As mentioned several times in this Let’s Read already, Netheril was a human empire who ruled over most of the world around three thousand years before our narrative present.

Their understanding of magic reached levels never seen before or since, but they fell literally overnight when one of their top archmages tried to cast a spell that was supposed to make him into a god but instead irreversibly fucked up Toril’s magic. This caused the vast majority of the flying islands where these archmages lived to plummet to the ground.

One such island managed to avoid this fate when its inhabitants plane-shifted it into the Shadowfell (known as the Plane of Shadow back then). They stayed there until the end of Second Edition, when they started coming back into the world, mutated by their millenia in darkness and with a desire to rebuild their former empire.

These shadow-people are known as Shadovar, but they also consider themselves to be Netherese and the book uses the two terms interchangeably. There’s a group of them hiding in the Neverwinter Wood, led by a mage named Clariburnus Tanthul.

Goals

The Shadovar have a single major goal in this region: to repair the fallen island of Xinlenal.

Xinlenal was the first Netherese flying island ever built, the crowning achievement of the ancient archmage Iolaum, who discovered the technique to making them. Making it fly again would raise the flag of Netherese dominance over the whole region, and it would become their greatest center of power in the entire world.

The key to fixing Xinlenal is to repair its mythallar, a magical engine that looks like a giant crystal sphere and shines like a contained sun. It shattered when the city fell, and Shadovar artificers are hard at work repairing it as the campaign starts. The process requires immense quantities of Residuum, and the easiest way to produce Residuum is to destroy magic items. The older and more powerful, the better.

This means Shadovar agents are scouring the entire region looking for ancient ruins and the magical relics they contain. The ruined cities of Illefarn, the crumbling outposts of Delzoun, even the burial mounds of Uthgardt heroes: all of these are fair game, and anyone who would object to their plundering is an enemy.

Not even these ancient ruins might yield enough residuum for their purposes, though. They’ve started looking at less-old places too. As the campaign starts that’s still mostly consists of clashing with and looting the bodies of Thayan and Ashmadai goons, but they could soon move up to plundering Neverwinter itself.

One of Caliburnus’ secondary goals include discovering the fate of Iolaum. Sure, the wizard lived thousands of years ago and was on Xinlenal when it fell, but surely one of the bestest mages from the bestest magical empire ever wouldn’t let little details like that kill him, would it? Imagine what he could do for the Shadovar cause if he’s brought on-board!

The other secondary goal is to pursue their war with Thay. There’s only room for one world-spanning fascist mage empire in this planet, after all. The Shadovar regularly attack the Thayan base in the Dread Ring, and they’ve also managed to park one of their flying fortresses above the Thayan city of Surcross, which they bombard regularly. In case you don’t remember, that’s one of the possible locations where Valindra might have hidden her soul vessel.

And finally, further down the list, there’s the handling of the Gray Wolf Uthgardt tribe. The Shadovar recruited them into their service with appeals to their “ancient Netherese heritage” and gave them the mission to infiltrate and eventually conquer Helm’s Hold. So far the werewolves have managed to place several agents in the town, who are busy sowing unrest and generally making it ready for a takeover. Their progress is slow but in Caliburnus’ view the tribe’s main purpose is to act as a red herring when people start trying to investigate Netherese activities. In the meantime, Gray Wolf warriors also get used as muscle when the need for it arises.

Player Tie-Ins

The Netherese seems to be the major faction with the most explicit tie-ins to PC backgrounds.

The Scion of Shadow, of course, starts the game in direct conflict with them. They have enough information to begin opposing the faction right away, and especially bold Scions might think to pretend to be loyal in order to infiltrate it.

Their rampant plundering of ancient ruins also places them in direct opposition to the Iliyanbruen Guardian, Heir of Delzoun, and the Uthgardt Barbarian. The book says they are definitely guilty of stealing those eladrin relics, but it’s less definitive about their role in plundering the Uthgardt barrow - that could have been the Thayans depending on what the GM desires. Even so, their control of the Gray Wolves will still make them cross paths with both the Barbarian and the Pack Outcast.

Relationships

The Netherese don’t care about New Neverwinter at all, though that will change a bit when they start targeting the city for its magic items.

They are completely ignorant of the Abolethic Sovereignity. Some of their officials suspect there’s something funky going on beneath Neverwinter and have sent agents to investigate, but they’re only going to bother Caliburnus about this when those agents return with answers. This makes the fact that they’re trying to conquer Helm’s Hold particularly funny.

They see the Ashmadai as nothing more than minions of the Thayans and have no idea the cult has plans of its own. The Thayans of course are their greatest enemies in the region and the Shadovar devote as many resources to fighting them as they do to restoring Xinlenal.

They also have some important links to minor factions, as mentioned above. Their hold over the Gray Wolves means they will have to deal with the other Uthgardt Tribes eventually, and the fey of Iliyanbruen are the primary targets of their relic raids.

Impressions

While the Netherese are a bit less cognizant of the other factions than I expected, their plans are appropriately ambitious and they have a real shot at success barring PC intervention. They also have a bunch of strong ties to several PC themes, so they’re very likely to feature in your campaign.