Earth

Earth was a world in the Prime Material plane.

"Weary of the world around ye? Welcome to my world, where magic rules and dragons fly. Beauty meets the eye often here, and anyone can try to win a throne! Oh, aye, ye can do that in your world, too &mdash; but it's all more fun here."

- Elminster

Geography
This planet was comparable in size to Abeir-Toril,   with an equatorial circumference of about. The cloud cover of this planet resembled that over Radole.

One of Earth's major landmasses was known as Eurasia, which separated into geographic regions known as Europe  and Asia. Other major regions on this plant included Africa, Arabia, and India. The second of those three regions bared some similarities to Toril's continent of Zakhara. There was also a landmass known as Australia.

Flora & Fauna
One source falsely claimed that foxes were never native to Toril, and were actually brought from France by an adventurous halfling trader named Altho Minstrelwish around. However, it was explicitly known that foxes existed on Toril far before the 1 century DR, even in the times of ancient Netheril.

Much like on Toril, there were a variety of animals on this planet that people harvested ivory from. This included the tusks of boars, elephants, narwhals, walruses. As well as the teeth of hippopotami and cachalots.

There were some breeds of dog on this world that were unique to it and difficult or impossible to find on others like Toril, such as Boston Terriers and Irish Setters. Likewise, many of the humanoids and monstrous beasts that could be found on Toril were absent from this planet.

Minerals
Much like the Realms, on this planet people cut gems found in massive form down into gemstones if they were of high value. These gems included agate, beryl, chalcedony, grossular, idocrase, jade, jasper, rhodonite, rock crystal, rose quartz, serpentine, tiger eye agate, and tourmaline. If not of high value gems were typically weaker and they would be sold by weight for carving application. These gems included amber, jet, malachite, moonstone, obsidian, opal, and turqoise.

Others gemstone shared by Toril and Earth included bluestone, serpentine stone, flamedance, and Laeral's tears. These gemstones were usually known by the people of Earth as "ditroite", "verde antique", "rhodizite", and "beryllonite" respectively.

Besides using them for adornment or magical purposes, the people of this world had gemstones serve as representations of their deities or guardian spirits. Some of their legends spoke of gems forming from tears, growing on trees, being excreted by horses, or being spat out by a deity or hero.

Gateways
The wizard Elminster Aumar claimed that there existed hidden portals not only between Earth and Toril, but to the planets of Krynn and Oerth. In this world's ancient past such portals were well-known and widely used, leading to legends on Earth of such fantastical creatures as dragons and griffons, but over time they were forgotten about.

Notable Locations
The Pecos River was a river on Earth. St. Sollars the Twice-Martyred described the demon lord Orcus, Prince of the Undead, as "the meanest dude this side o' the Pecos".

Elminster's favorite place to relax and find rest off Toril was found in Yellowstone National Park on Earth. He kept a magic portal there from his hideout within the planet Coliar, specifically to the Earth year 1894 AD. It was also here that he purchased German beer to sell to his friend Gamalon Idogyr.

Inhabitants
A number of human peoples of Faerûn originally came from another world, which was widely believed to have been Earth. To replenish their population after a devastating plague, the mages of the Imaskar Empire in Faerûn opened two great gates to this other world, and kidnapped numerous humans to serve as their slaves. Those of Mulhorand hailed from a desert land given life by the seasonal flooding of a great river and those of Unther from another land. After transporting them back to Abeir-Toril, the Imaskari closed the gates forever. Intermarrying both with each other and the Imaskari, they became the Mulan. With them, they brought their own societies, mature culture, and later, the gods of the Mulhorandi and Untheric pantheons.

Later came a people from two lands: a collection of city-states known for their daring philosophies and a land of empire and glory; they had similar pantheons of gods. These were followed by folk from a rugged land with a culture tied to nature, the sea, and the warrior history of its dozen-king greater god. These brought their own societies and faiths, and settled around the time of the rise of Netheril.

