On Ches 13th 1368 Year of the banner, The Goddess of magic Mystra contacts her chosen ones, telling them dark days are coming. Specifically she contacts Whisper DragonMaw, archmage in ShadowDale (former apprentice of Elminster as well as several of the 7 sisters), she tells whisper that on the 4th of Tarsakh a band of adventurers would pass through shadowdale and stay at the Old skull inn. It was a band of 5, a gnome illusionist-priestess of Mystra, a mage named maleedra, a paladin woman named karranna, a Tymora worshipping priest named blois, and a drow elven rogue named Mourn.
    Whisper was given a spell to create a Time stasis globe in which time passed swiftly within the globe than on the outside of the globe. With this globe Whisper was to tutor the mage maleedra and give him spells that mystra determined for the youthful mage.
    Whisper did as she was bidded, and the band of adventurers left the following day (though Maleedra actually learned 2 full weeks of knowledge in a matters of hours). Whisper was informed to protect the band of adventurers until they reached their  destination of myth drannor! Luckily whisper and her younger sister alexius did so as the band of adventueres were ambushed by a band of zhentarium led by manshoon himself! The sisters thwarted manshoons assault of the band, and sent the zhents packing on their ways. (whisper exchanged a staff the gnome woman carried for an enchanted rod, the staff was one they had unknowingly taken from a hidden cache that manshoon had hidden in a secret series of caves under the dales. Quite a powerful  staff, one that manshoon would indeed miss!!)
    These adventures entered myth drannor and fought horrors within the ruins! Within these ruins the band fell across the path of a cult of the dragon member and a dracolich they had been worshipping! Due to their combined might and magic they conquered the menaces. Within the dragons hoard was a rod of pure ruby that maleedra took into his possession. The rod also spoke to him from time to time. (!!)
    After spending some time exaimining their new found wealth, the band was met  within the lair by a few harpers. Notably, Storm Silverhand. The  band (all except for KArranna whom was solely devoted to Tyr her god) became members of the semi-secret harpers. They were accepted in the ranks of harpers due to a prior adventure in which they stopped a foul minion of cyric from creating a gate to the lower planes!
    The harpers were sent  on a mission that led them to Agralond. But on route to get an ocean voyage booked they went to the wrong  tavern, a brawl errupted and city guards stepped in, but a local"mage" rescued them via opening a  gate under a table that led to an extra-demensional plane in which this "mage" had an estate. As it turns out this mage was also a vampire whom had been terrorizing the city.
        Than Mystra spoke to her chosen ones:
“My children despair and havoc will fall upon Toril very soon as Cyric is about to unleash an unholy army of Dark Paladins onto the Realms that shall be led by a powerful worrior called Sauriel the High Lord. This army is immune to all magic cast directly at them, even the mightiest meteor swarm is useless in slaying them, even dragon breath barely scratches their foul black  armo, even the pantheon of gods have no power to harm them and I have been forbidden by Ao to drain Cyrics amount of magic he is capable of pulling from the Weave of Magic to empower his army, although I doubt that would hurt him much at this point anyway. You, my chosen, must protect the innocent of Toril from this onslaught. Tyr speaks of a prophecy that states: “ Only the touch of a law bound woman upon the planar unicorn steed Aspferus and a small flame from Mystra shall mar the legions of Pseudo-Paladins.” Karranna is the one the prophecy speaks of and three of the others shall be my flame bearer. They must be protected at all costs, but only intercept their actions and help them if they are in an inescapable situation or are near death. Otherwise, do not allow to know you are aiding them. And most importantly Whisper the rod that was stolen from you is in the hands of the mage Maleedra. As of tomorrow at dawn go to Procampur, but keep yourself in the guise of a sea mage, go see Torstan Ulzimmer, they will head to him tomorrow at noon for ferry across the sea. Get the rod from him before he is under its power or it is returned to its master. That is all for now my children. Fare ye all well.”

