Lost Empires of Faerûn

Lost Empires of Faerûn

Lost Empires of Faerûn

This review is based on reading the product only, not on any play testing.

Lost Empires of Faerûn is a 192 page hardcover published in February of 2005 by Wizards of the Coast. As the title suggests, the book focuses on fallen empires and the ruins they've left behind in Faerûn, the main continent of the Forgotten Realms setting.

This book is mainly for DMs. The Introduction admits as much. There is a chapter of new feats, prestige classes, and spells which is aimed at both players and DMs, but the remainder of the book deals with the often-secret history of several fallen empires, the magic items and artifacts they left behind, as well as monsters which may lurk in their ruins, and is thus firmly intended for DMs.

In many ways Lost Empires of Faerûn feels like a throwback to Realms products of old. There are lots of references to other products, both core D&D and Forgotten Realms, but none of the material from those products is reprinted. Setting information dominates over rules information, and most NPCs are not statted out, but have only by their name, race, class, and level provided.

There are eleven chapters, plus an introduction and table of contents. There is no index. Here is an overview of the book:

Title Page, Credits, and Table of Contents - 3 pages
Introduction - 2 pages
Ancient Secrets - 30 pages - Rules-heavy information for players and DMs.
Dreams of the Past - 15 pages - DM-oriented rules and setting information.
The Crown Wars - 9 pages - First of the historical chapters, which are almost entirely setting information. This one is about the Crown Wars of the ancient elves.
God-Kings of the East - 23 pages - Historical chapter covering eastern Faerûn, including Mulhorand, Unther, and other now-fallen realms.
Realms of the High Forest - 12 pages - Historical chapter about lost elven and dwarven realms in north central Faerûn.
Fallen Netheril - 18 pages - Historical chapter concerning the fallen magical empire of Netheril.
The Imperial South - 12 pages - Historical chapter about Calimshan, Amn, and now-fallen realms in southwest Faerûn.
The Dream of Cormanthyr - 11 pages - Historical chapter providing information about Cormanthyr, the grand elven empire which included Myth Drannor.
The Old North - 15 pages - Last of the historical chapters, this one discusses lost realms in northwest Faerûn.
Artifacts of the Past - 9 pages - Magic items and artifacts from fallen empires.
Monsters of the Ancient Lands - 33 pages - Monsters a DM can use when PCs explore ruins.

The Ancient Secrets chapter is dominated by five new prestige classes. These prestige classes use an expanded prestige class format where each class fills between two and a half to four pages. In addition to the raw mechanical details of the class, information is provided about what members of the class usually do, how to become a member, how to play a member of the class (including attitude and tactics in combat, things to consider when advancing, and what sort of help the character can call upon), how the class fits into the Realms, DCs for Knowledge checks to know something about the class and the organization its members belong to, and a fully statted example NPC. I have never been a fan of prestige classes in the past, but this in depth format has me re-evaluating that view.

The prestige classes are: Cultist of the Shattered Peak (a rogue/fighter-oriented five level class dedicated to keeping the dangerous secrets of lost Netheril from being recovered), Glorious Servitor (a cleric or paladin-oriented seven level class dedicated to one of the Mulhorandi powers), Magelord (a wizard-oriented ten level class which is a sort of arcane gunslinger), Olin Gisir (a ten level class for elven and half-elven arcane casters who wish to keep the lore of the ancient elves secret), and Sunmaster (a ten level cleric-oriented class for a sect that worships Lathander as a reincarnation of the dead Netherese sun god). All of the prestige classes could be used in non-Realms campaigns with varying amounts of work on the part of the DM.

