interesting plot and characters. Greenwood at his best

This is a classic Ed Greenwood treatise on the ins, outs, and forbidden hideaways of Cormyr - taverns, guilds, palaces, dungeons, new magic, it's all here! Lots of it exclusive and hard to find. Details include - the passwords and secrets of Cormyr, the great cities of Suzail, Marsember and Arabel, the lands of the coast, the fascinating heartlands (including the festivals of Jester's Green), the Knightswood, Waymot, the people and cultures, the Sword Heralds, new magic, and more!

This novel is a GREAT kickoff for the new Sembia series. The characterization is in-depth and believable, and the stories are loaded with action. Normally, I'd be a little concerned with a book that has seven different authors, but these guys (and ladies) pull it off great! Each story leads nicely into the next and you get to see each character through the other characters' eyes. I'm not sure I even have a favorite character yet. They're all good! An excellent read.

Let me say first that I haven't bought a Forgotten Realms novel in a few years. I'm glad I bought this one though. I agree with the otehr reviewer that Erevis Cale is the coolest (congratulations Mr. Kemp), but the rest are cool too, except only the father. Ed's story didn't do anything for me. The youngest son and daughter are probably second and third best. Most of the stories are dark, even grim, with interesting stories and fast-paced plots. The city of Selgaunt really came to life for me, and I got into each of the characters when their story came along. On the strength of this book, I've decided to give FR novels another shot.

I've been a Realms fan for about ten years. Some books are hits, some are misses, and some have been awful. The Halls of Stormweather is great. Granted, a couple things were predictable, and there was one glaring discrepancy in character relationships (reread the Patriarch and Matriarch stories and see if you can find it). The authors did an excellent job provoking interest in the main figures of each story--I'd even get the books about the characters I didn't like just because I want to know what happens to them. Shamur, Tazi, Cale, and the maid whose name I can't recall are my favorite characters. They've got the most depth. Overall it's a fun read and great if you've only got a few minutes at a time to spend on a book.

This is another good book for the Forgotten Realms line. Detailing the most famous of the (semi) secret societies. Also included are Harper NPC's the complete and slightly boring history of the Harpers, and other fun stuff. A must have for any Forgotten Realms DM.

This book is a must have for any game based in the Forgotten Realms setting.

This is one of the most coveted AD&D supplements of all time. Providing the in-depth source material for the incomparable Harpers, this 128-page book provides exclusive information on: the Code and its profound implications, the complete history of the Harpers, ways and powers of the Master Harpers, profiles on the most powerful Masters, lots of complete stats on famous characters, the High Heralds, allies and secrets, the famous, ever-veiled Haunts, new magic and spells, new magical treasures, nemeses, ballads, a new monster, and much more. This book has an unparalleled reputation for excellence - if you can, find out why!

Perhaps it is just my personal fascination with drow society, but I think this is the best of the many trilogies Salvatore has penned. He goes into great and fascinating detail on life in the Underdark, but you never become bored with the exposition. It is cleverly tied in with the lifestory of Drizzt Do'Urden, a hero that one quickly becomes extremely sympathetic with.

The character of Drizzt is appealing for a number of reasons. Many people will relate to him because Drizzt does not fit into his society. But this is because his innate goodness goes against the nature of most drow. The first book details his upbringing as a noble in Menzoberranzan, where he excels at fighting, but fails to understand the cruel nature of the world around him. In the second book, he is forced to leave the city and ranges the Underdark, finding some friends along the way. Finally, on the surface world, he is outcast as well - because of racial stereotyping.

I would actually recommend that people read this volume first, before Salvatore's first series ("The Crystal Shard", "Streams of Silver", etc). It is a great prequel to that series, and I personally think it's superior storytelling. Not that all of Salvatore's work isn't exciting, riveting stuff - this is just the best.

I read these books when I was 17, and I thought they were fantastic. It is now 8 years later, and I still enjoyed them. One great thing about this package is that you can sit down and read it cover-to-cover without carrying around 3 books. I had originally bought this set in order to have a complete copy for my future children, but decided to refresh my memory. It was delightful, and inside of a week, reading every night, at lunch, and at the breakfast table, I had finished the trilogy. It was so good that I didn't want to do anything else.

