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Forgotten Realms

April 13, 2024

Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories.[1] Several years later, it was published for the D&D game as a series of magazine articles, and the first Realms game products were released in 1987. Role-playing game products have been produced for the setting ever since, in addition to novels, role-playing video game adaptations (including the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game to use graphics), comic books, and the film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.[2]

Forgotten Realms

Top: The Forgotten Realms logo (1987–1999)
Bottom: Forgotten Realms logo (2000–present)
DesignersEd Greenwood
Publication1987–current
GenresFantasy
LanguagesEnglish
Media typeGame accessories, novels, role-playing video games, comic books

Forgotten Realms is a fantasy world setting, described as a world of strange lands, dangerous creatures, and mighty deities, where magic and supernatural phenomena are quite real. The premise is that, long ago, planet Earth and the world of the Forgotten Realms were more closely connected. As time passed, the inhabitants of Earth had mostly forgotten about the existence of that other world – hence the name Forgotten Realms. The original Forgotten Realms logo, which was used until 2000, had small runic letters that read "Herein lie the lost lands" as an allusion to the connection between the two worlds.

Forgotten Realms is one of the most popular D&D settings,[3][4] largely due to the success of novels by authors such as R. A. Salvatore and numerous role-playing video games, including Pool of Radiance (1988), Eye of the Beholder (1991), Icewind Dale (2000), and the Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate series.

Creative origins edit

 
Ed Greenwood in 2008

Ed Greenwood began writing stories about the Forgotten Realms as a child, starting at the age of eight.[5]: 72  He came up with the name from the notion of a multiverse of parallel worlds; Earth is one such world, and the Realms another. In Greenwood's original conception, the fantastic legends of Earth derive from a fantasy world that can no longer be accessed.[6] Greenwood discovered the Dungeons & Dragons game in 1975, and became a serious role-playing enthusiast with the first Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) game releases in 1978.[6] Greenwood brought his fantasy world into the new medium of role-playing games when a university student named September invited him to play AD&D with her.[5]: 72  The setting became the home of Greenwood's personal campaign.[7] Greenwood began a Realms campaign in the city of Waterdeep before creating a group known as the Knights of Myth Drannor in the Shadowdale region. Greenwood felt that his players' thirst for detail made the Realms what it is: "They want it to seem real, and work on 'honest jobs' and personal activities, until the whole thing grows into far more than a casual campaign. Roleplaying always governs over rules, and the adventures seem to develop themselves."[6] Greenwood has stated that his own version of the Forgotten Realms, as run in his personal campaign, is much darker than published versions.[8]

Starting in 1979, Greenwood published a series of articles that detailed the setting in The Dragon (now Dragon) magazine, the first of which was about a monster known as the curst.[5]: 72  Greenwood wrote voluminous entries to Dragon, and used the Realms as a setting for his descriptions of magic items, monsters, and spells.[7] When Gary Gygax "lost control of TSR in 1985, the company saw an opportunity to move beyond Greyhawk and introduce a new default setting".[9]: 87  In 1986, TSR began looking for a new campaign setting for AD&D,[5]: 72  and assigned Jeff Grubb to find out more about the setting used by Greenwood as portrayed in his articles in Dragon.[9]

Greenwood states that Grubb asked him "Do you just make this stuff up as you go, or do you really have a huge campaign world?", and Greenwood answered "yes" to both questions.[6] TSR felt that the Forgotten Realms would be a more open-ended setting than its epic fantasy counterpart Dragonlance, and chose the Realms as a ready-made campaign setting upon deciding to publish AD&D 2nd edition.[6] Greenwood agreed to work on the project and began working to get Forgotten Realms officially published.[10] He sent TSR a few dozen cardboard boxes stuffed with pencil notes and maps, and sold all rights to the setting for a token fee.[6] He noted that TSR altered his original conception of the Realms being a place that could be accessed from Earth, as "[c]oncerns over possible lawsuits (kids getting hurt while trying to 'find a gate') led TSR to de-emphasize this meaning".[6]

Jon Peterson, author of Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History, said that Greenwood "was that rare obsessive DM who just seemed to have more ideas and energy to pour into his world than even the folks at TSR did. Naturally when TSR was shopping for new campaign worlds as part of their cross-media strategy, they had to get the Forgotten Realms. R. A. Salvatore took Greenwood's world and created characters and stories for it that made him a bestselling author and sustained TSR as a major fantasy book publisher".[11]

Publication history edit

1985–1990 edit

In 1985, the AD&D module Bloodstone Pass was released by TSR and is retroactively considered to be a part of the Forgotten Realms,[12] although it was not until the module The Bloodstone Wars was released that it became the official setting for the module series.[13] Douglas Niles had worked on a novel trilogy with a Celtic theme, which were then altered to become the first novels set in the Forgotten Realms, starting with Darkwalker on Moonshae (1987).[5]: 73  It is the first book in The Moonshae Trilogy, which predates the Forgotten Realms Campaign Set by one month.[14]

The Forgotten Realms Campaign Set was later released in 1987[9] as a boxed set of two source books (Cyclopedia of the Realms and DM's Sourcebook of the Realms) and four large color maps, designed by Greenwood in collaboration with Grubb.[15]: 99  The set introduced the campaign setting and explained how to use it,[15]: 99  and reserved space on the map for SSI's Gold Box computer role-playing games set in the Forgotten Realms.[16]

TSR began incorporating elements by other designers into the Forgotten Realms, including the Moonshae Isles by Douglas Niles, the "Desert of Desolation" by Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman, and Kara-Tur by Zeb Cook.[5]: 73  The setting also provided a new way for TSR to market its Battlesystem rules, which it had supported with the Bloodstone adventure sequence which started with Bloodstone Pass; the last two adventures in the series, The Bloodstone Wars (1987) and The Throne of Bloodstone (1988), were unambiguously set in the Forgotten Realms.[5]: 74  Some characters from Egg of the Phoenix (1987) by Frank Mentzer were incorporated into The Savage Frontier (1988).[5]: 40 

The compilation module Desert of Desolation reworked the previous adventures to fit as part of the Forgotten Realms.[17] The module Under Illefarn published in 1987 is set in the Forgotten Realms,[15]: 108  as is the module released in 1988, Swords of the Iron Legion.[15]: 103 

R. A. Salvatore wrote his first novel for the Forgotten Realms, The Crystal Shard (1988), which was originally set in the Moonshae Islands before being moved to a new location and introduced the drow character Drizzt Do'Urden.[5]: 73 [18] Drizzt has since appeared in more than seventeen subsequent novels, many of which have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list.[19] In 1988, the first in a line of Forgotten Realms role-playing video games, Pool of Radiance, was released by Strategic Simulations, Inc.[20] The game was popular and won the Origins Award for "Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1988".[21]

Several supplements to the original boxed set were released under the first edition rules, beginning with Waterdeep and the North,[5]: 73  which was followed by Moonshae in 1987, and Empires of the Sands, The Magister, The Savage Frontier, Dreams of the Red Wizards, and Lords of Darkness in 1988.[15]: 96–97  The City System boxed set was released in 1988, and it contained several maps of the city of Waterdeep.[15]: 89  Ruins of Adventure, a module based on the computer game Pool of Radiance, was also released in 1988.[15]: 113 

The boxed set Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms was released in 1988. It gives details of the lands of Kara-Tur, and was designed to be used with the 1986 book Oriental Adventures, which officially placed the book in the Forgotten Realms world.[15]: 103 

In 1989, DC Comics began publishing a series of Forgotten Realms comics written by Grubb.[5]: 75  Each issue contains twenty-six pages, illustrated primarily by Rags Morales and Dave Simons. Twenty-five issues were published in total, with the last being released in 1991. A fifty-six page annual Forgotten Realms Comic Annual #1: Waterdhavian Nights, illustrated by various artists, was released in 1990.

Curse of the Azure Bonds, a module based on the role-playing video game of the same name, was released in 1989.[15]: 97 

1990–2000 edit

Forgotten Realms video games
1988Pool of Radiance
1989Hillsfar
Curse of the Azure Bonds
1990Secret of the Silver Blades
Eye of the Beholder
1991Eye of the Beholder II: The Legend of Darkmoon
Pools of Darkness
Neverwinter Nights
Gateway to the Savage Frontier
1992Treasures of the Savage Frontier
1993Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures
Dungeon Hack
Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor
1994Menzoberranzan
1995
1996Blood & Magic
1997Descent to Undermountain
1998Baldur's Gate
1999
2000Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
Icewind Dale
2001Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance
Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor
2002Icewind Dale II
Neverwinter Nights
Dungeons & Dragons: Eye of the Beholder
2003
2004Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II
2005Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone
2006Neverwinter Nights 2
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale
Heroes of Neverwinter
2012
2013Neverwinter
2014Lords of Waterdeep
2015Sword Coast Legends
2016
2017Tales from Candlekeep: Tomb of Annihilation
2018Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms
2019Warriors of Waterdeep
2020
2021Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance
2022
2023Baldur's Gate III

To transition the Forgotten Realms from first edition AD&D to the ruleset's second edition, a story involving the gods being cast down was planned by TSR management from the top-down and started with Hall of Heroes (1989) and continued with a three-adventure Avatar series (1989) and a three-novel Avatar series (1989), and some stories in the comic book.[5]: 84  TSR adjusted the timeline of the Forgotten Realms by advancing the calendar one year forward to 1358 DR, referring to the gap as the Time of Troubles.[9]

In early 1990, the hardcover Forgotten Realms Adventures by Grubb and Greenwood was released, which introduced the setting to AD&D 2nd edition;[15]: 99–100  the book also detailed how the Time of Troubles had changed the setting.[22]: 139  The Ruins of Undermountain (1991) was one of the first published mega-dungeons.[5]: 93  The Al-Qadim setting by Jeff Grubb was released in 1992, and the setting was added to the southern part of the Forgotten Realms.[5]: 95  In July 1990, the RPGA Network's Polyhedron Newszine began publishing a monthly column by Greenwood entitled "The Everwinking Eye" detailing various locations and personalities in the Realms. The Network used the Forgotten Realms city of Ravens Bluff as the setting for their first living campaign.[5]: 93  Official RPGA support for this product line included the Living City module series. A number of sub-settings of the Forgotten Realms were briefly supported in the early 1990s. Three more modules were produced for the Kara-Tur setting. The Horde boxed set, released in 1990, detailed the Hordelands, which featured a series of three modules. The Maztica Campaign Set, released in 1991, detailed the continent of Maztica.

