The
Border Kingdoms are little more than names on a map to most folk
in the Heartlands of Faerūn. Only a few sages and well-traveled
merchants know anything useful about them, thanks to their ever-changing
nature, and travel there being hampered by incessant Borderer
wars with each other and land-hungry satraps of Calimshan.
According to the sage Meriadas of Westgate: "The Border
Kingdoms are the most favored destination for adventurers who
want to proudly and boldly conquer a realm or establish their
own new kingdom. Lords, counts, dukes, kings and emperors rise,
proclaim themselves, and are swept away with the speed and regularity
of waves crashing upon a shore. What comes to our ears... are
ac stream of amusing or colorful little tales of their most daring,
disastrous, or funny deeds.
"Few folk go there except those who want to carve out a
place for themselves with a sword.... Borders and even the names
of the realms they define change with each passing month and even
tenday; there is no such thing as an accurate history or even
map of the Border Kingdoms (which are named thus) because they
stand in the way of Calishite expansion, their turmoil and stubborn
strength defining the eastern border of that proud realm... south
of the Lake of Steam... the Border Kingdoms spread east and south
to take in all the lands drained by the River Scelptar as far
as the Shieldmaidens (the hills at the western end of the Firesteap
Mountains, just east of The Duskwood) and the rising land that
defines the northern edge of the vast rolling grasslands known
as The
Shaar."
If you would travel there, Meriadas adds: "Take strong spells,
trusty friends, and sharp swords, and you may live long enough
to have a brief look around."
The infamous mage Elminster warns that the Border Kingdoms are
"riddled with wild magic, as a tattered cloak covers much
but not all of the beggar beneath it."
