The Forgotten Realms - Why exactly are they known as the forgotten realms? [Archive] - Wizards Community

The Forgotten Realms - Why exactly are they known as the forgotten realms? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Joseph_Silver
08-06-07, 07:41 PM Dragonlance was named after the legendary dragonlances, powerful weapons forged to slay dragons. Ravenloft was named after the Castle Ravenloft. Greyhawk was named after the City of Greyhawk.

But what about the Forgotten Realms? What exactly does it mean? How did these realms become forgotten?
Lord Karsus
08-06-07, 07:57 PM -Long ago, the connections between the Earth and Toril were much stronger. People could come and go as they (relativley) pleased, via portals and such. But, soon, the memory of Toril faded from our collective minds. Thus, the Realms became Forgotten.
MerrikCale
08-06-07, 09:25 PM But what about the Forgotten Realms? What exactly does it mean?

I forget
Old Sage
08-06-07, 09:52 PM From Ed -

"This, by the way, is where the “Forgotten” part of “Forgotten Realms” came from: we people of real-world Earth have ‘forgotten’ the once-widely-used gates to Toril, which gave us our legends of vampires, dragons, et al."
Ranger REG
08-07-07, 03:48 AM From Ed -

"This, by the way, is where the “Forgotten” part of “Forgotten Realms” came from: we people of real-world Earth have ‘forgotten’ the once-widely-used gates to Toril, which gave us our legends of vampires, dragons, et al."
And to think there is a gate in the back of Ed Greenwood's home, it's surprising he hasn't been bitten by a vampire, or eaten by a dragon.

:nonono:
Lord Karsus
08-07-07, 09:43 AM And to think there is a gate in the back of Ed Greenwood's home, it's surprising he hasn't been bitten by a vampire, or eaten by a dragon.

:nonono:

-He must have shut the door. Cartoons have taught me that once you shut a door, nothing can come through- including a speeding train.
Faraer
08-07-07, 10:04 AM Since most gates are only known by a few, and many have keys and other magical limitations on their passing, it isn't surprising at all.
Stigger
08-07-07, 03:06 PM Interesting, didn't know he said that... gives me an idea or three really...
1 ton ghost
08-07-07, 03:23 PM i think it's just a catch all.
that is, they emphasize the exploration of old dungeons and so forth belonging to the imaskari, netherese, old elven empires, and so on.

so old they are...forgotten. more or less.

i mean, Lost Empires of Faerun and pretty much all their supplemental material make references to some forgotten realm/culture or another.

who knows. a marketing ploy? artistic license? rock paper scissors for all we know in R&D
MarkusTay63
08-07-07, 05:03 PM Also, The Forgotten Realms is only known as such to us, the people of the RW, through Ed's 'discovery' of them in his backyard. The people of the Heartlands just refer to them as "The Realms". It is entirely possible that people from alternate realities also have forgotten about the Realms, since the world is filled with portals to many places.

As an aside, I read a novel YEARS AGO where the main hero was a normal American guy hanging out in his kitchen, when a monster of some sort came out of his cupboard! He grabbed his trusty baseball bat (that he always kept near the back door)and beat the thing to death. He then entered the cupboard, and proceeded to become that world's hero by beating all the bad guys to death with his 'mighty bat' (he was an ex-minor leaguer). I can't find the title of that book anywhee, but it sounds to me like Ed Greenwood meets Narnia. :D

-He must have shut the door. Cartoons have taught me that once you shut a door, nothing can come through- including a speeding train.Its known as the "closed Door Effect", and scholars have been studying it for centuries. It is most readily apparent in dungeon situations (P&P & Vid), where monsters seem to just 'hang-out' on the other side of doors, waiting for someone to open them. Many believe that ancient arcanists and divine casters had access to a certain spell that combined an illusion with an enchantment - the door would become immediately invisible to any on the far side, and they would forget it ever existed once closed. There are rumors of a more powerful version that would create a permanent Time Stop effect on the closed side, so that ANY large creature or object hurtling toward it would be 'frozen' until the doorway was re-opened.

