#laerakond

This is the continent of Laerakond.

The Shalarin originally come from the Sea of Corynactis on the far side of Toril. That is true now, but what if it had not always been so.

In an alternate version what if the Sea of Corynactis was one of the areas of ocean surrounding the continent of Laerakond before the Tearfall.

What if the Sea of Corynactis was taken to Abeir along with Laerakond when the worlds were separated.

Thus the Shalarin are from a different world and at the same time hail from the Sea of Corynactis which returns to Abeir-Toril in -339 DR along with the rest of Laerakond.

The Shalarin exist in a rigid caste structure that exists from the moment they are conceived. This structure is so inherent to their nature that they even apply their behaviours to non-Shalarin. The origin of this caste system lies in the Shalarin's distant past when they were a servitor race to the batrachi before they ventured onto land. The batrachi modified the Shalarin to be naturally subservient and obedient, something that persists to the present day.

They were abducted to Toril by the Wildtide Gate which was constructed by Dagon who had a personal vendetta against the gods of the Shalarin who were also the gods of the batrachi and who foiled Dagon's plans to dominate that ancient creator race.

The premise for this article was based upon a single line in Grand History of the Realms "Human seafarers from the west name and settle the island of Ruathym in the Sea of Swords".

I had always pondered where the northmen could have come from. I always envisaged them as Viking raiders arriving on dragonboats to plunder and pillage the north, but there were few places in canon lore that they could have arrived from.

So I endeavoured to place them in my Laerakond, a place ruled by dragon overlords (inspiration for the fearsome dragonboats they plied the waters with) and populated with orcs that preyed upon the few humans that lived there.

However I was stuck for a way for them to access Toril from Abeir since the two planets were separated by dimension thanks to Ao. A rift in the place where Laerakond used to exist would allow access between the worlds, but in 30000 years no one else could find it or use it (and that's rather unlikely).

So Ao being a fairly omnipotent over-deity I figured would have blocked access through the rift, an antipathy effect (from my favourite super adventure The Night Below) would prevent people from passing through.

So then I needed to think of a way around it. And that's where I stumbled across the Haunghdannar dwarves, driven mad by a desire to travel the waves, they left Faerun in -3389 DR never to return.

All I needed now was a means for them to beat an antipathy effect created by the overgod of the entire crystal sphere. The only possible way to do this is if Ao had a hand. Even an overgod is not omniscient and can make mistakes so I had Ao's antipathy effect backfire.

The Haunghdannar turn mad, travel through the rift, break the antipathy and force out the humans on the islands that travel to Toril and become the Northmen.

The worlds Abeir and Toril were separated millennia ago by Ao in an effort to save the planet from destruction.

The separation was nearly perfect except for in a few places where the worlds collided. One such place was way out in the Trackless Sea, a rift between two worlds allowing travel between them.

In an effort to keep the worlds separated and prevent a resumption of hostilities between the primordial and the gods, Ao placed a powerful antipathy effect that would cause everyone to flee away from the rift. Such an effect placed by an overgod would be impossible to resist.

And so it was that in the Sword Coast, a dwarven priest of Marthammor Duin was magically scouting the sea for the next exploration expedition. He just happened to scry the exact location of the rift and peering through the other side he was affected by the antipathy placed by Ao.

The dwarf was drawn to the other side of the rift and the planet of Abeir. The antipathy effect was so powerful that it spread to all his fellow dwarves. Soon the entire nation set sail out into the depths of the Trackless Sea, searching for another world.

In tying together the timelines of Abeir and Toril, one event I got to keep was the landing of H'Calos, this time on the continent of Abeir.

This great devouring worm is a primordial all of his own, but with an aberrant twist. H'Calos the star worm supposedly came from a planet filled with beholders so I decided to work that link into the article.

Another inspiration for this article came from my favourite monster film of recent years, Cloverfield. I especially loved the scene where smaller monsters dropped from the enormous rampaging menace and set about killing the people.

