Looking for the Stats on Bruenor, Cattie-brie?

[Oaken25]

See, I like him without the healed eye.

From what I have heard around is that the novels are continuity, but only in a general sense. Like the fact that Censhinibon shows up lots in the north. Or there is a big orc invasion. Or Torm and Bane duked it out in Tantras. But the specifics of the novels are not "canon" in the setting because they want to leave the setting open for the DMs to play with. Thus the inconsistancies.

In 2e all novels and sourcebooks were canon. I asked James Lowder, on RAS's message boards, who edited novels for TSR for many years, and his answer I posted at the end of my reply here.

However, you can still use this for 3e, other wise the Archwizard's novels would not be needed to explain what happened to Tilverton, or the events on how Evereska was destroyed. Also the novels that detail Lolth's silence, (which is partly written up in the new Underdark sourcebook, and will also be written up in the Player's Guide, that comes out in March. The Players Guide will also bring the "official" time line to 1373, at least in the sourcebooks. Since it is already 1373 in the novels.)

James Lowder wrote: "The FR novels were part of the official FR continuity, at least until 1994. In fact, if you look at the game products like Hall of Heroes and Jungles of Chult, it's clear that the novels were very much driving many products. I can state this with some authoritry, as I was the FR fiction line editor for a couple of years in the early 1990s.

In recent years, there has been discussion that the novels and games run on different continuity. I don't know about that. But such a split was certainly not the case for the first six or more years of the Realms' existance.

Cheers,
James Lowder

He went on further to say:

After 1994/1995 there was a changing of the guard in both fiction and games, so things may have been less coordinated after that, until the WotC buyout. And the official WotC policy has never really been made public. But from at least 1988 to the mid-90s, the coordination between books and games was tight and the books were "official" releases.

Cheers,
James Lowder"

 

[Taelorn76]

I include the novels in my campaigns. It makes for good background stories. Currently in a campaign that I am running there is a dwarf from Mithral Hall in the group. Well now I get to tell him what happened in the lastest novel and play that out. I know it's a little lazy of me, but it makes for good adventures, and background story arcs. It also makes for a nice dilemma because they are traveling with a half-orc.

 

[Endur]

All the novels happened in my FR campaign as well.

I don't treat the WOTC stats as official however. In my campaign I gave Drizzt and his companions some more levels and took some levels away from Elminister, etc.

 

[Dark Jezter]

IMC, I have modified the stats of some of Salvatore's famous NPCs to make them more like they were in the novels. For example, I made Wulfgar a multiclass barbarian/fighter instead of a pure barbarian like his is listed as being in the Silver Marches. I have also modified the equipment of Artemis Entreri and Drizzt to accurately reflect the weapons they use in the novels.