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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[neobolts]

Since there was some discussion early on about the "Unofficial, Non-Canon, Unlicensed, Utterly Unapproved" marketing angle in the title, and some discussion of whether Greenwood could go maverick or not, you might enjoy this read (regardless of opinion on the choice of title):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Entertainment_Inc._v._RDR_Books

It's not 100% on point, and at first glance the unauthorized guide publisher lost. But when you dig into the ruling, it provided tons of guidance on how to do an unauthorized guide the legal way. The company did revise and eventually publish the guide in accordance with the court guidelines.

Enjoy!

 

[Staffan]

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

Have you read any of the Volo's Guides? VG to the Sword Coast has a lot of lore on places in the Western Heartlands, focusing on "touristy" stuff but not to the exclusion of other things. Plenty of adventure hooks, and amazing for bringing the place to life.

Now, you might think that that's not the kind of details you like, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Eberron's Five Nations gives four pages of stuff on Fairhaven, one of the capitals of the eponymous five nations. Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast gives you 19 pages, albeit somewhat smaller pages, on Baldur's Gate, one of the largest cities along the Coast. Sharn: City of Towers is 192 pages of awesome, but City of Splendors has a total of 304 pages (plus 32 pages of monsters, and six friggin' poster maps).

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....

It's about as open to debate as evolution or vaccines - some might argue differently, but they do not have facts on their side. The Forgotten Realms are demonstrably more detailed than Eberron - it would be very strange otherwise given that FR has been around two to three times as long, including the highly fertile 2e period. Again, you may argue about the quality of the details, but their quantity is not in question.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Have you read any of the Volo's Guides?

why yes I have, infact Volo's Guide to all things magical gave me an alternate crafting system that I used for years (out side the realms) and the spellfire from it is such a favorite that even though I have all my other 2e books, and most of my 3e books in storage, I still have it on my active gameing shelf... I'm not saying nothing good ever came from them...

Now, you might think that that's not the kind of details you like,

I'm going to stop here... you are so kind making up an argument that I never made, then going into detail to destroy the argument, THAT NO ONE MADE...

 

[Staffan]

I'm going to stop here... you are so kind making up an argument that I never made, then going into detail to destroy the argument, THAT NO ONE MADE...

You mean you didn't say:

I don't know what makes the realms more expansive or detailed then ebberon, or grey hawk or Dragon lance...

The Realms are more expansive and detailed than Eberron, Greyhawk, or Dragonlance, because it has more detail, more published material, and covers a lot more ground - particularly if you also include Al-Qadim, Maztica, and Kara-Tur, which are all set on the same planet (and if you include Taladas material into DL, or Xen'drik or Sarlona material in Eberron, you should include Al-Qadim and the others in FR).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

You mean you didn't say:

what I didn't say was a quality difference... witch is what you said, and I disagreed with. I do feel there is a quality difference, but it is VERY subjective and in no way worth argueing over... you made up an argument then argued it...

The Realms are more expansive and detailed than Eberron, Greyhawk, or Dragonlance, because it has more detail,

I dispute that... I do not believe it to be fact or true...

more published material, and covers a lot more ground -

when you discount repeats (say the same thing published in 2e, 3e, 3.5, and 4e...) and counterdicts (inbetween each edition things changed, so even if it is different it isn't more detailed because one detail replaces another)

particularly if you also include Al-Qadim, Maztica, and Kara-Tur, which are all set on the same planet (and if you include Taladas material into DL, or Xen'drik or Sarlona material in Eberron, you should include Al-Qadim and the others in FR).

Al-Qadim and Kara Tur where originally there own settings, Taladas and Xen'drik where part of ebberon from day one... either way it is a distinction without a difference, just count the stuff that say FR or which ever setting...

lets also not forget, that a lot of those books had no Ed in them at all... there were years of other writers adding to 'his' realms...

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

The Realms are also more expansive and detailed than Tolkien's Middle Earth.

 

[Hussar]

While I'm hardly steeped in Realms lore or anything like that, I have to say that there is a metric assload of material for FR. And, like anything else, Sturgeon's Law applies. But, simply because of the sheer volume of material, that 10% is still more material than has been produced in total for any other setting. Has to be, simply by word count. I mean, heck, compare the 2e Faiths and Avatars book to any other setting specific dieties book and you'll see that there is just so much more material for FR than anywhere else. Never mind you had years of Dragon articles detailing various locations and whatnot.

And that's just me scratching the surface. I know there's a ton more out there.

Heck, one of the most basic tropes of D&D, the Underdark, is a FR invention isn't it? While Drow might have gotten their start in Greyhawk, it's FR that has expanded them far and wide.

Think of it this way, no other setting has received attention from the publishers in EVERY single edition of D&D since 1e. Every edition added material to FR. Nothing can compete with that.

 

[Mirtek]

when you discount repeats (say the same thing published in 2e, 3e, 3.5, and 4e...) and counterdicts (inbetween each edition things changed, so even if it is different it isn't more detailed because one detail replaces another)

Even if you discount them, FR still has the most supplements by far. No other D&D setting approaches the sheer pagecount of FR stuff

I mean, heck, compare the 2e Faiths and Avatars book to any other setting specific dieties book and you'll see that there is just so much more material for FR than anywhere else.

And F&A is only one of a set of three deity books for FR. Although the third is kind of "FR plus", since many of the detailed deities are multi-spheric you still have two volumes the size of F&A just for dealing with the FR deities

 

[MerricB]

Heck, one of the most basic tropes of D&D, the Underdark, is a FR invention isn't it?

No. Greyhawk - D1: Descent in to the Dephs of the Earth, D2: Shrine of the Kuo-Toa and D3: Vault of the Drow pretty much establish the Underdark in 1978, although it wasn't called that yet.

The Dungeoneer's Survival Guide (1986) looked into the Underdark more fully, and may be the book that coined the term.

What the Forgotten Realms did was flesh it out far more than was covered previously. Menzoberranzan being the classic example: it's much, more detailed than what we got in Vault of the Drow.

Cheers!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The Realms are also more expansive and detailed than Tolkien's Middle Earth.

well I really don't know middle earth that well, I'll play your game... what do we know about FR that we don't know about ME? What details are missing?