I'm relatively new to D&D lore. In the 5e core books they mention a few different worlds that standard D&D campaigns take place in - The Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Faerun, Eberron... Maybe I'm forgetting one or two.
I want to start learning a lot of lore, but I have no idea which world to start with. I don't know about any of them and the differences between them.
If you guys have any tips or info about each world, comparisons between them, anything that could help me decide which world to focus on (at least in the beginning), I'd love to know. Thanks in advance https://xender.vip/.
Most published 5e books focus on the Forgotten Realms as the assumed locale. Even when discussing the multiverse, the Forgotten Realms are present and visible. It's worth knowing that Faerun is the Forgotten Realms.
I'd start there because the material is easy to find, accessible, and relevant as the common ground we all share no matter what we do at our home tables. After that, going into the other settings should be done based on whatever you find most interesting.
90% of it is going to be forgotten realms. the rest is going to be whichever module you pick up. Dragonlance's world is popular.
Don't get overly invested in the lore though, you're only going to be there for a little while before you go home brew (even if you leave all the rules, monsters, items, and characters alone)
I concur that the Forgotten Realms is probably the best place to start as it is the main setting. However, it may help to know that each setting has a genre that helps to make it unique.
For the FR you can think of Lord of the Rings as a fair comparison.
Eberron is a Steam Punk setting.
Ravenloft is a dark, gothic, horror setting known for Vampire.
I suggest doing a brief search on the different settings to get a feel for them before making your selection just in case there is a different direction you want to go now or in the future. Most people play in FR though, so all else equal I agree with the general consensus.
Another question to ask is what do you want the lore for? If, like me, you want a world that others move forward in time and you just have to fit your changes, NPCs and PCs into then FR is probably the best as it has both the most lore ( well kept up via the wiki) and is updated via novels and the occasional setting book/adventure module. If you want a place you can set single adventures into then most of the settings will work fine. If your looking for ideas for your own homebrew again any will work but FR has the most possbilities so it’s, as others have pointed out, your best starting place.
Another question to ask is what do you want the lore for? If, like me, you want a world that others move forward in time and you just have to fit your changes, NPCs and PCs into then FR is probably the best as it has both the most lore ( well kept up via the wiki) and is updated via novels and the occasional setting book/adventure module. If you want a place you can set single adventures into then most of the settings will work fine. If your looking for ideas for your own homebrew again any will work but FR has the most possbilities so it’s, as others have pointed out, your best starting place.
I kinda feel like Dragonlance and Eberron are actually the best for home brew. I don't know about Eberrron but Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms used to have a lot of novels published under their headings. Dragonlance was more of its own contained epic, but it was flavorful enough that you had a world rich in details through that one sort of adventure, but the bulk of the world was left unexplored.
Forgotten realms has undergone many..... I don't want to say revisions, but when it comes to the main setting for D&D campaigns and content, each version of D&D feels like it has a different forgotten realms. Like the Forgotten realms I read back in the 90's would not really be the forgotten realms of today.
Conversely, SO many adventure modules have been written for forgotten realms it feels like there's little left to discover, regardless of its inconsistencies.
Eberron is a shattered world. It WAS one thing, and now it's lots of places with random bits of magic, so, it gives you a lot of freedom if you're looking for somewhere to go without creating your own world whole cloth.
The Forgotten Realms (Toril is the world, Faerun is the main continent) will have the most in depth lore. It's been around for decades. There's a Forgotten Realms wiki that you can easily access. There is a lot of lore from previous editions that the younger generation finds to be "triggering". (Such as Drow & Orcs bad, Humans and Dwarves good.) Although with 5th edition the lore is being modernized to remove those aspects. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is set on this world, as is the Baldur's Gate 3 game that was recently released. It is based on Earth's medieval period but with a magical revolution instead of the industrial revolution that we eventually had.
Aexandria has the Tal'Dorei & Wildmount continent sourcebooks, as well as its own wiki with a lot of lore in it. It was built to be more "inclusive" and is the world that Critical Role and The Legend of Vox Machina is set upon.
