Sea of Swords

The Sea of Swords is the broad, restless reach of the Trackless Sea that hugs the western fringe of Faerûn. It separates the long trade-rich coast known as the Sword Coast from the archipelagos that stud the outer ocean—chiefly the Moonshae Isles to the northwest and the Nelanther Isles to the southwest. Sailors speak of it as both highway and hazard: a blue thoroughfare binding famous ports together and a maze of currents, winds, reefs, and pirate dens that can swallow a careless captain whole.

Bounds & Breadth

Cartographers disagree on the Sea of Swords’ exact footprint, and local charts often reflect the priorities of the ports that print them. Most agree on a core basin framed by:

East: the mainland Sword Coast.
West/Northwest: the Moonshae Isles, whose scattered mass forms the sea’s outer wall.
West/Southwest: the Nelanther Isles, a looser scatter of islets and rocks.
South: the Tethyr Peninsula, which juts westward like a stone prow.

From there, definitions widen or narrow:

Many coastal pilots extend the name around the Tethyr Peninsula to the Purple Cliffs beneath the Purple Hills, arguing that winds and swell there still behave like the Sea of Swords proper.
To the far north, mariners commonly treat waters up to Luskan as Sea of Swords, and some charts go farther, folding Ruathym, Gundarlun, and even the Purple Rocks into its northern marches. In practice, “Sea of Swords” is a working label—its limits expand wherever Sword Coast ships regularly sail.

Winds, Weather & Currents

Two features define the sea’s temperament more than any other: prevailing winds and steady drifts that can make or break a passage.

Prevailing winds (north): Over the northern half of the basin, the fair winds typically blow west-to-east. Northbound coasters plan departures to catch these across-shore pushes, while deepwater captains use them to slant in toward the land after clearing the islands.
Southern Drift: The dominant current courses south along the Sword Coast, then hooks westward past the Moonshaes toward distant Maztica. Southbound voyages often ride this “moving road,” while northbound ships try to stay just inside the current’s weaker edge to avoid being set backward.
Alaron Set: A notable north-running current rises off Alaron in the Moonshaes and pushes toward Waterdeep. Traders from the islands time departures to meet it, and Sword Coast skippers exploit the set to claw north between gales.

These patterns aren’t gentle suggestions—they are the sea’s handwriting. Misjudge them, and even a well-found vessel can be swept into lee shores, clutching shoals, or the pirate-shadowed gaps between the island chains.

The Coastwise Way

The Sea of Swords is the main maritime spine of the west. Merchantmen, fishing fleets, and patrol craft trace a series of overlapping routes:

Coastal lanes hop from headland to headland, keeping the mainland in sight whenever possible. These waters serve the busy run between cities such as Neverwinter, Waterdeep, and Luskan, and all the smaller havens tucked along their approaches. Coastal craft favor predictable wind bends off the capes and the smoother water beneath cliffed shores.
Island arcs use the Moonshaes and the Nelanther as way stations and windbreaks. Skippers duck behind island lee shores to reef, refit, or ride out blows, then sprint between channels on the next fair tide. The same coves, unfortunately, also shelter raiders.
Offshore crossings strike straight lines that shave days from long passages. Experienced captains use the Southern Drift to slingshot west, then angle back on the westerlies, or ride the Alaron Set to gain northing faster than a coastwise beat could manage.

Season, storm tracks, and politics all reshape these choices. In foul months, even bold ships crowd the land; in clear weather, hulls vanish over the horizon to outrun tariffs and tolls.

Peoples of the Deep

The Sea of Swords is no empty blue desert. Beneath and between its waves live peoples and powers with their own boundaries and ambitions.