The original gray boxed set was revised in 1993 to update it to AD&D 2nd edition, with the release of a new Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting boxed set containing three books (A Grand Tour of the Realms, Running the Realms, and Shadowdale) and various "monster supplements".[23] Additional material for the setting was released steadily throughout the 1990s. Forgotten Realms novels, such as the Legacy of the Drow series, the first three books of The Elminster Series, and numerous anthologies were also released throughout the 1990s, which led to the setting being hailed as one of the most successful shared fantasy universes of the 1990s.[24] By the first quarter of 1996, TSR had published sixty-four novels set in the Forgotten Realms out of the 242 novels set in AD&D worlds.[25]: 20  These novels in turn sparked interest in role-playing by new gamers.[26]

Numerous Forgotten Realms video games were released between 1990 and 2000. The Eye of the Beholder PC game was released in 1990,[27] which was followed by two sequels: the first in 1991,[28] and the second in 1992.[29] All three games were re-released for DOS on a single disk in 1995.[30] Another 1991 release was Neverwinter Nights on America Online, the first graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).[31] In 1998, Baldur's Gate, the first in a line of popular role-playing video games[32] developed by BioWare and "considered by most pundits as the hands-down best PC roleplaying game ever", was released.[1] The game was followed by a sequel, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, in 2000 and Icewind Dale, a separate game that utilized the same game engine as Baldur's Gate. Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor was released in 2001. Several popular Forgotten Realms characters such as Drizzt Do'Urden and Elminster made minor appearances in these games.

2000–2008 edit

When Wizards of the Coast took over publication of Dungeons & Dragons after purchasing TSR in 1997, they trimmed production down from six campaign settings to Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, and completed AD&D 2nd edition production sometime between 1998 and 1999.[33]: 146  They later hired Rob Heinsoo as a member of the D&D Worlds team to focus on Forgotten Realms in the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons.[33]: 162  An official material update and a timeline advance were introduced to the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition in 2001 with the release of the hardcover book the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting,[34] which won the Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Game Supplement of 2001 in 2002.[35] The timeline was officially advanced from 1358 DR to 1372 DR.[9] The adventure City of the Spider Queen (2002) did not meet its projected sales targets, so Wizards of the Coast cut back on production of new adventures.[33]: 165 

In 2002, BioWare released Neverwinter Nights, set in the northern reaches of Faerûn and operating on the revised 3.0 rules for D&D. It was followed by two expansion packs: Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark. A sequel using version 3.5 of the rules was produced by Obsidian Entertainment in 2006, and was followed by the expansion sets Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir. The Forgotten Realms Deluxe Edition compilation was released in 2006, containing the Baldur's Gate series (excluding the Dark Alliance games), Icewind Dale series, and all Neverwinter Nights games before Neverwinter Nights 2.

2008–2014 edit

With the release of Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition in 2008, Wizards opted for a publishing plan featuring a series of six books per year – consisting of three core rulebooks as well as three setting books – beginning with the Forgotten Realms. The company started the cycle with the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (2008), the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide (2008), and Scepter Tower of Spellgard.[33]: 190  These books updated the Forgotten Realms to the newest rules system which altered the setting drastically to make it fit with the 4th edition concept of "Points of Light".[33]: 190 

The main lore change centered around an event called the Spellplague in 1385 DR.[9] This cataclysm was unleashed when the goddess of magic Mystra was killed, "transforming whole nations and altering creatures. In addition, parts of Toril have fused with its long-lost twin world Abeir, whisking away some countries and adding new ones. The Underdark is more open to the surface. Thay has become a nightmare land of death and the Elves, sensing the newfound connection to the Feywild, have returned to Faerûn in force".[36] The event moved the fictional world's timeline 94 years into the future to 1479 DR.[9] The Spellplague acted as "a narrative justification for design changes".[9]: 107 

In 2008, the Forgotten Realms also became the setting for the RPGA's sole living campaign, Living Forgotten Realms, replacing Living Greyhawk.

In 2011, the Neverwinter Campaign Setting was released which launched the 4th edition's first major multimedia release. The Forgotten Realms city setting spawned four novels by R. A. Salvatore called the Neverwinter Saga, a comic book, and a board game called The Legend of Drizzt, as well as two video games – the Facebook game Heroes of Neverwinter (2011–2012) and a MMORPG called Neverwinter (2013).[37] Laura Tommervik, from the Wizards of the Coast marketing team, explained the approach: "We use Neverwinter as the connective tissue across multiple product categories. The transmedia campaign is an opportunity for fans to experience the brand however they choose to".[37]

In 2013, Wizards of the Coast announced a year-long event called the Sundering which acted as a multimedia project to transition the Forgotten Realms to the next edition of the game.[38][39] This release included a weekly D&D Encounters in-store play event, a free-to-play mobile game Arena of War (2013), and a collaborative novel series: The Companions (2013) by R. A. Salvatore, The Godborn (2013) by Paul S. Kemp, The Adversary (2013) by Erin Evans, The Reaver (2014) by Richard Lee Byers, The Sentinel (2014) by Troy Denning, and The Herald (2014) by Ed Greenwood.[38][40] Liz Schuh, Head of Publishing and Licensing for Dungeons & Dragons, said:[41]

The Sundering is the last of a series of ground-shaking events. It really affects the whole world of the Forgotten Realms in a major way. You may remember when the Spell Plagues began, the two worlds of the Forgotten Realms, Abeir and Toril, crashed together. That created both geographic changes (the map of the Forgotten Realms and Faerûn actually changed due to that collision), and also changed the way magic works. It changed the pantheon of the gods. The Sundering is all about those two worlds separating—coming apart—and the process of that separation is really the story that we're telling over the next year. At the end of this story arc, Abeir and Toril will be separate again, and many of the things that happened when they crashed together will go back to the way they were before. So magic will be much like it was before the Spell Plague. Markings that marked spell-plagued people and animals will fade and go away. It's really about moving the Forgotten Realms forward, but also about bringing it around to the most beloved and most fondly remembered Forgotten Realms.

The result of The Second Sundering, in game terms, was the transition from 4th edition rules to 5th edition rules of Dungeons & Dragons, published in 2014.[9][42]

2014–present edit

When D&D 5th edition was published in 2014, Wizards of the Coast announced that the Forgotten Realms would continue to serve as the official campaign setting for its upcoming published adventure materials.[43][44][45] The village of Phandalin in the Forgotten Realms acted as the primary setting for the new 5th edition Starter Set (2014) which was published before the release of three new core rulebooks.[46] "Tyranny of Dragons" was the first multimedia storyline for the new edition and included two adventure modules, Hoard of the Dragon Queen (2014) and The Rise of Tiamat (2014), and an update to the Neverwinter (2013) video game.[9][47][48] The next two storylines, "Elemental Evil" which included Princes of the Apocalypse (2015) and "Rage of Demons" which included Out of the Abyss (2015), were also set in the Forgotten Realms.[9][49][50]

The first campaign guide for the new edition, the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (2015), was released on November 3, 2015, and only covered a fraction of the Forgotten Realms.[51][9] It describes the 2013 Sundering event, referred to as the Second Sundering in the book, and its consequences in game terms and lore.[52] The video game Sword Coast Legends (2015) published by Digital Extremes was also released in the same month as the tabletop campaign guide.[51][53]

5th edition details on "the rest of Faerûn had been untouched until the Tomb of Annihilation (2017), an adventure that leaves the northern Sword Coast for the southern jungles of Chult".[9]: 101  The official Dungeons & Dragons actual play web series Rivals of Waterdeep, which premiered in 2018, is set in the Forgotten Realms. It has adapted adventure modules such as Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (2018), Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus (2019) and Candlekeep Mysteries (2021) which are also set in the Forgotten Realms.[54][55]

Fictional setting edit

Main article: Faerûn

The focus of the Forgotten Realms setting is the continent of Faerûn, the western part of a continent that was roughly modeled after the Eurasian continent on Earth.[25]: 6  The lands of the Forgotten Realms are not all ruled by the human race, with populations of many humanoid races and creatures ubiquitous in fantasy fiction works such as dwarves, elves, goblins, and orcs. Technologically, the world of the Forgotten Realms resembles the pre-industrial Earth in the 13th or 14th century. However, the presence of magic provides an additional element of power to the societies. There are several nation states and many independent cities, with loose alliances being formed for defense or conquest. Trade is performed by ship or horse-drawn vehicle, and manufacturing is based upon cottage industry.

