Utter East

The Utter East was a land in the extreme southeast of Faerûn, bordering the continents of both Kara-Tur and Zakhara. It was home to the Five Kingdoms.

Geography
The Utter East lay on the isthmus joining the great continents of Faerûn and Kara-Tur in the north to Zakhara in the south. The Wu Pi Te Shao Mountains, the southern arm of the massive Yehimal Mountains, ran down the center of the isthmus like a spine. The Utter East lay on the western side, between the mountains the sea, in a narrow landscape less than 100 miles wide (160 kilometers). It was the only easily traversable land-bridge between the continents; the Sempadan Forest on the eastern side was much too dense.

The coastline was dry and rugged. It was lashed by the Great Sea, which in its wake formed whirlpools and maelstroms.

Vast and uncharted plains lay in the north, which bordered the eastern side of Ulgarth.

Society
The Utter East was dominated by the Five Kingdoms, which were ruled by the Ffolk and by the Northmen. They included:
 * Doegan
 * Edenvale
 * Konigheim
 * The Free Cities of Parsanic

They ruled over the indigenous Mar tribes. The Mar were once subjugated and enslaved by the Ffolk and Northmen, before they demanded their freedom following the Bloodforge Wars. Yet they still had no lands of their own or a say in the courts of the Five Kingdoms.

The barbarian Horde dwelled in the northern plains, and regularly raided or invaded Ulgarth in the north.

Language
The indigenous Mar people spoke Maran, which was most closely related to the languages of Zakhara. It was melodious but rapidly spoken, with short syllables and throat clicks.

The Ffolk colonists spoke Waelan, the native tongue of the Moonshae Isles, but their Five Kingdoms dialect was heavily influenced by both its isolation and by Northmen settlers and by corsairs and merchants from across south Faerûn and north Zakhara.

Relations
For much of their history prior to the 14th century DR, the cultures of Faerûn and Kara-Tur saw the isthmus as only a bridge to nowhere, not seeing the lands of Zakhara to the southwest, and so, for the most part, turned their backs on the Utter East. The Utter East therefore marked the end of the Western Realms of Faerûn. Western folk saw instead the Shining Lands around the Golden Water as the last "civilized" realm before one ventured into the Utter East. Even so, as the Durpari people of the Shining Lands had acquired some cultural practices and weapon and armor styles from their Utter Eastern neighbors, they were seen as barely Faerûnian themselves.

Thus, to the West, the Utter East was a little-known and bizarre collection of lands, with only legends considered too fantastic and fanciful to be taken as fact filtering back to Faerûn. Even in the Hordelands, lying betwixt Faerûn and Kara-Tur, folk saw the lands beyond the Gate of Iron—Durpar, Ulgarth, and points further south—as a strange and incredible place, telling of mages without bodies and gods that lived like mortals, of islands that rose and fell beneath the waves and valleys filled with gems.

Ancient history
In primordial times, a great horde of fiends and undead horrors became trapped in prisons buried deep beneath the land. There they would wait for thousands of years.

The first humans of the Utter East were the Mar, who settled along the coastline in past ages. Their histories told they had known only oppression since that time.

In ancient times, a mighty city was built atop the high mountains. However, it later fell into ruins, was stripped of its wealth and resources, and was by-and-large forgotten, known only as Old Stone Keep. Nevertheless, it was part of a legacy of great mages, and rumored to hide secrets of arcane magic.

Western colonization
In the Year of Nineteen Swords, 621 DR, in the far Moonshae Isles, the Ffolk princess Bridget of Callidyrr was to marry the Northmen prince Scothgar of Rogarsheim, but she and her whole royal entourage vanished on the voyage to Norland. Ffolk and Northmen each blamed the other for the disappearance, which worsened relations between them. That same year, Moonshaes Ffolk arrived on the shores of the Utter East, where they chose to settle. They were later joined by Northmen settlers.

The native Mar welcomed the Ffolk, who spoke of peace and brotherhood between the two races. Indeed, relations were friendly for the first few years. However, Ffolk soon turned greedy, and they seized Mar lands for their own, and then subjugated and enslaved the Mar tribes themselves. They carved these stolen lands into their Five Kingdoms.

Invaders led by Rathgar the Raider overran Doegan, besieging the capital. To pacify his poor clansmen, Rathgar plundered the realm. Finally, he seized the throne crown itself, and the king was slain upon his throne, cursing that the dead would depose Rathgar. Escaping the invaders, the princess of Doegan sought a way to fulfil her father's prophecy. She went to Old Stone Keep and enlisted the aid of Aelric, a mage of Doegan and heir to the Keep's great magical legacy.

The Bloodforge Wars
The bloodforges were discovered in the Year of the Dancing Daggers, 648 DR, first by King Grewe of Konigheim and within tendays by Ffolk across all the Five Kingdoms. These ancient devices of war could mass-produce entire armies of golems, eliminating overnight the cost of mustering and maintaining armed forces. Losing all restraint, turning war-mad, the Ffolk rulers of the Five Kingdoms each manufactured great golem armies and marched them against one another, bursting into the Bloodforge Wars. The Mar could only be helpless witnesses, recording events for posterity.

