Part 1: As Told by residents of Leilon
Before embarking on the adventure into the swamp, you pick up some local folklore on this vast saltmarsh. The Mere of Dead Men has become home to all manner of monsters - both living and dead - and it imposes danger to travelers on the High Road, often forcing travel by sea or a long inland detour around the Sword Mountains.
In the Year of the Lone Lark (631 DR), the great Black Dragon Chardansearavirtriol (called “Ebondeath”) took the crumbling ruins of the Uthtower as his lair. The tower was once the seat of power of the kingdom now sunk beneath the swamp.
It is said that a great magical flood sunk the kingdom, destroying its invaders, but also all of its people, drowning uncountable bodies into the bog, and these corpses are what gave the name to the Mere of Dead Men.
The dragon Ebondeath had been supreme in these sunken lands for centuries, preying not only on travelers, but more fortunately thinning the populations of the orc clans in the Sword Mountains, preventing the formation of new hordes to invade the cities of the Sword Coast.
But the dragon suddenly vanished in the Year of the Spouting Fish (922 DR) - perhaps slain by adventurers, perhaps relocating elsewhere, or entering the deep sleep of the ancient wyrms.
Without the orcs being kept at bay, the horde of Uruth Ukrypt emerged to attack around 930 DR, destroying much of the Sword Coast, including Phandalin (and the Phandelver Mines’ Forge of Spells in the Wave Echo Caves, as the party had learned).
No dragons had taken residence in the Mere even since the disappearance of Ebondeath, even though the lands have always been known for activity from the Cult of the Dragon, including activity in the nearby town of Leilon. That is, until a little over a century ago when another Inconnu, perhaps drawn by the Cult, took the Mere as its home. This dragon’s name is Voaraghamanthar, and its powers for spellcraft are particularly legendary, including records of being in two places at once, making the dragon at or beyond the powers of the greatest archmages.
Voaraghamanthar remains supreme in the Mere of Dead Men, even as its Lizardfolk, snake folk (“the Yuan-Ti”), varieties of Inconnus, Hydra and other monsters - and of course undead from the countless corpses in the swamp of the centuries - as well as those perhaps at the command of whatever dark forces linger in the Uthtower, which is said to rise from the depths of the swamp with the Eye of Myrkul in the night sky.
Today, the many ruins in the swamp include Castle Naerytar (as told by the Dragonslayers), Mournhaven Towers, a shipwreck “The Sea Wyrm”, and of course the Uthtower. Iniarv’s Tower is used as a stronghold for the High Road patrols midway between the fortress called Thornhold (at the south end of the Mere) and Leilon to the north. Thornhold is held by dwarves of the Stoneshaft Clan.
Part 2: As Told by an Elderly Merchant
History of the Mere of Dead Men, as told by an Elderly Merchant from Baldur's Gate after his rescue from Lizardfolk. (See 3. Lizardfolk for Leilon).
The location of this saltwater swamp had been the home of a thriving human kingdom in the early taming of the Sword Coast, beginning in the Year of Gleaming Frost (64 DR). Its first powerful lord was named Uth Myrmoran, who had been exiled from the free city of Tavaray (now also sunk beneath a march - south of Waterdeep). He wanted this new city to be like the great ancient empires of the South, so in the Year of the Risen Towers (146 DR) he built the Uthtower atop a rocky hill that overlooked the port.
He hired Shoon mercenaries from the Calimshan Empire far to the south, and imposed an iron rule and gathering of wealth. This became known as the Myrmoran Dynasty, at one point ruled by twin princes bearing magical crowns crafted by the Mage Royal of the Uthtower, Iniarv - a sorcerer who had built his own tower to the east in the foothills of the Sword Mountains. The crowns extended the lifespan of the twins - and diffused what would have been a civil war by making the two so agreeable it was as if their minds themselves were linked.
Starting in 523 DR through the early 600’s, waves of orc invaders from the Spine of the World mountain range attacked the strongholds on the Sword Coast. In the Year of the Jester’s Smile (612 DR), an orc army called the Everhorde (terrifyingly led by Mind Flayers from the Astral Plane!) was defeated in the Battle of Firetears, just south of what today is Triboar. The forces sent to support this by the Uthtower were shattered and only a small army returned. So when another invasion began in the Year of the Shattered Sceptre (614 DR) out of the High Moor and the Greypeak Mountains - the forces of the Uthtower and its allies were forced to retreat and retreat and retreat.
The battles awakened the archmage Iniarv, who had become a Lich rather than pass into human death, and so angered at this invasion that he unleashed forces of terrible devastation, uncaring of who might suffer. The ocean itself rose up and devoured the orc army and the lands of the Uthtower, and the tower itself - countless living drowned in the flood and consumed in the depths of what is now the saltmarsh called the Mere of Dead Men. Deepening his curse, Iniarv wove a magic into the lands that no matter how the High Road was moved toward the foothills of the Sword Mountains, the waters of the Mere would creep to capture and confound the road’s travelers.
It is some 50 years later that these sunken lands were then darkened under the shadow of the ancient black dragon Chardansearavirtriol called “Ebondeath” as the party had learned in the prior folklore.
Now the swamp is under the sway of the black dragon Voaraghamanthar, and at times whatever evil powers call forth undead from the depths of the swamp - the lost souls of the drowned kingdom, presumably whatever lurks in the Uthtower, as legend tells may rise with the appearance of the Eye of Myrkul in the sky - an omen of the death god.