Portal:Dungeons & Dragons/Selected article/4

The Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game, created by game designer Ed Greenwood. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as simply "The Realms", it is one of the most popular D&D settings, brought about largely due to the success of novels by authors such as R. A. Salvatore and numerous role-playing video games such as Pool of Radiance, Baldur's Gate, and Neverwinter Nights.

According to the setting's creators, the "Forgotten Realms" is the name of an imaginary fantasy world that exists somewhere beyond our own world. It is described as a world of strange lands, dangerous creatures, and mighty deities, where magic and seemingly supernatural phenomena are quite real. Ostensibly, once upon a time, our Earth and the world of the Forgotten Realms were somehow more closely connected. As time passed, we, the inhabitants of planet Earth, have mostly forgotten about the existence of that other world -- hence the term "Forgotten Realms". On the original Forgotten Realms logo, the little runic letters in it read "Herein lie the lost lands". This is another allusion to this connection between the two worlds.