Circa Earth-date 1965, Elminster first came to this world. He would go on to visit it many more times, seeking to learn about its ecology and societies. Around the same time as his first visit, a young boy who would come to be known as Ed of the Greenwood, began having vivid dreams of a temperate forest in the Realms during the winter season. Two of the Seven Sisters would appear in these dreams, alongside Mirt the Moneylender.

In the, now a librarian, the man called Ed of the Greenwood assembled various journals, maps, and other works from Elminster Aumar into the first publication of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Which included an introduction by Elminster's scribe Lhaeo.

In the (1988 CE), Amelior Amanitas agreed to a request by Elminster, due to him generously sheltering Amelior after some incident in Volkumburgh, to provide author Jennell Jaquays the wealth of information he had regarding the the North and its history. This culminated in the sourcebook The Savage Frontier. Around that time Ed of the Greenwood was exploring neglected corners of the Realms, sharing some of his lore with an elf from Poughkeepsie and a would-be conqueror from Portland. The former was particularly interested in the undergarments of King Azoun Obarskyr IV, much to him and Azoun's confusion.

In, around the time of the Tuigan Horde's invasion of East Faerun, Elminster came to Ed of the Greenwood's co-worker Jeff Grub to talk about their latest and upcoming writings on the Realms. These included the Avatar series, the The Empires trilogy, the Forgotten Realms Adventures, and The Horde. Grub would inform Elminster that, compared to their first publication of the Forgotten Realms, the Forgotten Realms Adventures would contain more info regarding Cormyr, the Dalelands, Sembia, and the Sword Coast in general.

During this exchange Elminster admitted that in the few weeks prior he had been providing Greenwood information on cities in the Realms, such as Elturel, Marsember, Ordulin, and Westgate. He also admitted to having shown Alias the cover to the book she was the protagonist of, Azure Bonds, and that she was greatly amused by it.

Nine years after that, for a sourcebook about the Sea of Fallen Stars, Elminster described in a note to author Steven E. Schend that the building style of merfolk in Serôs was comparable to that aforementioned collection of city states, due to their emphasis on columns and carved works.

Laeral Silverhand also regularly traveled to Earth to visit Steven E. Schend, who she spoke to of Waterdeep, even if she did tend to interrupt his writing. He compiled this lore into articles for Dragon magazine.

Languages
A language on this planet known as Arabic bared some similarities to Midani, the common language of Zakhara.

Religion
Ancient civilizations on this world worshipped a variety of different deities, much like people in the Realms did, though they often had pantheons that were more organized. In the 13 century of this world, faith in general was a dominant aspect of life for people of a region known as Europe.

Deities
A number of gods of the Egyptian pantheon, as well as the Babylonian and Sumerian pantheons, of Earth traveled to Toril and formed the Mulhorandi and Untheric pantheons, respectively. The Greek pantheon was largely unknown in the Realms, with some exceptions. For instance, Poseidon had a small following on Toril and Hephaestus had a book written about him, though he was considered an obscure deity; Tyche, a minor deity in her original pantheon, was worshipped in Netheril until the Dawn Cataclysm.

A number of deities within the Realms originated from the Celtic pantheon, Finnish pantheon and Norse pantheon. Many of the deities within the Lords of Creation, the major pantheon worshipped in the Kuong Kingdom, hailed from the Vedic pantheon, such as Garuda and Yama.

A number of animal spirits, foremost among them Eagle and Raven, were worshiped both by the green elves of Toril and the American Indian peoples of Earth.

Magic
In an era on this world known as the "Dark Ages," the belief in the supernatural was at its peak. Some believed that, even during this era, the people of Earth were never as affected by arcane magic as the people of Toril.

Some believed that magic on this world was entirely absent, unlike the Realms. Though Elminster was adamant that magic was at one point as dominant on Earth as it was in the Realms and that even in the planet's modern era it still existed. In addition, people on this world were known to use gemstones for divination, as repositories of spells, or as protective charms against magic and evil creatures.

Cuisine
There was a variety of unique and regional cuisine on this planet that Elminster adored. This included Australian beer, pina coladas, a carbonated sugared drink known as cola, and mayonnaise.

Background
Alaska was used as a cheat code in the game Blood & Magic, which when used would summon a gnome unit.