• c. -1720 DR

  • The Netherese begin to explore Seros. They establish three crystal-doomed, subsea colonies - Cuulmath, Werapan, and Quelauuvis - on the continental shelf off the land that will become Sembia (over the Plains of Duna), which is within claimed territories of the elves and merfolk. Netherese mages either keep Aryselmalyn forces at bay or enslave any Serosians that enter their sphere of influence. The colonies are collectively called Deep Netheril. »

  • 655 DR [Year of the Volanth]

  • Three years of war destroys the two Axe Kingdoms of the merrow along the Dragon Coast and Sembia coasts. The Axe Kingdoms of Khuur and Nmalk are the last pretenses of "civilized" merrow in Seros. »

  • 727 DR [Year of the Purloined Throne]

  • Rise of Keryvyr
    Unnoticed during the Tenth Seros War, sea elves clear and resettle a portion of the cliffs above the Haunted Plains (the Bay of Yhaunn off Sembia). Within twenty-five years, this grows into a string of cities and outposts spanning the western cliffs. »

  • The sea elves of Seros establish Keryvyr in a section of the cliff overlooking the Haunted Plains (present-day Bay of Yhaunn off Sembia). »

  • 748 DR [Year of the Coin]

  • Flostren's Hold is bought out by a consortium of Sembian merchants from Chancelgaunt who are later known as the Twelve Lords. »

  • 884 DR [Year of the Singing Arrows]

  • The Battle of Singing Arrows
    The elves destroy a large mercenary force in the Dragonreach coastal Chondathan human settlements that have commonly become known as Sembia. This even frustrates human plans to conquer all of what is now Cormyr and the Dales, brings the survival of the Sembian colony into doubt, and delays the eventual founding of an independent Sembia. »

  • 902 DR [Year of the Queen's Tears]

  • Sammaster and his cult create the first dracolich, Shargrailer through a ritual that is transcribed in the Tome of the Dragon, a holy relic that is later used by the many cells of the Cult of the Dragon to raise their own dracolich allies. The First Speaker (Sammaster) uses Shargrailer as a potent weapon against the former colonies of Chondath (later to become Sembia), and the Dragon Cult's coffers begin to overflow. The ranks of Sammaster's followers grows quickly, and new cells are started in Chancelgaunt (now Selgaunt) and Yhaunn. »

  • The Rotting War
    The bitter civil war in Chondath earns its title as necromantic magic decimates the battlefield on the Fields of Nun. Plague soon sweeps throughout the land. Chondath breaks up into a nation of loosely aligned city-states. »

  • 913 DR [Year of the Watching Raven]

  • Sembia founded under the Raven banner, the personal emblem of Rauthauvyr "the Raven", a human war-leader who gathered and commanded a standing army to police the roads of the fledgling human territory. Rauthauvyr forces the elves to allow a road through their forests, linking the northwestern shore of the Sea of Fallen Stars to the Moonsea, ensuring the growth and prosperity of Sembia. Hailed as the founder of the realm, he refuses to rule it, preferring to serve a succession of elected-by-merchant-council "evermasters" until he grew old and infirm - whereupon he rode off alone into the forest, never to be seen by humans again. »

  • 916 DR [Year of the Sinhala]

  • With Sammaster's apparent downfall, it leads to the first schism among the Followers of the Scaly Way - some followers remain loyal to the memory of the First Speaker and continue to operate openly, while others followed Algashon into secrecy and exile, first to Urmlaspyr and then west and north into the Western Heartlands and the North. Most cells are eventually forced by their enemies to follow Algashon into hiding or face extinction. This allows Algashon to return to Sembia and becomes the first of the Wearers of Purple. However, Algashon's view of the organization as primarily religious, commanding obedience to the Sacred Ones and Bane, soon clashed with the beliefs of the more pragmatic adherents, who saw the Dragon Cult as a means to further their own personal power. In time, the latter group found a leader in the archmage Tuelhalva Drakewings, but open skirmishing between the two sects soon force the Drakewings faction into hiding. »

  • 982 DR [Year of the Scythe]

  • Jorthan Twocastle, a lovable rogue who served the a Tymoran temple in Sembia and member of the Brave Broadsword Band, escapes from the lair of the red dragon, Thungarbarath in the Thunder Peaks with a handful of coin and the Flame of the Spirit (an artifact of Tymora). Jorthan is the only member to survive.

