Publication:Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (3e)

In 2001, Wizards of the Coast, Inc. published the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, a Forgotten Realms campaign source book for use with the 3rd Edition of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The book was written by Ed Greenwood, Sean K. Reynolds, Skip Williams, and Rob Heinsoo, with the contributions of members of the Wizard company's staff. The book is 320 pages in length; illustrated in color, and hardbound.

In 2002, the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting won the Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Game Supplement of 2001.

Contents
A number of changes were made since the previous books were published by the former TSR, Inc. The most important update was to incorporate the significant revisions to the game system with the 3rd edition update. Various regional feats, character attributes, prestige classes, spells, and NPC statistics all used the new rule set.

The work also made some notable updates to the campaign setting, including the widespread presence of Red Wizard enclaves in various cities, the presence of a mysterious group called the Shades in the southern Anauroch desert, and the increasing surface presence of Dark Elves in the Dalelands. The setting history was updated to reflect various major events, such as the changes to the Faerûnian pantheon since the Time of Troubles, and the defeat of the Tuigan Horde.

The book was organized into nine chapters, covering in broad detail the campaign setting. The primary emphasis is on the continent of Faerûn, and the other continents are only briefly mentioned. The chapters are arranged as follows:


 * 1)  Characters &mdash; How to create a player character for the setting, including races, classes, regional feats, religions, and setting-specific prestige classes. (Many of these later have been merged into the version 3.5 release of Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide.)
 * 2) Magic &mdash; An explanation of how magic operates in this setting, and a number of unique aspects of magic. A few additional spells are provided, primarily to support the new Domains.
 * 3) Life in Faerûn &mdash; A general overview of life, lore, culture and commerce in this setting.
 * 4) Geography &mdash; Each of the significant regions of the continent are explored, along with places of interest, cities, politics, and significant individuals.
 * 5) Deities &mdash; Only the major deities are described in this edition, with the remainder of the pantheon detailed in Faiths & Pantheons. Several new Domains are introduced, with the incumbent spells listed in the Magic chapter.
 * 6) History &mdash; This is an overview of the detailed history of this setting, with a lengthy time line at the end of the chapter.
 * 7) Organizations &mdash; Groups, cults, and other organizations play an important role in the realms, and several of the most significant are detailed herein.
 * 8) Running the Realms &mdash; This chapter provides useful advice for the Dungeon Master trying to run an adventure or campaign in this setting. A pair of brief sample adventures are included.
 * 9) Monsters &mdash; A brief list of monsters unique to this continent are introduced, with a more extensive selection published later in other books.

This work contained a number of quality maps, and a fold-out map of the continent of Faerûn. There were also many sidebar topics and tables.

Also, throughout the sourcebook, stats were given for many popular Forgotten Realms characters such as Drizzt Do'Urden, Artemis Entreri, Elminster, Khelben Blackstaff, Fzoul Chembryl and Manshoon. The stats were reflections of the characters at that time. Artemis Entreri's stats didn't list him as having Charon's Claw, because Servant of the Shard wasn't published yet.