A world now forgotten implies that it's not any of the known worlds.
Or just that it's some lost piece of FR history. "World" is a fairly loose term, really. And does it actually matter if he was from some place no one remembers across the multiverse or some place no one remembers from Toril?
The awesome thing about Dungeon & Dragons is that Wizards of the Coast doesn't dictate anything. They control absolutely nothing. At. All.
So if I want Barovia to exist in Candyland, then it does. If I want it to exist within Middle Earth, suddenly it's in Middle Earth. Your table is yours. And no one can tell you any different.
No game dictates anything you do. Are the supposed to come to your house and tell you not to break some rules? lol. The expectation is that you play the game according to the rules. If you can't then you need to use the word "Homebrew" to indicate how far you digress from the basic ruleset.
The DM filling in a background setting detail that was intentionally left vague so that DMs can fill it in is hardly "homebrew." Answering exactly where Barovia initially came from and why is like answering how Warforged got souls or what the exact terms of the Pact Primeval are - if it matters to your story, go ahead and do it, they purposefully left that blank sheet of paper there for you to write on.
A world now forgotten implies that it's not any of the known worlds.
Let me tell you the story of the forgotten neighborhood in Los Angeles. Long ago in San Pedro near Point Fermin was a quiet community, it sank beneath the waves, these days no one remembers the Sunken City, it is forgotten. A select few know the history and the legend, and even a few of us can go on google and find websites, maps, photos, and other things. But until you do you are unaware that it is there.
The Forgotten Realms is the same as the sunken city, once long ago tied to the Earth through portals and magic, the gods and people would often travel back and forth from Earth to Abeir-Toril, but in time the people of Earth forgot the old ways, we forgot out gods, and the portals, occasionally a person might stumble on the long forgotten paths between the worlds, but more often than not we pass the old places unaware they were there.
Barovia is the same, once a land of people on the world of toril in the mountains far to the east of the Sword Coast, yet it had some trade with those regions, it might have been north of Thay near Rashemen, but I suspect it might have been near Impiltur or Damara, as culturally they share many similarities.
Hells maybe in one of the many mountain passes you might find evidence of lost Barovia for there are many mountains and many mountain passes in those lands.
Forgotten doesn't mean unknown, or alien, it means people forgot. D&D is mostly set in the Forgotten Realms, a world forgotten by the People of Earth, but is well known to the people that live there. Barovia is from Toril but where has been forgotten, but Strahd knows where his lands were at one point in time. Forgotten doesn't mean unlearnable, it just refers to the common person, I know plenty of people in Los Angels, and even in San Pedro who never knew a part of the city sank beneath the waves. It is a forgotten place.
A world now forgotten implies that it's not any of the known worlds.
Let me tell you the story of the forgotten neighborhood in Los Angeles. Long ago in San Pedro near Point Fermin was a quiet community, it sank beneath the waves, these days no one remembers the Sunken City, it is forgotten. A select few know the history and the legend, and even a few of us can go on google and find websites, maps, photos, and other things. But until you do you are unaware that it is there.
The Forgotten Realms is the same as the sunken city, once long ago tied to the Earth through portals and magic, the gods and people would often travel back and forth from Earth to Abeir-Toril, but in time the people of Earth forgot the old ways, we forgot out gods, and the portals, occasionally a person might stumble on the long forgotten paths between the worlds, but more often than not we pass the old places unaware they were there.
Barovia is the same, once a land of people on the world of toril in the mountains far to the east of the Sword Coast, yet it had some trade with those regions, it might have been north of Thay near Rashemen, but I suspect it might have been near Impiltur or Damara, as culturally they share many similarities.
Hells maybe in one of the many mountain passes you might find evidence of lost Barovia for there are many mountains and many mountain passes in those lands.