R.A. Salvatore really brought to life the legend of Drizzt Do'Urden in this absolutely wonderful trilogy set in the Forgotten Realms gaming universe. Salvatore's tortured dark elf has grown to be one of the most popular heros of all the Realms. Even though introduced in Salvatore's previous novels (the Crystal Shard trilogy). Drizzt's early life is documented through this thick tome, and just endears himself to both the new, and the Dungeons and Dragons experienced reader. For the new to the Realms reader, some of the creatures mentioned within are confusing, but overall the book is fantastic, and well written, and full of trademark Salvatore fight scenes! I felt that the final book in the set, Sojurn was my favorite, and have enjoyed all of Drizzt's other adventures very much.

I'm not a jaded sci-fi/fantasy reader; in fact, I haven't read a fantasy novel in a very long while, because a lot of them I found to be very pedestrian and not worth finishing. I just decided to pick this up, and this was one of the best fiction novels I have read in a very, very long time. I didn't think combat could be described on a page very well until I read this trilogy. Salvatore describes every move in glorious detail; you read it, and you see it in your mind's eye. The character development is top notch, all the hidden motivations of the main characters are not left to doubt. All three of these books are tense and gripping; it's a "just one more chapter" pageturner of a book. The first two books will shock you at what a ruthless and cold trip the climb to power and status can be (especially when your expected lifespan is 600+ years), and how The third book makes you feel Drizzt's frustration as he tries to find acceptance on the surface. I hope I get the same rush out of it the second time I read through it. So what if Drizzt seems to be the perfect warrior? There are enough heroes with fatal flaws out there, so there's plenty of room for an excellent story where the main character gives the baddies a well-deserved beat down, and you just sit back and smile at his success. A wonderful series.

I have to admit I was hesitant to shell out the 40 dollars for this book, as I don't really even like Forgotten Realms all that much. However, upon opening the cover of this tome I found a wonderful collection of added game material for any games and world material for Faerun.

I divide this book into two halves really, the general section and the Faerun section. The first half is a general section where races, prestige classes, feats, and spells specific to forgotten realms are found. All of these could easily be used in other campaigns. The character region system actually adds a lot of personality to various regions of the realm and once again can be converted for other worlds. New races include Planetouched Genasi, Aasimar, and Tieflings while all the old races return with some unusual new sub-races. Over 50 new feats grace this book and several new cleric domains and spells of all sorts can be found in here. Finally, a few new monsters can be found towards the rear of the book, including the dreaded Dracolich template.

The next section of the book is largely dominated by geography of Faerun. However this is pretty in-depth and actually provides a great deal of information and even a few plot points are thrown in. Also in the last section of the book the gods are explained and there are a whole bunch of dieties. My main complaint here is that they only described a few of them in depth, the rest appear as names on a chart. Now of course there are a few specifics that can be found in the realms, from NPC's to such powers as spellfire, and all of them can be found in this book. Although some more notable NPC's are nowhere to be seen, but all the biggies are there (Elminster, the seven sisters, Szess Tam, etc).

The book itself is wonderful. I'm glad to see the demise of the box set as hardcover books have a longer life time then the little softcovers they put in the boxes. The art inside is on par and in some cases better then the core rulebooks and so far I haven't found many errors within. The prestige classes and races are neat and interesting for the most part and the new feats are wonderful. The gem of this book in my opinion however is the region system. By picking a region your character originates from you gain access to feats and equipment from those areas. This adds an indescribable amount of personalization to any game world as people from each region will differ.

On the downside the book is overly expensive. While it has 80 pages more than the DMG it costs as much as 2 of them at 40 dollars. Also they do not go into enough depth with the dieties. of the 100+ dieties they describe only about 30 of them in any detail. How am I supposed to know if I want to worship the Red Knight based on his stats in a chart??? I would highly suggest this book for anyone who plans on adventuring in Faerun or who would take the time to customize the neat stuff in here for their own realms. If you don't have the drive to do that or you aren't gaming in Faerun, the price tag would seem a bit high to pick this one up. If it weren't for that darned price tag I'd say this book would be on par with the psionics handbook and players handbook even if it is realm specific!!!

