Ed Greenwood
Well met! Welcome to my world; the
Forgotten Realms. A vast land, full of
strange splendors-a living background
for vivid adventure. Elminster took me
there first.

Welcome to our world. Now the Realms
are yours, too; a world that has delighted
me for almost twenty years in all its rich
variety is presented herein-and in pages
yet to come-for you to enjoy and set
AD&D® game campaign play in. Only a
small area of the Realms can be squeezed
into these pages, so there's much to look
forward to if you come along for the ride.
It's been a long one for me thus far; the
Realms began in 1968 as a setting for fan·
tasy short stories, and later (1975) was
developed and detailed, as the
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS® system
appeared. Regular play in the Realms
began in 1978, and still continues; the
present roster of regular players has
remained intact since early 1980. As the
ADVANCED DUNGEONS &. DRAGONS*
system has appeared, book by book, the
Realms have been modified to conform
with official rules, and these (with the
unofficial additions published in
DRAGON magazine from issue #30
onward, such as monsters, magical items,
spells and nonplayer character classes)
can be assumed to hold sway in the
Realms now. I have always treated the
Realms as a "real place" which I am v.iew·
ing and reporting on rather than a delib·
erate creation, and I believe that has been
the key to making it live.

The "Forgotten Realms" derive their
name from the fictitious fact upon
which play in my campaign is based:
that a multiverse exists, of countless
parallel co-existing Prime Material
Planes (including the world presented
herein, our own modern "Earth;' and
any other fantasy settings a DM may
wish to incorporate in play), all related
to the Known Planes of Existence pre·
sented in the AD&D system. Travel
betwixt these planes was once far more
common than is the case now (when
few know the means of reaching other
worlds, or even believe in the existence
of such fanciful places); hence, the
Realms have been "forgotten" by beings
of Earth. Our legends of dragons, vampires,
and of other fearsome creatures
and magic are due to this formerly
widespread contact between the
worlds; most have of course become
confused and distorted with the passage
of time and many retellings. That
corner of the Realms presented herein
is a strip of the heart of the western
part of only one cont inent of Toril, that
region known as Faerun (pronounced
FAY-er-OON; the name meant " home" in
a now-lost early human tongue). Much
more awaits the traveler, to be revealed
in later works.

In any large-scale project many peo·
pie become involved, and they deserve
thanks. In this case, Jeff Grubb is largely
responsible for turning piles o f typed
notes--despite the gaps in lore they did
not cover fully or properly--into what
you now hold in your hands. Jeff has
taken the personal world of one eccen·
tric , roleplaying-over-rules DM, and
transformed it into an AD&D game
setting useful to others by dint of a lot
of sweat; this work is as much his as it is
mine--and Elminster still speaks to him,
so he must have done it right.

Before the Realm s ever reached TSR,
however, others helped to give it life,
color, and growth-- firs t and foremost,
my regular players; my lady Jenny
Glicksohn (the first Jhessail); the vet·
e ran of m y players, Victor Selby (who
has portrayed many characters in the
Realms , notably Malchor Harpell,
Tulgar Anuvien, Jelde Asturien, and
Torm of Westgate); the "First Lore-Lord
of the Realms;" who remembers a ll of its
minute details as few others, Ian
Hunter (Lanseril Snowmantle); John
Hunter, role-player extraordinaire
(Florin Falconhand); Andrew Dewar,
who encouraged us all to record all of
the fun on paper, to inflict on others lat-
er (Doust Sulwood and Rathan Then-
traver); Jim Clarke (Merith Strongbow);
and Anita Buttemer (the second Jhes·
sail). These players have breathed life
into the Realms on a regular basis for
over 7 years--they are truly adven-
turers and heroes. From the early days
of play, Ken Woods and Tim Turner
deserve mention--and recently Cathy
Widdowson has joined the ranks of the
regulars (as Sharantyr the ranger).