By linking the two themes together I came up with an idea for the possible origin of beholders. A worm with a single eye and magic powers, spawned by H'Calos himself.

These worms burrow into the heads of their intended victims and then begin remodelling the skull so that the eye protrudes from the front. Then the worm begins to reproduce inside the host, filling every available cavity with dormant star worms. Once the host is killed, or the host is filled to capacity, the star worms burst forth and infest every living thing in the area.

Sometimes this process goes wrong and secondary star worms become active early, burrowing out the side of the skull to give the host additional eye stalks with magic powers. The host then over produces star worms becoming a horrific bloated monster.

The Sea of Fire was the birthplace of Xcorv‘inara‘dalace many millennia ago. It was originally fertile grassy plains full of life until the Tearfall occurred and many icy meteorites struck this area of Laerakond.

The force of so many space objects striking this section of Laerakond weakened the continental plate beneath it and caused the land to collapse, sinking it to just below sea level.

The grassy plains became a fetid stinking marshland full of disease, and it remained this way for millennia until another space object struck Laerakond.

This object was called H'Calos, and the meteor he was riding on smashed the continental plate, causing it to collapse completely. The seas rushed in and filled the chasm caused by H'Calos's landing. The magic/radiation of the meteor turned the sea a red colour and beneath the surface of the waves, huge rifts in the continental plate spew forth magma that gives off a deep orange glow. This is why the area is now called the Sea of Fire.

H'Calos quickly crawled out of his watery landing place and onto land, but he left behind numerous small creatures known as star worms. These parasites remain dormant on the sea bed waiting for living creatures to come nearby. When they awaken they burrow into the skull of the unfortunate creature and excavate his skull so that the single and now enlarged eye of the star worm is poking out.

From a stray paragraph of Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast I invented a whole alternate rational for Laerakond's existence.

The enormous peaks that once stood upon the coast of the Western Heartlands back in the mists of time were merely the beginnings of a vast mountain range large enough to rival the Yehimals.

This mountain range acted as a barrier between the lands of the primordial and the lands of the creator races and thus was dubbed the Barrier Mountains.

With the continents of Faerun and Laerakond separate onto different planets in different dimensions, the barrier mountains could no longer fill their original purpose.

In a land ruled by Dragon Overlords and populated by their orcish servants, the Barrier Mountains became a refuge for those outcasts that would not bow down to the dragons.

Here beneath the ground the orcs built a vast empire comparable to the dwarves of Delzoun or the Deep Realm. Here beneath the ground they stumbled upon an ancient primordial imprisoned long ago by his brothers.

Kraal was his name, and like all primordial of Abeir he slumbered in the magic poor environment. The orcs used ancient rituals to bind this creature so that they might borrow his powers.

His powers granted them great strength and endurance, but quickly the orcs began to spout uncontrollable growths and soon became unrecognisable monsters dubbed Kraaleckt.

These Kraaleckt infected anything they touched and their spread threatened the orcish empire beneath the mountains. To save themselves the orcs collapsed their cities and the tunnels and fled to the surface. Kraal and his spawn slumber beneath the mountain still waiting to be released.

Article 3 of Forgotten Realms Alternate Dimensions Issue 2 is a continuation of my alternate Laerakond articles which attempts to rejoin the twinned planets of Abeir and Toril way before the 4th edition changes.

Assuming the collapse of the weave causes the two planets to rejoin, then I reckon Abeir and Toril should have been forced back together in -339 DR when Mystryl died and the weave fell apart momentarily.

Of course the crucial thing is that many major events in Toril's history were linked to Laerakond as well. The Orcgate originally opened onto Abeir and through it poured countless Grey Orcs. The Wild-Tide gate opened onto Abeir and kidnapped whole generations of Shalarin at a time.

In this alternate Laerakond the dragons that rule are now affected by the dracorage of 1018 DR and 1373 DR which is enough to shatter their stranglehold on the continent.