Ravnica is a world-spanning city run by ten guilds that the players get to choose from to be part of. It is a world of techno-magic and social intrigue. It is sci-fi punk type of world.
Greyhawk (the planet Oerth) was the original D&D realm. It's lower fantasy and mostly dormant in 5th edition. The Forgotten Realms just overpowered it in popularity.
Eberron (main continent of Khorvaire) is more modern and is probably best described as a swashbuckling combination of D&D and Steampunk. A magical and technological world akin to Earth at the turn of the 20th century with their "War to end all wars" recently ended.
Dark Sun is the fiercest campaign setting and completely dormant in 5th edition. A mixture of sci-fi & fantasy, the world is a post-apocalypse savage wasteland with boiling suns forcing players to constantly fight to survive the elements and the creatures who want to kill them and take their stuff. This is the realm with the harshest lore that those who need trigger warnings had best avoid at all costs. This wasteland isn't the result of some single cataclysm but of wizards slowly exhausting the planet's resources. Arcane magic is powered by the lifeforce of the planet itself, and thus reviled and outlaw.
Spelljammer is space fantasy set in the Astral Sea which is what every D&D realm (spheres) float in. The Giff (a pistol wielding hippo race that is at war with itself because they disagree with the way to pronounce their name), Elves that are legally distinct from Vulcans and evil Space Clowns are just some of what this setting has to offer.
Add Mystara, the other pre FR game world from Gygax and company. Again pretty much dormant/dead in 5e. There was a computer game based in it long before the Baldur’s gate games, maybe the first d&d computer game. I might even have a copy of it in my old stuff somewhere.
As others have said, Forgotten Realms is the main campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons. The books I would recommend to familiarize yourself with the general lore are:
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (3E)
Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide (4E)
Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (5E)
The first book is where I always start. It gives the most comprehensive general overview of every country in Faerun prior to the Spellplague. The second will fill in the gaps on what happened during and shortly after the Spellplague, but it's less comprehensive than the first. The last will fill in the gaps of what happened during and after the Second Sundering, but it's a very general overview.
If you want to get more information on a particular region, I would say do a search of the Forgotten Realms Wiki, go down to the reference section, and look up the books that they reference. 2E books will almost always have the most detailed lore, followed by 3E.
I'm relatively new to D&D lore. In the 5e core books they mention a few different worlds that standard D&D campaigns take place in - The Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, Faerun, Eberron... Maybe I'm forgetting one or two.
I want to start learning a lot of lore, but I have no idea which world to start with. I don't know about any of them and the differences between them.
If you guys have any tips or info about each world, comparisons between them, anything that could help me decide which world to focus on (at least in the beginning), I'd love to know. Thanks in advance https://xender.vip/.
Most published 5e books focus on the Forgotten Realms as the assumed locale. Even when discussing the multiverse, the Forgotten Realms are present and visible. It's worth knowing that Faerun is the Forgotten Realms.
I'd start there because the material is easy to find, accessible, and relevant as the common ground we all share no matter what we do at our home tables. After that, going into the other settings should be done based on whatever you find most interesting.
90% of it is going to be forgotten realms. the rest is going to be whichever module you pick up. Dragonlance's world is popular.
Don't get overly invested in the lore though, you're only going to be there for a little while before you go home brew (even if you leave all the rules, monsters, items, and characters alone)
I concur that the Forgotten Realms is probably the best place to start as it is the main setting. However, it may help to know that each setting has a genre that helps to make it unique.
For the FR you can think of Lord of the Rings as a fair comparison.
Eberron is a Steam Punk setting.
Ravenloft is a dark, gothic, horror setting known for Vampire.
I suggest doing a brief search on the different settings to get a feel for them before making your selection just in case there is a different direction you want to go now or in the future. Most people play in FR though, so all else equal I agree with the general consensus.
Hope that helps.
