D&D 5E Ed Greenwood & Alex Kammer Working On 'The Border Kingdoms'

Designer Alex Kammer has shared some information about a Forgotten Realms expansion he and FR-creator Ed Greenwood are working on. It will be Adventurer's League-legal, and detail a frontier corner of the Forgotten Realms.

"A little project that [Ed Greenwood] and I have been working on - a brand new Border Kingdoms source book and every bit of it Adventure's League legal. A brand new map by [Mike Schley], 11 new character backgrounds, tons of lore, a ridiculous amount of new art. Coming to the DMG soon!"

There's already a Border Kingdoms PDF on DMs Guild, by Ed Greenwood, but he says of this new one: "If you bought the earlier version, you have the place-lore tour, but not the new map, the character backgrounds, or the uberplots. So you have about 80 percent of it already."

The Border Kingdoms are a politically unstable area between the Shaar and the Lake of Steam, adjoining the Shining Sea to the west. It's a warm climate, grasslands, and often filled with conflict and border skirmishes.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Who did the semioffical update for Calimshan and Great Dale?

Both were by DMs Guild Adepts, so while not "officially semi-official", it's about as close as one can get.

I haven't checked out the Great Dale one yet, but the Calimshan one is really good, and is deservedly #2 right now on "Most Popular from Wizards & Guild Adepts".

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Who did the semioffical update for Calimshan and Great Dale?

They are not semi-official (I don't really know what that means), and I don't believe Ed Greenwood is involved in any way.

The Great Dale Campaign Guide - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

The Great Dale Campaign Guide - Welcome to the Great Dale! This book provides all of the setting, story, and character options needed for adventures in

www.dmsguild.com

Calimshan Adventurer's Guide - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

Calimshan Adventurer's Guide - Explore Calimshan in this campaign sourcebook for the world's greatest roleplaying gameCalimshan! Land of intrigue, empi

www.dmsguild.com

I don't own either, but the Dale one looks fine. Probably good if you're into FR.

The Calimshan one however, looks great. The logo alone sells me on it, but it looks like there is a lot of great content there.

Edit: @M.T. Black is actually on this forum (he does the Dragon Reflections) so you can ask him about his Calimshan work. I also vaguely remember reading one of his tweets that he was working on another guide similar to the Calimshan one, for a different FR region.

Also unrelated, here's a plug for Ulraunt's Guide to the Planes (Shadowfel): Ulraunt's Guide to the Planes: The Shadowfell - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild
And Acheron comes out tomorrow, which looks very very cool!

 

[gyor]

They are not semi-official (I don't really know what that means), and I don't believe Ed Greenwood is involved in any way.

The Great Dale Campaign Guide - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

The Great Dale Campaign Guide - Welcome to the Great Dale! This book provides all of the setting, story, and character options needed for adventures in

www.dmsguild.com

Calimshan Adventurer's Guide - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild

Calimshan Adventurer's Guide - Explore Calimshan in this campaign sourcebook for the world's greatest roleplaying gameCalimshan! Land of intrigue, empi

www.dmsguild.com

Thank you.

I don't own either, but the Dale one looks fine. Probably good if you're into FR.

The Calimshan one however, looks great. The logo alone sells me on it, but it looks like there is a lot of great content there.

Edit: @M.T. Black is actually on this forum (he does the Dragon Reflections) so you can ask him about his Calimshan work. I also vaguely remember reading one of his tweets that he was working on another guide similar to the Calimshan one, for a different FR region.

Also unrelated, here's a plug for Ulraunt's Guide to the Planes (Shadowfel): Ulraunt's Guide to the Planes: The Shadowfell - Dungeon Masters Guild | Dungeon Masters Guild
And Acheron comes out tomorrow, which looks very very cool!

Neither are semiofficial unlike the Border Kingdoms or Moonshae and they messed up some of the lore.

First off both seem to just ignore the SCAG as far as I can tell. While far too brief it does have important information on much of the Realms.

Secondly Great Dale: Unapproachable East is a misleading title, the Great Dale is a minor power in the Unapproachable East, and the title makes it seem like this book is about the Unapproachable East as a whole and its not. The major regions in the Unapproachable East are Rasheman, Thay, and Aglarond, the Great Dale is a minor, if important part at best.

And the Calimshan book claims Calimshan is the oldest continuous human nation, its not, Mulhorand/Imaskar is. Calimshan has been ruled by Genies and Genasis and even a Dragon, Beholders and other things for good chunks of its history. If fact its only been free of Genasi/Genie rule, with human rule for decades at best.

