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Exandria
[edit]
Main article: Critical Role
Originally created by Matthew Mercer for his personal campaigns in 2012,
[7]
Exandria is the world where the Critical Role web series is set and is a high
fantasy setting,[8][9] which moves away from the "harmful tropes in D&D"[10] around
monstrous races.[11] In 2017, Green Ronin Publishing released a setting book written
by Mercer and James Haeck, Critical Role: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, which
focused on the continent of Tal'Dorei on Exandria, where the first Critical
Role campaign with the adventuring group Vox Machina took place.[12] One critic
highlighted that this campaign has the "specific flavor of high fantasy drama" akin
to the "Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms books". [8] An updated edition,
titled Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting Reborn (2022) from publisher Darrington Press,
moves the timeline 20 years forward to the era of the second Critical
Role campaign.[13]
Exandria was first mentioned in an official Wizards of the Coast publication in the
adventure book Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus (2019). In 2020, after Mercer
had been working with Wizards of the Coast for about a year and a half on the
project, Exandria officially became a part of Dungeons & Dragons through the
release of the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount.[14][15] This book focuses on the
continent of Wildemount in Exandria, where the second Critical Role campaign takes
place, and adds a new type of magic called dunamancy, which focuses on
manipulating time and space.[16] Wildemount was designed with an Eastern
European influence[17][10] – specifically, the Dwendalian Empire was inspired by 15th
century Russia and Prussia, Xhorhas by 13th-century Romania, and the edges by
14th-century Spain.[17] Critics have highlighted Wildemount specifically as breaking
from traditional fantasy tropes.[10][18]
A second collaboration book, Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep, includes some
setting information;[19] the adventure heads from Xhorhas to the city of Ank'Harel on
the continent of Marquet.[20][21] From there, players will be drawn into the
Netherdeep – "a terrifying cross between the Far Realm and the deep ocean".[20] The
book is "the closest to cracking open Exandria's origins that Mercer has come to
date. Call of the Netherdeep is steeped in the history of The Calamity, a cataclysmic
event in which the Exandrian pantheon exploded into a civil war that put the entire
world in peril".[22]
Forgotten Realms
[edit]
Main article: Forgotten Realms
Created by author and game designer Ed Greenwood as his personal campaign and
detailed in a long series of articles in Dragon Magazine, Forgotten Realms became
the most popular D&D setting from the late 1980s onwards and has been well
received by both gamers and reviewers. Sean Patrick Fannon, author of The
Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible, has praised the setting's scope and ambition
and considered that it "may be the most widely played-in game setting in RPG
history".[23]
The Forgotten Realms is a high fantasy world – magic is powerful, legendary
monsters are commonplace, and gods often intervene directly in mortal affairs.
Players can indulge in several types of fantasy adventures, from straightforward
hack-and-slash treasure hunting in dungeons to epic campaigns involving regional
wars, cataclysms and direct contact with gods and extra-dimensional beings.
The lands of the Forgotten Realms are not all ruled by the human race: the setting's
planet, Abeir-Toril, is shared by humans, dwarves, elves, goblins, orcs, dragons and
other peoples and creatures. Technologically, the world resembles pre-industrial
Earth of the 13th or 14th century. However, the strong presence of magic provides
an additional element of power to the societies.
The main focus of the campaign is the region of Faerûn, the western part of a
continent that was roughly modeled after the Eurasian continent on Earth. Faerûn
was first detailed in the original Forgotten Realms Campaign Set, published in 1987
by TSR,[24] and contains rough analogues of mythical versions of European, African
and Middle Eastern cultures, as well as regions dominated by non-human races.
Other areas include the Underdark (an underground realm dominated by evil elves),
Maztica (inspired by pre-Columbian Mesoamerica), and Kara-Tur (based on the
mythical Far East).
For D&D's 4th edition, the setting was reworked: the timeline advanced into the
future where a major cataclysm caused by a conflict amongst gods caused the
previously divided worlds Abeir and Toril to collide with several geographical areas
changing place. In 2014, with the launch of the 5th edition, the world of Forgotten
Realms was again returned to its previous, 3rd edition geography.
This campaign is currently officially supported by Wizards of the Coast and over the
years has expanded into a variety of other media, including literature, comics and
video games. The highly successful Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter
Nights series of video games are based on the Forgotten Realms, which is also the
setting of a large number of novels, featuring, among others, the popular
characters Drizzt Do'Urden, Artemis Entreri, and Elminster.
The Forgotten Realms are the default setting for most adventures released for the
5th edition of D&D, though the core rulebooks reference the wider multiverse. [25]

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