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AdamBridger
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
118 Posts |
 Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 17:10:34
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Poll Question:
What was your introduction to the Forgotten Realms?
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Dennis
Great Reader
9933 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 17:27:56
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I heard about the Forgotten Realms back in early 2000's. But it was in 2007 when I first gave it a try, specifically the novel The Summoning by Troy Denning. |
Every beginning has an end. |
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Hawkins
Great Reader
USA
2131 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 17:34:19
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| I think it was my sophomore year of HS (1995) when I read Darkwalker on Moonshae, and I have never turned back. As per your other scroll, I honestly can't remember which was the first Realms novel I purchased. This is mainly because I bought so many during my freshman year of college. |
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He left it dead, and with its head
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AdamBridger
Learned Scribe
United Kingdom
118 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 17:34:38
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| It was the range of novels that introduced me to the Realms. I've still never played a game of Dungeons and Dragons about 10 years on. |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36779 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 17:55:45
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| I was intro'ed to TSR settings thru the Dragonlance comics, first. From there, I got into the Dragonlance novels. I stumbled across the Forgotten Realms novels entirely by chance, and my attention was grabbed by the mention "By the publishers of the Dragonlance Saga" on the cover. So I picked up the novel, and just got more and more into the Realms, the more I read. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen!  |
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Thelonius
Senior Scribe
Spain
730 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 18:32:54
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In fact mine was through Baldur's Gate I , after that I started to search for some info through the internet and I ended in Candlekeep.com. Reading these forums back in the times of Bookwyrm, Sarelle, Arivia, Lina and SiriusBlack made me start reading novels.  My very first novels were the Time of Troubles trilogy, (wich also had to do with Baldur's Gate I somehow). |
"If you are to truly understand, then you will need the contrast, not adherence to a single ideal." - Kreia
"I THINK I JUST HAD ANOTHER NEAR-RINCEWIND EXPERIENCE"- Discworld's Death frustrated after Rincewind scapes his grasp... again.
"I am death, come for thee" - Nimbul, from Baldur's Gate I just before being badly spanked
Sapientia sola libertas est |
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Eltheron
Senior Scribe
740 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 18:38:34
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I came to the Realms through Ed's original "Pages from the Mages" articles in early issues of Dragon Magazine. My group was getting a little tired of Greyhawk, although we loved it as well, and we were looking for something new.
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"The very best possible post-fourteenth-century Realms lets down those who love the specific, detailed social, political and magical situation, with its thousands of characters, developed over forty years, and want to learn more about it; and those who'd be open to a new one with equal depth, which there just isn't time to re-produce; and those repelled, some past the point of no return, by the bad-taste-and-plausibility gap of things done to the world when its guardianship was less careful."
--Faraer |
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Bladewind
Master of Realmslore
Netherlands
1280 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 18:56:02
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| Must have been one of my first D&D sessions I got drawn into by my friends back in 1992. We (my dwarf character and the rest of the party) helped lord Mourngrym with some local bandits. Shadowdale is, to this day, still my favorite environment to D&D in. |
My campaign sketches
Druidic Groves
Creature Feature: Giant Spiders |
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GRYPHON
Senior Scribe
USA
527 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 19:39:36
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| D&D... |
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Kuje
Great Reader
USA
7915 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 21:35:05
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| The old commodore/apple computer games, Pool of Radiance/Curse of the Azure Bonds, from the 80's. :) Man, I'm old. |
For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet and excite you... Books are full of the things that you don't get in real life - wonderful, lyrical language, for instance, right off the bat. - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium |
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BARDOBARBAROS
Senior Scribe
Greece
581 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 22:19:48
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| Eye of the Beholder series..I'm old too...!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
BARDOBARBAROS DOES NOT KILL.
HE DECAPITATES!!!
"The city changes, but the fools within it remain always the same" (Edwin Odesseiron- Baldur's gate 2) |
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sfdragon
Great Reader
2285 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 23:35:58
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| Baldur's gate crpg... and then icewind dale trilogy |
why is being a wizard like being a drow? both are likely to find a dagger in the back from a rival or one looking to further his own goals, fame and power
My FR fan fiction
Magister's GAmbit
http://steelfiredragon.deviantart.com/gallery/33539234 |
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Halidan
Senior Scribe
USA
470 Posts |
Posted - 11 Aug 2011 : 23:44:43
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Like Eltheron, I discovered the Realms through Ed's early Dragon magazine articles. After reading the article "From the City of Brass to High Orc Pass," I wanted to know more about Ed Greeenwood's world, and as soon as Darkwalker on Moonshae the gray box came out, I was hooked.
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"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied,
"If you seek for Eldorado!"
