I've never read any of the Forgotten Realms books, and though I owned the 3.5 Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Player's Guide to Faerun, and the Shining South sourcebook, I had only ever played one game, in which I played a Halfling Bard who was set upon by a BLACK DRAGON... In my first session with the group... Go ahead and ask if I ever played with that DM again...
But the Realms always intimidated me. There is literally thousands of years of in-game history, and over 20 years of real world history. That's a lot to take in.
With that in mind, I saw that the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide was going to be coming out, I looked into it, and saw that not only has the timeline jumped forward 100 years (It's like the 2nd season finale of Battlestar Galactica on a larger scale!), but doing so allowed new players to finally get into it. I picked up the book, and have run the Realms for a while now.
Doing quite a bit of research online (my specialty), I stumbled upon a few resources that any goodly game master will need to completely Rock the Realms.
Forgotten Realms Wiki: The Forgotten Realms Wiki is the perfect place to look up almost anything about the Forgotten Realms.
Forgotten Realms Calendar Tool: This wonderful resource by Wizards is not only viewable on their site, it's also downloadable. You can look up any year, any month, and see the phases of the moon, and even write in your own campaign events if you've downloaded it. Very, very nice. I heartily approve.
Forgotten Realms Helps: This site includes a character birthday finder, which gives you a horoscope for your character, which could definitely aid in roleplaying your character out. It also has an equipment store generator and many other wonders and prizes!
Realms Lore: An extensive encyclopedia of knowledge and history of the Realms. A must see for any Realms DM or player.
Old 2e Official Downloads: You can go to WotC's website and download some old Realms material from 2e to brush up on some historical lore.
That's all I've found so far. Any else you want everyone to know about? Let us all know by leaving a comment!
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