Earth in the Forgotten Realms

[Renduaz]

For those of you who don't know, the existence of Earth and its universe, as well as the ability to reach it, is actually canonical in the Forgotten Realms setting. The ancestors of Mulhorand in Faerun were brought from Earth along with the Ancient Egyptian pantheon by Imaskari looking for manpower, Elminster is said to have visited Ed of the Greenwood in Earth, and there are other examples. I'm curious to hear from DM's who use FR settings, how would you incorporate Earth into the multiverse if at all? Is there information in the world, in places like ancient Mulhorandi/Imaskari sites or various plane travelers about reaching Earth, and would it be modern Earth or ancient Earth? Would Earth be the most powerful original sphere of Gods controlling the multiverse in the form of D&D dice, or is it just a weak low-magic place that somehow treats other realms like a game?

[PattThe]

well duh, Ed Greenwood would not have learned of Abeir-Toril had he not met with Elminster in the Midwestern United States.

In seriousness, Ed was writing his setting 'before D&D existed'. Creatures like the Maulagrym and Phaerimm are storybook monsters from a world builder, not D&D enemies. When Ed did run D&D games in his own setting, well, he has said on his twitter and on the cc web forums that he doesn't like to use Demons and Devils (as they were statted back in old school D&D) because they were 'too powerful for the kinds of games' he ran. Claims to have never liked statting gods or the 'the pcs can kill anything' vibe. But he's not one to outwardly hate on much of anything on the web.

There are countless material planes. Myth has been said about vast phlogiston behemoths who crap out hundreds of crystal spheres regularly. Really the only cultural exchange from Earth to Elminster that Ed claims to have done in-lore is to share foods and such. You can easily find a depiction of Elminster and Mordenkainen etc having a smoke in Ed's earth living room or study or something. There's endless holes to dive into for the ways the man interacts with his self-insert.

It is true that humans gated into the realms (on MANY occasions) have happened, with the Imiskari slaves being from Mesopotamia and Egypt- and that those mass captures were also at different time periods. Earth and Faerun's realmspace are not linked on any temporal anchor. Elminster can travel to earth in the 70's as easily as he can get there in the ancient past, I'm sure.

[KorvinStarmast]

well duh, Ed Greenwood would not have learned of Abeir-Toril had he not met with Elminster in the Midwestern United States. Or Canada. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Greenwood)

In seriousness, Ed was writing his setting 'before D&D existed'. Creatures like the Maulagrym and Phaerimm are storybook monsters from a world builder, not D&D enemies. Aye.

Claims to have never liked statting gods or the 'the pcs can kill anything' vibe. But he's not one to outwardly hate on much of anything on the web. One of the few things I agree whole heartedly with EG on.

It is true that humans gated into the realms (on MANY occasions) have happened, with the Imiskari slaves being from Mesopotamia and Egypt- and that those mass captures were also at different time periods. Earth and Faerun's realmspace are not linked on any temporal anchor. Elminster can travel to earth in the 70's as easily as he can get there in the ancient past, I'm sure. When a guy walks into Baldur's Gate and, when asked his name replies, "My name is Bond, James Bond" shenanigans are sure to follow. (Yes, a friend of mine did it, with the Walther being morphed into a wand of magic missile). Good fun.

[Psyren]

how would you incorporate Earth into the multiverse if at all?
...
just a weak low-magic place that somehow treats other realms like a game?

Probably that one, unless I was doing some kind of isekai where a really genre-savvy D&D optimizer shows up in Faerun with their smartphone or something.

[KorvinStarmast]

Probably that one, unless I was doing some kind of isekai where a really genre-savvy D&D optimizer shows up in Faerun with their smartphone or something. That cell phone gets no bars in Faerun, and I hear that the roaming charges (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0220.html) are extortionary. :smalleek::smallyuk:

[Unoriginal]

For those of you who don't know, the existence of Earth and its universe, as well as the ability to reach it, is actually canonical in the Forgotten Realms setting. The ancestors of Mulhorand in Faerun were brought from Earth along with the Ancient Egyptian pantheon by Imaskari looking for manpower, Elminster is said to have visited Ed of the Greenwood in Earth, and there are other examples. I'm curious to hear from DM's who use FR settings, how would you incorporate Earth into the multiverse if at all? Is there information in the world, in places like ancient Mulhorandi/Imaskari sites or various plane travelers about reaching Earth, and would it be modern Earth or ancient Earth?

Earth is canonically one of the D&D worlds in the Material Plane, yes. Mordenkainen and others also visited it.

As for information about it, I would say that it's some level of "it exists" among people who study other worlds, but that it remains anecdotic. There are more interesting places to study, after all.



Would Earth be the most powerful original sphere of Gods controlling the multiverse in the form of D&D dice, or is it just a weak low-magic place that somehow treats other realms like a game?

The second, definitively.

[Psyren]

That cell phone gets no bars in Faerun, and I hear that the roaming charges (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0220.html) are extortionary. :smalleek::smallyuk:

I'm sure Gond and Waukeen can fix that :smallbiggrin:

[Sigreid]

Wonderland as in Alice in Wonderland is cannon too. It was a fun adventure back in the day.

