Realms of Valor

The (Not-So) Secret History of the Realms

The Realms is a world crafted by many gods. I'm not talking about the everyday, common gods, the ones you usually hear about in fantasy stories. No, these beings are the secret gods, the gods that move behind the scenes, creating, crafting, and presenting the world of Toril to the world at large. They have arcane names like Greenwood, Salvatore, Niles, Denning, Lowder, and a host of others, and they wield mighty powers. They are the writers who have combined forces to create the Realms that all of you know and love today.

But who are these individuals and how did they come together under one creative roof? Where did this marvelous land come from, and where is it heading? That's the secret history of the Realms.

The Realms began in the fertile mind of Ed Greenwood, and predates DUNGEONS amp; DRAGONS role-playing itself. As a young boy, Ed was inspired by the works of many fantasy writers, including Lord Dunsany and Fritz Leiber. Ed loved the fact that most of Leiber's high-fantasy stories shared common characters and a common world. With each new story, familiar faces and places reappeared, creating a long-standing, fully-developed, living world.

Ed's own nascent writing sought to string together his adventure stories in a similar setting. Ed reports that his first story attempt (written at the tender age of eight winters) was situated on the Sword Coast, a lost epic titled "One Comes, Unheralded, to Zirta." It was, by Ed's own description, a horrible example of the bronzed-barbarian school of writing, and both the story and Zirta itself have long-since disappeared (the latter falling into the sea). This was in 1967, long before the fantasy role-playing phenomenon began.

Ed continued to develop the Realms in pieces of short fiction, but with the introduction of the DUNGEONS amp; DRAGONS role-playing game, his world took the first of many giant leaps forward. As opposed to a solitary creation, his setting became the basis for a gathering of friends and associates who all put in their two cents worth and took the characters they created in directions Ed neither anticipated nor controlled. The efforts of the Company of Crazed Venturers and the Knights of Myth Drannor did much to establish the early Realms and transform it into its present incarnation.

DRAGON magazine took the Realms to the next stage. Ed was, and is, at heart a tinkerer, a crafter who delights in making myriad clockwork creations-monsters, tomes, magical items, dungeon doors, and all manner of minutia. Ed found a ready market for these items in the pages of DRAGON as early as 1979. To introduce his newest creations he chose a powerful mage known to his players as the "spokesman" for the Realms. Elminster appeared publicly for the first time in 1981, and has since grown to become a readily recognizable and eminently popular fantasy figure. Another giant leap had been made.

The Realms continued along this path, existing primarily as the setting for Ed's home campaign and appearing in articles for DRAGON, until 1986. By that time, the DRAGONLANCE® shared world had blossomed, an epic setting dominated by great adventures both in games and novels. The cry went up within the hallowed halls of TSR that we should ready another world for development, should the excitement toward the DRAGONLANCE world fade (something that has yet to happen). After much discussion, a lowly game designer (who shall remain the writer of this afterword) hit on the idea of contacting Ed Greenwood and finding out if there was truly a world behind all those articles. And if there was, would he be interested in letting the Realms become the basis for new stories and adventures?

Well, there was and he would. Correspondence began between Lake Geneva and Colborne, Ontario. This exchange of many, many file folders resulted in the establishment of the most familiar parts of the Realms, the true heart of the shared world.

A delightful chaos ensued, as a double handful of creative individuals all began to erect the structure that was to become the Realms. Building was not as much planned as guided, everyone intent on creating a useful and intriguing world. Like Ed back in the sixties, these collected creators were hunting for a place where they could tell stories. A lot of stories-all happening at the same time. In this way the Realms set itself apart from the tightly focused DRAGONLANCE series.

The pieces of the newborn world drifted into place as often by accident as by design. Doug Niles had a half-written novel with strong Celtic ties, so an island chain was redrawn on the Realms maps-and the Moonshaes were born. Bob Salvatore proposed a sequel to the first Moonshae novel, but later changed its setting and introduced his own heroes-including the now-popular Drizzt Do'Urden. Steeped in Realms lore and freed of creating the initial setting for the games department, Ed roamed Shadowdale in Spellfire, while Kate Novak and I introduced Alias and Dragonbait to the world.

And the Forgotten Realms continued to grow. On the gaming end, a dozen individuals began to explore, define, and expand the Realms. Kara-Tur appeared in the Far East. Computer games were developed, tied in with the novels, first by Jim Ward and Jane Cooper Hong, later by Jim Ward and Anne Brown. Work began on comic books, miniatures, and board games.

It became time for an epic in the Realms, something that would affect the entire land, and with this epic a new generation of secret gods joined the fray. The Avatar Trilogy, released in 1989, brought to light the talents of Scott Ciencin, Jim Lowder, and Troy Denning. In the trilogy, these three literary lights were hidden by the house name "Richard Awlinson" ("Richard All-in-One"), but since that time each has emerged with his own voice in the Realms. With Avatar, the Realms made another leap, into epic, world-shaping fantasy adventure.

As an interesting sidelight, concurrent with the Avatar Trilogy, the ADVANCED DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS'* game moved into a second edition, which modified and improved the game system used for role-playing in the Realms. The avatars-on-the-loose plot line in the novels provided an excellent opportunity for us to explain the changes in the Realms without all the game mechanics, but this confluence was never really planned. The trilogy had evolved on its own. Yet again, fate and fortune worked to bring together diverse elements and talents in the Realms.

By now our modest shared world had become a sprawling madhouse of creative ability. It was and remains a house built by fifteen engineers, each following his or her own plans, checking with the others as need be, but pursuing an individual vision. The Realms was large and became larger still. Bob Salvatore's Drizzt gained his own series. Doug Niles discovered Maztica. Jim Lowder, Troy Denning, and another new god, David Cook, filled the lands between the East and West with the Tuigan hordes and immediately launched an invasion. Characters from the Realms disappeared into the new dimension of Ravenloft. The tales of the Harpers, individual visions of the world by both experienced writers and newcomers, came into being. Another generation of gods appeared: Jean Rabe, Elaine Cunningham, and Mark Anthony, all adding to the luster of the Realms., New pieces drifted into place, new walls and doorways were erected, new windows looked out into new dreams, ceilings were put up and then removed again as the Realms continued to grow.

Each writer, each creative, each of these new gods brought his or her own voice to the Realms, and this collection of short stories reflects this diversity. There are stories both light-hearted and sinister within this tome. There are authors who draw strongly from history and those who strike out into unexplored and undiscovered territories. There are writers who base their works heavily on the game that has so long been an integral part of the world, and those whose seek new heights of imagination and walk new paths of wonder, quite separate from anything suggested in the Realms game releases.

It's often disorderly, but it's a glorious disorder that amazingly produces a solid, coherent world. Its product leaders and editors are more traffic cops than dictating elder gods, finding out where everyone is and trying to keep the collisions to a minimum. In 1967 young Ed Greenwood had no idea his lands would become so well-known. The handful of original writers had no idea in 1986 that the Realms would be such a monstrous success and inspire so many people to aid in shaping the world.

The Realms is a shared world in its purest sense. Yes, it all operates under the auspices of a higher set of gods (read "management"), but that influence is often muted, allowing the creators to work wonders. Within the Realms, there are still more than a dozen master craftsmen hammering away. Creating beautiful works of art. Telling stories. Having fun.