When the realm’s queen sent out a call for help, the sorcerer Heleyon answered. Those who have succeeded have created truly marvelous, if occasionally unpredictable, items that have become the stuff of legend.Ĭhaos Storm Dagger Hundreds of years ago, the kingdom of Haldea was plagued by a nightmarish invasion of slaads and elemental beasts. Many users of arcane power have tried to bind the plane’s volatile energy into permanent magic items. It is also a place of potent magic great enough to tempt many spellcasters, despite its obvious danger. Illustrations by Patrick McEvoy The Plane Below is a dangerous mix of uncontrolled elemental forces and swirling disorder. Treasures of the Elemental Chaos By Michael W. If you have a chance to play the board game and feel inspired to drop us a comment, please do. It has turned me from an FR fan to an FR freak, and it’s gotten me excited about the Forgotten Realms articles we have planned for this year. All rights reserved.Įditorial: FR’eak Waterdeep immerses me in the Forgotten Realms world while staying true to the core D&D experience, and also makes me feel like a Big Man when I win. I don’t consider myself a board game connoisseur, but I know a good game when I play it, and Lords of TM & © 2012 Wizards of the Coast LLC. But the thing I like most about the Forgotten Realms right this very minute is our new board game, Lords of Waterdeep, which just hit stores next month. The Realms always seems to make room for the next great story, the next great hero, no matter how many articles and novels and game supplements we publish.
Furthermore, FR players rarely feel as though their characters live in the shadows of legends. True, the Realms has seen its share of world-shaking events, and there are linchpin characters the likes of Drizzt Do’Urden and Elminster, but for whatever reason, none of that impinges on my ability as a DM to conjure up new adventure ideas set in the Realms.
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(Feel free to disagree.) On the other hand, the Forgotten Realms setting is a place where thousands of stories and adventures can play out. However, the Dragonlance® setting is hamstrung by the fact that there’s one story worth telling, and every other adventure seems to pale in comparison. I grew up reading The Dragonlance Chronicles, and nothing else in my opinion comes close to feeling as epic. If you ask me what I think is the most iconic D&D story, I’d probably defend the War of the Lance as my #1 choice. I’ve never run a Forgotten Realms campaign, but I’ve plundered a lot of FR content for my home campaigns over the years. While I’ve always admired the lavish detail of the Forgotten Realms® campaign setting, which lends it a mind-boggling verisimilitude, what draws me to the setting is that it’s true to the core D&D medieval fantasy experience, and it doesn’t take a degree in rocket science to repurpose FR content for home campaign
But the Realms, in particular, will receive a lot of love. You’ll see more Eberron® articles, more Dark Sun® articles, and even some content for Ravenloft ®, Planescape®, and the World of Greyhawk™. This year in the magazines, we’re taking a break from the Nentir Vale “points of light” setting to shine a light on the Forgotten Realms as well as some of our other popular worlds, past and present.
I hope you like what we have planned! Rather than dive into the Elemental Chaos, I’d like to turn my editorial eye toward an unrelated subject, namely the Forgotten Realms® campaign setting, about which more source material has been written than any other “swords & sorcery” fantasy world in history (although one cannot dispute that Middle Earth is the reigning king when it comes to scholarly essays and cultural inspiration). To celebrate, we’re letting gods, primordials, and elementalthemed heroes run amok in the pages of Dragon and Dungeon this month. Illustrations by Tyler Walpole, Ralph Horsley, and Wayne Reynolds Player’s Option: Heroes of the Elemental Chaos™ hits stores this month, just in time for players to create elemental-themed heroes for The Elder Elemental Eye™, the next D&D Encounters™ season.