[Naanomi]

There are several versions of 'earth' out there in DnD canon, including its own crystal sphere but also in alternative parallel cosmologies with Oerth (which also includes two other, slightly magical versions of historical Earth)

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm sure Gond and Waukeen can fix that :smallbiggrin: I am sure that they can't. The FR runs on metaphysics, not physics. :smallwink:

(Arrgh, I'd forgotten that Oerth and Earth had some overlap, good call Naanomi!)

[Unoriginal]

I'm also certain the famed adventurer, Erac's Cousin, was transported to Mars for a while and had many adventures there.

[Psyren]

I am sure that they can't. The FR runs on metaphysics, not physics. :smallwink:

They wouldn't have to create Wi-Fi in Faerun. Just give me a link back home, similar to "In Another World With My Smartphone" and similar works.

[Sigreid]

They wouldn't have to create Wi-Fi in Faerun. Just give me a link back home, similar to "In Another World With My Smartphone" and similar works.

Build in a tiny arcane gate.

[PattThe]

I am sure that they can't. The FR runs on metaphysics, not physics. :smallwink:

(Arrgh, I'd forgotten that Oerth and Earth had some overlap, good call Naanomi!)

Thnx for the fact check. Also, yeah Oerth is exactly that. Two guys host war-gaming night with something 'different' and breaks out the original map of the Flanness (definitely with a proto-survival guide note-pile and percentile dice) and when people start asking what this place is one of em just says earth in a funny voice. To put it vaguely and without fact checking.
But I always heard that Oerth was like, actually flat and that it was like that one MTG plane where it's a cosmic central nexus crossroads for extraplanar beings and that it has leylines running through it.
And then there's the situation regarding Shou Lung..

[tenshiakodo]

Is it canonical? I mean, didn't Crawford say that nothing before 5e is canon?

[InvisibleBison]

Is it canonical? I mean, didn't Crawford say that nothing before 5e is canon?

The whole notion of D&D having a canon at all is a bit silly. Every group/DM is free to do whatever they want for their own games, regardless of what it says in the books.

[Sigreid]

The whole notion of D&D having a canon at all is a bit silly. Every group/DM is free to do whatever they want for their own games, regardless of what it says in the books.

Was always meant to be a framework for you to create your own adventures.

[Naanomi]

My assumption regarding 'canon' for DnD Lore is that old lore still stands as valid until contradicted by newer publications, that lore presented as in-game scholarly work can be wrong, and that if lore published around the same time is contradictory and with equally definitive sourcing that the lore that requires less modification of existing material is assumed to stand until proven otherwise

There are a few exceptions to those ideas (some authors go off the rails with little concern to adhering to existing ideas and are hard to reconcile) but in general it works

[PattThe]

Is it canonical? I mean, didn't Crawford say that nothing before 5e is canon?

One useful distinction to make when discussing fundamentals is to say something would take place "In Ed's realms" or not. In Ed's Realms, well, lots of crazy stuff happens that the typical audience doesn't know about.

[Sigreid]

Honestly, canon only matters at all if you're doing some kind of organized play where everyone has to be on the same page about how key parts of the world work.

[Scots Dragon]

Is it canonical? I mean, didn't Crawford say that nothing before 5e is canon?

I'm fairly sure my full opinion on that decision wouldn't make it past the content censors.

[Unoriginal]

Is it canonical? I mean, didn't Crawford say that nothing before 5e is canon?

The 5e devs did reference Elminster and Mordenkainen visiting Earth, in some of their videos.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

We are finishing up a campaign where the party was able to use a teleportation circle to get to 1960ish Earth and mercifully get back. It was very fun but the setting is challenging. Now i have another year or two of DMing under my belt I wonder if I could handle the faster interactions and denser population of earth better.

FWIW, even for modern technology if only one star in each galaxy of our universe (the material plane) had a D&D type world on it would we even know?

[Sigreid]

FWIW, even for modern technology if only one star in each galaxy of our universe (the material plane) had a D&D type world on it would we even know?

No, we wouldn't. With our current technology we can verify that statistically there should be life, even intelligent life somewhere else, but we're entirely incapable of proving it unless they drive up and say "hi".

[KorvinStarmast]

Is it canonical? I mean, didn't Crawford say that nothing before 5e is canon? Canon as applied to D&D strikes me as a non sequitur unless you break it down into a specific world, in a specific edition, but even there you usually have multiple authors (TSR publishing) so 'canon' isn't a good term. (On the other hand Eberron probably has some decent continuity).

Honestly, canon only matters at all if you're doing some kind of organized play where everyone has to be on the same page about how key parts of the world work. This fits better.
With our current technology we can verify that statistically there should be life, even intelligent life somewhere else, but we're entirely incapable of proving it unless they drive up and say "hi". Or even Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo, mellon.
I am pretty sure that Eärendil the Marinier speaks elvish. Until our tech allows us farther travel, I operate under the assumption that intelligent life that reaches us to offer a greeting, or other interaction, will be a lot smarter than the humans they encounter.