Geography edit

Main article: Abeir-Toril
 
Forgotten Realms partial map

The Forgotten Realms is part of the fictional world of Abeir-Toril (usually just called Toril[22]: 91 ), an Earth-like planet with many real-world influences and consists of several large continents.[56] It was first detailed in the original Forgotten Realms Campaign Set, published in 1987 by TSR.[57] The other continents of Toril include Kara-Tur, Zakhara, Maztica,[56] and other yet unspecified landmasses.[34] Kara-Tur, roughly corresponding to ancient East Asia, was later the focus of its own source book Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms, published in 1988.[15]: 103 [58] There is also a vast subterranean world called the Underdark beneath the surface.[22]: 98, 138 [50]

In early editions of the setting, The Realms shared a unified cosmology with various other campaign settings called the Great Wheel. In this way each of the Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings were linked together to form one interwoven world connected by various planes of existence. With the release of the 2001 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, the setting was given its own distinct and separate cosmological arrangement, with unique planes not explicitly connected to those of the other settings.[34][59]

Religion edit

Religion plays a large part in the Forgotten Realms, with deities and their followers being an integral part of the world. Deities interact directly in mortal affairs, answer prayers, and have their own personal agendas. All deities must have worshipers to survive, and all mortals must worship a patron deity to secure a good afterlife. A huge number of diverse deities exist within several polytheistic pantheons; a large number of supplements have documented many of them, some in more detail than others.[60][61] Greenwood created a pantheon of gods for his home Dungeons & Dragons game, in his Forgotten Realms world, which were introduced in his article "Down-to-earth divinity" from Dragon #54 (October 1981).[62]

When the Forgotten Realms was published as a setting in 1987, the pantheon added Waukeen, the goddess of trade, money, and wealth, who was created by one of Jeff Grubb's players, and added to the Forgotten Realms by Grubb.[citation needed] Tyche was replaced with Tymora, and the elemental lords from Melniboné were replaced by Akadi, Grumbar, Istishia, and Kossuth.[63]

Much of the history of the Forgotten Realms detailed in novels and source books concerns the actions of various deities and The Chosen (mortal representatives with a portion of their deities' power) such as Elminster, Fzoul Chembryl, Midnight (who later became the new embodiment of the goddess of magic, Mystra[22]: 140 ), and the Seven Sisters. Above all other deities is Ao, the Overlord, who does not sanction worshipers and distances himself from mortals. He is single-handedly responsible for the Time of Troubles, or Godswar, as seen in The Avatar Trilogy.[64]

Characters edit

The setting is home to several noteworthy recurring characters that have gained wider reception, including:

  • The Companions of the Hall, a group of adventurers that were created by R. A. Salvatore[65][66] and introduced in The Crystal Shard (1988).[67][68][69] Each of these characters "fit into an RPG archetype".[70] They include:
    • Drizzt Do'Urden, a drow, or dark elf, ranger who is the main character of 34 novels.[67] Drizzt is noted for his commitment to friendship and peace, which is contrary to the stereotype of his people.[71] Drizzt as a character is often used to represent issues of racial prejudice, particularly in The Dark Elf Trilogy.[72][73] Drizzt is also troubled by the lifespan discrepancy between himself and his human romantic interest Catti-Brie.[74]
    • Wulfgar, a massive human barbarian;[75] in The Crystal Shard, Wulfgar's combat prowess is significant enough that along with Drizzt and his magic panther Guenhwyvar, they manage to "beat 25 giants by themselves".[67] As a character, Wulfgar exemplifies "the strong, honest, hot-headed young warrior hero type common to adventure stories and similar to Howard's creation Conan".[76]
    • Bruenor Battlehammer, a dwarven fighter who retakes Mithral Hall with the help of the other Companions.[67][70][77] He was one of the first friends Drizzt made upon leaving the Underdark and both Catti-Brie and Wulfgar are his adopted children.[78][70] Rob Bricken for io9 highlighted Bruenor as "a dwarf that hits pretty much every fantasy stereotype, including his desire to reclaim an ancestral home that his people were chased out of after they dug too far and awakened a monster".[67]
    • Catti-brie, a human archer who would later develop abilities as a spellcaster;[67][70][79] in The Crystal Shard, Drizzt referred to her as his soulmate.[67] Catti-Brie is favored by Mielikki, a goddess associated with forests and nature spirits, and she bears the deity's mark. Bricken argued that her characterization in The Icewind Dale Trilogy is limited,[67] while Aidan-Paul Canavan maintained that she becomes a "hero" only in later novels.[80]
    • Regis, a halfling member of the Companions, who behaves in the stereotypical manner of J.R.R. Tolkien's hobbits. Bricken noted that Regis is a rogue who "set himself apart a bit by carrying a crystal pendant he can use to charm people", though he is sometimes forced into dangerous situations and "ends up saving the day, Bilbo-style", such as in the final battle of The Crystal Shard.[67]
  • Elminster, a wizard also known as the Sage of Shadowdale;[81] he is "a founding member of the Harpers and one of the oldest surviving and most powerful Chosen of Mystra".[82] The Harpers are a semi-secret organization; Jonathan Palmer, for Arcane magazine, called them "Laudable" and commented that they are "fighters for freedom and justice".[83] Bricken described Elminster as "the most powerful, important, and smartest wizard in the Forgotten Realms, and one of the setting's most important characters [...] more Merlin than Gandalf, which makes him less enigmatic and prone to tomfoolery than other major fantasy wizards, which I count as a good thing".[84]
  • Volothamp Geddarm, a human adventurer who is famed within the setting Faerûn for the number of guidebooks he writes about the various regions within the Realms. The character's name is often attributed in real-world D&D publications as the in-universe narrator of said works.[85] Paul Pettengale from Arcane described him as "one of those characters that everyone's heard about, and one that just about every Dungeon Master must have been tempted to introduce to their campaign at some point or another".[86]
  • Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun, developed by Greenwood and game designer Steven Schend, is a character noted for his appearances in several novels set in the Forgotten Realms,[22][87] as well as the 2004 video game Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone.[88] A powerful wizard renowned for his namesake staff, in earlier editions he is the Archmage of Waterdeep, leading member of the Harpers, and one of Mystra's Chosen.[22] Prior to his death, Khelben passes the Blackstaff to his apprentice Tsarra,[87] who takes up residence at Blackstaff Tower in Waterdeep and inherits his memories and legacy. Writer Aubrey Sherman said he is an example for the importance of a wand or staff behind the conception of a wizard archetype and listed the character among D&D's notable wizards.[89][87]
  • Jarlaxle, also a character by R. A. Salvatore, was introduced in the 1990 novel Exile. He also appears in Promise of the Witch King, Road of the Patriarch and The Pirate King, as well as The Sellswords and the Paths of Darkness trilogies. Described by Christian Hoffer from Comicbook.com as a popular and intriguing supporting character,[90] Jarlaxle is the charismatic and opportunistic drow leader of the mercenary band Bregan D'aerthe. Anglistics scholar Caroline de Launay characterized Jarlaxle as an independent character inclined to "subtle manoeuvres",[91] while Hoffer explained that he is an amoral villain who has "plenty of contingencies and secret plots".[90] When comparing the plot of The Dark Elf Trilogy to a game of chess, de Launay assigned Jarlaxle the role of the knight.[91] Theo Kogod, for CBR, wrote that Jarlaxle is "in many ways [...] a dark reflection of the heroic and honorable Drizzt. He used lies, manipulation and cunning to rise as high as a male Drow could within his culture, but in the end, he also left his home behind. [...] In Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Jarlaxle is trying to leverage himself to become accepted as a legitimate member of the Lords' Alliance. He is one of four possible main villains in the campaign".[92]
  • Artemis Entreri, a human assassin described by Bricken as "cold-blooded" and Drizzt's "equal in fighting and opposite in morality", a mirror image of how Drizzt would have ended up if he had remained part of the universally evil drow society instead of forsaking it.[93]
  • Gromph Baenre is Archmage of the city of Menzoberranzan, the City of Spiders. Gromph is a rival in power to the other archmages of the Forgotten Realms, such as Elminster and Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun. In a review of the 1995 novel Daughter of the Drow, Gideon Kibblewhite for Arcane, called Gromph the "only interesting character" in the book, describing him as "the bitter and twisted archmage", and lamented that "he rarely makes an appearance after the opening".[94]
  • Liriel Baenre is the daughter of Gromph Baenre; she originally belonged to House Vandree before her talent for arcane spellcasting was discovered by Gromph.[95] After being sent away to hone her magical talent rather than study as a priestess, Liriel uses a book given by her father to travel to the surface lands, where she encounters followers of the goddess Eilistraee, the Dark Maiden of benevolent drow, comes to possess the magical artifact known as the Windwalker, and eventually settle down on the surface world permanently. Liriel was created by Elaine Cunningham for Daughter of the Drow, and is described by Trenton Webb of Arcane as "the oddest Drow" due to her lack of traits deemed as stereotypical of her people.[96]
  • Erevis Cale, first introduced in the short story "Another Name For Dawn" published in issue 277 of Dragon magazine, is a pivotal character in novels by Paul S. Kemp, including The Halls of Stormweather, Shadows Witness, the Erevis Cale Trilogy, and The Twilight War trilogy. Originally a normal human, he accepts the gift of the Fane of Shadows in Twilight Falling and becomes a shade; being imbued with the essence of matter integral to the Plane of Shadow brings about drastic changes to his appearance and physiology. Don D'Ammassa described Erevis Cale as "a man tormented by questions of right and wrong".[97]
  • Alustriel Silverhand is the ruler of the city of Silverymoon in "The North" of the setting. Writing in 2000, Envoyer magazine reviewer Stylo counted her among the most prominent Forgotten Realms characters thanks to R.A. Salvatore's novels.[98]
  • Szass Tam is a lich and leader of the Red Wizards of Thay.[99][100]

Reception edit

In his book The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible, Sean Patrick Fannon describes the Forgotten Realms as being "the most ambitious fantasy game setting published since Tekumel",[1] and that it "may be the most widely played-in game setting in RPG history".[1] Similarly, in literature, the novels written in the Forgotten Realms setting have formed one of "the industry's leading fantasy series".[101] Over time these novels have gained "unprecedented popularity",[102] which led, as Marc Oxoby noted in his book, The 1990s, to the novels having an "extraordinary shelf life", remaining in print for many years.[102] This popular reception has also been reflected in public libraries; for example, Joyce Saricks states in The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction that the novels have been among the most requested books by fans of the fantasy genre.[103]

Brian Silliman, for SYFY Wire, described the Forgotten Realms as "a classic fantasy backdrop" and highlighted that "at one time in our history, our world and this one were connected, but over time this magical realm was, well, forgotten. It is an ideal place for any D&D adventure, inspiring limitless possibilities for any smirking dungeon master".[104]

Philip J. Clements called the Forgotten Realms "highly popular", "an unusually well-developed D&D setting" and "more-or-less the flagship setting for D&D". He also noted that it has received the greatest number of supplements.[105]

The 4th edition update to the Forgotten Realms brought massive lore changes which were "tied to a number of other design philosophies" and the Forgotten Realms "simultaneously had become a grittier setting, on the edge of collapse, while also becoming a more fantastic one, full of wonder and mystery".[106] Jason Wilson, for VentureBeat, highlighted that unlike the Time of Troubles cataclysm, the 4th edition Spellplague cataclysm was "one players never embraced in the same manner as the earlier disaster".[107] Shannon Appelcline, author of Designers & Dragons, wrote:

[The 4th edition] Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide may be the most controversial D&D book ever produced by Wizards. That's entirely due to the large-scale destruction of the Realms. Similar updates have been tried by other companies — to reinvigorate settings, to make them more accessible to new players, or to make them more adventuresome. [...] It never seems to go well, because old fans feel left behind. With that said, some folks did love the changes, because the setting was now more playable, more accessible, more fantastic, and more PC centered. [...] Meanwhile, a series of adventures and novels called The Sundering (2013–2014) reversed many of the 4e changes to the Realms, but without rebooting the timeline. Instead, the Realms continues to evolve and advance, as it has since its earlier days.[106]

R. A. Salvatore was also publicly unhappy with the 4th edition changes to the Forgotten Realms:[108]

[B]asically, we authors were handed a document and told how things were going to be. We were asked our opinions, but they mattered very little – the changes were being driven from a different direction. [...] To have characters that have built such a strong history, then have that upset on the orders of someone else was very disconcerting. I will admit that the abrupt changes forced me into an uncomfortable place, and from that place came some of the better things I've written, but I very much preferred the way it was done this time, with 5th Edition and the changes, where we, the authors, were told what was happening to the game and asked how we could make the world and the lore live and breathe it.

