# Ed Greenwood Presents: Elminster's Forgotten Realms



## Morrus (Feb 25, 2012)

The cover for the upcoming hardcover - and allegedly system neutral - _Forgotten Realms_ book has appeared online! Amazon lists it for October 16, 2012.






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## Knightfall (Feb 26, 2012)

*Ed Greenwood Presents: Elminster's Forgotten Realms (cover)*

Has anyone posted the cover image here? If not, then I'm happy to oblige...






Cheers!

KF


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## Treebore (Feb 26, 2012)

A link so I can share it around the internet would be nice.


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## Knightfall (Feb 26, 2012)

Treebore said:


> A link so I can share it around the internet would be nice.



[ame="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0786960345/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d0_g14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=01E3RPJ4PQ0VZCGEEV00&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846"]Amazon[/ame]


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Feb 26, 2012)

Very pretty. It's a shame we aren't likely to get "Gary Gygax presents Mordekainen's World of Greyhawk" to go with it. (Although maybe there are enough notes to assemble something like that. But I bet we would have heard something by now, if so.)


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## grodog (Feb 26, 2012)

So, do we know anything about the contents of the book?  Amazon's got nothing so far.


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## mach1.9pants (Feb 26, 2012)

Basically an edition neutral collection of Ed's Forgotten Realms notes tidied up for publication


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## Mouseferatu (Feb 26, 2012)

I'm looking forward to this, but I'd also _really_ like for WotC to let Keith Baker do a similar "Here's what the creator's core ideas look like" book for Eberron.


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## grodog (Feb 26, 2012)

mach1.9pants said:


> Basically an edition neutral collection of Ed's Forgotten Realms notes tidied up for publication




Thanks, that sounds potentially interesting.


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## freeAgent (Feb 26, 2012)

I'm excited to see this, and am also rooting for it being edition agnostic.


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## mach1.9pants (Feb 26, 2012)

freeAgent said:


> I'm excited to see this, and am also rooting for it being edition agnostic.




That is confirmed to be edition neutral


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## DragonLancer (Feb 26, 2012)

If it's system neutral then I might look into picking this up pending which era of the setting it is set in. I wish we would get more system neutral campaign settings.


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## TarionzCousin (Feb 26, 2012)

I would like this book to have an early picture of Ed dressed as Elminster (from a con). 

Or just lots of great fluff. 

I wonder which is more likely.


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## Abstruse (Feb 26, 2012)

DragonLancer said:


> If it's system neutral then I might look into picking this up pending which era of the setting it is set in. I wish we would get more system neutral campaign settings.



Expect a lot of system neutral stuff coming out soon due to the press on D&D Next. Both this and the Menzoberranzan sourcebook coming out in several months are going to be system neutral.

Also, from what I gathered from the D&D XP transcripts and recordings online, it's going to be a combination atlas and history book for Toril. My guess is it'll be a timeline followed by sections on each area. "This is Thay. It started out like this and then this happened and it affected this and this and then this happened and it affected this and this and this and then this happened and that happened and this happened and they all affected this and that and this. This is Waterdeep. It started out like this and then this happened and..."


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## freeAgent (Feb 26, 2012)

Abstruse said:


> Also, from what I gathered from the D&D XP transcripts and recordings online, it's going to be a combination atlas and history book for Toril. My guess is it'll be a timeline followed by sections on each area. "This is Thay. It started out like this and then this happened and it affected this and this and then this happened and it affected this and this and this and then this happened and that happened and this happened and they all affected this and that and this. This is Waterdeep. It started out like this and then this happened and..."




This would also be great.


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## Warunsun (Feb 26, 2012)

Mmm. Since this is Ed's notes it will likely be largely system neutral  but it also has a good possibility of including some character details  in first or second edition style or potentially even third edition. We  know Ed's game started during the first edition time frame. Since Hasbro  is trying to get a nostalgic feeling going for this "super edition"  they may well go out of their way to show statistics in all four  editions in this book too. I don't mean they would have stat blocks for  everything in all four editions but rather that one article might have  first edition stuff in it and another might have fourth edition stuff in  it. I bet this will be the approach since it doesn't sound like a campaign setting but rather more like a coffee table book.


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## kitsune9 (Feb 26, 2012)

Really nice cover. I'm not sure I'd get it though. I liked everything until the conversion.


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## scruffygrognard (Feb 26, 2012)

I'm happy that this is coming out on my birthday (October 16th).  It'll make for a great present!


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## M.L. Martin (Feb 26, 2012)

kitsune9 said:


> Really nice cover. I'm not sure I'd get it though. I liked everything until the conversion.




  What do you mean by 'conversion'? Because this is apparently the notes from Ed's home game, and that hasn't even reached the Time of Troubles yet.

