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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[GMforPowergamers]

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.

it doesn't bother me until someone makes a big post on a place I frequent... then I state my point of view... then if it is a civil place we talk about all points of view and try to make it interesting well not insulting or dismissing each other... or we get into fights where people compare me to a crazy man shouting about the end of the world and tell me my thoughts don't count, then laughing say "We don't have to be on the same mind"

 

[GMforPowergamers]

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.

yes that is what I call a precedent... anniversary to celebrate a setting and an auther or authers are GREAT... celebrating the 30th of FR is great, and I will raise a glass that year.

this being called a 50th is not

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

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.

Yes, the 30th anniversary of the published setting.

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.

As it relates to the history of the setting, it's creative roots and when words were first put to paper (and not simply batting ideas back and forth), it very much counts.

These are events in time. Counting the years from when an event happens to now and tracing its history along the way, and being able to parse the difference between this activity and a particular example of one historical event (a setting's publication date) is not that difficult a thing to do.

As has been stated previously, more than once, when we talk about the Realms being 50 years old it's done so in the historical sense. Not in the "when was it published" sense.

Edit: not to belabor the obvious, but the word "history" is in the thread title.

2nd Edit: according to Ed Greenwood over at the Realms Secretariat website, he did publish Zirta at a young age. I am curious what form that publication took, or if he might be stretching the definition of that word.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yes, the 30th anniversary of the published setting.

As it relates to the history of the setting, it's creative roots and when words were first put to paper (and not simply batting ideas back and forth), it very much counts.

These are events in time. Counting the years from when an event happens to now and tracing its history along the way, and being able to parse the difference between this activity and a particular example of one historical event (a setting's publication date) is not that difficult a thing to do.

As has been stated previously, more than once, when we talk about the Realms being 50 years old it's done so in the historical sense. Not in the "when was it published" sense.

Edit: not to belabor the obvious, but the word "history" is in the thread title.

so what other things get measured this way... by you or by others?

last time I asked that you doged by insulting me... lets see if you actually have a list this time... or if it is only FR, because the creater goes out of his way to make the point...

 

[Kramodlog]

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

So, basically, you just agreed that the Realms are 50 years old.

On the same note, some of the stories in the Silmarillion were written before the Hobbit was written. Making Middle-Earth older than 1937. If I recall correctly Tolkien wrote some stories in the trenches during WWI.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

GMforPowergamers, I'm not sure why you're so up in arms about the fact that Ed Greenwood promotes Forgotten Realms so much (and creators of other settings don't). If I'd created the Forgotten Realms I'd probably be promoting it as much as possible too.

To me Ed comes across as someone who clearly loves the setting he's created and holds it very dear to his heart, regardless of whether he owns the rights to it or not. Personally I still regard the Forgotten Realms as Ed Greenwood's setting, even though I know he no longer has creative control over it. I am also not really bothered by whether the Realms is 10, 30 or 50 years old. I just enjoy the setting for what it is.

 

[Kramodlog]

I just enjoy the setting for what it is.

An attempt to take away the spotlight from Glorious Gygax, our beloved Master?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

So, basically, you just agreed that the Realms are 50 years old.

so what story was published when? as with the other stuff I will admit to being wrong if you have something I haven't seen....

GMforPowergamers, I'm not sure why you're so up in arms about the fact that Ed Greenwood promotes Forgotten Realms so much (and creators of other settings don't). If I'd created the Forgotten Realms I'd probably be promoting it as much as possible too.

my problem isn't just promotion but how he does so... he could write a book "50 years of fantasy the Ed greenwood story" but instead he says the 50 years of FR....

 

[Olaf the Stout]

An attempt to take away the spotlight from Glorious Gygax, our beloved Master?

I know you are just joking, but funnily enough I've never ran a game set in the Forgotten Realms and have only played in a couple of campaigns set there. The last campaign I ran was set in Greyhawk, as is the campaign I'm currently playing in. I like both Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms. I don't see it as a competition between the 2 settings, or their authors.

my problem isn't just promotion but how he does so... he could write a book "50 years of fantasy the Ed greenwood story" but instead he says the 50 years of FR....

Fair enough. I find that to be splitting hairs a little, but each to their own.

 

[Kramodlog]

so what story was published when?

Why does it need to be published? Tolkien wrote his first Middle-Earth stories in the trenches during WWI. They were published after the Hobbit and the LotR, when the Silmarillion was published. Does it mean they exist only after they have been published? Thus making them older than the Hobbit and the LotR?

The same thing applies to Ed and the Realms. He wrote his first stories in 1965. His first article about the Realms was published in 1979 in Dragon mag. The Grey Box came out in 1987. Why would it mean the Realms didn't exist prior to 1987?