Forgotten Realms is the most popular DnD campaign setting, and this hardback should contain all the information you'll need to create characters and adventures in this setting. The presentation is beautiful - full color throughout with plenty of illustrations to add flavour. The breadth of material is huge, covering races, classes, geography, trading, gods, important characters, spells etc.

The one problem I felt was that nothing is really covered in detail, making it difficult to find something that you can use "out of the box". Any campaign or adventure that you base in Forgotten Realms will require a fair bit of work on your part before you can get going. The "geography" area is particularly weak in this respect, with pages and pages of 2-line descriptions of villages that are really not helpful. Even major towns don't escape this treatment, and lack much in the way of gossip, local characters etc. that are so useful in building adventures. Major characters don't get much of a mention either. Elminster and Drizzt, two of the most popular characters in the setting get less than half a page each.

However, the flip side of this treatment and the main strength of Forgotten Realms is in the amount of background material that can be used to create detailed characters. You can create adventurers with a real feel of history and beliefs, pick one of those villages as your "home town", pick one of the various pantheon as your "patron god" etc. This is great - it just seems a pity that some areas such as characters and geography are lacking detail.

This excellent new book from Wizards of the Coast gives you everything you need to run a D&D (3rd edition) campaign in the Forgotten Realms. It includes prestige classes, life in the Forgotten Realms, deities, and much more. This book was made with a quality that took my breath away (especially comparing it to the old historical Campaign Sourcebooks)! It includes many color and black-and-white illustrations and maps.

I can't say more than it has *everything*! So, if you at all interested in the Forgotten Realms, or if you are interested in seeing a setting with interesting prestige classes and magical forms, then you must get this book!

Unlike the other reviewers, I found this particular collection to range from truly awful to good; there is nothing spectacular here, though. Troy Denning, an FR author I usually enjoy quite a bit (and whose first two books in this particular series are excellent), delivers a plodding, predictable story that degenerates into standard fantasy fiction stereotypes without any significant characterisation. This is atypical for Denning, and for this reason I am likely more disappointed than I might have been had another author penned the tale. Salvatore and Cunningham, as usual, deliver satisfying tales with memorable characters. Jessica Beaven is, to me at least, a new contributor. In my opinion, this should be her last attempt. Her tale was disjointed, stylistically pretentious and without any storytelling merit whatsoever. While this may tide one over between "The Siege" and the forthcoming "The Sorcerer," it would be best to not bring too much hope for an overall satisfying FR experience with this particular anthology.

This book provides an entertaining read even with the occasional poor story thrown in. The Theme of the book is interesting and several of the stories more than do it justice. The story by Paul Kemp was exceptionally entertaining, and the Lisa Smedman story was also very good. Salvatore's characters are always interesting and, although short, his story was a fun read. There are several others that make the book worth purchasing also, just accept that there will be some stories that will leave you shaking your head in disbelief. This book does prime the pump of interest in the return of the Shadovar adequately to make this an anticipated FR event.

From Lisa Smedman's Netherese mystery tale to Peter Archer's Indiana Jones-esque reprise of a character from Realms of Mystery, Realms of Shadow offers a nifty tie-in which stands effectively apart from the polarizing Return of the Archwizards trilogy (personally I like the trilogy a lot, but plenty of you don't -- do not let that discourage you from buying this anthology). I particularly like Paul Kemp's story (watching this guy. He's going to be Salvatore-big some day), Elaine Cunningham's comedy and Richard Lee Byers' adventure tale set in the ruins of Tilverton. Ed Greenwood's story sets some kind of "sets of villains in one story" record with four - phaerimm, malaugrym, shades and Bleth/Cormaeril renegade Cormyrians.

This magnificent book is truly worth buying. Not only do you get two books in one (the tales of Cormyr in the past and in present), but you'll also understand why Cormyr isn't just a goody-goody-lame-chivalric-disneyland. It is actually an authentic Medieval setting, with poisoning, intrigues, murders, lies, betrayals and even worse.

And the authors have managed to keep these 460+ pages easy to read, the action fluent and the characters interesting.

