Taken from:

Persistent Interview with Ed Greenwood
http://www.loremaster.org/vbinterviews.php?do=showinterview&id=6&page=6

Matt James:

What location in the Realms is the birthplace of the setting? Meaning, when you first imagined it and starting to flesh it

out- what was the center of the world you built and what are some specific memories that come to mind (people, places,

thing, etc...)?

Ed Greenwood:

Hmmm. There isn't one specific place, because the Realms started as a series of short stories about Mirt the Moneylender

working his way from port to port along a coast, a step ahead of creditors, trade rivals, and out-and-out enemies.

I was six years old, hadn't yet come up with the name of the world (and the D&D game was still in the future, too), and

didn't even have the name "the Sword Coast" until the next year. The port cities started to shift, geographically, and

change their names, too, as I got older (er, eight) and started mapping.

In terms of the GAME setting: there were two foci, from the very beginning: Waterdeep, and Shadowdale. "The town mouse and

the country mouse." Then came Cormyr, starting in Eveningstar.

I sometimes think that another way to publish the Realms, for DMs who want more freedom/less stuff "nailed down" in detail,

would have been to extensively detail those three places, add Suzail and Essembra and one of Waterdeep's outlying way-

hamlets, then provide one large "overview" survey of the world, with really detailed maps and short entries for every land

and wilderness area . . . and from then on, stay out of all those areas except Waterdeep and a day's ride around its walls;

the northern four dales (Dagger, Shadow, Mistle, and Battle); and the "central heart" of Cormyr (Arabel to Eveningstar then

down the roads to Suzail and Marsember). Do 'update' products for those three places every ten years, set all novels in

them plus underground and anonymous "wilderness spots" as the plots necessitated, and leave the rest to DMs to put their

campaigns in and do "their way."

However, that's a "might have been," and would have robbed us of the one achievement that makes the Realms really stand out

among all game settings, and most fictional settings aside from Middle-Earth: the built-up level of detail about darned

near everything.

I DID detail Waterdeep outwards from Undermountain and the Dungeon of the Crypt (and therefore the City of the Dead and

Castle Ward), and Cormyr outwards from Eveningstar (starting with the Haunted Halls, the gorge that held it, and the

Lonesome Tankard Inn), and the Dales starting with Shadowdale (building outwards from The Old Skull, the Twisted Tower, and

Storm Silverhand's farm).

So the gaming setting never had a "center." It had three foci, and from the very beginning I could "picture" the Sword

Coast from the northernmost icy mountains down to Tashluta, and the Heartlands through to the Moonsea North and the entire

Sea of Fallen Stars. I've always been able to "see" imaginary scenes/landscapes/the world vividly in my mind, and so I just

put myself "inside the head" of a soaring dragon and went along for the ride, seeing right away the overall layout of the

lands.

Before that, the Realms as a fantasy short story setting was a busy merchant trading coast (really the bit from Luskan

through to the northern border of Calimshan), that changed a little and sharpened quite a bit as time went on, and I named

and developed Amn, Tethyr, and saw the caravan routes running east, inland.

[:)]

Ah, very cool. Thanks for sharing.

cool read,thanx chief.