D&D 5E When did your Forgotten Realms depart from official continuity (for world-shaking events)?

[Nemio]

Can anyone tell me where Baldur's Gate I & II fit in and if it's part of the official lore?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Can anyone tell me where Baldur's Gate I & II fit in and if it's part of the official lore?

Baldur's Gate takes place in the late 2e timeline. Which means after the Time of Troubles(which was officially the story for the conversion between 1e and 2e) but before the events between 2e and 3e(which aren't huge, but mostly Red Wizard Enclaves appearing everyone and the Shades appearing on Faerun). This means it's also before the Spellplague and Sundering since those were the events that converted to 4e and 5e.

Though, the time after the Sundering appears(from what we know so far) to be very similar to the time before the Spellplague.

Edit: Also, yes. It is part of official lore. The adventure Murder in Baldur's Gate is a direct sequel to the events of Baldur's Gate the game.

 

[Nemio]

Thanks for the info.
I just read the following
https://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/19135/4th-edition-screws-over-the-throne-of-bhaal-endings

I was on the Forgotten Realms Wiki the other day and realized something rather depressing, namely that the Spellplague, the massive cataclysm WotC used to justify the change from 3.5 to 4e in-universe, hit only 26 years after the events of Throne of Bhaal. Now, on the face of it, this seems to be nothing but a bit of trivia, until you think about the consequences. Any and all of the happy endings, or the less-than-totally-depressing endings at the end of Throne of Bhaal are null and void. The Spellplague caused a "ripple" in the Weave that is known to have either killed or driven irreparably mad most of the spell casters in the realms. Further, the very face of the planet was changed, with parts of the overworld collapsing into the Underdark, and various areas actually teleporting to different spots on the globe, not to mention terrible storms and earthquakes.

Now consider the fact that even Human NPCs would likely still be alive after 26 years (CHARNAME and Imoen would be 47 or 48, for example) to say nothing of the elves and dwarves. That means that they would have to go through the Spellplague. As a result, we can assume that all of the spell casters (Imoen, Aerie, Jan, etc.) would have either been killed outright or driven stark raving mad. Even if they weren't, they'd be left powerless and vulnerable in a VERY hostile world. Any heroic NPCs that survived that and the various other cataclysms would presumably end their days trying to help people through more than 100 years of chaos, likely never seeing the end of it themselves. Meanwhile, even our beloved Evil NPCs would still find themselves in a new, highly hostile world, again assuming they didn't have a mountain or something warp in on their heads.

Hell, the only endings that was not rewritten by 4e were Cernd's and Keldorn's, and that's only because they had the good sense to die before the Spellplague hit. So, no happy ending for CHARNAME and company, just more death, madness, and pain.

Now that's depressing...

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Now that's depressing...

It's also a bit of an overstatement from someone who doesn't understand the Spellplague that well. Yes, some wizards went insane and some weirdness happened in the world. However, Baldur's Gate managed to survive the Spellplague almost completely unharmed. There were some incidents of magics running wild in the streets before they were put down by the guards. But, overall the city survived and prospered. They even grew as they absorbed refugees from nearby cities that were hit much worse than they were.

The Spellplague itself only lasted a small portion of those 100 years. After that, it mostly died out. Murder in Baldur's Gate takes place in Baldur's Gate just before the Sundering and there is a fairly vast campaign guide in there about the city. It is entirely standing. Life goes on much as it did during the time of Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. There is even a statue erected to honor their greatest hero, Minsc and his friend, Boo.

Minor spoilers for Murder in Baldur's Gate adventure:
[sblock]Even the "hero" of the Baldur's Gate games lives through the Spellplague and becomes one of the 4 Dukes of the city. He is very long lived due to his heritage and is still alive in the adventure.[/sblock]

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I voted for "after Time of Troubles", but I'm willing to follow the 5E storyline if everything that ever happened during the 4E storyline is simply wiped away. I want Elminster in full spellcasting power, I want Mulhorand back - Egyptian gods included, I don't want any dragonborn/eladrin/feywild/shadowfell nonsense, and I want Maztica back - even if I never run an adventure there. As I don't expect all of this to happen, I'm ready to run my FR games in 3E era. My Hoard of the Dragon Queen will probably have a Tiamat with some Untheric priests allied to the Cult of the Dragon.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Still running early 2E FR when I run FR. The first ever D&D character I played was a speciality-priest of Mask, and I will be damned if I am going to play a version of the FR that has jerks like Kelmvor as gods, but not bloody Mask!

< starts praying to Perelandro that 5E FR brings back Mask >

 

[Thaumaturge]

Still running early 2E FR when I run FR. The first ever D&D character I played was a speciality-priest of Mask, and I will be damned if I am going to play a version of the FR that has jerks like Kelmvor as gods, but not bloody Mask!

< starts praying to Perelandro that 5E FR brings back Mask >

You might be interested in book 2 of The Sundering, Godborn. It...deals with Mask.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I've been following FR since Ed's original articles (I even had a homebrewed world with both a Waterdeep and a Myth Drannor) but I have never been a fan of the novels and even less of a fan of the RSEs introduced in really bad novels.

So I've always run FR using a particular campaign setting as the baseline and then picking and choosing a few events that I feel fit my vision of the Realms. For now, that's the 4E version. I like the 4E rules and want to keep using them plus I have found the 4E version of the Realms to be perfect for what it is: a points-of-light world where I can still use all my old FR material.

But the novels have no influence over "my" FR. Sure, I am running a Neverwinter campaign based on the Neverwinter Campaign Setting and there is a Dread Ring and there are Red Wizards of Thay, but all the basic Salvatore-isms have been thrown out. There is no Ashmadai cult but there is a heretical cult within the church of Waukeen (the Heretics of the Harlot's Coin) that is actually a cult of Graz'zt (and Waukeen remains his prisoner more than a century after the Time of Troubles). None of my dwarves have speech impediments, even the ones driven slightly insane by twisted elemental magic (Madbeards from FR5 the Savage Frontier - that's been an invaluable sourcebook for my Neverwinter game despite its age!).

I think one of the keys to running FR is to avoid the novels and the RSEs. If you stick to the RPG material it's a much better experience, especially if you can also get your players to do that too. Frankly I think WotC did the right thing with Eberron: the novels have no bearing on the game world.

 

[Osgood]

Whenever I play FR (not usually my first choice) I always start it off with Drizzt dying in some humiliating fashion. Most recently he somersaulted off a boT off a grand entrance in Baldur's Gate, but somersaulted off a boat, slipped on a fish and broke his neck. As the body was carted off to the discount butcher he could be heard muttering "please I'm not dead yet... Adventuring in a world with the likes of him is kind of like being a beat cop in Gotham... What's the point?

 

[reiella]

Baldur's Gate takes place in the late 2e timeline. Which means after the Time of Troubles(which was officially the story for the conversion between 1e and 2e) but before the events between 2e and 3e(which aren't huge, but mostly Red Wizard Enclaves appearing everyone and the Shades appearing on Faerun). This means it's also before the Spellplague and Sundering since those were the events that converted to 4e and 5e.

Though, the time after the Sundering appears(from what we know so far) to be very similar to the time before the Spellplague.

Edit: Also, yes. It is part of official lore. The adventure Murder in Baldur's Gate is a direct sequel to the events of Baldur's Gate the game.

Partially. From what I can tell, the lore that became canon wrt the Bhaalspawn is the lore from the books. For instance, Abdel from Murder in Baldur's Gate did not necessarily

Spoiler

defeat Demogorgon and sire a half-avariel child

.