#forgotten realms campaign setting

[forgotten-realms-atlas]

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting Box Set - 1993

Whilst I toil away at mapmaking, I did reward myself with a bit of treasure! In my deep plunges into the interwebs, I did in fact stumble across a wonderful artifact indeed. (But do forgive me for the photo quality, I was too excited for touch-ups!)

From thirty years ago, the “New Edition” of the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting! What a find! Though the box itself has a few dings and dents (a sign of much love, I’m sure), the treasures inside this chest were in far better condition.

Near mint, if I do say so myself! We see here our good friend Elminster here in some of my favorite art of him, but a Drizzt Do’Urden can also be spotted on the Grand Tour of the Realms, among other familiar faces.

I have not yet read through all of these, but soon I will be able to dispense what knowledge I find!

In addition to these fine books, the set came with a number of loose papers and maps, of which I had never seen before in digital or physical form. 

Four in total! Two of eastern Faerun, and two of western. Once I am able to do so safely, I will be creating high resolution scans of these maps to share on this very blog, so do keep your eyes out!

But even more ingenious, included in the box was not one, but two of these! The transparent overlay seen here is made to show scale, and to be moved across the maps. As they all are drawn to the same scale, the overlays can be used between any of them, and having two copies of the overlay means more than one can be placed at a time, or, in case one is lost, there is a backup. These will provide themselves invaluable in reconstructing maps of the realms.

It also makes me wonder why we do not see these more often in more modern reproductions of these maps. I have not seen such overlays in any other piece of media for the Realms or any other setting, but they seem so useful, as well as inexpensive to produce! Perhaps this can be traced to the phasing out of overhead projectors and other such common technology of the 80s and 90s that saw the use of transparencies such as these. Wet erase markers faded out of use, and purchasing transparency films has become more difficult over time. Still, I hope that tools such as this can make a return. If nothing else, it sure beats getting out strings to try to measure the distances!

Following the maps, we find these sheets of symbols. My first thought was, are these sticker sheets? But thankfully, no! No aged glues or sticky pages greeted me (for surely stickers would not age well over three decades). These are actually cards, meant to be cut out and referenced. I am infinitely grateful that the previous owners of this box did not do so, since being in one piece has kept these from being lost or damaged, in the way small pieces often are. 

The first three pages include runes and symbols. Some are for factions, such as the recognizable harp of the Harpers on the first page. Some are magical, namely the runes in green, and others are simply to convey a message. 

The last two pages are the symbols of various gods and powers in the Realms, though some of the page is still dedicated to runes. Again, I will be creating scans, both front and back, to share.

And yes, the backs of all of them contain some information about the image on the front. I cannot wait to make copies so that I feel confident in cutting out and using the cards, while still keeping the originals in good condition.

The final portion of this treasure chest of information is a bestiary. The pages are unbound, but punched to fit into a ringed binder. I adore all the art. Like before, I will create scans, and perhaps write on more specific aspects of the creatures therein.

But before I go to work on my maps again, I grant you the most wonderful gift that this box has to offer: 

Thank you all, and safe journeys, travelers~

[another-rpg-sideblog]

The Forgotten Realms (Faerun, 1372DR by David Bishop)

[oldschoolfrp]

Among the powerful, reclusive mages of Halruua, each Elder receives a skyship and the secret of recharging it. (Jeff Butler cover for Forgotten Realms supplement FR16: The Shining South by Tom Prusa, TSR, 1993)

[robotbeetle]

day XXX of wishing Dnd would release official 5e content of the questionable non-european continents they created like thirty years ago and have never acknowledged since. Zakhara, Kara-tur, Maztica, you could've been great and I think of you often.

[disgruntledexplainer]

D&D elves

[atticollateral]

Is anyone looking for another player for an online D&D campaign? I'm SOOO bored and wanna play w/ people. I'm so willing to make new friends online if it means I get to participate in my favorite game >^<

If u wanna PM me w/ game setting & platform (IE. Game Setting: Faerun, Sword Coast & Platform: Discord) I can get back to you with my details & availability ^^ (If you're doing a game and taking new players I will hop in there if you ask, I don't have a to join a fresh campaign!)

[friendlyforestbeast]

I’m king now 💅

This is so dumb and I’ll never finish it I’m sorry

[forestsofcernutis]

Solo roleplaying grants instant gratification if compared to amateur writing, despite seemingly having a lot in common.

If I was writing some cheap fantasy this night, as I sometimes do, I would be thinking about originality and style and characters and other things that make good piece of art.

But if you have dice and some oracles of your choice you can just have fun with little guy that is your PC (or PCs) and your world by stacking tropes from your favourite media together and seeing how will it develop due to dice rolls, because you yourself have no idea what happens next. And nobody cares that story sucks, that characters are cardboard and that "prose" is as bad as in children's fairytales, as long as you have fun.

And if you are simultaneously creative and honest with yourself, you can even challenge yourself intellectually.