Modern sages believe that these doorways were, in fact, openings to extra-dimensional spaces, akin to bags of holding. There are two reasons for this - Often times the doors are re-opened only to find a 'brick wall' (a contingency effect?), and also the similarities to what happens to the 'contents' of such spaces once the aperture is shut, this could very well be the truth of it. ;)
Lord Karsus
08-07-07, 11:24 PM Its known as the "closed Door Effect", and scholars have been studying it for centuries. It is most readily apparent in dungeon situations (P&P & Vid), where monsters seem to just 'hang-out' on the other side of doors, waiting for someone to open them. Many believe that ancient arcanists and divine casters had access to a certain spell that combined an illusion with an enchantment - the door would become immediately invisible to any on the far side, and they would forget it ever existed once closed. There are rumors of a more powerful version that would create a permanent Time Stop effect on the closed side, so that ANY large creature or object hurtling toward it would be 'frozen' until the doorway was re-opened.

Modern sages believe that these doorways were, in fact, openings to extra-dimensional spaces, akin to bags of holding. There are two reasons for this - Often times the doors are re-opened only to find a 'brick wall' (a contingency effect?), and also the similarities to what happens to the 'contents' of such spaces once the aperture is shut, this could very well be the truth of it. ;)

-The universe is a wacky place...
Ranger REG
08-08-07, 02:09 AM -He must have shut the door. Cartoons have taught me that once you shut a door, nothing can come through- including a speeding train.
Nope, you have to "erase" the door so that nothing can come through. :P
Sigurd van Norhusen
08-08-07, 03:08 AM And to think there is a gate in the back of Ed Greenwood's home, it's surprising he hasn't been bitten by a vampire, or eaten by a dragon.

:nonono:
That's because the gate to Greenwood's house is located in Elminster's space station. I'd say few vampires or dragons venture there.
Green Elven Vampire
08-08-07, 03:11 AM Better than "Sorta remember realms"
Old Sage
08-08-07, 03:19 AM That's because the gate to Greenwood's house is located in Elminster's space station. I'd say few vampires or dragons venture there.Elminster's Holdout in Realmspace has a portal to Ed's study and library at his home and to Yellowstone in 1894.
MarkusTay63
08-08-07, 04:47 AM Which means two seperate but related things -

1) There is/was a hot lookin' broad back in 1894 near Yellowstone, and

2) A good lookin' broad used to live in Ed's house, and El was VERY dissapointed the frist time he showed up and she wasn't there anymore.
Stigger
08-08-07, 02:40 PM That thought had crossed my mind as well, but I didn't want to say it...
Ranger REG
08-09-07, 01:26 AM Which means two seperate but related things -

1) There is/was a hot lookin' broad back in 1894 near Yellowstone, and

2) A good lookin' broad used to live in Ed's house, and El was VERY dissapointed the frist time he showed up and she wasn't there anymore.
Elminster is a voyeur (peeping tom)? :eek:

Why here? The ladies in Forgotten Realms are pretty well-endowed and voluptuous without requiring surgery?
MarkusTay63
08-09-07, 01:45 AM Not a voyeur, more of a letch. :D

And besides, after you've seen your 1000th chick in chainmail, it starts to grow old.

Didn't you hear? El's into 'soccer moms' now. ;)
Sigurd van Norhusen
08-09-07, 02:12 AM Elminster's Holdout in Realmspace has a portal to Ed's study and library at his home and to Yellowstone in 1894.
And it is a space station. :P
Ranger REG
08-10-07, 07:07 PM Not a voyeur, more of a letch. :D

And besides, after you've seen your 1000th chick in chainmail, it starts to grow old.
Well, I woudn't know. I'm still trying to find chick #3 in chainmail (bikini).
Ranger REG
08-10-07, 07:09 PM And it is a space station. :P
That would explain what happened to Babylon 4.
ikki
08-11-07, 11:01 AM Intresting.