Sixteen new feats and twenty-three new spells fill out the remainder of the Arcane Secrets chapter. The spells are mostly sorcerer/wizard spells, although there is at least one new spell for assassins, bards, druids, clerics, and paladins as well. Among the new feats, Arcane Transfiguration, which allows a specialized wizard access to one banned school of magic, stands out as perhaps the most likely to be too powerful, although it does have two other feats as prerequisites, can't be taken until 10th level, and can only be taken once. On the other end of the power scale is Servant of the Fallen, which allows divine casters to receive spells from dead gods. It also grants a small mechanical benefit in the form of a once-daily +1 luck bonus to any die roll. The primary benefit of the feat, however, is a role-playing benefit rather than a mechanical one. This makes for a nice change in my view, and is something I'd like to see more of in future products.

The Dreams of the Past chapter offers advice for using the book in the campaign, includes a score of one-sentence adventure hooks relating to ruins and history, has a system for generating random ruins, provides domain lists and a paragraph of information about ten dead deities, provides one new Epic spell and two new epic spell seeds (including one used to create Mythals), details Mythals (including their creation and effects of their decay), and has a two page map of Faerûn from the year -626 DR.

The random ruin system is likely to prove interesting to many DMs, so I'll dwell on it a bit more. The system consists of seven tables: Inhabitants, Ruined City Features, Ruined Castle Features, Extradimensional Space Features, Temple Features, Burial Ground Features, and Tower Features. To generate a random ruin the DM first rolls a d6 to see how many inhabitants are present, and then rolls percentile dice the appropriate number of times on the Inhabitants table. Then it's another d6 roll to determine how many features are present in whichever ruin type is being used, followed by percentile dice rolls on the appropriate table. The Inhabitants table lists creatures by type (humanoid, outsider, etc) rather than by specific creatures (orc, adult red dragon, etc.). Mapping is not generated by the system and is left entirely up to the DM. The system provides a good basis for DMs in need of ideas for a ruined area. If I use the system much I will probably find myself customizing the tables quite a bit, particularly the Inhabitants table, which I thought was too general.

The Artifacts of the Past chapter is entirely about new artifacts and magic items. The Nether Scrolls, Mythallars, the Elfblades of Cormanthyr and a few other items all get the artifact treatment, thus allowing DMs to use them in their games without any worries that PCs will be able to create copies themselves. Most of the new non-artifact magic items are wondrous items, although there are two new weapon properties (one of them psionic), and a few new specific weapons and rings. There is also a new class of magic item, the scepter. Scepters are sort of a cross between wands and staves. They can hold up to two spells of 7th level or lower. Crafting a scepter requires the new item creation feat Create Scepter, detailed in the Netheril chapter.

The Monsters of Ancient Lands chapter includes D&D 3.5 statistics for some previously-presented creatures such as the Phaerimm, Tressym, Deepspawn, and Crawling Claws (which are swarms now) as well as creatures I don't recall seeing before such as the Tomb Tapper and the Nishruu. There are a fair number of templates, including four lycanthropes: drow werebat, werecat, werecrocodile, and wereshark.

The historical chapters form the bulk of the book. These chapters all have a consistent format. Each one starts with a brief introduction to the area being covered and proceeds to a time line of major events. After the time line is a more detailed history in prose format, followed by a listing of who might have records of this history, and prominent songs and stories relating the history of this area. Each historical chapter also includes a sidebar of DCs for Knowledge (History) checks. Next is a listing of important sites, usually ruins, followed by a section about the legacy of the lost kingdoms discussed in the chapter. A couple of adventure seeds follow, and the chapter ends by talking about who in current Faerûn has been influenced by the now-lost realm.

Two of the historical chapters also include a detailed adventure site, and the Netheril chapter includes a new item creation feat. Otherwise the historical chapters are devoid of rules information. Some NPCs have their race, classes, and levels listed, but the only fully-statted NPCs in the historical chapters are in the two sample adventure sites.

Most of the historical chapters seem to be the right length, providing enough depth to inspire DMs but not so much as to bore them. The exception is the Crown Wars chapter, which is given only nine pages in which to discuss the 3,000 years of the war itself and the 18,000 years of prior elven history which lead to the Crown Wars. That being said all of the historical chapters hit only the high points and discuss only a fraction of the ruins an empire left behind. A detailed accounting of the history and ruins of any one of the realms covered in the historical chapters could easily fill a book the size of Lost Empires of Faerûn.