Aubrey Sitterson, for PC Magazine, included the Forgotten Realms in a 2015 roundup of the "11 Best Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Settings" and wrote that "for most people, Forgotten Realms is synonymous with Dungeons & Dragons, and with good reason: it's the setting that played home to the massively popular Baldur's Gate video game, as well as R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt books. Currently, it's the only campaign setting actively supported by D&D makers Wizards of the Coast, which would be restrictive if Forgotten Realms wasn't such an incredibly diverse place, housing classic European middle ages tropes, as well as a heroic fantasy take on African, Middle Eastern, and other real-world cultures".[109]

Christian Hoffer, for ComicBook.com, reported that Wizards of the Coast's 5th edition publishing strategy, which focuses on the Forgotten Realms and newer intellectual property for campaign settings, has created a rift in the fan base where some "feel that this push for new players has come at the cost of keeping the game's current players sated" by not updating campaign settings that "predate the Forgotten Realms". Hoffer highlighted that Wizards of the Coast has a much slower publication schedule than with previous editions with a focus on quality and profit and "the D&D teams knows that they have plenty of great campaign settings in their back pocket and are either actively developing more settings or have ideas for them further down the line".[110]

See also edit

References edit

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External links edit

 
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April 13, 2024
forgotten, realms, campaign, setting, dungeons, dragons, fantasy, role, playing, game, commonly, referred, players, game, designers, realms, created, game, designer, greenwood, around, 1967, setting, childhood, stories, several, years, later, published, game, . Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons amp Dragons D amp D fantasy role playing game Commonly referred to by players and game designers as The Realms it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories 1 Several years later it was published for the D amp D game as a series of magazine articles and the first Realms game products were released in 1987 Role playing game products have been produced for the setting ever since in addition to novels role playing video game adaptations including the first massively multiplayer online role playing game to use graphics comic books and the film Dungeons amp Dragons Honor Among Thieves 2 Forgotten RealmsTop The Forgotten Realms logo 1987 1999 Bottom Forgotten Realms logo 2000 present DesignersEd GreenwoodPublication1987 currentGenresFantasyLanguagesEnglishMedia typeGame accessories novels role playing video games comic booksForgotten Realms is a fantasy world setting described as a world of strange lands dangerous creatures and mighty deities where magic and supernatural phenomena are quite real The premise is that long ago planet Earth and the world of the Forgotten Realms were more closely connected As time passed the inhabitants of Earth had mostly forgotten about the existence of that other world hence the name Forgotten Realms The original Forgotten Realms logo which was used until 2000 had small runic letters that read Herein lie the lost lands as an allusion to the connection between the two worlds Forgotten Realms is one of the most popular D amp D settings 3 4 largely due to the success of novels by authors such as R A Salvatore and numerous role playing video games including Pool of Radiance 1988 Eye of the Beholder 1991 Icewind Dale 2000 and the Neverwinter Nights and Baldur s Gate series Contents 1 Creative origins 2 Publication history 2 1 1985 1990 2 2 1990 2000 2 3 2000 2008 2 4 2008 2014 2 5 2014 present 3 Fictional setting 3 1 Geography 3 2 Religion 3 3 Characters 4 Reception 5 See also 6 References 7 External linksCreative origins edit nbsp Ed Greenwood in 2008Ed Greenwood began writing stories about the Forgotten Realms as a child starting at the age of eight 5 72 He came up with the name from the notion of a multiverse of parallel worlds Earth is one such world and the Realms another In Greenwood s original conception the fantastic legends of Earth derive from a fantasy world that can no longer be accessed 6 Greenwood discovered the Dungeons amp Dragons game in 1975 and became a serious role playing enthusiast with the first Advanced Dungeons amp Dragons AD amp D game releases in 1978 6 Greenwood brought his fantasy world into the new medium of role playing games when a university student named September invited him to play AD amp D with her 5 72 The setting became the home of Greenwood s personal campaign 7 Greenwood began a Realms campaign in the city of Waterdeep before creating a group known as the Knights of Myth Drannor in the Shadowdale region Greenwood felt that his players thirst for detail made the Realms what it is They want it to seem real and work on honest jobs and personal activities until the whole thing grows into far more than a casual campaign Roleplaying always governs over rules and the adventures seem to develop themselves 6 Greenwood has stated that his own version of the Forgotten Realms as run in his personal campaign is much darker than published versions 8 Starting in 1979 Greenwood published a series of articles that detailed the setting in The Dragon now Dragon magazine the first of which was about a monster known as the curst 5 72 Greenwood wrote voluminous entries to Dragon and used the Realms as a setting for his descriptions of magic items monsters and spells 7 When Gary Gygax lost control of TSR in 1985 the company saw an opportunity to move beyond Greyhawk and introduce a new default setting 9 87 In 1986 TSR began looking for a new campaign setting for AD amp D 5 72 and assigned Jeff Grubb to find out more about the setting used by Greenwood as portrayed in his articles in Dragon 9 Greenwood states that Grubb asked him Do you just make this stuff up as you go or do you really have a huge campaign world and Greenwood answered yes to both questions 6 TSR felt that the Forgotten Realms would be a more open ended setting than its epic fantasy counterpart Dragonlance and chose the Realms as a ready made campaign setting upon deciding to publish AD amp D 2nd edition 6 Greenwood agreed to work on the project and began working to get Forgotten Realms officially published 10 He sent TSR a few dozen cardboard boxes stuffed with pencil notes and maps and sold all rights to the setting for a token fee 6 He noted that TSR altered his original conception of the Realms being a place that could be accessed from Earth as c oncerns over possible lawsuits kids getting hurt while trying to find a gate led TSR to de emphasize this meaning 6 Jon Peterson author of Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana A Visual History said that Greenwood was that rare obsessive DM who just seemed to have more ideas and energy to pour into his world than even the folks at TSR did Naturally when TSR was shopping for new campaign worlds as part of their cross media strategy they had to get the Forgotten Realms R A Salvatore took Greenwood s world and created characters and stories for it that made him a bestselling author and sustained TSR as a major fantasy book publisher 11 Publication history edit1985 1990 edit In 1985 the AD amp D module Bloodstone Pass was released by TSR and is retroactively considered to be a part of the Forgotten Realms 12 although it was not until the module The Bloodstone Wars was released that it became the official setting for the module series 13 Douglas Niles had worked on a novel trilogy with a Celtic theme which were then altered to become the first novels set in the Forgotten Realms starting with Darkwalker on Moonshae 1987 5 73 It is the first book in The Moonshae Trilogy which predates the Forgotten Realms Campaign Set by one month 14 The Forgotten Realms Campaign Set was later released in 1987 9 as a boxed set of two source books Cyclopedia of the Realms and DM s Sourcebook of the Realms and four large color maps designed by Greenwood in collaboration with Grubb 15 99 The set introduced the campaign setting and explained how to use it 15 99 and reserved space on the map for SSI s Gold Box computer role playing games set in the Forgotten Realms 16 TSR began incorporating elements by other designers into the Forgotten Realms including the Moonshae Isles by Douglas Niles the Desert of Desolation by Tracy Hickman and Laura Hickman and Kara Tur by Zeb Cook 5 73 The setting also provided a new way for TSR to market its Battlesystem rules which it had supported with the Bloodstone adventure sequence which started with Bloodstone Pass the last two adventures in the series The Bloodstone Wars 1987 and The Throne of Bloodstone 1988 were unambiguously set in the Forgotten Realms 5 74 Some characters from Egg of the Phoenix 1987 by Frank Mentzer were incorporated into The Savage Frontier 1988 5 40 The compilation module Desert of Desolation reworked the previous adventures to fit as part of the Forgotten Realms 17 The module Under Illefarn published in 1987 is set in the Forgotten Realms 15 108 as is the module released in 1988 Swords of the Iron Legion 15 103 R A Salvatore wrote his first novel for the Forgotten Realms The Crystal Shard 1988 which was originally set in the Moonshae Islands before being moved to a new location and introduced the drow character Drizzt Do Urden 5 73 18 Drizzt has since appeared in more than seventeen subsequent novels many of which have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list 19 In 1988 the first in a line of Forgotten Realms role playing video games Pool of Radiance was released by Strategic Simulations Inc 20 The game was popular and won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1988 21 Several supplements to the original boxed set were released under the first edition rules beginning with Waterdeep and the North 5 73 which was followed by Moonshae in 1987 and Empires of the Sands The Magister The Savage Frontier Dreams of the Red Wizards and Lords of Darkness in 1988 15 96 97 The City System boxed set was released in 1988 and it contained several maps of the city of Waterdeep 15 89 Ruins of Adventure a module based on the computer game Pool of Radiance was also released in 1988 15 113 The boxed set Kara Tur The Eastern Realms was released in 1988 It gives details of the lands of Kara Tur and was designed to be used with the 1986 book Oriental Adventures which officially placed the book in the Forgotten Realms world 15 103 In 1989 DC Comics began publishing a series