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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[Reynard]

well first here is the pub info:



that comes from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgotten_Realms

the 'inflating' comes because he wants to count the very first fantasy story he ever thought up as the 'birth date' of the setting, even though as any good writer will tell you nailing down themes and idea's to one day's thoughts are hard enough if you do it right away, doing it 30 or 40 years later is almost impossible.

I don't doubt that he has spent years (like most of us here) writing and rewriting his fantasy worlds, I doubt he could put a number on it... and in the past he had put the age of 7 to it. However that would make this 48 years, and gen con 50th...

he wants to sell a book, and 50 years sounds good, better then 28, or 32, or 48 even... so now he remembers it being 5. or 6 when he wrote the story...




we don't count things by when writers got ideas or even when writers wrote a story but publication date. It allows a comparison of writers "This writer was published in the 40's, that one the 50's gee I wonder if the one from the 50's was influenced by the one in the 40s? No, they both wrote about the same time, ok" is fine, but you don't claim them both as the same anniversary.

The only thing that sets Ed apart from the creaters of Spell Jammer, Birthright, Darksun, and Ebberon, is his own SELF publicity... and I find it at least a little dishonest that someone can come and look at this thread and think the realms pre date grey hawk...

So how old is Middle Earth?

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Ed has been consistent in his answers about the origin of ideas for the Realms. This is certainly not the first time the topic has come up, because people have been asking about it for decades.

Any suggestion that only now are we seeing the true history of the Realms is to assign a motive wrought from the imagination. This takes the discussion on a trip backwards from historical fact, that passes the town of subjective opinion, and arrives in the land of make believe.

The first Realms story was written fifty years ago.

The Realms, as a thing, is by all accounts older than Greyhawk.

Greyhawk predates the Realms as a D&D setting.

Only in the last year or so has Ed Greenwood, with the help of some dedicated friends and fans, finally caught up to the rest of the Internet and put himself out there.

Other professional game designers and novelists recognize that the Realms is 50 years old.

Neither Ed, nor any other creative, has declared we must all be of one mind on the subject.

These are facts. Pointing out these facts, talking about them, etc., does not mean someone is indirectly proclaiming the Realms are better than Greyhawk.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Neither Ed, nor any other creative, has declared we must all be of one mind on the subject.

and yet when I point out the problems and make sure both sides are equally represented, you like to shout me down... almost like you believe we must ALL BE OF ONE MIND...

 

[Kramodlog]

So, if in 1965 Ed wrote a short story titled "The Forgotten Realms" and it featured Elminster in Shadow Dale, you would still say the Realms aren't 50 years old?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So how old is Middle Earth?

Author
J. R. R. Tolkien

Country
United Kingdom

Language
English

Genre

High fantasy
Adventure


Publisher
George Allen & Unwin (UK)

Published

29 July 1954
11 November 1954
20 October 1955


Media type
Print (hardback & paperback)

Preceded by
The Hobbit

so 54 to 2015... I would say (inless this is a trick question) 61 years...

 

[Paraxis]

I care so very little about the Realms or Greyhawk, to me they are much the same boring kitchen sink type setting. But this whole 50 years anniversary because someone wrote a story when they were 6 years old thing is just ridiculous, I agree publication date is the date that matters. So happy almost 30th to the Realms.

EDIT: Wanted to add as an example the other major D&D setting, Dragonlance. It was published in 1984 as a novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight, they celebrated the 30th anniversary last year in 2014. Hickman and his wife came up with concept while on a road trip in 1982, that doesn't count no matter what was written down at the time, because it wasn't published. This whole 50th thing is just a ploy for attention.

 

[Kramodlog]

so 54 to 2015... I would say (inless this is a trick question) 61 years...

Are you familiar with some called the Hobbit?

 

[casterblaster]

Wow...why does this bother you so bad? Just because it predates dnd and Greyhawk won't make people destroy gygax statues or deface memorials. FR can be a thing before it was ever published.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So, if in 1965 Ed wrote a short story titled "The Forgotten Realms" and it featured Elminster in Shadow Dale, you would still say the Realms aren't 50 years old?

I would go from the day that story was published...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Are you familiar with some called the Hobbit?

opps... you are right....
Publication date
21 September 1937

so since 37... that was an honest mistake, that I am more then willing to admit to and correct, because I was wrong...