Editing Forgotten Realms (section)

==Abridged History==
===Creation===
[[Ao]] creates the twin sister deities [[Shar]] and [[Selûne]]. Shar is darkity darkness levels of evil and Selûne isn't. So naturally, they hate each other. They swirl around in the void that is Realmspace for gods know how long until via catfighting, they accidentally create Toril and create a couple of gods, mainly [[Chauntea]] and [[Mystryl]]. The latter going on to die several times and become [[Mystra]] because she couldn't fucking balance the byproduct of her creation, the Weave, which is the source of all magic, both Arcane and Divine. Things just got out of hand after that and next thing you know, you've got your campaign setting.

===Karsus's Folly===
[[Netheril]], the Empire of Magic, ruled most of Faerûn long before Dale Reckoning. Netherese archmages were capable of obscene displays of magical power, such as the ''mythallar'' magic engines that enabled their signature floating cities to exist. The innately magical [[phaerimm]] opposed Netheril's heavy use of magic and retaliated, starting a war for the control of magic that created the [[Anauroch Desert]].

In -339 DR, the archwizard [[Karsus]] attempted to save the empire by becoming a god. He created what is likely the only 12th-level spell in existence, ''Karsus's avatar'', and used it to steal the power of [[Mystryl]], goddess of the Weave. His last thought before the spell turned him to stone was probably "I have made a huge mistake." The Weave, damaged by the Netheril-phaerimm war, finally collapsed without Mystryl's constant intervention, causing all magic to fail. That included the ''mythallars''. The majestic floating cities of Netheril plummeted to the ground.

In short, Karsus ruined everything for everybody on that day. Fortunately, Mystryl reincarnated herself and rose again as [[Mystra]], marking the first in the goddess's long line of deaths and rebirths. She repaired the Weave, managed to save three Netherese enclaves, and restructured the arcane magic of the Realms, cutting off mortal mages from spells above ninth level and requiring them to prepare their spells in advance.

This sparked all the shit that went down in the game [[Neverwinter Nights]] 2, and is the reason why magic sort of meets a cap.

===Times of Troubles===
The Times of Troubles, also known as the Avatar Crisis, started in 1358 DR when the two deities [[Bane]] and [[Myrkul]] thought it would be a great idea to steal the Tablets of Fate from the overdeity [[Ao]]. As punishment Ao banishes all of the gods to walk on Toril as mortals (except for [[Helm]] who was to guard the gateway back into the heavens) until whoever stole them felt bad and returned them. During this time [[Mystra]] got some of her power back and thought it would be a brilliant idea to challenge Helm to get back into the heavens. Helm wouldn't have any of it and bitch slapped her down the Celestial Stairway. She hit the bottom and died in an explosion of magic. Eventually, some mortals, Midnight (who went on to be the next Mystra), [[Kelemvor]], [[Cyric]], and [[Adon of Sune]], fixed everything and they got be gods for a reward. Except for Adon of Sune, he really got the short end of the stick on the loot table for that encounter. He lost faith in Mystra, committed suicide, then got his faith back and went on to frolic in the brothel in the sky. This signaled the change from AD&D 1e to the second edition and magic changed in real-time in correspondence to these events, depicted in the canon Forgotten Realms Comic book series, featuring [[Bruce Campell]] as an Ex-drug addict [[halfling]], an ex-alcoholic [[Paladin]], an Elf with expressions that would put the Laughing elf to shame, a hot golem, and other goodies.

Keep in mind these are relatively recent events, being about 150 years before 5e modern times, 3 to 4 generations ago, where you could ask an older Dwarf or Elf what it was like during that chaos when gods walked the world.

===The Spellplague===
In 1385 DR the goddess [[Shar]] had the god [[Cyric]] stab the goddess of magic Mystra. This caused giant pillars of blue fire to ravage Toril, killing untold masses and driving most wizards to madness. One of the few wizards to be unaffected by the event is [[Szass Tam]], who continues to be a badass by turning into an uber-powerful [[lich]], seizing control over Thay, and killing off almost everybody there to create a fuck-huge kingdom of the undead. To make matters worse, unlike the previous times Mystra has died she couldn't reincarnate, a stunning development that "changes the rules of magic" which translates as another real-time spell-casting change for [[4e]] rules, just like what happened in the Time of Trouble. Parts of the planet end up either destroyed or switching places with parts of the land from [[Abeir]]. [[Elminster]] lost his special status and all his powers, and most of his Chosen buddies wound up dead. The Pantheon was reshuffled, [[Tiefling]]s changed to match the new unified tiefling look, and the [[World Tree]] was reshaped into the [[World Axis]]. It was a huge upheaval, with insurmountable [[rage]] from its critics.

===The Sundering===
In 1485, the worlds of [[Abeir]] and Toril split apart again, as WoTC tried to desperately bring back the Faerun grognards by [[retcon|retconning]] the Spellplague. It turns out being stabbed wasn't in fact enough to kill Mystra, she was just hungry and had wandered off to find a cheeseburger made of her own children. Abeir went back to where it belonged and several other dead gods who were originally deemed superfluous suddenly came back to life. 

This event was known as the 'Sundering' but the writers didn't want to piss off the fans, so they held off explaining what the fuck happened until the fans could tell them what, in their opinion, should have happened. While waiting to be told how to do their jobs, dragons attacked everyone, trying to rescue [[Tiamat]] from [[Baator|Hell]] where she had in fact NOT been since before the Spellplague but because she was there in every other setting, we're all supposed to pretend that she was, so mighty adventurers can stop her from escaping in a linear story which was easier than the likes of the first time this asspull was pulled with Bloodstone Pass,''' Fuck you [[Bahamut]]'''.

From there, various other intersecting adventure modules happened at roughly the same time, and since things were mostly back to the pre-4e days everyone was happy.  Except for [[dragonborn]] fans (and Dragonborn, whatever you think of them, are still a damn core race), as the writers quickly killed almost all of them off, or crammed them into a tiny corner of the world.  Nonetheless, many grognards still balk at the return of several 4th edition era elements, such as cramming the [[Shadowfell]] and the [[Feywild]] in the Great Wheel.  But, appeasing the old guard is ridiculously hard anyway.  As much as the old guard wants a full reboot back to the Old Gray Box era (or some other era which can't be agreed on), the Sundering made it pretty clear that there is "One Canon, One Story, One Realms".  Given the popularity of this new Realms among new players, it's unlikely that any major reboot or alteration will happen any time soon.