What the heck about the Realms is Forgotten anyway?

[Desdichado]

Title really says it all -- I've never understood the reference in the title of the setting.

 

[Crothian]

Good question, I have no idea. I imagine it might have been that way at the beginning, but that the orginal goal with whatever is/ was forgotten got left behind in the popularity.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Title really says it all -- I've never understood the reference in the title of the setting.

Ed Greenwood mentioned in one of the earliest articles on the Realms (in Dragon, forget the issue) that the Realms were once an extension of our Earth, linked by magical portals, but that the existence of the portals and the Realms themselves has long since been Forgotten.

 

[Micar Sin]

Well, I'm just venturing a guess, but IIRC, the 'forgotten' thing was a reference to Human having once had access to other relams and magic, but having forgotten, except in our imagination and flights of fancy... I forget where I read that, so I could be completly off the deep end

 

[Quinn]

I used to know the answer to this question but I forgot.

 

[jester47]

page 6, left hand column, under the heading Ancient Wonders in the FRCS.

Aaron.

 

[frankthedm]

Game balance

 

[KnowTheToe]

What's Forgotten Realms, never heard of it?

 

[s/LaSH]

Nothing's Forgotten, it's all written down somewhere and odds are good that any random peasant has, I don't know, ten volumes of Elminster's "I Was There Too, And Weird Things Happened To Me While I Made History; With Appendix On Legendary And Unique Creatures Likely To Be Encountered In The Area And How I Beat Them" in the root cellar.

I played the NeverWinter Nights demo, and just browsing bookshelves found out a bajillion and one obscure historical details. I don't think anything about the Realms is forgotten, except perhaps the Forgotten part.

 

[Doppleganger]

the Well Known Realms

I've always assumed that "Forgotten" was a metagame term, people living in the world refer to it as "the Realms". But while running an FR campaign the players often forgot and still called it forgotten.