Until 4e Skald in Mulhorand was the longest continously inhabited human city, then 4e blew up Mulhorand, suggested Skald was destroyed, but no one could find its ruins, then Mulhorand came back, kicked High Imaskar's arse into extraplanar hiding. This suggests that Skald was not destroy, it was simply elsewhere, perhaps Abeir or the Shadowfell (Skald is called the city of Shadows).

So while I respect the work these folks did, its in need of an update.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Neither are semiofficial unlike the Border Kingdoms or Moonshae and they messed up some of the lore.

First off both seem to just ignore the SCAG as far as I can tell. While far too brief it does have important information on much of the Realms.

Secondly Great Dale: Unapproachable East is a misleading title, the Great Dale is a minor power in the Unapproachable East, and the title makes it seem like this book is about the Unapproachable East as a whole and its not. The major regions in the Unapproachable East are Rasheman, Thay, and Aglarond, the Great Dale is a minor, if important part at best.

And the Calimshan book claims Calimshan is the oldest continuous human nation, its not, Mulhorand/Imaskar is. Calimshan has been ruled by Genies and Genasis and even a Dragon, Beholders and other things for good chunks of its history. If fact its only been free of Genasi/Genie rule, with human rule for decades at best.

Until 4e Skald in Mulhorand was the longest continously inhabited human city, then 4e blew up Mulhorand, suggested Skald was destroyed, but no one could find its ruins, then Mulhorand came back, kicked High Imaskar's arse into extraplanar hiding. This suggests that Skald was not destroy, it was simply elsewhere, perhaps Abeir or the Shadowfell (Skald is called the city of Shadows).

So while I respect the work these folks did, its in need of an update.

Calimport was founded in -7800 DR, and was fully human (no genie overlords) by -6060 DR. It's had its ups and downs since then, but it's been ruled by humans more often than not, and its populace has always been majority human.

Skald, by comparison, wasn't founded until -2135 DR. And Imaskar and Mulhorand are very different nations.

 

[gyor]

Calimport was founded in -7800 DR, and was fully human (no genie overlords) by -6060 DR. It's had its ups and downs since then, but it's been ruled by humans more often than not, and its populace has always been majority human.

Skald, by comparison, wasn't founded until -2135 DR. And Imaskar and Mulhorand are very different nations.

Imaskar and Mulhorand are related nations by blood, the Mulan were intermixed with their blood lines. And they have dominated each other at different points of time.

Calimport has been out right destroyed before, and gone through periods of inhuman rule, means while Calimshan is older, it doesn't have the continuous orderly history of Mulhorand and Skald is still the oldest continous human city in Faerun still in existance.

Periods of inhuman rule or out right destruction, as brief as they maybe, means it hasn't been contineous like Mulhorand.

 

[Blazestudios23]

I really wish D&D Beyond would have third party content, like this and Kobold Press's books.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I really wish D&D Beyond would have third party content, like this and Kobold Press's books.

I imagine there are a wide range of very passionate feelings about third party content within the halls of WotC.

 

[Marandahir]

In any case, Great Dale is NOT official by any meanse – it was made by vigorous fans of that area, and issued in hardcover release, so that makes it feel more official than it is (same thing with Ulraunt's, which even went so far as to ignore the Raven Queen in their Shadowfell book because at the time they didn't know how/if WotC was going to handle her in the Realms' Shadowfell).

The Calimshan guide, however, is semiofficial in the sense that it's a DM's Guild Adept book, which are put up there with Adventurer's League-published content and WotC-published content. This is stuff that WotC has rubberstamped, though they're always welcome to redo something from them (see Xanathar's Lost Notes – the book had iterations on both the Rune Knight Fighter and the Noble Genie Warlock which showed up in Unearthed Arcana over a year later).

Moonshaes is not really official in any sense, but it is the best material we have for 5e Moonshae Isles. The softcover was written to go with the CCC-MOON series of Adventure League-compatible titles, which are some of most well-regarded AL-legal titles that aren't part of any official Season's Adventure Path.

The Border Kingdoms is semiofficial because it's written by Ed Greenwood, and it has similarly high-quality AL-legal adventures that were written to go with it. I'm excited to see how the expanded version happens.

And yeah, the biggest issue with DDB is that it's MOSTLY incompatible with DM's Guild license (somehow they got ALMOST everything by Matt Mercer on there, though). They should cross-publish more. :/

 

[Matrix Sorcica]

... (same thing with Ulraunt's, which even went so far as to ignore the Raven Queen in their Shadowfell book because at the time they didn't know how/if WotC was going to handle her in the Realms' Shadowfell).

Wait, so they have a Shadowfell guide book without the Raven Queen?!

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Wait, so they have a Shadowfell guide book without the Raven Queen?!

The Shadowfell (as the demiplane of Shadow) goes back to 1st edition.. The Raven Queen only goes back to 4th, so there have been several Shadowplane books without the Raven Queen in them.