D&D 5E Forgotten realms recent history

[twofalls]

Hey folks, I'm wondering if anyone has at the tip of their fingers a website (or consolidated sourcebook) that gives a detailed current history of the realms from about DR 1370 to present. I have a very solid grasp on the history before then, but I am quite murky on how the current situation in the Realms have come to pass. I've been casting about online for a half an hour so far, and haven't found what I need, but I will keep searching.

Edit: I would be nice if that source incorporated a suggested timeline for the 5e adventures too, but not absolutely needed.

 

[see]

Detailed? Not really possible.

There's two pages of The Grand History of the Realms dealing with 1375-1385 DR, there's very little history of any kind given anywhere for 1385-1479, there's some stuff on the "Second Sundering" 1482-1489, and then there's purely the 5e adventures for then on.

 

[Alzrius]

I'm not sure that there is a comprehensive overview of that entire period. The closest I can find is the Forgotten Realms wiki's entries for the Wailing Years and the Second Sundering, but there's a nearly a century between the two that has scant coverage.

EDIT: It's not canon, but apparently Brian R. James was making post-Spellplague updates to the timeline on his Twitter account for a while. The FR wiki includes them in its entries, but there doesn't seem to be a collection of them into one easy timeline. Fortunately there's a Wayback Machine entry of the page that does from the now-defunct WotC forums.

 

[twofalls]

Given the popularity of the game setting, it has to be a conscious decision on the part of WoTC to leave this period of the timeline vague. I find that very disappointing, considering the efforts that have been put into the lore of this world. I do appreciate your responses. Thanks.

 

[tetrasodium]

Hey folks, I'm wondering if anyone has at the tip of their fingers a website (or consolidated sourcebook) that gives a detailed current history of the realms from about DR 1370 to present. I have a very solid grasp on the history before then, but I am quite murky on how the current situation in the Realms have come to pass. I've been casting about online for a half an hour so far, and haven't found what I need, but I will keep searching.

Edit: I would be nice if that source incorporated a suggested timeline for the 5e adventures too, but not absolutely needed.

Not really possible. A big part of the problem is that FR is one giant kudzu plot pretending it's not while trying to be all points in history at once including both before and after a major event in too many cases rather than settling on what it is now & making that work. You can pull together a history for a setting like darksun where the current state of affairs with the sorcerer kings citystate & burned out world from a 1000foot view is a settled fact allowing you to extrapolate back & piece together various bits n bobs to estimate how things went down in the past to get from there to here. By contrast eberron is always going to be 998yk unless your gm moves the timeline up/back or keith/wotc is writing about some past event past culture or whatever making it possible for someone to take all the various bits & fill in some extra to create a literal 500page fanmade history textbook that reads a heck of a lot more like one than a rpg book.


Using physics terms, I don't think what you are asking for is possible until wotc stops faffing about with worldshaking metaplot overhauls of schrodinger's setting & collapses the wave function to declare that ####DR is the current date & "this" is the state of things going forward.

 

[Burnside]

Hey folks, I'm wondering if anyone has at the tip of their fingers a website (or consolidated sourcebook) that gives a detailed current history of the realms from about DR 1370 to present. I have a very solid grasp on the history before then, but I am quite murky on how the current situation in the Realms have come to pass. I've been casting about online for a half an hour so far, and haven't found what I need, but I will keep searching.

Edit: I would be nice if that source incorporated a suggested timeline for the 5e adventures too, but not absolutely needed.

It is deliberately vague. I understand the frustration, but I also appreciate the advantage from their viewpoint. Too much continuity and lore can leave a setting hidebound - and I think a lot of people would make that argument about FR with some validity.

However, I do think it's possible to make a rough timeline of the official 5E adventures. This site takes a good stab at that:
The Official Timeline for the Forgotten Realms and Its Adventures

 

[aco175]

I would rather have more myself, but it does give me the advantage to use my 2e books without changing that much.

 

[twofalls]

Thanks Burnside, this is the best I've seen so far.
Edit: I do own a copy of the Grand History. It's required reading for my style of game.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

Not really possible. A big part of the problem is that FR is one giant kudzu plot pretending it's not while trying to be all points in history at once including both before and after a major event in too many cases rather than settling on what it is now & making that work. You can pull together a history for a setting like darksun where the current state of affairs with the sorcerer kings citystate & burned out world from a 1000foot view is a settled fact allowing you to extrapolate back & piece together various bits n bobs to estimate how things went down in the past to get from there to here. By contrast eberron is always going to be 998yk unless your gm moves the timeline up/back or keith/wotc is writing about some past event past culture or whatever making it possible for someone to take all the various bits & fill in some extra to create a literal 500page fanmade history textbook that reads a heck of a lot more like one than a rpg book.


Using physics terms, I don't think what you are asking for is possible until wotc stops faffing about with worldshaking metaplot overhauls of schrodinger's setting & collapses the wave function to declare that ####DR is the current date & "this" is the state of things going forward.

I had read somewhere before that that was always going to be a problem with Marvel Comics' histories, where the comics are set in an indeterminate generic year - like 201X - at some point, WW2 and real world events have aged past Reed Richards or Nick Fury's age.

 

[Shiroiken]

There has been a radical shift in the way information about the Realms handles events. In the past, the primary push of the story was from the novels, with most of the important events reprinted in later supplements. This continued in a very limited since during 4E, but the number of novels was greatly reduced, and to my knowledge no supplements added that information. Early 5E had the Sundering novels that brought the timeline to date, but AFAIK the other novels may not have been considered canon. SCAG provided some history, but was far more focused as an introduction for new players. The AP may or may not be considered canon, as this is left undefined, but with location details provided in Dragon Heist and Avernus, I'd image that would be considered canon. One of the reasons many FR fans really want a setting book (besides being bored of the Sword Coast) would be an update on the rest of the Realms.