Cormanthor

Cormanthor was long the place of the elven empire of Cormanthyr. Its main feature is a thick, dense forest made up of a variety of species of tree and plant. The trees can grow over 100' (30m) in places.

Geography
Although Cormanthor can be seen as one forest, it is actually made up of four forests: the Elven Court, Semberholme, the Tangled Trees and the Vale of Lost Voices. The first three of these four roughly correspond to the old elven communities of the same names. The forest is also divided roughly according to tree types, with the following divisions:

Rimwood
The rimwood is mainly made up of pines and is the least dense part of the forest. It is an area that runs around the edge of the forest; a ten or twenty mile border between the interior forest and the rest of the world. The soil here is not rich in minerals and quite sandy, so it lacks the variety of vegetation found deeper in the forest.

The main bulk of the trees are blueridge and needleleaf pines but they are spread quite far apart, rarely touching one another, and don't often grow over 20' (6m). Because these pines drop slow-to-decompose needles on the forest floor, other foliage struggles to grow, except for softwood ferns. The hillsides can be home to willow, spruce and clumps of wiregrass.

Although the lack of vegetation causes a lack of animal species in the rimwood, insects such as beetles, lice, mosquitoes, red ants and red leafhoppers thrive here.

Major roads running through the rimwood include: Halfaxe Trail, Moander's Road, Moonsea Ride and Rauthauvyr's Road.

Midwood
The midwood consists chiefly of white ash and beech. The trees here are packed densely enough to provide a mostly unbroken canopy. It separates the rimwood from the starwood and accounts for roughly half of the total area of the forest. There is a wide variety of other vegetation (in part thanks to the rich soil) including chestnuts and red maples in the hills north of Mistledale, honeysuckle and snapdragons in meadows and cherry trees and blue cedars in groves near Essemore, and ivory moss, moonfern, alders, hickories and bitternuts.

Some of the weirder vegetation includes beetle palm, foxberry and roseneedle pine.

The Moonsea Ride skirts this area.

Starwood
The starwood is made up mostly of giant oaks and maple and is the most dense part of the forest. The maples average a height of 200' (61m) and some of the oaks can reach 400' (122m). The soil here is rich enough to be almost black and is almost constantly moist. This produces a wide variety of undergrowth, and travelling through this can be difficult because of its density. Because of the high humidity, a variety of lichens and mosses grow here.

The starwood is rich in animal species such as deer, dire wolves, elk, emerald constrictors, finches, manticores, owls, porcupines, skunks, weasels and wood rats. There are also some unusual types of vegetation found here. These include medquat, chime oak, hinnies and zebra grass.

This area of the forest is split roughly into four, each with its own distinct tree types, but all areas of the starwood contain tall oaks, maples and hickories.

Central starwood
This area, west of the Ashaba, is home to spruce and hemlock.

North starwood
Rich in cedars, and home of Myth Drannor, the ruined elven city.

East starwood
East starwood contains the Elven Court and Tangled Trees regions (both former elven communities), and is home to firs and elms.

West starwood
West starwood has poplar and gum trees, and contains Semberholme.

Edgelands
The edgelands are patches between the areas of forest where magic can go haywire and small animals' diets will alter greatly. They are roughly circular areas no more than 60 miles (97km) in diameter and there are usually only two or three in the forest at any one time. They are caused by energy drifts from Myth Drannor and only occur between spring and autumn. They faintly radiate magic, cause spells to fail or go wrong, interfere with the powers of magic items, and cause unusual weather effects such as snow during summer.

History
The forest used to cover a much greater area, but as the kingdoms of Cormyr and Sembia grew, large areas of the forest were felled to make way for the expansion. This triggered the Elven Retreat, with the main part of the forest's population of elves leaving for Evereska or Evermeet. Only a small number of elves remain.

Old settlements
Comanthor was once host to four elven communities.

The Elven Court
The Elven Court, known in Thorass as Everlor, was the home of the royal family of Cormanthor and where most of what elven government consisted of took place. It was a widespread community, more similar to the separate holdfasts and farms of the Dales than the great cities of the humans.

Myth Drannor
Myth Drannor was once considered to be the most beautiful and largest of any of the cities in Faerûn. The city has been in ruins for many years. It was once protected by a device called a mythal, used to shield Myth Drannor from harm.

Semberholme
Semberholme is a range of hills that was once home to a cavern-dwelling community of elves. It is one of the four old communities of Cormanthor and it lies on the banks of Lake Sember.

The Tangled Trees
The Tangled Trees is one of the four old elven communities of Cormanthor. Hundreds of elves still occupy the area but they are extremely hostile to outsiders and are likely to attack on sight. The elves of the Tangled Trees worship Rillifane Rallathil and some oak trees in the area have canaries carved into them.

Green dragons
Although dragons are incredibly rare in the forest today, hundreds of years ago, green dragons were common. Because of the dragons' over-hunting of the centaurs, their numbers began to dwindle and the dragons began to blame one another for the lack of food. This triggered a civil war in which much damage was caused to the starwood and there are only a small number of green dragons remaining.

Today
Cormanthor, now a complete ruin swarming with demons, devils, and drow, was recently taken over by Sarya Dlardrageth and her Fey'ri forces following their defeat at the hands of the Seiveril Miritar's Crusade in Myth Glauroch. The Crusade managed to defeat her forces and retake the land, but not without the sacrifice of Miritar. In the year 1380 DR, his daughter, Ilsevele, is the new coronal of Cormanthor, with Araevin Teshurr as the archmage, no matter where his travels take him. She has also taken Fflar Starbrow as her husband and general.

Climate
The forest is served year-round by a light rain, and the ground is usually moist, keeping humidity high. Winds cannot penetrate the thick dense canopy, so the forest is calm at ground level. At the height of the summer, the sun provides direct light for 16 hours a day. The long daylight period allows crops to grow quickly, and summer storms can come and go in just an hour. There are often patches of dense fog in the forest, especially near the northern Elvenflow. In the thickest parts of the forest known as the starwood, this fog is thick and grey in colour, allowing visibility of only a few hundred feet.

Extremes
It is not unknown for climate extremes to strike the forest, and with them, their effects.
 * In 1350 DR a drought in the summer caused the rye grass to fail and the red deer to starve.
 * In the autumn of 1367 DR, the frost arrived early in the forest, causing the wild flowers and berries to die north of Highmoon. This left the leucrotta hungry, and they turned on the halflings in the nearby village of Casckel, eating them all.

Wildlife
The fyreflies in the forest can cause wild blazes, especially on clear summer nights, when they congregate in huge swarms. In the past, efforts have been made to control their population, including introducing giant wasps to eat their food supply (cornflowers), but they simply moved onto pigweed and quack grass instead. The elven mage Horquine attempted to breed a variety of azmyth that would eat the fyreflies, but they could not digest their abdomens (the source of the flames) and they had to spit them out, yielding a burst of flame.

Official Material

 * Cormanthyr: Empire of the Elves (zip)
 * The Fall of Myth Drannor (zip)
 * Lost Empires of Faerûn
 * The Haunted Glen
 * The Haunted Glen
 * The Haunted Glen

Portals

 * Cormanthor Portal
 * Spy Network
 * The Elven Unification Portal
 * Cormanthor Portal of the Emerald Enclave
 * Heroes of Spellfire

Specific prestige classes

 * Secret Moondancer