Reddit reviews Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms: A Dungeons & Dragons Supplement

The commonly accepted pronunciation, as determined by the creator of the Forgotten Realms is like now or cow or prow.

EDIT

This pronunciation may be specific to the Realms, or universal to all planes.

Source: This super awesome book I got in the reddit Fantasy exchange.

While not the easiest option for a new person to break in with, I would put forth Candlekeep as a rambling goldmine as regarding a deeper exploration of Realms information.

http://www.forum.candlekeep.com/

One resource that should also still be relevant is "Ed Greenwood presents Elminister's Forgotten Realms" as it is mostly snippets and bits of information regarding customs and daily life in Faerun.

The 2e Boxed set campaign guide does a great job of this... if you can find it on ebay, amazon or "elsewhere"
http://amzn.com/B00H80XPBG

if you are looking to add flavor definately check out this book

Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms
http://amzn.com/0786960345

Not a novel, but Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms is a great resource for Life and Trade in the realms, including information about slave trade. I don't have my copy handy right now, but I think there's a few pages of information about it in there. Overall just a great book to own when playing in the Realms.

Get this book, whatever you do. It's both a great resource and a great read. It's rules neutral and is mainly a lore thing but you'll learn more from it than really any other book that I know of, short of reading a whole bunch of the novels.

My recommendation would be to go pick up some 2nd, 3rd or 4th edition sourcebooks for dirt cheap at Half Price Books or online. The Forgotten Realms sourcebook from 3.5 is what I am currently using, it has a removable foldout map of Faerun, and detailed lists of major sights throughout the realms, including descriptions of the major cities, ruins, etc.

I've heard good things about the Greenwood Forgotten Realms book as well.

You can probably also find sourcebooks specific to Waterdeep, Neverwinter, etc. though I don't know the specific titles.

The point is that generally speaking the edition doesn't matter when it comes to background materials, physical descriptions, major characters, history, politics, factions, maps, etc. It just doesn't. So do yourself a favor and buy this stuff cheap from older editions.

Also, keep in mind that while you are building off of an existing world, and there is something cool about that, the minute you start to play in it it's YOUR world. None of these sourcebooks are going to have every single detail fleshed out, and often will just give you the flavor of a particular city, a few major landmarks, etc. From there on you should create your own landmarks, taverns, interesting characters, history, etc.

This is the book that I use a lot:
http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Roleplaying/dp/0786918365/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478819&sr=1-2&keywords=FOrgotten+Realms

Here are more:

http://www.amazon.com/Greenwood-Presents-Elminsters-Forgotten-Realms/dp/0786960345

Neverwinter book:
http://www.amazon.com/Neverwinter-Campaign-Setting-Dungeons-Supplement/dp/0786958146/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478789&sr=1-4&keywords=Neverwinter+source+book

Waterdeep book:
http://www.amazon.com/City-Splendors-Waterdeep-Roleplaying-Supplement/dp/0786936932/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478895&sr=1-1&keywords=Waterdeep

http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Realms-Atlas-Karen-Fonstad/dp/0880388579/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1417478853&sr=1-3&keywords=FOrgotten+Realms

Hope that helps. Also buy 4th edition stuff now if you ever think you want it. Lots of stores are having fire sales moving their 4th ed stuff.

OP, have a look at http://www.amazon.com/Greenwood-Presents-Elminsters-Forgotten-Realms/dp/0786960345

It's by the guy who created the Realms, and it's pretty good, I hear.

Elminster's Forgotten Realms is pretty good, and it's not tied to any edition.

Here's what you need. It's got NO D&D statistics, it just talks all about the realms - the people, the way they talk, what they wear, their food, some history, etc. It's fantastic and written by Ed Greenwood, the guy who created the Forgotten Realms so many years ago.

http://www.amazon.com/Greenwood-Presents-Elminsters-Forgotten-Realms/dp/0786960345/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409860576&sr=8-1&keywords=forgotten+realms+ed+greenwood

The best general overview of the Realms I've found is Elminster's Forgotten Realms. It's system- and edition-neutral, and talks about many aspects of the Realms, including common festivals, education, literacy, and other elements that explain how this fantasy world is different than others. That said, the 5th Edition Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide gives you more stats and recent history, so it might be the more practical book.

That said, I recommend that you don't try to be completely true to the Realms. There's just far too much history and geography to learn if you want to be accurate. Start small and read up what you can, but feel free to shift things around as you see fit.

I don't have it with me right now but I think that Elminster's Forgotten Realms is probably the best bet for this.

OMG, I forgot the fluffiest of flufflements:

• Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms

I quite like my copy of “Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms: A Dungeons & Dragons Supplement”!

I purchased it after WotC announced that the Forgotten Realms would be the default setting for D&D Next/5e. Simply because it’s all fluff and done by the man that created the Forgotten Realms.

