D&D General Forgotten Realms Books Tables of Contents

The Table of Contents for both Heroes of Faerun and Adventures in Faerun.

Picked the books up this morning and love what I’ve seen so far. I’ll answer whatever questions I can here.

 

[Parmandur]

The honest answer is simple that BG3 isn’t canon. At least, not fully.

Much like the original two Baldur’s Gate games, the overall events have happened in the world but not in any specific way. So they pick and choose which parts are official, and clearly the Stelmane stuff is not official canon.

I mean, there are 17,000 possible endings for BG3, leaving it in a stage of quantum flux while leaving hooks for tables to use their ending as canon is a good way to go. They seem to be playing that same cagey game with all the 2014-2025 era game material: maybe it sorry of happened, maybe in your table it happened this way or that, or is yet to happen...

 

[bedir than]

The Sultana is not a Genie...?

No, Calimsham has a massive progression in its story, including actual social progress via a new Sultana that overthrew its slaving past. It also has mechanical wonders that are mech-magic and more.
I like where the professor went with it.

 

[bedir than]

But isn't that book out of print? If so, that's a bit of a bad move for newer players/DM's.

Both new books list maybe two dozen different 'older' 5e books as appropriate to reference for Forgotten Realms inspiration. They also suggest reading the Forgotten Realms Fandom Wiki

 

[Demetrios1453]

Thanks for the additional Dragonborn lore in the new book.


I went to the Forgotten Realms wiki to check out its' entry on the Second Sundering and the First Tymanther-Unther War. The lore mentioned in both FR Wiki entries appears (to me) to be at odds with the lore @MonsterEnvy mentioned earlier in this thread.

Second Sundering

The Second Sundering, also known as the Sundering of Toril and Abeir,[3] was a great catastrophic event in the history of the worlds of Abeir and Toril, that took place during the decade of the 1480s DR.[4] When Ao the Overgod destroyed the Tablets of Fate at the conclusion of the Time of...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

Here's the part in the Second Sundering that mentions what had happened to Tymanther:

On Nightal, some places of Abeir that had been part of Toril in the last century and viceversa were restored to their original worlds. Unther was returned to Toril by this process. While in Abeir, Unther had succumbed to the domination of the creatures native to that world. However, a reincarnated Gilgeam had led his people against their new oppressors, until their land was shifted back to Toril. Once there, Gilgeam immediately went against the dragonborn of Tymanther to take back all of Unther's ancestral land, starting the First Tymanther-Unther War.

The Untherite god Enlil also returned to Toril on Nightal, but he chose the dragonborn as his new protégés instead of the Untherans, manifesting in the shape of one of them in the citadel-city of Djerad Thymar. It was Enlil who allowed most of Tymanther to remain in Toril, stopping the magic of the Sundering to some degree. Only the northern portion of Tymanther was sent to Abeir, and the dragonborn nation was consequently reduced to its southern territories around the Alamber Sea and the Ash Lake.

First Tymanther–Unther War

The First Tymanther–Unther War was a conflict between the nations of Tymanther and Unther that took place in the Year of the Rune Lords Triumphant, 1487 DR.[1][2] At some point in 1486 DR, while on the world of Abeir, the god-king Gilgeam contacted the demon lord Graz'zt and asked him to aid...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

I am starting to think the two new FR books take place on Toril 2024, not Toril 2014. Those aren't years btw, they're multiversal addresses. Kind of like the multiversal addresses seen in Marvel Comics.

It's been about a decade in-universe since we've had any updates, which seems to be that Unther conquered the the rest of Tymanther other than one city, and many dragonborn went to Calimshan as mercenaries.

 

[Corinnguard]

It's been about a decade in-universe since we've had any updates, which seems to be that Unther conquered the the rest of Tymanther other than one city, and many dragonborn went to Calimshan as mercenaries.

In which time there could have been a Second Tymanther-Unther War that saw Unther destroying Tymanther and bringing about the Dragonborn Diaspora.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Huh…that definitely makes it sound like this book is actually set before the events of BG3.

It's pretty clear from the Elturel section that BG3 was at least several years in the past.

 

[GarrettKP]

I mean, there are 17,000 possible endings for BG3, leaving it in a stage of quantum flux while leaving hooks for tables to use their ending as canon is a good way to go. They seem to be playing that same cagey game with all the 2014-2025 era game material: maybe it sorry of happened, maybe in your table it happened this way or that, or is yet to happen...

In some cases. In others, especially in the case of the 2014 books, they make it clear there are canon endings. Icewind Dale has some of that, as does Baldur’s Gate with Descent Into Avernus and Waterdeep Dragon Heist.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Both new books list maybe two dozen different 'older' 5e books as appropriate to reference for Forgotten Realms inspiration. They also suggest reading the Forgotten Realms Fandom Wiki

Do we really need to care about books being "in print" in the 21st century? You can buy or get all the content digitally, oftentimes directly from WotC.

 

[Amphytrion]

Do we really need to care about books being "in print" in the 21st century? You can buy or get all the content digitally, oftentimes directly from WotC.

Some like paper better, so yes. In this case, however, it’s moot: the book is still in print!

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I have never seen Portyr die in BG 3