How is YOUR Forgotten Realms Different?

[dagger]

(Here are some of the changes I cut and pasted from the document I give the players)

• The desert of Anauroch no longer exists. The Phaerimm where banished long ago to another dimension (by the Sharn), and with the help of elves, the land was healed over a 2,000 year span. The Netheril Sea is now the dominating feature with many ports along its coast. (I am not 100% on this ....I keep thinking of changing it in the future to a cataclysm. )
• The City of Shade now floats above the largest island in the Netheril Sea and is the capital of the new Shade Empire.
• Many elves in the last 10 years have returned from Evermeet to their ancient home in the Cormanthor forest. They drove the dark elves from the Elven Court, and are now trying to reform the Cormanthyr Empire.
  
• It’s widely rumored that many of these elves are not actually from Evermeet, but come from a different world, just like the elves of old are not natives to Toril.
• The new Coronal (ruler) of Cormanthyr is Arilyn Irithyl, and she is the daughter of the previous Coronal, Eltargrim Irithyl. Her Rysar (reign) will be the 7th in a line stretching back to –4000 DR.
• Coronal Arilyn has declared a willingness to clean Myth Drannor and is giving permission to enter the ruined city. All non elven treasure and lore is free for the taking. Interested groups should contact Seren Duskblade in Shadowdale for more information. (I love the Ruins of Myth Drannor box set, especially those maps)
  
• Cormyr and Evereska have allied together and operate a joint navy on the Netheril Sea called the Blue Dragons. (At the time I didn't know the name of the normal navy)
• Daggerdale is slowly becoming a major power and has fought off two invasion attempts recently by the Zhentarim. The 2nd invasion force was fought off with mercenaries and with help from Cormyr.
• Daggerdale ruler Randal Morn and the ruler of Shadowdale Lord Morngrym Amcathra are currently in negotiations to form a unified realm. (this is not well known, I have never given this information out.
• One of the Seven Sisters is now solely a Chosen of Eilistraee, and the others are no longer chosen of Mystra at all. They lost their chosen status after the previous goddess of magic was killed by Helm for trying to climb the Celestial Stairway during the Time of Troubles. The gods are only allowed one Chosen, and the current Chosen of Mystra is the Archmage Elminster of Shadowdale.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

It still needs a little bit of work...I also need to draw close ups of the islands. One of the larger islands is going to be the seat of the Shade Empire. Also Cormyr has two ports, Ascore has been reopened by Silver Marches, and the Zhents have a port.

Just prior to my swearing off the Realms indefinitely as a campaign setting I was working on a very large-scale revision of the Realms map:

I too was eliminating the desert of Anauroch, but I was also eliminating and combining mountains everywhere into real mountain ranges, moved the Moonshaes into a long encircling chain of islands off the Sword Coast, shifted Evermeet, moved rivers, and was renaming and inventing new nations on the fly. One of the things that came to bother me about the Realms was too many flavorless city-states and secret organizations, and not enough ordinary Kingdoms (kings, queens, emperors) in conflict for my tastes.

Revising the map was part of a desperate attempt to maintain an interest in FR since it was the ONLY setting I played in for 15 years or so, both in games that I ran and games in which I was a player. Familiarity breeds contempt. Before I finished this little project I just gave up on it entirely and decided to either go homebrew or otherwise find some other setting.

I never cared a whit about FR novels and whatnot, probably because I never bothered to read them. I have never felt particularly compelled to repeatedly include major NPC's in the campaign except as they conformed to MY needs and desires. For example, I knew of the character of Drizzt, but not only was he never featured in my campaigns but nobody else ever ran a character remotely like him and my version of the Underdark et. al. was still firmly rooted in the GDQ modules. It was only when I TRIED to run the Realms as written that I ran into real problems as the Realms as written was VASTLY less interesting to me than the Realms as my PLAYERS influenced it to be.

One thing is certain for me - the Realms is just too big for its own good. There is SO much detail that has been provided for every nook and cranny of it over the years that it is for all practical purposes impossible to really fit it all in. Each new supplement I read caused me to LOSE that much more of a grasp on the setting as a whole. If you run a Realms-spanning campaign that touches on all parts of it then you aren't going to be visiting those parts you touch in any detail. If you do put forth one or more areas in any great detail then you aren't going to need or much care about parts of the Realms much outside those areas.

