Ed Greenwood

Ed Greenwood is a prolific author, world-builder, and creator of the Forgotten Realms. He has written several dozen short stories, well over a dozen novels, and contributed to over a score of sourcebooks set in the immensely-popular Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting.

"I wanted the Realms to be not a nice place, not a safe place, but I wanted it to be a place I wouldn't mind exploring and spending time in. As in nicer than the real world when you're a lonely nerdy kid, which I was."

- Ed Greenwood on creating the Realms.

Worldbuilding
"Do you just make this stuff up as you go, or do you really have a huge campaign world? Yes."

- Jeff Grubb, asking Ed about his creative process, followed by Ed's response.

Ed's earliest writings were made exclusively for his own entertainment, taking inspiration authors such as Rudyard Kipling, J.R.R. Tolkien, P.G. Wodehouse, and Leslie Charteris, among others. Ed greatly appreciated a style of worldbuilding employed by Fritz Leiber, in which each story in a series stood independently on its own, but contributed along with others to the lore of a rich, ever-expanding world.

In Ed's original vision, the "Forgotten Realms" was one of several worlds―along with the real—world Earthset in a multiverse of different, coexisting worlds. It was said that the myths and legends of Earth originated from the world of the Realms, but had been lost to humankind over many years.

Ed held ambitions to fully detail the entirety of the Forgotten Realms, fleshing out every place in full detail. He has said that the reason the Realms became so popular was that it felt like living place, where readers could visit, fall in love with, and make a little bit their own. He has admitted that it may be unrealistic to detail every part of his world, but was excited by seeing fans make take up the mantle and complete it for themselves.

Roleplaying
Ed was introduced to the concept of full-on roleplaying―or "ham acting" as he called it, by a particularly inspirational friend named September. This style of character portrayal was evident in several larger-than-life Realms characters, including Elminster and his long-time nemesis Manshoon.

According to Ed, his home campaigns have always featured three primary characteristics:
 * 1) Player characters have the complete freedom to do whatever they desired.
 * 2) The Realms are always and constantly unfolding.
 * 3) Sublots and intrigues are everpresent and readily accessible.

Activities
"Crafting Realmslore is what I do. In between breathing."

- So Sayeth Ed.

In addition to creating Realmslore and authoring novels, Ed spends much of his time attending conventions and meeting fans. He works as a library clerk and sometimes as a librarian, and has edited over a dozen small press magazines.

Relationships
"(Creating the Realms) has allowed me to travel the world to meet gamers, make a lot of good friends, and share my creation with interested gamers everywhere. In turn, they've detailed bits of the setting that I hadn't, and given me something precious: the ability for 'my' Realms to surprise me."

- Ed Greenwood.

Ed has expressed his delight as to how much deeper and more rich his fellow authors have made to the Realms. He noted specifically the contributions of long-time Realms authors Elaine Cunningham, Jeff Grubb, Kate Novak, and R.A. Salvatore, along with authors who later took on the mantle of shaping the Realms, including Erik Scott de Bie, Erin M. Evans, and Jaleigh Johnson. He also praised the work of other game designers and freelance writers.

With Fictional Characters
"...and by the way to those who think Elminster is my alter ego, I would like to remind people I was clean-shaven, five-years old, had thick, plastic, "unbreakable"-but they're not glasses (I proved that on several occasions). I did not have a beard or long white hair and I was not rude to people."

- Ed, on the many dissimilarities between himself and Elminster of Shadowdale.

Although Elminster is the in-world alter ego for Ed, this was done for editorial purposes, as it was requested to him by TSR, Inc. However, Elminster is not a character that Ed himself would have picked as his alter ego if given the choice. It is a common conceit in Ed's writing that the plane-travelling Elminster is a friend of his and that his knowledge of the Forgotten Realms comes from their chats.

Early History
"My very first glimpse of the Realms was a view of a temperate forest glade by night, in winter, with the snow softly falling. A lone woman with long silver hair—metallic silver hair, not a senior with gray-white hair—was sitting by a small fire she’d obviously made, playing a harp. And in the darkness under the trees all around her, filling the background, were the many pairs of glowing eyes of all the critters who’d heard her harping and come to listen."

- Ed, speaking of his earliest childhood daydreams about the Realms.

Ed Greenwood was born in 1959 and grew up in the suburbs of Toronto Ontario. He began to imagine and create the earliest iteration of the Forgotten Realms at the age of four. While he did not yet know their names, his earliest imaginings of the Forgotten Realms featured Dove Falconhand and Storm Silverhand, two of his famous Seven Sisters.

By 1965, Ed had written his first story set in the Realms, involving the wheezing swindler Mirt the Moneylender and his adventures across the Sword Coast. That story was published and distributed by his father to several work colleagues in September of 1966.

