The Grand History of the Realms
By John Grigsby, Staff Reviewer

Available at FRP Games

Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms - Grand History of the Realms
Retail $29.95 Sale $23.96

Initiative Round
The Grand History of the Realms is a Dungeons & Dragons supplement from Wizards of the Coast. This is a 160-page full-color hardcover by Brian R. James, Ed Greenwood, George Krashos, Eric L. Boyd, and Thomas Costa, with input from Richard Baker, Bruce R. Cordell, Steven Schend, and Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel. The cover art is by Todd Lockwood and depicts a rather famous drow elf and his panther companion looking over a mountainous region. Kyle Anderson, Glen Angus, Steve Belledin, Matt Cavotta, Rafael Garres Cervantes, Ed Cox, Daarken, Wayne England, Jason A. Engle, Emily Fiegenschuh, Carl Frank, Ralph Horsley, Andrew Hou, David Hudnut, Jeremy Jarvis, Dana Knutson, Ginger Kubric, Stephanie Law, Howard Lyon, David Martin, Dennis Crabapple McClain, William O’Connor, Lucio Parrillo, Jim Pavelec, Michael Phillippi, Steve Prescott, Wayne Reynolds, Ron Spencer, Stephen Tappin, Joel Thomas, Derek Thompson, Franz Vohwinkel, Eva Widermann, and Sam Wood all contribute to the interior art. The Grand History of the Realms retails for $29.95.

Since it’s debut, way back in the early days of Dragon magazine (often referred to in cryptic articles by Ed Greenwood), the Forgotten Realms has been steadily growing and expanding, its history being defined and rewritten with each product that is released. With numerous boxed sets, multiple adventures, and more novels that you care to count, the Realms has a well-defined and developed history, perhaps more so than any other fantasy world to date.

The timeline of the Realms is long, and until now, it has largely been available only through a collection of books, novels, and boxed sets that would fill a small building. The pieces have always been there, but they were scattered and required a lot of painstaking research to uncover just the fact you were looking for. Consider: You recall having seen something about the Harpers having been driven underground sometime around 1020 DR, but you just can’t remember where you saw it. Was it in the original boxed set, or the revised boxed set, or maybe it was in a novel you read six months and seven books ago?

The Grand History of the Realms comes to the rescue. Simply open the book and flip to the 1020s and take a look. Hmm. There it is; in 1021 DR (Year of the Howling Axe), Thay strikes against the Harpers, and they go underground in response. They resurface in 1022 DR (Year of the Wandering Wyvern).

It’s all here, from the rise of the Sarrukh Empire c. -35000 DR to the destruction the Weave (and the murder of Mystra by Cyric) in 1385 DR (Year of Blue Fire). What’s more, the book is filled with insightful sidebars from Realmsian scribes (including Ed Greenwood himself) that offer a look at events that didn’t make other publications, but are nonetheless fascinating reading for students of Realmslore. There is a table of monarchies of Faerûn, fragments of ancient texts found in lost tombs and hidden ways, and maps of historical value, showing the Realms as they were and charting famous battles. You even get a handy calendar conversion for measuring the years in the calendars of other cultures (as all references in this book are Dalereckoning (DR)).

Make no mistake this is strictly a fluff book. There is no crunchy material herein. No mechanics, no classes, no monsters.

Critical Hit
This is exactly what many Realms GM’s and players have spent many frustrating years composing on their own; a complete history of the Realms, all in one place. For anyone who GM’s or plays in the Forgotten Realms setting, this is a must-have. The book is beautiful, with parchment backgrounds and full-color maps and illustrations throughout. This is definitely a coffee table book, but…

Critical Fumble
Sadly, the illustrations are largely (or perhaps entirely) taken from other books and have had new (and often incorrect) labels applied to them. For example, a picture of a warforged being attacked by animated objects is labeled as “Kisonraathiisar’s slow demise.” Not only that, it has little relevance to the sidebar which describes that event (which mentions nothing of an automaton of any kind, much less a warforged). In a similar vein, a triad of pictures from Unearthed Arcana (those of the prestige bard, ranger, and paladin) serve as an illustration of Halikam Amethystall, Margrave of Meiritin.

I understand that artwork (especially original, non-clip art) is expensive, but to recycle it in this manner and simply hope that no one notices is insulting. Rather, it seems to me that in many cases (as the illustrations often accompany sidebars), new fiction was written to fit an existing picture and stuck in there as filler. I found this practice very disappointing.

I also believe that this one of those books that really needed an index. No, strike that. It really, really needs an index! Suppose you needed to know when Illusk was founded. Good luck finding that little bit of info in a book of 160 pages! With an index, you could just look up “Illusk” and see that it is first mentioned on page 29.

The again, in a book like this, the index might well be as long as the book itself. Maybe this would have been better developed as a CD-Rom, completely hyperlinked and cross-referenced.

Coup d’Grace
In any case, for any fan of the Realms, whether they are a gamer or not, this book will provide hours of insight into the world that is the Forgotten Realms. For those who aren’t fans of the Realms, it makes a nice paperweight, or a good book of artwork collected from other sources. Or you can set it on your coffee table to impress your guests.

Final Grade: B-