Now nitpickers (like me) will complain about all these inconsistencies. So, things are pretty much back to 2e / 3e days. But there's nothing 'official' regarding Faerun in 5e.
Ed Greenwood et all did their best to reverse some of the changes. I still have to have a good look at the lands further south, to see what other changes were wrought over there. Is this part of the 4e events, or just another example of the 2e to 3e remake? Some areas, such as the Shining Sea, were resized to leave more space for more 'interesting' features.īut what happened in the pink circle? Okay, I admit in the 2e version that area appears a bit empty and boring ? but still. The whole continent was rotated about 15 degrees to make it a better fit to the poster map that was included with the 3e Campaign Setting book. On the left side (in the red circle) you can see some of the changes from 2e to 3e. I'm not sure about the changes from 3e to 4e. Typically each edition of Dungeons & Dragons brought some sweeping changes to the Forgotten Realms. According to WOTC, this was done deliberately, to make the maps more useful.ĭoes it matter? Gamewise? Probably not ? Though my reference area (the Swordcoast) has seen limited changes (geographically, that is) you may notice that scale and relative size of other geographic areas have changed quite a bit, some areas have become larger, some other ones smaller. Note that those maps do not reflect any changes in the world since publishing. The CC version appears to offer most information, followed by the 2e version. Style wise, I do like the 3e, whilst 4e/5e seems a little too 'busy'. The 3e version goes for a more 'grunge' look. The Campaign Cartographer version (that was used on the Interactive Forgotten Realms Atlas) is quite close.
That is the version I have been using in this comparison. I haven't got my grubby little hands on a (large) 5e version (I'm not even sure there is one), so I have to base myself on what I found on the Internet, but it seems the 'official' (free) WOTC map was missing some detail.