of Forgotten Realms comics written by Grubb 5 75 Each issue contains twenty six pages illustrated primarily by Rags Morales and Dave Simons Twenty five issues were published in total with the last being released in 1991 A fifty six page annual Forgotten Realms Comic Annual 1 Waterdhavian Nights illustrated by various artists was released in 1990 Curse of the Azure Bonds a module based on the role playing video game of the same name was released in 1989 15 97 1990 2000 edit Forgotten Realms video games1988Pool of Radiance1989HillsfarCurse of the Azure Bonds1990Secret of the Silver BladesEye of the Beholder1991Eye of the Beholder II The Legend of DarkmoonPools of DarknessNeverwinter NightsGateway to the Savage Frontier1992Treasures of the Savage Frontier1993Forgotten Realms Unlimited AdventuresDungeon HackEye of the Beholder III Assault on Myth Drannor1994Menzoberranzan19951996Blood amp Magic1997Descent to Undermountain1998Baldur s Gate19992000Baldur s Gate II Shadows of AmnIcewind Dale2001Baldur s Gate Dark AlliancePool of Radiance Ruins of Myth Drannor2002Icewind Dale IINeverwinter NightsDungeons amp Dragons Eye of the Beholder20032004Baldur s Gate Dark Alliance II2005Forgotten Realms Demon Stone2006Neverwinter Nights 220072008200920102011Dungeons amp Dragons DaggerdaleHeroes of Neverwinter20122013Neverwinter2014Lords of Waterdeep2015Sword Coast Legends20162017Tales from Candlekeep Tomb of Annihilation2018Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms2019Warriors of Waterdeep20202021Dungeons amp Dragons Dark Alliance20222023Baldur s Gate IIITo transition the Forgotten Realms from first edition AD amp D to the ruleset s second edition a story involving the gods being cast down was planned by TSR management from the top down and started with Hall of Heroes 1989 and continued with a three adventure Avatar series 1989 and a three novel Avatar series 1989 and some stories in the comic book 5 84 TSR adjusted the timeline of the Forgotten Realms by advancing the calendar one year forward to 1358 DR referring to the gap as the Time of Troubles 9 In early 1990 the hardcover Forgotten Realms Adventures by Grubb and Greenwood was released which introduced the setting to AD amp D 2nd edition 15 99 100 the book also detailed how the Time of Troubles had changed the setting 22 139 The Ruins of Undermountain 1991 was one of the first published mega dungeons 5 93 The Al Qadim setting by Jeff Grubb was released in 1992 and the setting was added to the southern part of the Forgotten Realms 5 95 In July 1990 the RPGA Network s Polyhedron Newszine began publishing a monthly column by Greenwood entitled The Everwinking Eye detailing various locations and personalities in the Realms The Network used the Forgotten Realms city of Ravens Bluff as the setting for their first living campaign 5 93 Official RPGA support for this product line included the Living City module series A number of sub settings of the Forgotten Realms were briefly supported in the early 1990s Three more modules were produced for the Kara Tur setting The Horde boxed set released in 1990 detailed the Hordelands which featured a series of three modules The Maztica Campaign Set released in 1991 detailed the continent of Maztica The original gray boxed set was revised in 1993 to update it to AD amp D 2nd edition with the release of a new Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting boxed set containing three books A Grand Tour of the Realms Running the Realms and Shadowdale and various monster supplements 23 Additional material for the setting was released steadily throughout the 1990s Forgotten Realms novels such as the Legacy of the Drow series the first three books of The Elminster Series and numerous anthologies were also released throughout the 1990s which led to the setting being hailed as one of the most successful shared fantasy universes of the 1990s 24 By the first quarter of 1996 TSR had published sixty four novels set in the Forgotten Realms out of the 242 novels set in AD amp D worlds 25 20 These novels in turn sparked interest in role playing by new gamers 26 Numerous Forgotten Realms video games were released between 1990 and 2000 The Eye of the Beholder PC game was released in 1990 27 which was followed by two sequels the first in 1991 28 and the second in 1992 29 All three games were re released for DOS on a single disk in 1995 30 Another 1991 release was Neverwinter Nights on America Online the first graphical massively multiplayer online role playing game MMORPG 31 In 1998 Baldur s Gate the first in a line of popular role playing video games 32 developed by BioWare and considered by most pundits as the hands down best PC roleplaying game ever was released 1 The game was followed by a sequel Baldur s Gate II Shadows of Amn in 2000 and Icewind Dale a separate game that utilized the same game engine as Baldur s Gate Pool of Radiance Ruins of Myth Drannor was released in 2001 Several popular Forgotten Realms characters such as Drizzt Do Urden and Elminster made minor appearances in these games 2000 2008 edit When Wizards of the Coast took over publication of Dungeons amp Dragons after purchasing TSR in 1997 they trimmed production down from six campaign settings to Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance and completed AD amp D 2nd edition production sometime between 1998 and 1999 33 146 They later hired Rob Heinsoo as a member of the D amp D Worlds team to focus on Forgotten Realms in the third edition of Dungeons amp Dragons 33 162 An official material update and a timeline advance were introduced to the Dungeons amp Dragons 3rd edition in 2001 with the release of the hardcover book the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 34 which won the Origins Award for Best Role Playing Game Supplement of 2001 in 2002 35 The timeline was officially advanced from 1358 DR to 1372 DR 9 The adventure City of the Spider Queen 2002 did not meet its projected sales targets so Wizards of the Coast cut back on production of new adventures 33 165 In 2002 BioWare released Neverwinter Nights set in the northern reaches of Faerun and operating on the revised 3 0 rules for D amp D It was followed by two expansion packs Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark A sequel using version 3 5 of the rules was produced by Obsidian Entertainment in 2006 and was followed by the expansion sets Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir The Forgotten Realms Deluxe Edition compilation was released in 2006 containing the Baldur s Gate series excluding the Dark Alliance games Icewind Dale series and all Neverwinter Nights games before Neverwinter Nights 2 2008 2014 edit With the release of Dungeons amp Dragons 4th edition in 2008 Wizards opted for a publishing plan featuring a series of six books per year consisting of three core rulebooks as well as three setting books beginning with the Forgotten Realms The company started the cycle with the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide 2008 the Forgotten Realms Player s Guide 2008 and Scepter Tower of Spellgard 33 190 These books updated the Forgotten Realms to the newest rules system which altered the setting drastically to make it fit with the 4th edition concept of Points of Light 33 190 The main lore change centered around an event called the Spellplague in 1385 DR 9 This cataclysm was unleashed when the goddess of magic Mystra was killed transforming whole nations and altering creatures In addition parts of Toril have fused with its long lost twin world Abeir whisking away some countries and adding new ones The Underdark is more open to the surface Thay has become a nightmare land of death and the Elves sensing the newfound connection to the Feywild have returned to Faerun in force 36 The event moved the fictional world s timeline 94 years into the future to 1479 DR 9 The Spellplague acted as a narrative justification for design changes 9 107 In 2008 the Forgotten Realms also became the setting for the RPGA s sole living campaign Living Forgotten Realms replacing Living Greyhawk In 2011 the Neverwinter Campaign Setting was released which launched the 4th edition s first major multimedia release The Forgotten Realms city setting spawned four novels by R A Salvatore called the Neverwinter Saga a comic book and a board game called The Legend of Drizzt as well as two video games the Facebook game Heroes of Neverwinter 2011 2012 and a MMORPG called Neverwinter 2013 37 Laura Tommervik from the Wizards of the Coast marketing team explained the approach We use Neverwinter as the connective tissue across multiple product categories The transmedia campaign is an opportunity for fans to experience the brand however they choose to 37 In 2013 Wizards of the Coast announced a year long event called the Sundering which acted as a multimedia project to transition the Forgotten Realms to the next edition of the game 38 39 This release included a weekly D amp D Encounters in store play event a free to play mobile game Arena of War 2013 and a collaborative novel series The Companions 2013 by R A Salvatore The Godborn 2013 by Paul S Kemp The Adversary 2013 by Erin Evans The Reaver 2014 by Richard Lee Byers The Sentinel 2014 by Troy Denning and The Herald 2014 by Ed Greenwood 38 40 Liz Schuh Head of Publishing and Licensing for Dungeons amp Dragons said 41 The Sundering is the last of a series of ground shaking events It really affects the whole world of the Forgotten Realms in a major way You may remember when the Spell Plagues began the two worlds of the Forgotten Realms Abeir and Toril crashed together That created both geographic changes the map of the Forgotten Realms and Faerun actually changed due to that collision and also changed the way magic works It changed the pantheon of the gods The Sundering is all about those two worlds separating coming apart and the process of that separation is really the story that we re telling over the next year At the end of this story arc Abeir and Toril will be separate again and many of the things that happened when they crashed together will go back to the way they were before So magic will be much like it was before the Spell Plague Markings that marked spell plagued people and animals will fade and go away It s really about moving the Forgotten Realms forward but also about bringing it around to the most beloved and most fondly remembered Forgotten Realms The result of The Second Sundering in game terms was the transition from 4th edition rules to 5th edition rules of Dungeons amp Dragons published in 2014 9 42 2014 present edit When D amp D 5th edition was published in 2014 Wizards of the Coast announced that the Forgotten Realms would continue to serve as the official campaign