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.

 

[Corinnguard]

Saurials, pterafolk, yuan-ti, dragonflesh grafters, draconians, kobolds, half dragons, etc etc, etc. The Realms is full of reptilian humanoids, and the chances are an average person wouldn't be able to identify any of them.

Probably. However, most adventurers aren't average and have traveled around enough to tell some or most of these reptilian humanoids apart from one another. Some of these adventurers might even have had worked alongside Dragonborn adventurers during their journeys.

As for the average person, it might depend on if they have any of these reptilian humanoids as neighbors. Some towns or cities in Faerun like Waterdeep are known for being multispecies.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Probably. However, most adventurers aren't average and have traveled around enough to tell some or most of these reptilian humanoids apart from one another. Some of these adventurers might even have had worked alongside Dragonborn adventurers during their journeys.

Adventurers aren’t writing the history or geography books.

As for the average person, it might depend on if they have any of these reptilian humanoids as neighbors. Some towns or cities in Faerun like Waterdeep are known for being multispecies.

Doesn’t mean that every one of the several hundred sentient species on Faerun is represented in every neighbourhood, no matter how cosmopolitan it is. It’s only the professional adventurers who are likely to know more than a couple, and then they are often too dead for much to be learned.

 

[Parmandur]

Many players do not know the difference between a retcon, and the world just moving on and the state of the world changing. A retcon is "Spider-Man never lost Gwen Stacy." The timeline moving on is "Spider-Man was dating Gwen and then she died."

Sort of: Mary Jane and Peter Parker making a bargain with Mephisopholes to make their marriage never have happened is in-story, butnitnis also a retcon.

Taking the events of the late 14th century and entire 15th century turtle and having everything end up at basically the same place as 1358...that's a retcon.

Which I don't entirely mind, since basically everything since the Time of Troubles was, essentially, a mistake as far as game lore is concerned.

 

[Zeromaru X]

I think most have this idea about retcons being a bad thing, and that is not necessarily true. Retcons just are changes to the continuity that happen in more recent media, bur are treated to be like "things were always that way". Whether that's a bad thing or not, depends on who you ask.

 

[Corinnguard]

I think most have this idea about retcons being a bad thing, and that is not necessarily true. Retcons just are changes to the continuity that happen in more recent media, bur are treated to be like "things were always that way". Whether that's a bad thing or not, depends on who you ask.

A retcon could be a good thing if it fills in the historical gaps of a given setting or sheds new light on those bits of history that aren't so well known.

However, some individuals dislike them because they challenge their belief system of how things came to be. Or they dislike them because they bring about uncertainty. "If this new bit of historical lore is true, how does it affect what came after it?"

 

[Parmandur]

I think most have this idea about retcons being a bad thing, and that is not necessarily true. Retcons just are changes to the continuity that happen in more recent media, bur are treated to be like "things were always that way". Whether that's a bad thing or not, depends on who you ask.

They are kid of necessary ib media like comic books, too be honest, and game lore is inherently going to be messy as the designers dance around game element events like Adventure books and video games.

 

[bedir than]

Adventurers aren’t writing the history or geography books.

Maybe a new campaign idea?

 

[Corinnguard]

Maybe a new campaign idea?

Or two new Backgrounds- the Historian and the Geographer.

 

[KBNighthawk]

You mean, page 11 of the Adventures book? I can ask, if you are interested.

It's a section on advice for dealing with the abundance of Forgotten Realms lore that exists, including a subsection on Experts At the Table: players who know a lot about the setting, and how to best deal with that while writing and running stories in Faerûn. It's honestly kinda handy!

Thanks! Had the opportunity to check it out at my LGS. They are beautiful books - especially those alt covers.

 

[Yaarel]

What were the "Realms shaking" events?

From 1e to 2e: Time of Troubles (overhaul of deities, mainly to remove Satanic Panic features?)
From 2e to 3e: ? (shift cosmology from Wheel to Tree, and changes for new game engine?)
From 3e to 4e: Sundering/Spellplague (conform to new cosmology, species, and game engine powers)
From 4e to 5e: Second Sundering (undo unpopular aspects of Sundering, and explain new game engine)
From 5e 2014 to 5e 2024: ? (explain tweaks to species options?)