Forgotten doesn't mean unknown, or alien, it means people forgot. D&D is mostly set in the Forgotten Realms, a world forgotten by the People of Earth, but is well known to the people that live there. Barovia is from Toril but where has been forgotten, but Strahd knows where his lands were at one point in time. Forgotten doesn't mean unlearnable, it just refers to the common person, I know plenty of people in Los Angels, and even in San Pedro who never knew a part of the city sank beneath the waves. It is a forgotten place.
And LA is a young place, think how much has been forgotten in Europe with a couple of thousand years of warfare, borders being redrawn and small countries merging to form big ones. Just using Transylvania as the obvious Barovia substitute it's changed names several times, different neighbouring countries called it different things and it's been both independent and part of larger neighbours and is currently just a region of Romania. If not for Dracula would anyone remember it or even know it had ever existed apart from Romanians?
It's pretty clear that Barovia being from the Realms would be a pretty huge retcon. For both settings. There's no Tergs in Toril and no von Zarovich family. It adds nothing to either setting.
But it's low down on the changes I dislike from the new version.
Such as how Strahd was a conquering tyrant before he became a vampire. In the original setting, he was a liberator freeing his land from the occupying Tergs. He wasn't a good guy, but he wasn't a monster. He was just a hard soldier. He didn't become evil until he made a pact with Death, and sealed that with the murder of his brother. Nu-Loft Strahd was capital-e Evil before becoming a vampire and didn't have a tragic fall. He killed an order of noble knights, butchered a silver dragon, and worse. That goes against a fundamental idea of the Dark Powers and the darklords as these fallen figures that had a choice and chose evil. Instead, it makes Strahd this cartoonish villain that was just born evil with Iago-esque "motiveless malignity." He no longer has a motive or reason for being evil, he was just inherently nasty.
The setting had moved away from Weekends in Hell early on and focused more and more on natives, really starting with Islands of Terror in 1992. 1997's Domains of Dread even had rules for native PCs. 5e's book jetisens that and doubles down on the Weekend in Hell. Every domain is shallow and heavily focused on the darklord, often with reduced settlements and locations. They're cut down to a shadow of their former selves, with the only activty remaining being killing the darklord and getting out. Especially as it's not a living world anymore, but lands that are on the verge of collapse. They're starving or freezing or overrun with zombies. The lands aren't even connected into the Core. There's no shared history or trade.
The tone of the setting just doesn't work anymore either. It was this gothic horror setting where you fought against the horrors of the land to save its people. But also turns it up to 11 by emphasising that domains reset and darklords reincarnate, so nothing the PCs do really matters. They just have to survive and get out, and saving people is pointless as every inhabitant is trapped in a cycle of death-and-rebirth. And even if they CAN kill the darklord permanently the domain will just be sucked into void of Klorr and erased from existence. The setting is this bleak grimdark nihilistic world and not the more heroic gothic horror with the bright pinpricks of light in the darkness.
And that's without getting to all the needless changes. Now, obviously some changes needed to be made. A greater gender balance was necassary, as were female darklords whose curse or evil deeds weren't related to seduction or looks. And more diversity was needed as well. The Weathermay-Foxgrove twins becoming people of colour is fine. Great to see them as the iconic characters they deserved to be. No notes. But given all the other changes, the gender flips and revisions didn't always seem necassary. Given Dementlieu was completely rewritten and reduced to a single city why keep the lord as a d’Honaire? And nothing is the same in Falkovnia except the name and the map. Why not just make those wholly new domains? Were they trying to retain a trademark or something?
The whole book felt like a book by people who didn't really like the old Ravenloft. For people who didn't care about the old Ravenloft. It really looked like someone read the wikipedia summery of the black border Realm of Terror boxed set and said "yup, this is it. Let's redo this from scratch."
You can blame Vecna, and there are some good reasons. This wanted revenge against the Dark Powers, and the escape was only a step. After the reboot of D&D multiverse during 2nd-3rd transition and later the 4th Ed the cosmology was altered radically.
Rex Azalin was manipulated by Vecna to cause a lot of troubles, and the demiplane of the dread was almost destroyed, but to fix the damages some changes were necessary. Some characters had to be replaced with variants.
