Look What ED GREENWOOOD Is Doing! Forgotten Realms: The Unofficial, Non-Canon, Unlicensed, Utterly U

There's no news of an official Forgotten Realms book for D&D (at least not yet), but Forgotten Realms creator Ed Greenwood is forging ahead with his own! Greenwood is writing Forgotten Realms: The Unofficial, Non-Canon, Unlicensed, Utterly Unapproved 50-Year History under the auspices of The Ed Greenwood Group and plans to release it at Gen Con in August this year, and once a week there will be updates on the web where he'll "peek behind the curtain and let you know something else about the untold history of the Realms, things you’ve never known".
Here's the full announcement:

"Welcome to the unofficial history of the Forgotten Realms.® Have you ever wondered why I, the guy who created the Realms in the first place, decided to share it with the wider world? Do you want to hear behind-the-scenes stories, some of those that can now be told, about why things are the way they are? Why, for instance, that from the beginning the Forgotten Realms® maps didn’t have hexes all over them, so the rivers didn’t run in little diagonal lines along the edges of hexes, but rather the maps looked like maps of real places, rather than game maps? Ever wondered about things like that?

Well, for the answers to those questions and many others, just keep visiting our site throughout the year because once a week we’ll peek behind the curtain and let you know something else about the untold history of the Realms, things you’ve never known. Things you may not even have thought to ask about, things that are deep dark secrets of the Realms.

See you every week, throughout the year!

The Ed Greenwood Group will launch its first projects in August at GenCon 2015 in Indianapolis—Forgotten Realms: The Unofficial, Non-Canon, Unlicensed, Utterly Unapproved 50-Year History by Ed Greenwood, curated by Brian Cortijo and All is Lust: Letters With a Hooded Lady by Ed Greenwood and The Hooded One.

Join us at RealmsSecretariat.com each week as Ed Greenwood continues the tale of how the Forgotten Realms went from a short story to becoming one of the world’s most beloved shared settings. All stories are totally unofficial—100% unapproved—not authorized, sanctioned, censored, or redacted in any way. Herewith we present the unvarnished Ed Greenwood and his take on the past fifty years."
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[video=youtube;XFdU3fUeBSI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XFdU3fUeBSI[/video]
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[dd.stevenson]

One of the things I really enjoy about reading Ed's replies via The Hooded One over at Candlekeep - aided and abetted by THO's own recollections - is the sense of breadth and depth to their game. There is a reason, explanation, and/or description for practically everything in their home game.

Even for non-FR fans, it's a serious piece of DMing with an emphasis on the MASTERING.

Yeah, second this. I'm not any great fan of the FR, and I'm not even a member of candlekeep. But dang it if that + google search isn't one of my top ten general RPG resources--and easily the best for anything FR related.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Really?

yes..

Compare this to this, and then get back to me regarding the amount of detail we have on FR compared to Eberron.

if your only comparison is number of books and/or pages, but the details matter... 4 editions of repeated info in source books, and some that just counterdict. The novels are half and half, some are very detailed, and others not so much...

Or for that matter, compare something like Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast to Five Nations,

one wastes more space with flowery prose... both give details...

Mind you, I like Eberron, but the level of detail available for it doesn't come near that of FR. As to whether that's a good or a bad thing, that's a matter of taste, but the fact that FR is far more detailed is not up for debate.

wow... sorry I guess silly old me keeps bringing things up that "Aren't open to Debate..."

have you ever considered that conversations don't work like that, you don't get to just declair facts, and that things are not open to debate... if you want to do that write a blog or an article... in a discussion there is a give and take....

 

[Shemeska]

Wizards *have* been talking about FR. It's worth listening to the panels from GenCon last year.

It's just that they're not rushing into producing new books; they're very likely to produce a campaign setting book, but they're trying to work out the best way of approaching it.

Cheers!

I wouldn't hold my breath for seeing any in-depth books on FR, which is unfortunate. While the Realms was seriously hyped leading into 5e, to quote Brian James from over on Candlekeep:

"Many of you may recall that James Wyatt invited many of us Realms lorelords to a design summit roughly three years ago. Sadly, the meeting was little more than a PR stunt to get us "old guard" on board with the Sundering. No such meeting has been held since, so it comes as no surprise to us that the realmslore that trickled out thus far has been sparse and underwhelming."