The book as a whole, and the historical chapters in particular, may not seem to be of use to DMs who are not running the Forgotten Realms, but that is not necessarily the case. DMs looking to fill out a detailed history of the elves, humans, and dwarves of their worlds could easily borrow large chunks from Lost Empires of Faerûn. For DMs interested in creating a high magic society, the Netherese would make an excellent source to draw inspiration from. Anyone, DM or player, looking for elven or dwarven names could mine Lost Empires of Faerûn for lots of them. The rules material is also easily reused.

As I read through the book, one thing I noticed is that it seems to be of most use for DMs with mid to high levels PCs. The two sample adventure sites are aimed at PCs in the 10th to 12th level range. Given that many of the ruins mentioned in the book are now inhabited by evil outsiders, drow, liches, and other powerful creatures, 10th to 12th level is probably the minimum a PC would need to be to survive most of these sites, and some could easily challenge PCs who are well into the Epic levels. Another thing is that most of the lost empires of Faerûn were elven and human. The dwarves have their share of fallen kingdoms, but there is not a single halfling or gnome ruin mentioned. Indeed the smaller folk are barely mentioned at all.

I enjoyed reading Lost Empires of Faerûn immensely and look forward to incorporating elements from it into future games. I'm a Realms fan from way back, and returning to a format dominated by setting content rather than rules content is a very welcome move as far as I'm concerned. I hope Lost Empires of Faerûn becomes a template for future Realms products. Overall the book serves as an excellent resource about the history of Faerûn, and at the same time provides plenty of material that DMs can mine for use in their campaigns, be they set in the Forgotten Realms or elsewhere.

On the down side, I did feel that the lack of an index hurt the book somewhat. Because the historical chapters often reference events and people from other chapters, tracking down a specific reference may be difficult without an index. I also would liked to have seen the Faerûn map from -626 DR included as a foldout or small poster, as part of it is lost in the gutter of the book. This is a shame since the map is both beautiful and useful.

Despite a few shortcomings, I would strongly recommend Lost Empires of Faerûn to any DM or Realms fan, and would also suggest that non-Realms DMs give it a look for possible material to use.

good review, not too long at all

I too hope this is the new template that the Realms line will follow. The write-ups of all the lost empires are rather inspired as well. It's the sort of book that sparks a lot of adventure ideas. Even the little throw away references beg to be developed with adventure ideas that spring from the rest of the text. This book is definitely a revitalizing element in the Forgotten Realms line. Ever since Serpent Kingdoms it's all been uphill!

Crothian, yeah, somehow it looked a lot longer in my word processor than it does here.

MetalBard, definitely. I hope the word will get around to Realms fans who've let their attention wander elsewhere that this one is a definite winner.

Lost Empires of Faerun is the latest support book for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting by Wizards of the Coast. Written by Richard Baker, Ed Bonny and Travis Stout, Lost Empires weighs in at 192 full color pages and runs for $29.95.

Art and layout are up to the Forgotten Realms usual standards. Paper is crème colored. Two columns of text frame the art while boxed sections with a darker ivory color are used for sidebars. Art is handled by many fan favorites including Jason Engle, Wayne Reynolds, William O’Connonor, Steve Prescot and others. It’s a nice mix of styles.

The material starts off with an introduction but quickly moves into the player focused arena with prestige classes, feats, and spells. These PrCs are often focused on older organizations or ideas from the past. The Cultist of the Shattered Peak for example, are out to stop wizards because their background involves the ascension and decline of the Netherese wizards while the Magelords are from another point of Faerun’s history of the Stag Kingdom.