 After many days finally the harpers left this plane of imprisonment  and found a voyage over seas via torstan (an harper ally). However,
Whisper under the guise of Islyna the pirate mage, was on board and late one night stole away with maleedras rod (actually a powerful rod  stolen from her safehold in the astral plane via the daughter of lolth also known as lisp.) the rod was a soul object to a powerful lower planar baatezu lord known as asmodeus who would stop at nothing to acquire his rod back!
    The harper reached agralond, were sent to thay to  thwart zsass tam (zulkir of necromancy) from another scheme of ruling the realms. From here they were informed of the happenings of the realms and were sent on a wild mission to fullfill the prophesy; they went to retrieve the armor of Skai!
    Meanwhile the Chosen of Mystra warned whom they could and readied themselves and the realms for the oncoming onslaught of the dark paladins! Shadowdale was struck hard and without warning! Many of the adventures of the dale were leading the innocent to safety via teleportation magic. Meanwhile, Elminster and Whisper led a mass of the paladins back to Elminsters tower.  Where Elminster conjured some warding magic once they were inside the blew the entire tower through a rift between the planes and tossed the tower into the astral plane, meanwhile obliterating the paladins nearby!

While in the astral plane, they traveled around the outer planes beseeching any planar beings to aid the realms against this menace!! For weeks they drifted from plane to plane.

    Meanwhile the Dark Paladings, under the leadership of Lord Sauriel, a powerful warrior of Cyric, traveled over Faerun decimating towns and laying siege on cities! Also in the process acquire troops of every foul race imaginable!
    The Harper band managed to piece together Skais armor and even found the unicorn Aspferus and Karranna carried the ancient arsenal of Skai upon her muscular body.
    Elminster, Whisper and Valaria (After gaining the support desired) teleported down to Waterdeep and were horrified to find the entire City of Splendors turned to the City of Stone, as all the inhabitants had been turned to stone...except for Randolf due to a arcane magic protecting him from such magic's.

