Netheril

While the most known calendar of the realms is Dale Reckoning, there exists a far older measure of achievement, at least by humans: the Neth. A group of small farming villages that banded together for protection led to an empire of human wizards, cities that floated across the sky and a terrible, terrible arrogance that nearly stripped Toril of its magic forever.

The First Age
At the time, Anauroch was a paradise of rivers, forests, lakes and plains. Netheril was unsuprisingly little more than a group of villages (Fenwick, Gers, Gilan, Gustaf, Moran, Nauseef and Janick) along one such lake. Soon after this alliance was named Netheril (after Nether the Elder who is assumed to be the leader) the nation proceeded to remove the threats close by. Seeking to widen its scope of both power and land it began expanding. This eventually lead the Eaerlanni elves to approach the humans. The elves taught the humans of this new alliance magic, and with talent unseen before (possibly because of the shorter human life span) the humans learned arcane spells with a fervor. Every denizen of Netheril was taught the very basic of spellcasting. Even average maids knew cantrips to make the broom sweep the floor. Those who excelled at the arts of magic became known as Arcanists, a rapidly rising political faction that was second only to the nobility of the nation.