Long before comic books had cinematic universes, before video games came to home consoles, and before we witnessed Star Wars unfolding in a galaxy far away, Ed Greenwood created a fantasy world in 1967 to serve as a home for his childhood tales. Years later, as Dungeons & Dragons gained momentum, that fiction had evolved to become one of the earliest campaign settings for the role-playing game. The first Forgotten Realms boxed set was released in 1987 and rapidly captured the imagination of fantasy-loving enthusiasts.
In the years that followed, countless creative voices crafted dozens of D&D game supplements, resulting in thousands of pages of characters, locations, gods, and monsters. Hundreds of novels call the setting home. And the vast majority of D&D-licensed video games (including the Baldur’s Gate series) live within the Realms’ far-flung contours. “It is one of the most comprehensive expressions of Dungeons & Dragons in the world, and the one that is most familiar to people outside of the tabletop gaming community,” says principal game designer James Wyatt. “In broader media, in movies, in video games, and novels, Forgotten Realms is definitely the premier setting. And it’s vast. It’s broad. It covers the entire spectrum of genre and possible tropes. It’s long overdue for this kind of comprehensive treatment. We’re really excited to be bringing it back in all its glory.”
