Doomed Forgotten Realms is a series of sourcebooks and adventures for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition published by Quill & Cauldron on the Dungeon Master's Guild. It takes the Forgotten Realms setting and imagines that all official hardcover adventures have ended in failure.
Baldur's Gate has now been turned into Helldoor's Gate, a stronghold for the Nine Hells. The demon lords have broken out into the Material Plane and claimed the Underdark. Tiamat has been freed by the Cult of the Dragon and now holds court atop her Soaring Citadel. The entire North is now in perpetual winter. This series of calamities are not a coincidence—they have been purposefully masterminded or exploited by the archlich Vecna so that he might conquer the Forgotten Realms. But even in this darkest timeline, a faint glimmer of hope remains that good might emerge victorious.
This game contains examples of:
- Artificial Human: A lump of dead flesh could be placed into a birthing vat in the Hosttower of the Arcane, precisely stimulated with electricity, and then grown into a fully developed sentient being known as an Artificially Accelerated Organism.
- City on the Water: Qu'madosfan Delmah isn't a city in the traditional sense, but a fleet of ships of all shapes and sizes, all sailing united under the Bregan D'aerthe banner. To date, Qu'madosfan Delmah consists of over seventy vessels, from galleons and longboats to dinghies.
- Elemental Nation: The Throne of Primordial Unity is a city dedicated to the Cult of the Elder Elemental Eye and its four sub-cults: Black Earth, Crushing Wave, Eternal Flame and Howling Hatred. Each cult controls a different quarter of terrain that surrounds the city, and their Princes of Elemental Evil shape their quarter to their liking.
- Evil Versus Evil: Though the world is ruled by evil, the countless competing evil factions all have their hearts set on clashing goals.
- Floating Continent: Elevated by countless dracoliches and Netherese magic, the Soaring Citadel of the Dragon Queen took to the skies and now floats among the clouds.
- Fungus Humongous: Zuggtmycos is a forest of fungus, where thick spore clouds hover like a dense fog.
- Genius Loci: After Baphomet was slain by Yeenoghu, remnants of his mortal form now infuse portions of the Underdark, turning what used to be straight passageways into a twisting maze of tunnels that seem to coil and uncoil with a life of their own. Travellers are at the whims of the living tunnels, although occasionally this is advantageous.
- Grim Up North: Icewind Dale is Auril the Frostmaiden's ice-carved dream and an isolating nightmare for the creatures trapped here. Howling winds scatter across a pure white landscape, vision is obscured by constant blizzards, and each step atop the layers of snow threatens to be a wanderer's last.
- Hell on Earth: Innumerable demons and demon lords have been summoned into the Underdark, resulting in madness and decimation on a catastrophic scale. Shortly thereafter, the archdevil Zariel arranged for Baldur's Gate to be dragged into the Nine Hells and replaced it with Helldoor's Gate, an infernal beachhead amidst the ruins. The Blood War has thus expanded to the Material Plane—though so far confined to the Underdark, it is only a matter of time until it explodes upwards.
- Hidden Elf Village: As the cloud giants discovered the skies were no longer safe enough for their flying castles, Lyn Armaal opted to rise even higher beyond the clouds, where the skies meet the stars. Many cloud giants have removed themselves from the Ordning entirely and adapted to an entirely isolationist lifestyle, in hopes they can simply wait out the downfall of Faerûn.
- Hostile Terraforming: The Elemental Chaos is a riotous conflagration of elemental energy terraformed by the Princes of Elemental Evil. Whereas the Dessarin Valley has been magically transformed to accommodate mortals, the maelstrom swirling within the Underdark is openly hostile to anything not elemental in nature.
- Mordor: In Chult, the heinous Soulmonger still sucks in the soul of every deceased mortal. Where in the past Chult boasted rich culture and wondrous wildlife, it now holds not a living soul. All that moves is undead.
- The Necrocracy: Over sixty powerful liches, vampire lords and ghosts call Warlock's Crypt home. Before the Sword Coast fell, they banded together to create a haven for like-minded individuals who wished to master magic.
- The Night That Never Ends: Thanks to the Frostmaiden's spell, the sun never rises over Icewind Dale. It chokes out all light and promise of warmth, warping the landscape under countless blizzards and unrelenting cold.
- Resurrection Sickness: If the DM would like to emphasize the hopelessness of the Doomed Sword Coast, when Vecna came into possession of the Soulmonger, he maintained the death curse and rendered all resurrection magic temporary, as the death curse drains the resurrected day by day.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: As cataclysm swept the land, the dwarfholds were on the receiving end of dragon raids, demons surging from below, and the posturing of giants. Just after the Princes of Elemental Evil emerged, King Bruenor Battlehammer led an exodus to the Elemental Plane of Earth, where the dwarves could carve out a new home.
- Villain World: Doomed Forgotten Realms assumes the worst possible ending for each published Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition all happening one after another. In each adventure, those supposed heroes failed or never answered the call for aid.
- Wretched Hive: Waterdeep is not the City of Splendors it once was. Tyrannical leaders abuse their power. The streets are often deserted save for patrols of Zhentarim who enforce twisted laws, while every back alley hides armed thieves and dark secrets. Hordes of undead huddle throughout portions of the city, filling the air with their stench. The nobility and citizens begrudgingly accept all this, because life could always be worse: they could be forced out of Waterdeep and into the post-apocalyptic hellscape.