Game mechanics vary. For example, I feel that the Magelords are far too powerful. They gain spellcasting every level and special abilities every level. These include sneak attack three times and mastery of spells. While they have to give up some spellcasting ability to enter the class as they need evasion as a special ability, it doesn’t seem enough.

The good news though is that like other recent PrCs, the material here doesn’t just pump out dozens of PrCs. Instead we get a bit of background, how to become the PrC, the game mechanics, how to play such a character, including ideas on combat, advancement and resources, how the PrC fits in the Faerun, NPC Reactions, Lore, giving Knowledge arcane or Knowledge history checks and the knowledge from them, as well as that PrC in the game, and encounters. This provides the DM with more than just several PrCs and allows him to add them into the game in a deeper and meaningful way.

While there aren’t a ton of new feats or PrCs, some will quickly catch any player’s eye. For example, the feat Wounding Spell, inflicts bleeding wounds with any damage-dealing spell, while in spells, we have a few sun based ones like Aura of the Sun, where light damages undead and hampers magical darkness, to Toothed Tentacle, a three mouthed entity that the caster attacks his foes with.

Before getting into the specifics, the chapter, Dreams of the Past, gives general guidelines on ancient empires. This includes a quick list of twenty Ancient Adventure Ideas, random ruin generators, a listing of dead gods, some epic magic, including two seeds, Mythal and Shadow, and a two-page spread of the Forgotten Realms in the year –626 DR.

The book then delves into different sections of Forgotten Realms history, starting with a general bit of information, the history, broken down in multi-page timelines, then separate sections for the following: Keepers of the Past, individuals or sites where knowledge of the lost empire can be found, including Knowledge History DC checks from 5 to 30, Songs and Stories, details about empire broken down by location, important sites, legacies, and in some cases, adventure sites, which act as locations with populated monsters and NPCs for the players to interact with.

After covering several empires, the book moves back into game mechanics with Artifacts of the Past. Some of these are general abilities for magic weapons like Sending, where the foe struck with the weapon, on a roll of a ‘20’ with a confirmed critical, is sent to a desintation chosen by the weapon’s wielded, to specific artifacts like the Nether Scrolls and the Elfblades of Cormanthyr. Unfortunately, magic items, while always including cost, don’t always include caster cost and experience point deductions. Odd as for some items like Delimbiyra’s Shining Bow have it, while none of the rings or Scepters do.

The book ends with monsters. Some of these are old favorites like Tomb Trappers, giant constructs that wield huge maws who seek the treasures of ancient empires, to Deepspawn, huge aberrations that spawn further monsters. The section has a lot of undead like Dread Warriors, Flameskulls, and Helmed Horrors.

One of the most interesting updates here is the Phaerimm. They now have age stages, much like a dragon, and their physical aspects, like space/reach, claw, bite, and stinger damage, is based on their size, which is determined by their age. This makes them a little complicated as you now have several tables to look over. You’d have to look over the age category first to see how big they are and what their stats are, as well as information on attack ability, then check the other table to see how much damage they’d do if they were forced into melee.

In terms of general use, while the mechanics could be tweaked for almost any setting with some effort, I can’t imagine that the majority of the book could be easily used in another campaign. There are exceptions however. Take the Crown Wars for example, some of these events took place in the year –30,000. Yeah, much like the Scarred Lands and it’s various happenings with the elves, the conflict here takes place so long ago that few people remember what actually happened so it’d be easy to use the details.

On the other hand, when looking at Fallen Netheril, it’d be difficult to put into another campaign as this history is still having an effect on the Forgotten Realms today via the Return of the Archmages and the unique creatures that caused some of the downfall via the creation of the Anauroch desert from the Phaerimm to the sky ships that formed different kingdoms in the south. Only on the surface could ideas of the Suel, for example, in the Greyhawk setting, use some of these bits as there is a lot of specific names and locations set in the Forgotten Realms.

