The Nether Scroll

A Forgotten Realms novel about a wizard's decades-long quest to understand a mysterious Netherese artifact while facing mind flayers, Zhentarim agents, and the cost of obsession.

The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey is the fourth book in the Lost Empires series, set in the Forgotten Realms campaign world. It follows Druhallen of Sunderath, a practical wizard with a carpenter’s background, whose life is shaped by a single violent encounter with Red Wizards during a caravan escort along the Vilhon Reach. When his mentor Ansoain is killed in the attack, Druhallen recovers a mysterious glass disk inscribed with Netherese script that becomes his lifelong obsession.

Fifteen years later, Druhallen travels with his old friend Galimer Longfingers, the warrior Rozt’a, and a street-smart teenager named Tiep. When a well-dressed goblin named Sheemzher offers them a Netherese coin and begs for help rescuing his wife from the ruins of Dekanter, Druhallen sees his chance to finally understand the disk. The journey takes them through the dangerous Weathercote Wood, where they encounter the enigmatic Lady Wyndyfarh, and deep into the Greypeak Mountains where an undead mind flayer called the Beast Lord is transforming goblins into monstrous servants.

The story blends classic D&D adventure with genuine character work. Abbey writes relationships that feel real and complicated, from Druhallen and Galimer’s lifelong brotherhood to Tiep’s hidden Zhentarim connections and Sheemzher’s tragic loyalty to a wife who may already be beyond saving. The final revelations tie together threads spanning the entire book, including the true nature of the glass disk and a surprise about Tiep’s parentage that reframes everything.

The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey: A Forgotten Realms Retelling

So here’s the thing. The Forgotten Realms has this massive shelf of tie-in novels, and most people know the big names. Drizzt. Elminster. The characters who show up on every “best D&D books” list. But there are entire series buried in that catalog that tell genuinely interesting stories, and the Lost Empires series is one of them.

The Nether Scroll Chapter 1: A Caravan Along the Vilhon Reach

Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey | Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8

12 Flamerule, the Year of the Arch (1353 DR)

The book opens with two young wizards sitting on horses, watching other people fix a broken cartwheel, and gossiping. That’s it. That’s how we meet Druhallen and Galimer. And honestly? It’s a perfect introduction because it tells you exactly who these two are before anything dramatic happens.

The Nether Scroll Chapter 2: Fifteen Years Later at Dawn Pass

Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey | Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8

28 Eleasias, the Year of the Banner (1368 DR)

Fifteen years. That’s the time jump between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. One chapter ago, Druhallen was a teenager with a broken wrist swearing vengeance on a hilltop. Now he’s a grown man leaning against a rough-plank wall in a Zhentarim village called Parnast, and his wrist still aches when he thinks about Ansoain.

The Nether Scroll Chapter 3: Storm Over Parnast

Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey | Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 | ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8

30 Eleasias, the Year of the Banner (1368 DR)

A dust storm blows in from the Anauroch desert that night. It lasts three days. Hot as a fire pit, sharp with grit. The locals wrap their faces like desert nomads and tell the visitors helpful things like “This is nothing” and “You should have been here last year, we didn’t see the sun for twenty days.”

The Nether Scroll Chapter 8: A Day of Stones, Blood, and Hard Truths in the Greypeaks

Book: The Nether Scroll by Lynn Abbey Series: Lost Empires, Book 4 (Forgotten Realms) ISBN: 0-7869-1566-8


Chapter 8 opens with something I genuinely appreciate about Lynn Abbey’s writing. Druhallen wakes up and just… thinks about retirement. He’s fantasizing about buying a little spell shop in a well-run town, marrying, maybe having kids. The man is pulling gray hairs from his beard and daydreaming about boring, predictable, wonderful normalcy.