setting for its upcoming published adventure materials 43 44 45 The village of Phandalin in the Forgotten Realms acted as the primary setting for the new 5th edition Starter Set 2014 which was published before the release of three new core rulebooks 46 Tyranny of Dragons was the first multimedia storyline for the new edition and included two adventure modules Hoard of the Dragon Queen 2014 and The Rise of Tiamat 2014 and an update to the Neverwinter 2013 video game 9 47 48 The next two storylines Elemental Evil which included Princes of the Apocalypse 2015 and Rage of Demons which included Out of the Abyss 2015 were also set in the Forgotten Realms 9 49 50 The first campaign guide for the new edition the Sword Coast Adventurer s Guide 2015 was released on November 3 2015 and only covered a fraction of the Forgotten Realms 51 9 It describes the 2013 Sundering event referred to as the Second Sundering in the book and its consequences in game terms and lore 52 The video game Sword Coast Legends 2015 published by Digital Extremes was also released in the same month as the tabletop campaign guide 51 53 5th edition details on the rest of Faerun had been untouched until the Tomb of Annihilation 2017 an adventure that leaves the northern Sword Coast for the southern jungles of Chult 9 101 The official Dungeons amp Dragons actual play web series Rivals of Waterdeep which premiered in 2018 is set in the Forgotten Realms It has adapted adventure modules such as Waterdeep Dragon Heist 2018 Baldur s Gate Descent Into Avernus 2019 and Candlekeep Mysteries 2021 which are also set in the Forgotten Realms 54 55 Fictional setting editMain article Faerun The focus of the Forgotten Realms setting is the continent of Faerun the western part of a continent that was roughly modeled after the Eurasian continent on Earth 25 6 The lands of the Forgotten Realms are not all ruled by the human race with populations of many humanoid races and creatures ubiquitous in fantasy fiction works such as dwarves elves goblins and orcs Technologically the world of the Forgotten Realms resembles the pre industrial Earth in the 13th or 14th century However the presence of magic provides an additional element of power to the societies There are several nation states and many independent cities with loose alliances being formed for defense or conquest Trade is performed by ship or horse drawn vehicle and manufacturing is based upon cottage industry Geography edit Main article Abeir Toril nbsp Forgotten Realms partial mapThe Forgotten Realms is part of the fictional world of Abeir Toril usually just called Toril 22 91 an Earth like planet with many real world influences and consists of several large continents 56 It was first detailed in the original Forgotten Realms Campaign Set published in 1987 by TSR 57 The other continents of Toril include Kara Tur Zakhara Maztica 56 and other yet unspecified landmasses 34 Kara Tur roughly corresponding to ancient East Asia was later the focus of its own source book Kara Tur The Eastern Realms published in 1988 15 103 58 There is also a vast subterranean world called the Underdark beneath the surface 22 98 138 50 In early editions of the setting The Realms shared a unified cosmology with various other campaign settings called the Great Wheel In this way each of the Dungeons amp Dragons campaign settings were linked together to form one interwoven world connected by various planes of existence With the release of the 2001 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting the setting was given its own distinct and separate cosmological arrangement with unique planes not explicitly connected to those of the other settings 34 59 Religion edit Religion plays a large part in the Forgotten Realms with deities and their followers being an integral part of the world Deities interact directly in mortal affairs answer prayers and have their own personal agendas All deities must have worshipers to survive and all mortals must worship a patron deity to secure a good afterlife A huge number of diverse deities exist within several polytheistic pantheons a large number of supplements have documented many of them some in more detail than others 60 61 Greenwood created a pantheon of gods for his home Dungeons amp Dragons game in his Forgotten Realms world which were introduced in his article Down to earth divinity from Dragon 54 October 1981 62 When the Forgotten Realms was published as a setting in 1987 the pantheon added Waukeen the goddess of trade money and wealth who was created by one of Jeff Grubb s players and added to the Forgotten Realms by Grubb citation needed Tyche was replaced with Tymora and the elemental lords from Melnibone were replaced by Akadi Grumbar Istishia and Kossuth 63 Much of the history of the Forgotten Realms detailed in novels and source books concerns the actions of various deities and The Chosen mortal representatives with a portion of their deities power such as Elminster Fzoul Chembryl Midnight who later became the new embodiment of the goddess of magic Mystra 22 140 and the Seven Sisters Above all other deities is Ao the Overlord who does not sanction worshipers and distances himself from mortals He is single handedly responsible for the Time of Troubles or Godswar as seen in The Avatar Trilogy 64 Characters edit The setting is home to several noteworthy recurring characters that have gained wider reception including The Companions of the Hall a group of adventurers that were created by R A Salvatore 65 66 and introduced in The Crystal Shard 1988 67 68 69 Each of these characters fit into an RPG archetype 70 They include Drizzt Do Urden a drow or dark elf ranger who is the main character of 34 novels 67 Drizzt is noted for his commitment to friendship and peace which is contrary to the stereotype of his people 71 Drizzt as a character is often used to represent issues of racial prejudice particularly in The Dark Elf Trilogy 72 73 Drizzt is also troubled by the lifespan discrepancy between himself and his human romantic interest Catti Brie 74 Wulfgar a massive human barbarian 75 in The Crystal Shard Wulfgar s combat prowess is significant enough that along with Drizzt and his magic panther Guenhwyvar they manage to beat 25 giants by themselves 67 As a character Wulfgar exemplifies the strong honest hot headed young warrior hero type common to adventure stories and similar to Howard s creation Conan 76 Bruenor Battlehammer a dwarven fighter who retakes Mithral Hall with the help of the other Companions 67 70 77 He was one of the first friends Drizzt made upon leaving the Underdark and both Catti Brie and Wulfgar are his adopted children 78 70 Rob Bricken for io9 highlighted Bruenor as a dwarf that hits pretty much every fantasy stereotype including his desire to reclaim an ancestral home that his people were chased out of after they dug too far and awakened a monster 67 Catti brie a human archer who would later develop abilities as a spellcaster 67 70 79 in The Crystal Shard Drizzt referred to her as his soulmate 67 Catti Brie is favored by Mielikki a goddess associated with forests and nature spirits and she bears the deity s mark Bricken argued that her characterization in The Icewind Dale Trilogy is limited 67 while Aidan Paul Canavan maintained that she becomes a hero only in later novels 80 Regis a halfling member of the Companions who behaves in the stereotypical manner of J R R Tolkien s hobbits Bricken noted that Regis is a rogue who set himself apart a bit by carrying a crystal pendant he can use to charm people though he is sometimes forced into dangerous situations and ends up saving the day Bilbo style such as in the final battle of The Crystal Shard 67 Elminster a wizard also known as the Sage of Shadowdale 81 he is a founding member of the Harpers and one of the oldest surviving and most powerful Chosen of Mystra 82 The Harpers are a semi secret organization Jonathan Palmer for Arcane magazine called them Laudable and commented that they are fighters for freedom and justice 83 Bricken described Elminster as the most powerful important and smartest wizard in the Forgotten Realms and one of the setting s most important characters more Merlin than Gandalf which makes him less enigmatic and prone to tomfoolery than other major fantasy wizards which I count as a good thing 84 Volothamp Geddarm a human adventurer who is famed within the setting Faerun for the number of guidebooks he writes about the various regions within the Realms The character s name is often attributed in real world D amp D publications as the in universe narrator of said works 85 Paul Pettengale from Arcane described him as one of those characters that everyone s heard about and one that just about every Dungeon Master must have been tempted to introduce to their campaign at some point or another 86 Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun developed by Greenwood and game designer Steven Schend is a character noted for his appearances in several novels set in the Forgotten Realms 22 87 as well as the 2004 video game Forgotten Realms Demon Stone 88 A powerful wizard renowned for his namesake staff in earlier editions he is the Archmage of Waterdeep leading member of the Harpers and one of Mystra s Chosen 22 Prior to his death Khelben passes the Blackstaff to his apprentice Tsarra 87 who takes up residence at Blackstaff Tower in Waterdeep and inherits his memories and legacy Writer Aubrey Sherman said he is an example for the importance of a wand or staff behind the conception of a wizard archetype and listed the character among D amp D s notable wizards 89 87 Jarlaxle also a character by R A Salvatore was introduced in the 1990 novel Exile He also appears in Promise of the Witch King Road of the Patriarch and The Pirate King as well as The Sellswords and the Paths of Darkness trilogies Described by Christian Hoffer from Comicbook com as a popular and intriguing supporting character 90 Jarlaxle is the charismatic and opportunistic drow leader of the mercenary band Bregan D aerthe Anglistics scholar Caroline de Launay characterized Jarlaxle as an independent character inclined to subtle manoeuvres 91 while Hoffer explained that he is an amoral villain who has plenty of contingencies and secret plots 90 When comparing the plot of The Dark Elf Trilogy to a game of chess de Launay assigned Jarlaxle the role of the knight 91 Theo Kogod for CBR wrote that Jarlaxle is in many ways a dark reflection of the heroic and honorable Drizzt He used lies manipulation and cunning to rise as high as a male Drow could within his culture but in the end he also left his home behind In Waterdeep Dragon Heist Jarlaxle is trying to leverage himself to become accepted as a legitimate