The Time of Glorious Fools

EN,’ as one elven writer of the time put it, ‘breed almost as recklessly as the burners’ [orcs]. Their swelling numbers, aided by immigration as much as by birth, soon pushed the former inhabitants and predators of The Vast back into the mountains and wilder foothills. There seemed a higher number of those who cheerfully seek out adventure among men than among the other races, too. Bards of The Vast sometimes call this ‘The Time of Glorious Fools,’ after the many adventurers who took on hopeless odds and, astonishingly, won almost as often as they perished.

As soon as good roads linked Mulmaster on the Moonsea and Procampur and Tsurlagol on the Inner Sea to the rest of The Vast, and several years of bountiful harvests followed, human rule of The Vast was assured. The ports of Calaunt, Tantras, and Sarbreen (later to be renamed Ravens Bluff) quickly found use by trading vessels from Sembia, Impiltur, Westgate and Aglarond. Traders came seeking farm produce and selling fine cloth, iron-work, locks, and weapons. The harbours became trade-stops in addition to their established uses as pirate rest and repair stops and immigrant-ship landing places. Men explored the nearer and more accessible mines in the area, and prospered further.

Three events cast temporary shadows on this time of growing prosperity. Firstly the growth of the pirate fleets in the Sea of Fallen Stars reached a peak in the Year of the Sinking Sails (1180 DR), when the powerful Sembian fleet was overwhelmed and sunk in the Pirate Isles. The responsibility for protecting sea trade across the Dragon Reach fell heavily on the warfleets from Procampur and Raven’s Bluff.

In the Year of the Black Horde (1235 DR) the population of the Vast suffered a resurgence of orcish raids. Some speculate that this was linked to the massing of the orcish tribes in the Far North – the biggest in recorded history.

Little more than twenty years later, the shadow of Pestilence was cast over the Vast in the Year of Beckoning Death (1253 DR) when plague swept across the region as well as neighbouring Cormyr and Sembia.

Next – The time of troubles

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