Netheril's Fall - First Impressions

If Astarion's Book of Hungers is the player-facing add-on for Heroes of Faerun, than Netheril's Fall is the slightly more beefy add-on for Adventures in Faerun. The new digital "DLC" for the Forgotten Realms book is a gazetteer for the lost kingdom of Netheril, with an overview of the fallen kingdom, a look at two of its cities (one flying city, Eileanar, and the landbound city Conch), some magically-themed environmental hazards, and a short collection of mini-adventures in the style of the Dungeon Master's Guide. Netheril's Fall is functionally a mini-gazetteer, albeit not quite as beefy as the five gazetteers found in Adventures in Faerun that detail various regions.

At first glance, it's easy to see why Netheril's Fall wasn't included in Adventures in Faerun. Netheril is a fallen empire and having an adventure in Netheril will likely require the use of time gates (which are conveniently explained in the supplement, with two adventures dedicated to traveling and crossing through a Time Gate. I'll note that the adventures in this book feel much more specific than what we saw in Adventures in Faerun or the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide. While the adventures in other books could be "plugged" into any level-appropriate campaign, these adventures feel much more narrow in scope and cover specific locations or events found in the DLC. There's a few adventures in Adventures in Faerun that cover locales seen in the gazetteer, but there aren't very many that cover a specific event. I don't mind the "one page adventure" format, but I'm not sure it works with every adventure type. If an adventure sends players into a mad wizard's attempted ascent into godhood, I want a little more meat than a few encounters and a resolution of "well, the players will have time to explore the city before the ritual fails."

Another criticism I have of Netheril's Fall is that Netheril doesn't feel nearly as fantastical as an ancient high-magic society should. Given that Adventures in Faerun did a very find job of elevating the Forgotten Realms beyond its generic high fantasy trappings, I feel like a bit more care could have really sold Netheril as more fantastical in nature than what we got. If we could have gotten a few more pages about Netheril's culture, I feel like Netheril would have been more appealing as a place that DMs would want to incorporate into their campaigns. As presented, there are a few cool ideas, but even the phaerimm (one of my favorite D&D monsters) feel a bit flat compared to what we would have gotten.

I was critical of Astarion's Book of Hunger's price point, and while I feel that $15 is still too high for Netheril's Fall, there's a lot more "content" compared to that book. Generally speaking, some adventure content, a gazetteer, and some monster statblocks is probably a bit more valuable than one new species and a collection of feats, although I'm probably a bit biased towards DM content since I'm usually the one behind the DM screen. I personally would had preferred a $10 price point for this DLC, but others may feel that the price point of these are more fair.

All in all, I feel a bit underwhelmed by Netheril's Fall. Netheril seems like a very cool part of Forgotten Realms lore, but it's not given full justice here. I know there's some other Netheril content out there from past editions, and I encourage people to check those out on DMs Guild if they want a real deep dive into this lost empire.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

1000 years ago would be 1025. Columbus "discovered" America in 1492, well short of 6 centuries. Vikings, however, discovered the Americas in 1021, 4 years before your king there.

The point, really, is we can cite lots of things that happened then. It isn’t Atlantis-mysterious.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

1000 years ago would be 1025. Columbus "discovered" America in 1492, well short of 6 centuries. Vikings, however, discovered the Americas in 1021, 4 years before your king there.

That's what I get for writing sleep deprived, my bad

 

[Maxperson]

The point, really, is we can cite lots of things that happened then. It isn’t Atlantis-mysterious.

Yeah. I was making that argument with elves a while back in the thread.

 

[Zardnaar]

What about Netheril rising.
New campaign.

Theres still 1 city flying. Coukd be more DM depending.

Aumvors still out there. Along with Larlich and Ioulaum.

Could have a stasis vault. Best diviner in Netheril could have seen the fall coming.

 

[Maxperson]

What about Netheril rising.
New campaign.

Theres still 1 city flying. Coukd be more DM depending.

Aumvors still out there. Along with Larlich and Ioulaum.

Could have a stasis vault. Best diviner in Netheril could have seen the fall coming.

If you're going to call it Netheril Rising, you need one of those guys to take a ground city and be in preparation to make it fly

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What about Netheril rising.
New campaign.

