History of Legacy of the Realms
in Legacy of the Realms“Adventure is worthwhile.” — AesopI’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons since 1983, back when a fellow classmate at the last day of junior high showed me a copy of TSR’s first edition Monster Manual. I’ve been hooked since. Although I’ve been a Dungeon Master most of the time, I started out as a player. I have fond memories of my first characters, Goldentag (a Ranger/Bounty hunter who shot golden tipped arrows) and a monk named Amsorak. After the high school campaign died out, I tried starting my own campaign, mostly set in Greyhawk, which was pretty inconsistent for years. In 1987 after the Forgotten Realms "grey box" set came out, some friends and I started a campaign with me as the DM. It was set from 1357 DR to 1367 DR in the campaign timeline. Although that campaign lasted only a few years, it was the campaign’s well-developed characters and rich storylines that have since evolved into what would become our current award-winning campaign. In the late 90s, a fellow coworker and I started talking about D&D after sharing views regarding a Forgotten Realms novel. That conversation led to the creation of the character, Zaachaeus De’Barronn, which relaunched the Forgotten Realms campaign I started a decade before. It was set from 1372 DR to 1376 DR in the campaign timeline. Other friends joined in throughout the years as we played through the 3rd (3.5) Edition. During the 3rd Edition era, we had a great cast of characters like Caldreas, Ang, Lo-kag, and Vyn. When Wizards of the Coast released its 4th Edition (set over a hundred years in-game time since the 3.5 Edition), we officially formed what became known as the Legacy of the Realms. The idea was to create characters with some tie or connection to the main characters who lived over a century prior to the new campaign timeline; hence a legacy campaign. This new campaign timeline was set in 1479 DR. Later, we were fortunate enough to be invited to playtest D&D Next which would eventually become D&D 5e. Naturally, Legacy of the Realms moved into the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons after the new rules system was released in 2014. The latest campaign timeline begins in 1489 DR and is currently set in 1494 DR. Now, with a new and old core of dedicated players, the Legacy of the Realms will hopefully continue the epic stories, fantastic adventures, and enchanted quests that began back in 1987. –Richard Rouillard (@RealmsDM)
Note: Many of the images used here are for game purposes or personal non-profit only and were never used for commercial purposes. All rights are reserved for and by the artists and respected owners. The rights to Dungeons and Dragons belong to Wizards of the Coast.
Note: The session write-ups are based on the gaming session and may or may not accurately reflect any actual session combat encounters and/or events. Some artistic license was made in an effort to dramatize the story and not be hampered by game or combat mechanics.