Another question to ask is what do you want the lore for? If, like me, you want a world that others move forward in time and you just have to fit your changes, NPCs and PCs into then FR is probably the best as it has both the most lore ( well kept up via the wiki) and is updated via novels and the occasional setting book/adventure module. If you want a place you can set single adventures into then most of the settings will work fine. If your looking for ideas for your own homebrew again any will work but FR has the most possbilities so it’s, as others have pointed out, your best starting place.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I kinda feel like Dragonlance and Eberron are actually the best for home brew. I don't know about Eberrron but Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms used to have a lot of novels published under their headings. Dragonlance was more of its own contained epic, but it was flavorful enough that you had a world rich in details through that one sort of adventure, but the bulk of the world was left unexplored.
Forgotten realms has undergone many..... I don't want to say revisions, but when it comes to the main setting for D&D campaigns and content, each version of D&D feels like it has a different forgotten realms. Like the Forgotten realms I read back in the 90's would not really be the forgotten realms of today.
Conversely, SO many adventure modules have been written for forgotten realms it feels like there's little left to discover, regardless of its inconsistencies.
Eberron is a shattered world. It WAS one thing, and now it's lots of places with random bits of magic, so, it gives you a lot of freedom if you're looking for somewhere to go without creating your own world whole cloth.
Off the top of my head:
The Forgotten Realms (Toril is the world, Faerun is the main continent) will have the most in depth lore. It's been around for decades. There's a Forgotten Realms wiki that you can easily access. There is a lot of lore from previous editions that the younger generation finds to be "triggering". (Such as Drow & Orcs bad, Humans and Dwarves good.) Although with 5th edition the lore is being modernized to remove those aspects. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is set on this world, as is the Baldur's Gate 3 game that was recently released. It is based on Earth's medieval period but with a magical revolution instead of the industrial revolution that we eventually had.
Aexandria has the Tal'Dorei & Wildmount continent sourcebooks, as well as its own wiki with a lot of lore in it. It was built to be more "inclusive" and is the world that Critical Role and The Legend of Vox Machina is set upon.
Ravnica is a world-spanning city run by ten guilds that the players get to choose from to be part of. It is a world of techno-magic and social intrigue. It is sci-fi punk type of world.
Greyhawk (the planet Oerth) was the original D&D realm. It's lower fantasy and mostly dormant in 5th edition. The Forgotten Realms just overpowered it in popularity.
Eberron (main continent of Khorvaire) is more modern and is probably best described as a swashbuckling combination of D&D and Steampunk. A magical and technological world akin to Earth at the turn of the 20th century with their "War to end all wars" recently ended.
Dark Sun is the fiercest campaign setting and completely dormant in 5th edition. A mixture of sci-fi & fantasy, the world is a post-apocalypse savage wasteland with boiling suns forcing players to constantly fight to survive the elements and the creatures who want to kill them and take their stuff. This is the realm with the harshest lore that those who need trigger warnings had best avoid at all costs. This wasteland isn't the result of some single cataclysm but of wizards slowly exhausting the planet's resources. Arcane magic is powered by the lifeforce of the planet itself, and thus reviled and outlaw.
Spelljammer is space fantasy set in the Astral Sea which is what every D&D realm (spheres) float in. The Giff (a pistol wielding hippo race that is at war with itself because they disagree with the way to pronounce their name), Elves that are legally distinct from Vulcans and evil Space Clowns are just some of what this setting has to offer.
Add Mystara, the other pre FR game world from Gygax and company. Again pretty much dormant/dead in 5e. There was a computer game based in it long before the Baldur’s gate games, maybe the first d&d computer game. I might even have a copy of it in my old stuff somewhere.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
As others have said, Forgotten Realms is the main campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons. The books I would recommend to familiarize yourself with the general lore are:
The first book is where I always start. It gives the most comprehensive general overview of every country in Faerun prior to the Spellplague. The second will fill in the gaps on what happened during and shortly after the Spellplague, but it's less comprehensive than the first. The last will fill in the gaps of what happened during and after the Second Sundering, but it's a very general overview.
If you want to get more information on a particular region, I would say do a search of the Forgotten Realms Wiki, go down to the reference section, and look up the books that they reference. 2E books will almost always have the most detailed lore, followed by 3E.
Also the grand history of the realms that gives you the entire 35,000 year back story so you have some history to go with the current “clack”.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
One of these days, I need to pick that up. I hear good things about it, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet.
If your into the FR it’s well worth the money
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.