There is a "secret layer" in the demiplane, the original "core" but without the dark lords but some couple, and most of sentient population. Now it is working like a cosmic firewall in the space-time continium because there are intruders from Innistrard and Duskmourn, and also like a fake exit door to trick who try escape.
Wolfweres shouldn't be too hard to be updated to 5e, are they? And now the dark lords lack stats, because the intention is these could face PC in every level.
I'm curious where the idea that the origin of Barovia is actually specified in 5th edition comes from; I can't find anything in CoS or VRGtR that specifies, nor does anything state the origins of the Shadowfell. The idea that it was created by Shar during the Spellplague is (a) not actually stated in 5e, and (b) obviously false, as that would mean there can't be anything more than a hundred years old there (it is also a retcon; the origin of the Shadowfell is the Points of Light setting for 4th edition, associating Shar with it was an artifact of trying to shoehorn the FR into 4e).
The most consistent way to tie the history together is to say that the lack of references to the Shadowfell in AD&D is just an issue of terminology -- it existed, it just wasn't called the Shadowfell (probably called a border region between the ethereal and the negative material, or some such).
The awesome thing about Dungeon & Dragons is that Wizards of the Coast doesn't dictate anything. They control absolutely nothing. At. All.
So if I want Barovia to exist in Candyland, then it does. If I want it to exist within Middle Earth, suddenly it's in Middle Earth. Your table is yours. And no one can tell you any different.
No game dictates anything you do. Are the supposed to come to your house and tell you not to break some rules? lol. The expectation is that you play the game according to the rules. If you can't then you need to use the word "Homebrew" to indicate how far you digress from the basic ruleset.
Then what is the point in altering them in the first place?
I'm curious where the idea that the origin of Barovia is actually specified in 5th edition comes from; I can't find anything in CoS or VRGtR that specifies, nor does anything state the origins of the Shadowfell. The idea that it was created by Shar during the Spellplague is (a) not actually stated in 5e, and (b) obviously false, as that would mean there can't be anything more than a hundred years old there (it is also a retcon; the origin of the Shadowfell is the Points of Light setting for 4th edition, associating Shar with it was an artifact of trying to shoehorn the FR into 4e).
The most consistent way to tie the history together is to say that the lack of references to the Shadowfell in AD&D is just an issue of terminology -- it existed, it just wasn't called the Shadowfell (probably called a border region between the ethereal and the negative material, or some such).
The previous editions stated that Shar created the Shadowfell during the Spellplague from the Plane of Shadows and the Negative Energy plane.
The previous editions stated that Shar created the Shadowfell during the Spellplague from the Plane of Shadows and the Negative Energy plane.
Yes, but (a) 5e doesn't say that, (b) that is FR-specific lore and the Shadowfell wasn't created for FR in the first place, and (c) it's obviously false because there are things in the Shadowfell that predate the Spellplague. Such as Ravenloft. I would tend to assume Shar just lied. I mean, if she created it you'd think she'd be the dominant power there, but that's pretty clearly not true -- the dominant power is the Raven Queen.
The previous editions stated that Shar created the Shadowfell during the Spellplague from the Plane of Shadows and the Negative Energy plane.
Yes, but (a) 5e doesn't say that, (b) that is FR-specific lore and the Shadowfell wasn't created for FR in the first place, and (c) it's obviously false because there are things in the Shadowfell that predate the Spellplague. Such as Ravenloft. I would tend to assume Shar just lied. I mean, if she created it you'd think she'd be the dominant power there, but that's pretty clearly not true -- the dominant power is the Raven Queen.
With 4e Forgotten Realms lore is D&D Lore. 5th edition never altered that. So presumably Forgot Realms is the world D&D Is set in, and is also oddly where all the important people live? Its a very weird situation, where they technically never reversed course from 4e, they just halfway published Forgotten Realms books. But I think its fair to say most people still view the Forgotten Realms as the default setting of the game. I think its also fair to say most people don't allow or entertain the possibility of worlds like Greyhawk, etc. existing in the campaign.
