The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is a role-playing game sourcebook first published by TSR in 1987 for the first edition of the fantasy role-playing game Advanced Dungeons & Dragons that describes the campaign setting of the Forgotten Realms. It contains information on characters, locations and history. Various revised and updated editions have been produced over the years.
The 1987 Forgotten Realms Campaign Set was sold as a box set containing two 96-page books, four maps, and two clear plastic overlays marked with hex grids. [1] The maps were four full-color, 34" x 22" maps, two of which combine to form a large-scale (1" = 90 miles) map of the western half of the vast Realms continent, while the other two provide a more detailed (1" = 30 miles) map of the regions featured in the campaign pack.
The Dungeon Master's Sourcebook of the Realms describes how to set up and run a campaign in the Forgotten Realms. A pair of short scenarios is included, and information is provided on terrain and movement in the wilderness, important non-player character personalities, rumors, as well as important and magical books. [1] Written from the perspective of Elminster the sage, the book introduces the campaign setting, explains how to use it, and offers adventure resources. Large areas were set aside to be developed for house campaigns, and no published materials were intended to be printed to exploit those areas, while one area detailed in this package was intended to have no subsequent publications use that area. The package covers only the western half of a single continent; the eastern half would later be covered in a separate sourcebook for Kara-Tur. Two complete dungeon-style adventures are provided: "Halls of the Beast-Tamers", a dungeon with many unconventional problem-solving exercises, and "Lashan's Fall", a dungeon with a mystery and an opportunity to parley with a monster. The "Books of the Forgotten Realms" section is a treatment of several magical tomes that suggests a variety of adventures, with a description of the appearance, history, and contents of each book.
The Cyclopedia of the Realms contains background information on and detailed maps for the locations featured in the maps of the Forgotten Realms that come with the set. [1] It begins with an explanation of the Realms' treatment of time, names, language, and currency, and its gods and religion. The remaining 75 pages of the book is an encyclopedic and alphabetic listing of important places, races, nations, cultures, character classes, and organizations of the Realms.
Ed Greenwood and Jeff Grubb collaborated beginning in 1986 to turn Greenwood's Forgotten Realms campaign setting into a publishable product for the public. Greenwood sent in packages filled with raw material, maps, and notes to Grubb. [2] Grubb then organized and rewrote much of the material, and Karen Martin edited it. Their combined work created the Forgotten Realms Campaign Set that was published in 1987. [3] It featured illustrations and artwork from Keith Parkinson, Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, and Tim Conrad. [1] [4]
In 1990, TSR published Forgotten Realms Adventures , a 154-page sourcebook that was a revision and upgrade to the 1st edition Campaign Set for the newly published 2nd edition rules.
TSR published a full new version of the boxed set for AD&D 2nd edition in 1993, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Revised. [2] It was later republished in 1996. Contents included:
The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting was published in June 2001. [5] Wizards of the Coast published an updated version for use with the 3rd edition of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Due to difficulties with distribution and production costs of box sets, Wizards moved away from that style, and instead published a normal hardcover book for the 3rd edition update to the Realms. The book was written by Ed Greenwood, Sean K. Reynolds, Skip Williams and Rob Heinsoo, with additional contributions from members of the Wizard company's staff. Interior art was by Todd Lockwood, Sam Wood, Matt Wilson, Carlo Arellano and Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. The book is 320 pages in length and features color illustrations.
Notable updates to the campaign setting included the widespread presence of Red Wizard enclaves in various cities, the presence of a mysterious group called the "Shades" in the southern Anauroch desert, and the increasing "surface presence" of dark elves in the Dalelands. The setting history was updated to reflect various major events such as the changes to the pantheon of Faerûn since the Time of Troubles, and the defeat of the Tuigan Horde.
The book was organized into nine chapters, which cover the campaign setting in broad detail. The primary emphasis is on the continent of Faerûn, and the other continents are only briefly mentioned. The chapters are arranged as follows:
This work contained a number of maps, and a fold-out map of the continent of Faerûn. There were also many sidebar topics and tables. Game statistics were provided for popular Forgotten Realms characters such as Drizzt Do'Urden, Artemis Entreri, Elminster, Khelben Blackstaff, Fzoul Chembryl and Manshoon.
Wizards of the Coast released another revised edition of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide for the 4th edition of D&D in August 2008, and also released the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide in September 2008.