  Anyone else notice the conspicuous absence of a D&D logo on this cover?


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## Kaodi (Feb 26, 2012)

I am not terribly sure how different a _Keith Baker Presents: Eberron_ would be from the published campaign setting...


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## Dragonhelm (Feb 26, 2012)

Mouseferatu said:


> I'm looking forward to this, but I'd also _really_ like for WotC to let Keith Baker do a similar "Here's what the creator's core ideas look like" book for Eberron.




Personally, I'd like to see Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance.


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## kitsune9 (Feb 26, 2012)

Matthew L. Martin said:


> What do you mean by 'conversion'? Because this is apparently the notes from Ed's home game, and that hasn't even reached the Time of Troubles yet.
> 
> Anyone else notice the conspicuous absence of a D&D logo on this cover?




The conversion from the material of the events of 3.5 to 4e; however, if it's pre-Time of Troubles, then I'm on board!


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## scruffygrognard (Feb 26, 2012)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:


> Very pretty. It's a shame we aren't likely to get "Gary Gygax presents Mordekainen's World of Greyhawk" to go with it. (Although maybe there are enough notes to assemble something like that. But I bet we would have heard something by now, if so.)




Ya know, I think WotC will be putting out a Castle Greyhawk that makes extensive use of Gary Gygax's notes.

Troll Lord Games was in the process of releasing Castle Greyhawk (renamed Castle Zagyg for legal reasons) in conjunction with E.G.G. and Jeff Talanian.  After Gary's death, Gary's widow pulled back the license.

It would make perfect sense for her to sell Gary's Castle Greyhawk notes to WotC for top $$$... and it would make perfect sense for WotC to publish Castle Greyhawk for numerous reasons.  

Add the fact that WotC is re-releasing 1st edition AD&D books and donating $$$ to the Gary Gygax Memorial Fund and I'd bet on this happening with little trepidation.


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## Warunsun (Feb 26, 2012)

cperkins said:


> Ya know, I think WotC will be putting out a Castle Greyhawk that makes extensive use of Gary Gygax's notes.



I highly doubt this. Dave Arneson and his business also lost all rights to publish *Blackmoor* on his death. I would think whatever arrangement that Gary had with Wizards would be similar. Remember that WotC did pay off both Gary and Dave upon the launch of third edition so some agreements were signed.

I would buy this product from WotC but I just don't think it will ever happen. Despite the dozens of posts here and on the WotC forums suggesting that the *World of Greyhawk* return for fifth edition it isn't going to happen. It has already been confirmed that *Forgotten Realms* is going to get the treatment first.

Hell, I would bet that the fantasy world of _Magic: The Gathering_ has a higher chance of getting campaign setting treatment then Greyhawk. I don't advocate that but I would imagine it is true.


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## Ron (Feb 27, 2012)

Dragonhelm said:


> Personally, I'd like to see Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance.




Even better, a Bruce Heard's Mystara.


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## M.L. Martin (Feb 27, 2012)

Ron said:


> Even better, a Bruce Heard's Mystara.




  I've been assembling Mystara material over the past few years and developing an appreciation for it, but since Bruce Heard was in charge of it for almost the entire run, how different would this be from the published material? Or are you thinking of a combination of the old Gazetteers with the abandoned BD&D plans (Heldannic Knights and Synn as a major villain, IIRC)?

  Tracy Hickman's DL could be interesting and doable--there's apparently a lot of proto-DL material floating around the archives (or was years ago), and the setting definitely changed with the various other hands involved, such as Margaret Weis.


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## TirionAnthion (Feb 27, 2012)

*New FR Book*

In the new product seminar at DDXP Mike Mearls specifically mentioned that the book was a collection of Ed's notes. This is Ed Greenwood's version of the Realms. This means that many things in this book will not match up with existing printed material. This was billed as a "what if" kind of alternate reality with many of the core events in the recent history of the realms having never occurred. 

That is also one of the reasons that the book is being kept system neutral, as it sits outside of  the established canon of the realms. It is meant more as a cool look at Ed's campaign and as a way to spark ideas for DMs to steal. 

While I am not a Realms fan, I am looking forward to picking up this book and taking a look at the Ed's spin on the Realms.


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## Nebulous (Feb 27, 2012)

I will almost surely get this. I love the cover, i love that it is system neutral and not filled with statblocks, and it is something, as far as i can remember, D&D has not done before.


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## Yora (Feb 27, 2012)

There were some, but they were mostly irrelevant.


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## catsclaw227 (Feb 27, 2012)

I'd also like to see this.  I know very little about FR except what little I read from my 3rd edition books (which have since been sold) and the little I read from my post Spell-Plague 4e FR.   I did read the Icewind Dale books in High School (1982ish?), but these were pre-Time of Troubles as well.

