Historical Errata

Before I continue, I feel a correction is in order. This one’s on me, not on the book, since it was a detail from that long and detailed timeline at the start that I missed. I’m correcting it here because it will be important later.

As we already know, Shandarar was the former capital of Iliyanbruen, an elven/eladrin empire that existed in this region thousands of years ago. It coexisted with the human empire of Netheril, and witnessed its fall when the flying city of Xinlenal fell on the Neverwinter Wood.

The bit I got wrong was this: the fall of Xinlenal did not also cause the end of Iliyanbruen. The crash site was far from the city, and though the elves explored it soon after the event they decided to declare it off-limits after the first few explosions and carried on with their lives.

Iliyanbruen would last for a few centuries longer. They’d manage to repel a massive orc invasion that covered the North, but their kingdom would collapse from the effort it spent to kick those same orcs out of the human city of Illusk (located where Luskan is today). From here on out things proceed as previously detailed, with the empire’s population scattering and some of them deciding to take refuge in the Feywild.

Present-Day Shandarar

The middle world ruins of Shandarar cover a sizable area in the Wood but were mostly hidden by the passage of time and the growth of vegetation. Sometimes a farmer at the edges of the forest would find shards of pottery as they plowed a field, or some village builders would end up unearthing a ruined structure. These rumors helped the Netherese find the core of the ruins and steal a bunch of ancient relics from it, which has the eladrin in a tizzy as we already learned.

Most of the ruins are still, well, ruins. They’re overgrown and weathered enough to be hazardous. The oldest part of them, however, is being rebuilt and renovated by the eladrin, since that’s where they crossed over from the Feywild.

The biggest news here is that there are still several shielded vaults in the ruins that haven’t been found out by anyone yet. They contain extensive troves of ancient Iliyanbruen artifacts and works of art, of immense cultural value even when they aren’t magical, all protected against the ravages of time by stasis spells. The eladrin themselves don’t remember their locations, and this is the first time the book itself mentions them.

Here is also where it goes into a little more detail on the Feywild side of the crossing. That’s where the military outpost of New Shandarar is. It was also built on top of ruins, after the eladrin force kicked out the evil fey that had been living in them.

New Shandarar’s fortifications are living vegetation shaped by magic, and the portal opens into a courtyard kill zone. Aside from all the military defenses you expect, built of out living and magically reinforced wood, the fort also has plenty of facilities for long-term habitation. This includes a temple to Corellon.

The Hidden Serpent

As we saw before, Merrisara Winterwhite, the force’s commanding officer, is part of their moderate faction. She spends most of her time in the middle world overseeing the restoration of the city. Her second-in-command is an extremist, and spends all of his time in the Feywild. Addemios Three-Dawn, the secret Asmodeus worshiper, also spends all his time in the Feywild. He has a hidden shrine to his god underneath Corellon’s temple. The evil fey who were supposedly kicked out of the area have a hidden camp not too far from the fort, and they cooperate with Three-Dawn because their interests align.

A side box here explains that Asmodeus presents himself in the Feywild as a trickster god of a “better class” than the usual archetypes found there. Instead of lying and cheating for the lulz, he encourages and teaches his followers to do so in order to advance their own power and influence.

The Fey and the PCs

Another box discusses the possible attitudes of the eladrin towards PCs. As we already known even the moderates are standoffish and aggressive to outsiders by default. However, they are likely have a more diplomatic stance towards a party which includes the Iliyanbruen Guardian.

Which of the two sub-factions wins out depends largely on the actions of the PCs. The moderates win and might become valuable allies if the PCs can offer them evidence that the Shadovar are responsible for the relic thefts, or if they can prove Addemios Three-Dawn is a traitor who is manipulating them.

On the other hand, if the PCs steal from the ruins, fight the eladrin or attack Three-Dawn before proving his guilt, the Fey will adopt the extremist stance and launch a full-scale invasion of the region, likely starting a major open war with the other factions.

Impressions

How important the fey of New Shandarar are depends entirely on what the group wants for their campaign. They could be anywhere from isolated and irrelevant to a potential region-wide threat that needs to be defused as soon as possible. Even groups who aren’t interested in spending a lot of time dealing with these elves might still get an adventure or two out of a visit to their camp, perhaps as they’re traveling the Wood on the way to some other location therein.