@TheEdVerse Hi Ed! Big fan of FR since 96. How agriculture (and basically everything else) is functioning in Realms, because of threat from monsters and wilderness? How can I best explain that to my players?

— Saša Medan (@Medan_DM) July 9, 2020

2)
1)
Local subsistence farming goes on everywhere in the Realms, as everyone has to eat. Most folk grow up knowing the wilderness, with monsters roaming it, is all around them, and that and farming and gleaning wild foodstuffs is just daily life. Roads and merchant… …travel along those roads, bringing food and goods from afar, are constantly improving, so everyone is seeing more food/less starvation, and more cool new things they can't make themselves, all the time.
This is what "everyone" is used to, "normal life." :}#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) July 9, 2020

@TheEdVerse, hope you don't mind me pestering you about Realmslore while I oh so patiently await our encounter.

The 1e DMG Appendix N is an incredible resource for seeing what books inspired Gary when making D&D. What would an Appendix N for Ed Greenwood's Realms look like?

— AdamDravian (@AdamDravian) September 20, 2020

1)
The Realms began when I was five, and what was in it was inspired by all of the books I’d read up until then (and my father’s den was crammed with them), and what little living I’d done until then. So, EVERYTHING. What most stirred me were the fantasies (LOTR, … 2)
…Dunsany, all of the romances involving knights errant, and the pulp adventures, plus sword-and-planet Burroughs and others). What inspired the FORM of the early Realms tales was my reading of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & Mouser tales in the pages of FANTASTIC; …#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 20, 2020

3)
…episodes in the adventures of heroes (?) in a fantastic world that featured feuds and politics older and larger than their strivings.
As I told Realms tales, I discovered more writers (E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman space operas, Vance, and Conan), and new authors.. 4)
…appeared (Roger Zelazny, John Bellairs, Terry Pratchett, Robin McKinley, Patricia McKillip) who delighted me–and Lin Carter set about republishing all of the old classics of fantasy, and writing his own pastiches and stories. At the same time, through Carter,..#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 20, 2020

5)
…I rediscovered Cthulhu (initially, I loved Lovecraft’s Dreamlands/Randolph Carter tales, only) and Randall Garrett’s Lord Darcy, and some authors returned to writing (Julian May) while other new writers who crafted to my taste appeared (J.V. Jones). … 6)
…And I went on living, following the "try everything" philosophy so I'd know what it was like to swim in a cold wilderness lake at dawn, walk through a graveyard in the moonlight, explore a cave, and so on. Nothing, on pages or in my experiences, was direct…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 20, 2020

7)
…inspiration for the Realms, but everything was indirect inspiration. Including D&D, which around 1978 became the “skeleton” for how things worked in the Realms (Vance’s magic system, and magic items, spells, and monsters do these exact things, precisely like… 8)
…this). The published Realms differs from my original in that it contains close real-world analogues (pyramids here, Mayans there, Far Eastern cultures yonder) added by various TSR designers, and trying to knit the offerings of diverse Realms creators into one…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 20, 2020

9)
…tapestry, ever since the published Realms became a shared world, has provided yet more inspiration (WHY are the Red Wizards doing this, and the Zhentarim trying for that? I created those power groups, but others have done much with them, and working out their… 10)
…shifting aims, alliances, and schemes has provided endless fun, and still does.
So being as Gary provided that Appendix not just to mark direct inspirations, but also to provide DM resources, mine would be hundreds of books long, and range from Stasheff's…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 20, 2020

11)
…The Warlock In Spite of Himself and Offutt’s Messenger of Zhuvastou and Piper’s Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen, to Norton’s Witch World and The Zero Stone and Uncharted Stars, and on to the Face In The Frost from Bellairs and the Hed trilogy (just for starters). 12)
…And I revisit Amber and Discworld often, and really wish we'd all got to see more of Khymyrium.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) September 20, 2020

A Question for @TheEdVerse on mundane. What exactly are these alcoholic beverages in the #ForgottenRealms : Delayed blast, Dragon's bite, Flaming gullet, Red rum swirl, Yeti's breath. #dnd #dungeonsanddragons #FRLore

— Artie Pavlov is staying home, and so should you! (@Artie_Pavlov) June 19, 2020

1)
These are all mixed drinks (“cocktails” to us), and were all on offer in The Hidden Lady in the 1300s DR, as seen in the Realms novel AZURE BONDS. 2)
Delayed Blast is named for its sudden back-of-the-throat alcoholic kick, wherein it dims the imbiber’s hearing and pain, and leads to a detached feeling of euphoria—right after a painful “searing fire” onset in the back of the…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 19, 2020

3)
…nose and forehead that often makes drinkers shudder, gasp or swear, and shake their heads (the “blast,” which takes place only some minutes after a particular drinker has first begun drinking; how long varies with each… 4)
…drinker. A Delayed Blast is a particular combination of sarrak (a Rashemi and Impilturan drink; we would call it “potato-based vodka”), “red renth” [cherry juice], and sweetstalk (a celery-like sweet green vegetable that…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 19, 2020

5)
…grows wild across the Heartlands, and is often found, cultivated, in cottage gardens). 6)
A Dragon’s Bite is a drink made with mint wine (pale, translucent green), pepper brandy (a strong cordial made with crushed black pepper and sweet red peppers), powdered cinammon, and licorice root. It’s minty and cool, with…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 19, 2020

7)
…a nutty, not sweet but not bitter licorice aftertaste, that ends with a scorching-hot cinammon flare in the throat (the “bite”). 8)
A Flaming Gullet is never, tavern tales to the contrary, served alight and flaming; it just causes a searing on-fire sensation in a drinker’s throat (and, incidentally, completely clears the sinuses, with swift expulsion of… #Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 19, 2020

9)
…all snot). An amber-hued drink, it is made from the right mix of klaraunth (barley vodka from Chessenta, Tethyr, or the Vilhon), the “juice” (distillate) of hot red radishes, the “juice” (distillate) of horseradish root, … 10)
…and powdered chestnuts.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 19, 2020

11)
A Red Rum Swirl is a comfort drink; that is, it’s gentle on the throat, nutty and pleasant to the taste, and often causes extreme drunkenness because the imbiber didn’t realized how potent it was, and drank too much of it. 12)
It is red in hue, due to the cherry brandy added sparingly to it, its base is indeed rum, and that rum is mixed with generous amounts of almond brandy and stirred-in caramel (made beforehand by slowly heating and stirring…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 19, 2020

13)
…together butter, cream, and cane or beet sugar).
#Realmslore 14)
A Yeti’s breath is so-called because it’s ice-cold to a drinker, in part because of the menthol in it, in part because of the crushed ice that’s an essential ingredient, and in part because the main body of the drink is…#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 19, 2020

15)
…tapdragon (sugar cane molasses-based vodka), to which is added darsargar (powdered ginger). The last ingredient, menthol, comes from peppermint oil, derived from the abundant wild peppermint plant.#Realmslore

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) June 19, 2020