Having said that, it’s a great source of general purpose ideas for the Forgotten Realms. For example, if you want to increase the amount of psionic abilities and powers used in your campaign, hunting through the empire of Jhaamdath, once ruled by powerful psychic warriors known as bladelords, would be a good way to do so. If you want to see the elves return to a position of power, then having them hunt down and find the various elf blades would be one method to do so.

One thing I almost forgot to mention, is that the book references just about every other Forgotten Realms book in the series, as well as optional books like Expanded Psionic's Handbook. In most cases it's just a named reference and how something in the past has effected the current setting, such as countries in the Shining South or Unapproachable East, but there are still references to older books that might be difficult to find, but can be easily substituted.

For fans of the Forgotten Realms, Lost Empires of Faerun brings a lot of old lore mechanics up to 3.5 standards and provides a ton of general ideas and even sample adventures to get the game running.

I always enjoy reading your reviews as I have enjoyed them here and in d20 filtered. I feel I must ask you to justify the following statement, I do not have to book so I may be off base if so let me know.

" I feel that the Magelords are far too powerful. They gain spellcasting every level and special abilities every level. These include sneak attack three times and mastery of spells. While they have to give up some spellcasting ability to enter the class as they need evasion as a special ability, it doesn’t seem enough."

the Arcane Trickster a core prestige class givesspell casting every level and special abilites every leve. This includes sneak attack 5 times, ranged legerdemain 3/day and impromtu sneak attack 2/day. better bab, and skills that a wizard or sorcerer, You give up 3 caster levels (vs. the two caster leves you give up in the mage lord, which puts you a spell level behind the power curve either way.),

Any powergamer (including blasphemies like the character optimization board over at wizards)will tell you, never give up a caster level. Only in the most extreme case is the loss of a a caster level worth the cost.

Missed Point in Review

"One thing I almost forgot to mention, is that (there are) book references <SNIP>, but there are still references to older books that might be difficult to find, but can be easily substituted."

It should be mentioned that just about all oldedr books are extremely easy to find. One just goes to http://www.rpgnow.com or http://www.svgames.com, and for an average price of U.S.$5 each, one buys them as ESD downloads in PDF format.

I'm always of the opinion that a PrC that gives spellcasting every level and special abilities every level is potentially too powerful.

Before there were feats and options to increse a spellcaster's level, that might not have been the ideal situation, but for example, my last character, an invoker-fighter, using feats from only official books, had one level of fighter, but when casting evocation spells, casts at his level, and when casting fire based evocation spells, cast as his level +1.

Getting spells every level plus spell mastery at some levels and sneak attack at others, is a powerful combination.

Might not be too powerful for every game and I'll got to playtest it more in my campaigns, but it is a very attractive offer, unlike say the Eldritch Knight, that not only has to have some martial background (usually a fighting class like fighter or paladin), but also loses it's first level of spellcasting in the Eldrtich Knight PrC for a fighter bonus feat.

Lost Empires of Faerun Review

The Lost Empires of Faerun is a Forgotten Realms source book that delves into the ancient times the Realms and the ruins that are all that remains in the present day land. The book is a hardback and 192 pages long and retails for $29.95. Richard Baker, Ed Bonny and Travis Stout get front cover honors.

The book begins with a brief introduction that touches on running a ruins based campaign or a campaign that can make use of the long lost histories detailed in the book. The introduction also outlines the next eleven chapters in the book. The section ends with a table of monster substitutions for DM’s that may not own all the other sources used in this book.

Chapter One is titled Ancient Secrets. Within this chapter is an array of feats, prestige classes and spells. The sixteen feats start this chapter off. Most appear to be focused to on increasing knowledge of history, magical ability or languages. One exception to this is Trapmaster, a feat that is geared on helping one find and disable the many traps one is apt to encounter in any ancient ruin.