That's a great question. Especially since the Realms are constantly changing and in flux. Or at least it seems that way. Coupled with a rich history and meta-story, it can be difficult to really figure out what the hell is going on currently aside from trying to read each and every novel out there. While that's do-able for some, it's not realistic for most.

Probably the best book I can recommend is Elminster's Forgotten Realms. It came out during the end of 4e and while is considered a 4e book, it really isn't. It's actually "edition agnostic," which is just a fancy way of saying that you can use it with any edition of D&D without any hassle. There are no actual stats for stuff within, it's all story stuff. Which is cool. It's like the gazetteers of old.

The only problem with the above is that it came out in 2012, and so its Sundering info is minimal, if it exists at all.

As far as more up to date information, specifically regarding The Sundering, there is the Forgotten Realms Wiki, though I cannot speak to its quality or accuracy.

Good luck and happy gaming.

Looks like Elminster's Forgotten Realms to me. Judging from the other books (sword coast (5e) and forgotten realms campaign guide (4e)) he is using it for lore / locations

It depends on what you're looking for. The campaign guides will give you a lot of old rules that won't always translate very good into 5e, but might give you some ideas on table resources like special subraces or divine domains. The 3.0 Campaign Setting will give you a good overview on the whole continent, which can be helpfull to get a bit of a taste on what the different regions are like. The "Players Guide to Fearûn" of 3.5 will give you a bit more insight into the planes (although I'd use the World Tree and Blood River only as additional transistive planes on top of an astral plane and not instead of one) and the "Races of Fearûn" have a nice overview on the different species and subraces that the players might want to play, although it's not so easy to translate those rules into 5e. If you're interested in translations of at least 2 of the 4 additional subraces of Elves the "Races of Fearûn" has to offer, I've worked on the Wild Elves and Moon Elves and I think they could work out the way I've mixed and matched their features now.

If you just want an overview on the History of the Realms, then there's a book even for that: "The Grand History of the Realms" provides you with the earliest history of the Forgotten Realms, over the creator races, with maps of that time and images of structures and creatures, some contemporary writings of those creatures, and up to the beginnigns of 4e story.

Uh! And then theres "Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms" with a bit of insight into the ways of living, by Word of God.

Prepare for a literally infinite lore journey. Ed Greenwood has been working on the Realms since he was six. This came out a couple of years back:

https://www.amazon.com/Greenwood-Presents-Elminsters-Forgotten-Realms/dp/0786960345

Probably too late for this weekend, but what you want is this: https://www.amazon.com/Greenwood-Presents-Elminsters-Forgotten-Realms/dp/0786960345/

That's the book Ed Greenwood put together talking about what everyday life's like in the Realms. Very interesting if you're looking for those sorts of tidbits.

There's the wiki, which can give you some useful info.

If you're interested in a more in-depth reading, you could also try Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms, which is a very long and cumbersome title but it's an edition-neutral setting guide.

https://www.amazon.com/Greenwood-Presents-Elminsters-Forgotten-Realms/dp/0786960345
Any of these types i guess. EDIT: Probebly be able to find a PDF on the DMSGuild or somewhere else. Sorry my copy is a hardcover so I don't know abut the pdf variants.

Akuma mentioned it, and I also want to suggest picking up the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. It's absolutely phenomenal in terms of detail about regions, events, history, setting, etc. You will see a lot of mechanics for 3.x, but it's easy enough to disregard or even use their fluff to convert and make stuff for 5e FR.

Also worth picking up is the 4th edition book (Ed Greenwood Presents) Elminster's Forgotten Realms. It has a lot of "on the ground, personal level" detail and fluff, like what people eat in different regions, how they worship, etc. Neat book, fun read.

To any future person inquiring about the same thing:
https://www.amazon.com/Greenwood-Presents-Elminsters-Forgotten-Realms/dp/0786960345/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474567765&sr=8-1&keywords=Ed+Greenwood+Presents%3A+Elminster%27s+Forgotten+Realms

I've heard this book recommended several times. It's written by Ed Greenwood - the guy who created the Forgotten Realms - and apparently it just oozes flavor. It's been on my wish list for a while now.

If you want a really good book to go for, I have an off the wall suggestion. Pick up, "Elminster's Forgotten Realms".

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Greenwood-Presents-Elminsters-Forgotten-Realms/dp/0786960345

The base setting for 5th Edition is Forgotten Realms anyway, so unless your GM is specifically going against the flow, this will likely be useful. Additionally, this is written (at least in part) by the guy who originally designed the setting of Faerun in Forgotten Realms. It's a great read, and all it is, is background information about how people in Faerun live day-to-day. Things everyone would know like, how the temples are run, what kind of food they have, how the calendar works and what the regular festivals are. It's great for making the world feel like a living breathing world.