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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[Hussar]

Tiefling are not 2E FR or core 2E PHB. Nor are Dragonborn. Neither were
part of Ed's FR which was conceived in 2E.

(I played 2e extensively.)

Tiefling came in with 2E Planescape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiefling

The Dragonborn came in in 3.5 and were chiefly developed in Eberron.
(You are correct however that there was a suggestion of them in WOTCs FR for 3.5)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonborn

To be fair, a lot of the things that are now considered part of FR weren't invented in FR. Drow, for example, or at least D&D's take on them, were added to the setting later and then popularised (hugely) by a certain writer. FR, as the flagship setting for D&D, has always been a big stew pot with all sorts of ideas pulled from other settings.

 

[Staffan]

Tiefling are not 2E FR or core 2E PHB. Nor are Dragonborn. Neither were
part of Ed's FR which was conceived in 2E.

(I played 2e extensively.)

Tiefling came in with 2E Planescape.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiefling

The Dragonborn came in in 3.5 and were chiefly developed in Eberron.
(You are correct however that there was a suggestion of them in WOTCs FR for 3.5)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonborn

3.5e Eberron didn't have anything close to the dragonborn, unless you count the generic 3.5 supplement Races of the Dragon which introduced dragonborn (but in a very different form from what they became in 4e) and had some stuff on how to use them in Eberron.

The new races in Eberron were changelings, kalashtar, shifters, and warforged. Nothing about dragonborn. The closest the Eberron book came (and that wasn't particularly close) were the barbarian tribes who lived on an island off the coast of Argonessen and worshiped the dragons (usually a particular dragon for each tribe), and having a draconic totem gave you access to some special feats.

Also, Ed conceived the Realms long before 2e, or even 1e for that matter. Forgotten Realms was first published for 1st edition, though 2nd edition came out only two years or so after the Grey Box, and the vast bulk of available FR material was written for 2nd edition (or at least had a new version made in 2e).

 

[Staffan]

To be fair, a lot of the things that are now considered part of FR weren't invented in FR. Drow, for example, or at least D&D's take on them, were added to the setting later and then popularised (hugely) by a certain writer. FR, as the flagship setting for D&D, has always been a big stew pot with all sorts of ideas pulled from other settings.

The Crystal Shard, the first Icewind Dale book featuring Drizzt and the others, came out in 1988, only a year after the grey box FRCS. The grey box also mentioned drow in its section on elves.

Still, drow certainly didn't originate in FR - that dubious honor goes to Greyhawk, although at the time there wasn't really any separation between Greyhawk and D&D in general.

 

[Hussar]

I think you could make a pretty good argument that a very large number of FR elements had their genesis somewhere else. Kara-Tur, Gruumsh and Corellon, Undermountain, etc.

 

[graves3141]

In his presentation of the FR secretariat, Ed mentions this:

'' Wizards of the Coast will be presenting you with new products of their own and licensed products—computer games, perhaps television and movies, certainly more novels. Of course, new adventures and tournament Organized Play adventures.''

Ed even presents a movie as something possible, and yet says nothing about sourcebooks of any kind, or about a Campaign Setting. This is quite telling to me. Unless there's something secret that he just can't talk about (and if it were the case, I guess that he would have said that a surprise or something was in the works), my gut feeling is that WotC will just be using the FR for novels and as a light background for their adventures and some non-D&D material.

I hate to say it but I think this is probably right on the mark. I doubt we'll see much produced for 5E at all except for the APs. If they were working on something else, I suspect we'd have heard something by now.

 

[Charles Wright]

If you listen to his longer video Ed states that the Realms have been around since he was 6. That he published a story at that age that was FR. No details on how were given.

Basically, the Realms weren't tied to D&D for a long time.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Two new entries have been posted to the secretariat, including:

Den of Dreams

and

Meet Mirt

For the second post, this part made me happy:

For one thing, he’s about to stumble on some deep-rooted secrets I wrote into the world long ago; he’s just the man to do it.

His needs and wants and attitudes force me to go on seeing the Realms in new ways, and sharing what I find.

So to me, the Realms isn’t the world of Elminster—it’s the world of Mirt. Elminster just brings us the nightly news. Or the latest teasers.

The Realms needs a Mirt's-eye-view of things.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Love him or hate him, it's all about Elminster in the latest entry to the unofficial history.

 

[Kramodlog]

Love him or hate him, it's all about Elminster in the latest entry to the unofficial history.

Who is the successor Elminster is training?

And Ed Greenwood was born without a beard!?

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

A descendant née Amarune Whitewave, if memory serves.