The Sundering
The Sundering refers to two events that occurred in the fictional timeline of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. It is also the title of both a series of novels published by Wizards of the Coast and a multimedia project Wizards of the Coast used to transition Dungeons & Dragons from 4th Edition to 5th Edition. This project explored the Second Sundering story and included the aforementioned book series, the free-to-play mobile game Arena of War developed by DeNA and an adventure series for the 4th Edition D&D Encounters program.
Plot summary
The First Sundering occurred in ancient times before humans came into Toril, at a time when elven high mages united to create the Evermeet lands. As a consequence of their powerful magic, the supercontinent of Merrouroboros was torn apart, creating what is now known as the Trackless Sea and the continents of Faerûn, Maztica and Katashaka, among other physical changes.The Second Sundering was equally cataclysmic, but occurred in recent times. Beginning in 1484 DR, about one hundred years after the onset of the Spellplague, natural disasters and calamities flashed across the planet Toril. Earthquakes, vast floodings, wars, droughts and volcanic eruptions tore the world apart, and by 1489 DR this Second Sundering had changed the world dramatically, both physically and culturally. The Spellplague had caused huge changes to the planet, but The Second Sundering reversed most of them.
''The Companions''
At the end of The Last Threshold, Drizzt Do'Urden is left mortally wounded and The Companions continues that story. The Companions of the Hall are reincarnated by the power of Mielikki in order to save Drizzt. However, Catti-brie, Regis, Bruenor Battlehammer, and Wulfgar must first live through 21 years of their new lives before they can attempt to save Drizzt. The book follows these characters through their new lives, their rediscovery of each other and their eventual coming together to save Drizzt in 1484 DR. While the Sundering story continues in The Godborn, the next series that follows these characters is the Companions Codex.''The Godborn''
The Godborn acts as a squeal to The Twilight War trilogy by Paul S. Kemp. The books follows Vasen, son of Erevis Cale, who was born 70 years in the future after his mother was sent forward in time by Mask, the god of shadows and thieves. Erevis was a chosen of Mask who had previously carried part of the god's divine essence. However, Vasen is raised under the faith of Amaunator, god of sun and law, and serves as a paladin. In 1484 DR, Vasen is discovered by companions of his father's and pulled into their conflict with Mephistopheles, an archdevil of the Nine Hells. Vasen and his companions rescue Erevis from Cania, the eighth layer of the Nine Hells, where Mephistopheles had imprisoned him. Vasen and Erevis then work together to stop Shar, goddess of darkness, from destroying the world by preventing the Cycle of Night. They succeed when Vasen uses the power of Amaunator to strip several characters of Mask's divine essence with the expectation that Erevis would take on this power of godhood. Afterwards, Riven convinces Erevis that it would be better for him to take on the power instead so Riven is then reborn as Mask.Publication history
The First Sundering was mentioned in "Lost Empires of Faerün" and "The Grand History of the Realms", and again in "Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide". The first two books are supplements written for D&D 3.5e and the later book is the official Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide for D&D 4e.The Second Sundering was first announced at Gen Con 2012 in anticipation of the upcoming version of the game, known at the time as D&D Next. Wizards of the Coast described it as a "cataclysm", and campaign setting creator Ed Greenwood further elaborated on the event as "war, gods, and plain folks trying to get by". At Gen Con 2013, Wizards of the Coast announced additional details of the Sundering event: six Forgotten Realms novels, an official adventure series for the 4th Edition D&D Encounters program with a tracking app called "The Sundering Adventurer's Chronicle", the free-to-play mobile game Arena of War developed by DeNA, a comic book series titled Thieves of Calimport, and a line of miniatures depicting characters from the event. The first novel, The Companions by R.A. Salvatore, was released the week before Gen Con 2013. Subsequent novels about the Second Sundering were published between 2013 and 2014, and became known as the Sundering series. The novels and adventures were released in a staggered, overlapping fashion and the adventures included the rules for the public D&D Next playtest. However, the announced comic book series was never released.
