D&D General The First Map of the Forgotten Realms

The very first map of the Forgotten Realms was created by Ed Greenwood and mailed in sections to TSR during the late 1980s after he sold the setting to the company for $5000. Years later it ended up hanging in a pub near Madison, Wisconsin. D&D historian Ben Riggs talks about the history of the map on his blog.

How the First Map of D&D's Forgotten Realms Ended Up Above a Pub — Ben Riggs

An artifact from D&D history long thought lost has again been found. Behold the Martin Map of the Forgotten Realms!

www.writerbenriggs.com

The map is known as the "Martin Map" after it was saved by TSR's Forgotten Realms editor, Julia Martin -- Jeff Grubb, the then-custodian of the map -- left TSR in 1995, and left the map in his cubicle. Martin kept hold the map and took it to Seattle when WotC bought TSR.

 

[Kannik]

Aww... It's the answer to my question, but not the one I was hoping for.

As in that it's a "taped over edit" and thus a TSR revision vs the original Greenwood map? (The intro to module H3 does nicely thank Greenwood for his contributions and his campaign world.)

I don't remember if it was in H3, H4, FR9, or elsewhere, but I do remember an intro noting how they had to "melt a glacier" to introduce Vaasa, part of Damara, and, of course, the Bloodstone pass.

 

[Yora]

The Great Glacier is still really great on all the AD&D maps.

Simply putting the new countries on a spot of barren ice makes a lot of sense. Much more than altering any existing lands.
Impiltur is shown as already being part of the original map, so I guess it was not in the original Bloodstone Pass. I remember from reading FR9 Bloodstone Lands that the connections between Damara and Impiltur seemed notably weak.
Anyone know if Narfell comes originally from the Greenwood map or one of the Bloodstone modules?

 

[Jimmy Dick]

Great story! I am glad to know the map was preserved and is displayed properly. It is an important piece of our history.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Still want to see the original Moonshaes

 

[Xethreau]

The Realms! Someone remembered them!

 

[BiblioTek]

I love a good map. For inspiration I still dig out my Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas on occasion, though it doesn't see much use these days as I spend most of my gaming life in Absalom, Lost Angels and the Shackleton Expanse.

 

[doctorhook]

I love a good map. For inspiration I still dig out my Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas on occasion, though it doesn't see much use these days as I spend most of my gaming life in Absalom, Lost Angels and the Shackleton Expanse.

For what it’s worth, my PF2e group spends a lot of time in both Forgotten Realms and Eberron

 

[Stefano Rinaldelli]

“[H]ad a complete cosmology, a complete ecology, and geographical features that actually made sense. There were various nations so it had much more political intrigue. And the materials they published. These wonderful boxed sets! Such delicious detail of all these areas. ”

— Alex Kammer

Yes, exactly the thing I'm missing since loooong time.
I wonder if we will live long enough to see something like this again.

 

[Jacob Vardy]

Is there a digital copy of the map? I'd be interested in comparing it, since i run my campaigns in Faerun, albeit one altered by a good many campaigns.

 

[squibbles]

I'm quite curious to know if any additional areas--besides the moonshaes and bloodstone lands, which I was already aware of--were similarly papered over.

Also, seconding @Jacob Vardy, it'd be awesome if a high definition full size image of that map exists somewhere.