The Sword Mountains

The rugged mountain range that rises southeast of Phandalin and runs north toward Neverwinter. Riddled with old dwarven mines, orc lairs, ancient ruins, and the occasional wyvern. The geographic backdrop of nearly every quest in this campaign’s first arc.

The Sword Mountains are not the highest range in Faerûn but they are some of the most thoroughly used — by dwarves who mined them for a thousand years, by orcs who raid down from them today, by hidden Netherese ruins, and by the legendary dwarven complex of Wave Echo Cave hidden somewhere in their foothills.

Things in this campaign that lie in or near the Sword Mountains:

• Wave Echo Cave — somewhere in the western foothills.
• Wyvern Tor — a rocky crag on the western edge.
• Old Owl Well — Netherese ruin in the foothills northeast of Phandalin.
• Cragmaw goblin holdings — including Cragmaw Castle in the Neverwinter Wood just north of the range.
• Orc tribes — periodically raiding southward, occasionally down to Phandalin.