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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Faraer" data-source="post: 3816725" data-attributes="member: 6318">The book editors evidently identified a faction who do, who since the Avatar trilogy expect RSEs and aren't tickled by anything less. Of course, those books have a disproportionate effect for those who don't.Not quite. The only parts added by TSR to <a href="http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/wd_maps/FRposterLarge_72.jpg" target="_blank">Faerûn itself</a> are Bob Salvatore's Icewind Dale, Doug Niles's Moonshaes (replacing Ed's archipelago), and Vaasa and Damara (transplanted onto a glacier from the H modules). Bob created Menzoberranzan, Troy Denning introduced Bedine nomads into Anauroch, and Steven Schend added the small nation of Erlkazar.But the regions Ed detailed heavily, to the tune of many millions of unpublished words, are the places his two long-running campaigns were and are set: Waterdeep and the Sword Coast North, where the Company of Crazed Venturers walked, and Cormyr and the Dales and to a lesser extent the other northern Inner Sea lands, where his Knights of Myth Drannor campaign takes place. The sparsely detailed outlying regions were given to freelancers to write up from Ed's partial notes: Amn, Tethyr and Calimshan to Scott Haring; Thay to Steve Perrin; Mulhorand, Unther and Chessenta to Scott Bennie (who turned up the Earth influences); the Great Glacier to Rick Swan (the dreadful FR14); Halruaa, Dambrath and Luiren to Tom Prusa. And Dale Henson's mauling of Netheril, which Lost Empires of Faerûn somewhat salvaged. Some of them did better jobs than others, but in the early years of the published Realms only Ed and Jeff Grubb deeply understood the setting until Steven Schend and Eric Boyd came along in the late 1990s.Quoting myself:That is, in cutting down society, characters, pantheons, magic, etc. to make a simpler, more approachable setting.The FRE Avatar modules could be described that way: they're absurd follies in that sense, though Ed made the best he could of the assignment and they have terrific Realmslore and encounters in them. Jim Butler wrote a trio of modules set in the Dales, but they aren't about following anyone around.Absolutely. It's no coincidence that the two richest and most long-lasting D&D worlds emerged organically from game play, rather than being conceived top-down by a committee of staff designers.</blockquote>

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