THE LORDLESS COUNTRY
Daggerdale Down Recent Years
A land of dark forested ravines and rock outcrops that break up a landscape of
rolling hills, ranches, small homestead farms, and overgrown abandoned steadings,
Daggerdale to those who keep to its dirt lanes is a place of many wandering streams
and ponds that appear on no map, no signposts, hardy local folk who want to be left
alone, and danger.
It acquired the nickname “the Lordless Country” in the early 1300s DR not because
it had no lord, but because orc and hobgoblin and bugbear raiding bands, prowling
hungry predator monsters, and Zhent raids were all so numerous that it might as
well not have had a lord. The lord either controlled Dagger Falls and not much
else, or spent his days “riding hard to the rescue” all over the dale, with a small
armed band, so he resembled more an independent adventuring band than a ruler and
his army.
Woodlots and untamed woodlands where forests are swallowing farms left fallow by
the dead are everywhere, and anyone seeking a living in Daggerdale who isn’t a
farmer is almost always a forester: a hunter, a trapper (after both food and furs),
or a woodcutter—or all three. (Adventurers and “gleaners,” either prospectors—for
emeralds can be found in the Dagger Hills, and iron nigh-everywhere in the dale—or
herb-seekers, make up the few folk behind that “almost.”) The overall population is
so low that game remains more abundant than every other dale in the Dalelands.
Bandits are almost as locally numerous as the prowling monsters, and the constant
peril has forced surviving Dagnaer (as they have become known over the last decade)
to fortify their homesteads, and hardened them to fear and mistrust outsiders, so
that outside Dagger Falls, only a few minstrels and peddlers are trusted, and other
newcomers shunned. Most dale farmers no longer try to keep livestock beyond a few
“milk cows” or goats, though there are small herds of sheep east of (downriver
along the Tesh from) Dagger Falls.
Dagger Falls Today
The most recent Lord of Daggerdale, elderly and ailing Barathal Cormaeril, went
missing a winter back—leaving a lot of spilled blood behind, so it seems very
likely he was slain.
However, the lack of a body, plus an aggressive denunciation by a visiting Harper,
Talatha Duirmyre, who very loudly claimed that the Zhentarim had killed Lord
Barathal when he refused to be blackmailed or bribed into cooperating with them,
and the coincidence that a wealthy Sembian was visiting Dagger Falls and openly
supported her in these beliefs, abetted by a Cormyrean noble who was passing
through and pointedly reminded everyone that there are other living Cormaerils, has
stalled anyone’s swift move to put their own replacement on the Dagger Throne. So
uneasy political maneuverings in the form of backroom whisperings and daggers
wielded bloodily in alleys now hold sway in Dagger Falls.
The local church of Loviatar has stepped forward to try to put an “Acting Lord” in
place to at least govern the Lord’s Retinue (Lord Cormaeril’s army), but are being
resisted—in part because it’s an increasingly open secret that the Dagnaer worship
of Loviatar is covertly financed by the Zhents, who see it as a way to ultimately
controlling the settlements of Daggerdale from within.
Dagger Falls and the rest of the dale are also home to spies supported by
Shadowdale, spies hired by Sembia and by Cormyr, and other spies who are visiting
Harpers.
Complicating matters still more, clumsy Zhent attempts to infiltrate the Lord’s
Retinue from within led to open infighting in its upper ranks, and it has
splintered into “the Watch of Dagger Falls” (ninety strong, mostly cynical veteran
fighters, afoot) and an almost rebel “The Watch Without” force of thirty-odd
mounted warriors. The latter still tries to patrol the major roads of the dale,
from a base in Castle Daggerdale. If either of these new forces tried to call on
local village militias (as the Lord’s Retinue did on three occasions), they may or
may not be heeded by any answer to their calls.
Which of course may mean certain Zhentarim—and independent adventurers, for that
matter—see this as an ideal time to make a bid for The Dagger Throne.
