What Is Faerûn?
Explore Faerûn, the vast continent at the heart of the Forgotten Realms, where kingdoms, ancient ruins, magic, and adventure collide.
G.R. Vinces5 min read
What Is Faerûn?
Welcome to the Forgotten Realms · Reading 3 of 8
If Toril is the world, Faerûn is where most journeys begin.
It is a vast continent of crowded cities, isolated kingdoms, frozen wildernesses, ancient forests, sprawling deserts, and ruins left behind by civilizations whose names have nearly disappeared from memory. 1
For many adventurers, Faerûn is effectively the heart of the Forgotten Realms.
But it isn’t a single kingdom, culture, or civilization.
It’s an entire continent.
And no two corners of it are quite the same.
A Continent of Many Realms
Faerûn is divided into many distinct regions, each shaped by its own geography, cultures, powers, and history. 2
Along its western edge lies the Sword Coast, home to some of the most recognizable cities in the Forgotten Realms: Waterdeep, Neverwinter, and Baldur’s Gate. 3
Travel north and the landscape becomes colder and increasingly unforgiving. Beyond the more settled lands lies Icewind Dale, a remote region of tundra, mountains, and isolated communities. 4
Journey south and the climate changes dramatically. Eventually, travelers can reach Chult, a peninsula of dense jungles, ancient ruins, and dangerous creatures. 5
Farther east lie lands with histories and powers entirely their own, including Thay, the homeland of the infamous Red Wizards. 6
Faerûn isn’t one place.
It’s hundreds of places sharing the same continent.
The World Beneath the World
Even the surface tells only part of the story.
Far beneath Faerûn lies an enormous network of caverns, tunnels, subterranean settlements, and underground realms known collectively as the Underdark. 7
Entire societies exist there far removed from the surface.
The Underdark contains settlements associated with peoples such as the drow, duergar, and deep gnomes, as well as creatures and civilizations adapted to a world without sunlight. 8
Places such as Menzoberranzan, Gracklstugh, and Blingdenstone lie within this subterranean world.
In some places, the distance between the familiar surface and the Underdark might begin with something as simple as a cave, tunnel, or forgotten passage descending into the earth.
Faerûn has layers.
Sometimes literally.
A Land Built on Ruins
The continent’s present-day realms exist amid the remains of civilizations much older than themselves.
Elven realms once controlled great territories. Dwarven kingdoms rose beneath mountains. Human civilizations discovered increasingly powerful forms of magic.
Among the greatest of those human civilizations was Netheril.
The Netherese became masters of arcane magic, and their civilization became famous for extraordinary magical achievements—including enclaves that could rise into the sky.
Eventually, Netheril fell.
But like so many civilizations in Faerûn, its story didn’t simply disappear.
Ruins, artifacts, lost magic, abandoned strongholds, and the consequences of ancient events continue to shape the world thousands of years later.
That’s one reason adventuring feels almost inevitable here.
There is always something left to find.
A Place Where Individuals Matter
Faerûn is enormous, but its history isn’t shaped only by kingdoms and armies.
Archmages, religious leaders, factions, adventurers, monsters, and other powerful individuals can exert enormous influence over the world around them.
Magic makes that influence even greater.
A sufficiently powerful spellcaster can threaten a city.
An ancient magical object can become the center of a conflict.
A forgotten ruin can contain something capable of changing events far beyond the people who first discover it.
And a handful of adventurers who begin with relatively small problems can eventually find themselves involved in events affecting entire regions.
That possibility is fundamental to adventuring in the Forgotten Realms.
The world is ancient and enormous.
But individuals still matter.
And despite all the distant kingdoms, buried empires, magical catastrophes, and unexplored wildernesses scattered across Faerûn, many of its most famous adventures cluster along one particular stretch of its western coast.
A place of independent cities, dangerous roads, ancient ruins, ambitious merchants, powerful factions, and an almost unreasonable number of adventurers.
The Sword Coast.
Sources & Further Reading
Sources & Further Reading
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Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn (Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2025), introduction, “Welcome to Faerûn,” and chap. 2, “A Guide to the Realms,” especially “Regions of the Realms.” The current setting guide divides Faerûn into regions including Anauroch, the Arcane Empires, Forgotten Lands, Heartlands, Lands of Intrigue, the North, Old Empires, Sword Coast, Trackless Sea, and Vilhon Reach. Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn
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Wizards of the Coast, Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide (Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2015), chaps. 1–2, especially “The Sword Coast and the North”; Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn, chap. 2, “Sword Coast.” Official D&D material identifies Waterdeep, Neverwinter, and Baldur’s Gate as major Sword Coast cities. Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
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Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerûn (Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2025), regional gazetteer; Wizards of the Coast, “The Forgotten Realms,” D&D Beyond, which identifies Icewind Dale and Chult among the regions adventurers can explore beyond the Sword Coast. The Forgotten Realms — D&D Beyond
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Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn, chap. 6, “Factions of the Realms,” especially “Red Wizards”; Wizards of the Coast, Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, chap. 1.
Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn - ↩
Wizards of the Coast, Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, chap. 2, “The Underdark.” Official D&D material identifies Underdark settlements including Menzoberranzan, Gracklstugh, and Blingdenstone.
Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide - ↩
Wizards of the Coast, Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide, chap. 1, “A Brief History”; Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn, chap. 2, “A Guide to the Realms.” These sources provide the historical context for Faerûn’s succession of civilizations, realms, and magical upheavals.
Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide - ↩
Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn, chap. 2, particularly its treatment of the Arcane Empires and Netherese legacy. Netheril’s magical history will receive its own dedicated Talestra collection later, so this Reading deliberately keeps the subject introductory.
Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn - ↩
Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn, introduction, “A World of Epic Heroes,” and chaps. 5–6, “Magic of Faerûn” and “Factions of the Realms”; Wizards of the Coast, Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerûn (2025). The current setting explicitly frames Faerûn as a world of powerful heroes, factions, magic, and region-spanning adventures.
Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn
Bibliography
- Wizards of the Coast. Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerûn. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2025.
Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerûn — D&D Beyond - Wizards of the Coast. Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2025. Especially chap. 2, “A Guide to the Realms”; chap. 5, “Magic of Faerûn”; chap. 6, “Factions of the Realms”; and the “Atlas of Faerûn.”
Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn — D&D Beyond - Wizards of the Coast. Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 2015. Especially chap. 1, “Welcome to the Realms,” and chap. 2, “The Sword Coast and the North.”
Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide — D&D Beyond - Wizards of the Coast. “The Forgotten Realms.” D&D Beyond. 2025.
The Forgotten Realms — D&D Beyond
