It has come to our attention that there were some books in the ingame book system that were essentially copy-pastes of the Grand History of the Realms and other source books without much editorial concern for what actually can be known in character. As such, these books have been or will be taken out. And in order to repair the damage, there are some things we must address, especially with regards to the ancient history of Forgotten Realms.
In general, we expect people not to uncritically copy-paste or even paraphrase lore from source books, and certainly not the Forgotten Realms wiki (which contains much 4e and 5e lore that does not apply on BGTSCC). We also expect if a character is portrayed as having knowledge in a field that it is also represented in their skill choices, especially Lore skills. If you are a ship captain and navigator, this should be reflected in your Lore: Geography. If you are roleplaying knowledge of planar cosmology, this must be reflected in your Lore: Planes.
The following are some examples of such cases, but this matter is not limited to these.
The Crown Wars
The details around the Crown Wars are largely unknown to all but the most devoted elven lorekeepers. Moreover, elves rarely ever speak of the Crown Wars, and especially not to non-elves. As such, knowledge of the Crown Wars should be practically unheard of outside of elves. Perhaps the most dedicated human scholars know a general overview of it, but not much beyond that. As such, knowledge about it is not found even in Candlekeep beyond the most surface level facts.
The Dracorage Mythal
The existence of the Dracorage Mythal is unknown even to the elves. Lore lost to the ages. No one should know about this. Not even the dragons currently know what is causing the dracorage except some elven and dragon scholars have started to figure out it relates somehow to the King-Killer Star. For example, it took Sammaster centuries to figure out even parts of this. As such, we expect no one to actually have any concept of what causes the dracorage (and even few non-dragons should even really know that it happens, as it is a rare occurrance, as it happens only every few centuries).
Others
The history of Netheril is more known than the two above, but even then mostly to dedicated scholars of magic and history, and chiefly to those with access to Candlekeep (Larloch's scribe Rhaugilath has been for centuries writing a series of books on the matter and had them delievered to Candlekeep). Other examples are such as:
- Ancient Calimshan when the genies ruled
- Other ancient empires like Jaamdath, Imaskar and so on
- The First Sundering
- The Creator Races
- The true history of Baator and the devils
- The origin of the duergar race, that isn't discovered until much later in history
Research on obscure lore
With all of the above in mind, this does not mean that knowledge of ancient subjects is unattainable. If your character has a topic they wish to reasearch on a matter of obscure or forgotten lore, we welcome the initiative and invite you to make a DM request. In order to fascilitate such requests, it is important for the DM team then to know why the character wants to research such lore.
Thank you all for your consideration.