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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ruleslawyer" data-source="post: 7205502" data-attributes="member: 1757">I might suggest flipping through the 2e supplement Anauroch or the 2e boxed set Ruins of Myth Drannor (both authored by the setting's creator) before making that assumption; for that matter, the Wyrms of the North series showcases everything from great red wyrms to archmage-level spellcasting dracoliches. The reality is that FR is really too crowded with high-level villains and monsters for credulity; I preliminarily weeded out a ton of those creatures and NPCs in my head just so I could run a campaign without thinking about them. Reasonably speaking, here are some examples of places where you can run high-level adventures with tons of medium-deadly encounters in the Realms, with explanations of why these threats didn't come after the PCs when they were low level (all using Old Gray Box-timeline setting assumptions):1) Thay: The Red Wizards are stymied from massive interference in the rest of the Realms by constant factional infighting, but confronting them on their home turf means running into multiple archmages, summoned high-level creatures, and even a rogue demon lord.2) Anauroch: Too remote and hostile for low-level PCs to explore, the surface contains ancient dragons' lairs, lich-ruled cities, and all sorts of dangerous monsters. There's an entire beholder nation under the desert populated by diverse mind-controlled monsters and ruled by archmage-level spellcasting monsters.3) The Fallen Lands: The site of old Netheril, these lands contain mysterious castles that are probably full of undead super-casters and their various minions. While they tend to stay at home pursuing gods-know-what research, one might begin posing a threat to inhabited lands OR the PCs might need to venture in to retrieve some ancient knowledge or a needed magic item or artifact.4) Myth Drannor: The mythal of this ruined city keeps its varied threats contained, but again, the place contains fiends, liches, phaerimm, and whatever monsters the DM feels like including.5) The lower levels of Undermountain: Contained by Halaster's wards, there nonetheless can be any number of scary threats down there.6) The Underdark: Enough said.I tend to run FR campaigns (I've done a few, with the most powerful PCs topping out at 25th-ish level in 2e/3e) as a bit sandbox-y, starting the PCs off with mid-level campaign enemies and then letting them start to discover or inadvertently fall afoul of the schemes of truly high-level villains. It may be a bit cliche to have that 7th-level "end boss" the PCs finish off be the minion of a beholder, which in turn is an agent of the Twisted Rune, phaerimm, or what have you, thereby allowing the PCs to move on to end boss #2 around 11th level and then end boss #3 around 16th level, et cetera, but it does work organically.</blockquote>

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