    Jorthan tries to sell the Flame in Archenbridge, but Jorthan did not known that only worshippers of Tymora may handle the artifact and not be burned by it. An interested merchant is engulfed in flames and no one shows any further interest in the Flame.

    Jorthan hides the Flame in one of the Brave Broadsword's favorite caches: an empty coffin in the Mulsiner family crypt deep within Ordulin's Graveyard of the Sleeping Gryphon and hires on as a caravan guard. When he returns, the Flame is gone. Not knowing what to do next, Jorthan forgets about the Flame and moves on with his life.

    He eventually tells his tale years later, as he lay dying in the care of the monks of Old Hazard Hill Farm, a monastic Tymoran retreat north of Huddagh. »

  • 997 DR [Year of the Fearful Harper]

  • The Scepter of Mystra if discovered by merfolk and sold to a Calishite merchant, who then sells it in a bazaar in Schamedar. Its purchaser, Kloroth of the Seven Curses, discovers another power of the Scepter. An arcane worshiper of Mystra or a priest of Mystra can cast spells that are beyond his ability while holding the Scepter. Kloroth uses it to create a series of permanent gates in an attempt to create a fast trade network between the Sword Coast (Waterdeep in particular) and the Inner Sea lands (Sembia). However, the Scepter had another ability that got in the way of Kloroth's plans. If the permanency spell is used in conjunction with the other ability that Kloroth discovered, the Scepter permanently polymorphs the user randomly. Kloroth thus acquired an eight curse, this one personal (the other seven had been spells he had cast on opponents). Kloroth was changed into a shrieker mushroom in a dark street in Selgaunt.

    The Scepter changes hands six times that night. Dawn finds the last one to claim the Scepter to be an older and wiser Naerlus "Flamespell" Anarthandyer, who had been forced to flee the Sword Coast when he had lost the Scepter the first time and found himself facing many roused foes. After slaying the previous owner with spells that caused his arms to change into tentacles, Naerlus flees through Klauth's gate, and finds himself in Skullport. A mind flayer promptly slays Naerlus and flees into Undermountain with the Scepter. The illithid is in turn slain by drow, who then gets lost in Undermountains labyrinth, and dies. »

  • 1101 DR [Year of the Maelstrom]

  • The city of Treshla, north of Saelmur and the Lake of Steam, is destroyed by a group of beholders from the nearby Thornwood.

    The Balance of Belaros (an artifact of Tyr) installed in the High Hall of Justice, remains where it was floating, even though the building around it has fallen.

    It next comes to the attention of some followers of Tyr in the Masked Marilith, a shop that solid rare and unique treasures in Saerloon, in Sembia. The proprietor of that establishment admitted to Tyrran inquisitors that he purchased the Balance from an anonymous mage who said he had given up on trying to discover the true powers of the thing. The Masked Marilith and its owner are destroyed by meteor swarms shortly thereafter, probably sent by the same mage. The buyer of the Balance is a notorious merchant rogue named Luuthateel Dree who is driven by a hunger for immortality and sought to buy any magic that might help him achieve his goal. Tyrran priests offered him a choice between magical longevity (the most their powers could grant) and death, but Luuthateel escaped them, reputedly into the Underdark, and the Balance vanished again.

    It has been seen twice at market fairs in Silverymoon and Berdusk since then, but has never fallen into the hands of the faithful of Tyr. The Tyrrans have gone so far as to accuse the Harpers of keeping it from them. This accusation has been vigorously denied, and even Lady Cylyria Dragonbreast offered to undergo questioning under detect lie spells cast by Holy Justices. »

  • 1180 DR [Year of Sinking Sails]

  • Sembia losses its fleet in the Pirate Isles to the depredations of the pirate Immurk the Invincible. »

  • 1187 DR [Year of the Arcane Guise]

  • The Key of Faith (an artifact of Oghma) first surfaces in Sembia, when a merchant by the name of Feldro comes to the Hall of Scrolls in Ordulin (a fledgling "rent-and-read" library founded and maintained by Oghmanyte clergy). He begins babbling about a "Holy Quest" of which the Wise God had spoken to him at a chance meeting in the backlands. The Lord Librarian of the Hall receives a dream-vision that featured a frowning Oghma pointing sternly at Feldro!

