Editing Forgotten Realms (section)

== Creative origins ==
[[File:Ed Greenwood.jpg|thumb|Ed Greenwood in 2008]] 
[[Ed Greenwood]] began writing stories about the Forgotten Realms [[Paracosm|as a child]], starting at the age of eight.<ref name="designers70s"/>{{rp|72}} He came up with the name from the notion of a [[multiverse]] of parallel worlds; Earth is one such world, and the Realms another. In Greenwood's original conception, the fantastic legends of Earth derive from a fantasy world that can no longer be accessed.<ref name="Dragon #244">{{cite journal | last = Varney | first = Allen | author-link = Allen Varney | title = ProFiles: Ed Greenwood | journal = [[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon]] | issue = #244 | page = 112 | date=February 1998}}</ref> Greenwood discovered the ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' game in 1975, and became a serious role-playing enthusiast with the first ''[[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]]'' (''AD&D'') game releases in 1978.<ref name="Dragon #244" /> Greenwood brought his fantasy world into the new medium of role-playing games when a university student named September invited him to play ''AD&D'' with her.<ref name="designers70s">{{Cite book|author=Shannon Appelcline|title=Designers & Dragons: The '70s|publisher=[[Evil Hat Productions]]|year=2014| isbn=978-1-61317-075-5}}</ref>{{rp|72}} Greenwood then starting using the setting for his personal role-playing [[Campaign (role-playing games)|campaign]].<ref name="FRA">[[Jeff Grubb|Grubb, Jeff]]; [[Ed Greenwood|Greenwood, Ed]]. ''[[Forgotten Realms Adventures]]'' ([[TSR, Inc.|TSR]], 1990)</ref> Greenwood began a Realms campaign in the city of [[Waterdeep (city)|Waterdeep]] before creating a group known as the Knights of Myth Drannor in the Shadowdale region. Greenwood felt that his players' thirst for detail made the Realms what it is: "They want it to seem real, and work on 'honest jobs' and personal activities, until the whole thing grows into far more than a casual campaign. Roleplaying always governs over rules, and the adventures seem to develop themselves."<ref name="Dragon #244" /> Greenwood has stated that his own version of the Forgotten Realms, as run in his personal campaign, is much darker than published versions.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://dicecast.blogspot.com/2010/09/dicecast-episode-10-interview-with-ed.html | title = Interview on the DiceCast podcast | date = 17 September 2010}}</ref>

Starting in 1979, Greenwood published a series of articles that detailed the setting in ''[[Dragon (magazine)|The Dragon]]'' (later ''Dragon'') magazine, the first of which was about a monster known as the ''curst''.<ref name="designers70s"/>{{rp|72}} Greenwood continued to write extensive articles for ''Dragon'', in which he used the Forgotten Realms as the setting to detail [[Magic item (Dungeons & Dragons)|magic items]], monsters, and [[Magic of Dungeons & Dragons|spells]].<ref name="FRA" /> When [[Gary Gygax]] "lost control of [[TSR, Inc.|TSR]] in 1985, the company saw an opportunity to move beyond [[Greyhawk]] and introduce a new default setting".<ref name=":5" />{{rp|87}} In 1986, TSR began looking for a new [[campaign setting]] for ''AD&D'',<ref name="designers70s"/>{{rp|72}} and assigned [[Jeff Grubb]] to find out more about the setting used by Greenwood as portrayed in his articles in ''Dragon''.<ref name=":5" />

Greenwood states that Grubb asked him "Do you just make this stuff up as you go, or do you really have a huge campaign world?", and Greenwood answered "yes" to both questions.<ref name="Dragon #244" /> TSR felt that the Forgotten Realms would be a more open-ended setting than its [[epic fantasy]] counterpart [[Dragonlance]], and chose the Realms as a ready-made campaign setting upon deciding to publish [[AD&D 2nd Edition|''AD&D'' 2nd edition]].<ref name="Dragon #244" /> Greenwood agreed to work on the project and began working to get Forgotten Realms officially published.<ref name="30 Years">{{cite book|last1=Winter|first1=Steve|author-link1=Steve Winter|last2=Greenwood|first2=Ed|author-link2=Ed Greenwood|last3=Grubb|first3=Jeff|author-link3=Jeff Grubb|date=2004|title=[[30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons]]|url=|location=|publisher=[[Wizards of the Coast]]|pages=74–87|isbn=}}</ref> He sent TSR a few dozen cardboard boxes stuffed with pencil notes and maps, and sold all rights to the setting for a token fee.<ref name="Dragon #244" /> He noted that TSR altered his original conception of the Realms being a place that could be accessed from Earth, as "[c]oncerns over possible lawsuits (kids getting hurt while trying to 'find a gate') led TSR to de-emphasize this meaning".<ref name="Dragon #244" />

Jon Peterson, author of ''Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History'', said that Greenwood "was that rare obsessive DM who just seemed to have more ideas and energy to pour into his world than even the folks at TSR did. Naturally when TSR was shopping for new campaign worlds as part of their cross-media strategy, they had to get the Forgotten Realms. R. A. Salvatore took Greenwood's world and created characters and stories for it that made him a bestselling author and sustained TSR as a major fantasy book publisher".<ref>{{Cite web|last=Ferranti|first=Seth|date=October 23, 2018|title=How the Art of Dungeons and Dragons Helped Make It a Phenomenon|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-the-art-of-dungeons-and-dragons-helped-make-it-a-phenomenon/|access-date=2020-06-30|website=[[Vice (magazine)|Vice]]|language=en}}</ref>