member of the Lords Alliance He is one of four possible main villains in the campaign 92 Artemis Entreri a human assassin described by Bricken as cold blooded and Drizzt s equal in fighting and opposite in morality a mirror image of how Drizzt would have ended up if he had remained part of the universally evil drow society instead of forsaking it 93 Gromph Baenre is Archmage of the city of Menzoberranzan the City of Spiders Gromph is a rival in power to the other archmages of the Forgotten Realms such as Elminster and Khelben Blackstaff Arunsun In a review of the 1995 novel Daughter of the Drow Gideon Kibblewhite for Arcane called Gromph the only interesting character in the book describing him as the bitter and twisted archmage and lamented that he rarely makes an appearance after the opening 94 Liriel Baenre is the daughter of Gromph Baenre she originally belonged to House Vandree before her talent for arcane spellcasting was discovered by Gromph 95 After being sent away to hone her magical talent rather than study as a priestess Liriel uses a book given by her father to travel to the surface lands where she encounters followers of the goddess Eilistraee the Dark Maiden of benevolent drow comes to possess the magical artifact known as the Windwalker and eventually settle down on the surface world permanently Liriel was created by Elaine Cunningham for Daughter of the Drow and is described by Trenton Webb of Arcane as the oddest Drow due to her lack of traits deemed as stereotypical of her people 96 Erevis Cale first introduced in the short story Another Name For Dawn published in issue 277 of Dragon magazine is a pivotal character in novels by Paul S Kemp including The Halls of Stormweather Shadows Witness the Erevis Cale Trilogy and The Twilight War trilogy Originally a normal human he accepts the gift of the Fane of Shadows in Twilight Falling and becomes a shade being imbued with the essence of matter integral to the Plane of Shadow brings about drastic changes to his appearance and physiology Don D Ammassa described Erevis Cale as a man tormented by questions of right and wrong 97 Alustriel Silverhand is the ruler of the city of Silverymoon in The North of the setting Writing in 2000 Envoyer magazine reviewer Stylo counted her among the most prominent Forgotten Realms characters thanks to R A Salvatore s novels 98 Szass Tam is a lich and leader of the Red Wizards of Thay 99 100 Reception editIn his book The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer s Bible Sean Patrick Fannon describes the Forgotten Realms as being the most ambitious fantasy game setting published since Tekumel 1 and that it may be the most widely played in game setting in RPG history 1 Similarly in literature the novels written in the Forgotten Realms setting have formed one of the industry s leading fantasy series 101 Over time these novels have gained unprecedented popularity 102 which led as Marc Oxoby noted in his book The 1990s to the novels having an extraordinary shelf life remaining in print for many years 102 This popular reception has also been reflected in public libraries for example Joyce Saricks states in The Readers Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction that the novels have been among the most requested books by fans of the fantasy genre 103 Brian Silliman for SYFY Wire described the Forgotten Realms as a classic fantasy backdrop and highlighted that at one time in our history our world and this one were connected but over time this magical realm was well forgotten It is an ideal place for any D amp D adventure inspiring limitless possibilities for any smirking dungeon master 104 Philip J Clements called the Forgotten Realms highly popular an unusually well developed D amp D setting and more or less the flagship setting for D amp D He also noted that it has received the greatest number of supplements 105 The 4th edition update to the Forgotten Realms brought massive lore changes which were tied to a number of other design philosophies and the Forgotten Realms simultaneously had become a grittier setting on the edge of collapse while also becoming a more fantastic one full of wonder and mystery 106 Jason Wilson for VentureBeat highlighted that unlike the Time of Troubles cataclysm the 4th edition Spellplague cataclysm was one players never embraced in the same manner as the earlier disaster 107 Shannon Appelcline author of Designers amp Dragons wrote The 4th edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide may be the most controversial D amp D book ever produced by Wizards That s entirely due to the large scale destruction of the Realms Similar updates have been tried by other companies to reinvigorate settings to make them more accessible to new players or to make them more adventuresome It never seems to go well because old fans feel left behind With that said some folks did love the changes because the setting was now more playable more accessible more fantastic and more PC centered Meanwhile a series of adventures and novels called The Sundering 2013 2014 reversed many of the 4e changes to the Realms but without rebooting the timeline Instead the Realms continues to evolve and advance as it has since its earlier days 106 R A Salvatore was also publicly unhappy with the 4th edition changes to the Forgotten Realms 108 B asically we authors were handed a document and told how things were going to be We were asked our opinions but they mattered very little the changes were being driven from a different direction To have characters that have built such a strong history then have that upset on the orders of someone else was very disconcerting I will admit that the abrupt changes forced me into an uncomfortable place and from that place came some of the better things I ve written but I very much preferred the way it was done this time with 5th Edition and the changes where we the authors were told what was happening to the game and asked how we could make the world and the lore live and breathe it Aubrey Sitterson for PC Magazine included the Forgotten Realms in a 2015 roundup of the 11 Best Dungeons amp Dragons Campaign Settings and wrote that for most people Forgotten Realms is synonymous with Dungeons amp Dragons and with good reason it s the setting that played home to the massively popular Baldur s Gate video game as well as R A Salvatore s Drizzt books Currently it s the only campaign setting actively supported by D amp D makers Wizards of the Coast which would be restrictive if Forgotten Realms wasn t such an incredibly diverse place housing classic European middle ages tropes as well as a heroic fantasy take on African Middle Eastern and other real world cultures 109 Christian Hoffer for ComicBook com reported that Wizards of the Coast s 5th edition publishing strategy which focuses on the Forgotten Realms and newer intellectual property for campaign settings has created a rift in the fan base where some feel that this push for new players has come at the cost of keeping the game s current players sated by not updating campaign settings that predate the Forgotten Realms Hoffer highlighted that Wizards of the Coast has a much slower publication schedule than with previous editions with a focus on quality and profit and the D amp D teams knows that they have plenty of great campaign settings in their back pocket and are either actively developing more settings or have ideas for them further down the line 110 See also editList of Forgotten Realms novels List of Forgotten Realms modules and sourcebooks List of Dungeons amp Dragons video gamesReferences edit a b c d Fannon Sean Patrick 1999 The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer s Bible 2nd ed Obsidian Studios Corporation ISBN 978 0 9674429 0 7 Dungeons amp Dragons Honor Among Thieves Trailer Easter Eggs Monster Manual YouTube Dungeons amp Dragons Official Channel Retrieved July 22 2022 Slagle Matt 2007 01 18 Neverwinter Nights sequel brings more dungeon exploration to PC Deseret News Associated Press Archived from the original on 2008 12 08 Retrieved 2008 12 04 Desslock 1999 01 20 Baldur s Gate PC CNET Networks Archived from the original on 2008 12 07 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Shannon Appelcline 2014 Designers amp Dragons The 70s Evil Hat Productions ISBN 978 1 61317 075 5 a b c d e f g Varney Allen February 1998 ProFiles Ed Greenwood Dragon 244 112 a b Grubb Jeff Greenwood Ed Forgotten Realms Adventures TSR 1990 Interview on the DiceCast podcast 17 September 2010 a b c d e f g h i j k l m Carbonell Curtis D 2019 Chapter 3 Dungeons and Dragons Multiverse Dread Trident Tabletop Role Playing Games and the Modern Fantastic Liverpool Oxford University Press pp 80 108 ISBN 978 1 78962 468 7 OCLC 1129971339 Winter Steve Greenwood Ed Grubb Jeff 2004 30 Years of Adventure A Celebration of Dungeons amp Dragons Wizards of the Coast pp 74 87 Ferranti Seth October 23 2018 How the Art of Dungeons and Dragons Helped Make It a Phenomenon Vice Retrieved 2020 06 30 Bloodstone Pass at Pen amp Paper Archived from the original on December 7 2008 Listing at the Pen amp Paper RPG Database listing the module as part of the Forgotten Realms game line Retrieved on November 30 2008 H1 Bloodstone Pass at RPGnet Retrieved on November 30 2008 Greenwood Ed Grubb Jeff 1993 Running the Realms TSR pp 4 5 a b c d e f g h i j k Schick Lawrence 1991 Heroic Worlds A History and Guide to Role Playing Games Prometheus Books ISBN 0 87975 653 5 Maher Jimmy 2016 03 18 Opening the Gold Box Part 3 From Tabletop to Desktop The Digital Antiquarian Retrieved 19 March 2016 Bambra Jim September 1987 Open Box White Dwarf 93 4 Jacob Merle Apple Hope 2000 To Be Continued An Annotated Guide to Sequels Greenwood Publishing Group ISBN 978 1 57356 155 6 Biography of R A Salvatore Retrieved 2006 03 03 Frum Larry May 19 2014 40 years later Dungeons amp Dragons still inspiring gamers CNN Retrieved 2020 06 30 1988 List of Winners Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts amp Design Archived from the original on May 7 2008 Retrieved 9 December 2008 a b c d e f Canavan Aidan Paul April 2011 Looting the Dungeon The Quest for the Genre Fantasy Mega Text PDF PhD Greenwood Ed Bingle Don 1993 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting TSR Inc ISBN 978 1 56076 617 9 Oxobyn Marc 2003 The 1990s Greenwood Publishing Group ISBN 978 0 313 31615 9 a b Mackay Daniel 2001 The Fantasy Role Playing Game A New Performing Art Jefferson N C McFarland amp Co ISBN 0 7864 0815 4 OCLC 45575501 Punday Daniel 2005 Creative Accounting Role playing Games Possible World Theory and the Agency of the Imagination Poetics Today 26 1 113 139 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 118 7964 