# Ed Greenwood - Maker: Game designer - Date: b. 1959 - Houses: TSR, Inc., Wizards of the Coast - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/ed-greenwood/ > A Toronto library clerk whose boyhood story-world grew, through years of Dragon magazine articles and a famously detailed home campaign, into the Forgotten Realms, D&D's most enduring setting. **Why it matters:** Greenwood created the Forgotten Realms, the setting behind the Gold Box games, Baldur's Gate, Drizzt and Baldur's Gate 3. His habit of writing lore in endless, lived-in detail became the model for a commercial campaign setting. ## Quick answers **Who is Ed Greenwood?** A Toronto library clerk whose boyhood story-world grew, through years of Dragon magazine articles and a famously detailed home campaign, into the Forgotten Realms, D&D's most enduring setting. **When was Ed Greenwood born?** Ed Greenwood was born in 1959. **What is Ed Greenwood known for?** Ed Greenwood is best known for Forgotten Realms. **Why does Ed Greenwood matter to fantasy and games?** Greenwood created the Forgotten Realms, the setting behind the Gold Box games, Baldur's Gate, Drizzt and Baldur's Gate 3. His habit of writing lore in endless, lived-in detail became the model for a commercial campaign setting. ## Life Ed Greenwood was born on July 21, 1959, and grew up in Don Mills, a planned suburb in Toronto. The world that would make him famous is older than his career. By the mid-1960s he was already writing stories set in a place he called the Forgotten Realms, his "dream space for swords and sorcery stories." He imagined it as one world in a multiverse that also contained Earth, forgotten because the doors between them had closed. In his version, our myths and legends were half-remembered echoes of it. He found [Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/original-dungeons-and-dragons/) in 1975 and soon moved his stories onto the tabletop. His campaign centered on the port city of Waterdeep and the small farming dale of Shadowdale. By his account, his players were the ones who made it huge: they wanted the world to feel real, with honest jobs and daily routines, and the campaign kept growing to supply them. From 1974 he also worked at the North York public library, and he stayed there, as a clerk and sometimes as a librarian, well into the years when his world filled bookstore shelves. He has lived for decades in rural Ontario. ## Work The Realms reached print through [*The Dragon*](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/dragon-magazine/). Beginning with its 30th issue in 1979, Greenwood contributed a steady stream of articles on monsters, spells and magic items, all set in his world. Many were framed as the musings of a garrulous old wizard, Elminster of Shadowdale, who would become the setting's mascot. Readers were getting glimpses of a world far bigger than any single article. In 1986 [TSR, Inc.](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/tsr/) went looking for a new setting for [AD&D](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/advanced-dungeons-and-dragons/), one more open-ended than the tightly plotted epic of [Dragonlance](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragonlance/). Designer Jeff Grubb was sent to find out what lay behind Greenwood's articles. Grubb asked whether he made it up as he went or really had a huge campaign world, and Greenwood answered yes to both. He sold the setting to TSR for what has been reported as a token $5,000 and a promise to publish his novels, then shipped Lake Geneva dozens of boxes of pencil notes and maps. The *Forgotten Realms Campaign Set* by Greenwood and Grubb, the famous "grey box" of 1987, sold around 80,000 copies in its first year and some 207,000 by 1999. It also reportedly left part of its map undeveloped for licensed computer games, a sign of what TSR planned for the setting. What followed was the largest shared world in gaming. The Realms became home to [SSI](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/strategic-simulations-inc/)'s Gold Box series starting with [Pool of Radiance](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/pool-of-radiance/), to [Eye of the Beholder](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/eye-of-the-beholder/), and later to [Baldur's Gate](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate/), [Neverwinter Nights](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/neverwinter-nights/) and [Baldur's Gate 3](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate-3/). In novels it produced [R. A. Salvatore](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/r-a-salvatore/)'s dark elf Drizzt, introduced in [The Icewind Dale Trilogy](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-icewind-dale-trilogy/). Greenwood wrote dozens of Realms novels of his own, beginning with *Spellfire* and continuing through the Elminster series from *Elminster: The Making of a Mage* (1994). He also wrote or contributed to supplements such as the *Volo's Guide* books and *Ruins of Undermountain*, an early published mega-dungeon, and appeared as Elminster at conventions. His loyalty to the Realms outlasted its owner. When TSR neared collapse in 1996–97, he offered to write material for free to help keep it afloat. After [Wizards of the Coast](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/wizards-of-the-coast/) bought the company, CEO [Peter Adkison](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/peter-adkison/) phoned him at the library to ask him to keep going, and he did, writing Realmslore columns and novels through several editions of the game. Outside the Realms he created Castlemourn for [Margaret Weis](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/margaret-weis/)'s company and wrote the *Band of Four* novels for [Tor](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/tor-books/). ## Legacy Greenwood's influence on the idea of a [Campaign setting](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/campaign-setting/) is hard to overstate. Before the Realms, most published worlds were sketches meant for referees to finish. Greenwood's was dense with innkeepers, trade routes, minor gods and gossip, a model of the maximalist [Worldbuilding](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/worldbuilding/) that later settings from Golarion to Eberron would imitate or react against. The Realms also became the setting D&D most often carried into other media. For many players, "Dungeons & Dragons" means Waterdeep, Baldur's Gate and the Sword Coast because of it. He was inducted into the Gamer's Choice Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design's Hall of Fame in 2003. The world he started writing as a boy in Toronto has outlasted TSR itself and remains the default home of the official game. ## Facts - He began writing stories set in the Realms as a child in the mid-1960s, a decade before he discovered Dungeons & Dragons in 1975. - His first Realms article, about a monster called the curst, appeared in the 30th issue of The Dragon in 1979. - Asked whether he made it up as he went or really had a huge world, he answered yes to both. - He reportedly sold his rights to the Realms to TSR for a token $5,000 plus a promise to publish his novels. - He shipped TSR dozens of cardboard boxes of pencil notes and maps when the setting went into development. - He kept working at the North York public library, where he had worked since 1974, long after the Realms became a bestselling line. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Greenwood) - [Wikipedia: Forgotten Realms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forgotten_Realms) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.