[Sigreid]

Canon as applied to D&D strikes me as a non sequitur unless you break it down into a specific world, in a specific edition, but even there you usually have multiple authors (TSR publishing) so 'canon' isn't a good term. (On the other hand Eberron probably has some decent continuity).
This fits better. Or even Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo, mellon.
I am pretty sure that Eärendil the Marinier speaks elvish. Until our tech allows us farther travel, I operate under the assumption that intelligent life that reaches us to offer a greeting, or other interaction, will be a lot smarter than the humans they encounter.

Not necessarily smarter, but with more knowledge. Possibly only in specific areas. It's doubtful that at a species we are actually smarter than we were 2000 years ago, but we have 2000 more years of people trying to figure things out without having to rediscover what was figured out previously.

[KorvinStarmast]

Not necessarily smarter, but with more knowledge. Possibly only in specific areas. It's doubtful that at a species we are actually smarter than we were 2000 years ago, but we have 2000 more years of people trying to figure things out without having to rediscover what was figured out previously. We stand on the shoulders of ... Etruscans? :smallsmile:

[Sigreid]

We stand on the shoulders of ... Etruscans? :smallsmile:

In the Stargate SG1 series there was a point where Thor explained that they needed help from the humans because they needed different thinking and technology. While the Asgardians were unquestionably more advanced than the humans, they'd never developed fire arms like ours. After seeing them they understood how they worked, but their way of thinking as a species meant that it never, ever would have occurred to them to create weapons that fire a projectile using a chemical explosion.

[Imbalance]

Thor: "It was your stupid idea, Major Carter."

I don't know much about Forgotten Realms canon, but I suscribe to an all-encompassing application of Hypertime Theory (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertime#:~:text=Hypertime%2C%20described%20in%20 The%20Kingdom,by%20Crisis%20on%20Infinite%20Earths .) wherein basically everything is canon, it all happened, and every 'verse is interconnected and often a parallel version of some other fiction, including IRL Earth.

[KorvinStarmast]

I suscribe to an all-encompassing application of Hypertime Theory (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertime#:~:text=Hypertime%2C%20described%20in%20 The%20Kingdom,by%20Crisis%20on%20Infinite%20Earths .) wherein basically everything is canon, it all happened, and every 'verse is interconnected and often a parallel version of some other fiction, including IRL Earth. In short, Chaos. :smallsmile:

[PhoenixPhyre]

I don't know much about Forgotten Realms canon, but I suscribe to an all-encompassing application of Hypertime Theory (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertime#:~:text=Hypertime%2C%20described%20in%20 The%20Kingdom,by%20Crisis%20on%20Infinite%20Earths .) wherein basically everything is canon, it all happened, and every 'verse is interconnected and often a parallel version of some other fiction, including IRL Earth.

While my own personal setting is explicitly locked off from the rest of everything else (with angels having primary charge to destroy anything trying to leak into the enclosed space), I have the larger "universe" (metaverse? Meta-multiverse? the set of all universes) being embedded in the Dreaming Dark. Every multiverse or universe ever dreamed up by anyone is somewhere in that conceptual space, where distance is not a physical thing but a matter of mindset (universe concepts that are "close" in nature are also "close" in meta-space) and matter is not, only thought and will. And all of those were brought into being by one or more Dreamers, entities born from the primordial Dark when it Dreamed of Self (and thus implied the existence of Not-Self).

So the D&D multiverse? Is a shared dream of a bunch of Dreamers, somewhere out in concept space. As is the "real world". As are all other "fictional" worlds. They're all out there, even if they claim to be the only ones, and even if within each of them are contained multitudes of universes. As are all possible branches of each of those--the Forest of IF. And particular events can cause those branches to collapse into each other. My current party is dealing with a (localized) probability-tree collapse phenomenon right now.

[Naanomi]

Older DnD lore says that all universes exist in the vast medium and are created by the Old Ones/Eldest (no, not GOOlok patrons) for their own inscrutable reasons; travel between them is technically possible {in 3.5 you had to traverse the deep shadow plane} but almost never intentionally (and there is some evidence that the Eldest Ones try to keep their petri dishes free from cross contamination)

It is explicit in even older products that the Earth parallel to Oerth (and the rest of them) is not the same as the Earth-Space Crystal sphere (despite the obvious similarities)

[Joe the Rat]

Between Ed's kitchen talks with Elm and Mordy, St. Cuthbert's Cudgel being in a museum in London, and The fabulous Dragon Magazine 83, where Baba Yaga, besides existing in D&D lore in the first place, has a room in the basement of her Dancing Hut that contains a WWII Russian Tank and a Warhammer steam cannon, not to mention Murlynd's existence (being from whatever version of Earth Boot Hill was set in), they pretty well wired Earth in as a Place That Exists.

In context, these are more winks and nods for the players than foundational lore, but by what exists of canon we are in the Multiverse somewhere, albeit one with some fairly stringent access rules. I think it's best served as a place to be from or source of oddities rather than a playfield or destination. I do rather like the idea of someone coming in as a Far Traveler type Genre Savvy character, only to find out they are Wrong Genre Savvy in terms of the world they are in.