Edgar Allen Poe - 1849 |
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Seravin
Master of Realmslore
Canada
1265 Posts |
Posted - 12 Aug 2011 : 00:58:33
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| Pool of Radiance...gold box game on my C128 computer back in like 1988. Is that "other" or D&D? The Moonsea is STILL my favorite area...Then the Dales and Sembia and to a lesser extent Cormyr. After that I was hooked and bought the novels, Spellfire being my all time favourite. |
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The Sage
Procrastinator Most High
Australia
31701 Posts |
Posted - 12 Aug 2011 : 01:31:37
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My first experience with the "written" Realms was with the Darkwalker on Moonshae novel by Doug Niles. Initially, I was looking for more DRAGONLANCE fiction [Dragons of Autumn Twilight served as my introduction to this style of fantasy-fiction several years before] when I managed to pick up a copy, shortly after its initial release here in Australia [from the local library]. It was, as I recall, just a few weeks past its publication in the US. Intensely curious with this new trilogy, I read the entire novel in less than three days and was immediately entranced with this strange fantasy land called the Moonshae Isles. I wanted more!
From there, I learned of Ed's 1987 FR boxed set which was just beginning to be sold here in Australia, and also of the fact that the Moonshae Islands were detailed inside the boxed set as part of the Realms [which was actually the first section of the Old Gray Box that I read when I first got it home]. Moving out from the Moonshae Islands, I then started to read about the main continent of Faerûn, where I slowly became aware of just how fantastic the world around the Moonshaes was.
The old SSI games for the C64/Amiga were my first experience with the "electronic" Realms. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
Scribe for the Candlekeep Compendium -- Volume IX now available (Oct 2007)
"So Saith Ed" -- the collected Candlekeep replies of Ed Greenwood
Zhoth'ilam Folio -- The Electronic Misadventures of a Rambling Sage |
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TheHermit
Seeker
USA
60 Posts |
Posted - 12 Aug 2011 : 01:33:07
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| I picked up my first copy of the Old Gray Box in '87 at the PX when I was stationed at the 67th Evacuation Hospital in Wuerzberg, Germany. |
- "Glitz & Klax's Potions & Elixirs"/"The Sandmen", Inside Ravens Bluff, The Living City; 1990; TSR, Inc.
- "The Far Guardians' Traveler's Mission", Port of Ravens Bluff; 1991, TSR, Inc.
- "Signs Painted", Polyhedron #70; April, 1992; TSR, Inc.
- Communications Director, Coliseum of Comics, Orlando, FL - http://coliseumofcomics.com/ |
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Nefarious
Acolyte
USA
21 Posts |
Posted - 13 Aug 2011 : 06:30:36
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| My first introduction was by finding a friend's copy of Shadows of Doom at a LAN party, after which I promptly purchased all of Ed Greenwood's books. |
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Kno
Senior Scribe
452 Posts |
Posted - 13 Aug 2011 : 07:26:01
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| twas an accident |
z455t |
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Artemas Entreri
Great Reader
USA
3131 Posts |
Posted - 25 Aug 2011 : 17:11:47
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| Streams of Silver got me hooked on the Realms, followed by the 2nd ed AD&D |
Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way. -Steve Martin
Amazon "KindleUnlimited" Free Trial: http://amzn.to/2AJ4yD2
Try Audible and Get 2 Free Audio Books! https://amzn.to/2IgBede |
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idilippy
Senior Scribe
USA
417 Posts |
Posted - 26 Aug 2011 : 03:38:29
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| Baldur's Gate 1 introduced me to the Realms, though I had read a couple Realms novels before then I hadn't known that the Realms were anything special until the game. |
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MrHedgehog
Senior Scribe
688 Posts |
Posted - 27 Aug 2011 : 09:20:26
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Before I could read well myself, in early elementary school sometime(I was born in 1988), I chose "The Parched Sea" novel as a gift for my brother for Christmas or a birthday. It turned out he already had it,. Then at some point later I decided to read it. I was fascinated by the Harpers and Zhentarim. I then read the Crystal Shard, which my mom owned, and then more and more novels of my brother's and then in junior high the school library.
I'm not sure if I even know Forgotten Realms and D&D were tied together until Baldur's Gate came out when I was in grade 5 or 6 (age 9-10, for me, or there abouts)
At some point I scoured my moms' dragon magazine for articles by Ed Greenwood, who she told me created the Forgotten Realms. My mom used to write to and get her letters published in dragon magazine's and she still has in a box #3 up for like a decade. |
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Old Man Harpell
Senior Scribe
USA
495 Posts |
Posted - 01 Sep 2011 : 00:16:52
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Was friends with someone who owned a computer/games store, who played in games I had run previously in Greyhawk (which was adequate, but that I never really 'got into'). I had said I was going to start a new campaign, but I kept procrastinating...my own game world was proceeding exceedingly slowly in its development, and most stuff published to that point just didn't fire the ol' neurons.