Theres still 1 city flying. Coukd be more DM depending.

Aumvors still out there. Along with Larlich and Ioulaum.

Could have a stasis vault. Best diviner in Netheril could have seen the fall coming.

That kind of happens in Shadows of Undrentide.

My players managed to get Ythryn off the ground for that matter.

Before crashing it.

 

[Zardnaar]

That kind of happens in Shadows of Undrentide.

My players managed to get Ythryn off the ground for that matter.

Yeah this is for them to do though.

Theres a list city in the Stonelands where I'm kicking off.

 

[evildmguy]

Looks like someone may have you blocked. I was responding to a post that said that Poland's first official king was 1000 years ago, six centuries before the Americas were discovered.

Wow! Someone does have me blocked! I wonder what I did??

The point, really, is we can cite lots of things that happened then. It isn’t Atlantis-mysterious.

Yeah. I was making that argument with elves a while back in the thread.

Primary sources are telling us that human commoners only know the last 200-400 years of local history, at most. Formal learning is the exception not the norm among humans. From what I can find, elves and gnomes might have schooling for their young which could include history. Even then, not sure they would have human history except as it relates to elves. Sure, the time when the humans stole the Nether Scrolls or when Karsus had his Folly might be detailed more but in between? Not to mention their biases at the time.

I'm not arguing your own versions might have more literacy, education, and history known. I'm merely saying that by RAW, to the average human commoner, Netheril IS myth and legend.

Thanks for the discussion!

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Primary sources are telling us that human commoners only know the last 200-400 years of local history, at most. Formal learning is the exception not the norm among humans. From what I can find, elves and gnomes might have schooling for their young which could include history. Even then, not sure they would have human history except as it relates to elves. Sure, the time when the humans stole the Nether Scrolls or when Karsus had his Folly might be detailed more but in between? Not to mention their biases at the time.

I'm not arguing your own versions might have more literacy, education, and history known. I'm merely saying that by RAW, to the average human commoner, Netheril IS myth and legend.

Based on your approach, you could also say that the Thirty Years War is myth and legend for your average real life person, because they might have trouble identifying the protagonists by name. Which might be the case, actually.

But I'd like to address the possibility of more formal learning as a solution. Even if it is canonical that elves lives longer, maybe in some case for 2,000 years, I am not sure they recall the information better over time. Maybe Karsus' folly is the equivalent of the WTC attacks and most elves who were there remember the event and what they were doing even a very long time after. But if we take something a little less dramatic, there is a lot of things we know at some point and forgot. If you're the kind of person who know you current cabinet members, can you name the cabinet members of 20 years ago? If not, maybe the 2,000 years old elf was knowledgeable about the Netheril Empire because it was next door, but forgot most of it after some time.

 

[Maxperson]

Wow! Someone does have me blocked! I wonder what I did??

You never know. Many years ago there was this guy who was always telling people that they were metagaming and metagaming was bad. He had even told it to me in the thread I'm referring to. I very civilly in my response pointed out that one of the things he said was also metagaming and he yelled, "How dare you accuse me of metagaming!" and blocked me. It sometimes doesn't take much to trigger someone into blocking you.

Primary sources are telling us that human commoners only know the last 200-400 years of local history, at most. Formal learning is the exception not the norm among humans. From what I can find, elves and gnomes might have schooling for their young which could include history. Even then, not sure they would have human history except as it relates to elves. Sure, the time when the humans stole the Nether Scrolls or when Karsus had his Folly might be detailed more but in between? Not to mention their biases at the time.

The elves specifically met and interacted with the Netherese, though, and taught them magic. They'd have been aware of what was going on with the major human magic empire that arose next to them. Plus elves often remember things from past lives during their reverie, which could/would include what happened with Netheril.

I'm not arguing your own versions might have more literacy, education, and history known. I'm merely saying that by RAW, to the average human commoner, Netheril IS myth and legend.

Probably, though sages and libraries are things that are quintessential D&D, so the knowledge is out there. Bards are also lorekeepers and they disseminate it via their stories and songs. A D&D commoner might have considerably more knowledge than one from a similar time period here on Earth.

Thanks for the discussion!

Sure thing! Discussion is usually very enjoyable.