With 4e Forgotten Realms lore is D&D Lore. 5th edition never altered that. So presumably Forgot Realms is the world D&D Is set in, and is also oddly where all the important people live?
Neither 3e nor 4e had the Forgotten Realms as the default setting -- the default in 3e was Greyhawk, the default in 4e was the Points of Light setting (corresponding to the Dawn War pantheon in the DMG). The only notable NPC in CoS who is not from Ravenloft is Mordenkainen -- who is from Greyhawk. Unless you count the various amber sarcophagi, but that won't help your argument, because of those that aren't unique to CoS we have a couple of Far Realm elder evils (Delban, Khirad, Zhudun) who have appeared in more than one setting and, as corrupted stars from the Far Realm, aren't associated with any prime material anyway, Dalver-Nah, whose teeth were introduced in the AD&D1e and should thus be considered Greyhawk artifacts, and Tenebrous, which is an alias for Orcus that was introduced in Planescape.
With 4e Forgotten Realms lore is D&D Lore. 5th edition never altered that. So presumably Forgot Realms is the world D&D Is set in, and is also oddly where all the important people live?
Neither 3e nor 4e had the Forgotten Realms as the default setting -- the default in 3e was Greyhawk, the default in 4e was the Points of Light setting (corresponding to the Dawn War pantheon in the DMG). The only notable NPC in CoS who is not from Ravenloft is Mordenkainen -- who is from Greyhawk. Unless you count the various amber sarcophagi, but that won't help your argument, because of those that aren't unique to CoS we have a couple of Far Realm elder evils (Delban, Khirad, Zhudun) who have appeared in more than one setting and, as corrupted stars from the Far Realm, aren't associated with any prime material anyway, Dalver-Nah, whose teeth were introduced in the AD&D1e and should thus be considered Greyhawk artifacts, and Tenebrous, which is an alias for Orcus that was introduced in Planescape.
I definitely do not remember Greyhawk being particularly prominent since 1e. FR became the main setting, sort of took over, really, with so much lore it was seriously limiting game accessibility with any of the many tables or entire clubs who went 'all in.'
With 4e Forgotten Realms lore is D&D Lore. 5th edition never altered that. So presumably Forgot Realms is the world D&D Is set in, and is also oddly where all the important people live?
Neither 3e nor 4e had the Forgotten Realms as the default setting -- the default in 3e was Greyhawk, the default in 4e was the Points of Light setting (corresponding to the Dawn War pantheon in the DMG). The only notable NPC in CoS who is not from Ravenloft is Mordenkainen -- who is from Greyhawk. Unless you count the various amber sarcophagi, but that won't help your argument, because of those that aren't unique to CoS we have a couple of Far Realm elder evils (Delban, Khirad, Zhudun) who have appeared in more than one setting and, as corrupted stars from the Far Realm, aren't associated with any prime material anyway, Dalver-Nah, whose teeth were introduced in the AD&D1e and should thus be considered Greyhawk artifacts, and Tenebrous, which is an alias for Orcus that was introduced in Planescape.
I definitely do not remember Greyhawk being particularly prominent since 1e. FR became the main setting, sort of took over, really, with so much lore it was seriously limiting game accessibility with any of the many tables or entire clubs who went 'all in.'
In 3e greyhawk was the default setting, most prominent very easily could have been FR as that is more determined by sales. Check your books, and the gods they defaulted you to.
In 3e greyhawk was the default setting, most prominent very easily could have been FR as that is more determined by sales. Check your books, and the gods they defaulted you to.
There were definitely more FR novels, but for sourcebooks and modules, the large majority were setting-agnostic, and there were a fair number of Greyhawk adventures published (though a lot of them were in Dungeon magazine). Also, Living Greyhawk was 2000 to 2008 (corresponding to 3e).
In 3e greyhawk was the default setting, most prominent very easily could have been FR as that is more determined by sales. Check your books, and the gods they defaulted you to.