"Cormyr: a Novel" by Grubb & Greenwood was an excellant read. A wonderful addition to the Realms catalogue. Tackling both the history of Cormyr and a terrible event surrounding the King himself. This novel held my interest the whole way through, I couldn't put it down. I loved both of the stories, especially as they began to spiral in on themselves! I recomend this series (the next one, "Beyond the High Road") The Cormyr Saga, to any fan of the Realms. And hey, if you aren't a fan, this should make you one!

Ed Greenwood has done it once again. His brilliant style and intriguing plots have thrilled us, readers and gamers alike, hundreds of times in the past, and this novel is no exception! Mr. Greenwood has answered some of the fundamental questions regarding the colored history of the Realm's "State of Chivalry," juggling the vast timespan and interweaving storylines with skilled practice and ease. His ability to create awe-inspiring tales of love and mayhem where others would present bland rehashes of the same tales has truly made 'Cormyr' one of the best of the 'Forgotten Realms' series!

Just FYI: This review is for the 2nd Edition boxed set, not the D&D3 hardcover.

There is much to the old axiom of 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it', and as cliche as it might be, it holds very true to the 2nd Edition Forgotten Realms boxed set. Oversized text and space wasting boarder art notwithstanding, the 2nd Ed boxed set incorporates all of the nonsense of the 'Time of Troubles' trilogy of novels. It also adjusts the Dale Reckoning time line by almost a hundred years for no reason. It gives scant overviews of too large of an area, and almost nothing on the things that really matter, like characters, noble houses, and rivalries between states. It also brings out the worst of the Realms, like munchkin characters such as Drizzt Du'Urden and Elminster. Stick with the grey 1st Edition Boxed Set, it's a much superior version.

This excellent new book from Wizards of the Coast gives you everything you need to run a D&D (3rd edition) campaign in the Forgotten Realms. It includes prestige classes, life in the Forgotten Realms, deities, and much more. This book was made with a quality that took my breath away (especially comparing it to the old historical Campaign Sourcebooks)! It includes many color and black-and-white illustrations and maps.

I can't say more than it has *everything*! So, if you at all interested in the Forgotten Realms, or if you are interested in seeing a setting with interesting prestige classes and magical forms, then you must get this book!

I have always played in my own world, but it was slightly vague, and lacked what this boxed set has. I canabolized this into my campaign, but this can also be great by itself. Anyone looking to get into the Forgotten Realms setting or looking for good book should get this.

I found this book to be very detailed in its descriptions of the North, and liked the fact that it leaves a few mysteries and potentially interesting sites here and there for you to embellish yourself. In doing this, I think it does a good job of giving you lots of details without restricting you.
The art and presentation are great. I liked the large fold-out map, however, I would have liked to have seen small shots of the relevant portions of that map in the "Lay of the Land" part of the text so that you could read the book without having to constantly refer to the large and unwieldy map. The map is nice and nicely done though, and I think it would be excellent for use in a game.
Anyway, I'd give it 4 stars because it was everything I expected it would be, gave me all of the information I was looking to get out of it, and was well done. It didn't blow me away, but it's a solid book and well worth the money.

this is an excellent source books which detail the silver marches, who are all the main players, and all of the alliances. it has great info on a lot of towns and cities, and gives a lot of needed background information to make a DM's life easier, and also lets players know how to best role play their characters as well. I also like it because the makers of D&D seem to have come up with two ways of making their products, one is a very nice quality of artwork..that is found in all of the forgotten realm books, and the three core rule books, and then their are the books like the 2nd monster manual and the epic level handbook...i don't understand why these are different qualities, but rest assured that the silver marches is the higher quality...about the only bad thing i would say about this source book is that it is not hardback, of which that i think we all prefer.

This is a well written supplement that is enjoyable to read for someone like me who has avoided the Forgotten Realms in all previous editions. For those already well versed in the Realms, I feel this probably sheds light on an area that has recently been developed, but I could be wrong.

Anyway, it balances crunchy stuff with background/story stuff, which I always appreciate. There is plenty of room for your own extrapolation of the material as well, as the author provides a rich playground for the imagination. If you're a fan of the new edition, I'd get this book. I hope more will come out like it.