Ed Greenwood, creator of the famed D&D setting known as the Forgotten Realms, recently shared that he was both amazed and bewildered by the fact that someone has a PhD in the lore of his fantasy world, which has gone on to feature heavily in both the worlds of tabletop and video games.
“I was told that somebody had a doctorate in Realms lore obtained from an official university,” Greenwood shared during a recent appearance on the Slandered Gaming podcast. “And I said, ‘Really? And when you impaneled the experts for defending the doctorate, why didn’t you phone me?”
According to Greenwood, who reunited with David Gaider (of Dragon Age fame) and Trent Oster on this Baldur’s Gate 2-themed 25th anniversary show, the school did in fact reach out to the publishers of D&D only to be told that Greenwood, in a shock to all parties, had passed away.
“Apparently, they repeated when it was time for the D&D movie guys. That was a very good way of grieving the brush off,” Greenwood said.
Greenwood proceeded to cruise past the humorous anecdote and communicate his astonishment at the fact that anybody would study up on the world that he invented for one of the best tabletop RPGs so thoroughly, let alone that an accredited institution would then reward said person with a doctorate certifying their knowledge and fandom.
Nowadays, the Forgotten Realms, which Greenwood created back in the ’60s as the setting for his childhood stories, figures prominently in the world of D&D. It is one of the most popular settings in the popular tabletop game, and is featured in numerous video games, including the Neverwinter Nights games and, of course, Baldur’s Gate 3.
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