Then we get to the prestige classes. There are only five of these, but each appears to be well thought out and a fair amount of background information instead of just a lot of numbers and special abilities. It was refreshing to see. The Cultist of the Shattered Peak was my favorite. Members of the cult are said to be direct descendants of the Netherese and are scattered about Faerun. This is a five level prestige class and offers things such as sneak attack abilities and smite mage.

The chapter closed with twenty-nine new spells. These spells are all classified as ancient spells. The bulk of these spells are for sorcerors/wizards. While these are supposed to be long lost spells, they would be great ones to use on ancient scrolls, spellbooks or even for use in some ancient trap a hapless party of adventurers is bound to encounter in long lost ruins.

Chapter Two is titled Dreams of the Past. It starts with describing the fall of an empire and how over time those once great cities turn into the dungeons of present day Faerun cities. It also touches on the roles of castles and keeps, temples, burial grounds and towers – each of which can play a role in ruins based campaign.

Sprinkled in with this section is a sidebar with twenty ancient adventure ideas and the random ruin tables. The tables help populate the ruins in question with residents and quickly fill in prominent features for castles, cities, towns and more. It does appear that it would be a quick way to generate ruins on the fly or even as a base for filling in with additional details.

Following a brief section on Ancient Deities the chapter moves to a short section on Epic Magic. Closing the chapter is four pages on Mythals. This section covers the definition of a Mythal, how to raise a Mythal, the components involved and closes with breaking down the wards of Silverymoon. For those that have always been interested in the Mythals of Faerun, this section is a very enjoyable read and it is quite interesting to see the Silverymoon Mythal broken down like they did.

The next seven chapters maintain a similar format and cover The Crown Wars, God-Kings of the East, Realms of the High Forest, Fallen Netheril, The Imperial South, The Dream of Cormanthyr and The Old North. These chapters each have brief history followed by a timeline, songs and stories, important sites in the region and adventure seeds to help the DM.

These history chapters are the meat of the book and are full of great information. With the information contained within one can really add depth to their Forgotten Realms campaign or just borrow bits and pieces for their own.

Do not let the fact that they include an adventures seed section at the end of each chapter fool you into thinking those are the only adventure hooks present in each chapter. The Important Sites sections also have plenty of ideas for an enterprising DM to build off of for a campaign.

Two of the chapters also include a detailed Adventure Site, or mini-adventure. The first one in God-Kings of the East details an abandoned wizard’s tower now inhabited by a drow sellsword. It is written for 11th level adventurers. The second is in the Old North chapter and based on a Keep on the Frontier. Complete with maps this mini-adventure appears geared into a similar level – 10th or 11th.

Chapter 10 is called Artifacts of the Past. This is of course where the new magic items and artifacts are detailed. It is a little on the short side at only eight pages long. It includes your typical array of magic items – rings, staffs, weapons and minor and major wondrous items. They also include a scepter described as a wand or rod and often forged from metal.

The final chapter, Monsters of the Ancient Lands, includes twenty-nine new monsters. Ranging from Giant Arachnids to Giant Velvet Worms, they also include monsters such as the Phaerimm and Dread Warrior. There are plenty of monsters to help spice up your adventures into the ruins.

Overall, I was very impressed with this book. I DM most of my games in the Forgotten Realms and I am always looking for useful material. This book seems to show Wizards of the Coast is turning back to more realmslore in their books and a little less in the lines of raw game mechanics. Even the Prestige Classes show some thought and detail behind them, which I find refreshing. The vast amounts of ancient history will surely help any DM detail out their Forgotten Realms game a little more or provide a basis for a ruins focused campaign.

Even if you do not play a Forgotten Realms campaign there is still a good portion of information one could use. The random ruin generator tables could be used in any campaign setting. Once could easily borrow from the history portions of the book and use parts for historical purposes in their game. It certainly warrants at least a flip through to see just how much.

In closing, even if you are not a Forgotten Realms DM you may want to at least take a look through the book for pieces you could use in your campaign. If you are a Forgotten Realms DM, then this book will most likely prove most valuable to you and your campaign.