    So it was that the Holy Quest for the Key began, drawing Oghmanyte priests from all over Faerun to the Hall. Priests of Bane, who had long battled the priests of the Binder for influence in upland Sembia, sees an opportunity to rid themselves fo many rivals at a stroke. They summon literally tons of monsters down onto the roof of the Hall without warning, and the fell creatures infested the Hall. The Banites spread word that Oghmanytes dabbled in dark beast-magics and had died by thier own misadventures, and the Hall and most of the Sembian priesthood of Oghma perished in one afternoon.

    The surviving priests of Oghma set forth on two quests, one to slay two Banite priests for every Oghmanyte killed in the collapse of the Hall, and the other to find the Key.

    Of all the priests of Oghma who undertook the Holy Quest, only 26 reached the final room. Oghma declares the quest fulfilled, and that the Key is not ment to travel the Realms. After each priest touched the Key, if vanished. It is understood that the Key would lie in dungeons and lairs and ruins and tombs, to be found by adventurers, to be serve them briefly and then vanish of its own accord. »

  • 1188 DR [Year of the Soft Fogs]

  • Pryntaler Obarskyr meets with a group of Sembians, consisting of Kodlos, Homfast, Lady Threnka, Old Bennesey and Jollitha Par to discuss the border between Cormyr and Sembia and the ownership of Marsember.

    During the discussions that lasted many days, Pryntaler is attacked by an abraxus, which poisons Juarkin and Thessilion Crownsilver. The High Wizard of Cormyr, Jorunhast, disables the abraxus and it is used as a diplomatic tool to force the Sembians to concede that Marsember is now part of Cormyr and the Thunder Gap is the border between the two nations. »

  • 1201 DR [Year of Embers]

  • Death of Immursk the Invincible (pirate) aboard his ship, Sea Scorpian, while fighting a Sembian warship. By this time, the pirate fleets of the Inner Sea is judged to have over 100 ships. »

  • 1294 DR [Year of the Deep Moon]

  • Methlas had at this time amassed nearly 40 ships to his fleet. He had intended to build over 50 ships before embarking on open piracy, but was murdered by his lieutenant Thevren. Thevren immediately raids the Sembian cities of Selgaunt and Saerloon. The Sembians, having no idea that a force of this size sailed the Inner Seas, was caught totally off guard. After 3 days of looting, Thevren's fleet left laden with booty and either seized or sunk every war vessel in the two harbors.

    The Sembians seek immediate retribution, but their entire naval fleet is gone. They appeal to Cormyr for assistance, but the sent message is somehow misunderstood, and the ambassador from Sembia accuses the Cormyrean Freesails of the attack and demanded immediate reparations. Cormyr of course denies the charges, but the resulting confusion prevents any significant force from being mustered against Thevren and his pirates. »

  • Soon after his famous pirate attack on Sembia, Thevren is poisoned by Thilana, her mistress (who was the mistress of Methlas before Thevren had murdered him). Thilana assumes leadership of the pirates, but she does not captain any ship.

    Thilana resumes Methlas' plan, reviving Immursk's system of informants in the various coastal cities of the Sea of Fallen Stars. Using these informants, she strikes out against easy targets, and those ships that are unable to retaliate. A ship here and a small convoy there soon leads to an extensive hoard. »

  • 1306 DR [Year of Thunder]

  • Moonsea War: Hulburg and Sulasspryn are defeated by Mulmaster. Mulmaster is later vanquished by an alliance between Sembia, Phlan, Hillsfar, Melvaunt, and Zhentil Keep. »

  • 1314 DR [Year of the Shadowtop]

  • The Leaves of Green (an artifact of Silvanus) is purchased in Scornubel by the merchant trader Aughen of Athkatla. Aughen had intended to take the tome to Sembia and there auction it, but his ship is sunk in Suzail by a golem rising up, appearing from the bottom of the harbor. In the wreck, the book vanishes again. »