Forum:Canonicity of "Realms Apocrypha"

Forums: Helping Hand > Canonicity of "Realms Apocrypha"

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Hi everyone, I've been puzzling over one citation for http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Artemis_Entreri, namely, the alias of "Belmer", which exists in the Double Diamond Triangle Saga. However, the DDTS, despite being published by WotC, had been declared as non-canon by WotC. As such, should this alias even be on that page?

posted by User:Sno4wy 16:48, 11 April 2017‎

Sure, give us a reference that states DDTS is non-canon and we'll remove it (probably by moving it into the Notes section of the appendix with an explanation).

—Moviesign (talk) 00:00, April 12, 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, as we've mentioned at Forgotten Realms Wiki:Canon, WotC doesn't seem to have made any official declarations on canon, and there are only vague remarks by some designers and fan consensus to go by. We need something concrete. In any case, we've decided to accept licensed works like video games as valid (if dubious) sources, so the DDTS can be treated the same way.

As I recall, the Double Diamond Triangle Saga is only claimed to be non-canon by the fans. But it's more accurate to say it's out-of-continuity: it's apparently set in 1377 DR, way ahead of the setting when it was published, and features characters who were later killed in books set in earlier years. But a simpler explanation is that the only date given in all nine books, "the Year of the Haunting" is in error and that it's more likely set in 1367/1368 DR.

Whenever I get around to covering the DDTS as part of my Utter East project, it will get more attention.

— BadCatMan (talk) 01:22, April 12, 2017 (UTC)

I think I'm probably in the minority in that I actually liked the DDTS and wish that it was canon. There isn't enough coverage of the Utter East and it's a shame that WotC dropped its canonicity. That being said, it wasn't just the fans that declared it non-canon, WotC itself apparently decided to just write the whole series off as an “Apocryphal Future Fiction of Volo’s published in Realms”, granting the DDTS the unique status of being apocryphal canon in the Forgotten Realms. The place where they explicitly did this no longer exists on the web, but using the Internet Archive: Wayback Machine https://archive.org/web/ and plugging in the old WotC link to travel back to an article originally published around 2005, you get: https://web.archive.org/web/20050212151736/http://www.wizards.com/forgottenrealms/FR_Timeline.asp#index From there, click on the link that says, "Apocrypha / Volo's Attempts at Fiction", and the DDTS books are listed.