Publisher: Wizards of the CoastThere are many parallel worlds, and in times past, travel was easy between them. But those ways are now lost. Those worlds are forgotten.
Or are they?
Welcome to the Forgotten Realms.
this volume, brimming with the newly rediscovered facts and original fiction, introduces you to the best-selling world of Faer?n, where elves are mysteriously disappearing, and magic is an art gifted by a goddess. No difficult game jargon obscures the wonders before you. Come and explore.
Open this book and discover a forgotten world!
Product History
PG2: Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms Campaign (1993), by Anthony Herring and others, is the second Player's Guide setting book. It was published in November 1993.
About the Cover. Like PG1: Player's Guide to the Dragonlance Campaign (1993) before it, the Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms Campaign reuses a cover. This one previously appeared on FR9: and quot;The Bloodstone Lands and quot; (1989) and would be re-used one more time as the cover of Interplay's Blood and amp; Magic (1996), a real-time strategy game.
About the Artwork. Much of the interior artwork is also reused. The most humorous is probably the picture of a dwarf on page 109, who is actually Flint Fireforge from the Dragonlance adventures. (Wrong world!)
Origins (I): The Other Player's Guide. The purpose of TSR's short-lived Player's Guide line was to produce introductory volumes that could help ease newcomers into some of TSR's more popular and more complex settings. The Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms Campaign continues in that mode but focuses even more heavily on using fiction as its introductory method. The result is a very episodic and picaresque trip through the Realms, following the path of one adventuring company. It doesn't offer a big picture overview of the world, like PG1: Player's Guide to the Dragonlance Campaign (1993) did, but it does present a nice view of the setting in bite-sized tidbits.
The Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms Campaign was the last of just two and quot;PG and quot; books. The books were probably hard sells because they were introductory books about the settings that were not aimed at the current roleplaying fans of the setting. However, it may have just been bad timing: TSR began cancelling a number of lines at the end of 1993, and the and quot;PG and quot; books probably got swept up in that.
Origins (II): The Other Realms. Focusing the second Player's Guide on the Forgotten Realms probably wasn't just representative of the fact that the Realms was TSR's most popular gaming world. More notably, like Dragonlance before it, the Forgotten Realms was one of TSR's most popular fictional settings. TSR probably hoped that many of those fiction fans could be turned into roleplaying fans as well through the Player's Guide.
Adventure Tropes. The narrative that forms the core of the Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms actually ends on a cliff hanger, with the adventuring company captured by the Zhentarim and imprisoned beneath Zhentil Keep, setting up a potential macguffin quest for players who read this journal and decide to free the adventurers.
Exploring the Realms. Though the Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms Campaign doesn't provide a big-picture look at the Realms, it does offer small viewpoints into the Realms, many of them quite unique. Areas that are covered include: Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Evermeet, The High Moor, the Hill of Lost Souls, the Battle of the Bones, the Forgotten Forest, the Lonely Moor, Evereska, Anauroch, Boareskyr Bridge, the Moonshae Islands, Baldur's Gate, Cloak Wood, Candlekeep, Beregost, the Wood of Sharp Teeth, Elturel, Scornubel, Hluthvar, Darkhold, Easting, High Horn, Cormyr, Arabel, Immersea, Suzail, Westgate, Saerloon, the Dalelands, the Sea of Fallen Stars, Aglarond, Procampur, Impiltur, Damara, Thar, Vaasa, and Zhentil Keep. Though the descriptions are largely narrative, this book is nonetheless the definitive source to date on many of these lesser-known locales in the Realms.
The Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms Campaign is also notable for all the little details of Realms life that it reveals. That begins with the fact that the story is focused on an adventuring company, a common element in the Realms since Ed Greenwood's earliest campaigns. There's also a short article on mage sigils, which is reminiscent of the sort of thing that Greenwood was writing for Dragon magazine before the Realms became a TSR campaign world. However, it's articles on breads, cheeses, and wines of the Realms that feel the most iconic. This sort of Realmslore, detailing the small, human elements of the world, has been an important part of the campaign since its beginning.
About the Creators. Anthony Herring is credited with the and quot;Annals of the Seekers and quot; and so probably did the majority of the original design for this new book. Contributors of additional material include Ed Greenwood, Jeff Grubb, Karen Boomgarden, Julia Martin, Steven Schend, J. Robert King, and Tim Beach.
About the Product Historian
The history of this product was researched and written by Shannon Appelcline, the editor-in-chief of RPGnet and the author of and nbsp;Designers and amp; Dragons and nbsp;- a history of the roleplaying industry told one company at a time. Please feel free to mail corrections, comments, and additions to shannon.appelcline@gmail.com.