I do wonder which is more 25.000 gp or $4.300.000 ?
500 ponds of gold sell for that much.. ;)

And all those chances for spelluse in a world of almost no magic awareness !!!
hehehe... dominate, charm, suggestion etc for some very good deals, and once the contracts are signed.. too bad! (sell your house for 1000 dollars por buy this piece of art for 20 million)
Oh and try prove a murder if you disintergrate :D +suggestion "im really not a suspect in this case"

Protection from nonmagic missiles would quickly become neccesary in this world where any damn commoner level 1 can purchase a metal pellet propeller device. I think any high level wizard would be a great proponent for anti-gun legislation.. just to place those mortals in their rightful place as subordinate and defenceless!
MarkusTay63
08-11-07, 02:52 PM I would assume that Earth is a magically dying world - not quite dead yet, but getting there. The D&D version of Earth has been written up (Gothic Earth), and magic was already much harder to perform 120 years ago. I envision tech interferring with the casting of spells (electro-magnetic fields wreak havoc on magic, and vice-versa).

I would say that a spells chance of failure = 10% + (10% per spell level), making 9th level spells impossible to cast correctly.

What? You say that goes against things you read in The Wizard's Three articles? To the contrary - first off, Elminster, as a Chosen of Mystra, generates a field of magical stability around himself, for when he is off Toril. Basically Mystra attached a mobile piece of the Weave to him after he accidently got himself 'stuck' on a dead world.

Second, magic will pour through an opening from one world to another, so magic will be stabilized within a 100' or so of a functioning (but leaky) portal. Hence, Ed Greenwood's House becomes a region where normal spell use may be practiced. There are hundreds of these sites on Earth, and the last few magical 'secret societies' covet them, and usually build their strongholds there (Think of it as the reverse of a Magic-dead zone).

If this weren't the case, then magic-types from other worlds would have come here and conquered us long ago. Psionics, on the other hand, work just fine... ;)