During Gen Con 2013, the public 5th Edition playtest was in full swing and saw the release of three Sundering themed adventures. Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle was the big public release adventure since it included the 5th Edition playtest rules followed by the Murder in Baldur’s Gate, the adventure for the 15th season of the 4th Edition D&D Encounters program, which became available for purchase shortly after the convention. While the third tie-in adventure, Confrontation at Candlekeep, acted as a prequel to the sixth novel The Herald, it did not become well known because it was originally only released to Dungeon Masters participating in the RPGA convention playthrough. Wizards of the Coast "reserved much of Hall D at the Indiana Convention Center so that the RPGA could run Confrontation at Candlekeep. The two-hour adventure was scheduled for 28 separate sessions, the first running from 8am to 10am on Thursday, August 15th and the last running from 2pm to 4pm on Sunday, August 18th. Each session could seat up to 176 players, which meant that Wizards had the capability to run almost 5,000 players through the D&D 5e adventure — enough to generate a great seed of interest when those players brought word of the new edition home to their own gaming groups". Confrontation at Candlekeep was then available at Pax Prime 2013 in a similar format and at a limited number of game stores as an event after the two conventions. The adventure only became available to the general public in October 2015.
The first adventure labeled as part of the Sundering adventure series, Murder in Baldur’s Gate, was also the first big change to the 4th Edition D&D Encounters program. Previously, Encounters seasons had distributed a limited amount of books for free. This new season allowed anyone to purchase the product which included 12 weeks of planned content. "The adventure itself was system-neutral, but Wizards included stats for D&D 3.5e, 4e, and 5e in the 'Monster Statistics' book. This move toward 5e saw one other big change in the Encounters program: it was the first Encounters program that was largely gridless, moving away from the extensive tactical maps that had defined the earlier seasons of Encounters play".
The second Sundering adventure, Legacy of the Crystal Shard, is set in 1485 DR and ran concurrently with The Adversary, the third novel of the Sundering. While Murder in Baldur’s Gate continued the style of weekly content in the Encounter program, Legacy of the Crystal Shard "totally broke away from Encounters' traditional style of play. There are no encounters; instead GMs are told to break up the adventure as they see fit over the ten weeks of play. The style of adventure is also quite different. Part of this is done through its inclusion of three different power brokers who are advancing evil agendas. Depending on which villains the players oppose, they might have to fight, politic, or roleplay". The third and fourth Sundering adventures, Dreams of the Red Wizards: Scourge of the Sword Coast and Dead in Thay, continued "the revamping of the D&D Encounters program". Both of these adventures were exclusively released in PDF form rather than as a physical product. While these adventures referenced the events of Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle as setup for their adventure story, the connection to specific events of the Sundering storyline were not explicit.
Dead in Thay also included two specific changes for the D&D Encounter program. First, it reintroduced the weekly encounter style that was removed in Legacy of the Crystal Shard by adding "specific encounters for the first and last week and confined plays to individual zones of a dungeon during each other week of play". Second, Dead in Thay added the Event Coordinator role which had previously been limited to convention adventures such as Vault of the Dracolich. "The Event Coordinator managed the interactions of multiple groups of players, all playing the same adventure. In Dead in Thay they might directly interact during the first and last weeks of play, but as they adventured through the dungeon, they could also change its state for subsequent parties. It allowed multiple groups in a game store to all interact in a meaningful way, really taking advantage of the environment that the Encounters programs was played in". Dead in Thay was designed for 6th to 8th level characters and was one of the few high level D&D Encounters adventures. An updated version of the adventure was published in the 5th Edition adventure anthology Tales from the Yawning Portal.
The result of The Second Sundering, in game terms, was the transition from 4th Edition rules to 5th Edition rules of Dungeons & Dragons, published in 2014. Liz Schuh, Head of Publishing and Licensing for Dungeons & Dragons, said:
The Sundering is the last of a series of ground-shaking events. It really affects the whole world of the Forgotten Realms in a major way. You may remember when the Spell Plagues began, the two worlds of the Forgotten Realms, Abeir and Toril, crashed together. That created both geographic changes, and also changed the way magic works. It changed the pantheon of the gods. The Sundering is all about those two worlds separating—coming apart—and the process of that separation is really the story that we’re telling over the next year. At the end of this story arc, Abeir and Toril will be separate again, and many of the things that happened when they crashed together will go back to the way they were before. So magic will be much like it was before the Spell Plague. Markings that marked spell-plagued people and animals will fade and go away. It’s really about moving the Forgotten Realms forward, but also about bringing it around to the most beloved and most fondly remembered Forgotten Realms.The 5th Edition campaign guide Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide describes the events of the First Sundering, the Spellplague, and the Second Sundering and the consequences of these events in game terms and lore. The term "Sundering" is now used indiscriminately to refer to either the original First Sundering or Second Sundering, when used in official game materials.