In 1974 Ed began to work at a local library in Toronto Ontario. He has held numerous library clerk, and sometimes librarian, positions at various libraries in the Greater Toronto Area well into 2023.

Entry to Roleplaying
"I spent most of the spring and summer of 1986 sending weekly or bi-weekly typed packages to TSR (some 800 pages or so, in all), until they frantically told me to stop."

- Ed, on the early introduction of the Forgotten Realms into the Dungeons & Dragons canon.

After discovering the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop game in 1975, Ed first incorporated the Forgotten Realms into the gaming system in his home game. By 1978 he and his friends were playing regular games together in an ongoing campaign. While Ed's first campaign involved the Company of Crazed Venturers in Waterdeep, Ed's most famous campaign revolved around the adventurers known as the Knights of Myth Drannor. Ed's skill at including rich detail and creating a living, breathing world, created robust feelings of immersion for his players.

In 1979, Ed began writing for Dragon Magazine, offering pieces of Realmslore for fans to incorporate into their own home campaigns. Some time later Ed met Jeff Grubb, game designer at TSR, Inc.. Ed sent the folks at TSR several dozen boxes of notes and hand-drawn maps, and in 1986 the Forgotten Realms was purchased by the company outright. In July of 1987 the 1 edition D&D Forgotten Realms Campaign Set was published by TSR, authored by Jeff Grubb, Karen S. Martin, and Ed Greenwood.

Trivia
Among Ed's favorite works are the Volo's Guides series and Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms.

Ed was regularly featured in the recurring Dragon magazine article The Wizards Three, in which Elminster of the Realms, Mordenkainen of the Greyhawk setting, and Dalamar of Dragonlance, gather together together to discuss the goings on of the multiverse. In just about every meeting, Ed is relegated to stuffing himself in a nearby suit of armor (to Elminster's amusement), so that he may discreetly observe and take mental notes.

Works

 * Boxed Sets
 * Forgotten Realms Campaign Set • City System • The Ruins of Undermountain • Menzoberranzan (boxed set) • Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 2nd edition • The Ruins of Myth Drannor • City of Splendors (boxed set) • Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 2nd edition (revised)
 * Sourcebooks
 * Lords of Darkness • Waterdeep and the North • The Magister • Hall of Heroes • Forgotten Realms Adventures • Dwarves Deep • The Drow of the Underdark • Anauroch (sourcebook) • Volo's Guide to Waterdeep • The Code of the Harpers • Volo's Guide to the North • Volo's Guide to the Sword Coast • The Seven Sisters • Volo's Guide to Cormyr • Pages from the Mages • Volo's Guide to the Dalelands • Volo's Guide to All Things Magical • Prayers from the Faithful • The City of Ravens Bluff • Secrets of the Magister • Volo's Guide to Baldur's Gate II • Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting 3rd edition • Silver Marches (sourcebook) • Serpent Kingdoms • Power of Faerûn • The Grand History of the Realms • Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide • Ed Greenwood Presents Elminster's Forgotten Realms
 * Adventures
 * The Bloodstone Wars • Shadowdale (adventure) • Tantras (adventure) • Waterdeep (adventure) • Halls of the High King • Haunted Halls of Eveningstar • Expedition to Undermountain
 * Novels
 * Shandril's Saga (Spellfire • Crown of Fire • Hand of Fire) • Elminster series (Elminster: The Making of a Mage • Elminster in Myth Drannor • The Temptation of Elminster • Elminster in Hell • Elminster's Daughter) • The Shadow of the Avatar Trilogy (Shadows of Doom • Cloak of Shadows • All Shadows Fled) • The Cormyr Saga (Cormyr: A Novel• Death of the Dragon) • The Harpers series (Crown of Fire • Stormlight) Double Diamond Triangle Saga (The Mercenaries • The Diamond) • Knights of Myth Drannor (Swords of Eveningstar • Swords of Dragonfire • The Sword Never Sleeps) • The Annotated Elminster • The City of Splendors: A Waterdeep Novel • Sage of Shadowdale (Elminster Must Die • Bury Elminster Deep • Elminster Enraged) • The Sundering series (The Herald) • Chosen Heirs (Death Masks) Spellstorm
 * Fiction
 * Realms of Infamy (So High a Price) • Realms of Valor (Elminster at the Magefair) • Realms of Magic (The Eye of the Dragon) • Realms of the Underdark (A Slow Day in Skullport) • Realms of the Arcane (The Whispering Crown) • Silverfall (No more in Armor for My Sake) • Realms of the Deep (The Place Where Guards Snore at Their Posts) • Sembia: Gateway to the Realms (The Burning Chalice) • Realms of Shadow (When Shadows Come Seeking a Throne) • The Best of the Realms II (One Comes, Unheralded, to Zirta) • Untold Adventures (Lord of the Darkways)
 * Magazines
 * Dragon Magazine 307: The Haunted Bridge
 * Newsletters


 * Secrets of the Sages