Forgotten Realms
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]
Designers
1987–current
Fantasy
English
Game 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.
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 It sold ca. one hundred fifty thousand times in its first two years.[16] 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.[17]
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.[18] 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 [19] Drizzt has since appeared in more than seventeen subsequent novels, many of which have appeared on the New York Times Best Seller list.[20] In 1988, the first in a line of Forgotten Realms role-playing video games, Pool of Radiance, was released by Strategic Simulations, Inc.[21] The game was popular and won the Origins Award for "Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1988".[22]
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