A number of conflicts large and small raged back and forth across the Utter East, with all sides commanding bloodforges and basal golem armies. In the Howl of Vengeance, Aelric and the princess of Doegan raised an army of bloodforged undead in an effort to liberate their homeland. They were opposed by Rathgar's own bloodforged warriors. In the Harvest of Horrors, the monstrous Redfang the Reaper and his voracious kind in the Kingdom of Nix assaulted the town of Vanesci Hamlet, seeking to catch, cook, and devour the villagers, as the mage Haradan the Hermit led a desperate defense.

A decade of unending warfare devastated the Utter East, leaving the defenses of the Five Kingdoms wrecked and the cities lying in ruins or rubble, while the ancestral lands of the Mar were despoiled. The Ffolk were at last growing weary of warfare, and utterly unprepared when another foe entered the game.

It transpired that every use of a bloodforge had steadily weakened the ancient prisons binding the fiends and undead beneath the Utter East. Finally, in the Year of the Nine Stars, 657 DR, the horde of primordial horrors escaped and rampaged across the ruins of the land, killing without regard for kingdom or race. This was the Plague of Fiends. The Ffolk sent ships out north and south, desperately begging for aid from their neighbors.

The Scouring of the Utter East
Grand Caliph Arash bint Sanjar of Zakhara answered the Ffolk's pleas for help, sending an armada of sambuk to the Utter East in early Mirtul of 657 DR. But the corsairs launched a surprise attack on the Five Kingdoms, swiftly overrunning and seizing their defenseless port cities. Then legions of askar, clad in djinn-forged lamellar and thrusting killing katars, disembarked and marched across the land. With murderous efficiency, they razed every village and slew all they encountered, whether fiend or Ffolk, in what became known as the Scouring of the Utter East. The Grand Caliph saw the people as only heathens and barbarians, the land as infected and ravaged, which he had no plans to occupy. Their bloody work done by the time autumn fell, they boarded their sambuks and sailed home again.

They left behind a wasteland, of burned and ruined cities, of corpses rotting where they'd fallen. The Five Kingdoms were in chaos, but the Mar had, at least, survived. They stood up and demanded their freedom, and the Ffolk, weary and sick of warfare, yielded it, however reluctantly. Nevertheless, they still had no land of their own, nor were they heard in the royal courts. This state of affairs continued for centuries.

Modern history
The Year of Rogue Dragons, 1373 DR, saw Shining Lands merchants journey to the Utter East, as well as to places as far-flung as Waterdeep, Zakhara, and even Maztica, in order to purchase wares for trade.

Magic
The Utter East had a local magic unfamiliar to the spellcasters of Faerûn.

Background
The "Utter East" was first mentioned in the original Forgotten Realms Campaign Set (1987), but where it actually lay has varied over subsequent sourcebooks, with earlier lore altered to refer to different locations. On page 81 of the Cyclopaedia of the Realms, it is said that ivory from the Utter East arrives in Suzail, but the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 2nd edition: A Grand Tour of the Realms (1993), page 55, changes this to the Unapproachable East. Forgotten Realms Adventures (1990) on page 105 refers to the "mysterious Utter East", but says this is Kara-Tur. Page 45 of the Campaign Set's DM's Sourcebook of the Realms mentions the Blue Diamond, a flying ship created in the Utter East, but The Shining South (1993) associates these skyships with Halruaa. The The Forgotten Realms Atlas (1990) finally located the Utter East, placing it beyond the far south and east corner of Faerûn, somewhere past Ulgarth, and joining Zakhara. The Shining South followed suit (but with a reference to Horde barbarians in the plains east of Ulgarth, it may have been referred the Hordelands and Kara-Tur). Nevertheless, Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3rd edition (2001), page 209, still describes the Golden Way as connecting Faerûn and the "Utter East"—meaning Kara-Tur.

The Utter East became the site of the Blood & Magic computer game in 1996, which set a rather typical European-style fantasy setting in the area, rather than the expected Eastern-style setting that would fit with surrounding cultures. The Utter East was developed further in 1998, with the novels Faces of Deception, the Realms of Mystery short story "Darkly, Through a Glass of Ale", and the Double Diamond Triangle Saga all published in that year and set in and around the Utter East. These all made efforts to use details from the Blood & Magic game and to incorporate Asian elements so it better suited the area.

With no further development or appearances, the area was later forgotten and remained little known to fans. Eventually, however, discussions on the Wizards of the Coast forums (now deleted) rediscovered the area. Following the popular "Kara-Tur Redux" thread, interest grew in the Utter East, prompting Mark "Markustay" Taylor to start the "Utter East Campaign + MAP!!!" thread for research, speculation, and homebrew development, with the goal of producing a fan-written netbook. No netbook was produced, but some related articles were written for Candlekeep Compendiums. The thread was long-running, being active from June 2007 to June 2009. The thread produced a great deal of speculation and fanon on the Utter East, and author Brian R. James used some of this in The Grand History of the Realms (2007), marking an instance of homebrew fanon becoming canon lore.

Appearances

 * Novels:
 * Faces of Deception
 * Double Diamond Triangle Saga
 * Realms of Mystery: "Darkly, Through a Glass of Ale"


 * Games:
 * Blood & Magic