doi 10 1215 03335372 26 1 113 Eye of the Beholder for PC Gamespot Retrieved on December 1 2008 Eye of the Beholder II The Legend of Darkmoon Gamespot Retrieved on December 1 2008 Archived December 8 2008 at the Wayback Machine Eye of the Beholder III Assault on Myth Drannor Gamespot Retrieved on December 1 2008 Archived December 7 2008 at the Wayback Machine Eye of the Beholder Trilogy for DOS Mobygames Archived from the original on December 28 2008 Stormfront Studios Honored at 59th Annual Emmy Technology Awards For Creating First Graphical Online Role Playing Game Mcuvk Retrieved on December 1 2008 Curtis Aaron 1999 04 19 Gamers Corner Visiting Worlds You Won t Want to Leave The Los Angeles Times p C4 Retrieved 2008 12 04 a b c d e Shannon Appelcline 2014 Designers amp Dragons The 90s Evil Hat Productions ISBN 978 1 61317 084 7 a b c Greenwood Ed Reynolds Sean K Williams Skip Heinsoo Rob 2001 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Wizards of the Coast ISBN 978 0 7869 1836 2 2001 List of Winners Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts amp Design Archived from the original on June 17 2008 Retrieved 9 December 2008 Baichtal John 2008 12 01 Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide Chronicles the World s Epic Changes Wired ISSN 1059 1028 Retrieved 2020 06 30 a b Appelcline Shannon Neverwinter Campaign Setting 4e Product History DMs Guild Retrieved 2019 08 02 a b Ohannessian Kevin Wizards Focuses On Forgotten Realms With The Sundering Event MTV News Retrieved 2020 06 30 Campbell Colin 2013 08 06 Mobile game launches D amp D Forgotten Realms event Polygon Retrieved 2020 06 30 Erin M Evans interview Forgotten Realms The Sundering D amp D Den of Geek 2015 04 29 Retrieved 2020 06 30 Exclusive Interview on D amp D The Sundering Part 1 ICv2 August 6 2013 Retrieved 2020 06 30 Grabianowski Ed August 29 2012 What s Coming Next for Dungeons amp Dragons and Forgotten Realms io9 Retrieved September 14 2012 Bolding Jonathan 16 April 2014 New Dungeons amp Dragons Next and Tyranny of Dragons Details Emerge PAX East 2014 The Escapist Retrieved 2020 06 30 Molina Brett January 24 2014 Details of next Dungeons amp Dragons revealed USA TODAY Retrieved 2020 06 30 Ewalt David M April 15 2015 What s Next For The New Dungeons amp Dragons Interview with Nathan Stewart Forbes Retrieved 2020 06 30 Dungeons amp Dragons Expands Its Line with Three New Releases Paste 2019 07 03 Retrieved 2020 06 30 Bolding Jonathan 22 May 2014 Talking Dungeons amp Dragons Tyranny of Dragons Adventures With the Designers The Escapist Retrieved 2020 06 30 Tach Dave 2014 05 19 Neverwinter s Tyranny of Dragons expansion arrives Aug 14 Polygon Retrieved 2020 06 30 Bolding Jonathan 20 January 2015 Dungeons amp Dragons Announces Elemental Evil as Next Storyline Gives Release Dates The Escapist Retrieved 2020 06 30 a b Hall Charlie 2015 09 02 Out of the Abyss D amp D s next campaign goes deep into the Underdark Polygon Retrieved 2020 06 30 a b Lucard Alex November 9 2015 Tabletop Review Sword Coast Adventurer s Guide Dungeons amp Dragons Fifth Edition Diehard GameFAN Retrieved 2020 06 30 Sword Coast Adventurer s Guide Wizards of the Coast Inc Renton WA 2015 pp 16 18 ISBN 978 0 7869 6580 9 OCLC 915488960 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link CS1 maint others link Nelson Samantha November 10 2015 Sword Coast Legends has Dungeons amp Dragons flavor but not its creativity AV Club Retrieved 2020 06 30 There s No Better Time to Catch Up on RIVALS OF WATERDEEP Geek amp Sundry September 19 2018 Retrieved 2022 03 11 Rivals of Waterdeep is Dungeons amp Dragons Flagship Show ComicBook com June 21 2020 Retrieved March 11 2022 a b Bornet Philippe 2011 Religions in play games rituals and virtual worlds Theologischer Verlag Zurich p 286 ISBN 978 3 290 22010 5 Retrieved 4 October 2020 Greenwood Ed Grubb Jeff 1987 Forgotten Realms Campaign Set TSR Inc ISBN 978 0 88038 472 8 Pondsmith Mike Jay Batista Swan Rick 1988 Kara Tur The Eastern Realms TSR ISBN 978 0 88038 608 1 Baker Richard Wyatt James 2004 Player s Guide to Faerun Wizards of the Coast ISBN 978 0 7869 3134 7 Boyd Eric L 1998 Demihuman Deities TSR ISBN 978 0 7869 1239 1 Boyd Eric L Mona Erik 2002 Faiths and Pantheons Wizards of the Coast ISBN 978 0 7869 2759 3 Ed Greenwood Dragon magazine 54 Down to earth divinity October 1981 Ed Greenwood Jeff Grubb and Karen S Martin 1987 Forgotten Realms Campaign Set TSR Inc ISBN 0 88038 472 7 Ciencin Scott 1989 Shadowdale Maher John 2018 09 04 R A Salvatore reflects on 30 years of writing Drizzt and an ever changing fandom Polygon Retrieved 2021 01 15 Hall Charlie 2020 06 18 D amp D s new action RPG Dark Alliance is about what happens after players roll for initiative Polygon Retrieved 2021 01 15 a b c d e f g h i Bricken Rob June 26 2020 Dungeons amp Dragons amp Novels Revisiting The Crystal Shard io9 Retrieved 2020 12 28 Jacob Merle Apple Hope 2000 To Be Continued An Annotated Guide to Sequels Greenwood Press ISBN 157356155X Magill s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature Dream Vol 2 Shippey T A Sobczak A J Pasadena Calif Salem Press 1996 p 461 ISBN 0 89356 906 2 OCLC 34974363 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint others link a b c d Hohl Nate December 23 2019 Understanding the history behind Dark Alliance s cast of Forgotten Realms characters Gamecrate Retrieved 2021 01 15 Welsh Andrew March 2006 Sojourn The Legend of Drizzt Book 3 PopMatters Retrieved 2009 01 08 Salvatore R A The Thousand Orcs School Library Journal February 1 2003 Retrieved 2009 01 09 Battis Jes 2007 Queer Spellings Magic an Melancholy in Fantasy Fiction PhD p 46 Retrieved January 11 2021 The Lone Drow the Hunter s Blades Trilogy Book II Publishers Weekly September 1 2003 Retrieved 2009 01 09 Bruske Guth Tanja Monique 2015 Fantasy Rollenspiele als Medienverbundangebote Das Schwarze Auge und Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Hamburg Diplomica pp 66 69 70 ISBN 978 3 95934 799 0 Canavan Aidan Paul April 2011 Looting the Dungeon The Quest for the Genre Fantasy Mega Text PDF Thesis University of Liverpool pp 94 95 Developer Blog Who s Who in Underdark Neverwinter www arcgames com October 1 2015 Retrieved 2021 01 15 Shippey T A 1996 Magill s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature Salem Press ISBN 0 89356 906 2 What Do I Read Next Barron Neil 6 ed Detroit MI Gale Research 1995 p 286 ISBN 0 8103 9146 5 OCLC 33200976 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint others link Canavan Aidan Paul April 2011 Looting the Dungeon The Quest for the Genre Fantasy Mega Text PDF Thesis University of Liverpool pp 134 135 Hall Charlie 2016 10 19 Dungeons amp Dragons is changing how it makes books Polygon Retrieved 2021 01 15 Heroes Elminster Dungeons amp Dragons dnd wizards com Retrieved 2021 01 15 Palmer Jonathan February 1996 The Great Library Arcane 3 Future Publishing 88 Bricken Rob July 28 2020 Dungeons amp Dragons amp Novels Revisiting Azure Bonds io9 Retrieved 2020 12 28 An Exclusive Preview of the New Dungeons amp Dragons Monster Manual Volo s Guide to Monsters pastemagazine com 24 October 2016 Retrieved 2019 06 20 Pettengale Paul December 1996 Games Reviews Arcane 13 Future Publishing 72 a b c Sherman Aubrey 2014 10 03 The Wand or Staff Wizards The Myths Legends and Lore Avon Adams Media ISBN 978 1440582882 Patrick Tierney October 31 2009 Sir Patrick Stewart s 10 Best Video Game Roles Ranked TheGamer Retrieved March 21 2021 Sherman Aubrey 2014 10 03 Notable D amp D Wizards Wizards The Myths Legends and Lore Avon Adams Media ISBN 978 1440582882 a b Hoffer Christian September 12 2018 Dungeons amp Dragons Hid Another Sean Connery Easter Egg in Latest Adventure Comicbook com Retrieved March 5 2021 a b de Launay Caroline April 2006 The Chessboard World Alternations and Alternatives PDF The Symbolical Functions of Space in Fantasy Towards a Topography of the Genre PhD pp 112 114 Retrieved 2021 01 27 Kogod Theo 2021 04 23 Dungeons amp Dragons How Drizzt Do Urden s Greatest Enemy Made a Safe Community for LGBTQ Drow CBR Retrieved 2021 04 23 Bricken Rob November 4 2020 Dungeons amp Dragons amp Novels Revisiting Streams of Silver io9 Retrieved 2020 12 28 Kibblewhite Gideon December 1995 The Great Library Arcane 1 Future Publishing 80 Colohan Nick 2 April 2007 Daughter of the Drow is a worthy read The Capital p C1 Webb Trenton August 1996 Games Reviews Arcane 9 Future Publishing 81 D Ammassa Don September 2006 Whisper of Waves Midnight s Mask The Emerald Scepter Guardian Saviors of Kamizawa Chronicle 28 3 66 Stylo March 2000 Der Norden Envoyer 41 FZ Werbung Hannover 11 13 ISSN 1433 2892 Hall Charlie 2023 01 23 D amp D movie villain revealed and no it s not Vecna Polygon Retrieved 2023 01 24 Lucard Alex August 18 2011 Neverwinter Campaign Setting New Monsters and NPCs Diehard GameFAN Archived from the original on October 8 2011 Retrieved 2023 01 24 I love it now that my favorite Zulkir Szass Tam has risen up committed a massive genocide and turned the empire into a Necromantic dictatorship where the people have been replaced by the undead both sentient and otherwise Milliot Jim October 22 2007 Wizards Brews New Fiction Line Publishers Weekly 254 42 a b Oxoby Marc 2003 The 1990s Greenwood Publishing Group p 148 ISBN 978 0 313 31615 9 Saricks Joyce G 2001 The Readers Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction ALA Editions pp 49 50 ISBN 978 0 8389 0803 7 Silliman Brian 2017 09 20 25 fantasy worlds from the past 25 years we d want to visit SYFY WIRE Retrieved 2020 06 30 Clements Philip J December 2019 Dungeons amp Discourse Intersectional Identities in Dungeons amp Dragons PhD p 78 Retrieved January 20 2021 a b Appelcline Shannon Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide 4e Wizards of the Coast Product History DriveThruRPG Retrieved 2020 06 30 Wilson Jason 2015 10 19 Sword Coast Legends isn t last generation s D amp D and that s sometimes a bad thing VentureBeat Retrieved 2020 06 30 Grabianowski Ed October 2 2014 R A Salvatore and Erin M Evans Bring War to the Forgotten Realms io9 Retrieved 2020 06 30 Sitterson Aubrey November 24 2015 11 Best Dungeons amp Dragons Campaign Settings PCMAG Retrieved 2020 06 30 Hoffer Christian January 25 2020 The Divide Brewing Among Dungeons amp Dragons Fans ComicBook com Retrieved 2020 06 30 External links edit nbsp Wikiquote has quotations related to Forgotten Realms nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Forgotten Realms Official website Forgotten Realms Wiki Forgotten Realms Subreddit Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Forgotten Realms amp oldid 1216236382, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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