To usher in the new edition of Dungeons & Dragons, major campaign world events included the death of the goddess Mystra and her Weave, and the subsequent Spellplague, which caused calamitous events such as animation of giant statues, violent earthquakes, corruption of various beings into monsters, and the collapse of some regions of the Underdark. [6]
An additional campaign setting book, covering the city of Neverwinter and its environs, was released in 2011, [7] while an overview of the history, both fictional and real-world, of the Realms was published as Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms in 2012, written by Realms creator Ed Greenwood. [8]
Despite being a creative and critical success, sales of the Campaign Setting in the 1980s and 1990s were not large in raw numbers. This was partially due to how only a Dungeon Master might need to buy the setting for an entire playgroup, while all the players might own a Players' Handbook, and anyone could buy the popular Forgotten Realms novels with no need to even participate in AD&D. The 1987 Campaign Set sold around 80,000 copies in its first year, and around 207,000 total sales before 1999; the 1990 Adventures supplement handbook sold around 82,000 in its first year, and 116,000 sales before 1999; and the 1993 2nd edition box set sold around 36,000 copies in its first year, and 107,000 copies by 1999. These sales were worse than both Dragonlance Adventures and World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting that had been published earlier, perhaps a sign of increasing competition in the role-playing game market compared to the early 1980s when Dungeons & Dragons was by far the pre-eminent role-playing game. [2]
Lawrence Schick, in his 1991 book Heroic Worlds, describes the Forgotten Realms as a "fantasy world with a little bit of everything in it, the setting for most of TSR's AD&D scenarios from 1987 on. The world is designed to be flexible enough to act as a setting for a wide variety of campaigns." [1]
The reviewer from Pyramid noted that the third edition book covers "a vast land with knights, barbarians, horse archers, and just about any other type of fantasy archetype you can name". [9]
Scott Taylor for Black Gate in 2014 listed Forgotten Realms Boxed Set by Keith Parkinson as #6 in The Top 10 TSR Cover Paintings of All Time. [10]
In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath noted, "After the box is opened, the first thing that is apparent about Forgotten Realms is how massive the world is ... Large portions of the world are left for the GM to fill in with their own material, while the rest is detailed by Greenwood and company with an eye towards giving players and GMs a little bit of everything." [11]
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. 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, comic books, and the film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
The drow or dark elves are a dark-skinned and white-haired subrace of elves connected to the subterranean Underdark in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game. The drow have traditionally been portrayed as generally evil and connected to the evil spider goddess Lolth. However, later editions of Dungeons & Dragons have moved away from this portrayal and preassigned alignment. More recent publications have explored drow societies unconnected to Lolth.
Ed Greenwood is a Canadian fantasy writer and the creator of the Forgotten Realms game world. He began writing articles about the Forgotten Realms for Dragon magazine beginning in 1979, and subsequently sold the rights to the setting to TSR, the creators of the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, in 1986. He has written many Forgotten Realms novels, as well as numerous articles and D&D game supplement books.
Faerûn is a fictional continent and the primary setting of the Dungeons & Dragons world of Forgotten Realms. It is described in detail in several editions of the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting with the most recent being the 5th edition from Wizards of the Coast, and various locales and aspects are described in more depth in separate campaign setting books. Around a hundred novels, several computer and video games and a film use Faerûn as the setting.
Mystra is a fictional goddess in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
Volothamp "Volo" Geddarm, created by Jeff Grubb, is a fictional character of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
Abeir-Toril is the fictional planet that makes up the Forgotten RealmsDungeons & Dragons campaign setting, as well as the Al-Qadim and Maztica campaign settings, and the 1st edition version of the Oriental Adventures campaign setting.
Richard Baker is an American author and game designer who has worked on many Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings.
Neverwinter is a fictional city-state in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Neverwinter was founded by Lord Halueth Never. It sits on the northwestern coast of the subcontinent of Faerûn.
A dwarf, in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game, is a humanoid race, one of the primary races available for player characters. The idea for the D&D dwarf comes from the dwarves of European mythologies and J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955), and has been used in D&D and its predecessor Chainmail since the early 1970s. Variations from the standard dwarf archetype of a short and stout demihuman are commonly called subraces, of which there are more than a dozen across many different rule sets and campaign settings.
The flexibility of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) game rules means that Dungeon Masters (DM) are free to create their own fantasy campaign settings. For those who wanted a pre-packaged setting in which to play, TSR, Wizards of the Coast (WotC), and other publishers have created many settings in which D&D games can be based; of these, the Forgotten Realms, an epic fantasy world, has been one of the most successful and critically acclaimed settings. Many campaign settings include standard sword and sorcery environments, while others borrow Asian, Central American, swashbuckling, horror and even space-travel themes.
Moonshae is an accessory for the Dungeons & DragonsForgotten Realms campaign setting. It describes the Moonshae Isles of Faerûn.
The lich is an undead creature found in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. Liches are spellcasters who seek to defy death by magical means.
Forgotten Realms Adventures is an accessory for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the second edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. The book, with product code TSR 2106, was published in 1990, and was written by Jeff Grubb and Ed Greenwood, with cover art by Clyde Caldwell and interior art by Steven Fabian, Ned Dameron, Larry Elmore, Caldwell, and Jeff Easley.
The Magister is an accessory for the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. The book, with product code TSR 9229, was published in 1988 by TSR. It was written by Ed Greenwood and Steve Perrin, with cover art by Jeff Easley and interior art by Valerie Valusek.
The Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide is a supplement to the 4th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.
Kara-Tur: The Eastern Realms is an accessory and campaign setting for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
Pages from the Mages is an accessory for the 2nd edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, published in 1995.
Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue is a system-neutral supplement to the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game published towards the end of 4th edition.
Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms is an edition-neutral sourcebook for the Forgotten Realms published during the 4th edition of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.