There were definitely more FR novels, but for sourcebooks and modules, the large majority were setting-agnostic, and there were a fair number of Greyhawk adventures published (though a lot of them were in Dungeon magazine). Also, Living Greyhawk was 2000 to 2008 (corresponding to 3e).
I couldn't remember where the living setting was, I assumed Greyhawk but I was not positive. It wasn't a change for me my 1e-3e was mostly greyhawk, the occasional spell jammer, dark sun, planescape as well. Though I also did a lot of Mystara and hollow wolrd when doing BECMI.
Been doing FR in 5e but its a different group and that is what they do. Time and moves across the country changes things.
Ravenloft was, at least initially, Forgotten Realms
From the Wikipedia entry, referencing a 1994 interview in Dragon magazine, "Game designer Rick Swan commented in 1994 that when the Ravenloft setting first came out, it "just didn't seem special, a Forgotten Realms variant with a few more bats""
As for Mordenkeinen, he is orginally Greyhawk, yes, but got around. His spells were on Forgotten Realms, too, not just Greyhawk ones.
Ravenloft was, at least initially, Forgotten Realms
From the Wikipedia entry, referencing a 1994 interview in Dragon magazine, "Game designer Rick Swan commented in 1994 that when the Ravenloft setting first came out, it "just didn't seem special, a Forgotten Realms variant with a few more bats""
(a) Rick Swan didn't write Ravenloft, and (b) that statement doesn't mean it was in the FR, it means it wasn't meaningfully different from the FR.
Ravenloft was, at least initially, Forgotten Realms
From the Wikipedia entry, referencing a 1994 interview in Dragon magazine, "Game designer Rick Swan commented in 1994 that when the Ravenloft setting first came out, it "just didn't seem special, a Forgotten Realms variant with a few more bats""
(a) Rick Swan didn't write Ravenloft, and (b) that statement doesn't mean it was in the FR, it means it wasn't meaningfully different from the FR.
He doesn't have to have written it to have internal knowledge. You are correct that it technically does not say it was in the FR; but it also does not say it was in Greyhawk, either. It does reference FR, not any other setting. In a Ravenloft specific article, why reference FR specifically, like that?
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A world now forgotten implies that it's not any of the known worlds.
Or just that it's some lost piece of FR history. "World" is a fairly loose term, really. And does it actually matter if he was from some place no one remembers across the multiverse or some place no one remembers from Toril?
A world now forgotten... A forgotten realm, one might say? 😛
The DM filling in a background setting detail that was intentionally left vague so that DMs can fill it in is hardly "homebrew." Answering exactly where Barovia initially came from and why is like answering how Warforged got souls or what the exact terms of the Pact Primeval are - if it matters to your story, go ahead and do it, they purposefully left that blank sheet of paper there for you to write on.
Let me tell you the story of the forgotten neighborhood in Los Angeles. Long ago in San Pedro near Point Fermin was a quiet community, it sank beneath the waves, these days no one remembers the Sunken City, it is forgotten. A select few know the history and the legend, and even a few of us can go on google and find websites, maps, photos, and other things. But until you do you are unaware that it is there.
The Forgotten Realms is the same as the sunken city, once long ago tied to the Earth through portals and magic, the gods and people would often travel back and forth from Earth to Abeir-Toril, but in time the people of Earth forgot the old ways, we forgot out gods, and the portals, occasionally a person might stumble on the long forgotten paths between the worlds, but more often than not we pass the old places unaware they were there.
Barovia is the same, once a land of people on the world of toril in the mountains far to the east of the Sword Coast, yet it had some trade with those regions, it might have been north of Thay near Rashemen, but I suspect it might have been near Impiltur or Damara, as culturally they share many similarities.
Hells maybe in one of the many mountain passes you might find evidence of lost Barovia for there are many mountains and many mountain passes in those lands.