He got a shipment of various game products one day, and handed me this weird grey box as his employees were unpacking all the stuff.
"Here. Take it."
The campaign started that Friday night. |
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skychrome
Senior Scribe
713 Posts |
Posted - 01 Sep 2011 : 01:18:46
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Played D&D Red Box, was hooked up, then came the Eye of the Beholder games which intrigued me to Waterdeep and the Realms and then Baldur's Gate finished me off forever!  |
"You make an intriguing offer, one that is very tempting. It would seem that I have little alternative than to answer thusly: DISINTEGRATE!" Vaarsuvius, Order of the Stick 625 |
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Artemas Entreri
Great Reader
USA
3131 Posts |
Posted - 09 Sep 2011 : 15:49:39
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quote:
Originally posted by Nefarious
My first introduction was by finding a friend's copy of Shadows of Doom at a LAN party, after which I promptly purchased all of Ed Greenwood's books.
I am certainly glad this was not the first realms book i ever read. It might have had a disastrous effect.  |
Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way. -Steve Martin
Amazon "KindleUnlimited" Free Trial: http://amzn.to/2AJ4yD2
Try Audible and Get 2 Free Audio Books! https://amzn.to/2IgBede |
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Erik Scott de Bie
Forgotten Realms Author
USA
4598 Posts |
Posted - 09 Sep 2011 : 16:20:40
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Darkwalker on Moonshae, Spellfire, and Elfshadow during middle school. Then the Avatar series. Hooked.
Cheers |
Erik Scott de Bie
'Tis easier to destroy than to create.
Author of a number of Realms novels (GHOSTWALKER, DEPTHS OF MADNESS, and the SHADOWBANE series), contributor to the NEVERWINTER CAMPAIGN GUIDE and SHADOWFELL: GLOOMWROUGHT AND BEYOND, Twitch DM of the Dungeon Scrawlers, currently playing "The Westgate Irregulars" |
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CaptainTrips
Acolyte
USA
4 Posts |
Posted - 23 Oct 2011 : 15:37:06
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| AD&D - specifically, the original Forgotten Realms grey box campaign setting. |
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Artemas Entreri
Great Reader
USA
3131 Posts |
Posted - 23 Oct 2011 : 16:13:48
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quote:
Originally posted by CaptainTrips
AD&D - specifically, the original Forgotten Realms grey box campaign setting.
LOVE that cover |
Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way. -Steve Martin
Amazon "KindleUnlimited" Free Trial: http://amzn.to/2AJ4yD2
Try Audible and Get 2 Free Audio Books! https://amzn.to/2IgBede |
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swifty
Senior Scribe
United Kingdom
517 Posts |
Posted - 24 Oct 2011 : 00:19:20
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| it was 1988 in my local bookstore in liverpool.id read a fighting fantasy novel by steve jackson called the trolltooth wars.i saw the cover to darkwalker on moonshae and was immediately drawn to it.never looked back. |
go back to sleep america.everything is under control.heres american gladiators.watch this.shuttup. BILL HICKS. |
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Mantis
Acolyte
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - 24 Oct 2011 : 05:59:03
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| I found a copy of Crystal Shard my mom had bought and never read. i picked it up in 2000 and never stopped from there. |
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Artemas Entreri
Great Reader
USA
3131 Posts |
Posted - 24 Oct 2011 : 14:07:02
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quote:
Originally posted by Mantis
I found a copy of Crystal Shard my mom had bought and never read. i picked it up in 2000 and never stopped from there.
You should tell your mom how great it is and try to make her a Realms convert |
Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way. -Steve Martin
Amazon "KindleUnlimited" Free Trial: http://amzn.to/2AJ4yD2
Try Audible and Get 2 Free Audio Books! https://amzn.to/2IgBede |
Edited by - Artemas Entreri on 24 Oct 2011 14:07:16 |
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Yoss
Learned Scribe
USA
259 Posts |
Posted - 24 Oct 2011 : 14:11:56
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| I wasn't cool enough to hang out with the kids who played d&d in high school/junior high, and didn't know where to find people on campus once I got to college who weren't stoned hipster idiots. And after some failed attempts at getting into dragonlance novels over the years, a friend recommended the Icewind Dale trilogy last year. So I'm still figuring out stuff out as a noob only 50 or so novels in, but enjoying the hell out of reading everything I can get my grubby mitts on, several hundreds of days late and increasingly more bucks short. |
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Introduction To Forgotten Realms