As it was told was: Sauriel led a surprise attack with a force of evil draagons that simply appeared out of no where then unleashed their dragon breath down onto the city and before any of the good dragions could arrive to attack the evil ones, Sauriel appeared demanding the gods within the city give up their powers to Cyric and when they basically told him to go to hell he said that by dawn all within the city of WAterdeep shall be punished unless the gods agree to give up all their powers to Cyric. So Mystra had sent the company led by Karranna to the Troll hills to find the magical gate to Sauriels extra dimensional lair, but they must have failed in reaching him before the dawn!  Not only had all the peoples, and dragons had been turned to stone, but somehow Cyric managed to turn the goddess of Luck inot stone as well, even Tymora was stone! And even the goddess of Magic couldn’t remove the spells laid onto the city. Before I knew it, myself and friends were in Evermeet with Mystra beseeching the Queens aid in the matter of war in the mainlands, we returned to Waterdeep as the Queen  prepared a large force of  elven high magi’s, clergy men and women, dragon riders, spell singers, undead slayers, and rangers.
Than I contacted the group in the Troll hills, it is night and they are resting after an exhausting march through Troll Bark woods. I tell them of what had befallen and that they must rush, then Elminster in his own sweet (gruff) way tells them to stop stalling and gives them potions to revitalize them and to heal them of any wound dealt to them. He then ends the contact and we wait patiently in the city of splendor, now the city of stone.
Than a day later both Mourn (the drow rogue) and Kitharyna Burrmoor (the dark worriorress, and newest member of the company) appear infront of myself, Elminster, and Mystra in a flash of radiance, they tell us they stalled a ebony sphere of nothingness to give the others the time they needed to empower a magical gate (by feeding it magical items) and in doing so they sacrificed themselves, but Mystra saved them...and also Blois (the companies somewhat naive and obnoxious cleric of Tymora) had died due to the strain of his goddess being gone and due to the fact he couldn’t take it anymore, self inflicted death....After hearing what these two soon to be legends said all  we could do is wait to see if the others could triumph over the High Lord.
An hour later Mystra came to us telling us that all is fine and the adventurers had triumphed and that I could now open up a gate to his domain. And I did so, and we got the others out and took them back to Waterdeep where everyone was now flesh again. But as we got back Mystra told us that  “ Only half of the prophesy has been fullfilled as the law bound female hasstruck the blow, but the small flame from Mystra has yet to be released.” Than she conjured an image of an invading army of dark beings--dark paladins, drow and their foul henchmen and slaves, planar beasts, evil dragons, undead all moving towards Waterdeep at magically enhanced speeds....they would reach the City of Splendors the following night fall.
Thus the Lords of Waterdeep decide to send word to King Azoun in Suzail to muster their forces to help to defeat this army of darkness, and that Mystra will transport all of his forces to half a mile east of the city when the King has them  all ready. We had a plan to ambush this army with the Kings forces, but deep down inside everyone knew that we were vastly outnumbered!!!
 However the time  came and so did the battle--anyone who was able to lift a weapon or cast a spell was transported out onto the battle field and the goddess Tymora transported all of Evermeets forces out to the battlefield. We all waited for the army to show itself so the battle would begin, and during this time we all waited the apprehension growing, and I  knew that many of us were going to die, but I had little fear of it due to all the magic I carried and my own personal contengencies. However I fear the ones I love may die.
Than it started and even I was taken back:
“There is little I can say about what pursued that night of the war except that it was catastrophic and at times awe inspiring. There were hundreds of drow elves led by the dark goddess known as Lisp (Lloths daughter) and they summoned the handmaidens of Lloth (Yochols) and they also summoned Tannar’ri’s and rode on terrifying spider-like abominations, others simply flew through the air. There was a trio of liches that led a vast army all to its own full of every undead creature imaginable (of lesser power than the liches). Than there was all the slaves and henchmen of the drow--goblin-kind, ogres, trolls, even some giants and more. And last but not least was the dragons and the dark Paladins, who were now hurt by magic because there leader had been killed..
On our side we had all the chosen of Mystra,  a host of dwarves from Mithril Hall, Barbarians from  Icewind Dale, Agrolondan troops, mages and warriors from Silverymoon,  Azouns troops, and several of the good gods above. To our horror the Dark Paladins had found a way to regenerate their wounds and the drow and the liches kept using their magic to summon lower planar beasts and to animate the fallen as undead.
This is one battle that I will never forget for many  centuries to come.
Here are a few of the highlights of the war:
During the battle Lathander used his powers to cause the very sun to rise to get the upper hand on the drow elves--thus night became day all in a matter of a few seconds, but the drow foresaw this tactic and had somehow protected themselves--however many of the sunlight affected undead were slain in the process.
Mystra summoned forth giant sized Magic Elementals, elementals made up of pure magical energies and the air itself crackled with the powerful spells she summoned and released on her foes.
 Tyr rode in on a valiant white steed of white radiance and wielded a tremendous blazing blade with his only remaining hand.
Tempus rode in upon both a black and white steed ( 1 foot on each to symbolize the chaos of  war) dressed in battle armor, his face veiled by his helm, bloody wounds criss crossed his bare legs, though these wounds were not due to any wounds taken during the battle!
Azuth stood nearby Mystra and cast his own ground shaking spells from the fragile looking hands of his frail old form. (In one tremendous spell he took out a lich and about 40 goblins and more undead than you can count)
Than things got worse as both the heavens and the ground split wide open. The ground sent forth a creeping swarm of tiny and poisonous arachnids and from the heavens it rained blood! From these two places crept two dark gods---Cyric and Lloth. Cyric in a 9 foot tall form of a grey skinned man in a black vellvet robe with ebony eyes. And Lloth in the form of a gargatuan black widow spider with the head of a beautiful drow woman with vampiric fangs.
Than literally all hell broke loose (an Earthen phrase I like a lot) as the gods were followed by minions. From the Abyss swarmed abominations I had never even heard of, but suddenly to everyones astonishment a 7 foot tall female drow elf with ankle silver hair, and absolutly no article of clothing on her body appears in front of Lloth. Its Elistraee (the drow goddess of good drow, song and beauty) and she had come  to halt Lloth from entering Toril. And Cyric he was followed by his minion; the souls of the Dead, without any gods to go to and also swarms of bloodthirsty Yugoloths!
Than the trio of Mystra (Maleedra, Mourn, and Kit) joined hands and called on the special power Mystra bestowed upon them and they fullfilled the prophesy as the small flame from Mystra is released! Suddenly a massive blast of spellfire roars across the battlefield disintegrating the Dark Paladins, rendering all the undead ashes, killing what creatures of  darkness that was not protected by magics, and closed the divine gates pushing the two dark gods back into their domains and it sent Lisp back to her lair in the Abyss.

The harper and allies were deemed the Knights of the Dark War:
Maleedra, Karranna, Kit, Mourn, Valaria.

The Year of the Banner 1368 becomes known as Year of the Dark War.
The rest of the year is  spent in rebuilding cities, such as Waterdeep and other parts of the cities and towns that had been ravaged. Zhentile Keep is rubble with no noticeable attempt to rebuild it. The Dales, Cormyr, sembia, and the sword coast as well as the dragoncoast all manage to rebuild themselves up to their level of advancement prior to the Dark War.