I also wonder what "era" these notes are set in.  As far as I know the Time of Troubles and Spell Plague were the only major upheavals of FR, but weren't there other smaller "adjustments" as well?

I'd also like to see some Greyhawk treatment like this.  What were the major upheavals in Greyhawk other than the Greyhawk Wars, which, from what I have read in threads, set the demarcation between people that play Greyhawk.  They play either pre- or post-  Greyhawk Wars games.

I could be wrong on all of this though...




Warunsun said:


> Hell, I would bet that the fantasy world of _Magic: The Gathering_ has a higher chance of getting campaign setting treatment then Greyhawk. I don't advocate that but I would imagine it is true.



I don't know... I didn't play the CCG, though I did play the XBLA game, but this "setting" seems rather flavorful.  At least the art has always been evocative.


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## Hellcow (Feb 27, 2012)

Kaodi said:


> I am not terribly sure how different a _Keith Baker Presents: Eberron_ would be from the published campaign setting...



I'll do a blog post about this at HDWT sometime in the next week, but there's certainly ways. One major example would be the Blood of Vol, which has slowly been creeping closer to my original vision but started out quite far from it in the 3.5 ECS. For that matter, my interpretation of Baator in the most recent Eye on Eberron article ignores a number of pre-existing things (such as the mention of Levistus in the Player's Guide To Eberron or the description of it as a full plane in the ECS). 

Of course, one of the key differences is that Eberron has always taken the approach that the DM should be free to overwrite canon. As such, "Keith Baker Presents: Eberron" would be just that - MY Eberron. It might not match the canon Eberron perfectly, but hey, YOUR Eberron might not match either one!


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## Nikosandros (Feb 27, 2012)

Warunsun said:


> I highly doubt this. Dave Arneson and his business also lost all rights to publish *Blackmoor* on his death. I would think whatever arrangement that Gary had with Wizards would be similar. Remember that WotC did pay off both Gary and Dave upon the launch of third edition so some agreements were signed.



That's an unrelated issue. Gary was given the rights to reprint his Greyhawk novels and Arneson could use the name Blackmoor. This agreements probably have expired, but Gail Gygax still has all the notes about the original Castle. I don't think that it's terribly likely that they will  actually publish it, but making use of the original notes, as well as using the proper copyrighted names, would certainly make it a product palatable to a respectable audience.


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## Faraer (Feb 27, 2012)

Matthew L. Martin said:


> Because this is apparently the notes from Ed's home game, and that hasn't even reached the Time of Troubles yet.



Well, a small selection of his notes out of the hundreds of boxes. His campaign may have reached that time frame, but his players voted not to use TSR's Godswar.







> Anyone else notice the conspicuous absence of a D&D logo on this cover?



But the presence of a rather nice new Realms logo!


catsclaw227 said:


> I also wonder what "era" these notes are set in.



The Company of Crazed Venturers campaign of the mid-1970s took place mainly in the 1340s DR, I think; the Knights of Myth Drannor campaign, late 1970s through to present, in the late 1340s through late 1350s.







> As far as I know the Time of Troubles and Spell Plague were the only major upheavals of FR, but weren't there other smaller "adjustments" as well?



Apart from the many novel and sourcebook events set later than Ed's campaign, there are various differences we know about, including the Moonshae archipelago that was overwritten by Doug Niles's version, absence of Vaasa and Damara, certain differences in Netheril and Anauroch, less Earth-analoguy Unther and Mulhorand, his own pre-D&D dark elves rather than drow (though he may have later adopted the latter), and a lot of different emphases from the published material (discussed in the extensive lore he's contributed to REALMS-L and especially Candlekeep.com). I'm looking forward to being surprised by other differences.


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## Sammael (Feb 27, 2012)

I am looking forward to this book. I am not entirely sure if Ed's own version of FR is the right one for me (since I really enjoy the work of other FR RPG authors, particularly Eric L. Boyd, Stephen Schend, and SKR), but I am sure it will be chock-full of interesting insights and new perspectives. After all, this is the first book in a very long time where Ed will actually be _allowed_ to talk about his world publicly and hopefully without NDA constraints.


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## Warunsun (Feb 27, 2012)

Nebulous said:


> I will almost surely get this. I love the cover, i love that it is system neutral and not filled with statblocks, and it is something, as far as i can remember, D&D has not done before.



Actually D&D under TSR did produce many supplements for campaigns that were basically system neutral and also were not filled with stat blocks. I know of several of these books but there weren't tons of them but they do exist. Wizards of the Coast has also done it at-least once before with the _Living Greyhawk Gazetteer_. There isn't any rules at all and absolutely no stat blocks in 190 pages of campaign material. Lots of crunch started appearing in third edition source-books and later.


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