods, Cormyr's people quickly got behind their reformed government, which now included a secret police, an elite cadre of Purple Dragon crack troops and War Wizards, and a recently emerged Church of the Purple Dragon (really devoted to Shar). All dissenters, including competing religions, were aggressively stamped out.
Netheril's attack on the Zhent outposts also provided the Cormyrean populace with a common enemy. And so when the inevitable resistance movement formed, the public was turned against it because the rebels were painted as Zhent terrorists. Eventually it was rooted out and broken by Cormyr's secret police.
You get the idea...I started with one alteration and ended up addressing a longtime problem I had with FR - the Lawful Good facade of Cormyr. Now that Cormyr is a fascist puppet state of Netheril, I think this campaign will become very interesting.
Sembia also descended into a collection of bickering feudal baronies. The Elven Court re-emerged and formed a confederation with the Dalelands. Together, the humans and elves of this confederation developed one of Faerun's first representative governments with checks and balances.
Meanwhile, Oghma and Deneir finally (after 30+ years of research) discover a method of chipping away at Shar's stranglehold over the domain of magic. In time this leads to the restoration of open access for all practitioners of the arcane sciences.
As a sidenote, I also decided to kill off or disregard many of the super-powerful celebrity NPCs that have been clogging up FR for some time. No more Elminster (he died when Mystra was killed).