The Realms is not so much a single, unified campaign setting as it is dozens of seperate campaign settings tied together by random geography. If I were to ever use it again I'd probably re-do my "remapping" project and advance the timeline 2000 years so that whatever history I wanted to retain would be ANCIENT history and thus only relevant as background.

 

[Brakkart]

Do you have a larger version of that map? If not, I do and I would be happy to forward it to you.

Could you send me a copy of those maps too? brakkart@hotmail.com I find the idea of a flooded Netheril area intriguing.

 

[Imruphel]

Brakkart- done. NB: I sent from a hotmail address so my email is probably in your bulk email folder. And the price- keep posting in your story hour!

 

[painandgreed]

When I play in FR, it's usually a pre-Time of Troubles version where Zentil Keep and Thay are competent and feared. Other than that, I have my own version of Narfell and Raumathar's history and fall.

 

[Ciaran]

When I play in FR, it's usually a pre-Time of Troubles version where Zentil Keep and Thay are competent and feared. Other than that, I have my own version of Narfell and Raumathar's history and fall.

Same here, but read "pre-Time of Troubles" as "what Time of Troubles? That nonsense will never happen in my campaign, ever."

 

[ruleslawyer]

Word.

painandgreed: Interesting choice on Narfell and Raumathar. I always thought that the development on those empires' history was some of the best stuff to come out of recent Realmslore (good work, Eric Boyd!).

 

[painandgreed]

painandgreed: Interesting choice on Narfell and Raumathar. I always thought that the development on those empires' history was some of the best stuff to come out of recent Realmslore (good work, Eric Boyd!).

Most of what I did that carried over was done long before they wrote up anything for those two countries. I had just read the first Black Comapny books and said that Narfell and Raumathar had eventually combined to form an evil Empire by marriage of their rulers. Those rulers ran the country till their internal power sturggle between each other and their servants allowed for a paladin to come in and overthrow them. Retalitory magic by the Emperor devestated most of both countries. Many of the servants were entombed in barrowlands. Other bits of ancient evil lurked here and there such as the city ruled by the vampire who remembers said empire. The wiches of Rashemen were the decendants of the ruling class from one such kingdom in the empire. The others wandered the land as the N'Gari, who were a gypsy type people who did have knowledge of ancient magics.

This formed the backdrop of my Red Wizard campaign (players had the choice of playing the usual good party out of the Dales or a cutthroat game as servants of the red wizards of Thay and they chose Thay). The Magic-User was the grandson of a powerful and well respected (although now deceased) Red Wizard and given a quest by one of his grandfather's old halfling adventuring buddies to explore a dungeon he was told about to prove his worth, and then the halfling would turn over the reward his grandfather had left for a worthy decendent. In reality, it was an assasiantion plot by his uncle to clear out competition for the family name by sending them to a dungeon beyond their ability (Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth). In the center would not be the usual vampire, but one of the major servants from this earlier empire who would play down her level and use the player as her own foil in the politics of Thay. From there they would have to deal with internal threats in Thay, fight outside threats to prove their worth to Thay, cultivate allies, harm enemies, search out some of these ancient evils she could send them after, etc. Whether the players were to end up a major power of Thay or just the pawns of the major powers of Thay would all depend on how ambitious they were.

So, after that much thought and work, I couldn't bring myself to dump it all later and also went with the "what Time of Troubles" approach and prefer using 1E AD&D resource material for the Realms anyway. I always get pissed off when a game company puts out a new version of a setting and expects me to change my entire campaign (manytimes spanning years of RL gameing). This is why I finally opted for homebrew only.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Hmm; good stuff!

Yeah; I haven't liked the manhandling my Realms have gotten in these novels and revisions and all. However, I've invested too much time in the setting (sorta "making it my homebrew," as it were) to back off now. But yes, I've thrown out any historical developments I don't like (hence my relaunch in 1356 DR).

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

I wish KM would post some of the Lovecraftian Realms stuff he's posted on other threads...