Underlying adventures in the Realms
is the continuing inspiration for the
world, and in this I have been encouraged
by Kim Mohan, Editor of
DRAGON® Magazine for much of the
time that the Realms has seen print, and
by my parents, grandparents, and
aunts, who have showered me with
books and s howed me what love and
imagination can do. Thank you, all.

Thanks are also due to you who read
these pages, for coming along on the
ride. I hope that you will enjoy the
Realms as much as I have.

Jeff Grubb

Ed Greenwood created the Forgotten
Realms . Karen Martin edited, arranged,
and presented it in the form you see
here. How did I get involved in this?

It's a short story.

About midsummer of 1986, TSR was
s hopping for a new world. We had
experience in world-building under our
belt, with two versions of the WORLD
OF GREYHAWK campaign setting, and
the c r eation of Krynn, home of the
DRAGONLANCE® Saga. This time, we
were after something different; a world
that we could continue to develop over
the years that will follow, and set au
future AD&D® game modules into. A
place where a variety of talented indi·
viduals could all contribute to its creation
and its development. Rather than
one view, a combination of views that
would grow and develop through
adventures, sourcebooks, short stories,
and books.

I was the bright individual who
thought of Ed Greenwood and his "Pages from the Mages"--
which used as their setting a parallel fantasy universe
known as the Forgotten Realms, where
magic rules suprem e in the spirit of the
AD&D® game.

For making the suggestion, I was
brought in on helping turn the hun-
dreds of notes, articles, NPCs, adven-
tures, and manuscript pages into a final
product that would both be a complete
campaign and a starting point for fur-
ther adventures. You hold that final
product in your hands. My contribution
is primarily in the areas such as fit-
ting everything to the AD&D® game
rules and offering aid and suggestion m
running an AD&D® campaign.

The Forgotten Realms have changed
in the short time we have been working
with them. The Moonshae islands
enlarged to fit a novel, and the land that
is now Vaasa and Damara was only
recently (in game design terms) covered
bv an unnatural glacier. I expect them
to further change as more creative peo·
pie, including the large number of DM's
who run the various FORGOTTEN
REALMS Campaigns, get involved.

I'd like to thank (in addition to Ed and
Karen) designers Doug Niles, Zeb Cook,
and Michael Dobson for their input,
arguments, and bull-headed opinions in
this matter. I'd also like to mention that
the wonderful map-work through-out
these books are the product of Dave
Sutherland and Dave (Diesel) Laforce.

Karen S. Martin
I always wanted to edit an encyclopedia.


Taking little bits and pieces of informa-
tion about thousands of different and
unusual items, putting them in readable
form cross-indexing them for ease of
use, alphabetizing them--believe it or
not, that was a fantasy of mine.

This was almost as good.

As I read Ed's material for the first
time, one question ran through my
mind again and again: "How does this
man find time for everyday matters like
sleeping and eating?" The knowledge
that this material has poured from his
fevered brain for nearly 20 years
doesn't make answering that question
any easier.

This is brilliant.

The Forgotten Realms is my first
experience with a complete world for
AD&D® game playing. In my humble
opinion, it's fantabulous stuff. I think
now that I understand the excitement
which must have surrounded the crea-
tion of Krynn and the DRAGONLANCE®
saga. And this world was already here,
in the mind and campaign of Ed Greenwood! 

When I took on the responsibility of
editing this set, I thought back to the last
time Jeff and I collaborated on a boxed
game. There were times I thought he'd
never stop tweaking with it, never run
out of material to add , never leave me
alone to get on with the editing. 

This was worse.

Each time a packet came from Ed , I
got photocopies from Jeff for my
perusal and comments. Rarely did I get
the chance to finish one before the next
three showed up in my office, which
was by now overflowing. And, the
more I read, the more I loved it. This
was the kind of world I always wanted
to live in as a child, a real world. There
were harpers and spellcasters, fighters
and thieves. There were real towns and
farmlands. There were ships and cara-
vans. There was life.

This one is for my parents, who (I'm
certain) worried about their little girl
who lived in a dream world much of the
time, with wizards and dragons and
beautiful damsels.

These are my childhood dreams
come true.