[general-grey]

honestly the current bg3 brainrot feels like such a homecoming to me. i almost forgot how much i loved this setting just overall.

i never had much opportunity to actually play in forgotten realms settings on tabletop sessions which is. fine. homebrew is nice.

but i REALLY REALLY like forgotten realms. and its lore. and i grew up on the drizzt books.

i am so happy to see its reemergence now

[eelslippers]

I so desperately want to run a fall out inspired oceanfaring campaign set in a world based on 1950's scandinavia with some eldritch horrors inspired from terraria

[grimbiliah]

I don’t remember if it was NADDPOD or some other piece of media that put the idea in my mind that the circles of hell represented the deadly sins, but I was thinking about it recently for a dnd campaign I’m running and realized it dnd make sense because there are 7 sins and 9 circles.

The main reason I was thinking about this was because in said campaign the players have a necklace with a big gemstone on it in which lived an evil wizard who can’t leave. He’s been in there for a while, and some things have changed while he’s been trapped.

So after I had this realization about the circles and the sins I thought it would be really funny if the wizard remembers their being 7 circles for the 7 sins and is baffled by the fact that their are 9 circles now.

“What, did they add 2 sins? Is murder and larceny bad now?”

I don’t actually know what the two extra sins would be, so lmk if you have a funny idea.

[andromedasummer]

having a bit of a shit day. going to read dnd books abt it.

[nebulousfishgills]

Honestly, it's not a bad likeness considering my constraints (mostly for scarring and tattoos). I picked the face preset that I think looked most like Olivia Cooke when I held up a picture to it. It's not perfect, but pretty close.

Then praise be my new best friend, Basket of Equipment mod, which allowed me to get as close as I could to Emily's canon outfit (green tank, jeans, and dark boots. There were some actual tank top options but they refused to accept the dyes)

...but then I remember that mods give me the power of gods and I go and mod Astarion again, except this time he looks more like her first husband:

(The white doublet was me having a giggle)

And then, naturally... the 100% canon occurence of them fucking in the woods.

I love this game.

[moinsbienquekaworu]

I love worlds with specific rules and tonnes of lore building blocks so I can make my own little guys and put them there. Give me the dollhouse and a dollmaker and let me customise a few things

[prokopetz]

when will wizards give in and release d&d 6th edition.. the children yearn for necromancy

It's not going to happen without a major change in marketing strategy on Hasbro's part. Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition was created with a couple of very specific mandates from Hasbro corporate:

Create an "evergreen" version of Dungeons & Dragons which will draw in new players while also appealing equally to fans of every previous iteration of D&D.

Cultivate homogenised expectations of what playing Dungeons & Dragons entails in such a way that every group becomes a potential purchaser of every first-party sourcebook.

Anything that would create a perceived split in the game's player base is counter to both of those goals, and a new edition – or, at least, admitting that any given revision constitutes a new edition – is pretty high on that list.

(Did you ever wonder why 5E's designers talked such a big game about modularity, then proceeded to produce one of the least modular iterations of D&D ever published, why licensed material for every first-party campaign setting that isn't The Forgotten Realms has basically dropped off the face of the planet, and why topical sourcebooks are being displaced by big, messy guides-to-everything with no clear organising principle? See above!)

[vintagerpg]

Forgotten Realms sourcebooks this week, starting with the first: FR1: Waterdeep and the North (1987). This is the third true FR book (after the campaign box and N5: Under Illefarn — all the other stuff at this point that had the Realms logo were retrofits). Waterdeep came first because that’s where Ed Greenwood’s initial campaign took place, so it was the most detailed region when TSR took the world on.

Despite the “and the North” in the title, this is really just a look at Waterdeep. Greenwood had too much stuff to tell people about the city! Like, for real, some of the type in this book is shockingly small. I wouldn’t call this a city book though, not in the same way as Lankhmar or even something later like Night City. This is more like a textbook for a class on Waterdeep, if that makes sense. There are attribute blocks for NPC and some maps and such, but there is not a lot here that moves, that you can play with. It’s a lecture.

Which is fine by me, I really like Ed Greenwood’s series of lectures on the Forgotten Realms, they tend to be my favorite parts of the massive body of Realms products. But this is sort of the first time TSR is trying to consciously put setting first in the design. If you look at other D&D “sourcebook” style material before this, you get…some wishy washy Greyhawk stuff, some Kara-Tur, Lankhmar and a brief dossier on Krynn in DL5. So any stiffness or dryness in the material is because this is such new ground for the company (though I believe Bruce Heard’s Gazeteers were coming out at the same time; go ahead and compare them to this and you’ll see what I mean about the lack of movability).

Excellent Keith Parkinson cover featuring everyone’s favorite beholder crimelord, Xanathar. It’s an off-beat depiction and I wish some of the weirdness of it continued to surface in the Realms, but I find that it doesn’t. This also has very nice interiors by Chris Miller, who I don’t really know. It’s…weird to have really nice interiors in an FR book.