> [!infobox|right] > #### WESTERN HEARTLANDS > ![[5e_westernheart.png]] > > ##### Location Information > | | | > |---|---| > | ![[ICON - bookmark-etch-solid-full.svg]] **Type**: | Region | > | ![[ICON - chess-rook-piece-sharp-solid-full.svg]] **Location**: | Western Faerûn,<br>Near the [[Sword Coast]] | > | ![[ICON - question-solid-full.svg]] **Status**: | Active | > | ![[ICON - hourglass-duotone-solid-full.svg]] **Founded**: | Unknown | > | ![[ICON - hourglass-duotone-solid-full.svg]] **Age**: | Unknown | > > #### Governance > | | | > |---|---| > | ![[ICON - eclipse-solid-full.svg]] **Leadership**: | Multiple Local Powers | > | ![[ICON - sparkle-solid-full.svg]] **Realm**: | Multiple Realms | > | ![[ICON - sparkles-solid-full.svg]] **Forces**: | Unknown | > | ![[ICON - person-limbs-wide-solid-full.svg]] **Population**: | Unknown | <a href="https://dioctionary.net/THE+DIOCTIONARY/HOME/Home" class="dioctionary-ribbon-2"> HOME </a> <div class="dioctionary-ribbon">A Brief History</div> - The [[Western Heartlands]] are a broad region of western Faerûn rather than a single kingdom or realm. I have always understood the name more as a way of describing a large stretch of land filled with independent cities, settlements, roads, and wilderness than anything governed by one ruler. - Much of what I know about the region comes from traveling through portions of it myself. Places such as [[Baldur’s Gate]] and other settlements along the routes north sit within or near the lands commonly described this way. - The roads connecting these places are important enough that caravans, merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, and travelers constantly move between them. Our own pursuit of the [[Cult of the Dragon]] has taken us along many of those same routes. - Civilization tends to gather around the larger cities and established roads, while considerable stretches between them remain forest, marsh, open country, or other wilderness where help may be considerably farther away than one would prefer. - I do not know exactly where scholars decide the Western Heartlands begin and end, and I doubt everyone agrees. For my purposes, it is enough to know that it describes a large portion of the western lands we have spent far too much time crossing on foot and by wagon.