Look What ED GREENWOOOD Is Doing! Forgotten Realms: The Unofficial, Non-Canon, Unlicensed, Utterly U

There's no news of an official Forgotten Realms book for D&D (at least not yet), but Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood is forging ahead with his own! Greenwood is writing Forgotten Realms: The Unofficial, Non-Canon, Unlicensed, Utterly Unapproved 50-Year History under the auspices of The Ed Greenwood Group and plans to release it at Gen Con in August this year, and once a week there will be updates on the web where he'll "peek behind the curtain and let you know something else about the untold history of the Realms, things you’ve never known".
Here's the full announcement:

"Welcome to the unofficial history of the Forgotten Realms.® Have you ever wondered why I, the guy who created the Realms in the first place, decided to share it with the wider world? Do you want to hear behind-the-scenes stories, some of those that can now be told, about why things are the way they are? Why, for instance, that from the beginning the Forgotten Realms® maps didn’t have hexes all over them, so the rivers didn’t run in little diagonal lines along the edges of hexes, but rather the maps looked like maps of real places, rather than game maps? Ever wondered about things like that?

Well, for the answers to those questions and many others, just keep visiting our site throughout the year because once a week we’ll peek behind the curtain and let you know something else about the untold history of the Realms, things you’ve never known. Things you may not even have thought to ask about, things that are deep dark secrets of the Realms.

See you every week, throughout the year!

The Ed Greenwood Group will launch its first projects in August at GenCon 2015 in Indianapolis—Forgotten Realms: The Unofficial, Non-Canon, Unlicensed, Utterly Unapproved 50-Year History by Ed Greenwood, curated by Brian Cortijo and All is Lust: Letters With a Hooded Lady by Ed Greenwood and The Hooded One.

Join us at RealmsSecretariat.com each week as Ed Greenwood continues the tale of how the Forgotten Realms went from a short story to becoming one of the world’s most beloved shared settings. All stories are totally unofficial—100% unapproved—not authorized, sanctioned, censored, or redacted in any way. Herewith we present the unvarnished Ed Greenwood and his take on the past fifty years."
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[video=youtube;XFdU3fUeBSI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XFdU3fUeBSI[/video]
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[Kramodlog]

Ain't the name Forgotten Realms trademark or something? I guess WotC wouldn't send Ed Greenwood a C&D letter. Too much bad press. Maybe.

Edit: Oh yeah, and cue the "I hate the Realms" posts!

 

[Wolfskin]

Mystra softcore fictions incoming!

(Just kidding- love ya, Ed!)

 

[Sunsword]

Mystra softcore fictions incoming!

(Just kidding- love ya, Ed!)

All is Lust, seems to be precariously close to that

 

[Mark CMG]

Oh, he's so cruising for a C&D!


Love the title!

 

[Agamon]

Ain't the name Forgotten Realsm trademark or something?

All he has to do is spell it like that, and he's golden!

 

[Dire Bare]

Ed created the Realms, but he does not own the Realms. I buy the "unofficial, non-canon, unapproved" part of the tag line, but not the "unlicensed". WotC would have had to give Ed the okay for this, I doubt he would have proceeded otherwise. Assuming this book is all, or mostly, "in-universe". I mean, if he's just banking on his currently good relationship with WotC to protect him from legal action . . . I think he's smarter than that!

Then again, perhaps if the book isn't really an in-universe history of the Realms, but rather is ABOUT the 50-year long development of the Realms, that would probably fly legally. I've seen unauthorized biographies and unlicensed literary analyses before, it could fall under that category. He still probably ran it past WotC to make sure he doesn't step on any toes. Maybe?

 

[Wolfskin]

I believe what we'll be seeing is a history of Ed's worldbuilding in the Realms, not an in-universe one. For instance, he may cite source of inspiration and his thought processes when creating -say- Cormyr and its different institutions.

 

[God]

This reads a little like an April Fool's joke, a month early. The promo page for All is Lust is ... squicky.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yeah, we have all manner of literary critics, movie critics, critics of all types really... that talk about copywrighted and trademarked material all the time. And that's all Fair-Use and all that. So as long as he just talks about his own personal history with the Realms, I imagine he can relay stories and whatnot all he wants.

That's not to say though that he won't give WotC the courtesy of an advanced copy of it for them to look through before publication... probably just out of nicety and politeness if anything. They probably wouldn't be able to get him to change anything in it that they didn't agree with (since its all just his own opinions), and they theoretically could "denounce" the document if they found it really egregious... but I seriously doubt Ed would include anything that inflammatory. He still has to work with a lot of these people still after all.