Just my take on things, to make some sense of this crazy universe we live in. :)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Joseph_Silver 08-06-07, 07:41 PM	Dragonlance was named after the legendary dragonlances, powerful weapons forged to slay dragons. Ravenloft was named after the Castle Ravenloft. Greyhawk was named after the City of Greyhawk. But what about the Forgotten Realms? What exactly does it mean? How did these realms become forgotten?
Lord Karsus 08-06-07, 07:57 PM	-Long ago, the connections between the Earth and Toril were much stronger. People could come and go as they (relativley) pleased, via portals and such. But, soon, the memory of Toril faded from our collective minds. Thus, the Realms became Forgotten.
MerrikCale 08-06-07, 09:25 PM	But what about the Forgotten Realms? What exactly does it mean? I forget
Old Sage 08-06-07, 09:52 PM	From Ed - "This, by the way, is where the “Forgotten” part of “Forgotten Realms” came from: we people of real-world Earth have ‘forgotten’ the once-widely-used gates to Toril, which gave us our legends of vampires, dragons, et al."
Ranger REG 08-07-07, 03:48 AM	From Ed - "This, by the way, is where the “Forgotten” part of “Forgotten Realms” came from: we people of real-world Earth have ‘forgotten’ the once-widely-used gates to Toril, which gave us our legends of vampires, dragons, et al." And to think there is a gate in the back of Ed Greenwood's home, it's surprising he hasn't been bitten by a vampire, or eaten by a dragon. :nonono:
Lord Karsus 08-07-07, 09:43 AM	And to think there is a gate in the back of Ed Greenwood's home, it's surprising he hasn't been bitten by a vampire, or eaten by a dragon. :nonono: -He must have shut the door. Cartoons have taught me that once you shut a door, nothing can come through- including a speeding train.
Faraer 08-07-07, 10:04 AM	Since most gates are only known by a few, and many have keys and other magical limitations on their passing, it isn't surprising at all.
Stigger 08-07-07, 03:06 PM	Interesting, didn't know he said that... gives me an idea or three really...
1 ton ghost 08-07-07, 03:23 PM	i think it's just a catch all. that is, they emphasize the exploration of old dungeons and so forth belonging to the imaskari, netherese, old elven empires, and so on. so old they are...forgotten. more or less. i mean, Lost Empires of Faerun and pretty much all their supplemental material make references to some forgotten realm/culture or another. who knows. a marketing ploy? artistic license? rock paper scissors for all we know in R&D
MarkusTay63 08-07-07, 05:03 PM	Also, The Forgotten Realms is only known as such to us, the people of the RW, through Ed's 'discovery' of them in his backyard. The people of the Heartlands just refer to them as "The Realms". It is entirely possible that people from alternate realities also have forgotten about the Realms, since the world is filled with portals to many places. As an aside, I read a novel YEARS AGO where the main hero was a normal American guy hanging out in his kitchen, when a monster of some sort came out of his cupboard! He grabbed his trusty baseball bat (that he always kept near the back door)and beat the thing to death. He then entered the cupboard, and proceeded to become that world's hero by beating all the bad guys to death with his 'mighty bat' (he was an ex-minor leaguer). I can't find the title of that book anywhee, but it sounds to me like Ed Greenwood meets Narnia. :D -He must have shut the door. Cartoons have taught me that once you shut a door, nothing can come through- including a speeding train.Its known as the "closed Door Effect", and scholars have been studying it for centuries. It is most readily apparent in dungeon situations (P&P & Vid), where monsters seem to just 'hang-out' on the other side of doors, waiting for someone to open them. Many believe that ancient arcanists and divine casters had access to a certain spell that combined an illusion with an enchantment - the door would become immediately invisible to any on the far side, and they would forget it ever existed once closed. There are rumors of a more powerful version that would create a permanent Time Stop effect on the closed side, so that ANY large creature or object hurtling toward it would be 'frozen' until the doorway was re-opened. Modern sages believe that these doorways were, in fact, openings to extra-dimensional spaces, akin to bags of holding. There are two reasons for this - Often times the doors are re-opened only to find a 'brick wall' (a contingency effect?), and also the similarities to what happens to the 'contents' of such spaces once the aperture is shut, this could very well be the truth of it. ;)
Lord Karsus 08-07-07, 11:24 PM	Its known as the "closed Door Effect", and scholars have been studying it for centuries. It is most readily apparent in dungeon situations (P&P & Vid), where monsters seem to just 'hang-out' on the other side of doors, waiting for someone to open them. Many believe that ancient arcanists and divine casters had access to a certain spell that combined an illusion with an enchantment - the door would become immediately invisible to any on the far side, and they would forget it ever existed once closed. There are rumors of a more powerful version that would create a permanent Time Stop effect on the closed side, so that ANY large creature or object hurtling toward it would be 'frozen' until the doorway was re-opened. Modern sages believe that these doorways were, in fact, openings to extra-dimensional spaces, akin to bags of holding. There are two reasons for this - Often times the doors are re-opened only to find a 'brick wall' (a contingency effect?), and also the similarities to what happens to the 'contents' of such spaces once the aperture is shut, this could very well be the truth of it. ;) -The universe is a wacky place...