 

[Lord Rasputin]

I disagree. Ed Greenwood created a new standard for campaign settings. He gave us a setting with ... memorable NPCs.

You have to be joking about this one. Among the the NPCs were his players' PCs, which were no more or less interesting than any of ours, and his loathsome Mary Sue. None of the others were interesting enough to make up for including Elmunchkin and the Shadowdale gang.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You have to be joking about this one. Among the the NPCs were his players' PCs, which were no more or less interesting than any of ours, and his loathsome Mary Sue. None of the others were interesting enough to make up for including Elmunchkin and the Shadowdale gang.

now I am loth to defend Elmunchkin and the Justice league of mystra... I will die saying they are the worst thing made for any game, but in this thread we did learn something important... Ed says he was just a kid when he made Elminster the epic world spaning wizard who sleeps with all the hot chicks even gods, and who had everypower ever...

if that is true we do need to cut some slack here (and lord knows I have come down on the JLM pretty hard) when we were teens I'm sure we all made lousy self insert mary sues up... so I mean it's understandable (still shouldn't be in modern games) that he made them that way...


edit: I also think Drizt is the most memorable realms character, and has 0 to do with ed... on the other hand Tanis and flint and tasselhoff where awesome NPCs...

 

[Kramodlog]

You have to be joking about this one. Among the the NPCs were his players' PCs, which were no more or less interesting than any of ours, and his loathsome Mary Sue. None of the others were interesting enough to make up for including Elmunchkin and the Shadowdale gang.

I fondly remember Fzoul Chembryl, Manshoon, Xvim and the Black Network. The Zhentarim was so fleshed out and everywhere, that it was a NPC itself. So much fun to twart their plans.

This brings me back. Oh, nostalgia. *sigh*

 

[Shasarak]

I fondly remember Fzoul Chembryl, Manshoon, Xvim and the Black Network. The Zhentarim was so fleshed out and everywhere, that it was a NPC itself. So much fun to twart their plans.

This brings me back. Oh, nostalgia. *sigh*

Yeah, I liked the old Manshoon before all his clones activated and he became a Vampire.

I like some of the seven sisters like how Storm kicks butt and Laeral goes evil and the Simbul being crazy powerful (emphasis on crazy).

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I don't know what makes the Realms more expansive or detailed then Eberron, or Greyhawk or Dragonlance.

Words.

Edit: Regarding the topic of NPCs, don't conflate TSR's decision to focus on Elminster and the Chosen for the last couple of decades with what goes on in Ed's home campaign, and with the first iteration of the Realms. In Ed's original Realms, Mystra is not the primary goddess of magic. That roll belongs to Lurue.

Ed has written thousands of NPCs for the Realms, and handed off several of them to other creatives, who've gone on to flesh them out in novels (Elaith Craulnober and the Blackstaff come to mind).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Words.

yes... lots of words... but you can get as many details out of the right ten words then the wrong 100... all of the worlds are detailed, some more then other (Darksun and SPell jammer less then ravon loft, witch in turn is less then Ebberon, Dragon lance and the Realms)

Edit: Regarding the topic of NPCs, don't conflate TSR's decision to focus on Elminster and the Chosen for the last couple of decades with what goes on in Ed's home campaign,

I condem Ed's Elmunchkin by his own words, a story about him healing a party by pretending to train a dog with a wand of cure light wounds yelling "heal", and the one where he comes in to 'talk to the king' because his PCs where about to be executed, because he didn't trust them to rp out of it...

and with the first iteration of the Realms. In Ed's original Realms, Mystra is not the primary goddess of magic. That roll belongs to Lurue.

yes I actually understand that a lot of the realms, good and bad does not fall on ed's shoulders... someone should take a count of how manu Authers and Editers and Game designers have fingers in that pie...

the Blackstaff come to mind).

you know of all the chosen and the JLM I totally think he had the most potential... however it never quite worked

 

[DMZ2112]

What, no love at all for Pony Island Adventures?