Sea elves of Nindrol. At least one elven kingdom, Nindrol, claims the waters around Toaridge-at-the-Sun’s-Setting, an island north of the Nelanther (on some maps counted among its northernmost isles). Elven wardens and swift, low-silhouette craft patrol these depths, and their hidden courts enforce ancient sea-rights that surface captains ignore at their peril.
Explorers and long-voyagers. The sea breeds its own breed—navigators, natural philosophers, and weather-wise wanderers who make their reputations by reaching places others call myths. Some become household names along the piers, others vanish into the west with only a wake for epitaph.
Freebooters and opportunists. The same reefs and fogs that hide a fishing sloop also hide a longship. The Sea of Swords’ pirate tradition flourishes where island channels narrow, patrols thin, or politics look the other way. Captains who survive speak of dens carved into sea-caves and camps that melt like mirage the instant a cruiser’s topsails show.

Surface settlements view this underwater and outlaw tapestry with a mix of fear and practicality: treaties are inked, tolls paid, and grudges nursed—until a storm resets the board.

Islands, Capes & Notable Waters

While an exhaustive pilot book would run to many volumes, several names recur on every competent chart of the Sea of Swords.

The Moonshae Isles

A vast, rugged archipelago whose bulk defines the sea’s outer northwest wall. Their cliffs, fens, and forests generate their own fogs and squalls; their channels can be glass-calm one hour and stacked with whitecaps the next. The isles are both stepping stones for long westing passages and cultural poles whose ports draw sailors from every coast.

The Nelanther Isles

A ragged crescent of rocks and islets to the southwest, notorious for narrow tidal guts and hidden teeth. They serve as ambush ground and refuge, depending on whether you hold the weather gauge—and whether you know which headland really hides a channel and which is a dead end.

Tethyr Peninsula & Purple Cliffs

The peninsula’s granite spine bends the Sea of Swords’ weather and current, while the Purple Cliffs mark a commonly cited southern limit of the sea. Swell wraps strangely here, and back-eddies can set a hull sideways into mischief if a helmsman grows complacent.

Northern Outer Isles

Names like Ruathym, Gundarlun, and the Purple Rocks appear on more expansive northern definitions of the Sea of Swords. Even if you draw the boundary tighter, any northbound voyage feels their pull as staging grounds, storm shields, or stark warnings of what far-north waters demand.

Red Rocks

An archipelago off the coast near Waterdeep, used by locals as fishing grounds, fair-weather picnic coves, and—less openly admitted—quiet places to exchange cargoes away from counting-house eyes. Squalls roll off the land fast here; more than one careless day-sail has left splinters on the reefs.

Toaridge-at-the-Sun’s-Setting

A lonely western sentinel just north of the Nelanther on some charts, and a sovereignty point for the sea elves of Nindrol. Surface skippers with sense announce themselves politely when passing its waters; those who don’t sometimes find their rudders fouled or their courses “corrected” by unseen hands.

Seamarks & Portways

Where land meets sea, the Sea of Swords becomes the lifeblood of towns and cities:

Luskan sits near the sea’s often-cited northern edge, a hard port whose shipyards and politics run hot as forge-iron.
Neverwinter and Waterdeep anchor the central coast, their harbors knitting local coastwise traffic into the higher risks and higher profits of offshore routes.
Lesser coves and river mouths dot the run between them, each with a bell, a beacon, or a bonfire and a harbor-master who can recite sandbar depths from memory.

Pilots memorize wind bends around capes, river outflows that skew approaches, and the faint loom of island highlands that mean the difference between a clean landfall and a midnight grounding.

Seamanship & Risk

To sail the Sea of Swords well is to read its patterns—then distrust them. Currents shift a half-mile off their usual line; winds back or freshen with little warning; ground-swells that look sleepy at noon turn malicious by dusk. Wise captains:

Trim for the drifts, not just the winds; a knot of adverse set over a day is dozens of unintended miles.
Treat island lee shores with respect; what saves you from the gale can smash you on blind reefs when the tide turns.
Assume company; if you’ve found a quiet cove, so has someone else—and they might consider it theirs.

The sea’s gifts, though, are rich: faster passages than any road can offer; holds brimmed with fish, wool, timber, and wine; and the world’s horizons a day closer with every log entry.