Forgotten doesn't mean unknown, or alien, it means people forgot. D&D is mostly set in the Forgotten Realms, a world forgotten by the People of Earth, but is well known to the people that live there. Barovia is from Toril but where has been forgotten, but Strahd knows where his lands were at one point in time. Forgotten doesn't mean unlearnable, it just refers to the common person, I know plenty of people in Los Angels, and even in San Pedro who never knew a part of the city sank beneath the waves. It is a forgotten place.
And LA is a young place, think how much has been forgotten in Europe with a couple of thousand years of warfare, borders being redrawn and small countries merging to form big ones. Just using Transylvania as the obvious Barovia substitute it's changed names several times, different neighbouring countries called it different things and it's been both independent and part of larger neighbours and is currently just a region of Romania. If not for Dracula would anyone remember it or even know it had ever existed apart from Romanians?
It's pretty clear that Barovia being from the Realms would be a pretty huge retcon. For both settings. There's no Tergs in Toril and no von Zarovich family. It adds nothing to either setting.
But it's low down on the changes I dislike from the new version.
Such as how Strahd was a conquering tyrant before he became a vampire. In the original setting, he was a liberator freeing his land from the occupying Tergs. He wasn't a good guy, but he wasn't a monster. He was just a hard soldier. He didn't become evil until he made a pact with Death, and sealed that with the murder of his brother. Nu-Loft Strahd was capital-e Evil before becoming a vampire and didn't have a tragic fall. He killed an order of noble knights, butchered a silver dragon, and worse.
That goes against a fundamental idea of the Dark Powers and the darklords as these fallen figures that had a choice and chose evil. Instead, it makes Strahd this cartoonish villain that was just born evil with Iago-esque "motiveless malignity." He no longer has a motive or reason for being evil, he was just inherently nasty.
The setting had moved away from Weekends in Hell early on and focused more and more on natives, really starting with Islands of Terror in 1992. 1997's Domains of Dread even had rules for native PCs. 5e's book jetisens that and doubles down on the Weekend in Hell. Every domain is shallow and heavily focused on the darklord, often with reduced settlements and locations. They're cut down to a shadow of their former selves, with the only activty remaining being killing the darklord and getting out. Especially as it's not a living world anymore, but lands that are on the verge of collapse. They're starving or freezing or overrun with zombies.
The lands aren't even connected into the Core. There's no shared history or trade.
The tone of the setting just doesn't work anymore either. It was this gothic horror setting where you fought against the horrors of the land to save its people. But also turns it up to 11 by emphasising that domains reset and darklords reincarnate, so nothing the PCs do really matters. They just have to survive and get out, and saving people is pointless as every inhabitant is trapped in a cycle of death-and-rebirth. And even if they CAN kill the darklord permanently the domain will just be sucked into void of Klorr and erased from existence.
The setting is this bleak grimdark nihilistic world and not the more heroic gothic horror with the bright pinpricks of light in the darkness.
And that's without getting to all the needless changes. Now, obviously some changes needed to be made. A greater gender balance was necassary, as were female darklords whose curse or evil deeds weren't related to seduction or looks. And more diversity was needed as well. The Weathermay-Foxgrove twins becoming people of colour is fine. Great to see them as the iconic characters they deserved to be. No notes.
But given all the other changes, the gender flips and revisions didn't always seem necassary.
Given Dementlieu was completely rewritten and reduced to a single city why keep the lord as a d’Honaire? And nothing is the same in Falkovnia except the name and the map. Why not just make those wholly new domains? Were they trying to retain a trademark or something?
The whole book felt like a book by people who didn't really like the old Ravenloft. For people who didn't care about the old Ravenloft.
It really looked like someone read the wikipedia summery of the black border Realm of Terror boxed set and said "yup, this is it. Let's redo this from scratch."
Is some of that your headcanon?
I'm curious where the idea that the origin of Barovia is actually specified in 5th edition comes from; I can't find anything in CoS or VRGtR that specifies, nor does anything state the origins of the Shadowfell. The idea that it was created by Shar during the Spellplague is (a) not actually stated in 5e, and (b) obviously false, as that would mean there can't be anything more than a hundred years old there (it is also a retcon; the origin of the Shadowfell is the Points of Light setting for 4th edition, associating Shar with it was an artifact of trying to shoehorn the FR into 4e).
