Thirty-seven Elves, Human and Halflings had been chosen to leave their homeland in order to colonize a newly-discovered continent. As they went through the checkpoints at Waterdeep Harbor, they waited for the signal that they could board their sailing ship, the Erantiel, for the oceanic voyage.
The Erantiel was an Elven sailing ship that had been part of the group of ships that discovered the still yet-to-be-named continent. The Waterdeep city council, under the direction of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Faerun, hand-picked the first of five colonization groups to establish a Faerun presence and claim to this new continent. The Erantiel's entire crew were Elves. Elves tended to make the best sailors and navigators. No one knew exactly why. Most Elves just seemed better at it than Humans, Halflings or any other race.
The discovery voyage had taken four months to reach the new continent. The ships did not take a direct course at that time, but the greatest cartographers of Faerun determined that a straight sail would only take three months.
The Erantiel's captain finally sounded the gong to signal the passengers to board. He was a slim, built, middle-aged Elf who looked as if he'd spent his entire life at sea and couldn't stand to be in the harbor. A man who enjoyed his family, his wife was the ship's galley ship and his son had just been promoted to Ship's Mate. The sight of all these families boarding his ship to start a new life brought a tear of joy to his eye.
When the Erantiel set sail from Waterdeep Harbor, everyone was excited. In three months, they would be establishing their new homes in the new colony of Rhodesia. There was only one problem. The ship made landfall in less than two weeks. The Captain and the Ship's Mate couldn't understand. This island wasn't on any of the maps of the Great ocean. It was like it had just appeared out of nowhere.
Explorations of the island were made. It was established that it was three times the size of the city of Waterdeep. Towards the center of the island was a small forested area. In it was a cave where a large circular object was found.
It looked to be made of stone with letters that looked slightly Elvish. It wasn't Faerun Elvish, but some of the older Elves could recognize it. "It's Drow," one of them said. "I can't read it, but I know the basic letters."
Many stories were then told about the Great Drow War. For centuries, the High Elves, the Humans and Halflings fought a major war against an evil race of Elves, called the Drow. The Drow had established a great empire through their enslavement of other races like the Dwarves, Goblins, Trolls and Bugbears. Since the Drow couldn't function well in direct sunlight, most of the daytime battles were fought against their minions.
Their constant attacks from seemingly nowhere was found to be available to them because they had an extensive underground network of caverns--even an entire underground city. Seven centuries of battle ended abruptly one day when the Drow suddenly vanished. There had been a few reported sightings of Drow activity, but no one had seen a Drow in more than four hundred years. They were gone and so were most of their artifacts.
This was the first noted sighting of any Drow artifact in decades. Now, the group was standing in front of possibly the largest artifact ever found.
Now, everyone was ready to get news of this find back to Faerun and the wizards in Waterdeep. But when the group returned to the ship, it wasn't there.