Which, by the way, is now said to be haunted. By the muttering ghost of Randal
Morn, some say. By his grandsire Colderan Morn, others believe. Or by this or that
long-dead king (Aencar) or lich or dragon; the array of rumors is impressively
broad. The tales agree that whoever sits on the throne gets frequent advice—and
criticism, and irascible comments—whispered into their minds.
The Countryside
Daggerdale has increasingly become a home to devout worshippers of Malar, who run
frequent “holy hunts” that try to seek out and take down large and impressive
monsters but usually end up battling wolves, spiders prowling out of Spiderhaunt
Wood, and raiding bands of orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, and bugbears.
Far rarer explorers of the dale are drow warbands or outcast driders, but handfuls
of dwarven adventurers seeking to repopulate the fallen dwarf realm of Tethyamar
come up from beneath the Desertsmouth Mountains to eliminate drow whenever they
find them, and have—barely—managed to keep drow from establishing any lasting
presence in Daggerdale.
The elves of Cormanthor seldom have anything to do with the dale, but ruthlessly
slaughter or drive back drow, dwarves, and Zhents from expanding south and east,
and so keep Daggerdale something of (as an old farmer of Shadowdale once put it) a
“wilderland war cauldron.”
A Little Recent History
After the founding Morn family was succeeded by the Cormaerils from Cormyr (Randal
Morn’s younger sister Silver, the last known member of the blood of Morn—though
there are some hidden others who don’t realize their heritage, something that may
some day become important—married into the Cormaerils), the Zhentarim made several
attempts to seize the dale.
These failed in large part because they were Zhentarim tests for the ambitious
Zhents who led them, more than they were concerted efforts to invade and conquer
(envoys from the elves of Cormanthor, the city of Hillsfar, and the kingdom of
Cormyr all warned the Zhentarim that openly seizing Daggerdale would be considered
an act of war worth responding to by hunting down and slaying Zhents everywhere).
Then a dragon’s raids devastated the dale and made it “not worth conquering” to the
Zhents, who were really after the fabled riches of Tethyamar—and full control of
the strongholds of the fallen dwarven realm as an anchor for their across-Anauroch
trade route linking the Moonsea with the Sword Coast. They revised their plans;
taking Daggerdale would now happen down the road, after the verdant valley of the
Tesh and Tethyamar at its head were firmly in Zhent hands.
In the meantime, the Zhents (who were encountering enemies on many fronts as they
sought to expand, and valued control of the rich metal mines north of the Moonsea
over all else aside from rebuilding Zhentil Keep itself) decided a more covert
approach to “backwater, afterthought” Daggerdale was advisable.
Daggerdale Now
What little hope and aid the folk of Daggerdale receive comes from Shadowdale
(preferential prices on needed daily goods, such as tools, weapons, and textiles)
and, surprisingly, from the Zhentarim rebuilding Zhentil Keep, who eventually want
to develop Daggerdale into their “breadbasket” food source (under their own puppet
lord, as Malyk was in the mid-1300s DR). They have spies not only among the folk
living in the settlements of Daggerdale (including some smiths, carpenters, and
roofers) but roaming the countryside—and these roamers include some shapeshifters
of various sorts. However, most werewolves encountered in Daggerdale, notably the
numerous weres of the Dagger Hills, are likely longtime residents of the dale, or
have settled there from elsewhere, such as the Hullack region of Cormyr.
A recent rumor among the dwarves who surreptitiously visit Tethyamar often, keeping
a close eye on Zhent explorations, claims a beholder working with several illithids
has skulked unseen into the wilderlands of the western dale, seeking dragon eggs
that were hidden there in magical stasis, to hatch at separate, scattered future
times. Four or five eggs, most spreading these whispers say, though it’s not known
which dragon—or even which sort of dragon—left them, or why, or if it was someone
else who stole them. Is this how Manshoon “grew” his draconic steeds? The name of
the beholder, it seems, is Xuxulkh, and it came from the Vast.
Meanwhile, tension in Dagger Falls over the vacant Dagger Throne grows ever
greater, and bodies are often found in the alleys of mornings.
Daggerdale, as safe and peaceful as ever.