The most consistent way to tie the history together is to say that the lack of references to the Shadowfell in AD&D is just an issue of terminology -- it existed, it just wasn't called the Shadowfell (probably called a border region between the ethereal and the negative material, or some such).
Then what is the point in altering them in the first place?
The previous editions stated that Shar created the Shadowfell during the Spellplague from the Plane of Shadows and the Negative Energy plane.
Yes, but (a) 5e doesn't say that, (b) that is FR-specific lore and the Shadowfell wasn't created for FR in the first place, and (c) it's obviously false because there are things in the Shadowfell that predate the Spellplague. Such as Ravenloft. I would tend to assume Shar just lied. I mean, if she created it you'd think she'd be the dominant power there, but that's pretty clearly not true -- the dominant power is the Raven Queen.
With 4e Forgotten Realms lore is D&D Lore. 5th edition never altered that. So presumably Forgot Realms is the world D&D Is set in, and is also oddly where all the important people live? Its a very weird situation, where they technically never reversed course from 4e, they just halfway published Forgotten Realms books. But I think its fair to say most people still view the Forgotten Realms as the default setting of the game. I think its also fair to say most people don't allow or entertain the possibility of worlds like Greyhawk, etc. existing in the campaign.
Neither 3e nor 4e had the Forgotten Realms as the default setting -- the default in 3e was Greyhawk, the default in 4e was the Points of Light setting (corresponding to the Dawn War pantheon in the DMG). The only notable NPC in CoS who is not from Ravenloft is Mordenkainen -- who is from Greyhawk. Unless you count the various amber sarcophagi, but that won't help your argument, because of those that aren't unique to CoS we have a couple of Far Realm elder evils (Delban, Khirad, Zhudun) who have appeared in more than one setting and, as corrupted stars from the Far Realm, aren't associated with any prime material anyway, Dalver-Nah, whose teeth were introduced in the AD&D1e and should thus be considered Greyhawk artifacts, and Tenebrous, which is an alias for Orcus that was introduced in Planescape.
I definitely do not remember Greyhawk being particularly prominent since 1e. FR became the main setting, sort of took over, really, with so much lore it was seriously limiting game accessibility with any of the many tables or entire clubs who went 'all in.'
In 3e greyhawk was the default setting, most prominent very easily could have been FR as that is more determined by sales. Check your books, and the gods they defaulted you to.
There were definitely more FR novels, but for sourcebooks and modules, the large majority were setting-agnostic, and there were a fair number of Greyhawk adventures published (though a lot of them were in Dungeon magazine). Also, Living Greyhawk was 2000 to 2008 (corresponding to 3e).
I couldn't remember where the living setting was, I assumed Greyhawk but I was not positive. It wasn't a change for me my 1e-3e was mostly greyhawk, the occasional spell jammer, dark sun, planescape as well. Though I also did a lot of Mystara and hollow wolrd when doing BECMI.
Been doing FR in 5e but its a different group and that is what they do. Time and moves across the country changes things.
Ravenloft was, at least initially, Forgotten Realms
From the Wikipedia entry, referencing a 1994 interview in Dragon magazine, "Game designer Rick Swan commented in 1994 that when the Ravenloft setting first came out, it "just didn't seem special, a Forgotten Realms variant with a few more bats""
As for Mordenkeinen, he is orginally Greyhawk, yes, but got around. His spells were on Forgotten Realms, too, not just Greyhawk ones.
(a) Rick Swan didn't write Ravenloft, and (b) that statement doesn't mean it was in the FR, it means it wasn't meaningfully different from the FR.
He doesn't have to have written it to have internal knowledge. You are correct that it technically does not say it was in the FR; but it also does not say it was in Greyhawk, either. It does reference FR, not any other setting. In a Ravenloft specific article, why reference FR specifically, like that?