Ranger REG 08-08-07, 02:09 AM	-He must have shut the door. Cartoons have taught me that once you shut a door, nothing can come through- including a speeding train. Nope, you have to "erase" the door so that nothing can come through. :P
Sigurd van Norhusen 08-08-07, 03:08 AM	And to think there is a gate in the back of Ed Greenwood's home, it's surprising he hasn't been bitten by a vampire, or eaten by a dragon. :nonono: That's because the gate to Greenwood's house is located in Elminster's space station. I'd say few vampires or dragons venture there.
Green Elven Vampire 08-08-07, 03:11 AM	Better than "Sorta remember realms"
Old Sage 08-08-07, 03:19 AM	That's because the gate to Greenwood's house is located in Elminster's space station. I'd say few vampires or dragons venture there.Elminster's Holdout in Realmspace has a portal to Ed's study and library at his home and to Yellowstone in 1894.
MarkusTay63 08-08-07, 04:47 AM	Which means two seperate but related things - 1) There is/was a hot lookin' broad back in 1894 near Yellowstone, and 2) A good lookin' broad used to live in Ed's house, and El was VERY dissapointed the frist time he showed up and she wasn't there anymore.
Stigger 08-08-07, 02:40 PM	That thought had crossed my mind as well, but I didn't want to say it...
Ranger REG 08-09-07, 01:26 AM	Which means two seperate but related things - 1) There is/was a hot lookin' broad back in 1894 near Yellowstone, and 2) A good lookin' broad used to live in Ed's house, and El was VERY dissapointed the frist time he showed up and she wasn't there anymore. Elminster is a voyeur (peeping tom)? :eek: Why here? The ladies in Forgotten Realms are pretty well-endowed and voluptuous without requiring surgery?
MarkusTay63 08-09-07, 01:45 AM	Not a voyeur, more of a letch. :D And besides, after you've seen your 1000th chick in chainmail, it starts to grow old. Didn't you hear? El's into 'soccer moms' now. ;)
Sigurd van Norhusen 08-09-07, 02:12 AM	Elminster's Holdout in Realmspace has a portal to Ed's study and library at his home and to Yellowstone in 1894. And it is a space station. :P
Ranger REG 08-10-07, 07:07 PM	Not a voyeur, more of a letch. :D And besides, after you've seen your 1000th chick in chainmail, it starts to grow old. Well, I woudn't know. I'm still trying to find chick #3 in chainmail (bikini).
Ranger REG 08-10-07, 07:09 PM	And it is a space station. :P That would explain what happened to Babylon 4.
ikki 08-11-07, 11:01 AM	Intresting. I do wonder which is more 25.000 gp or $4.300.000 ? 500 ponds of gold sell for that much.. ;) And all those chances for spelluse in a world of almost no magic awareness !!! hehehe... dominate, charm, suggestion etc for some very good deals, and once the contracts are signed.. too bad! (sell your house for 1000 dollars por buy this piece of art for 20 million) Oh and try prove a murder if you disintergrate :D +suggestion "im really not a suspect in this case" Protection from nonmagic missiles would quickly become neccesary in this world where any damn commoner level 1 can purchase a metal pellet propeller device. I think any high level wizard would be a great proponent for anti-gun legislation.. just to place those mortals in their rightful place as subordinate and defenceless!
MarkusTay63 08-11-07, 02:52 PM	I would assume that Earth is a magically dying world - not quite dead yet, but getting there. The D&D version of Earth has been written up (Gothic Earth), and magic was already much harder to perform 120 years ago. I envision tech interferring with the casting of spells (electro-magnetic fields wreak havoc on magic, and vice-versa). I would say that a spells chance of failure = 10% + (10% per spell level), making 9th level spells impossible to cast correctly. What? You say that goes against things you read in The Wizard's Three articles? To the contrary - first off, Elminster, as a Chosen of Mystra, generates a field of magical stability around himself, for when he is off Toril. Basically Mystra attached a mobile piece of the Weave to him after he accidently got himself 'stuck' on a dead world. Second, magic will pour through an opening from one world to another, so magic will be stabilized within a 100' or so of a functioning (but leaky) portal. Hence, Ed Greenwood's House becomes a region where normal spell use may be practiced. There are hundreds of these sites on Earth, and the last few magical 'secret societies' covet them, and usually build their strongholds there (Think of it as the reverse of a Magic-dead zone). If this weren't the case, then magic-types from other worlds would have come here and conquered us long ago. Psionics, on the other hand, work just fine... ;) Just my take on things, to make some sense of this crazy universe we live in. :)