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.

 

[pukunui]

That's a reasonable stance to take. For myself, I am really fond of Tolkien's elves, so my elves are immortal, but after about 2000 years they get restless and go to Arvandor "Aman" to live with the elven gods. My elves are also very tall, averaging 6 feet tall.

One thing that kind of annoyed me about older editions of D&D was how elves were generally shorter than humans. I suppose tall elves fall into the "elves are better" category, but I still prefer them over short elves.

Hell, if a study came out showing that 20% of Americans STILL don't know that the Berlin Wall was taken down, I wouldn't be surprised.

Reminds me of a FB reel I saw recently in which American high school girls were asked what the capitals of Germany and Italy were. Apparently France is the capital of both countries.

 

[TravDoc42]

Eliminster's evil clone, probably with a goatee over his beard.

I assumed that was Elminster's Para-elemental Plane of Ooze counterpart!

 

[Maxperson]

I think Paul's point was that these facts aren't lost knowledge. Anyone who looks into it can easily discover which side the Soviets fought on in WW2 or can easily look up when the Berlin Wall fell.

Though seeing as Faerun doesn't have an easily accessible internet it makes more sense that elves could forget aspects of Netheril in a few generations.

Candle Keep and other major libraries would have that information. You could go to a Temple of Oghma. Heck, Contact Other Plane and Commune, or even Legend Lore would yield information.

The loss of information after a few hundred years makes much more sense here in the real world where we don't have long lived races and magic to get information. Now that the internet is here, it will be longer to lose information, if it can ever truly be lost again short of nuclear war or something.

 

[Maxperson]

If Elven memory is as reliable or only marginally more reliable elves could experience a past where their own memories are unreliable guides.
Be a hella interesting thing to explore.

Elves are explicitly a race that remembers things, though. They go through old memories when they engage in reverie(the elven meditation at night). Knowledge and remembering are one of their main things!

 

[Maxperson]

Eliminster's evil clone, probably with a goatee over his beard.

No no no. That one is Slyminster. Sliminster is the dietician.

 

[Maxperson]

One thing that kind of annoyed me about older editions of D&D was how elves were generally shorter than humans. I suppose tall elves fall into the "elves are better" category, but I still prefer them over short elves.

Yeah. If they aren't going to be tall, make them like 6 inches to 1 foot, with a penchant for cleaning and cobbling shoes.

Reminds me of a FB reel I saw recently in which American high school girls were asked what the capitals of Germany and Italy were. Apparently France is the capital of both countries.

I watch the Daily Show and other comedy "news" shows, and they periodically go out and ask people questions about current events. The level of ignorance and/or just plain wrong is astounding.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Alot of people aren't that interested in real world events or history.

So if they dont watch the news, read much and neither do their friends.....

I think Paul's point was that these facts aren't lost knowledge

My point really, is the internet doesn’t make anyone forget anything. There are some who use it to avoid learning anything in the first place, but that’s not universal. I haven’t forgotten, and anyone who is interested can learn. We are rather returning to the situation, at least in some parts of the world, where a smaller proportion of the general populace are educated.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I watch the Daily Show and other comedy "news" shows, and they periodically go out and ask people questions about current events. The level of ignorance and/or just plain wrong is astounding.

They used to do shows like that in the 80s. There has always been plenty of ignorant people around if you want to display them for entertainment.

But if everyone thought France was the capital of Germany, there would be no point in pointing the finger and laughing.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Elves are explicitly a race that remembers things, though. They go through old memories when they engage in reverie(the elven meditation at night). Knowledge and remembering are one of their main things!

Yes, I am aware of the conventional views on elves and for the purpose of a given campaign that is ok but when I put on my world building hat, I find it unsatisfying and uninteresting. I think elves should be really weird when you dig into them.

 

[pukunui]

Elves are explicitly a race that remembers things, though. They go through old memories when they engage in reverie(the elven meditation at night). Knowledge and remembering are one of their main things!

They're also frequently portrayed as aloof, detached, living in the past, etc. A big theme in the Dragonlance Chronicles is how the Qualinesti, Silvanesti, and Dargonesti elves all need to learn to be part of the world instead of separate from it (and not always blame humans for everything).

EDIT: That's not to say that they are all ignorant of world events. It's more that they don't care. They have a "it's not my problem" attitude. I imagine many of FR's elves are little better. I mean, they're even more Tolkienish than Dragonlance elves, with their own version of Valinor (Evermeet) and Rivendell (Evereska) and the whole dwindling numbers as they depart into the west thing. (I am aware that 3e reversed this by having many elves come back from Evermeet - and the dwindling dwarves had a baby boom.)