Reception
Curtis D. Carbonell, in the book Dread Trident: Tabletop Role-Playing Games and the Modern Fantastic, highlighted that the Sundering event used the transition to 5th edition to undo changes 4th edition brought to the Forgotten Realms. He wrote: "A new sundering was needed to return FR to its pre-Spellplague state. Such complexities are often beyond the interest of many players, but those who choose to unravel them face a historiography and an archive-building challenge of great magnitude. The latest articulation of FR, though, provides a workable solution because it has adjusted itself through the editions, enough so that even 4e can be situated into the multiverse".Novels
The Companions, the first book in The Sundering series, by R.A. Salvatore was nominated for the 2013 Goodreads Choice Awards Best Fantasy. The book was on the USA Today Best-Selling Books list for 1 week, with #68 as its best week. Kelly Jensen, for SF Crowsnest, wrote that the book "is utterly absorbing, surprising and wonderful. I have never read anything like it and I’ve been reading R.A. Salvatore’s books for years. There are stories within the story, threads of past and future. The book can be taken as both a beginning and an ending. It’s an ode to Drizzt and the bond of friendship, honour and loyalty. ‘The Companions’ is everything a fan of Salvatore and the Legend of Drizzt could hope for and more".Adventures
Alex Lucard, for Diehard GameFAN, highlighted the physical pieces of the first adventure, Murder in Baldur’s Gate, including a "a sixty-four page Campaign Guide which gives an incredibly in-depth look at Baldur’s Gate, the people who live there and nearby locations" and "a sturdy and glossy four piece DM screen". Lucard wrote "definitely consider Murder in Baldur’s Gate a must buy for any D&D fan, regardless of edition wars". Shannon Appelcline, author of Designers & Dragons, highlighted that it was the first time Baldur's Gate was "the main setting of a tabletop adventure". Appelcline commented that by selling the adventure instead of releasing a limited number of books for free "it gave D&D some much needed attention on gaming store shelves during a year where Wizards' schedule was otherwise filled with reprints of classic rule books and adventures. Second, it allowed Wizards to produce a much more comprehensive supplement".Lucard's review, for Diehard GameFAN, of the second adventure, Legacy of the Crystal Shard, highlighted again the physical pieces included in the adventure such as the DM screen, the 31 page adventure and the 63 page campaign guide to Icewind Dale and called it "an amazing collection". Lucard wrote "like the first Sundering adventure, the best part of Legacy of the Crystal Shard is by far the campaign guide. These campaign guides have been some of the best offering from Wizards in the past two editions and they are by far the most comprehensive pieces in the history of Dungeons & Dragons for the locations they cover. I know the package says adventure on the cover and in the description, but it’s actually a full campaign, similar to how Murder in Baldur’s Gate was actually ten adventures. It will take you roughly a dozen sessions to play out Legacy of the Crystal Shard to its end".
On the third adventure, Scourge of the Sword Cost, Lucard wrote: "while it’s not as good as Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, Murder in Baldur’s Gate or Legacy of the Crystal Shard, the campaign is better than any of the D&D Encounters pieces I’ve gone through in the past few years and it’s definitely a better experience than most published fourth edition adventures". Lucard commented that, unlike the first two adventures, Scourge of the Sword Cost was a pdf only product and was not system neutral. Lucard highlighted that the adventure "comes with a whopping 220 pages of various PDFs provided all the rules you will need to play D&D Next".
On the fourth adventure, Dead In Thay, Lucard wrote: "Unfortunately for the adventure side of the Sundering event, each adventure has been a step down from the previous one. Unfortunately, Dead in Thay not only continues this downward spiral. But the end result is a chaotic mess that is little more than a pure hack and slash experience and because the adventure is designed for multiple parties and DMs, Dead In Thay becomes a very hard piece to even be able to play in the first place much less pull it off in a way that it will be enjoyable to all who participate".